Chapter Text
The hum of the air conditioning unit washes over the hotel room, only occasionally interrupted by the knocking of chess pieces as they move along the checkered board laid on the desk before Sieun. He silently reviews the match he’d played earlier that afternoon.
Before the tournament, Sieun had studied the openings his opponents most often played in their past matches. All for Sieun’s final opponent of the day to use his match with Sieun to debut a new opening that he’d never used before. It was only the first day of the Gwangju Invitational, and Sieun had already been thrown off his game, allowing himself to have made such juvenile mistakes throughout the match.
The match—which had stretched almost a full three hours, resulted in a stalemate, a tie. The result was frustrating enough on its own; he should have known better—should have done better. What was more infuriating though, even more so than his shortcomings, was the person in which he’d played against—Ahn Suho. Suho’s very existence is enough to have an adverse effect on Sieun. Sieun had first met the other boy two years prior, when he was seventeen years old, on a sunny day at the Gimpo city standard open.
Sieun is registered to play at an upcoming tournament in a nearby city. It is scheduled to last three days, and his parents had promised him they would accompany him. They always do that—make promises that they know they can’t keep. So of course, it brings him no feeling of surprise whatsoever when, at the very last minute, he receives a call.
“We aren’t going to be able to make it this time Sieun-ah, but we will check the results. Make us proud.” His mother’s voice comes through the speaker, though barely registering in his mind as she continues to tell him about a sudden work meeting that has come up for her, and how one of his dad’s athletes needed his help with something. Sieun’s head drops towards the floor, squeezing his eyes shut so as to not let any tears threatening to escape fall. He doesn’t need to listen to her to understand what she is saying. Nor does he need to respond, the call ending just as quickly as it begins. In a way, he’s thankful for that, unsure if he’d be able to speak without choking on his words, not that his parent's would notice. He’s not stupid, he knew this was going to be the outcome. He’s grown accustomed to this pattern of behavior from them; they didn’t make it last time, they won’t make it this time, and they in all likelihood will not make it next time. He can’t help but wait though—somewhere inside of him, somewhere deep within his chest, he’s still stubbornly holding onto the hope of a child that’s crying out for his parents.
Maybe a day will come when he will learn to let go of the small glimmers of a dream that his parents maybe—just maybe—will show up for him one of these days. Today just isn’t that day. Using the sleeves of his hoodie, he roughly swipes away the tears that inevitably fall. Taking a deep breath, he grabs his suitcase and steps outside of his apartment.
Gimpo city, thankfully, is only a short train ride away from Seoul, so it wasn’t too difficult for Sieun to find his way to the hotel he will be staying at during this tournament, which conveniently happens to be right next door to where the tournament is taking place.
While players are generally advised to show up around 60-90 minutes early, Sieun arrives at the venue a full two hours ahead of schedule. When he walks in, finishing touches are still being put into place; chess boards are being set up, place cards being assigned to tables. A staff member approaches him, asks him to please sit and wait out in the hallway, just until they can finish preparations. Retreating back into the hallway, he surveys the room. There are metal, foldable chairs lining the wall opposite the entrance, a white, collapsible table off to the side, and a bulletin board hanging on the wall directly behind it.
Instead of sitting down as instructed, he strolls over to the table, stopping right in front to get a better view of the board. Laminated pieces of papers denoting each of the participants’ names on them are stapled onto the board, in order of the seeded bracket for today’s chess matches. While his eyes scan the board for his own name, he can see two matches that he’s scheduled to play today. One against Seo Juntae: a short, shy boy he’s played with a few times before, including his last tournament. Sieun remembers winning that match easily enough. The other is against… Ahn Suho? The name does not sound exceptionally familiar to Sieun, but his rating is high enough that he’s got Sieun intrigued to see what kind of player he will be.
He examines the board for a moment longer, in an attempt to get a feel for who his opponents may be in the coming days, until a different staff member emerges from the main room. She takes a seat at the opposite end of the table in front of him, a little further to the left, before beckoning him closer so that he may check himself in for the tournament. He signs his name on the provided clipboard, gets handed a score sheet, and is told that he may enter now. After roaming around the room a bit, he finds a table with place cards positioned on either side of the chessboard with his and Juntae’s names on them. He sits down, noting that he will be playing as black for this match, which is opposite to what he played before, having played as white last time. The room is silent, aside from the shuffling here and there of staff members moving around, anticipating the rest of the participants' arrivals. Sieun swiftly immerses himself in practice, playing through various possible openings that Juntae may utilize in their coming match.
He becomes so immersed that he almost doesn’t notice the time passing by him, only being made aware of it when he begins to hear the noise of doors opening and closing as other participants finally begin to file in one by one, chairs scraping against the floor as they take their seats. He scans the room in an attempt to identify his unknown opponent. Unfortunately, he finds himself unlucky in his objective of figuring out who Ahn Suho is, because before he is able to succeed, he spots Juntae. The other boy can be seen right through one of the open doors, checking himself in. Sieun takes his arrival as a sign to revert his attention back to the chessboard, and resets each one of the pieces to their original positions.
As Juntae enters the room, a few directors follow behind him, approaching their table to examine the board; they must ensure there is no sign of cheating taking place before they can give the two boys the go ahead to begin their match. Juntae sits down opposite of Sieun, flashing a soft smile. “Hello again,” he chirps, in his habitually light-hearted tone.
“Hello,” Sieun mirrors curtly in reply; he would prefer this match to begin quickly so they can be done with it as soon as possible. Holding his hand out to shake, he decides there is no need to spend time trading pleasantries, “Good luck.”
Juntae takes his hand, shakes it firmly, respectfully, and whispers “Good luck.”
The match lasts a little under an hour. To nobody's surprise, it comes to a close with Sieun named as the victor. He shakes Juntae’s hand once more, blurting out a quick “Well played.”
He is just barely able to pick up on the other’s response of “You too,” as he is already leaving the boy behind without a backward glance. With a much more interesting goal in mind, he moves about the room, searching for a name card with Ahn Suho scrawled across it. Sieun can only hope he isn’t too late to find out who the other is before their match later.
He breathes out a sigh of relief when he spots the name card atop a table where a match is still in play. Disappointingly, he can’t immediately see the owner of the name, because a small crowd has begun to form, watching the match with curious eyes. He artfully glides through the small sea of people. After pushing past a few much taller men, who barely even acknowledge his existence or make room for his presence, he finally makes it to the front. At long last, a young boy—probably a bit older than Sieun, if he had to guess—with blunt, dark brown bangs comes into view. In that moment, Sieun is frozen in place, the world around them becoming nothing more than a blur. The boy, who Sieun now knows is Suho, stares ahead with his brows furrowed deep in concentration. He’s almost overwhelming to look at, but, in the same vein—he’s all but impossible not to stare at. Despite his intense focus, Suho has a wide unfaltering smile spread across his face, as if he genuinely finds joy in the game. Sieun files through his memories, through the many long years of chess that he’s played, and yet struggles to conjure up even a single time where chess has ever been particularly enjoyable. To say that Sieun is curious about Suho would be an understatement.
Having to put in a conscious effort to tear his gaze away from Suho, Sieun’s eyes dart towards the chessboard positioned between Suho and a girl whose name Sieun doesn’t even bother to find out. Suho is playing as black, with only two pieces remaining. He has the opportunity to checkmate his opponent in just two turns. Sieun bites his lip, holding a breath, an unfamiliar feeling swirling curiously in his stomach. Waiting in anticipation, he wonders if Suho can see what he sees, hoping the other will follow through. King to f3. Capturing his opponent's pawn, Suho hits the clock, waits for his opponent to play her turn. Pawn to e5. It’s Suho’s turn again, the king is vulnerable. Sieun looks back up to Suho, sees it in his eyes—Suho knows it as well. Rook to c1.
“Checkmate,” Suho declares, finally looking up and breaking his focus from the board. He shakes the hand of his opponent, then turns to scan the room, the engrossed faces of a newly-amassed crowd. The first person his gaze finds is Sieun, who notices what seems to be a flash of recognition across Suho’s face, as if they’d met before. Sieun thinks he must be mistaken however, because he is sure if he’d met the boy before he would have remembered as such. Suho smiles even wider, and how that is even possible Sieun doesn’t know.
Much to Sieun’s surprise, Suho ignores everyone else surrounding him, impatiently hoping to talk to him—instead opting to walk directly towards Sieun, until there’s little space between them; until they’re face to face, chest to chest. “You must be popular,” Sieun notes, looking over Suho’s shoulder and past him, eyes landing on the group of girls in particular that are currently staring daggers at Sieun.
Suho twists around to look at them, as if he hadn’t even noticed their presence in the first place. “Oh, yeah, I guess so,” he says, non-committally, as if it’s no big deal. He gives them a nod, waving, as he does so. The second they are satisfied with the sliver of attention he’s given—evidenced by crimson faces and fitful giggles—Suho turns his attention back towards Sieun with a shrug. “So, did you like what you saw?” Suho smirks, shoving his hands deep into his pockets with a confident gleam in his eyes.
Sieun rolls his eyes, raising his eyebrows at the other. “I’m sure I could have gotten there in even fewer moves, but it was alright, I guess.”
“Or maybe… you were too busy staring at me to really pay attention to the game?” Suho teases, stretching the final syllable in maybe, and winking at Sieun.
Sieun turns to walk away, having had enough of Suho—and desperately wanting to hide the blush creeping up his neck. He can only get a few steps away before Suho frees a hand from his pocket and grabs the sleeve of Sieun’s jacket, tugging it with a gentle pull. “Sorry! Sorry,” he chuckles, “I’ll be serious now, don’t go.”
Sieun narrows his eyes in disbelief, but stays still nonetheless. “What do you want?” he grumbles, pulling his arm free from Suho’s firm grasp.
“I just wanted to see how my next opponent was feeling,” Suho beams, leaning forward into Sieun’s space and making direct eye contact.
Sieun can easily see the warm pools of light in Suho’s deep brown eyes within this close proximity. He pulls away, and despite the now very obvious blush spread across his face and ears, he speaks with what he hopes—and prays—is an indifferent tone. “I don’t remember telling you who I am.”
Suho opens and closes his mouth, as if contemplating whether or not to say something, before thinking the better of it with the shake of a head. “Lucky guess,” he replies instead, tongue playfully poking his cheek.
Sieun does not believe his reasoning in the slightest, but before he can get the chance to prod any further, a director announces that it is now time for the next matches to commence. Sieun finally turns his attention from Suho to the ongoing world around them, and realizes that as they’ve been talking, the next games have already been set up.
“Well, let’s go then.” Suho eagerly motions for them to find their table, probably glad to be saved by the bell.
“Okay,” Sieun acquiesces, following Suho to the table with place cards of their respective names. Taking their places, Suho holds his hand out for Sieun to shake, his touch lingering a few moments longer than normal. “Good luck,” Sieun mutters as he starts his clock.
About an hour into the match, it becomes increasingly evident to Sieun that he is going to win this one, no question. In itself, victory is nothing out of the ordinary for him. It’s something he had grown accustomed to—something he expected of himself. This, of course, has gained him quite a few enemies over the years; his peers would often become angry that despite all efforts—no matter how much blood, sweat and tears they put in—they just could not surpass his rating. At times, they’ve even steered that anger directly towards him, without hesitation, blaming him for their own shortcomings. As a result, he’s dealt with a lot of bullying, his fair share of jealous teenagers using violence in an attempt to gain the upper hand. He deals with it though, tells himself he’s impassive to it all.
It's not that Sieun never loses, it is statistically improbable for him to never lose, but it is not often. He was deemed a chess prodigy at the early age of five, and from that moment onwards he’s only ever had room to improve. While it is possible that it could be partially attributed to genetically predispositioned cognitive skills, being so good at chess was predominantly the result of his obsession with the game. An obsession that most would describe as unhealthy—harmful to his wellbeing. If his parents were asked though, it was merely the standard, a sign of him being a good kid. He neurotically examines matches, both his own and his peers’, regardless of result. When he’s not focused on that, he is studying various openings, like the Sicilian Defense or the Adelaide Counter Gambit. On top of the expectations his parents hold for his chess abilities, he is expected to get perfect grades in school as well. For as long as he can remember, his daily routine has been nothing but school and chess. His life, nothing but an exhausting repetition of tasks.
Ordinarily, Sieun would feel indifferent to the feelings of his opponents when he is about to win. To him, victory is simply a result of the thought and effort put forth, anything less a failure on his part. There is something different about Suho, though. Something that made Sieun feel guilty as he maneuvers his queen to g5, trapping Suho’s king with no room to run. Something in the way Suho carries himself; like playing the game truly brings him a sense of happiness. It intrigued Sieun, made him reflect upon his own feelings towards the game. Chess has never really been enjoyable for him, only ever a means to an end—to play, win, and make his parents proud. It makes him feel nauseous, nearly choking on his own voice as he declares, “Checkmate.”
His gaze has been firmly set on the chessboard, afraid to face the other from the very second he realized what the result of this match was going to be. In the end, as his chin tilts up to finally face Suho, he can feel his curiosity gradually morphing into something uglier. A dreadful, bitter taste creeps up into his mouth like bile as he watches Suho and realizes the boy is completely unaffected, not even a fraction less happy now that he has lost. He’s utterly unable to understand how someone could be so content with losing—it makes him feel sick.
Ever since his match against Suho at seventeen years old, Sieun’s attention has effortlessly—no, uncontrollably—drifted towards the other any time they both end up participating in the same tournaments. Over the past two years, Sieun has taken note of many things to do with Ahn Suho. Not limited to, but including: the way he’s always befriending others, no matter what country the tournament is being held, despite any language barrier there may be; including the way, during their free time, he is always out and about, exploring the world that surrounds their hotels. Sieun is absolutely sure that he has not seen Suho actually sit down and review his matches, let alone study any openings, even once. These observations, and the many more that go unlisted, all lead Sieun to one perfectly logical conclusion: Suho simply does not care. He goes through life with an unserious, uncaring attitude, which infuriates Sieun to no end.
This conclusion is precisely the reason why Sieun is now, at nineteen years old, sitting alone in his hotel room, awake much later than he should be. He’s busied himself with reviewing his earlier match against Suho.
Pawn to g4. Suho had captured his pawn immediately after, en passant. Is that where he went wrong? King to g4. He’d captured Suho’s piece in return. What could he have done differently? King to h5. He knew he needed to escape, but Suho had had him backed into a corner—stalemate. The checkered squares of the chessboard in front of Sieun begin to blur together, becoming no less clear no matter how many times Sieun blinks. He moves to wipe his eyes, when he feels a wetness on his hands already. Without realizing, he had begun crying. His growing frustration with himself finally catching up to him. How could someone that doesn’t even try be so good at the same game that Sieun has dedicated his entire life to?
He moves to reset the board, not yet satisfied with himself—when he hears a sudden shuffling outside his door. Confused, he places the piece he was holding down, and walks away from the desk for the first time since he’d returned to his room today. Standing before the door, he inhales deeply, holding it in for a moment before finally releasing the breath. Wiping away any remaining moisture in his eyes, Sieun swings the door open to see none other than Ahn Suho, in the process of swiping his card in the door's lock, only to now swipe through thin air. He stumbles back, surprised.
“Oh—hey Sieun, what are you doing in my room?” he questions, puzzled but amused, a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. Sieun cannot fathom what could possibly be so amusing about this situation. He doesn’t even begin to entertain the question of why Suho doesn’t seem to mind the idea that Sieun may have broken into his room, if anything seeming gleeful over it.
Sieun stares back, humorlessly, his jaw tight and clenching. “It’s none of your business what I am doing in my room,” he retorts. Though of course, his response does nothing but escalate Suho’s confusion.
Suho looks around, scrunching his face. He tilts his head as he scratches his forehead. “Isn’t this room 102?”
“No, this is room 101,” Sieun corrects him emotionlessly, with a still monotone voice.
Stepping back, Suho closes the door, leaving only a sliver of space between the hinges, to peer at the room number on the other side. Right as Sieun is thinking their interaction is over—that the other will realize his mistake, close the door, and pretend this mix-up never happened, the door swings back open.
Startled by the unexpected action, Sieun stumbles backwards, giving Suho an incredulous look. Now, with a better view of the room behind Sieun, Suho’s eyes fall upon the room’s desk, noticing the contents laid across it.
“Are you still reviewing our game?” he asks amusedly, as if it was a silly thing for Sieun to be doing.
Irritation bubbles in Sieun’s chest, he bites back the urge to slam the door shut directly in the taller boy’s face. Of course Suho would find it ridiculous that he’s actually putting in literally any amount of effort to improve. “Yes, because I actually care unlike—”
“Can we review it together?” Suho interrupts.
Sieun’s mouth falls open, any complaints that were previously at the tip of his tongue dissipating into the air with a breath. “Huh?” he asks, voice disbelieving, thinking he’d had to have heard Suho wrong.
Suho barks out a laugh, loud and warm. “Is it really that crazy of me to want to review the game with you?” He pushes past Sieun, disregarding any show of manners, deciding the answer for the both of them.
Sieun harshly rubs his hands against his clothes, still standing in place, right where Suho has already left him behind in order to pick up right where Sieun had left off in resetting the chess board. A mixture of shock and anger swarms Sieun’s head.
Once Sieun finally computes the current sequence of events, he shoves the door closed behind him. Clenching his jaw, he marches back towards the desk. “When did I say yes? More importantly, when did I tell you that you could just come into my room?” he scoffs.
Suho ignores Sieun for just a second, finishes placing the last of the chess pieces into their rightful places. Then, finally looking back up at Sieun, he smiles—as if he can’t sense the boy's very obvious anger, or is pretending not to. “Well, do you not want to review the game with me or not?”
The cockiness in his voice should be reason enough to kick him out of Sieun’s room, but he lets curiosity get the better of him. Wrinkling his nose in distaste, he plops himself down into the seat to the left of Suho. He’s already shuffling through their respective moves from the earlier game in his head, when Suho turns the board around. Instead of the white side, the side he’d played, facing Sieun, he’s faced with the black side. With raised eyebrows, Sieun searches Suho’s eyes, a question forming on his lips.
“Let’s switch places, play each other's moves,” Suho suggests, answering Sieun’s question before he’s even able to voice it. Suho picks up one of the white bishop pieces, waving it in the air with a show of what Sieun believes to be arrogance. That clears up some of Sieun’s confusion, and leaves him even more confused all at the same time.
“Why would we do that?” Sieun asks, bothered by the unexpected change in what was already an unplanned interaction.
Suho leans back, thinks. “Hmm, I don’t know, it’ll be beneficial?” he says, sounding unsure of himself, clearly making things up as he goes. “Besides, we both have each other's moves memorized already, right?” he adds on, with more confidence this time.
Well—no, Sieun thinks. He would not have expected Suho to have his own moves memorized, let alone Sieun's; he almost doesn’t believe the other. Still, Sieun looks at the black pieces before him and bites his lip, genuinely contemplating the proposal. “How would it benefit us?” he questions, looking back to Suho, actually curious as to what Suho will come up with for why it would be productive to switch sides.
“It might not benefit us at all, but maybe it will—who knows? Have some fun with it, hm?” Suho tries convincing him, putting on a deliberate display of puppy dog eyes, a pout settling on his lips
“Oh my god, stop that. Fine, we can switch sides,” Sieun relents, watching Suho place the bishop back down. He waits for Suho to play the first move, pawn to e4. Sieun moves his pawn to e5. Suho follows up by moving his knight to f3: the Kings Pawn Opening.
They continue playing out their previous match, turn by turn. It goes on this way for hours, peacefully discussing what they were thinking at each turn, analyzing their thought processes and pointing out each other's mistakes along the way. Suho, all in one night—from one mistaken visit to the wrong hotel room—has shattered Sieun’s perception of him. That logical conclusion, backed by years of observation, suddenly flushed down the drain. Maybe Sieun was wrong, maybe he never even believed his own conclusion. Only forcing himself to believe it for some reason he cannot pinpoint within his mind. Stealing glances at Suho throughout the night, he realizes he may have been doomed from the very beginning.
Eventually, Sieun begins to doze off. The tranquility of Suho’s presence, mixed with a severe lack of sleep, finally catching up to him. Suho notices Sieun’s head begin to drift forward, quietly placing down the rook he had been holding. Just barely moving in time, he catches Sieun’s forehead in the palm of his hand, preventing the smaller boy’s face from crashing into the table and knocking the pieces astray. With a small, fond shake of the head, Suho softly laughs at the ridiculousness of falling asleep mid chess match. He gently shakes Sieun, trying to wake the boy up just long enough to at least walk to his bed. Sieun doesn’t stir at all, the only evidence of life being in his chest rising and falling as he breathes. Suho snakes one arm under Sieun’s legs, the other arm wrapping around Sieun’s back. Lifting him up off the chair, Suho carries him to the bed, hoping and praying to whatever god is out there that the other boy doesn’t wake up to yell at Suho for handling him with so much softness, so much intimacy. Delicately placing him on the bed, Suho positions the blanket over his sleeping figure. He steps away from the bed, letting out a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding in. Before turning away to leave, he takes one last look at the peaceful, sleeping boy, a familiar warmth swirling in his chest.