Ryuuou no Oshigoto! - Volume 12 - Chapter 2.3

  FELLOW SUB LEAGUE MEMBERS

“You ……… What are you doing here?”—at the Gokigen Bathhouse in Kiyobashi—Mitsuru Oishi muttered in disbelief, standing behind the front counter where he had been restocking the register with small coins until a man’s face appeared between the curtains on the front door.

“Why am I here? For a bath, what else?” wearing a smile befitting of a clown, the man, Shoji Karako, answered as he wiped his brow for a few seconds too long. “I worked up quite a sweat defeating that child prodigy in the 3-dan division today. I could really use a hot bath.”

“You beat Sota Kunugi?! You?!”

“There’s no need to act so surprised. Little Miss Ginko beat him, too.”

“This is a bit much to take in all at once …… Though I do have a hard time believing that broken record you call a playing style would actually work against the younger players in line for promotion.”

“That pint-sized software omen sat his King down on a Gold like it was its own pillow to make that weird castle, but I found a way.”

“! …… That’s …… the Futatsuzuka strat, what Okito zealots started playing ……”

It was a brand-new strategy first used by a young Kanto player who made the bold claim that he made it through the Sub League only practicing with software and thus earned the nickname Translator.

At its core, the strategy revolved around building quick, and surprisingly strong, defensive formations much like the Mino Castle–style employed by many Ranging Rook players. Thus, it was the Static Rook players who had to rely on worldly senses to win. The Ranging Rook mentality that some bad exchanges are acceptable at first so long as the major pieces are free to move became worthless and thus ushered in a new era of defensive strategy.

–––That new strat is the whole reason I abandoned Ranging Rook against Okito in our series. Now this ……?!

“Anyway, the kid is still a kid no matter how much talent he has or how good he is with computers. There are plenty of holes if you know where to look.”

“Holes ……?”

Despite being called one of the Three Crowns of Kansai along with this man and the doctor who oversaw Ginko’s therapy, Kiyoshi Akashi, Mitsuru felt at odds with his former fellow Sub Leaguer.

In terms of natural talent, Mitsuru was by far and away superior.

Even with that reputation, Mitsuru struggled to beat Shoji in head-to-head matches. He was his nemesis in every sense of the word.

–––Why didn’t my worldliness ever work on this guy ……?

The Worldly Maestro would find sequences that bordered on works of art to take the lead during the mid-game and still be unable to crack the final defenses when it mattered most.

Ginko had sharpened her own worldly senses under Mitsuru’s tutelage. What would happen if those two were to collide ……? Doubt and uncertainty seeped into his heart.

–––Is that what he’s trying to do? Get to Ginko by shaking up the people around her ……?

Underhanded and devious as it was …… it might very well do the trick.

Even if Ginko steeled herself against Shoji, she fully trusted Mitsuru. His words could easily sway her one way or another. However, what bothered him the most was that Shoji’s unexpected visit had shaken him to the core.

“Seriously, why are you here? You’ve never been the type to tell everyone and their mother that you beat a kid prodigy just ’cause you’re happy about it. You’re here to laugh at me for losing my title, is that it?”

“Really, Mitsuru, what do you take me for? I’m lonely! Being the Sub League’s one and only old fart isn’t easy, you know? There’s no one to talk to, so I came to see my old buddy.”

“Oh, is that right? Well, I can see the results on the 3-dan division’s home page, so you can save your breath. Go take a dip and head on home.”

“Of course, of course! I’ve got my next match to prepare for, after all. Ah, before I forget.”

Shoji took his time, drawing out every word of the shocking truth.

“There are big plans in the works to broadcast the final day of matches over the net and on TV. I’d love it if you’d tune in to cheer me on!”

“………… What… did you just say ……?”

Mitsuru was floored …… His voice shaken.

“Little Miss Ginko’s in high school. Sota is an elementary kid. There are laws in place to protect them from the media and nobody’d try to argue otherwise. But an old fart like me? Go ahead and film away! There’ll be cameras all over the arena on the last day.”

“Cameras …… In the 3-dan’s exclusive arena, and on the final day of division matches? Chairman Tsukimitsu would never allow such–––!”

“All matches are held in Kanto on the final day. My new Master, an association board executive, has already given the green light. It’s happened before, too. Speaking of Kanto, that bench where you cried your heart out after hitting the ceiling in the 3-dan division back in high school is still there.”

“I knew that without you telling me.”

It had been his reserved smoking spot when he was in Kanto for matches. Though, now that there was a designated room for smoking, he didn’t use it anymore.

“Pass on a message to our friend Kiyoshi, will ya? Tell him if he’s so worried about Little Miss Ginko, he should come up to Tokyo on the last day himself. It’ll be easy to blend in with all the reporters around.”

“You–––?!”

How much do you know? Mitsuru stopped himself before finishing that sentence. He didn’t want to complicate Ginko’s situation by revealing any more information than necessary.

Instead, he countered with this question.

“What …… kind of life did you lead after retiring? What made you throw away your Shogi player pride?”

The Worldly Maestro asked this new version of the man who had entered the Sub League the same year he did. His tone wasn’t so much angry as sad.

“Why do you …… hate Shogi so much now?”

The Shoji Karako who Mitsuru knew was talentless and stubborn to a fault, but that had only proved his sincere love for the sport all the more.

He had more pride as a member of the Kansai Sub League than anyone. Overwhelmingly so at times. He was a traditionalist, to the point where he would have staunchly opposed any media presence whatsoever ……

“What kind of life …… you ask?” remarked Shoji, the smile of a clown plastered to his face. “First, I was a facility janitor.”

Without a high school diploma or qualifications of any kind, the employment options available to a 26-year-old man who had spent the bulk of his life playing Shogi were limited to low-wage, physical labor jobs.

“Then I worked at a restaurant part time, was a deliveryman, a security guard, looked after the elderly, did some telemarketing, spent one harvest season living on-site and worked the cabbage fields. I was even a deckhand on a fishing trawler. You could say I did everything apart from Shogi. Some things were more legal than others, too. All so I could live to see tomorrow.”

“……”

“Any idea what the most painful ones were?”

“Beats me. The heavy lifting?”

“The ones where my coworkers followed Shogi.”

“……!”

“I swore I’d never play Shogi again the day I got booted from the Sub League. Cut off all contact with everyone in the Shogi world at the same time. But there was no avoiding it if someone mentioned it at work. The topic of pro Shogi players would come up one way or another. And when it did … another knife went through my heart. My dreams from the old days… dashed once again.”

Shoji bit down on his lip as he continued, spitting out each word like blood.

All with a smile.

“Shogi kills just as many as it lets live. As one of the people it killed off, I hate it. I hate it with every fiber of my being …… But in the end, Shogi is all I’ve got. Even if it kills me.”

The man recounted his return from hell without once losing his clownish smile, laying his love-hate relationship with Shogi bare.

“Even if I were born again, I would want to be a Shogi player. I came back to the Sub League because that dawned on me. No matter what people say, no matter how many smug looks I get, I’ll be fine so long as I get to play Shogi. I rediscovered the happiness of holding a piece between my fingers …… because I didn’t have anything else.”

The fingers clutching the coins to pay the entrance fee were trembling.

That’s when Mitsuru noticed.

The smooth hands he had seen from across the board so many times when they played in the Sub League …… had become heavily calloused.

“Only someone who knows an even greater joy in playing Shogi than I do stands a chance against me now. Someone who won’t back down, who keeps fighting no matter how bleak their chances get.”

How much of that statement was true, Mitsuru didn’t know. Just …… all the healed scars and rough skin covering his hands were not lying.

Shoji could tell his story had taken Mitsuru aback, so he lightened his tone and asked.

“Actually, those were just the second most painful. Any idea what was the worst?”

“………… No.”

“Nah, there’s no way you would, Mitsuru.”

With that, Shoji Karako left the coins on the counter and hummed a tune to himself as he went into the changing room.