Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost
55. Stalemateless (2)
Cheon Seong-heon knew who Jo Uisin was before he met him.
Stalemateless.
In chess, ‘stalemate’ means the state when no more moves can be played.
Jo Uisin was a new, outstanding chess player, who extremely loathed that stalemate.
The only keyword, which revealed Jo Uisin, who always looked calm to the point he seemed cold, even though he was young, combativity, was stalemate.
One day Stalemateless became unable to come back[1] because of an unfortunate incident, and people gradually forgot about him over time, but Cheon Seong-heon remembered him.
‘If I continued playing chess, I could have played against Stalemateless before he retired.’
If a young genius appears in a particular field and gains attention of the press, the field becomes trendy for a while.
The government invests to nurture other geniuses in that field, and the companies invest because they discover an investment value.
Parents push their children into those fields either because they believe in their child’s genius or they want to become parents fostering geniuses.
On the other hand, there is not a small number of children who challenged it because they purely longed for that prodigy, and Cheon Seong-heon was such a type.
Cheon Seong-heon, who lived at the children’s home, learned rules alone by borrowing books from the library, and learned the game notation by watching broadcasts to participate in competitions.
His confrontation tables never overlapped with Jo Uisin, and he wasn’t able to rise high enough to play against Jo Uisin, but he piled up his experience and rose up little by little.
— This competition was close.
— Once Seongheon-yi becomes a middle schooler, won’t he be able to meet with that chess prodigy in the finals?
But that meeting couldn’t come to be.
Because just before Cheon Seong-heon entered middle school, the secret of his birth was revealed and was put in the family register under his biological father, whom he saw for the first time in his life.
Cheon Seong-heon couldn’t imagine that he was a bastard of the cheobeol family, which he recognized by just hearing a name, but the few rounds of DNA test results were all the same.
The last day he spent at the children’s home, at night he dreamed for the first time after a long time.
Cheon Seong-heon didn’t dream very often, but he always had the same dream.
But that day was different.
— The sin you committed is so heavy, huh?
Someone with the eyes covered, always appeared in Cheon Seong-heon’s dream.
He always looked at Cheon Seong-heon with a pitying face and then disappeared, but that day, he opened his mouth and whispered to Cheon Seong-heon.
— What does it mean?
— …
— Did I ever commit a sin?
— …
Cheon Seong-heon asked a few times, but that someone with their eyes covered didn’t open their mouth any longer.
He had little to no idea who that someone, who came to him in the dream, was or what was the meaning behind those words.
But the life that started the day after the dream really felt as if he was punished for a sin.
The newly formed family didn’t treat Cheon Seong-heon like a human being.
And while at it, through the secretary in charge of education, they restricted Cheon Seong-heon’s freedom, and stopped him from playing chess.
— That child wasn’t educated properly, so he has a lot to learn, so what chess?
When Cheon Seong-heon carefully expressed an idea of wanting to continue to play chess, Cheon Seong-heon’s stepmother[2] refuted with a sharp voice, and his biological father remained silent.
Cheon Seong-heon quickly realized that he was an unwelcome existence.
In fact, it seemed that this family knew about Cheon Seong-heon’s existence from the moment he was born.
The trigger for calling Cheon Seong-heon was that the sole son of the family with a few children[3] became paralyzed from the waist down when he fell from the horse[4] during horse racing.
‘I really won’t be able to play chess now, huh?’
He could examine the chess games notation, but it became impossible for him to participate in the competitions under Cheon Seong-heon’s name.
Moreover, a few years later, Jo Uisin declared retirement from chess triggered by an unfortunate incident.
As such, Stalemateless Jo Uisin gradually became a distant person.
When he gave up the dream and began to get accustomed to the role of a bastard son of the chaebeol family, he ended up meeting Jo Uisin.
The first time he saw him was at the university freshmen orientation meeting.
‘Stalemateless…!’
Cheon Seong-heon recognized Jo Uisin at a glance.
Jo Uisin’s impression changed much.
It was because the university senior Jo Uisin was taller than the middle schooler Stalemateless, remembered by Cheon Seong-heon, and he didn’t have his trademark-like thickly framed protective glasses, revealing his face.
‘He isn’t wearing glasses. It wasn’t that the eyesight was bad, huh? No, isn’t it possible He is wearing contacts?’
Stalemateless, with a somewhat sensitive character, said that his eyes hurt from lighting and because of flashes when taking pictures, so he was wearing eyesight protective glasses, but Jo Uisin was revealing his bare face.
Looking at him right now, it was difficult to associate him with his chess prodigy days, but Cheon Seong-heon, who was Stalemateless’s fan, recognized him right away.
Even though he knew that Jo Uisin said he couldn’t play chess anymore, he wanted to become closer with him, but it wasn’t easy.
‘… I can’t catch a timing to talk.’
Jo Uisin, who was always busy with the tutoring part-time job and studying, always was around people.
Jo Uisin, who was the department’s first place, was kind and friendly with anyone, and he especially cherished juniors, so if he saw anyone, he would buy them a drink like a can of coffee, so he had a good reputation.
He was to be a bastard, but he was a member of the chaebeol family anyway, so because there were many people, who wanted to form a personal connection with him, Cheon Seong-heon also had many people always around him, and Cheon Seong-heon couldn’t help but distance himself from Jo Uisin, hating to disturb him.
Then, with the certain ass[5]’s discharge celebration drinking party as a trigger, he got to talk with Jo Uisin.
— I heard that it was senior Jo Uisin-nim, who called assistant professor-nim that day. Thank You.
Thanks to the assistant professor calling Jo Uisin, Cheon Seong-heon was freed from the crisis, and was able to naturally talk with him.
— I asked to buy a drink, because I recalled that senior was discharged from the navy corp.
Jo Uisin dismissed it like this, but Cheon Seong-heon thanked him a few times and followed him around, calling him hyung.
If excluding the fact they were in the same department, Jo Uisin and Cheon Seong-heon had almost no commonalities, but Cheon Seong-heon liked to listen to Jo Uisin’s stories.
— Uisin hyung, are You playing a game on Your smartphone right now? What game is it?
— Uh… PMH.
Cheon Seong-heon didn’t know much about games, but he knew about PMH.
Wasn’t it the ruined national game wreck so legendary it became a hot topic a few times, and was even on the public tv news?
Jo Uisin said he was playing it?
— Is it fun? Should I play it?
— … It’s not that there is no fun.
Jo Uisin very carefully introduced PMH, and Cheon Seong-heon tried to play it right away.
Not knowing much about games, Cheon Seong-heon just blankly[6] watched the situation exactly like Jo Uisin when he played ‘Tutorial of the unnamed supporting character’ for the first time.
Soon, the screen was dyed red, as all character were annihilated and a choice appeared above the characters with faces filled with despair.
[1. Finish the tutorial and continue the progress.]
[2. Replay.]
Cheon Seong-heon sighed and turned off the screen.
‘It’s really worthy of being called a gamewreck, huh?’
Cheon Seong-heon sometimes played PMH, but he wasn’t playing it as diligently as Jo Uisin.
It was impossible to get a bit closer to Jo Uisin through PMH, but as they spent their university days together, they gradually became close.
After Cheon Seong-heon became close with Jo Uisin, he very rarely brought up the topic of chess.
At first, Jo Uisin was extremely reluctant to talk about chess and it was painful.
But as he repeatedly brought it up, Jo Uisin was able to talk about chess, even though he wasn’t able to face a chess board, and sometimes Jo Uisin brought chess as a conversation topic first.
Seeing him change, Cheon Seong-heon embraced a dream.
‘Uisin hyung will start playing chess again someday, then after I inherit a few affiliated companies, I’ll sponsor Uisin hyung in the company’s name and sometimes play chess with Uisin hyung and…’
One day when he suddenly entered the chaebeol family and Stalemateless retired, Cheon Seong-heon’s dream of becoming a chess player on par with him vanished.
Even so, if the chess player he admired the most started to play chess again, and he could watch it from the side, wouldn’t it be a fine life?
‘I hope that Uisin hyung plays chess again, even if it’s just as a hobby.’
It seemed fine if he could see just Stalemateless play chess again, even if Jo Uisin didn’t enter on the road of the pro chess player again.
‘It’s not a stalemate yet.’
There were still two moves left to play.
Cheon Seong-heon thought like this as he strengthened the exchanges with Jo Uisin.
He even asked about stalemate.
— Until now, there was not even one stalemate in the records of games played by hyung. Among the matches hyung lost, there were some that could be driven into a stalemate… Does hyung hate stalemate?
— Ye, I hate it.
— … Worthy of Stalemateless.
Jo Uisin reacted right away at the word stalemate.
Cheon Seong-heon was even surprised by the stronger reaction than he expected.
— When the end game approaches, I always watch out for a stalemate. And if there was a bastard, who wanted to drive me into a stalemate…
Jo Uisin’s voice was overflowing with confidence.
— I crushed it.
Saying that, Jo Uisin smiled, but the smile seemed somehow suspicious.
That face of Jo Uisin made him think of the expression Stalemateless made after a victory.
It was a suspicious face, but strangely every time he saw that face, he was somehow reassured and the feeling of trust shot up.
‘I can rest assured if Uisin hyung is at my side.’
Perhaps because he lived at the children’s home as one abandoned without parents, and then entered the chaebeol family, Cheon Seong-heon always felt like an outsider.
It was the same even with many people around.
So he invited him to a tea party.
— Uisin hyung, do You like tea?
— Just so-so, why?
Cheon Seong-heon handed him an invitation decorated with a silver leaf.
The person with the strongest voice saying that they have to add Cheon Seong-heon to the family register was his grandfather, and to build connections and develop his eye for people, he periodically ordered for social meetings to be held in Cheon Seong-heon’s name.
That was this tea party.
There were two reasons for inviting Jo Uisin to such a tea party.
First, he hoped to directly show him to the family, who knew about Jo Uisin, the senior who recently became close with Cheon Seong-heon.
Second, Cheon Seong-heon, who liked tea, hoped to treat him to a good tea, and he thought that place would be good for that.
Cheon Seong-heon organized those two reasons in his head, but he could never bring up one of those reasons.
When Cheon Seong-heon hesitated, Jo Uisin replied right away.
— Got it, I’ll go.
Jo Uisin looked once at the invitation, once at the Cheon Seong-heon’s face, and replied he would come without another word.
Jo Uisin, who came to the tea party, gathered attention as he showed perfect manners, even among the children of chaebeol families.
Based just on the family, Jo Uisin wasn’t a person who belonged there, but worthy of someone who never missed a first place in the prestigious university, he was outstanding and his manners were immaculate, so there was nothing to pick on and he rather made a favorable impression.
So he was reassured.
Jo Uisin wouldn’t be harmed because of Cheon Seong-heon.
When he realized it was just a delusion, it was already too late.
— Uisin hyung, isn’t it time to go for your tutoring class right now?
— Uh… Today I have a break.
One day Jo Uisin suddenly lost all his tutoring part-time jobs.
It wasn’t just that.
— … Moving? You mean You’re suddenly moving from the one-room You have been living in?
— Uh, it’s still difficult to obtain a room, so I think I’ll live at gosiwon for a time being.
That for a time being gradually grew longer.
And when at the crucial moment Jo Uisin’s prospective job position was filled up by a parachute[7].
After Cheon Seong-heon learned that parachute was pushed in by his older half-brother, he realized he was the origin of Jo Uisin’s misfortune.
Cheon Seong-heon’s half-brother, with his lower body paralyzed, had a feeling of inferiority and rage towards Cheon Seong-heon, but didn’t have the courage and ability to harm Cheon Seong-heon, who was backed by his grandfather[8].
But Jo Uisin was different.
If he ruined his life, he could scratch Cheon Seong-heon’s insides, but there wouldn’t any further consequences.
Moreover, Cheon Seong-heon’s grandfather had no reason to protect Jo Uisin, who had no backing.
Rather, it seemed that he would think it was okay if his grandson could relieve his heart by taking out his anger on him.
Cheon Seong-heon decided to make himself a chess piece and move to take revenge.
*~*~*
[1] unable to come back — 재기 (jaegi) which means comeback, can also mean to record something again, or a person of great talent or personality
[2] stepmother — literally ‘new mother’ in Korean, but ‘new 새 (sae)’ also means ‘bird’.
[3] family with a few children — literally family of precious hands
[4] fell from the horse — 낙마 (nakma) also means to fail election/lose government office. Also, besides this word, horse racing and paralyzed words use ‘마 (ma)’ in them. 마 can stand both for a horse and for evil/demons.
[5] ass — ‘진상 (jin-sang)’ can mean ‘truth’ or ‘tribute/offering made for the king’. Using it for an asshole customer is a bit of a wordplay I’m not certain how to explain.
[6] blankly — literally ‘leave a soul behind’
[7] parachute — someone using connections to get a job
[8] grandfather — raws say ‘grandparent’ here, so it’s not certain it was the grandfather or someone else, but he was mentioned as grandfather before in the chapter, so I’m using it here.
Translator’s note: Someone, quickly go hug Cheon Seong-heon, he deserves none of that.
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