Ryuuou no Oshigoto! - Volume 5 - Chapter 3.1

  HOLY FLAME

“Yaichi is so mean ……! He’s horrible ……! Utter trash ……! I-I went to check on him because I was worried, but he said I’m in the way …… That I was in his way ……!!”

Ginko left the house saying, “I won’t be back,” but still ended up returning thirty minutes earlier than I expected and crying her eyes out.

She burst into the room and jumped face first into my lap, absolutely bawling …… Everything she was saying boiled down to one thing, “Go to hell, Yaichi.” She’s even harder to look at than Ai.

Naniwa’s Snow White doesn’t let anyone else see her like this.

“He can die for all I care …… That piece of trash should just die ……! I-I …… waited for him at the bottom of the stairs …… But he never came after me ……!!”

“Yes, yes, I know. You can cry all you want, but try to keep it down, okay? Ai is sleeping upstairs, and you don’t want to wake her up, do you?”

“…… Ungh ……… Hnghh ………”

Of course, the last thing she would ever want is for Ai to see her like this. Ginko bites down on my skirt to keep her wailing under control.

Ah-aah …… This is one of my favorite skirts, too.

Oh well. Ginko’s so cute like this, so I’ll let it slide.

“My word …… I told you, didn’t I? That going tonight was a bad idea. Pressuring him now was a bad move on your part, Ginko,” I say, gently stroking her hair. She’s a total mess right now, but the princess still has a bit of anger left to get out and pops her head up.

“No, it wasn’t! Yaichi’s the bad one! He’s the one that said I was in the way!!”

She yells with all her might, a fresh wave of tears streaming down her cheeks. Then she plunges her face back into my lap.

Spoiled rotten, this girl.

It’s like she’s reverted to the four-year-old she was when she first got here.

Ginko has always come to me like this after squabbling with Yaichi through the years.

“Keika, Yaichi just–––.”

“But Yaichi’s the one that–––.”

“Yaichi’s the bad one. Not me. Go make him sorry!”

Ginko’s asked me to do it hundreds, maybe thousands of times by now.

But she doesn’t really want me to scold him.

She wants me to help her patch things up.

This spoiled princess can’t bring herself to apologize on her own. She panics whenever the two start arguing.

Her make him sorry means do something or make him forgive me. So, I always call Yaichi over once I’ve gotten Ginko to calm down and say something like: It’s the man’s job to apologize for this kind of thing, even if they’re right. Don’t be mad at Ginko, okay?

And convince him to make up.

Even after fighting with her, Yaichi would look like nothing happened at all and go out to play more Shogi. It didn’t faze him at all. He’d forget all about the argument after about an hour because Shogi was the only thing on his mind.

And Ginko hated that.

Which is more important: me or Shogi?!

Her lips could explode and those words still would never come out of her mouth.

But that’s exactly what’s going on.

It’s a cliché … but it’s an accurate ultimatum that women have been giving men ever since Shogi was created. Ginko has been saying it every other way she could think of all this time …… 

“But …… What can you do?” I whisper, gently stroking Ginko’s silver hair as she sobs into my lap …… remembering when the two of them were just little kids …… 

Ginko was such a frail little girl, and Yaichi was the only one her age who’d play Shogi with her.

The only boy who’d walk at her pace.

Always with her, he was the one who’d be on the other side of the board with a grin on his face. He was special to her.

Those feelings not growing into love would be the bigger surprise.

“Yaichi’s the only one who will go along with the princess’s every wish …… when it comes to Shogi, or even everyday things.”

Back when Yaichi first came to this house, he was just a little brother through and through. She had him wrapped around her finger and he was always close behind.

At some point though, Yaichi started taking the lead. His Shogi abilities started pulling away from hers, went beyond Master’s and are now out of anyone’s reach.

There were signs.

Ginko acts all cool and calm, but she’s an emotional roller-coaster when it comes to Shogi. She bawls like there’s no tomorrow after a loss and is up on cloud nine when she wins. Master says that kids who cry get strong, but all I saw was a child venting all that pain in one big explosion.

Yaichi was just the opposite. Win or lose, he always looked like he was on an even keel.

But …… he wouldn’t leave the board.

Especially when he lost, he’d just sit there for hours or days on end thinking about where that Shogi went wrong all by himself.

I think it must’ve been …… a little while after he entered the Sub League. Probably around the time he was in sixth grade.

Yaichi hit a wall and got a B on his record in the Sub League.

No matter what he tried, he just couldn’t win against lower-ranking players without that Lance. He’d sit by himself and stare at a board all the time back in those days.

Watching over him from a distance all that time, I knew he wasn’t sleeping at night and all the time he was spending in front of a Shogi board was unhealthy. But one day, when I couldn’t take it any longer, I went to tell him to get some sleep already.

That’s when I saw.

Yaichi, sitting alone in his room with his Shogi board …… was staring at it and crying harder than I’d never seen.

There wasn’t much noise at all, just tears streaming down his cheeks …… He was so focused on the board that he forgot to wipe them off. I saw it all.

All the emotions he kept bottled up inside were coming out in tears.

That’s how I saw it.

From there, I realized that this boy can change the agony of defeat into strength. It felt like that was the first time I saw Yaichi for who he really is …… What his talent really is.

It wasn’t much later that Yaichi cleared that wall–––and got stronger almost overnight.

From what I can tell, his state of mind now is pretty close to what it was back then. He is going up against the tallest, thickest wall he’s ever faced and has gone back to the drawing board to reinvent himself so he can clear it.

That’s probably why Ginko is so anxious.

Yaichi’s about to clear another hurdle and go even further away. Ginko’s afraid of getting left behind …… 

Which brings up one more thing.

Not by much, but Ginko reached that age …… more quickly than Yaichi.

As I see it, that’s what’s really separating these two when it comes to strength.

Yaichi only has Shogi in his head. Now and always.

But, inside Ginko’s heart–––.

“…… Still just a baby boy, isn’t he? That Dragon King of ours.”

Yaichi doesn’t understand it himself.

He doesn’t realize how much impact he has on those around him, how otherworldly his talent is, he has no clue. Ginko would probably yell at him, calling him a blind moron or something.

During that first match, I have to admit the Meijin’s big picture sense was amazing, but Yaichi was right there with him. No one could look at that Shogi and say, “Kuzuryu played shoddy, baseless Shogi and crumbled.” I was there in the break room in Hawaii, but those two were playing at such a high level, it all went over my head.

Sure, the second match wasn’t his best, but he nearly won the third. It’s not like there’s that much of a skill gap between the two of them either. Yaichi has lost three straight, but he’s improving. I’m pretty sure he’ll win the next match if everything plays out normally.

Yes. Normally.

He just doesn’t have enough experience to do that yet.

I mean …… He’s only seventeen.

He was sixteen when he took the title.

Even the Meijin didn’t get his first one until he was nineteen.

And no one was dominating the Shogi world back then like he is now.

Despite never playing head-to-head, Yaichi took the top title as a sixteen-year-old while the Meijin had the rest of the Shogi world under his thumb.

Thinking about it logically–––that means Yaichi has just as much talent as the Meijin, if not more.

Unfortunately, I’m the only one in the Shogi world who can accept that fact for what it is. Active players don’t like the idea that someone younger than themselves could be at a higher level. It’s much easier for someone like me, who knew their talent ceiling from the start, to see these things.

A truth that only I—and no one else in this world, including Yaichi himself—have figured out.

That’s why I want to tell him, “Yaichi, you aren’t weak.”

That.

And one more thing.

“I’ve been watching you grow.”

Also.

“I know how hard you’ve tried, all those painful tears you’ve shed, that you’ve cried in front of your Shogi board …… I know that you never run away, no matter how hopeless the situation or how strong the opponent. I know.”

I want to tell him all of it.

But I’m sure he wouldn’t even look at me right now. Even if he did, I doubt he’d take what I had to say seriously.

I don’t care what it takes. I’ll find a way to get through to him.

“Oh, I know. I know that you are always, always …… trying as hard as you can.”

No one else.

I’m the one that needs to tell him.

“That’s …… the big sister’s job, isn’t it?” I whisper quietly under my breath, still gently patting Ginko’s head as she sobs in my lap.

…… And feeling heat building in the pit of my chest.