Ryuuou no Oshigoto! - Volume 3 - Chapter 3.5

  KEIKA’S MEMORIES

“This girl is livin’ with us startin’ today.”

I thought he was joking when I heard father say that.

“…… Ginko. Ginko, Sora.”

This little four-year-old girl with silver hair, ash-colored eyes and no blood relation whatsoever said her name as if issuing a challenge.

Rather than a doll or stuffed animal, she carried a magnetic Shogi board around with her at all times. I hated her from the moment we first met.

My mother passed away when I was very young, so my memories of her were pretty dim when I was a first-year student in high school. It was also around the one-year anniversary of my grandmother’s death. She was my father’s mother and had lived with us, so it was just father and me living at home back then.

I’d finally gotten used to working at the Shogi classroom and doing chores around the house in addition to school club activities, and now here was this live-in apprentice that I had no say in whatsoever.

“This …… can’t actually be happening, right?”

Of course, I was dead set against it, but father insisted.

“Take care ’o her, ya hear?”

So, it became my job to look after her when they weren’t playing Shogi.

“Ginko. This here’s my daughter, Keika. Think of her like yar real big sister an’ play nice, a’right?”

“…… Keika?”

“Kei from keima, the Knight, and ka is the same character used for kyosha, the Lance. So, Keika.”

“…… Keika.”

The silver-haired girl looked up at me, my reflection in those ash-colored eyes trying to provoke me with a glare …… From that day on, she followed me around, everywhere, with that magnetic Shogi board in her hands.

 …… Years later, I asked my father why he took Ginko in, and he laughed, “Thought ya were lonely ……”

I’m grateful he did take her in now, but back then, I hated Ginko with a passion. Annoyingly so.

Two weeks later, my father came home with another child after serving as a judge in a Shogi tournament.

“My name is Yaichi Kuzuryu! Nice to meet you!”

This time it was a six-year-old boy, but this one …… I didn’t have the same reaction to Yaichi that I did to Ginko.

Yaichi acted his age, so full of energy and always had something to talk about. Part of it could have been that communicating with him was so easy …… But I think my problem with Ginko might have been that she was a girl, and it felt like father had found my “replacement.”

I, a high schooler, could very well have been jealous of that four-year-old girl.

I mean, at four years old, she’s younger than I was when my father first taught me Shogi’s rules. I struggled just to remember how each piece moved, but this girl had already mastered the rules by the time she was two. She was holding her ground against adults as a four year old.

A prodigy.

Part of me realized that she was one. After all, my father is a Shogi prodigy as well.

And prodigies like them can never understand how average people feel.

“I’ll be teachin’ ya Shogi startin’ today. Call me Master durin’ lessons.”

Father said that to me on my first day of elementary school.

There was something different in his voice that day, something about his demeanor that told me I didn’t have the right to say no.

Most likely, father wanted to pass down a skill to help his daughter survive as quickly as possible now that my mother was no longer with us.

My father, being who he is, only had the skill of Shogi.

“Why can’t ya see such a simple move?! … I just taught ya that standard formation, don’ tell me ya already forgot?!”

His lessons were strict, and I didn’t improve the way he hoped I would.

The more he drilled into my head, the more I hated Shogi. And no amount of repetition will help when you hate what you’re doing. Lesson after lesson every day, and I came to hate Shogi even more with each one.

My feelings must’ve come across. One day, father sat me down and said, “If ya wanna quit, quit. Make yar own decision.”

I chose to quit. I was so, so happy that I never had to touch a Shogi board again.

While I didn’t play Shogi myself, I was never shut off from it completely.

That was for the simple reason that we ran a Shogi classroom out of our house, and I helped father do it. He was a single father, so I thought it was only natural for me to do things around the house, and I got an allowance as well.

I hated Shogi, but sometimes I would play casual matches against some of our customers. We never told them that father used to work with me one-on-one, and I pretended to be a novice who only understood the rules. Neither of us brought up my Shogi history. It was sort of our mutual understanding that didn’t need to be said.

“A young beaut’ around must do wonders for sales. Yer a lucky man, Kiyotaki-sensei.”

Young women are a rare sight in Shogi classrooms, or so I’m told. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t good at it and hated Shogi, the customers treated me like a star.

That is, until Ginko came.

That bizarre little girl instantly became the talk of my father’s Shogi classroom.

She didn’t know the first thing about how to treat customers and hardly ever said a word, but all of that was overlooked because she was good at Shogi. Then, they wouldn’t give me the time of day no matter how friendly I was.

“That Ginko’s got some real talent, she does.”

“This classroom has got a bright future as long as she’s here.”

“You should really take a page or two out of her book, Keika.”

I wanted to tell them exactly where they could shove all their advice, but I just smiled and turned the other cheek. This is a business, and customers are important.

All that built up anger got unloaded on one tiny little girl.

“Would you just stop already!” 

It came to a head one day, a day that I yelled right in Ginko’s face.

“Seeing you makes me sick! Why … why do you always have to follow me around like this?!”

I, a high school student, vented all of my frustration onto a girl not even old enough for elementary school. I just couldn’t stop myself.

Ginko was the perfect daughter for my father and all the customers in his classroom. Me, I was just some failed prototype.

That feeling of inferiority, the loathing I had for Shogi and …… all the negative emotions I felt ever since Ginko came into my life boiled over. And I hit that girl with every single one of them.

“……”

However, Ginko didn’t budge in the face of all my raging fury.

Instead, she said something I never saw coming.

She didn’t cry, get angry at me or try to run away–––.

“…… The Silver.”

She held up that magnetic Shogi set she always carried with her and said this:

“The Silver …… is always next to the Knight and Lance.”

I was floored.

What Ginko, the gin in her name meaning silver, was referring to was Shogi’s opening formation. The Silver, Knight and Lance are all lined up in a row. No matter how intense the battle, they always return to that same spot once it’s done. As to why: because it’s where the Silver, Knight and Lance belong …… That’s Shogi, plain and simple.

Just like how Ginko didn’t need a reason to like Shogi, she didn’t need a reason to be close to me. That’s what she was saying.

All she had for me was affection. Far too pure, untainted affection.

“I’m so sorry, Ginko! Really …… I’m sorry ……!”

I was in tears before I knew it, my arms wrapped around the girl in front of me in a big hug. I lost count of how many times I apologized, but I kept going just the same.

Shogi was all this girl knew.

Shogi was her world, but she and I were part of it.

In that moment, I could feel my hatred for the game start to disappear.

It was a year after that day that I decided to set my sights on becoming a Women’s League player and registered for the Practice League.