Chapter 3

You are you. You know that well enough. You have always been who you are.

In you are many pieces: your father's teaching and your mother's care; Ichikawa's mothering and Ashiwara's big brothering; kifu and shidougo and Ogata's assessing stares. No one knows the pieces of yourself better than you, for you are your own creation. Or so you thought.

You never thought there was a piece of you missing. Not until—

"Shindou Hikaru," you say, "is real. I've seen him. I played him."

"Right." Ogata's derision is less sharp that usual. He's not used to aiming his barbs at you. "He's about as real as that nonsense you keep spouting about the children's tournament."

"I'm telling the truth. He was there." Your own voice wavers too. Why would Ogata do this? "He got in big trouble because he spoke during someone else's game."

"It was you who caused that fiasco. Call the Institute in the morning and ask them." Ogata sounds so sure of yourself, but he's not making any sense. He must be lying. Right? The wrongness of it all makes your breath come short and quick, hitching in your throat like a panic attack.

"I'm not lying," you rasp.

Hands fiddling in his pocket for a cigarette, Ogata doesn't even look at you. "Well? What are we doing to do about this?"

He's talking to your father. You turn to look at the man who raised you, always with such kindness and wisdom, and hardly recognize him. The look on his face…

Your father says: "You've kept this from me."

He's not speaking to you, or even Ogata. He's speaking to your mother. You've never heard your father sound so angry before. Not like this—this hot fury, neither strategy nor play behind it.

"I thought it was just a game," she says. Her worry is not just a slender crease between her brows now. You can see the lines around her mouth, the moisture in her dark eyes spilling over; mascara smudges on her lashes. "I thought it wasn't real to him, just make-believe. Harumi thought so too. An imaginary friend to play games against."

Ogata's cigarette quivers between his fingers as he inhales. You watch the tip flare hot then turn cold and gray again. "Go is a game. This is something a lot less fun."

Your mother turns on him, eyes flaring red around the edges, redder than his cigarette. "This is about go and you know it. It's all those people telling him to turn pro—that pressure on him, it's too much for a boy his age."

"A boy his age," Ogata snorts, "is too old for this kind of shit."

She sucks in a breath. Then she lets it out along with some choice words you've never heard her use before. Ogata responds in kind. Your father stands by, silently helpless.

You feel a strange sensation as you watch them argue. A weightlessness. Detachment, as if you exist outside your own body. Whoever the real you is, he is hovering above your shoulder, watching and whispering the right moves to play: an incorporeal piece of yourself that's been missing until now, though you never knew it. Not until Shindou came along.

"I can't believe you didn't say anything."

"Why is this any of your business?"

"I care for him too!"

Stop talking about me like I'm not here. But you can't seem to speak. It's like Shindou has crawled into you, found all those empty spaces and taken them over…

"We need to take him to a doctor," someone says. It's your father. His voice shakes—you've never heard it shake before. "In the morning, first thing."

Your mother looks to him, away from Ogata. Something in her falls apart; her whole body seems to sway; she falls into your father, who embraces her. This is another thing you've never seen before—your parents hugging. They must be in great pain.

It makes you a little angry to think that Shindou has done this to your family.

"So you admit he's nuts."

"Stop," your father says to Ogata, sounding as tired as you feel. "This isn't helping. It might be making things worse."

His eyes meet yours, and you wonder what he sees. You avert your eyes. After a moment he turns away, more weary than ever. "Ogata, perhaps you should go home."

Ogata stiffens. The fingers gripping the remains of his cigarette go completely still. "Sure. But make sure you actually go to the doctor. Don't brush this aside." He looks at your mother. "He's not well."

Then he bows slightly, excuses himself, politely takes his leave as he usually does.

When he is gone, your mother eyes your father instead. They're still not looking at you. "How is a regular doctor going to help? You know it's about go." Her voice is soft, steely. "Deny it all you want, but you know he's been hurt by it. He has no friends his own age."

Your father's face does not fall. Yet even before he speaks, you know how much her words have hurt him. The pain in your chest doubles.

Shindou, you say inside your head. This is all your fault.

From the garden you hear the sound of the water spout hitting rock, thock. Then the long, slow descent of water into the pond, shhhhh. The flow of time is somehow mortifying.

"I think," your father says finally, the voice a man uses when he resigns a game, "that I would like to speak to Akira alone."