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Agatha suggests a board game because she is feeling dangerously confident.
It’s one of those evenings where everything has gone right. Dinner was good. Not miraculously good, but solid, the kind of meal where nothing burned, nothing was forgotten, and Rio didn’t raise an eyebrow at any of Agatha’s questionable shortcuts. The dishes are already done. The apartment smells faintly like soap and warm air and the lingering comfort of being fed.
They are relaxed.
This, Agatha will later understand, is a trap.
Rio is on the couch with her legs stretched out, socked feet crossed neatly at the ankles, phone in hand. She’s not doing anything in particular, just scrolling, pausing occasionally, her expression thoughtful in that way that means her brain is idling but still very much on.
Agatha watches her for a second from the kitchen doorway.
She feels fond. Domestic. Slightly smug about it.
We should do an activity, her brain suggests.
A fun one, she adds quickly, like that’s important.
She grabs the board game from the shelf, the bright box with friendly colors and cartoonish graphics, the one that looks uncomplicated. She doesn’t read the back. She doesn’t check the rules. She is operating entirely on vibes.
“Hey,” Agatha says casually, like this idea just occurred to her and isn’t a calculated attempt at wholesome bonding. “Do you want to play a board game?”
Rio looks up immediately.
Agatha clocks the speed of it, the way Rio’s attention snaps into place, but does not yet recognize it as a warning sign.
“A board game?” Rio repeats.
“Yeah,” Agatha says, leaning one hip against the counter, box tucked under her arm. “Just for fun.”
She emphasizes fun.
She means: no pressure.
No thinking.
No stakes.
Just vibes. Just laughter. Just an evening where no one optimizes anything.
Rio’s brow furrows slightly.
“What kind of board game?” she asks.
Agatha shrugs. “A normal one.”
Rio tilts her head. “Define normal.”
Agatha waves a hand. “You know. Dice. Pieces. Maybe cards. We move stuff around. Someone wins. Someone loses. We emotionally recover.”
Rio hums, considering.
Agatha, emboldened, pushes on.
“It’s not competitive,” she adds, which is technically a lie but feels aspirational. “It’s just… something to do.”
Rio nods once. “Okay.”
Agatha beams.
This is where she should have stopped.
This is where she should have asked follow-up questions.
This is where she should have run.
Instead, she plops the box onto the coffee table with a triumphant little flourish.
“I’ll set it up,” she says. “You can be… vibes-based support.”
Rio’s eyes flick down to the box.
Agatha misses the way Rio straightens slightly. Misses the way her phone is immediately set aside, screen down, full attention redirected.
Agatha is too busy feeling pleased with herself.
She sits cross-legged on the floor and opens the box.
The lid lifts with a soft thwump.
Inside: neatly organized pieces, pristine cards, a rulebook that is, to Agatha’s mild concern, thicker than expected.
She ignores that.
“It’s pretty self-explanatory,” Agatha says, already pulling out the board. “I’m sure we can just figure it out as we go.”
Rio makes a small noise.
Agatha does not ask what kind.
She spreads everything out, humming to herself, narrating her process like this is all very charming and not at all the beginning of the end.
“Okay, so these go here. And these probably go… here. And these—” She squints. “—are these money or points?”
Rio leans forward.
Agatha feels it before she sees it, the shift in energy, the way Rio’s presence sharpens, focuses.
“Oh,” Rio says softly.
Agatha looks up. “Oh what?”
Rio picks up the rulebook.
Agatha’s stomach drops.
“Oh no,” Agatha says faintly.
Rio flips the book over, scanning the back. Then the side. Then the first page.
“This is actually interesting,” Rio says.
Agatha laughs. “Good! That’s good.”
Rio is already reading.
Out loud.
“So the objective is to maximize—”
“Whoa,” Agatha interrupts. “We don’t need the objective. We’re just playing.”
Rio pauses, blinks at her. “But that is the game.”
Agatha grins, undeterred. “Sure. But we can discover it organically.”
Rio stares at her for a beat.
Then she nods. “Okay.”
Agatha relaxes.
Rio flips the page.
Agatha does not notice the way Rio’s leg tucks in closer, posture tightening into something alert and engaged. She does not notice the way Rio’s eyes track the board already, mentally mapping possibilities.
Agatha is busy lining up pieces crookedly and narrating her own nonsense.
“I call the red one,” she declares. “It feels right.”
Rio glances at the red piece. “That’s statistically irrelevant.”
Agatha snorts. “Everything is statistically irrelevant when you believe in chaos.”
Rio smiles.
Agatha takes this as a win.
She is, at this point, completely unaware that she has just invited a Tetris grandmaster to game night.
And that she is about to lose.
Spectacularly.
Rio does not mean to take over the game.
It just… happens.
It starts the moment Agatha says the word chaos with that bright, reckless confidence, like it’s a philosophy instead of a threat. Rio watches her place the red piece down crookedly on the board, entirely unconcerned with alignment, symmetry, or what that placement might imply later.
Rio blinks.
She looks at the board again.
Then she looks at the other pieces.
Then, almost against her will, her brain turns on.
Not aggressively.
Not competitively.
Just… fully.
“Oh,” she says again, softer this time.
Agatha looks up, still grinning. “You already said that.”
“Yes,” Rio replies. “I’ve advanced.”
Agatha squints at her. “That sounds ominous.”
Rio opens the rulebook.
She tells herself it’s just to check something. One small thing. A clarification. A grounding of expectations.
She flips to the first page.
Her brain lights up like someone just handed her a familiar shape.
This isn’t Tetris, obviously. But there are systems here. Dependencies. Constraints. Probabilities. Choices that matter in ways that are not immediately obvious if you’re playing purely on vibes.
Which Agatha is.
Aggressively.
Rio’s lips part slightly as she reads.
“Oh,” she murmurs, delighted now. “There are resource loops.”
Agatha makes a vague dismissive noise. “I don’t know what that means, but I hate how excited you sound.”
Rio ignores her.
She reads the next section.
Then the next.
She tilts the board slightly, not touching anything, just adjusting her angle so she can see it better. She begins rearranging pieces, not moving them in play, just lining them up more neatly so they make sense spatially.
Agatha watches, head tilted.
“Are you… reorganizing?” Agatha asks.
“Yes,” Rio says automatically. “This setup is inefficient.”
Agatha laughs. “It’s a board game, not a warehouse.”
Rio frowns. “Those are not mutually exclusive.”
She finishes reading the rulebook.
All of it.
Agatha has stopped pretending not to notice.
“So,” Agatha says carefully, “do you feel ready to play?”
Rio nods. “Yes.”
Agatha relaxes again.
That is her second mistake.
Rio begins placing pieces with purpose.
Not aggressively.
Not smugly.
Just… decisively.
“If we’re starting here,” Rio says, tapping one section of the board, “then the optimal early strategy is actually to delay expansion and focus on accumulation.”
Agatha stares at her.
“I’m sorry,” Agatha says. “The what strategy?”
Rio looks up, surprised. “You don’t want to expand too early. It looks tempting, but it weakens your position by turn four.”
Agatha squints at the board. “There are only three turns.”
Rio pauses.
She checks the rulebook again.
“…Per round,” Rio says.
Agatha gasps. “That’s a trick.”
Rio smiles faintly. “Yes.”
They begin.
Agatha rolls the dice with flourish, cheering when it lands on a number she likes, booing when it doesn’t. She makes decisions based on color coordination, vibes, and what she refers to as narrative satisfaction.
Rio watches her like a fascinating case study.
Agatha takes a risky move.
Rio’s eyebrow twitches.
“That’s statistically unsound,” Rio says gently.
Agatha points at her. “No backseat gaming.”
“I’m not backseat gaming,” Rio replies. “I’m observing.”
Agatha narrows her eyes. “You just said ‘statistically.’”
Rio shrugs. “I contain multitudes.”
Agatha continues playing recklessly.
Rio adjusts.
She doesn’t attack Agatha’s strategy, that would be rude. Instead, she subtly adapts her own moves to account for Agatha’s unpredictability, reinforcing areas that Agatha is likely to wander into without realizing it.
She builds quietly.
Efficiently.
Agatha hums happily, unaware.
Five minutes in, Rio has already mapped the board three turns ahead.
Ten minutes in, she knows exactly where Agatha will run into trouble.
At fifteen minutes, Agatha leans back, satisfied.
“I’m doing great,” she declares.
Rio looks at the board.
Then at Agatha.
Then back at the board.
“You are,” Rio says diplomatically. “For now.”
Agatha’s eyes narrow. “Why did you say it like that.”
Rio gestures. “If you continue like this, you’ll be blocked here, here, and here.”
Agatha freezes.
“You can’t know that.”
Rio points again. “You’ve made your preferences very clear.”
Agatha stares at the board like it has betrayed her personally.
“You said this was casual,” Agatha accuses.
“It is,” Rio insists. “I’m just… engaging fully.”
Agatha laughs, incredulous. “This is not ‘ engaging fully.’ This is a takedown.”
Rio tilts her head. “Would you like me to disengage?”
Agatha hesitates.
She looks at the board.
Then at Rio.
“…No,” she says stubbornly. “I want to see how bad this gets.”
Rio nods, respectful. “Okay.”
She proceeds to dismantle Agatha’s strategy with surgical precision.
Not maliciously.
Not gleefully.
Just… thoroughly.
By the time Agatha realizes what’s happening, it’s too late.
Rio has accidentally won.
She blinks at the final state of the board.
“Oh,” Rio says. “I think I won.”
Agatha stares.
Silence stretches.
Then Agatha collapses backward onto the couch dramatically.
“I trusted you,” she groans.
Rio looks genuinely concerned. “You asked to play.”
Agatha throws an arm over her eyes. “I asked to have fun.”
Rio considers this carefully.
“I did have fun,” she says.
Agatha peeks at her through her fingers. “Of course you did.”
Rio smiles, small, pleased, utterly unrepentant.
And somewhere between the pieces scattered on the table and Agatha’s theatrical despair, Rio realizes something quietly important:
Agatha didn’t actually want to win.
She wanted to play.
This may require… adjustments.
Later.
For now, Rio gently closes the rulebook.
And waits for the fallout.
Agatha stares at the board.
She does not blink.
She does not breathe.
She simply… stares.
The pieces are all still there, brightly colored, cheerfully oblivious to the crime scene they now constitute. The board hasn’t moved. Nothing dramatic has happened externally.
Internally, however, Agatha’s soul has left her body, circled the apartment once, and come back deeply disappointed in her.
“You didn’t win,” Agatha says slowly.
Rio tilts her head. “I’m fairly certain I did.”
Agatha squints harder at the board, as if this is a matter of perspective. “No. You think you won. But that can’t be right because I was having fun.”
Rio looks at the scoring track again. “That is not a recognized rule.”
Agatha exhales sharply through her nose.
She sits up, scoots closer to the coffee table, and begins retracing the last few turns like a detective reconstructing a crime.
“Okay,” she mutters. “Let’s just… walk through this.”
Rio obliges, pointing when prompted, answering questions with calm, unbothered precision.
“Yes, you moved there.”
“Yes, that triggered this.”
“Yes, that allowed me to do this.”
Agatha’s stomach sinks with every explanation.
“Oh my god,” Agatha whispers.
Rio watches her carefully now.
Agatha straightens abruptly.
“You were planning this.”
Rio blinks. “Planning what?”
“This,” Agatha gestures wildly at the board. “The entire collapse of my strategy.”
Rio frowns. “You did not appear to have a strategy.”
“That was my strategy,” Agatha snaps. “Vibes-based dominance.”
Rio considers this. “That is not dominant.”
Agatha slaps a hand to her chest.
“I trusted you,” she says, voice thick with betrayal. “I invited you into my home. I gave you snacks.”
Rio looks genuinely distressed now. “I did not think snacks were conditional.”
“They absolutely were,” Agatha says. “This is a violation of the social contract.”
Rio glances at the rulebook. “It is not mentioned here.”
Agatha groans and collapses sideways onto the couch again, dramatic and limp.
“Oh no,” she mutters. “Oh no, no, no. I see what I’ve done.”
Rio watches her from the floor, unreadable.
“I made the fatal error,” Agatha continues, staring at the ceiling. “I forgot who you are.”
Rio’s eyebrow lifts slightly.
“You are not a board game person,” Agatha says. “You are a systems analyst disguised as a human being.”
Rio opens her mouth to object.
Agatha barrels on.
“I invited a Tetris grandmaster to Game Night,” she says. “This is on me.”
Rio shifts, sitting back on her heels. “I did not bring Tetris into this.”
“You brought the energy of Tetris,” Agatha insists. “The spirit of Tetris. The aura of ruthless optimization.”
Rio tilts her head. “I was being gentle.”
Agatha sits bolt upright.
“You call that gentle?”
“Yes,” Rio says seriously. “I avoided three early lockout strategies because they felt unsporting.”
Agatha gasps. “There were worse options?”
Rio nods once.
Agatha falls back again.
“This is my villain origin story.”
She presses her forearm over her eyes, groaning.
“I just wanted something light,” she mutters. “Something where we roll dice and laugh and maybe accidentally cheat a little.”
Rio considers this carefully.
“I did laugh,” she offers.
Agatha peeks at her. “You laughed internally.”
“That still counts.”
Agatha drops her arm, fixing Rio with a look.
“You didn’t even hesitate,” she says. “You saw the board and went, ‘Yes. I will dismantle my girlfriend with kindness.’”
Rio frowns. “That was not my intention.”
“But it was the result,” Agatha says.
She looks at the board again, eyes narrowing.
“And now I understand why you don’t play Monopoly with people.”
Rio winces. “That was one time.”
Agatha points accusingly. “You bankrupted your cousin in twenty minutes.”
“She was reckless,” Rio says defensively.
Agatha laughs despite herself, a short, incredulous burst that breaks the tension.
“This was supposed to be cozy,” she says. “And instead, I’ve been educated.”
Rio smiles faintly. “Learning can be cozy.”
Agatha groans again.
She reaches out and nudges the board away with her foot, not flipping it, just… disowning it.
“Okay,” she says, sitting up properly now. “I accept responsibility. This is my fault. I set us up for failure.”
Rio watches her, amused now.
“What would you like to do instead?” Rio asks.
Agatha thinks for half a second.
“Cuddling,” she says immediately. “Or watching something dumb. Or a game where thinking is illegal.”
Rio considers this seriously.
“Could we play again,” she asks, “but with modified rules?”
Agatha narrows her eyes. “Explain.”
“I would make suboptimal choices on purpose,” Rio says. “To preserve vibes.”
Agatha stares at her.
“…You would handicap yourself?”
“Yes.”
Agatha squints harder. “That sounds fake.”
“I am very sincere.”
Agatha laughs, shaking her head.
“You’re unbelievable.”
Rio smiles, warm, fond, unapologetic.
Agatha leans over and kisses her, quick and affectionate.
“I love you,” she says. “But never let me suggest a board game again without a warning label.”
Rio nods solemnly. “Understood.”
They leave the board where it is, pieces scattered, game unresolved, dignity mostly intact.
Agatha curls into Rio’s side, still laughing under her breath.
She has learned a valuable lesson tonight.
Some people play games.
Others solve them.
And Agatha will never, ever confuse the two again.
The board game remains on the coffee table.
Unfinished.
Unacknowledged.
Deeply disgraced.
Agatha pointedly does not look at it.
She shifts closer to Rio instead, tucking herself sideways into the corner of the couch with the kind of exaggerated decisiveness that makes it very clear she has chosen a different activity. One that does not involve dice, probability, or personal betrayal.
Rio adjusts instinctively, lifting her arm to make space, settling back into the cushions like this is exactly where she expected to end up all along.
Agatha drapes herself over her without ceremony.
“This is a ceasefire,” Agatha announces, voice muffled against Rio’s shoulder. “All hostile strategic actions are suspended.”
Rio blinks down at her. “Including the game?”
“Especially the game,” Agatha says. “The game is in time-out.”
Rio glances at the coffee table, then back at Agatha. “Should I put it away?”
Agatha tightens her grip immediately.
“No,” she says. “If I have to acknowledge it again tonight, I will simply pass away.”
Rio hums thoughtfully. “Understood.”
Agatha relaxes, her body sinking fully into Rio’s side now that the danger has passed. The tension she didn’t even realize she was holding bleeds out of her all at once, shoulders dropping, breath evening out, limbs going pleasantly heavy.
This is the correct activity.
Rio’s hand comes up to rest at Agatha’s waist, warm and steady. She rubs slow, absent circles there, not consciously comforting, just existing in touch the way she always does when things are settled.
Agatha sighs.
“See,” she says lazily. “This is what ‘for fun’ looks like.”
Rio considers this. “There are no rules.”
“Exactly.”
Rio nods. “I can work with that.”
Agatha snorts, shifting so her head rests more comfortably against Rio’s chest. She can feel Rio’s heartbeat, calm, even, utterly unaffected by the emotional journey Agatha has just endured.
“How are you so unbothered?” Agatha asks.
Rio shrugs slightly. “I enjoyed the game.”
Agatha groans. “You would.”
“But,” Rio adds thoughtfully, “I also enjoy this.”
Her hand tightens slightly at Agatha’s waist, a quiet emphasis.
Agatha smiles despite herself.
She tilts her head back just enough to look up at Rio, eyes half-lidded now, earlier outrage softened into something affectionate and ridiculous.
“You know,” Agatha says, “most people ease their partners into competitive hobbies.”
“I was not competing,” Rio replies mildly.
Agatha raises an eyebrow. “You dismantled me in under an hour.”
Rio tilts her head. “I thought you wanted engagement.”
Agatha laughs, full-bodied now, the sound bubbling up from somewhere warm.
“I wanted banter,” she says. “Trash talk. Mild chaos. Not a masterclass.”
Rio smiles faintly, clearly pleased. “You were very chaotic.”
“That was my one success,” Agatha agrees.
She shifts again, tucking one leg over Rio’s thighs, claiming space unapologetically. Rio accommodates easily, adjusting her posture without complaint.
This, Agatha thinks, is how peace is negotiated.
They sit like that for a while, the apartment quiet except for the hum of evening settling in. The earlier energy has diffused completely, replaced by that soft domestic hum that comes from shared space and no expectations.
Eventually, Rio speaks.
“Would it help,” she asks carefully, “if next time I explained less?”
Agatha huffs. “Yes.”
“And maybe let you win?”
Agatha scoffs. “I don’t need charity.”
Rio raises an eyebrow. “You lost catastrophically.”
Agatha considers this.
“…Okay, maybe some charity.”
Rio nods solemnly. “I will calibrate.”
Agatha laughs again, burying her face into Rio’s shoulder.
“I really do love you,” she says, voice quieter now. “Even when you turn leisure activities into intellectual warfare.”
Rio presses a kiss to Agatha’s hair, gentle and unassuming.
“I love you too,” she says. “Even when you choose chaos over logic.”
Agatha lifts her head. “That is my brand.”
They lapse back into comfortable silence.
After a moment, Rio shifts slightly.
“Do you want me to put the game away now?” she asks again.
Agatha glances at the coffee table, where the board still sits, smug and unresolved.
“…Yes,” she says. “Before it tries to hurt me again.”
Rio chuckles softly and carefully extricates herself just enough to lean forward and gather the pieces, efficient even in cleanup. She slides everything back into the box neatly, decisively closing the lid.
The game is gone.
Agatha watches it disappear with satisfaction.
Rio sets the box back on the shelf, higher than before.
Agatha nods approvingly. “Exile.”
Rio returns to the couch immediately, pulling Agatha back into place like this is where she belongs.
Agatha settles without protest.
Cuddles, it turns out, are undefeated.
She yawns, stretching lazily, limbs heavy and content.
“Next time,” she says drowsily, “I’m picking a different activity.”
Rio hums. “What will it be?”
Agatha smiles, eyes closing.
“Something with absolutely no rules,” she says. “And zero opportunity for you to dominate me intellectually.”
Rio smiles into her hair.
“We’ll see.”
Agatha snorts, already half-asleep, safe in the knowledge that tonight’s war is over.
The board game has been neutralized.
Peace has been restored.
And cuddles, once again, have won.