Controlee: Outtakes and AUs

Runaway AU III: Chess

It wasn't something she did on purpose. That's the first thing you have to keep in mind here. Because this sounds pretty crazy, but it really was just an accident.

It started back when she was still doing online classes on the library computer. She'd been doing a lot of programming practice recently when she had time and she'd figured out how to program a poor quality chess app. It was enough to work, but the graphics were pretty crap. It was her first try, sue her.

The problem was she didn't have an opponent to play against. So she decided to find one.

She found one online. She sort of hacked into someone's computer and left the chess app code open on their screen. Weirdly enough, the hacking was a lot easier than the app-making (maybe her priorities and morality were a little skewed).

She lost, but her opponent requested a rematch and she agreed. The unknown opponent (she hadn't bothered hacking enough to find out who they were, she wasn't doing this to be malicious, she really just wanted an opponent) practically ended up teaching her how to play chess properly. They seemed impressed by how fast she picked things up.

In truth though, she hadn't just been looking for any old opponent. She'd checked out a couple of different places she could hack, but only the one she'd chosen as her opponent had the kind of security that told her they were a coder themselves. See, she was struggling with a coding concept, and she figured chess was a good way to get an answer to a few questions she had.

Since they were kind enough to teach her chess, she figured they'd be kind enough to help her. She figured right. They started doing matches twice a month. Sometimes more, sometimes less, and she went to them whenever something she coded wasn't working the way she thought it should.

One day though, curiosity killed the cat. The chess app had improved in leaps and bounds since her first game, the graphics now smooth rather than pixelly and jarring. The code for the chess app changed every match as she hunted improvements, so her opponent wouldn't even have noticed the few extra lines that snuck just the tiniest bit of personal data.

She wasn't going to use it maliciously, like she'd said before. She was just curious. She wanted to know who her opponent was. They were so smart— she still hadn't managed to beat them yet, only draws here and there.

Nezu was the name she got.

Then a set of coordinates that she looked up. UA high school.

She realised very suddenly where she'd heard the name 'Nezu' before.

She cut off communication with the principal of one of the most famous hero schools in the world overnight. For two months, no chess games, no nothing.

But she got bored. She missed the game, the challenge. She opened up the chess app and found a message waiting for her.

'Are you ok?'

She'd disappeared because she'd been scared of him looking into her, scared of him finding out who she was, what she'd run from. She'd disappeared, and he'd been worried about her.

So, feeling bad, she did something stupid.

She wrote out an excuse, a lie about being really busy. He didn't question it. Their matches went down to once a month.

She should've stopped it. It was so risky. But she made up this little thought, this little fear, and when her brain reminded her how awful of an idea it was to keep playing chess against one of the smartest living beings on the planet with the power that came with being head of a prestigious school, she screamed at her brain how dangerous it would be if he got worried and decided to look into her to make sure she was ok. So really, she had no choice but to keep going. To keep playing the games.