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Ken can’t help the confused twist to his lips. “Shogi?”
Miss Ayase’s eyes narrow in on him. “What, you think I can’t?”
He pulls back, spinning his disbelief into something softer. “Th-that’s not it! I just, didn’t think you’d be interested in something like that…”
She falls into a defeated slump, and her sharp irritation points back to the original source. “Yeah well, I’m not, really. But I’m bombing pretty hard in English and Mrs. Takari said she’d throw some extra credit my way if I join the Shogi Club…” She turns conspiratorial, like she’s about to let him in on a big secret. “Which she’s the advisor on. I think she’s just trying to boost up the numbers.”
“Is that allowed?”
“Not officially.” She rubs her hands together greedily, like everything is going according to her plan instead of her teacher’s. “But I’ll take the free points where I can get ‘em.”
He smiles at her silver lining, and keeps his worries private. He can’t imagine there’s anything Miss Ayase would enjoy less than being forced to sit still for however long shogi matches take, playing an ancient game by ancient rules. Bored and miserable, counting ticks of the clock with a tapping finger until it’s time to leave.
Except, immediately something about that seems off.
He thinks about Miss Ayase and shogi a moment longer and it starts to make sense. Like rotating a puzzle piece three-sixty degrees and it somehow fitting where it didn’t before. When things got tough, when it looked like there was no way out of whatever situation they’d gotten into, it was Miss Ayase who figured out the impossible way through. Who figured out the arcane rules by which spirits and yōkai and aliens operated by and exploited them to victory. Who used her deceptively analytical mind to save their lives over and over again.
Shogi might be child’s play next to all that. She may be impatient and mercurial, but she’s also curious, and smart. There is nothing on Earth she couldn’t get a handle on if she put her mind to it. Someone who makes pieces fit together that didn’t before.
“…I think you’d be good at it. Shogi.”
Her eyes stay on his for a long second, before retreating to the nearby wall.
“I dunno about that.” She shakes away the dusting of red on her cheeks. “Doubt I’ll even play very much. I figure I can show up for a week, tell everyone it’s not for me, come back to the Culture Research Club.”
He nods, then turns shy himself, picking out the words to make them ambiguous enough. “Do you… want someone to go with you?”
She lets out a sigh into the air. “I’d like that, but nah. Apparently Mrs. Takari worked out this whole ‘club change’ thing with Mr. Sanjome, they don’t like kids switchin’ clubs usually. I’m a,” finger-quote, “special case. Just keep goin’ to the Culture Club with everyone, I’ll be back soon.”
“If you say so,” he says, even if the thought of not being able to sit beside her for a week disappoints him in a way he never thought possible. “Club activities should still end around the same time though. So I can… still walk you home?”
She turns away again, hiding her mouth behind the sleeve over her hand.
“If ya want.”
He hears the clacking of tiles as he walks up to the clubroom.
A soft but distinct pitter-patter of wood-on-wood, or plastic-on-plastic, or some variation therein. The only sound bleeding through the door, silence hanging heavy otherwise. Enough so that the squeak of the knob and the creak of the door as he opens it feels like screeching. He winces, expecting some sort of admonishment for the interruption.
Outside of a few uninterested glances, the students inside pay him little mind.
In manga, these things always started out with one or two students and fought to gain a handful more. But he counts as least eight people here, which for a non-athletic club is decent membership. Four boys – all the exact dorky type he expected to see here, which he was allowed to think because he’s just a slightly different flavor of dork – pack up from a recently finished game. In one corner two serious-looking girls finish out theirs while a tall, even more serious boy talks something over with them.
He finds who he’s here for in another corner and instinctively starts moving towards her, a fresh swell of happiness painting a smile on him.
He stops after just a step.
Something about the sight of her is off. She’s at a desk with her opponent, staring hard at the vinyl-mat board. Her expression is furrowed, deep in thought, but in a way that seems extra labored. She’s slouched, and huddled up into her shoulders, and one arm tucks underneath the other. Making herself smaller, in a way he’s not sure he’s ever seen her do. Embarrassed.
Her opponent, a hollow-cheeked, messy-haired boy, leans casually into his palm. Patiently waiting for her move, his lips in a careful line, but on the verge of twitching up.
Ken checks the game.
He doesn’t know much about shogi – he’d only been able to skim the rules since Miss Ayase mentioned shifting clubs – and he’s not sure how normal the current board state is. One side having three times as many pieces, all of them kept at a slight, strange distance from what little remains of the other. Ken recalls a classmate from grade school, a bigger kid who liked to throw a fist at Ken’s face and stop short, guffawing at the way he flinched.
Miss Ayase’s eyes lift up with a look that’s just short of a glare.
“…Feels like you coulda ended this by now,” she says, in a low voice Ken can just barely hear.
The other boy shrugs. “It’s good to play things out all the way, right? That’s how you learn.” His lips stretch a little wider, like he’s fighting off a full grin. “Though in shogi, it’s customary to say ‘I lose’ if you know you can’t win.”
The muscles of her jaw clench.
She looks back down. Grabs one of her few remaining pieces by the sides with her thumb and index, scrapes it across the mat to a new position. The opponent smoothly pinches a captured piece from his collection with his index and middle, then adds it onto the board on his side with a resounding snap. Miss Ayase drags more pieces back. Her opponent starts closing in, one snap at a time.
A few turns later, Miss Ayase ekes out: “…I lose.”
“Right,” Hollow-Cheeks says, like it’s a lesson he’s teaching. “So, that’s how you play shogi. And you know what, you played pretty well. For a-” His teeth show for just a moment. “Beginner.”
Miss Ayase’s body tenses like she’s about to leap up and kick the table over. Ken debates whether he should look the other way, or offer his leg up for assistance.
Hollow-Cheeks catches the tall, serious boy now heading their way, then hastily scoops up the tiles.
“Good game,” he says.
Miss Ayase jumps out of her seat, chair scraping against the floor, and huffs straight past Ken out of the room.
Ken shuffles off after her.
“That stupid fuckin’ asshole!”
Miss Ayase alternates between stomping down the sidewalk and kicking at the air, their walk back to her home made just a bit longer with every pause.
“What even happened?”
“I was made a sucker, is what!” Her foot shoots forward; a pedestrian walking the other direction flinches, then scurries away. “Said he’d do a teaching game.” She pitches her voice up mockingly. “‘I’ll handicap, start with less pieces.’ Then he took all o’ mine and drew the game out, got off on me not bein’ able to do a thing about it. The rat.”
Ken upgrades Hollow-Cheeks from someone he probably wouldn’t help if the Serpos got him to definitely. It took a small person to take such satisfaction in beating up a newbie.
“Sorry you had to deal with that jerk, Miss Ayase. It can’t be a good club if they’ve got someone like that in it.”
She grumbles.
“Well, this was just a temporary thing anyway, right?” he offers. “At least you won’t have to see him again?”
“Hm.” She considers something as they walk, relying the feeling of his arm against hers for navigation. The snarl on her lips makes way for a sinister grin. “Or… I take a week to grind up some shogi skills then come back to beat his ass!”
Uh oh. Miss Ayase is quite possibly the most stubborn person on the planet, and he means that as a compliment, but sometimes that means she bites off more than she can chew. “Miss Ayase, you only just learned the rules, that might not be so easy to do…”
“Yeah well, I’ve got a secret weapon!”
“Really?”
Her flashfire confidence burns out immediately. “...Granny.”
“Oh. She knows how to play?” He watches Miss Ayase sway miserably as she continues walking, arms flopping like wet noodles. Her shoulder bumps into his with every swing. “What’s the problem then?
“Think about the way she teaches anything.”
Ken grimaces.
“Yeah. S’gonna suck.” Miss Ayase grinds a fist into her palm. “But if I can wipe the stupid smile off that sexist asshole’s face…”
She quietly mumbles to herself, snickering out the kind of laughter he’d expect from a cartoon villain, and Ken can’t help but think this might not be the most productive use of her attention. But trying to stop Miss Ayase is like trying to stop a waterfall. There are mechanisms at play that a lowly mortal like him simply can’t overcome; all he can really do is sit back and watch the roaring waters.
“Give him one for me, too.”
Miss Ayase skips out on both clubs after that. Heads straight home after school with a forlorn sigh, which Ken can pretend is for him staying behind rather than for whatever trials lay ahead.
And while he could usually keep things on track in the History and Culture Research Club, make it look vaguely like a real club by bringing out choice articles about some cryptid he was researching or a spirit he thought Miss Ayase would enjoy, it was a pointless effort now; derailed by her absence, by a vast, shared skepticism from everyone over the reason for that absence, by his drifting thoughts. Images of Miss Ayase confining herself front of the board, her restless energy leaking out in other ways. Knee bobbing, fingers playing with her earring, teeth sinking into her lip as she focused. That seems like something she’d do.
He quickly starts to see the results her training. A deep world-weariness growing thicker in her each day that passes. A light dimming, an increasing emptiness. A few days in, he asks her directly how it’s going.
Her eyes glaze over, hollow.
“Good,” she says, with a voice six feet under.
But a week later, with a hand on her flexing bicep and a toothy grin, she declares she’s ready.
He offers again to go with her, but she says she’s got it handled, doesn’t need the backup; and he can’t bring himself to admit out loud that it's less about being backup and more about wanting to watch her. Watch her play, watch her win, watch her make that rotten smirk dissolve. See if he’s right about the way her body might fidget and move. So, he leaves her to it.
The Culture Club adjourns a bit early that day, though. Coincidentally.
The snap of shogi pieces echoes through the hallway leading up to the clubroom in an asynchronous beat. Clack, clack clack, clack. When he opens the door this time everyone’s focused on their own games, and pay him even less mind than before.
He quickly finds Miss Ayase; she and Hollow-Cheeks are in the same spot as before. On either side of a small desk, pieces dotted across the shogi mat between them. Last week, it was a barely restrained smile facing a barely restrained snarl. This time, there’s no restraint to be seen - and more importantly, the expressions are on opposite faces.
Ken walks up just in time for Hollow-Cheeks snarl to deepen, before finally mumbling out through gritted teeth: “...I lose.”
“Right.” Miss Ayase’s smug grin goes nuclear. “Good game.”
Ken’s in her periphery, but she seems to instantly recognize that it’s him before she even turns. She’s surprised to see him, but more predominant is the beaming joy, the satisfaction of a mission accomplished. She gives him a happy wave. He returns it. Hollow-Cheeks fumes.
It’s then Ken notices her audience of one.
There’s another game going on a few desks away, and the tall, serious boy from before stands over it as if observing; but his eyes are hooked onto Miss Ayase’s game instead. His thin body stands upright and rigid, gaining a few extra centimeters in perspective. He has a firm hold on the lens of his glasses, pressing them closer for extra clarity.
He abandons the game in front of him and hurries over to Miss Ayase’s.
Hollow-Cheeks notices and tries to swipe up the pieces, but Tall-Boy catches his wrist before he moves anything.
“C-Captain Takanaka! This isn’t-”
“Hold on, Ozawa.” His voice is lighter and softer than Ken expected, but the words are firm and steady.
Takanaka's gaze bounces across the finished game. Hollow-Cheeks flushes with embarrassment. Miss Ayase flounders a bit under the newfound attention; she probably planned for her victory to be the end of things.
“Ayase, was it?” he says. “Didn’t you say last week you never played before?”
“...Yeah?”
Takanaka’s hand shifts up to Hollow-Cheeks’ shoulder and maneuvers him out of the chair, in the politest form of shoving Ken had ever seen. He takes his place.
“Please play a game with me.”
Her eyes bounce to Ken and back. “I-I mean, I dunno if there’s time…”
“It can be a quick one.” Takanaka swiftly puts the pieces back to their starting positions. “And we don’t even have to finish. I just want to see something.”
“...Um, okay.”
The celebratory energy leaves her and, though hesitant, she acquiesces. Takanaka takes the first move, shifting up a pawn, and the second move takes almost a full minute, Miss Ayase deliberating more on the captain’s motivations than the game. But soon she shifts a Pawn too, sliding it forward with a deft finger instead of dragging it. Takanaka moves another one of his. Another beat of hesitation, before Miss Ayase moves her Silver up, ready to break it out through the pawn opening. Takanaka moves a Pawn again, stoic and careful.
They trade turns, using strategies Ken doesn’t understand; he only barely got done familiarizing himself with the pieces. Either to keep the game brief, or because she didn’t need to, Miss Ayase doesn’t linger much in thought, save to wonder again what Takanaka is looking for. He doesn’t linger either, moving the instant after Miss Ayase, searching for his answers in the pieces.
Something is obviously going on – even the other members agree. They see their captain in a game with a stranger, and end their games prematurely to watch. The four boys and two girls form a semi-circle on one side. Miss Ayase shrinks a bit more with each additional audience member, confused, but keeps playing. Ozawa, on the other side with Ken, crosses his arms in frustration.
Eventually, on one of his turns, Takanaka stops, game nowhere near finished, at least not to Ken’s untrained eyes. Takanaka presses his hand against his mouth and observes the state of the board from on high.
“…There’s a tournament in a month,” he says in a smooth tone. “Schools from all over the Kantō region competing in Kanagawa, in teams of three, boys’ and girls’ teams.” His light-brown gaze jumps up, finally looking at her instead of her play. “I’d like you to join.”
That has just about everyone shocked, except for Ozawa, who’s horrified.
“Hah?!” Miss Ayase shakes her head. “That… what? Where’s that comin’ from??” She takes notice of the two girls nearby, who share some silent conversation with each other. Miss Ayase frowns at the captain. “Lemme guess, need a seat-filler?”
“The current plan was to go in with team of two and take the automatic loss for each game,” he says. “We don’t need someone to fill a seat, we need someone to win.” The stern features of his face turn soft, graced with an easy smile. “You have a talent for this, Ayase.”
Heat rushes to her cheeks, turning them cherry red, and a smile as soft as Takanaka’s spreads across her lips. “...Really?”
And something slimy and tangled wriggles in Ken’s gut.
Well, of course she does. Ken knew she would, even before she touched a tile. Didn’t he say as much? But, she didn’t exactly smile like that when he said it. He supposed it meant more, coming from someone who actually knew what they were talking about. Someone smart, and talented.
“Yes,” Takanaka says. “So, will you join?”
Miss Ayase is struck for a moment. Like some weird turn is about to happen, every shogi member a step away from peeling off their skin to reveal another Serpo plot. But then she falls into a deeper consideration, the gears of her mind turning.
Then, for some reason, she looks to him.
He’s struck for a moment. Not quite sure what’s she’s after. Not permission. He’s not sure she’s ever asked for that from anyone.
Support. He should be supportive. He is supportive. She’s clearly interested, happy at having someone recognize her new skill. On the verge of entering another world, one he knows she’d be incredible in – she’d be incredible anywhere she wanted to go.
And it’s his job to back her up, whenever she needed it. His only job.
So, he pushes past the tangle and forces his thumb to flick up, his lips to lift at the corners.
She smiles back, a new energy filling her. “…Yeah. Okay, yeah!!” There’s a dip in the energy. “And, you really think I can win at a tournament??”
Ken peeks at the other members to see what they think. At the four boys quietly debating with each other over what their captain sees. At her two potential teammates, a sharp-looking girl with a long French braid and a skeptical frown, a shorter girl with a bob cut and the blank, taking-no-sides face of a lowerclassman. Not pushing back, but not necessarily agreeing.
“Definitely,” Takanaka says. “But you’ll need to spend as much time as possible over the next month training.”
Ken’s thumb falters. “…Training?”
Takanaka glances at him with a small startle, just barely noticing Ken’s presence. He quickly recovers, still talking to Miss Ayase. “Natural talent isn’t enough, you need practice, experience. Things that take time and effort, and playing as many games as possible.” He takes out his phone. “We should trade phone numbers.”
A tiny hiss like a pinched match escapes from the girl with a braid. Ken finds himself agreeing.
“Ain’t got a phone right now, sorry,” Miss Ayase says.
“Hm, so no online games then…” Takanaka thinks for a moment. “Do you have someone at home you can play with?”
Her eyes glaze over, hollow.
“Yeah.”
“Good. Try to get in as many games as you can with them. And we’ll teach you what we can too, I think I know what to start focusing on. You went with Ranging Rook strategies in both games, but given your playstyle in the mid-game I think some Static Rook openings could support that too, and there are some specific castle formations you’ll need to know how to adapt to-”
He sits there and outlines a rough schedule of concepts they’ll be taking on, and some of the other members even jump in to offer a suggestion or to, and even though it’s all nonsense to Ken Miss Ayase seems to already have a grasp on it all. Taking in their comments with understanding.
And Ken realizes she’s not on the verge of a new world, she’d already stepped into it. Surrounded by a group of people ready to help her explore it. And there’s a bit of anxiousness in her, but it’s the buzzing, sparking kind that gives way to excitement. A world that thrilled her like aliens and yōkai did.
One that this time, he isn’t a part of.
Miss Ayase’s study continues.
She actually goes to shogi club now after school. Seems to spend her free time at home playing with Miss Seiko, if the state of her every morning – empty, barren, a withered husk of herself – is anything to go by. And yet it repeats the next day, the normally impatient and fickle Miss Ayase now studious and consistent, and the only real conclusion he can draw is that she truly and sincerely enjoys playing. This might have all started for extra credit, continued because of spite, but shogi was something for her now.
Then it starts eating away at the rest of her time. Members of the shogi club in various configurations start finding her at lunchtime, then during class breaks, to go over mating problems and opening sequences and when to make trades. She’s apologetic when it happens, but Ken insists its fine and gives her the space. He needs to be supportive. He is supportive.
Soon his only consistent time with her in the mornings, where their paths converge on the way to school, and when he walks her home. Alone time scrounged amidst her busy schedule. But instead of spirits and aliens, its shogi she talks about, and the newest thing she’s figured out. And he tries to follow along, checked out a beginner’s shogi book just to keep up, but she’s already far past anything it covers, content he struggled with as it is. He never had a mind for things like this. Not like her new friends.
And they are friends, now. A shift that happened as the days went on. What started out straightforward and functional becomes more familiar and relaxed. The two girls she’ll be on a team with, initially reticent and taciturn, greet her with waves and smiles now, first-name basis. The other boys in the club, once shy and quiet, are made exuberant by their passion, eyes shining behind big lenses as they talk everything shogi. She calls Takanaka ‘Captain,’ like a nickname.
And even if they all get along now – aside from Ozawa, who doesn’t seem to be part of the club anymore – Ken still can’t help feeling a bit bitter about them.
He still remembers the sight of Miss Ayase in that clubroom, hunched over, embarrassed, while none of them seemed to care. Handed off to a real piece of work for her introduction to shogi and then set out of their minds while he mocked her in game form. Not a very welcome thing for them to do. Shouldn’t that captain have been a little more careful about who he let teach? Couldn’t those girls have thrown a warning her way if they knew she was going up against someone like that?
But the thing that frustrates him most is how surprised they all were.
He figured out the day he met her that Miss Ayase was the smartest person he knew. The kind of smart you couldn’t put a number on, clever and sharp and witty. He’d have been dead a dozen times over if it wasn’t for her quick thinking, finding solutions to problems no one else could solve. So bright that he almost didn’t mind that she was the cause of half those problems in the first place.
And they were, what, shocked that she took to shogi so quickly? Because she was loud and boisterous? Because she liked to roll up her skirt, scrunch up her socks, wear her school shirt loose and baggy? Because she dangled jewelry on her ears, made her lips shiny, thickened her lashes? Shogi might be vast and intricate, with layers and layers of brilliant complexity – but it was like Miss Ayase in that way, and utterly pales in comparison. Any shock Ken might’ve had would’ve been that she chose this out of all possible things she’d be great at to spend her time on. That she still lets someone like him come along for the ride.
He’s not their biggest fan. But this is about Miss Ayase not him, and even though he’s seeing her less it’s always with a smile, with anticipation for the approaching tournament.
So, he’ll be supportive. He is supportive.
He’s supportive.
“Okarun!”
He turns to her as she jogs up to him, waving like she hadn’t seen him in years instead of just over the weekend.
“Good morning, Miss Ayase.”
“Mornin’!” She falls into a playful march beside him, hands tugging at her backpack straps. “Man, this Saturday, can ya believe it?!”
“It came fast,” he says. “You think you’re ready for it?”
“Honestly? Not even a little.” She leans towards him like she’s telling him a secret; her earring clinks against his shoulder. “But is it weird that I’m still excited?”
He swallows, always so flustered by her closeness. “N-not at all. I think that’s what it feels like when you…” He spares her a glance, then shies back from the glow of her. “When you really like something.”
In his periphery he can see her hone in on him for a second, before pulling away.
“Hmm…”
He clears his throat. “S-so, teams are ordered by skill, right? Which chair are you?”
She snorts. “Third obviously. Chika and Mari’ve been playin’ for years, I got nothin’ on them!”
He reseats his glasses, to give his hand something to do instead of what it wants to do. “…I think you could beat them. If you tried.”
She snorts again, softer this time, and jabs her elbow at him; though it lingers a bit too long against him for it to be an actual ‘jab.’ “Well… thanks for the vote of confidence.”
The knob of her elbow rubs against his arm. He wishes she would grab onto him. She does it so often on her own, yet the idea of asking her to do it seems insurmountable.
He focuses back in. “U-um, so, what time is it?”
“S’kinda an all-day thing. Qualifiers in the morning, Top 32 in the afternoon. We’re actually headin’ out the night before.” She air-boxes a few times with a smug grin. “But we’re totally gonna ace the qualifiers, so you can just show up for the main tournament!”
He nearly stumbles. “W-wait, me?”
She pauses mid-step, and the giddy energy suddenly leaves her. She turns away, hand playing at her chestnut bangs. “O-oh, I mean, if ya want. You don’t have to…”
“I, I want to!” he near yells. “I just, didn’t know I was invited…”
She clicks her tongue, but the sound is soft instead of sharp. “Dummy. ‘Course you’re invited. It’s like, a given.”
“Oh. Well…” He rubs bashfully at his arm. “Then, it’s a given that I accept.”
As fast as the giddiness left, it comes back, and she pulls his arm into both of hers; the warmth of her fingers burn where they grip him.
“Good! Gonna get to see me kick everyone’s ass!”
He chuckles, and lets himself lean into her. “Looking forward to it.”
And at least for now, the soft smile she flashes at him, and the feeling of being captured in her arms, is all for him.
He walks into the Karusaki City Convention Center A-Hall to see Kami High written on the women’s bracket. Ken swells with pride.
It’s on the men’s, too. That’s whatever.
Everyone’s hustling into place for the first round of the Top 32. There’s not much of an audience, mostly parents and teachers standing at the edges of the grid of tables, and there’s a media presence of exactly one photographer from a local shogi publication; but even so there’s a thrill in the air, a thrum of excitement.
He’s there with Jiji, Miss Vamola, and Miss Shiratori, most of them in Jiji’s custom made Momo Ayase Fan Club T-shirts (Miss Shiratori refused to wear hers). They search for her, and find her easily.
In a sea of slacks and button ups, school skirts and blazers, she pops. In a grey-white sweater but with a light maroon jacket over it, a black skirt falling lower than her normal preference, tall boots going up to her knees; stylish but appropriate. Done up more than her usual fare, in rose-bronze eyeshadow, thick false lashes, glittery teal eyeliner, a splash of silver at the inside corners of her eyes. It’s hard looking anywhere else.
Her game is right at the edge, giving them a perfect view. She greets them with a radiant smile, then focuses on her opponent, a small, mousy girl who seems to really feel every day of their one-year class difference.
With little fanfare, a man with a microphone gives a quick countdown, and they start.
It’s the first time he gets to watch her play. From start to finish. And while a deeper understanding remains elusive to him, her personality immediately shines through. Minimal defense built around the King in order to prioritize a blazingly aggressive offense, always on the attack. They’re forced into short games by the constraints of a single-day tournament, and even then Miss Ayase moves so fast, in a whirlwind of pieces traded then dropped then promoted then traded again.
The shogi clocks click low, and she grabs another piece between two teal-polished fingers, index and middle, while the rest of her hand splays out. She holds it out above the board, and he can’t look away from those five drops of shining color. She snaps it down, the clack resounding.
She stares at her opponent, waiting. With a look of intense anticipation that, to someone who didn’t know Miss Ayase, might look like vicious, wicked anger instead. The mousy girl goes stiff under her gaze.
She reaches out and touches her King, with a glance to Miss Ayase like she’s asking for permission to move it. Totally dominated by Miss Ayase’s intensity. Miss Ayase narrows her eyes.
The girl shifts her King over.
Miss Ayase smirks.
The last bit of her opponent’s resistance collapses.
“I lose!”
Miss Ayase lets herself have the tiniest little fist pump.
“…Wait. Is Momo actually good at this?” Miss Shiratori clicks her tongue. “How am I supposed to revel in her failure?”
“You could be supportive of her instead?” Jiji offers.
“No, that doesn’t work for me.”
Her next matches aren’t so overwhelming, more hard-fought, but that only gets her more invested. Her turns take longer, each move spaced out by a bobbing knee, her fingers playing with her earing, her teeth sinking into her lip in focus, and throughout it all her red-brown eyes burn like solar flares. Her team makes it out of the Top 16, then the Top 8, landing all the way into the semi-finals, one of the four best teams in the region.
It stops there. One win, two losses. But then they win the third-place playoff, cementing a third-place victory for Kami High. Does anyone here understand how incredible that is? That she’s been playing for a month, that this is her first tournament, that all of this is an aside to all the other incredible things she’s done? Only him.
The men’s team places fourth. Ken smirks.
They announce the winners and there’s plenty of photos. Miss Ayase pulls her two teammates in for theirs, hugging them close, then does the same with the men’s team. And he’s so happy for her, he is, but that knotted, squirming mass inside his belly returns as he watches it all happen from afar.
In the lull afterwards she finally skips over to him and their friends. She stops short and thrusts her plaque up, humming a video game jingle.
“Da na na na!”
Miss Shiratori snorts. “Only third?”
“Oh can it, turd-for-brains! Let’s see you get a trophy!
“I can show you my wall of piano ones if you want!”
“You mean the ones from ten years ago??”
“Oh shove it up your-”
Jiji wraps an arm around Miss Shiratori and slaps his hand over her mouth. “That’s her way of saying ‘great job!’ Because, great job, Momo! You killed it out there!” Miss Shiratori vehemently disagrees beneath his palm.
“Great job, Momo!” Vamola repeats.
“Thanks!”
Then, for some reason, she looks to him.
“…Congratulations, Miss Ayase. You really are incredible.” And even though it probably doesn’t mean much coming from him, he has to say his deepest truth. “I’m really proud of you.”
There’s an odd bounce to her eyes. A shrinking of her smile. Looks like he messed with the mood, being a bit too genuine.
He watches her glossy lips fall open, tongue shaping out a word.
“Momo!”
She startles out of it as Chika and Mari sweep over and give her hugs, with Takanaka and the boys following behind them.
Miss Ayase gives Chika, the braided girl, a bittersweet smile. “Sorry we couldn’t get ya the first place for your last tournament.”
Chika shakes her head. “Don’t be. I’m happy with how we did. And we wouldn’t have done this well without you, so, thank you Momo!”
Miss Ayase beamed, eyes on the verge of tears.
Takanaka lets a small laugh. “Big change from when you first showed up and asked about ‘That boring game for old geezers,’ hm?”
Miss Ayase sticks her tongue out playfully.
“You ready to go?” Takanaka continues. “Mrs. Takari is really trying to get us to the restaurant as fast as possible.”
“Yeah. Oh, Cap!” Miss Ayase pointed at Ken. “Can my friends come too?!”
Takanaka looks them over. “Oh wow, you have your own fan club. Impressive.” Miss Ayase blushes. “Um… we had something worked out with the restaurant beforehand, it’s a small place. Not sure if it can fit too many more people…?”
Miss Ayase gets ready to fight back, but Ken doesn’t want to sully her victorious day with a bunch of arguing.
“I-it’s okay, Miss Ayase,” he says. “Go celebrate your win with your team.”
She frowns at him, dissatisfaction a little deeper than he expected.
“You sure?” she asks. He forces a nod, in a way he hopes isn’t obvious. “Well, fine, but we’re all headin’ back later tonight, right? Let’s meet on the train!”
She leans into him to jab at his side, her usual method of enforcement, and a whiff of something sweet and fragrant mixed with the salt and sweat of her skin nearly makes him lightheaded. “O-okay!”
Jiji comes over and scoops him up too. “See you then Momo! The Momo Fan Club’ll have its own victory meal!” Miss Shiratori, still unable to break free, growls into his hand.
The shogi club gathers up and heads off with a wave, chatting excitedly to each other as they walk away.
And as they break into a small crowd that formed, he sees Takanaka place a gentle hand at Miss Ayase’s lower back to help navigate her through it.
It’s no longer a squirm. It all snaps apart, bursts with a toxic chill that floods his veins, filling him so thickly he’s drowning in it.
He slowly suffocates on it through a dinner he can barely taste, on the walk to the station next to conversation he can barely hear, and even though Miss Ayase finds her place next to him on the train his lungs feel ragged and used.
And as he lays in bed, unable to sleep, he finally realizes the real reason why he never liked and will never like the Shogi Club of Kami High.
Jealousy.
Luckily, there’s a return to normalcy come Monday morning.
With the tournament no longer looming, her other interests spring back into focus; she doesn’t usually like to stick to one thing for so long. Seems she spent most of Sunday binging BooTube videos about cryptid encounters for relief. Ones he, somehow, has never heard about. Like she was looking for things he didn’t know.
Then lunch comes and she finds him right away, pulls him to a table and starts trading bits of their meals without asking. Its spirits and ghosts she wants to talk about then, going into it like she hasn’t been able to talk about them for a month.
“Oh damn, that reminds me, been wanting to bring this up to someone!” She leans over the table, hands moving in restless gestures. “When Gran was teachin’ me shogi, she told me this story of when she was learnin’!” She scoops some rice into her mouth, keeps talking regardless. “Apparently she ran into some 1000 year-old shogi spirit that was haunting a middle-schooler? Like, playin’ through him, trying to teach him the value of it or whatever. Crazy, right?”
“Whoa, that is crazy.”
“Yeah!” Miss Ayase punches her palm. “She blasted him.”
“...Blasted him? What does that even-”
“Ayase, there you are!”
Ken frowns.
Two of the boys from shogi club – he never bothered to learn their names – come rushing up to their table, eyes sparkling behind their glasses.
“Oh. Uh, hey guys, what’s up?” Miss Ayase asks.
“Sorry for interrupting but, we just had to tell you!” The left one, stringy and thin, hunches with excitement. “There’s another tournament in a couple of weeks!”
Ken goes rigid.
A wrinkle forms between Miss Ayase’s brows. “Cap never said anything about that…”
“Well, he’s gonna start focusing on final exams soon, and this one isn’t a school thing anyways…” Stringy holds out a paper flyer. “It’s an amateur tourney, solos, but open to anyone! Kids, old people, boys, girls. It’s a really good way to play all kinds of people!”
The boy on the right, a bit shorter and stockier, scrolls through his phone. “There’s actually amateur tournaments going on all the time, some even have prize money. A good way to keep ourselves fresh in between the school ones. Then maybe next year, we can all get first place!”
All the time. Next year.
The choking flood comes back.
Miss Ayase is overwhelmed for a moment.
“O-oh, wow. That’s uh, that’s a lot to think about…” Her fingers clench, working out the anxiousness.
Then, for some reason, she looks to him.
Support. He should be supportive. He is supportive. He’s supportive.
“Y-you should do it if you want, Miss Ayase,” he grinds out.
“Yeah!” Stringy says, and Stocky agrees with a nod. And Ken sees something too familiar in the set of their smiles, the gleam of their expressions. “Look how far you got in just a month. If you keep at it, there’s no telling where you’ll end up!”
Stocky shyly adjusts his glasses. “Yeah, you really are incredible, Miss Ayase.”
He’s nauseous. Acid bubbles up his throat.
He leaps out of the chair. “I-I’ll, I’ll let you guys talk about it, then.”
“Wait, Okarun, you don’t-”
He’s gone before she finishes.
He has to keep swallowing it down.
His throat is sticky and wadded. Sore. He keeps hoping one more flex of the muscles will clear it all out, but it never does. It’s too present, unavoidable.
He’s an idiot. He really thought the one tournament would be the end. That she’d grow to care about something this much and then just toss it away like it’s something she could be done with. That just isn’t who she is; and he’d be a terrible person to hope for something like that.
So, obviously she’d keep playing. With them.
He hates the way they look at her. Fawning and awestruck, like they’ve never seen a person like her before. Instantly falling in love with her when they only know a fraction of who she is. Just a bunch of awkward, nerdy losers latching onto the first pretty girl to give them attention.
He bites hard into his cheek.
Like he’s one to talk. Isn’t that exactly what he is? What he’s always been? Worse, even. They’re trying to help her, and he’s curled up against a wall on a rooftop, stewing in his own rancid jealousy. Like she’s something that belongs to him.
And why? Because she’s affectionate and warm, because she lets him hold her hand, because she left him a note that could mean anything? Dumb. Just another dumb boy confusing friendship and compassion for something deeper.
The door to the rooftop opens with a squeak.
“There you are! Been lookin’ all over!” Miss Ayase puts her hands against her hips. “Whadya doin’ up here?”
He swallows again. “…Fresh air.”
“Hmm…”
Instead of poking at the obvious lie, she sits down next to him on the concrete, her legs out in front of her one crossed over the other.
“…You don’t need to keep me company, Miss Ayase.”
“What, I ain’t allowed to get fresh air too?”
She leaves it at that for now. Rocks her ankle to nothing as birdsong chirps up from evergreens and reddening leaves.
“So, I dunno if I’m gonna keep playin’ shogi.”
If feels like an ocean wave slapping into him, disorienting. “Wh... huh? Why??”
She dips her fingers into her shirt pocket and takes something out. “‘Cuz of this!”
She shows him a shogi piece, holding it between her thumb and index. The Pawn, the Foot-Soldier, elegant kanji written in black ink on the wood.
歩
兵
He stares at it.
“Um, what about it?”
She scoots closer, until her side presses warm against his. She leans in to show him better, her expression deadly serious.
“See this? This line?” She points to the lowest stroke of the top kanji. “Doesn’t it kinda look like a smile?”
He follows the stroke as she reiterates herself with a swipe of her finger.
“A… smile?”
“Yeah! And here.” She points to the small strokes next to it. “These are the eyes.” She circles the lines above all that. “And here’s the hat.” Her chipping teal nail taps at the entirety of the bottom kanji. “And this is totally a body, with legs and arms n’ everything.”
She gives a crooked smile that seems to perfectly resemble the one she found in the tile.
“See? It’s just a little guy! And we send them out to get sacrificed, all the time, makin’ ‘em change sides and betray their old friends and get sacrificed again, over and over.” She lets out a weary sigh. “It’s messed up.”
And as he watches her stare wistfully at the tile cradled in her hands, his chest nearly bursts.
Affection erupts from him like lava in explosive plumes. A heat that fights off the chill, suffuses him from toes to fingertips. It’s familiar. It warms him up every morning, when he goes from without Miss Ayase to with.
“…That is messed up,” he gets out. The smile she’s fighting off shows at the corner of her lips.
He’s not a fool. He knows what’s going on. She saw his incredibly obvious discomfort and is trying to assuage it. But if there’s something he can’t stand more than hands on backs and love-struck nerds it’s the idea that she might ever throw a piece of herself away for his sake.
“But, you really do like playing, right? If so, I… I don’t think you should quit.”
“But you want me to quit shogi club.”
It’s a statement, not a question. Pulling him directly into what he was trying to step around. And because of that, he can’t bring himself to hide it anymore.
“…Yeah.”
“Why?”
So direct. In a way that tolerates no running away. So he finally spills his guts, along with the poison inside them.
“I’m sorry, Miss Ayase. It’s not fair at all for me to want that. But this past month felt like we were miles apart, and… it was really hard for me. And it’s something I thought I could handle, but then I see the way some of the members look at you. And I can’t fault them for it, you’re amazing, in so many ways, it only makes sense for people to notice that, but I hate it. Because…”
He squeezes his arms around his knees.
“Because I wanna be the person you look at like that.”
He can’t bear to see her reaction. Keeps his stinging eyes shut tight.
Her hand crawls over to his arm, prying it away from him so she can slip her fingers between his. He gasps at the softness of her skin.
He opens his eyes to see hers wet and shiny, lips in a small, quivering pout.
“…Dummy. How’ve you not figured out yet that you are.”
His heart skips, in a painful missed beat that makes him breathless.
She lets out an incredulous laugh. “What else do I gotta do? Beat you over the head with it?” His hand is in both of hers now, and she squeezes at it like a heartbeat. “You know, even after I got asked, I never thought this was something I could do. Like bein’ asked to jump in the air and start flyin’. But even before I cared you were there tellin’ me I’d be good at it, like you get stuff about me that I don’t even get about myself. And it’s just…” Her head falls onto his shoulder, hiding her face from view. “You’re always doin’ that. Givin’ me new things to love.”
Another plume of molten affection fills him, sizzling away the remaining chill. It winds through him in blazing circuits, pumping through his galloping heart. Everything he ever wanted falling right into his lap.
And yet, he’s frustrated.
That Miss Ayase had to once again corner him and force the issue. That he couldn’t step up and admit his feelings himself. That even now he still hasn’t made them crystal clear.
So he cups her jaw and moves her head off of his shoulder, just enough away so he can press his lips to hers.
She lets out a small surprised noise, before she abandons his hand to grip his jacket and pull him closer, like she’s been waiting for this forever. He snakes his arm around her back, sinks his fingers into her waist, and before he knows it she’s straddled over him, kissing him so hard his lips are sore. He nips back, hoping to spread the ache.
She pulls away with a smack, chest panting, cheeks ruddy, lips swollen; he nearly whines at the sight.
And he realizes he missed a step.
“Oh! Um.” His fingers flex around her hips. “M-Momo, will you be my girlfriend?”
She crinkles her nose, deliriously happy.
“If ya want.”
“I want,” he says, in a voice that is truly pathetic.
She kisses him again.
It’s amazing, and wonderful, and different, and yet still utterly the same. He’s still Ken, and she’s still Momo. Flipped 360 degrees, and fitting together in a way they didn’t before.
That kiss ends messier than the first, in a series of just-one-more’s and refusing-to-let-each-other-go before they finally separate. His head ends up cradled in her hands, while his explore her back.
“And what I want,” Momo says, thumbs petting as his cheeks, “is to be in a club again with my boyfriend.”
“…Are you sure?”
She nods. “Don’t need a shogi club to play shogi. I’ll just play whenever I feel like it. With whoever I want.”
He has to tear his gaze away from her lips, and when he meets her eyes he turns immediately shy. “Maybe… you could teach me?”
Momo laughs, and it’s like light pouring out from her.
“I’d love that.”
***