Faceless mass of usernames

I took the knight on e4, an exchange that would lead to me going one minor piece down if it played out the way I expected. This was obviously far from ideal, but it was in an attempt to keep the bishop pair for future attacks without sacrificing the spatial advantage. After pawn-take-e4 and pawn-to-c3, losing the knight on f3 wasn’t too painful of a sacrifice since Sai’s dark-square bishop had such poor mobility as to be of little threat.

Despite the material disadvantage, the game felt practically dead even.

“Does material mean nothing to you?” Sai asked, taking the knight on f3, completely comfortable that I would now have to let her bishop escape.

“I’ll win it back,” I replied, retaking with my queen on f3.

And under normal circumstances, I’d have entirely believed my own bluster. Despite the two point disadvantage, I had a substantial lead in both position and tempo, as she would now likely waste a turn on saving the dark squared bishop, a piece that has horrible mobility and is unlikely to be useful for most or even all of the midgame. It’s a position that I would normally have plenty of ideas to convert.

But I’d be lying if I said I was on my game.

I was doing my best to keep my expression flat and my tone dry, but in truth I could feel my anxieties growing slowly minute-by-minute. I was becoming more and more aware that streaming was an environment with far too many variables that I could neither predict nor control, and a volatile change in any of them could result in disaster.

Initially, I had simply pawned off those concerns on Pep. She’s “the people person” of the three of us, of course. If anyone was gonna know how to keep an audience in line, it was her. But my doubts had begun to grow. Pep wasn’t the best when it came to the spoken word, but where she lacked in language she excelled at reading emotions and expressions. I hadn’t considered it before, but the faceless mass of usernames lacked the defining traits that made Pep such a social powerhouse.

And every slight flicker of doubt on her face told me she was feeling that same concern.

“Your hubris remains your greatest flaw,” Sai said, retreating the bishop to a5. Considering how trapped in it was, I’d have personally left it to be taken, but I knew Sai better than that. She would preserve a material advantage at all costs unless she could see a direct loss as a result.

“I thought my disregard of theory was my greatest flaw,” I replied, threatening the c6 knight with pawn-to-d5.

“Your disregard of theory is hubris,” she said, counterattacking the bishop with queen to b6.

“Oh? How so?” I asked, defending the bishop with pawn to a4.

“To think yourself better than the culmination of years of thought and practice from the greatest minds this game has ever seen? What else could it be but hubris?” She said, attacking the bishop further with pawn to a6.

“Theory isn’t just about knowing, it’s about understanding,” I replied, advancing my e-pawn to e6 and threatening the king’s flank pawn on f7. “It’s a greater hubris to think you understand it well enough to rely on it completely. It’s a tool too use passively, not a crutch to lean on actively. You’re not stockfish.”

There was a slight lull in both conversation and play in the following seconds, but it was quickly broken by a noise from Pep’s computer.

“Ooooh, another donation! This one says… ‘I have a question for K and S. Most people play chess without talking much at all, so why do you guys argue with each other after every move? Is chess really that serious to you?’ I asked the same thing too! I didn’t really get their answer though…” Pep said, hiding her faltering smile with a theatrical pout. Despite the performativity, I knew that her difficulty grasping Sai and I’s conversations was a genuine point of frustration for her.

We had, indeed, tried to explain to her why our chess matches so often caused us to descend into verbal sparring, but it seemed like she really didn’t follow. She understood that it was often more than just arguing over our different styles in chess, but as to what it actually was about, she seemed irritated at her inability to comprehend.

Not that I thought I could actually explain it to anybody.

“A person’s style in chess reveals much about their character. For example, those boorish and unsophisticated enough to throw theory to the wind and improvise their strategy on the fly also tend to be rude, disrespectful and unpleasant. I merely seek to correct one problem by proxy of the other,” said Sai, opting for the safest option of castling to alleviate the checkmate threat.

“Just as cowards who rely solely on things they’ve read in theory books lack any form of creativity or expression in real life. Truly, this game is just a window to the soul,” I replied, following her kingside-castles with my own.

“See? These two talk like they’re fencing, and I have no idea what they’re saying. This conversation must be three of four layers deeper than I can I read ‘cos it doesn’t make a word of sense to me,” huffed Pep.

Outwardly, maybe it did appear that way. But she was wrong.

Just as my pawn-push checkmate threat had been a mere bluff easily countered by castling, this entire conversation was a bluff, and both Sai and I knew it. We weren’t pushing or challenging each other like we normally did with these conversations. We were just pointlessly retracing steps we had already taken before. Reverting back to an older state, having conversations we had already had. The judgements we were voicing were ones we had long since moved past, just echoes of who she and I used to be. And I could tell by the lack of sting and sincerity in her tone that Sai was thinking the exact same thing.

There were two blindingly obvious reasons why.

For starters, those conversations were too personal to have in front of anyone but ourselves and Pep. Who wants to have a group of strangers listen in on someone pick apart their worldview? The stakes of our discussions may have seemed low to those not paying attention, but to she and I their importance far outweighed any desire to perform. Not that I particularly had such desires in the first place.

And the second, arguably more important reason was one that she and I communicated with each other without a single word spoken: we were both too occupied thinking about Pep to worry about introspection.

Every occasional wayward glance Sai threw towards her told me she felt exactly the same as I, and every brief moment of eye contact afterwards told me she knew I was thinking it too. Despite her overtly upbeat attitude, it was become clearer and clearer that Pep was struggling under the weight. Whether it was her difficulty engaging with Sai and I’s conversations, the feeling of disconnection from the audience, or a mix of the two, something was steadily getting to her, and cracks were showing in her facade. With our mutual closest friend so clearly beginning to falter under the stress of the situation, how could she and I possibly focus on arguing philosophy or whatever?

And the worst part was, there was nothing we could do. It was a monster of Pep’s own making, and no one could overcome it but her. But as the cracks appeared more and more frequently, I was beginning to doubt she could overcome it at all.

Being thrown right in at the deep end was far more a curse than a blessing for her, even if she would deny it.

I tried to turn my attention back to the match, aware that any attempt I made to alleviate Pep’s issues would likely just exacerbate them. To attempt to swoop and save the day, to give in to some self-indulgent hero complex, simply wasn’t an option. It would deny her agency at best and actively increase her burden at worst. So I would simply have to take chess as my reprieve from worry.

Sai played the safest, most theoretically sound option of just taking the bishop with the a6 pawn. Even though I would likely even the loss by taking the knight within the next few moves, even trades benefited her so long as she maintained her two-point advantage.

Simple. Safe. As expected of Sai.

I went with the equally safe and obvious option of taking the pawn on f7, forcing the king into the corner and leaving a constant threat on his backline. Then, when Sai offered yet another even trade with queen to c6, I lazily took it without really giving it a second thought.

In theory, I was playing well, but I definitely wasn’t playing like myself. I had hardly looked for any riskier or more interesting lines, simply playing safe and obvious lines without much thought. The earlier knight sacrifice was the last time I had actively attempted to pursue the creativity that I claimed was at the core of my style, as ever since then I had been almost completely absorbed in tracking Pep’s steadily wavering smile.

At the next moment would prove my concern all too justified.

“Oh, another donation! And it’s a question for me this time! Let’s see… ‘how does it feel being the… third wheel… for people who are… too smart for you…” she practically mumbled the last few words, briefly forgetting to maintain her mask whatsoever. The moment her lapse ended, she attempted to force the smile back on her face, but she couldn’t hide the tears that had begun to well up in her eyes. “Heh… heh… come on, that’s… that’s not funny…”

She tried to hide her pain in a chuckle, though it came out almost as a sob. After an entire stream of her chat probing her weaknesses, someone had decided to go for the killing blow, and they struck a critical point. Even as she wiped her eyes with her sleeves, they continued to well, and she seemed to be forcibly restraining herself from completely bursting into tears.

The room was practically silent.

It would be wrong for me to deny her a possible moment of growth. I knew that. I held onto that belief. I used it as an excuse to sit back and do nothing. But it was no longer about letting her face her own battles. It wasn’t about personal growth or rising to a challenge.

It was about the fact that my friend was hurting because of someone else’s actions. The fact that that person had weaponised me and Sai against her.

And most importantly, because they pissed me off.

“Scum…” I muttered, just loud enough to be heard.

“Kaburi?” said Sai, a mix of confusion and concern in her voice.

“You people. You’re scum. Hiding behind a username on a screen, thinking it detaches you from your actions. Treating real people like dancing monkeys for your amusement, not giving a single thought to how they’re feeling. Probing their private life for ammo to use against them. Looking for insecurities to weaponise. All so you can laugh at your achievement for a few seconds before moving on to hurting someone else and forgetting about it a moment later. You, as a name on a screen and a coward behind a keyboard, have the audacity to dehumanise and objectify the people you go to for entertainment, seeing their lives and their pain as fuel for you’re own twisted fascination with the suffering of others, all to make yourselves feel better about the pathetic state of your own lives. To pass on the misery you endure as failures and losers, forcing others to share your pain against their will so you can, just for a moment, pretend you’re above someone else. You’ve all passed a lot of judgements on me today. And most of them are correct. I’m a snide, smug, superior, self-important son of a bitch with nothing to offer but a snarky remarks and sarcastic comments. I’m low. Lower than any of you seem to realise. But if there’s one solace in that fact, it’s that no matter how low of a human being I really am, I’m still leagues above all of you. Because at least when I insult someone, I have the balls to say it outloud.” I pushed back my chair, walked over to where Pep was sitting and put myself right in front of the webcam. “You see this face? It’s the face that represents some of the absolute worst that humanity has to offer. Now go ahead and cry over the fact that even this face belongs to someone greater than you. Enjoy the rest of your lives. Just leave us the hell out of it.”

I slammed the power button of the computer, almost hard enough to hurt my own hand, and a moment later the screen went black.

Pep’s face, rather than being a swirling mix of emotions, was now in abject shock. Where she had been before been barely hiding her light sobs, she was now frozen in complete silence. I myself made no noise but the slight sound of my breathing as I recovered the air I had just spit out without rest. Even the ever-calm Sai was stunned into silence.

The entire room was permeated by a deafening quiet. No one wanted to, nor could, say a word. The silence was crushing, but to break it was a burden none of us bear at that moment. Hell, what could any of us even say.

No, the first noise to break the excruciating silence wasn’t a word from any of us. It was simply the noise from the chess app indicating that a player had just lost be time out.

I don’t even know whose turn it was.