Hikaru No Go Fan Fiction ❯ Riding the Wave ❯ Home ( Chapter 10 )

Riding the Wave

Home

The last thing Saya added to the living room was fresh flowers that Grandmother's friends had sent. She looked around and smiled. The house was aired out and dusted and clean and ready for her grandmother to come home.

"Good job," Sensei said with a smile. "I'm sure she'll be very happy and relaxed when she sees it all. It will help her recover, I'm sure."

"I hope so," Saya said as she looked around once more. She was very nervous about everything that had been moved around and changed. Spaces had been widened for a wheel chair, and her grandmother would have a caretaker for a while. It didn't really feel like home anymore. Sensei's house felt more like home than this place, with everything moved around and all of the knickknacks stored away. Or maybe it didn't feel like home anymore because Grandmother wasn't there. Houses became homes because of the people who lived there.

"Remember, it's fine with me if you come over any time. You know my phone number, so if anything goes wrong I'll help any way I can. I know what this must be like for you--"

Saya cut him off with a sudden hug. "Thank you, Sensei. I don't think I could ever repay you for everything the last few weeks. For teaching me, and for taking care of me. And for taking me to that place where I could meet so many other pros. That was a lot of fun."

"You really liked that?" Sensei asked, a little surprised.

"Yeah," she said softly. Her thoughts were filled with what happened that weekend, and how she just didn't know if anything had been resolved. Shindou-sensei had disappeared that night, and she'd been afraid to ask why. Now might be her only chance, though. She took a deep breath. "Sensei, about Shindou-sensei..."

"He's just having a hard time right now."

Saya nodded, biting her lower lip. "Will you two still be friends?" she finally blurted out.

He nodded, but it lacked conviction. "We've been friends for years and years. He asked me to be best man at his wedding, after all. That's got to mean something."

The silence rose again, and Saya decided to fill it by bringing out her family's goban. It was a little bit old and a little bit worn, but it was still beautiful and well taken care of. "It was my father's," she explained as she sat down.

She played with a four-stone handicap, and she did well enough for someone who was so nervous. The future weighed heavily on her mind, and the game soothed her a great deal. "Do you believe Shindou-sensei? About the ghost, Sai?" It had popped into her head as they played.

He tilted his head to the side and then slowly nodded. "It's the only explanation."

"Sometimes," she said slowly, "I wonder if part of him really lives in me. And I wonder if that's why I love to play go so much, and why I can just feel what the right move is sometimes. But that feels like a very selfish thought, when I hear Shindou-sensei say that Sai was the best go player ever. I really hope that maybe he's a part of everyone who loves to play. And that way he'll really live forever. Do you think that might be real?"

Sensei thought about that for a moment. "I don't know. It might be nice to think that part of him moved on, and that something of him was reborn in you. If that's true or not, you still have your own path to take, and you have to learn what it is that you need to learn. Either way, I'm going to teach you everything I can. Not because of some ghost that disappeared ten years ago, but because you love the game as much as I do, and as much as Shindou does. And, I'm willing to bet, as much as Sai did. That might be from a ghost, or that might be from the love your parents had for the game, but neither of those matter. That feeling is yours and yours alone now. It's completely up to you what you do with it."

Saya smiled, feeling like a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. "Thank you, Sensei." That was the moment she knew she would play the game, and aim for being a pro. Not for Touya-sensei or Shindou-sensei, not for the memory of her father, and not for the idea that she might owe it to some ghost. She really did love playing go, and she finally felt like it was okay to.

Even if she faltered.

Even if she lost.

Even if people lied and caused a big scene like they did with Sai a thousand years ago, and like they did with Shindou-sensei three years ago.

She had something she loved, something she could look forward to, and that was okay.

~~~~~@~~~~~

Saya's lessons continued on the next Wednesday. It went smoothly, and she was sure she'd improved, but Touya-sensei didn't say very much at all. He gave her books to solve problems, mentioned increasing their lessons to three a week, and sent her home in tense silence.

She stepped outside and nearly ran into Shindou-sensei lurking on the sidewalk, hesitating as he looked at something small he held in his hand. "Shindou-sensei?"

"Oh, Saya-chan. You startled me. Your lesson is over already?"

"Yes. It just finished," she said softly. "I was surprised you didn't arrive before now. But you will now, won't you?"

"I don't know," Shindou-sensei said, head bowed as he pushed his hands into his pockets. "I could walk you home instead. It's getting dark outside."

"Okay," Saya said, but she stood still and held out her pinky. "But you have to promise you'll go back and talk to Touya-sensei."

He looked surprised for a moment and then he took her pinky with his and promised. "I'll go back there and talk to him. But I didn't say when." He chuckled at her scandalized look.

"Cheater! That's cheating!"

They laughed a bit, and then Saya started walking. At least she'd gotten that much from him. "Sensei, why don't you want to go back and talk? I haven't seen you since that weekend when we were all at the hotel. Did Touya-sensei say something wrong? Did he do something bad?"

"No, it was me," Shindou-sensei sighed. "And it's complicated." They walked in silence for a minute, and then he paused to take a deep breath. "I'm sorry I left without saying anything to you. It must have been weird in the morning when you woke up and I wasn't there." His voice lowered and Saya had to strain to hear what he said next. "That feeling is the worst."

"I feel like I want to apologize, and I don't know why," Saya said, laughing a little. "You're the one apologizing, but I feel like I need to! But it's okay, really. Touya-sensei was there, so I wasn't lonely."

He was looking at her funny, and then he shook his head and stopped walking. "It's not that strange. Sometimes you really do make me think of Sai, even if you are a girl. And I hate it when people disappear, because that's what he did. So I didn't want to do that to you."

"Is it weird if I think I wish part of Sai was really part of me? Because I'm ten, and you said he disappeared ten years ago? And it would mean that some part of me was special, and went on for hundreds and thousands of years. And it would be like you're almost like part of my family, because it's just me and Grandmother now, and that's very lonely." Saya sniffled and wiped her eyes. She hadn't meant to start crying. "I wish I could be Sai, and be your friend, and we'd never have to stop being friends. But I don't think I am, because I don't remember something like that happening at all, and I'm still learning how to play go. Touya-sensei is making me work harder now, and I'm sure it's because I'm not good enough to be like Sai. And some day everyone will see that...Touya-sensei will know it, and you will know it, and I won't really belong anywhere again."

He knelt down in front of her and held her shoulders, waiting until she looked in her eyes. "Sai was Sai, and you are you. And I think he lives on in everyone who plays go, and everyone who loves to play it as much as we do." It calmed her down, and he handed her a handkerchief to wipe away her tears. "Touya is making you work harder because you're so good, not because you're bad. I think he was always just so much better than everyone else around him that he doesn't understand why everyone isn't perfect already. And the better you are the harder he'll push you. He'll start screaming at you every time you make a mistake soon, and that's when you'll know he thinks you're really good."

Saya giggled a little as she wiped her tears away. "You don't think he'll really yell at me, right?"

"Who knows?" Shindou-sensei shrugged. "Probably not, because you're a sweet tempered girl, and you're learning faster than I'm sure he expected. But you've never seen him before a really important game. He gets this scary face and his eyes start glowing like some sort of evil demon, and he totally forgets how to smile."

"Stop it, Shindou-sensei! You're scaring me!" She giggled some more, running away a few steps. They started walking again, and she asked, "Do you get a scary face, too?"

"Do I?" he repeated thoughtfully. "I don't know. I'm just thinking about the game, and how I'll win. Maybe I get a serious face, but I don't think it's a scary face. I never thought about looking in the mirror before a game, though. You tell me, some day. Okay?"

"When will I be able to tell you? When would I see your serious face?"

"When you're a pro," he grinned. "I'll bet by then, since you're learning from Touya, you'll have a scary face, too."

"Me?" She laughed. "Me, scary? That's just silly."

"Why not? You already have my friend Ochi scared of how good you'll be some day."

"Ochi..san..." Saya frowned a little bit. "Are you sure he's your friend?"

"What?" Shindou looked a little confused, but he shrugged a little. "Yeah. I've known him for years. We didn't always get along, but..." He trailed off for a second. "He is."

"Touya-sensei doesn't like him."

"I don't know why," he said. "But I don't think it's any of my business. They used to get along okay, I think. There's still respect for each other's games. So, it must be personal."

Saya hesitated, but she had to speak up. "Touya-sensei said it's something about talking to reporters," she blurted out in a rush, and then covered her mouth to keep anything more from coming out.

"Ochi said the same about him a few years ago," Shindou said with a slightly amused smile. "Maybe I've gotten to the bottom of it after all. I know that neither of them are the kind of person to say things like that, though. They wouldn't gossip, they wouldn't spread rumors, and they wouldn't try to defeat me with words. That's beneath both of them." He looked thoughtful. "Saya, a few years ago there was a new reporter for Weekly World Go. That reporter wasn't satisfied with just what readers were already reading and wanted to get attention for his writing so he could move on to other newspapers. He interviewed them both, and a few other people, before he posted an article that said some horrible things about me and the person I was living with at the time. It sold a lot of papers, but there was a horrible backlash among the players. Kuwabara-sensei was the first to stand up for me, and a lot of others tried to defend me, but the damage was done and in such a way that I couldn't really defend myself. The reporter said it was all speculation and rumor in the article, but in such a way that it made everyone think it was true. So it wasn't any one person who made the reporter say those things, it was just a little bit here and a little bit there, even things I'd said myself, that was responsible for the article.

"Eventually the scandal became too distracting and the people who had stood up for me, including Touya and Ochi, managed to get the reporter fired. There are still bad feelings all around from it, though. Every year there's a new pro who will fight me with a look in their eye that says they have no respect for me, until I prove my skill against them. Eventually it will go away, but for now I'm just trying to make it so there's more to remember about me than that. I want people to see me, to see my game, and to see Sai who lives on in my game, instead of lies and rumors and misunderstandings."

They walked the rest of the way to Saya's house in silence, and then she turned to him with a question. "Is that why you're getting married? And why you don't want to be too close to Touya-sensei? I can tell you like each other, but--"

"Yeah." He sighed and laid a hand on the fence that was in front of her house. "That's exactly why I was going to get married. And I didn't want to bring Touya down with me. But it's making Akari sad, and it's making Touya sad. And really, me too. That's not what I want anymore. Getting married won't stop the rumors. It will only make it harder on everyone when the marriage ends." He looked up and smiled a little. "I know what I want now. I just don't know if I should really go after it."

"Touya-sensei won't disappear," Saya said. "I'm sure of it. Good night, Shindou-sensei!"

She ran inside the house before he could argue, or agree, or even say good night.