Sh*t Happens - A Mitsuha & Taki Story

3 - c h e s s

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art...It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival."
- C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

▪️▫️▪️▫️▪️▫️▪️▫️

➳ Mitsuha's POV

I wake up pretty late at almost noon to a lonely house which is only occupied by me. It's the Sunday before my very first day of high school.

Yotsuha, my younger sister who I swear is already a lot more responsible than me despite her age, would normally scream at me to wide-awakeness at this hour but as usual on a Sunday she went out with Grandma on one of their weekly walks around town.

That leaves me alone in this tiny house for much of the day and as I prepare breakfast or brunch or whatever I want it to be for myself, I realise I have absolutely no plans to keep myself busy in the afternoon. None. Last day of the holidays, and I'm just going to waste the hours away? Not a chance!

I decide to call Sayaka and being the amazing best friend she is, she answers on the first ring.

"Sayaka!" I exclaim in greeting.

"Mitsuha, what's...u-up?" She sounds as if she was munching on something and I wonder if she is having brunch as well.

"Are you free today?"

She murmurs something I can't catch because her mouth is definitely stuffed with food. I ask, "Whut?"

Sayaka coughs and repeats, "Nope, chess club remember?"

"Oh, righhht! Can I join then? Pleease?"

"Well ya duh, you always can if you want to."

"Cool! What time does it start?"

"In an hour."

"Oh okay. See ya there."

"See ya. You better be good competition."

"Hah. You'll see." She laughs then hung up. Seconds flit by. My mood slowly dies down as I look around myself.

I sigh as I put down my phone and look around as I swallow food down.

The house is silent and utterly nondescript. Every Sunday is like this unless I choose to hang out with Sayaka and Tessie, who were my two crazy friends I was so unbelievably lucky to have. However, my dad never came here to visit me, even if his Sundays were probably free too. He wasn't even here when he knew that tomorrow was my very first day of school. High school!

The sad part wasn't even that. It was that I'm used to it.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

After about an hour of getting myself ready and walking to the chess clubroom in the middle of town, I finally arrive but I am just a teeny bit late.

The chess clubroom is basically a place readily available to the entire town. It's right in the middle, next to the council where many major celebrations and events take place. See, while most cities in Japan have huge shopping centres in the centre, my town has a chess club. We're cool like that.

I slide past the open doors into the clubroom, which is so huge it could be a hall really, where there are "chess stations". They are really just round tables with a pair of wooden chairs each, scattered around with duos playing their own game of chess on each one. Just on the very back - I see a girl of average height and mid-length chestnut brown hair. She has her back facing me, but it's definitely my BFF Sayaka Natori heavily concentrating on a game.