Another day had dawned, and a rather sleepy looking dishevelled young man strode out of his house wondering what fresh hell awaited him this particular morning. Perhaps he would be kidnapped by ninjas because he looked like some diplomat’s kid. Perhaps he would come across an accident on the way to school, where a shipment of glass rakes had crashed and they were strewn about the pavement. Invisible. Waiting to be stepped on. Like concussive landmines, waiting to be stepped on.
“Her tormentor stepped out of his house, and it gave her no small hint of satisfaction that he appeared to have a very poor night’s sleep,” Yukako said, though there was more mirth than madness in her expression today. “He stared at her, and made a very obvious mental contrast to how cute she looked in her school uniform as compared to the maid outfit his delightful little sister had made for her.”
“Good morning, Shino!” Tomoko said with a deep bow. “H-How are you feeling?”
“I’m feeling fine,” Shino said, shaking his head. Did they have to meet him just outside his house like this? Especially after last night… He might never live that down. “You, uh, don’t have any more of that shrinking powder on you, right? I mean, we wouldn’t want a repeat of that incident. Would we?”
The two girls laughed, and Shino was completely struck by how different they both were all of a sudden. It was so weird how happy the two of them were. They were almost like completely different people.
“That won’t be a problem, the beautiful Yukako said as she playfully grabbed hold of his arm. While leaning her head against his shoulder, she decided to torment him a little further and said - Mph!”
“Thank you, Yukako!” Tomoko said, covering the self narrating girl’s hand with her own while blushing furiously. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary.”
“Nor is showing up at his house and dressing up like maids,” Toshiko disapprovingly noted. Without even turning around, Shino could see her. Eyebrow twitching, hands on hips, a twisted sneer on an otherwise pretty face. “Come on, stop playing around with your maid harem. We’ll be late for school!”
A maid harem. Is that what they were? Funny. It didn’t feel that way. It was the weirdest thing. Yukako and Tomoko had developed a strange sort of camaraderie, there was no real hint of animosity between them at all. Hell. Even Yukako’s “tormenting” had taken on a bit of a playful tone, almost sort of like - What was the best way to describe it? - deliberately bad flirting. Yeah, that seemed about right somehow. Deliberately bad flirting.
Somehow, it didn’t seem like they were being punished for losing. Somehow, it seemed more like they had won something in defeat. How wonderfully paradoxical. It put a little bit of a spring into his step, and -
“Hey, kid! Look out! There are invisible glass rakes all over the ground!”
And life continued to suck in increasingly interesting ways, but at least he seemed to be starting to predict the direction it was taking. Funny how the girls had made it through unscathed, and funnier still how they were trying to cheer him on. A flash went through his mind of all three in maid outfits, prompting him to turn left when he meant to turn right - And then he reeled when something invisible clonked his nose, stepped backwards, felt something else hit the back of his neck, stumbled forwards and kept going on like that until somehow he wound up face down in Toshiko’s more-ample-than-it-first-looked cleavage.
“Idiot idiot idiot idiot!” she yelled, pounding against the top of his head while the other two girls grabbed his arms and tried to yank him out. Shino was pretty sure one of his buttons had somehow gotten caught on Toshiko’s blouse, but it was rather difficult to warn them when every time he opened his mouth meant heightened risk of being labelled as a pervert.
Somehow he made it to school without a concussion, and without tearing off a portion of Toshiko’s blouse. She was still deliberately walking ten paces in front of him with her nose turned up.
“It gradually occurred to Yukako that her hated tormentor and his next door neighbour would make a positively adorable couple,” Yukako mumbled, twiddling her thumbs and looking up at the sky. “She would momentarily come to the conclusion that the two of them should certainly date at the earliest opportunity, and began to conspire ways in which to make it occur.”
While on the other side of him, Tomoko was tapping away at a calculator. “According to my calculations, the likeliest way to make it up to her is… Bungee jumping? No, wait. That can’t be right. I should double check…”
Goodness. Even when acquiring a “maid harem”, he was hardly lucky. At least they were cute in their uniforms. And apparently happier with their lives, from what he could tell…
Shino stopped just before colliding into Toshiko, and peered over the top of her head at the front yard of the school. “Oh, what the hell is this?” Toshiko asked, and Shino had to agree with the question requiring an immediate answer. “Is that the chess club?”
“I believe it is,” Tomoko said, adjusting her glasses. “It would appear they have set up quite an elaborate event. There appear to be seats for a growing audience, a table with a prepared chess set -”
“And people say that the beautiful Yukako narrates and exposits too much,” Yukako groused. “Yes, yes! We can see the setup perfectly fine!”
A student he recognised as the head of the chess club strode towards them. From what Shino had heard about him, the guy was a bit of a sleaze. On a charitable day, at the very least. Thing was, there were plenty of girls in school that loved playing chess, but they ran like the devil was after them from the school’s official club. Just to get away from this guy.
“I only play games with an element of chance,” Shino said with a shake of his head. “In point of fact, I believe chess is one of the games I’ve explicitly excluded. Therefore, I cannot accept your challenge.”
“Oh, but you haven’t even heard the rules!” Uesugi insisted with a smile he probably thought was charming but sent a chill right down Shino’s spine. He produced two dice. One white, the other black. With a snap of his fingers, a cloth was pulled down, revealing a noticeboard that read as follows.
1: Pawn
2: Knight
3: Bishop
4: Rook
5: Queen
6: King
“All up there in black and white. It is a chess variant!” Uesugi said with a slight bow. “Set aside a little time to listen before moving your pieces indoors to my challenge, instead of dismissing it en passant.”
“In passing,” Tomoko whispered. “It’s an obscure chess move that occurs when -”
“Let me guess,” Shino sighed, feeling a little bit disappointed. “We move based on the dice roll, and can only move the piece that shows up.”
Uesugi nodded. “A real game of gambling and chance rather than pure skill. We take turns rolling our own dice, and choose to move a piece with the relevant number on either our own or our opponent’s dice. If doubles are on the table, any piece may be moved. If there is no legal move, the player passes.”
“Hang on!” Tomoko said, biting her lip. “That changes the nature of the game, doesn’t it? I mean. Even if a King is in mate, it would be possible that a player cannot move out of it on their next roll, meaning the King could be captured!”
“Correct!” Uesugi declared with his arms wide open. “By that same token… It is technically possible to escape checkmate if your opponent is unable to capitalize on the trap, and is forced to move a piece that destroys the checkmate! Therefore, the objective of the game is simply to capture the King rather than trap him. It keeps things simpler, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Still not playing,” Shino strode forward, pushing past the chess club president. “Even under that kinda rule modification, chess relies on memorising tactics that worked in the past way more than developing your own. There’s no gamble in that, and the element of chance is ruined by that big an advantage.”
“Then I’ll play!”
Hang on. What the hell? Shino looked behind him, and saw Toshiko standing there with fire in her eyes, a determined look that only ever meant trouble. For whoever she was fighting in the ring, or more often him.
“What do you think you’re up to?” Shino demanded. “You’re going to accept a bet with this guy?!”
“Of course,” Toshiko said, with a slight sniff. “It’s about time someone showed you what it’s like to sit on the sidelines and watch someone take a stupid risk.”
“Well then,” Uesugi said. “Check and mate, wouldn’t you say? She seems the kind of woman that is like a Queen: Imperious. Powerful. Flexible in a way that the King is not. How does that sound? You will become my club’s mascot if I win! Yes, I think that should do the job quite nicely! As for the stakes I will put up… If you win, for the rest of the year you may use the Chess Club’s resources however you like. How does that sound?”
Toshiko nodded in agreement, and Shino threw up his hands.
“Still!” Uesugi continued, gesturing behind him to the seats that were filling up with students. ”The King of gambling has a chance to sit amongst the Pawns if he would like. I’ve already arranged with the faculty the capacity to miss the first class, on condition of a simple wager. Not too much. Just bet on which side you think will win, and you could win a certain amount of money.”
Shino snorted. “Fool’s bet. Toshiko ain’t gonna win a game like this against a pro! This whole thing is a damn farce.”
“You misunderstand,” Uesugi corrected. “You will not be betting on the player, but the side. White or Black?
“… Now, that’s a gamble I can accept,” Shino said. “Mind if I borrow those dice a sec?”
“Be my guest,” Uesugi declared. Shino wasted little time in picking them up, weighing them both and discreetly checking them for magnets up against his cufflinks while pretending to roll them. Nothing he could feel, but if there was a trick it might well be in the board…
Unlike the other games he had played recently, this one left moves entirely open to both players. Therefore peeking wasn’t possible. All information was already open to all players. The dice rolls were the only meaningful way to cheat, aside from simply knowing the game that much better.
Fine then. Shino smirked. He could already see the direction they had planned. If they were gonna set such an obvious trap, he might as well pretend to fall into it.
“The side I’ll bet on,” Shino said. “Is dependent on these dice. On my honour as a gambler! Whichever one lands on the bigger number, is the one I bet on!”
He tossed them into the bowl and stared at the results: A six for white, and a one for black. The results seemed pretty clear to him.
“Well then, how interesting!” Uesugi said as Shino dropped the required gambling fee into a box and then ticked and signed the slip of paper the assistant gave him. “In which case… I shall choose to play as White.” Shino dropped the slip into the box and tilted his head to look at Uesugi. “Hm, hm, hm! Creates quite the dilemma for you, doesn’t it? Either your friend loses and becomes our mascot, or the great King of gambling loses a wager! Shall we begin the game?”
“Just allow me to take my seat first,” Shino said with a little mock bow. “It wouldn’t do at all if the audience wasn’t in place.”
He soon found that the had the seat of a guest of honour. Him, with Yukako on one side and Tomoko on the other.
“That was very sneaky of you,” Tomoko whispered. “It’s a good thing I caught it before Yukako made her bet.”
“You really are a devious mind,” Yukako whispered. “To see a trap, and set up your own in such a manner.”
“That’s the trouble with those chess-obsessed types,” Shino shrugged. “They can’t resist setting up a good trap… Which makes it so easy to lead them into one of your own.”
- Tomoko mentions seeing Toshiko and Uesugi talking yesterday.
- Uesugi springs his real trap, and daydreams about having Toshiko as a mascot.
- Toshiko thinks about the trap they are setting up, and hopes Shino learns from this.
- Meanwhile, Shina is up to something as well.
- Something else
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