Let Me Borrow Her for a Day
Yoonseul Baduk Academy.
Ever since I came here holding my grandfather's hand, Neulpureun Giwon had been relying on their goodwill.
True to my promise, I had been playing teaching games with Lee Jiah, who had taken a break from Go for a while.
"…."
I kept my mouth firmly shut and focused solely on the game itself. I had no intention of lecturing or teaching.
If a god of Go truly existed, then perhaps the act of "teaching" might be possible. As one professional once put it, in the eyes of a god, only "good moves" and "bad moves" would ever be visible.
And yet, for all the millennia of development, humanity had never once touched even the hem of that divine realm. Even joseki — the model answers painstakingly derived by generations of super-strong players through long years of research — would drift away from being a "good move" and curdle into a "bad move" depending on the surrounding position.
Nor was that all. Even the artificial intelligence that had conquered mankind merely sorted through countless lines of play according to shifts in expected win rate; it had never possessed the true "eye" of a god.
That said, complete beginners and amateurs who had never studied Go systematically could improve easily enough by mechanically memorizing joseki and professional game records.
Josseki isn't always correct, but playing it out more often than not leads to a favorable position. Professionals blunder constantly in their game records too, yet even those mistakes are better than the moves an amateur improvises without any understanding of the board.
But an insei — someone separated from a professional by little more than a sheet of paper — already has her foundations firmly laid. She will have studied game records until she could recite them in her sleep, and joseki flow from her hand without her mind ever needing to recall them.
If I recklessly charged in to "teach," her fundamental axis would waver. But if I instead picked at the minor branches around the edges, she would fixate on those alone and her vision would narrow.
Which meant the only thing I could offer her was the experience of proper stimulation and challenge.
Wider vision. Sharper, keener sensation in hand and eye.
In the end, this was a continuation of the WY Cup Amateur Tournament final. I pushed Lee Jiah to her absolute limit, and she weathered it.
This was already our third game.
Perhaps because she'd had time to rest, she was pressing in more and more ferociously, while I — my strength gradually draining — struggled to keep pace.
Bzzzzzzz—
The pivotal moment of the game. And then Lee Jiah's phone rang, shattering my concentration.
She moved to decline the call at once, but upon seeing the name on the screen, she hesitated.
"Ah, sorry, Seoa. I think I need to take this."
With an apologetic expression, she rose from her seat.
"Of course. Go ahead."
"Hello?"
"Jiah! Where the hell are you?!"
Just as I was taking a breather, a man's shouting leaked out of Lee Jiah's phone.
It was bothering me, so I quietly tailed after her.
"I'm sorry, Master. I'll rest just through today."
"Are you out of your mind?! Do you have any idea how much time and effort I've poured into raising you? What gives you the nerve to take more than a week off and then ask for even more?"
"Hehe, there's something I want to research on my own."
"Research? You? You can barely do as you're told! Jiah, what is going on with you? Things were going so well — why now? Hm?"
"…There's a reason. Just bear with me for today, please."
"You said you'd turn pro! Go pro first, then do whatever you want! It'd be none of my business anyway! But if you started something, you should at least see it through. Quit making excuses and get out here, now!"
"B-but…."
When I'd faced Lee Jiah at the tournament, I'd wondered how someone with such obvious skill could be so passive, so deferential. Now I had a fair idea. Her master had been forcing a particular style on her. Imitation at its most diluted — and even that would have been forgivable if the model had been a top-ranked professional, which, apparently, it was not.
"Jiah-unnie."
I stepped out from my hiding place and strode right up beside her, cutting in. I hadn't wanted to meddle this badly, but having inserted myself this far, I might as well see it through to the end.
"…Seoa?"
"Let me switch with you for a moment."
"N-no, it's fine, I can handle—"
"Give it to me."
When I said it flatly, she hesitated a beat and then handed over the phone. While a fidgeting Lee Jiah watched me anxiously, I steered her back into the academy and took hold of the phone that was blaring a man's yelling.
"Hello."
"Ha, damn it… Hello. And who are you supposed to be?"
"A friend of Jiah-unnie's. I'll be borrowing her for just today, so I'd appreciate your generous understanding."
I did my best to soothe the agitated man on the other end. But the man — apparently Lee Jiah's Go master — showed no sign of calming down.
"Borrowing her? Do I look like a joke to you? Someone's life is not a toy."
"It's precisely because I don't think it's a joke that I'm asking. Though isn't it a little rich, coming from someone who treats other people's lives as a means to his own ends?"
"What? A means?"
"Oh, so I guessed wrong, did I? Forgive me — I assumed you were grabbing hold of a moderately talented kid, forcing her into pro status, and milking her fame to drum up academy students."
Instead of my usual courtesy, the thoughts in my head came spilling straight out of my mouth, without passing through any filter at all.
"You little brat. You think I'm doing this to scrape together a few extra won?"
"Were you not? Honestly, watching you cling to a talented young pro when you're hardly qualified to teach anyone makes my skin crawl."
A professional player who, in all likelihood, could barely make a living off prize money and game fees alone.
"Listen to this — some deranged little pipsqueak… Ha. What, you think you play better than me, is that it?"
Hearing my words, the man laughed in sheer disbelief.
"Going by the way you carry yourself, I'd say the odds are good. Care to play a game? A wager on it."
"Hahahaha. You're really something, you insolent brat. Fine, sure. Let's see just how good you are."
"I'll be by with Jiah-unnie shortly. See you then."
I said my piece and hung up.
"Jiah-unnie. Let's go to your academy together."
I called out to Lee Jiah, who had been sitting on pins and needles the whole time.
"Huh? Wha— why?"
Lee Jiah accepted her phone back with a bewildered face.
"I agreed to play a game with your Master."
When I said it with a light smile, the color drained from her face.
We grabbed a taxi with Lee Jiah and arrived at the Yoonseul Baduk Academy almost immediately.
The moment I pushed open the academy's glass door, a man stood there glaring with murderous eyes.
"Jiah, you're here."
His face made an obvious effort to smother his anger as he greeted her with a strained smile.
"Y-yes… Master…."
"So then — this brat of yours who's apparently got so much to say, did she come along too?"
"Yes, right behind me…."
I stepped out from behind Lee Jiah and revealed myself to him.
"Ryu Seoa…."
Had he seen my picture in a Go article somewhere? He seemed to know my name. If so, this would go quickly.
"Would you like to play even? Or shall I take two stones?"
I looked at him with a rather insolent smile. At this unmistakable insult, his face twisted. But the audacity wasn't baseless. I had beaten frontline professionals in an open tournament.
And not with Shin Changmo's Go — with Ryu Seoa's.
"Urk…."
"If I lose, you can order me to do anything. Join this academy, accept whatever physical punishment you like for my rudeness earlier — as long as it doesn't put me in the hospital. But if I win, you never interfere with Jiah-unnie again. She does as I say."
I hadn't asked his permission. But if I could beat this man giving two stones, he would understand well enough that he had no right to stand in her way.
"Fine… You're on."
Go boards were strewn all over the academy. Without another word, he led me to one of them.