Chapter Text
Susie was quite literally shaking in her boots. Her fingers rolled and combed through her ponytail and her left heel tapped the ground. She had never had occasion to fear the Police Chief. Toriel always made sure she was raised with respect for the rules, but it wasn't trouble with the law she was afraid of. She had never been to Kris' place before. She didn't know how protective Undyne would be of him. Not that she had any plans to hurt him in any way. She didn't consider herself to be intimidating. However, if Undyne caught her with all that chocolate, she would inevitably suspect something. Kids bringing snacks for a big movie night or game night wasn't a foreign concept, but chocolate, dark chocolate in particular, was Kris’ absolute favorite, and her offering it to Kris would be a dead giveaway to her scheme. She tucked the baggie into her inner jacket pocket, praying she wouldn’t be subject to a patdown on her way in.
She knocked the door, stood back and crossed her fingers.
The door parted from the middle in two zigzag partitions, opening like a maw in front of her. They might as well have been the jaws of hell itself.
But instead of fire and brimstone, she was welcomed by the sight of blue wallpaper with pink fishes patterned on it all along the walls of a modest adjoined living room and dining room. Then, the matriarch of the house stepped into view, greeting Susie with a powerful stance and a big, toothy, energetic smile. Her duty pants were already on, but with her black tank top instead of her duty blouse.
“Oh, hey!” She took Susie by the hand, shaking it vigorously. “You’re Kris’ friend, right?”
“Y-y-y-yeah! Th-th-that’s me-e-e-!” Her voice shook, not because of nervousness, but because Undyne was shaking her hand so hard it was interrupting her breath.
“Come on inside, squirt! There’s leftover spaghetti in the hot fridge. Sorry I couldn’t cook you two dinner fresh. They want me at the precinct tonight.”
“Oh, that’s fine.”
“KRIS!” Susie jumped at just how loud the fish woman could get. “YOUR FRIEND IS HERE!”
Kris emerged from a door to the right of the living area and immediately ran up to greet his guest. “Hey Susie!”
“Hey Kris!” His smile was more subdued than his mother’s but it made Susie feel warm and invited regardless. He seldom smiled at others. She walked in and the door closed behind her
“Alright now, you two. Listen up” Undyne’s voice took on an authoritative tone that somehow didn’t conflict with its inherent warmness. “Kris, you remember the rules?”
“No staying up past midnight.” Kris replied firmly.
“And?”
“No watching anything R-18.”
“And lastly?”
“No sucking face.”
That last one made Susie’s gut tie itself into knots. “W-what?”
Undyne let out a hearty chuckle. “Fuhuhauhahaha! Ah, don’t worry about it. Of all the rules, I don’t expect you guys to have trouble with that one. As for the other two, I’ll be back by 12:30, and I can check the streaming history.”
Her radio crackled and a tone went off. “Officer Undyne, what’s your status, how copy?”
“Solid copy. ETA to station, five minutes.”
“10-4. We’ll see you there, over.”
She stowed her radio into her utility belt. “Okay kids. I’ll be changed and out of here in a second. You guys make yourselves comfortable, okay?”
_________
Susie perused the menu on screen to the cadence of the soft click of each show scrolling past. There were a few she recognized that she wanted to show Kris right away. These were the shows she watched together with her brother Asriel when she was young, back when they would huddle around the TV together and marathon entire seasons before Toriel mandated their break time. Whether it was fun, action packed shonen like Dragon Orb, Josef’s Unusual Escapade, and Doubloon, or girly, light hearted shoujo like The Loneliness of Haruko Sakamoto or Fortunate Sun, it filled her with memories of having someone to enjoy them with. She couldn’t wait to watch them together with Kris. It had been so long since she shared something even as basic as this with someone. Ever since Asriel left, it was been hard to find peers who were interested. Noelle looked down on this kind of thing. Berdly had shown interest, but found some of it to be too “Moe” for his tastes, and the rest always turned into some pointless, unnecessarily heated debate on power levels and “sutando powah.” It all made her a bit nervous about asking Kris, but she could never know until she at least asked him.
“So, uh, Kris, you said you watch a lot of anime, right?”
“Not much, no, but my mom does.”
Susie was flabbergasted at the idea of the hardcore police chief secretly being a huge dweeb like herself. “Wait, really?!”
“Yeah. We just usually have a lot of exercise on our schedule when it’s not filled with homework. I remember her offering me to come watch with her sometimes.”
“Did you ever watch any with her?”
“Sometimes. I just get busy with… other stuff.” There was something a little odd about how his voice lowered when he said that, like he had just deflated.
“Ah, okay…” Susie mulled it over in her head before shaking it off. Perhaps it was best to bring it up later. Right at that moment, she remembered she had brought something that might lift his spirits. “Oh! By the way, I almost forgot…” She reached in her coat pocket, hoping the snacks hadn’t melted. “I brought these for you!”
Kris’ eyes widened at the sight of all the dark brown sweets inside the baggie. “Woah… mom NEVER gets me this much chocolate.”
“Why not?”
“Something about sugar and carbs.”
“Well, she said she made spaghetti earlier.”
“Yeah, but those are carbs she expects me to work off.” The boy took off his blue scarf and green sweater to reveal a black t-shirt of his own, loosely draped over a solid, young frame with well-defined, sinewy muscle. Susie felt heat pooling in her cheeks.
“W-Wow…”
“Hmm?”
“Oh! Nothing, I just um… here ya go!” She handed him the chocolate, her head sinking between her shoulders in an attempt to hide her encroaching blush. She prayed he hadn’t already seen.
Luckily, Kris seemed completely oblivious to her embarrassment and swiped the candy, eagerly pouring the chocolates into his mouth. “Man, theeth are tho good…” he said with his mouth almost full and his eyelids glazing. Then, he noticed he had already eaten a third of the chocolate. “Oh schoot, I’m schowwy. Did you want schome?”
She couldn’t help but giggle at his full-mouth speak. “Oh no! I got those just for you, dude!”
“Oh.” He swallowed the six or seven pieces in one go. “Thank you!”
She struggled to maintain her composure, as Kris’ eyes had fallen right on her. “So, uh, what do you want to watch first? These were some of my favorites when I was a kid.”
“Hmmm…” Kris’ eyes narrowed as he looked at the selection. Some of these were familiar. like Josef’s Unusual Escapade. That was one of his mom’s favorites. He had just considered it when suddenly, an idea popped up into his head. “Actually...”
“Yes?”
“Stay here. I’ll be right back.” He then scampered off to the room on the left side of the house.
‘Wait...’ Susie thought to herself. ‘His room is on the right side…’
Kris shortly emerged from the room with a medium sized box hugged tightly to his chest. He looked around, as if he had been caught stealing, then ran back to the couch to open the box with Susie.
“What’s that?”
“My mom’s secret stash!” He said excitedly. “I don’t think she knows that I know about it.”
“What’s in it?”
“See for yourself.”
The box opened, and a treasure trove of boxed DVD and Blu-ray sets sparkled before their eyes. “It’s full of stuff she watches when I’m at school. I know because I always see her popping stuff out of the DVD player when I get home.”
“What kind of anime is in it?” She browsed through the box and found several titles she had never heard of before. Apocrypha Dark? Demonman? Each of the covers disturbed her a little. They all had either very voluptuous, scantily clad women on them, harrowing violence with gouts of blood and gore, or some admixture of both in some way shape or form. “Uh, Kris?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“Are you sure we should be watching these?”
“Hehe. Nope.” The boy grinned ear to ear as he picked up a three-movie set. “Ooh! Look at this one!”
“Hmm?” She picked up the Blu-ray set, the box containing three separate movies, all encased in a solid, matte black case with three characters on the front. At the foreground was a strong, well-armored young man with thick, well-defined muscles wielding a massive greatsword. Behind him was a girl, lightly armored with copper skin and short-cropped hair. Behind them was a fair, pale skinned, androgenous character with sharp blue eyes and plate armor with wing and feather motifs. She couldn’t help but notice how gorgeous each of them was. The man with the greatsword looked so strong. She could imagine him carrying her in his thick, powerful arms. The woman looked so dainty, but in her armor, there was an air of strength and resilience to her. The one in feathered armor was the most beautiful of them all, but the way his piercing blue eyes stared forward felt foreboding. He looked like he was in a trance, like there was something ahead of him that he was hypnotized by and obsessed with. She turned the box on its side. Two titles, one in English and the other in Japanese, adorned the spine of the box set.
“It’s called… ’’Zerker?’” I’ve never head of this one, Kris.”
“Neither have I! That’s the cool part!” He sounded so genuinely excited. Susie felt more and more unsure about discouraging him. “Come on! Let’s put in in the player. I’ll switch the inputs.”
“I-I don’t see a rating on the box. Are you sure your mom won’t get mad?”
The boy sighed. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Besides, it’s not like the streaming service where she can look up the watch history. Otherwise, I’d know everything she watches by now.”
“I suppose...”
The screen flashed blue as the player connected. “Alright! First movie…” Kris said as he pulled the first casing out. “’Zerker – The Olden Days part 1: Emperor’s Egg.”