Brief Separation And A Sports Trainer (2)

In a quiet corner of the city of Nara, the capital city of the Nara Prefecture, Kansai Region, Japan, a place which is known for having the most UNESCO World Heritage listings than other prefecture in Japan, a pretty large mansion lies. Surrounding it were pretty standard Japanese 2LDK houses. They are connected by a dividing wall with each properties having a quite spacious backyard and/or frontyard.

In front of the large mansion, a little boy around 7-8 years old and a gentle looking office lady who's in the prime of her life is standing beside him. These two are Arisugawa Seiji and his family's very reliable maid, Mia. They just arrived here in Nara and is yet to be acquainted with the neighbors who are currently gossiping about them.

While entering the mansion which is three sizes smaller than the Arisugawa clan's mansion, Seiji and Mia heard the townsfolk gossip about them. The pretty harsh sounding Kansai accent showed up as they talked amongst themselves in a pretty high pitched voice.

You see, when Kansai people talk, vowel reduction occurs rather rarely. In standard Japanese, when they say 'desu' they only say "des", while in Kansai, people speak the whole word without leaving the vowel. Intervocalic /g/ is either pronounced as /ŋ/ or /g/. The use of /h/ in place of /s/; for example, the suffix '-san' is pronounced as '-haN'.

Many people often describes Kansai dialect as something similar to how people from Texas speak Texan. Due to their harsh way of speaking, their speech became closely associated with Japanese comedy and people from other regions often thought of them as someone talkative or funny.

In fact, Seiji often hear some people from Tokyo talk in Kansai dialect to provoke laughter and humor. Probably one of the reasons why people from Kansai region have a strong regional rivalry against Tokyo.

While traversing the pathway leading to the entrance door of the mansion, Seiji decided to open up a conversation. He felt bored just walking so silently like this.

"They're quite blunt aren't they?"

Mia was visibly puzzled at first as she inquired, "Who, Seiji-kun?"

"I mean those new neighbors of ours."

"Ohh… It's just something normal around here in Kansai Seiji-kun. They mean no harm."

Seiji nodded his head at her words.

"I know. It's just that, isn't it quite refreshing to hear blunt people speak when you just came from a mansion filled with stiff personnels and such?"

Mia once again let out a rare chuckle before replying, "That is indeed the case, isn't it?"

The two once again fell into silence as they walked towards the entrance door. Thankfully, they finally arrived at the front door. When Mia opened the door for Seiji, a habit that she formed after years of working under the Arisugawa clan, she and Seiji were greeted by three maids, accompanied by a gardener.

There's no butlers since Seiji asked to not have one. In fact, he said to his parents that he didn't need a servant but Rentarou and especially Hanna insisted on hiring a few maids to look after the house for him and a gardener to look after the plants.

"Welcome home, young master."

Upon hearing their greetings, Seiji waved his hands with a wry smile on his face and said something that took the servants aback.

"Please don't address me as such. Just call me by my given name 'Seiji'. It would be great if you can address me without any suffix, too."

"…"

Silence ensued as the servants looked at each other in a rather confused manner. However, before they could say anything, Seiji continued his speech.

"…You guys are from around these area, right? And by area, I mean this region of Kansai."

"Haa… we do hail from this region," one of the maids answered. She's a brunette with light brown colored irises. She seems to just be around 18 or 19 by the looks of it.

"If so, then wouldn't this kind of speech make you feel kinda restricted? You guys don't speak this way in your everyday life, after all…"

As Seiji reasoned with them, the servants couldn't help but think whether Seiji woke up at the wrong side of the bed today. They signed up to this job knowing that they will have to speak in a much more formal way. However, hearing that their young master who they're about to serve is saying something like dropping formalities, the servants couldn't help but feel at a loss.

Eventually though, the servants all agreed to not call him young master, albeit reluctantly. As for the dropping the formalities part, they all unanimously agreed to ignore that part.

※・※・※・※

After moving houses from Tokyo to Nara, Seiji's life have progressed smoothly. He's still not attending elementary school as he continued his home schooling. With more free time in his hands, Seiji continued his training régimes like there's no tomorrow.

During his time at the Arisugawa clan's mansion, Seiji picked up a whole bunch of régimes. He participated in Hanna's daily meditations to keep his mind sharp and yoga exercises to familiarize himself with his body's flexibility. He picked up his father's habit of playing games like chess, sudoku, and puzzle games to further sharpen his mind and memory.

Seiji also joined in his sister's gymnastics training. This gave him the much needed knowledge of how to achieve a near precise control over his body's movement mid air. He figured that, if he really wanted to play basketball on a high level, he needs to know how to use his body more efficiently.

Lately, however, Seiji have a feeling that this training isn't enough. He thought, maybe, it's time to hire a sports trainer to assist him in his growth. And so, later that day, Mia went around looking for an appropriate sports trainer for Seiji. Preferably someone who have a rich basketball experience.

While waiting, Seiji decided to take a rest and watch some IBA action. During this time, the IBA is still in it's regular season so players weren't really showing their 100% in every match. It just felt that way to Seiji since he saw some players doing some lackadaisical movements that just feels off for some reason.

Just as he was feeling bored, a new match just started and the commentators started to do their job.

Commentator A: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to today's match! This is where we'll witness one of the top contenders of the league, the USA's Warriors, square off against Germany's Barbarians. Partner, what do you think about today's matchup?

Commentator B: I think that this will be an exciting match to watch partner! As we all know, the Warriors got a very wide pool of talent joining their team every season. However, due to this, some of the talents often go to other teams in order to have more chances of playing in the international stage.

Commentator A: Yep, you're right about that partner. There's really such a thing as having too much talent, huh. Anyway, as you've mentioned it, we'll witness one of such players face off against the players of his motherland. DeAndre Paul, what do you think about this player partner?

Commentator B: I… I think he's a very good player. He's got the range, the accuracy, the ability to create space to make his own shots… I think he's a really good player.

Commentator A: Well, the only thing he just don't have is the humbleness needed to play with equally talented players…

A brief pause in the conversation appeared as the two commentators looked at each other with a smirk before chuckling.

Commentator A: Hahaha! Well, anyway, back to the game! As we can see, Paul got the ball on his hands as he is trying to get back the points that they lost during the tip off.

Commentator B: It looks like this is an isolation play partner. Oh! He switched defenders with Meyer!

Commentator A: Looks like they wanted to target the smaller Holiday.

Commentator B: However, Holiday is a pretty good defensive player. Will he be able to make the shot?

Commentator A: Looks like we're about to see if he can partner.

Commentator B: Yep, it's already starting. A change of pace to throw off Holiday, followed by a crossover AND a drive towards the rim! It looks like he really wanted to drive towards the hoop!

Commentator A: No! It was a fake! He stepped back… OHHH the ankles INTO a pull up jumper! What a play by Paul.

Commentator B: A great fake from him. It was a nice read by Holiday. He knew that Paul was going to go for a drive to his left so he pursued but he lost his balance when he tried to follow during Paul's step back.

Commentator A: Now, the Barbarians are up by 1 point due to that three point play…

As Seiji is just starting to enjoy the show, a voice from behind him interrupted him.

"Seiji-kun. Sorry to interrupt but I have already found a trainer for you."

"Oh? Who is it Mia?"

At Seiji's question, Mia just smiled before showing him a pile of documents. It was the profile of someone who seems to be a man around his late 30's. On the name section it reads, Aida Kagetora.

※・※・※・※

To be continued…

[A/N¹: Hey there you wonderful people! I'm just gonna say that those things I've written in this chapters about Kansai region and Kansai dialect is only something I looked up on the internet. I'm not fully trusting the internet and the information posted there so you guys should take it with a grain of salt.]

[A/N²: I've read some articles on the internet saying that Kansai dialect is described as something people from the countryside use. I'm also from the countryside and I have to agree that we often use a harsher version of our mother tongue most of the time. This is just in my opinion though. I've never been to Osaka and the places around it so I don't have concrete information as to whether or not those articles are true. I posted this here just in case someone were to read it and think that what I wrote here are absolute facts. Nope, not all of these are facts.]