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31_days2010-04-13 11:57 pm
issen4.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2010-04-13 11:57 pm
13 April/Hikaru no Go/Spirited Away crossover/Twice the River 25/26
Title: Twice the River 25/26
Series: Hikaru no Go/Spirited Away crossover
Day/Theme: 13 April/She shows us only surfaces
"Here?" Shindou said before Fujiwara could answer. "But we don't even have a goban."
Chihiro only smiled. She was getting to know this Shindou well, and to appreciate how his foremost thoughts turned so easily to Go, as though there was never any doubt as to his choice. "You mean that one?" she asked, looking behind him, in the direction of the pond, where Chihiro was certain she had seen a lightning-quick flash of white--
Scales that shimmered blue and green.
Chihiro blinked, and looked again, but there was nothing.
"Oh!" Sai exclaimed first, and walked towards the pond, towards edge of the water.
It was Shindou, who to her surprise, had not bounced up after him, but stayed put in front of her, as he closed his eyes and swayed slightly backwards on his heels, like a sommelier breathing in the bouquet of a vintage wine. When he opened his eyes, there was a soft smile on his lips. "Surprising what you can find when you go out at night, right?" he said, with a remarkable lack of emphasis on the ups and downs of journey.
It startled Chihiro, who had assumed that Shindou, with his focus on Go, would observe only the surface of all that he encountered. She had tried to keep her innermost thoughts and fears to herself, but it seemed that he saw through her.
And continued to do so, it seemed. Shindou regarded her, then said, "For two years I lived with a ghost that only I could see and only I could talk to. You learn a lot along the way, and I don't mean just Go."
"Shindou." Touya approached them, and Chihiro was uneasily aware that the other Go player had been observing them. "Shouldn't you go and watch Fujiwara-san before he falls into the water?"
And indeed Sai seemed to be dancing too closely to the edge of the pond.
Shindou's eyes widened with alarm after a glance at the scene. "Sai!" he yelled, and rushed off.
"And it's your turn now?" Chihiro asked Touya.
"For cryptic sayings?" Touya asked, then shook his head. "No. I'll leave that to Shindou. I merely thought..." he looked as though as he was considering several responses in his mind. "It has been an honour, Ogino-san."
"It isn't over yet," Chihiro said, the only warning she would let herself give.
"Yes." Touya bowed, low and very correctly. For a moment, the glint of his eyes and the shift of his hair dazzled her--
Scales that shimmered blue and green.
Chihiro blinked, and the impression was gone. She stood for a long time, thinking.
Touya was standing before the goban, slightly to the side and behind Sai when she finally walked over to them, ignoring the way the mud squelched into her shoes.
Where she was going, a bit of wetness was hardly going to matter. There was the barest hint of light, it seemed at the end of the horizon, she noted. There was not much time left.
Shindou seemed to be in deep discussion with Sai, arguing over the way the game had developed from the last time they had seen this particular goban, which was in a hospital room many hours away, played with river stones from the bottom of the pond.
Even with Chihiro's inexperience in Go, she could see that somehow, there were more stones on the goban since the last time she saw it.
"You see, it's partly real too," Sai said when he noticed her looking at the goban. "The stones that ought to be played are played because we chose to make decisions, and we act on those decisions."
"I know it's partly real," Shindou retorted, "or we wouldn't even be here, right?"
"To say nothing of how this goban appeared right out of the blue," Touya said. "Stating the obvious, Shindou."
The two of them exchanged raised eyebrows, until Sai saw fit to direct Chihiro to sit down on a make-shift seat fashioned out of a stone boulder opposite him.
Sai then sat down. "Yes, the game should be finished," he said, before he eyed Shindou. "By us."
"I--I know." As though suddenly--and finally--alive to the implications, Shindou scrambled to Sai's side, unlike the previous occasion in the hospital room when he helped Chihiro. Touya kept his expression neutral, but Chihiro noted the worried glance that he swept both Shindou and Sai with.
"Hikaru," Sai said as Shindou hunched more closely to him, "I have to, you know that. His magic exists within me."
"Yes, but!" Shindou seemed to have lost all his bravado at that. He swallowed and tried to keep his voice calm, but failed. "You--you died in his river, Sai!"
"And therefore I must win."
The face that he turned towards Chihiro was blank, showing nothing on the surface but she knew that the stakes in this game for him were high, and either by empathy or otherworldly sensitivity she sensed his terrible despair mixed with a death-like determination. She resisted an urge to denounce this last game, but knew she couldn't. It had to go on.
"Please, let us continue our game," Sai said. He glanced at her, but he was not truly looking at her.
Chihiro concentrated on keeping her breathing even. She knew she ought not, as the Greek myth said of a man who had gone to Hades for his beloved, to lead her out with his lyre, on the condition that he not look back until all danger was past. Unable to contain his fear, he had finally turned back and in doing so, lost her forever.
It was the same unbearable longing that made Chihiro's hands tremble, and she clenched them on her thighs. She could feel a sliver of cool air, the hint of a dry rasp of movement, and then she, too, could not resist as she turned her head only a fraction, and out of the corner of her eye, she caught--
Scales that shimmered blue and green.
Series: Hikaru no Go/Spirited Away crossover
Day/Theme: 13 April/She shows us only surfaces
"Here?" Shindou said before Fujiwara could answer. "But we don't even have a goban."
Chihiro only smiled. She was getting to know this Shindou well, and to appreciate how his foremost thoughts turned so easily to Go, as though there was never any doubt as to his choice. "You mean that one?" she asked, looking behind him, in the direction of the pond, where Chihiro was certain she had seen a lightning-quick flash of white--
Scales that shimmered blue and green.
Chihiro blinked, and looked again, but there was nothing.
"Oh!" Sai exclaimed first, and walked towards the pond, towards edge of the water.
It was Shindou, who to her surprise, had not bounced up after him, but stayed put in front of her, as he closed his eyes and swayed slightly backwards on his heels, like a sommelier breathing in the bouquet of a vintage wine. When he opened his eyes, there was a soft smile on his lips. "Surprising what you can find when you go out at night, right?" he said, with a remarkable lack of emphasis on the ups and downs of journey.
It startled Chihiro, who had assumed that Shindou, with his focus on Go, would observe only the surface of all that he encountered. She had tried to keep her innermost thoughts and fears to herself, but it seemed that he saw through her.
And continued to do so, it seemed. Shindou regarded her, then said, "For two years I lived with a ghost that only I could see and only I could talk to. You learn a lot along the way, and I don't mean just Go."
"Shindou." Touya approached them, and Chihiro was uneasily aware that the other Go player had been observing them. "Shouldn't you go and watch Fujiwara-san before he falls into the water?"
And indeed Sai seemed to be dancing too closely to the edge of the pond.
Shindou's eyes widened with alarm after a glance at the scene. "Sai!" he yelled, and rushed off.
"And it's your turn now?" Chihiro asked Touya.
"For cryptic sayings?" Touya asked, then shook his head. "No. I'll leave that to Shindou. I merely thought..." he looked as though as he was considering several responses in his mind. "It has been an honour, Ogino-san."
"It isn't over yet," Chihiro said, the only warning she would let herself give.
"Yes." Touya bowed, low and very correctly. For a moment, the glint of his eyes and the shift of his hair dazzled her--
Scales that shimmered blue and green.
Chihiro blinked, and the impression was gone. She stood for a long time, thinking.
Touya was standing before the goban, slightly to the side and behind Sai when she finally walked over to them, ignoring the way the mud squelched into her shoes.
Where she was going, a bit of wetness was hardly going to matter. There was the barest hint of light, it seemed at the end of the horizon, she noted. There was not much time left.
Shindou seemed to be in deep discussion with Sai, arguing over the way the game had developed from the last time they had seen this particular goban, which was in a hospital room many hours away, played with river stones from the bottom of the pond.
Even with Chihiro's inexperience in Go, she could see that somehow, there were more stones on the goban since the last time she saw it.
"You see, it's partly real too," Sai said when he noticed her looking at the goban. "The stones that ought to be played are played because we chose to make decisions, and we act on those decisions."
"I know it's partly real," Shindou retorted, "or we wouldn't even be here, right?"
"To say nothing of how this goban appeared right out of the blue," Touya said. "Stating the obvious, Shindou."
The two of them exchanged raised eyebrows, until Sai saw fit to direct Chihiro to sit down on a make-shift seat fashioned out of a stone boulder opposite him.
Sai then sat down. "Yes, the game should be finished," he said, before he eyed Shindou. "By us."
"I--I know." As though suddenly--and finally--alive to the implications, Shindou scrambled to Sai's side, unlike the previous occasion in the hospital room when he helped Chihiro. Touya kept his expression neutral, but Chihiro noted the worried glance that he swept both Shindou and Sai with.
"Hikaru," Sai said as Shindou hunched more closely to him, "I have to, you know that. His magic exists within me."
"Yes, but!" Shindou seemed to have lost all his bravado at that. He swallowed and tried to keep his voice calm, but failed. "You--you died in his river, Sai!"
"And therefore I must win."
The face that he turned towards Chihiro was blank, showing nothing on the surface but she knew that the stakes in this game for him were high, and either by empathy or otherworldly sensitivity she sensed his terrible despair mixed with a death-like determination. She resisted an urge to denounce this last game, but knew she couldn't. It had to go on.
"Please, let us continue our game," Sai said. He glanced at her, but he was not truly looking at her.
Chihiro concentrated on keeping her breathing even. She knew she ought not, as the Greek myth said of a man who had gone to Hades for his beloved, to lead her out with his lyre, on the condition that he not look back until all danger was past. Unable to contain his fear, he had finally turned back and in doing so, lost her forever.
It was the same unbearable longing that made Chihiro's hands tremble, and she clenched them on her thighs. She could feel a sliver of cool air, the hint of a dry rasp of movement, and then she, too, could not resist as she turned her head only a fraction, and out of the corner of her eye, she caught--
Scales that shimmered blue and green.