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It was a bad time for there to be knocking at Etho’s door.
He scrambled inside his base, searching for his coat- the one time he took it off was when someone decided to seek him out. It was meant to be the one day this month when he could undo the disguise, and he wasn’t even going to get that. If someone saw him right now, it meant the rest of the server would have to know. That led to people bringing it up and he really couldn’t deal with that.
“Etho!” A voice called from behind the door. He could recognize it now as Joel. “Open up, I need to talk to you!”
Etho glanced around the unfinished interior. Where had he put it? He had only taken it off for a moment, it couldn’t have gone far. If he could just find it and put it on, everything would be fine.
“I’ll be there in a second!” Etho called back, voice a bit too high. His tail twitched at the sound of more banging at the door. In a moment of desperation, Etho grabbed a large sheet of wool from a shulkerbox and draped it over himself. It was just in time for the door to burst open, Joel stumbling inside.
“Etho, seriously, I—-” he paused, halfway through catching himself, to stare at Etho. He squinted his eyes. “ What are you doing?”
“I got… cold?” Etho lied, pulling the cloth tighter. “What’s up, Joel?”
Joel stood up straight, still staring at Etho, before shrugging. “Not only are you obsessed, you’re weird.”
Etho leaned against the wall, trying to keep the blanket from slipping off. Of course it had to be Joel invading his home. “Are you having mail troubles?”
“What? No, no,” Joel shook his head, shrugging off his elytra. So it wasn’t just a short visit, then. “I just wanted to know if you could show me how Frogger works.”
“Oh.” Well, that was mildly inconvenient at best. Frogger was still having some issues, even though it was mostly done. And in Etho’s current predicament , teaching Joel how to play would be more than difficult.
“It’s fine if you’re busy,” Joel rushed, his usually cocky demeanor gone. “I was just bored, so I thought I might as well ask—-”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Etho reassured. Joel gazed at the top of his head, and Etho quietly hoped that the movement there went unseen. “If you give me a few minutes, I can try and help you?”
Joel stared at him. Etho avoided his eyes, which was luckily a pretty usual thing for him.
“Great,” he said, sitting on a shulkerbox. “Let me know when you’re ready to go.”
“You’re going to sit there?”
“Uh, yeah? Is that a problem?” Joel asked incredulously, an eyebrow raised.
“Nope.” Etho nodded to him as he went upstairs, starting at a regular pace and then breaking out into a sprint halfway up. He slammed the door behind him, pressing the lock.
His jacket was gone. His jacket was missing, probably somewhere downstairs, which meant Etho had two options. He could either go downstairs and tell Joel he had a busy day and couldn’t, usher him out of his home, and continue on with his day, or he could find something to wear in the meantime to avoid his ears and tail being visible.
He chose the latter.
*
“What are you wearing? ” Joel asked, eyes wide in disbelief.
“I misplaced my jacket,” Etho explained, a hand on his neck. He didn’t have much in his closet aside from the same black shirts and green pants, so he resorted to taking one of Bdub’s old moss hoodies. It was scratchy and not something he would like to wear, especially on a day where he had wanted to give his ‘features’ a break.
Joel shrugged, putting on his elytra. Etho did the same, picking up a couple of shulkerboxes and placing them in his inventory. He could at least get some repairs done while he was at Frogger.
The two left the house and soared into the sky, heading in the direction of the Shopping District. The place had grown since he had last been there, but that was pretty usual for Hermitcraft. New builds and projects often sprouted out of nowhere.
They landed at the opening of Frogger. Joel looked up, almost in awe.
“Etho, this is insane,” he said. Etho chuckled.
“Thanks. Here,” he walked over to the ceramic pot. “This is where you pay.”
Joel’s face fell. “You’re seriously having me pay?”
“Well, that is how business works, Joel.”
“But you were going to show me!” Joel said, grumbling as he dug through an enderchest. Etho crossed his arms and winced at the feeling of the hoodie against his tail. It was going to be a long day.
He showed him how to place the money in the pot and led him through to the game. Despite his groaning and complaining, Joel seemed willing enough to learn. He was taken a bit by surprise by having to die and then being splashed with the potions, but otherwise, he got the hang of it easily.
“Okay, so the goal is to make it to the end and into one of the frogs’ mouths,” Etho explained, watching from the spectators window. “I’ll be up here to make sure everything’s working.”
Joel nodded, eyeing the ravagers going by. Then he took a leap onto the sticky road, letting out a noise of shock realizing he couldn’t move very fast. He struggled, clawing his way off, barely avoiding the big beasts trying to kill him.
He managed to make it to the green line in-between the sections. Joel noticed Snake and jumped again, just narrowly avoiding the zombie’s reach. He slipped on the dripleaf and died, resetting back at the beginning.
“Damn it, I was so close!” Joel groaned, returning back to his starting position.
“Next time,” Etho said neutrally. Joel glanced up at the spectator box before calling back.
“What’s with the ears?”
Etho froze, a hand drifting to his head. The hood had fallen down.
“It’s a long story?”
From above, he could see Joel shrug. “Alright.”
“Wait, that’s it?”
Joel looked back, glaring. “Uh, yeah, that’s it. What did you want me to do, start screaming? God, Etho, you’re so obsessed.”
“No, I mean,” Etho pulled off the hoodie. There was no use keeping it on and making himself uncomfortable if Joel already knew. “You don’t care?”
“Not really,” Joel replied. “Grian’s an avian, Gem’s a deer, Impulse is a literal imp. It doesn’t affect me, like, at all, so?”
Etho put the hoodie in his inventory. “That… makes sense, actually.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Joel rolled his eyes. “Now let me finish this run, I need the high score.”
He chuckled. “Alright, go for it.”
As Joel used another one of his lifes in Frogger, rushing to the frogs on the other side, Etho felt some of his previous tension release itself. Maybe it wasn’t something he would go around mentioning, but maybe it wouldn’t hurt to stop hiding it. It was easy for him to forget that hybrids were considered normal on Hermitcraft. Being there for years and not saying anything about it had been taking more energy from him than he had acknowledged.
Then again, Season 10 was all for new things, right? Maybe this could be one.
He was snapped out of his thoughts by a yell.
“I was almost there! This game is awful, Etho,” Joel complained. Etho smirked.
“Obsessed?”
“Shut up.”