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answer_keyby flonnebonne / 
flonnebonne
Waya in Storyland
Another day at the Institute.
Argh.
"Gather round, children," Kuwabara Honinbou cackled, "it's story time."
In response to this pronouncement there was a general mumble of disinterest, followed by a generally disinterested general shuffle in the Honinbou’s general direction. A lineup kind of sort of started to form, but only because some unlucky sobs were shoved into it.
"Gee, I wonder what exciting new tales of wonder we'll get today," said Waya to no one in particular as he dragged himself to the back of the line. Standing in line sucked. Especially this line.
Case in point: directly in front of Waya, a rather large-ish man was scratching at his comb-over and spilling dandruff all over the place.
Further ahead in line, Gokiso the one-trick shyster was loudly complaining about the lousy pay of this job, i.e. no pay at all. Kurata, just behind him, offered to give him an autograph if Gokiso was that hard up.
And from way at the front of the line, Ochi's could be heard practically shrieking, “I have to crossdress again?!”
“What a lucky young man you are,” Kuwabara said in an almost desultory way as he shoved Ochi out of the lineup.
Go players, in general, are just not cool people.
Why, Waya wondered for the gazillionth time, did anyone write stories about them? What kind of crazy people did that? People with way too much time on their hands, obviously.
"Yo," said Shindou, coming up behind Waya and saying “yo” the same way he did every day.” He was late to the party, as usual, but as soon as he showed up the room suddenly got brighter and more...main character-ish.
“Yo,” Waya said back, not even annoyed at the Shindou light show anymore, he was so used to it.
They shuffled forward in line.
"So...think I'll do some scenes with Touya today?"
Waya made a face, which was useless since Shindou was behind him, but whatever. "You're always doing stuff with Touya, and it's always the same stuff, so why do you even think about it? You play Go, you contemplate the Hand of God, you have a fight, you make up, you make kissy-face, you make sexy-times, the end. Why would today be any different?"
"Hey, sometimes I have gigs with you guys too, you know." Shindou went on the defensive, which was rare in his games but common enough in his everything else. "Remember that conversation I did with you last week? That was pretty well-done, I think."
"But it was a conversation about your love-life with Touya."
"Yeah..."
"It had nothing at all to do with me! I just got dragged in to be your damn psychologist."
"True, but--"
"And that was my only appearance in that story."
"But at least you got to do something, right? I mean, you get way more scenes than most people."
"Yeah, but half the time when I make an appearance I'm just there to give you someone to complain to. Maybe more than half the time. I feel so used, so violated." Waya put a hand on his heart theatrically. He was only half-kidding, but he tried to keep his voice light.
Shindou was totally clueless. "And the other half of the time you're there to make passionate love to Isumi," he said with a grin. It's not like Waya really wanted or expected the idiot to understand, anyway. Shindou would never understand what it was like to be secondary character.
Sighing a little, Waya picked some second-hand dandruff out of his bangs--ew--and decided to just get on with the conversation.
"But everyone has to do the passionate love thing,” he said. “Not necessarily with Isumi," Waya amended hastily, "but, you know, porn."
Shindou nodded. He would know all about that. "Sometimes I think it's all about the porn."
"It is all about the porn."
“No shame in it.”
“We all have to do it.”
Suddenly, Waya realized they were already almost at the front of the line. Only dandruff man separated him and Shindou from Kuwabara. A horrible old-man ho-ho-ho rang through the air. "I agree! Everyone should do porn. It's good exercise. Especially for us older folks."
As Mr. Dandruff shuffled off from the line in an awkward, freaked-out way, Kuwabara winked at Waya, whose soul absolutely curdled and molded and all sorts of other cheesy metaphorical things.
“Come closer, young ones,” the Honinbou gestured at Waya and Shindou with one gnarled, pockmarked finger. “Let old man Kuwabara give you a story.”
“You think we’ve be used to the trauma by now,” Shindou commented as they moved forward.
The old man was rifling through the sheaf of papers in his hands. “You’re quite the popular ones, you two.”
He handed two sheets of paper to Waya, and a whole stack of the things to Shindou.
Waya scanned through his first assignment quickly. “What the hell? A Harry Potter crossover? Shoot me now. How come there’s hardly any info here?”
“The writer hasn’t planned anything yet beyond the initial concept,” Kuwabara told him. “Just go to your location and wait. Maybe eventually they’ll figure out what the hell they’re doing.” Then the old geezer leered. “As you noted, it’ll probably be porn.”
“Yeargh.” Waya wondered if his face was turning as green as his camo pants. Why did he always have to wear camo? “Shindou, let’s go, now.”
"Wait, what’s this?" Shindou was staring at one of his assignment sheets and not paying attention to Waya at all. "At the back here, this ‘reminder from Hotta-sama and Obata-sama’ thing?"
Kuwabara squinted at the paper. “Oh, you do remember when that new edition of the manga came out. There were some new ‘character sketchbook’ sections at the back of each volume, with info on all us important characters."
“Oh yeah, I kind of vaguely remember that,” said Shindou, in his usual vague way.
“Mine says I’m very fond of horse racing. Legalized gambling,” Kuwabara noted. “And I know how to enjoy life, unlike most other Go players. I like it. You should take a look at Ogata-kun’s entry. I like that one too.”
Waya really did not like the old man’s smirk. “So why are those character sketchbook things on our assignment sheets today? It’s old news.”
“Our glorious creators just wanted to remind us of who we’re supposed to be, since we occasionally forget.”
“Right,” said Waya, “because with all the porn starring we do, it’s hard to forget that we’re actually from a kids manga about a board game.”
“The character sketches are more about characterization than Go,” Kuwabara reminded them. “The message is ‘try to stay in-character, even during the porn scenes.’ Which you’ll most certainly be doing. Now get going.” He waved them off, and they gladly started moving away from the lineup so the Honinbou could start terrorizing his next victims.
"I take back what I said earlier," Waya said to Shindou. "Now I feel so used, so violated."
“Yeah.”
Shindou was still acting all inattentive--his usual airheadedness, really--but...Waya could tell it was a different kind of airheadedness now. Shindou had turned into Serious Shindou. Was it about the character sketchbook thing? Waya grabbed the stack of assignment sheets out of Shindou’s hands so he could find out whatever the heck had sucked his friend’s brain out even more than usual.
---
13) Shindo Hikaru
The day Sai disappeared was May 5th, Children's Day.
That day, from the window of Hikaru's room, you could see carp streamers swimming energetically.
The carp streamers are a symbol of a child's growth. If you think about it, Hikaru has also grown quite a lot.
Sai disappears.
The day that was meant to come came.
Perhaps that's all it was.
Every year on the fifth of May, particularly when it's a clear day with impatient winds, I look up at the sky.
Hikaru surely does this too.
---
“Oh,” said Waya, as tongue-tied as ever when it came to the sadder side of Shindou’s character. Waya just didn’t have this kind of trauma in his backstory so he didn’t know how to deal with it. And besides, he was never the one Shindou talked to about this stuff - that was always Touya, in all those “Shindou finally reveals that Sai was a ghost” stories that had been done to death over the years.
And Waya was pretty sad about Sai too, truth be told.
It wasn’t fair, Waya thought, not for the first time. Sai...for all his importance in all their lives, Sai wasn’t around very much at the Institute. On most days he was just a memory, a whisper of remembered strength that none of them could ever attain. Sure, once in a while the ghost was given a voice, maybe a body, but even that was inevitably taken away again at the end of day. For Shindou, who had to lose his friend over and over again...
The writers must love seeing us wallow in angst, thought Waya, or else they’re just mean people.
Shindou took his assignment papers back, wordlessly. Waya, for lack of something better to do, looked down at his own character sketch. There was nothing traumatic in it. He showed it to Shindou.
---
4) Waya Yoshitaka
He's a "good guy," although he is short tempered and gets into fights. Rather than a "nice boy," he's more of a "really good guy."
Actually, when I was asked to write a few short pieces outside the main storyline, I also wrote a story for Waya (but it was turned down). Even so, he's a good guy who gets along really well with his fellow disciple Saeki and the other insei.
Lively and also considerate of others, Waya is liked by his peers.
"Straightforward and single-minded," Waya is well taken care of by his master.
Waya is Hikaru's lifelong friend.
Hikaru may not notice the value of that until he becomes an adult, though.
---
“I’m straightfoward and single-minded, and I am well-taken by Morishita-sensei. Great,” said Waya with a roll of his eyes, hoping it would get Shindou’s mind off himself.
“Single-minded? Really?” Shindou said with a faint smile. “More like simple-minded.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, I should go. I’ve got eleven scenes to do today.”
“Yeah, I should go too.” Waya only had two scenes, but he had to keep up appearances. He gave his friend what he hoped was an encouraging grin. “You can go have your kissy-face and sexy-times with Touya now.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Shindou grinned back, as if to say “Sad Shindou is gone for now, thank you.” The poor guy had to be tired of being such an emotional flip-flopper so much.
As Waya watched Shindou walk away, he wondered if any of those scenes Shindou was doing today would have Sai in them. And if he was going to tell Touya about Sai today (again). How much heartbreak did a guy have to method act his way through until enough was enough?
Sometimes Waya didn’t envy Shindou at all.
He looked down at his own character sheet and re-read it. Yeah, it was all pretty accurate. Or rather, Waya usually acted in ways that fit the creator’s wishes decently well. I tend to get in fights and punch Mashiba’s lights out, check. Lively and considerate, check. Unappreciated by Shindou, check.
Waya frowned. He was kind of a sucker, wasn’t he?
"It says ‘good guy’ three times," he noted aloud.
"Interesting, isn't it?" a familiar voice chimed in. "I think maybe you might be a good guy."
"Hi, Isumi." Waya summoned up a smile for his friend.
"So what do you think about this?" Isumi waved his own character sheet. “Why would they send this reminder to us? Do you think we’ve been OOC lately?”
“Who knows?” Waya shrugged. “Honestly, when we’re making out like bunnies or doing Harry Potter crossovers and crap like that, how are we supposed to judge whether we’re in-character or not?”
“You have a point.” Isumi paused for a moment, then said, “Don’t tell me you’re doing a Harry Potter crossover.”
“First assignment today.”
"Ah.” There wasn’t really anything more Isumi needed to say.
"Yeah," Waya sighed. "Anyway, I better go. Crossovers always involve a lot of setting up and getting used to."
“Good luck.” Isumi gave him a pat on the head. “I’ll be thinking of you while I make out with Saeki.”
Waya sighed. It really was all about the porn.
-----
Waya was in Hogwarts.
Ugh.
"Hi," said a very red-headed kid, who seemed very at home in his plushy armchair and not inclined to sit up any time soon, much less stand up to introduce himself. How extraordinarily rude!
Waya blinked. Did he always sound quite so British in his head?
"Hi," he said, wondering what language he was speaking, and with what accent.
"You must be new here. I'm Ron Weasley." The guy said it like he expected Waya to know what that meant. Which Waya did, because hello Harry Potter main sidekick, but he didn't have to acknowledge the guy.
"Um, hi. I'm Waya. Waya Yoshitaka. Or Yoshitaka Waya. Whatever you prefer." As he spoke he noted that the table in front of Weasley did not have a script on it. Which meant that Waya would have to make conversation until the script arrived. Which was something that was not going to go well, he just knew it. He suddenly wished he had a little less professional pride so that he could show up two minutes late for everything, like Shindou. But then Shindou had a busy schedule and could always pretend it wasn't his fault, whereas Waya was just an ordinary plebe with no valid excuses for lateness.
Weasley gave him a wary look. "Yeah, I've worked with plenty of you anime types before. 'Waya' is your last name, right? I'll just call you that, unless the script tells me otherwise. You ever been to Hogwarts?"
Since Waya hadn't been offered his own plushy chair, he pulled a rather ornate but uncomfortable metal chair up to the table and sat down in a very pointed manner. "No, not that I can recall, but my friend Shindou has, more than once. Oh, and I think Touya too." He took a quick glance at his surroundings (standard European-ish stone castle, bad lighting, greyish tinge to everything except Weasley's hair) and decided that he didn't really need to have the grand tour to know there be dragons here, literally. "Standard fantasy stuff, right?"
Weasley didn't look too appreciative of that comment. "Well, I wouldn't say 'standard fantasy.' We don't have elves. Except house elves."
"But dark lords and unicorns and whatnot, right?"
"Well...yes."
"That's good. So, I see you're wearing a wizard's robe. Do you put on a wizard's hat sometimes too?"
"No, we're not that old-fashioned...well, Dumbledore is...but anyway, the script will probably have Hermione explain Hogwarts, A History to you in disgusting amounts of detail, so let's move on. What do you know about magic?"
Waya didn't know what Hermione or Hogwarts, A History were, but he wasn't sure he cared. "Well, if this is a school of magic then I suppose you wave your hands around and say some magic words, and stuff happens, generally? Or is it singing or soul-bonding with dragons or something here?"
"We have wands, and we have to study spells and potion-making and arithmancy and um I'm not enrolled in that last one." Weasley seemed to be struggling to stay professional now. "It's not easy."
"Sorry," said Waya, not feeling sorry at all. He'd had a bad morning. Also, what was it that Hotta-san had written about him? 'Short tempered and gets into fights,' wasn't it? He felt like he could get into a fight right now, if he weren't so professional. He looked at Weasley and felt offended by all that red hair. "I hope you don't expect me to know everything about your world just because, you know, Harry Potter. I've never watched your movies."
"We also have books."
"I've heard that."
"Hm."
"Hm."
An ancient-sounding clock chimed just then, but nothing happened.
Weasley tapped his foot.
Waya folded his arms.
"I hope the script gets here soon," Waya said, if only to say something.
"I hope it's a good script."
"Yeah." He glanced at Weasley's red hair again. "I don't have to give you relationship advice, do I? I always have to do that."
Weasley gave him a weird look for far too long (Was he gay? Well, everyone was gay, so probably). And then he laughed suddenly, surprisingly. "Let me guess, you're the sidekick guy?"
The question hit far too close to home for Waya's liking. "And you're not? The series isn't called Ron Weasley and the World Revolves Around Him, is it?"
"Oh, shut it," said Weasley, whose blue eyes were actually quite nice-looking now that they weren’t so surly. "I'm just glad you're not one of those main character types. They're always strutting around like they own all the stories."
"Yeah, tell me about it," Waya agreed vigorously. Wow, suddenly Weasley wasn't quite so annoying anymore. "I mean, do I ever get to be the legendary prophesized hero? Do I ever get hit by cars or kidnapped or cloned? (Well, maybe that last one.) Do I ever get to make out with babes?"
"Well, it's usually more with blokes. Like Malfoy, ugh."
"Or Touya, ugh."
Waya met Weasley's eyes, and even though they had no idea who the other was talking about, they understood each other completely in that moment.
If I end up having to make out with him it won't be too bad, Waya caught himself thinking.
(Yes, everyone was gay.)
"You know what the worst thing is?" Weasley asked. "When you have a canon girlfriend, and half the world thinks she's better with Harry Potter than you. 'Canon girlfriend jumps ship!' is what I call it." He looked rather proud of himself for that one, but angry at the same time.
"Ah," said Waya, who didn't have Weasley's problem and had thus suddenly lost his vibe of mutual understanding. "That's tough."
"Let me guess." Weasley eyed Waya up and down. "It's all gay gay gay in your world, right?"
"Pretty much."
"Anime types." Weasley flapped his hands around, wrists deliberately and offensively limp. "No offense, but you people are really weird. Like, you know the guy who changes into a girl when you splash water on him? And then he makes out with a pig or a cat or something sometimes, and gets off on being hit by girls with mallets?"
Waya shook his head, annoyed at being lumped in with something as...wrong as that. It was probably a weirdo porn series. And had nothing to do with Go. "I don't know that one, sorry."
"Really? I thought it was pretty famous."
"There's a lot of media out there, I don't know most of it. My social circle is really small."
"Huh," hmphed Weasley, clearly not impressed. "Well, I just have to say that, from my crossover experiences, you anime types are really weird. And they think they're the centre of the universe, even when they come here.
"Yes, because here is the centre of the universe."
Weasley seemed to be ramping up for a rant and didn't catch Waya's sarcasm. "And the writers are really mental. So obsessed with Japan. The characters they write can barely speak properly, it's all kawaii this and watashi-sama that. And even their actual English isn't proper English, ugh."
"Was that a racist comment?" Waya asked, genuinely curious.
"Racist? Oh, no, it's not because you're Jap, I mean Japanese, nothing like that, you know." Weasley's flush matched his freckles. "No, nothing like that. It's just that, sorry, I get a bit worked up about English because I'm British."
"British?" Waya blinked. What did that have to do with anything?
"Yeah, I'm British, Harry Potter's British, anyone who's anyone's British? You ever heard about Brit-picking, you know?"
"Brit...pricking? Pricking?" Waya rolled that word around in his mouth a little. It sounded...kind of...bad. "Um, sorry for being thick...but not, like, that kind of...thick...um, I mean, it's just I've never heard that term before and I know you run in somewhat more, uh, European circles than I do, so maybe using words like 'pricking' isn't such a big deal for you--"
"Picking, you nob, picking. Like berry-picking, flower-picking, nose-picking and so forth?"
"What's a nob?"
"...Just forget that part, all right?"
"Picking, then. Picking Brits? For what, a soccer team?"
"No, that's not what it means at all (god I sound like Hermione), and for god's sake it's football, call the sport where you kick the ball around with your foot football please. I can't believe the Japanese of all people say soccer when they mean football, don’t you have some pretty good teams, and, what were we supposed to be on about?"
Waya had to think hard, past all the pricking and picking and football images he'd come up with, to remember their original topic. "You were complaining about English because you're British."
"Yes! Because Americans can't write British people properly." Weasley glared at Waya, as if he might be an American in disguise. "Americanisms in our dialogue, it's terrible. Always sounds wrong."
Waya shrugged. "Technically, I'm speaking Japanese."
"Yes, but you're obviously being translated into American English."
Waya shrugged again. "I don't really know the difference."
"Yes, but when you come to this world it's important to know the difference."
"Really. How do you know you're not being written by an American right now?"
Weasley opened his mouth to say something (probably something rude), then closed it. He appeared to be thinking, no doubt a difficult task for him. Sure enough, he soon gave up and sunk even further into his armchair.
"I really hate crossovers, they bring all sorts of problems," he finally spat out.
Waya just rolled his eyes in response, but Weasley didn't seem to notice.
"Hey, you know what's worse than crossovers?"
Waya did not actually want to know, but he was sure he would be told.
"That RP stuff, that always gives me the jibblies. When they use RP (Real People) for RP (Role Playing), right, but they don't even make it P (Pron) for god's sakes, they just write crappy PWP (Plot Without Porn) crap and so what's the P (Point)?"
"Excuse me?" Waya wasn't sure if he'd been insulted or not.
"You've gotta speak the jive, man," Weasley was grinning and definitely not sounding very British. "You never heard of RP? Role playing?"
"Oh, that. Yeah, I have some experience with it."
"Creepy as hell, don't you think? Pretending you're someone else to fulfill some sort of pathetic fantasy."
Waya coughed, not sure how to take that coming from Ron Weasley, the Boy Who Was Jealous of Harry Potter, but at that moment there was a slight popping sound and a thick stack of paper dropped neatly on the table in front of him. An identical stack appeared less neatly on Weasley's lap.
"Finally," said Waya.
"Finally," Weasley echoed with obvious relief. He actually sat up straight in his chair so he could begin leafing through the script. "Let's see what we've got here."
Waya scanned through “Waya and the Weasley” quickly. It looked like a pretty standard scenario--go player gets accidentally get transported to famously enchanted castle via a cursed goban Portkey slash plot device, collides with Ron ‘Sidekick’ Weasley and some girl with an unpronounceable name, girl rants for a long while about how Portkeys can't bring people into Hogwarts, they all tool around the school for a bit, lack of plot happen happens, porn happens, blah blah blah.
Waya already felt like yawning.
Weasley actually did yawn. "Okay, it looks like we meet up, we quarrel with each other, Hermione yells at me (what else is new), we joke around a little, you teach me to play go with a capital "g", whatever that means, we play Go for a while, Hermione lectures us on getting enough sleep, so we go to bed but there isn't an extra bed so I offer you mine and then you fall into the limpid pools of the blueness of my eyes and we snog." He eyed Waya with obvious distaste. "Oh, fuck me."
"No, it doesn't say I have to do that."
Ron checked the script. “Right, I’m on top.” He paused. “Well, at least there’s that.”
Waya rolled his eyes.
To be continued!
flonnebonne / flonnebonneWaya in Storyland
Another day at the Institute.
Argh.
"Gather round, children," Kuwabara Honinbou cackled, "it's story time."
In response to this pronouncement there was a general mumble of disinterest, followed by a generally disinterested general shuffle in the Honinbou’s general direction. A lineup kind of sort of started to form, but only because some unlucky sobs were shoved into it.
"Gee, I wonder what exciting new tales of wonder we'll get today," said Waya to no one in particular as he dragged himself to the back of the line. Standing in line sucked. Especially this line.
Case in point: directly in front of Waya, a rather large-ish man was scratching at his comb-over and spilling dandruff all over the place.
Further ahead in line, Gokiso the one-trick shyster was loudly complaining about the lousy pay of this job, i.e. no pay at all. Kurata, just behind him, offered to give him an autograph if Gokiso was that hard up.
And from way at the front of the line, Ochi's could be heard practically shrieking, “I have to crossdress again?!”
“What a lucky young man you are,” Kuwabara said in an almost desultory way as he shoved Ochi out of the lineup.
Go players, in general, are just not cool people.
Why, Waya wondered for the gazillionth time, did anyone write stories about them? What kind of crazy people did that? People with way too much time on their hands, obviously.
"Yo," said Shindou, coming up behind Waya and saying “yo” the same way he did every day.” He was late to the party, as usual, but as soon as he showed up the room suddenly got brighter and more...main character-ish.
“Yo,” Waya said back, not even annoyed at the Shindou light show anymore, he was so used to it.
They shuffled forward in line.
"So...think I'll do some scenes with Touya today?"
Waya made a face, which was useless since Shindou was behind him, but whatever. "You're always doing stuff with Touya, and it's always the same stuff, so why do you even think about it? You play Go, you contemplate the Hand of God, you have a fight, you make up, you make kissy-face, you make sexy-times, the end. Why would today be any different?"
"Hey, sometimes I have gigs with you guys too, you know." Shindou went on the defensive, which was rare in his games but common enough in his everything else. "Remember that conversation I did with you last week? That was pretty well-done, I think."
"But it was a conversation about your love-life with Touya."
"Yeah..."
"It had nothing at all to do with me! I just got dragged in to be your damn psychologist."
"True, but--"
"And that was my only appearance in that story."
"But at least you got to do something, right? I mean, you get way more scenes than most people."
"Yeah, but half the time when I make an appearance I'm just there to give you someone to complain to. Maybe more than half the time. I feel so used, so violated." Waya put a hand on his heart theatrically. He was only half-kidding, but he tried to keep his voice light.
Shindou was totally clueless. "And the other half of the time you're there to make passionate love to Isumi," he said with a grin. It's not like Waya really wanted or expected the idiot to understand, anyway. Shindou would never understand what it was like to be secondary character.
Sighing a little, Waya picked some second-hand dandruff out of his bangs--ew--and decided to just get on with the conversation.
"But everyone has to do the passionate love thing,” he said. “Not necessarily with Isumi," Waya amended hastily, "but, you know, porn."
Shindou nodded. He would know all about that. "Sometimes I think it's all about the porn."
"It is all about the porn."
“No shame in it.”
“We all have to do it.”
Suddenly, Waya realized they were already almost at the front of the line. Only dandruff man separated him and Shindou from Kuwabara. A horrible old-man ho-ho-ho rang through the air. "I agree! Everyone should do porn. It's good exercise. Especially for us older folks."
As Mr. Dandruff shuffled off from the line in an awkward, freaked-out way, Kuwabara winked at Waya, whose soul absolutely curdled and molded and all sorts of other cheesy metaphorical things.
“Come closer, young ones,” the Honinbou gestured at Waya and Shindou with one gnarled, pockmarked finger. “Let old man Kuwabara give you a story.”
“You think we’ve be used to the trauma by now,” Shindou commented as they moved forward.
The old man was rifling through the sheaf of papers in his hands. “You’re quite the popular ones, you two.”
He handed two sheets of paper to Waya, and a whole stack of the things to Shindou.
Waya scanned through his first assignment quickly. “What the hell? A Harry Potter crossover? Shoot me now. How come there’s hardly any info here?”
“The writer hasn’t planned anything yet beyond the initial concept,” Kuwabara told him. “Just go to your location and wait. Maybe eventually they’ll figure out what the hell they’re doing.” Then the old geezer leered. “As you noted, it’ll probably be porn.”
“Yeargh.” Waya wondered if his face was turning as green as his camo pants. Why did he always have to wear camo? “Shindou, let’s go, now.”
"Wait, what’s this?" Shindou was staring at one of his assignment sheets and not paying attention to Waya at all. "At the back here, this ‘reminder from Hotta-sama and Obata-sama’ thing?"
Kuwabara squinted at the paper. “Oh, you do remember when that new edition of the manga came out. There were some new ‘character sketchbook’ sections at the back of each volume, with info on all us important characters."
“Oh yeah, I kind of vaguely remember that,” said Shindou, in his usual vague way.
“Mine says I’m very fond of horse racing. Legalized gambling,” Kuwabara noted. “And I know how to enjoy life, unlike most other Go players. I like it. You should take a look at Ogata-kun’s entry. I like that one too.”
Waya really did not like the old man’s smirk. “So why are those character sketchbook things on our assignment sheets today? It’s old news.”
“Our glorious creators just wanted to remind us of who we’re supposed to be, since we occasionally forget.”
“Right,” said Waya, “because with all the porn starring we do, it’s hard to forget that we’re actually from a kids manga about a board game.”
“The character sketches are more about characterization than Go,” Kuwabara reminded them. “The message is ‘try to stay in-character, even during the porn scenes.’ Which you’ll most certainly be doing. Now get going.” He waved them off, and they gladly started moving away from the lineup so the Honinbou could start terrorizing his next victims.
"I take back what I said earlier," Waya said to Shindou. "Now I feel so used, so violated."
“Yeah.”
Shindou was still acting all inattentive--his usual airheadedness, really--but...Waya could tell it was a different kind of airheadedness now. Shindou had turned into Serious Shindou. Was it about the character sketchbook thing? Waya grabbed the stack of assignment sheets out of Shindou’s hands so he could find out whatever the heck had sucked his friend’s brain out even more than usual.
---
13) Shindo Hikaru
The day Sai disappeared was May 5th, Children's Day.
That day, from the window of Hikaru's room, you could see carp streamers swimming energetically.
The carp streamers are a symbol of a child's growth. If you think about it, Hikaru has also grown quite a lot.
Sai disappears.
The day that was meant to come came.
Perhaps that's all it was.
Every year on the fifth of May, particularly when it's a clear day with impatient winds, I look up at the sky.
Hikaru surely does this too.
---
“Oh,” said Waya, as tongue-tied as ever when it came to the sadder side of Shindou’s character. Waya just didn’t have this kind of trauma in his backstory so he didn’t know how to deal with it. And besides, he was never the one Shindou talked to about this stuff - that was always Touya, in all those “Shindou finally reveals that Sai was a ghost” stories that had been done to death over the years.
And Waya was pretty sad about Sai too, truth be told.
It wasn’t fair, Waya thought, not for the first time. Sai...for all his importance in all their lives, Sai wasn’t around very much at the Institute. On most days he was just a memory, a whisper of remembered strength that none of them could ever attain. Sure, once in a while the ghost was given a voice, maybe a body, but even that was inevitably taken away again at the end of day. For Shindou, who had to lose his friend over and over again...
The writers must love seeing us wallow in angst, thought Waya, or else they’re just mean people.
Shindou took his assignment papers back, wordlessly. Waya, for lack of something better to do, looked down at his own character sketch. There was nothing traumatic in it. He showed it to Shindou.
---
4) Waya Yoshitaka
He's a "good guy," although he is short tempered and gets into fights. Rather than a "nice boy," he's more of a "really good guy."
Actually, when I was asked to write a few short pieces outside the main storyline, I also wrote a story for Waya (but it was turned down). Even so, he's a good guy who gets along really well with his fellow disciple Saeki and the other insei.
Lively and also considerate of others, Waya is liked by his peers.
"Straightforward and single-minded," Waya is well taken care of by his master.
Waya is Hikaru's lifelong friend.
Hikaru may not notice the value of that until he becomes an adult, though.
---
“I’m straightfoward and single-minded, and I am well-taken by Morishita-sensei. Great,” said Waya with a roll of his eyes, hoping it would get Shindou’s mind off himself.
“Single-minded? Really?” Shindou said with a faint smile. “More like simple-minded.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, I should go. I’ve got eleven scenes to do today.”
“Yeah, I should go too.” Waya only had two scenes, but he had to keep up appearances. He gave his friend what he hoped was an encouraging grin. “You can go have your kissy-face and sexy-times with Touya now.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Shindou grinned back, as if to say “Sad Shindou is gone for now, thank you.” The poor guy had to be tired of being such an emotional flip-flopper so much.
As Waya watched Shindou walk away, he wondered if any of those scenes Shindou was doing today would have Sai in them. And if he was going to tell Touya about Sai today (again). How much heartbreak did a guy have to method act his way through until enough was enough?
Sometimes Waya didn’t envy Shindou at all.
He looked down at his own character sheet and re-read it. Yeah, it was all pretty accurate. Or rather, Waya usually acted in ways that fit the creator’s wishes decently well. I tend to get in fights and punch Mashiba’s lights out, check. Lively and considerate, check. Unappreciated by Shindou, check.
Waya frowned. He was kind of a sucker, wasn’t he?
"It says ‘good guy’ three times," he noted aloud.
"Interesting, isn't it?" a familiar voice chimed in. "I think maybe you might be a good guy."
"Hi, Isumi." Waya summoned up a smile for his friend.
"So what do you think about this?" Isumi waved his own character sheet. “Why would they send this reminder to us? Do you think we’ve been OOC lately?”
“Who knows?” Waya shrugged. “Honestly, when we’re making out like bunnies or doing Harry Potter crossovers and crap like that, how are we supposed to judge whether we’re in-character or not?”
“You have a point.” Isumi paused for a moment, then said, “Don’t tell me you’re doing a Harry Potter crossover.”
“First assignment today.”
"Ah.” There wasn’t really anything more Isumi needed to say.
"Yeah," Waya sighed. "Anyway, I better go. Crossovers always involve a lot of setting up and getting used to."
“Good luck.” Isumi gave him a pat on the head. “I’ll be thinking of you while I make out with Saeki.”
Waya sighed. It really was all about the porn.
-----
Waya was in Hogwarts.
Ugh.
"Hi," said a very red-headed kid, who seemed very at home in his plushy armchair and not inclined to sit up any time soon, much less stand up to introduce himself. How extraordinarily rude!
Waya blinked. Did he always sound quite so British in his head?
"Hi," he said, wondering what language he was speaking, and with what accent.
"You must be new here. I'm Ron Weasley." The guy said it like he expected Waya to know what that meant. Which Waya did, because hello Harry Potter main sidekick, but he didn't have to acknowledge the guy.
"Um, hi. I'm Waya. Waya Yoshitaka. Or Yoshitaka Waya. Whatever you prefer." As he spoke he noted that the table in front of Weasley did not have a script on it. Which meant that Waya would have to make conversation until the script arrived. Which was something that was not going to go well, he just knew it. He suddenly wished he had a little less professional pride so that he could show up two minutes late for everything, like Shindou. But then Shindou had a busy schedule and could always pretend it wasn't his fault, whereas Waya was just an ordinary plebe with no valid excuses for lateness.
Weasley gave him a wary look. "Yeah, I've worked with plenty of you anime types before. 'Waya' is your last name, right? I'll just call you that, unless the script tells me otherwise. You ever been to Hogwarts?"
Since Waya hadn't been offered his own plushy chair, he pulled a rather ornate but uncomfortable metal chair up to the table and sat down in a very pointed manner. "No, not that I can recall, but my friend Shindou has, more than once. Oh, and I think Touya too." He took a quick glance at his surroundings (standard European-ish stone castle, bad lighting, greyish tinge to everything except Weasley's hair) and decided that he didn't really need to have the grand tour to know there be dragons here, literally. "Standard fantasy stuff, right?"
Weasley didn't look too appreciative of that comment. "Well, I wouldn't say 'standard fantasy.' We don't have elves. Except house elves."
"But dark lords and unicorns and whatnot, right?"
"Well...yes."
"That's good. So, I see you're wearing a wizard's robe. Do you put on a wizard's hat sometimes too?"
"No, we're not that old-fashioned...well, Dumbledore is...but anyway, the script will probably have Hermione explain Hogwarts, A History to you in disgusting amounts of detail, so let's move on. What do you know about magic?"
Waya didn't know what Hermione or Hogwarts, A History were, but he wasn't sure he cared. "Well, if this is a school of magic then I suppose you wave your hands around and say some magic words, and stuff happens, generally? Or is it singing or soul-bonding with dragons or something here?"
"We have wands, and we have to study spells and potion-making and arithmancy and um I'm not enrolled in that last one." Weasley seemed to be struggling to stay professional now. "It's not easy."
"Sorry," said Waya, not feeling sorry at all. He'd had a bad morning. Also, what was it that Hotta-san had written about him? 'Short tempered and gets into fights,' wasn't it? He felt like he could get into a fight right now, if he weren't so professional. He looked at Weasley and felt offended by all that red hair. "I hope you don't expect me to know everything about your world just because, you know, Harry Potter. I've never watched your movies."
"We also have books."
"I've heard that."
"Hm."
"Hm."
An ancient-sounding clock chimed just then, but nothing happened.
Weasley tapped his foot.
Waya folded his arms.
"I hope the script gets here soon," Waya said, if only to say something.
"I hope it's a good script."
"Yeah." He glanced at Weasley's red hair again. "I don't have to give you relationship advice, do I? I always have to do that."
Weasley gave him a weird look for far too long (Was he gay? Well, everyone was gay, so probably). And then he laughed suddenly, surprisingly. "Let me guess, you're the sidekick guy?"
The question hit far too close to home for Waya's liking. "And you're not? The series isn't called Ron Weasley and the World Revolves Around Him, is it?"
"Oh, shut it," said Weasley, whose blue eyes were actually quite nice-looking now that they weren’t so surly. "I'm just glad you're not one of those main character types. They're always strutting around like they own all the stories."
"Yeah, tell me about it," Waya agreed vigorously. Wow, suddenly Weasley wasn't quite so annoying anymore. "I mean, do I ever get to be the legendary prophesized hero? Do I ever get hit by cars or kidnapped or cloned? (Well, maybe that last one.) Do I ever get to make out with babes?"
"Well, it's usually more with blokes. Like Malfoy, ugh."
"Or Touya, ugh."
Waya met Weasley's eyes, and even though they had no idea who the other was talking about, they understood each other completely in that moment.
If I end up having to make out with him it won't be too bad, Waya caught himself thinking.
(Yes, everyone was gay.)
"You know what the worst thing is?" Weasley asked. "When you have a canon girlfriend, and half the world thinks she's better with Harry Potter than you. 'Canon girlfriend jumps ship!' is what I call it." He looked rather proud of himself for that one, but angry at the same time.
"Ah," said Waya, who didn't have Weasley's problem and had thus suddenly lost his vibe of mutual understanding. "That's tough."
"Let me guess." Weasley eyed Waya up and down. "It's all gay gay gay in your world, right?"
"Pretty much."
"Anime types." Weasley flapped his hands around, wrists deliberately and offensively limp. "No offense, but you people are really weird. Like, you know the guy who changes into a girl when you splash water on him? And then he makes out with a pig or a cat or something sometimes, and gets off on being hit by girls with mallets?"
Waya shook his head, annoyed at being lumped in with something as...wrong as that. It was probably a weirdo porn series. And had nothing to do with Go. "I don't know that one, sorry."
"Really? I thought it was pretty famous."
"There's a lot of media out there, I don't know most of it. My social circle is really small."
"Huh," hmphed Weasley, clearly not impressed. "Well, I just have to say that, from my crossover experiences, you anime types are really weird. And they think they're the centre of the universe, even when they come here.
"Yes, because here is the centre of the universe."
Weasley seemed to be ramping up for a rant and didn't catch Waya's sarcasm. "And the writers are really mental. So obsessed with Japan. The characters they write can barely speak properly, it's all kawaii this and watashi-sama that. And even their actual English isn't proper English, ugh."
"Was that a racist comment?" Waya asked, genuinely curious.
"Racist? Oh, no, it's not because you're Jap, I mean Japanese, nothing like that, you know." Weasley's flush matched his freckles. "No, nothing like that. It's just that, sorry, I get a bit worked up about English because I'm British."
"British?" Waya blinked. What did that have to do with anything?
"Yeah, I'm British, Harry Potter's British, anyone who's anyone's British? You ever heard about Brit-picking, you know?"
"Brit...pricking? Pricking?" Waya rolled that word around in his mouth a little. It sounded...kind of...bad. "Um, sorry for being thick...but not, like, that kind of...thick...um, I mean, it's just I've never heard that term before and I know you run in somewhat more, uh, European circles than I do, so maybe using words like 'pricking' isn't such a big deal for you--"
"Picking, you nob, picking. Like berry-picking, flower-picking, nose-picking and so forth?"
"What's a nob?"
"...Just forget that part, all right?"
"Picking, then. Picking Brits? For what, a soccer team?"
"No, that's not what it means at all (god I sound like Hermione), and for god's sake it's football, call the sport where you kick the ball around with your foot football please. I can't believe the Japanese of all people say soccer when they mean football, don’t you have some pretty good teams, and, what were we supposed to be on about?"
Waya had to think hard, past all the pricking and picking and football images he'd come up with, to remember their original topic. "You were complaining about English because you're British."
"Yes! Because Americans can't write British people properly." Weasley glared at Waya, as if he might be an American in disguise. "Americanisms in our dialogue, it's terrible. Always sounds wrong."
Waya shrugged. "Technically, I'm speaking Japanese."
"Yes, but you're obviously being translated into American English."
Waya shrugged again. "I don't really know the difference."
"Yes, but when you come to this world it's important to know the difference."
"Really. How do you know you're not being written by an American right now?"
Weasley opened his mouth to say something (probably something rude), then closed it. He appeared to be thinking, no doubt a difficult task for him. Sure enough, he soon gave up and sunk even further into his armchair.
"I really hate crossovers, they bring all sorts of problems," he finally spat out.
Waya just rolled his eyes in response, but Weasley didn't seem to notice.
"Hey, you know what's worse than crossovers?"
Waya did not actually want to know, but he was sure he would be told.
"That RP stuff, that always gives me the jibblies. When they use RP (Real People) for RP (Role Playing), right, but they don't even make it P (Pron) for god's sakes, they just write crappy PWP (Plot Without Porn) crap and so what's the P (Point)?"
"Excuse me?" Waya wasn't sure if he'd been insulted or not.
"You've gotta speak the jive, man," Weasley was grinning and definitely not sounding very British. "You never heard of RP? Role playing?"
"Oh, that. Yeah, I have some experience with it."
"Creepy as hell, don't you think? Pretending you're someone else to fulfill some sort of pathetic fantasy."
Waya coughed, not sure how to take that coming from Ron Weasley, the Boy Who Was Jealous of Harry Potter, but at that moment there was a slight popping sound and a thick stack of paper dropped neatly on the table in front of him. An identical stack appeared less neatly on Weasley's lap.
"Finally," said Waya.
"Finally," Weasley echoed with obvious relief. He actually sat up straight in his chair so he could begin leafing through the script. "Let's see what we've got here."
Waya scanned through “Waya and the Weasley” quickly. It looked like a pretty standard scenario--go player gets accidentally get transported to famously enchanted castle via a cursed goban Portkey slash plot device, collides with Ron ‘Sidekick’ Weasley and some girl with an unpronounceable name, girl rants for a long while about how Portkeys can't bring people into Hogwarts, they all tool around the school for a bit, lack of plot happen happens, porn happens, blah blah blah.
Waya already felt like yawning.
Weasley actually did yawn. "Okay, it looks like we meet up, we quarrel with each other, Hermione yells at me (what else is new), we joke around a little, you teach me to play go with a capital "g", whatever that means, we play Go for a while, Hermione lectures us on getting enough sleep, so we go to bed but there isn't an extra bed so I offer you mine and then you fall into the limpid pools of the blueness of my eyes and we snog." He eyed Waya with obvious distaste. "Oh, fuck me."
"No, it doesn't say I have to do that."
Ron checked the script. “Right, I’m on top.” He paused. “Well, at least there’s that.”
Waya rolled his eyes.
To be continued!
no subject
Date: 2013-09-22 05:51 am (UTC)- Mahidol
J'accuse!
Date: 2013-09-30 05:55 am (UTC)But anyway, thank yooouuu! I am decently close to finishing the fic and will post it...at some point! Hopefully before the end of the year!
Re: J'accuse!
Date: 2013-09-30 06:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-24 08:10 pm (UTC)Katju
(I'd be happy to see more!)
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Date: 2013-09-30 05:57 am (UTC)Yep, I'm continuing the fic and am decently close to finish it. Will post the rest eventually!
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Date: 2013-09-30 08:16 am (UTC)Waiting with interest. ^^
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Date: 2013-09-26 11:45 am (UTC)Waya was /lovely/ very in character, the forth wall breaking was delightfully done!
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Date: 2013-09-30 06:03 am (UTC)Glad you liked the fic! You know, I meant to finish it for the Waya event you posted a while back but I wasn't able to. And I wasn't even able to finish it for blind_go! But at least bg got me halfway there. :D
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Date: 2013-09-30 07:10 am (UTC)I'll look forward to seeing the continuation!
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Date: 2013-09-27 05:45 pm (UTC)--Alberti
no subject
Date: 2013-09-30 06:06 am (UTC)