Chapter Text
***
Sukuna Ryomen has never lost.
It's not an exaggeration or a hallway rumor. It's a fact everyone knew. In the three years he's been at the university, his record is spotless: honor rolls, debates won, projects that companies fight over before he even finishes presenting them. Professors cite him as an example. Students admire him or detest him, but all of them, without exception, respect him.
And in the chess club, his reign is practically absolute.
On Thursday afternoons, when the sun starts tinting the windows of classroom B-12 orange, Sukuna sits in his usual chair —the one in the center, the one with the backrest slightly worn from leaning back so much— and waits. The other club members swarm around him like satellites. Some want to learn. Others just want to be close. Most simply don't dare to challenge him.
That Thursday, Sukuna has just dispatched a second-year student in eleven moves. He didn't even have to think too hard. The kid made a mistake in the opening —a beginner's mistake, one of those Sukuna detects before the other finishes moving the piece— and from there everything was a predictable slide into defeat.
When the king falls, Sukuna leans back in his chair and drums his fingers on the table. He's bored. He's been bored for months.
—Anyone else want to try?
It's his closing line. He delivers it with a smile that doesn't quite reach mockery but grazes the edge. Those present look at each other, uncomfortable. No one moves.
Then the door opens.
It's not a would-be rival. It's a black-haired guy who enters without making noise, with a book under his arm and his uniform slightly disheveled. His tie hangs loose around his neck and his hair falls over his forehead in dark strands he doesn't seem to have bothered to comb. His eyes are blue, or maybe green, or perhaps a mix of both, and they have that strange quality of someone who looks without seeing, as if the outside world mattered just barely.
Sukuna recognizes him. He's the guy from his business strategy class. Fushiguro. Megumi Fushiguro.
He's seen him before, many times. Always sitting by the window, always with his gaze lost somewhere beyond the glass, always oblivious to any kind of commotion Sukuna might stir up. Quite indifferent, if it could be described that way.
And that, for Sukuna, is new.
—Fushiguro, right? —The club president intercepts him before he can set the book on the table and leave—. You used to play back in high school, didn't you? Itadori mentioned it the other day.
Itadori's name awakens something in Megumi. A slight relaxation in his shoulders, almost imperceptible.
—I played —he answered, his voice low and calm.
—Perfect! —The president claps, delighted—. How about a match against Ryomen? He's been undefeated for two years. Let's see if you give him a scare.
—I don't have much time.
—Just one game!
Megumi turns his head toward Sukuna and looks at him. It's a brief glance, clean, without curiosity or admiration or fear. He observes him as if he were evaluating a piece of furniture, or a painting on a wall, or anything else not worth more than a superficial glance.
—No, thanks —he says, and turns toward the table to set the book down.
—Are you scared?
Sukuna's voice cuts through the classroom air. The others fall silent. The president opens his mouth and closes it, not quite sure what to do with that sudden tension.
Megumi stays still for a second. Then he turns slowly. This time his gaze really lands on Sukuna, unhurried.
—No —he says, with the same calm he'd use to talk about the weather—. I just don't feel like it.
—I think you are scared.
It's a cheap provocation. Sukuna knows it. But he's been wanting that ghost to express something for weeks, and now that he has him in front of him, he's not going to let him escape. There's something in Megumi's indifference that bothers him and attracts him in equal measure, something he can't name but that gives him a tingling in his stomach.
Megumi holds the gaze for a few seconds. Then, without saying anything, he drops the book onto the nearest table, crosses the classroom, and sits down in front of him.
—White goes first —he says, and places the pieces with precise movements, without hesitation—. Your move.
Sukuna smiles. It's not his usual smile, the one of smugness. It's something else. He's genuinely intrigued.
—Your move —he repeats, and moves a pawn.
The game starts like all the others. Sukuna deploys his favorite opening —moving a pawn to make room for the queen, rapid development, control of the center— and waits for Megumi to make a mistake. But Megumi doesn't make mistakes. He plays with an unsettling calm, moving his pieces without hesitation, without rushing, without that wavering Sukuna identifies in players who think too much. Megumi doesn't think: he knows. Or at least that's how it seems.
On the ninth move, Megumi sacrifices a knight. Sukuna accepts the capture with a raised eyebrow. It's a strange move, almost clumsy. For an instant he feels a pang of disappointment: is this it? The guy who's been ignoring him for weeks turns out to be an amateur who gives away pieces?
On the fourteenth move, he understands.
Megumi has woven a net. Small, invisible, threaded with patience and precision. Sukuna realizes it when he tries to move his queen again and discovers that three enemy pieces block all the exits. The knight's sacrifice wasn't a mistake: it was a trap, and he fell into it with his eyes wide open.
The rest of the game is a slow agony. Sukuna tries to defend himself, but every move he makes was already anticipated. Megumi corners him without haste, without cruelty, with an almost surgical coldness. On the twenty-first move, the black-haired guy slides his own queen to the exact square and says, without raising his voice:
—Checkmate.
The silence that follows is absolute. The club members are paralyzed, their eyes going from the board to Sukuna and from Sukuna to the board. Someone holds their breath. Another murmurs something under their breath.
Sukuna says nothing. His eyes are fixed on his fallen king and on Megumi's fingers, long and pale, still holding the queen piece. Then he lifts his gaze and meets those blue eyes that look at him without any triumph, without mockery, without anything.
—Good game —says Megumi.
And he stands up.
—Wait!
—What?
Sukuna didn't know what to say. He didn't know why he had stopped him. He only knew he didn't want him to leave.
—I want a rematch.
Megumi looked at him over his shoulder. His expression was hard to read, but there was something in it that wasn't hostility. Maybe curiosity. Or maybe just tiredness.
—Bye.
Sukuna watches him as he crosses the classroom, picks up the book he'd left on the table, and opens the door. Before leaving, Megumi pauses for an instant, as if he were about to say something else, but he doesn't. The door closes behind him.
That night, Sukuna can't sleep.
He lies in bed, hands behind his head, eyes fixed on the ceiling. He mentally replays the game over and over: every move, every capture, every little detail. And in the middle of the darkness, he catches himself smiling.
The next day, in the cafeteria, he sees him again. Megumi is sitting at a corner table, next to the window, with a black coffee in front of him and an open book. Beside him are two other people: a guy with pink hair and an easy smile —Itadori Yuuji, the one who plays soccer and greets everyone as if they were lifelong friends— and a girl with chestnut hair who gestures energetically while talking —Kugisaki Nobara, the one who always protests in ethics class and doesn't shut up even when the professor glares at her.
Yuuji whispers something in Megumi's ear and he rolls his eyes, but doesn't pull away. Nobara laughs and elbows him. Megumi huffs, but the corner of his lips curves a millimeter. It's almost a smile. Almost.
Sukuna watches them from the other end of the cafeteria. He doesn't know why, but it stirs a feeling of annoyance in him. It bothers him to see Megumi surrounded by people he laughs with, people he talks to, people he doesn't put up a wall with.
Which gives Sukuna an idea.
—What are you looking at? —one of his friends asks, following his gaze.
—Nothing —Sukuna replies, and averts his eyes to his coffee.
But he already knows. He's already decided. Megumi Fushiguro is going to play with him again. And Sukuna thinks, as he finishes his coffee, that next time he won't lose.
He didn't know yet that he had already lost that game. And that the checkmate, when it came, wouldn't be on a board.
***