Ryuuou no Oshigoto! - Volume 6 - Chapter 2

  NEW YEAR’S SHRINE VISIT

“Masta♡”

I open my arms and catch the fluffy golden angel running up to me.

“Ha ha ha! You look nice in a kimono, Charlette.”

“You know, Cha lubs kwimono!!”

“And you look great. Very, very cute, too.”

“Masta, hug!”

“Sure! Ha ha, look how high you are!”

“Squeeee♡♡♡”

I pick up Charlette, kimono and all, and spin her around like a merry-go-round as she happily laughs and squeals the whole time. Those long sleeves flap around behind her like angel wings.

It’s the day after the First Move Ceremony. I’m meeting up with the Grade School Practice Group members to visit a shrine during the New Year’s season, a Japanese tradition called hatsumoude.

“Charlette, have you ever been to a Japanese shrine around New Year’s?”

“Nwope. It’s Cha’s fwirst hwasumoodie.”

Then she blushes and starts twiddling her thumbs.

“You know? This is Cha’s fwirst time …… Cha’s gwad it’s with you, Masta!”

“Me too! It’s great to be with you, Charlette♡”

“Whaa♡” she smiles like a bundle of joy with that answer.

I knew she was cute but …… wow …… 

Starting the year off with a big smile from Charlette like this, life is good. So good, it’s almost scary.

“Isn’t that nice, Master. You got to be Charlette’s first.”

Ai Hinatsuru smiles with approval. Though, she did just step on my foot …… With wooden geta sandals.

“Oh, by the way, Master. Did you know? This is our first hatsumoude, too.”

T-too good …… Terrifying …… 

“Kuzuryu-sensei, happy new year to you.”

“Ah …… Same to you, Ayano.”

Walking up just behind Charlette, Ayano Sadatou appears in her own kimono and politely says hello.

“You looked great in nurse’s clothes, but a kimono isn’t half bad.”

“? What do you mean by …… nurse’s clothes?”

“Uhhh, just talking to myself ……”

I’ve got to be more careful. Again, I’m getting dreams mixed up with reality …… 

Wanting to change the subject, I turn to talk with the girl standing next to Ayano.

“Hello there, Mio. Happy New Year.”

“Ha-p-p-y New Yeeear!”

Huh? She sounds pretty tongue-tied.

It’s like her tongue isn’t rolling like it should. I haven’t seen her this uptight since the day we first met. Fun times, but …… 

“Kuzuryu-sensei, what shrine are we visiting today?” Ayano asks, her voice bubbling with excitement. I adjust Charlette in my arms and think for a moment.

“Good question. Most people think of Sumiyoshi-taisha and Ebessan for hatsumoude in Osaka, but ……”

“Ebwee …… saa?”

Charlette’s head tilts from side to side like a little seesaw. Adorable♡

“It’s actually called Toka Ebisu. Stores and shops set up booths along the street and call out to people passing by saying things like, We’re wheeling and dealing, come get your bamboo! and stuff like that. They hand out all sorts of lucky things for free like bamboo, old-style coins and fish like red snapper. So, you bring luck home.”

“Sounds like fun!” Ayano, from Kyoto, and Ai, from Ishikawa, say in unison as their eyes light up.

When push comes to shove, Osaka is a merchant’s town.

It’s a place where there are profit to be made when lots of people get together in the same place. Wheeling and dealing, as they say. Sumiyoshi and Ebisu are both gods of fortune and commerce. Hundreds of thousands of people come to pay their respects.

“It might be a bit too dangerous to go when it’s so crowded, though. Let’s go to one of the smaller shrines in the neighborhood.”

“Okay!”

I put Charlette down and take her hand as we set off for the closest shrine.

“……!”

Ai immediately grabs my other hand and holds on tight.

My first apprentice seems worried that her Master might get taken away by another student. As her Master, knowing she’s this possessive of me is a great feeling.

However.

–––She’s already a bona fide member of the Women’s League …… She’s got to start striking off on her own real soon …… 

Ayano, walking up at the front of our group, turns around and says, “The shrine next to the Shogi Association in Tokyo is so convenient.”

“For sure. Pro players and Women’s League members visited Shogidou yesterday for the First Move Ceremony just like you did last summer.”

Pictures from both the Kanto and Kansai ceremonies are already up on the association’s homepage.

Right smack in the middle of this very Japanese-y ceremony are Ayumu and Ms. Shakando, sticking out like sore thumbs with their bizarre fashion sense. Seriously, it’s like they time-hopped in from medieval Europe to say hello …… 

On a side note, Ms. Shakando will be fighting to defend her Women’s Legend title later this month.

Which is why the journalist casually asked Ayumu, “Did you pray for your Master’s victory?”

“Humph ……! For us, gods are not meant to be trifled with by offering prayers! Prayers themselves are nothing but goals to be reached! Besides, Master’s victory is assured by destiny. A single prayer would be meaningless …… Though, I did put coins in the collection box at the shrine just for the amusement! Just for fun!”

The first lame quote of the year. After all that, you went and prayed, huh?

“Ah! There’s the shrine!!”

Hardly anyone is ever around this small shrine, but it’s jam-packed today. It’s new year’s, so I shouldn’t be that surprised.

Once we’d lined up with everyone else and prayed at the shrine, I turned to the girls and clapped my hands together.

“All right! Shall we head over to do omikuji fortune-telling? My treat!!”

“Yaaay!!”

Drawing fortunes has to be the highlight of these shrine visits for kids.

Big Sis and I always pestered Master until we got to draw our own whenever we went to shrines with him at New Year’s.

Master is very competitive as well as superstitious, so he’ll keep drawing fortunes until he gets Best Luck. Plenty of players are like that.

The thing is that Big Sis always took mine by force whenever I got better luck than she did. A real demon, that one.

“Yay! Master, I got Best Luck!”

“Cha, Wucky?”

The grade school girls celebrate and complain about the fortunes they drew. They seem to be particularly interested in the Competition and Love categories. The fact that Ai is paying so much attention to the Fertility ranking is a little concerning …… 

“Now then, what’s my luck looking like?”

“Is that supposed to be …… 吉? Maybe?”

吉 or Kichi, average, everyday luck, would make sense, but a line is missing. Maybe their printer was having issues? What does that mean for my luck this year?

Ai came over to show me her Best Luck fortune but sticks her head under my arm to get a look at the paper in my hand as I absentmindedly stare at it.

“Master? What’s wrong?”

“Ah. Just a printing error, I think but–––.”

“Huh?!”

Hm?! W-What’s got her bent out of shape?!

“S-Sorry …… It’s just, looking at that sideways …… is spells out ロリ in katakana ……”

“Holy crap …… Y-You’re right! It does say loli, doesn’t it?!!”

Take one vertical stroke out of that Chinese character and it turns into something eerily close to Lolita. That’s the first big discovery of the year.

Don’t tell me …… Even the gods are saying I have a Lolita complex now?! All the category details are pretty general, so why is the Marriage category specific enough to say: the younger the better?!

“Lollie? Masta, wha’s that?”

You! …… No matter what happened, I’d never say it.

Ayano does her best to hide the fact that she’s keeping her distance from me and works up the courage to ask, “U-Umm …… Kuzuryu-sensei? Would you like to draw another one?”

“…………… I’ll pass.”

I’d hate to draw something just as weird, so I’ll just leave this one here and go draw another fortune at a different shrine in a day or two …… 

“I-I’ve got it! That’s enough omikuji for today. Let’s write some ema plates!”

I buy enough of the pentagon-shaped wooden plates for everyone as a way to change the subject and borrow a handful of permanent markers.

The girls were even happier to get these than their fortunes. They’re already writing.

Now, I’m the one who’s stuck.

“Hmmmmm? What should I write?”

I could just write “Defend my title!” if the Ryuo Title Match hadn’t happened yet and call it good. Unfortunately, they just ended.

My next goal would be to get promoted into a higher rank but …… Wanting to promote out of C-2 this year is a real boring goal for the Ryuo …… 

Recently, it feels like there’s a hole in my chest, like a piece just popped out.

Thinking about it is just making me drowsy, so I just write down, “May my Shogi family stay healthy this year.” No one will have complaints about that.

Ai wrote, “May I always be together with Master♡”

As for Ayano, she wrote, “To get promoted in the Practice League.”

Charlette wrote, “Wear more kwimono!” She really seems to like wearing kimonos.

“Masta, whadda we do with ema?”

“We hang them up at the shrine. See all of them over there?”

“…… Masta, Cha can’t weach.”

“…… Okay, want me to pick you up?”

“Yaay♡”

I pick her up and hold her in my arms, so she can hang the plate herself. That’s the thing about ema, they don’t work unless you hang them with your own hands! She needed help!

“Oh, oh, oh! Master! I can’t reach, either!”

“Come again? Ayano’s not much taller than you, and she–––.”

“I can’t reach!!”

“……… Okay then.”

I lift my ten-year-old apprentice into the air. She’s not all that heavy, so it’s no big deal, but …… 

“What did you write on the board, Mio?”

“M-Mine …… It’s a secret! A secret, okay?!” 

Ayano goes up to talk with a surprisingly fidgety Mio a little way from us, but Mio hides the plate behind her back.

“Y-You know how it is! What you write won’t come true if you tell someone?! Ah, ha ha.”

Usually, Mio is the type who’d be peeking over shoulders saying, “What’d you write, huh, huh? Show me! Me? Oh, this is mine~” and almost forcing other kids to tell her what they wrote …… 

I lean over and whisper into Ayano’s ear, “…… Did, something happen to Mio?”

“…… She’s been restless since this morning and acting strange all day ……”

In the end, Mio hung her ema far away from everyone else so that no one could see it.