Ryuuou no Oshigoto! - Volume 3 - Chapter 2

  KEIKA KIYOTAKI

When did I start feeling like this? When was it that I started to dread going to these reunion parties?

“…… Twenty-five,” I whisper while walking along the Doujima River to clear my head after a night of drinking.

My old high school classmates and I got together at this fancy little restaurant in Umeda. Everyone looked so happy: smiling and laughing.

We talked mostly about relationships, work and marriage. A few of my classmates brought babies with them.

Of course they did. That’s normal.

“…… Already twenty-five years old.”

Back in high school, I thought twenty-five was somewhere off in the distant future, a bona fide adult.

I thought I’d be married and working by the time I turned twenty-two, and I thought it was only natural that I would have children by twenty-five. So, naturally, all that would happen without having to prepare or even really try because, after all, that was normal.

However, I went against that normal.

“I’ll become a Women’s League Player.”

I made that decision when I was eighteen.

While it was obviously a late start, I didn’t feel any pressure at the time. My high school classmates were going off to college, getting jobs and going on with their lives. I felt like I was doing exactly the same thing when I entered the Practice League.

Even though we were pursuing different goals, getting together with them was fun.

Our coming-of-age ceremony when we turned twenty was one heck of a party in its own right, and, even after that, whenever we met up we’d shoot the breeze and just have a good time.

But about the time the ones who went to college graduated and started careers …… little by little it got harder to relate to them.

I’ve never been in a serious relationship, let alone a marriage, and never went through job hunting because I focused solely on Shogi. It took a while to notice, but I was left behind.

“What have you been up to, Keika?”

Always afraid someone would ask that question, I never said anything and always sat in the corner with a fake smile on my face. It was pitiful.

“Already …… twenty- …… five ……”

I was too embarrassed to be this old and still chasing dreams like some child.

Looking at everyone who had achieved the normal that I’d rejected made me jealous. And admitting I was jealous hurt. Talk about pathetic …… 

The burning in my chest didn’t come from the spicy food or the strong cocktails.

The pins and needles were still there when I got home and weighed on me during the Practice League session on Sunday …… I lost every match.