ReallyJustDeadInside
The Candidates Tournament is a pressure cooker.
Magnus is only there as a guest commentator, but that doesn't mean he's not watching Hikaru -watching the way he's matured, how he plays like he doesn't care, how he stares straight through him like the past doesn't matter.
Magnus has always been bad at pretending. After one particularly charged post-match analysis, the façade finally collapses.
Sometimes the real endgame isn't on the board.
crossposted on ao3 as ReadNowSleepLater