The Beautiful Kuudere Woman Who Always Reads Books While Standing Next to Me at the Laundromat Turns Out to Be the Vice President of One of Our Clients
It was Saturday afternoon. Tsukishima san was in my room as if it were the most natural thing in the world. We had exchanged words at the laundromat the night before, and now, less than half a day later, we were meeting again. What kind of relationship was this?
We sat side by side on the black Italian sofa, each reading a book we had brought with us. This scene had become our default setting for weekends.
“…..Hey, Minato san. I’m getting bored.”
After a while, Tsukishima san closed the difficult specialized book she had been reading and said boredly.
“That’s unusual. I didn’t think you’d ever get bored of reading.”
“Well, I found some logical inconsistencies in the book…”
She said that, then got up from the sofa and started searching the room for something interesting. She found a dusty box at the back of the bookshelf.
“…What’s this?”
“Oh, that…tt’s nostalgic. It’s ‘The Game of Life.’ I used to play it a lot when I was a child.”
“The Game of Life…hmm, an analog game. A completely manual system that doesn’t require power. Interesting.”
Tsukishima san stared at the box with interest, as if she were an archaeologist who had unearthed a relic from an unknown civilization.
“Want to try it?”
When I asked her, her eyes sparkled.
“Sure. Let’s give it a shot. I’ll find the optimal strategy for this game.”
We spread out the colorful game board on the low table. Plastic cars, occupation cards, treasure cards, and toy currency.
“I see. Everyone starts with flat initial parameters. And the results of the random number generator, the roulette, determine your path. Where does the player’s skill come into play?”
Tsukishima san read the rulebook intently, analyzing it with a serious expression.
“Well, there’s not much skill involved…you can make some strategic choices with job selection and house purchases, but basically, it’s all about luck.”
“Luck…the most unreliable parameter.”
She said that, furrowing her brow slightly in dissatisfaction.
Once the game began, our differing personalities became strikingly evident.
I enjoyed the nostalgic atmosphere, moving my piece intuitively. On the other hand, Tsukishima san was completely serious from the very first job selection.
“…A doctor… It’s a demanding job, but the long-term rewards are significant. But as an engineer, there’s a chance to strike it rich with an invention…but there’s no such move…maybe I’ll just stick with being a doctor.”
She seemed to be calculating the expected value of every card in her head at lightning speed. In the end, she seemed to settle on the “doctor” path.
But life didn’t go as she had planned.
Her pieces kept landing on negative event spaces like “paying taxes” or “paying for car repairs,” as if drawn to them.
“…Why…is this roulette really generating fair random numbers? The internal weights must be off, right?”
Tsukishima san stared intently at the roulette wheel, seriously beginning to suspect a bug in the algorithm.
On the other hand, I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular, but for some reason, my piece kept landing on lucky spaces like clockwork: “Make a fortune in stocks,” “Win the lottery,” “Discover oil.” My little plastic car was quickly filled with toy bills.
And then, the moment finally arrived.
Tsukishima san transformed into an entrepreneur within the game. On the turn where she was about to bet on the biggest business opportunity of her life, her piece landed precisely on the worst possible space—“Company goes bankrupt. Loses all assets”—due to the roulette’s merciless spin.
“………”
Tsukishima san remained silent. Then, in the next instant, she collapsed face-down on the game board.
“……It’s unfair. My strategy was perfect. I chose the logically optimal solutions for risk management and asset allocation. ……But everything was ruined by that uncontrollable parameter called ‘luck’ !”
Seeing her genuinely upset, I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Tsukishima san, you’re really upset…but isn’t that just how life is?”
When I said that, she looked up and glared at me.
“But that’s a flaw in the system. Effort, ability, strategy. Those calculable elements are so easily overwritten by luck, which is completely random noise. …A game full of bugs like that is just a crappy game when you think about it.”
“Well, maybe…but that’s exactly why.”
I quietly sat down next to her.
“If everything were decided solely by ability and strategy, then someone like Tsukishima san, a genius, would always stay at the top. No one could beat her. But because there’s this unfair parameter called luck, even an ordinary person like me can occasionally pull off an upset. There’s a chance for a comeback…and luck isn’t so bad, is it?”
I cut myself off there and looked straight into her eyes.
“The fact that Tsukishima san and I met at the same laundromat was just a coincidence…in other words, it was because we were ‘lucky.’”
“…Maybe it was bad luck instead?”
Tsukishima-san said that with a raised eyebrow.
“Don’t say things that make it sound like you want me to say, ‘That’s not true.’”
Her competitive expression gradually softened.
“…Well, coincidence…I guess.”
She murmured that in a small voice.
“…Indeed, if you calculate the probability of meeting Minato san, it would be an astronomically low number…if that’s the case, then…it would be the luckiest event in my life. The washing machine broke down, I went to the laundromat, started talking to the person there, and that person ended up joining the consulting firm. Well, it’s an impossible probability.”
Those words were almost like a mutter to herself, but they definitely reached my heart.
The outcome of the game no longer mattered.
“…Well, maybe it’s not so bad to have a game where even God can’t adjust the random numbers.”
Tsukishima-san said that with a slight blush, pointing at the game board.
“…Want to play again?”
Looking at her stubborn yet somehow joyful profile, I laughed from the bottom of my heart.
“Yeah, let’s do it. …Next time, it might be my turn to experience the lowest point of my life.”
“Minato san, you don’t have to get married, okay?”
“Just let me do it in the game…”
“No, that’s not allowed. Just do it in real life.”
“But there’s no one to marry…”
Even when I said that, Tsukishima san didn’t say anything. She spun the roulette in silence.
The roulette stopped at 10, and Tsukishima san smiled.
“Minato san, it’s 10. You’re lucky.”
“Huh? If it wasn’t 10, I would have been killed !?”
“Well, I set the conditions myself and gave it a try.”
Tsukishima san said that with a serious expression, not revealing her true intentions, and began setting up the game again from the start.
Maigetsu