a/n: Rhoda informed me about a rather odd industry in Japan – externally imposed courtship (note that the nametags are filled out by the parents, not the victims - er - children). So I'll continue to play with the cliché I've been skirting for several chapters. Incidentally, my deepest appreciation to the folks who've actually kept track of the outright errors in this story. I'd never realized that about insurance in Japan, I realized only after the fact that Touya and Shindou cannot play to a tie (they use komi after all), and I screw up the go terminology all the time – but the fact that you folks care enough to tell me about it is oddly gratifying. So thanks again, and I hope I'll continue to amuse you. :)

Part 19. Vital Statistics

Touya Akira. Age: 36. Profession: Go professional and small business owner. Annual Income: ¥6.7mil. No children or pets. Health Status: no current illnesses or disabilities...

Touya had forgotten about the name tag. In the surrealistic nightmare of the rest of the evening it had paled to insignificance. He still remembered meeting his mother and aunt at the hotel, ostensibly for dinner. He remembered the first slight sideways glance from his mother that tipped him that all was not as it appeared. He would never forget his aunt's speech regarding familial duty and the tragedy of an unmarried thirty-six-year-old, and the subsequent horrific four hours of conversing with similarly shanghaied singles in one of the hotel's ballrooms while his aunt dragged his apologetic mother off to explore Tokyo.

Of course, he'd known that his mother was somewhat disappointed with his continued single status. The problem had intensified somewhat when his cousins (the daughter and son of his mother's sister) began providing their mother with grandchildren. Even so, he had never imagined she would go so far as to almost forcibly enroll him in a matchmaking program - certainly not one quite as... emphatic as this. The slightly bewildered group of thirtysomethings had not been allowed to leave the room until they could each provide the officiant with proof of two scheduled dates with other participants. It was nothing short of the ultimate expression of the maternal guilt trip and Touya had been decidedly unhappy with the whole affair.

Which was not to say that the assembled victims had been unattractive (well, some were) or uninteresting (although he hadn't met a single go player in the group). He simply had no interest in dating. Thoughts of his legacy had never occurred to him, and the idea of courting, marrying and raising children with some woman alternately terrified and annoyed him. Consequently dating had never really been a priority. He had been popular with the girls in high school, true enough. He had invited one or two along for various dinners, dances and other functions where female accompaniment was expected. There were even a few women among his students and colleagues whom he would go so far as to consider good company, but that was all.

Such had been the nature of his thoughts in the car on the way home, and they continued right into the garage, up the sidewalk and through the front door – until he discovered one of the only women he could honestly call a friend sitting in all her youthful splendor on a stool in his kitchen.

"How did you get in?"

"What are you wearing?" The questions flowed over each other to bounce harmlessly off their intended recipients. Then Kinume was reaching for his lapel and pulling the adhesive-backed tag from the summer-weight wool, and Touya was noticing the keychain on his impromptu guest's purse.

"What is this? Do you really make that much? Wouldn't you consider my father a child?What kind of idiot walks around with all this info for all the world to see?" She was clearly fascinated. Touya resisted the urge to rip the tag out of her hands and burn it. Kinume would probably know where to find his one lighter before he could anyway.

"What are you doing here?" He asked rather abruptly. It was almost ten o'clock and he had had quite enough of people for one evening. Kinume clearly heard all of that, but rather than assuming a properly demure air, grinned broadly.

"You said if I came by at eight, we could trade games, remember?" She smiled. He stared blankly at the girl, trying to remember if he'd really meant tonight. It was no use. He had.

"You waited for two hours?" As far as he could tell, Kinume never slept anymore, but he could still hope she might be cajoled into realizing the late hour. When she simply nodded, he decided that women were far too devious for him ever to hope to win against them. First his aunt and his mother, now this diminutive specimen all played him like a game of shidougo. He sighed. "Did you set up the board?" She nodded again and leapt from the stool with an unholy amount of energy. He wondered how many cans of juice she'd imbibed from his refrigerator. He hoped she never took up tea or anything caffeinated.

"I even boiled some water so I can make you tea if you want it," she offered, in an eerie display of mind-reading. It was clearly a concession to the exhaustion she was stolidly refusing to notice. Touya registered an idle hope that the two women he'd agreed to meet for dates, per the rules of this evening's gathering, would be slightly less adept at this game. Watching Kinume pour steaming water over leaves into the small, iron pot, he realized there was small chance of that. Someone clearly taught them these things from birth.

Of course, it was a little strange that the younger Shindou was so excited about what she called trading games. One of her biggest disadvantages when compared to her father was her inability to memorize games. While Hikaru could remember the exact moves of more than half of his matches, Kinume was hard pressed to remember more than "the gist" of any of hers. Akira had begun the challenge of trading games with her as a way to improve her memory. She would memorize a game and show it to him, and if she remembered it correctly, he would show her a match he'd found interesting in exchange. Ordinarily, she was quite bad at it, and consequently rather reluctant, but tonight she seemed positively eager.

"So I take it you found an interesting match to memorize this time?" Touya draped his suit jacket over the back of the nearest kitchen stool before settling himself comfortably in his usual place in front of the goban. Kinume appeared a moment later with his least favourite tea mug. She had long ago decided never to touch any of his more valuable china for fear of her own clumsiness, and eleven tea mugs stood shattered witness to the wisdom of this decision.

"Yep. It's a really good one," her eyes sparkled as though enjoying some grand joke. He gestured to the board, and she sat, appropriating the two coffers of stones. She opened them and picked up a black stone, hesitating slightly over the board. "Wait until I'm done, though, if you don't recognize it, okay?" He nodded and watched as she began laying out the pieces.

The young woman had grown more relaxed and elegant in her motions around the board. If her hands had none of the flamboyance they exhibited on the checkered battlefields of her true genius, they retained a certain grace. There was a confidence and comfort there so completely different from the edgy uncertainty of the women with whom he'd spent the evening. If only one of them could have exuded this calm happiness or the odd delight that this girl expressed for such tiny things as ducks and vending machines and the sound of stones on wood.

Touya found his mind idly attempting to construct the ideal spouse, as his eyes continued to stare at the board and his student's hands. She would be joyful and energetic and fearless like Kinume – perhaps a bit loud, but never falsely shy. Someone smart enough to understand him, with similar interests, would be nice. The idealspouse would be independent enough not to mind his absences, but would still genuinely need him – for what he couldn't imagine, but something beyond just children. For a moment, he was jolted from his reverie – he really didn't want children running around his home, breaking his artwork, eating his go stones. So perhaps, his dream wife would be barren, but they could adopt some teenager to carry on the family name.

Kinume paused to sweep her hair back over the opposite shoulder and off the board. Despite still dying the knee-length curtain dark purple, she was really a rather lovely girl, at least when she wasn't running around like a kite in a typhoon. She was of an age where quite a few people were beginning to consider her attractive (to her father's considerable unease), but thinking about it, Touya decided that his own idealspouse would be a little taller, perhaps a little less curvaceous, with hands like his student's only just a little larger, and eyes that could flash with that same competitive spirit... An entirely inappropriate image insinuated itself into his cogitations and abruptly, he returned his full concentration to the board. Only to choke on the sip of tea he'd been about to take.

"Touya-san? Did I get one wrong?" Her hand hesitated over the last stone she'd placed. It was black, a shinte, the stone that had ignited his attention and changed his life more than two decades ago.

"Where did you learn this game?" He tried to keep his voice calm, but his eyes gave him away and she became instantly defensive.

"You promised to wait until I was done," she protested, but there was a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

"Did your father show this to you?" he demanded. He'd only ever shown this game to a handful of people, and he and Shindou almost never spoke of it. It was a game interesting only in context, and he had to know if she knew it.

"Well it is one of his games." She deftly avoided the question. "Anyway, do you want me to finish it? I know the whole thing." Her pride and confidence reasserted themselves with a force that all but convinced him she was being deceptive - perhaps not lying, but definitely hiding something. She took his lack of answer for agreement, and proceeded to lay out the last of the stones. They were all correct. "There, now you show me one," she smiled.

"Do you know what is important about the game you just laid out?" The games in most instruction manuals were chosen to illustrate specific points. This game's point had nothing to do with the hands played.

"It was his first game against you," she murmured, her eyes gone distant, and her face curiously wistful. She shook herself and smiled. "It's the game that made you rivals, so that one day you could be friends," the smile became an overblown grin, "so you could be my sensei and I could play go again." With that, she grabbed his nearly empty tea mug and headed back to the kitchen to refill it. He heard her puttering around for several moments, and then, "But you know, Touya-san, you really need to work on your people skills."

"Oh?" he replied, but all the while, he was staring at the old game.

"Yeah, your eyes get really scary when you're thinking about go, you know? So when you go on your dates you'd better think about something happier, okay?" He turned toward the kitchen to see her holding the name tag (with its matchmaking company's corporate logo) and her pocket computer. It was amazing how quickly young people could find things on the internet these days. She grinned in mischievous glee. "And blue goes better with your eyes than pink." He stood, stalking toward her, quite certain his eyes were too scary for Kinume's idea of proper interactions with ladies. She ran for the entryway. "Anyway, you look tired, so I probably better go home. Tou-san will be worried. I have an earlymatchtomorrow," she slid into her shoes even as he rounded the kitchen counter towards the entry hall, "butdon'tworryI'llsendTou-santogiveyousomepointers,'kay?" She flung the door open, hurled herself out into the warm night air and bowed, "thanksforhavingmeoverg'night!" And laughing, she ran off down the street. Touya rolled his eyes, felt a moment's righteous indignation, then permitted himself a small smile. He closed the door.

The fresh mug of tea was still steaming on the kitchen ledge. He took a relaxing sip, then picked up his telephone.

"Shindou," a pause as the voice on the end of the line confirmed it, "Your daughter is on her way home – it's your weekend, right?" A touch of parental concern. "No, she's fine, just please ignore anything she might tell you..." he looked in the refrigerator as his rival bombarded him with questions. Finally, he finished counting and answered. "Five cans of peach juice, Shindou." This was met with some shouting. "I know, I'm sorry. She drank them before I got here." A puzzled question about what had made him late was ignored. "The sooner you put her to bed, the better off you'll both be." There was a long pause as the voice on the other end softened slightly, then the cadence of an oft repeated apology-by-proxy. "I don't mind, she's far less hassle than most women." The voice on the other end clearly disagreed, but let it go with a snort of disbelief. "I'll tell you about it tomorrow." The standard "see you later" crossed from receiver to air to ear. The tiniest of pauses touched the line, then Akira said goodnight and hung up.

Prior Relationships: uncertain...