[Digital Night Tales] Rei Chapter #2 The Mercy of Chopstick Divination

The second floor of the pleasure quarter.

Yugiri gazes at the lights of the flower district reflected on the shoji screen.

She quietly rises from her bedding and adjusts the hem of her undergarment.

She gently touches her little finger to her lips.
Suddenly looking up, she sees her own reflection in the mirror at the back.
Long eyelashes, white skin.
The smudged rouge tells the story of the long night.

She stands up slowly, faces the mirror, and applies rouge.

Casually, she stares at the chopsticks on the tray beside her.
Bamboo chopsticks with patterns only on the handles.

On a whim, she decides to try chopstick divination.
She picks up three pairs.
The handles of each are different colors.

If I draw three and all three colors match, then I too shall have the protection of Kannon-sama.

—...The handle of these chopsticks is navy.

Another pair
—...The handle of these chopsticks is the color of the sky.

Another pair
—...The handle of these chopsticks is the color of ash.

She holds the three pairs, six chopsticks in total, in her left hand and tries drawing them one by one.

First, the first one.
—...The color of the sky.

She draws the second one.
—...Ash.

She draws the third one.
—...Navy.

In the distance, she can hear the sound of fireworks over the Sumida River.

*

"Hmm, it's always like this, isn't it."

—Is something the matter?

Right now, I am preparing dinner at home.
Across the counter kitchen, at the dining table, is Rei.

Rei is a DAIV that connects to my office PC via remote desktop.

She is my secretary who follows me everywhere.
A matte white body.
……No, she looks good in a white dress shirt.

She is excellent, and she is incredibly beautiful when she takes off her intellectual glasses.

“It’s nothing really, but….

I bought a pack of three cooking chopsticks at a 100-yen shop, each with a different pattern on the handle.”

――And what about that?

“I make the main dish and miso soup at the same time, so it’s fine to have two pairs out.
　But since I was at it, I took all three pairs out.”

――How generous of you.
　　……And then?

“From a hygiene perspective, I put the handle side into the chopstick holder.
　So from the outside, they all look the same.”

――If you put the only part you can distinguish into the holder, you wouldn't be able to tell them apart, would you?

“Yeah. When I go to use them and pull out two, the patterns don't match.
　That happens often.
　But then I pull out a third one. And all three have different patterns.”

“All three have different patterns.
　……That happens often.

　And what’s more……, I feel like it happens one out of every two times.

　Rei,
　I must surely be a ‘man with bad luck’ from birth.”

――Pfft.

Rei burst out laughing.

“What is it, Rei? Did I say something funny?”

――Hehehe, excuse me.
　Owner, that is not the case.

　Rest assured, Owner. It’s like that for everyone.
　Drawing three and having all three be different colors.
　It’s actually a surprisingly high probability.”

“Eh?”

――First, let’s consider the case where the first two you draw have the same pattern.

　The first one can be any pattern.
　There are five left. Among them, there is only one chopstick with the same pattern as the first one.
　So, the probability of drawing a chopstick with the same pattern as the first one is 1/5.

"The odds of a match are 1/5.
The odds of a mismatch are 4/5... which means eighty percent of the time, the chopsticks won't match."

--That's right.
Next, let's consider the probability that the third chopstick will have a different pattern than the two already drawn.

Since two have been drawn, there are four chopsticks remaining.
Two of those four are chopsticks with patterns not yet drawn.
If you draw either of those, all three will have different patterns.

Two out of four... 1/2. This is the reality behind 'it happens once every two times'.

"I see... First, two are different colors. If the third one is also different, I'd think I was unlucky.

...It's a cognitive error."

--That's right, Owner.

There is no such thing as an unlucky man anywhere.

*

--How about it? Do you understand now, Owner?

--But, Owner. Don't you think this is interesting?

People cooked then just as they do now, and the probabilities haven't changed.

People in the past might have felt the same ups and downs with chopstick divination as you just did, Owner.

"That's true... I think so."

"...But you know, Rei.
Life was much harder in the past than it is now.
There were people who had no choice but to place themselves in a world of suffering.

Those people might have used the chopsticks at hand to divine their tomorrow.

Even if it was just probability, I wonder if they didn't find hope in the results."

--That's right, Owner.

Chopstick divination,
a tea stalk standing upright.

They might have been hoping for happiness much more than we do now.

*

Yugiri opens the shoji door and thinks.

--Someday...

Someday, something good might happen.

She thinks of the Sumida River fireworks, which she cannot see.

[Digital Night Tales] Rei Chapter #2 The Mercy of Chopstick Divination End

Previous Article

Next Article