Check & Dunk

“Check.”

For a while, her hazel eyes simply wandered across the chessboard.

I could hear her shaky breaths.

When she lifted her eyes and met mine, she raised her hand.

She was calling the referee.

“I resign!” she said firmly.

I had won.

Once again.

It was me who had won.

I signed the paper the referee held out to me, then straightened the chair I had been sitting on. Smoothing down my ponytail with one hand, I walked toward the exit.

I opened the door, already certain that Mr. Mert would be waiting for me on the other side.

“Lalin, another victory?”

Mr. Mert was standing right in front of me. He must have understood from the smile on my face, because he looked happy too.

“She resigned,” I explained simply.

Chess... that was who I was.

People don't want to lose the thing that defines them, do they?

That had been my last match, and I had won. Now we were going back to school because, for some reason I didn't know, the award ceremony had been postponed.

Mr. Mert and I got into a taxi. I sat in the back, listening to music through my earbuds, while he took the seat beside the driver. Every now and then, he glanced at me through the rearview mirror.

“Lalin?”

“Yes, sir?” I said, turning off my music.

“If you're hungry, we can grab something to eat.”

“No, thank you, sir. I just want to get back to school as soon as possible.” I smiled.

He returned my smile through the rearview mirror, and I unlocked my phone.

After scrolling for a while, I looked up and out the window.

We were getting close to our school.

I quickly put my AirPods back in their case and tossed them into my black backpack.

The taxi slowed down.

Slower.

And stopped.

I opened the door and stepped out, then looked back at Mr. Mert.

“Lalin, don't forget anything, sweetheart,” he said as he put his bag over his shoulder.

“I didn't forget anything, sir. We can go.”

It was 12:27 p.m.—recess.

The moment I walked through the school gates, I ran into the girls.

It was obvious that İlay and Nare had been waiting for me.

But the moment they noticed Mr. Mert, they became a little more careful with what they said.

Not that you'd ever hear them swear.

We liked Mr. Mert, yes, but he was still our teacher. It was always better to be careful around him.

“Welcome, sir! Welcome back, Lalin,” İlay said.

My eyes went to her first, then to Nare, who repeated the greeting.

“Welcome back,” Mr. Mert and I replied together.

“Lalin, don't forget—the award ceremony might be tomorrow. I'll let you know. Take care, girls!”

I nodded and waited until he walked away.

Then I turned to İlay and Nare.

“Girls, first place again!”

My excitement got the better of me, and I told them everything in one breath.

İlay and Nare were really good friends.

The kind of friends who could feel your happiness as if it were their own.

İlay clapped excitedly.

“That's my girl! I'm so proud of you!”

Nare put a hand on my shoulder, practically bouncing with excitement.

“Look at you, little genius! Congratulations!”

I answered them with a huge smile.

★⁠☆★⁠☆

I was standing backstage in front of the mirror, waiting anxiously for my name to be called.

It had taken forever for the students to settle down.

We'd practically spent the whole afternoon waiting for them.

How hard could it possibly be to sit down?!

About fifteen minutes later, the principal's voice finally echoed through the hall.

Every conversation in the auditorium stopped instantly.

The only sounds left were the principal's voice...

and my heartbeat.

“Yes, quiet down, please!”

She took a breath before continuing.

“As you all know, our school has many outstanding individual athletes and successful teams in several sports. Among all of them, our most successful team so far has been our basketball team.”

Wait... what?

A huge round of applause erupted throughout the hall.

As the principal continued speaking, I struggled to make sense of what was happening.

Then I heard two boys behind me.

“We're going up! Wow!” one of them said.

“Who else would be going up?” the other replied casually.

I turned around and looked at them.

They looked back at me.

We simply stared at each other.

I broke the silence first, narrowing my eyes.

“Who even are you guys?”

“Us? We're the ones getting called up. Who are you?” the boy with wavy brown hair asked.

The other boy, who had straight black hair, was looking me up and down.

“I'm the one who's supposed to be getting called up!” I shot back.

But what about me...?

My achievement. My hard work...

Where was all of it?

“And now, to receive their trophies and medals for their outstanding success as members of our school's basketball team, I would like to invite Arven Demir, Doruk Çağlar, Eymen Aral Aydın, Kuzey Köklü, and Sarpkan Ali Ergin from Class 11-D to the stage!”

The principal's words echoed in my ears.

Where had these guys even come from?!

As the brown-haired boy passed me, he slipped his hands into his pockets.

“I didn't hear any girl's name,” he said with a smirk.

Then he walked away without looking back.

Jerk.

Once they were onstage, I tried to watch them from the side without being noticed.

The principal first placed their gold medals around their necks, then congratulated them before handing them their trophy.

Mr. Mert stood beside them, looking incredibly proud.

I stopped watching them and turned back toward the mirror.

I tried not to listen to the applause rising from the auditorium.

This time, the applause was covering up my hard work.

I waited.

I waited with every bit of patience I had for all of this to end.

Finally, when the brown-haired boy and his friends returned, he approached me.

The trophy was in the hand he'd shoved into his pocket.

A gold medal hung around his neck.

His honey-colored eyes fell on my clenched fist.

Then they met mine again.

He shifted the trophy to his other hand and held out his now-free hand.

“I'm Arven. Captain of the basketball team.”

So that was his name.

Arven.

I looked from his face to his outstretched hand.

I rolled my eyes and reached out.

The moment our hands touched, a tiny jolt of electricity shot through me.

Before we could even shake hands, I pulled my hand back.

“Ow!”

“Ah!”

We both stared at each other.

I frowned.

“You deliberately held the trophy with the hand you—”

“Whoa! I'm not that stupid!” he cut me off. “It wasn't on purpose.”

I was about to answer when the principal's voice rang out again.

“And now, for her outstanding achievement in individual chess, I would like to invite Lalin Aksoy from Class 10-A to the stage to receive her trophy and medal!”

The applause rose once again.

I gave Arven one last look before walking quickly onto the stage.

The entire school was looking at me again.

Yes, that could be embarrassing sometimes.

They applauded.

All my life, I had been afraid that my hard work would go unnoticed.

Afraid that the little girl who used to cry endlessly whenever she lost would be forgotten beneath everyone else's achievements.

And maybe, for the first time, I had come this close to...

The principal placed my medal around my neck.

“Congratulations, sweetheart. I wish you continued success.”

“Thank you,” I said quietly.

After handing me my trophy, we took a few pictures.

I thanked her and was about to leave when I turned around—

and stopped.

The basketball team was behind us.

They had joined the photo too.

The curly-haired, green-eyed blond boy looked down at me with a smile.

I definitely didn't return it.

I was about to take a step away and say something when Arven cut me off.

“Sarpkan.”

He looked at me, then at Sarpkan.

“Let's go.”

Sarpkan nodded and joined the others.

I followed behind them.

In the courtyard, I headed toward the bench where I'd agreed to meet the girls.

Just then, I found myself staring at my untied shoelaces again.

From the outside, I was probably just some girl walking around with her head down, desperately trying not to step on her own shoelaces.

But who was even outside?

Most people hadn't even left the auditorium yet.

I thought I was getting close to the bench, so I finally lifted my head.

Oh, God. Them again?!

The school's basketball stars had already claimed our bench.

Wonderful.

“Would you mind moving?” I asked, my voice firm but polite.

The blond one—Sarpkan, I think—answered before the others could.

“Nope, sweetheart. Go somewhere else.”

Sweetheart?!

I frowned.

“Would you mind moving?”

This time, I looked at the others.

“Why?” Arven asked, sprawled across the bench.

I took a deep breath.

Seriously, why had I even gotten myself involved with these guys?!

But I'd agreed with the girls that this was where we'd sit.

This bench held so many memories for us.

We'd kicked people off it more times than I could count.

So why should these guys be any different?

“Because we're sitting here.”

The moment I said it, İlay appeared on one side of me and Nare on the other.

“We're here! Hi!” Nare said, though she wasn't talking to me.

She was talking to the five guys sitting in front of us.

İlay looked at me and widened her green eyes slightly.

“Wait, you guys haven't met yet? I'll introduce you.”

She pointed at each of them one by one.

“Eymen Aral, Kuzey, Sarpkan Ali, Doruk, and Arven.”

I tried my best to keep my irritation under control.

“And this is our chess girl, Lalin!”

Arven didn't take his eyes off me.

“Yeah, yeah. We've met.”

When Nare looked at me for confirmation, I nodded.

“Yep.”

My narrowed eyes remained fixed on Arven.

There was another kind of current between us.

And it ran completely opposite to mine.

If I was the sun, he was the moon.

If he was east, I was west.

Maybe all of these thoughts came down to one simple reason:

I was afraid he would cover up my hard work.