Chapter Text
"Dude, why the fuck are we doing this again?"
"…I needed to prove a point."
"Why."
Currently, Ze and Regect were rummaging through whatever clothes in their meager little home. Anything in the closet that would be at least presentable to go to a ball with.
"Y-you don't get it. Ze, I swear I'm a better dancer than that centipede-lookin' freak—"
Ah.
Ze remembered walking back inside the house during Christmas, with their very nice guests, and seeing Regect making another scene. Clearly there was some family lore he missed, but before Ze could put Regect in his place, Moe had blessed the room with her gracious speech. Before that however, Ze slightly caught onto the end of the argument ending in a firm seventy dollar bet.
"Alright, not true," Regect sneered at Ze's backside. The player didn't really care if it was true. "But WHY am I the one dancing too?!"
"Ptole-mid is just mad he can't do the macarena." Regect gloated.
"You can't either—answer the GODDAMN question!" Ze angrily spat as he threw a jacket at Regect's general direction.
"FUCK!" Regect shouted as it hit him square in the ribs. "Ze, what the hell is in your jacket?! What, is there a few thousand pounds of ass-holery in these threads?!"
"Check the tags, bitch." Ze rolled his eyes as he returned his attention to his closet and piles of the same exact jacket.
"What..." Regect scrutinized the tag on the jacket. It was blackened out with some marker, but there was some illegible fine print written just underneath. "Dude, your handwriting is straight cheeks. Is this even english?" Regect squinted as he tried to make out the scribbles.
"Do you need reading glasses?" Ze asked sarcastically.
"Is this a giraffe???" Regect exclaimed in mild confusion and amusement.
"You can't be serious." Ze sighed. "If you learned how to read properly, you might make out that my jacket is made out of premium grade elastic—" And Regect tuned out the rest of that material list full of adjectives he didn't think Ze had the brain capacity to use properly.
"Uhuh uhuh, yeah yeah, shut up already I get it. The material is made of something that's really-fucking-heavy." Regect rolled his eye.
"You didn't even listen—god, I'm getting off topic. Why am I also dancing?" Ze began throwing more of his jackets in Regect's direction, which the entity dodged.
"Ugh, he wanted to do some slow dancing because it was 'the proper form of dancing' and not my 'interesting interpretation of dance'."
"…And instead of backing down like a mature person, you decided to make a competition out of it?"
"ZE LET ME HAVE THIS!" Regect pleaded.
"We don't even have any clothes!"
"No way." Regect jumped to Ze's side, peering into the now empty closet and then looked toward the piles of clothes on the floor. "Why the FUCK do you have so many of the same jacket?!"
"In case something happens to one!" Ze argued.
"This is creepy dude. You're like a shitty cartoon character." Regect frowned.
"You don't even have wear anything! Even if I had a suit, you'd literally get us kicked out for public indecency."
"I'm like, 50% transparent." Regect said defensively, crossing his arms. "Besides, this isn't no ordinary ball. It's being held by some guy named KIY."
"What typa lame ass name is that?"
"Hey don't be rude! KIY is a chill dude."
"Whatever bro, I don't give a shit. Why don't you go by yourself and find some poor victim to dance with?" Ze began easily picking up his jackets, as if they didn't weigh like five tons.
"…It's a couples dance…" Regect admitted slowly.
"What. The. FUCK?!" Ze turned to look at his soon-to-be-ex-friend with an accusing gaze. "I AM NOT GOING TO SOME COUPLES DANCE WITH YOU!"
"ZEEEEEEEEEEEEE JUST FOR ONE NIGHT PLEASE!" Regect got on his knees, using his first convincing tactic: pleading with all three of his arms.
"HELL NO!" Ze angrily finished putting the rest of his jackets in the closet and began to storm out of the room. "How did you even get invited?!"
Regect had clung to Ze's leg, stopping him from going out of the room. He put on his best puppy dog expression (his eye just got slightly bigger) and when that didn't work, he sighed.
"Okay…might've lied about our relationship status to get in…" Ze wanted nothing more than to bludgeon this stupid loser clinging to his leg with a sledgehammer.
"You BITCH!" Ze tried kicking off Regect, but was unsuccessful. "THIS IS COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY!"
"PLEASE ZEEE I NEED TO ONE-UP THAT CENTIPEDE!"
"Don't loop me into your own beef! WHY'D YOU EVEN LIE?!"
"I WANTED HIS MONEY!"
Ze's kicks began to have more force into them, but Regect was unusually stubborn. The entity held on tighter and tighter, which only annoyed Ze. Unfortunately, the player hadn't been careful and in his attempts to kick off Regect, he had lost his balance. He fell harshly onto his back and groaned.
Regect had used the opportunity to get on top of Ze and look him dead on in the face. Ze was about to scold him—or beat him to death—but Regect had made his move first.
"Ze…I just…I really need to get that ugly bug back." Regect clasped his arms together in another fruitless begging motion.
"I do NOT care."
"Zeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…" Regect attempted his puppy dog face again with a bit more effort, eye getting bigger and some faint tears forming just to seal the act.
"Go to hell." Absolutely no effect. Actually, it seemed as if it had negative effect with the way Ze was looking at the entity.
Ze threw a square punch in the visible part of Regect's abdomen and shoved the entity off of him.
"Ghk—You jerk!" Regect cast aside his pleading and replaced it with his usual insulting loser behavior.
"Dude, you need to let it go. It is not that serious." Ze slowly got up and brushed the nonexistent dust off his shoulders.
"Ze, my entire reputation is on the line here." Regect went back to begging. "I bragged for like twenty minutes! I can't just not show up!" He was beginning to get a little frantic.
"Not my problem."
The entity groaned and began his next method of approach: bargaining.
"…I'll cook—"
"Absolutely not." Ze interrupted. He shivered just thinking about it.
"Wh—hey! I can cook! You ate all my fruitcake." Regect took offense to that, puffing up his chest a little.
"Yeah and it was shit." Regect huffed and Ze could tell the entity was trying not to hurl insults. He was smart enough to know if he started, then there was no chance of convincing Ze.
"I'll do the laundry…for like three days…" Ze raised an eyebrow. "…Four days?"
"Be real." Ze sighed and shook his head in disapproval.
"…I'll buy you a new gun…" Ze perked up a little at that.
"Five guns." He deadpanned.
"WH—THAT'S UNREASONABLE! Do you think I'm made of money?!" Regect angrily shouted.
"Maybe you would've had more if you hadn't gambled all of it away." Ze hummed smugly, watching Regect struggle.
"T-two guns!"
"Five." He repeated.
"Three guns!" Regect pleaded.
"Five."
"F-fuck you!" Regect pouted. "I don't have the money for even one gun…"
"And that's my problem how?" Ze smirked at the entity.
He might be enjoying this a little too much. Ze didn't consider himself a sadist by any means, but watching Regect squirm and think of a solution certainly made him reconsider that.
"Please Ze…I'll make it up to you somehow…how about an IOU…?" Regect sounded oh-so pathetic. Were Ze a nicer man, he might have folded.
"Dude. Do you even know what you're asking? We have to go to a COUPLES dance and SLOW DANCE together."
"All to save my reputation!"
"I do NOT want people to think were DATING of all things!"
"TWO IOU'S!" Regect shouted.
It seemed that Regect wouldn't stop annoying Ze, nor let this whole matter go. Whatever family beef the two entities had, it surely left a mark on Regect. That or Regect was a petty little bitch, which Ze unconsciously assumed was the correct option.
"…and a new bazooka." He eventually conceded. Regect's eye lit up like a firework.
The player wanted nothing to do with whatever Regect is looping him into, especially one that could present the wrong image to strangers. God…if anyone besides msak asked him how dating worked with Regect, he might shoot himself. And the other person. And maybe beat Regect with a stick.
"DEAL!" Regect repeated over and over, hastily grabbing Ze's hand and shaking on hard just to be sure the other heard him loud and clear.
"I seriously hate you dude." Ze clutched his forehead as he could feel the incoming headache just imagining how the ball is going to go. "When is the ball—couple dance—whatever?"
"Like a day from now." Ze winced as he realized he had no time to prepare. Regect chuckled mischievously. "Trust me, Ze. This will be worth it!"
The entity skedaddled out of the room and Ze could've sworn Regect was skipping. Regect was practically ecstatic, which made Ze feel a bit happy, but now he was going to have to do a lot of explaining after this whole ordeal was done. He spent forty straight minutes explaining to their Christmas guests that they were not dating and that they actually hated each other, which he was not excited to repeat.
A series of honks startled Ze out of his little trance. He looked over his shoulder to see Moe looking at him in some confusion.
"Hey Moe." Ze sighed out as he sat on his bed.
Moe gestured to the closet and Ze. It seems she had either been eavesdropping or she had been informed by Regect of the dance.
"Yeah, I'll need to go clothes shopping. Ball means I need something formal, right? I'll buy some random suit, I dunno. Think I'll go to some thrift store or something and try to get something cheap."
Moe honked immediately against the idea, a strange determination in her eyes.
"What? Moe I'm kinda broke. And I can't steal again, they'll put me on a watch list."
The clown proudly reached into some invisible pocket and pulled out her FAT wallet. It was literally bulging with how much money was stacked in there! Ze's jaw dropped open as Moe flaunted her money. She looked smug as she looked at Ze's face and puffed out her chest.
"Wha—how are you so rich?!" Ze said, completely awed. Moe honked as a response. "C-comedy shows can get you this much?"
Ze contemplated his life choices. Clearly being funny and doing a few magic tricks gets you bank, and he was pretty funny, so he might be able to line his own pockets…
Another series of honks snapped Ze to attention. "Y-you'll pay for the suit? Moe, you don't have to do that."
A series of honks in protest. Moe smiled and looked giddy, a fire in her eyes that wouldn't be extinguished anytime soon. Clearly she had found an opportunity to do something and jumped headfirst into it.
"Alright…I'll trust the suit to you—wha wait!" Moe began tugging Ze's arm with surprising strength.
Before Ze knew it, he down the stairs of the house and nearing the front door.
"D-do I really need to come? I'm sure you'll pick out something great…" Moe continued dragging Ze along.
"I really think I can stay at home for this one—HONK!"
Yeah, Ze wasn't getting out of this.