Beneath This Silver Moon

By Amber Michelle K.
myaru@etherealvoid.net

-- This might make a better "story" than a ficlet. Will have to think about that.

Sai stared at the board as his student cleared it. Their last exchange in the upper corner had been disappointing, but Hikaru's manipulation of the stones after he realized the fatal mistake he'd made was more encouraging. He was learning so quickly! A year ago he hadn't even the ability to hold the stones correctly.

Coming to terms with the boy's ability was difficult. More than once it occurred to Sai that he was here to train a replacement, that once Hikaru reached a certain point in his career, his presence would no longer be necessary. It made sense, as much as anything in his existence did. Even so, it was a chilling thought.

He would miss Hikaru's face. His eyes were wide with an innocence that no one in Sai's own lifetime ever possessed. The Japan they now shared their life in was full of such innocence, as if it had forgotten the stains of blood and intrigue he grew up with. It allowed Hikaru to sleep past the sunrise, go to school, have friends. It gave him a family. A small, insignificant one, perhaps, but one without agendas or expectations or all-encompassing duty.

In Hikaru's world the Fujiwara name meant nothing, but in Sai's world it defined his existence, in both life and death. There were ties that even an eternity at the bottom of a lake could not break.

"Sai."

He blinked, and realized Hikaru was watching him. "...Yes?"

"Geez! You could at least try not to space out on me until after I'm asleep." Hikaru flopped on his back, ignoring Sai's protest, and let out a put-upon sigh. "What do you do when I'm sleeping, anyway? You just sit there, like-"

"-I'm playing a game," Sai finished. He closed his fan with a satisfying snap. "Most of the time I think about Go."

Hikaru curled on his side, turning his back. "Not surprising."

Sai opened his mouth to retort, then closed it again when nothing came to mind. No, he supposed it wouldn't be a surprise, with the way he badgered the boy about playing. Being a ghost didn't leave his options open for other things, as if were. "I haven't noticed your thoughts deviating from it much," he said at last with a sniff.

"I hang out with my friends-"

"Who all play go," Sai said smugly. "Go, matches, insei, the exam--"

"The Hand of God," Hikaru retorted, twisting around to point. "All you think about is playing Touya Kouyo."

"Touya Akira is always on your mind." Sai made an ineffective attempt to swat at the boy's hand with his fan.

Hikaru yelped, shaking his hand. "Cold!"

Sai lowered his fan quickly. "Sorry."

The mind did not forget. It was his memory of his body that gave Sai the illusion of form, of clothing. He had a voice, and his fan made sound when it snapped closed, all because he remembered what they were supposed to sound like. Hikaru remembered it as well, after a fashion. And sometimes, in moments of ire, or sadness, or happiness, Sai forgot that he was not as real to the world as it was to him.

Were all ghosts cold? He remembered stories of spirit possession from his own time, and that they were always accompanied by scents, or sounds, but usually not by a drop in temperature - at least, he could not remember speaking to anyone who had actually touched a spirit. He imagined being possessed by one would be unpleasant on many other levels.

When Hikaru touched him, it was like part of his body was drenched in cold water. When he passed through walls, or doors, or other people, it was like being submerged all over again, and if he still breathed, he thought it might choke him every time.

"I do think about other things," he said softly, gaze straying back to the board.

"Yeah..." He had the impression that Hikaru sat up, but didn't look. "Me too."

They were silent for a time. Hikaru got up to change into his nightclothes, and Sai continued to stare at the board, brushing his fingers over the surface and pretending that he could feel the grid instead of the cool, wavering surface of water. He was lucky sitting on the floor did not plague him with the same feeling. Perhaps he was hovering over it without realizing, the way he did when he followed Hikaru around during the day.

He himself must be the problem, Sai decided. It wasn't that everything else felt like water, but that he himself was just as insubstantial, and when it passed through him, his essence parted. Just like the surface of the lake.

The incident was long past, and the chill Sai felt was reflex, not fear or pain. He'd had a long time to think on it and regret.

"You're the one thinking about the lake," Hikaru said, sitting down on his bed. "I've never been there before."

Sai looked up and withdrew his hand from the board. "You can see it?" He would have been proud to say the image no longer had any power over him, but Hikaru's statement brought a tightness to his throat.

"I have dreams about it," Hikaru corrected, studying his hands. "Sometimes."

"That should not be possible." Their ability to speak to each other by thought was natural enough, Sai thought, as he felt a part of himself clinging to Hikaru's mind. But never, now or in the past he shared with Torajiro, had his own thoughts ever leaked into the mind of his living host. So he thought. "Do you-" He swallowed reflexively. "Do you see anything else?"

Hikaru shook his head. "Maybe it's a ghost thing."

Even a thousand years hadn't taught him as much about his nature as Sai would have liked. "Are you sure?" He clutched the fan hard and felt the paper bend in his grip. Letting other memories slip would have been fine within reason, but that one... "Nothing?"

Hikaru didn't answer right away. His gaze was clouded over with thought, and his hands worked slowly, clenching into fists, reflecting Sai before they opened again slowly.

Then he whispered, "The glittering water is broken beneath this silver moon."

Sai dropped his fan. It disappeared before it touched the floor.

Merciless, the boy continued. "The world fades into winter, its color sapped away--"

"Stop," Sai commanded. He thrust his hand between them when the boy drew another breath, and Hikaru flinched when it touched him, eyes wide, but did not draw away. "Stop."

"What is it?"

Sai drew his hand away when his student's face began to pale from the cold, folding it with the other beneath his sleeves. The fan appeared again when he willed it, so he could hold it tightly and bend the paper again.

Will I fall like the autumn rain? Thus the poem ended. He'd never shown much skill at such things, unmoved as he was by anything but a go board at that time. Nature could be beautiful, but it was also transient, and the only thing he was sure would endure for eternity was the power, the connection between two souls made by black and white stones. His wife had never understood that. Nor had her father, or his own immediate family. Such was life, he learned.

Only at the shore of the lake could nature finally move him to verse. He'd found that, when facing the end of his life, it made quite an impression on him.

"Sai?" Hikaru's brows drew together, and he hesitated. "What is it?"

"Nothing." He was a bad liar, and they both knew it. But he would be a terrible mentor, too, if he did not try to spare his student from unnecessary discomfort.

The boy's expression was frankly disbelieving, and Sai turned his face away so he would not have to see it. The lake was just an image. He wasn't even sure it existed anymore - so many things had changed since then. Even if it did, his corpse would have faded from the world as he did, long ago.

He told himself the image didn't bother him. Because it didn't. It stood out in his mind because he was a ghost, and the dead always remembered their time of death most vividly.

The chill returned, and it took a moment for him to realize Hikaru was next to him, trying to touch him. Sai flinched back, withdrawing his arm reflexively. It was hard on both of them to attempt touch, but he relented when it appeared his student was determined to make the effort. He couldn't shiver. It would only make the memory more vivid.

"It's not nothing," Hikaru said. He looked concerned, maybe even a little contrite. His hand withdrew when Sai faced him. "You freak out over a lot of stuff, but..."

'Freak out' wasn't the term he would use. Sai shook his head and cast his gaze aside again, but did not turn away.

"It's your poem," the boy continued. "I know it is. I'd never come up with something like that."

No, he wouldn't, Sai thought. Though if anyone he knew was suited for expounding on the joys of the material world, he thought it might be Hikaru.

"So it's you standing there, not me. That's when--" Hikaru stopped, and then Sai heard his mouth snap shut.

He'd caught on admirably, though as usual, it took him a little while to realize the emotional ramifications of his statements. That was natural for young boys, but Sai wished he had thought along those lines sooner. Unable to do anything else, he nodded. He didn't trust his voice.

Silence fell between them again. Hikaru's hand brushed through him, accidentially, he thought, and refused to turn back. The world was wavering around him, again like the surface of that accursed lake, and he wondered if he was losing form, or if it was the memory of tears that haunted him this time.

Words, he thought, held even more power than go stones. He'd never expected to hear his own verse in this time and place, from the person sitting beside him.

"I'm sorry."

Sai shook his head. This was the first time he'd shed real tears in front of Hikaru. He found he had no idea what to say. Reassurances would be paper thin if he tried to utter them while crying. "I did not want you to see that. Hear that." He supposed the words themselves were harmless out of context, but Hikaru knew his story. "Please try to forget it."

"Like hell." Sai's head whipped around, and Hikaru leveled a glare at him reminiscent of his expression during their games. "So you can suffer in silence? No. I'm not going to leave you alone."

His tears made Hikaru all but indistinguisable from the rest of the room. "It's none of your business." He bit his lip. "Idiot."

"Takes one to know one." Hikaru's voice was soft despite his words, soothing the way he thought a hand on his shoulder might have been.

When the tears finally broke and slid down his cheeks, Sai saw Hikaru leaning over to drag the go board over. He swallowed and said thicky, "You have school tomorrow. Rest, we can play afterward."

"We're gonna play now." Hikaru shifted so they were sitting side by side, and pulled the board to rest in front of them. "I told you, I won't leave you alone. Now play. Show me one of the games you think about at night."

Sai dabbed at his cheeks with a sleeve, trembling. He'd never wanted more to throw his arms around someone than he did now. He sat stiffly, held himself back, knowing it would cause them both discomfort.

"White. Six-thirteen," he murmured through his tears, and Hikaru placed the stone.

He'd had enough of water, and the memory of it.