"Say, Ray, do you know how to play chess?"

Lily was holding his jacket sleeve to get his attention. He turned to her and ruffled her hair.

"Know how? I'm the king of chess," he replied. (f/n) was sitting next to him. I walked in as well.

"Actually the prince. Norman's way better," (f/n) said. I sat across them.

"Norman's not alive right now," he whispered. (f/n) shook her head. Lily sat on the other side of Ray while I sat across all three of them on the couches.

"Who's Norman?" Lily asked.

"He's uh, Santa Claus," Ray answered quickly. We all looked at him in disbelief. Santa Claus?!

"Really?!" Lily replied. Great, now she's gonna believe that I'm an elf now or something.

"Ok, back to what we were saying, yes Lily, Ray does know how to play chess," (f/n) said, steering back to the conversation.

"Oh right. I know how to play too!" she said back. "(y/n) taught me, and she's the queen of chess."

Ray smiled mischievously. "That's interesting. Why don't we play one game then, before we start our project?"

I gave him a grin of my own. "Fine by me, I guess."

Lily left and went to our living room to get the board. She came back. "Classic rules, with a timer," she said.

(f/n) helped in assembling the pieces. Ray chose black, so I chose white. "Good luck, (y/n)." she whispered quietly.

I nodded in thanks. The board was now ready. (f/n) sat on one side, while Lily munched on another of Ray's cookies on the other.

Ray motioned toward the pieces. "Ladies first," he said.

I smiled politely. "Thank you."

There's been a study that going first has its advantages in playing chess. Surely he knows this, but it's also possible that he has a few tricks up his sleeve.

I moved one of my pawns and we started the game.

I only had my king, a few pawns, and a bishop left. Things looked difficult for me since most of my pieces were captured by Ray. But I did not choose to give up yet.

We were 18 minutes into the game. I had Lily be our timekeeper, telling us when our turn ends. Both Ray and I adhered to the rules and always found a way.

Well, drastic times call for drastic measures.

The time limit for each turn was forty-five seconds. More than enough time for me to figure something out, but with the number of pieces I have left, the only thing I could do is one of the riskiest moves in chess.

Ray's chin rested in his hand and I could feel his eyes piercingly staring at me while I decide my move. I took a deep breath before finalizing my choice. This is going to be a gamble, and I seriously doubt it's going to work.

So far, I checked Ray's king multiple times. After deducing all the possible things he could do, only one of them made sense. And that was trying to take my king.

Ray was also a pursuer, not an evader. It doesn't sound pleasant, but there are still a few loopholes in that strategy. I moved one of my pawns, as he moved his king away from it. So far so good.

I kept a poker face as I moved my bishop diagonally in front of my king. To protect it, of course.

He smirked cunningly. Ray was checked in all directions by my scattered pawns, except for one path. "Throwing the game?" he said as he moved his king to eat my bishop.

I looked up from my hands. "Not quite," I answered while moving one of my pawns. I forgot I had one just a step away from his side of the board because I was too focused on running from his knight. It reached his area.

"Pawn promotion," Lily whispered.

One of the oldest tricks in the book. If a pawn successfully reaches the other side of the board, the player can pick a piece that is captured which extremely improves a chance of winning. But as perfect as it sounds, it's also really hard to achieve it without the other person noticing.

Ray's expression was priceless. I calmly switched my queen in exchange for my pawn and moved it to his king. And she was right on the last path that he could've gone on.

"Checkmate," I stated, knocking over his king. I smiled gracefully. His face met mine and I shook his hand. (f/n) breathed out a sigh of relief. "What can I tell you? I'm the queen of chess."

"And the queen is the most powerful piece in the game!" Lily said cheerfully.

"That it is," I replied. "You know Ray, playing chess is a great way to learn about someone. Like I just found out you like chasing others, no matter how hard it becomes."

He seemed to admit his defeat. "And I found out that you play hard to get. So that only a select few get to meet Your Highness."

"Oh really? How so?" I answered, cleaning the board. After that stressful game, all I wanted to do now was sleep, but we still needed to work on our project.

"Well I noticed that you run away from pieces that are close to capturing you," he explains. "And you're correct. It does reveal the truth about someone because you're not that different when it comes to real life."

He just dropped that like a bomb. I stopped collecting the pieces to think about what he said.

Ray was right. That is how I am when someone is getting too close to me. I tend to run away so neither I nor the person won't get hurt.

"Well guys, since we're finished with that, why don't we start our project now?" (f/n) asked. Thank goodness she's here to destroy the weird tension between us right now.

"Yeah, let's do that," I agreed. A few minutes later, we decided to do our project on this one famous line that can correlate to War and Peace, "All is fair in love and war."

After twenty minutes of typing, (f/n) asked me, "Do you think that all is fair in love and war?"

During learning the meaning, I gave it some time to think about it. "No, it's not," I answered honestly.

Both (f/n) and Ray looked at me inquisitively. "How so?" she inquired.

I closed my laptop slightly. "Alright, say there's a man who's in love with a woman, but the woman doesn't love him back. So the man turns to deceitful ways to force her to return his feelings. And that's not fair at all to the woman," I explained matter-of-factly.

"Oh I see what you mean," Ray added. "And in war, it's obviously not just to cheat your way to victory."

"Exactly," I replied.

"But wouldn't you say that in some cases, love is war?" she considered. "Okay, hear me out. There are two people who are madly infatuated with each other, but a part of them doesn't want to be with that person. Could be their pride or dignity keeping them away. So to deal with their powerful feelings of love or whatever, they result in trying to criticize the other in a way to forget why they ever fell for them in the first place."

Why does her explanation sound like a way she's trying to communicate with me? I noticed her eyes and they were saying, That's like you and Ray, (y/n).

"We're almost finished with half of our assignment, so why don't we order a pizza and just call it a day?" I asked. They agreed and there you have it.

Thinking back on what (f/n) said, maybe love really is war. If battles are all about being strategic, shouldn't that also be applied to matters of the heart? It's like a chess game. Any moves you make can benefit or fail you.

All this romantic stuff is getting in my head. I'm just gonna leave this type of thing with (f/n). She's the hopeless romantic one anyway.