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almondinflowerNotes: originally written for a BG miniround in a hurry. kind of erm, messy. and meta-heavy. DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU.
Characters: Akira, mostly. Yeong-ha. Hikaru.
walk these winding ways
i.
“Is this revenge?”
When Yeongha asks this you have both looked down on the board and foreseen your victory, a conclusion half-formed in stones but inevitable as gravity or the next sunrise in the mind's eye. (Anything can happen in a game of Go, of course, but not all things are likely.) You are nevertheless taking no chances. Not until the game is over.
You are therefore busy devising follow-up strategies, steps to sign and seal the match in permanence, and therefore the question, terse and direct and drawled out in haughty Korean, only catches at the edges of your attention. When it becomes clear that he is expecting a reply, it takes you several seconds to track back through your memory and retrieve his words, longer still to understand what he means.
“For Shindou, you mean? I thought you had more respect for him than that.”
“I do. For him.” Yeongha speaks while placing a stone; you looks down to make sure it has not, somehow, turned the game around.
Go professionals in four countries concur that Ko Yeongha's foremost mission in life is to test the limits of patience in as many people as possible. Your fingers dip into the bowl, come up again, slide one white piece across the board.
“I think you should concede,” you say.
“No. I don't feel like admitting that I've lost to you.”
Suyeong has explained to you before, apologetically and in bad Japanese and with no small amount of contradictory pride, that Yeongha is Yeongha, as if that accounts for everything. The sort of person who does things just because. To get a reaction. “Then we'll play to the end.”
It finishes with a four and a half moku difference, a crowding of jubilant Japanese reporters, and Yeongha angry; to go by his eyes, he hoped - wanted - of snatching victory till the last stone.
It somehow gives you more respect for Yeongha but no more empathy or liking or identification; in your life only two opponents have ever turned from Go players into something more, and both of them were Shindou.
ii.
Let us talk about this path that has walked you all your life, straight ahead and uncomplicated, white follows black follows white, one step after another until Shindou Hikaru barrelled in and remapped all the roads. About your tunnel vision, and how easily your soul is satisfied, how wanting one thing, pure and true, you have never looked at the good things, the colours that could have adorned your journey, friendship, laughter, distraction, whimsy.
Others would be wrong to pity you. You know what you want; you have it. That is more than most people get.
Remember then: placing stones by moonlight, as a child, on the old goban your father had given you, the first one you ever owned; recreating games during class in elementary school, board and opponent both imaginary. Remember walking home under a cloudy sky the day your club captain told you to leave, because your presence brought one thousand kinds of pain and nothing of benefit. Remember playing Go when your father was angry; playing Go when your mother cried; playing Go when they left you in an empty house -- playing Go with and for your father but always first for yourself, and with yourself.
And then with Shindou. And probably for him, although in true symbiotic fashion it's hard to sort one motivation from another. You are not him; you do not need him; you would not, you tell yourself, miss him if he left. (And he might leave. That's the thing about Shindou Hikaru, something fey and elusive and impossible to pinpoint or predict. You like to think that you know him best, in the areas where it counts most, that one day you will know everything. But for now there is uncertainty.)
You think he takes you for granted, but it is also true that you take him for granted. Because he exists – because he exists, your life is interesting. Something different from what it would have been, from what you foresaw.
Because you exist, his life is – well, you are not always certain what you bring to his life. But you know it is something he cannot do without.
iii.
“You won.” Shindou sounds dismayed. There are no surprises about that, but it is still annoying.
“I believe you should be saying, congratulations.” It is too early and too public to be having an argument with Shindou, but then your arguments always seem to happen in front of other people and at ridiculous and inappropriate times. Today is typical: Shindou's arms folded across his chest; the salon filled with cigarette smoke, the clack of stones on wood, chair legs scraping against the floor as Ishikawa-san straightens them, voices, the swing of the doorway as customers walk in, other games pausing as players turn to look at you and Shindou.
Shindou, as usual, is oblivious to the audience, his body language casual, every emotion including sulkiness wide open on his face. When he speaks it is loud enough to reach the corners of the room.
Well, it's not like you care about who's watching either.
“Damn it, now everyone's going to be talking about how you should have been First Board last year, and,” he shuffles his feet. It is annoying. But it is a very familiar annoyance. “Urrgh.”
“I won. You could have done the same,” you pause after that, hesitant to to add the extra clause, the twist of the knife. if you'd tried harder, if you'd stayed calmer. If you played for the game and not for your emotions. Any number of things you could say to further wound him. “For goodness' sake, Shindou,” you say, “at least pretend to be happy for me.”
The bewilderment in his face is sincere. “Whatever for?””
iv.
Some little-known facts about Ko Yeong-ha: he attended school until his third year as pro; he was a straight-A student; his parents once harboured dreams of sending him to Harvard or Yale.
Like Kurata, he is talented, and that is why he plays Go. Why he chose Go, why people choose Go – that is not a question it has ever occurred to you to ask. For you there was never any choice. Because of your father. Because of reasons that have nothing to do with your father. Because you are Touya Akira.
(But there were choices. There is always a choice, even when it does not look like one. Most of your choices have looked like Shindou Hikaru. Whom you know is your eternal rival, not because of what he claims or anyone else says or because he can beat you or anything outside yourself but simply because you know, and when truths become true just like that, can anyone really say it is choice and not destiny?)
v.
“I can beat him. I will.” Slurping ramen, drops of soup falling off Shindou's chopsticks, so much noise that even Shindou's voice has gotten lost in the crowd. You're sick of ramen, but well, it might cheer him up. It's just as well that Shindou is utterly insensitive and wouldn't notice someone trying to be nice even if his life depended on it.
“Talk is cheap,” you say, giving him your best unimpressed look. It's funny; Shindou is self-centred and strange and rude and never even tries to get along and yet - you've never been so comfortable with anyone.
“The papers all said it was the return of Japan's triumph. Something like that.” He pulls a face. “So guess you're the hero of the country now, huh?”
“Don't be silly.” You steal a strip of beef from his ramen bowl. “That's not why we play.”
Not for country or person, but this game that steadily goes on forever; you think of Shusaku and know that Shindou would not agree. It does not matter. Your similarities are stronger than your differences.
You think of saying, I'll treat you to ramen when you beat Yeongha, but stop yourself in time. He does not need that sort of reason or that sort of comfort, and neither do you.
Characters: Akira, mostly. Yeong-ha. Hikaru.
walk these winding ways
i.
“Is this revenge?”
When Yeongha asks this you have both looked down on the board and foreseen your victory, a conclusion half-formed in stones but inevitable as gravity or the next sunrise in the mind's eye. (Anything can happen in a game of Go, of course, but not all things are likely.) You are nevertheless taking no chances. Not until the game is over.
You are therefore busy devising follow-up strategies, steps to sign and seal the match in permanence, and therefore the question, terse and direct and drawled out in haughty Korean, only catches at the edges of your attention. When it becomes clear that he is expecting a reply, it takes you several seconds to track back through your memory and retrieve his words, longer still to understand what he means.
“For Shindou, you mean? I thought you had more respect for him than that.”
“I do. For him.” Yeongha speaks while placing a stone; you looks down to make sure it has not, somehow, turned the game around.
Go professionals in four countries concur that Ko Yeongha's foremost mission in life is to test the limits of patience in as many people as possible. Your fingers dip into the bowl, come up again, slide one white piece across the board.
“I think you should concede,” you say.
“No. I don't feel like admitting that I've lost to you.”
Suyeong has explained to you before, apologetically and in bad Japanese and with no small amount of contradictory pride, that Yeongha is Yeongha, as if that accounts for everything. The sort of person who does things just because. To get a reaction. “Then we'll play to the end.”
It finishes with a four and a half moku difference, a crowding of jubilant Japanese reporters, and Yeongha angry; to go by his eyes, he hoped - wanted - of snatching victory till the last stone.
It somehow gives you more respect for Yeongha but no more empathy or liking or identification; in your life only two opponents have ever turned from Go players into something more, and both of them were Shindou.
ii.
Let us talk about this path that has walked you all your life, straight ahead and uncomplicated, white follows black follows white, one step after another until Shindou Hikaru barrelled in and remapped all the roads. About your tunnel vision, and how easily your soul is satisfied, how wanting one thing, pure and true, you have never looked at the good things, the colours that could have adorned your journey, friendship, laughter, distraction, whimsy.
Others would be wrong to pity you. You know what you want; you have it. That is more than most people get.
Remember then: placing stones by moonlight, as a child, on the old goban your father had given you, the first one you ever owned; recreating games during class in elementary school, board and opponent both imaginary. Remember walking home under a cloudy sky the day your club captain told you to leave, because your presence brought one thousand kinds of pain and nothing of benefit. Remember playing Go when your father was angry; playing Go when your mother cried; playing Go when they left you in an empty house -- playing Go with and for your father but always first for yourself, and with yourself.
And then with Shindou. And probably for him, although in true symbiotic fashion it's hard to sort one motivation from another. You are not him; you do not need him; you would not, you tell yourself, miss him if he left. (And he might leave. That's the thing about Shindou Hikaru, something fey and elusive and impossible to pinpoint or predict. You like to think that you know him best, in the areas where it counts most, that one day you will know everything. But for now there is uncertainty.)
You think he takes you for granted, but it is also true that you take him for granted. Because he exists – because he exists, your life is interesting. Something different from what it would have been, from what you foresaw.
Because you exist, his life is – well, you are not always certain what you bring to his life. But you know it is something he cannot do without.
iii.
“You won.” Shindou sounds dismayed. There are no surprises about that, but it is still annoying.
“I believe you should be saying, congratulations.” It is too early and too public to be having an argument with Shindou, but then your arguments always seem to happen in front of other people and at ridiculous and inappropriate times. Today is typical: Shindou's arms folded across his chest; the salon filled with cigarette smoke, the clack of stones on wood, chair legs scraping against the floor as Ishikawa-san straightens them, voices, the swing of the doorway as customers walk in, other games pausing as players turn to look at you and Shindou.
Shindou, as usual, is oblivious to the audience, his body language casual, every emotion including sulkiness wide open on his face. When he speaks it is loud enough to reach the corners of the room.
Well, it's not like you care about who's watching either.
“Damn it, now everyone's going to be talking about how you should have been First Board last year, and,” he shuffles his feet. It is annoying. But it is a very familiar annoyance. “Urrgh.”
“I won. You could have done the same,” you pause after that, hesitant to to add the extra clause, the twist of the knife. if you'd tried harder, if you'd stayed calmer. If you played for the game and not for your emotions. Any number of things you could say to further wound him. “For goodness' sake, Shindou,” you say, “at least pretend to be happy for me.”
The bewilderment in his face is sincere. “Whatever for?””
iv.
Some little-known facts about Ko Yeong-ha: he attended school until his third year as pro; he was a straight-A student; his parents once harboured dreams of sending him to Harvard or Yale.
Like Kurata, he is talented, and that is why he plays Go. Why he chose Go, why people choose Go – that is not a question it has ever occurred to you to ask. For you there was never any choice. Because of your father. Because of reasons that have nothing to do with your father. Because you are Touya Akira.
(But there were choices. There is always a choice, even when it does not look like one. Most of your choices have looked like Shindou Hikaru. Whom you know is your eternal rival, not because of what he claims or anyone else says or because he can beat you or anything outside yourself but simply because you know, and when truths become true just like that, can anyone really say it is choice and not destiny?)
v.
“I can beat him. I will.” Slurping ramen, drops of soup falling off Shindou's chopsticks, so much noise that even Shindou's voice has gotten lost in the crowd. You're sick of ramen, but well, it might cheer him up. It's just as well that Shindou is utterly insensitive and wouldn't notice someone trying to be nice even if his life depended on it.
“Talk is cheap,” you say, giving him your best unimpressed look. It's funny; Shindou is self-centred and strange and rude and never even tries to get along and yet - you've never been so comfortable with anyone.
“The papers all said it was the return of Japan's triumph. Something like that.” He pulls a face. “So guess you're the hero of the country now, huh?”
“Don't be silly.” You steal a strip of beef from his ramen bowl. “That's not why we play.”
Not for country or person, but this game that steadily goes on forever; you think of Shusaku and know that Shindou would not agree. It does not matter. Your similarities are stronger than your differences.
You think of saying, I'll treat you to ramen when you beat Yeongha, but stop yourself in time. He does not need that sort of reason or that sort of comfort, and neither do you.
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-24 02:23 am (UTC)is to test the limits of patience in in as many people as possible
Extra 'in'
everything, But for now there is uncertainty
your 'but' is capitalized? It shouldn't be..
hesitant to to add the extra clause
Extra 'to'
drops of soup falling of Shindou's chopsticks onto the table
'off' instead of 'of'
no subject
Date: 2009-07-24 04:22 am (UTC)