Checkmate

I was suspended from class for four weeks. In the eyes of the teachers, the only offence relevant to the school was negligent damage to other people's property. After the four weeks, I was allowed to attend classes without further consequences due to my good grades and, apart from this case, impeccable behaviour.

Simply put, the class could not stand me any longer. I always thought that the bullying scenes in movies were totally exaggerated and in no way accurate but what they did to me was actually pretty close to a lot of that shit. I still couldn't understand why people would kill themselves over such meaningless things, but it was annoying, it took me a while to get used to having to take money for my food and the beatings also became annoying quite quickly.

It started in the corridors but spread further and further into the classroom. No one minded laughing at me in front of the teachers and they just seemed to think I deserved it. I quickly got used to it though, I couldn't hear their laughter anymore, his laughter was the only thing that broke my silence, I could always hear him. It was like the farmer who after a while no longer heard the mooing of his cattle, but I could hear his laughter because it was not a laugh that came from a feeling of superiority, it was the exact opposite, it was a laugh of superiority.

He seemed to enjoy the way I suffered, he was a sadist just like any other human being, he just didn't try to hide it. But he was mistaken, I did not suffer. I stood above the cattle, I was not interested in its opinion, that's why I could only hear his laugh, he was the one who was not part of the cattle, he was not only on my level, he seemed to be above me.

“Hey wait a minute!”

It was the morning before the first lesson. I had been back at school for a good two months. I turned around, it was Tetsuo, he seemed to want to give me something.

“I’ve got your share.”

He took out his mobile phone and tapped on a few pictures. I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. When I pulled it out, I saw a notification

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8,000,000 円(¥) have been transferred to your account via a transaction with user 182353132

your new balance is 8,312,550 円(¥).

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“That’s all, see you in class.”

We didn't talk about it or anything else after that. I didn't know what to do with the money, I didn't expect him to keep his promise. After school, I bought Raiders of The Abyss, a new game from SNF. I opened the login window and typed in Lucianael and my password, a few seconds later I was on the page for Raiders. I bought the game and clicked on library. As I was about to start the download I noticed the icon in the lower right corner of the screen, friends playing: Syndreal_ is playing Raiders of The Abyss. Tetsuo seemed to have bought the game before me. Three clicks on Your Profile, Friends and on his profile picture later I clicked on remove friend and that was it. I was surprised that he had not removed me himself, but he probably just wanted to show me that he bought the game before I did. For the fact that he was so smart, he acted so childishly, but that's how people are, I thought to myself. People always say characters in movies are badly written when they are suddenly dumber than usual, but that's just how it is, there are no people who make the best decisions in all situations, there aren't even people who make good decisions in all situations. But apparently, characters are only human when they are artificial, that's how it is in movies and in real life. In both we play a role, some would say the main role, and then there are those who are too stupid to read the script and fall out of line, who drop the mask in the middle of the play, and because they give us a glimpse under their mask, we hate them. That's how it was with me, I showed him a glimpse under my mask, and that's why my class hated me in the end. We all have to wear our masks because if we don’t, we are ourselves, and that is something that is simply not acceptable in the eyes of the public.

They had all seen under my mask, why should I keep it on now, why should I give them the feeling of superiority even though I don't give a shit what they do? Why should I allow these pigs to look down on me, it all made no sense. That was the point in my life where I took off my mask for the very first time and showed my face to the public. I was tired of reading the script, I was tired of fulfilling my role, I was tired of listening to the director. Let them hate me, I thought, I was sick of it and if they thought they could do anything to me they should try it.

But I forgot, it was unacceptable, and when something is unacceptable, those who cling to its rules will do anything to kill, defeat, or change whatever it is. So they sent a monster, their knight in white armor, to kill me, the antagonist of their story. And so it came to pass that Tetsuo tried to take everything from me a second time, but this time I had nothing he could take from me. This second battle lasted our entire school years until I went to another school in the tenth grade and that was the end of it.

On the last day of school, I went to see him after our farewell party. He was sitting on the steps behind the school, his girlfriend had left him because she wanted to go to a girls' school, at least that's what my classmates had been talking about all day. he looked pretty devastated. I hadn't seen him really smile once during the whole party. He was calculating, he was brilliant, but he liked his mask so much that he became his mask. He became what we thought of as human, he became vulnerable. This was the last day of our fight, which even after a year found no end, but today it would end, and whether it would be a draw, a defeat or a victory was now in my hands. I sat down next to him. I started to him and greeted him with a simple:

“Hello.”

He didn’t respond.

“I heard about your girlfriend, that must really suck.”

He smiled and started to laugh. It seemed as if he wanted to hide his sadness.

“What do you want?”

“Nothing, nothing at all. I just wanted to know how you are.”

He stood up and started to walk away.

“Sure, but I'm not buying that.”

I stood up and followed him.

“So is it true?”

He stopped.

“Is what true?”

I smiled at him.

“Nothing.”

He turned around and looked at me.

“You want to end it, don't you? It's probably our last day, to be honest, I want to get it over with too.”

I started laughing.

“Great, that’s amazing.”

He smiled back at me.

“Have you ever heard-“

“Ever heard of forced behaviour? Yes actually, I think once before but I can’t remember. Oh sorry, did I interrupt you?”

His smile vanished.

“How did you-“

“Oh, it was quite simple, do you really think you can pull that shit twice on me? I know people change, quite a lot actually but you were playing Sparx all the time in the last months.”

“But you removed me as a friend!”

He began to get visibly nervous.

“I removed you as SNF friend, but I could still track you on DC. I knew you weren't used to using DC and weren't familiar with the tools because you were never a social person in general. DC's autostart feature can be turned off but your operating system closes pop-ups.”

“But how did you track it then?!”

“DC runs in the background, even when the window is closed, you would know that if you would ever check your active tasks. I wrote a program to track your game activity and the result was that you almost certainly don't have a girlfriend.”

“But that means you started tracking me months ago without any use for the data!”

I sat down on the bench that was standing next to us.

“As you can see, the data had a use, I just collected it in advance. I thought it was funny that I only heard about your girlfriend when she left you, that’s why I checked the data which confirmed my suspicion.”

He began to visibly sweat.

“You checked your data just because I broke up?!”

“No, there was another factor to it. I didn’t hear a name, which is quite convenient, would be a shame if there was someone who could be asked about your breakup. And all this to make me want to take advantage of the situation, you again wanted to take advantage of the feeling of losing control of the situation to weaken me but in the end it was exactly what happened to you. People change, quite a lot actually, and I have changed, I have learned to manipulate people even when they are not like moths. I've learned to understand people, I've realized how predictable people like you are, and how to make them act the way you want them to.”

He walked away disappointed.

“Neither have you changed, nor do you understand people. You think you have won this battle, and that may be true, and yet you are the only one who has been transferred to the tenth grade and has learned nothing in the three years he has spent here.”

I knew he was just saying it to make me feel like I hadn't won this fight. He still wanted to win, to leave me with a feeling of loss, and the sad thing was that even though I knew that, he managed to do it.

"See you!"

 People change, quite a lot actually, but he, he hadn't changed.