Chapter 105:

Giraffe attack

En Passant Grandmaster

Mimoko smiled awkwardly as she sat in a booth next to Iori at a restaurant.

"YO Carol, you wasted after that jet lag?" Iori grinned as she poured wasabi all over an omelet in the middle of the table.

"YO Yeah! I'm fly here on jet!" A young woman with multi-colored curly hair confidently smiled.

"Your Japanese is shit, yo."

"Then you speak English."

"Sure, pip, pip, cheerio!"

"Why British?"

"Cuz that's where English comes from, duh."

"I American though."

Mimoko meanwhile was forced to just sit and smile as she filmed the exchange. "This is torture. Iori-chan, I'm going to take all this frustration out on you on the chessboard," she thought.

Iori's friend was a fellow content creator and streamer named Carol "Cece" Cooke. She hailed from New York city and was a popular American streamer. After first playing online with Iori while streaming a game known as Deadly Conglomerate, the two became fast friends, and began doing more collabs together. As soon as Iori heard she was planning to visit Japan, she suggested they meet up in real life and film the greatest collab ever. Even though today was simply supposed to be just a dinner meetup, the two were already at it lacing their meals with wasabi and other spicy condiments.

"Yo, I got ghost pepper spice from the import store, you wanna down it?" Iori grinned as she dumped an entire bottle of ghost pepper spice into a glass of water.

"YO! You madez water spicy!" Carol grinned as she took a sip and proceeded to cough up all that she drank on Mimoko.

"There is courtesy here in Japan," Mimoko angrily smiled in English.

"Oh? Ya speak English. Perfect, so can I tell ya how to film stuff?" Carol asked in a thick New York accent.

Mimoko immediately froze up. Even though she knew some English, Carol's accent was so thick she couldn't understand her.

"Lol! Your Brooklyn's too difficult for Mimo-chan to understand!" Iori laughed as she took a sip of the ghost pepper water.

"HEY! That is indirect kiss!"

"Wait fuck!"

Iori immediately spit out the water and began chugging from a new glass of water.

"You know, for ghost pepper spice, you two sure didn't act like it tasted spicy," Mimoko glared as she wiped her face off with a napkin.

"That's cuz the water cools it off."

"Or maybe it's because it's just sprinkles," Mimoko glared as she grabbed the bottle of "ghost pepper spice" from Iori.

Indeed, it really was just ordinary sprinkles with a ghost pepper spice label slapped on it.

"Lol, ya got pranked!"

"I'm leaving. It was lovely meeting your friend," Mimoko glared.

As she began to slide out, she suddenly heard a muffled grunt underneath the table. Curious, she got out and looked under the table to find a bound and gagged Utami.

"Oh yeah, she stalked us so I stuffed her under the table," Iori grinned.

"Iori-chan... Sometimes you piss me off more than Tanabe-kun."

The next day, Mimoko once again found herself roped into Iori and Carol's antics. Utami also tagged along but kept her distance in order to avoid getting dragged into the action.

"What with the suspenders?" Carol asked as she gazed at Mimoko's casual attire.

"If you don't want to be short a camerawoman, don't critique her fashion," Mimoko angrily smiled.

"Well suspenders aside, the outfit is pretty cute and shows off those smooth legs of hers," Iori snickered.

"Mine are smoother," Carol pouted.

"Think you meant to say mine were the smoothest, but let's get on with the challenge. Today, we're eatin' ghost pepper ice cream! A chat member said this combo was apparently a SUPER hellish experience so of course we're gonna do it. Oh, and we're using the real stuff. To prove it, our lovely camerawoman's gonna sample some."

"HUH!?"

Poor Mimoko quickly found a spoonful of ghost pepper ice cream shoved into her mouth. The experience truly was hellish. Thanks to the ice cream, the ghost pepper spice ended up sticking to her tongue. It was only after washing her mouth with two bottles worth of water did the spice go away. Naturally, she was completely furious with Iori and immediately forced her into a chess game.

"So yeah, that's why me n' Cece-chan are trapped in a chess match with rising star and Grandmaster, Mimo-chan!" Iori grinned as she gleefully filmed everything.

"What we do if we lose?" Carol asked.

"Well duh, loser shaves off ALL their hair! I'm talking hair, eyebrows, eyelashes, everything goes! Not to mention we throw in a wax hotter than the ghost pepper spice, depilatory cream, and maybe even a head laser!"

"You two are insane, but if you decide to do that, it's on you," Mimoko scowled.

The rules of the challenge were simple. Both Carol and Iori would challenge Mimoko to a chess game. Should either of them win, they win the challenge, but if they both lost, they'd be getting the most extreme bald makeover in history. To make matters worse, the only odds in play so to say was the fact that Mimoko was simply playing both of them simultaneously.

Iori decided to go first and moved her pawn to f3.

Unamused, Mimoko moved her pawn to e5.

"Now watch closely! I'm about to turn this cute grandmaster into the baldest fool around!" Iori declared as she moved her king to f2.

Mimoko began to get visibly more angry as she moved her pawn to d5, but it subsided a bit when Iori moved her pawn to c3. "Could she actually be trying to do something creative under the guise of a blunder?" she thought as she moved her bishop to d6.

Then Iori moved her king to e3 and Mimoko's rage peaked.

"YO! I'm goin' for the omega bongcloud!"

"Iori-chan... Will you STOP MESSING WITH ME!?" Mimoko roared as she slammed her pawn down on e4.

"Lol- HEY! I can't omega bongcloud now!" Iori fumed as she moved her pawn to d3.

"Why would I let you?" Mimoko snarled as she moved her knight to c6.

"HAH! Delay's over! Omega bonglcoud comin' back on air in one!" Iori smirked as she captured the pawn at e4 with her d-pawn.

However, Mimoko completely ruined her plans by capturing said pawn with her d-pawn. Iori attempted to strike back by just capturing said pawn with her f-pawn, but then Mimoko moved her bishop to c5.

"Lol bye bye-"

"My queen prevents you from moving your king to d3," Mimoko glared.

Iori went pale and began to panic. "NO! I wanna omega bongcloud! You ruined it!" she cried as she moved her queen to d4.

"That was the best move you could have made, but you're still on a losing trajectory," Mimoko glared as she captured the queen at d4 with her knight.

"LOL screw the queen! King's gonna omega bongcloud!" Iori snickered as she moved her king to d3.

"That's it! You wanna go bald, go bald! Check!" Mimoko shouted as she moved her knight to b3.

"Lol, I'm so close, I'm completing the run," Iori grinned as she moved her king to c2.

"Oh? You want something flashy? Well here you go! Checkmate!" Mimoko glared as she captured the rook at a1 with her knight, winning the game.

"Lol, that's just a rook- NO! I DON'T WANNA GO BALD! Cece-chan, save me!" Iori cried as she began clinging to Carol.

Carol however was sweating buckets. While the original challenge was supposed to see her and Iori simultaneously play Mimoko, Iori had fallen before Carol could even make her first move.

"It's you're move. Don't disappoint me," Mimoko glared in English.

Carol was terrified. She had only dabbled in chess for streaming content and unlike Iori, wasn't secretly skilled at the game. She was a WWCF member and had a rating of 400, but that was nothing in the face of Mimoko's rating of 2730.

Carol nervously gulped and moved her pawn to e4, while Mimoko responded by moving her pawn to e5.

She then moved her knight to c3.

"The Vienna game? Perhaps I'll ease up a bit to make this fair," Mimoko thought as she moved her bishop to c5.

"YES! Now I get pawn!" Carol grinned as she moved her queen to g4.

"The giraffe attack!? Yo, I saw a vid on this move!" Iori grinned as she regained her gusto.

Seeing this caused Mimoko to pause for a bit. "I see. Maybe I've been in the gutter too much. After all, chess is about having fun. It seems in all the chaos these past few weeks has made me forget that. Perhaps I should apologize to Iori-chan, mainly for yelling at her and for condemning her and her friend to baldness," she thought as she smiled and moved her knight to f6.

Carol took the bait and immediately captured the pawn on g7 with her queen. "Look! I get a rook!"

"Not exactly," Mimoko chuckled as she moved her rook to g8.

Carol went quiet as she realized she couldn't take the rook. She frantically darted her head around the board until she found the one safe place to move her queen, h6. But that was only the beginning.

"Perhaps I should consider enjoying myself more instead of just trying to win, check," Mimoko smiled as she captured the pawn at f2 with her bishop.

"HAH You mess up, girl!" Carol gloated as she captured the bishop with her king, completely unaware that she had blundered.

"Check, seems that's the end of your queen," Mimoko smiled as she moved her knight to g4, forking the king and the queen.

Carol began to tremble before tipping over her king. "I resign."

"NO! We're gonna go bald now, you idiot!" Iori fumed as tears began pouring down her face.

"Welp, guess you two better get to the salon," Mimoko smiled as she grabbed Iori's phone from her.

...

Mimoko shuddered as she filmed Iori and Carol getting sheared. They truly did go all out. Even though she was just filming the ordeal, she couldn't help feeling terrified at the sight of Iori and Carol going bald. Just like Iori promised, they didn't hold back; their heads were shaved as bald as possible before being waxed along with their eyebrows and eyelashes. The two were then subjected to a full head and face shave and wax before being encased in depilatory cream, bawling their eyes out all the while.

"Are you sure you want your heads lasered?" the stylist nervously asked.

Iori briefly stopped crying. "Um yeah? Oh, and don't forget the eyebrows- Er, where the eyebrows were. We want this to be THE most extreme bald makeover. Oh, and if you could cover our mouths with some tape when ya laser us, that'd be appreciated."

The stylist begrudgingly agreed and Iori once again started crying again as her head was lasered. Once the lasering was done, she and Carol had their heads oiled and briefly calmed down as the oiling caused them to enter a state of bliss. However, they quickly went back into freak-out mode after seeing themselves bald. Even Mimoko let out a shriek at how radically different the two now looked.

Now completely devoid of hair, Iori and Carol bawled their eyes out for a few seconds before suddenly regaining their gusto.

"Lol, guess the omega bongcloud's a bust. Don't play omega bongclouds against grandmasters or you'll end up omega bald like me n' Cece-chan," Iori grinned as she began tapping her now smooth bald head.

"We never gonna have hair evers again," Carol grinned as she pulled out a marker and began drawing eyebrows on herself.

Once the three headed out, Mimoko turned to Iori. "Sorry you had to go permanently bald just to cheer me up."

"Huh? What are you talking about? We were down for this from the get-go," Iori shrugged.

Mimoko simply smiled and handed Iori her phone back. "You really are like Tanabe-kun, always doing things in roundabout ways."

"Hold up! You crushin' on him!? No way, he's mine!"

"Huh!? Y- You're in love with Tanabe-kun?"

"Psych!"

Mimoko began to pout in anger as her face went red with embarrassment. "Mo, I don't care if you're bald for the rest of your life," she huffed as she stormed away.

"Sorry Mimo-chan, but that psych was a psych. I'm gonna be Oki-kun's girl," Iori thought.

The full games:

White: Iori Ishikiridokoro (1188) Black: Mimoko Inoue (2730)

1. f3 e5

2. Kf2 d5

3. c3 Bd6

4. Ke3 e4

5. d3 Nc6

6. dxe4 dxe4

7. fxe4 Bc5+

8. Qd4 Nxd4

9. Kd3 Nb3+