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"So this is one of those 'konpata' machines?" Kuwabara said as he sat down gingerly in front of the screen.
"They're called computers. That's the keyboard, and that's the mouse. Here, let me turn it on for you, Sensei."
"Why does it take so long?"
Shindou suppressed an exasperated sigh and waited for Windows to finish booting up. "Okay, so you take the mouse and you click on this icon--"
"Wait, I want to try it myself." Kuwabara grasped the mouse awkwardly and inched it up. The cursor barely moved. He pushed the mouse a little more forcefully, and the cursor went zooming across the screen. Shindou tried not to laugh.
"Try it again, Sensei."
"Don't patronize me, you young punk," Kuwabara muttered as he tried to manipulate the mouse.
"Oh, good, you're at the right icon. Double-click--I mean, press the left button twice. Uh, you have to do it more quickly than that. No, I mean...let me show you."
After what seemed like an eternity, they finally got to the Net Go website. Shindou took a deep breath. "All right, Sensei, in order to play on the servers, you have to sign up first and create a username. What do you want to be called?"
"Kuwabara, of course."
Shindou typed in 'kuwabara' but the name was already taken. "Uh, Sensei, someone else is using that name, so--"
"What? Why?"
"Well, it's a common name. What about...what about using 'honinbou4eva' instead?" Shindou grinned.
"Pick whatever you want, just get to the actual game."
They set up the account and started up the Net Go program. "All right, Sensei, you can either wait for someone to challenge you to a game or you can challenge someone else."
"Who are these people?" Kuwabara squinted at the screen.
"Well, most of them are amateurs, but some of them are pretty strong, and more and more pros are starting to play online as well."
A dialogue box popped up on the screen: "'zelda' invites you to a game."
"What's that?"
"Oh, here's a name I recognize. It's Waya...uh, Waya Yoshitaka, 2-dan. He's asking you to play."
"Hah. I suppose you young ones have too much leisure time on your hands. Well, it's time that I showed you all that old dogs can be taught new tricks." Kuwabara grabbed the mouse and leaned in to study the board that had appeared on the screen.
"So, uh, to place a stone, you have to--"
Kuwabara held up a hand. "I can take it from here, Shindou. I may not know much about these 'konpata' but I do know something about go." He cackled loudly.
Shindou smiled weakly and backed away. "Poor Waya," he said to himself as he watched Kuwabara place the first virtual stone on the screen with a loud click.