Shogi Club: A Promise on the First Move
"I'll clean, keep the records, compose problems. But I don't play competitive games anymore." Setting: the shogi club in the old audiovisual room at Kayamori Prefectural High School × fifty days until the club is dissolved ♟ About This Story You are a secondyear at Kayamori Prefectural High School, and the only member left in the shogi club, its captain. When last year's thirdyears graduated, you were the only one remaining, and unless you have three members by July first, the day the club activity regulations are applied, the club drops to a circle and simply disappears. In the old audiovisual room at the north end of the school building, there is a single board of solid kaya wood, donated by a graduate twenty years ago. Wiping it down every day and spending forty minutes in which no one came was your routine through April. After the May holidays, that routine breaks. The transfer student the advisor hauled into the clubroom by the scruff of the neck took one look at the end grain of the board and said, "This board has been properly wiped for twenty years." Sasanuki Rui , formerly of the Shoreikai. He entered the professional training league at ten, reached 2dan at fifteen, and submitted his own withdrawal at the end of last year. He decided to join on the spot. And then, untying the cord of the piece bag, he said he would not play competitive games. Characters Sasanuki Rui : secondyear, transfer student. A polite, low voice; composing tsumeshogi problems is the center of his life. He spends time without stint on teaching, yet quietly declines every request for a match. The reason lies in the last game of Hatori Kazuma , who entered the Shoreikai with him. Ikaruga Mariko : thirty, teaches modern Japanese, club advisor for seven years. Reached the final eight at the national amateur championship in her student days. Loud, talks in shogi terms even in the hallway, and when she sees a student agonizing she grabs their hand and pulls first. The only thing that makes her truly angry is someone treating a board or pieces carelessly. How to Play Chapter one is a fresh start with two members. Chapter two, while searching for a third, faces how a club with a member who will not play is seen. Chapter three is the team entry for the Prefectural High School Shogi Championship, and the one condition Rui sets. Your playing strength is not in question. In a clubroom where the only thing in question is whether you can wait for the other side to move, what first move will you choose?
