"Wake up, Jon!"

On the other side of a closed door, an irritated knock followed an irritated shout.

*...of course. Nearly overslept again, didn't I?*

"It's already six-thirty, and your school begins at eight o'clock! It takes you thirty minutes to get there. You're going to be late!"

*...not*

"And that's not even counting the morning rush hour, so hurry it up!"

The angry footsteps quickly receded from the door, melding in the distance with the hubbub of the Xu household's early morning kitchen.

With a sigh of reluctance, I win the mental battle against myself and force myself out of the comfort of the heavy covers. As I sat up, a frigid wind seemed to blow across the confines of my room and across my skin, which made me s.h.i.+ver slightly. But I knew it was just the temperature difference between my covers and my room. For some reason, my room always boasted poor climate control. This, along with a very light pajama (actually, even calling it a pajama was an overstatement) made it all the more difficult to leave the safe haven of the bed.

*How many hours of sleep did I even get? 3? 4? 12? Not like it matters too much, anyway.*

No matter how many hours of sleep I got, all I had to do was down a gla.s.s of water immediately after waking up to feel better. Your body gets quite dehydrated during sleep, after all. But going a few days in a row with a mere three hours of sleep does leave me feeling tired. I'm not a superhuman, after all.

*Oh, I did go to bed pretty early yesterday. How lucky.*

Today was a Monday, and I had actually made a smart decision to go to bed early so I could get enough rest.

*Now then...*

I struggled to get out of bed, still slightly drowsy. After standing somewhat comatose for a few seconds, I stretched and reached for the stainless steel bottle on the nightstand and poured the contents into my mouth. And with the few gulps of water, I was finally awake.

Invigorated with new life, I immediately strolled over to the computer in my room and booted it up.

I stared at the thing for a few seconds before releasing another small sigh.

*What am I even doing with this uselessly expensive computer...*

As if on cue, the uselessly expensive computer silently blinked its uselessly flashy lights as it started up. The keyboard went from red, to green, to blue, and then everything in between.

*Maybe my friends were right to make fun of me for spending so much on a computer...*

Because even though I owned this uselessly expensive computer, I hardly used it for its intended purposes. As of late, anyway. What was supposed to be a monster of a computer perfect for handling many processes at once was now being used to watch videos or read stupid jokes.

But now, I was about to give it the stress test of a lifetime. This application would no doubt prove that the computer I bought wasn't just in my room to look pretty. As my desktop's minimalistic wallpaper appeared, I apprehensively moused over to said application and double clicked...

Chrome.

And then loaded up the chess game against my sister from the night before.

*Ah, right. That's why I went to bed so early yesterday.*

I guess you could say I had a unique talent for leaving tomorrow's problems for tomorrow's me. Whenever I didn't want to deal with a problem, I would just forget about it immediately and go to sleep.

*And sleep for nearly too long... Anyway, it's yesterday's tomorrow now.*

Obviously, tomorrow will never come. But leaving tomorrow's problems to tomorrow won't make them go away, and today's tomorrow will always eventually become today.

*What a mouthful... Let's get this thing started.*

With that, I finally hit the play b.u.t.ton to commence yesterday's chess match.

I didn't even have to watch all the way through it once before I realized...

*Even though it didn't feel like a crus.h.i.+ng defeat, I still lost pretty bad, huh?*

With the sense of defeat that resurfaced from yesterday, I slumped down in my chair and looked at the ceiling.

"Well, nothing comes out of grumbling over a loss, anyway. Let's at least try to understand what went wrong here..."

I slowly sit back up, resuming my former position.

And with that, I intensely studied the chess match. But...

*Seriously, where did I go wrong here?*

After watching through the replay once, nothing obvious jumped out at me.

*It's seriously like she's leading me around by the nose, dammit.*

Determined to find something on the second time watching it through, I sat up with my back ramrod straight, and then leaned forward slightly. However, I was unable to find anything really significant.

And on it went. I watched it at normal playback speed, half speed, double speed. I flipped it on its side, upside down, and even flipped myself upside down. And then it hit me.

*Maybe I should have moved the knight to B-6 there. It would have definitely given me more openings and even a potential to win the match!*

I experienced a moment of ecstasy, but that's all it lasted. A moment. Because then, I hit myself with the truth that I always force myself to hear but never want to.

I take a deep breath in, and...

"Are you kidding me? After watching the replay of this chess game like a million times, the best piece of info I'm able to get out of it is one mere move that *could* have been better? After all this time, I'm not really getting better at all. This world really does favor the talented! All I've got are mediocre skills, and nothing is going to change that!"

I laughed about how foolish I was being. I laughed at myself for even allowing myself to experience a moment of ecstasy even though I discovered a completely useless piece of information. And I laughed at myself for thinking that I could ever surpa.s.s her.

My maniacal laughter must have caused quite the ruckus, because I heard another knock at my door before I could even tell someone was approaching.

"Hey, Jon, you're not beating yourself up over yesterday, are you? Come eat breakfast, it's getting cold. Don't worry, Mom and Dad have already left. Besides, you're already better at chess than most people, aren't you? Isn't that good enough? Because you know I'll always be better than you~"

"You..! ...Sorry..."

"Don't worry about it, and just come eat breakfast, ok?"

*I guess it's true that I'm the second best chess player at my school, but they don't even compare to her! It really isn't a fair comparison at all!*

Looking at it from a logical standpoint, it really shouldn't matter. Since I really was the second best chess player at my school, and the best one was my best friend. But there was still something in the back of my head that was telling me I wasn't good enough. After all, even though I was better at sports than my sister, I couldn't match her at all in games that came down to pure skill and mental ability. Some video games were an exception, but as a guy, being inferior to my sister at most video games was undoubtedly a psychological blow.

Before I had noticed it, my sister had already left from behind the door.

*And she's as sneaky as ever, too. Although I can't tell if it's on purpose...*

Along with my good physical abilities, I had an uncanny ability to sense people approaching. And of course, she is one of the only ones whose movements I can't read. With yet another sigh, I checked the clock on the bottom corner of my monitor.

07:09, fifty-one minutes before the start of school.

*I'll definitely be on time even after studying that chess match a million times. Why were my parents freaking out over that, anyway?*

I quickly got dressed with a tank top, t-s.h.i.+rt, and sweater that I had set out on my bed the night before. As for pants... I hadn't thought that far ahead.

With a slight frustrated look and an unnecessary few extra seconds, I finally decided on the ultimate winter wear.

*These red and green shorts should be fine for today... it's not even that cold out.*

After donning the merry apparel and quickly brus.h.i.+ng my teeth, I finally decided that it was time to step out into the great big world.

*One of the favorite parts of my day. Time to eat some breakfast!*