Ryuuou no Oshigoto! - Volume 6 - Chapter 1

  PHYSICAL EXAM

“Mr. Yaichi Kuzuryu …… Yes? What did you come in for today?”

Taking a seat in the exam room, the doctor is an extremely intelligent-looking woman wearing glasses.

I sit up in my chair and tell her everything.

“………… It won’t go away.”

“What won’t?”

“………… The board ……”

“The what?”

She looks at me like she has no idea what I’m talking about.

“…… My mental Shogi board won’t go away ……!” I hold my head in my hands and say as clearly as I can, “Uh-huh.”

The doctor looks down at the clipboard in her arms.

“It says here you’re …… a professional Shogi player, yes? I see, I see.”

She nods a few times before following up with a question.

“So, in that case, you always think about Shogi?”

“More than the average guy …… Probably. But, not all the time. I’ve always been able to easily go back and forth like flipping a switch and the board would go away …… But now, it’s like the switch flips on by itself …… And I can’t turn it off whenever it does ……”

“I see. And you’re constantly anxious.”

“I wouldn’t go that far!”

“And by that you mean …?”

“…… Time flies.”

“???”

“Once Shogi crosses my mind, the next thing I know, the sun is going down ……”

“Okay ……”

“It’s been like that for a while now …… I can’t tell if the board I’m seeing is real or in my head anymore …… I haven’t slept at all ……”

“Well, thinking itself is work for a professional Shogi player. Perhaps all this thinking has made you nervous–––.”

“I’m telling you, it’s not like that! I’m not making a conscious decision to think! My sense of time is completely gone …… Help me, would you?!!”

“That is troubling ……”

The doctor goes silent, thinking to herself for a few moments before asking me this. “Do you like little girls?”

“Say what?”

“Little girls. Do you like them?”

“Huh? W-Well …… No more than anyone else ……”

“Do you have many opportunities to interact with little girls in your daily life?”

“Well …… Um, actually, my apprentice lives with me …… Not in a weird way, okay? It’s a bit unusual the Shogi world, but not unheard of.”

“An elementary school student?”

“A fourth grader.”

“That …… apprentice? You have just the one?”

“One live-in apprentice …… I live with one, but I have one more apprentice. She’s also a fourth grader. Oh, and my apprentice’s friends come to my apartment every now and then …… They’re fourth-graders, too, but one is in first grade. Listen, I didn’t take her as my apprentice because I like girls that age. It’s just that that’s the age she happened to be, and her friends are around the same age, too.”

“I think I understand …… Yes. I see, I see.”

She nods as if she got where I’m coming from and starts writing something down on the clipboard. Then, she looks me square in the eyes.

“You have a Lolita complex.”

“…… Come again?”

“The name of the disease. You have a Stage 5 Lolita complex. I’ll have you hospitalized immediately.”

“Huh? …… Huuuuuh?!”

You can be hospitalized for a Lolita complex?! Is that a thing?! Is it a disease?!

Wait a sec–––.

“I’m not like that!!”

“Unaware of own condition …… Recorded.”

The doctor’s pen races across her clipboard. This looks serious?!

I’m not sure why but …… Being told I have a Lolita complex by a doctor like this makes me think I really might have one and that it’s a serious illness!

“Is there a cure, Doc?! Will I ever be normal again?!”

“It’s a stubborn disease, to be sure. A full recovery is impossible, and it will stay with you as long as you live.”

“S-So it’s a …… only death fixes stupid kind of thing ……?”

“Because it is in fact an incurable disease. That being said, it is possible to suppress the symptoms.”

“Like group therapy? Something like they do to help alcoholics ……?”

“Absolutely not. Gathering a group of inflicted people into one place would cause more problems than it would solve.”

That sounded like something the producer of some Loli Manga magazine would say.

“Okay, what kind of treatment?”

“Surgery.”

“Sur- ……?!”

Accused of having a Lolita complex and faced with the prospect of going under the knife for it, I stare at the doctor’s face in total disbelief.

Only then did I notice.

This doctor …… She’s really young.

I’m not saying young doctors are bad. It’s just this one isn’t really young, more like adolescent. No matter how you look at her, she’s got to be in grade school–––.

Huh?

This doctor, she’s …… 

“…… Ai?”

“Keep your hands off me, got it? That disease will spread.”

That sharp tongue. There’s no doubt about it, that’s Ai.

Dressed in a white lab coat and a tight pencil skirt is my second apprentice–––Ai Yashajin. She crosses and re-crosses her arms and unleashes a storm of harsh words on her Master like it was what she was born to do and then looks at a nurse standing behind me and gives orders.

“Prepare to operate.”

“Right away.”

I look at the nurse and nearly jump out of my skin.

“A-Ayano?!”

She’s dressed in white, but that is definitely Ayano. A grade schooler. My apprentice’s good friend who wears glasses.

She looks great in that nurse outfit. Really cute♡

“Hold up, hold up! This is no time to get distracted?! Think about it …… Th-this isn’t right?! What’re two kids doing working in a hospital?! This game of doctor you’re playing has gone way too far–––.”

“Strap him down so he won’t struggle. People infected by a Lolita complex become incredibly strong when they see little girls.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

More girls’ voices chime in.

Cuffs and straps come up from behind me. The ones taking away my freedom of movement are–––.

“Sorry, Kujuryu-sensei. Stay real still, okay?”

“Masta? Dwon’t move! Stay?”

“Mio?! Charlette?! S-Stop this right now!!”

Crap …… I’m tied to the chair! I can’t move!

“Lolita complexes infect the brain and the groin, so I’ll remove them both,” says Ai, dressed as a doctor and looking up and down at me like a filthy pile of trash.

“Still, it may be too late already.”

“If it’s too late, then you don’t have to do anything!! This is fine, so just let me be!!”

“You’re okay with having a Lolita complex?”

“Just fine!! I’m fine like this!! Let me live with a Lolita complex!!”

“So, you admit it. I knew you had one. Now, we operate.”

Then Charlette says the scariest thing ever with a grin on her face.

“You know? Cha, Cha can do swergery!”

“No, you can’t! You can’t do surgery, Charlette!!”

“Wes, Cha can.”

“And those aren’t surgeons’ clothes …… That’s what lunch ladies wear?!”

“Scwalppel.”

“Here you are! One scalpel!!”

“What are you giving a first grader a blade for?! Mio, stop looking at me like you’re enjoying this!”

Mio puts the cutting tool in Charlette’s tiny hand.

The blade isn’t all that big …… But it’s shining in my eyes!

“Hey, hey Charlette. Wouldn’t it be fun to see his appendix?”

“Appwendiss?”

“See, right about here …… The bottom part of the stomach. Explaining it all would be boring, so let’s just cut and see what we can see.”

“Cwut!”

Two grade school girls wearing lunch lady clothes lean over my lap and point scalpels at my vulnerable midsection like they’re playing a game!

“Stop, please, I’m begging you! Just up, pleeease!!”

“That voice is annoying. Hurry up and castrate the pervert.”

“S-Sorry about this …… But, Lolita complexes are a serious disease and must be treated ……”

“I’ll cut the stomach, so Charlette, the head is all yours.”

“Cha want to swee a kadabba.”

“S-St …… STOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!”

My voice echoes around the operation room.

No one’ll come to help me. Actually, the louder I yell the more fun Mio and Charlette seem to be having. Ayano looks sorry for me behind her glinting glasses.

Then the grade schoolers descend on me–––.

“DAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH?!”

GASP!!

Once I see the bed covers flying off my body, everything clicks.

“………… That was, a dream ……?”

A terrifying dream about a group of grade school girls dressed in white clothes about to operate on me.

It all felt like a simple game of doctor …… Even a cat with nine lives couldn’t survive that …… 

“Kh ……! Why’d I have a dream like that ……?!”

I don’t have a Lolita complex and I’ve never played doctor with grade school girls before.

That’s not to say Ai Yashajin didn’t look good in that lab coat, and Ayano in a nurse’s outfit was divine. Seeing Mio and Charlette swing those blades around so innocently scared me half to death, but I don’t think I could say no if someone asked me if I enjoyed the thrill just a little bit. That being naughty feeling is what makes grade school girl so great ……!

“H-Hold up?! No!! I went to the doctor’s office for the first time in forever yesterday …… That’s why I had that dream?!”

I explain to no one as I scratch my sweaty hair.

“…… Just when I thought those sleep aids I got would help me get some shut eye, this happens ……”

I slept for seven hours but still feel totally drained.

Ever since the Ryuo Title Match ended, I’ve been dealing with something I’ve never gone through before.

The Shogi board in my head won’t go away.

My reading skills went through the roof in my battle against the Meijin, but now that mental Shogi board keeps showing up in random places in my day-to-day life.

“I kept it mostly under control during the matches but …… Without that pressure to keep it down, I can’t turn it off ……”

Not only has it been keeping me awake, the other day I ended up standing at a crosswalk for nearly an hour as a sequence played out in my head …… I know there are plenty of weird people in the Shogi world, but this is ridiculous.

“……… My brain sure seems raring to go, but my body can’t get any rest …… The new year has already started, and I’m going to be playing matches left and right in no time ……”

Then my bedroom door flings open.

“Master?! I heard a big scream! Are you okay?!”

“Yeah, I’m all right. Was just a night …… mare ……?”

My ten-year-old apprentice is standing in the doorway.

Holding–––a small cutting instrument just like the one I saw in my dream in her tiny hand.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!”

Screaming at the top of my lungs, I fall to the floor.