A Game of Drinking Chess
Gulp.
Nervousness sent a lump of saliva sliding down his throat.
"By the way, you don't even have pajamas? What kind of state is that to sleep in?"
"I'm sorry?"
Only then did Bayul realize he'd fallen asleep still dressed in his daytime clothes. Why did I do that? I've never once done that at home.
'Ah — the Mark of the Oath.'
The moment that cold water energy had touched his forehead, his memory cut off. He must have fallen asleep right then. He raised a hand to touch his forehead, but other than smooth skin, he felt no trace of anything at all.
"You were missing at dinnertime too, and now you've simply collapsed and gone to bed?"
"I was a little tired……"
"Drinking on an empty stomach won't be easy on you."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Bring it here."
Bayul wasn't the only one who failed to understand — but he was the only one who showed it. At Pierre's instruction, the people surrounding Bayul backed away, giving him room. And into that cleared space, of all things, a table appeared.
"What is this?"
Bayul's eyes went round as saucers at the sight on the table, for it was the strangest thing he had ever laid eyes on in his life.
"You do know how to play chess?"
"Yes, somewhat……"
"And this is alcohol."
"Nice aroma, isn't it?"
The board was a chessboard, but the pieces were drinking cups. The ridiculous part was that every piece — pawns, rooks, knights, bishops, queens, kings — came in a different cup shape, and the liquors were poured in different colors to tell the two sides apart.
How is this chess?
"The rules are simple. You play exactly by the chess rules we all know. The only catch is that when a piece dies, you drain the cup."
"You mean I have to drink?"
"That's right. It's all quite fine liquor, so there's no need to worry."
Judging by the aroma that stabbed at his nose, it was absolutely not a low-proof drink. The harsh scent was already enough to make his head throb.
"I can't hold my liquor, sir."
"Everything is hard the first time."
"I've never drunk a drop in my life."
"Then today shall be a memorable one."
"Isn't bringing alcohol into the Academy forbidden?"
Forbidden things only grow more tempting — that's human nature for you. By the time students reached fourth year alongside Pierre, it was actually the rare exception to find one who hadn't tasted drink at least once.
"That's not the issue here……"
"If you truly hate it, then all you have to do is win, no?"
Easier said than done. Even if he did win, winning without losing a single piece was no small feat. Win or lose, he'd be downing more than a few cups either way.
"No — there's no way that's happening."
Someone cut in abruptly from behind Pierre. An arrogant voice with a nasal twang to it — a face that had been seared into Bayul's memory in a single day. Jared.
The boy strode up to stand before Bayul, chest puffed out as if he were a general returning from triumph.
"You made it, then?"
Pierre, who had maintained his imperious airs throughout, now welcomed Jared warmly, as if he were the gentle one of the pair. Something about it felt oddly inverted — Jared the first-year acting like the senior, Pierre the fourth-year fawning like a junior. The way he even offered up a chair, bidding him to sit, looked, for a flash, downright servile.
"I'll sit here, then?"
Now I understand. He's the one who orchestrated all of today. Sinking into the chair with a lopsided slouch, Jared tipped his chin at Bayul, radiating the confidence of someone with absolutely nothing to fear.
This is my world now.
Not a soul here is on your side.
Must be terrifying, hmm?
Worry was the truth of it — he'd never drunk before. But he wasn't afraid. He'd already crossed Jared once, and Bayul despised the boy. To fear someone he hated — no matter what a weakling Bayul might be, his pride would never allow it.
"Someone must not care much for sleep. Summoning me at this hour."
Determined not to lose face, Bayul answered as if nothing were amiss and pulled out a chair to sit.
"Right, exactly! That's why I set all this up for you."
"Thank you. When I tell my father about tonight, he'll be delighted, I'm sure. He's very fond of little amusements like this."
"Oh really?"
"Yes — if you manage to graduate safely this year, I expect he'll find you a nice position at court. You know how fond I am of you, hyung."
Are you listening? This is how you use people.
Jared spoke with his gaze fixed the entire time on Bayul, his face brimming with smug superiority.
"Go on ahead and polish the seat for me before I graduate, won't you? You'll have to help me out plenty here, just like you did tonight."
"Of course, of course. That's the plan. Just leave it all to me, Jared."
He was smiling so wide his lips might split, yet to Bayul the smile looked oddly pitiful. Bayul truly could not fathom what reason a person could possibly have to live like that — groveling to that extent.
"Well then, shall we begin? You've heard the rules already, I assume?"
"……"
"Don't look at me like that. It makes me want to go easy on you."
"Not that you'll need an excuse when you lose?"
"Oho. A competitive streak in you, of all people? Or are you bluffing because you're scared of facing this alone?"
"Think whatever you like."
He was not a person worth talking to anyway. At this point, Bayul resolved to focus purely on the chess.
"Talk about terrible luck. To share a room with a creature stinking of fish, of all things. My heart ached when I heard the news, truly."
Shoving a central pawn two squares forward, Jared spewed the words out with none of the sincerity behind them. Bayul's hand — already reaching across the board toward the identical piece — froze mid-motion.
"Why do you hate the Mermaid Queen so much?"
"What?"
"Did the Queen commit some crime against you? Because I've never caught so much as a whiff of fish."
"Hah — are you stupid? She's a mermaid. A mermaid. Not a person."
"So?"
"What do you mean, so? I felt it earlier too — something's wrong with your head, isn't it? You don't know what I mean?"
"No, I do. You'll seize any opening to insult the Queen, all while trumpeting the greatness of a barely-civilized species."
"Barely-civilized?"
"I think nothing like you do. In fact, I believe the Merfolk are superior to humans. They can breathe underwater, and on land they walk just like we do. Isn't that far more remarkable?"
"Haha, and here we have ourselves a champion advocate. But did you know? When you were dragged off to this place, the very creature you're defending so valiantly didn't stir one finger. Which is to say — it wasn't the least bit worried about you."
"Doesn't matter. I'll be walking out of here safe and sound."
"By beating me?"
"Chess happens to be one thing I don't fall behind in."
"Then this should be an entertaining match indeed."
Staring Jared's smirking face dead-on, Bayul slammed his pawn down onto the board with a resounding clack.
'I'm going to win, no matter what it takes.'
Utterly unaware that in the darkness, the Queen was watching him, Bayul poured every ounce of his focus into the chessboard for the first time in ages.
Bang!
The dormitory door burst open once again, without so much as a knock. The time was 7:40 in the morning — with wake-up normally at eight, an exceedingly early visitor. Having slept poorly thanks to the night's events, Quinn suppressed a rising irritation and pulled himself upright.
"Bayul!"
The morning's intruder was Eli. Word of last night had evidently reached him in the meantime; his hair was a tangled mess, and he'd barely thrown a robe over his pajamas. And yet with his face practically glowing, natural beauty seemed simply beyond anyone's control.
Whatever he'd heard, and however he'd heard it, the boy's complexion was nearly white as a sheet.
"Bayul, wake up! Are you all right or not, huh?"
Anyone would think he was dying of some terrible illness.
However close they'd gotten in a single day, for humans to raise such a fuss over it — what a peculiar species they were.
"Hey — hey! I said wake up!"
Quinn had cultivated a fairly quiet life for himself. As the Mermaid Kingdom's prince studying abroad in the human world, he couldn't help drawing eyes whether he wished to or not, but until now he had kept a careful distance and managed just fine on his own.
Yet from yesterday onward, all of that had slowly begun to unravel. Because of that human called Bayul.
They had only met for the first time yesterday, and already the boy had shaken him to the core. The whereabouts of the Eye of the Ocean, the water power Bayul carried, the pendant of unknown origin — the reasons piled up one upon another.
'I think nothing like you do. In fact, I believe the Merfolk are superior to humans. They can breathe underwater, and on land they walk just like we do. Isn't that far more remarkable?'
Last night, Bayul had said those words, proud and unflinching, right in front of Jared as he sneered at the Merfolk. The shock Quinn felt in that moment had been immense. No human had ever spoken of his kind the way Bayul had.
In truth, humanity's resentment toward the Merfolk stemmed from a handful of misunderstandings. Ever since the tale took root — of boatmen crossing the sea lured by the songs of the sirens, the mermaids of legend, only to be seized and devoured by monsters — a gulf had opened between humans and the Merfolk.
None of it was true, of course. The sirens sang simply because they loved to sing; they were never seducing boatmen. The problem lay with the human men who fell for the sirens.
Human desire — the longing to coax a siren, with her beautiful body and beautiful voice, into becoming his bride.
But a mermaid could never be joined with a human. A mermaid cannot live on land alone, and a human cannot live beneath the water.
As the jilted men, wounded by the sirens' refusals, increasingly chose death and hurled themselves into the sea, the story warped into a rumor too absurd to believe — that sirens devoured humans.
Such was the human way: to invent falsehoods, and to lay the blame for everything at another's feet. That was why Quinn despised humans. He wanted nothing to do with them. Until only yesterday morning, he had kept that vow impeccably well.
"Hey, Quinn. I know it's you, but isn't this going too far?"
When shaking Bayul failed to rouse him, Eli's arrows swiveled toward Quinn. Quinn scowled at him, as if to ask what on earth he meant, and Eli jabbed a finger at Bayul.
"You don't see this guy groaning and moaning with a hangover?"
"A hangover? Isn't he just sleeping?"
"Does he normally sleep while making sounds like that?"
At Eli's icy retort, Quinn finally spared Bayul a glance. The boy's face was pale beyond description — as white as it already was, not a trace of color could be found even if one washed one's eyes and looked again. His forehead and the back of his neck were slick with sweat, and as if gripped by some nightmare, strange little whimpers kept escaping him.
"…He does seem to be ill."
"Seems to be ill? That's all you have to say?"
What's the problem?
When Quinn simply tilted his chin up and stared, Eli's face twisted in disbelief.
"You didn't even know he got dragged off yesterday, did you?"
"……"
"No, don't answer — of course you knew. They say Merfolk have sharp ears."
Quinn neither affirmed nor denied it.
"You knew, and you just let it happen? Is that all you amount to, Quinn?"
The other had always been friendly toward him, and now he was lunging at him with fire in his eyes. It wasn't hurt he felt — but it was, admittedly, unfair.
Apparently I looked that unreliable. That disloyal.
After all, it had been Quinn who carried the boy, dead drunk, all the way back here. It had been Quinn who put up with his drunken antics until he finally drifted off.
As the night's events surfaced in his mind, the corner of Quinn's mouth twitched despite himself.