Broadening Horizons

Humans react in a variety of ways when they encounter the unfamiliar. Some try to seek the truth behind the mystery, at least with what they have available to them, while others make up their own story and stick to it. I find the latter to be quite frustrating, as it precludes finding out the truth later on, although I do sometimes end up falling into that trap myself in spite of my favoring rational thought, by being to rule out what I deem to be unnatural or impossible. However, some experiences challenged my way of thinking, broadening my horizons and forcing me to learn a great deal.

My name is Haramura Nodoka, and I lived with my mother and father in the town of Achiga. While there, I became friends with some local girls- Takakamo Shizuno, Atarashi Ako, and Matsumi Kuro-san, as we went to the local elementary school's mahjong club together.

After a little over a year, however, my time there ended, when the head family summoned my mother and I to Kagoshima. Mother was part of a branch family of the Jindai family, a large, wealthy and respected family that was long involved in mahjong... and the supernatural.

Shizuno was amazed to hear about this, wondering if that meant I was essentially part of what could be considered modern-day nobility or royalty. I explained that I was not a princess, and could more adequately be described as a vassal to the family.

Ako, however, had some idea of what I had meant. She had recently started attending Adamine Middle School and was essentially one of the lower-ranking players, until she gained experience and seniority. Until then, she would essentially practice, do errands for the club and cheer on the regulars as they competed. None of this was especially glamorous or exciting, but Ako didn't see anything unfair about this arrangement. To be honest, I felt the same way about my arrangement, even if we were not ranked based on seniority or skill.

Of course, I could barely explain all this to my friends when there was so little about it I understood myself. I was honestly surprised when Mother gave me a set of ceremonial miko robes to wear- white robes with a red hakama- saying I would be wearing them quite often, and should get used to them, just as she had. I was also unprepared for the large and traditional Japanese-style home we arrived at once we reached Kagoshima, particularly the long set of stairs needed to get to the top. It was as though we had left the middle of the 21st century and gone back several hundred years in the past.

"The first order of business is to get yourself acquainted with the Princess and the others," Mother said. "Remember that you are to show the Princess the utmost respect and do whatever she tells you to do. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Mother," I said.

"Very good," Mother said. "If you understand that much, it's time for you to meet her."

Mother showed me into a larger room, where several girls my age were sitting, wearing similar miko robes. I immediately recognized the princess from her description- a girl with raven hair with short twintails.

There were four other girls nearby. One was a cheerful girl with an oddly loose robe, as she was short for her age, as well as an odd set of tan lines on her chest, almost as if they were where she wore her swimsuit. Another had short green hair and was eating some kind of snack out of a bag labeled "Muscovado." Another had red hair in a ponytail. Yet another resembled the princess, but had a different hairstyle, with long and flowing dark hair.

"Greetings, Princess," Mother said, bowing low. Following her lead, I did the same. "I would like to introduce my daughter, Haramura Nodoka."

The Princess sat up, almost as if she had just woken up, and quickly returned the bow.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Princess," I said.

I had to admit that, while I was largely well-mannered, it took some adjustment to be this polite to her, a girl about Kuro-san's age. I called Kuro-san by her first name on her request, and while I used "-san" out of respect for her being older, we more or less treated each other as equals.

"It's nice to meet you as well," she said.

The others introduced themselves. The one who looked like the Princess was Iwato Kasumi-san, who was two years older than I was. The child-like girl was Usuzumi Hatsumi-san, and was, surprisingly enough, the oldest girl in the room, being about a month and a half older than Kasumi-san. The girl with red hair was Kariujuku Tomoe, and the girl with green hair and the snacks was Takimi Haru; both of them were my age.

"I need to go talk with the head family," Mother said. "Nodoka, please get acquainted with the Princess and the others."

"Yes, Mother," I said.

"If my parents and the others are expecting you, you may go," the Princess said.

"By your leave, Princess," Mother said, bowing.

As Mother left, I was left alone in the room with the Princess and the others, and the Princess and I spent a moment sizing each other up. The Princess and Mother were reasonably polite to each other, but had never interacted much, partly because their differences in age and social standing made things complicated. I knew Shizuno and Ako's mothers, as well as Kuro-san's father, but I had not seen them as often as their respective daughters. I was used to interacting with adults comfortably while showing the appropriate respect, but it was another thing to speak with someone who was close to my age but so far above me in status.

The Princess, however, was the one to break the silence.

"I'm sorry about earlier, Nodoka-chan," the Princess said. "I do occasionally nod off at times. Please feel free to wake me up when that happens."

"I'll do what I can, Princess," I said.

"You should relax a little, Nodoka-chan," Kasumi said. "Komaki-chan may be heiress to the main family, but she does not think of herself as superior to any of us."

"Komaki-chan?" I said, surprised. Was this girl calling the Princess by her first name as well as "chan" when she was within earshot? My mother had always called her "the Princess," or "Jindai Komaki-sama" when referring to her by name, so why was this girl being so familiar with her?

"Kasumi-chan and I are quite close," the Princess said, "enough so that no one minds her speaking with me so informally. As for the rest of you, it's as she said; I think of you all as family and friends, rather than servants. I hope we will get along well, Nodoka-chan."

That they had to relay such a basic fact to me showed me how much of an outsider I was, and I had yet to see the most bizarre parts of it all.

"I hope so as well, Princess," I said.

"As for the rest of us, feel free to use our first names," Kasumi-san said. "Since we're all part of the same family, it seems most natural."

"That sounds reasonable, Kasumi-san," I said.

"Shall we play a game of mahjong to see how you do, Nodoka-chan?" Hatsumi-san said.

"I'd be interested," I said.

"Great," Kasumi said. "I'm interested in seeing how you do. Haru-chan, Tomoe-chan, let's play against Nodoka-chan."

I played against Kasumi-san, Haru and Tomoe, with each of us starting with 25,000 points. Playing at an actual table was different than the digital mahjong I often played in the same time, but I had the upper hand in speed and won several valuable hands, even if Kasumi-san was able to avoid playing into mine. In the end, I won, with 37,000 points, compared to Kasumi-san's 29,000, Haru's 18,000 and Tomoe's 16,000.

Something, however, seemed suspicious. It seemed natural that I could win against Haru and Tomoe, both of whom were my age, but Kasumi-san seemed to be holding back, not going for any big plays or tossing out any risky tiles to try to move her hand along.

"So far, it seems like you're fairly good, Nodoka-chan," Kasumi said. "You clearly know what you're doing and have a strong basic playstyle. "

"Basic playstyle?" I said, confused. Did they have special house rules for playing mahjong?

"Some of us, like Hatsumi-chan, Komaki-chan and I have special talents of our own that help with mahjong," Kasumi-san said. "I went easy on you, so I could learn about how you played and learn more about you, but one of the things I learned was that I didn't have to go easy on you."

"I still don't get it," I said. "Some say mahjong's nothing more than a game of luck, but I don't know what sort of talents you need apart from the ability to make snap judgments and read the flow of the game."

"I see; it might be better if we demonstrated it to you," Kasumi-san said before turning to the Princess. "Komaki-chan, let's swap positions."

The Princess, who had been quiet throughout the game and the post-game analysis, momentarily looked surprised, or perhaps as though she had just woken up.

"Yes, Kasumi-chan," the Princess said, and sat where Kasumi-san had been during our game. We then started a new one.

The early game had little that stood out in my mind. Each of us won a few games each, and I was gradually pulling ahead, while the Princess gradually fell behind.

The Princess played into my hand, losing 12,000 points, when she discarded a tile that, if she'd kept it, would have landed her at one tile from tenpai, with any of the tiles she could have discarded being relatively safe. It was an amateur mistake, and she should have known, based on my pattern of discards, that a three of bamboo was what I needed to complete the last pair I needed for my hand.

But how could I say it? Even if it seemed like an obvious mistake, criticizing her would likely be overstepping my bounds. There was clearly a line between the occasional gentle ribbing Kasumi-san and the others did on the princess, and openly criticizing her.

The Princess appeared to nod off, which I noticed just as her turn came around again. I wondered if the time had come to speak up, until something odd happened.

"Tsumo," the Princess said, before taking 12,000 points from me, as dealer, and 6,000 from Haru and Tomoe, having apparently gotten ippatsu with a carefully calculated wait. If I had been doing an online match, I would have assumed that someone had stepped in for her, but none of us had gotten up, and the Princess, sitting across from me, had never left my sight.

Two hands later, the Princess won a counted yakuman as dealer, putting all her opponents- myself included- below zero points.

I had trouble believing what I was seeing. And I had even more trouble believing what I saw next- the Princess waking up.

"Ah, I'm sorry, I nodded off again," the Princess said, oblivious as to what happened.

"Congratulations, Komaki-chan," Kasumi said. "You won."

"Thank you, Kasumi-chan," the Princess said, still somewhat embarrassed, before turning back to me. "But is something wrong, Nodoka-chan?"

"I'm just shocked at what I saw, Princess," I said. "You got off to a weak start, fell asleep during the game, and became incredibly skilled."

"Didn't your mother tell you anything about what we do, Nodoka-chan?" Hatsumi-san said. "The Princess can serve as host to eight powerful goddesses, each of which has its own abilities. You didn't even see the most powerful one."

"I had heard about that before," I said. "I merely didn't believe it at the time; even now, it seems hard to get my head around it."

"It's not all that impressive," the Princess said modestly. "I'm still in training, and cannot yet fully control my power. I have to rely on Kasumi-chan's help to some degree."

What the Princess said surprised and intrigued me, even if it still sounded like little more than a fairy tale. Most accounts I heard of the supernatural involved it being some unknowable force, its effects only explainable by some variant of "it's magic." You either were born with the gift, or you were just like everyone else. Practice seldom did any good, even if people had varying degrees of natural talent, apart from their degrees of power. Perhaps you could learn a little about how to most effectively utilize your gift, but you couldn't strengthen your control on it.

"So what about the rest of you?" I said, wondering what else I would hear about. "I believe the Princess mentioned something about Kasumi-san being helpful in some way?"

"Kasumi-san has gifts of her own, which is is quite instrumental for the Princess," Tomoe said, "and Hacchan has a special ability that helps her score yakumans as long as she is in the north seat. But Haruru and I are simply ordinary people like you, Nodoka. We do what we can to be of help to the Princess."

"And I do my best for the others," the Princess said. "In spite of my status, I am just another member of the team."

"To be honest," I said, "I'm still getting used to the idea of all of this, having a Princess to serve, and all the supernatural powers."

"I know what you mean," Hatsumi-san said. "I've been here for a couple years, and even Kasumi-chan, the relative newcomer, has been here a while. It's a bit much to expect you to get used to all this on your first day."

"I know," I said. "But new or not, I'll do my best."

The others nodded appreciatively. This resolution was the most they could ask of me at this point, and they, too were doing what they could to accommodate me and help me get acclimatized to the family.

If I said I was committing to this endeavor entirely for the sake of the Princess or the rest of the family that I don't know, I would have been telling a lie. I had made a good first impression on these girls, and I believed that I liked them so far, but it was a bit too soon to be calling them friends or family, even if I would, in all likelihood, be with them for a while. It would be even less honest of me to say that I believed all of what they were saying about gods, spirits and special powers, although expressing my honest beliefs out loud would most likely be taboo at this point.

But this seemed like an interesting change of pace, a chance to face new opponents and bring my mahjong play to the next level. I hoped that I would become closer to the Princess and the others in the process, since it was always nice to make new friends who shared your interests, and to bond with your family. If I ended up believing in, or at least coming to accept, the supernatural side of all this, perhaps that would be an acceptable result. They say that when you spend a long time in close proximity with other people, they rub off on you, and there are worse ways that I could be influenced. It's what life's all about; of new experiences and broadening horizons.


Author's Notes

Thank you for reading this.

For now, this is a one-shot, but I may expand on it more in the future, possibly doing a timeskip to the present day. It's something of an experiment in writing mahjong scenes through first-person narration. Mahjong can be difficult to write when your only exposure to it comes through Saki, and more difficult to write in an interesting manner in a text-based fanfic. Of course, it's also the central part of the story, and so many longer fics require the characters to be shown playing it at some point, lest the story feel as though it's missing something.

Because of this, I decided to come to an alternate solution; the characters narrate from the first person and tell about the important and significant parts of the match, instead of giving a play-by-play. They also depend on their importance to the plot; while the first match with Nodoka, Haru, Tomoe and Kasumi was of limited importance (similar to Nodoka's first practice game in Achiga-hen), the second one with Komaki instead of Kasumi is shown in more detail, and more critical ones would be shown in even more detail. Perhaps by doing things this way, I will be able to create mahjong scenes that fit better with my style of writing and are easier to read. As such, feedback is especially appreciated.

The fic is somewhat humorous in nature, as it involves Nodoka, a skeptic, ending up in an environment in which supernatural mahjong powers are not only common, but a way of life. Naturally, this will involve a great deal of adjustment for her, and she's only getting started.

Nodoka's family had to be changed around for this fic and I decided to show her mother being part of one of the branch families that comprise Komaki's extended family, since her father (who dismissively refers to mahjong as a game of luck) doesn't fit well in all this.

On a minor note, Tomoe doesn't have her glasses yet.