Monday finally came, and the three of us met up in the clubroom after school. The agreed upon venue was Kishi’s high school, who had agreed to keep the gates open late for us. Since it was technically an inter-school tournament I suspected that Kishi had swindled in them into believing it was a way bigger deal than it was. Lying and being dramatic were his only real talents, after all.
“Well then, with all of us here, shall we begin our trek? We oughtn’t delay any further,” Sai said impatiently.
“Yep, I’m all ready to leave. You with us, Pep?”
“Yeah, let’s knock some heads!”
“It’s chess, not boxing, you fool.”
“Your opponent can’t checkmate you if he’s unconscious.”
“You truly may be the genius of our generation.”
“But of course, I am as wise as I am magnanimous, you ungrateful peasant. Now before the mighty Pep-“
“Ahem.” Sai cleared her throat loudly, clearly irritated that Pep and I had begun mindlessly bantering like a pair of automata. Getting the hint from her annoyed expression, we actually started moving with her.
Our schools were surprisingly close to one another, less than a half hour’s walk, which was good because no buses took us close enough to justify taking them. I would have to do something that was generally against my code of ethics: physical exercise. As if Kasparov himself had forsaken me.
“So, how you guys feeling about the games? Confident?” I asked, not wanting conversation to lull into awkward silence.
“I cannot say I’m ‘confident’ about a game in which I know nothing about the opposing player, but I am prepared to put my all into winning. I must admit, you’ve wounded my pride with your recent victories over me, and I would like to claim some of it back,” Sai replied calmly. Despite so boldly declaring her motive, she didn’t seem nervous at all. She was cool and resolute, which I had to respect.
“I haven’t had my ass kicked at chess for over a week just to fall apart now. I’ll give it everything I have.” Pep clapped her hands together loudly, seemingly excited, after which she turned her head to me and whispered “besides, I’ve got something big riding on this, don’t I?”
“I-I guess so…”
Right, Pep had declared that she’d confess her true feelings if she won her game today. Despite my less than stellar relationship with Sai, I was definitely rooting for Pep here. If she confessed to Sai and they ended up dating, Pep would finally have a partner with an IQ that couldn’t be found on a standard ruler.
Still, the thought did give me a slight tightness in my chest. I suppose I was dreading becoming the inevitable third wheel. Especially what with Sai believing Peppi and I to have feelings for one another, and Peppi believing that I was a better match for Sai than her.
Good grief. The awkward conversations I could already foresee.
“What about you, then? How is our oh-so-noble captain feeling about facing an opponent he hasn’t seen in several years?” Sai asked, utterly oblivious to Pep and I’s exchange.
“Me? I’m looking forward to it. Stomping the pair of you has honestly gotten a little stale, and playing online doesn’t have the same personal satisfaction of crushing someone in person. I’ll be happy for a new opponent to obliterate.”
“Unbelievable. How does this man manage to be the most pessimistic person on Earth right up until he has an excuse to brag? What a wretched existence you are.”
“Yes, the world would be a better place without me, I’m well aware. That’s why I stick around.”
Despite Sai’s exasperation, I wasn’t entirely putting on airs. Pep was obviously far too new to the game to be a challenging opponent, and I could pretty much beat Sai on command, albeit with more difficulty, which meant the only OTB games that I could fully enjoy were those I played against Yaki. You’d think after over a decade of playing together we’d find one another’s playstyles stale, but because we knew each other so well we were also constantly coming up with new ways to counter each other. But of course, no little sister wants to while away her time entertaining her antisocial older brother’s chess fixation, so we only ended up playing a few games a week. So a fresh opponent to beat was something I was seriously glad to have.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Why was I so sure I’d win, you ask? Well that’s simple. It was because the person I was up against was the human avatar of failure himself. In the time Kishi and I were in the same school, I obliterated him at every turn. And not just in chess. Test scores, physical activities, even my social circle was more active than his. Granted, I didn’t become a complete loner until after I moved to my current shithole of a school, but still, having fewer friends than the introvert with a resting bitch face must be embarrassing.
So I knew I would kick his ass. I had never once failed to do so. I carried that confidence all the way through the trek to the school.
***
“You challenged me to a match but you don’t even have the balls to play me yourself?!”
“I challenged thee to a club match. ‘Tis thy three against my three, and as I am not the most competent player of my club, ‘twould make little sense for thou and I to face off. Nay, I shall have the honour of facing thy second ranked player, as shall thee with facing our top player. Surely thou agreeth that such arrangements make the most sense, do thee not?”
“I fucking hate you, Kishi.”
Unreal. I had known this guy to try everything in the book to get a win over me, but I never expected him to just outsource the work to someone better than him. Then again, the snivelling git had never been above cheap tricks.
The greasy blonde mop on his head was just as long and unkempt as I remembered it. I wondered if he actually put effort into making it look so awful. The rest of his appearances had also mostly remained unchanged, though his chubby facial features had become a tad more defined, as they tended to in the mid to late teen years. In other words, he was exactly as I had expected him to be: fat, messy and lazy. Just as he had always been.
“And whom, may I ask, shalt be mine opponent? Which of the two fair maidens at thy command acts as thy right hand?” Kishi asked, in the most insufferable way a human being could possibly talk.
“If you’re the number two among your club, then it’s I that you’ll be facing. Though I strongly reject being called this man’s ‘right hand,’ I cannot imagine the degeneracy that hand has committed in his many lonely years,” replied Sai.
“Hey, I resent that. I’m left handed.”
“That’s the part you objected to?!”
While Pep and I played out our typical routine, Kishi looked Sai up and down with those rotten eyes of his.
“I see. Thou art a maiden of great beauty indeed. Very well, I have taken a liking to thee. If thou defeateth me today, I will allow thee to become my beloved other half,” he said, with all the self awareness of a web novel character specifically written to have poor self awareness.
“Colour me impressed. I never thought it was possible for a man to make a first impression so awful that it makes our dreadful club captain look charming in comparison, but you’ve done the impossible. Tell me, was your declaration an off-colour joke, or have you truly deluded yourself into believing that anything greater than a sea slug could possibly have a romantic interest in you? I’ve heard less than a hundred words from your mouth and yet I’ve already determined that I’d be happy to never hear it again. Your pale imitation of a long dead manner of speech is as aggravating as it is inaccurate. There is no land on Earth at any moment in history in which I could ever desire to be within a hundred metres of you at any given moment. Your very existence is repulsive, a testament to how some human lives are truly not worth living. The only joy I will get from your being is that which I’ll feel when I decimate you and crush your spirit in the game to come. Enjoy the breaths you are taking. They may yet be your last.”
I had to stifle a laugh. Because they were almost always aimed at me, I had never truly appreciated the brutality of Sai’s put-downs. And this time there was true vitriol to her tone. In that moment, I realised just how true her prior declaration to me had been: she truly didn’t hate me, because if she did, this is how she’d speak down to me. It was terrifying to be on the wrong end of, but hysterical when it happened to someone who deserved it.
Kishi was, unsurprisingly, at a complete loss for words. His entire face went red and his expression was pure shock as he tried and failed to come up with any rebuttal. It was pathetic to watch. An 18-year-old man reduced to incoherence over a single verbal attack. If I did that every time someone insulted me I’d be a mute by now.
“Aha… well, since we’re here to play chess and not just bicker, why don’t we get the first game underway? We have the board all set up and ready,” said one of Kishi’s teammates, seemingly trying to draw attention from the complete embarrassment that just befell his friend.
He was a tall and handsome looking guy, not the sort of person who fit the chess player stereotype, but he certainly seemed good at taking control of the situation. He brought us all over to the table and explained the rule set we’d be playing with, all while his ‘captain’ was still left a jabbering mess.
The rule set was the exact one I had hoped for. Time control of 15+10, one round each, touch rule only applies for the second and third games. That gave a little leniency for the beginners while punishing indecisiveness in the experienced players. Plus the time control was the one I was best at. Enough time to think, but not so much that your attention starts to slip. It was perfect.
The beginners would play first so the rest of us could watch over their game for illegal moves, then the other two games would be played simultaneously. The match winner would be whichever team secures more wins. In the event of a draw, the game(s) that tied would be replayed on a faster time control until a decisive result.
White and black was determined by rock paper scissors, which Pep unfortunately lost. The timer for the first game was set. Her opponent played his first move, and the match had officially begun.