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Pretty much everyone on the Coruscant University campus knows who Kylo Ren is, because he’s the only motherfucker to pull up in a jet black C6 Corvette as a university student. And sure, Rey’s never met the guy, but she already thinks she hates him.
The windows of the modest local game store throbs in time with the subwoofers pumping from the tinted vehicle, causing everyone’s heads in the room to turn and face the ostentatious noise. A few people make faces. Someone groans — “Fucking Kylo.” — and Rey’s brow furrows as she attempts to remember anything about him. He was from Theta Phi, judging from his vanity plate, and Poe knew him, didn’t he?
Furthermore, due to his stupid sports car and the reaction of the room, he was probably also a miserable Spike and a whale.
Rey glances at the clock. 6:55. He was just in time for Commander.
The music cuts outside, and the door opens. Most folks have gone back to their games, chatter slowly filling the room again, but Rey watches with curiosity from the counter as the student about as tall as she’s ever seen leans out and steps onto the pavement.
“We’re in for a spirited one tonight,” Maz says from the other side of the glass countertop, polishing her thick spectacles with a twinkle in her beady eyes. The wizened yet spry owner of Kanata’s Kards, a timeless establishment on Takodana street near the campus in Coruscant, had always been especially warm with Rey. Girls showing up at the card shop weren’t unheard of, but definitely not the norm, and she’d made her feel very welcome since her first day walking in freshman year.
“Do we know him?” Rey asks neutrally, gesturing her head at, presumably, Kylo outside. He was swinging what looked like an expensive gaming backpack over his Theta Phi jacket and swooping his long, dark hair out of his face. Great. Another university nepo baby. She hoped with every fiber of her being he was there for Warhammer and not Magic.
“Indeed,” Maz says cheerfully. “He’s always top eight Friday nights. Quite the character.”
Even better — a bonafide Standard player. Rey isn’t sure if the last bit is a compliment or not; Maz could be inscrutable.
The tone of the game store was generally mild and pretty wholesome. Since most of the patrons were also college students, a few dads and randoms sprinkled in, the competition remained fair — at least, it had been that way in Rey’s experience. Nobody had the money to be blowing on expensive lands and broken rares. That was for Standard.
She herself dutifully stuck to Pauper on Thursday nights. This was a rare Saturday off for her as a busy STEM major, plus an equally rare chance to break out her humble EDH deck.
Rey blows a puff of air up her face, stray hairs blustering out of the way. She turns away from the door before it opens and Kylo comes in.
Rey doesn’t hear any of the ensuing conversation between him and Maz; she collects her ratty backpack, faithfully serving her since she was probably thirteen, and picks a table with a familiar redhead sitting at it.
“I take it you’re not doing the prerelease next week,” Hux says without looking at her, busy pile shuffling and taking up half the table.
Rey shakes her head, and takes the seat across from him.
“Nope,” she says, popping the P. “Can’t afford that.”
“Take the store credit when you win and put it towards it.”
“I’d have to win like four times.”
“Worth it.”
“Players, we’ll be starting in just a minute!” Maz’s voice rings out clearly across the room.
Rey checks her phone one last time, opening up her life counter app. Movement out of the corner of her eye catches it, and as she looks up, she stares straight into the path of none other than Kylo heading towards the empty seat beside her.
“Fancy seeing you here,” Hux says dryly, and she does a double take. They knew each other? “Did you finish the presentation?”
“Hours ago,” Kylo says, and his voice is deep and thrummy, sending a shiver down Rey’s spine as he pulls out a chair and sits. This Kylo guy, close up, was good looking in an inexplicable way — sculpted nose and lips, a long face, a shrewd, calculating gaze framed by dark hair. His clothes were pretty different from the usual graphic tees scattered around the store; they looked tailored, and were just as black as his hair, clinging to his muscled arms.
And he doesn’t spare a lick of attention to Rey.
Rey decides not to say anything to him, either. Except Hux takes one good look at the both of them, sighs, and says, “Rey, this is Kylo. Kylo, this is Rey.”
Rey hides any inward grumpiness, and puts her best foot forward by extending her hand.
“Nice to meet you,” she says.
“Sure,” Kylo says, and doesn’t even glance up from his phone to see her hand. Rey makes some kind of face, she’s sure, and Hux looks torn between annoyance and amusement as she retracts her hand and scowls.
Any ruminations on how much this guy sucks are interrupted by Maz announcing the matchups. Both she and Hux are forced to get up from their table, thankfully leaving Kylo behind — he unsurprisingly refused to move — and Rey happily takes a seat across from a tired father and two regulars she’d seen around campus.
Everyone sinks into amicable chatter and shuffling. Rey sets up her stained mat and pushes her worn deckbox off to the side as she begins to pile shuffle, Commander placed in its zone.
Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn was not her first choice for an EDH deck, but after being given a pack and pulling it herself, she was strangely attached to the unicorn and liked its colors. She had enough cheap green and white cards collected to fill out the brunt of the deck, and had been steadily trading for better pieces. She wouldn’t rank it higher than a six.
Her opponents are playing mono blue, Orzhov, and artifacts. Rey mulls over what kind of opening hand she’ll want; something with graveyard hate to deal with the blue and black, she thinks. A Scavenging Ooze would be a nice turn two.
She draws her opening hands, and smiles — Scooze sits right under her thumb.
The game starts in high spirits, everyone earnest to get started. Rey goes third, and plays a Selesnya Guildgate before passing her turn. The artifacts deck is Vehicles, which is fun, and the mono-blue is led by Lier, Disciple of the Drowned. She’s never been so thankful for the ooze.
The Orzhov player has trouble getting off the ground while everyone else builds their boardstates, and by turn five, Rey comfortably sits on a mana dork, Scooze, and Lathiel on the field.
She’s lucky, honestly. She has so much momentum from the early game that the blue player doesn’t have the bandwidth to counter anything, too focused on the rapidly-scaling Vehicle deck. Nobody pays the Orzhov player mind as he occasionally plants a kill spell here and there, inoffensive and trifling at most. Rey pokes at him, letting the other two take each other down to ten life apiece. The Ooze has to be recast after a bounce, but she recovers just fine.
When she draws Loyal Unicorn, she thinks she’s probably got it in the bag. Six turns later, it’s just her and Orzhov, so woefully behind he has no chance of catching up.
“Good game,” the guy says, and Rey tries not to smile too big as she reaches across the table to shake his hand. Everyone gathers up their cards, pleased it was at least a good game, and heads over to submit their records.
There’s another ten or so minutes until the next round is set to start. Out of the tables, there’s two others that are done, and several are down to single digit lifepoints. Rey spies on Hux from across the room; he looked surly and unhappy, probably meaning he lost.
Sure enough, he gets up when he sees her, a sneer on his face.
“Drew no lands outside of my first fucking hand,” he says calmly, staring at some pack of black Dragon Shield sleeves that he’s not going to buy.
“It happens,” Rey says. She was very thankful she ran decent ramp.
Maz scuttles around up front, managing the submissions for wins and losses before procuring a fresh sheet by hand. One by one, everyone meanders up to it, taking a peek and heading to their table accordingly. Rey scans the sheet and turns to tell Hux they’re at the same table, but sees another name — Kylo Ren. Gross.
Rey sighs before following Hux to the table they initially started at. Kylo is still in his seat, his cards meticulously organized on a large playmat that... appears to even be signed.
Rey inwardly scoffs. His deck sleeves, too, look custom, and yeah — those are definitely his initials branded into the leather of his black bag. There’s even compartments for deck boxes.
Part of her is quietly impressed with the engineering of it, and slightly jealous of the bag. But she reminds herself quickly and soberly that she owned one binder and two decks, and had no need for such a luxury.
“I take it you won,” Hux says snobbishly to Kylo, and Kylo merely hums his affirmation, not turning away from scrolling down his phone.
“I wish you would go to Coruscant Games instead.” Hux seemingly had no issue taking out his bad mood on Kylo, who seemed totally unreceptive to it.
“Too far. Don’t want to drive forty-five minutes.”
“What’s the point of driving that thing then? You can’t be challenged here, surely you’re bored.”
“Winning isn’t boring.”
Rey rolls her eyes at the exchange and flumps into her old seat, taking out her mat and deck.
A random Rey doesn’t recognize joins them at the table not long after. Everyone is quiet, deeply focused on setting up for the next match, minus Kylo, who continues scrolling and ignoring everyone.
She really doesn’t like this guy. She needs to text Poe later and ask what his deal was. And the cherry on top — she glances down and sees a full art Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls sitting in Kylo’s Command zone.
She feels a little pale. Of course he played Rakdos. This match was going to suck.
When the dice roll comes up for first, Kylo wins. Rey is already trying not to visibly frown when he plays a Kederekt Parasite on turn one. She has some removal, but she was more focused on brute forcing herself to victory with +1/+1 counters. Timidly, she glances at Hux, hoping he has kill spells in hand.
Hux looks morose.
She opens again with Selesnya Guildgate, and passes. Hux goes, and plays a land, and nothing else as well. Okay. He wasn’t a fast-paced Orzhov deck, fair.
The random, running Gruul, at least has a haste creature, and... swings at Rey.
Rey takes the damage in stride, and the turn passes.
Kylo plays another land, a Dragonskull Summit. He looks calm, placid. Bored. There’s his red source, Rey thinks. He taps both, plays a Harsh Mentor, and everyone looks unsettled.
Rey ramps quietly with a Llanowar Elf on the draw. She peeks at the unicorn sitting in her Command zone, wondering if she’d be able to play catch up with such a strong start. A board wipe was going to be necessary very quickly if Kylo kept his pace up.
He does.
By some sick stroke of fate, Hux ends up manaflooded. He plays a land every turn, looking increasingly murderous as he does, and by the time he gets Teysa out on the field, she’s cruelly ruined by a Chaos Warp from Kylo.
“Uh,” the random says with a nasal tone, “does he have to shuffle that in?”
Rey blinks at the card, unsure for a moment — it did say shuffle target permanent, but she was fairly sure that Hux had the option to return it to the Command Zone.
“No,” Kylo says, sounding maybe a touch disappointed. “Unfortunately.”
“Fuck you,” Hux says flatly, and puts Teysa back in the zone.
When Valgavoth hits the field, Rey realizes with a numb sort of shock that the game is probably already lost.
Kylo seems to have a neverending stream of answers and bombs. Sheoldred comes out, and for whatever reason — sadism, Rey thinks — Kylo focuses all his efforts on the nigh-defenseless Hux, seemingly taking amusement in watching the ginger turn utterly apoplectic in the face of defeat. Orzhov was not having a strong night.
When Hux is dead — Rey shoots him a sympathetic look — she is helpless to watch as Kylo systematically turns his efforts on the Gruul player. Within three turns, he’s dead.
Rey’s life total says she’s hovering at a gentleman’s 17, while Kylo sits firmly at 39. All the lifegain in her deck wasn’t enough to combat the sheer broken synergy of his cards.
But she’s not giving up.
On her next turn, she plays Unbreakable Formation during combat, building +1/+1 counters in hopes of taking out at least some of his board. She’d yet to draw a wipe, and was committed to racing him in counters to the end.
Kylo blocks accordingly, looking unfazed. Rey ends her turn, sitting ramrod in her seat, and he untaps his mana.
Bloodletter of Aclozotz. And next to it on the field is Unstoppable Slasher with a single stun counter.
Rey doesn’t smile, or laugh. Her heart flutters agonizingly in her throat, blood pounding as her brain whirrs and attempts to summon some sort of solution to this problem with no more removal in her hand. She fingers the cheap sleeves of her cards in hand, worn and chipping around the edges.
Kylo swings with Valgavoth and two other creatures, though he probably doesn’t need to. If she can’t solve this, she loses next turn to the combo. Rey blocks, lamenting as her Lathiel returns to the Command Zone from deathtouch.
Rey untaps, and draws. She stares at the board.
“Congregate?” she says unsurely, placing the white card down. If she gained two life for each creature on the field, that would buy her some time—
“Price of Progress,” Kylo replies smoothly. Deal damage to each player equal to twice the number of nonbasic lands they control.
Rey sighs deeply.
“Good game,” she mutters, scooping up her lands.
The final match of the night goes by in a blur. Rey doesn’t perform poorly, but she gets second again, and feels a sour twist in her gut when she sees Maz handing over a small stack of booster packs to Kylo for his winnings. She wondered if he’d actually open them, or if he just hoarded them. Probably the latter.
“I’m going back to the dorm and drinking,” Hux says irritably, his backpack already over his shoulders.
“I’m probably headed to bed when I get back,” Rey replies, checking the time on the phone. It was past ten, and her eyes felt scratchy already.
Hux nods in farewell, which she returns. For a few minutes she hangs out with some of the regulars, catching up on set spoilers, before she decides to take her leave.
“Hey.”
Rey’s head turns at the sound of the voice addressing her, and looks up, and up, to see none other than... Kylo?
“Hey,” she says automatically, but she’s confused. What did he want? “What’s up?”
“Do you have trades?”
“Uh,” Rey says. “Yes?”
Kylo doesn’t say anything, just wordlessly sets his bag down on the table beside them, and begins pulling out binders.
“Trades,” he explains, placing one binder down, then another, “and my personal collection.”
“Okay,” Rey says, warily. She sure as hell didn’t have the money to spend on buying cards outright that weren’t more than pocket change, but she didn't think she'd had anything to trade this guy, either.
Still, she’s polite enough to sit down and bring out her own meager binder, passing it to him and unwilling to watch his expression as he looks at her very modest collection. Most of Rey’s cards had come from hard work and luck — her old, small Pokemon collection had been traded into Magic cards during the summer between high school and college, and she’d worked for the rest through freelancing. She boasted little that could be considered exciting, as most of her valuable rares had been sold for money.
“Ugin,” Kylo comments, nodding in appreciation. “Not bad.”
Oh yeah. She had an Ugin. She needed to sell that.
“Eldrazi are fun but I like playing Selesnya.”
“I might build an Eldrazi deck,” Kylo says in passing.
Rey cracks open his trade binder, and her eyes go wide at the sheer wall of art and color. The cards on the first page were all full art and immaculate.
“Oh wow,” she murmurs, mostly to herself. This binder was probably worth at least a thousand dollars, if not a few. She skims some of the pages, not wanting to window shop, and her eyes boggle at all the chrome and holographic print. They sure as hell weren’t going to be trading. “Which Commander?”
“Not sure yet.”
“Well you have your pick of the litter,” Rey says sarcastically, holding up a page filled with nothing but the godlike creatures.
Their conversation lapses into silence as they both browse. Slowly, the room begins to empty as the last few patrons finish hanging out and exit into the city night. Nobody but an older regular talks with Maz at the counter, leaving them to themselves.
“I want this Ugin,” Kylo says after a minute, and Rey blinks.
“Don’t have one?” she asks.
“I do not. Would you take an Archangel of Thune?”
Rey blinks again. Archangel of Thune? That sounded familiar. And good.
“Can I see it?”
Kylo takes his binder from her and efficiently flips to a page containing a myriad of white rares. Rey takes it back to read the card, and— oh, that was good. That was really good. Lifelink? Counters on creatures when she gained life? Count her in.
She didn’t know how much the angel was worth, however. Ugin she knew ran for about thirty bucks, and she pulls out her phone to discreetly look up the creature before staring blankly at her screen.
Fifty dollars? Did Kylo not realize the value of this trade?
“Are you sure about this?” she asks nervously. “Thune is worth like twenty bucks more—”
“It’s fine.”
Rey stares at Kylo, but he’s impenetrable. He doesn’t seem fazed at all.
“Okay,” Rey says slowly. “Deal.”
Rey carefully pries Ugin out of her binder, handing it to Kylo in a clear sleeve. He promptly adds it to his Eldrazi page, and a moment later, passes her the Archangel of Thune.
Rey holds it reverently, sparkles probably in her eyes. How did she get so lucky? Did Kylo just not give a fuck?
“Thank you,” she says suddenly, unable to stymie the flood of joy and gratitude, no matter how miserable and unfriendly this guy was. “Really. I appreciate it.”
Kylo just grunts, putting his binders back in his bag and slinging it over his shoulder.
“You playing next week?” he asks, apropos of nothing.
“No, probably not,” Rey laments, “I’ve got a calc test that Monday. Are you?”
Kylo shrugs.
“See you,” he says. Rey watches, dazed, as he simply leaves.
Her whole body slumps with relief, not even realizing how tense she had been in his presence. The door shuts behind him with a tiny jingle, and Rey turns as she hears cackling from the front counter.
“See what I mean?” Maz croons to her from the glass casing, leaning on her elbows. “Quite the character!”
—
As much as Rey loves playing Magic, she is pretty damn good at compartmentalizing.
The school week is spent pedal to the metal, all her energy focused on getting enough sleep, eating, and getting to class on time while not ruining her grades over homework. She felt a little backwards compared to other girls at school — she was not clean and glamorous, and couldn’t afford brand name sweatpants and cute blowouts. Where most of the other ladies on her floor were excelling at papers and presentations, she vastly preferred just doing the math. At least her messy bun game was on point.
It’s Thursday afternoon, and she’s trying to get some work done in the library while her beloved roommate, Rose, takes a nap in their shared dorm. Rose, a fellow awkward outcast, said she didn’t mind Rey in there at all, but Rey was a light sleeper herself, and would’ve felt bad stirring her.
Rey sighs as she glances at her phone clock. Just then, she sees movement past the window that leads to outside the private study room, and it’s a tall, dark figure that senses her gaze, somehow, and turns to lock eyes with her.
Kylo.
She hadn’t seen him since Saturday night at the card shop, hadn’t really thought about him since she put the Archangel of Thune in her deck and tucked it safely away.
Without knocking or asking, Kylo walks in wearing joggers, Jordans, and a black t-shirt that clings to his torso. His hair is still damp from a recent shower and his cologne fills the room temptingly, and Rey stares at him, dumbfounded.
“Hi?” she says.
“Hey,” Kylo returns. “You wanna play a round?”
He’s already busting out his backpack, different from the one he’d brought to Maz’s place, and Rey realizes he has his deck with him. For all his spoiled frat brat vibes, he was truly a nerd.
“No way in hell,” Rey says, shaking her head. He had to be joking. He was running an expensive, probably S-tier deck. She didn’t stand a fucking chance against it. “Your deck greatly outperforms mine. And it’s back in the dorm.”
“I might have a few cards that would probably make your deck stronger,” he says as if she hadn’t said anything at all.
Rey pauses, thinking on it. She could just... dip back into the dorm, grab her cards and binder, and meet him back outside. There were a few places they could play with some privacy. She just needed to not wake up Rose.
“Fine,” she says uneasily. “I’ll grab it. Coming with?”
Kylo nods, and Rey dutifully cleans up her laptop and assorted books and papers before tucking it all into her trusty old backpack.
The Coruscant University library was historical and grand, and complemented the rest of the campus. The private school boasted a long list of famous graduates and ample funding from said alumni and sponsors alike, and Rey had been lucky enough to get in on a scholarship after winning an engineering project contest and a few grants.
Was she lucky as hell? Yes. Did she sometimes resent having to be a perfect student as to not lose her spot in school? Also yes. Her educational background wasn’t the greatest, growing up in the substandard conditions that she did, and it reflected in her early work. She was very thankful that her professors had been patient and helpful, and also that she was way too stubborn to ever give up.
Not wanting to ever see the inside of the tutoring office again helped.
When they make it to the hall that Rey resides in, she slips inside, quickly running upstairs to her shared room and very, very quietly opening the door. The soft sound of Rose breathing and a box fan running meet her ears, and she’s thankful for the blanket of noise as she scurries to her drawers and silently pulls out her deck box.
She leaves the room without disruption and a sense of accomplishment. Now to find Kylo.
Rey scurries back downstairs and outside to find him leaned against the wall, looking unfairly attractive in the shadows of the brick-and-ivy building. She dispels the thought immediately — he was her rival, all things considered. Even if he was kinda helping her out.
“Ready?” he asks. Rey nods. “You okay heading to my dorm?”
“As long as it’s allowed.”
Kylo rolls his eyes.
They make their way across campus to Fraternity Row, where an assortment of old, beautiful houses line the street and sport decorated lawns and backyards. Kylo weaves all the way to the Theta Phi Omega housing, and Rey suddenly feels uncertain about this whole thing — she wasn’t going to get hounded, right? She had never been to a frat house, didn’t really interact with their population.
But the house is quiet, and they’re walking up the steps to the front doors.
“It should be pretty empty right now,” Kylo says, “anyone here is probably sleeping anyway.”
Rey snorts. Classic. And it made her feel a tiny bit better.
They go inside, and Rey tries not to gawk at how insanely nice the interior is. Carved crown molding, vaulted ceilings, a spiral wooden staircase, the list went on. She obediently follows Kylo up the stairs, not a soul in sight, and they head down a hall where she can hear the faint sound of video games from a room and swearing to accompany it.
Kylo’s door is marked with a dangling skull ornament, some leftover vestige of Halloween, and Rey follows him in as he opens it. His room instantly smells good — like him. And it’s surprisingly clean.
A few framed posters dot the walls; fighter jets, old diagrams. His bed is huge — makes sense, the guy is a bit of a giant and it made her wonder if he played sports outside of trading card games — and there’s no dirty clothes, no messy floor. A nebulous red glow on the wall by his gaming PC chair hints at a custom built tower.
Kylo takes a seat in his computer chair, leaving Rey nowhere else to sit but his bed. At least it’s comfortable.
“Let me see your deck.” Kylo is no-nonsense, and Rey rolls her eyes before pulling it out of her backpack and passing it to him.
Kylo doesn’t comment on the well-loved deckbox, but when he pries out the deck itself his brow raises incredulously.
“These sleeves are barely legal,” he says, holding up a Plains with the plastic splitting down the edge.
Rey blushes in defiance.
“They work just fine! Are you buying me new ones?”
“Do you want me to?” Kylo asks bluntly. Rey’s lips part in silence, then shut. She had not expected that.
“No,” she mumbles. “You don’t have to do that. I just can’t prioritize spending money on new sleeves when I could be getting, like, cards. Or food.”
Kylo gives her a long, unreadable look before returning his attention to her Commander deck.
He spends at least a few minutes slowly combing through each card with the utmost focus. She can’t parse his expression, but he’s the kind of guy that seems constantly a little pissed off, and it just makes her grow nervous and antsy the longer he looks. He wasn’t looking down on her, was he? Her deck? The back of her neck prickles with imagined condescension.
“I can give you a Soul Warden, Swords to Plowshares, and Innkeeper’s Talent.”
Rey’s brain buzzes for a moment, trying to summon up the cards in her head. Soul Warden was a cheap white creature with some sort of lifegain, Swords was good removal, and she had no idea about Innkeeper...
“What do you want for them?” Rey asks, dragging out her binder weakly for him to look at. There was no way he wanted anything else from her meager collection, did he?
“You have to play me.”
Rey blinks up at Kylo, head tilted curiously. He... didn’t want anything in return? Just a friendly match? It doesn’t make sense. Maybe nobody in his frat played — maybe he only had Hux, and the card shop, and now her.
Three spells won’t make her deck a winner, she knows, but some tiny, silly part of her is excited to have new cards anyway and play with them. Kylo picks out three cards from her deck as suggestions to remove, and Rey shrugs before acquiescing. He wasn’t a bad player by any means, so she valued his opinion. He was probably right.
When the new spells are in her hands and being tucked into their new-old sleeves, Kylo trying not to make a face as he watches a $15 card go into cheap plastic, they gather up their things and move to a common room with an open table to set up there instead. Rey unfurls her mat and grabs her favorite die as Kylo sets up a life counter on his phone.
The first game lasts approximately six minutes.
It’s bad. With no one else to distract Kylo, he is able to bear the full force of his deck upon her, and she’s taken down before she can even get past her ramp phase. The second game is arguably worse, and she is summarily trounced without building a boardstate. At least she got to play the Soul Warden.
The power level issue is simply inescapable. Rey is doing a good job of not being a sore loser, at least; it wasn’t like she stood a chance against him in these circumstances.
“You’re just going to win,” Rey says wryly, shuffling her cards in a half-hearted way. “Are you even having fun?”
“Yes.”
She snorts.
“Are you done?” he asks in turn.
“Yeah, I think so. I owed you a game and you won two out of three.”
“When’s the next time you’re going to Commander?”
“I can try to go next week.”
“Bring your binder.”
“Always, dude.”
—
Rey gets a B+ on her calc test, which is a small miracle and worth celebrating. So she decides, yeah, she will go play Commander on Saturday night.
That, and she kinda can't stop thinking about Kylo.
She’s never... had this problem. Thinking about a boy, she means. She doesn’t really think they’re friends, per se, at least not explicitly, and she didn’t think it was possible to have a crush on someone without some amount of friendliness. At the end of the day, it’s foreign, unfamiliar, and she doesn’t know how to talk about it anyway so she simply ignores it, pretends everything is hunky-dory.
Her friends didn’t play Magic anyway; she wasn’t sure they’d understand.
Saturday rolls around, and the day goes by so slowly. By the time she’s supposed to get ready, determined not to bring up Kylo to Rose, she no longer has a choice in the matter.
“Magic tonight?” Rose asks pleasantly from her bed, scrolling down her phone and slowly working on a bag of hot fries.
Rey was busy combing through her drawers and their shared closet, trying to ascertain what she should wear. Usually she just threw on whatever jeans or shorts and a hoodie, but... she had this niggling feeling that was more concerned with her appearance tonight. It wouldn’t kill her to dress a little nicer for once, right?
“Yeah,” Rey answers absently, holding up yet another t-shirt with a tiny hole in it that had been thrifted.
“Is it a special occasion?”
Rey falters, but says, “No...”
She can feel the suspicion radiating off of Rose.
“No, but...?” she eggs on.
Rey can feel her face getting hot. She doesn’t even know what to say. It’s not that serious.
“There’s just a guy,” she says, and Rose’s phone instantly hits the nightstand.
“Oh my god. A guy?”
“He’s just...” Rey can barely get the words out. He’s what? Tall? Handsome? Kind of a jerk? Weirdly persistent? Sorta charming? “...a guy at the card shop. He came to Commander last week and beat everyone but we traded and... yeah. I don’t know.”
“What’s he like?” Rose is rapt.
“Really tall,” Rey says vaguely, “he looks like the sporty type. He’s from Theta Phi. But he played this miserable deck that was like the opposite of mine and it was broken—”
“Is he hot?”
“Yes?” Rey squeaks out. “I guess so.”
Rose screams.
“I’ve never heard you say anyone is hot. Wear one of those more croppy tops you have,” she says instantly, “and maybe some high-waisted shorts? You have great legs.”
“Thanks?” Rey says, blushing. She didn’t want to admit how appreciative she was for Rose’s feedback, and quickly grabs a long-sleeved shirt out of her drawers that cuts short, and some high-waisted shorts.
“Theta Phi is kind of a red flag, but I trust your judgement. Just bail if he gets icky.”
“I will,” Rey nods. She didn’t know anything about Theta Phi, really. “Why do they suck?”
“Just run of the mill pretentious rich frat babies,” Rose explains. “Snorting Adderall off of tables, messy parties, school doesn’t care what they do. The usual.”
“Ah,” Rey says lamely. Kylo... didn’t seem like the snorting Adderall off of tables type, but she didn’t really know him that well, she supposed.
Rose looks stricken.
“Don’t let me pop your bubble! I want you to go and have a good time!”
“I will, don’t worry. I guess I just didn’t think it through.”
Rose sits up in bed.
“Rey, you are allowed to like people. You are allowed to have fun and be young and stupid. And if you guys fall in love and get married I will be at the wedding. Okay?”
“Rose, go to bed.”
“It’s barely six o’clock!”
They both giggle, and Rey feels a tiny bit better. She still puts on the outfit, and checks out her legs in the mirror warily.
“See?” Rose gushes. “She’s got gams!”
“I guess.”
“I know.”
—
After Rey is dressed and ready, she leaves the dorms with a farewell to Rose and a backpack full of potential.
She brought her trades binder with her, as Kylo requested, though she always did anyway. She squeezes the straps between her palms as she wanders down the sidewalks that lead into the city proper, walking several blocks to find the humble corner with a tiny parking lot for Kanata’s Kards.
There, waiting in the furthest space, is a familiar Corvette.
Rey tries not to pay attention to how her heart races; when she enters, the door jingles above her head and she steadfastly faces the counter to greet Maz first. Maz is busy with customers, so she manages a brief wave with eye contact, and then she’s left to face the room.
She recognizes most of the faces, as usual. There, sitting at a table in the back, is a kempt coif of red hair — Hux — and across from him, hulking and sticking out like a sore thumb from his size alone, was Kylo.
Hux sees her, and gives her the nod. Rey says hi to a few other regulars as she wanders to the back, clutching her backpack and trying to look as normal as possible.
“Two Commander nights in a month,” Hux greets her with wryly, “we are truly blessed.”
Rey shrugs, flumping her bag onto the side of the table and taking the seat beside Kylo.
“I had the free time, so I came,” she answers.
“Do you usually not play Commander?” Kylo asks by way of a greeting.
“No, not as often as I’d like,” Rey admits, pulling out her binder, “I usually go to Pauper.”
Kylo’s brow furrows curiously.
“I didn’t know you played Pauper.”
“Yup, Selesnya ramp.”
“Do you only play green and white?”
“Mostly, I don’t mind black or red. Don’t like blue, though.”
Rey doesn’t notice the suspicious look that Hux gives.
Between the three of them, there’s some talk of the upcoming prerelease while Kylo takes out his own trade binder. He scrolls on his phone, looking up cards as Rey explains that she’s not familiar with most of the Universes Beyond IP, and in turn had little interest in the sets. Hux argues that some of the sets make sense, but some don’t, and Rey has a feeling he’s basing it off of personal feelings more than logic.
Kylo is neutral — as long as the cards are good, he couldn’t care less.
Speaking of, he decides this evening that he’s in the market for fast lands. Rey is a little reluctant to trade her unused ones away — they were just good to have around — but he offers a small pile of green and white spells that have her wide-eyed.
He had two copies of Ephemerate for some reason, which she gladly accepted, and a special art Journey to Nowhere. An Arbor Elf was always welcome, and so was the Wild Growth. She’s painfully excited for her next Pauper game by the time they’re done trading.
“Am I missing something?” Hux asks pointedly, gaze flitting between the two of them.
Kylo is the first to answer: “No.”
Rey asks, “What do you mean?”
“Nevermind,” Hux says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “This isn’t worth it.”
Rey doesn’t have any time to dwell on the exchange — Kylo shuts his binder with a snap just as Maz announces the final call for players to sign up. Rey quickly scurries to the front, handing over her cash to Maz.
She’s feeling a little more confident in her deck tonight. The Archangel of Thune was a powerful card, and would bolster her engine considerably. The match ups are posted a few minutes later, and Rey takes her seat accordingly with a few regulars.
Everyone shuffles in moderate silence, exchanging a few jokes and greetings as they set up. One of them has a new Commander, Krenko, and she’s not happy to see it.
The game goes as expected: the Krenko player has a goblin with haste on turn one, and when Krenko hits the field, nobody can deal with him fast enough. The goblins just keep doubling, and everyone drowns in them. Rey is taken out first after starting to get up and running.
The second match goes just as abysmally. She doesn’t get mana flooded or screwed, but just draws poorly — lands when she needs answers, big creatures when she needs lands. It’s a frustrating experience, and she’s trying not to be salty about it as she packs up her mat and deck to check the fresh match-up sheet.
Just her luck — the last match of the night had Kylo at her table. She’d be 0 for 3.
Kylo is still sitting at the same table in the back they started at, and Rey regains her seat beside him.
“How’s it going?” she asks politely, trying to take a deep breath and not go on tilt before the next match had even begun. Maybe if they all ganged up on Kylo they’d have a shot.
“Fine,” Kylo says, and for a second, she thinks his eyes leave his phone to glance at her legs under the table. “Won both my matches.”
“Lost mine,” Rey mumbles. “Haven’t even seen the Archangel of Thune.”
Their other two opponents show up and take their seats, preparing their own spaces for combat. Rey pile shuffles three times, hoping it does the trick, and carefully sets up her unicorn in the Command zone.
The dice roll has her going first. She plays a Temple of Plenty and gains a life, then passes to the old school Elf tribal deck.
Everyone knows that Kylo is a juggernaut, but nobody seems to want to admit it or piss him off. Someone swings at Rey first for a paltry life, evening her back out, but Rey sucks it up and takes the first swing at Kylo.
His expression remains indifferent as he loses four life to Knight of Autumn.
The rest of it goes by in a fucking blur. Suddenly Kylo plays Mogis, God of Slaughter, and the rest of the table is collectively dismayed. His next turn, he plays Grievous Wounds on her, making her jaw drop and the Archangel of Thune in her hand feel cardboard and pathetic.
Kylo tidily wipes the floor with all of them. Without lifegain, Rey flounders, and he’s kind enough to kill her off last.
It’s late, after ten o’clock, and Rey is stormy inside and tired. Part of her almost regrets coming, but at least she had gotten some new cards out of it, and it was always good to see her card shop friends. She should probably take a break from Commander, though, and focus on building a better deck...
Rey is packing up, ready to walk back to her dorm and promptly go to sleep, when someone appears beside her.
“When are we going to play again?”
Her eyes trail up to Kylo warily, but he looks as composed and unbothered as ever. She wondered what he did with his winnings this time.
Still sullen from her three losses, Rey shrugs.
“Dunno,” she says ambivalently, “I probably won’t make it to Commander for a while with midterms coming up.”
“What are you doing after your classes on Wednesday?”
“I’m not sure.”
Kylo pulls out his phone, tapping the screen a few times before passing it to her. It has a fresh contact card open, waiting to be filled out.
“Give me your number,” he all but orders, “so we can communicate.”
Blinking, Rey slowly types in her number and name before saving it and passing the uncased iPhone back to him.
“Let me know when you’re free,” Kylo says.
“I will,” Rey nods dumbly. “I’ll text you.”
After he leaves, she gets a text that simply says This is Kylo. and saves the number in her phone. If her heart stumbles and gallops as she replies This is Rey :) and hits send.
When she gets back to the dorm less than an hour later, he replies once more: I know.
It makes her laugh, for some reason, even if she’s still sad about losing.
—
The texting thing continues.
He sends her a Magic-related meme, which is surprising in and of itself, and more so that it’s actually pretty funny. She trawls through Instagram and finds one to send him back, which earns a short “lol”. She had a feeling that meant a lot coming from him.
He sends her his schedule, also. That was surprising, too, but it does help Rey figure out when’s a good time for them to meet. She analyzes her own class schedule and offers to meet him after lab is over on Wednesday night.
Do you need to eat? he asks. Rey stares at her screen, oddly touched by the question.
Probably, she answers, but it can wait until after.
The cafeteria will be closed by then. We’ll get dinner first then play.
Well alright then.
That night, laying in bed, he asks her how she got into Magic. Rey taps her screen — Long story short, used to play Pokemon but learned Magic at Kanata’s. I traded my cards in for mtg.
Kylo replies that his uncle taught him when he was a kid. He sends her a picture of a Black Lotus, sealed and graded, sitting on a shelf in someone’s house — presumably his uncle’s.
Rey just gawks at the pixels, and can’t suddenly fathom the chasm between her and Kylo. She was the poor college student, plainly speaking. He was not. He had access to probably any card, any printing he could ever want. Any deck. Any set. And he had the skill to pilot them all.
Rey shakes her head, dispelling her thoughts. She needed to stop fixating on this guy.
Goodnight, Rey.
But it’s so hard.
Goodnight Kyloooo
He leaves a heart reaction. She blushes, then slams her phone under her pillow.
—
Rey is having a hard time focusing in class all day.
She’s supposed to meet up with Kylo in a few hours, and the clock moves so slowly. She’s impatient. Lab drags on, and the moment they’re dismissed, her bag is already packed and set to go, on her shoulders and out of the chair so she’s first out the door.
She powerwalks to the cafeteria, constantly checking her phone to see if Kylo’s messaged her. Just when the tables come into view outside, her palm buzzes.
I’m by the front doors.
Rey doubles her pace and heads for the front. When she enters, the building is full of students all scurrying around for food, and a sizable figure to her left catches her eye. He’s wearing his same frat jacket and all black, as usual, and looks clean. Almost... happy?
“Hey,” she says, offering a smile. “How was class?”
“Fine,” he says. “Just preparing for midterms. What do you want to eat?”
Rey opts for teriyaki chicken and rice, whereas Kylo gets a bowl of General Tso’s. They order from the same booth and wait together in comfortable quiet. There is thankfully an open table, so they grab it and sit to tuck in.
It almost feels like a weird version of a date, if Rey thinks about it too much. They weren’t at a fancy restaurant, and they were surrounded by, well, their peers. They were just hanging out. It wasn’t anything serious, or official.
Then why did she keep feeling like she needed to glance around in case someone saw them?
“Are you on any of the teams?” Rey asks, finishing the last bite of her food, scooping the final grains of rice onto her spoon. “I never asked.”
“Used to be on the wrestling team until I got into a car accident.”
“Oh,” Rey says, stunned. “I’m sorry.”
“S’alright. Turned out fine. I play Magic now.”
And judging from his physique, it didn’t stop him from working out.
When their meals are done, they exit the cafeteria and aim for the library. Their conversation keeps up, somehow — he asks her if she played anything, and she says no, never could afford to, but she’d always wanted to try soccer.
“You’d probably be good at it,” Kylo says off-handedly. “You have the legs.”
Rey tries very hard not to read too much into the compliment.
It feels like eating and texting each other has gotten Kylo to soften up, at least to some degree. She asks him if he’s ever snorted Adderall off a table. No, he says, but he knew a few degenerates who might. That makes her feel better. He talks about his uncle, briefly, the one who taught him Magic. When Rey asks if he has any brothers and sisters, he says no, he’s an only child to two idiots, she prods for more information, and he actually gives it up.
“My mother is a retired senator who sits on the University board,” he says with thinly-veiled dismay, “and my father is a retired archaeologist. They’re insufferable.”
“Your mom is on the school board?” Rey gawks. “Jesus.” It made Rose’s tales about Theta Phi earning a blind eye from the school make a little more sense.
“What about your parents?” Kylo prompts as they enter an empty study room, depositing their backpacks onto the table to unload.
“Oh they’re both dead,” Rey says lightly, unfazed. “I’ve been on my own since I was a kid. Foster care.”
“I see,” Kylo says, and he’s respectfully neutral about the information. No unwanted pity, no awkwardness. She appreciated that. “That’s rather impressive.”
“I don’t know about that. I’m just surviving.”
“You’re more ahead of the game than you realize.”
Rey isn’t sure what to do with that, so she just unpacks her things, and lays out her mat.
“Roll for first?”
“Yeah.”
The die skitters across the playmats, her rolling a two and Kylo rolling a twelve. Of course.
“I’ll go first,” he decrees.
Duh.
She’s doing this as a favor to him, really. Every game they play, she’s going to lose. Sure she might get to combo off a little bit, stall for a few turns as she attempts to gain life, but if he draws that Grievous thing again she might as well scoop.
The thing is, he keeps practically interrogating her about her life, and it’s distracting from the game — in a good way.
“Why don’t you play Standard?” he asks as they start their second match less than ten minutes in.
“Too expensive,” Rey snorts. “I’m a broke college student. My budget is for food and education.”
“Would you play if you had a deck?”
“Probably.”
She draws Archangel of Thune, and tries not to light up too obviously. The boardstate is not in her favor, but...
“What are you going to do with your major?”
“Whatever hires me. Maybe something in public works. A pension sounds nice. You?”
“My mother wants me to inherit the family estate and carry on investing.” He says it like someone has just put a Warhead in his mouth.
“What would you rather do?”
“Pilot an aircraft.”
He’s serious. Rey smiles.
“I think you could do it,” she suggests. “You’ve got the money and everything. You’d be a great pilot.”
Kylo looks up at her from his cards, and gives her a long, funny look — like he’s never seen her before. And then just as quickly as it comes, it’s gone, and he’s playing Persistent Constrictor.
“Thanks,” he says quietly, and then swings for thirteen.
—
Midterms eat up any semblance of free time.
Rey buries herself in formulas and physics, going back and forth with Rose when it comes to proofs and index cards laden with data to memorize. Each test both adds and removes a weight from Rey’s shoulders; she’s glad it’s over, but she’s anxious about her scores. She wants to know and get it over with.
Kylo, a business major, had his own multitude of presentations to deal with. She gets a selfie at some point — him in a collared shirt, sleeves rolled up, slacks and shiny shoes on — and she’s actually kind of breathless.
Another presentation today. What about you?
Rey sends back a funny, stupid mirror selfie — hoodie up, cinched around her face, old sweatpants on.
Studying for Fluid Mechanics! :)
Kylo hearts the picture. Her actual heart flips over in her chest.
Are you busy tonight?
Rey stares at the screen. Yes, but...
I can find some free time. What’s up?
Come meet me at the library when you’re available.
Is 7ish okay?
Yes.
How she’s supposed to focus and study until seven o’clock, she has no idea.
—
It’s almost 7:30, and Rey is running late.
She’s already texted Kylo as such and she doesn’t want to know how long he’s been waiting at the library for her. She wouldn’t blame him for leaving, even if he said it’s no big deal and he’d be there. Rey bursts past the doors at full speed, beelining for the study rooms, but someone stands up from a table nearby and she realizes it’s him.
“Oh!” she blurts out. “Hi! Sorry, I—”
“It’s fine. Come on.”
Rey zips her lips, feeling guilty, but he doesn’t look peeved at all. If anything, he looks relieved to see her.
“Did you wait forever? I didn’t mean to—”
“I did not wait forever. Stop worrying.”
Okay. She could do that. Softened, Rey follows Kylo into the same study room they used last time. He places his backpack on the table, ignoring the whiteboard on the wall covered in formulas that weren’t even in Rey’s wheelhouse, and pulls out a hard plastic deckbox, shiny and new. It’s green, and Rey doesn’t recognize it.
“New deck?” she guesses. She’s a little excited, she has to admit; he had access to so many nice cards, she was curious what he had come up with, and for which format. She restrains a snort as she imagines him getting into Legacy.
Kylo nods in affirmation. Then, he hands it to her.
Rey pops the deck open, and blinks when she sees matching green Dragon Shield sleeves and a Hushwood Verge.
“Green white?” Rey asks, pleasantly surprised.
“Take a look and tell me what you think. Trostani is the engine.”
Rey happily obliges. She takes a seat at the table, slowly thumbing through the deck and reading the effects of the cards. It was mouthwatering, with a few Bloomburrow critters and four copies of Seraphic Steed, making her beam. Maybe she was rubbing off on him. Kylo? Running a unicorn? Unthinkable.
“I really like it,” Rey gushes after a minute of browsing, “It’s sharp.”
“It’s not a top tier deck, but it holds its own well,” Kylo explains. “I had it laying around, so. You can use it if you want.”
Rey falters in the middle of reading Trostani’s effects for the third time.
“Wait, me?” She blinks at Kylo. “I can borrow this?”
“Yeah,” Kylo says, and are his ears turning red? “You said you didn’t have a Standard deck. This way you can go on Friday nights.”
All this information is pinballing around her head and she can’t make sense of it. He had this deck just laying around? He was letting her borrow it?
“What’s the catch?” she asks politely.
Kylo snorts in response.
“You already know,” he says cagily. Rey just laughs and laughs, and yeah, his ears are red.
“We can play a few rounds,” she giggles, “but just a few, I have to be in bed by ten.”
They don’t start playing immediately. Rey peruses the deck further, asking Kylo if he knew the general strategy for it. It involved counters and ramp, which Rey was more than comfortable with, and just required some thought when it came to using the Collector’s Cage to its fullest potential.
Naturally, Kylo was playing RDW.
Rey nearly laughs when she sees the first mouse hit the field, a single Mountain tapped. She wasn’t familiar with Standard particularly, but the Heartfire Hero gives her an idea of what she’s in for.
Her Llanowar Elves are stampeded. She’s dead by turn five.
Okay, so she needed to sideboard. She adds some Devout Decrees uncertainly, and then moves onto game two.
It doesn’t go great. Her hand isn’t especially good, and Kylo’s deck moves at a breakneck speed. But by the third game...
Kylo’s brow is knitted, only two Mountains on the field with a useless Cori-Steel Cutter. He’s not drawing the lands he needs.
“Trostani,” Rey announces hesitantly. Did he have a burn spell? Kylo looks serious. She doesn’t think he does.
Two turns later, he’s scooping.
She doesn’t want to rub it in, but it’s the first time she’s beaten him. Her smile is making her cheeks hurt, but she doesn’t say a word outside of, “Good game.”
He keeps playing her, to his credit. It takes several rounds for her to truly get the hang of it, knowing what she wants to pull when she draws, understanding some of the links between her cards, but she thinks she gets the hang of it.
Rey glances at her clock — it’s nearly ten.
“Ugh,” she groans loudly, “I don’t wanna go to bed!”
“Then don’t,” Kylo says, rifle shuffling in his large hands idly.
Rey sticks her tongue out at him.
“I should be able to make it to FNM since midterms are finally done,” she reassures. “How did yours go?”
“I got A’s. One of my presentation partners did no work and they’re probably dropping the class as we speak. You?”
“Two B’s, two A’s. I’ll take it honestly.”
“Smart girl.”
Rey feels her cheeks warm up.
“I’ll see you later?” she asks softly.
“I’ll see you by Friday.”
It’s a promise, somehow.
—
Rey has never been to Friday Night Magic ever in her whole life.
Standard was expensive! It wasn’t her fault she didn’t have two hundred dollars to drop on a hobby every few months. It’s strange being at the card shop and seeing many less familiar faces than she’s used to — maybe there was less overlap between formats than she thought.
Maz is delighted, however, and coos over Rey’s appearance with enthusiasm as she pays her entry fee.
“Go get ‘em, tiger,” the old woman whispers to her.
The few folks she recognizes are at full tables and already deep in conversation with other players. Rey waves hello, but doesn’t interrupt. Instead, she weasels around to a mostly-empty table with one guy laying out his mana curve, and takes a seat in silence.
It only takes a few minutes for Kylo to show up.
Rey doesn’t know what to do with all her nervous energy; it feels like her first Pauper night all over again, fidgety and unsure. What was she doing here? Was she even going to be any good?
“This seat taken?” Kylo asks, lo and behold, with sarcasm. It breaks some of the ice forming around her heart.
“Only by my anxiety,” she jokes. Kylo frowns in response, but sits down anyway.
“Don’t be anxious,” he says calmly, “you’re going to do fine.”
“I’ve just never done this before,” she wrings her hands in her lap, “I’ve got virgin jitters.”
“Your deck is well-lubricated. I made sure of it.”
Rey snorts.
They strike up easy, quiet conversation at the table, mostly discussing the Standard meta. Kylo informs her that the vast majority of the store are not running top tier decks, and the ones that are typically are modified anyway. It gives Rey some comfort, but she won’t be confident until she sees it all in action.
Maz announces that the match-ups are ready, and Rey trudges away from Kylo’s table with a weight of uncertainty on her shoulders.
Standard is best of three, allowing for sideboarding. Her first opponent is running an absolutely disgusting mill deck. Rey tries her best to ramp before they can get off the ground, but eventually Jace hits the field and she knows it’s probably over.
It is. Sullen, Rey dips into her sideboard, and mulls over what could get her out of the situation.
The answer is apparently nothing. She loses game two, and tries not to fixate on how much tonight is going to suck.
“Good game,” she says to her opponent as they shake hands.
With the downtime, she wanders by Kylo’s table — he’s done, too.
“How’d you do?” she asks, already knowing the answer.
“2 and 0 so far. You?”
“Opposite.”
“What deck did you play?”
“Some Azorius control bullshit. Didn’t draw any Devout Decrees the second game.”
“Yeah, sounds like bullshit. Bad variance happens.”
It does, but it’s easier to blame herself than blame the cards. Still, she appreciates the encouragement.
The second match starts ten minutes later, enough time for Rey to drink some water and calm down. She shuffles her deck ferociously, determined to get better draws, and sits down across from a woman with red hair she didn’t recognize. At least she got to play against another girl. That was kinda refreshing.
They strike up conversation — the woman is married to another player who’s sitting at a different table, and tangentially ended up into Magic over the course of their relationship. It was only her fourth FNM, which made Rey feel a little better. She’s running a pretty rough mono-black demons deck, though, and Rey’s foot taps under the table with nerves as a Demonic Pact is placed onto the field.
It takes a turn, but Rey pops off a Haywire Mite, and destroys it before she can get her demon out. The woman doesn’t retain any momentum after that — Rey manages to eke out a Brightglass Gearhulk and cinch the first game.
The second game goes worse after sideboarding. Rey misplays her Keen-Eyed Curator, accidentally exiling double of one card type, and it puts her a turn behind to where she can’t catch up. At two life, she scoops, and they move on to the third match.
The clock is ticking, and Rey doesn’t want to call a draw. She wants to win. So she takes a sip of water, rolls her neck, and draws seven cards.
Three lands, two creatures, two answers. She could live with that.
There’s a lot of back and forth. The removal is gone from Rey’s hand quickly, and both of the women are quiet, focused on the match. This time, the Keen-Eyed Curator pops off correctly, and Rey suddenly has a 7/7 with trample on the field.
When she draws another, her heart skips a beat.
The woman doesn’t draw removal. Rey swings for 14, and they shake hands.
“Good game,” her opponent says.
“Good game,” Rey returns, inwardly pleased.
She’s on some kind of high, she thinks. They played so down to the wire that she hardly has time to prepare for her next match, but she gets lucky, and the man’s deck just doesn’t perform well against hers at all. She wins the first two matches, and has a spring in her step when she goes to submit her score to Maz.
“I can’t believe I’m still in this,” Rey says breathlessly, “I didn’t think my deck was that good.”
“It helps when you draw from the heart of the cards,” Maz says solemnly. Rey laughs and swats her arm over the counter. Stupid Yu-Gi-Oh references. “But don’t downplay your own skills, dear.”
The minutes tick by until the presumable final round. Several players had left, knowing they weren’t going to make top eight, and as the evening hours went by and tiredness set in, the room had grown quieter.
The final match-ups are posted. Rey glances at the sheet.
Oh.
All the blood in her body rushes out of her head, dizzy. She had completely forgotten about Kylo. Playing him, at least. It had hardly crossed her mind out of the dozen or so people there that she might be matched up against him. But the last match of the night? Rey gulps nervously.
Well, so much for her win streak.
Rey wanders over to his table, where he has yet to move from, as usual. She takes a deep breath, and sits across from him.
Kylo’s brow immediately perks up at the sight of her.
“Oh?” he purrs. He was in a good mood. He had probably won every match.
“Yeah, yeah,” Rey rolls her eyes, “don’t get too excited.”
His side of the table is already pristine and set up exactly to his standards. Rey rolls out her stained mat, plops down the green deck box, and grabs her dice.
“What’s your score?” she asks.
“3-0. You?
“2-1. Don’t call it a comeback.”
“You’re good and your deck is good. I had faith in you.”
That was nice of him. Rey smiles, and they both shuffle in silence after that. She sets up her life counter on her phone, and when Maz starts the timer, they roll for first.
Rey takes the initiative. It ends up being completely in her favor — sending a red deck on the draw was always a good thing, and Kylo just... can’t catch up. He burns her, over and over, pings her with the damage from his mice, but she eventually barrels over him with a Gearhulk.
He loses the first match. Rey feels floaty and disconnected, but in the zone. They sideboard without any discussion.
The first hand she draws, she mulls. No lands. She tries not to be dismayed — she could survive this, even if he was going first.
It’s an exercise in futility. He plays a Heartfire Hero turn one, a Manifold Mouse turn two, and Monstrous Rage turn three. This time, she’s the one that can’t keep up.
The second match ends with her loss. They’re one to one, and have one game left to go with plenty of time on the clock.
Rey considers her sideboard carefully. She keeps the Devout Decrees for removal, and prays for early answers. Kylo’s deck is the sort that burns out quickly if it doesn’t catch. She just needs to stymie his momentum. She just needs to curve out.
He doesn’t open with a Heartfire Hero, but he does have an Emberheart Challenger turn two. Rey responds with a Pawpatch Recruit. His Cori-Steel Cutter is destroyed by a timely Haywire Mite before it can take off. One Monstrous Rage later, Pawpatch is dead.
He plays Screaming Nemesis. Rey winces. She takes the hit, and trudges on.
High Noon — that might be something. Rey plays it after putting down a Seraphic Steed, and Kylo’s lips turn down imperceptibly. The boardstate wavers. Both of them have tempo, but it’s a matter of whose engine takes off first.
A well-placed Lightning Strike removes her unicorn from the board. Kylo swings, and Rey takes the hit again.
She draws. Trostani. Her eyes sparkle. She plays it, and relaxes infinitesimally. Kylo draws, and his eyes narrow as he plays a land, and doesn’t swing.
Rey sees a glimmer of hope.
She draws a Brightglass Gearhulk. She cannot believe her luck. She plays it and a land, and Kylo’s expression doesn’t even flicker though she’s certain she has him on the ropes. She puts another mite in her hand.
“Cori-Steel Cutter,” Kylo plays, and then equips it to a mouse as a last resort. Rey swallows thickly. He’s tapped out. She doesn’t want to block.
So she doesn’t. She’s at one life.
Rey draws. She blinks.
“Devout Decree?” she asks. She couldn’t think of a single counter, a single answer, but she never knew with him—
Kylo tchs and puts his Emberheart Challenger in the graveyard. She swings, and he takes it.
He draws a land.
“Good game,” Kylo says with a heaving sigh, though he doesn’t sound mad, just tired. Rey glances around the board, then up at him, then back to the cards.
She... won? She beat Kylo?
“Good game,” she remembers to finally blurt out, and reaches out to finally get a proper handshake from him. His hand swallows hers, hot and steady, and there’s an electric tingle everywhere their skin meets. A second later, it’s gone, Kylo retracting to clean up his side of the table.
“You played well,” he says off-handedly.
“So did you,” she agrees. “Thanks for playing me.”
He glances up, eyes flashing.
“Anytime.”
There’s some undercurrent to his words that Rey can’t grasp. Feeling flushed from her win streak, she thinks, she scuttles away to the front to report her wins to Maz.
The diminutive shop owner hoots as she sees Rey’s submission.
“Attagirl,” she commends, cheerfully putting in the score into the computer for the online database. “You’ll be getting plenty of store credit or cards, whichever you please!”
Rey can hardly believe it.
She has time to ruminate, and decides on taking store credit to go towards future admission. As fun as opening packs were, it was always worth it to save money. Plus, she figured Kylo wanted her to put the deck to good use, and this way, she’d make the most of it.
“You heading back yet?” Speak of the devil. Kylo strolls up beside her at the counter as he prompts her with the question. Rey’s a little flustered to have him hanging out with her in front of Maz, but she knows it’s already too late from the glint in the shopkeeper's eyes.
“Yeah,” Rey nods, rustling her backpack properly onto her shoulders, “are you?”
“Yeah. Car’s in the shop, so I’m walking. You coming with me?”
Rey perks up.
“Sure.”
“Have a good night, you two,” Maz coos knowingly, and Rey sticks her tongue out at her discreetly before following Kylo out the door into the dark.
They hit the sidewalk and start trailing their way back to campus. Kylo is doing a good job of not being a sore loser, despite her ruining his perfect record.
“The deck is really fun,” Rey admits, trying to compliment his build. “You did a good job with it.”
“I wanted you to enjoy it. You can keep it, if you want.”
The confession catches Rey off-guard. Didn’t he say it was just an extra deck of his? He didn’t build it for her, did he?
Rey stammers, “This had to cost, like, at least a hundred something dollars, Kylo! There’s no way I could accept this. I—”
“It’s for you.”
Rey blushes deeply.
“Do you need any electronics looked at? Old phones? Math homework?”
“So you’d trade for it?”
She can sense the trap, but she can’t see it, so she ventures on bravely.
“Yes,” Rey says firmly, “I’ve always traded for my cards.”
“Then kiss me. I want a kiss.”
The world halts, then spins off-kilter a second later. They pause on the sidewalk, Rey staring up at him, trying to read his impossible expression.
But his ears are red and he looks deadly certain.
“Do you mean it?” she asks softly. If he’s just joking, she won’t be able to handle that. She’ll die.
“Yeah,” Kylo says, swallowing, “I do.”
Before she can miss her chance, Rey presses up onto her tiptoes, fingers gently finding his shirt, before leaning up and pressing her lips into his.
Kylo melts. His arms swallow her, his mouth forcibly consuming her own in a deep, thrilling kiss. Every single nerve in Rey’s body comes to life with a slow roll of pleasure, and she sighs against his mouth as his head tilts and he finally breaks away with a pop and heavy breathing.
Her pupils are blown and she’s trying to catch her breath, too. She must look crazy under the streetlight.
“So you don’t hate me?” Rey asks, biting her lip.
“I don’t hate you,” Kylo says bluntly, eyes flickering to her mouth again. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you since you walked into that store.”
At least that made two of them.
Rey cranes up again, and kisses him once more under the glow of the lamp.
—
The next Friday night, a C6 Corvette, jet black and with new tires, pulls into the parking lot of Kanata’s Kards.
A driver and passenger exit the vehicle, holding hands as they approach the jingling door.