We had just finished eating dinner when it turned seven o’clock. The food was delicious—just like it was yesterday. However, that’s not the sole reason why I enjoyed today’s dinner more than yesterday’s. When both Soichiro and the prez left for school, I was sitting alone in Soichiro’s room. It must have been a short while before noon when his father knocked on the door and walked in.

“Hello, err… sir,” I muttered.

"At ease, young man. I came here to have a chat with you,” he looked around the room, as if he was searching for something,

“Let’s have a chat in another room,” he said, I followed.

I was getting worried that I did something that could’ve gotten me in trouble. Soichiro’s father has the same ice-cold eyes his daughter—the prez—has. Perhaps I’m worrying over nothing again, that’s what always happens with the prez. Misunderstanding her cold personality as intimidating. It didn’t take long to reach the room on the ground floor. When we entered, he gestured towards a chair. I sat down, he did, too, on the opposite side. He glanced at his watch on his left wrist and then returned his gaze towards my eyes.

After a short silence occurred he said,

“It’s nearly time.”

I had no clue what he meant and I was too afraid to ask. I decided to simply wait and let time show me what it is nearly time for. About a minute later Iori walked in, carrying a briefcase. Inside of it; a shogi set.

“I presume you can play,” he said, as he started arranging the board, lending Iori a hand.

“I do, but I’m not good by any means.”

“That will suffice, you have my gratitude Iori.”

Iori bowed deeply, “My pleasure, master.”

Our game of shogi begun. I went first and opened by moving a random pawn.

“Young boy. Do you see how this shogi board reflects life?”

Surprised by the sudden question it took me a second to gather the words to respond.

“N-no, not really.”

“The majority of pieces on your board are pawns. Generally regarded as the weakest piece on the board. An inept player might get fooled and underestimate its power because of it. The pawns’ contribution to the game is as important as any other,” he said, the game went on.

About five minutes later he continued his sentence as if it had never come to a full stop, “You are a pawn, too. No fancy movement options; only forward, a single square at a time. In addition, you’re, too, incapable of taking back moves, or retreating backwards; only forward, a single square at a time. When you—as a pawn—have defeated everything that dare stood in your way, and reached the final three squares; my side of the board, you’ll get rewarded with a promotion to gold.”

I took his words very seriously. I understood what he was trying to say. Whatever comes next, I can’t run, I can’t hide, I must face any challenge coming my way. Only then I’ll be rewarded, that’ll be my promotion to gold.

The game didn’t go on much longer, I’m no good at shogi after all. He thanked me for my time and left. Not much later Iori came in to collect the shogi set in his briefcase again.

“Say, Iori… are you any good at shogi?”

He laughed and put his briefcase to the side.

“I’ll teach you what I know, but none of that will put you on master’s level.”

After a little shogi lecture came a practice game. Iori played with a three-piece handicap to give me a slight advantage to try out what I had just learned.

“If you don't mind me asking, how long have you been a servant, if I may ask?”

“How many centuries has it been,” he laughed, “I started working as a servant once master took over his father’s business. I used to be great friends with his old man,” he moved his pawn to 8vii, making space for his bishop, “I wasn’t really doing well in life, one thing led to another and my late friend’s son took me under his wing as a servant.”

We ended up playing together far into the afternoon, with only a lunchbreak in between.

“School ended about ten minutes ago, I guess Soichiro will be coming home soon,” I said.

“He’s the kind of person who hurries home the moment the school bell rings, isn’t he?”

“Exactly. Although I’m not any different,” I laughed.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Well, it was a pleasure teaching you. I’ll be getting back to work.”

I went back to Soichiro’s room. In the far right corner of it is a mini-dojo with martial arts equipment. Without giving it much thought I started checking it out.

“Oh, there’s a kendo sword here…” I grabbed the sword from the wall and started swinging around. Swing by swing I got more into it. I imagined myself surrounded by enemies, as if I was in an action scene straight out of a movie.

“Chief!” Soichiro burst through the door.

“Soichiro?!”

“I see that you’re having fun,” he walked up to me, “I’m joining in,” he picked up the second kendo sword.

“Wait! I’ve never had any training or anything,” I yelled out.

“Me neither,” he said, with a bright smile on his face whilst charging forward.

He tightly held his sword with both hands, swung it from right to left, narrowly missing my ducking head. Naturally I wasn’t going to let that slide. I held my sword in my right hand, and crossed it from the left towards his head. My movement was quite predictable, his sword was already retreated to block my hit. In the midst of my attack I halted my swing, turned around and attacked him from the right. He managed to block it just in time, thanks to his inhuman reflexes.

“Not bad,” he smirked.

Our sword fight went back and forth until someone opened the door in the middle of our action.

“Let me know when you’re done,” the prez said, before closing the door.

“We better put these back, don’t we?” Soichiro said.

“Yeah, we probably should.”

I took a last look at the sword before hanging it back on the wall. In the end I couldn’t resist the urge to hit Soichiro one more time. I looked him in the eyes, without saying a word I knew that he was feeling the same way. We ended up continuing our fight for the next ten minutes.

The two of us fell down on the floor—both out of breath.

“Let’s tell sis we’re done, we’re keeping her waiting.”

Gasping for air I said, “In case she asks… I won.”

“She won’t ask—and you definitely didn’t win.”

Once we somewhat got our breath under control, we left the room and looked for the prez. My guess was that she would be waiting in her room, but Soichiro was pretty sure she would be waiting in the living room.

“Alright, we both go looking for sis, whoever finds her first wins.”

“Sure, but no running. I wouldn’t want your father to get mad at either one of us.”

I got grabbed by the shoulder, “What was that?”

I shakingly turned my head around. I loosened my shoulders when I realised it was just Iori deepening his voice.

“I’m joking around,” Iori laughed, “if you’re looking for Kaori-sama, she’s–”

“Shhhh! We’re gonna race and see who can find her first,” Soichiro said.

“Race?” I faced Soichiro again.

Iori laughed, “Well then, I wish you both the best of luck finding her.”

“Alright, three… two… one… go!”

Of course Soichiro broke the one and only rule we had established on the very first second; he ran off to the living room. So much for not running, I also ran my way up the stairs towards her room. Once I was there I knocked on the door.

“Prez, are you here?”

A little too pepped up by the competitions adrenaline, I opened the door instead of waiting on her to answer. No sign of the prez. There’s a little space of her room that’s blocked off by a wall. I tried my luck and went to look behind the wall. Perhaps she’s there, wearing headphones. Unfortunately she wasn’t there, where her desk is apparently. I didn’t want to lose to Soichiro, so I didn’t overstay in a room where I wasn’t even invited into and turned around to walk out. All of a sudden the door was thrown open by the prez, who’s out of breath.

“Did you see?”

“U-uhm, see what?”

She sighed, seemingly relieved. With her usual cold gaze she looked me in the eyes and said,

“The past ten seconds, forget about them.”

“Roger that.”

I followed her on the way out and bragged about finding her first to Soichiro.

“That’s my second win today,” I bantered.

“You wanna go again?”

My provocation worked.

It turned out that the prez had nothing too serious to discuss, rather a quick check on the current state of affairs—as she herself said. It didn’t take long before evening fell, it was time for dinner. Today’s dinner was certainly more natural compared to yesterday’s. I felt more at ease after the little shogi game with Soichiro’s father. I became less of an outsider overnight—well, over-day.

When it turned seven o’clock, everyone gathered in the living room to catch the news—just as we do at home. There are two large rose-red sofas next to one another. On each of the outsides are smaller, one person sofas of the same kind. Soichiro and I sat down in one of the big ones, so did the prez. The two parents each sat down on one of the smaller ones.

“Good evening. It is seven o’clock, this is the evening news, presented by Masakuni Igarashi.”

Before the news topics were summarised, an ominous picture of the RIKEN lab was shown, framed next to the news caster’s screen.

“The investigations on the theft at RIKEN have come to an end. The perpetrator turns out to be a highschooler, attending the school nearby. His name is Tamaki Gou—who’s now in possession of the world’s last egg and seems to be on the run.”

I couldn’t hear a thing that was said afterwards. My entire body was shaking, which only got worse after hearing my name, coupled with a picture of me.

“Chief, are you… alright?”

“I–I’m…I,” I failed to say anything for a moment, “…How did it… escalate this quickly?”

The prez walked out of the room. Her father stood up and sat next to me on the sofa.

“Remember, kid. You can’t take moves back. Think about your next move forward. You have extraordinary pawns by your side, don’t forget that,” he stood up again, and he, too, left the room.

Their mother was the only one who also didn’t control their shock. Her knees were trembling at least as badly as mine.

Soichiro punched my shoulder, “Head up, chief. This was an outcome we could see coming. Let’s get ready for the next step, alright?”

“Yeah.”

It didn’t take long before the prez returned. She looked as calm as ever. Not even an ounce of shock traceable in her entire facial expression nor in her body language.

“The others are on the way, I’ll be making space for Moeru to sleep tonight. The two of you should do the same for Gouda.”

“Shouldn’t we be leaving now?” Soichiro asked.

“No, not yet. We need to further discuss our plans before we make our next move.”

“Then… when will we be leaving? We can’t discuss our plans forever.”

“I’m aware of that. But we can’t get impatient now. We need proper preparation if we want to make this mission a success,” she picked up a pen and a piece of paper from the table and started writing something down.

“So, today we prepare and we’ll be leaving tomorrow?”

Whilst writing she said, “Yes, we will be leaving tomorrow,” she put her pen down, “…at the crack of dawn.”