"If I'm breaking down over them having a small little argument that got cut off quicker than the original then I am not surviving act two." The sarcasm in Kris's voice was half there, half not as they sat down on the floor up against the bed in the same bedroom as earlier. No, they did not want to be in there, especially after the fight with MC but there were some extremely important things that needed to be discussed.
"But we do need to talk about it, despite the fact that I don't want to." Alas, they admitted defeat. It was time to talk about the most deranged and insane part of a game to ever exist.
"You know, if push comes to shove then I can take on the role for you. Besides, aren't these girls supposed to be straight?" Kris's monologue was interrupted by Berdly's own offer. It was an offer that Kris really wanted to take but….really couldn't. Not only because of the whole MC thing and the promise but also because they just didn't want him to go through that.
"No, it's fine." And at a sudden realisation, Kris gained a smug smile. "Isn't the protagonist supposed to be straight as well?"
"But I am!" Berdly shot up in defence before jumping back down to the floor with Kris, suppressing laughter.
"No, you aren't. Remember how we played that one mod for this game after completing it?"
"And you dared to compare me to that imbecile acting as the male Monika?!"
"To be fair, you're much better than him."
"I'm aware of that, Kris."
"Ignoring your clear fictional crush on male Yuri, we need a plan on how to…not die." Kris interrupted the little banter, despite not wanting to.
"Ah yes, that." Berdly looked directly at Kris and made a humming noise that normally signalled thinking. "Our current crisis is Sayori. We'll have to completely avoid her falling down, or dying, depending on which term is preferred."
"I don't think it matters very much what term we use for not being alive anymore." Despite it being hard to see, Kris rolled their eyes in a dramatised fashion. "But yea, the easiest solution is distracting her on sunday night so she doesn't uh..die."
"Perhaps you could try to prevent Sayori from getting depressed enough to do that anyway. If that were to even be possible." Berdly was trying to choose his words carefully, trying not to miss anything. "Wait, that won't be possible. Maybe instead distract Monika from trying to affect Sayori in the first place."
"The only way I think I could do that is…" Kris lowered their head a little and quietened down. "...Is if I romance Moni-"
"No." Berdly's tone was quick, still and so, so sudden. He stood up and Kris did the same, the floor wasn't that comfortable anyway. Kris giggled at their friends' sudden defensiveness, it was random but just another quirk.
Alright, maybe they hoped that he said that because he didn't want them to try romancing Monika because-
"Kris I know you have terrible taste in people but that is low." And Kris was snapped out of that trance by Berdly's additional comment. "Besides, it's not you she wants, if we assume that a player is involved."
There it was again, the player. It was an idea that still confused Kris and they weren't exactly comfortable with it, or anything else in this world, really.
"Mmm, yea. We could just try to stop Sayori. I'll bring it up with Noelle later." Kris made a mental note to do exactly that as they walked up to the room's desk and sat on one of the two chairs pushed into it, grabbing a piece of paper and pen from it.
Deciding to make things less awkward, Kris dragged the other chair out of the desk and pushed their own backwards to make some room.
"Do you want to try writing some of these things with me?" Kris let out a smile which is something they didn't expect to do today while simultaneously pointing at the currently empty chair. And despite clear hesitance, Berdly took the offer and sat down, also grabbing a pen and paper.
And soon enough, the two were in some sort of rhythm, humming their own songs that seemed to fuse together into an unknown but familiar and nice melody filled with clicks from pens, blushy gazes and occasional asks for help on word choice. Writing didn't seem to be as difficult this time around.
Once the task of poetry had been tackled, there was a new concern. What to do now?
"Well from what Susie said earlier, there are some sort of games here." Kris pulled their phone out to check their conversation with Susie from earlier, making sure to scroll up so that a certain message wouldn't be seen.
"Did she admit her cheating schemes?" Berdly sassed and got off the chair he had been sitting on.
Kris's face heated up and quickly went much redder than earlier. Something was certainly almost admitted but not something that they were going to say here, especially not right now.
"No but she told me that you were mad for no reason." Kris looked at the messages one last time before locking their phone and chucking it on the bed and letting it make a simple plop noise.
"Oh I had a reason, Susie could not handle the fact that she was inferior to me so she purposefully used cheat codes to win! And once I had exposed her for her crimes, rather than retribution, she laughed!" The defensive ramblings from Berdly's part and the attentive listening from Kris's part filled the room with a familiar and comfortable feeling, despite how chaotic it was. "I understand, Susan, why you of all people would need to cheat. Why am I surprised?"
"Reminder, she saved the world." Kris lightheartedly scolded. "But honestly, she's actually really great, I think you two are too hard on each other."
"Yea but it's just… kind of awkward now." And now Berdly also wanted to hide in a corner from sheer embarrassment as he recalled a certain conversation. "She said to 'Pretend this never happened!' when I had told her about-"
"Yes you got rejected and then realised that you didn't actually have a crush on her but you both can still be friends." And at this point, Kris had almost forgotten about the text messages. "Didn't you say that you couldn't ever see yourself with her? And basically anyone else you've had feelings for?"
"Yes but I think it's better for us to remain as we are so that I don't catch those feelings again." Berdly shook his head to emphasise his disagreement. He knew this was something that happened, he'd get attached to her over seemingly nothing.
"If that's the case then why are you still so close to Noelle?" Admittedly, Kris didn't exactly know where they were going with this but it seemed to be working and they sensed that the eggshell that their friend hid in would crack very soon.
"Well because-" Berdly ended up cutting himself off and he realised that Kris could be right. He hadn;t caught feelings for Noelle again so surely there must be a pattern!
"Talk to her when we are in the club meeting."
"Fine, I'll attempt to befriend her tomorrow!"
Knowing that if they didn't do anything then whatever negative feelings were here would continue to exist, Kris decided to bring the conversation back to what they wanted to talk about this whole time.
"Anyway, she said there were games and I saw some weird platformer when overlooking this place." Kris walked over to the TV mounted onto a bookshelf and pulled out a game whose cover had four simplistic blob style characters. One was green with two white oval eyes, one red with a cheeky face, one blue that looked almost sad and the last faceless and purple. There was a fifth character, a white one with a blurred light blue face. Looked fun enough.
"Looks simple, could be a relaxing experience, despite this looking reminiscent to those…" Just to exaggerate on his point, Berdly made an obviously fake gagging noise which didn't seem like something he'd actually do. "...Mobile 'games' that exist."
"Gatekeeper." Kris inserted the disc into the console that had been littered on the floor from some earlier unseen events before grabbing a controller and sitting back down on the floor, Berdly doing the exact same as the game booted up, a simple yet mysterious song began to play as the first level was selected.
Great, there was dialogue. This was going to be very very interesting. It'd also be mortifying if the two hadn't done this kind of thing often. The plot was kind of slow but was surprisingly sad. It was about someone called Vere and their two friends Zura and Carmine. The three of them had to help their friend out of some weird coping dimension that included rooms, doors and other weird stuff with the help of the friend's parent.
Despite the slowness, the gameplay consisted of entering said rooms, using teamwork and special abilities to get through puzzles and as the game's name implied, racing through the rooms in certain sections, which unlocked helpful new abilities to progress the plot.
But things started getting weird when Zura –a character Berdly was voicing– and Carmine –a character Kris was voicing– started acting out a sudden surprise romantic subplot. They both were honestly more embarrassed, blushing and stuttering more than the characters themselves. The romance was well written which honestly made it worse!
"Carm, you're one of the best people I know. Yes, you are an idiot but you've saved me and Lumi. That's worth something!" Kris read out in a softer but lower pitched voice than usual, they desperately tried to look at just the screen and ignore their own heating up face.
"Which is why I'm going to do something really idiotic right now, I love you, Zura." Berdly also read in a voice different to how he normally speaked, he was going much higher to the point where it sounded almost funny. He was honestly only half looking at the dialogue, partially to move onto gameplay but partially to just move out of the scene. Just, don't look at Kris!
"Carmine…" Kris wasn't the one trailing off, it was the game. The game decided to present something unexpected, a choice. The first one was "I love you too." and the other was "You're my best friend." Ignoring the coincidental parallels to a choice so far yet so close, the two were slumped.
"What?" Berdly deadpanned in his normal voice once again. "Why are we getting a choice for something such as relationships? Especially when Zura already expressed interest! Unless they are lying in one of the options, it would make their past actions completely nonsensical in the event that the rejection was picked!"
Kris nodded along before deciding to interject. "Well, the voice acting thing is kind of…." They looked down and quieted down for a second before perking back up. "But they're cute together."
"I see both of your points, it seems we have come to an agreement." And with that out of the way, Berdly selected the first option and so did Kris. The game needed both their inputs and would randomly select an answer in the case of a tie.
Time to voice-act again!
"...I love you as well." Kris's mouth visibly raised into a mischievous smile as the dialogue continued. "Take my hand, we can continue on our adventure and save our new and old friends."
Berdly could see why Kris had such an almost evil grin, they were copying the characters actions. They grabbed his wing and started staring in a way that felt so…
"W-What are you doing..?" He flared up but stayed still, simply accepting the sudden gesture. It wasn't that bad, just another thing that Kris did from time to time, even if the context was questionable.
Sure, Kris barely did this thing with others but Berdly was sure that there was nothing between the two of them! And sure, he was feeling a way that was typically described in boring and cliche romance novels but that was beside the point, he hadn't felt this way with Noelle, Susie or anyone else he had previously crushed on so it was fine!
Wait, didn't he literally just establish that those feelings were forced? This… was not forced. As he leaned in closer, the feelings grew to an almost overwhelming amount. The damned touch of Kris was insanely powerful.
And that's when it hit.
Oh god, he loved them.
"L-Let's keep playing!" Kris suddenly yelled and let go, focusing on the game again. Berdly wished it could have lasted longer.