Road to be the Best Chess Player in the World!-Chapter 404: After the Game Dinner
"Okay, so, let me get this straight." Medina coughed, trying to get everyone’s attention. "You mean to tell me that we all get a positive result, and the only one who lost the game is Laysa?!" She asked incredulously. However, her lips were quivering, telling everyone that the woman was just messing around.
"No need to rub it on my face, you know?" Laysa pouted sourly.
"I am sorry, but isn’t this what you always did to me during the Olympiad?" Medina sneered.
"Yeah, and I remember that as well!" Claudia nodded in support. "Who would’ve thought that the first one to suffer defeat in this tournament is our great, talented Laysa?" The girl said the last part with full sarcasm. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖
It was the end of the day, and just like usual, everyone celebrated their good results in a nice restaurant nearby. It was a bit of a crime, though, as they went to an Indonesian restaurant, just to find out that the cook was a Vietnamese woman. However, since the taste was good and close to the original one back home, the complaint stuck in their throat, and they had no choice but to accept it silently.
Right now, everyone was busy teasing Laysa. After all, it was rare for a day to end up like this, with her being the only one who suffered. It was just that Laysa was unlucky in this pairing. Aleksandar Indjic was the type of player who could be a hermit, staying silently and so patiently to wear the opponent down to death. This was definitely a nightmare for an aggressive player like her, so in the end, she paid a huge price for her eagerness to win by getting the table flipped by the Serbian GM.
Medina herself managed to force a draw against Ahmed Adly from Egypt, which was definitely not a bad result for her. However, the woman came here with a huge target in mind. After getting her first-ever GM norm in Biel a month ago, she wanted to push her luck and try to get the second one. To do that, though, she would need to start winning a game or two against GMs in this tournament.
"So, the only players who won are Sheva and Anna, huh?" Laysa asked, still with a sour tone.
"Hey, don’t forget about me and Duta!" Claudia huffed, somehow dissatisfied that the older girl skipped her deliberately. "We also won our games, you know?! I even get a higher point than you!" She bragged with a smug smile.
"Tch! Anyone whose opponent rating is below 2300 doesn’t count!" Laysa sneered in disdain. "Oh, speaking of which, we also have to exclude Sheva from our list, because he is an alien cheater! There is no way he could win all games so flawlessly like this! I refuse to believe!" She accused Sheva with a half-joking tone.
"Why are you trying to drag me into this mess?" Sheva sighed helplessly.
"Yeah, and what do you mean my win doesn’t count?!" Claudia asked, enraged. Anna even had to hold her body back to avoid her crushing the table. "You just said that because you are a sore loser!" She accused back.
"Okay, okay, no need to get snippy about this..." Anna tried to calm down the tension.
Bagas and Sarah themselves just laughed their asses off, recording everything on the table for another behind-the-scenes content for his YouTube channel. It was a nice approach, making everyone believe that they were just like any normal human being who could laugh and joke about anything else, not just a genius machine who could only think about chess. However, the way the fat boy recorded it seemed to be inappropriate here.
"Why are you always pointing your camera at Laysa?" Sheva asked in a barely whisper.
"Oh, because of her strong personality, her fanbase starts to get bigger," Bagas answered without even turning around to look at him. "You don’t know how infuriating they are, always treating her like she is a goddess that couldn’t make a mistake! This will at least tell them all that Laysa is just like you guys, a complete sore loser!" He declared confidently.
Sheva himself felt the corner of his lips twitch slightly. ’How could you forget that your girlfriend’s fanbase is far crazier than that?’ He asked inwardly. However, since Sarah also heard the conversation, he didn’t dare to say that out loud, not wanting to have a beef with her.
They continued to bicker with each other for a while, and honestly, this was an eye-opener not just for Sheva, but also for everyone else. They didn’t expect the cool and aloof Medina to be so competitive in terms of insulting the others, not wanting to get upped by Laysa. Oh, well, maybe Laysa was the only one who could push the right button, making Medina lose all of her calmness immediately.
A moment later, a familiar boy suddenly rushed, his clothes were messy. "Sorry, everyone, I am late!"
The boy was Duta, and at this point, everyone at the table knew how much of a mama bear his mother was. The fact that he could be here was pretty much surprising, but with how bright the boy’s smile was right now, it seemed that he managed to make a strong argument about why he should be allowed to join this small party.
"So, what did you tell your mother?" Bagas couldn’t help but ask.
"Oh, nothing great," Duta said calmly, ordering a portion of food for himself. "I just tell her that I am a 13-year-old boy right now, and the more I get sheltered, the harder I will have to adapt to society in the future. She knows that I am right, so my mom finally allows me to go out, although a little bit reluctantly."
Well... That was a valid reason, especially for Duta. Unlike the others who went to a normal school, the boy was basically home-schooled, and he didn’t really go out with his peers a lot. Sooner or later, he would have to go out and socialize without his mother—well, it should be sooner, since he was 13 already—and Duta’s mother felt her heart ached at the image of his son being bullied for his lack of social ability. That was why she finally allowed him to be here.
It must be tiring, living under such extreme scrutiny. However, since Duta loved his mother so much, he had to be creative with his excuse without hurting her feelings too much.
Fortunately, Duta’s mother was just overprotective, but she knew when she lost an argument and could accept it openly. Bagas could think of a lot of mothers who would resort to violence when they lost an argument against their child, and honestly, those were the type of parents who were nightmares for everyone else.
"Man, I have to give you a hat’s off here." Bagas praised the boy. "I cannot imagine living under such a mama bear." He shivered at that image.
"Oh, it is not that bad..." Duta rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
"Don’t be so modest, Duta!" Claudia, the one whose age was the same, chimed in. "Just accept the praise that you deserve!" It seemed that those two also grew closer to each other. Well, as the two youngest members of the group, this was bound to happen soon.
They continued chatting, ignoring how the sun had already hidden below the horizon outside. Even though the celebration was over, they all still waited for one thing to arrive, and they wouldn’t go back to the hotel before it came.
Fortunately, they didn’t have to wait for so long, as fifteen minutes later, all the phones suddenly buzzed simultaneously.
PING!
’Ah! Finally! Here we go again!’
