less lofty peaks

On the screen in front of them, two women in formal dress lean over tatami, poised with coiled kinetic energy over a set of cards splayed out nearly between them. Behind the two players, a reader belts the opening lines to the next poem and they both lurch forward, but manage to stop their momentum before they careen ahead. The card must not be in the playing field then. The chyron beneath the two women declares that the darker-haired player is the reigning Queen, the top female player, Wakamiya Shinobu. The other woman, her light hair pulled back into a ponytail, is the challenger, Chihaya Ayase. “It’s karuta,” Akito says, the image of green cards swirling in her head. She’d bought them once in a fit of boredom, intent on unearthing a new hobby, but she’d given up shortly after she memorized the hundred poems since no one in the estate would be bothered to play with her. ---------Akito and Tohru catch the tail end of the Queen match and decide to give karuta a try.