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WHO: Bakura and Keith
WHERE: Central Park chess tables
WHEN: Wednesday afternoon
SUMMARY: Bakura is playing chess with the senior citizens in the park. Keith spots, observes, then cuts in. Awkward.
FORMAT: Para to start, whatever after.

Bakura's walk home from work had been something that resembled a comic strip than the normal straight cross through the park. First he had been spotted by one of the regular customers from Ryoko's and stopped for a chat. Then, after nearly gotten beaned upside the head by the ball a group of young children had been tossing around, he had seen the usual group at the chess tables and gotten flagged down to arbitrate Hashimoto and Takahashi's daily heated argument. Which was of course how he was now playing his third game.

So far, a very good day.

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Bakura blinked a moment at the emphasis, not having at all expected it. "Sorry, wasn't meaning to be insulting..." he apologized a bit meekly, hands folding in his lap after the board had been set.

So it wasn't about winning, that was good. Meant it was going to be a lot less stressful!

...unless Keith was-- no, stop over thinking.

He took another slow breath, burying his worries and coaching himself. Just relax. It's just a game. Nothing to prove, nothing to defend, no high stakes, just a regular game.

Right.

"Would you like to make the first move?"

Bakura's apology earned only the briefest of nods from Keith. He wasn't particularly concerned with the apology itself, but he was pleased to see that Bakura was still meek around him.

"...Yeah." Keith was at ease, more casual than he normally was on the network, although despite his word choice there was still something distantly formal to his attitude. He looked at the board, then reached out and made his move, putting a pawn two places forward. A King's Pawn opening. Either it was coincidence, or he'd already watched enough to determine that was a good opening move.

[[OoC: Since it has been ages since I played chess and I was never that good at it. :)]]

Bakura gave a small nod. Standard opening move. With luck, the games Keith had watched were all games with people Bakura had played with before, since he had played with all of the usual group that was there, then he'd be able to more easily predict the moves Keith had learned. Though there still was the unpredictability of someone new to the game, and someone he didn't know much about. Though, from what little he did know, he was pretty sure he could predict what Keith's playing style would be.

And it would hopefully give him a glimpse more into how Keith's mind worked. While he knew he was a fairly poor judge of character, he liked to think that he could tell something about people though games and how they played.

It didn't take him long to make his own move, oddly not the same opening as Keith took. Conservative and defensive, setting traps and deceptions to keep as many as his pieces safe until their goal could be reached. Almost the same as if he were running a campaign.

[OOC: Fine with me, since--ditto.]

That was, assuming Keith played as he normally would against Bakura.

For now, he took a direct approach. He moved another piece out through the gap created by the pawn opening--the second move in a gambit that would lead to checkmate in four moves if not blocked. A straightforward and aggressive line of attack, as if bearing down on a single enemy.

Bakura nodded to himself, recognizing the move. He had almost expected it and very easily started the counter. Next would be another similar move before his opponent shifted strategies, he was sure. Aggressive, straight forward, confident.

Nothing unexpected yet.

What would be interesting to see, and very relevant to Bakura's curiosity would be to how Keith treated his pieces. After all, there were to ways to be aggressive; the way that respected your pieces, and the way that sacrificed them.

He looked up at Keith's face, trying to read any expression.

There was no expression there save faint concentration. Calmly, Keith moved to sacrifice a pawn to allow himself to move a rook freely.

"How interesting," he said as he pulled his hand away from the piece. "How the stronger pieces keep themselves shielded by the pawns. It's a cage as well as protection."

.... Bakura hadn't expected an answer that quickly. A sacrifice play so soon in...!

He almost didn't want to take the piece. But with it open an undefended like that...

"More a defensive wall than a cage, I'd think," he countered, voice a little unsure, hand hesitating a long moment before he finally made the obvious move. "Sending out the foot soldiers first before the more powerful units can take advantage of the paths opened up."

It seemed obvious enough to Keith. The easy aggressive strategy hadn't worked. The answer was sacrifice. Besides, there was something faintly satisfying about watching that defensive wall vanish. It wasn't something he could do in real life.

(He'd have to be careful, not to give anything away like that. He'd conserve the rest of his pawns as best as he could while putting his queen out on the offensive.)

With the now-freed rook, he took the pawn Bakura had used to take his pawn. "An eye for an eye," he murmured. "This game encourages it."

Bakura slid the bishop that his first move had freed the actions of out to take the rook. With no other pawns in range, it would be safe until recalled.

"To take an advantage, you have to give one in return, sometimes," Bakura returned softly. "It's better to wait for openings where you don't have to lose to gain."

Keith moved his queen out now, ready to go on the offensive. But he kept her in a safe place as he did so. It was entirely too easy to be self-destructive in this game, to let pieces vanish one by one until it was just, perhaps, the queen and a knight sliding around the board. He liked that, but he couldn't show that he liked it. Not to anyone here.

"And how often do you get such openings?" His glance flicked to the bishop that had taken his rook. "It must depend on who you're playing." His tone was just a little too serious to be conversational, but unlike his playing, it left no openings.

"Un, it does. But it also depends on the game," Bakura answered as he surveyed the board, sounding almost a little distracted as he mulled over his move. "And what your goal is."

It was already fairly clear Keith was the type to reach for the largest gun first. The queen was a powerhouse, but also a lynch pin. The agility to travel anywhere on the board in two moves, her position by the King was the ultimate defense and the ability to lay in wait to strike when the opening presented. Once captured, the entire line was weakened and checkmate loomed.

After a moment he moved his knight, jumping over the line of pawns to stand ready in the front lines.

Power verses the unexpected. Somehow it seemed fitting.

"Or really, what path you want to take to that goal," he continued, leaning back slightly, looking back up at his opponent.

Keith moved an already-out bishop into place to take the knight, should it not move. It was a trap: moving the knight would put it in the grasp of the opposing queen.

"The goal is to win in any game," he said. "Isn't it?"

"Not always," Bakura replied as he pondered his move. "Sometimes the goal is to teach someone else how to play, to test out an idea, to reach a tie, or even to lose. My favorite game I always play with the hope of losing." He gave a small, wry smile at that as he moved another piece in place. Should the bishop move to take the knight, it would find itself swiftly taken in return. A return trap.

The urge to sacrifice his bishop to take the knight was tempting. But it would give too much away at this point. Instead, Keith moved out one of his own knights.

"Your favorite game?" Still no visible reaction to the way the game was going.

"Monster World. It's a TRPG," Bakura smiled before quickly adding. "Table top roll playing game."

Very few people from worlds similar to his knew what TRPGs were, he really shouldn't at all expect Keith to know what one was and thus was already trying to figure out the best way to explain what it was in anticipation of being asked.

It could normally be said that Keith's blank look was all that Bakura needed to see that he had no clue what was being talked about. Except that Keith just about always looked like that. So Bakura had to wait for confirmation until Keith said, "Explain."

"It's sort of like a collaborative story writing game. Each player has an avatar in the game world and they work together to defeat the Dark Lord at the end that's holding the country in thrall and causing people to suffer. The Dark Lord is controlled by the Dark Master who's also the Game Master, spinning the story for everyone to play their parts in and controlling all the NPCs-- aa-- non player characters, things like the random encounters and villagers and such that the players meet along the way," Bakura explained with a smile. "It's sort of like chess, but far more complicated, and with the players going up against the DM as a group, rather than just two players going against each other."

"Then if you're the 'Game Master,'" Keith guessed, "you hope to lose." It didn't sound like it was to his taste, personally--as the Game Master, he'd play to win. Because-- "I wonder. What holds the country together after the Dark Lord is defeated? Or does the game not consider that?"

Bakura nodded. "The game ends for the heroes once the Dark Lord is defeated. Then... I guess it's up to the people to rebuild from his damage and try and resume life as normal."

He massaged the scar on the back of his left hand a moment in an unconscious gesture as he spoke, thinking of the last time he had played that game, when the Dark Lord had been truly defeated. The Kingdom had been empty after that... the souls of his friends released from their game pieces and returned to their bodies. Release from death for more than just him.

He shook his head slightly, pushing the thoughts away before it distracted him much more.

"Then that's how it is." Keith looked down at their own game board, the chess pieces scattered about it now. "The players leave the world they've used in disarray."

There was that slight, not quite pleasant curve of his mouth that replaced a grin in most people. "At least in chess, the pieces are cleaned up and put away after the game."

"It's not quite like that. The heroes come in to stop further damage so that the world they're in can finally recover," Bakura corrected. "They aren't the cause of the damage or anything like that. And the board there can be reset in the same way that the board in chess can."

"People like games that can be reset," Keith observed. "Where they don't need to face the consequences of their actions." Win or lose, and it was over, he didn't add, because he didn't trust himself not to give something away with those words.

"Aa-- games are supposed to be things that are fun. A game where the 2nd half of it was cleaning up and putting things back together would start being like a chore rather than a game..." Bakura pointed out awkwardly. "And a little redundant, I'd think! Going back to replace all the artifacts and important plot pieces would be like rewinding the game, which sort of undoes the whole ending, in a way, I think. And with shorter games, there wouldn't even be that."

"Fun." The word sounded alien coming from Keith, but that was hardly a surprise. He glanced away dismissively. "It doesn't matter." It did, to him--he did everything he did because of what he believed about humanity, or at least so he told himself--but discussing it further seemed pointless. Or potentially painful--but he wouldn't admit that.

Bakura blinked a moment at that. "... it doesn't matter if a game is fun or not...?" he attempted to interpret. "Are games all serious where you're from?" Or was it the same as it had been with Matsuka, where he hadn't had the time to ever play them? Either way, it still just baffled Bakura, who came from a world where games, especially Duel Monsters, were such a vital part of life...

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Going to gloss over the details of the game in favor of what's going in around it, if that's cool?

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