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The main house is full of noisy cousins, endless supplies of wagashi, and long, empty corridors. Hisashi drifts through the last the way he drifts through all things. In the years that he spends there, he picks up hobbies easily, discards them like so many crumpled sweet wrappers: violin, piano, tennis, swimming, table tennis.
Eventually, the gentle tides of his talents take him further afield. Tokyo is a long way from Oomura, but he has a cellphone, a list of his cousins' numbers -- "Just call if you need anything, Hisashi" -- and the boxes of wagashi which Yukiko-chan pressed into his unresisting arms. In the first few days in his empty dorm, his meals are a mix of those and convenience-store-bought onigiri. They're simple snacks, nothing refined: ohagi, daifuku. The taste of home is azuki and rice flour.
The first Meijin title is the hardest one.
That's the problem.
"Congratulations, Suou-sempai!"
"You looked really cool on TV, sempai!"
"...ehh? A game? No way, I wouldn't dare."
"You can't expect us to play against the Meijin, haha."
The year he takes the Meijin title is the first year he fails to graduate. He lets the coursework deadlines slip past but turns up to at least some of the exams, out of a vague sense of politeness. Toudai is a comfortable place to spend the next four years, he decides.
By the time he's playing for his second title, he's found at least one way to make the game interesting. Between listening for each new syllable, he likes watching the sweat bead on his opponents' faces, the moment when panic blossoms behind their eyes. He looks for that tell-tale twitch of a finger that shows they're ready to commit a fault, and always makes sure they follow through.
It's nothing as personal as malice. He's just bored.
"Did you see? Suou-sempai's let his hair grow out."
"I guess it makes him look more... Meijin-like?"
"But that beard..."
He takes a third title. Yukiko-chan has a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about him, which she shows off eagerly when he goes home for Obon. They'll have to find more space for his Meijin trophies, she says with a laugh.
"Just for five," he replies.
He can never remember if he's explained the idea of an eternal Meijin to Yukiko-chan. It's okay. He'll do that when the time comes. The days of the university year run like sand through his lax fingers, like each year already past. He takes a fourth title. He finally finds a variety of green tea that best complements the ohagi from back home. He wonders if he should cultivate a moustache.
The first thing he liked about Shinobu-chan was her refined appreciation of wagashi. When she accepted the yatsuhashi he'd been handing out (from an old boutique manufacturer, not one of those massive souvenir-suppliers) with a flash of recognition and a knowing nod, he knew in that moment that they could reach an understanding.
They don't have that much more in common, of course. Shinobu-chan takes karuta so seriously that it's tiring to watch. But Hisashi likes the fact that she's bored, too. It's a bone-deep boredom that less accomplished players can't hope to understand, a boredom girded with the cold certainty that the game will never again be a challenge. Shinobu-chan feels it too; and so they may be alone at the top, but at least they're alone there together.
Anyway, he likes Kyoto. It's leafier than Tokyo, not nearly as choked with skyscrapers, and if the cadence of the voices around him is not exactly similar to what he hears when he's back home, it's at least closer than the stiff Kantou accent. So it's easy to find a reason to visit Shinobu-chan -- especially in November, in that lull before the Queen and Meijin matches, when he knows that she, too, must be restless with waiting.
When he rings the doorbell this time, he isn't armed with a box of Snowmaru dorayaki. Shinobu-chan looks suitably unimpressed at that fact. Her cool gaze flickers from his empty arms to the street behind him -- searching for the motorbike, he thinks, and almost smiles.
"What do you want?" she asks, imperious.
"It's a good time for the autumn leaves." Shinobu-chan makes as if to shut the door, so he hurries on: "Patisserie Araki. Seems to have a new creation for the season."
"The limited edition Snowmaru mont blanc parfait," she whispers, eyes widening. But she is the Queen, after all, so she composes herself swiftly: "Wait here. I'll get my coat."
Though the cafe is crowded with the November tourist crowd, their orders arrive in a respectable amount of time. Shinobu-chan hesitates over the first spoonful, not sure whether to disrupt Snowmaru's placid visage or risk structural instability by eating the rest of the parfait first. Hisashi's already halfway through the top layer.
"Don't think for a moment that I care about your progress," she says when she finally begins, spoonful of ice-cream poised delicately in mid-air. "We're not rivals."
"No," he agrees. Having a rival seems like a terribly troublesome idea.
"But I'm not surprised to see you frittering away your time in Kyoto. You don't take anything seriously at all."
I'm going to graduate this year, he thinks of saying. Probably. But it doesn't matter. He takes another spoonful: cinnamon, chestnuts, azuki. He wishes there were some warabi-mochi in it, too.
"Still, if it's going to be your final Meijin match, you could try to play properly for once. That thing you always do, keeping pace with the Queen match -- that's clearly in bad taste."
He smiles. "But don't you want that, Shinobu-chan? Someone who can keep pace with you."
He watches as her spoon wobbles and stills. Satisfied with that petty victory, he returns to demolishing his parfait.
At last, Shinobu-chan looks up at him, over the crest of Snowmaru's ice-cream-scoop face. "I don't need anything like that."
Hisashi is fond of her childish inability to lie, so he lets it go.
He'd have looked forward to playing that Wataya kid, if he wasn't going to retire. Not that there's any challenge lying in that karuta of his, as forceful and clear and bland as water. No, the challenge lies in that youthful confidence, the crystal-sharp resolve in his eyes. Making that waver -- now, that would be a test of Hisashi's skill.
Harada-sensei, though. Harada-sensei's karuta is nasty, brutal. He plays like a cornered bear, like a man whose time is running out; Hisashi supposes he can appreciate that, at least.
It isn't enough -- it never would have been -- and finally, at the end of five matches, Hisashi's gathering the cards for what seems to be the final time.
So, he thinks, running his fingers absently over their green-gilded edges. That was it, then.
He hands in the cards. The cameras and the victory interview are familiar. The creeping fatigue that Hisashi feels in his shoulders isn't; like the ache in his back and the sheen of sweat on his brow, it's something new, which makes it at least potentially interesting. There were... a lot of things that were new about that match.
But the interviewer calls his attention back, and he remembers that that's irrelevant, that enjoyment has never been the point of his matches. He has it, now: something eternal. The world is still cramped and blurry around the edges, that familiar darkness always closing in, but he's made something of himself now, surely. Hasn't he, Yukiko-chan?
And then Wataya bursts in, all youthful fervour and ridiculous vows. Laughable.
Interesting.
There's something here: a flash of colour, a promise of something other than leaden boredom. Wataya's face is pale, his breath unsteady with agitation, but that ice-cold clarity in his eyes remains. The syllables of the poems flare and dissolve in Hisashi's mind, each verse its own delicate hue.
It's not that he expects anything from this Wataya kid. He's not Shinobu-chan, to go around trusting people enough to have expectations about them. But he remembers Harada-sensei's fearsome perseverance; the thrill of even the mere prospect of uncertainty.
So. Another year, then.
A murmur goes around the room at his announcement, equal parts surprise and outrage, but Hisashi's already stopped paying attention. The fifth Meijin trophy's waiting to take its place in its hands; and, later, in the cabinet beside the others. He wonders if Yukiko-chan managed to watch his match, in the end. Maybe he should give her a call. At least it should be in the newspapers tomorrow, and they'll probably explain what an eternal Meijin is.
Maybe he will graduate this year. Maybe, he thinks idly, he should cut his hair.