flonnebonne | [Hikaru no Go] Fic: Shadow (Puppet) Master (Reply)

Title: Shadow (Puppet) Master

Fandom: Hikago

Characters: Hikaru, Sai

Wordcount: 727

Summary: Sai is a master of shadow puppetry, which is not lame at all thank you.

It wasn't every day that a ghost popped out from the dusty gloom under your bed to demand that you devote your entire life to shadow puppetry, but it did happen, sometimes.

"The divine shadow play," Sai sighed dreamily, oblivious to Hikaru's need to go into a corner to laugh his head off, "is that which all shadow puppet masters aspire to. The God move, the divinity behind the curtain, the perfect manipulation of paper and hands."

"Oh, I get it." Hikaru really didn't. "It's like when I play Tekken, and I like pull off a super good combo, but not a combo I found online. Like, I use my own strategy, and then I totally beat up a guy without getting hit and he breaks down and cries."

"No no no." Sai shook his head emphatically, face scrunched up in a strangely childish way. "The divine shadow play requires you to connect fully with your fellow actors and your audience, not to hurt them!"

"But," Hikaru grinned, "isn't beating someone to a pulp a fun way to use paper puppets?"

"Why would you beat a person into pulp? Usually it's trees and plants that are used to make pulp…"

Hikaru rolled his eyes. "Look, I hate to break it to you, but nobody really cares about shadow puppets nowadays. In fact, I don't think it was ever that popular in Japan, you know? Why don't you do kabuki or noh or bunraku instead, or maybe rakugo or something? But, come to think it, if you really want to be popular nowadays, manzai comedy is where it's at. Though you kind of need to have an Osaka accent, or at least know how to fake it, if you want to be a manzai master." He scratched his chin. "I guess you could just be a regular actor too, so you wouldn't need to fake an accent. But the whole being a ghost thing would kind of be a problem."

Apparently Sai hadn't been listening to much of this, because he blurted out, "Shadow puppetry has been a beloved pastime of the people for thousands of years!"

"Isn't it more like a Chinese thing though? Not really that popular in Japan."

"But… It was very popular a few hundred years ago…"

Hikaru pretended to look at his watch. "Oh geez, sorry, but I think I have to go now. I have an appointment to go to the arcade and play Tekken. And I wouldn't miss it for--"

Abruptly he stopped speaking so that he could clutch his stomach and puke all over the ground in an explosive mess.

"Oh dear," said Sai. There was a great misery in his voice, but a terrible sort of glee as well. "I feel so sad that I can't do shadow puppetry. I think my sadness must be affecting you through our psychic connection."

"Bleagh," Hikaru replied.

"Do you know, the last person who called me back to the world--his name was Torajirou--I was with him his whole life? So this psychic connection is going to last forever and ever."

Hikaru was still busy heaving and retching, but he managed to gasp, "okay fine you win I'll help you you bastard," and immediately the convulsions stopped.

"Yay!" Sai ducked behind the bedroom curtains and used his fingers to make a swan shadow puppet fly around in delirious circles of joy. "You'll love shadow puppetry, Hikaru, I promise you will!"

"Yeah whatever."

Sai proceeded to force Hikaru to cut out really crappy paper dolls for the rest of the afternoon.

"You have to cut more precisely!" Sai yelled in an exceedingly pleased yet un-pleased manner. "You'll never reach the hand of shadow puppetry at this rate!"

"More like the hand of divine paper cuts," Hikaru complained. But inwardly he smiled, just a little. It was kind of fun to play with scissors and paper again like he was back in grade three.

"Ooooh, I can feel your joy bubbling forth, Hikaru, I'll make you a shadow puppet master yet."

"No way!" said Hikaru.

"Yes, that's the way!" said Sai. "Cut like that! Just like that! Otherwise I'll be sad, and you'll be sick!"

Hikaru grit his teeth and kept cutting. It could be worse. At least he wasn't stuck with a ghost who liked something really boring, like Go or whatever.