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31_days2010-03-06 11:35 pm
issen4.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2010-03-06 11:35 pm
6 March/Hikaru no Go/Spirited Away crossover/Twice the River 6/?
Title: Twice the River 6/?
Series: Hikaru no Go/Spirited Away crossover
Day/Theme: 6 March/Memory is seated predominantly in the heart.
Chihiro let herself into the hospital room, closing the door quietly after behind her, and was not surprised to see that Sai was still awake. The side lamp was on, its pool of light focused on the simple goban place on the table, the beginnings of a game being arranged from the go-ke.
Sai had looked up when she entered, and his expression was watchful now. He did not mention the fact that it was near midnight and past visiting hours.
She walked closer, noting that already, he looked recovered. Alive. Human. All things impossible given who he was, and yet--
"I've been trying to remember what it is you want to know, Ogino-san" Sai said.
--yet she was the one who made it so. No, Chihiro reminded herself. Not her. She had only been calling for Haku.
"When did you remember, then?" she asked.
"When I played with Hikaru, and remembered." His fingers curled over the top of one of the go-ke. "Or perhaps to be more accurate, I started to remember the moment I touched the stones you gave. They feel like ice to the touch, do you know?"
She smiled grimly. "River stones."
"Yes," Sai said. "They helped. But I think memory must come from the heart and not the head, for otherwise why would my heart beat so hard when I realized who Hikaru was?"
That was what Haku had been like for her, too, Chihiro thought. After she had returned from the world of the gods at ten, her memory of what happened faded, but each time, she thought she was forgetting him, her heart would ache.
"Now I remember."
She came closer, unable to summon more than a tired curiosity and then felt guilty about that. There were times when she felt that the girl who had worked in a supernatural bathhouse and who had made a promise to a river god was merely someone she had known in her childhood, a person that she had already forgotten from lack of contact. Only a dogged determination pulled her forward, these days.
Sai reached inside one of the go-ke and extracted a white stone, holding it between the index finger and the middle finger, and placed it firmly on a spot in the go-ke.
Chihiro could not but notice that the other go-ke had been placed on the other side of the goban, where an actual opponent would find it with easy reach. Who was Sai playing with? A sudden premonition gripped her, and she glanced around into the shadowy room.
"I had been forbidden to play Go by the emperor, and I thought that life without Go would be unbearable," Sai explained.
As though he was softening the blow, Chihiro thought.
"Unable to think of another way out, I decided to drown myself in the river." He shook his head. "No, not just a river. His river. He was very young when I jumped into him, you know. So young, in fact, that I think he barely understood what I intended, as a child who had yet to understand what death is."
Chihiro held her breath.
"I think that was why he kept my body in his river, while my soul searched far and wide for a way to play Go again. I have met Torajiro, who taught me much even as I taught him Go, and then I met Hikaru." He smiled sadly. "I, too, would like to meet him now, to thank him for the way things have turned out. But of your beloved I have no news."
Series: Hikaru no Go/Spirited Away crossover
Day/Theme: 6 March/Memory is seated predominantly in the heart.
Chihiro let herself into the hospital room, closing the door quietly after behind her, and was not surprised to see that Sai was still awake. The side lamp was on, its pool of light focused on the simple goban place on the table, the beginnings of a game being arranged from the go-ke.
Sai had looked up when she entered, and his expression was watchful now. He did not mention the fact that it was near midnight and past visiting hours.
She walked closer, noting that already, he looked recovered. Alive. Human. All things impossible given who he was, and yet--
"I've been trying to remember what it is you want to know, Ogino-san" Sai said.
--yet she was the one who made it so. No, Chihiro reminded herself. Not her. She had only been calling for Haku.
"When did you remember, then?" she asked.
"When I played with Hikaru, and remembered." His fingers curled over the top of one of the go-ke. "Or perhaps to be more accurate, I started to remember the moment I touched the stones you gave. They feel like ice to the touch, do you know?"
She smiled grimly. "River stones."
"Yes," Sai said. "They helped. But I think memory must come from the heart and not the head, for otherwise why would my heart beat so hard when I realized who Hikaru was?"
That was what Haku had been like for her, too, Chihiro thought. After she had returned from the world of the gods at ten, her memory of what happened faded, but each time, she thought she was forgetting him, her heart would ache.
"Now I remember."
She came closer, unable to summon more than a tired curiosity and then felt guilty about that. There were times when she felt that the girl who had worked in a supernatural bathhouse and who had made a promise to a river god was merely someone she had known in her childhood, a person that she had already forgotten from lack of contact. Only a dogged determination pulled her forward, these days.
Sai reached inside one of the go-ke and extracted a white stone, holding it between the index finger and the middle finger, and placed it firmly on a spot in the go-ke.
Chihiro could not but notice that the other go-ke had been placed on the other side of the goban, where an actual opponent would find it with easy reach. Who was Sai playing with? A sudden premonition gripped her, and she glanced around into the shadowy room.
"I had been forbidden to play Go by the emperor, and I thought that life without Go would be unbearable," Sai explained.
As though he was softening the blow, Chihiro thought.
"Unable to think of another way out, I decided to drown myself in the river." He shook his head. "No, not just a river. His river. He was very young when I jumped into him, you know. So young, in fact, that I think he barely understood what I intended, as a child who had yet to understand what death is."
Chihiro held her breath.
"I think that was why he kept my body in his river, while my soul searched far and wide for a way to play Go again. I have met Torajiro, who taught me much even as I taught him Go, and then I met Hikaru." He smiled sadly. "I, too, would like to meet him now, to thank him for the way things have turned out. But of your beloved I have no news."