Ryuuou no Oshigoto! - Volume 11 - Chapter 1.4

  KIDS ROOM

I get hit with such an intense wave of déjà vu the instant I see the room filled with children that I just stand and stare.

“Keika? Are you okay?”

“Huh? Oh ………… Yes, just fine. Thanks, Ai.”

I smile at Ai Hinatsuru Women’s League 1-dan as she looks up at me with concern.

She may only be in elementary school, but she’s a true-blue prodigy who’s already made it into the premier league in Women’s Shogi, the Women’s Legend League. When it comes to Shogi puzzles, she’s a monster with enough talent to surpass plenty of male Shogi players ……

She fits in well with this room that raised two other giant monsters of its own.

“You’ve slept here plenty of times before, haven’t you, Ai?”

“Yep! Let me see …… When Master secretly took Ten-chan as an apprentice and when I was in the Mynavi Tournament and collapsed after losing to Tsukiyomizaka-sensei, I think. It was because Master kicked me out of the apartment then.”

“Sounds like Yaichi puts you in this room whenever he doesn’t know what to do.”

“Yep♪,” says Ai, jumping up and hanging on my arm.

Yaichi and Ginko used to do that all the time back when they were little. Well, this is a surprise. The corners of my eyes are getting hot. Have I really gotten to that age?

“So …… Master won’t be coming today after all?”

“He wanted to come, but there was nothing he could do. Sometimes work comes up out of nowhere and that’s what happened tonight.”

Smiling, I lie right to her face.

It’s not that I don’t feel bad about it, really I do.

Uncle Seiichi …… Chairman Tsukimitsu called and told me to tell the girls, “Yaichi has been called in to work on an urgent matter.”

I give the reason behind the lie some more thought.

When Ginko lost her first match in the 3-dan division …… No, long before then, I had a feeling something like this would happen.

That’s why I had Yaichi make me a promise.

That if Ginko ever came to him for help, that he would only focus on her.

That he would prioritize her above anyone else, at least until this 3-dan division season was over.

Right now Yaichi is keeping that promise.

Which means now it’s up to me to protect what Yaichi holds dear in his place.

“You know, Cha? Cha’s nebber swept in a bwunk bed!”

“Neither have I! It’s something that only children with no siblings like me can only fantasize about ……!”

Charlette Isoir and Ayano Sadatou are hopping around the room, their wide eyes sparkling with glee.

Both of them smiled when they first arrived at the house, but their eyes were red and puffy.

I could instantly tell that they had shed an incredible amount of tears during the tournament, so I ignored our age difference, joined the pajama party and brought them up to this room in hopes of lifting their spirits, even just a little.

–––But …… I never would’ve thought they would be this happy about a bunk bed.

Come to think of it, all of us in this room are only children. Perhaps it’s only natural to get excited about seeing one.

“Hehehe. Actually, I’ve secretly slept on the top bunk before.”

Telling the girls, they immediately ask me questions like “Really?” and “How was it?!”

“I was in high school at the time, so I remember it being a little cramped.”

“I fit just right! So, can I sleep here tonight? Pleeease?” the leader of the Grade Schooler Practice Group and King of Naniwa Champion, Mio Mizukoshi pleads as she starts ascending the ladder to the top bunk.

Even in her pajamas, she’s still wearing the medal she received at the podium. She must be over the moon right now. Seeing her happy like this reminds me so much of Yaichi and Ginko after they won the Elementary Meijin Tournament.

“Hey, hey, Keeka! Did Kujyuru-sensei and Sora-sensei use this bed?”

“They sure did. We bought it just for them.”

Of course, I can remember the day the bunk bed arrived at this house very clearly even now. That includes how overjoyed those two were to see it. And that they started playing Shogi right away ……

“Who slept on top?”

“We’d planned on Yaichi taking the top bunk. Ginko was still small and wasn’t very strong, so it wasn’t safe for her to climb up and down the ladder.”

“Planned ……?”

“Ginko insisted that as the older sister, the top bunk should be hers and wouldn’t take no for an answer. In the end, they agreed to play Shogi before bed and the winner would sleep on top.”

Until that point, they slept side by side on futons …… But I think it would be prudent not to say so in front of Ai.

“Those two would argue about every little detail. Playing Shogi became their way to settle things.”

Looking around the room, there are nicks and stains scattered about.

They’re leftover scars from Ginko and Yaichi’s fights. I say fights, but Yaichi never struck Ginko, not once. Though the opposite happened more times than I can remember.

This stain here, that stain there, they’re all from the liters upon liters of tears Ginko shed in here.

The nick in the support beam in the corner came from the day Yaichi missed his chance to promote in the Sub League and hit it to vent his frustration at how weak he was.

Lots of children have visited this room to play Shogi with those two, spent the night here and left their own nicks and stains after playing even more Shogi.

Of course, somewhere among the stains …… are the tears of this house’s actual daughter, shed after constantly losing to children much younger than herself: mine.

“This room here used to belong to my aunt. She passed away about one year before Ginko and Yaichi came to live with us, so it had been empty. That’s why we made it into a kids’ room.”

“Your aunt …… she died?” says a crestfallen Ayano. What a kind girl.

“She did. Which really made it surprising that back when Yaichi came in here for the first time …… He said something really weird …… Sh-Shocking actually ……”

“Huh? What …… did Master say?” Ai says, looking confused and curious. 

I answer.

“That there was a ghost in here.”

The girls shriek so hard the house shudders.