A friend from her tandai said to her once, "I wish I were like you, Akiko. You're so much more grown-up than the rest of us."
It was a rare sentiment, even for this girl. Akiko gave her a wondering look, and set down the teacup she had brought to her lips.
"No," she said, "I'm fortunate, that's all."
At the time she was already engaged to the son of her father's sensei, a man considerably older than she, with grave, deep-set eyes and a rare smile. He had frequented her home since before she was born, in order to play go and hold discussions with her father and older brother. As a small child she would not enter the room set aside for this purpose (though she had no memory of a prohibition), and thus there had been nothing to distinguish him from the other players, young and old, who did the same. Later, during the summers, she would bring them glasses of barley tea, and stay some minutes to observe. The screens were habitually left open for the breeze. She would kneel just beyond the reach of the afternoon sunlight flooding the veranda, navy school skirt smoothed over her white knees, and watch the men's hands as they moved over the board. In this manner she learnt openings and patterns, but the purpose was secondary. She liked the overlapping clicks of pebbles on wood, and the quiet way the players breathed: like animals who had forgotten their bodies. Sometimes, if she did not remember to move, the lowering sun would dazzle her eyes.
At length his hands were as familiar to her as her own; they were more dear.
He named their child after her, but Akira was not hers for the molding. He was destined, as she had known he would be. Perhaps if there had been another: a younger son, or a daughter like herself...
Still it was unfair to say Akira was more his father's son than hers. All the men in her life belonged to the same order. She changed, and so did they, but the light in their eyes did not.