Ryuuou no Oshigoto! - Volume 11 - Chapter 5.2

  TWO STONES

“Clank!” went a cowbell and a man sitting at the counter couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw who walked through the door.

“What a surprise …… Coincidence? It sure doesn’t look like it.”

They spotted each other at a café a mere three-minute walk away from the Kansai Shogi Association.

It was there the men were reunited.

“Heard from Mr. Kiyotaki. It’s been ages …… How many years would you say?”

“Twenty, give or take. You haven’t changed a bit, Mitsuru.”

“You’ve plumped up too much. I wouldn’t have recognized you if he hadn’t told me.”

“Wh-What can you do ……? I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a routine ……,” said Kiyoshi Akashi, making excuses as he glanced down at the gut that had started to expand as soon as he became a doctor.

The Worldly Maestro ordered a cup of black iced coffee and took a seat next to him at the counter.

“Well? Don’t tell me you’ve been camping out here every time the Sub League meets for matches?”

“Just since the 3-dan division started. Up until then, I was playing Shogi at Kiyotaki-sensei’s classroom. It’s perfectly normal to play Shogi on your days off, isn’t it?”

“Good grief …… My ex-rival’s turned into a stalker. Man, I don’t want to get old,” Mitsuru Oishi said, shaking his head side to side.

The iced coffee he ordered arrived at his seat.

Sitting on top of an unusual coaster made from a horseshoe was a copper cup filled to the brim with chilled coffee. Mitsuru enjoyed a mouthful of the dark liquid, savoring the roasted flavor before he continued.

“Don’t you think you’re being a bit overprotective? The 3-dan division is harsh, and I don’t blame you for being worried about Ginko, but …… Her condition’s healed up, hasn’t it?”

“Kiyotaki-sensei is the overprotective one. What do you think he did right away when he found out that Ginko had lost twice in a row the last time the 3-dan division met?”

“Beats me. What’d he do?”

“Came up with some lame excuse to get Yaichi over to his house! You see, he was worried that Ginko might throw caution to the wind after those losses …… and do something she shouldn’t, don’t you think?”

“He did? Is that old man that dead set against her and Yaichi getting together?”

“Well, he’s always kept her right at his hip and doted on her as much as his own daughter …… Just look at Keika. He won’t let any man get close.”

“As the father of a daughter myself, I get where he’s coming from. But don’t forget, he raised Yaichi, too. What’s he got to complain about? Well …… some loose ends would need to be tied up first, but still.”

“I agree with that. Both of them recently spent time with Yaichi’s parents in Fukui, so I would think things are going well.”

“Oh? Aren’t you well-informed? Stalking at its finest. Don’t tell me you went up there with them?”

“Keika told me, all right?!”

“A guy that’s been secretly making trips to Kanto doesn’t have any room to talk. I know you’ve been treating her since she was a little tyke, but there’s no need to go that far.”

“Looking around the city was a lot of fun, though. Plus, I quit before playing in the 3-dan division, so I had never been to the Kanto Association before.”

“If they ever found out that the Kiyoshi Akashi set foot in their building, plenty of those Kanto guys’d need to change pants. Every last one of them was terrified of you promoting.”

“Personally, I think Ginko playing against Shoji in the 3-dan division is a bigger shock.”

“Heh. You got that right.”

The men shared a grin.

Kiyoshi Akashi, Mitsuru Oishi and Shoji Karako were all in the same grade during their school years.

Joining the Sub League at the same time, the three became rivals with vastly different styles who sharpened their skills against each other.

Though Kiyoshi was recognized as the most talented of the group, he was the first to leave the Shogi world.

“…… So,” said Mitsuru, looking his former rival square in the eyes and uncorking a question he’d kept bottled up for nearly 20 years. “I always, always wanted to overtake Kiyoshi Akashi. It didn’t matter what level it was, you always promoted into it first. But you just disappeared the moment I got into the 3-dan division …… Why? Why did you abandon Shogi?”

“Because you were there,” Kiyoshi answered without missing a beat. “I never knew if I was doing the right thing. The main reason I decided that I wanted to spend my life saving people rather than trampling them under my feet was because I met a certain person more talented than I was. Once becoming a professional player lost its meaning, I realized there were other paths to travel on life’s journey.”

“…… Even after you were so far ahead?”

“But I never beat you head-to-head. It was a three-way deadlock, remember? I could beat Shoji, but you had my number. You could beat me, but Shoji always found a way to beat you.”

“Cut the crap. I never lost to him, got it? Playing along with his last-ditch efforts to hold out was too much of a pain in the ass, so I just let him have it. What he played, that wasn’t Shogi.”

“That’s what’s called losing,” Kiyoshi smiled with nostalgia. “No one takes the brunt of your worldliness without despairing at your level of talent. Even the Meijin is jealous, I assure you.”

“……”

“I saw that talent up close and personal and fought against it more than anyone. I made the decision to step away before the 3-dan division season began. Shoji spent years toiling in despair, wishing he had more talent until age restrictions forced him out. I think that’s what talent comes down to in the end,” said Kiyoshi as he looked into his empty cup. “An unbreakable spirit. Nothing starts without one. Nothing.”

That was precisely what Kiyoshi had attempted to give Ginko.

It was also what he himself had always wanted.

“I always had the lead and kept running as fast as I could, but others would catch up and overtake me …… The hardest thing in the world is to keep running when you know you’ve been left behind. The people who only overtake …… the ones who keep their eyes glued on the people ahead of them have no idea how painful that is ……”

“…………”

Mitsuru was about to make a counterargument but swallowed his words.

Indeed, he had always been chasing someone or another. It was Kiyoshi in the Sub League and then the Meijin after he turned professional. And now ……

Kiyoshi pressed on with the conversation in place of the quiet and contemplative Mitsuru.

“Just like me, Ginko has been in the presence of an unprecedented talent for years.”

“Yaichi, huh ……?”

“Yes. I played against him a few times during my visits to Kiyotaki-sensei’s residence, but he’s …… that is toxic. Almost like he plays on a different plane ……”

A twinge of fear laced Kiyoshi’s voice.

Though he understood Kousuke Kiyotaki’s intentions, there were times that he cursed the man for taking Yaichi Kuzuryu as a live-in apprentice.

“But, you know something? Ginko reaching 3-dan at the age of 15 with that monster always around …… in her physical condition, exerting herself as much as she did, and having all those expectations piled up on her shoulders, she still kept fighting. That isn’t normal any way you think about it. She must be quite the talented person herself!”

“Kiyoshi ……”

“She can fly higher. She can run faster. Even if she gets overtaken and can’t see who she’s chasing anymore …… She can still catch up and overtake them. As a physician, I want to see her accomplish it. Because if she does–––.”

Kiyoshi stopped himself from finishing that sentence.

Because he knew that saying, “If she does, then I feel like I can overtake the talent as a doctor that I could never reach as a Shogi player,” right in front of that talent would be in very poor taste.

Mitsuru looked upon his former rival as if he were staring into the sun.

“You sure seem to be in her court.”

“Of course, I am,” said Kiyoshi, beaming as he pointed to his puffed-out his chest with pride. “I’m the one who first taught Ginko—Naniwa’s Snow White—how to play Shogi and identified her talent. That was me.” Then he asked his old friend, “You have recognized it, too, haven’t you? I hear that she’s the only training partner the Worldly Maestro has ever accepted as a professional.”

“Heh ……”

Remembering that detail made Mitsuru chuckle, but he stifled it and explained why he chose Ginko.

“That girl is the only female who ever picked a fight with me the day we met other than my wife.”

The two were once known as Twin Rocks in the Kansai Sub League due to both having ishi, meaning rock, in their names. They shared a hearty laugh sitting shoulder to shoulder at the counter. It was almost as though the clock had been turned back 20 years.

Then they thought of the girl who brought about their reunion after all this time.

Looking up from his empty cup, Kiyoshi Akashi whispered …

“Fly, Ginko. You now have the freedom to fly anywhere.”