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It’s just like the President to contact her via student email.
Nakayama would have immediately ignored it like every other piece of borderline spam email she gets that apparently counts as an important announcement, but the title of the notification catches her attention. “A personal request from Symboli Rudolf.”
So she opens it.
“Nakayama Festa,” it starts, “I hope this message finds you well. I greatly enjoyed our chess game last Thursday; if you are available this afternoon after your classes, I would be delighted to meet you in the student council office for a rematch. If not, I would appreciate it if you could let me know a time or place more suitable to you.”
Nakayama snorts as she reads on, imagining the President typing such a formal message to her of all people with shaking hands. She’s so cautious as to not break character, even though the very act of sending her a challenge is doing that anyway. For as innocent as she tries to seem, it’s incredibly easy to tell what game she’s trying to play here, and it’s not chess.
She could show the message to Sirius, have a laugh about it, but a devious idea crosses her mind that makes it more fun if she doesn’t. From what Sirius has said, in the rare moments that she can even talk about Rudolf with a hint of fondness in her voice instead of vitriol, the President’s competitive streak is miles wide. She’s way better at chess than Nakayama is — the outcome of a rematch is almost certain, so she’ll just get a foregone conclusion that might make her feel better about herself. But it wouldn’t be hard to get her to do something more interesting, would it?
Nakayama’s fingers hover over the reply button. In the subject line, she writes “my challenge.”
Dear President Rudolf,
18:00 billiard hall you know the one see you there
No punctuation, no polite language, nothing. If she’s going to pick fights with random students, she can at least be reminded of the “level” she’s stooping to.
Not even ten minutes later, Nakayama’s phone vibrates in her back pocket. Her tail swishes restlessly. The unformatted email with no subject line reads “Challenge accepted.”
Oh, she’s starting to understand why power corrupts.
——
Thankfully, Nakayama had gotten all of her training out of the way in the morning. Fifteen minutes before the established meeting time, she turns into an alleyway lit with neon and opens the door to Sirius’ favorite billiards hall. When she’d returned to the dorms, Sirius wasn’t home yet and they didn’t run into each other before Nakayama left, so she’s had no opportunity to find out her plans for the night. It feels fun to sneak around like this.
A group of girls from Sirius’ entourage recognize her and call for her to join them by the darts. One of them, a short girl with a blonde ponytail pulled unbelievably tight against her scalp, frowns. “No Sirius?”
Nakayama pulls out a chair at the table with them and leans her arm against the back. “Hell if I know where she is,” she says, shrugging and biting down on the lollipop stick in her mouth to keep herself from grinning too hard.
“Why are you here, then?” the girl whose turn it is throwing darts asks before missing miserably. Nakayama snorts.
“Am I supposed to follow at her heels? I’m not a pet.”
“Your tail’s wagging,” a girl in a green hat teases.
“Hard not to be excited. I’m here for the love of the game, you know?”
Ponytail girl smirks. “If you brought cards, I’ll deal. Blackjack?”
“Actually,” Nakayama pops her lollipop out of her mouth for dramatic effect, “I’m waiting for someone.”
One of the girls’ ears perk up immediately. Wow, she really has them wrapped around her fingers, doesn’t she? “Sirius said she wouldn’t be here today.”
Leaning forward, Nakayama breaks out in a smile, chewed lollipop hanging from her fingers. “Can’t a girl know other people?”
At that moment, every ear in the room twitches towards the front door. “Speak of the Devil,” Nakayama says, laughing, as half of the faces in the room go white.
Symboli Rudolf enters in wireframe glasses and a cute green blouse, carefully closing the door behind her. Clutching the strap of her purse and swiping a lock of her bangs out of her face, she looks like an innocent young lady entering a den of wolves.
“Nakayama,” one of Sirius’ girls whispers with alarm as she gets up from her chair and strides leisurely over to meet the student council president.
“She’s just here for a good time like any of us, so let’s be nice to her, alright?”
Rudolf smiles, keeping an air of composure about her at all times. She’s got to make herself think she’s too good to be here, or else she has to confront the fact that she’s so god-damned easy to push around. “I assume that you held a game in mind, Nakayama Festa?”
“Pick your poison.” She looks back, and the other girls have furrowed brows and lips pulled into thin lines. The darts game seems to have come to a pause. They’re probably used to the way Sirius talks to Rudolf, knowing she can get away with it, and they’re worried now that it’s someone else.
Rudolf makes her way towards the rack of pool cues in the back, inspecting each one thoroughly. “I’m most fond of eight-ball,” she says evenly, though her ears and shoulders carry tension. “I had a wonderful teacher to show me its charms as a child.”
“Let’s see how much you remember,” Nakayama accepts. She doesn’t know what constitutes a perfect cue. It doesn’t matter. She closes her eyes and picks one from the rack at random.
As she does so, Rudolf goes to the front desk and exchanges a few words and bills with the proprietor of the establishment. He gives her a basket of billiard balls and a triangle rack to set them up with. She gives him a signed piece of paper that doesn’t look like a receipt. Nakayama rolls her eyes.
Nakayama takes the rack from her and places it at the foot spot of the table closest to the darts. Sirius’ girls peek over the half-wall separating the two sections, watching their setup with rapt attention, their own game forgotten entirely.
Arranging the balls in the rack with precision, Rudolf asks, “Would you like to have the break shot?”
“Sure, why not.” Rudolf hands her the white cue ball. She lines it up with the guidelines on the table. Watching Rudolf remove the rack and seeing the perfect triangle waiting at the other end of the table to be broken, Nakayama’s palms begin to sweat. She takes a deep breath. Leans down. Tries not to look at the student council president, her arms folded and gaze oppressive from where she waits. Holds the cue in the way Sirius taught her, she thinks. Lets go of the breath she’s been holding.
The sound of the cue ball slamming into the formation, balls clanging against each other and scattering every which way across the table, rings out sharply in her sensitive ears. She doesn’t blink as she watches them. The four goes into the left corner pocket, the six hits the cushion so close to the middle right that it’s almost comical how easy the shot would be. Three right behind it, too.
“I’ll take stripes,” Nakayama declares immediately once everything has settled. Rudolf’s eyes widen, but she grins.
“You don’t have to go easy on me,” she says.
“Better not lose, then. We’re already 1-0, thought I’d give you a leg up.” The most obvious shot she can make with the way the cue ball is situated is the thirteen into the top right corner. Not as easy as any of the solids, but Nakayama doesn’t want to humiliate herself after talking big, so she’ll take it. She lines it up, calls it, and makes it with steady hands. That’s one, and she’s still in.
She’s under no illusion that she’ll win in a denial, no matter how fun that’ll be. Watching Rudolf’s face twist into something dark with embarrassment. Sirius would be jealous — she doesn’t have to know. She can have that thought for herself, too.
But her next two shots go smoothly as well. Now she has thirteen, ten and nine, called if necessary and pocketed properly. She hadn’t made any flashy moves yet because every shot she’s made has been so tight with such little room for error or theatrics. Like Rudolf, she’s had a pretty good teacher.
Unfortunately, her luck runs out. A shot meant to pocket the eleven ball sends it to the cushion, cue ball rolling into the pocket instead, and that’s it. Rudolf blinks, her ears held straight up and flicking.
“That was impressive,” she commends. She leans over an empty stretch of table to fish the cue ball out. “I’ll have to bring my best.”
Nakayama steps back. She leans her elbows on the half-wall between them and the darts section and waits. “You’re really good,” the girl with the green hat whispers.
There are a couple obvious routes for Rudolf to take, but Sirius was so unbelievably right about her, because she doesn’t take any of them. She places the cue ball down as she’s allowed. “Seven to middle right,” she calls, and Nakayama whistles when she actually makes the shot off the bank.
“I’m not that rusty after all,” she begins before she’s cut off by someone opening the door. Several voices drift into the room, girls chattering away, but one is louder and more recognizable than the others. It stops once she actually gets through the doorway and sees what’s going on.
Nakayama laughs because she can’t help it. It’s too good. Rudolf slides her knee off of the pool table and steps back, shuffling her cue from hand to hand as Sirius looks around the room, at her, at Nakayama leaning with a cue in hand watching intently.
Sirius’ tense shoulders drop. Her ears are pressed tight to the side of her head. “Is the game over? Go ahead and take the next shot,” she says darkly, looking Rudolf straight in the eyes. The two girls following behind her step into the room quietly, finding a place in the corner and keeping their gazes on Sirius as she makes her way to stand next to Nakayama.
“It’s just a game,” Nakayama says. “For fun. My idea.”
Rudolf’s mask of composure slides its way back into place, and it’s like she wasn’t caught off guard or embarrassed at all. “I proposed a challenge. I’ve found Nakayama’s games intellectually stimulating. I’m sure you’re aware.”
Sirius leans over the pool table to see the ball Rudolf lines up with her cue. “And you’re losing?”
“Just for now,” she responds. The shot is obvious. She doesn’t need to call it, and makes it very easily, tying the game.
“Show me something better, Emperor,” Sirius taunts. Some of the girls from the darts table have abandoned all subtlety, chins resting on the half wall, eyes unblinking and tails swishing as they watch things get interesting.
For this next shot, Rudolf takes a risk. She picks something that requires a combination shot and a bounce off of the bank. Rudolf is so very good at doing what she’s told — it’s like she can’t help herself.
Her hands don’t shake as she lines up the shot, leaning over the table. She calls it in an even tone of voice, applies the perfect amount of force, and misses spectacularly as Sirius barks out a laugh. The eleven falls perfectly into its place in a pocket. She doesn’t say anything, just hands the cue ball to Nakayama.
“Your game,” Sirius says to Nakayama next to her, sliding a hand up her upper back and pushing her forwards. The girls behind her clasp their hands together with anticipation. Three more, then the eight, and she wins it all.
Nakayama spots something she’s not going to be able to stop thinking about if she doesn’t take it — an opportunity to pocket two balls in one shot, with how she can set the cue ball down herself. Exhaling, she places the cue ball and leans down to align herself when she feels her tail brush against something.
“You’re not holding it right, you’ll miss,” Sirius says, and her hand slides down Nakayama’s arm. Her soft chest presses into Nakayama’s back, and she bites her lip.
Sirius barely adjusts her positioning and grip at all. She lifts her head a little to see Rudolf’s hand gripping her cue forcefully, even if her expression is neutral and calm. The sight makes her bite down hard enough she might’ve drawn blood.
“Stop shifting,” Sirius whispers close to her ear. “You’re good. Let go.”
“Get off me and I will,” she breathes. Sirius lets out a fond huff and her warmth and pressure leaves Nakayama’s back.
She makes the shot. Her heart is pounding so fast that her vision is starting to get blurry and she feels like she needs to sit down, but she makes the shot perfectly, and Rudolf audibly lets go of a breath she was holding. One more. One more shot. Then the eight. And then she wins.
The way the balls moved during her last shot left a good opportunity for her to finally pocket the fifteen. Sirius watches as her hands shake, destabilizing the cue. “I’m not coming over again. You’re on your own.”
“I’ve got it,” Nakayama says. She wills herself to cool down. It’s easy. It’s a straight shot. She doesn’t really notice it went in when she makes it. One of the girls watching claps once, loudly.
“Make the eight and we’ll be back for curfew,” Sirius says. No pressure.
She wasn’t even meaning to, but as she’s looking around to a good position from which to shoot for the eight, she meets Rudolf’s eyes. The student council president’s face is calm but her body language borders on furious, nails digging into the sleeve of her blouse.
So she decides to go around the table and take the shot from a position where she can see what Rudolf looks like immediately after she wins. It’s not the easiest way she could do it, but it’ll definitely feel the best.
“Eight to top… left,” she says like she just decided. Willing her beating heart and shaking hands to steady, Nakayama lines up, pulls her cue back and closes her eyes. There’s a clink, the sound of a ball bouncing off the banks and then a riotous cheer from her right.
Nakayama drops her cue, cheek falling against the pool table, and sighs. She takes a few seconds before peeling herself off the table to open her eyes and see Rudolf’s expression, and it is so wonderful just how unbelievably jealous she looks.
She doesn’t hate her — but now she gets why it’s so fun to.
Chatter fills the room. Sirius is absolutely beaming in her direction. Rudolf walks over to shake Nakayama’s hand. “Good game,” she acquiesces, defeated. Her grip is sweaty and forceful.
“Good game.”
For tonight, Nakayama wins.