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Baby is bored.
Terribly so. It’s noon, and he’s completely out of things to do. He’s opened every game on his phone—boring. Tried eating a snack—not hungry. Put on too many TV shows and movies—none of them captured his attention. He’d already updated the Saja Boys account too many times in one hour and was texted by Jinu to please stop polling our fans on whether they like ketchup or mustard more .
Speaking of the others, they were all busy doing even more boring stuff. Jinu was out with Mystery, the two of them restocking groceries for the month (or week, if Baby was bored like this again!!). Abby was at the gym, only allowed to leave the house after he super-duper-pinky-promised them to watch his step and not get concussed…again. Romance was at his vanity trying out like seven different concealers (all of which Baby swore were in the same shade). Baby tried to entertain himself by watching, but it was completely unamusing to watch Ro dab the stuff under his eyes, judge it, and then wipe it off and do some more.
So he flopped onto the couch and stared at the ceiling. He’s sure there’s something to do, he just hasn’t thought about it yet…
…and he will not. He pulls out his phone and goes to start the endless, mindrotting scroll of doom. Funny videos, videos disguised as funny when they were just ableist in some way, shitposts, brainrot, Saja Boys content, the usual repetition.
Then he stumbles upon a video of a guy speedrunning a game of Minecraft, making it to the End. Baby is a pretty seasoned player, but he’s never actually made it to the end, either getting bored and quitting the world after too many days of scouring for iron or not actually knowing what to do past a certain point.
But the video answers it for him. The steps to getting to the Stronghold and stuff—so he decides he can definitely do that and boots up the console.
He taps his foot impatiently as he starts up a world, messing around with the settings—he chose Normal with no cheats, suddenly very determined to finish this like a regular old player and not someone who flinched at spiders in the daytime.
Luckily, he spawns near a village. For a second, he feels bad about raiding it, wanting to start from scratch—but then decides that if the minecraft goddesses intended for him to spawn here, then he shall make use of his resources. So he loots the shit out of the village, stealing a bed, food, tons of haybales, wood, etc. He’s surprised the iron golem doesn’t boot him just for that, because someone isn’t going to sleep tonight and it isn’t Baby.
Right as he makes his crafting table and sets up camp far from the village (too close, and the tired villager would come looking for their bed), he hears footsteps coming down the hall and a body promptly flopping onto the couch behind him.
Romance hums, resting his arm over Baby’s shoulder. “Whatcha doing?”
Baby grunts. “Minecraft. ‘M bored, wanna play?”
(Spoiler alert, Baby would go on to regret that question deeply.)
Romance shifts behind him, moving to sit next to Baby, their arms pressing together. “Sure.”
Baby can almost instantly tell that Romance is feeling clingy and is actually only half-interested in playing video games. The most he plays is short little indie games with Jinu, and even then he’s mostly spectating, but at least he knows how to work a controller. He grabs an extra and gets back into his position pressed against Romance, much to the other’s satisfaction.
Baby hooks him up and then glances at the other—his face is clear now, no makeup, revealing little freckles, light bumps, a little bit of scarring on his jaw. All the things Romance insists need covering up, but really just make him look…real. Baby kisses his cheek, twice.
“Pretty boy,” he mumbles, kissing Ro’s shoulder in parting before focusing back on the game. He suppresses a smirk at the way the other blushes.
“How—” Romance clears his throat, readjusting his grip on the controller. “How do you play?”
Baby chuckles at his attempt to sound casual, before lifting his own hands to show him.
“It has the basic controls of any game. Forward, turn, jump,” he demonstrates. “This one means select, like if you want to open a chest or use an item. This one is for mining, you hold it and the thing will start to crumble based on what tool you have. And these are how to cycle through your hotbar.”
Romance nods along, and then tests the controls out, spinning in circles and walking around, running into dirt. Baby huffs.
“You’ll get the hang of it.”
___
It starts off chaotic already. Baby doesn’t know what he expected—Romance isn’t in it to win the game, he’s in it to spend time with Baby. Which is cute, seriously, but not very practical in the long run.
First, after Baby gives him a bunch of basic materials, Romance stumbles upon a bee’s nest.
“Aww, they’re so cute!” he coos, watching a baby bee hover with its parents near a bed of poppies. “I wanna pet it. Can I pet it?”
Baby doesn’t even get to say no before Romance is pushing in the trigger—the wrong one. He ends up hitting it.
“Oh no! Aw I’m sorry babies, I’ll leave you alo—-WOAH—”
The bees’ eyes go red, and they both sting him, giving him poisoning, his health deteriorating slowly. He frantically presses buttons that do nothing to help him get away—especially as more bees come out of the nest to get vengeance.
Baby sighs softly and rushes over—he’d been busy trying to find coal, but whatever—and uses a glass bottle to get some honey, which of course turns the bees on him too. But he can defend himself, so he kills them easily, giving Romance the honey to heal.
“You killed them!” Romance pouts.
“They were gonna die anyway, they already stung you.”
Romance still pouts.
___
Then, Baby is trying to loot the village some more. He needs string, and he swears he saw one in someone's chest.
He entices Romance to follow. “Go into their houses and look through their chests. I need two strings,” he explains. “And leave the door open so I know which ones you’ve been in.”
“But that’s stealing,” Romance responds, frowning.
“...so?”
“What if they need the string! They look nice!” he points at a farmer villager, replacing seeds from wheat that Baby tore through. “See, look, he’s a single mom who works two jobs, loves her kids and never stops—”
Baby sucks his teeth. “Dude.”
“I’m kidding, kidding. But you have to give it back later, okay?”
Baby shakes his head. “Okay, babe.”
___
After minutes of being in the village, the sound of that awful horn goes off. Baby barely dodges a crossbow arrow as the raid begins, a ravager already tearing at the iron golem, villagers grunting as they’re attacked.
“Uhh, we gotta go,” Baby says, sitting up alertly. There’s more than one ravager, and his loot is a
little
bit too good to risk dying. He looks at Romance’s half of the split-screen to see him…planting flowers?!
“Why?” Romance asks, his voice a bit distant as he focuses intently on pushing the right buttons to plant his dandelions.
Baby gasps lightly as a pillager notices him, and starts to run back to camp. “Because they’re being raided. Follow me, you’ll die.”
Romance gasps in mock offense. “Have you no faith in me—?”
A ravager launches him. Twice. He dies.
“Oh. Well.”
____
Finally, it all comes to a head when Romance is out doing…whatever.
Thanks to some grinding, they’ve (he’s) made it pretty far. He got some diamond gear, enchantments, and he’s built a solid base. Not the prettiest, but it’s efficient. Romance, of course, had about the same inventory items as before—except Baby switched his wooden things out for iron—and was, for lack of a better term, frolicking.
He’d been to the Nether and back without dying, returning with his crafted ender eye and other goods that would help him finally win the game. Romance had spent the whole time planting flowers outside of their base (which he insisted was their house) and wasting time getting sand to make windows. He had also tamed a parrot, naming it Sussie. Weird name, but he digresses.
Now, he was proud of himself for making it this far. It should be easy from here. Defeating the dragon would be hard, but not impossible, and he had full faith in his abilities. After a long time of sitting down, he stands up to use the bathroom, kissing Romance’s cheek as he stands.
“Be right back,” he murmurs. Romance hums after him and focuses on his current renovation of their house.
Now, Baby had style…but obviously not when it came to interior design, because the place was ugly. It was entirely wooden, with randomly placed chests and appliances. His bed was literally in the middle of the floor. Romance had never played before, but even he knew the design was lacking. So, he opens up the first chest he sees—it is packed, filled with random things like ender pearls and elytra and tridents and a diamond sword with sharpness (why wouldn’t a sword be sharp??) . He shrugs and destroys the chest, watching his inventory overload with stuff. He also notices that Baby’s inventory is empty—he must’ve dumped all his stuff in the chest to sort things out.
In trying to find a place to relocate the chest, he steps outside to look for flowers to spruce the place up—an essential of course. But it’s dark.
“Must be nighttime,” he mumbles. He’s not sure exactly what happens at night other than it’s dark, since they sleep through it every time.
Anywho, he’s picking flowers, trying to see if they’re white or yellow in this lighting—when he’s shot at.
His character jumps, going down a heart. And then another. Romance panics a bit, looking around to find the threat, only to find what must be a skeleton shooting at him.
“Ehh, leave me alone!” he whines quietly, trying to sprint back to the house. But his hunger is low and he can’t run, so he has to walk, giving the skeleton plenty of time to keep chasing him.
Now if Romance had seen the randomly placed pit of lava behind him when he tried to change course, he would’ve been more strategic about his movement. But one second he’s jumping frantically, and the next, he’s being shot into a pool of fire, his last four hearts depleting almost immediately.
“Damn,” he mumbles, hitting the respawn button.
Just to find his inventory completely clear. All of it. His brow furrows, confused, before he remembers. Baby had mumbled it under his breath while in a tense fight with a pig thing.
“Dude, I can’t die, I’m gonna lose all my stuff—”
Ohhhhhhhh shit.
____
Baby comes back from his bathroom break ready to knock this game out, actually having fun now that he’s made genuine progress. Romance looks…very tense, his controller sitting neatly in his lap.
“...you good?” Baby asks, raising a brow at him. Romance nods stiffly.
Baby squints and turns back to the TV, instantly moving to open his chest and gather what he would need.
To see that it’s not there.
It’s not suspicious at first, the place is a mess, but…none of the chests have his stuff.
“Ro?” he asks slowly. “Did you take my loot?”
Romance doesn’t respond, staring straight ahead. Baby reaches over and takes Romance’s controller, opening his inventory—empty.
“Babe,” he breathes, “Did you do something with my stuff?”
Romance’s eyes fall to the ground. Baby’s hands shake. “...yeah..” he mumbles, like a little kid getting in trouble.
He tries to keep his voice even, because he’s pretty sure Romance is gonna cry if he doesn’t, but he really feels like losing his shit right now. “What did you do?”
Romance messes with the string of his hoodie. “I…was trying to renovate. So I mined the chest, and I was holding the stuff, but—”
“ heart._.eyes_ tried to swim in lava?!”
Romance flinches. “Uh…I mean…I wouldn’t call it swimming, I was escaping!”
Baby exhales. “Escaping what. ”
“A skeleton.”
“And why were you outside at night?”
“...I wanted flowers..”
Baby takes a deep breath, prays to whatever deity can hear him, and turns off the console. He and Romance aren’t pressing shoulders anymore, that’s for sure.
Baby has half a mind to get mad. He had worked so hard to get to where he was. He had never been closer to beating the game than just now. He was about to win Minecraft .
And then Romance had taken his loot and burned it all to a crisp.
Maybe he should get mad. But then he thinks about how Romance has never played before, and how he didn’t jump in the lava, he was trying to get away. He didn’t know any better. He just…wanted to make their house prettier. Wanted to sit next to Baby, lean on his shoulder, and do something he enjoyed. When Romance could’ve easily picked up his phone, or tried on more makeup, or waited impatiently for anyone else to get home, he spent time with Baby.
He can’t be mad at that.
Romance has shrunk away by now, guilt clearly shredding him, picking nervously at his nails, his body turned away.
“I’m sorry,” he says, voice barely above a whisper.
Baby tilts his chin back over and cups his face. “It’s fine, Rom.”
Romance looks away. “But I ruined your game.”
Baby brushes his thumbs over Romance’s cheeks. He could be drilling into the other right now. Better yet, he could’ve chosen to go to the room and spend the rest of the evening in frustrated silence. Instead, he thinks for a moment of what he wants to say, because he can’t stand the thought of hurting Romance’s feelings right now. Not only were his intentions pure, but the other just wanted some attention. Baby knew that much in the way Romance pulled his knees in like he was getting a hug. Still, he remains casual—he could be soft when it mattered, but cheesy was a different territory…
“It’s just a game,” he shrugs. “I can do it again. I’ll probably try again tonight.” He picks the controller back up and boots up the console again. “Here, I wanna show you Creative Mode. I think you’ll like it a lot more.”
Romance hesitates, and then leans back into Baby. “Okay.”
When the others get home, bearing food and stories, they’re met with the sight of Baby’s head leaning atop Romance’s, asleep while Romance builds an obnoxiously pink house in the middle of the forest, with a field of flowers in all their favorite colors.