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Their Ethereal Dreams By Amber Michelle K. "... Hey Sai." The ghost looked up from his contemplation of the goban. Hikaru's room was mostly dark, left in shades of blue and gray by the glow of the moon filtered through the curtains, and its more unpleasant florescent companions, called 'streetlights,' which lined the next street over. His student was silhoetted against the window, tousled and blinking owlishly into the darkness. "Yes?" He lowered his fan. "Were you married? When you were alive, I mean." Sai froze. "... Still worried about that joke?" "/No/." Hikaru answered too quickly, giving himself away. He flopped back down angrily in a puff of covers. "So were you?" The memory was there, but he kept it at arm's length and lifted his fan again, considering the boy glaring at him from the bed. "Such things aren't always easy to remember. It has been a long time." Hikaru rolled his eyes. "Come on, isn't it supposed to be the happiest time in your life or something? Like you couldn't remember that." "Happy?" The people in this era had odd expectations of private life, Sai had come to realize. He would have laughed, had it been anyone else asking. "Things were different in my time. Marriages were contracts. I did not even know my wife until I married her." And, he reflected, he hadn't always wanted to know her afterward, either. "So you... were." Hikaru seemed not to know what to make of that. He chewed at his bottom lip. Sai realized he was doing the same, and pressed his lips together to stop. "But you weren't happy?" He shook his head. "I didn't say that. Only--" How could he explain the intricacies of his life at that time to such a young boy? Some of it didn't bear mentioning at all, things better left in the darkness of history. "I only meant that I have experienced happier moments." "Like what?" Why Hikaru always woke up full of questions was beyond Sai's ability to explain. Usually these conversations revolved around go, something that happened earlier in the day that haunted the boy until he woke up to ask. Maybe he dreamt of playing go as he played in the waking world - Sai did, sometimes. "I have three lifetimes to choose from, Hikaru. The list could go on for some time." He paused. "But if I chose the happiest? Well..." His memories were a blur of black and white stones, grids, and the ethereal dreams of Torajiro, and now Hikaru. Some times he remembered things that never happened to him, and others he experienced a rush of feelings that weren't his. A ghostly existence was not always an easy one - the world was a different place without a body, full of things that could overwhelm the flimsy stuff of his spirit. Emotions, wishes, even the humming of the electric streetlights outside. The Room of Profound Darkness stood out in his mind. He would have fainted from the intensity of that place, if such a thing were possible. He remembered facing Touya Kouyo, and tasting a moment of bitter disappointment that their game was not what it could have been. It happened such a short time ago that he could summon the image to crystal clarity in his mind. It was tempered only by the bone-deep satisfaction that he was there because /Hikaru/ had earned his own place there. A living man would have taken a deep breath; Sai could not. "Your exam." He smiled and folded his fan closed, curling his fingers around the paper end. He almost remembered what it felt like just then. "I have never seen you so happy." Hikaru blinked at him, and Sai bit his lip against another smile, unable to speak further. He wasn't sure which one of them was choked up, but he judged nothing more needed to be said. He bowed his head, clutching the fan tightly. Long moments passed before Sai could bring himself to look up again. A faint smile creased Hikaru's face, and he was fast asleep. |