Here We Go (Again)

Chapter 12: Hikaru and Sai Become Internet Famous

...

"Whoa."

Hikaru sat back in his chair with nothing more to say. He blinked uncomprehendingly at the bright morning light outside his window, astounded that it was still the same day—the same morning, even. It didn't feel right after the monumental thing that had just happened.

"Well, that was a thrilling game," Sai announced cheerfully, as if he hadn't just rocked the bedrock of the go community. Hikaru turned to look at him as Sai glided up from the extra chair Hikaru had placed at his desk, moving to sit at his customary place in front of the goban placed at the center of the room.

"Hikaru! Hikaru!" Sai impatiently beckoned Hikaru to leave the computer and sit at the goban with him. "Enough of that. I have been informed that too much 'screen time' is detrimental to your health, and that screens do not refer to the noble art of painting but instead include both the computer and the phone. You certainly peer at your phone too much! I do not understand what you can divine from that piece of glass which fascinates you so!"

Hikaru blinked at Sai, still seated in his desk chair. The screen of his laptop had already lowered its screen brightness from so long sitting inactive.

"Uh, Sai?"

"Yes, Hikaru?"

"Don't you want to…" Hikaru gestured at the abandoned laptop. "Uh, talk about the game or something?"

Sai looked at Hikaru, uncomprehending. "I do not believe there is an effective way to conduct post-game discussions there, Hikaru. This 'chat box,' as you refer to it, is very slow and I have only ever witnessed you exchange vulgar slings within it." Hikaru squawked in his own defense, which was ignored. "Which I have, many times, attested towards you to be—"

"—not befitting a young nobleman like myself," Hikaru parroted back with a dramatic eye roll.

"Quite so," Sai declared, dramatically opening his fan with a complicated flick of his wrist. "Now, I have indulged you in playing one NetGo game for your benefit. As the bargain has been completed on my end, you will fulfill your promise and we shall spend the rest of the day playing go together."

Hikaru could not even believe this. Sai and Touya-Meijin had just played the single greatest NetGo game in history, and Sai only wanted to play more games with Hikaru?

"Sai!" Hikaru couldn't help but whine. "How in the world was that game for my benefit? You and Touya-Meijin nearly reached the Hand of Go together!"

Sai blinked at him again. "Is that so?"

"Yes!" Hikaru threw his arms up in exasperation, rocking back in his chair. "How can you not know that, Sai?! You were playing the game!"

Sai sniffed disdainfully in that aristocratic way of his that somehow didn't come quite off as being actively rude to Hikaru. "You know already that I dislike NetGo, Hikaru. I prefer a face-to-face game over the goban."

"Sai!" Hikaru whined some more. "I know you like to play in-person, but that is not possible! You're a ghost! No one else can see you!"

"Hikaru," and the tone of Sai's voice gave Hikaru pause; Sai had addressed him as if Hikaru were the complete idiot who was missing something very obvious, "you can see me."

"Uh, yeah!" exclaimed Hikaru, obviously. "I'm the only one who can see you!"

Sai nodded slowly, thinking over Hikaru's words for a moment.

"Then certainly you must simply be unaware that I have need of no more. It is enough that you are able to see me. Kami-sama has bestowed upon me the greatest of blessings in allowing us to meet, Hikaru."

"What?!"

"Hikaru," Sai addressed him seriously, gaze boring into Hikaru's own, "I do not understand why you operate under the assumption that you alone are not enough. It is your company I hold in the highest esteem. And your time is very precious to me. It is for that reason that I was so elated to accept your proposal. A single game on that infernal electronic box is but a small price to pay for us to spend the day together with no other pressing appointments to attend to."

Hikaru gaped at him. It took him a moment to even process all of Sai's words and the meanings when they were strung together in that way, in that order. And when he did, he sat back in his chair, feeling as if the floor had fallen out from underneath him and all of his strings had been cut all at once.

"Do you really only want to play go with me?" Hikaru asked, almost afraid of the answer but his hopefulness snuck into his voice.

Sai nodded solemnly. "I believe I have informed you thusly many times."

Hikaru's jaw dropped.

"Sai! Oh my god."

"Yes, Kami-sama has been gracious and benevolent towards one such as myself," Sai agreed cluelessly.

"No! I mean—Yes! For sure!" Hikaru waved his hands helplessly through the air. "On the benevolence thing. For me too! But I mean— Oh my god."

Sai just continued to nod, still clueless to Hikaru's actual meaning.

Hikaru shook his head, violently. "But Sai! This was your greatest game. You and Touya-Meijin played a nearly-perfect game and then you disappeared! And then Touya-Meijin retired!"

Sai frowned at the news. "I have had no hand in Touya-Meijin's life decisions."

Hikaru resisted the urge to roll his eyes. But then Sai continued,

"Also, you are mistaken, Hikaru." Sai primly folded his hands in his lap to address Hikaru seriously.

Hikaru blinked cluelessly at Sai, trying to remember if he had said anything particularly stupid lately. "Uhh…"

Sai watched Hikaru carefully, waiting. "You are thinking of the other Sai. I am not him."

Hikaru blinked in surprise, taking a belated second before rearing back in realization. However, Sai had known as much to expect this, despite Hikaru's blustering,

"Of course, you're not! I know that, Sai!"

Sai chose to allow this. But he could not allow Hikaru to continue thinking wrongly.

"You are not the same person you were with the other Sai either. In this life, we have met each other as two different people than your first lifetime. Our relationship has been shaped by your familiarity with me, as well as your regrets concerning the other me."

"Sai…" Hikaru said helplessly, not even sure what he meant to say. He felt a strange, profound sense of loss within his chest. The nearest thing he could compare it to was his grief over Sai the first time, but this was not sharp and cutting and loss, but a deep well of emptiness that had never been.

Sai stopped him, holding up his hand in a silent request for Hikaru to listen.

"My game against Touya-Meijin was remarkable in that I faced an opponent of skill and a lifetime of experience. There have been few others I have had the opportunity of playing against of that dedication. And I believe that you have forgotten that you yourself are included in that circle of players."

"I am?" Hikaru blurted out.

Sai looked at him with a mix of fondness and exasperation.

"Hikaru, you are living your second life," Sai reminded him. "And you dedicated your first entirely to the study of go. In part, because of my other self's influence, yes. But you lost the other Sai when you were on the cusp of adulthood. He was not there for your continued growth."

"Sai," Hikaru choked out, distraught, "you were there. I remembered you in my go for the rest of my life."

"I know," Sai replied without hesitation, but also with a firmness in his expression that told Hikaru he was also wrong. "But you are still alive, Hikaru. And I still exist in this world. And of all the players in the world, it is only you and myself who can claim to have played this game over multiple lifetimes. So, if I should linger upon this earth, I shall remain eternally grateful to Kami-sama for the time bestowed upon me. For this is time that I have with you."

Hikaru sniffled and roughly rubbed at his eyes with his sleeve. He had expected this game to mark the beginning of the end with Sai. He had been waiting for Sai to be as happy, as elated as he had been the first time. He had even prepared himself to start the beginning of the end, that moment when the countdown to Sai disappearing had begun. (And he had known this moment would happen since the beginning, had had all this time to prepare himself, even though he knew he would never really be ready.)

He had even been waiting to go into post-game discussion with Sai and point out the same mistake he had the first time. He hadn't known it then, but after having been a teacher and a mentor himself, he had realized that that was what had tipped the scales for Sai. To have had his own students surpass him, to see possibilities he hadn't been able to see, had been a humbling thing.

But he had not prepared himself for nothing to change at all.

Sai's expression softened with understanding. "Hikaru, I did not know you in your first life. In that regard, I am honored to have been your mentor despite that. However, that version of myself that you hold onto has long passed."

"You want me to just let you go?" Hikaru demanded sharply, valiantly trying to stifle another sniffle so not to undermine himself.

Sai shook his head. "No, Hikaru. I merely want you to see yourself not as my protégé, for I have not considered you such in the entire time I have known you. You are a player with more than a lifetime of dedication to the game of go. You are my equal, and the opponent I hold to the highest esteem. But you are not just a rival to beat, Hikaru. You are so much more than that—a brother and a friend and a true companion."

"Really?" Hikaru asked Sai tearily, feeling like a small child despite the multiple lifetimes Sai had just pronounced.

"Yes," Sai told him with certainty. "I believe now that that is the true Kami no Itte. As the game between myself and Touya-Meijin can attest, it is not two great opponents meeting as rivals upon the board which carries divine will. Such a game can only come close.

"The true Kami no Itte is played between two players who love and respect each other, with dedication equal in their game to their personal regard for each other. Hikaru, you and I are playing the Kami no Itte. And we reach that with every game we share, in as many different ways as the many different games we play each time, each one a single thread in the magnificent tapestry we weave together."

Sai watched Hikaru as Hikaru's eyes slowly widened at the shock of Sai's declaration.

Hikaru hadn't—

He had never—

Yet, Sai was right. Of course, Sai was right. Hikaru had held onto his past lifetime's experience with the other Sai—so tightly that he always thought of himself as the kid-version of himself when he had first met Sai. But he wasn't really that version of himself with this Sai, no matter how he looked. He really never had been.

"Oh," Hikaru said lamely, feeling as if everything should have changed with this realization even though nothing had changed at all.

He blinked and turned to look out his window in betrayal at the continued shining of the morning light. Two monumental things had happened today, and still the world had not shifted or moved, only continued not to acknowledge anything at all. Stupid world.

Embarrassed, Hikaru turned to look at Sai guiltily, awkwardly saying, "Sai, I'm sor—"

"No need." Sai held up his hand for Hikaru to cease and desist. "I request only another game."

Hikaru chuckled, a little weakly, but grinning at Sai all the same. "So, that's the real truth. You really don't care about me. You only care about go."

Sai looked at Hikaru in offence. "Hikaru!"

Hikaru laughed at him and reached to shut off his computer for the day so he can really dedicate himself to spending an entire day with Sai. He had been planning it anyway, had looked forward to it since they rarely had days like this with Hikaru's busy schedule. And after the exhausting revelations of the day (all in a single morning!), Hikaru was looking forward to it even more.

He hadn't even meant to do it, but he glanced over the homepage of his NetGo account out of habit. And then, Hikaru had to blink in astonishment.

"Uh… Sai?"

"Yes, Hikaru?" Sai answered in a curious tone, not at all alarmed.

Hikaru blinked some more at the numbers on the screen. Numbers which kept increasing. Exponentially.

They had made Sai's NetGo account only that morning. There was only one game played on the 'sai' account, and probably only that game ever. And obviously, Hikaru was expecting that account to blow up after the historical game against Touya-Meijin.

Except, it seemed the cat was out of the bag on Hikaru being Sai's protégé. (Which was not surprising considering how often and loudly Hikaru was also declaring that he had been taught by Sai, the greatest player to have ever lived.)

Hikaru had only meant to quickly log into his account and 'like' Sai's game to help push it up the rankings of Greatest of All-Time games on the NetGo site. But instead, he logged in to see hundreds of 'friend requests' and 'messages' and 'comments' about him. The little red flags at the top of his screen had some impressive numbers on them.

"I think we're internet famous now, Sai," Hikaru declared wryly as he logged out of NetGo without even clicking on any of the alerts and notifications. "I'm pretty sure my NetGo account is going to explode."

Sai looked at the laptop with concern and alarm. "Hikaru, remove yourself from the vicinity of the danger."

Hikaru just laughed and shut his laptop lid, throwing himself onto the floor cushion on his side of the goban.

"Nah, not like that. We're safe."

Sai still glanced at the computer warily. He didn't trust modern technology.

"Let's play, Sai," Hikaru said instead, knowing that was the guaranteed way to distracting Sai. "I promised you a whole day together."

"Yes! Yes!" Sai immediately snapped away from Hikaru's desk to the goban between them. "Hikaru, let's play go!"

Hikaru laughed again, just as excited as Sai to spend the day together.

The moment Hikaru had been preparing himself for since the very moment he had realized that he was in the past—that he would have a second chance with Sai—had passed.

And it would not end in goodbye.

…

Author's Note: Only one chapter left!

2020.10.10