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"This is it," Kenji dramatically declares, "one of the best games ever made.”
He and Ben are staring up at the television screen, sharing a spot on the plush beanbag in Sammy's den. What was supposed to have been a simple day-trip to the ranch has quickly turned into an overnight stay, as the mid-morning flurries ended up coming down in strong gusts by the afternoon. The roads are all blocked. Not that either of them are complaining, because Sammy makes the world's best hot chocolate. She has to have magical hot chocolate powers or something—it's heaven in a simple, red mug. He hums contentedly as he takes another sip, whipped cream sticking to his upper lip.
In front of a town hall, reads the title card: Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
"I'm still honestly impressed that you forgot your Nintendo Switch in the truck's glove compartment for over a year." Ben comments, leaning back on the beanbag. He's bundled up in a knitted orange jumper.
"Well, I'm sorry," Kenji shoots back, setting down the mug on the coffee table behind him. "We can't all have photographic memory." He grabs the controller, and starts to fiddle with the red and blue joycons.
"I'm just saying, if I blew three hundred dollars on a console, I would not lose it." Ben shoves him playfully. "Especially not in the truck, of all places! I can't believe I didn't bother checking that stupid compartment when we were looking for it."
"Whatever, man." He rolls his eyes, mashing the buttons to speed through Isabella's daily announcements, despite Ben's protests. They watch as mini-Kenji exits his house—which has a blue roof and door, surrounded by trees and white picket fences; it's all very well put together—yawning and tussling his hair back to its original shape. The mailbox chirps, the blue icon pulsating in the fading light. It seems that winter has also sprung upon the island, blanketing the greenery in snow. The in-game clock reads, 6:24.
"Honestly?" Ben says, squinting at mini-Kenji. He's dressed in a blue sports jersey with matching sneakers (blue is his favourite colour after all), dark shorts, and a pair of pixel shades. "Your outfit is not that bad."
"Of course it's 'not that bad'—I have a good sense of fashion!"
"You do!" Sammy says encouragingly, as she walks into the room. She's carrying a mug in one hand, and her Switch in the other. Her hair is pulled back in a low ponytail, fluffy pink slippers on her feet. "For the most part."
"For the most part?!" Kenji sputters. "You guys just love teaming up on me. It's tragic—my best friend and my boyfriend are my greatest enemies."
"Yeah," Ben winks at Sammy, setting out a couch cushion for her to sit on, "we are. Now, won't you be a dear and invite Sammy to your island?"
"Just give me a minute," Kenji sighs, "I forgot how to pull up the map. Isla Kenji is so decked out, I don't remember where the airport is."
Sammy opens her mouth to remind him, but Ben quickly shushes her. Before Kenji presses the correct button to open the menu—which is the top left trigger, go figure—he pulls out an elephant-shaped watering can, almost exits the game, and starts doing reactions. He takes a selfie. Throws confetti in the air. Does some yoga. Then a crazy dance number. It's rather silly and charming, and he mimics some of the moves, much to Ben and Sammy's delight.
The building is southbound, by the sand and water. (All airports were located similarly on every island, but Kenji only remembers that fact after he goes through the trouble of seeing which button did what.) He gives Ben and Sammy a rushed tour on the way down.
"Here's the park. And that's my outdoor art gallery—I'm pretty sure most of those pieces are fake. Still looks cool though, right? Oh! And there's one of my villagers. Her name is—" He pauses, staring at the duck who's got a tomato for a head, "probably not Tomatohead."
"Yeah, probably not." Ben agrees.
"Anyways," Kenji continues on, "that's my beachside bar. My villagers totally get wasted down here. And that's my garden made of pure golden flowers. Pretty freakin' sweet. And over here is my bank!" He's got bags of bells scattered everywhere in the area that he calls a bank. There's a few wooden tables and chairs, and the place is sectioned off using bookcases and stone walls. Sammy eyeballs the place, and exchanges a sly look with Ben. "There's my shopping area—oh my God, you would not believe how much of a pain it was to lay down the road pattern. Truly backbreaking stuff. And there's the airport!"
Once inside, he starts going through the mountains of text to let Sammy fly to his island. "So that was about, let’s say, seventy percent of my island? Still got some cool spots to show you."
"How many hours do you have?" Sammy asks, after he's finished giving her the Dodo code. "Your island is amazing! I'm jealous. Seriously! You got skills."
"Way too many," Kenji answers, "and thank you. At least one of you appreciates my taste."
Ben makes a little noise. "Hey! I said I liked your outfit!"
"You said it was not that bad."
"It was a compliment, idiot!"
"Well, have you ever considered that your compliments suck?"
The two of them playfully bicker until the cutscene for Sammy's visit ends. It takes a while, but when her character strolls through that little entranceway, they shut up.
Mini-Sammy is adorable. She's rocking a pair of blue overalls and a teddy backpack, and immediately begins hitting mini-Kenji with a net. "Hey!" he cries. "This means war."
The two of them end up running in circles on the beach for a few minutes, smacking each other while Ben cheers them on. "Yeah! Get him!" Scratch that—while Ben cheers Sammy on. He's insufferable, truly.
Eventually, they get distracted by a little yellow dog that's wandering nearby. Sammy chases him down to introduce herself. "Wait—his name is Benjamin?" she laughs. "You have a villager named Benjamin on your island? That's so cute."
Ben gives him a sort of look that says, oh, of course you do.
"Yeah, so what?" Kenji huffs, face flushing. "It's a common name!"
"Uh-huh. Sure."
Ben's got that shit-eating grin on his face. He knows—he knows that Kenji chose to keep the villager around because of their shared namesake. The bashful little guy is even wearing an orange top, just like him. So, maybe he was the one who gifted that shirt to Benjamin-the-villager. So what?
"It's pure coincidence," he insists.
"Whatever you say," Sammy says, but her tone says otherwise. She then gives Ben a little nudge.
"Oh! Uh—why don't you show me the museum?" He asks. "With the fishes and fossils and stuff."
Kenji shrugs. "Yeah, why not. My museum's like, totally awesome."
And it is totally awesome. He'd spent a long time curating the outside of the museum. There's a fountain and a marble statue atop gray stone tiles, surrounded by flowering shrubs. Inside, Kenji starts off the darkened fossil alley. The warm lighting of the spotlights and the blue shadows gave the place an outlandish atmosphere, like they're on Mars. "Yup, that's the brachiosaurus—that's the stegosaurus—yeah, they've got those flying dinos in the game too…” (He definitely misnames a few of them, but he’s not the dino-nerd around here. If Ben wants accurate dinosaur facts, he should talk to Darius.)
Then, he takes Ben to see the indoor bug sanctuary, which is bright and green and alive. The butterfly garden ends up as Ben's favourite. They flutter around a triple tiered, white-stone fountain, in every colour of the rainbow. Little planters with succulents hang from the ceiling, and blue and violet flowers cover the walls. There's a villager hanging out in there too—a light-cyan bunny with big eyes and a blue baseball jacket.
"I'm jealous of his eyelashes." Ben says.
"Your eyelashes are fine! Y'know, some might even say they're not that bad."
Ben rolls his eyes, but there's a smile creeping it’s way across his face. God, Kenji wants to kiss his stupid face.
The tour continues. Past the ant farm and the bug lab, and up to the art gallery. The first part are statues, sculpted from white, grey and green rock. Then there's all the paintings, from Millet to Cézanne to Van Gogh, centuries worth of artwork. Kenji pauses to read some of the descriptions. "'The only thing is, is that a real pearl earring? Or something else…' Huh? What else is that supposed to be?" He groans. "Man, now I'm curious. Remind me to Google that later."
They briefly study pieces from Japan and China, then opt for a pit stop at The Roost. He purchases a 200-bell coffee from Brewster, makes a lame joke about inflation prices, and sits down at a booth. It's only then when Kenji notices mini-Sammy hadn't been tagging along. He glances over at Sammy—she's intently pressing buttons, eyes glued to the small screen.
"Hey—" he says, poking her leg, "—where did you go?"
"Uh," Sammy tilts her Switch away from him, so he can't see the screen. "I'm taking a scenic route of your island. I saw a marketplace when I was flying here, so I, uh, wanted to check it out!"
He thinks nothing of it. "Alright. We're about to tour the coolest part of the museum, but you do you."
Mini-Kenji makes his way into the aquarium. The first room is dedicated to freshwater fish. Some of the tanks are low and open, and have grassy weeds. There's a big tank at the back that reminds him of the ones in those Bass Pro Shops, filled with salmon and sea bass. ('Sea bass? No wait—it's at least a C+' is a dumb joke that he still doesn't understand the punchline of.) The next room houses two tanks—the ocean exhibit is his favourite. The music is slow, alternating between a few echoing notes that are only interrupted by his footsteps as he makes his way closer to the glass.
Light filters in through the top, casting moving shadows on the floor and painting everything in swathes of blue. He gazes up at the giant ocean sunfish, the whale shark, the schools of silvery anchovies and more, swimming lazily around in the huge tank. There's something about it that stirs a particular feeling in his chest.
Ben eventually interrupts his solitude. "This is probably the longest I've seen you sit still."
"Yeah," Kenji murmurs, pulling his eyes away from this greenish-yellow fish with a large forehead. He's got a tour to finish. "Fish are just... really cool."
Mini-Kenji heads down a few steps. To the left is a display featuring a submarine which Kenji tells Ben sadly that they cannot go into it—and a suit of diving gear. Spanning the right wall, is the tank filled with the strange, colossal creatures of the deep. "That is a freakishly huge crab!" Ben laughs. "It's bigger than you!"
They head back up, passing through the walkway that peers into the ocean exhibit, the little area with the jellyfish floor and the tube of angel fish and coral, and through the bit where the tunnel goes through the tanks. "That's it for the museum," Kenji declares, as they bid farewell to Blathers, and head back outside. "Took me like, years to complete it."
Ben nudges Sammy, as if to notify her of the end of the museum tour. She’s still deeply invested in exploring the marketplace or wherever, still mashing buttons. Without taking her eyes away from her Switch, she says, "You should show him the villagers living quarters next. I think he'll be interested to see who Benjamin shares a yard with.”
Kenji tilts his head, thinking hard. “I don’t actually remember who he shares a yard with."
He pulls out the map to check. Drags the cursor from villager to villager—ah, Tomatohead's name is actually Ketchup, he should've guessed that—and looks for their corresponding homes. The neighbourhood he's built for them is in the upper right quadrant of the island, and the houses are all located equally apart—except for Benjamin and the black-and-blue chicken villager he shares a yard with. And that villager's name is—oh, Ben is never going to let him live this down—Ken.
"Yeah," Ben says, shooting him a knowing look. "Benjamin and Ken share a living space. Pure coincidence."
"In my defence," Kenji hisses, "this island is like, totally old."
"So," Ben leans against him, smiling widely, "you mean you put their homes together before we were dating?"
His face burns. "No. I mean—maybe. I dunno."
Ben chuckles, pressing his head against Kenji's shoulder. "Well, now I have to see this. Let’s go!"
Mini-Kenji takes off running. He takes a new route, showing off the other thirty-something percent of the island. "That's Nook's Cranny. I basically own their entire catalogue. Ooh—my pizza place! I forgot how much effort I put into painting that logo. I truly am an artist! This is a sad outdoor library, please avert your gaze. And—here is Kenjiville!"
It's a little suburban pocket. Each villager has their own yard with matching furniture and vegetation, neatly sectioned off from each other. Street lamps and cars line the street. There's even garbage cans set out on the curb. It feels lived in.
Benjamin's house has a brown thatched roof and yellow door. Ken's house is blue tile and zen-themed. Their yard—which is the biggest one in all of Kenjiville—is littered with details. There's an ankylosaurus fossil guarding their residences, a mini vegetable garden, and a climbing rock wall. A carton of juice—meant to be carob juice, but the game doesn't have that option, so it's vegetable juice—sits on a wooden table and colourful flowers dot the grass.
"Is that supposed to be Bumpy?"
"Yeah," Kenji says. "I wanted to include her in the design somehow."
"That's awesome." Ben's eyes twinkle. "You really put a lot of thought into this, huh?"
"I really did." Kenji says with a small laugh. The memories of building the place come rushing back to him.
It was shortly after he realized that his feelings for Ben extended far beyond mere friendship. Instead of talking to anyone about it—it took him four months to open up to Yaz, who had figured it out long before then—he locked himself in his trailer and played Animal Crossing for a week. Ken had already been living on the island for ages—because come on, he's a cool ninja chicken and they share a name (sort of)—and it was like a message from fate when Benjamin turned up at the campsite. That silly dog really did remind him of his favourite blond. Then, because he's like, the ultimate hopeless romantic, he builds them the perfect little life together because he could never have that in real life—or so he thought.
Look at him now, curled up with his boyfriend on a beanbag, showing off his Animal Crossing builds. God, is he so lucky.
The chime signalling Sammy's departure from the island pulls him out of his thoughts.
"Leaving so soon?" He asks.
"Yeah," she says, "I've got a package to deliver to Darius's island."
Ben and her are giving each other funny little side glances. Kenji has no clue what's going on—until he goes to close the gates at the airport, walks past the bank, and sees that all of his bells are missing.
"Sammy." He turns to face her. “Tell me you did not—"
"Bye!" She shrieks, leaping up from her spot. Her slippers are left behind as she tears up the stairs, fleeing the scene to split her bounty with Darius. Ben has fallen over, and is practically crying from laughing so hard.
"You—" Kenji splutters, "you were in cahoots this whole time!"
"Yeah, I was." Ben admits, between laughs. He slowly lifts himself back into a sitting position. "I'm sorry—Darius and Sammy both approached me for this. I couldn't say no!"
Kenji shakes his head. It's not really a big deal, he's got like, a gazillion more bells in the Nook Bank, but it’s amusing they plotted this whole distract-and-conquer stunt instead of going, Hey Kenji, can I have some bells please?
"You guys are so stupid." He tells Ben with the biggest grin on his face. "I hate you."
"I hate you more," Ben replies, giving him a kiss.
Kenji dramatically sighs. "I hate you the most."
After that whole fiasco, he offers Ben the controller. Ben ends up tromping all over his flowers—"It was an accident, I swear!" He squeaks as Kenji playfully shakes him by the shoulders—gets stung by bees (twice)—"Did I just fucking die?" He screams the first time—and fails to catch a large fish. Still, he has the time of his life, and Kenji watches from next to him, giving advice and drinking the rest of Sammy's magical hot chocolate.
Outside, the snow continues to drift down.