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Early morning, Akira breathes ghosts into the air and unlocks the door to the music store on the corner of a street across from a subway station. Its convenience is largely why he had applied to the job, and the fact that the owner is a family friend is the reason why he bothers to continue. He thinks he should quit at the end of each year, but always convinces himself otherwise. Not quite yet.
Usually, Ishikawa the cashier is the one left with the duty of early morning openings. Sometimes - or rather very rarely - Akira will find himself with an early morning student and brace the chill instead. Akira’s students are few and far in between, so he spends most of his time organizing inventory and staring off into space as he dusts off the pianos.
Currently, he has six students in total. He would not consider himself a great musician. In fact, he would not consider himself a musician at all. What that indicates. The responsibility of it. A feel for music. The store owner, Ogata would say. You don’t have it at all. You don’t care about music.
Akira has never disagreed. He started working at the store 5 years ago, when he was a wee fresh high school student. As a child, he had done well with instruments. He learned quickly. Not as quickly as the selected few, but significant enough over the average child that his teachers praised him well. His mother looked so happy whenever a teacher exclaimed that her child is a genius, with a talent. Yes, his mother would reply, his piano and violin teacher said that too.
A talent.
That talent sprouted into dozens of competitions and attending the youth symphony.
“Akira-san,” his mother had been washing dishes before he left for class, a year and a half into high school. “Do you like music?”
He searched the air for a while. Their little apartment for two. A picture of his dad holding him when he was still a baby hung on the wall by the door.
“I don’t dislike it,” he said slowly as he slid on his shoes.
His mom had not responded to that, simply gave him a hug and his lunch. Informed him that she would be working late that night, and to not wait for her for dinner.
But that’s all in the past. His mother cannot wake up early to make him lunches and breakfast anymore. He’s an adult who microwaves a small cup of milk and slides a piece of cold bread out of its packaging for breakfast. Akira was never good with mornings as a student, he never could find anything to concentrate on to alert his body. It’ll be even worse now. Tuesday mornings, starting this week, specifically today, mind you, is the responsibilities of a new student. So that Akira will finally have seven whole students per week. It’s good money, higher hourly pay than counting reed stocks and organizing cases of clarinets from saxophones in the dusty backroom. The student is a young man who had walked into the store last Friday before closing, guided by a doctrine Akira couldn’t quite decipher. He had greeted the young man politely, asked him if there was anything he could help with.
The young man had on a sunflower yellow T-shirt with the letter five printed in black and white dots, and a pair of worn jeans. His braided leather belt stuck out from under his shirt and he wore no jacket despite the chill of spring.
“I want to learn how to play the violin.”
Akira nodded. “Are you perhaps looking to book Ogata-sensei?”
The boy looked puzzled, his blonde bangs fell into his eyes and he hastily wiped them away to accentuate his confusion.
“Ogata-sensei? Anyone is okay, I’ve never played an instrument before.”
It was rare for someone to look for a violin teacher at the store without naming Ogata, it was the only reason why anyone would choose Ogata’s music store over any of the others in the area.
“What times are you available? Do you have your own instrument?”
“I do have my own violin.” He grabbed a few flyers at random and flipped through them quickly. “I’m only available in the mornings. Early mornings.”
“Ogata-sensei won’t be available during early mornings for violin lessons.”
“What about this person?” He turned the flyer towards Akira, who looked down to be greeted by his own name.
“That’s me.” He smiled in introduction, “I would be available in the mornings if you prefer.”
“Cool, book me in for 7AM on Tuesday then?”
Akira had cursed in his head. He had not had to wake up earlier than 8AM since high school.
“Can I have your name please?”
“Shindou. Shindou Hikaru.”
Shindou Hikaru apparently lives a fifteen-minute walk from the music store and cannot be reached during his work hours, which he described as: “odd and all over the place. You can text me though. Touya-sensei.” The way Shindou smiled had Akira wondering if maybe it’s been too long since Akira visited his boyfriend.
He called Mashiba, who he had been dating for just under a year after work that day.
“I have a night shift at the convenience store tonight,” he groaned in a strained voice, “I miss you though, Akira. Don’t work too hard.”
The urge left with the fall of the day. Though Mashiba insisted that they video call over dinner. Tired, Akira had thought, what a pain. He smiled. They ate. They hung up. Akira turned on the TV and tried to immerse himself in a half-finished horror film.
*
It is 6:45AM, and Shindou Hikaru knocks on the glass door.
Akira smiles politely from the counter and moves to unlock the door.
“Good morning, Shindou-san. Do you want to start our session early?”
It may as well be the same sunflower yellow shirt and baggy jeans he wore last time he stepped into the store.
“Maybe if you don’t mind, I can just take a look at the violins?”
Akira nods, and moves back to the counter, sleep grips at the corners of his vision and he is too tired to tell Shindou that officially, he shouldn’t come in until his lesson because the store isn’t open for business until 9AM, that he really really should wait outside until 7AM next time, (so Akira can go to the back and take a fifteen minute nap.)
Shindou moved by the wall of violins rather quickly, and instead finds himself lifting the fallboard to reveal the black and white keys of the largest grand piano in the store. Delicately, he presses down on a key and to his surprise, no note sounds.
“Um, I think the piano is broken?”
Snapping his head back up at the accusation, Akira forgets to wear his smile. “What do you mean?”
“There’s no sound.” Shindou presses down again, still gentle, and looks back at Akira with determination. As if he just proved his words.
“You need to press a little harder than that.” Akira pushes the smile back onto his face, a struggle. “Is this your first time touching a piano?”
Shindou tries again and has the decency to look ashamed when a soft note rings through his embarrassment.
“No. I was scared of breaking it, I guess.”
Akira tries to nod in an understanding way, except it doesn’t really matter, so it just seemed as if his jaw shivered violently.
“Shall we start then?” He signals at the stairs, as the practice rooms are located on the floor above, and with a grin, Shindou grabs his violin case resting by his feet and follows.
“How long have you studied violin, Touya-sensei?”
“Fifteen years.”
The body feels things differently during different times of the day, Akira thinks as he trails his fingers along the handrails. The varnished, solid wood feels rough along his fingertips in the morning. They usually feel so smooth and comforting by the end of the day.
The practice room Akira uses to teach is the furthest down the hallway, past all of Ogata’s awards, framed but dusty. His students mostly consist of teenagers in their school bands, middle schoolers who have become engrossed in the idea of confessing their love via handwritten songs littered over acoustic guitars, and elementary school students who treat him like a babysitter. By the time any hobbyist or aspiring musician reach the tender age of young adulthood, or late teens, they’re much more likely to read reviews online, of the award-winning Ogata Seiji. As if by learning from him, they’ll become like that too.
Akira knows. Ogata is absolutely horseshit at teaching.
He doesn’t think he’s much better. Contrary to what teachers have said as throwaway comments when he was young, Akira doesn’t have nearly as much talent as Ogata when it comes to music. He practices until the notes make sense to him, listens to recordings of himself deep into the night. He lives and breathes every single beat and rhythm and the battered and bruised scores laying in his living room attest to that. So, he knows he’s at least better than Ogata at teaching music.
Shindou sets the violin case down on his lap, the edges frayed from being chaffed over the years, and an undeniable coffee stain stubbornly occupied one corner of the faded case.
“I actually only opened it once.” Shindou pats the side of the case fondly. “I don’t know how to take it out so I’ve been afraid of breaking it.”
Akira takes his own violin sitting in its case in the corner of the room. “That’s fine. They can be expensive to repair if hurt by an inexperienced hand.”
Unlatch the case. Lift the blanket. Undo the straps. Lift by the neck. No, not the body! Release the bow. Never twist.
Shindou seems to understand that the bow needs to be tightened, but he doesn’t know what rosin is. Akira explains that the rosin is 2100 yen, he recommends the one that he usually uses, and assures Shindou that he can pay after the lesson.
It takes nearly half the lesson to teach Shindou how to hold the bow properly. The tips of his fingers are flat and his nails are chaffed. Maybe he bites them, Akira thinks in passing.
Shindou laughs when he finally connects bow to string, and his violin lets out a horrible, disconnected wail.
Akira shows him the two books he needs to buy for the lessons. One is on basic scales, and the second is one of simple melodies. They are coloured and has little birds explaining how to read music with finger patterns on the sides of the pages.
“That violin is pretty old, is it a hand me down?” Small talk leaves his mouth before he starts thinking. Force of habit.
“Oh, this.” Shindou pats the case again. “It used to belong to someone I know.”
“Is that why you decided to learn the violin?”
Akira pulls the door to the practice room open and begins to lead Shindou back down the hallway of awards.
“I guess I was just curious.” Shindou sounds confused, like he never quite considered it before, “I never knew he had something like this.”
It is 8AM, if Akira goes to the back, he can still nap for a good hour before the store officially opens. But by then Ishikawa should arrive, he’ll need to wake up to at least greet her.
“People are like that.” Akira says, mind astray as thoughts come and go. “No one lives in anyone else’s mind.”
Ogata will arrive in the afternoon to teach, he always does. It’ll be busy at that point, since delivery for new music scores is coming in too, and mothers paying for more books on music theory.
“No, but you’d think if you knew someone for long enough that you would at least know something like this.”
“It would be good to get to know them at all.”
He has an appointment before closing with a mom who’s thinking of investing in a piano, so he won’t be able to help Ishikawa with the front desk much, does that mean he should forsake his nap and work a bit more in the morning? He can barely keep his eyes open though.
Shindou’s hand catches Akira’s shoulder and Akira almost stumbles off the stairs if not for his grip on the handrail.
“Ah, sorry,” Shindou withdraws his hand away hastily, “didn’t mean to do that, Touya-sensei.”
“No harm done,” Akira doesn’t hear his voice when he sees the unmistakable trails of tears down Shindou’s face, doesn’t feel the turn of his body as he continues to walk to his place behind the counter.
“I’m sorry, I must’ve touched a sore spot.” All hints of sleep, gone.
“No,” Shindou lays his violin on the counter and fumbles with his pockets. He is still blinking the last few droplets out of his vision when he finally produces a black cloth wallet.
“Would you like to schedule for another session?”
Shindou nods.
“The total for today is 11 500 yen.”
Akira doesn’t so much as blink as he drops a 500 yen coin onto the plastic tray back to Shindou, just glances at the door to the back room with minimal yearning. “You can rest here for a bit if you like, Shindou-san. We don’t open until 9AM.”
“Thanks.” Akira finds a box of tissues behind him and sets it beside Shindou’s violin case. Shindou takes a sheet and blows his nose loudly.
“Can I ask you something, Touya-sensei?”
“Certainly.”
Shindou’s eyes are green, Akira realizes. They’re also a little red. And awfully determined.
“Are you… maybe related to Touya Kouyou?”
One time, Akira went to buy his favourite peach flavoured water from a vending machine, as he does every lunch time, but what rolled out was a can of black coffee. Absolutely disgusting. Akira considered leaving it for Ogata or Ishikawa, or anyone else that may enjoy it more, but it felt destined that he had to be the one to consume that coffee. It chose him. There may not be anything profound if he completes that quest, but the world may fall apart if he does not.
Maybe Shindou Hikaru is like that too.
“How do you know my father?”
Shindou’s mouth hangs open. “Play a game with me!”
Akira suddenly regrets offering Shindou any company. He should be in the back room, napping instead.
“I don’t know how to play go.”
“But… your father is Touya Kouyou.” Shindou’s frown is not unlike many others he has seen as a child. When dozens of his father’s friends, competitors, used to visit their house before they sold that and moved into the current apartment. Touya Kouyou’s son will become a great go player too, if he’s taught. They had looked at his mother with that same disappointment. As if it were her duty, and her fault, that he isn’t a go prodigy, that he isn’t a go pro by the tender age of five.
“And?” It’s sharp. Akira doesn’t care.
“Ah,” Shindou rubs the back of his head and smiles apologetically, “sorry. I’m actually a go pro. My teacher was your father’s rival. So I got a little too excited. I didn’t know you didn’t play.”
Akira doesn’t remember very much of the many people that have come in and out of his house. Certainly, all of them referred to themselves as his father’s rival.
“Sai, that’s his name. You probably know.”
Akira shakes his head. “I’ve never touched go before. My father passed before I can even sit.”
Shindou searches his pockets again, no avail this time. Instead, he grabs a flyer and a pen from the counter and begins to write down a string of numbers.
“This is my personal cell,” he turns the flyer to Akira, “if you ever want to try go, or learn go, give me a shout. Free lessons from a pro doesn’t come by easily.” He’s grinning now, but it looks eerie under the bright morning sun. Like he’s not really trying to advertise go or offering something in passing. Like he’s asking for something from Akira. Something Akira probably doesn’t have.
“Thanks,” Akira mumbles lightly, taking the flyer from the counter, “I’ll give you a call if I ever take an interest.”
Shindou waves his goodbyes and sets out by 8:30AM. Akira shoves the flyer into one of his books in the backroom and takes a long nap. He doesn’t even wake to greet Ishikawa.
He meets Mashiba at his flat that evening, after Ogata signs off and the evening rush ends. His boyfriend had texted that he has the evening off at noon, and that his flatmates would not be home until midnight.
“I got a new student today.” His arm feels comfortably sore with the weight of Mashiba’s neck. The lighting in Mashiba’s room is a deep, hazy purple, it’s best for sex, he says.
“The one in the morning? How was it.”
“He was kind of odd. A go player.”
“Like your dad?”
“Yeah.”
Mashiba rolls around and throws his phone face down on the pillow, flings an arm across Akira’s torso and pulls him close.
“Oh Akira,” he whispers into Akira’s side, Akira shivers a little. “Today must’ve been a hard day.”
Mashiba’s fingers are drawing circles over his chest, calming. Akira allows his eyes some rest and sighs deeply before his 30-minute timer is up and he needs to be home to make dinner for his mom.
*
Shindou continues to show up at 6:45AM, which means that every Tuesday morning, Akira wakes up at 6AM in order to be at the store by 6:30, a tall order. Shindou doesn’t bring up go or his dad or Sai again and Akira is thankful.
“Tuning makes no sense,” he complains one morning, “nothing ever sounds right when I’m practicing.”
“And how often do you practice?”
“About twice a week,” Shindou grins sheepishly, “I would honestly like one more lesson a week and the time to practice more but my schedule doesn’t fit.” Akira’s heard that before. Every single student says that to him. Every single one.
“You must be quite busy.” It’s a job. It’s not Akira’s responsibility that the student comes out successful. His job is to be there for the one hour they pay him for and leave them with the information of what they need to do in order to progress. That’s all.
“Ah,” Shindou pauses, contemplating. “I’m okay. Life’s okay. I actually brought something to show you.”
Akira signals with his hand to go ahead, how Shindou manages to stay so energetic at such early hours is a mystery.
Excitedly, Shindou pulls open the zipper for the top compartment of his violin, where he stores his sheet music and produces a small box.
“It’s a magnetic go board,” he lays it open on the counter, “have you seen one before?”
Akira nods his head, he contemplates if telling Shindou off five minutes before his lesson would make the session difficult.
Seeing that Akira has not yet chased him out of the store, Shindou smiles wide and starts putting pieces down on the board.
“This is a game I played yesterday,” the stones find their place on the goban, Akira feels like he’s watching one of those time lapse videos.
“Do you remember every single game you play?”
“Just the good ones.” With a final white stone, Shindou nods to himself proudly and looks up to meet Akira’s gaze.
“You can memorize every move you make?”
“Most pros can.”
“Did you win?”
“No, I lost by resignation.”
“Oh. That’s still pretty awesome though. Not the loss, your memory, I mean.”
Shindou’s still smiling. Full of hope. Akira wants to walk into the back room and go to sleep.
“I don’t understand any of it.” He says bluntly, “even if you show me, I’ll never understand it.”
“That’s okay,” Shindou nods, “you watched me play it out.”
“I don’t know what you want from me. I can’t play go. I have no interest in learning.”
The rush of cars outside is unbearably loud, but Akira wishes that they were louder, enough to wash over this conversation.
“That’s a lie.” Shindou takes the last stone he put down on the board and places it in Akira’s open palm laying listlessly on the counter. “I knew the first time I told you I was a pro. You do want to learn, don’t you?”
“I really don’t. Just because I’m Touya Kouyou’s son doesn’t mean-”
“No. You’re Touya Kouyou’s son. He loved go like that. What’s wrong with expressing interest in something your dad loved? If you want to learn it, even if it’s to try to understand the tiniest bit of him, then it’s worth it.”
“Shindou,” Akira began, his temper is a forest lit on fire, sweeping from his chest over his head. Dizzying. “That’s out of line. We don’t know each other well enough for you to make these comments. If you do not wish to continue our lessons I will have to kindly ask you to leave.”
Shindou waves his hands in front of himself and shakes his head to match, “I didn’t mean it like that. Let’s… let’s just get on with today’s lesson?”
He leaves without taking his magnetic goban with him.
*
“He’s rude and weird,” the convenience store Mashiba works at is quiet by nightfall, it was how they met. Though Akira no longer comes by Mashiba’s shifts as often, it is still sometimes reassuring to sit under the sharp bright lights of the family mart.
“He sounds intrusive.”
“He is,” Akira remembers that at one point in his life, right after high school, coming to see Mashiba in the dead of the night had been the highlight of his day. Simply chatting with this stranger he knew nothing about. A stranger that’s also trying to survive one way or another. A young adult who also doesn’t know how to progress further, what progressing further means. In that understanding and perhaps self assurance, they started dating.
“You could stop teaching him.”
“It’s not that annoying, I still need to make a living.”
“Maybe if you advertised yourself more?”
“Not if every student already has someone in mind.”
Mashiba grunts in agreement.
“Don’t you wanna run away?”
Akira shrugs, “where to?”
“Like a different country. Learn a whole new language. Start life again.”
It’s a topic Mashiba likes to entertain often. The possibility of a different life. Mashiba seems to really believe that if he were given one more chance, he would be happy.
“I don’t really mind my life now. There’s nothing wrong with it.”
“But you’re not happy.”
“Sometimes I am. When I see something funny, or try something new. It makes me feel happy.”
“Not that kind of happiness. The kind of happiness that you can feel even when you’re devastated. The kind of happiness that makes you want to live even as you’re about to die.”
The street lights in front of the family mart is a duller yellow than the ones near the music store Akira works at. They are steady and dim. Sometimes, Akira thinks he sees things that are not quite there under those lights.
“Maybe I already feel that.”
“There’s gotta be more.”
Mashiba likes to fantasize. Akira doesn’t mind that. Sometimes he likes to fantasize too. What it means to love something, someone.
They often sit in silence nowadays. Sometimes, a rare drunk customer would stumble in to buy some water, but it’s uneventful. Akira doesn’t know if he appreciates it or not anymore. He used to think it’s absolutely wonderful, the silence. Silent days into silent nights, leading to silent years, until he finally looks back, and sees that nothing was worth remembering.
“I’m going to go home.”
“Okay, careful on your way back.”
“Good night.”
*
Go was never a big part of his life, like his father wasn’t. Sometimes, things don’t need to be there in order to be important. Go is like that. His father is like that.
He sees go everywhere he goes. In the convenience stores, at the book store when he’s looking for a novel or whatever else kind of entertainment he can find, and every Tuesday morning, when he sees Shindou.
Shindou’s talking about a game again, this time one that he played a few years ago.
“Sai was an amazing player, the best.”
Akira has found himself listening begrudgingly, about his father’s rival.
“He and Touya Kouyou held all the titles at one point.”
Shindou is animated when he talks. He waves his hands around as if his excitement can somehow telepathically transmit his brain signals to Akira. He also started to bring a fan with him to the violin lessons. Akira never bothered to ask.
“Sai would often replay his games with Touya Kouyou for me when I was studying under him.”
“It’s Sai’s violin, isn’t it?”
Caught off-guard, Shindou puts his arms down to reach for the violin case, as if that answers Akira’s question.
“I never knew he owned all this. I’d never heard him play before. Or anything else. I just thought I wanted to know.”
“And what good would it do if you knew?”
Shindou’s fingers dug into the case, and he picked at a particular spot Akira can’t quite see, maybe the corner with the coffee stain. “I just couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
It’s a quarter past seven and Shindou had been talking for half an hour. They’ve already cut into the time for their lesson but Akira doesn’t want to remind either of them. The clock is silent on the wall, the hand for seconds spun smoothly in circles, it made the time go by faster. Akira used to enjoy that, because it meant the end of long days for him.
It’s moving too fast.
“Shindou, teach me go.”
“Right now?”
“Sure.”
Shindou’s grinning again. And Akira realizes with a grin of his own that it was never eerie. Perhaps selfish, perhaps hopeful, but it is not a hope Akira needs to light.
*
“You let him teach you?”
“Yeah.”
“And how’d that go for you?”
“I don’t know. I can’t stop thinking about it. Go.”
“Sounds like you liked it then.”
“It’s a little early to say that.”
“It’s never too early to say that. Just enjoy yourself, Akira.”
*
Soon enough, Shindou was not only coming to the music store every Tuesday morning, but also Wednesdays and Fridays. On Tuesdays, they still have their violin lessons, but on Wednesdays and Fridays, they play go. Shindou plays him with a handicap but is still merciless. Akira doesn’t think he’ll be able to win anytime soon, but he understands how to read kifu now, and getting them directly from a pro certainly feels like a luxury.
“You’re a terrible student,” Shindou groans, “why do you have to argue with me about every move?”
“You’re a terrible teacher,” Akira raises his eyebrows indignantly, “you can’t explain anything.”
“I am not a terrible teacher, you just can’t listen.”
“I obviously do listen, otherwise I would still be playing you with nine stones.”
“Maybe you’d need even less of a handicap if you just listened!”
Through the year, Akira has managed to down his handicap to three stones, and is able to comment on pro matches with Shindou. He’s started to buy go weekly and finds himself sitting through live broadcasts of title matches on weekend afternoons. Sometimes, he reads the kifus his mom left on his table deep into the night. It’s just a hobby. It’s just a game.
“You wanna join my study group?” Shindou asks one bright noon during lunch.
“For go?”
“What else would I have a study group for?”
Akira shakes his head, “your group is full of pros right?”
“So what?”
He shoots Shindou a look of disgust, “you should be able to imagine it without me explaining, right?”
“Yeah and I don’t understand what the big deal is. Why do you care so damn much? Who cares what anyone else says?”
“I’m not going to go and make small talk with people who want to talk about my father who I remember nothing of.”
“It’s,” Shindou bites his lip, it’s a very pretty colour, Akira notes to himself. “It’s something that you learn to brush off. They do that to everyone. Oh, so and so’s student, from so and so’s study group, ya know? Nobody cares.”
“You haven’t seen the way they talk about my father.”
“Yeah but I don’t get it? It’s not like you care about succeeding him or anything so why does it have to be such a big deal?”
“Shindou, you have no tact.”
“All you do is insult me when you can’t come up with something smart.”
*
“Akira-san, I’ve been thinking,” it’s a rare occasion that he has the luxury of sitting with his mother during dinner. She works shifts late into the night, well past dinner time.
Akira meets her gaze, it’s steady and soft and contains a surety that only the ocean carries. Day after day, night after night, waves dulling rocks and shaping terrain, over and over.
“Would you like a goban? Not a new one, one that your father used to own.”
Akira remembers that goban, the one that sat in a room people said was his father’s study. There are many images and videos of his father playing matches in front of a goban, in his hakama. Akira can imagine that. One time, a pro that referred to himself as his father’s friend and rival said that his father would host study sessions, and a small group of pros would gather around the goban, discussing the game together. They would come to Touya meijin’s study group with pride, with honour. Touya Kouyou was that good. As a child, Akira felt something too, and when tears wet his face, the pro crouched down and wiped them away from him. Your father was an amazing person. He loved you very much, and he’ll continue loving you from above. He said.
“That’s okay, it’s just a hobby I’ve been dabbling in recently. There’s no need to trouble mother.”
“Do I ever trouble Akira-san?”
“Of course not.”
“Then mother isn’t troubled either. It’s a very beautiful goban. It will brighten your room.”
The waves in her eyes are strong, so Akira lets go of his ideals, allows them to wash away.
“That would be nice.”
The grilled salmon he has been chewing in his mouth has become flavourless, but he swallows anyway.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
*
His student, a middle schooler starting to learn saxophone leaves the store dragging her disproportionately large case behind her, leaving Akira is alone again. So he’s left with nothing but his thoughts of Shindou Hikaru.
Shindou’s persistent and Akira presumes that his intentions are far from pure, but a sword has two edges, it’s mutualism, and maybe it doesn’t matter to him what Shindou got out of it.
It’s just a hobby.
*
It’s 5PM, a busy time for the music store, and Shindou Hikaru is sitting on a piano bench like he belonged there.
The rush of customers keeps Akira from sending him looks of impatience. At least wait until I’m off work. Why are you here? Maybe Akira doesn’t really mind it. A small thought bubbling dangerously is brushed to the back of his mind, maybe he likes it.
Shindou, to his credit, only glances at Akira periodically and instead focuses on a notebook carefully balanced on his thigh. Probably examining kifus. Shindou frowns and makes some dramatic movements resembling lines with his pen. Definitely examining kifus. Akira’s shift ends at 7:30PM, when the only customers left are Ogata’s students. He taps on Shindou’s shoulder.
Shindou tilts his head up to smile and Akira unabashedly thinks that he looks very pretty.
“Wanna get dinner? My treat.” Shindou’s voice is hoarse from lack of use, and his lips are chapped. Akira has never seen him drink water before.
Akira picks up Shindou’s violin case while Shindou stuffs his little notebook and pen into his fanny pack.
“What do you want to eat?”
Shindou rises and takes his violin case from Akira’s open hand, half a smile gracing his lips. “It’s my treat. So it’s Touya’s turn to decide. Touya.”
“Then…
They sit across from each other with pearls already dripping down the sides of their beer glasses. The little yakitori place is one Akira used to frequent with Mashiba, during the short few months when his hardworking boyfriend did not have nightshifts. Which he complained continuously about until his boss switched him back, and Akira hasn’t had yakitori since.
Shindou’s mouth is a bubble machine that never runs out of soap. Mostly of his own life. Akira thinks he can recognize this Amano-san if they crossed paths on the streets now. It’s about nothing, all nothing. Akira can’t stop smiling.
“Did I tell you about how Waya dropped an entire tub of ice cream over Ochi’s sweater vest once? That was goddamn hilarious, Ochi was so mad.”
“You did, twice already.”
Shindou laughs, still hoarse, takes a swig of his beer and keeps going.
They’re six plates of yakitori in and the glow on Shindou’s cheeks reflected the three beers he has had.
“You love go.”
“It’s just a hobby. You’re drunk.”
Shindou’s eyes are sad and a little forlorn, and the warmth flowing in Akira’s veins doesn’t want to interrupt him anymore.
“It happened. And now you love it. Are you scared?”
Akira tries to respond, really really does, searches his brain, down his spine, to the tips of his shining fingers. He meets Shindou’s eyes, but he cannot see very clearly, he opens his mouth but something bubbles at the bottom of his throat so he closes it again.
Shindou hands him a tissue.
“Before Sai passed, he told me he has failed his friend who believed in him so much… he couldn’t even do anything for him.”
Sai is his father’s rival. A brilliant go player, and one his father held with utmost respect. It’s recorded in the tear splattered kifus on Akira’s desk and he doesn’t know why he’s mourning for someone he’s never met.
Something he has never felt before.
He cannot help but wonder that if his father were alive, would Akira be able to realize his purpose?
That universe of stones separate from his own, would he want it like he does now?
Or is this love a simple curiosity for his father, and if his father exists as more than a shadow in the back of his mind, this love would never come to be?
“Sai regretted not meeting you. He wished that he were the one that showed you what his… eternal rival loved.”
“Is that why you’re here?” The tears are dry, Akira still cannot see clearly. “The pupil fulfilling the master’s last wish?”
Shindou looks puzzled but shakes his head and orders another plate of yakitori off the iPad.
“I was just curious. You’re the reason why I stayed.”
“I don’t have anything of value for you. I’m never going to become a go pro, and you don’t really care about violin.” He looks down at his fingers, how his nails have chapped over the months. “Neither do I.”
Akira’s hands are cold. He has five unread texts blinking on the screen from Mashiba.
When he looks up again, Shindou looks like he has found the thing he has been searching for all evening, and is now safe, determined, and soft.
“It’s how you come to teach with dark circles under your eyes and shoving a kifu under my nose first thing in the morning. It’s how you… memorize every tsumego problem in every book I’ve ever lent you. It’s the confidence in your hand when you think you got me cornered in a game. Every insei studies hard. I’ve never seen anyone study as hard as you.” Shindou takes a deep breath, “it makes me want to drag you into my world as fast as I can. I want to see that forever. Play with you forever. I want to feel that exhilaration in that moment when you’re right about to catch me by the back of my shirt… fuck.” Shindou grabs his face with both palms and pulls at his bangs. “What the fuck.”
How perfect. Akira wants to throw his resignation in Shindou’s face and tell him he’s won. He’s right. Must be the alcohol. Akira’s always been a good, responsible kid. He will not have his mother find a second job to support his own selfishness.
“Not this lifetime.”
Shindou slides his fingers down his cheeks and smiles a little sadly, bites into his yakitori.
“That’s so dumb.”
Akira agrees.
“I also want to ask,”
Akira nods, sips his beer daintily.
“If I were to ask you out, what would you think?”
Akira’s phone buzzes again, begging for attention.
“So are you asking me out or are you not?”
“It’s hypothetical!” Perhaps the pink in Shindou’s neck is not from the alcohol, but Akira will give him the benefit of the doubt.
“I don’t want to answer a hypothetical question.”
Shindou weighs his choices. Sets his drink down, finally.
“I’m asking you out then. But I’m not in love with you or anything. I… it just feels right.”
Akira’s deathly aware of how the phone and his hand has merged into one.
“Let me think about it.”
Shindou smiles. The conversation moves back to Shindou’s day, this time about the current Honinbou.
*
“You couldn’t reply to my texts because you were at dinner with him?” Mashiba’s tone is acidic, and pained. Akira is very sorry.
“We were having a serious conversation.”
“Akira, I’m glad he’s in your life. But I feel like you care about him more than you care about me.”
This is when Akira’s supposed to deny that. And he can. He cares about Mashiba very much. So very much.
“Do you love me?” Akira’s voice floats to the sea, above the waves and into the curvature of the earth.
“Of course,” Mashiba takes hold of Akira’s hand, rubs it like it’s a gem.
“Are you sure?”
Mashiba lets go, walks back behind the counter of the convenience store.
“What do you want?”
“Not what we have now.”
Mashiba’s pushing some cigarette boxes into their cartons, Akira can’t see if his hands are shaking, but he can feel his own tremble.
“Then fucking leave. I don’t fucking want it if you don’t want me. Us.”
The clock points at 1:17AM, spinning forward. Whatever this love is, whatever love is, Akira’s sure he has some for Mashiba. He simply has come to the conclusion that his love is not what Mashiba wants. And the words aching in his throat fall like sand in an hourglass, into his stomach, heavy but buried.
Akira turns around and walks out of the convenience store, its automatic doors mocking him one last time.
*
“I can’t be in a relationship with you Shindou. I also can’t be a pro go player.”
Shindou is loosening his bow to stash away at the end of their lesson, humming to himself the tune that he is supposed to practice for their next lesson.
“I didn’t ask for a relationship. Just a date. You don’t need to be a pro. Just play with me. You like it too right?” When Akira is silent, lips pursed, Shindou zips his case closed and sets it on his lap. “It’s like violin for me. Like you said, I’m never going to fall in love with it. I’m never going to be great at it. But Sai played it, and I want to learn more about it. Is that so wrong? I may not have overwhelming feelings for you, but I’m curious about you, is that so wrong?”
Akira turns the door handle, ready to leave this practice room. To breathe.
“That’s just your take on things. I never said I’m going to stop playing go with you. I just said I’m not going on a date with you.”
Shindou doesn’t bother to pretend to look offended, just smiles wide and follows Akira out the room.
“Perfect. Will you finally go to a go salon with me?”
Akira dusted the awards down the hall before Shindou arrived this morning, he woke up at 4:47AM and his dreams would not take him back. So, he did the only thing that felt right. He fumbled his bookshelf for his favourite game between his father and Sai and replayed that game on his father’s goban. Now his.
“I’ve always wondered what it’s like in there.”