Ryuuou no Oshigoto! - Volume 17 - Chapter 3.4

  AN AMATEUR’S DAILY LIFE

“Have another, Hiuma! Go on, take the whole bottle! Up with ’at wrist!”

“I’ll accept your offer.”

With his fieldwork over, Hiuma Kagamizu had been taken out for a drink by his childhood friend’s father.

The idea of pouring the sake into elegant, saucer-like cups didn’t exist in these parts. Drinking straight from the bottle or a fist-sized glass made of clay was how the farmers of Miyazaki Prefecture preferred to drink shochu sake.

“Couldn’t work tomorrow anyways, with the typhoon an’ all. Drinkin’ shochu is ’bout all there is to do at times like this, yah?”

“It sure is.”

Constant rattling and the howling winds had Hiuma on edge, but he raised the bottle to his lips.

It had been a decade since he’d ridden out a typhoon in Miyazaki, and this one made typhoons in Osaka seem like a windy day by comparison. Leaving the building was next to impossible until the storm passed. Since the greenhouses had been reinforced, all that was left was to shoot the breeze and enjoy a nip from the bottle.

———People are so small.

It’s said that residents of Tohoku play Shogi when they’re snowed in during the winter, but it’s also true that that’s how the people of Kyushu Island pass the time during summer typhoons. Hiuma felt that saying their playing styles reflected it …… might be a stretch. Kyushu people weren’t that patient to begin with.

After downing a full bottle of sweet potato shochu sake, brewed right here in Hiuma’s hometown of Miyakonojo City, the red-faced older man brought out something rather nostalgic.

A Shogi board.

“Care fer a match?”

“…… Of Shogi?”

Back in the Sub League, he wouldn’t have even dreamed of playing Shogi with alcohol in his system. Not only could it have caused him to pick up strange habits on the board, he’d have taken it as an insult to Shogi itself and been furious at whomever suggested it.

But, for whatever reason, none of those emotions were triggered this time.

His childhood friend, however, nearly had a heart attack.

“D-Dad?! Whadda’ya think you’re doing?! Hiuma tried his darndest to be a pro!! You can’t just challenge him willy-nilly———

“It’s all right. I’d be honored.”

Legs still crossed, Hiuma lowered his head and emptied the piece box out onto the board.

They were a classic style known as bantaro-goma. Heavily used, the corners had been chipped away and the characters on the pieces themselves had faded.

Their rough surface, the first pieces he had touched in nearly half a year, lit a fire in his belly not so different from the sake.

Pain washed over him in an instant, but was gone just as quickly.

“A 3-dan division player’s at the board. Get the guys from the other branches over here.”

Shogi was particularly popular around Miyakonojo, with the local sake brewery being a main sponsor of the Women’s King League. Shogi fans literally weathered the storm without raincoats, flocking in droves for this rare opportunity.

It went without saying, the place livened up in no time.

“Yer 3-dan, a’right! I’ll need more’an a two-piece handicap to stand a chance!”

“I’ll take next, so long as ya drop the Bishop!”

“Just the Bishop? Hah! He’d blank you playin’ six pieces down!”

Challengers appear one after another, each confident in their skills. But Hiuma flattened them all with elegant yet overwhelming power.

———This is fun.

Whether it was the sake or something else entirely, Hiuma wasn’t sure. However there was no denying he was enjoying each match, a sensation he never experienced during his time in the Sub League.

These weren’t instructional matches and nothing was at stake.

How long had it been since he’d seen Shogi as just a game?

Another round of sake was brought out as soon as Hiuma had given everyone a turn.

He was in the middle of their circle, genuinely smiling without a care in the world for the first time since he returned to Miyazaki.

The conversation shifted to the Shogi world’s inner workings. This was yet another thing Hiuma would have never participated in only a few months prior, but little stories with unimportant details paired very well with sake.

Once that conversation had run its course, a farmhand Hiuma had come to know broached a different topic.

“Ah, ’at reminds me …… I came ’cross this real interestin’ article on a Shogi site. Didja hear ’at grade school girl who took Rina Shakando’s title’s been rackin’ up wins against pros———?” said the young man as he pulled out his phone to show Hiuma. “This one here, see? She’s sayin’ she wants to bring back a Pro Enterance Exam’er somethin’ like that to go Pro.”

“They have one of those?!”

Hiuma’s childhood friend jumped into the conversation as she brought a bowl of spicy chicken from the kitchen.

“No, no exam like that exists. There is one to get into the 3-dan division, though. One person managed to pass it and get back into the division when I was there.”

His childhood friend fell silent, her lips echoing the words “back into” as Hiuma explained.

He knew that Ai Hinatsuru said she wanted to test into the Professional League.

Former members of the Sub League who had been forced out like himself had gone out of their way to call him and ask his opinion on the matter. Even current members of the Sub League had voiced their fury in emails.

But Hiuma’s first thoughts dwelled on the professionals who had to face Ai Hinatsuru.

———Talk about pressure …… I don’t envy them.

He remembered a professional player telling him: “Amateurs still have a career if they lose. If a pro loses …… there’s no escape.”

Hiuma had faced his share of amateur and Women’s League players in events like the Newcomer’s Tournament, so he knew the torment that the players went through playing against someone below their rank.

Not to mention the times he’d worked as a recorder in matches where a professional tripped over their own feet in a crucial moment and lost to an amateur as a result. Watching their faces contort under the pressure of knowing they should win easily was a sorrowful experience ……

Ai was still in elementary school, and a girl to boot.

No player could pull out all the stops against her in a league match. Just the thought of having to play against Ai Hinatsuru if he had become a professional made his innards cringe.

Ai was on a roll against professional opponents right now, but she would also face the same pain should she succeed in her endeavor to become a professional.

Just as Ginko Sora had when she lost to a Women’s League player and took leave after a single match.

———Maybe not becoming a professional was for the best after all ……

The topic had shifted to whether a Professional Entrance Exam should be created while Hiuma was lost in his own thoughts.

“Wouldn’t ’at be a big leg up for players from out in the countryside?”

“Don’t forget young ones like Sota Kunugi pop up all the time in that world, so what chance do the older folks really have?”

“Speakin’ of Kunugi 4-dan, ya two were in the Kansai Sub League at the same time, right Hiuma? Didja ever play ’gainst him?”

Suddenly the center of attention, Hiuma’s response was instantaneous.

“So- …… Kunugi-sensei was still in grade school. Meanwhile, I was some guy coming up on 30. We were both in the 3-dan division for one season and only played one match together.”

“Whoa! You played against that boy-genius?!”

“Who won?!”

Hiuma answered with a shrug.

“Kunugi-sensei, of course. I played myself into a sudden death.”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!”

The happily buzzed group shared a big laugh.

Hiuma’s wounds were still fresh, but for whatever reason, they didn’t sting at all right now.

———Because of the alcohol? Or maybe ……

Hiuma wanted to see if any passion for Shogi was still burning within him. Resetting the board to the starting formation, he posed a suggestion to the group.

“Would you like me to line up the match for you?”

“Please!!”

Sub League match records were kept under strict lock and key. The chance to see one of Sota Kunugi’s unreleased match records enthralled them more than Hiuma could’ve imagined.

“I played the first move, and built a yagura———”

Hiuma moved the pieces, playing out the match as everyone else leaned in for a better view. No matter how hard he tried to forget this match, the sequences always seemed to pop up whenever his mind wandered for even a moment.

“Is it really a good idea havin’ the Rook-head Pawn ’at far forward?”

“Slidin’ the Rook that far?!”

“I think moving that piece over here woulda been better———”

It started as a lively review session.

But as the match progressed …… Each of the observers became too overwhelmed by the brilliance unfolding on the board to voice their own ideas.

“M-My gosh ……”

“Ya won this …… Right, Hiuma ……?”

Then came the final sequence, the trap set for a prodigy.

The stunning 6 Two Silver and the 19-move checkmate that followed …… rendered the onlookers speechless.

“……………………”

Their expressions, already as blank as a sheet of ice, cracked in disbelief. One Shogi match had sobered them up in the blink of an eye.

At first, Hiuma assumed they were in awe of Sota’s talent, but———

It was his childhood friend’s father who eventually broke the silence.

“…… Ya can play like this. If that Pro Exam thing ever happens, shouldn’t ya give it a shot, Hiuma?”

“Yah! You workin’ the fields out here in the boonies is a huge waste ……”

“We’ve got your back! If there’s a way to get you in the pros, Hiuma, we’ll help you!”

“What if we got everybody from all the branch farms to sign a petition?!”

“The Women’s King Title Match is comin’ to Miyakonojo real soon! Give it to one of them association folks———”

Hiuma never expected this turn of events.

“W-Wait! Hold on a minute, please!”

He rushed to elaborate.

“Former Sub League members have to wait a year before playing in amateur tournaments anyway. I don’t know what the qualifications might be for a professional Entrance Exam, but what point is there in pushing when I can’t even register for league matches?”

“…… Phew. That could’ve gone better.”

After washing his face in cold well water, Hiuma thought back on his rash decision and regretted it.

He’d come here to cut Shogi out of his life and live quietly in the countryside. And yet, drunk or not, he’d gotten ahead of himself.

“I really shouldn’t have shown them that match …… should I?”

The farmhands wouldn’t take no for an answer no matter how many times he tried to curb their enthusiasm. It was all he could do to escape to the restroom. Now, standing outside the door, he felt someone’s embrace from behind.

“…… Hiuma.”

It was his childhood friend.

She sounded on the verge of tears as she buried her face in his sweaty back.

“You’re not going back, are you? You won’t move back to Osaka, right?”

“What’s wrong?”

“I really wanted to stop you …… That day you left for Osaka. I’ve prayed and prayed every single day since then.”

There, in that dim corridor, Hiuma’s childhood friend revealed a secret she had kept all this time.

“Prayed that you wouldn’t …… become a professional Shogi player. That you’d give up on that dream and come back to me.”

“……!”

Her words hit him like an unanticipated ambush.

Hiuma was certain that the only people in the world who prayed for him to fail were his rivals in the Sub League.

“Sorry …… I shouldn’t have done that, I know. But———”

“I’m not going back. Your father just got excited, that’s all.”

“Really?”

“If there’s one thing I know for certain, it’s that I won’t move back to Osaka. I’m …… done. It’s over.”

He had entrusted his dream to Sota.

And, true to his word, the boy had triggered a new Shogi boom. There was no point in Hiuma staying in the Shogi world anymore.

“…… I know her very well, the girl who wants to test into the pros. She’s a prodigy far beyond me.”

“But she’s a girl.”

“There are some unbelievably strong girls, actually. Monsters in their own right.”

“Like Naniwa’s Snow White?”

“…………”

Unable to answer her last question, Hiuma turned around to face his lifelong friend and returned her embrace.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be staying right here …………… with you.”

———This kind of soap operatic story must happen every day all over Japan, I guess.

This was reality for former Sub League members.

The connection he felt with the Shogi world was still there. It made everything else he did feel like an act, and he was simply witnessing events in other people’s lives ……

Though Hiuma couldn’t understand why, an angry Sota Kunugi appeared in his dreams that night.