Sai double-checked that the 'mouse's' nose was indeed pointing to where he wanted his stone to go, carefully pushed it's left 'ear' down, reopened his fan with a snap and prepared to wait. And, indeed, it took the whole eleven minutes and thirty-eight seconds, but eventually the weird artificial squeak announced that the black stone finally appeared, filling in the tiny opening he had seemingly accidentally left. Behind his fan Sai smiled contentedly. Of all the people inhabiting the magical box tAkira was rapidly becoming one of his favourite. Sai had only played the boy (for, despite the great skill, his stile was that of a boy) once before; it was a few days ago; and today he seemed to have improved already, - not that much, Sai corrected himself with a chuckle, as he ignored the ultimately useless development and casually dropped a stone on the other side of the goban, simultaneously sealing three streaks of black not-so-subtly leaking into the area of white influence: the young lion was too good to show him any mercy – time to go for a kill.
After another ten long minutes of waiting, the magic box indeed announced tAkira's resignation, and Sai bowed, sincerely thanking his opponent for the game, even though Hikaru kept insisting it was useless, as he couldn't be seen anyway. As if to prove him wrong, with a different sort of whine a small window suddenly appeared right in the middle of the goban grid, stating in inhumanly neat letters: "Seriously? You beat me, and now you beat Toya – twice! Just who are you?"
The ex-Heian noble couldn't truly read the foreign letters yet, but he made sure to memorise the lines forming his favourite 'nicknames' as he had memorized his kanji when he was still a child. Though, in this particular case it wasn't even necessary: there was only one player who still bothered to try to talk to sai, mostly because, having had the misfortune to send his first message when Hikaru was around, he happened to be the only player to ever receive a (shamelessly bragging) answer.
Zelda was one of the youngest yet the most skilled inhabitants of the magical box. He (for, whatever Hikaru had to say about a fairy-tale princess, zelda was a he) was about the same age as tAkira (maybe a bit younger or just less mature) and not quite as talented, but still a very promising player.
In fact, upon their respective first encounters with sai they both played like they were confident of their victories. Where tAkira's hands felt paced and balanced, zelda's were messy and explosive, but, nevertheless, both were clearly recreational playing styles, provoking the former Go Ghost into responding with a very veiled and very cruel version of shidougo, seemingly matching them stone by stone and then suddenly gaining astronomical amount of points at the very end, making sure his opponents would replay the game again and again and again, searching for the moment where they had suddenly lost control over the game; and discover they had never had it in the first place.
Judging by the slower, yet still by-the-book unimaginative opening of their second game, tAkira hadn't got the hint; more precisely, had convinced himself he had lost because he hadn't been playing seriously enough; thus earning himself a more straightforward trashing. On the other hand, zelda had learned the lesson a bit too well. He made sure to play sai as often as he could, but their games turned into some bizarre reversed shidougo: zelda wasn't even trying to win, instead he just randomly dropped provocative hands (some of which were his own inventions, but others clearly borrowed from at least two more experienced players) and eagerly watched sai's reaction.
Sai's teacher instincts were screaming for him to figuratively – or not so figuratively – beat those carefully polished imperfections out of both boys' styles. He almost wished to once again whisper in the ear of an eight-year-old so that tAkira would learn no opponent should be underestimated, as undefeated doesn't equal invincible. He longed to stand in front of zelda as he was now, stripped even of the weight of the Fujiwara name he used to carry around, so that zelda would see even sai was but human and therefore could be outplayed, albeit not easily and not in the nearest future. He longed to instruct them, to watch them grow, to catch the signs of understanding – or confusion – in their eyes across the goban. But he knew it wasn't possible; not while he still tended to collide with people and walk into walls, forgetting he wasn't incorporeal (anymore), and sometimes had to resort to sticking relatively sharp objects into various parts of his body in order to reassure himself he was indeed alive.
Fujisaki-sensei, as Hikaru put it, was not an idiot. She was quick to figure out Sai had tried to commit suicide; in fact, although it had taken a little longer, eventually she even realised Sai considered himself a ghost. Of course, from her extremely practical no-nonsense point of view, the ghost was, in fact, a slightly autistic offspring of a rich family that had chosen to ignore the fact that their child was a bit too special: a decision that had backfired spectacularly when said child had been somehow left alone with no idea how to function in the real world. Assuming that Torajiro (whom Hikaru, apparently, reminded him of) was a sibling, or, more likely, a servant Sai had had the most interaction with, Fujisaki-sensei pictured an old remote manor demolished by an earthquake or tsunami (or simply invaded by robbers) with no one close enough to notice; and a confused young man, overlooked even by death, kneeling among the ruins, trying helplessly to wake a mutilated corpse, - an event, which, she readily admitted, must have scarred him for life. Nevertheless, now that Sai was actually making an effort to reacquaint himself with the outside world, Fujisaki-sensei was positive he would eventually be able to live a relatively normal life. Secretly, Sai himself was not so sure.
In the thousand years he had been dead, in the hundred and fifty years he had been locked in the goban, in the thirty years he had spent in Heihachi's shed everything had changed so much he couldn't even begin to understand all the wonders of the world he now had to re-enter; half of the time he was more inclined to believe he had been granted admission into the realm of gods. He was willing to try. He was trying. But sometimes it just felt like there was too much to remember.
In Sai's original lifetime, after he had finished his studies, Go had been pretty much the only thing on his mind: Go, and, perhaps, music. Then it was Go and Torajiro. And then he had nothing but memories, and he treasured every single one of them. But now, everything is suddenly so different: he can't be caught talking to himself aloud anymore; he has to remember to acknowledge people around him, and to talk to them as his equals, not servants; he has to remember not to talk about events from centuries ago as if he witnessed them personally and not to ask questions that might prove awkward; he has to learn how to read European characters, how to use the faucet, how to make his bed and to brush his hair; he has to dress himself and not forget to 'zip' this 'jeans'…
He is still overwhelmingly grateful to whatever deity granted him the chance to enter this miraculous world, but he is also terrified to lose himself in it.
Hikaru helps. By giving him signs when to shut up and by answering all the awkward questions later. By lending him things he needed, which was pretty much everything, up to the barest necessities. By bringing him countless notebooks to write down things he was afraid to forget and by re-teaching him to write once it became apparent he was still using the Heian-style Chinese characters. By giving him the Goban, by playing Go with him and by introducing him to the magic box so that he could play with people outside the hospital. By simply being there, with that blissfully warm hand on his shoulder and the calming voice in his ear.
Human interaction might not be Sai's strongest point, but he understands obligations. Which makes him even more aware that while Hikaru might see helping a patient as his duty, he doesn't have to learn Go for Sai's sake. Or even talk to Sai, for the matter. Surprisingly, Sai finds the latter much more terrifying.