Cote: Elite in Action

The Perfect Game

I took a deep breath, feeling a mixture of frustration and resignation that was hard to contain. The situation I found myself in was surreal, almost impossible to believe, as if I were trapped in a nightmare I couldn't wake up from.

I was losing. No, that would be an understatement. I was being crushed. The scoreboard, a humiliating 6-0 against us, was a devastating blow to my pride. Never in my life had I experienced such an absolute defeat. It was as if every event was a sentence, each loss a deeper stab at my already faltering confidence.

Although my class had dropped from A to B, I had managed to stay on the sidelines during direct confrontations in special exams. There had always been external factors that allowed me to justify my lack of involvement or minimize my personal failures. But now, there were no excuses. This end-of-year exam was different. It was a pure test, a direct battle between classes that left no room for mitigating circumstances. Here, there were no shadows to hide behind, no external factors to blame. This was my moment to face another class head-on.

And yet... this. A disaster. A collapse.
Class A had torn us apart mercilessly, winning six of the seven events with an ease that almost felt insulting. Each loss was a brutal reminder of our helplessness, an echo reverberating in every defeated face of my classmates.

Only one event remained. Chess.
I had confidence in my skills. I always had. But what did that mean now? I had also believed we could win at least some of the earlier events, and that confidence had been trampled as if it were worthless. It was impossible to ignore the weight of doubt now suffocating me.

The chessboard—this battlefield where every move is a declaration of strategy and will—would become my only chance to change the narrative. But would it be enough? Could a single victory erase the bitter taste of six consecutive defeats? The pressure was overwhelming, but it wasn't just the scoreboard tormenting me. It was the gaze of my classmates, the responsibility of carrying their expectations.

I clenched my fists tightly, feeling my nails dig into my palms. I couldn't afford to fail here, not when everything I'd built depended on this one event. Yet as I approached the board, a single question spun in my mind, over and over again:

"Is this what it means to lose? Is this the weight I must bear?"

Despite the gravity of the situation, I realized something strange about myself: I wasn't worried about what my classmates thought. Sure, I couldn't entirely ignore the inevitable looks of disappointment directed at me, but that wasn't what ate away at me. It wasn't their judgment or their shattered confidence. It was my own pride, my own expectation of what I should have achieved.

I couldn't help but wonder if I had misunderstood the meaning of this competition. Maybe I had overestimated my abilities or underestimated my opponents, but what truly stung was the fact that I had been given the chance to prove myself and failed—failed catastrophically.

And yet, even with the scoreboard showing this cruel truth, something within me refused to yield completely. Pride, stubbornness, ego... maybe a mix of all three. But what truly kept me standing was a simple and obstinate determination: if I was going to lose, I wouldn't do so without fighting until the very last moment.

Chess was my last chance, and though it pained me to admit it, it probably wouldn't change the overall outcome. Even if I won this event, we wouldn't close the points gap Class A had already created. But that didn't matter. To me, winning here wasn't about redemption or proving something to others. It was personal.

All this internal torment, this storm of emotions eating away at me, had a single source: one person. Behind the screen, seated calmly at a small table, he moved the pieces on the board with the composure of someone who already knew the outcome. His face was adorned with a serene, almost mocking smile, as if he were completely certain of the result before the game had even begun. That was Kayden Osawa.