From Sailor Moon Flash!
| Featuring: | Oki, Kenrou, Teaki, Daichi, Binshou, Toshiro |
| IC Date: | August 2002 |
| Status: | Completed |
| Summary: | Sometimes the only way to solve a disagreement is by combat. |
”Hey, Ken-kun! Oki-chan!”
One of the players paused before removing his hand from his chesspiece. ”Good afternoon, Takawa-san.” He waited politely for several seconds. Across the small table, Mokushi Oki also waited, her features like smooth cold porcelain. After several more seconds, she sighed quite audibly, and said, ”Good afternoon, Takawa-san.” Her tone suggested utmost reasonability in the face of things like ”Oki-chan”.
Amakusa Kenrou smiled benevolently and completed his move.
Oki promptly took his bishop to show him what she thought of patient waiting for greetings, and also because she felt that it was more satisfying and elegant than merely hitting him with a bludgeon in her imagination. Daichi smiled, a bit puzzledly, and plopped down in the grass next to Toshiro, who was eating an ice cream sandwich and looking much like a fashion model employed to show off how flat Haagen Daaz could get your stomach, and Binshou, who was anxiously consulting several volumes of chess strategy.
”What’s up? Where’s Aki-kun?”
Toshiro snickered around his treat, which miraculously did not spray crumbs all over.
Binshou looked up. ”Oh! Hello, Daichi-san. Teaki is ... playing frisbee.” He looked a bit awkward. Daichi readied himself to hear that there had Been Words between the eldest and youngest members of his Shitennou.”He said that chess was for ... old people -” and here there was a glance at Kenrou, who had just submitted to having his queen’s pawn three taken away - ”and ... ... ... other ... types of people.” Here a glance at Mokushi Oki, who was about as ”other type” as you could get, although Daichi was sure that there was getting around this, definitely.
”Well, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea,” Daichi conceded, ”but apparently it’s Ken-kun’s and Oki-chan’s.” He left unspoken the thought that an Amakusa Kenrou playing chess was an Amakusa Kenrou not being Ken-kun at them.
Toshiro snorted again. ”Right you are, Daichi-sama.”
Daichi raised an eyebrow. ”... ... And?”
What Daichi had originally taken for Toshiro’s usual calm was in fact more like glassy-eyed resignation, now that he looked more closely. ”Boss doesn’t know how to play chess.”
”I’m sure he does, now,” Binshou protested. ”He read all of these books this morning when I brought them to him!”
”Boss doesn’t know how to play chess,” Toshiro repeated, and finished off his ice cream sammich with a vicious chomp. He moodily watched as Kenrou’s king’s bishop was added to the growing pile of white pieces, and assumed what Daichi had already come to label his ”Long-suffering and only sane faction member” martyred look. It, like anything and everything else Toshiro chose to wear, became him quite well.
”And he’s playing against Mokushi Oki. And she’s winning. So I figure we’re going to wake up having been assigned to carry Mokushi’s books, do her homework, and be her personal gofers until the end of her school year,” Toshiro concluded.
”I don’t think that -” Binshou started.
”You think he’s going to lose?” Daichi said.
Toshiro managed to convey via slight change of expression that, were Daichi not his liege lord and moreover a person of whom he was very fond, he would consider that the most stupid question ever to be asked in the history of dumbness.
Daichi shrugged. He thought it was probably some matter of honor, or weird competition, or possibly just Oki-chan’s and Ken-kun’s version of being friends, but he wasn’t worried about Ken-kun having bet his faction against his skill at chess. For one thing, Ken-kun had to know that chess was not something that you just got out of books.
You had to practice.
He settled in to watch his Captain’s ignominious thrashing at chess. Apparently Oki-chan had heard of beginner’s luck, and didn’t think that it would be at all sporting to Ken-kun to let him try it out. Ken-kun took his time making every move, and five seconds after he’d placed his piece Oki-chan snapped off her move and as often as not took away a white piece.
”Did you get him any beginner-level chess books, Bi-kun?” he ventured, watching Kenrou’s smile warring versus Oki’s.
Binshou murmured something under his breath, looking sadly at his stack of books.
”He said Boss didn’t get up to intermediate, no,” Toshiro translated, and groaned when Oki with great precision removed Kenrou’s last bishop from the board.
Daichi sighed. ”... you don’t think he really bet us, did he? ... Maybe ... No, I refuse to believe that. It’s demented. I am going to believe that this is just a friendly game of chess because they are friends and trying to get along like I asked.”
Toshiro’s stare again spoke volumes on the sub ject of being demented, but of course he was too polite to say so, and besides Boss could hear whispers of treason and blasphemy from five miles away.
At the table, Amakusa Kenrou smiled the untroubled smile of a Zen adept as Mokushi Oki smiled more sweetly than almost anyone except Kakureru Kyouri had ever seen from her. ”Chec -” she began to say, moving her queen.
And that’s when the frisbee hit the board and sent black and white plastic pieces flying.
”...”
”...”
”... Amakusa-san, your faction appears to be INTERFERING in the GAME.” Mokushi Oki did not twitch, and did not hit Kenrou over the head with a blackjack, and did not mention the word ”cheating”. This was because she was weeping on the inside on the loss of the perfect words, ”It seems that you have lost, Amakusa-san.” It was so unfair.
The thrower of the frisbee trotted up, smiling a bit sheepishly, and obviously ready with a sincere apology for having been a bit too enthusiastic with his throw while not checking his aim on account of being distracted by the well-tailored shirt of one of his playmates.
Upon seeing what his errant throw had done, and to whom, Shunran Teaki’s expression twitched away from ”Sorry about that, really” towards ”What the hell do you old people think you’re doing, playing where I’m throwing?”
”... ... ... ... ... Shunran-kun, a word with you.”
Teaki opened his mouth, presumably to let Kenrou know exactly where Kenrou could stick his word, and Daichi blurted out, in the interests of not having a Teakicicle on his hands, ”REMATCH TOMORROW.”
Oki stared at all of them. Her expression bespoke that sort of disgusted irritation that you get when sharks notice that remoras have been freeloading for the past four miles.
”A rematch, then,” she said. ”Of course Amakusa-san may have one more day to STUDY CHESS. By the way, Amakusa-san, you might win more games if you stop throwing everything at the objective of keeping the king protected.”
”Mokushi-kun is so helpful,” Kenrou murmured. He appeared to have forgotten Teaki’s existence, which was the way Daichi wanted it. Daichi grabbed Teaki just in case Oki-chan wanted to punch him in the face - not that Oki-chan would, but she appeared more than a bit steamed - and hid him behind Toshiro.
”Hey, I’ve got to get back to Misao -” Teaki protested. Toshiro stepped on his foot.
”Tomorrow at four o’clock, then,” Oki said, her tone filled with her certainty that of course they wouldn’t have the decency to be grateful for her graciousness in letting them off the hook.
”That’s great, Oki-chan,” Daichi said sincerely. ”I’m glad you’ve taken up a hobby.”
Toshiro made a noise akin to that made by squeezed kittens. Kenrou glanced at him inquiringly.
”Nothing, Boss. I always make this noise when I’m agreeing absolutely with Daichi-sama.”
Oki gave all of them a parting stare, and stalked off with perfect aplomb. One of the white chess-pieces was ground under her heel as she went.
”Shunran-kun,” Kenrou said, as an afterthought, ”that was an interesting throw.”
Teaki opened his mouth, then closed it again. ”Yeah, it kind of was.” He appeared suspicious, but didn’t immediately follow it up with any more observations about Kenrou’s total inability to be able to tell an interesting throw from a lame one owing to his being blind from AGE.
Daichi held his breath. And then it came, sufficient to stun Teaki and make Toshiro laugh in incredulity:
"Our deepest thanks."
