The Ghost Belonged to Me
by aishuu
Part Four:
I went home and made myself dinner, even though I wasn't hungry. I have no appetite when I'm upset, but my mother – and Shindou – had drilled about the necessity of eating regularly. The ramen was tasteless, but it didn't waste much time in preparation. I still ended up throwing more than half of it away.
After turning off my cellphone and unplugging the land line, I went to bed early. Thankfully I was so emotionally exhausted that I couldn't keep myself up all night, replaying the loss in my head. The game had not been up to my standards, and I had no one to blame but myself.
I spent the first thirty minutes staring at the ceiling, my mind racing through the day's events. The loss, Kurata's unexpected words, my conversation with Shindou. It was one of those days I wished had never happened – nothing had gone right. I don't know why I blew Shindou off like that, but it was what I regretted most. I could not apologize, though, because I could not admit the real reason I did not want to be around him.
I considered taking a sleeping pill, but I didn't want to get dependent on them. Besides, I had nothing scheduled for the next day – I followed my father's example and took the day off after title matches. Usually it was time to reflect, but right now I wasn't so sure that was a good idea. I have a tendency to broad myself into deep depressions.
There's a point between sleep and waking that goes unnoticed by the mind, and luckily I fell right past it after about an hour. I turned my head, and my father was sitting beside the bed. I sat up slowly, pushing my covers back.
"Hello, Akira," he said. His face was gently concerned. "Are you alright?"
I hadn't been alright since he died, I almost said, but stopped myself. Lashing out would do no good. I could not blame my poor performance on anyone except myself. "I will be," I told him. "I just didn't play my best today."
He was quiet for a long moment, and I waited for whatever he was going to say. He'd never yelled at me before about playing poorly, but the quiet disappointment he never voiced aloud was just as jarring to me. "Show me the game," my father demanded.
I flushed with embarrassment. I was not proud of how I played against Kurata. "It wasn't one of my best," I hedged.
"Akira," he said, and just by saying my name I knew he wasn't going to be dissuaded. "We are not judged just by the best games we play. The ones we lose are just as important to our development, maybe even more so."
I nodded and rose to my feet, following him to the go room. I couldn't hear the sound of his footsteps, although mine echoed quite loudly in the dark house. He stopped at the door, and I slid it back so he could precede me. After clicking the light on, I went to sit down at the goban that maintained pride of place in the center of the room. The board was scarred by frequent games, but it was also comfortable in its familiarity.
Father knelt opposite me, as he had so frequently while he had lived. His face was neutral, and I knew without being told that he was waiting for me to keep my word. I reached into the go ke and starting to lay the hands out, my father quietly observing as I went. He offered no interruptions, no comments, leaving me to the quiet of my own thoughts.
Laying out the game was like reliving it, and I could see my distraction as I proceeded. I hadn't played well because I hadn't been truly interested in the game. Surely that was what Kurata had noticed, along with Shindou. Probably ever professional would be able to recognize that.
Each move confessed my sins even farther, and it would be ridiculous to expect my father to miss the obvious flaw in my game. He had been the Meijin, after all. Finally the finished game was laid before us, and my weaknesses were laid bare as well.
My father did not move, instead fastening his attention to the board. I wished I could read past the careful neutrality on his features. "What do you think?" I asked, unable to stand the waiting. It would be best to get this over with.
"It lacks your usual skill," he said, as tactful as ever. "Why didn't you want me to see?"
"Because it's a game not worthy of the Touya name," I replied. I tugged on my sleeves, for lack of anything better to do.
I waited, expecting him to chide me and half-hoping he would. Instead he unfolded his hands and stood up, taking a couple steps away from the board. I watched him from my seated position, feeling my stomach drop into my feet. He was really, really upset.
He stared out of the window, his back to me. I sat in silence, knowing I deserved whatever recriminations he chose to rain down on my head. He was silent for a long moment, before finally asking me a question which went straight to the heart of my troubles. "Do you want to play Go still?"
I hadn't wanted to play in a while, I thought. It wasn't until now, though, that I could bring myself to acknowledge that. I didn't want to tell him, but there was no other choice. "No. I don't," I told my father, one of the greatest Go players ever, answering him as honestly as he deserved.
"Then don't," he replied without hesitation. "It's not uncommon for a professional to take a break from his career."
I stared at him, wondering if I could actually just stop playing. I was a go player. My very identity was based upon the game. And now I knew I was dreaming, because my father would never have encouraged me not to play.
"Father!" I exclaimed, scandalized.
"If you do not put your heart into the game, there is no point in playing," Father said. He rose to his feet, turning his back to me. "There comes a time in many professionals' careers that they need to step back an evaluate the path they're on."
"You never needed to," I replied.
"I wasn't thirteen when I became a professional either, Akira," he said. His smile was gentler than I deserved. "My parents made me wait until I finished middle school before taking the pro exams. Sometimes I wish I'd encouraged you to do the same."
That idea horrified me. My father hadn't been satisfied with what I had become; maybe I had disappointed him in more ways than I knew. "I'm sorry," I apologized, and then rushed out another apology I had always wanted to voice. "Sometimes I wonder if you would have achieved greater heights if you hadn't had children. You spent so much time teaching me, time that took you away from your studies."
"It was because of you that I reached those heights," he said. "Your mother and I wanted children, but Akiko-san had difficulties conceiving. You were my pride," and the fierceness of his eyes was as intense as it had even been while we played, "but I wondered, sometimes, if you played because you didn't know anything else. Sometimes I felt like I'd robbed you of your childhood."
"Never!" I said roughly. "I played because I loved Go."
Some of the tension I hadn't realized he was carrying faded from his shoulders. "I'm glad to hear that, Akira," he replied. "And I won't be upset if you need to take some time off to consider things. Find out if this is what you want to do with your life, or if you're only doing it because it's expected. If you decide you still want to play, Go will be there when you get back."
I nodded, seeing his point. Still, a part of me wondered – while the game would still be there, Shindou wouldn't wait for me.
When I woke up the next morning, I gave a call to the only mentor I had left: Ogata Seiji. Our relationship had become strange since we'd ended up playing against each other, but I still trusted his advice. Ogata had never done anything to hurt me.
Not like Shindou, a small voice whispered in the back of my head, one which I ruthlessly ignored. I didn't want to think about Shindou Hikaru.
The phone rang three times, but Ogata got to it before the fourth. He must have been checking his caller ID, since he addressed me first. "Akira," he said, in a decidedly neutral tone. "What do you want?"
"Can you meet me for coffee?" I asked.
We met at a coffee shop located not too far from his apartment. While I was a fervent tea drinker, Ogata would settle for nothing less than black coffee, bitter and untainted by a softening dollop of cream. I decided to indulge in a cappuccino, feeling a need for a hit of sugar and caffeine.
Ogata was starting to show signs of his years, with lines encroaching around the edge of his eyes, but that didn't keep women from glancing at him with flirtation in their lips, or the waitress from leaning over just far enough to give him a good look at her cleavage. I knew plenty of men who were jealous of the appreciation he attracted, but Ogata didn't seem to notice. He rarely noticed things outside of his own, very narrow, view of the world.
After the waitress returned with our orders, Ogata straightened his glasses and focused on me. "I saw the kifu of yesterday's game. How are you, Akira?" he asked.
Ogata was one person I could never lie to. It wasn't that I respected him more than I did anyone else – it was because he would know when I was lying. He'd watched me grow up, and he noticed certain telltale signs that I wasn't being honest. I'd never gotten away with any kind of fib around him.
"I don't know," I confessed. I shifted my mug around in my hands, watching the liquid ripple. I didn't want to tell him about the dreams, or about my blow-up with Shindou. What I wanted was some hint on what to do now, some affirmation that my disinterest in playing wasn't the end of the world.
"It's hard to lose a title," Ogata said, and I knew he was speaking from experience. He'd gained and lost several titles over the last decade – most recently the Meijin title which I had claimed the night my father died.
It wasn't the title loss that was bothering me, I acknowledged to myself. There were some things that were lost forever, but Go titles weren't one of them. "If I try, I can probably win it back," I told him, shrugging a bit uncomfortably.
A man did not fight his way to the top of the Go world without picking up the ability to read his opponents. Ogata knew me well enough to sense my disquiet, the dissatisfaction that was starting to color my days. "Do you want to?" Ogata asked me.
It was an echo of the dream of the night before, but answering Ogata would make it more real. It was the question that had been plaguing me. Since my father's death, I hadn't seen much point in playing. Somewhere along the way, I had lost the love for the game that had once been the center of my universe. "I don't know," I told him honestly.
He reached into his pocket to produce a cigarette and lighter, which he lit without even letting his eyes off my face. "I didn't become a pro until I was seventeen," he said, and I blinked at the complete change in topic.
"I didn't know," I said, feeling a bit embarrassed. Ogata had been a mainstay in my life, and I had never thought to ask about his background. He was just there.
"My mother wouldn't let me take the pro exams until my third year in high school." I was sidetracked for a second by the memory of my father saying something similar last night, but Ogata was continuing and I had to keep my attention on him. "She didn't want me to make a career choice until then. I was extremely angry at her since I felt I was falling behind my peers, but when I look at you, I'm grateful to her," he continued. He tapped the ash off his cigarette onto the rim of the saucer that had delivered his coffee.
I flinched. "Is there something wrong with me? Was I screwed up by not having a normal school career?"
He set his elbow the the table, propping his hand up under his chin. His eyes looked predatory as they surveyed me. "Not wrong, so much as... unrealized," he said. "You never chose Go; it chose you. Sometimes I'm a bit envious of the life you had, growing up in the house of the greatest Go player in the world, but then I remember that you've never known anything else."
I was used to comments about being socially stunted, about not seeing anything but the goban directly in front of me. I had never considered it a failing, until recently. "What am I missing?"
Ogata gave an elegant shrug of his shoulders. "How would I know?"
That wasn't the sage counsel I'd been hoping for. "If I... leave... what do you think would happen?"
His answer was immediate, which led me to believe he'd thought about me reacting like that. "There will be some talk in the media about you cracking, and some pros will get annoyed that you couldn't suck up your pride about losing a title. A couple of people will wonder if you're running away."
"What would you think?"
The smoke curled around his mouth as he exhaled. "Does it matter what I would think?"
Once upon a time, I would have given him an immediate "yes." Ogata was my mentor, and his good opinion of me was important. But things had changed recently, and I was coming to the conclusion that others' opinions weren't that important. Father had been the only one who I needed to be proud of me, and he was gone.
And so was my mother. One by one, I was losing the supports of my childhood, and all I could do was stand on my own.
"No," I said softly, setting my cup down, still half-full. "It matters what I think."
He nodded with apparent satisfaction. "Then do what you have to," he told me.
The next day, I submitted a request for a leave of absence to the Institute. I didn't even wait for it to be accepted before leaving the country.
