009
And so, this is how the suspicious person squatting in front of the Shogi Association left. When she left, she neatly cleaned the part of the street that had graffiti spread over it. Maybe she wasn’t just some suspicious person—those brisk cleaning skills somehow seemed like those of a class rep. it seems she was called an honor student by Oikura-san… She’s got the braids, and if I lent her my glasses she might just look like a class rep. Nah, it’s not as if there was any way that a class rep would wrap themselves in newspaper and sleep on the street.
“Huh? Come to think of it, Hanekawa-san, what about school?
Today’s a normal weekday.”
“Ahaha. Speaking of, what about you, Kiriyama-kun?”
“Shogi is my job—your helping people, Hanekawa-san, was a way to amuse yourself?”
“Hm. Hmm. Actually, the thing with Oikura-san was incidental— the main plot of this story isn’t helping someone, it’s looking for someone.”
“You’ve spent this much effort for something incidental…... Whaaa……. You really are an eccentric after all Hanekawa-san, more than you’ve started to be aware of yourself. What, looking for someone?”
“Yes. That’s right. I’m taking a break from school to look for someone. He’s called Oshino-san—that’s the person I’m looking for, I’m traveling here and there all over the country. In the middle of that, I was reunited with Oikura-san at the school she transferred to… Since I also heard that Oshino-san was good at shogi when he was a student, I had a faint hope that I just might get a small hint, but looks like that was a miss. Anyway, looks like it’s about time for my feint to be exposed too, maybe I’ll try my luck overseas again… Well, before that I have to go back and give Oikura-san a piece of my mind. Hey, Kiriyama-kun, any souvenirs you recommend around here that even a girl with a bad personality would be delighted with?”
“Huh? Then how about some yummy and honest traditional Japanese sweets… Uhhh, Hanekawa-san. Is that looking for someone also a way to amuse yourself?”
“No way. This is a mission. I’m staking my life on it. Using my life for it.”
She said it as if it were obvious, but I didn’t get the meaning of that resolve—it didn’t get through to me. That was probably some words that couldn’t be conveyed to me.
Our worldviews were different.
No matter how much got through to them, no matter how much was conveyed, there would be words that couldn’t be conveyed without understanding. There are many of them. However much we develop communication, or the more we communicate, the more common they are.
So you have to talk more.
Maybe that’s what Hanekawa-san wanted to convey—just as I was thinking that way, I was seeing her off—the scattered figures of people entering the Shogi Association appeared. In the distance, for some reason, I saw the figures of Namerikawa-san and Sakurai-san coming back this way. Those two, just what could they even be talking about, I wonder……
No, this isn’t the time to be disturbed by some distant conversation. From here on out I’m in the preliminaries for the Lion King Tournament—I came to work, I came to fight.
That’s why I have to speak up.
No matter where the road connects to in the end, no matter what sort of people the path ahead connects me to, right now I had a ton of reasons why I wanted to win.
Sit on either side of the board, use the pieces as intermediaries, and when you have a vision pictured in your mind, the game is on.
Wading through the fragrant waves sparkling in the golden sunlight and the silver moonlight, step by step like a swift horse, with no regard for one’s appearance, being called a fly in the ointment, flitting about butting heads , and even then sitting with the proper posture, exercising your authority, slapping their head without any consequences, breaking through the enclosure where their castle is kept, innocently reading their moves, striking back, defending and attacking, approaching checkmate, even if you are so damaged you want to concede when there’s an opening, continue to exchange without stiffening up, keep sealing away that feeling of wanting to concede, each moment seeming like an eternity, all to make your mark like an unblinking shining star, surely the bird will leave a trail, bit by bit your feelings will show you the proper path.
It will show you even if you don’t understand.
Hey, what shall we talk about today?
Shogi Pieces
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15 This first part of the paragraph contains words and phrases that utilize all of the same characters that are written on the shogi pieces.
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