Chapter 8: Yobisute
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 8: Yobisute
…I think I got swept up in the moment and said something pretty incredible.
As I awkwardly fiddled with the glass in my hand, Kishimoto, who had been grinning to herself, suddenly spoke up.
"Alright! Kim-kun! Let's start calling each other by our first names!"
I couldn't keep up with her characteristically drastic mood swings.
"So suddenly?"
"They say using yobisute is the best way to get close quickly! Go on, try it!"
I couldn't quite grasp her popular-girl way of thinking, but I did as she asked.
"Alright then… Rika."
Kishimoto beamed and nodded.
"Great, call me that from now on. Ryu-chan."
"Ryu-chan?"
My expression instinctively hardened at the nickname, which was cringey enough to make my toes curl just hearing it.
She explained with a nonchalant look on her face.
"Well, the Sino-Korean reading of your name is Ryusei, so I just took the first part. Ryu-chan."
My hands trembled with a profound sense of shame as I pleaded with her.
"…Can't you just call me Yoo-Sung like a normal person?"
"Huh? But all my friends call each other by nicknames."
"Every single one?"
"Every single one!"
I stared hard at Kishimoto, who clearly had no intention of backing down, and finally gave up.
"Hmph, fine. Call me whatever you want."
"Hehe, I was going to anyway."
Placing her now-empty barley tea glass on the desk, Kishimoto spun her chair around and began to swing her legs back and forth as she faced the bookshelf.
"So, Ryu-chan, what's your favorite shonen manga here?"
I collected her empty glass onto the tray and answered.
"Golden Samurai, on the top shelf."
"Whoa! I love that one too!"
She looked startled by my answer, then clapped her hands in delight.
It seemed she was happy we had found some common ground.
"Even now, whenever I think of it, I'll reread it from start to finish."
As I said that, I pulled the first volume of Golden Samurai from the top shelf and showed it to her.
"Wow! A first edition! This came out fifteen years ago, it's super hard to find!"
Perhaps reminded of the memories of reading it long ago, she stomped her feet excitedly.
Golden Samurai was the second full-length manga by the author Kishimoto Musashi, and it told the story of an Irish sailor named William who accidentally drifted to Japan.
The manga begins with a mutiny on a ship, where a black slave kills William's friend and flees by boat to the island nation in the Far East.
To avenge his friend, William follows the escaped slave's trail to Japan. In the process, he meets Tokugawa Ieyasu, one of the great warlords of the Sengoku period, and is given the name Miura Anjin and the status of a samurai.
William, a blond foreigner, came to be known as the "Golden Samurai." As a samurai, William steadily honed his skills under Ieyasu while searching for the whereabouts of the escaped slave to avenge his friend.
Eventually, William realizes that Yasuke, one of Oda Nobunaga's retainers known as the "Black Samurai," is the very slave who fled. He challenges him to a duel.
William is the ultimate victor of the final duel, but in the course of pursuing Yasuke, he had already learned of his friend's own transgressions in treating the slave harshly. Declaring that he would no longer hold the man who had abandoned his old name responsible, he cuts off Yasuke's topknot instead of his head, then returns to his homeland, now a one-armed man.
At a total of 28 volumes, the story could be considered long or short depending on how you looked at it, but I loved the manga's unique art style, which was like an East Asian ink painting, and its dry ending that showed the futility of revenge.
That was because the psychological descriptions leading up to that point and the foreshadowing that hinted at forgiveness were expressed throughout the story.
After listening to my high praise for Golden Samurai for about ten minutes, Kishimoto shivered, then blushed and looked shy, as if she were the one being complimented.
"I really love this manga too, but I've never met anyone who loves it as much as you, Ryu-chan."
"This is nothing, really. I only bought the manga; I never bought any of the related merchandise."
"Huh? No, no, I'm sure Papa would be thrilled to hear the review you just gave."
What?
I froze for a moment.
Just as I was about to ask her to repeat that, thinking I must have misheard, Kishimoto giggled and dropped a bombshell.
"Actually, Kishimoto Musashi is my papa's pen name."
*
Manga artist.
Kishimoto Musashi.
Real name.
Kishimoto Sojiro.
I hadn't noticed because Kishimoto is a fairly common surname in Japan.
That Kishimoto Rika was the daughter of that God of Manga.
Thinking back, the foreshadowing had been blatantly laid out from the beginning.
She lived in Seisho, one of Tokyo's most affluent neighborhoods, her father was a successful manga artist, and most importantly, she was blonde.
Golden Samurai itself was a work that Kishimoto Musashi published right after marrying his British wife, so the wiki mentioned speculation that he must have been influenced by her in some way, big or small.
And the author Kishimoto Musashi's hometown was Shizuoka.
A classmate's parent being a celebrity is a famous cliché in romantic comedies. How could I have not known?
I felt like a complete and utter idiot—a sea cucumber, a sea squirt, a sea anemone.
I swallowed hard and asked her.
"Do you think I could possibly get your father's autograph?"
Kishimoto grinned brightly and nodded.
"That's no problem at all. In fact, if you come over to my house sometime, I'll introduce you to him myself!"
"!!!"
For a second, my heart seized up and I clutched my chest.
Is this what they call being a successful fan?
To be able to meet the God of Manga, Kishimoto Musashi, in person was nothing short of an honor for my family.
"Th-then, please let me know when you have time."
"Okay! I'll talk to Dad when he gets home."
In that moment, I felt truly glad that I had become friends with her.
Who cares about the original story or whatever? What's important right now?
I get to meet the master Kishimoto, whom I've admired for so long!
"Well, it's getting late, so I should get going! It's about time for Mama to come home too!"
"Oh? Uh, yeah, okay."
I walked Kishimoto, who was heading home, to the station.
"See you tomorrow! Ryu-chan!"
…Everything is great, but please, refrain from using that nickname in front of people.
*
After a day that felt like a whirlwind, the very next morning…
When I arrived at school, for some reason, there was an unfamiliar desk next to mine, and sitting there was Kishimoto Rika.
"Hi! Ryu-chan!"
I blinked in bewilderment and asked.
"Rika, what are you doing here?"
Kishimoto Rika grinned cheekily and tapped her desk.
"I talked to the teacher and moved my seat this morning. Besides, there's plenty of space around you, Ryu-chan."
"…I guess so."
Seeing the two of us talking casually, the students who had arrived early began to whisper among themselves.
"What kind of dirt does he have on the transfer student for her to sit there?"
"Maybe she was threatened by Kim-kun yesterday?"
"Hey, be my woman."
"Kyaaaaaah!"
I pressed my hand to my throbbing forehead at their slander, which they were saying loud enough for me to hear, and pulled out the textbook and notebook for first period from my desk.
First period today was English.
I'd gotten a 900 on the TOEIC back in college, so I didn't really need to study, but Japanese English education was infamous for being ridiculously difficult in its own way because of the grammar.
Kishimoto, who had been sitting next to me staring blankly at her phone, saw my notebook and seemed to remember last week's English homework. She promptly held out her hand.
"Ryu-chan, let me see your homework."
"Sure."
It felt less like I'd made a friend of the opposite sex and more like I'd gained a high-maintenance little sister.
*
By the second week of the new semester, students were gradually getting used to school life.
The biological rhythms that had grown lazy during spring break were slowly adjusting to a regular routine.
And around this time, the school's full-blown battle for new club members would begin.
"The soccer club!! How about joining the most popular club with the girls!!"
"The basketball club!! If you join now, unlike the soccer club, a pretty manager will even wipe your sweat for you!!"
"Isn't there anyone who wants to come to the light music club and set their youth ablaze!!"
"New students! Come to the board game club! Our clubroom is fully equipped with all sorts of board games from both the East and West! All we need is you!"
Having attended a student council meeting for the first time in a while as the secretary, I was looking down on the scene from the third floor with the president and vice president.
"It's begun again this year. The desperate struggles of the club presidents to recruit new members."
"Ohohohoho! If they belonged to our student council, they wouldn't have to do such trivial things as promotion!"
Listening to the two of them, I cautiously spoke up.
"Um… is there a reason we have to create such a villainous atmosphere?"
The president, fanning herself gracefully with a black folding fan, chided me as if I knew nothing.
"Originally, those who stand on high have a duty to observe the lives of the lower classes! Kim Yoo-Sung-kun, you're the top student in our year, and you don't even know something as basic as that!"
"Hear, hear!"
I stared blankly at the master-servant duo who had suddenly started performing a comedy sketch, then stuck my hands in my pockets and asked.
"More importantly, President, could you just tell me why you suddenly called me to the student council room?"
The vice president pointed a finger at me and said.
"Kim Yoo-Sung! You have too little awareness that you belong to the great student council! Our lady is sad because you never come up to the student council room!"
"…Please, continue."
"A presumptuous rogue like you will be struck down today by me, our lady's loyal servant, Akagi Shinjiro!"
As the vice president's glasses flashed and he shouted, the president, who was listening beside him, blushed and denied it.
"I-I never said I was sad!"
Faced with the utterly chaotic situation unfolding before my eyes, I quietly raised my hand and asked.
"If there's no other business, may I return to my classroom now?"
""No!""
This is driving me crazy.