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The video game store was a land of contrasts. The shelves were new and shiny, filled to brim with the latest releases, or only the most popular vintage games, or popular collectable merchandise. The carpet was threadbare and stained, as were the off-white walls, when they weren't bare concrete peeking out from chipped paint. Clearly the company that owned it had some sort of unexpected windfall and did not spread its bounty evenly. Looking at the bored employee barely older than they were - physically - Chara decided not to make a fuss of corporate neglect of fundamentals. They found the classic game they were looking for and brought it to the counter.
"Excuse me."
The employee looked up from a comic he was reading. "Hmm?"
"I wish to buy this."
They handed him the box, and he looked at the back, scratching his unshaven face that portrayed how old he wanted to be. "You're aware this game contains violence, swearing, scenes of existential peril, mentions of drug use, gore, and swearing, yes?"
"Yes."
"Can I see your ID?"
"My ID?" Chara frowned. "I don't have any. It's complicated."
"Then sorry, friend, I can't let you walk away with this without proof you're eighteen."
The frown played a game of I'm-not-touching-you with his personal space. "I'm way older than eighteen." In some ways.
The aspirational beard was clearly skeptical. "This store has a stringent policy of not allowing children uncontrolled access to material they may not understand without the context of adult supervision."
"This store has a fine policy of doing the bare minimum to avoid getting sued by a pearl clutching mother," retorted Chara. "I bet you played this when you were whatever age you think I am. Or even younger."
"...that's besides the point. My parents gave me permission. Or, well," it was hard to be neutrally confident with the stoic indigant into him, "they didn't say no."
"Oh, well that's just peachy. And that one too?" They pointed to one with a hulking beast on the cover. "Killing monsters just because they have claws and roar really loud. No mechanics to sit down and work out your differences, right? Isn't that just a little more insidious than seeing someone inject something a doctor didn't give them?"
The cashier blinked. "Well you fight monsters in this game you're trying to buy too."
"Yes," said Chara, looking at the cold eyes of the cybernetic antagonist on the cover, "but in this game all the monsters ultimately come from humans in one way or another. They're ultimately rendered as antagonists you can understand and oppose. Conflict is inevitable, and this game at least justifies it beyond 'oh no, that thing has horns!'"
He was unmoved. "I can't breech policy on a whim, friend. It doesn't matter how well a game diegetically justifies its violence."
Utterly vexed, Chara grabbed a grand strategy game and showed it to him. "I could buy this right now, right?"
"...yeah. Teens are fine."
"And yet this is even more sinister. You are the state, even the king and his generals answer to you. Your only goal is conquest. Your subjects and your enemy subjects are just a resource for you to control and use up. Millions dead in wars, reduced to a statistic, and when you make colonies... continents almost completely empty, land for the plucking if you're fast enough, dehumanizing the millions who actually lived there. What kind of moral framework is that for a game for teens?!"
"...nobody says any naughty words."
"Ugh. Humanity is so determined not to think of anything unpleasant while going ahead and doing it anyway."
The cashier reclined in his chair. "Then why are you even here?"
"Because despite my best efforts, I'm human and I have human impulses. Repression never worked for me, for a variety of reasons."
"I could call my manager," the cashier offered, "but unless he knows your family or something, I doubt he'll overrule me."
Chara sniffed. "Unless his great grandfather was at a patch of flowers in a village near Mount Ebott a century ago, I doubt he'd know my family."
"Well, why not ask your mom to buy it for you? Why all this drama?"
Chara closed their eyes. "...because she'll clutch her pearls at the violence."
"Ah," he said, his voice full of understanding, "all that righteous anger just because mommy won't let you grow up."
"No, I really feel that," said Chara, their brown eyes boring into him. "And I just want to play this game again. I've made peace with my hypocrisy, it's the human condition."
"'Again'? You've played it before?"
"A few years after it came out."
"But that was..." He shook his head. He must have misheard. "Well I'm sorry. My hands are tied unless you show me some ID."
"Actually," said Chara, brightening up, "I may have a solution to this dilemma." They took out their phone.
Thirty minutes later, the cashier was shaking the large furry hand of a monster with a crown resting between his horns, feeling the claws prick at his wrist, and examining one of the impressive gold coins he'd been given - more as a souvenir than payment for the game, which has been with legal tender. He watched the king's purple cloak trail after him as he left, followed by the irascible customer with their new purchase.
"Very polite fellow," mused Asgore. "So what kind of computing game was that again?"
"I told you," said Chara, "it has a very scary story."
"Oh, like the kind you tell around a campfire while making smores?"
Chara smiled. "Something like that."
"Ah, I see why Toriel would be reluctant to let you have it," he said sagely. "She was never fond of those stories. Or perhaps just how I told them. Hmm..." He stroked his beard.
"What is it?"
"Why don't we have a campfire this weekend and make smores? I know we did it Underground, but it just wasn't the same without real stars. I'm sure I could wrangle Frisk and Asriel into coming as well. And you can tell the scariest stories you can think of."
Chara's plans for that weekend had been to explore the decrepit starship that was the setting of the game they'd just bought. Smores, however... "Maybe not the scariest stories, Asgore. I know there are limits."
"Ah, maybe so," he said, "I wouldn't want to upset Asriel."
"Asriel?" They chuckled. "He could match me terror for terror, especially when the goal is to outdo me."
"Then who do you not wish to scare...?" He blinked in comprehension. "Me? What story could you possibly tell that would leave me in pieces?"
Chara chuckled again, and began to list examples. By the time the two of them got to his car, Asgore regretted asking.