Work Text:
“Do you believe in ghosts?” he asks you. His eyes are on you — not on the goban you’ve played games on thousands of times, now, nor the stone held gently between his fingers, so different than the awkward way he had the first time the two of you played and you had lost, unexpected though it was — and you can’t help but feel his usual, casual directness is forced.
He’s asked plenty of questions while the both of you have played, and sometimes you’re fond and sometimes annoyed and often bewildered. You don’t know anyone else who can make such great leaps of logic, turning conversations and games of go around in a single move. You’ve found yourself able to predict him better, have grown to know him, and yet you sometimes still find yourself offset.
This feels like it should be a familiar problem, played out in the placement of the go stones in front of you, but you’re not yet sure what shape it will take.