Ryuuou no Oshigoto! - Volume 15 - Chapter Pr

  ONE SINGLE PICTURE

There is a picture that I hold most dear.

It’s from my first Shogi tournament when I was in elementary school, a picture of the four of us advanced to the quarter final.

“C’mon, big smiles everyone!”

I remember the journalists holding the cameras kept asking us to make big smiles.

Why did they ask so many times?

Because I was the only one crying.

Bawling my eyes out actually.

I can honestly say with absolute confidence: that is the hardest I’ve cried in my life. That’s how upset I was.

At first I was crying because I lost.

But at some point … the tears flowed for a different reason altogether.

Standing next to me was a little boy holding a trophy bigger than he was tall and completely at a loss as to what to do as tears kept pouring down my face.

“Don’t cry, okay? You can’t cry ……”

This boy, the shortest of all four of us, tried to comfort me the entire time.

When even his best efforts to get me to stop didn’t work, he started telling me this story.

“A Shogi ghost shows up if you cry when you lose at Shogi!”

“…… A ghost?”

“Uh-huh! I live at my Master’s house because I’m a live-in apprentice, and a Shogi ghost lives there, too! She’s really really scary. She told me I’d be an embarrassment to the Shogi family if I didn’t win today and shouldn’t bother coming back to Osaka ……”

“That’s horrible ……”

“Right?! She threatens to put my head on a pike and tells me to drop dead all the time, and she beats me up, too. And when I lose and start crying, she shows up out of nowhere and screams, Stop crying! at me.”

This boy, desperately trying to comfort me, was also on the verge of tears as he looked me in the eyes.

“So … please? Don’t cry …… Ma-chan.”

Hearing him say that only made me cry harder. I wailed.

But not because I was particularly sad.

This boy tries to comfort me when I cry. He looks at me and only me ……

That made me feel so happy, so serene that I kept on crying. This boy’s attention was all that mattered to me.

If I have cried anywhere close to that many tears at any other point in my life it would have been …… Yes, just once.

Ten years after that tournament.

Now a Women’s Shogi player, I also work as a journalist. All so that I can follow his Shogi. All so that I can have the best view of every single one of his battles and record them by my own hand.

I have taken many pictures of that boy as he grew up. His skills have grown by leaps and bounds, as has my equipment.

However, I’m still unable to take a picture that outdoes that specific one.

“A professional photographer can pour all sorts of time and money into their work, and yet sometimes a random picture taken by an amateur can be more moving than any of theirs.”

That’s what the journalist who took the picture that day and my current editor, Shogi Master and boss said.

But one day …… a thought struck me.

It isn’t that I wanted to take his picture, but more accurately … that I wanted to have my picture taken at his side. That could be the real reason why no other pictures can surpass that one ……

Unfortunately, reality didn’t play out like that picture did.

A princess far more worthy than I was at his side. A strong beautiful Snow White.

But I came to terms with that fact. I didn’t think there was anything I could do about it.

It’s apparent to one and all that she was the heroine of the story, and I would pair the two of them together for a happy ending if I were the one writing it ……

I told myself that every time I took pictures of the two of them together. That I am nothing more than an observer.

That princess gradually transformed into a living legend within the Shogi world, eventually becoming the first female professional player history has ever known.

And that little boy–––became the Demon King.

“It amazes me you can keep playing Shogi so close to that monster. Just being in the same generation makes me want to run and hide.”

Before I knew it, I was the only one pursuing the boy who spread despair in his wake whenever he played Shogi. It was all so that I might have a front row seat. All so that I could hear his words with my own ears.

“Don’t go thinking you can understand what he says, are we clear?”

Why not?

“Sure, he’s using the same words that we do, but the world he sees is completely different. He is not lying to us, but his truths and ours aren’t the same.”

Then …… has everything I’ve ever seen been wrong?

“Hypothetically, if a book were ever written from his point of view, then I’m dang sure–––”

A book, written in his words. A story that only exists within him.

I would love to read it. Would I appear in that story as well? Not just as an observer?

And if I am in it, what type of role would I be given?

With the conviction that I am the only one who should ever write that story along with him as his editor …… I raise my head with a new hope, a new ambition.

With the Princess, the one I considered to be the heroine, no longer part of his world … then, just perhaps, I–––.