Chapter 26
Kim Minjun. A fifth-grader in elementary school.
He was a member of the chess club's beginner class.
He'd been in the club for over two years.
By now, there was no one stronger than him in the beginner class.
That was his only source of pride.
But that pride had a small crack in it.
The stairs up to the second floor.
The staircase separating the introductory and beginner classes from the intermediate and advanced classes.
Minjun would sometimes stare at those stairs.
To him, those stairs felt like a huge wall that represented a gap in status.
He had never even thought about challenging the advanced class.
Most of the people in the advanced class were high schoolers or adults.
The problem was the intermediate class.
Most of the intermediate class was made up of middle and high school students, but every now and then kids his own age from the beginner class would get promoted to intermediate.
Whenever he saw kids his own age stepping onto those intermediate-class stairs, something in Minjun's chest would squeeze tight.
The most painful thing was probably when a third-grader two years younger than him got promoted to intermediate.
It stung then too, but he held it in. They were only one or two years apart, after all.
But today was different.
The director was testing the new arrivals.
Minjun stole a glance at them from the side.
Girls who were at least 40 cm shorter than him.
One was five years old, and the other was three.
‘What.’
At first, he just snorted and paid it no mind.
There was no way they could really play chess properly at that age.
At a glance, it looked like their parents had dragged them here to force early education on them.
‘Poor things. I'm different from them. I have talent.’
After a few tries, they'd probably say, “Ah, this isn't for us,” and never come back.
That's what he thought.
But.
Watching the girls solve the puzzles, Minjun stopped.
‘10 seconds. 7 seconds. 12 seconds...?’
He remembered those problems; they were the puzzle positions the club had assigned this week.
‘How many seconds did I take on those...? I think each one took over 20 seconds...’
Well, it was probably a coincidence.
Minjun shook his head as if it was nothing.
And then came the five-minute blitz game against the director.
The five-year-old held out against the director until the middlegame before losing.
The three-year-old lost too, but she made the director's expression twist during the game.
“어… 어어…”
Before he knew it, Minjun had gotten up.
The worst possible scenario flashed through his mind.
And his unease became reality.
“This is a very unusual case, but I think it would be best to place both Yoo Ahyeon and Yoo Arin in the intermediate class. They're really amazing. Usually, the intermediate class is where middle schoolers start.”
Intermediate class.
Being assigned to the intermediate class meant climbing that staircase.
That staircase.
The staircase he'd only been looking at for two years.
The five-year-old and the three-year-old were going up...?
Something surged up inside Minjun's chest.
Without realizing it, he blurted out words colored by emotion.
“Director!”
The director turned around.
“Does it make sense for that five-year-old to go to intermediate class? She's still in beginner class. If a kid six years younger than me is in a higher class, what am I supposed to be?”
After saying it, Minjun felt a little regret.
He'd been a little too honest about what he was feeling.
The surrounding stares gathered on him.
He felt his face heat up, thinking he'd shown an ugly side of himself.
And before the director could say anything.
The five-year-old spoke first.
“Oppa.”
Minjun looked down toward the voice.
At 145 cm tall, he was looking down at the girl who stood 105 cm tall.
But.
Even with that 40 cm difference, he could feel an aura that couldn't be ignored.
The child pointed at the chessboard with her hand.
“Then do you want to play a match with me?”
✒️✒️✒️
The director stopped Minjun.
“Minjun, that's enough. I think there was some misunderstanding—”
“I'll do it.”
Minjun refused to back down. If he beat her himself, that would prove it.
There was no way he'd lose at chess to a five-year-old child.
A five-year-old girl should just quietly go to the playground and play house.
The two sat down across from each other at the table.
Minjun took White.
The girl took Black.
The game was 10-minute rapid.
Minjun went for the center with a standard opening.
It was an opening he'd learned over the two years at the club.
But the girl on the other side started making strange moves.
Not attacking, but not focusing only on defense either.
The pieces slowly began to tangle in a strange way.
‘What is this position... I've never learned anything like this.’
When none of the moves he'd learned came up, Minjun panicked.
He tried to calmly read the next move, but he couldn't.
There were too many possibilities.
No matter what move he played, something felt off.
‘I'll go here for now.’
Minjun moved his bishop.
The next moment, the opponent's knight went for a fork.
A knight attacking the queen and the undefended bishop at the same time.
“Ah.”
Minjun had to pull his queen back.
He lost a bishop.
‘I made a mistake.’
He tried to read the position again.
The position was even more tangled now.
He made another mistake.
Another piece went flying.
Tick-tock-.
The indifferent passage of time slowly pressed down on Minjun.
Cold sweat ran down his forehead.
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‘Too weak.’
I thought to myself.
‘He's making more mistakes than Arin in a position this simple.’
Arin's calculation ability was better than mine, so she didn't make mistakes that would quickly put her in trouble.
But this guy couldn't properly read ahead as soon as the position got complicated, and he blundered into losing pieces.
He lacked the ability to read the position as a whole.
And then.
As the game went past the middlegame, the material difference widened noticeably.
Checkmate was only a matter of time.
I pronounced a death sentence on the white king.
“Checkmate-!”
He stared at the board for a long time, his expression complicated.
He didn't even let out a pathetic 'woohing' sound. He was too pathetic for that.
I shrugged and deliberately said something irritating.
“Oppa, you're seriously pathetic. My little sister would be stronger than you.”
I'm not really the type to say aggressive things like this.
But if my opponent isn't going to be polite, then I don't need to be polite either.
The so-called tit-for-tat strategy.
(*Tit-for-tat: one of the reciprocal strategies in game theory. If the other side defects, you defect too; if they cooperate, you cooperate.)
When I got under his skin, his eyes widened.
“… What?”
“My little sister. That one. You're more pathetic than my three-year-old little sister. Want to play her too?”
I pointed at Arin standing beside me.
“… ”
Arin looked up at him and said in a small voice,
“… P-please take care of me...”
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And so the match between Yoo Arin and Kim Minjun began.
He played each move calmly, his expression stiff compared to before.
I stood beside them with my arms crossed and watched.
In low-rated games, the difference in tactical skill actually stands out more clearly.
Since neither side has the skill to create a complicated position, it turns into a simple tactical battle.
But beating Arin in a short tactical battle is hard.
Even I couldn't do it, so that says it all.
The opening began.
He played the theoretical moves just as he'd learned them.
Arin hesitated as she moved her pieces.
Since she lacked opening theory, she spent a little time thinking through her moves in the early game.
Arin's face looked unsure, but each move she made after thinking was strong.
Once the opening was over, the time it took him to make each move started getting longer and longer.
By contrast, Arin now began answering almost instantly. With fewer possibilities, she had almost no need to think.
He pinned with his bishop.
Arin saw it and immediately forked with her knight.
“Huh.”
His hand froze for a moment.
The material gap gradually widened.
And Arin kept trying to force exchanges. A string of quick trades.
The game ended in an instant.
He trembled, then clenched his eyes shut and laid down his king.
Arin glanced at the board for a moment, then put her hands together and bowed politely.
“Th-thank you very much...”
I walked up to the victorious Arin and whispered in her ear.
Softer and softer-
“Arin, say, 'You're pathetic, oppa-'”
“Y-you're pathetic, oppa... But, big sister, what does pathetic mean?”
At last, he bowed his head and covered his face with his hands, in pain.
I approached the loser and said,
“Oppa, then you don't have any complaints now, right? We're going up.”
The director gave Dad a look.
Nod-nod-
Dad nodded.
Our group climbed the stairs to the second floor.
Pitter-patter-
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Minjun sat there in a daze and watched the group go up the stairs.
The stairs he'd been unable to climb for two years.
Only five- and three-year-old girls.
Were climbing them so easily.
The children around him started to shyly avert their eyes.
Minjun buried his head in the chessboard, the pieces still not fully tidied up, and collapsed forward.
‘I had been living in an illusion...’
Two years of built-up pride. The strongest in the beginner class.
He felt bitterly, in that moment, that it had all been nothing but an illusion.
Jealous.
So jealous.
I wish I could be like that.
I wish I could go up too.
I want to be able to do that too.
I want to move up to the intermediate class too.
Before long, the sound of footsteps going up the stairs disappeared.
Minjun stayed face-down like that for a while.
The cuffs of his sleeves were slightly wet.
The director came back and put a hand on Minjun's shoulder.
“Minjun.”
“… ”
“Those kids are special. It's not that you're weak.”
“… ”
“Get up.”
Minjun slowly lifted his head.
A faint voice came from the second floor.
The annoying voice he'd heard earlier.
Minjun slowly stood up and took a notebook and pencil case out of his backpack.
He took out a ballpoint pen and wrote the following in the notebook.
[Do at least 5 rapid games every day]
[Review games every day]
[Solve at least 20 puzzles every day]
Minjun gritted his teeth.