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Morishita-sensei took Saeki aside mid-way through Tuesday's study group.
"I've been thinking about it, Saeki-kun," he said, tapping his finger on his chin. "I think that you should begin following Ashiwara from Touya Kouyo's study group around. Secretly, of course."
Saeki started coughing. He focused on Morishita's chest, which was going blue and watery in his vision.
Morishita made an impatient sound and thumped Saeki on the back. It caught the edge of his shoulder blade and hurt quite a bit. "Pull yourself together, boy!" Morishita peered at him, his eyes very black under beetling brows, filling Saeki's vision. "This is the honour of our study group at stake."
"W-what?" Saeki managed. That had been kind of impolite. He bowed, and added, "Sensei?"
Morishita had turned to gaze at something beyond Saeki, and didn't seem to notice. Saeki turned around and found that Morishita was watching Waya having a hissed argument with Shindou over their goban, on the far side of the room. Waya's hair was slipping onto his forehead while he gestured at whatever move Shindou had made, his eyes flashing. Shindou lifted his chin and grinned, saying something that seemed to incense Waya even further.
"Yes," Morishita said, decidedly. He looked back at Saeki, waving an arm. "Follow him and so forth," he explained. "Understand him. Know him. Touya Kouyo's group is still an average of 2.5 dan higher than mine, even now that he's retired. I will not allow them to beat us!" His fixed Saeki with a glare.
Saeki shifted, avoiding Morishita's eyes. "Sensei," he said cautiously, "haven't you thought that maybe our rivalry with Touya Kouyo's group is a bit one–"
"But Shindou-kun is catching up to Touya Kouyo's son," Morishita said, his eyes back on the game on the far side of the room. Shindou was now leaning back from the goban with a self-satisfied smile. As Saeki watched, Waya turned to stare, with a stricken expression, at the shape of the stones.
Morishita looked approving. "And he did it by fixating on that boy," he said. "That's the way! Get under the skin of your rival, and you'll reach and surpass their level faster!"
Morishita fixed Saeki with a beady look. Saeki opened his mouth and could find nothing to say. He swallowed.
*
Other than the acute embarrassment involved in doing it at all, following Ashiwara Hiroyuki around wasn't especially difficult. Ashiwara's schedule was a lot like Saeki's: structured around tournaments and tutoring jobs and study group. Although it involved less going bowling with friends on weekends, and more being dragged to bars by a steely-smiling Ogata-san.
Ashiwara never drank at the bars. He simply stayed, looking out of place, while Ogata-san got drunk and flirted with the wait staff and carried on a one-sided conversation with Ashiwara full of ambiguously worded comments that might have been compliments or insults or something else entirely.
At least, that was what the conversation sounded like when Saeki ducked down behind a pot plant on the way to the bathroom, so that he could eavesdrop and pretend to tie his shoe.
Ogata and Ashiwara were at the bar, long legs stretched before their bar stools. The lighting was muted, scoops of dark blue and gold pooling on people's laps and feathering through the spray of leaves in front of Saeki. The music was something with a repetitive beat, blending with the too-loud flirting and conversations swirling around the knots of people.
Ashiwara's hair looked blue-black when he turned his head, and for a moment so did his eyes. Ogata's paler honey-coloured hair caught people's eyes, though; or maybe catching peole's eyes was something that he did deliberately. When he leaned forward and tapped Ashiwara's glass of water, his eyes lazily hooded, Saeki was fairly sure that he meant to be watched.
"Are you sure?" Ogata asked, obviously asking something he'd asked before.
Ashiwara smiled at him, ducking his head. "Thank you, Ogata-san. No."
Ogata smiled at his drink, running a finger around the rim. "Your mother must be proud of you, Ashiwara."
Ashiwara smiled slightly, and shrugged 'sorry' again.
Saeki ran out of things he could do with his shoelace. He thought Ashiwara might have spotted him when he stood up, because the other man hesitated for a moment, half-turning his head. Then he turned back to his water, turning the glass around in his fingers, and gave a soft, embarrassed laugh at something Ogata said.
Morishita had said that the purpose of this exercise was for Saeki to understand Ashiwara. Which, fair enough, because Saeki really didn't. What was Ashiwara doing here? Why did he come to these bars? Was it to be polite, or because he admired Ogata; or was he just ... what? Really, really nice?
Saeki leaned against the wall by the bathroom, letting his fringe spike into his eyes while he watched the two men over the other side of the room. Saeki wasn't that nice. Saeki didn't know anybody who was that nice.
He ran his fingers through his hair, frustrated. He didn't know what he was doing here any more than he knew what Ashiwara was doing here. Ashiwara didn't think of him as a rival. Saeki didn't really think of them as rivals, although he'd tried to for Morishita's sake. It was just ...
He shook his head. It would help if he was even sure Ashiwara would definitely recognise him, if he turned around and saw Saeki standing against the wall. Saeki crossed his arms and let his fringe fall into his eyes again, moulding his shoulder blades to the wall behind him.
Later, seeing the faint flush on Ashiwara's face as he refused a cigarette on the way out of the bar, and the flustered way he rubbed at the back of his head, disarranging the curls, Saeki still didn't know what Ashiwara was doing there. He was fairly sure he knew where the enjoyment was for Ogata in inviting him, though.
*
"How's your surveillance on that Ashiwara going?" Morishita demanded, tugging on Saeki's elbow.
Saeki jumped. He'd been watching Shirakawa-san's practice match against Waya. He scrambled to his feet, turning to Morishita. "F-fine. It's going fine. But Morishita-sensei, I've been thinking that maybe it's not the best –" He trailed off as Morishita's gaze sharpened.
"What have you learned about the boy?"
Saeki's mind went blank. The only thing he could think of was Ashiwara laughing, soft and embarrassed, under Ogata's slitted blue gaze.
"He doesn't drink alcohol," he blurted. "Even though he goes out."
Then he wanted to kick himself. That had nothing to do with anything that would help him defeat Ashiwara's Go.
Morishita let his breath out in a satisfied Hah. His eyes gleamed. "Keeping a clear head and a pure body," he said. "That's important. You'll have to stop drinking alcohol."
Saeki's mouth fell open. "Wha ... I don't. Not more than one or two glasses every now and then."
"One or two glasses is more than that Ashiwara has," Morishita said. He tapped his teeth again, his gaze inward-focused and ferocious. "We can't be beaten by them, Saeki-kun."
*
Ashiwara won his fourth consecutive oteai game the next week. He'd made 5-dan two months earlier than Saeki had, to Morishita's apoplectic rage, and at this rate it looked as though he was on the path to making 6-dan first too.
Saeki watched from where he knelt by his own completed game while Ashiwara brightly thanked his opponent – that little odd boy, Ochi-kun, who'd passed at the same time as Waya and Shindou, and who was currently staring at his interlocked hands as though he wanted to cut them off. Ochi looked up and met Ashiwara's brightness with a scowl. Ashiwara gentled his expression and said something that Saeki, kneeling and pretending to still be counting his change to see whether he had enough for lunch, couldn't catch. Ochi gave Ashiwara a suspicious look, but apparently couldn't find anything suspicious in his smile. The boy stood and bowed, an abrupt, truncated movement, then turned on his heel.
Ashiwara leaned back on his elbows, smiling at the ceiling, and Saeki dropped his gaze.
Nobody was that nice all the time. Did Ashiwara not know that they were all in competition with each other?
Or did he not care about winning, somehow? He seemed to have no intensity or drive at all; just that smile and that niceness.
The smile was a bit wonderful, if Saeki was honest, but that had nothing to do with Go.
*
Saeki sat at a booth in the back of the cafe opposite the Institute, shielding his face with a copy of Go Weekly. Ashiwara was having lunch with a young woman who looked as though she must be his sister, or maybe cousin, four tables away. He'd just fallen out of the Honinbou League – Saeki knew because he'd fallen out in the same round – and his sister-or-cousin was apparently commiserating with him.
Ashiwara ran his hand through his hair, making a face, then looked up. He shrugged and said something to his companion, with an easy, sweet smile.
Saeki lowered his paper a bit, frowning. Ashiwara was acting as though the loss didn't matter very much. He was being nice – again.
His sister laughed, her eyes squinting up, and reached over to ruffle Ashiwara's hair. Ashiwara rubbed his hand over the back of his head, turning his face to the side in a self-deprecating gesture. For a moment he was looking at Saeki. Saeki whipped his head away, feeling heat rise in his cheeks. He lifted the paper again, focusing furiously on it.
He heard the young woman laugh again, but when he chanced a look around they didn't seem to be looking at him.
Ashiwara and his sister finished their lunch and stood. The sister ruffled Ashiwara's hair again as they left; Ashiwara ducked his head and protested, laughing.
Saeki went to the doorway, his Go Weekly in his hand, and watched as they said goodbye and the young woman turned down the street. She was pulling a book out of her bag as she went, and she'd started reading it, holding it close to her face, before she reached the corner.
Ashiwara looked as though he was about to go in the other direction, but he stopped to greet Shindou and Touya-kun as they came out of the Institute. Waya was a few steps behind them, talking to Isumi-kun in the doorway.
Shindou was almost walking on air, his smile glowing bright as the sun. Touya-kun, walking beside him, looked an odd mix of satisfied and irritated out of his skin.
"Good afternoon, Ashiwara-san!" Shindou called.
"Hello, Shindou-kun," Ashiwara said. His eyes slid to Touya, then back to Shindou. "I take it you won," he said, his eyes crinkling.
The jumpy irritable portion of Touya's expression became more pronounced. He bowed. "Ashiwara-san."
"Totally dominated him in the endgame," Shindou agreed, stretching his arms above his head with a lazy, brilliant grin.
Saeki wasn't exactly a stickler for formality, but he still winced a bit for the public profile of his study group.
"He's going to come along to Waya's place for his Sunday study session tonight!" Shindou added, dropping his arms. "He has to, because he lost. Ooh, you should come, Ashiwara-san!"
Ashiwara blinked. "If you'd like," he said doubtfully. His eyes flicked to Waya, still in the doorway. Waya had broken off his conversation with Isumi-kun when he heard his name. He looked a bit blank, but he gave Ashiwara a fairly gracious smile. "Of course," he said. Beside him, Isumi-kun hid a smile.
Shindou grinned and interlocked his hands behind his head. "Don't worry," he said. "Waya has plenty of room."
Touya was giving Shindou a look that Saeki thought was supposed to be appalled, but was kind of coming across as fond.
Shindou noticed Saeki standing in the doorway, still half pretending to read his magazine. He waved an arm above his head. "Saeki-san! You're coming tonight too, right? Otherwise Ashiwara-san might be bored because everybody's young!"
Saeki blinked. "Oh!" he called. "Um. Yeah, of course." He glanced at Waya, who rolled his eyes and shrugged.
"What is with you today?" Saeki heard Waya saying as they walked away. "No more invitations! You've already invited half of Tokyo to my flat!"
*
Shindou had said that Waya had "plenty of room". Saeki knew Waya's place, and roomy wasn't the first word he would have used to describe it. He didn't realise the full extent of Shindou's shaky grasp on spatial reasoning until he reached the top of the stairs to Waya's apartment, though. The door was gaping open and people were spilling out, animatedly having post-game discussions and, in one case, playing a game on a magnetic goban propped between the window frame and someone's hip.
Saeki squeezed his way inside, threading through knots of people. The press was warm and awkward, and the people grouped around games on the carpet seemed to all have limbs spilling out into any space you might have wanted to walk. After a few minutes he found Shindou and Touya on the floor in the doorway to the kitchen, focusing utterly on the goban between them.
Waya came up behind Saeki and gave him a harried nod before descending on Shindou.
"You!" Shindou looked up, blinking. Waya narrowed his eyes. "How many people did you invite?"
Shindou looked around, seeming to notice the crowd for the first time. "Oh, Kawai-san!" he called, his face splitting in a sunny smile. "You came!"
This seemed to be directed at a man with dark glasses and stubble playing ferocious speed Go on the other side of the room. He looked up briefly and gave Shindou a wolfish grin and a wave.
Waya slumped against the wall behind him.
A girl Saeki thought had been one of this year's new pros turned from a conversation with Isumi-kun and another boy. She nudged Waya with her hip. "What are you going to complain about, Waya?" she asked. She gave him a cheeky grin. "That all these people have ruined your meticulously arranged pattern of strewn clothes on the floor? That we're going to eat you out of the frozen packet of noodles and the half a lemon that you have in your fridge?"
"Nase ..." Waya started, his voice dangerous.
Isumi-kun hid a smile again and took his arm. "Come and have a game with me, Waya-kun," he said.
Waya hesitated, his eyes meeting the older boy's. Then he lowered his eyes for a moment, a tiny smile tugging at his mouth. He shook his head and looked up. "Fine, whatever." He shot a look at the girl who'd teased him, giving her a grin with a wild edge to it and throwing his finger out. He took a step backwards. "But don't you touch that lemon! I'm saving it!" He linked his arm through Isumi's and they picked their across the carpet to another room where Saeki could see the edge of a futon, and some empty carpet space.
Nase and her remaining companion looked at each other and collapsed into snickers.
Saeki didn't realise Ashiwara had come up beside him until he heard the low, good-natured laugh in his ear.
"Your Waya-kun is a good boy," Ashiwara said, his eyes crinkling at the edges.
Saeki gave him a startled glance, then tried a smile. It came out slightly shaky. "Yeah," he said. "He tries to hide it, but he's always had a soft spot for Shindou-kun, I think."
Ashiwara's eyes strayed to Shindou and Touya sitting in the kitchen doorway, almost obscured by people's knees now. They'd started yelling at each other. Saeki couldn't make out much of what the argument was, over the babble of other voices and the pa-chi of stones.
Ashiwara's eyes moved to the room beyond them. "Oh, look," he said. "A goban has opened up." He turned and met Saeki's eyes, his gaze dark and unreadable for a moment. Then he smiled that Ashiwara smile again. "Will you play me, Saeki-kun?"
Saeki was saying yes before he realised he'd even opened his mouth.
There was a goban, but there wasn't actually room on both sides of it. Saeki and Ashiwara looked at each other and shrugged, then sat down side by side against the wall, their knees pushed awkwardly to the side so that they could reach the goke.
Ashiwara's thigh was pressing against the length of Saeki's. It was distracting. Saeki could feel the warm of his skin; could feel the soft scrape of material whenever Ashiwara shifted. When Ashiwara leaned forward to uncap the goke, his curly dark hair brushed Saeki's shoulder. Saeki tried to ignore the warm shiver that danced down his neck.
"Nigiri, Saeki-kun," Ashiwara said. Saeki won black.
They started slow. Saeki had played Ashiwara before – as Insei in the Pro Test, in title league games, in the oteai – but he still wasn't sure that he quite knew the rhythm of Ashiwara's play. And it felt strange, playing from the side, brushing Ashiwara's shoulder when he leaned forward to lay a stone. So he was cautious, working on establishing a strong foundation for the midgame, rather than striking out into the centre as he might have done if he'd been more confident.
Sometime around the sixteenth hand, Saeki looked over to find Ashiwara meeting his gaze. Ashiwara's brown eyes were still and thoughtful, but there was a golden flash somewhere deep down. Saeki felt as though something inside him was trying to leap up to answer it; something that made the breath catch in his throat; made it impossible to look away.
He dragged his eyes down, back to the goban, and to the black stone held between the first and second fingers of his right hand. He'd already played ahead another eight hands in his mind, planned the solidification of his bottom left corner formation. But he could see how Ashiwara's last hand had opened up a new, tenuous possibility for extending across into a new formation. It was a move that held just as much chance of being ultimately favourable to Ashiwara as it had of being favourable for Saeki, but if it did work ...
Saeki moved, setting the stone into the new position. He heard Ashiwara let his breath out and glanced up, the movement almost involuntary. Ashiwara met his eyes for a moment, the smile on his lips matching the golden flash in his eyes. Then he tilted his head back to the goban, and moved his next stone out to meet Saeki's.
*
In the end, Saeki lost by one and a half moku, including komi.
He stared at the stones; at the intricate, daring formations stretching across the board. He didn't think he'd ever played a game like that before. Even though he'd lost, he felt that he wanted to show it to everybody, to Morishita-sensei and everybody else; to say: "Look, this is my Go; this is what it can do."
He looked up, and saw that same awareness, and flash of something sparking deep down, in Ashiwara's expression.
Then Ashiwara ducked his head and smiled. "Thank you, Saeki-kun," he said formally.
"Thank you." Saeki tried to bow, awkwardly around their legs. Ashiwara caught his eye and they both laughed.
"I think I have a cramp," Ashiwara admitted. He used both hands to shift his thigh out of the position it had been in while they played, and winced.
Looking around, Saeki realised that the crowd had thinned at some point. Shindou was over near the door, Waya behind him with a hand clamped over his shoulder. Shindou, laughing uncomfortably, was suggesting to the participants and watchers of one of the games still in progress that it might be time for them all to leave.
Ashiwara caught Saeki's eyes. "Do you want to share a taxi?" he asked. His smile was easy and sweet.
Saeki didn't ask how Ashiwara knew that they lived in the same direction. "Sure," he said.
*
The back of the taxi was dark, and somehow, even though they didn't need to sit so close, the line of Ashiwara's thigh was pressing warmly against Saeki's again.
Ashiwara yawned as he gave the driver directions, his hand fluttering over his mouth. He leaned back, tilting his head to give Saeki a sleepily apologetic smile. His face was lit by a bright shop front for a moment, then it slid into shadow again. His eyes slipped shut at the same time; half open and then shut again.
Saeki glanced down at him, smiling slightly as he settled back in his seat. Ashiwara yawned again, not opening his eyes, and let his head slide sideways a bit, until it was just resting against Saeki's shoulder.
Saeki went still, casting a startled look at the top of Ashiwara's head. The dark curls were disarrayed again, pushed out of place by the seat back and Saeki's shoulder.
It was dark back here, and Ashiwara was probably too sleepy to notice anything Saeki did. Saeki hesitated, then carefully worked his free arm around and smoothed back the heavy curls. He kept his touch as light as possible.
Ashiwara made a pleased, mumbling sound, and turned his face further in towards Saeki's shoulder. Saeki could feel Ashiwara's breath, warm against the sensitive skin of his collarbone. He hesitated, then touched his fingers to Ashiwara's hair again.
He didn't know what he was doing, only that the car was dark and Ashiwara was a warm weight against him and had made a pleased humming sound against his shoulder; and that tonight in Waya's noisy, over-crowded apartment, with the goban at the wrong angle and his legs all in the way, he'd played the best Go of his career.
"Saeki-kun?" Ashiwara murmured. He lifted his head a little way, his hair brushing Saeki's cheek. His eyes were very, very close, and Saeki thought he saw a flash of gold again in their depths. Ashiwara's voice was low, with a sleepy, husky edge to it. From this close, in the uneven slide of light and shadow from the street, his smile wasn't the same easy, polite form; there was intention behind it.
Saeki still had his hand on Ashiwara's head. He couldn't seem to move it. He curled his fingers, slightly, the tips brushing against Ashiwara's scalp. Ashiwara shivered and dipped his head, his nose pressing lightly against Saeki's neck. And that could have been accidental, but the faint brush of his mouth over the pulse there a moment later certainly wasn't.
"I know that you've been following me, you know," Ashiwara said, his voice quiet.
It took a moment for the words to penetrate the haze of sensation in Saeki's mind.
"What?"
Ashiwara laughed softly and lifted his head. His eyelids were still heavy, but he definitely wasn't asleep. "Blinding silver hair is a bit hard to miss," he said. "Even in a dark bar, or behind a magazine."
Saeki could feel his cheeks beginning to burn.
Morishita-sensei was Saeki's punishment for a misdeed in a previous life; he'd never been so sure of it.
"Oh," he said.
The taxi was pulling up to the curb, he realised. They must have reached Ashiwara's place.
"I was particularly impressed when you chased me all over Tokyo last Monday," Ashiwara said. He smiled, his eyes crinkling. "I had so many errands that day!"
He pulled away and leaned toward the front to pay his half of the amount to the taxi driver.
Saeki screwed his eyes shut and bowed from the waist. "I'm sorry! It was very rude of me to follow you like that!"
After a moment he opened his eyes and found Ashiwara watching him, one hand on the door handle on his side of the car.
"It's all right," he said when Saeki met his eyes. His voice was sunny. "We can have lunch this week instead, if you want."
He opened the door while Saeki was still trying to collect himself to answer. Once he was out, he paused again, and leaned back through the open door. He caught Saeki's gaze, his eyes dark and unreadable.
His expression was serious. "Don't stop chasing me," he said. His voice was low; a promise. "And I won't stop chasing you."
Saeki gaped for a moment. Then he scrambled across the seat and leaned out of the car.
"You did know about the rivalry!"
Ashiwara was already most of the way up his steps. He threw a smile and a wave over his shoulder, his door keys glinting in his hand. "Good night, Saeki-kun!"
Saeki watched him disappear inside the flat. Then, slowly, he settled back inside the taxi. He gave the driver his address, distractedly.
Don't stop chasing me.
Saeki rubbed his shoulder, feeling the soft slide of mussed curls against it. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to smile, or if he wanted to clench his fingers in determination.
He ducked his head. I've only just started, he thought. He bit his lip. Suddenly there was a path stretching before him – of games like tonight's, of Go that tugged him in new directions, that stretched and changed him. Of Ashiwara's head drooping sleepily on his shoulder in the backs of taxis; of the glint of gold and determination that Ashiwara didn't show to the world at large. Saeki's mouth slipped into a smile he couldn't help.
I promise I won't stop now.
He curled his arms around his knee, leaning forward in the darkness.