Pair Go
Friday.
Walking home alone after finishing my morning classes at school. I pass children running wild across the playground after lunch and head toward the empty school gate, where a woman in a business suit waves at me.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Ryu Seoa. My name is Lee Sohee, and starting today, I'll be serving as your attendant."
A woman in her early thirties who used to attend to the wife of Chairman Jung Woon-il.
After the commercial shoot, I'd been invited out for a meal with them, and somewhere in the conversation the topic of a personal driver came up. It was true that asking my mother for a ride to every match was wearing on my conscience, and even when I tried taking taxis alone, if a game ran late into the evening, my mother would inevitably show up to collect me no matter how much I protested.
Father's recovery from surgery continued to go well, and thanks to my—admittedly unfair—foresight-assisted investing, my account balance was quietly piling up. Money wasn't a real concern.
When I brought it up, Chairman Jung Woon-il vouched for her as thoroughly trustworthy and introduced me to Lee Sohee. He offered, as he had before, to cover her wages if she could help me whenever needed, but having no desire whatsoever to be dragged into another commercial shoot, I politely declined.
"Ah, yes! Hello there."
I give a small bow, privately noting that I'll need to correct her on the whole "Miss" business.
I did get a text this morning saying she'd come by to introduce herself, but I hadn't expected her to show up at my school this very day.
"Shall we head straight home?"
she asks, opening the rear door for me. Having once served the wife of a corporate chairman, she carries herself with a distinctly professional grace.
"No—I was actually planning to meet you first before heading out, but since you're already here, there's no need. Please take me to the hotel in OO District."
"Of course."
The Pair Go quarterfinals and semifinals would be held at the hotel over the weekend, so I'd booked a room to head there the moment school let out and prepare for tomorrow's match at my leisure.
I settle into the back seat and lean against the headrest. It looked like a rather expensive car.
"Have you eaten?"
I ask Lee Sohee as she takes the wheel and pulls away.
"Just something light."
"If you're still hungry, would you let me treat you to a meal once we reach the hotel?"
"That's very kind of you, but there's really no need, Miss."
She smiles gently in the rearview mirror.
"I'd be dining alone anyway, and I'll be relying on you a great deal going forward—I wanted to at least break bread together first."
"Then I'd be honored to accept. Thank you, Miss. Oh, come to think of it—the Chairman left a small gift for you in the backseat pocket."
I rummage through the netting at her words.
A laptop and its own carrying case. Thin and light, clearly designed for portability—and judging by the brand, quite the expensive piece.
"Ah—then I really do need to thank him properly."
I can feel the frustration from that commercial shoot melting away. To be swayed so easily by a single gift—human hearts are truly fickle things.
Chatting with Sohee along the way, we arrive at the hotel and finish a meal together at its restaurant. After checking in, I send her straight home—she'd offered to wait nearby—telling her I'll see her early Monday morning, then head up to my room and collapse face-first onto the bed.
The quarterfinals.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lee Jia and Choi Geonha brushed aside the public's doubts and cruised into the top eight.
Opening the laptop the Chairman had gifted me, I pull up their game records.
Lee Jia.
From the moment we first met at the amateur tournament, I could tell she had sharp instincts and rock-solid fundamentals. Since I began teaching her, we've traded moves back and forth, and she's absorbed the concepts of the future without even realizing it—her once-passive style has turned aggressive.
Right now she's merely an up-and-coming female pro with no real accomplishments to her name, but it won't be long before she stands out.
Her game records prove it: every move etched into them is flawless, without a single crack to exploit.
The problem is Choi Geonha.
Even accounting for the fact that he's been studying with Jia, his rate of absorption is absurd. He's wielding the opening strategies Jia and I developed together as if they were his own.
He's formidable in peaceful territorial games without a single fight, and in violent, cutthroat battles he unleashes his particular brand of genius without reservation, overwhelming his opponents outright.
The polar opposite of who I used to be.
Choi Geonha will use any means necessary to become stronger. There must have been plenty of moves whose purpose was inscrutable, unfathomable—and he played them without the slightest hesitation.
It was only natural that I, chasing clarity and burying myself in game records through my faded, old-world lens, would end up toyed with by him.
"Impressive."
I let out a genuine sigh of admiration and replay their games move by move.
Choi Geonha will grow into a first-rate pro one day, too. He appeared on the professional stage faster than in my previous life—perhaps he'll rise even faster still.
But not a shred of me intends to lose to him easily.
Choi Geonha is rich in potential, but still unfinished. There will be habits unpolished, weaknesses uncorrected.
I dive deeper into the game records.
Dissecting and interpreting every single move, one by one.
A tournament with a fresh format, where male and female pros pair up to compete for victory.
It has captured the interest of no small number of Go fans and is enjoying unusually strong popularity.
And at the center of that boom stands not only Ryu Seoa 2-dan, the most talked-about player in recent memory, but also Choi Geonha, amateur 5-dan—the tournament's sole remaining amateur male player to survive all the way to the semifinals.
In Saturday's quarterfinal matches, Ryu Seoa 2-dan and Yu Jeonhun 9-dan cruised to a dominant win by resignation, while Choi Geonha, amateur 5-dan, and Lee Jia, 1-dan, also advanced to the semifinals by resignation—setting the two pairs against each other.
Choi Geonha lifts his head and looks at the blonde girl seated across from him.
She was supposedly eleven this year, his same age, but she carried herself with a maturity far beyond it. He knew perfectly well that girls tried harder than boys to act grown-up, but there was something unfamiliar about this one.
At their first meeting, she'd turned pale—her bladder apparently in open revolt—and fled. Looking at her closely now, she really was like a doll come to life.
While he's staring at her absently, the game begins.
He wants to tease her—is your stomach feeling better?—but his cousin Jia had drilled it into him repeatedly that talking during a match was forbidden, so Choi Geonha clamps his mouth shut.
The pair of Yu Jeonhun 9-dan and Ryu Seoa 2-dan takes White; the pair of Lee Jia 1-dan and Choi Geonha, amateur 5-dan, takes Black.
For Choi Geonha, amateur 5-dan, this is the most fun he has ever had playing Go.
He'd been playing since he was very young, but not out of love—it had simply become part of daily life.
Because of his grandfather, a former professional, he learned Go before he learned to read. He never loved it, but he didn't particularly hate it either, so it just kept going.
Before he knew it, no one his age could touch him. Every regional elementary division tournament he entered, he won. Not long ago, he'd even defeated kids who were insei.
The four handicap stones he used to place against his professional grandfather shrank one by one until they played even, and a win rate that once hovered around one game in ten had climbed to fifty-fifty.
That was about when he heard the news—his cousin, the insei Lee Jia, had passed the professional qualification exam and turned pro.
At the celebration, they played a casual game for fun.
His cousin's tedious, by-the-book Go had transformed into something ferocious.
He scraped out a win by forcibly squeezing out moves in the endgame, but he'd been utterly dominated through the middle game.
As they talked afterward, the name Ryu Seoa 2-dan came up.
A name he'd heard from his grandfather a few times. He hadn't thought much of it at the time—but now his interest was piqued.
Lee Jia opens on the 3-3 point in the upper right. A move you'd only see in online Go, never on the professional stage.
Ryu Seoa 2-dan answers with the 3-3 point in the lower left.
A first move leagues away from the monotony repeated in game after game.
This is going to be even more fun than he'd hoped.
Choi Geonha bares his teeth in a grin, thoroughly satisfied.