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By minute twelve, it was fine.
They’d both chewed through their openings and ended up somewhere in between the mid-game and something resembling an end game. Those steps were easy, mindless; they knew how to begin with each other better than they knew just about anything else.
The rain outside the stadium had been a distant memory by now, and all that’s left is the soft hum of tobacco in Richard’s breath and the light blotches of rainwater on Liren’s team-assigned jacket. It was perfectly fine, a game that is largely assumed to draw somewhere in the twentieth minute. When they had seen the matchups, it was all like some sort of cosmic joke. They hadn’t played officially since 2024, but God knew how often they played between the cracks. 2023 was a beautiful year, it was. Things came together just as they had asked, and they had won. Won together, as Liren would always insist. Richard didn’t really hesitate to accept the offer to become a second — it was quite a lot of fun, and quite a lot of chess — both were things he enjoyed at least decently.
They played so often, always a game when they had time. Something to do in the taxi, something to do on the hotel floor, it was something they lived and breathed for a year. Then, a crash. For days on end, Liren would just not respond to messages about training, or playing, or anything chess-related. The victory had been sweet to everyone except him, except for the one who had to bear the crown and crumple under its weight. It took a lot. A lot for Liren to start playing again. First, blitz, rapid, bullet, then a little more formal, a little more classical. Then full-on games, games they’d call off because Liren’s hands started uncontrollably shaking. Inhale, exhale. If that didn’t work, they called it off.
Then more, more. They played a lot before the tournament, and then they couldn’t. That specific smell of Richard’s cigarettes always floated around, even at the tensest times — especially the tensest times. Liren didn’t like the smell of cigarettes. Who did? So Richard would wear a jacket, walk out, smoke, walk back in, take his jacket off, and start chewing gum. It was probably delusional of him to think that the air would not push the scent right back onto him, but he wondered what time the smell of smoke fell onto the board and became a force that could play with the pieces too. Oh, well. It was a formality to even start a game; they knew what each other would play, and they knew the things that they might do. They eventually drew so many times that there was no point in playing. Then they began sitting together, telling each other moves.
King’s pawn.
e4, e5
Nf3, Nc6
You hear the tap-tap-tap of waltz, cushioned by the light felt on the bottom of the pieces. The beautiful rhythm of movement, of a dance, of something that was more than beautiful. Here’s one, here’s back.
Ruy Lopez.
Fine, this is something always expected. You expect to meet someone in the middle after so, so long. Their games often became so wild, so crazily dancing that it had to come back to the most simple things. Richard was famous for always pushing for the most absurd things, to always provoke, to be the aggressor. But he didn’t need to be at one point. There is no point in being aggressive or unpredictable when you know each other enough to always predict, to always expect. So they went to the basics, the easiest thing, to fight, to bump, then move on.
The rain must be pouring outside. Richard thinks, as he can almost feel the gentle tick of a clock – though that in itself was delusional, the digital clock was a joke in itself. He had been the one to think much more during the game today; he had spent some time, and he knew that he really should cut back on it, but he knew better than to underestimate Liren in any circumstance. He looks up briefly and sees himself on the screen. Ah, his hair was looking pretty nice. He looks back down at the board. There was not much to be found on the board just yet, because he had thought about what he would play — he knew it quite easily. He looks up at Liren.
He’s staring at the board, head in his hands, just staring. Richard would be stupid if he thought this meant Liren was stuck; he wasn’t. Perhaps he just wanted to be sure of everything he played next; perhaps he needed to be sure of what Richard would play. Richard was quite tricky; he knew that he was able to push an advantage pretty quickly. If, as he had predicted, the game would probably end soon, in a draw. He wondered if Liren came to sit at the board with the thought that they would draw, that they just needed to not humiliate each other and walk off. This was the first game of the second day; they surely had more to do.
Every hand reached a little further across the board felt like it would edge closer to a handshake, but also towards each other. There is a central threshold that was crossed by their constant movement, this dance, forward and backwards, on the tiled floors detailed as a chessboard. But oh, Liren pushed back. Perfectly fine, acceptable. There were enough steps for a strangled fight to happen. Richard was feeling pretty energised; he was ready for a bit of a struggle. Just play, right?
Every time Liren breathed, he could see the way the pale column of his throat moved inwards ever so slightly. Every time, it was like he could almost hear Ding narrate the moves, as they had been when they were in a hotel room or playing endless practice games. He could hear the soft and sticky enunciations of the English syllables in the click of the pieces. It was the smell of the laundry detergent you took a whiff of when you got too close. But what is too close? You are face-to-face on the playing table, you cross the threshold by moving the pieces, or you could cross the threshold by doing anything.
The dangle broke the threshold between them of the drop on Richard’s bracelet. This small metallic thing caught the light every time it swayed. The ornament was something luxurious, but also just understated enough. It swayed like a pendulum in a clock, back and forth, back and forth. It was hypnotising in effect, certainly, or maybe that when they played, they only noticed each other’s hands as a more complete identity. That bracelet was a decoration of something that Liren was otherwise familiar with. It added to a gesture; it weighed down the hand ever so slightly. Whether it was the feeling of the chain rubbing gently against the wrist, the gentle tap of metal against plastic when Richard tapped the clock, or the dangle of the bracelet nearly knocking down the pieces every time he made his move, this was fine. Liren couldn’t help but follow the pendant upwards, to the gentle glittering of Richard’s ring, and for a moment, settle his gaze on Richard’s face. Richard looked focused. Richard looked perfectly normal, as he had sat in front of Liren hundreds of times before, or maybe that wasn’t normal; that was anyone’s bet. They sat in front of each other, hoping to find a flaw and jam their fingers deep into the wound of a mistake, hoping to hold on. But they couldn’t. But there is a sort of tenderness that they couldn’t possibly hurt each other with. The weapon of familiarity was exceptionally sharp, so they dodged, they waltzed, holding each other with one hand, and a blade in the other.
This then became a game of endurance. A dance back and forth. Then, to strip each other of pieces one by one until either one of them can find somewhere to bite down hard enough for an edge, an advantage. A knight here, a rook here. Gone. Gone. It was a familiar rhythm, and perhaps mildly irritating like the slightly uneven ridges on the pieces. You go eye for an eye, leg for a leg, until the pieces eventually paralyse themselves on their last limbs. Or not. Chess was either a romantic thing or absolutely nothing; there were very few ways it could go. It is a cold game of calculus, but it is also a game where you can absolutely learn the entire flow of someone’s thoughts. You step through that last barrier, that threshold. But it is also, at the end of the day, just a game.
Honestly, they probably both knew that this game should’ve been settled by move twenty. The teams didn’t have a huge gap, sure, but a draw wouldn’t hurt either of them, and a win for Richard wouldn’t change things up by much either. So why not just draw? They were so familiar with the game each other was about to play that there was simply no point in doing it. The way they played chess against each other was how they lived and breathed; it was so unconscious that it in turn, became the most deliberate thing when they were forced to play under a spotlight again. This was taking too long, they were both aware. By move 122, Richard knew it was time to wrap things up, but Liren just would not give up. Check. Check. Check. Check.
Over, and over, and over again. At this point, both of them knew Richard would win; it was a mindless thing. This queen's endgame was slipping through his fingers very quickly, and at one point, it could turn futile. That wasn’t the type of person he was, and Richard knew it. Liren had to beat something down; he had to drag it until it couldn’t be dragged. And this wasn’t because he needed to win no matter what, or that he needed to do something until it wasn’t fun anymore, but because he simply could not give up on this. His hands seemed to shake a little, and he blinked a little faster. He moved again. Richard moves again.
Liren could clearly, clearly remember the sinking feeling he had before the World Championship, before everything. That burning, pinprick ache in his hands that spread through his entire body with every breath. The stress of it all, the sheer tension of his body and the way he couldn’t move himself at all. That seemed to be a distant past, but it had only been two years; the memory of that shiver in his veins was layered deep. These were no longer those years; there was no longer that weight on his shoulders anymore. He shook it off the day he lost, the day he blundered. He also remembered just the time when he’d sat upright for so long that he had forgotten how to crane his neck. It wasn't until he leaned his head ever so slightly towards Richard that he realised: Oh. I’m bone tired. The gravity of the warmth of another person’s body was enough to be comforting, not to mention this person that, for the longest time, had been a stranger beyond a name on the player sheet. Now it was this. Now it was sitting opposite each other again, playing a game that they had both rehearsed thousands of times. It was the way Richard would look up at him every move, eventually, because they both knew he was being stubborn.
Check. Check. Check. Check.
Again, again, again, and again. You wouldn’t ever expect someone like Ding to be so aggressive on the board, but he never gave it up. So they did it again. It sometimes greatly entertained Richard when he would just sit there and see the way Ding wrestled with himself more than he did his opponent. He was drastically different from what Richard had remembered, those days when he could just stay indoors for days because he couldn’t think of anything but playing, but he hated playing so much. The fun of chess was to think, was to whirl the wheel of the mind, but at one point, he had lost it all. It would take just Richard sitting with him for a few hours, sometimes talking, sometimes not. There was a condensed calmness around the Hungarian, as messy as he always looked. He remembered those days. Absolutely horrific for the entire team. Hours and hours in front of the board, both behind the scenes and in front of the one man he was meant to challenge. Now, even though this was rapid, even though the longest waits were only two minutes, it felt longer, like centuries. That time was so long ago, wasn’t it? Richard remembered, though.
”You smoke, Richard.” He didn’t turn his head to say this; they sat shoulder to shoulder on the floor of Liren’s hotel room, facing the partially curtained window, the city obscured.
“I do. Does it bother you?” Richard asks, sort of already knowing the answer. He tried his best to smoke outside, it wasn’t like the smell of cigarettes was ever typically pleasant, even to him.
“No, no.” He shakes his head. Then some hesitation. “Just wondering if I should too.”
“Why so?” Surprise, or not. It was getting to the point where streamlining your body and nervous system was the central concern and tactic.
“Helps you relax, right?” Leading question.
“I guess. I would not recommend it, the chemicals do too much.” Honest response.
“Hm.” Nod, and that was it. Maybe some sort of trust, maybe some belief in that advice, or maybe just a belief that there could be a “better” after this. But this was how they functioned, this was how they needed to live until the next game, until they inevitably had to collect themselves together.
“You can watch me smoke.” It was meant to come out as a joke, but it really didn’t appear so. That earned some sort of laugh out of the man, though, and he lowered his head a little. “Maybe.”
Maybe.
Richard realised he might definitely need a cigarette. It was a light itch in his hand, but he could function perfectly fine in front of this endgame. He just needed to drag it down until there was no other way Liren could think of a way to dodge or move away and closer towards a tie. So they played this endless waltz.
Click. Click. The hand reaches over to move a piece. Click. Click. The gentle tap of the clock, then the clicking of the pieces. The periods of thought got shorter and shorter; there was not much to do. They were nearing each other in this duel, heading towards something closer and closer to an end of some sort.
Check. Check. The queen moves. The queens dance this beautiful, macabre thing across the board under their watch. They return to the same position again, again, and again. They come back to the same conclusions again, again, and again. They were such stubborn people, which meant they could only hold tighter than looser. It’s been so long, hasn’t it? It’s been ages, and ages, and ages. They could live with that, though.
Liren reaches across the board. For a second, Richard genuinely believed that he was going to make another move, because that was the stubbornness, that was the sort of spirit that would maybe slightly annoy Richard, but he ultimately respected. That hand lingered, stayed. Long, pale fingers, gently shivering starting from the tips and perfectly still otherwise. It had to be a few seconds before Richard realised what this was. A resignation, a recognition that he couldn’t possibly win this game through that fifty move struggle. He quickly shook his hand, and they both breathed out. The pieces were coming back onto the board, back into their original position as if nothing ever happened on this board, as if the friction from one hundred and seventy-seven moves were absolutely nothing.
Neither of them remembers how they stood up, just halted in their path for a second, just from the sheer amount of time they spent sitting down. A gentle stretch, a crane of the neck, then a meeting of their gazes. Smiles.
“Tough, that Qb6.” Richard prompted.
“I think the part in the back ranks could be improved if we just moved our kings,” Liren responded, perhaps somewhat of an attempt at humour. It was a back-and-forth process, something to ease into as they began walking off. The tournament had yet to fully prevail, but it was looking favourable for both of them, so that was perfect. The game hadn’t ended on horrid terms, weirdly, though it had completely exhausted both of them. One hundred and seventy-seven moves, they would later find out. It was more than either of them had played in a long while, and in fact, it was a reflection of the strength they had accumulated with each other. The air was thinner as the majority of the audience had trickled out because of the unbearable duration. It was nice.
Ni had walked over immediately after the game ended, and as captain, had briefly conversed with Liren, then Richard. There was an easy comfort in existing within this circle. Richard had, in a sense, long been accepted into the circle of Chinese players for the sole reason that he grew the closest to Liren — an eerie thing, really. There was a lot of love that condensed into the casual coolness of knowing each other’s friends and existing within a proximity at all times. After a briefing with Ni that just concluded with “train a few more openings for tomorrow”, they were instructed by the slightly irritated FIDE official to leave for the player’s lounge to prepare for the next round.
Richard and Ni were actually entertaining a decent conversation of absolutely nothing, just small talk about anything. The weather in Hong Kong, the air conditioning in the stadium, the lack of good snacks in the player lounge… Liren followed quietly behind, occasionally providing a few lines of feedback or some sort of response to the ongoing conversation in front of them. The lighting of the stadium was harsh enough that he needed to blink every once in a while; it was exhausting. His eyes were dry, his mouth was dry, he felt a little dazed, but all was fine. They slowly shuffled towards the exit through the press members and the volunteers. It was a weirdly tedious moment after that hour-long rapid game, but it was a temporary break, at least.
Just as they stopped before the curtains towards the exit, Richard stopped in his tracks, and Ni, having the aura and habit of a captain, lifted the curtain and left without another thought. But Richard was still waiting. It had to be another two, three seconds before Liren actually reached the curtains, and Richard was still there, patiently. Perhaps there was a brief surprise — there should be, when the opponent that had just defeated you held open a curtain for you, waiting — but more so, it was just a force of habit, a small seed of entitlement that never died. Three of being the champion, and the second, it did something, but it was also just a piece of Richard. Just nice, gentlemanly Richard. It was the muscle memory of support, of being able to stay here and completely accept this tiny service because there was no reason not to. It was the trust that had existed since that spring in Astana, since Richard would firmly wait next to the lobby, knowing to expect Liren to walk down at any moment to join. It was brief, but it was something that you don’t just forget.
The curtain was still lifted, the bracelet dangling from Richard’s wrist gently, and Richard turned to look at him a little longer. He lifted his brows again. Liren looked at him a moment longer, at this man who was so sure that he still needed to wait like he always had, and he stepped through. Richard seemed to very much enjoy the fact that Liren had accepted his act of service or some great chivalry, and pat Liren’s back as they walked through. The gentle dampness of sweat lingered among the warmth of skin, but neither of them cared.
“Good game,” Richard says.
“Good game.” Liren echoes.
He looked at Richard briefly again, it was short, but long enough that it was noticeable. His nose twitched.
“You’re smoking again?” Silence. Briefly. Richard had quit smoking during the championship, it was more so out of respect for the incumbent champion, since though Liren never said it, he didn’t hide his distaste for the smell of tar.
“...Yeah.” No point in lying.
“Okay.”
The air between them didn’t change because of the tension; weirdly, it had always been a liminal space of comfort no matter what, always trust.
After a beat, Liren looks at him again, and a smile cracks at his lips. Not something super obvious, nothing too revealing, but once again, eye-catching.
“What?”
A beat of silence, or hesitation, before Liren decides that he can say what he has been thinking.
“You need to comb your hair.” He gestures at the tangled but tied-up mess on Richard’s head.
Richard feigns some sort of offence, tucking a blonde strand behind his ear. “I thought au natural was the trend.” That wrestles a laugh out of Liren, but nothing else.
“It’s better when it’s down and smooth.” This was always the way they existed, always saying matter-of-fact things because it showed they cared, because it showed that they had noticed things and developed preferences for them. It proved that they were able to exist in a prolonged state of complete stillness; it proved that they had always, always been two people in a waltz, dancing endlessly to the rhythm of something either one of them was humming.
Time for a break.