Chapter 3: 3. Tachibana Yori has an energetic kouhai

"Yes, remember to finish your homework next time!"

The 28-year-old asian clicked the button to end the video conferencing call with his student.

He rubbed his eyes and leaned back in his chair.

Private lessons were a staple part of Tachibana Yori 's daily routine. As a five-dan professional go player, the (日本棋院) paid a stipend that covered Yori's living expenses, but it wasn't exactly like playing board games was a particularly lucrative career. Their association was actually funded by the Japanese government (Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism), which also meant that his annual salary was a sensitive to the parliament's budget. Go was a "non-essential" industry, so you can probably imagine that it was typically one of the first departments to see their fiscal budgets slashed whenever the conservatives gained a majority in the National Diet.

The reality was that most professional go players were unable to sustain themselves on tournament winnings and game fees. Although major international tournaments like the had a prize pool around 300 million won ($266,000), the bulk of it went to top players, whereas most professionals barely had their transportation fees covered.

It was probably more accurate to say that Tachibana Yori taught go classes for a living.

...except there were many inconvenient strings attached, in the sense that the government practically controlled his life. If the Ministry of Culture wanted a publicity stunt or photo shoot with a foreign dignitary in Kyoto, they tapped professionals like Yori to step in. The easiest way to understand this was to compare it to sumo wrestling, which was similarly funded by Japan's Ministry of Culture. However, most of a professional sumo wrestler's career was to act as a circus clown whenever the Queen of England arrived for a state visit.

It really was not a glamorous job.

The pay was poor and the hours were unpredictable.

However, it was one of the few things that Yori had been good at in high school — exceptional, in fact. When Yori was sixteen, he ranked fourth place at junior nationals, which was already incredible by ordinary standards. However, the world of international competition was always brutal. The sea is vast, and there is always a bigger fish. Even if he was rank number one in Ibaraki Prefecture, Yori faded into obscurity when it came to tournaments on the international stage.

Nobody really cared unless you were the world champion.

+ + +

Yori's phone vibrated in silent mode, but it shook audibly on the desk.

The 28-year-old picked it up, read the message, and then frowned.

"Is it really that urgent?" Yori murmured underneath her breath.

Yori's online friend — Stellaroze — was practically begging her to log online.

They had been friends for a few years, and Yori talked with her regularly, but Stellaroze was a little bit of a drama queen. To be fair, they were more than eight years apart (Stella was 19), and like many young adults Stellaroze was especially melodramatic about her personal life on virtual reality. Tachibana Yori was genuinely sympathetic, but the 28-year-old was getting a little too old for teenager drama.

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Originally, they had starting talking mainly because Stella found out that Yori was transgender(?). 

It was probably a bit shallow, but their first serious conversation went something like this:

"Omg I'm trans too! I've never met an oldYori wasn’t even that old… trans person! And you have a fiancé? We should be friends!"

...and then Stellaroze clung to Yori like a cheerful puppy.

Every couple of months, Stella would message Yori asking for advice about starting or coming out of the closet, which Yori would respond to at the best of her ability. Yet ironically, Yori couldn't give very much advice about , since she had only been on estrogen for a brief period of time. Yori tried to make it clear that they were nonbinary, and they were different in a lot of other ways, so it probably wasn't very useful to seek advice from her, but Stellaroze didn't really seem to care.

Whenever the 19-year-old teenager had an issue, Stella came crashing through the door.

Yori's cell phone vibrated non-stop with text messages.

「 Don't you work from home??? Yori-sensei, just come and finish your work on virtual reality~」

「Daisuki, onegai - [puppy_dog_eyes.gif] -」

「Tasukete... chotto tasukete kudasai masenka... ｡ﾟ( ﾟஇ‸இﾟ)ﾟ｡」

「I promise to buy spicy BL for you when I go to , obaasama.」

Tachibana Yori's eyes twitched reflexively at Stellaroze's usage of Japanese (which was spelled out completely in English). Moreover, that idiot even had the audacity to threaten her with hentai manga, which was a new all-time low among the various underhanded tactics that Stellaroze had attempted in the past.

The 28-year-old sighed and buried his face in his arms.

...If he wanted to read BL, Yori didn't trust Stellaroze to pick out the manga he liked anyways.

That girl was seriously too much for one person to handle.

∎

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