Chapter Text
Ryou heard the door shut from across the apartment, but his hands were glued to the controller and his eyes were locked onto the screen. After taking off his shoes, Amir rolled the borrowed suitcases filled with the possessions he moved from the row house toward the living room, smiling at the focused look on Ryou’s face. Knowing better than to break Ryou’s concentration, Amir gently sat down on the couch next to him.
“Did a giant centipede just burst from that headless beast’s neck?”
“Sure did.”
Amir watched with fascination as Ryou’s character, clad in a long, brown coat, tricorn hat, and leather mask that sat from his collar to the top of his nose darted around an enormous monster’s gray-blue, hairy legs. It thrashed its grotesquely long arms around a dimly lit, overgrown underground chamber. In place of its head was a bloody stump with a thick, sickly white-pink centipede that pierced through the middle.
“What are you playing?” Amir asked.
“Bloodborne,” Ryou replied quickly as his character clove his serrated weapon into the creature’s underside.
“This looks hard! Why are you playing this one?”
“Some people like games to relax. Some like to solve puzzles and go on adventures. Others, like me, like games that aren’t afraid —” all of a sudden, the hulking beast reached across the arena to deal a deadly blow onto Ryou’s character. “— to fuck them until they love it.”
Amir couldn’t help but let out a roaring laugh from deep within his gut at what he just witnessed. An overlay with the phrase “YOU DIED” faded in and out of the screen in prominent red letters.
Ryou sucked in a deep breath, his heart pounding in his chest from the challenging fight, palms sweating against the hard plastic of his gold controller.
“I admire your patience. I’d be throwing the whole console across the room after that,” Amir remarked, a smirk still spread widely across his face.
“Oh don’t worry, I must’ve lost to the Headless Bloodletting Beast a dozen times by now. You end up getting used to it, but there’s nothing like the relief you feel after defeating a difficult boss like this one.”
Amir hummed in acknowledgment. “What’s the game about?”
“It’s hard to explain. At the beginning, it looks like a straightforward, gothic horror werewolf hunting game before it transforms into something completely different halfway through. Something cosmic,” Ryou explained. “Even in the genre, there isn’t much like it. The game doesn’t even tell you the full story. You have to look for clues in short dialogue and item descriptions, then piece together what you know. No single person understands every detail. That's a part of why I love playing it.”
Amir slung his arm around Ryou, “I admire that about you. You’d really go to the ends of the Earth for the knowledge you want.”
Ryou blushed. “That’s gotten me into trouble more than once, but at least it’s safe to do in a game. Can I show you something?”
“Sure.”
Ryou teleported into an underground hellscape. Heaps of old, blood-spattered skeletons piled from the ground in a vast, decaying stone chamber. He ran up the stairs in the back corner into a pitch-black hallway, past a giant in a monk’s hood and an elderly, deranged man in a wheelchair who sprayed bullets at Ryou’s character from a gatling gun as he sprinted past.
He emerged into an open-air cathedral lined with four-poster hospital beds adorned with teal, sheer fabric. He ran forward toward a grand altar lined with grotesque, twisted marble statues. Triggering a mechanism, he rolled back to reveal that the entire platform was an elevator that lifted up, but he darted off of it as it rose. Another platform took its place and he rode it down to reveal a massive treasure chest in a subterranean chamber. He opened it to reveal an item labeled Laurence’s Skull.
“Let me read the description to you. It says, ‘Skull of Laurence, first vicar of the Healing Church. In reality he became the first cleric beast, and his human skull only exists within the Nightmare. ’ This is a nightmare world,” he added. “‘The skull is a symbol of Laurence's past, and what he failed to protect. He is destined to seek his skull, but even if he found it, it could never restore his memories.’”
“That’s fucking cool,” Amir remarked.
Ryou giggled. “You know that giant beast with the centipede head that you saw a moment ago? A lot of players think that’s Laurence in the real world. You see, Laurence and his associates discovered ancient blood from an underground tomb.”
“Typical horror game scenario that’s likely to end in disaster.”
“Right? Well, his mentor told him to fear it. Instead of heeding his master’s words, Laurence left the institution he was in and spread the blood all around the city, telling the people that it heals illnesses.” Ryou continued. “You see, the more of what they call, ‘The Old Blood’ you take in, the more gigantic and hideous of a monster you become in the end.”
Ryou’s character teleported to a different area. Running past an enormous tentacle-faced monster crowned with stars on the top of its head and weilding a massive hammer, he entered another vast cathedral where, seated at the altar, was a gigantic, hairy beast with antlers adorning its head and enveloped in fire.
“And this is Laurence as he exists in this nightmare world.”
The giant beast clutched the side of its face, crying out in pain while extending its other arm toward Ryou’s character. The screen faded to black before initiating a battle sequence.
“You see how he reached for my character there? That’s him sensing that I have his skull,” Ryou explained. “He genuinely thinks that having his old remains will make him human again. But he’s too far gone and he’ll never return to his former self.”
“He sounds like a jackass, that’s a pretty deep backstory. The music’s really sad too,” Amir replied.
“What I love about this game is that, no matter how bizarre and terrifying an enemy looks, it makes you stop to think about the steps they took to get to where they are.” Ryou said. “You feel sympathy for them. Laurence did awful things and he deserved his fate, but it’s sad to know he’ll never get the one thing he really wants, which is to be human again.”
Amir hummed, starting to understand where the conversation was going, and looked down at his hands. “I’ve done terrible things that I can’t take back, haven’t I?”
Ryou nudged toward Amir as he continued the boss battle. “Take comfort in knowing that no matter how many mistakes you made in the past, you’ll never be as bad or as far gone as Laurence here. In the end, it’s a cautionary tale.”
The beast crawled along the arena, bereft of the lower half of its body and splitting hot magma all over the cathedral floor. Ryou’s character avoided the red-hot liquid by darting to the side. With a massive swing of his serrated cleaver, Laurence was defeated, bursting into a spray of lava and embers.
Amir cracked a smile at the scene. “Thank you, Ryou, for taking a chance on my humanity.”
Ryou set down his controller and threw his arms around Amir. “It’s not too late for you. You’ve been a light to me and even in this small amount of time you’ve been with me, I can’t imagine going back.” His voice wavered as he sniffled back tears.
“When I lived in the darkness, I couldn’t imagine ever returning to the world. It still feels like a dream, to feel the warmth of the sun again and to get to see your smiling face at the end of the day,” Amir said gently, lifting Ryou’s chin to meet his gaze and wiping the droplets from his chestnut eyes. “I’m glad it was you who brought me back. I don’t think anyone else would’ve taken the gamble.”
“I was so lonely before, and even when I was around people, I felt alienated. But you don’t just fill up the loneliness. With you, I’m happier than I’ve ever been. You accept me, and I belong.”
Amir laid a chaste kiss on Ryou’s forehead before pulling him closer. They stayed there for a moment, locked together in a warm embrace.
“I’ve been thinking,” Ryou said in a shaky voice as he wiped his cheeks with the back of his wrist. “Do you want to go out with me?”
Amir’s cheeks flooded with heat, turning a coral shade. Besting foes and covering the world with darkness was thought he was used to, but taking a man on a date?
“I… I’d love that. But what if one of your friends sees you?”
Ryou pondered for a moment. “I’ve been thinking of what I’m going to say to them. I’m going to have to tell them eventually, but I’ve been enjoying this time where it’s just us without anyone else’s judgment. I guess I’ll have to be honest if it comes up. I’m not about to lie and throw you under the bus.”
Amir hummed in acknowledgment, leaning back against the plush cushions. “When would you want to go?”
“Tomorrow. There’s a massive greenhouse downtown where they’re having a flower show. It’s cold outside, but being under the glass will feel like summer in December.” Ryou beamed, making Amir’s heart nearly stop at the beautiful sight. “I figured we can walk around there and then swing by the park after.”
“You had it all planned out, didn’t you?” Amir smirked.
“I saw an article about the show and the thought of taking you there may have crossed my mind.”
Amir leaned forward and set his hands on his knees. “You know… I’ve never done this. We’ve had our Midnight Mass nights here, but I’ve haven’t actually taken someone out before.”
“We’ll take it easy then,” Ryou stroked along Amir’s back reassuringly. “And in the end, our reward will be coming back here to watch our show together.”
“Our show,” Amir repeated, a warm smile spreading across his face. “I like the sound of that.”
“Are we on for tomorrow then?”
“It’s a date.”