Meijin
My vision was hazy.
So was my mind. It had been the same against Yu Jeon-hun 9-dan, and again in the qualifier match against Yang Changzhi — but against the very strongest, players who tolerate not even a hint of awkwardness, there is simply no room to pace yourself.
These are the people who will pry open the narrowest crack, tear it wide, and rend it apart. Against them, you cannot afford the gamble of playing half-hearted moves.
"...Hoo."
I took a sip of water, trying to cool the fever burning through my skull, but it barely helped.
Meijin's Go carries that subtle fragrance peculiar to Japanese Go, yet in positions that call for aggression, it wields the same swashbuckling ferocity and venom you see in Korean or Chinese Go. Unruled by stereotypes, unbound by any mold — a powerhouse who has overcome some of the traditional limits of Japanese play. In this era, even if you manufacture unorthodox variations to buy time, you gain nothing but a brief chance to catch your breath.
It's a friendly match — win or lose, nothing changes. The urge to simply collapse presses down on me, but I don't want to lose helplessly like this. What I ultimately want isn't glory, or praise, or prize money. It's growth, nothing more. And opportunities for growth and verification like this do not come easily.
"Final byo-yomi. One, two, three…"
The game hung by the thinnest of margins — close enough that it would be decided by no more than two points. A mistake in the middlegame had cost me some ground, but thanks to a favorable exchange early on that had banked me an extra group, the game hadn't yet tipped over.
Still, while my opponent sat there with several minutes of main time and all five byo-yomi periods untouched, I was gasping for air, drowning in time trouble.
Would it have been different if only my body were stronger?
No — there was no time to drown in regret. The game wasn't over yet. If I aimed for the summit, this was an opponent I would have to overcome eventually. I refused to console myself with having fought well against a worthy foe and settle for that.
And shedding tears the way I had against Yu Jeon-hun 9-dan was doubly out of the question. Which meant there was only one answer: win.
There was no time to verify everything through my usual routine. I extracted only the critical reads and committed to decisions on pure instinct. Looking back over the moves during Meijin's thinking time, they weren't bad, thankfully — my win rate still held at a level where hope remained.
I closed my eyes for a moment and steadied my breathing. Three long seconds in through the nose, then a slow, calm exhale.
I had to push out every impurity and use what little time I had with maximum efficiency.
Overheating thought. Leaning on momentum and acceleration, I wrung out the last of my strength.
The uncontrollable speed made my mind sway, and I forcibly pinned it down. If I fell, I wouldn't get back up — I'd simply be overtaken.
"Five, six, seven, eight, nine."
Again and again, I placed stones with barely a second to spare — so little that even the timekeeper seemed more anxious than I was. Every split second was precious; Meijin kept forcing me into calculations of brutal complexity, pressing me down and down.
The nausea rose until I wanted to vomit. My stomach churned, queasy and rolling. My clenched hands had gone bloodless and pale. A mild chill swept over me, a faint dizziness following — but with only a few steps left, surrendering now was not an option.
With no capacity to calculate the whole board, I didn't know the score. In truth, I might already have lost.
But as long as I couldn't be certain, I had to squeeze out the best move. If the best was impossible, then the second-best. Or the one after that.
Governed by compulsion and obsession, I moved the stones like a machine.
At most, ten-odd moves remained in the game.
With every step up the staircase, my brain felt ready to burst, veins throbbing — yet I forced myself to keep climbing.
"Ugh."
Regurgitating moves by brute force, I reached the final neutral point. Meijin signaled his agreement to the count, and with my weary nod of consent, the game came to an end.
The moment the tension released, the reins of thought I had been gripping by force slipped limply from my hands. I felt my body sagging, and simply surrendered myself to the sensation of floating.
"Ryu Seoa, 2-dan!?"
Faintly hearing my name being called, I felt my vision go black.
The warmth touching my fingertips made me flinch, and I opened my eyes.
Following the IV line lodged in my hand with my gaze, I could see the drip falling, drop by drop. A spacious private room. Dim light leaked through the gap in the curtains — it must be nearly dawn.
So I'd collapsed after yesterday's game and slept until now. I'd fainted before the count even began, so I had no idea how the game ended... though honestly, if I'd won, it would be a miracle.
"Haa…."
I sighed, looking at the slender white arm slipping out from beneath the hospital gown.
I'd seen this body of mine until I was sick of it, and yet the wrongness still lingered. Perhaps it was because I still hadn't found my footing between these two identities.
If I'd never started playing Go — if I'd had fewer chances to remember the life of Shin Changmo — could I have fully accepted what I am now? That transcendent being who guided me from somewhere unseen, steering me toward this fate — what could it possibly have wanted?
Did it want this finite body to burn itself completely to ash again, just as Shin Changmo had, leaving nothing but cinders? Or did it want me to live the life of an ordinary woman, rotting away leisurely in the winds and waves of passing years?
I had chosen the former. But a doubt gnawed at me: was this small, frail frame not far too shabby a bundle of kindling to feed so great a flame?
Whichever log you set alight, it will burn out someday, so blaming fate changes nothing about the ending. Still, if you're going to burn — wouldn't it be better to burn more brilliantly, more hugely, and for as long as possible?
"Mm…."
As I turned over, I found a single envelope lying beside my pillow.
The sender was Natsumura Yasuto. The Meijin — my opponent from yesterday. His name was written in rounded, gentle Korean, a striking contrast to his austere, grave countenance.
I opened the rather thick envelope and read the letter. A stiff, translated-sounding wish for my swift recovery, a game record attached, printed reference diagrams marking the key moments of our match — and his own reflections from replaying the game, rendered in prose that was unmistakably machine-translated.
Replaying the record from start to finish, it seemed I had lost the game after all... by a mere point and a half — a margin I could so easily have overturned.
I swallowed my regret and read the letter through to the very end. Hours of memos and writing, ending in an emoticon far cuter than any man his age had any right to use.
Please write back!! (*^____^*)
I picked up the memo pad and pen resting on the shelf beside me.
That's right. There was no need to burn alone in solitude, the way Shin Changmo had.
I drew the grid across the page, doing my best to keep every line perfectly straight.