Fandom: Hikaru no Go
Title: chiisana yasashisa wo kure
Pairing: Ogata + Akira
Rating: pg-13
Description – So, why did Ogata stay with Touya-sensei for such a long time?

Disclaimer – Hikaru no Go belongs to Hotta Yumi and Obata Takeshi. We are here because of my obsession over their manga.

chiisana yasashisa wo kure
By Miyamoto Yui

Chapter 2 – Maybe this was what it was like?

/As soon as I got home that evening, I rushed up the stairs, closed the door to my bedroom and threw my backpack to the ground. I didn't even bother to take off my gakuran even though my uniform was sticking to my back from all that running. Kneeling to the ground in front of my dresser, I pulled out the black leather cord that was always hanging around my neck.
I pushed the key at the end of it into the locked middle drawer. Inside of it, there was a black metal box attached inside and so I unhinged it and sat in the middle of my room cross-legged. Unlocking this as well, there was a mini crate inside. I took a long deep breath as I carefully reached in and unpeeled the mesh around it.

Holding up the cup under the lamp light, I now felt somewhat comforted. It was actually not a cup, but more like a mini vase with the tips spreading out, the ends of hardened paintbrush bristles stopped in mid-stroke circling at the top. Its clay body until its base was enveloped into smooth, winding rope patterns which identified that this was a genuine Jomon period item. It was millions of yen worth, but it didn't matter to thirteen-year-old me.

This old cup was my treasure, the only gift given to me from the heart.

But as I held it in my hands, I trembled in fear. The proof was in the nail marks along each of my palms, throbbing in dull, yet raw pain.

What had just happened back there?! Why was I like this?!

I stared at the cup in my lap, holding it close to me as I felt my whole body turn into shambles. I didn't quite understand why my body was reacting so adversely to that man. Even if I was quietly sitting in my room, the turmoil inside me was escalating.

And I had absolutely no idea what to do with it.

Up until that point, everything swept into my life in dim shadows. I didn't quite know how to deal with everything, but I would find a way to make it work. The more challenging, the more engaged I'd become. But soon, I'd become bored once the puzzle revealed its solution to me. Nothing struck me as entirely interesting or whatever passion was, I had no idea what that was like either. Through a bland life lens, no strong light ever passed my way, so nothing caught my eye.

Well that was certainly true until today .

Now it felt like all those years were finally catching up. The things I pretended to ignore or dismissed came back with a vengeance, now making my heart ache in a way I didn't know it could.

I didn't know how to deal with this! Feeling the full force from my distress, I choked while holding the cup a little tighter towards me.

Why him of all people? A complete stranger?!

Once the coughing stopped, I held the cup as if it were a delicate bird, my left fingers covering the top and my right hand supporting it from below. Lifting it up, I looked straight at it.

"I wonder if he'll be there tomorrow…"/

+/+/+/+/+/

That would have been fine if I didn't find myself "coincidentally" taking my "alternative" route to my house: Eating at the burger place precisely at the same time every day and getting irrationally irritated when I was forced to sit a few seats away from my usual place, the best vantage point to observe him.

/A week and a half later, still engulfed by his unforgettable first impression and the school clock couldn't ring fast enough each day, I rushed out only to have one of my friends from the school roof stop me as I was changing from my indoor shoes to my sneakers.
"Yo Seiji." He held his hand out to stop me from leaving. "You're in love with a girl, aren't you?"
I took a step forward and turned towards his direction, tilting my head and then shaking it. Scoffing, I answered, "Where'd that come from, Kouichi?"
"You…" He started to change his shoes too. "…haven't gone to detention for a week and a half."
"So? There are days I'm not there."
"Yeah, when you're absent."
I gave him a non-plussed look as we walked out.
"And you've been writing in class, but I know as sure as hell those weren't notes."

Sighing as we were approaching the school gate, I didn't know if I should say I had to go and then he'd ask more questions or just walk with him until he was satisfied. I looked at the school clock to find five minutes and thirteen seconds had been swept away just like that.

Nope.

Turning to him, I stared him dead in the eyes and put my hands on his shoulders. "New date. I'm late. She's the hottest one yet. Bye." Running faster than an arrow shot in a battlefield, I darted out the gate, leaving my friend speechless by my bluntness. Until that day, I'd never revealed my 'schedule'.

It wasn't the date part he'd fuss over./

+/+/+/+/+/

/So more days passed and Kouichi no longer questioned me. For now, he knew I was working my way around…someone. It was a sufficient answer.

But there were times like that day, because I'd been late, I'd find myself holding my wrist firmly, not knowing what to do with my anxiousness. Or I'd strain my neck to see him, hoping to test for a better angle and nearly tipping the steel stool. Many near misses almost broke both my neck and the stool.

Ever since that day though, like clockwork, he'd appear and after a month, now I knew he'd ordered a cup of hot tea (it didn't matter what the season was) with red bean shirotama. I still couldn't figure out what kind of tea though because the nicely designed cups were too opaque./

And with another month, I continued to deny to myself that I was vaguely interested since, I reasoned to myself, that I needed to know why I reacted to him. It hadn't occurred to me (because I was young) that this obsession had a term: Stalking. If there were standards, I became the poster child (quite literally) with a brand all on my own. I'd even titled my notebook Shibori, just like the indigo dyeing technique from Kyoto. (Yes, Kouichi was right about the notebook but he couldn't ever prove it.)

This man was my target and when I discovered what was special about him, I'd simply stop.
Needless to say, that did not happen.

/Unable to bear the intensity, I mistakenly (with youthful stupidity) created a fabulous plan of walking into the café, sitting in a well-positioned area (for I'd strategized from across the street for eight weeks already), and would monitor him from a closer angle. Well, the plan went well in my visualization.

I walked in on a Tuesday afternoon because it wouldn't have been that crowded. Usually, people appeared on Thursdays and the weekends, but Mondays and Tuesday afternoon intervals where school was done and a bit before the tides of office people coming for a breather were the most optimal.

From the outside, the café was rectangular, but it was split in half for seating inside and outside. Facing the street, on the left, the forest green door chimed with a bell at a corner. The outside was divided into five round tables and their deep mocha chairs matching them. They created a star shape, spaced out perfectly for its points. It always amazed me how the sun shone down brightly around this area with the windows lining around these tables and reflected everything so clearly.

The inside of the café was a whole different jungle.
When I stepped in, there was a counter to my left side beautifully made of a single, yet thick piece of oak. Shelves showcased dishes and cups from all over the world. To my right, walnut square tables were aligned complete with spindleback chairs. Framed photos of Venice, Frankfurt, and Copenhagen hung behind each table, each printed in the 70's. The owners put captions to show they had visited all these places.

A girl finally came up to me and smiled. "How many for today?"
"One."
"Would you like indoor or outdoor seating?"
"Outdoor please."
When we walked towards the "back", that's when I found out that behind those windows lined up were rows of earthenware from all over our country. I wanted to touch the cute teal cup from Kagoshima. But she'd opened the door before I got a chance to get a closer look.

I took a seat at the corner table closest to the windows, but furthest from the street, positioning myself behind his favorite seat. She gave me a menu and left. A few minutes later, she came up to me again and took my order.

All the while, I hid behind a book, glancing over the rim until I looked at my watch and lifted up my head to see him enter. Crossing through the rows of windows, I peered over my book. I took a deep breath as he elegantly walked behind the same waitress. The simple jade kimono matched the scenery around him so perfectly.

When he finally sat in his seat, the first thing I noticed was the line of his neck, and my eyes went down his spine.

So confident and solid. Someone so far from myself.

He was too refined. What young man dressed in kimono casually these days when everyone was into men's magazines and dressed up with that preppy look?
My imagination ran into its own reality walls and rabbit hole fantasies trying to imagine if he even wore those kinds of things.

The waitress brought back my coffee complete with the cream brimming at the top flawlessly. Inwardly, I grimaced at the idiocy I'd subjected myself to: Changing at one of the subway bathrooms so that I'd not be obvious in my gakuran. I'd put it in a locker and dressed in a white blouse striped with magenta lines, and dark burgundy loafers. (These were the kinds of clothes my parents forced me to wear and this was the first time I voluntarily wore them and as a disguise.) And I'd walked into this kissaten with its superfine coffee now caressing my tongue like a warm, smooth kiss.

Again, that strange feeling took a hold of me. Doubts flooded my mind and drowned me further into myself. Why was I even here? What would happen once I found out his secret hypnotism over me? Did I really need to know? What was the point anyway? What would I accomplish by doing all this?

As he got his usual order from the waitress, I watched his profile.

Why can't I stop myself?

I closed my book and stood up to boldly pass by him, but he was so lost in thought that he didn't move an inch nor notice me. I caught sight of the book he'd been reading. It was actually an especially older print with Go records and an expert's handwritten notes on the margins.

How'd he get them?/

At the time, I didn't know they were kifu, but they didn't seem like the common kind, or at least not the ones let out of special archives. It would be a decade later that I'd found out he'd been given a copy by the Go Institute as a gift for his accomplishments.

/I was more aware that he was no ordinary person.
But what would learning about that reveal to someone like me?

When I turned the corner, I stopped to look at the brightest sky I'd ever seen, the clouds so puffy, wanting to be embraced by the blue surrounding it. "Igo huh?"
Glancing back towards his direction, I wondered if all my overflowing thoughts ever reached him. I'd never prayed for anything in my whole life even though I stood in front of shrines looking like I did.

Maybe this was what it was like.

Would life spare me if I followed what my heart already knew? I was most certain it wouldn't./

Tsuzuku…/To be continued…

Author's note: Wow. It seems all these years of research are just gushing through in one go (no pun intended). I don't know why, but I couldn't write a memoir of going to all the prefectures. Instead, whenever I need a place, it floats into my head, I imagine it, and then I write about where I want to be.

The only thing is that before, I could impulsively just get up, buy a ticket, and go whenever I needed a specific detail like in Initial D's Invincible, I could easily go back to Akihabara because I'd imprinted its streets into my mind's eye.

The story is unfolding for me as I keep writing. I don't know what's this mysterious hold, but it's like when I first started writing when I was a teenager and years before posting on the internet. This title isn't mine, but there's enough leeway that I hope I'm creating something exciting and keeping the essence of Hikaru no Go as it has kept the light inside of me all these years.

You have no idea how excited I am whenever I write in my notebook for myself (I have to know what happens!) or give a new chapter to you (I need to share this with you!). I wish I could just dictate from my mind and have the computer type for me because my fingers aren't fast enough to catch what's in my imagination. The translation lag gets to me and there are times I'm frustrated because I'll lose my thought in mid-sentence but it'd had been a great image. Japanese and English words clash inside of me…

And…hahahaha…I never imagined Ogata-sensei as a dork, but I don't know why it fits for his younger self. As I was walking one morning, it clicked in my head how that changed. * smiles *

Love,
Yui

7/5/2019 11:01 PM – Los Angeles

7/6/2019 3:01 PM – Tokyo