Fandom: Hikaru no Go
Title: chiisana yasashisa wo kure
Pairing: Ogata x Akira
Rating: pg-13
Description: So, why did Ogata stay with Touya-sensei for such a long time?
Disclaimer: Hikaru no Go belongs to Obata and Hotta-sensei.
chiisana yasashisa wo kure
By Miyamoto Yui
Chapter 10 – Voice.
The train station names don't register since I'm completely absorbed by the untouched squares of the whiteboard.
What do you really want me to do with this, Sensei? How do I answer Akira when he doesn't want to see me right now? Even more so because this board involves you and me.
And play as you? Are you kidding me?
My right index finger slides down the plastic border. Already plotting the next move, I go through my mental list of important matches, but I can't think of what he wants me to study within my own game.
After all the work I've done so that he wouldn't repeat those words…
/Once again, he looked down at me with the full force of his intimidation trickling into my skin. He was right there in front of me and within arm's length! Instead of the screen at Shinjuku visually signifying the rapidly transforming city, we were sitting in a room of the Teian Museum trying to perfect a thousand-year-old game.
There was a special commemorative event sponsored by the Go Association and magazines for the title holders to play with Insei from all over the nation as an exhibition. Those magazines published at that time gave Go more exposure in not only Asia, but around the world. Sensei's humble acclaim also helped to spread it.
I don't know how, but I'd been selected as his opponent. It was one of the happiest and most nerve-wracking points in my life. I'd been wanting to meet him face to face to the point that I thought my heart would stop in the middle of the match.
But as they were clearing the cameras and other recording equipment, we were still sitting before the Go board. Sensei said he would give his statement later and as he collected his thoughts, mine floated around, desperately trying to ground myself within the experience that ended faster than the snap of a finger.
I'd tried my best. This was the challenge I'd waited years for! But I felt no sense of accomplishment. He hadn't enjoyed the game with me.
What I couldn't understand was why he looked absolutely livid about it.
I think what exceeded his fury was the disillusionment emphasized in his silence. What had he expected of me?
"Young man…" It was the first time he'd addressed me throughout the game and my ears perked up as he looked directly into my eyes. "…may I have a word with you?"
Even though everyone had politely dismissed themselves from the room, it was only when he stood up that I realized we were alone. Everything had been cleared away and a moment's dream was gone.
He gestured for me to follow him. I stiffly rose up and did so without question.
We walked down the long hallway with intricate, metal thresholds and chandeliers done in the Art Deco architectural style, exiting towards the garden and all the way to a pond. He stood next to a stone lantern and observed the koi swimming through.
It wasn't the most popular spot of the museum, but I found it breathtaking. It reminded me of my grandmother's home, the one who had given me the cup I treasured with all my life.
Purposely choosing a secluded area, he averted his body away from me with his hands folded behind him. The light gray kimono with the white obi he wore complimented not only his arms, but the steadiness of his demeanor. It was stellar, but I still loved the one I'd given him anonymously.
A brief smile came to my lips, but it wiped away the second his hands grappled harder. Behind him, like always, I crumpled inside. Being two and a half years older hadn't changed that.
Lifting up his chin, I followed his line of sight. The sky was bluer than the day I'd tripped and he'd smashed my heart with a single glance.
"You cannot challenge me for a while."
"Huh?" I'd finally spoken, my throat drier than ever.
It didn't make sense though. From where I was standing, I'd rarely meet him in battle. I couldn't challenge him period.
"Find your own Voice. Your own way of playing." It was harsh, but there were traces of compassion within his warning.
Voice?
I took a deep breath. He'd walked away before I could reply.
Later that night, I'd gone over the match. Laying it out before me, I'd reviewed my mistakes three times, eliminating my weaknesses so that I could see other possibilities of how I could have played the game. However, in the middle of analyzing, I stopped midway and understood why he was more than infuriated with me (another trait I'd learn years later, coal burning red with fire until it smoldered into ash). I'd integrated his own plays and a reflection of his own mentality, but I was not his mirror. The play I'd been so proud of…
It held no personality. Everything I'd done until then had been unoriginal, a poor imitation of all that I'd studied of his plays. It wasn't quite the pill I'd expected to swallow.
I'd waited all this time to have a match with him only to find it began in utter failure.
In the coming seasons, it was difficult to approach him whenever we met up at gatherings or the Institute. How could I talk to someone who said they'd wanted nothing to do with me as an opponent?
Was it truly a blemish against me though? Because after eleven months passed, for reasons unknown, he called me to study under him. I was his first student./
+/+/+/+/+/
I don't even turn on the light to my apartment when I place my luggage in the genkan and lock the door in less than a minute. Taking the RX7 out of the garage, I head over to Akira's with that whiteboard on top of my messenger bag in the passenger's seat.
He's ignoring my texts.
There is no moon out tonight, accentuating the blackness in between streetlamps of the side streets. I know it's very late. After all, it takes about 7 hours to get from Tottori to Tokyo by express trains.
Purposely overlooking the time to keep up my determination, I show up at their house uninvited. Getting out of the car, I debate on whether or not this can wait until early tomorrow morning.
No, tomorrow will be too late. I don't know why, but my instinct says so.
I ring the bell and Akira's voice comes out of the brown speaker. "Yes? Who is it?"
"It's me."
No answer.
"I won't leave until you talk to me."
Still no answer.
A couple of minutes later, the gate opens and I walk inside, following behind him. Right after putting my jacket on a hook and my messenger bag down with the whiteboard at the genkan, it becomes a muted chase of him walking silently, gaining speed while I match it. Only certain lights are on and I mentally adjust to rarely being there at night, and never without Sensei and his wife in the house.
But despite the circumstances, it still feels welcoming. For me, this is where I call home. Not that decrepit palace in Iidabashi .
We pass the den where we've always conducted our study sessions. It is set up, but the room is dim despite the door being slid open.
"Where are we going?"
"My room. I'm packing."
"Again?"
In an exasperated voice, he explains, "I didn't sleep yesterday so I took a nap."
The hurried steps come to a sudden halt. "Only father and mother know, but I bought a mansion with my earnings."
What? How come you didn't tell me?
"So you go there when you need to concentrate on your matches. I do that. I have two other places. When I feel like it, sometimes I rent a hotel suite."
"No, it's not for a retreat. That's my main residence. I've not lived here for a few months already."
"But what about your morning matches? Our study sessions with your father?"
"Of course I come to play Father before the start of the day." Amused, he lifts his hand to his mouth. "I don't live here anymore though I've not made it public. There is no need to."
"I can understand that."
I really do…
/"This…this is Mother's other residence, isn't it, Father?" I stood at the doorway as he sat quietly amid the mess of documents spread throughout the kitchen table. He held a cup of coffee in between his hands, making no motion to move or respond. I stared at his back and at the name-brand bicolor tie draped over his chair./
He slightly turns his head my way, but stops himself and continues walking. At the end of one hallway, there is an open door. When I get to the threshold, I can't seem to cross it. He goes straight to his open luggage on the bed while I remain at the doorway.
As expected of Akira, it's spotless, but unlike a teenager, it's bare. His custom Go board is pushed against one wall. Above it is a single decoration: A corkboard with pushpinned notes upon notes, kifu and post-its of every size imaginable. It shows a vivid reflection of his mind: Everything has its place and it's all within his grasp. Even the "messiness" is color catalogued.
At his feet, there's a very large stack of papers on the floor with blue pen and red marker notations, but I'm not close enough to see what they are though.
Folding my arms, I lean against the door. "You didn't even let me know."
"I'd meet you here. Isn't that enough for you?" Without holding back, his words clearly jab at me. "You don't need any other reason to see me anyway."
So whenever I brought you 'home', you'd clearly go there afterwards.
It irritates me but he dismissively looks through certain folders from his desk and closet, taking out more stacks to pile into his luggage. Without any regard for me, he hunts around the room.
He's stored plenty of papers and books here. Does this function as his office?
Akira closes his luggage, but his hands remain touching the top. With his back facing me, I continue, "I do have reasons to see you. Whether or not you'd like to acknowledge them."
There were many times I wanted to see you, but I had no excuse to.
"Yes, of course. All roads lead to Go." He lifts his phone. "Your texts."
"Of which you ignored."
He places the luggage on the floor with the phone on top of it, and right in front of that stack.
Now I'm curious about what's there.
Akira then turns around and sits on his bed with his wrists and legs crossed. Poised, his words dig under my flesh. "Don't I have the right? Why won't you let me have some breathing space?"
"Your father gave me tomorrow's morning match."
"No wonder you came here so quickly." He gives me an empty smile, eyes vacantly watching the floor. "I can't ever win against him, can I?"
Unfolding my arms, I stand up straight when he raises his head with a tear falling down his face and onto the back of his hand. Though seething, his voice cracks. "Why do you do this to me? You always have to crush me when I feel I've come closer to you."
Even if I want to, I can't look away. Those defiant eyes entrap me.
"Like the time that I became a pro and went up to you because I was so happy. But you congratulated me with cold eyes. At that time, I took a step back because I really was a child then. Now, I understand that you already saw me as a rival. You wanted me to realize that for myself." He shakes his head and keeps his eyes on me. "But this isn't the Go board, Seiji."
Feeling the blood rush to my head, I glare at him with my teeth clenching.
Gulping, Akira sighs shakily. "I already got the message when you stopped in the middle: You're a kid. Didn't I already apologize for it?"
"For what?"
"For forcing you to indulge me."
Something inside of me snaps and I finally lose all composure.
"Do you think that's all it takes? Because you've grown older? That you've moved out and established your profession? You may be skilled with Go, but there are experiences you have yet to master: The things we lack as people when we spent so much time on that board."
I leave my place and walk over to him. All the affliction I'd felt until then turns into scorn. I reach out to catch both of his wrists and press them deep into the bed. Akira falls backwards onto the mattress in astonishment.
"Is this what you think will make you an adult to me?" I shake his wrists. "Do you have the right to call me by my name just because you killed me on paper?!"
Even now, there's no fear in his eyes. Unable to touch my face, he squints, helplessly watching whatever expression I have on my face.
It hurts.
"Because it takes more than that to 'force' me."
Don't you hate me by now? Why aren't you trying to escape?
I place my knee in between his legs. He takes a long drawn out breath as I lean my body closer.
"Don't be so arrogant to think that you got me with all your penciled marks because I killed most of your stones in all of those papers. And just like you said, without you knowing.
"Then you say you won't bother me, but leave me that kimono for our next match? What makes you think you've got that in the bag? That I'd let you win on the one thing that's never given up on me?!
"So Akira, do you really have it in you to really seduce me?"
Breathing heavily, I can't control the rage that's erupted.
"To be honest…no. " He struggles to hold onto me, tips of his fingernails scratching my knuckles. "When it comes to you, I have no confidence at all." Pausing, he searches within me. "After finding a woman in your apartment. After that time in 3rd grade when I'd called your phone and a girl answered for you so I pretended it was a wrong number. After finding perfume on your shirt at age ten. After finding a pink bump on your neck under your collar while studying for finals and competing?"
You've really been watching me as I've been keeping an eye on you.
My lips become a thin line when some of my strength dissipates at having been discovered. "I thought I was discrete, but I guess not."
"You were. I'm sure no one else noticed except me." His eyes pierce right into mine. Their honesty strikes through my resistance.
"Then how'd you find out?"
"Your patterns. You'd do it on certain occasions…Whenever Father was involved."
"You've been really pushing on this since Tottori."
"Because while you've been following Father's footsteps…" His fingernails press into my bones. "…I've been running after yours."
Why do I feel elated by his words? But it's one step closer towards hell…
My grip over his wrists loosens and Akira immediately links our fingers together with all his might. He is eerily calm.
"Why?" I ask with a grave expression.
With a softened tone, he replies, "I won't let you hurt yourself anymore."
A chill runs down my spine.
Akira brings his chin up and I feel the warmth of his tongue sliding down my Adam's apple as he pushes himself against my knee.
"No, Akira, you'll re-"
He lies back down onto the mattress. "Regret it? Hate me for this, but I won't ever regret it."
"Then why'd you say sorry?"
"Seiji…" His face blushes a deep crimson. It spreads to his ears and down his neck. Before, he'd said my name out of anger, but now, being fully conscious and conscientious of what he'd said, I visibly see the effects as he feels through them.
He's been scared this whole time to call me by my first name.
I've come undone.
Tilting his head to one side, his eyes plead, "Let me have my way just once."
I stand up and he slowly sits up with a dismal face.
But I close the door and eye him, switching off the lights. He sits completely still, watching as I approach him. His hands reach out for my glasses, but I shake my head. "No. Show me your resolve."
My chest crystallizes, becoming stronger until it's ready to break. I watch him stand up on the bed and pull his shirt over his head, letting it drop to the tatami. Unbuttoning his pants, he slides them off and tosses them down too. What I do not expect is that he'd be wearing some form of fundoshi and I'm the one looking away. The fundoshi lands besides my socks.
His fingertips touch my cheeks, turning my face towards him. Looking down at me, he starts to take my shirt off, one button at a time. The tip of his tongue touches my sternum and goes down along with his fingers towards the bottom of the blouse.
Does it all really lead to this?
I don't do anything. Even as he pushes it off my shoulders while sucking my tongue, I feel far from myself and shudder in disbelief when our lips finally meet.
So this is how you ruin something: You watch it beautifully fall apart.
Going in and out of consciousness, my heart dissolves with my conscience ripping…
I exchanged it to find him leaning on his elbows and grabbing the sheets with my mouth kissing his spine. He breathlessly says my name over and over, saliva and sweat dripping down onto the sheets. Akira doesn't shout out, holding it all in and gasps quietly. Biting his lower lip, his back muscles contract. The sexiness stirs me to move in even deeper.
I can no longer stop.
In between the twisting agony, I make him lie on his back so that I can see his face. He tenderly brushes my hair to one side. As I look down at him, my sweat is indistinguishable from the tears...
It'll never be the same.
He takes my glasses away and his shoulders tense up. Shivering, I know he's almost there, but like always, he touches my face, inviting me to kiss him. As I come, his entire body tightens.
For a brief moment, his profile faces mine and it's intoxicating. I hold onto his hips and press as his whole body jolts upward, eyes closing from pain and arms wrapping around my back.
When he grins at me, I feel both melancholy and joy, constrained by all my future betrayals. But he presses his cheek against mine. His hand goes up the nape of my neck and through my hair, pulling the back of my head. For a few seconds, Akira's fingers linger on my scalp and then he whispers, "I'll never stop chasing you."
Savoring those words, I don't give him time to recover, but he doesn't protest. And I make love to him all over again…
+/+/+/+/+/
When I open my eyes, I reach out to the semi-warm, empty space beside me. Akira isn't there. He's not in the room at all.
My watch reads "2:02" and I sit up groggily to find his luggage isn't there either. So in the dimness, I dress up in a mental fog slowly clearing from dreaming, not quite believing what has happened. It's like waking up in the middle of a seductive song with its shadowed undertones.
It all feels unreal.
When I take a hold of the doorknob, I leave the door open behind me, but I hear nothing. There are no traces of him anywhere as I walk through the lit hallway. The windows outside show the world still enveloped in darkness and it's a little comforting.
"Akira? Akira where are you?" No response.
The lights lead me to our study area. The room is bright, almost glaring.
I see my messenger bag next to the Go board in the middle. My notes on the kifu from yesterday and the white board are on a brown cushion right next to it. The life/death problem is set up perfectly on the board.
On the other cushion where he would have sat is the stack of papers he'd been going through yesterday, the ones he blocked from my sight.
I sit on that cushion, putting half of the stack to my right side and half into my lap. Taking the first stapled set, I read the title, "Ogata-sensei - Match with me on 5/12/0X. So many notations..."
Then I pick up the next stack and another, also with red marker on its borders.
Flipping through them faster and faster, reality and my past don't seem to penetrate in the realm of my brain. "10th dan matches, 9th dan matches, Gosei tournament 199X…"
Why…why do you have all this?
"Debut match. The Teian Museum Exhibition?" But there are even more papers under that. "You even have my Insei records."
How'd you ever get a hold of these?
On the back of all the overturned papers are blue words written in fine point, careful and clean. Against my better judgment, I start to read them. They aren't just observations though. They're reflections of what he loves. What he would have done. His comments on what I did.
"2nd dan, Honinbou tournament.
He was fighting with Kuwabara-sensei even back then? That is kind of funny. But that part where he brought that dead group to life…brilliant. I wish I'd been able to see this, but I wasn't even born yet. It didn't matter that he lost on the third match.
How many times have I put my finger on move 83?
I wonder when he'll see me as an opponent too."
Looking for a match he'd been able to attend, I find the 7th dan one he mentioned to Shindou:
"7th dan, second match. Father and I watched this in the waiting room. As soon as Ogata-sensei set his black stone (now I know it's move 61), Father commented to watch the pattern he was creating, but nothing more than that. Even though his lips were sealed afterwards, I knew he was praising him.
But it made me a bit depressed. The wall to climb over grew taller before me.
Every movement was subtly aggressive and haunting. I tried to recreate it at home so that I wouldn't forget.
I truly admire him.
Father said my love of Go is my best trait, but I know Ogata-sensei loves playing as much as me."
The quietness starts to disturb me. It feels like he threw these memoirs at my face and stormed away.
How could you follow the same path as me? And these are more than kifu...
They're full of our life together through your eyes…
I bring the 7th dan notes to my face.
How could I have ever known?
Still holding onto them, I bring them down to my lap and face the life/death problem. It's been left on a standstill. He didn't attempt to play it.
"Why?"
I lean in closer and see the tears all over the wood and stones.
He couldn't.
After a few minutes, I clear everything, wipe off the stones and board, and take his papers back to his room. Then, I fix his bed as best as I can and close the door.
Going back to the study room, I open my bag to put my notes back inside, but there is a pink post-it. I glimpse at it and place it into one of the pockets.
Turning everything off, I make sure that I leave their house as perfect as it should be.
As I drive away, I grip onto the leather steering wheel, the grooves making an imprint onto my palms. His last note gnaws at me: "Hikaru's waiting for me at home."
I don't bother to go back to my apartment and hide in one of my houses in Omiya, Saitama. But three days later, as the light enters through the six square windows on the third floor, my phone starts to ring. Because of the largely wide space, the sound bounces off the white walls.
It's beside me, but I continue to practice for one of my upcoming matches. On a whim, I glance at it anyway and hear when it goes to voice message:
"I need to talk to you. Can you meet me at 2pm at Komagome Station today?"
Even though my phone says "Restricted" before the call ends, I know that voice is unmistakably Shindou's.
Tsuzuku… / To be continued…
Author's note: This chapter really threw me for a loop. I've been waiting so long to transition into meeting Hikaru (the draft I wrote into a notebook was in June 2019) and to speak about Ogata-sensei's match as a teen with Sensei (I wrote the draft in August 2019 on the back of some scratch paper). And I was so excited to finally get to these two points that I found myself taking extra care with each individual part. (This fic is changing the way I'm writing…)
The confrontation with Akira is vastly different than I'd imagined (and originally planned), but I'm satisfied with it. It wrung me out though. These two have a dynamic that makes me obsess over them and the story at many parts of my day, even when I wake up (and find inspiration).
The further we go, Ogata-sensei unravels his childishness and Akira's maturity flourishes beyond the Go board.
Akira is adorable, serious, fierce and mature on the surface, but Hikaru and Ogata-sensei pull out different traits from him. He is my favorite character in Hikaru no Go, but I find his vulnerable, fragile sides endear him more into my heart. It's like hearing his image song "Kira" for the first time, still making me melt until now.
Thank you for reading this far! There's more to come…
Love,
Yui
8/31/2020 10:42:51 PM – Los Angeles
9/1/2020 2:42:51 PM – Tokyo
