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answer_key[Eira]
Go Skiing
It was all Kurata's fault that Touya Akira was standing on skis, trying to look like a teenage idol. Truth to be told, he wasn't really trying to look like one, but that was still what the photographer and her frustrated assistants were expecting. Also, it wasn't just Kurata's fault. Some journalist was also to be blamed.
It was all Kurata's fault that Touya Akira was standing on skis, trying to look like a teenage idol. Truth to be told, he wasn't really trying to look like one, but that was still what the photographer and her frustrated assistants were expecting. Also, it wasn't just Kurata's fault. Some journalist was also to be blamed.
It all had started with a journal article about why youngsters nowadays didn't go for the traditional sports. In the last chapter the author had concentrated on go, and concluded that it wasn't a surprise that teenagers weren't into go, when go professionals, even young ones were so out of this world. In Touya's opinion, it shouldn't have been surprising that teenage go pros, who lived for the game, lived in a different world than most teenagers whose biggest worries were the math exams the nest week. Although, Touya thought, they should have seen Shindou, and they perhaps wouldn't generalized that all go pros were that different. On the other hand, he thought, maybe it was best that they had forgotten his fights with Shindou -- those definitely wouldn't have made go look any better.
In any case, the journal printed the article, and some people at the go institute thought that they should do something. Then, someone came up with the joke of making go fashionable by making a big article about go pros at a skiing resort to show that, hey, even go pros can have fun, and behave like others. It was a joke at the beginning, but Kurata was all for it, and somehow managed to convert others, and to convince some trendy magazine that article was worth doing. Probably converting the others had included some reminders about the nearby onsen to Ogata, and perhaps some subtle (or probably not, since it was Kurata, after all), about the possible pretty female clients at the skiing resort, who might want to relax at the onsen after day on snow.
In any case, that was how Touya had ended up on skis. He definitely didn't know how to use those weird sticks, but he was able to stand on them, while the photographer snapped pictures, and the assistants tried to make him look cooler.
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Head injuries and go rivalry didn't go well together. That was Touya's first thought when he heard Waya and Shindou on the train, because there was no way a bet between them could result in anything else but a head injury.
Waya and Shindou crafted a competition. However would fall more often while skiing, would have to buy the other ten dinners.
Touya could just imagine how it would go: neither of them giving up, neither of them admitting that they couldn't actually ski, and both of them just taking higher and higher hills in some belief that if one hundred meters was impossible, then two hundred meters was easy. Or maybe just thinking that if it was difficult, then it was even more difficult for the other.
Fortunately, there was something right in this whole stupid day: Waya could ski, and since Waya could ski, there was no real point in the whole bet, and therefore, Shindou was much less likely to fall on his head.
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"And it's just not right. I mean, he totally should told me that he can ski. Now it's like he has stolen ten hamburgers from me. He knew that he could ski and still he agreed to the bet," Shindou complained, hands waving wildly.
"Right, and you would have told him if you had known how to ski? And you wouldn't consider that equivalent to stealing ten portions of ramen? And besides, it was you who actually suggested to whole bet," Touya replied. Finally, the photographer had been happy with the photos.
"But it's not fair!"
"And you think the bet was a good idea to begin with?" Touya asked.
"Oh, yes, free ramen for me, I think it sounded totally good. I mean, there's no way Waya could have won me hadn't he cheated."
Touya realized that he had become older and wiser: nowadays he didn't always have the need to fight or argue with Shindou to the end. So, behaving like the old and wise (nearly) adult he was, he asked: "Okay, forget that, wanna play a game of go?"
"Of course. You have board with you, or is it blind go?" Shindou replied, instantly forgetting that he had been angry.
"I have a portable go board. There's a cafe. We could get tea, and play there," Touya suggested.
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"That was a horrible hand!" Touya shouted.
"It couldn't be, since after that you had to go to the left corner which you would have otherwise left much later!
"Oh, but it was, you didn't get anything from it, and it totally disturbed the flow of the game!"
"But it was good, I got from it, because then you couldn't play here, and therefore, this group was safe!"
"But anybody even with basic knowledge of go would have known that playing here," Touya pointed at the board, "would have both saved that group and gained you space here!"
*Click* *Click* *Click*
"Oh, thank you, finally we have some realistic material about go players," the photographer thanked. "That was really enlightening."
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A couple of weeks later the article came out. It was just as bad as Touya had thought. Instead of making go look fashionable (which had been a bad idea to begin with), it had a huge picture of him and Shindou fighting. Below was a text: "Go players look polished and well behaved, but even a small mistake on the board make them lose their temper completely."
Next picture was a picture of Ogata, oggling some twenty year old: "Even go players appreciate female beauty."
The third picture was of Kurata: "'The food here is excellent,' says Kurata 8-dan." In the picture he was cramming food with both hands into his mouth.
Everybody agreed that the article had been a terrible idea, except Waya, who still had to eat some of the dinners Shindou owed him.
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Date: 2013-12-14 05:39 pm (UTC)-Neve-
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Date: 2013-12-15 04:21 am (UTC)-Salji
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Date: 2013-12-20 06:27 am (UTC)