Cherish the time

"My friend saw the flyer, so he dragged us along." Shinto explained, "I saw Mr. Ogata at the front desk just now." And his girlfriend.

"Ah... Is that Ogata Baduan?" Natsume sighed, "There are more and more professional chess players... What a headache."

"Oh?" Shinto was a little surprised, "Why do you say that?"

"This competition... At first, it was just a bet made by a group of old men....Whoever wins can eat all they can eat watermelon, and the rest will share the expenses equally." Natsume smiled nostalgicly, "The people who want to participate later More and more, we just made a game... Isn't it interesting for everyone to play chess together."

"Because it's not a competition in the strict sense, it's just a group of old men tossing around. At that time, some professional chess players wanted to participate, and they thought it was nothing, so they were allowed to participate. Of course, there is still a distinction between the professional group and the amateur group."

"It's just that after this year after year, more and more professional chess players participated, and amateur chess players gradually stopped coming..." Old man Natsume sighed, "Sometimes I feel that, don't you There is no point in continuing this competition...?"

Shinto listened to him quietly,

"...At that time, the only old guys who played chess together were me and that guy..." Natsume's voice gradually fell silent, and finally turned into a small murmur.

With a soft "pop", Shinto threw the last chess piece into the chess box, "Natsume Lord..."

The old man ignored him.

"Lord Natsume," Shinto called out again, "The meaning...can be changed through inheritance."

The old man Natsume smiled slightly, and was noncommittal to his words, "Come again, play a game of chess with me."

[-]:[-] p.m., activity room.

As soon as Shindo Hikaru entered the door, he was surrounded by a group of people headed by Mingming.

"Where have you been! Xiaoguang!" Akira Fujisaki punched him in the stomach angrily as soon as he came up, "We have been worried all afternoon!"

"Uh," Shinto rubbed his stomach and explained apologetically, "I went to play chess with someone I know...I didn't expect it would take so long, sorry, sorry."

"Next time you need to tell us something, and you don't have the proper contact information, it will be very troublesome if you get separated." He Gu was much calmer than Fujisaki, and just followed up with Fujisaki's instructions—a very rare thing to show This reminded Shinto of a fact he had almost forgotten: in terms of physical age, Kazuya was actually a year older than him.

"Okay, okay." Shinto didn't want to argue with them, and directly raised his hands in surrender, "The game should start soon... Where is Xiaoliang?"

"He went to the bathroom," Fujisaki replied, "Tsutsui-senpai and Yamazaki-kun just arrived, now go to check in and hand in the registration form-fortunately, Kazuya has already filled out the registration form for them."

"Oh~" Shinto took a meaningful look at Kazuya, seeing that his cheeks were reddish, he couldn't help laughing to himself, "But it's almost seven o'clock..."

As they were talking, Tsutsui and Yamazaki appeared out of breath.

"Ah... finally caught up." Makoto Yamazaki fanned the collar of his T-shirt, "Hey, Hikari! Good evening."

Tsutsui took out the glasses cloth from his pocket, took off his glasses and wiped them off, "Hah... good evening... Shinto-kun!"

"Good evening, you guys came running here?" Shindo raised his eyebrows, "From the front desk to here...isn't it very tiring to run?"

"The waiter at the front desk told us... If we don't arrive before seven o'clock, we will be abstained... Huh..." Tsutsui put on his glasses and took a breath, "Huh...? Where's Taya-kun?"

"I'm here." Taya Ryo's voice suddenly came from behind Shinto, "Good evening, both of you."

As soon as he finished speaking, the lights in the activity room went out all of a sudden, together with the lights outside the corridor, they were annihilated in the darkness one by one.

"Ah ah ah ah ah--! 』Sawei suddenly yelled loudly, jumped up and threw himself on Shinto.

Taking it for granted, his hands passed through Shinto's body, and his whole body lost his center of gravity because of his violent movements. In the next second, his entire body passed through Shinto's body and fell to the ground.

Shinto, who was pierced by Sakai's spirit body, felt a chill from the bottom of his heart instantly, but fortunately, the chill was fleeting, but Shinto shivered uncontrollably.

"They are already ghosts, are you still afraid of the dark?" Shinto looked speechlessly at Sakai who was crouching at his feet, huddled together, "...or are you actually afraid of ghosts?" 』

"Who, so so so so afraid of ghosts!" Zuowei put his head in his hands and shouted, "I, I, I, I was just looking for something!" 』

"..." Shinto Hikari rolled his eyes, adjusted his standing posture, and surrounded the timid ghost within the protection range.

Because no one made a sound all the time, gradually, some small whispers began in the crowd.

Shinto looked down at his watch—his watch was luminous, so it could still be used in this dark environment.

"It's not yet seven o'clock." He said to the people around him, "Don't worry, it should be deliberately putting us in a dark situation and trying to make us nervous."

"Woo..." Fujisaki's voice was already a little crying, "No, there won't be something scary jumping out of nowhere, right?"

"No," He Gu's voice sounded, "We are all here."

"But it's really dark enough... Tokyo can't find a place that can be black like this." This is Tsutsui.

"Because of the rain, there are not even stars and moons tonight." Following Sangu's voice, the sound of chewing gum popping in the air also rang out.

"Well! There are very few people nearby, and there are no merchants, so it's normal to be so dark!" Yamazaki added honestly.

"Woo..." Zuowei was even more flustered by the explanation of this group of brats, his whole head was buried under the sleeves of his hunting clothes and he dared not lift it up.

"Speaking of..." Kurosawa Shigeru's voice sounded leisurely, "...Where did Taya Ryo go?"

"……Huh--?!"

Their exclamation seemed to have activated some terrible switch, and the entire activity room began to exclamate and shout.

Shinto's group of people called Taya Ryo's name a few times, and stood there alertly listening to the calls from all around.

"It seems that it's not just Xiaoliang who disappeared alone..." Shinto calmly made a judgment, "It is very likely that it is a part of the game, we are waiting for the game to start—"

"Little...light...?What's that sound...? ’ Zuo Wei asked tremblingly.

"What? 』Shinto didn't react.

"It's, it's that very lightly... as if dragging a strip of cloth on the ground..."

"Ahhh!" Fujisaki suddenly screamed, "Outside! Outside the corridor—!"

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

Because outside the originally dark corridor, two orange lights suddenly appeared!