Hikaru No Go Fan Fiction ❯ End of an Era ❯ Midgame ( Chapter 2 )

Title: End of an Era

Author: Skimmilk

Rating: G-PG

Pairing(s): Hikaki, AkaMita

Disclaimer: no. duh.

AN: I just don't know

 

 

Mid-game

 

I had known who Shindo Hikaru was, had interacted with him at many a game day, and heard a great deal about him before I was ever formally introduced to him.

 

The younger dans all knew who he was: the genius beginner-dan who had made pro after playing for only two years. He had no master, learned Go from his junior high Go Club, and had gone from bottom ranking insei to pro in less than a year. He was supposedly the rival of Touya Akira, and one of the more eccentric pros in the circuit. His distinctive hair and clothing suggested someone who possibly played poorly and had become pro through accident, but then you played him and could see the genius hidden beneath a disarming grin and childish manners. There were the few months that he had stopped playing after he had passed the Pro Exam, that were never explained, but afterwards, when he came back, there was a great deal of fear of the beginner-dan.

 

He was young, brash, and one of the few young pros who acted his age.

 

As a student of Touya Meijin, I had learned much more about the unconventional teen. There seemed to be an unusual amount of interest in the boy when it came to the older pros. In the privacy of his home, it was known that Touya Akira sought Shindo as a rival. They were contemporaries, and something in Shindo sparked the interest of the younger Touya. This was unusual, if only because he had never shown any interest in any children his own age before. It became progressively stranger as the years went on. Touya Meijin had had a certain amount of interest in the boy. I learned later that he had requested to play the boy in the Beginner-dan Series match. His irregular game had been talked about for months afterward, accepting the fact that the boy had not become a Pro out of skill, but rather a good amount of luck. What most do not know is that Ogata Ouza and the late Kuwabara Honinbu had watched that match. Rumor has it, that they had made a wager on the match. What added to the mystery was that neither Ogata, Touya, nor Kuwabara had lost any respect for the boy in the aftermath of that particular debacle.

 

I was formally introduced to him when he was sixteen.

 

I had seen him play at the Young Lions Tournament, the Hokuto Cup, and had seen him play a multitude of times. He and Touya had been playing semi-regular matches at the Touya Meijin's Go Salon. It wasn't until I played him that I had understood what it was about the boy.

 

We played each other, for the first time, when he was sixteen and only a 3-dan. It was one of the ranking matches about six months after the Hokuto Cup. I had seen him around; I played one of his classmates under Morishita 9-dan, semi-regularly. I had seen him at the Institute, read about him in Go Weekly, read his kifu, and heard Touya speak about him rather frequently. We knew each other well enough that when we saw each other, we nodded and moved on. We were formally introduced that day.

 

I was charmed. His appearance reflected his attitude and overall manner—loud, cheerful, effervescent, and somewhat childish. In the world of the pros, someone who is so forthright, who wears their heart on their sleeve, is such a rarity. The adults, even the teenagers, of this world are solemn, formal, and generally very stoic. Shindo was a breath of fresh air to me.

 

At the time, I was unsure of what to think about this boy. I knew he had some skill, he had made pro, was acknowledged by the older generation, but he was so different from what a typical pro was. Unfortunately, I underestimated him.

 

Decades later, I still remember the game. The hundreds of games I've played, I barely recall, but with startling clarity, I still remember the game against Shindo. I remember the way his jeans had frayed at the back hems, the tops of the pockets, and had a bright green paint streak across the right front hip. The bright red and yellow shirt he wore with his distinctive number “5” written in black on the right sleeve. I remember the scent of his cologne, and if I smell it today, roughly twenty years later, I can almost feel a cold sweat forming on the back of my neck. I remember how less than five minutes into the game, he had shifted to a less formal, cross-legged, position, and how here he had cut my shape, in the top right, in half. And here, I thought that I had had the upper hand, but was devastated two hands later. And here, I had realized that I was seriously outclassed and had resigned, behind by five moku.

 

The one thing I remember with devastating clarity is the sound of finality of his fan as he flicked it shut at the end of the game. As it ended, his face shifted back to happy and candid, the ageless appearance of omnipotence and control disappearing like a vapor in the wind. Back was the child who was such an enigma to the Go world, laughing and joking with his friends as they congratulated him on his win.

 

I couldn't begrudge him any of his joy. There was a beauty in his game. When I say that I was outclassed, I mean it. For every stone I placed, every stone I read into the game, he had read ten stones further. And while there was a joy in his game, there was an infinite sadness that I couldn't understand. There were many levels to his understanding of the game, but there were many emotions in his plays. When he placed the stone here, distracting me, pulling me to the left side and weakening the formation in the bottom right corner, his mouth seemed to form a ghost of a smile, and almost instantly, it was gone. But while he seemed to be concentrating so hard, there was a sadness that lingered in the corners of his eyes, regret tugging on the edges of that tiny smile.

 

Shindo and Touya are the best of their generation, and the best and the brightest that the Go world has produced to this day. The last twenty years, they've dominated the Go world. For any book written about them, any article written about either of them the last few years, you can't mention one without the other. They come as a pair, as in their game, they've affected each other more than anyone.

 

They have the genius that many of us strive to have.

O
O
O

 

This time I had come to visit on a Sunday. It was the weekend and most had their day of, so the Shindo-Touya home was filled with friends and family. It was near the end, and most knew it. They had been preparing for the end for the last eight years, and instead of solemnity and sadness, everyone was working their best to keep the atmosphere light.

 

Today, the Go room had three Goban in the middle of the room. Touya seemed to be playing a triple game versus his lover, daughter, and father. Touya hadn't been able to hold a stone for over nine months now, and he sat resting against Shindo's chest as Shindo played the stones for his lover. Touya would call out the placement, and Shindo would place the stones for him, and then place the stones for himself. Touya was quite obviously out of breath. All three games had gone into yose and from what I could tell, Touya would beat his daughter by five moku, the game with his father was too close to call, and his game with Shindo appeared to be one of their meandering games that made sense only to the players. Those games, they played the most eccentric stones trying to get the upper hand with the strangest formations.

 

Fujisaki-san and her long time fiancée Mitani Yuuki had three of the kifu books in front of them, recording the games. Isumi 7-dan and Waya 7-dan were doing a commentary on the three games that had Touya Akiko in giggles. Frequently, Mitani-san and Fujisaki-san threw pillows at the older men for distracting them from recording.

 

The games ended within five minutes of each other, a loss of half a moku to the Meijin, a win of five-and-a-half moku to his daughter—she's preparing to enter the next pro exam at seventeen—and a loss to Shindo of nine moku. Oftentimes, the games they played involved placements that appeared suicidal if they lost or ingenious if they won. Touya's play was apparently suicidal.

 

The games broke up, and Touya, Shindo, and I sat in the corner of the room speaking while the Hitomi-kun played a game versus the former Meijin, Waya-san and Isumi-san played another game, and Fujisaki-san and Mitani-san studied some of the kifu on the shelves. Touya Akiko said something about bringing some tea.

 

Touya appeared content with letting Shindo continue their story for the time being. I suspect, that breathing was becoming difficult, and speaking along with it. “We were the young stars of the Go world, and we didn't think that anything could bring us down. The last twenty years—hell all of my career—of our careers seem wrapped in scandal and speculation.

 

“I have discovered that over the years, that Go pros seem to have either hopelessly boring lives or are very discreet, because gossip travels very quickly in our circles.” Here Touya-san brought cups of tea. Shindo took a rather loud sip, “I was formally outted four months after I won the Tengen title. As discreet I had been, at the time I had been seeing a classmate of mine from Junior high school, and one of my neighbors had leaked it to the press. We had been dating for nearly a year at that point, and after the press had run us both over hot coals, Kaga decided that he couldn't handle the pressure of dating a celebrity. Less than a month after the first article, we broke off our relationship.”

 

He smiled, not quite painfully, but caustically, “Months earlier, I was being praised for being an example for modern Japan, a Go genius. After being outted, there were more articles and while Go Weekly hadn't brought itself down to that level, other magazines and newspapers became essentially tabloids. I was criticized for debauchery, there were speculations on my lovers—all of my friends, married or no, single or no were dragged into the papers. Being seen with me became the ultimate black mark—editorials were written on how I was an example of the depravity of modern times led to people like me. I kept copies of the more scathing and humorous ones. My mother and father were shown as prime examples of bad parenting. I got letters from angry people, church leaders, my teaching appointments were canceled, and no one wanted to play with me. I would win games by default because the other pros wouldn't want to play with a “fag.” Even worse were the people who would claim that because they were straight and I was gay, “God” was on their side, therefore, they would win. It was some really obscure reasoning that I still don't understand. Anger was good for me; I had a perfect record that year.

 

“As a bigger slap in the face, I defended my title and got another. The people that mattered didn't care about my choices, and well, they knew. And all they cared about was my game, my game was good, better than before really, and as long as it stayed at that level, they didn't care. Anyone who I actually cared about knew that I was gay, and they stuck with me. Those who were my friends openly supported me. Touya, Waya, Isumi, Kurata, Kuwabara, Kadowaki, Ogata, my family, my friends, I even was supported by most of the Korean and Chinese pros. I partly think that they were just being obstinate and wanted to prove that they were more open minded than the Japanese. I had support from a lot of the insei—I had been coming periodically to teach—the amateurs, and even Ochi, who has hated me since we were insei.

 

“I made no comment, I didn't get angry, I didn't defend myself, I played my game. I went out of my way to prove that being outted did nothing to my game, I was a professional Go player, and nothing was going to get in the way of my game. Over the years, there had been slight allusions to my homosexuality in articles, but by the time I was twenty, I had five of the titles, and there was no more speculation. No one cared anymore; my game was what was important. And to me, nothing else mattered than the hand of god.

 

“That's where some more trouble started, though. I was going to get the hand of god—the perfect move in the perfect game—with Touya, and there, when we were eighteen, is where everything just went weird. For years everyone thought that we were more than just friends/rivals. I actually think that Ogata was the first to think that. About the time I was fifteen was when I first started hearing the whispers, but I didn't bother Touya, and since no one was saying anything to my face, I really didn't care. But after my outing, everyone was convinced. It didn't help that Touya was one of the people that stuck with me, but we also played all of the time and hung out together. We didn't get together until we were twenty. Until then, Touya seemed to be pretty asexual,” at this point Touya shoved at Shindo slightly, settling out of breath. “We were pretty discreet, and by the time we took all the titles, we had been dating for a year-and-a-half, we announced that we were seeing each other. And just as everything seemed calm again, we opened a whole new can of worms.

 

“The fact that none of the older pros were saying anything, other than expressing their support, helped the acceptance of our relationship. We still got a lot of letters, but not as many as before. And some of the letters were supportive; people thanking us for standing up and showing that homosexuality wasn't disgusting or something to be feared. When we moved in together, we were pretty much old news; there wasn't a scandal or anything. The fact that our game had improved so much helped with that.

 

“Our next big thing was when we adopted Hitomi-chan. We adopted her when we were twenty-three. Scandal, inquiry, blah, blah, blah. We got her, she was three. She had come from an abusive family; so, it was kinda rough for a while there. Tiny little body, she didn't really trust us, but after a while, she understood that we weren't going to hurt her or abandon her. And of course, Touya just had to teach her Go. And now we have our little Go princess.” Shindo smiled and waved to his daughter, who grinned and blew kisses. Her grandfather promptly placed his stone forcefully, “pachi” resounding through the air. She grinned ruefully and went back to her game.

 

“We've always been kept on out toes. Most people would say that Touya must be difficult to live with, and I probably give headaches to Touya, but that's what has kept our relationship interesting over the years.” He pressed his face into Touya's hair, muffling the words, “It's always been interesting. And at first we had our problems. He couldn't stand that I liked to eat ramen so much, I couldn't stand his wardrobe, but, intrinsically, I think that we're so very similar that we couldn't help ourselves. In the end, he's my other half.” He lifted his head to grin at me, a blast from the past; there was something that was distinctly sad in it. “People throw around the terms “love” and “soul-mates” all the time, and they lose power with their overuse. But for me, Touya, he's…he… Kuwabara liked to say that go is a two-player game. You can only play with two people. One person can only play one side, and if he plays both, there will be no brilliance or any kind of significance in the game. Only with two people, two people of genius can you have a great game. If one if a genius and one is not of the same level, the genius may find “something” in the game, but… For me, Touya, he's my opponent. Go's a two-player game, and Touya, he's my opponent. No one else. Just Touya. He's my other half.

 

“It was eight years ago, we were twenty-nine, when Touya started to feel rundown. He went to get a physical and that's when we found out. That year, Touya lost to Kadowaki in the Honinbu semifinals, and Kadowaki played me in order to play for the title. Needless to say, he lost.”

 

Touya had fallen asleep, he tired so easily these days, and here Shindo decided to stop, “I think we'll call it a night, Ashiwara-kun.” Gently, with more strength than you would expect from a Go player—but then again Touya had lost about 18 kg—he lifted Touya in his arms and went to put him to bed. Hitomi, her grandmother, and her grandfather went with them, leaving the rest of us in the Go room. They would be back in a few minutes, and I wanted to speak with their friends. They were all quite amiable, and when Shindo and his family came back, the whispered conferences in the corner made me feel like I was intruding, and I left rather promptly.

 

One thing that stuck with me for quite some time was something that Isumi-san had said. “My father, he once told me that there are people who are born to do great things. When I met Shindo, that was my impression, he was born for Go. He was born to play. My father also once told me that the stars that burn the brightest burn half as long.” He stroked a hand along the spine of a kifu notebook in his hand. I noted that it was a Shindo-Touya book from the years 2004 to 2005. “When I saw Touya and Shindo play each other for the first time, that's what I thought. I felt such regret and sadness, because I thought, “They'll burn half as long.” Their brilliance is unmatched, only found in the other. Touya was known as a genius from the time he was still in short pants, and he's only thirty-seven, but he's nearly done. Shindo began nearly ten years later, and I wonder, without his match, how long is he going to last?” Isumi-san lit a match and put it to his cigarette—a habit that I know he only began within the last year, “Touya was like a match; he burnt brightly, hot, and quickly. Before he could burn out, he and Shindo lit a candle that has been burning for years. From them, they lit other sparks, people who dreamed of attaining their skill, people who wanted to play them, people who wanted to be someone called friend. But I think that without each other, Touya would have burnt out a long time ago. And from what I've heard from Fujisaki-kun and Shindo-san, Touya lit Shindo's match. Without him, Shindo would never have discovered his destiny; he never would have come this close to the hand of god, or any type of greatness. So, I wonder, what happens to Shindo when he loses the spark?” With two, rather violent drags, teeth biting deep into the filter, Isumi-san took his cigarette and dropped it into his can of soda. There was a powerful sizzle, and a stream of smoky steam as it went out. With that, Isumi-san went to the wall to push the book into place.

 

End part 2

 

AN: er…review, please, even if you don't like…