Flea

Chapter Twenty Four

"Wait, did Kaminari win?!" Tensei cackled, gleefully bursting through the door in his chair. It was obvious he'd been listening in on the game. 

"Glad to see you're so thrilled about it," Maeve replied dryly, already setting up the board for a rematch. Tensei settled down to watch, inviting Shroedinger to jump in his lap. Kaminari desperately tried to hide a proud grin tugging at the sides of his mouth. His mind hadn't been this clear since... Well, ever. He'd never been drunk, but Denki imagined his current situation was like that of a permanent alcoholic going sober for the first time. Without withdrawal symptoms. He hadn't even thought that the game was going well, but suddenly everything just fell into place. It was probably a fluke, and now her full attention was on him, there was no chance. 

Yaoyorozu and Kendo arrived halfway through. When they skipped through the front door, calling out enthusiastic greetings, all the response they got was from the cat. The other three were so engrossed in the game they didn't even look up. Tensei just murmured,

"Hey, welcome to the chess match of the century. You guys can watch if you agree to make dinner tonight." 

The two new arrivals exchanged a glance. 

"I'm not sure the terms 'Kaminari' and 'chess match of the century' go together," Yaoyorozu commented. Kendo shrugged.

"Still better than being in a hair spray commercial. We agree." 

They just shoved their bags against a corner, pulled over two chairs, and settled down to watch. It became heated quickly. 

"I bet the guest room upstairs that Maeve will win in the next five moves," Yaoyorozu muttered to Kendo. The ginger examined the board and grinned.

"I'll take you up on that. You know what, I have faith in little blondie here. If he doesn't take at least ten more turns before he loses, I'll send a text of your choice to Uwabami." 

"I'm right here, you know," Kaminari grumbled, dragging a piece to take out one of Maeve's rooks. 

"Mate, you can't even remember what the piece's names are. You literally call the pawns 'cannon fodder.'" Kendo commented wryly. During all this, Maeve didn't seem to hear them. She'd transcended into a higher realm of being reserved for genii in the hopes of squishing this previous idiot before he got too cocky. 

"Well, I believe in him. Being a nerd suits you," Tensei said with a carefree grin towards Kaminari. Urgh. The girls were lapping up the whole 'genuinely nice person' thing he had going. At this rate Kaminari would be left with nothing but notes and equations in his future. 

"Does it? Huh, I'll need a study partner who can keep up with my newfound smarts. Suppose we'll be spending a lot more time together," Kaminari purred with a wink at Yaoroyorozu, before breaking Maeve out of her meditation with a sharp "sacrificial lamb to E5." Momo's expression fell into one of horror. 

"I didn't think about that. Why didn't I think about that? Maeve, you didn't say anything to me about us being study partners when I asked to come." 

Maeve tore her eyes away from the board reluctantly.

"Well, there's only three of you here and I imagine Tensei will focus more on combat training with Kendo, so it isn't so much study partners but a class of two." She moved a piece across the board, hesitated, and changed its position. Kaminari, who originally looked like Christmas had come early, gave a groan of disappointment. 

"I was hoping that we could have some one on one tutoring regarding replicated of electron sub orbitals... I'm sure that Kaminari is smarter than he was, but it'll take him quite a while to catch up and this is a rare opportunity to-"