Wanna Play a Game? [Saruyuki|Ask]

[attr="class","castleonthehill"]It wasn't very often that Saruyuki Takemitsu took to venturing through the backlogged streets of Shibuya, considering how perpetually rife it was with foot traffic. But one of the major advantages to exploring the rows upon rows of strip malls and shopping outlets was that, eventually, he would get to discover a couple of resale vendors that carried a small selection of old cinema classics.

As fortune would have it, Saruyuki had unexpectedly stumbled his way into the purchase and acquisition of the 1973 martial arts film One-Armed Boxer, a title he had yet to watch and was undoubtedly anxious to do so. In addition, he happened to be presented with its sequel, Master of the Flying Guillotine, meaning he could turn this evening into a kung-fu marathon, the mere thought of which had him tickled pink with excitement.

Saruyuki whistled a ditty as he strolled through the neighborhood without a care in the world, fingers curled around the plastic bag carrying both boxed discs as it shook and dangled freely at his waistline. With a light hop to his step, the schoolboy turns into an opening that lead into Miyashita Park, his mind abuzz with a flood of serotonin, yet completely oblivious to the benches and tables crammed full of people who were there to play games. A notch in the sidewalk awaits his approach like the hand of a predator ready to reach out and grab him.

Considering all that happened at the train station earlier, today was actually turning out to be rather—

"Hrk–?!" Thud. The scenery becomes a blurred smudge of colors and shapes before Saruyuki plunges face first into an empty chessboard, ricocheting back with a surprising amount of momentum, and propelling the hapless teenager and his bag of movies to the concrete. No warning ever came from any of the park's attendees, as they were all preoccupied with their own activities to notice Saruyuki's approach, but it was enough to draw a few gasps of concern.

"Agh! Shit, that hurts!" Saruyuki gasps aloud with a stutter, then groans from the pain of his recent nosedive, rubbing beneath the openings of his nostrils to check for signs of blood loss, expressing silent gratitude upon noticing there was none. But maybe he ought to be a little more mindful of his surroundings next time...

[attr="class","castleonthehill"]"That was a pretty nasty fall. Need help standing up?" Through the fog of his own self-inflicted headache, Saruyuki could hear the voice of a young woman offering assistance to him. "Hope nothing's broken." With a sheepish glance downward, he thanks the heavens for throwing him a bone in spite of this embarrassing snafu, then forces out an embarrassed chuckle.

"I appreciate the gesture, but I think I can make it," Saruyuki looks up to discover a pleasant smile aimed right for him, profiled by soft chocolate hair and made all the more appealing by the uniform of a prestigious high-profile university. Whoa, she's a college student! The realization sends a sharp bolt of pain down the blond high school student's spine. He cups the back of his head and winces, "Hnng! Oof, that's gonna sting for a while..."

Slowly, slowly, Saruyuki curls over to his knees and does a few light stretches to work the kinks out of his midsection, then maneuvers his way—or, rather, crawled on all fours—to the closest empty seat he can find. Incidentally, this just happened to be the bench that rested parallel to the young woman's. "Is it okay if I sit here for a bit? I might have lost a couple'a marbles takin' such a hard spill." He asks her politely, mustering up just enough energy to crack a joke at his own expense.

Saruyuki never bothered to check on his DVDs for any cracks or chips, as he was fairly certain they took less of the impact than his own skull did to that chessboard.

[attr="class","castleonthehill"]"Well, seems we have a pretty hardy guy over here. I know for sure that not a lot of people would've been able to rebound that quickly from a fall as bad as yours. Impressive, in a sense!" Saruyuki had to admit, he certainly didn't see this one coming. It wasn't every day that he received a compliment regarding the density of his own cranium, especially from somebody as nice as this college student, but her amusement definitely carried a grain of validity behind it.

After all, you never knew when a well-timed headbutt might come in handy.

Saruyuki coughs up another laugh, feeling positive his frontal lobe might have liquefied worse than a banana smoothie, and takes Amelie's offer for a courteous handshake, seeing as he tried the self-reliant approach and resigned to pulling himself together like some kind of barely sapient jigsaw puzzle. "Much obliged, Amy-san. Takemitsu Saruyuki," he introduces himself in return, employing the traditional 'surname-before-the-given-name' standards most people were educated to use. It was only the polite thing to do for somebody of a higher academic standing than himself.

But just as he attempts to adjust his posture and work out some more of the cramps that threatened to settle into his muscles, Saruyuki is presented with a peculiar request from his newly made acquaintance, "So... since you're already stuck in this place until you feel better, how about playing a game? I don't have any particular preference, so I hope you're fine with picking what it will exactly be." The aching schoolboy glances down at the chessboard he failed to split in two, wondering if it was maple or some other hardwood substance, whilst rubbing his forehead out of reflex.

"Sure, I can give it a shot. I don't think I'm in any condition to train at the moment," Saruyuki says to Amy as he looks up to meet her gaze, noticing a rather... peculiar twinkle in her eyes. It was the same kind of cue that some of the delinquent punks at his own school would give him back in Sendai, except she seemed more of a master of mental arts rather than the martial.

Well, it's as his paternal uncle always said: nothing ventured, nothing gained. At the very least, Saruyuki didn't have to worry about getting kicked in the groin or having his arms and legs sprained in three different places.

But just in case she had a mind to play cat-and-mouse with him, Saruyuki felt obliged to speak the obvious truth, provided it wasn't already apparent from the hideous spill he took earlier, "Fair warning, though, I probably won't pose too much of a challenge," He taps at his temple gingerly, his eye twitching in response to the searing pain that rolled beneath the skin. "Ow."

Besides, how hard could chess really be?

[attr="class","castleonthehill"]Wow. This Amelie person was... really nice, Saruyuki wondered to himself, unsure if he had somehow crossed over into another dimension or if he was just suffering from a rather modest concussion. The reality of the situation was a little more mundane, though, as she swiftly disclosed her status as an outsider to the schoolboy, even going out of her way to reveal her uncertainty with the subtleties of Japanese dialogue.

"It really depends on the context, I think," Saruyuki said as he rolled his shoulders some, still feeling a little stiff in the deltoids, "I mean, I ain't no expert on all that language stuff, though, since most of what I know comes from plain ol' trial-and-error." He shrugs, unsure of how to educate Amy on the finer details of Japanese social etiquette, if the use of a linguistic double negative meant anything to her.

Of course, being the proverbial (and literal) klutz he was, Saruyuki had quickly remembered to provide his acquaintance with an actual answer to her inquiry, continuing on with a bit of a stammer in his voice, "B-But, since you're leavin' it up to me, I might feel a little more comfortable being called Takemitsu-san for now, if that's cool with you, h-heh." Smooth, dude. Real smooth...

If anything, Amelie was certainly helpful at dispelling a lot of the tension currently hanging over his shoulders. Any other set of circumstances, and Saruyuki might have been too intimidated to even eke out a single sentence, let alone entertain the possibility of playing chess with her. It took her a few moments to set the board up, and soon enough, Saruyuki found himself playing White, who had the honors of making the first move, according to Amy.

"No arguments here! I'm probably gonna have to ask a ton of questions anyway," Saruyuki admits to Amy with a hearty laugh, powering through the aches and pains in his upper back. "Okay, let's see here..." If memory served him appropriately, pawns could be pushed forward one space or two, assuming they hadn't been moved yet, and only the horse-shaped pieces, the knights, could jump over others. "Speakin' of—and this is totally unrelated, by the way—you taking part in an exchange program, or it family business? Just curious, really."

Saruyuki slides the White King's pawn forward two squares with his thumb, unsure of whether or not he was actually making a good move, but willing to play it by ear and enjoy the time away from his home, and his old man, who was probably neck deep in shōchū by now.

[attr="class","castleonthehill"]An exchange student, huh? Saruyuki couldn't help but admire a woman who was pretty, intelligent, and ambitious; such a combination of attributes made her exceptionally dangerous, especially in a male-dominated society like Japan's. But he liked to think of himself as the progressive sort, and this country was in desperate need of strong young ladies like Amelie.

"I heard that!" Saruyuki agreed in the passive sense, feeling considerably embarrassed by how uninspired he was in the academic sense but, strangely enough, compelled to see his acquaintance as a positive example to learn from. If only exam season wasn't so boring, though... "I'm from Sendai, actually. I just come to Tōkyō for a change of scenery every so often." The sound of a plastic bag shifting in his lap blends in almost seamlessly with the rustling leaves of the park.

When Amy pushes her own King's pawn forward one square, she takes the liberty of elucidating its assigned nomenclature as a segue into her country of origin. "Whoa, you're from France?! That's super cool!" Saruyuki expresses to her with nothing short of utter amazement. He had talked to foreigners before, but never a French girl! He couldn't help but laugh at how uncultured he felt before somebody that really seemed to demonstrate the virtues of perfection so flawlessly. "Really makes me feel like a beanstalk bumpkin, heh!"

Looking down at the board's current arrangement, he shifted the pawn sitting before the White Queen's rook forward one square, halfway in imitation of Amelie's last maneuver, but mostly because Saruyuki really had no genuine clue what he was doing; he had only seen his aunt and uncle play a few games back when he was little, and it always went over his head.

He rubs his forehead again upon reminding himself of that earlier snafu.

[attr="class","castleonthehill"]Saruyuki blinked in surprise, then wondered if he might have been somewhat presumptuous with his expectations of Amelie's sense of familiarity with Japan's different regional settings. "Oh! Sendai's about three-hundred kilometers north of here," he says, casting a sheepish glance sideways, reminded of how boring the train rides between cities were. "It's kinda like one of those relics from the past, if that makes sense. Lots of samurai history to it." He didn't know much about the details himself, but Saruyuki hoped he wouldn't have to expound on it, given how out of the loop he was with most subjects, anyway.

Of course, it was Amy's next series of statements that captured Saruyuki entirely off guard, much to the blond boy's bewilderment. A nice footnote, huh? He gazes down at the chessboard pensively, unsure of whether to appreciate the silver linings within the dark thunderclouds of his own past or to look forward and keep striving for a destination which ultimately may or may not exist. Sure, he liked to talk a big game, and maybe his lifestyle choices appeared healthy on the surface, but in the end, did he really have anything worth being proud of? Was there even a point to all of his efforts?

Saruyuki's eyelids flutter a bit, and he shakes his head to pull himself free from the fog of mental reverie. "That's okay! No harm done; I'm just really surprised I didn't split your board in two, is all," he fibs, concealing his deep-rooted insecurities behind the convenience of physical injury whilst redirecting his attentions back to the game at hand. It was an unusual attempt to kill two birds with one stone, but for a guy who just smacked his face into a hardwood chessboard, anything works.

Still, Amy's idealism definitely had its merits here. Perhaps he needed a pep talk today, whether he was willing to admit it or not.

Looking at the piece arrangement below, Saruyuki caught a glimpse of a rather interesting opportunity that lay before him: his King-side Bishop could be moved into play – and if he wasn't mistaken here, he could even position it in such a way that it could threaten Amy's King piece! But was it worth performing so bold a move?

Saruyuki grimaces at the board as if his own pieces were throwing insults at him. "I can see why this game is so hard to play now," he admits to his acquaintance without complaint, yet wholly perplexed as to where to take it from here.

Just as he was about to scratch his head in utter confusion, an instinctive feeling compels him to perform a rather unexpected method of defense, one that probably would cost him at a much later point: he slides his threatened pawn forward one square, simultaneously depriving the Black Queen's pawn of its capturing liberty and ceasing the advance of the Black King's pawn.

"Jeez, talk about bein' under pressure!" Saruyuki chuckles, throwing both of his arms back behind his head, wincing from the dull ache in his shoulders.

[attr="class","castleonthehill"]Saruyuki took a moment to think over the math, but after drawing numerous mental blanks, he shrugs at Amy with a nervous giggle and says, "Y'know, I really couldn't answer that if I wanted to! If it's more than an hour, I just kinda zone out or take a nap before the train docks." No matter how unfavorable his responses might have seemed, honesty was still the best policy. "But if you really wanna visit Sendai, the best time for that is during Tanabata season. The festival is bigger there than it is anywhere else!" At the very least, this was a statement of verifiable truth: not even Tokyo proper could match the vibrancy and pizzazz of Saruyuki's hometown when September came.

Amelie's words continued to echo in the back of Saruyuki's mind. Where he came from really wasn't important, even with the addition of yearly festivals and lots of fireworks. If anything, this probably explained her own supposed absence of national pride; whether or not they realized it, it was one detail the two students had in common, despite the evident gaps in cultural upbringing and financial status.

...Damn, the more he thought about it, the more Saruyuki was able to draw comparisons between that Tanabata legend they tell every year, the one about the star-crossed lovers. His cheeks turn bright red from the idea, which compels him to focus on the chess match with greater intensity than before. The last thing he wanted to do was ruin a perfectly good opportunity to make a lasting impression on somebody with meandering ideas!

"Control of the middle, huh?" Saruyuki repeats rhetorically, studying the board in order to connect the dots between Amy's advice and the two armies in direct opposition. "Hm..." Now that she mentioned it, her pawns were definitely clustering themselves together around the center of the board, while his... well, weren't. A single upward glance further reveals her back row slowly coming into relevance, being primed and ready for what could potentially be an all-out assault.

Amelie's comments about having an unpredictable strategy did help to boost Saruyuki's esteem a little, considering this was his first formal game of a sort, especially since it reminded the schoolboy of Bruce Lee's filmed interviews surrounding the philosophies of Jeet Kune Do. "If you've ever played a fighting game before, I kinda feel like I'm button-mashing here," Saruyuki admits with a sincere smirk, laughing like the nervous wreck he was. "Who knows? Maybe unpredictable is a good thing, even in chess!"

In slight imitation of his last maneuver, he pushes his king-side Rook's pawn forward two squares instead of one. "Well," he begins to answer Amy's question, shifting the bag full of DVDs in his lap, the sound of rustling plastic acting as a cognitive reminder, "I have a huge interest in kung-fu flicks, good and corny. Heck, I guess you could even call it a passion. But I cleaned out Sendai's movie stores of all their good ones, so I've been comin' down here to see what they got."

What Saruyuki really wanted to say was that he liked visiting Yoyogi Park to practice the techniques he observed in those same movies, but there was an element of shame involved in admitting to a total stranger—a smart and pretty one, no less—that he liked to exercise and train in the same way that most six-year-old boys pretended to run around as ninja warriors.