"Maybe I don't wanna be just friends
See you only on the weekends
Sorry hope you understand
I like you a little too much for that"
-Just Friends by Jordy
Elisse found that the facial feature of Benny that she likes the most were his eyes, so round and dark, which stood out under the orange light of his poorly-lit apartment in the middle of New York City. She would get lost in those eyes every time she would stare at them. So often, she would look everywhere except those eyes. They were sitting across each other and Benny was looking down at the chess board in front of him, moving pieces every now and then. He was narrating and showing what happened to a recent game that he played but Elisse was too distracted to actually listen. She let her gaze take in his facial features—his thick eyebrows, beautiful pair of eyes, his nose, his moustache, then her eyes wandered to his soft-looking lips. Now, that's another pair of good contenders when it comes to what she likes the most.
"Are you bored?" Benny said, snapping her out of her train of thoughts. Benny had looked up from the chess board to meet her gaze and she immediately looked down at the board, pretending to examine it.
"No, no, not at all." She shook her head, pursing her lips together.
"You're not listening to a word I say, are you?" She heard him chuckle deeply afterwards and it was like a melody to her ears. "I would say I'm sorry but you asked me to tell you all about it and you know how I am when it comes to chess."
"Yeah, I realized that too late. You were in the middle of your cute demonstration when it dawned on me that I should never ask."
"It was not supposed to be cute but it's better than boring, I guess" She finally looked up to look at his smile and she could not help but smile back at him. "Anyway, are you hungry?"
"No, but I can use something to drink."
"Coffee? Juice?"
"Coffee, please. Thanks."
"Coming right up" He rose from his seat to boil some water from the coffee.
She stayed on her seat, gazing at the chessboard this time. She was no expert in chess but she knew the rules enough to understand what the ex-US chess champion was demonstrating. Elisse had been friends with Benny for a while, ever since Benny took a particular interest in her when he found her learning chess for the first time during breakfast in the middle of a diner. He even offered to teach her. She was only playing for fun so she did not know the known names in chess, thus she did not recognize Benny. She only discovered that he was one of the greatest when she came to his apartment for the first time and saw all his trophies.
"Wow, you have a lot of them—trophies, I mean. You must play a lot."
"I've been playing since I was a kid so yeah"
"You've been winning trophies since you were a kid?"
"I was kind of, uh, a child prodigy" She looked at him in awe and he chuckled. "Don't look at me like that. I'm too old now and Beth Harmon had already stolen the US chess champion title away from me."
"What? You were the US chess champion too?"
"I was, yeah" He shrugged nonchalantly. "Now, do you want to learn chess or do you prefer to gawk at me all day? I'm actually fine either way."
Elisse let out a happy sigh at the memory. Benny, even though he undeniably had an air of arrogance about him, did not seem to mind titles so much. He was even kind enough to befriend a beginner at chess like her. He taught her chess for a couple of months but even after that, they kept in touch, meeting on weekends whenever he was not travelling to compete. They would either meet at the diner, his apartment, or her apartment and mostly, they're just chatting about whatever. Elisse found that she enjoyed Benny's company a lot but she wondered if he felt the same. He seemed to be the type who liked being surrounded by anyone so she always wondered if she would do as a company because anyone would do.
