novel translations

Peeking

Author: Ukari (translated with author’s permission, please visit their website to see the original Japanese works!)

To say here is far, and to call yonder nearby. Stories on the edge of the every day, strange tales you may or may not be moved by. Strange, curious, fantastic stories told by me, you, him and her. There are many stories but they’re all concluded within a single page, each story around 200 to 1200 characters in length, a short story collection you can easily read. Please enjoy them. Updated every Saturday at 6pm.

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My grandfather was a Go player.

He was the type of player that, once he started, forgot all about the time until he finished. It was an everyday occurrence that he would go out to his Go rival’s house to play and then not come back.

And as a young child, it was my job to go and pick him up.

This is a story that my grandfather told me as we walked home one evening.

Long ago, when he was playing Go on the veranda, a shadow suddenly appeared across the board. He looked up, thinking that somebody was there, but saw a fox sitting with its knees drawn up like a human, peeking at the board.

“Oh, a fox,” he said in surprise, but then the fox ran away and never appeared again.

“It must have been a well-disguised kitsune,” my grandfather muttered. “How regrettable,” he said with a deep sigh.

“If it came all the way over to check out the game, then it must have really liked Go. If I had trained it, it might have become a great player.”

Go players sure have interesting personalities, I thought.

 

Original Japanese

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