9. I Have Something To Tell You.

"Do it again."

It was Elline's voice, trembling.

Her trembling voice—the first time I'd ever heard it—and that expression.

"…"

Without even asking for my consent, she had already begun quietly gathering her pieces back into order.

All while stealing glances at me.

"… Why."

"No."

Cute.

She's sulking right now, isn't she?

Embarrassed about losing so helplessly?

I didn't know exactly what was going on in her head, but one thing was certain—her reaction right now was incredibly…

Worth watching.

*Saying it like that makes me sound like a creep.*

That moment at the dining hall, and these little glimpses she showed from time to time—they kept rattling my heart with surprising force.

"Hurry up and reset."

Elline pressed me in a voice that had barely recovered its composure, and I complied without a word.

Next game.

This time too, Elline sailed through the opening phase without any trouble, but once the real tactical battle began in the midgame, she started unraveling on her own.

Chess being the kind of game where each move unfolds slowly, it was common to only see your mistake after you'd already made it.

Moves you absolutely shouldn't have made—ones you had no idea were wrong until it was your opponent's turn and you finally noticed, too late.

That particular brand of self-loathing was something chess had a way of drawing out.

I'd been there myself, at the start.

"Ugh…"

"Ah…"

"…"

Now, every time a mistake slipped out, Elline let out a faint sound and seemed to be quietly reproaching herself.

Clack.

Clack.

"…"

"Checkmate."

The second game ended without any surprises—my victory again.

"… Again?"

She answered my words with a single vigorous nod.

Third game.

Fourth game.

Fifth game.

I noticed something interesting.

No—interesting wasn't quite the right word. Remarkable was more like it.

Chess is, at its core, a game of the mind, and once you grasp the basic intuition, your skill can leap forward dramatically.

Even by just the fifth game, Elline's improvement was striking enough to catch my eye.

*A genius really is something else.*

Where she had once been unraveling in the midgame, she was now building her own strategies and adapting them on the fly.

A few of her moves were so sharp that even I let out a quiet sound of admiration.

Considering that chess became a game of culture among mages precisely because the underlying principles are similar, it made sense that Elline would pick it up this quickly.

"Checkmate."

I won the fifth game as well, but this time the battle had been genuinely fierce.

Elline no longer showed her emotions as openly as she had at first.

Instead, she swept her gaze across the board with the calm of someone gliding through still water, and began to analyze.

As if she were dissecting a strategy and fitting the pieces back together in a new configuration.

When the warning bell rang, she rose from her seat.

"Rutess."

"Yeah."

"Let's do this again tomorrow."

A smile came naturally at the competitive edge in her voice.

"Sure. But when?"

"Lunch."

"Like today?"

Elline answered without hesitation.

"Yes."

"Aren't you busy?"

"This much is fine."

Well, if she said so, I had nothing to argue with. I had more than enough time to spare.

"Alright. Tonight's out, then?"

She hesitated for a moment, then gave a small, listless nod.

Was that reluctance?

"Okay then. I'll be looking forward to tomorrow."

We tidied up and got to our feet.

The bell was about to ring, and as students streamed out of the library like a receding tide, we walked out among them.

"Rutess."

"What?"

"I'll win tomorrow."

Her blue eyes were gleaming.

Seeing that, a smile came to me naturally.

"I'll be looking forward to it."

"…"

Elline's pupils rippled, dilating ever so slightly.

It was so brief that they settled back almost immediately, but she had been looking directly at me.

As if she'd seen something that surprised her.

"Elline?"

She took one slow step closer.