Blind Luck2: No Way Back Chapter 17/19 (or 20)

[onkoona]

Blind Luck2: No Way Back





Chapter 17

The next morning he woke with a start. The apartment was disconcertingly quiet. Sai was instantly sure he was all alone, that the titleholder had already left for the day. He was quite hot under his duvet and recognized that it was the heat from the sun shining full onto his bed.

Realization dawned. For Ogata to be gone already and for the sun to be this strong, it couldn't be very early.

He sat up and groped for his bag. He had been so tired yesterday he couldn't quite remember what had happened to it.

Careful searching revealed it next to his pillow. Reaching inside the pocket for his watch he felt something heavy slip off the top of the bag. It hit the floor with a metallic clink and jingle. He left the watch and groped for the item. It turned out to be a pair of keys on a large ring with a paper tag on a string attached to it. He wondered if there was something written on the tag. There was no way he could read it of course, so it wasn't of much use.

Further investigation of the outside of this bag yielded a single apple and a cell phone with a piece of paper wrapped around it, held together with an elastic band. Now, Sai was sure there was a message on the paper, but again there was no way for him to read it. He had to think about what the apple meant. He decided it was an invitation from Ogata to eat it. At least he hoped that was what it meant.

oOOo

He found a towel had been thoughtfully left out for him, when he went for a quick shower. He dressed in yesterday's leggings and his last clean new shirt, and made his way to the living room, sitting down on the couch. On a hunch he checked what was on the coffee table. He found a small carton with a straw stuck to the side of it. Sai had been given this sort of thing before so he knew what to do with it. He gratefully pulled off the straw and felt for the circular aperture. He pushed the sharp end of the straw through the membrane and started drinking, hoping that Ogata had left this out for him too and that he wasn’t trespassing.

The taste of the beverage was new to him, but it was sweet and liquid, and he was very thirsty, so it was wonderful. The table also held a squishy bundle, wrapped in plastic. It had been closed by gathering the top of the plastic bag and twisting it several times before tucking the end under the small bundle. Just the blind man touching it started unraveling the fastening and once it had come lose, Sai felt free to investigate further. He found three medium sized rice balls, each wrapped in a leaf of seaweed. It made a hearty breakfast.

xXXx

After breakfast, it was nearly half past ten and Sai decided to try out a theory he had been contemplating while consuming the rice balls that were now sitting in his well filled belly.

He quickly put the apple in his bag, as well as the cell phone, which was still wrapped. He shouldered it, slipped on his sandals and opened the front door of Ogata's apartment.

No alarms started ringing. It was something he had fleetingly worried might happen, if not too seriously. He tried one of the keys in the lock. It didn't fit. Not too surprising - there was a chance of one out of two he had tried the wrong key. He tried the other one, it went in smoothly.

Now Sai had had no real experience with keys and locks but he did know what a door being locked sounded like. When he twisted the key three times to the left, the lock made all the right noises. The blind man felt around the open side of the door and found a square piece of metal sticking out, just as he had expected. The piece withdrew as he turned the key to the right three times.

Well, that was that theory confirmed. The key fit the door. And much more importantly, by giving the blind man a set of keys, Ogata meant for Sai to come and go as he pleased. Again, that was what he hoped.

He felt very grateful for the titleholder’s generosity. He just hoped he could give the man what he needed. If Ogata wanted true honesty, Sai would not be able to accommodate him. But if he just wanted to play lots of Go, the former ghost could deliver in spades, anytime, anywhere!

Ah yes, he was looking forward to that!


o00o

He had found his way down to the reception area of the building, via the stairwell. He was about to walk out, when he heard an uncomfortably familiar voice yell an even more uncomfortably familiar phrase: 'Hey you!'

It was the doorman who had chucked him out some days before. The blind man speeded up his gate, since he really didn't want to be physically pushed out again.
'Fujiwara-sensei, wait up!' the man shouted. Sai stopped. How did that man know his name? And had he called Sai 'sensei'?

'Wait up, sir. Ogata-sensei left you a message,' the man said, wheezing a bit from running the short distance quite fast.

The former ghost stood still. He waited for the man to continue, which he did after a pregnant pause.

'I, uh. First of all, I should apologize,' the man bowed quite low, 'for my behavior the other day. I'm sorry.'

Sai remembered how the man had behaved back then, and had to wonder at the change of heart. Then he remembered the Go pro had ordered the doorman - as well as his supervisor - to come talk to him yesterday. Ogata must have told him off, so now the doorman apologized to Sai. Sai hoped it was a sincere apology, but with Ogata and the doorman's supervisor in the picture, there was no way to tell.

Sai decided to go for a non-committal. 'Apology accepted.'

The doorman sighed in what appeared relief, and that at least sounded pretty sincere to the blind man.

The doorman continued, 'Ogata-sensei said that I am to read the note that he put next to the mobile phone to you. You did find the mobile okay, sir?'

'Yes, I did.' Sai took it, still wrapped in the note and handed it over. The doorman removed the elastic band with a ping and read aloud, 'Fujiwara, uh, -san. Have gone to work. Make yourself at home. There's food on the coffee table. Use the keys to lock the door. Don't phone until after 2pm. Money is inside the envelope in your bag. Ogata.'

He folded the note and handed it back to the blind man. Sai quickly checked his bag. If there was money inside it, which he hadn't known about, it might have fallen out without him realizing! It was not inside either front pocket, and Sai panicked for a moment before finding it inside the bag proper. Letting out a sigh of relief, Sai pushed the envelope deeper into his bag, all the way to the bottom, to prevent it falling out. He'd open up the envelope later, after all there was no reason to let the doorman know how much - or little - money he was carrying!

The doorman cut into Sai's thoughts by offering, 'Ogata-sensei asked me to show you how to use the phone.'

Sai really much rather wanted to leave now. He had a book to pick up after all and he really didn't need a mobile phone anyway, he had never had one before.

'No, thank you,' he said, hoping that would dismiss the man.

'I'm sorry, sir, but Ogata-sensei was quite insistent, and, uh, I really don't want to lose my job!' The poor man sounded so panicked Sai gave in and let the man instruct him.

Thankfully there were only 3 buttons he had to learn to push in the right order to ring the titleholder. While he listened patiently, he realized that although Ogata had apologized, not much of his behavior had changed. He still bullied people into doing what he wanted done. As Sai started his walk towards the mall, his thoughts dwelled on Ogata and his behavior.

xXXx

The bookseller greeted Sai as he made his way to the sales counter.
'Ah, Fujiwara-san, your book has come in just now.' The blind man could both hear the hollow thud and feel the vibrations of the book hitting the counter, as he was still touching the worn wood.

The bookseller opened the book and slid it towards Sai, who moved his hand to let it fall on top of it. Immediately he could feel the little bumps in the paper that the man had described would be there. He let his hand roam the entire page.

'This is writing?' he asked. 'I mean, I can read this?' he corrected, after he realized his question might have implied the bookseller had sold him a dud.

'Yes, well, after you've learned the 'letters' of course.'
Sai took his hand away when he felt the pages move under his fingers; the bookseller was turning the pages, and then pushed the book back to Sai, who put his hand back on the book.
'This is a chart of the letters. They are for /Hiragana/ on this page,' the bookseller lectured. 'Just put you middle finger on the top row,' he instructed and Sai moved his hand to find the top row. The was a single bump with a rectangular box shape relief around it, that stood on its short end, the bump was in the upper most left hand corner.

'That's あ*' the man said. 'Move to the next box.'
*(pronounced 'ah')
Sai did. Two bumps were in this one, one directly underneath the other, again sitting in the left hand corner. 'That's い**,' the bookseller announced.
(**pronounced 'e' like 'leaf')
At the bookseller's prompting Sai touched the boxes for う, え and お***, each with their own configuration of bumps, in a square position to each other, filling the top and middle positions of the rectangle.
(***pronounced う: oo or uh (and also a sound English hasn't got), え: eh as in 'egg' and お: oh as in 'lock')
The next row held the same bumps again, but this time there was a single bump in the bottom right corner, as he syllables ran through か,き,く,け and こ(KA, KI, KU, KE and KO).
In the next row where the syllables starting with S, the one after with T, then N, H and M. The syllable め (ME) filled all 6 positions in its box. The row of Y only held 3 out of 5 sounds, each pattern again different from any he had touched before. Then the R, and after that the W, which had only 2 versions, and lastly the single N. There were some added bumps to make up G, D, Z, B & H syllables from the existing set.

Sai was amazed at the simple yet totally effective system. He asked the man about the more complicated /kanji/ characters, but the bookseller said that this was all you needed to read Japanese Braille (/tenji/).

Sai asked Mr. Noburu if he had time to do the sequence again, and was elated when the man said he did; Tuesdays were always slow in the bookshop, he said.

After they had run the sequence again, the bookseller leafed through the book again and said, 'Try reading this.'

Sai let his fingers find the rectangle, but he only found bumps. Ah, that's right, when he had first touched a page full of Braille text there had been only bumps on it. He repositioned his fingers at the beginning of the line and tried again. He found a single bump in bottom right position, quickly consulting the chart he had made of the bump-syllables in his head, he came up with わ (WA), then there were 3 bumps placed at an angle; た (TA), then し (SHI) and は (HA). Slowly he read out:
わたしは もうもく です
Wa ta shi wa mo u mo ku de su (I am blind.)
わたしは ひらがな を てんじ で よみます
Wa ta shi wa hi ra ga na o te n ji de yo mi ma su (I read Braille.)***

'I'm reading!' he squealed.
'Yes, you are,' Mr. Noburu said, and his smile was audible.
'So where I can I find books in Braille to read?' was the blind man's next burning question.
'Well, I do believe the answer to that is in the book you're holding; read it and find out,' the bookseller said.
Sai gathered the book to his chest; here was the gateway to a new world, one he felt sure he'd have a lot of fun exploring!

o00o

After leaving the bookstore (and thanking Mr. Noburu about a million times) Sai had almost left the mall when he remembered about Hikaru's tie. More specifically, he remembered thinking that Go pros were properly dressed and that since he now had a job playing Go, even while he was not a pro (yet), he would be around pros a lot, and would have to dress the part.

With some dread he turned away from the sliding doors leading out of the mall and braved the escalator to the first floor.

The clothing store smelled and sounded like it had before; full of new fabric. The blind man remembered the way to the counter well enough and walked straight up to it.

'Ah, a customer!' Mr. Shitateya exclaimed, but his voice lost its joviality when he added, 'Oh, it's you.'
Hearing the change in tone, Sai's heart sank; feeling pressured by his own inadequacies the first time he had been here and abject embarrassed the second time, he decided that he really didn't need another round of that and started turning around to make his way out the door, without a word.

'Please stop!' The man's voice had moved from behind the counter and was swiftly moving towards him.
'Look, I'm sorry, you startled me. Please, don't go...'

The fashion store owner's pleading voice grated somewhat on Sai’s nerves, but he knew it would be impolite to just walk out now. And anyway, Sai realized that the man's behavior was largely due to the way Ogata had dealt with retailer, when the titleholder had Sai exchange his purchase here. It had been ill done in Sai’s opinion, and it obviously had left its effects.

He really shouldn't have come back here, not ever. But he was here now, and so it must be dealt with now.

'I'm sorry,' he said, 'maybe I shouldn't have come.'
'No, no, it's all right, I did some thinking and maybe I was too pushy before,' Mr. Shitateya cut in quickly.
'How's about we start fresh, no?' the man suggested, his voice cajoling. Then after Sai didn't say anything, he added, 'Now what can I do for you, good sir, on this fine morning?'

Sai, having made up his mind to let bygones be bygones, nodded and said, 'I need something to wear to work.'
'Work? Hmm, what kind of work?'
'I am to play Go with the customers of the Touya Go Club. That's where Ogata-san also plays.' Sai hadn't wanted to mention Ogata's name here but he was afraid the retailer would not understand what his job was if he didn't. 'I'm a Custodian,' he added to clarify it some more.

'Uh,' the man sounded astonished, but not in a good way. 'Are you sure you've heard them correctly; as far as I know custodians mend things and mop floors, but they don't play Go with customers...'

What? Sai's head spun; he was sure he had understood correctly: he was to play Go with the customers… Wasn't he?

All of a sudden he was very unsure; there had been so many papers to sign and there had been so many different instruction about where to leave bags and put shoes and make beverages and where to sit and, and, and.... Maybe he had misunderstood?

The former ghost felt the blood drain from his head as the world started to spin.

'Uh, maybe,' Mr. Shitateya interrupted Sai's thoughts; 'Maybe you should contact your employer and ask what your job is?'

Yes.
Yes, he should do that, he realized. That way he would be sure right away, and he'd not have to suffer in ignorance. And if it turned out he had misunderstood and he was to mend and mop floors after all, why then he would produce the cleanest floors, to the best of his meager abilities, this he vowed! He just hoped and prayed that he would not have to mop or clean, because he felt sure he'd be really bad at it.

The next big question was really who to call; Ogata was unavailable until 2, Sai didn't have a contact number for the Go club and Hikaru had not been there when the job had been explained to him. Then memory sparked; Touya had been there, at least when they were talking about it over dinner. And Sai vaguely remembered Touya mentioning he was going to study /kifu/ at the club today, so maybe he wouldn't mind too much if the blind man rang him?

Sai took out his new cell phone, and promptly ran into a snag; he had no idea how to dial a number on it.
'Uh, Mr. Shitateya,' he said, holding out the phone, 'could you dial a number for me if I gave you my phone?'
The man took the phone and answered, 'sure. Shoot.'

The former ghost recited the number and heard the phone bleep after each digit.

'Hey, the number was already in here,' the retailer remarked as he passed it back to Sai, who didn't get a chance to respond to that as he could already hear a very tinny rendition of Touya's voice call out 'Moshi, moshi,' from the device. He brought it to his ear and said, 'It's me, Sai.'

'Ah, Fujiwara-san, what can I do for you?'
'Uh, I'm not disturbing you or anything?'
'No, not at all, I'm just brushing up on my Shuusaku games, the style reminds me a little of your own. Fascinating stuff!'

Uh-oh, how much trouble was Sai in? Would Touya put two and two together and come up with the right number?
No, Sai decided, Touya would never guess that Sai had been the one playing those games that were attributed to Shuusaku so long ago; it was just too unbelievable, right?

'How can I help you?' Touya's cheery voice chimed.
'Uh well, remember when we were talking about my job with Ichikawa-san?'
'Yes, of course.'
'Did you hear her mention the word 'custodian'?'
'Actually no, but I did hear that word today and I think I know what you question is.'
'You do?'
Sai started to hope.
'Yes. Let me explain it as I understand the situation; in order to play and teach Go as an official job in our club one _must_ be a qualified Go pro. Now if you were to be employed at any other club, they might not have to take the rules so seriously, but because this club is my father's, a multiple title winning Go pro, even if he's retired now, the rules must be upheld.

'However there is no rule that says we can't employ you as a custodian officially, and then let you do what you do best, which is play Go, unofficially,' the boy finished triumphantly.
'So I won't have to mend or mop?' Sai asked just to be absolutely sure.
'Mop? Of course not, we've got a cleaning service for that.'

Sai sighed in relief; he knew he would have taken any job, including one where he’d have to mop, but he was so glad that he was not, it made him feel 10.000 times lighter.

Behind him he could hear Mr. Shitateya deal with another customer.
'That leads me to my next question; what do I wear? I mean, Hikaru wore a tie the other day, should I wear a tie? And what about a suit?'
'You saw Shindou in a tie?! No, never mind that, I think I know when that was, Sunday right?' Touya’s tiny voice quirked.
'Yes, but how did you...'
'Sunday was a special fund raiser over at the institute; everybody was supposed to be there, but Shindou left early and Ogata-san didn't show at all. No, normally ties and suits are not mandatory for playing pro Go, and at the club we're even more laid back about clothing. Basically what you wore yesterday is just fine.'
Sai felt relieved and quickly rang off.

He contemplated for a few moments about what, if anything he should buy, given this new information. Pretty quickly he came to the conclusion that 2 good shirts and 1 good pair of leggings was just not going to be enough for looking presentable day in and day out. And he’d need underwear too. And socks. But how much money did he have to spare? He knew he had just under ¥5000 left, that was really not much to buy clothing at this store. Then he remembered the envelope that Ogata had put in his bag. He dug around for it and found it still there. He took it out and found that the envelope was unsealed and he could easily pull out the contents: two crisp ¥10,000 notes. With the money already had, he now had nearly ¥25,000, enough to buy some more clothing if he wished.
He quickly put them with the rest of his money in the front pocket of his bag, pushing it all the way down.

Mr. Shitateya had finished with his customer and turned his attention back to the blind man.
'Any decision on what to buy?'
'Yes, I think I need two more shirts and maybe two pairs of leggings. And underwear and socks. My friend put me straight; I am to play Go and not mop and I don't have to wear a tie or a suit,' he added.

'Ah, wonderful!' the man enthused. 'Uh, if I might make a suggestion, uh, depending on your budget of course, it might be prudent to get one button-down shirt and a pair of trousers. So you feel you can be seen in any company,' the retailer hastened to add.

'Uh, how much would that cost?'
'Well, if I can find one that fits you from last year's collection, a suitable pair of trousers would cost about ¥4000, from this year’s collection it would be closer to ¥9000. Button down shirts will range between ¥2000 and ¥4000, in the cheaper range.'

Sai certainly didn't want to spend his only money too freely but the man was right, it would be prudent to have one really nice set of clothes, after all he never wanted to embarrass anyone to be seen with him ever again!

He asked the retailer to see if he had one ¥4000 pair of trousers for him, and a ¥2000 budget shirt, plus the underwear, two long sleeved t-shirts and two leggings he had already asked for. And the socks too. Sai stayed by the counters as the man started bustling around the shop, not really seeing the point of following him around.

Mr. Shitateya did insist on measuring him for the pants and button-down, but he was assured that the measuring would only need to be done once every few years, as the numbers would be recorded in 'the book' and be available any time Sai would want to buy anything more. Under that assurance the blind man let himself be measured.

oOOo

A good hour later found Sai sitting on a stone seat on the square with the fountain, munching on his second sandwich, in the shade of a big tree.

The sandwiches had been bought on Mr. Shitateya recommendation from a vendor in the mall. A good recommendation; the sandwiches were quite affordable and truly excellent.

After finishing his lunch Sai checked his watch: nearly one o'clock. He remembered Hikaru telling him he would be going to school today, and while he forgot to mention at what time he'd be done for the day, Sai didn't think it would be just yet. Ogata would be busy until at least two. So, finding himself quite at leisure, the blind man took out his new book and began to read for the first time in his life. That he remembered anyway.

xXXx

***: The Japanese has been checked and approved by my Japanese teacher.