rose/sollux

INTERNATIONAL CHESS GRANDMASTER PRACTICE SESSION AU

Look, think, place, time. It’s such an oft-repeated pattern you wonder how you can manage it some days, how you can manage the dry monotony of those ever-predictable squares. There are competitors you squish under your metaphorical boot so easily you sometimes think about retiring early without pomp and ceremony. But this guy, this guy makes you remember why you love this game.

He’s like a computer— so efficient, never hesitating, never playing into tricks or well-known strategies. He’s your match, your shadow, the left brain to your right. You duck and weave and dance around his equations and it’s so beautiful you could cry. You have to take pause when you both somehow managed to tango yourself into a stoic board, where no pieces exist in immediate danger of being attacked. You spare a glance up at him, uttering a completely unironic, “Fantastic.”

He smiles, and says something in Czech. You’re shamefully starstruck for a minute, before he moves his bishop to E5. You glance down, seeing your options light up before you in the multiple paths the game could go down, and they all lead to the same place- Czechmate.

You resign by slipping him your hotel room number.