1 Kawaī ohimesama no tame ni 2-ri no bodīgādo-

CHAPTER 1: Two bodyguards for a princess

My name is Takusha, Takusha Abe, I'm 15 years old and in highschool.

In my free I play baseball as a batter in a team that me and some friends from school formed some years ago. I love baseball, but I don't plan on playing as a professional, my plans are entering in the Tokyo University and study literature.

What I'm going to tell can sound crazy, but it really happened.

All started last Spring; my best friend, Masao, and I had finished classes that day and went on our way to the baseball pitch to play some baseball. We took the same way we use to take when going from school to the baseball pitch because the way is shorter and we don't have to walk a lot. Masao couldn't get his look off of the posters on the stores' showcases which announced the next play between our favourite team, the Osaka Bears and the Yokohama Samurai. Masao read the posters while walking, I was trying to read them, too, and that was how it took as by surprise. A beautiful and angelical voice made us stop and look ahead us.

-Do you live here? –asked a girl who didn't seem to be older than 12 looking at us with tenderness and innocent eyes. We thought for some seconds why she asked that, but we ended up replying, she couldn't be dangerous.

-Ah, yes… are you lost? –I asked then. Sincerely, I didn't know why else she could be asking such thing. She then shook her head. Then she took both of her hands behind her back, walked around us like inspecting us and finished drawing an even bigger smile on her face.

Masao and I stopped looking at her, we didn't understand what did she want. But in other hand, we couldn't let her alone, she really could be lost.

-Well, we have to go or will be late –said Masao in my ear.

The baseball pitch was our property, well… if we can tell, when we found it, it was abandoned, with tall grass and lot of trash scattered around. As it was huge and was near of our school, we thought that it could be perfect to be our baseball pitch, so the following day we told to the rest of the team about it and everyone helped to clean it up,

But before doing it, we asked in the neighbourhood if although dirty it hadn't an owner, and as they said it hadn't, there wasn't any problem.

However, as it wasn't locked or even gated, some guys used to get into our pitch and use it as it was their. So, we didn't have time to waste, we had to run to the pitch immediately after school to be able to play.

-Ah… excuse me, but we have to go –I said to the girl trying to be gentle because I didn't want her to be offended or something because we were leaving her. But she just continued to smile.

-Okay, you two seem to be in a hurry.

And as soon as she said this, started to walk off the way we walked to get there.

We arrive in time and could play a match, before that went for some hot dogs to a stand near of the pitch, which led us to chat and lose track of time.

Masao and I lived in the same street, so we said good night and left because it was getting dark.

We decided to take the same way we took to go to the baseball pitch but take the street before to go home. Incredibly, the girl from that evening was there. She was rested against a wall reading a paper. Discretely, Masao could see what that paper was about and ended up being a pamphlet about the baseball match we wanted to go. She should pick it up from the floor because there were a lot of them on that street and around. So Masao spoke to her:

-Do you like baseball?

She take off her eyes from the pamphlet and placed her eyes on Masao's face with curiosity.

-What is baseball? –she asked.

We both blinked with such question.

-Don't you know baseball? –I asked.

She shook her head. So I explained everything about this great sport, her eyes seemed to shine with every word that came out from my mouth. She payed much attention and laugh at the imaginary battings we did to maker the explanation funnier.

Some minutes after we finished our explanation, she pulled out a paper from her stockings, unfolded it and smiled; then she looked at us and shouted with a big happiness:

-It's you! It's you! You're my bodyguards!

Masao said that it would have been fun to have seen our faces when we heard that.

-B-Bodyguards? –I asked surprised. She nodded.

-It's written here –said pointing to the paper that was holding-, who know a lot and can make feel the princess comfortable, are going to be their bodyguards while her staying in the big city of Tokyo.

Definitely, someone had to take a picture of our faces.

-Princess? –asked Masao this time.

She nodded again.

-My name is Botan Hayami, princess of the Deer Kingdom –she introduced herself bowing.

Masao and I fell down.

-P-Princess?... –I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

-It has to be a joke –said Masao putting his face of always again.

-It is not –said Botan approaching to my friend-, it is true, I'm a princess and I was sent in a mission alone, so I need someone to take care of me.

She told us about it: her mother was the one who gave her the news a week ago:

-Botan, you're already 14, you know what does it mean, right?

-Yes, mother, from now on if something happen to you, I'll be the only one able to ascend the throne and take care of the kingdom.

Her mother nodded and then added:

-And you already know this carries the reponsability of know all and every of your people, so that, the following week you'll be heading to the capital to learn about the people that live there; you will study their feelings, their manners, their lifestyle, everything, and once you have understood all and you think that you're able to help them at any situation, you will return here and the title of substitue queen will be your. That means that if sometime I have to go out, you will be the responsible one here.

Botan listened to all this but was a little afraid. She knew all the protocol, she knew the real rules, but although she was 14, she didn't feel sure of herself like to replace her mother someday.

So the following week she was taken in a big black car to the center of Tokyo, she thought that the escort that accompanied her was to stay there with her, but he just gave her a folded paper, got on the car and left. Botan unfolded the paper and read it quickly and after that, her search began. This was how she found us, after walking around the city for two days.

She didn't seem to be dangerous, in fact she was very innocent. In that moment, looking at her I thought that she will have a long way to walk if she really was a princess and was destined to take her mother's place in the future, before anything she will need to get stronger. Let's say for the moment I believed her, though we really didn't.

-Then, where am I going to live? –she asked looking at us with bright eyes.

-Hold on a second, please –I said and gave some steps away from her to talk with Masao.

-She can't stay at my house –I said-, my mother would never believe that she's a princess and would think that I just want to have a girl at home.

-Well, I cannot, too, Takusha. My mother is a miko* and my grandfather a priest, if you mother could think that you just want to have a girl at home because… well, the thing is that my mother thinks in a worst way than yours.

I sighed, what could we do? With all the thing of the bodyguards she had to stay with one of us.

-Okay, I will hide her at home. The attic is locked since some years ago so I don't think my parents can go, I'll clean up the place and arrange it so she can live there. I just hope my parents don't find her…

-My mother goes to the shrine every weekend, she'll be our responsibility so I can take her home with me on weekends –said Masao.

-Thanks. That'll help a lot, Masao.

We returned with Botan and I told her that she'll be living with me and Masao interrupted me to add that will be living with him on weekends. I don't know why, but I felt an intense warm in the deepest of my heart when she jumped and hugged me.

To be continued.

*Priestess.