Scrawny, pasty, hateful, toxic, degenerate little weakling

“I’m sorry, you? Boxing?” said Mai, opening with 1.d4. “I’d be more convinced if a sign language gorilla told me it was recording audiobooks.”

“Convinced or not, it’s happening,” I replied with 1…d5.

Mai was my housemate and chess practice partner. She was rude, snide, arrogant, petty, and worst of all, a London System player. She was a truly detestable person in all aspects. The only thing she had going for her was incredible good looks, something shared by every woman in her family.

She was also my biological sister, but I preferred to pretend otherwise.

“I’ll believe it when I see it. No offence, Nana, but I bet you’d struggle to fight your way out of a paper bag if the instructions were written on the inside.” Knight f3.

“I seem to recall kicking your ass on a number of occasions as kids.” Knight f6.

“Congratulations on overpowering a child two years your junior. But unless you’re fighting in the middle school division I don’t see that being all that useful to you.” She brought the bishop out to f4, and I felt my eyebrow twitch. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the insult, or because she was playing the fucking London again.

“And what makes you so certain I’ll do badly at it?” I pushed my pawn to c5, hoping to avoid yet another boring slow closed game.

“Other than the fact that there’s more muscle in a single rotisserie chicken than your entire body? Mainly your complete inability to do anything vaguely resembling physical activity.” She played e3. Anything else might have risked being an interesting game.

“Come on, you’re exaggerating. I’m not that unathletic.” I pushed my knight to c3. I wanted to at least develop something resembling an attacking structure before the boredom of this godforsaken opening kills me.

“Nana, there are anaemic paraplegic Greenlandic vampires who are less scrawny and pale than you. The three things you hate most in the world are going outside, exercising and the London System.”

“If you know I hate it then why do you keep playing it!”

“Because when you’re on tilt you play like a moron.” She moved her bishop to e2 to protect her knight, and I fully considered resigning so I could start again on white.

“Well it’s not exactly like I’m choosing to do this,” I grumbled, mindlessly taking the pawn on d4 with my own. “I’m kinda being strong-armed here.”

“Oh? The chess club finally getting you back for your… little outbursts?” she asked, retaking with the knight.

“Yep. Gave me an ultimatum: fight in the tournament or get kicked out.” I checked with the queen on a5, though I honestly couldn’t tell you the rationale behind the move. I’d be lying if I said I was paying much attention. “‘pparently the university has to send one boxer and one chess player, and no one else from the chess club wanted to do it.”

“They probably also wanted to see you get your nose broken by someone twice your size.”

“Knowing those bastards, they’d probably do it themselves if they weren’t chickenshit cowards.”

“I wonder why they dislike you so much when you have such a charming personality.” She blocked the check with knight b3, but it didn’t really seem like she was concentrating much either. “So, how’s this gonna work? You’re just gonna go in raw, get your teeth punched in round one and bow out as a loser?”

“Were it so easy,” I sighed. “The event is apparently gonna be quite out in the public eye, for both the regional chess and boxing associations. Much as I hate to say it, putting in a good performance here might be the best way for me to make my name known for something other than saying my opponents are dumb enough to lose rock-paper-scissors even if they went second.”

“Putting in a good performance? Need I remind you that the only cardio work you’ve done in the last three years is when you shagged that sprinter bird so loudly I had to stay at my girlfriend’s place?”

“Hey, that’s not true. She did all the work.”

“You’re gonna get your ass kicked so hard.”

I fell silent for a moment. As much as it sounded like a joke, I couldn’t exactly deny what she was saying. I was being thrown completely into the deep end with something way out of my comfort zone. It’d be pretty easy to just write the whole thing off as a lost cause, take the loss on the chin and move on, but something about that didn’t sit right with me.

I absent-mindedly pushed my pawn to e5. An objectively bad move, but the game wasn’t really on my mind at that moment.

‘Everyone is worth understanding. Whether they’re a beginner or a world champion or dead-equal match. There’s always something fun you can learn about them through their fighting style’

It was almost irritating how much her words had echoed in my mind that evening. That girl really leaves an impression…

“...I think with her I should be fine…” I muttered, more to myself than to Mai.

“Her? Who’s her?” she replied, resting her chin on her hands. She wasn’t even pretending to pay attention to the game anymore.

“Ah- my coach, for the boxing thing. Since they’re sending one boxer and one chess player, we have to teach each other our disciplines. She sounds like a pretty big deal in this whole boxing league shtick, so with her teaching me I reckon I’ve got a good shot. She looks strong, and fit, and tall and-”

“Insanely hot?”

“Yeah- wait, why’d you assume that?”

“The drool leaking from your mouth.”

“I am not drooli-”

I wiped my mouth with my sleeve and, sure enough, there was the damning evidence. I really am hopeless, aren’t I?

“Well, so long as you don’t go creeping this girl out so bad she does a runner, I actually reckon you’ve got a half-decent chance,” said Mai, pushing her chair back and getting to her feet. “You may be a scrawny, pasty, hateful, toxic, degenerate little weakling, but I know what you’re capable of when you put your mind to something. Work hard at it, and I reckon you’ll go pretty far.”

“Aww, sis. That’s one of the nicest things you’ve ever said to me.”

“I know,” she said, strutting off to the kitchen with ridiculous pride. “By the way,” she added, stopping in the doorway, “that push blundered a pawn. Loser.”

…god, I hate that bitch and everything she stands for.