Wish you Luck, Wish you Love [Muichiro Tokito x OC]
Chapter 7. Brutal
"I'm so insecure, I think
That I'll die before I drink
And I'm so caught up in the news
Of who likes me, and who hates you"
— brutal - Olivia Rodrigo —
The small pause in her movement didn't escape his notice. Muichiro's eyes narrowed slightly as he watched her hand tremble just a fraction while holding the shogi piece, her ears flushing faintly red without her realizing it.
Seira had always been an enigma to him.
He never truly understood why she took shogi so seriously, especially when he knew it wasn't even her favorite thing in the world.
Seira loved many things—too many, sometimes.
She loved to read, and even more than that, she loved to write. When she sprawled on the couch with a book in hand and he sat at the opposite end, she would get so absorbed that excitement bubbled out of her anyway—soft giggles slipping free as her feet kicked beneath the blanket. Sometimes she kicked him by accident. Sometimes, he suspected, it wasn't an accident at all.
She loved telling stories. The way her hands would fly through the air as she described some ridiculous scene, the way she could turn the most ordinary moment into something whimsical and poetic. No matter how mundane the subject, she always managed to paint it vividly, so clearly that it lingered in his mind long after she'd finished speaking.
She loved cafés—lingering in them, hopping between them, ordering far too many desserts at once. She'd taste everything until her stomach hurt, then push the remaining plates toward him with a look that made refusal impossible, insisting it would be a waste otherwise. All the while, she'd scribble notes into her small notebook, jotting down critiques and impressions to post later on her lifestyle blog.
Shogi wasn't the thing that made her eyes light up in wonder the way other hobbies did for her, especially not in the way it did for him. And yet, when she sat across from him at the board, she treated every match like it was something she had to win.
Not for pride alone.
Muichiro watched the way she leaned in when the board tightened, how her jaw set when she sensed a challenge. She didn't play like someone chasing joy. She played like someone chasing proof.
Proof that she belonged there. Proof that she could stand across from him and not be dismissed.
The realization settled heavily in his chest.
He wondered—briefly, uncomfortably—whether he'd ever given her reason to think otherwise.
His fingers hovered over the next piece. The board presented an opening he could exploit, one that would likely put him ahead. He paused.
Then, deliberately, he chose a different move.
He looked up just in time to catch her expression as her eyes tracked the path of his hand. Her fingers curled into a tight fist against the tabletop, knuckles whitening with excitement and focus so complete it bordered on anxiety.
"Seira..." he called, her name coming out raspy, more weary and worrisome than he'd expected. There was a brief hesitation—just enough to betray the care threaded through his voice, subtle and easy to miss.
Her head snapped up at once. Clear turquoise eyes met his, bright and alert, waiting. Always waiting.
For a moment, the room seemed to fall away.
He wanted to ask her if she actually liked shogi. If she was having fun the way he did—especially when it was just the two of them at the board, trading moves and silence in equal measure. He wanted to ask what shogi meant to her, what she was really chasing every time she leaned in with that fierce, determined look.
And if the answer was proof—
If it was ever about worth, or validation, or standing tall where she felt she had to—
Then he wanted to tell her she didn't need it.
That she never had.
The words stayed lodged in his throat, heavy and unspoken. Muichiro exhaled quietly and looked back down at the board instead, fingers steady as he made his move.
"Your turn," he said, voice even once more.
Seira blinked, clearly caught off guard. But then her smile returned—sharp and brilliant as ever—as she studied the board between them. Her gaze flicked from piece to piece, and as she realized where the game was heading, that smile only grew wider, brighter, impossible to miss.
Oh.
She reached forward without hesitation, fingers closing around a piece. Her promoted rook.
With a decisive click, she set it down.
Seira lifted her head, eyes shining. "Checkmate," she declared proudly.
There was no mistaking it—she was having more fun in that single moment than she had in the previous twenty minutes of the match combined.
"I won, Muichiro," she sang, twirling in a small circle beside the table, delight written all over her face.
She didn't notice the way his gaze lingered on her—quiet, complicated—mistaking it instead for simple frustration over losing. To her, he was just being pouty.
Muichiro said nothing.
He looked down at the board once more, then back at her, something unreadable settling behind his eyes as he accepted the outcome. But it wasn't the result of the game that weighed on him. It was the conclusion he'd reached about Seira.
And he didn't like it at all.
That somewhere along the way, Seira might have tied her worth to winning against him. That she might believe she only mattered—only deserved to stand where she did—if she could beat him at the board. As if falling short against him meant falling short entirely.
The thought sat heavy in his chest.
Because if that were true, then she had been fighting more than just his pieces this whole time—and he hated the idea that he might have been part of the reason she ever felt less than enough.
He opened his mouth, her name barely leaving his lips—
"Alright, everyone."
Yuichiro clapped his hands sharply, pulling the room's attention to him. "That's twenty minutes. Switch partners."
The moment fractured.
Muichiro lowered his gaze just as chairs scraped and voices rose again. When he looked up, Seira was already on her feet, happily waltzing across the room to pair up with another club member. She was unmistakably cheerful—he could tell from the small skip in her step, the way her skirt twirled with her movement, how she still hadn't quite let go of her little victory dance.
She looked happy.
And that scared him.
The words he'd almost said lodged themselves in his throat. Not you only won because I let you—never that. He would never take this from her.
What he wanted to tell her was simpler. Harder to say.
That if she didn't enjoy shogi—if she wasn't playing because it made her feel alive or curious or challenged—then she didn't owe it to anyone to keep doing it. Not to the club. Not to the competition.
And especially not to him.
If winning against him was just a way to prove she was worthy of standing there, of being taken seriously, of being enough—then she shouldn't have to play at all.
The thought made his chest tighten. Saying it outright would only confirm the very thing he feared—that her win mattered too much, that her worth might hinge on it. That she might hear it not as honesty, but as dismissal. She needed to know that she deserved better than chasing validation across a board. She deserved to want things for herself, not measure her worth against someone else's skill—least of all his.
Muichiro looked down at the empty seat across from him, the board still set from their game. He exhaled slowly.
There had to be another way to start this conversation. Another way to make her understand. But one way or another, it needed to happen.
He watched her laugh with her new partner, hands tightening at his side.
Soon.
—
That single won match made her whole day.
Seira was still humming to herself as she waltzed into the kitchen after school, reaching for a glass of water. Her steps were light, almost buoyant, like she hadn't quite come back down to earth yet.
On the couch, Obanai sat with his laptop balanced on his knees, a prepared lecture pulled up on the screen. He glanced up when she passed by—and couldn't help but pause.
She was smiling. She even spun once on her heel as she waited for the faucet to run, entirely unaware she had an audience.
Obanai leaned back slightly, eyes narrowing in quiet assessment. "...Something good happened today?" he asked at last.
Seira looked over, her grin widening as if she'd been waiting for someone to notice. "The best thing."
"Oh?"
"I beat Muichiro," she said with a laugh. "And just wait—six months from now, I'll be the best high school shogi champion in the country." She lifted her chin, triumphant. "Then he'll never look down on me again."
The words hung in the air—bright, confident.
Obanai didn't react right away. He studied her for a moment, expression unreadable, fingers tapping once against the edge of his laptop before he finally spoke.
"I'm not the biggest fan of that Tokito kid," he said flatly. "But Seira... I don't think he's ever looked down on you."
She blinked.
He continued, tone steady but firm, the way it always was when he was being serious. "You're not the kind of person people underestimate. And he's not the kind of person who would waste his time being around someone he didn't respect."
Obanai leaned back, eyes still on her. "So if you beat him, good. Be proud."
A pause.
"But don't make it about proving you're worth something," he added quietly. "You've never had to do that. Not with him. Not with anyone."
The room fell silent again.
Seira's smile didn't disappear—but it wavered, just slightly, as his words settled somewhere deeper than she'd expected.
She cleared her throat quickly, "What are you even talking about?" she said, waving it off, forcing a careless laugh into her voice. "Why would I need his respect?" She shrugged, deliberately light. "I just want to win, alright?"
She turned toward the stairs before he could respond. "I'm going to take a shower. Call me when dinner's ready."
And then she was gone.
Her footsteps thudded up the stairs, quick and uneven, until her bedroom door shut behind her with a soft but final click—cutting off the conversation she wasn't ready to have.
Seira leaned back against the door, breathing a little harder than she meant to. She slid down until she was sitting on the floor, knees pulled to her chest, and stared at nothing in particular as Obanai's words replayed in her head—uninvited, persistent.
He's never looked down on you.
She scoffed softly, pressing her forehead into her knees. That couldn't be true. Muichiro was... Muichiro. Calm. Brilliant. Effortlessly good at everything he touched. Shogi, school, life—he moved through it all like things simply made sense to him. Like he'd been born already knowing where to stand.
She hadn't.
Seira had always felt like she was scrambling—trying, pushing, proving. Laughing loudly so no one would notice the cracks. Winning arguments, winning games, winning something, just so she could feel like she deserved to be in the same space as people like him.
And Muichiro had never said anything cruel. Never dismissed her. Never once treated her like she didn't belong. Which somehow made it worse.
Because when he looked at her—with that quiet focus, that steady calm—it felt like he saw straight through her. Saw how much she wanted to be impressive. How badly she wanted to matter.
She told herself she was competitive because she liked winning. That she took shogi seriously because she was good at it. That beating him felt good because it was supposed to.
She told herself she didn't like him like that. Obviously. Obviously.
She just... noticed things. Like how nice he looked when he was concentrating. How unfairly pretty his eyes were when they softened. How every fictional character she loved somehow ended up lacking—wrong hair, wrong eyes, wrong presence—until her mind quietly replaced them with Muichiro instead.
That didn't mean anything.
Anyone would think he was perfect. Anyone would feel small standing next to him. Anyone would want to prove themselves.
Right?
But somewhere along the way, without her noticing, winning against Muichiro had stopped being just a game. It had become a measure. If she could beat him, then she was good enough. If she could stand across from him and not lose, then maybe she was worthy of being there at all.
This wasn't a crush. It was an obsession. That was the problem. He'd become the goalpost she'd been chasing for years, the standard everything else was measured against, even herself. No wonder it felt exhausting. No wonder it was ruining things she liked.
The realization made her stomach twist. Seira groaned quietly, scrubbing a hand over her face. "That's stupid," she muttered to the empty room.
She pushed herself up, forcing the thoughts away as she headed for the bathroom. The mirror caught her reflection for a split second—flushed cheeks, bright eyes, something restless sitting just beneath the surface.
She turned the shower on before she could think too much about it. The water drowned everything out—her thoughts, Obanai's voice, Muichiro's calm gaze. She really needed to stop thinking about Muichiro Tokito. She really needed to find someone else to fixate on. Someone higher to reach for. Someone who wasn't Muichiro Tokito.
And in her fifteen-year-old certainty, that felt like the smartest way to fix everything—because admitting she liked him would mean admitting she was scared of not being enough.
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