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When Kabru came back from the bathroom, he found Laios sitting on the top bunk of his bed with a GameBoy in his hands – or perhaps it was the Nintendo DS? It wasn't as if he could tell the difference, never having owned either, or any other console for that matter; Milsiril would never allow such a thing, arguing that it was too violent, and by the time he freed himself from her overprotective influence, he was, in his estimation at least, too grown for the interest to develop naturally. As a result, video games were amongst the last things he would consider himself knowledgeable about in any capacity. Laios, while definitely more familiar with the medium, was also quite particular about the kinds of games he enjoyed – as expected for a man whose preferences were so strictly defined as his otherwise. Quite unsurprisingly, judging by the posters on his walls and the collection of CD’s next to his computer, he favoured games that featured monsters and fantasy creatures in any capacity, whether ones made for designing them, like Spore, or catching them and using them in battle, like Pokémon, or finally those that allowed him to play as them, such as Spyro. Kabru had been hoping for an opportunity to watch him play one of those games, more so for the sake of learning something about him through his playstyle choices rather than paying attention to the gameplay itself, and evidently one presented itself right now.
Having closed the bedroom door, Kabru climbed the ladder to join Laios on the bunk bed. Laios seemed to be fiddling with the buttons, too focused on the task to acknowledge his presence with so much as a nod. Kabru sat cross-legged across from him, discreetly trying to gauge if it would be safe to address him right now. He was tempted to peer over at the screen to see what he was doing, but refrained from doing so in case Laios would react poorly to that – not so much because he was doing anything he didn't want Kabru to see, but purely as an instinct to protect his privacy. Finally, Laios’ expression seemed to relax, which encouraged Kabru to speak. “What are you playing?” he asked with barely contained curiosity, scooting a little closer to Laios.
“Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team!” Laios exclaimed, beaming. So it was Pokémon, then. Perhaps he should have guessed that. “I found the cartridge when I was looking through my stuff earlier. I totally forgot that I had it! It's been a while,” he mused dreamily, in a tone of deep fondness, stroking the sides of the console with his index fingers. “I'm super glad that it still works. Last time I played it, I named my partner after Falin. I figured that I might as well start a new save so that I can make you my partner this time.” Kabru's heart leapt in his chest. He was not expecting to be an active participant in the game, and now his interest was piqued. Laios went on babbling: “It took me a while to figure out that I needed to delete the old save first, but that's done now, so we're good to go. The thing I totally forgot about until now,” he added, “is that you don't get to choose which Pokémon you wanna play as at the beginning of the game. Instead they make you take a quiz to determine which one suits your personality best. So I'm gonna have to do that first.”
Kabru's ears perked at the last remark. “...A personality quiz? Let me see,” he demanded as he scooted over to Laios' side, grabbing his arm with both of his hands as he leaned his cheek against his shoulder. The console had two screens (presumably it must have been the DS, then, standing for 'dual-screen' – this much he could infer, at least), but only the one on the bottom appeared to be functional at the moment. There was a text box at the bottom of the screen, written in a font so tiny that he had to squint at it until his eyes adjusted to it. The text read as follows: A foreign person has started up a conversation with you. To be honest, you don't have a clue what this fellow is saying. How do you reply? A moment later, a second text box with a set of possible answers appeared on top of it: Haha! Yes. Very funny!, Um, could you say that again? and Right...well I gotta go. Kabru looked over at Laios to check his reaction.
“Hmm...” Laios knitted his eyebrows in deep thought. “I mean, surely it depends, right? If someone's talking to me in a language I don't understand, and it sounds like they're angry with me or trying to insult me or something, then I'm gonna try to get out of there as soon as possible, but if it sounds like they're trying to ask me something, then I should at least try to figure out what they want from me before I go... Then again, I'm probably not gonna be able to help them anyway,” he added dejectedly, “They can probably find somebody who's gonna do a better job than me. So, I guess I might as well tell them that I gotta go...” he muttered, picking the last option.
“I suppose that's reasonable. No good is going to come out of giving someone directions when you don't know them yourself,” Kabru said, regarding him with growing fascination. The answer itself was rather predictable, but the way he needed to think through it first was pretty interesting. Most people would not need to imagine a specific situation in order to answer a basic question about general patterns of behaviour, but Laios needed to carefully weigh his options before applying them to the situation at hand, whatever it may have been. “That reminds me, I've been meaning to ask. You and I speak to each other in the common language, obviously, but I noticed that a majority of your books are in the common language, too, rather than your native tongue.”
“Ah, yeah,” Laios said,absent-mindedly stroking his nose with his index finger. “I haven't really had a reason to use it in a long time, since nobody except for Falin would understand me anyway, and even with her I speak the common language when we're around other people, so I guess I just got used to it after a while. I know Falin uses our native tongue when she writes to our parents, but I haven't been in touch with them, so...” He offered a shrug. “It's just easier this way. The language I really wanna learn is Japanese. That'd be cool,” he added fondly. “Then I'd be able to understand everything without subtitles. I've been trying to study, but it's pretty hard.”
“I could practice with you,” Kabru offered, stroking his chin. “I've studied a number of languages, including Japanese. I have not had the pleasure of familiarising myself with your mother tongue, however. To be honest, I would be quite interested in pursuing it.”
Laios raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Eh, really? What for? We understand each other perfectly fine like this,” he murmured, scratching his cheek with his index finger. “If you really want to, then I guess I could practice with you, and you could help me practice Japanese. That sounds fair. I'm pretty rusty, though, so I'm not sure how much that's gonna help. Anyway...” The next question appeared on screen: You broke a rotten egg in your room! What do you do? And the answers: Open a window right away. or Sniff it first. “I mean,” Laios said, picking the latter option without a second thought, “that one's pretty obvious, right?”
“What kind of questions are these...?” Kabru murmured, bewildered, shaking his head.
The questions appeared one after another, perfectly regular situations mixed in with utterly strange hypotheticals, none of which seemed to faze Laios in the slightest – on the contrary, the 'normal' questions were typically the ones that gave him pause. Kabru observed a pattern: Laios struggled with questions meant to gauge how he was likely to behave in social situations, but he was quite confident in his answers when it came to his own personality traits and preferences, as well as those regarding how he was perceived by others. The common issues between all of the prompts, however, were that he perceived many of them to be frustratingly vague and non-specific, making them impossible to answer accurately, and that he was limited to the answers provided by the quiz, which were often insufficient. In the event that none of them quite matched what he thought to be correct, he would have to talk himself through all the available options to determine the most acceptable one, and even then he would remain frustrated that he wasn't allowed to answer for himself. A mind as particular and precise as his, and a disposition as careful and self-conscious about his ability to communicate his ideas, was not made for taking such a simplistic test – one could still get a lot of mileage out of watching him take it, though.
“All right! I think this is the second-to-last question,” Laios said cheerfully as he pressed the button. The text on the screen read: Do you think you are cool? Be honest. Laios knitted his eyebrows. “Pfft! Yeah, as if,” he scoffed, picking the negative answer without hesitation.
“For what it's worth,” Kabru said, offering gentle pushback, “I think you're pretty cool.”
Laios' expression visibly softened, his cheek rubbing against the top of Kabru's head. “Yeah, I know. Thanks. You're probably the only person other than Falin who thinks that. They wanted to know what I think, though,” he added matter-of-factly, “and I don't really think I'm all that cool, so...” The last question was perhaps the most straight-forward one: Are you a boy, or are you a girl? “The reason they have to ask about it,” Laios explained as he picked the expected option, “is that some of the Pokémon are only available if you're a guy or if you're a girl. It doesn't really matter for us, though, since the girl ones are pretty lame,” he added dismissively. “Now...” The screen changed slightly. Laios held his breath. “...Let's see what we've got!”
A lot of text appeared on the screen, but in his impatience to see the results (evidently he did not care to be psychoanalysed, which was pretty consistent with his personality, but quite counterintuitive to the usual purposes of taking such a quiz), Laios scrolled through it far too quickly for Kabru to be able to read it, only allowing him to catch small glimpses of the description of his personality: relaxed, laid-back, taking things slowly, surprisingly popular, friendly... Well, that was accurate enough, he supposed. At the end of it all, a picture popped on the screen, featuring some kind of yellow creature, apparently called a Psyduck. Kabru couldn't say that he was familiar with it, but he wouldn't have been able to recognise any of the others either, with the possible exception of Pikachu. He glanced over at Laios, curious to see his reaction.
“Wow! Psyduck, huh...?” Laios hummed, stroking his chin. He seemed surprised by the result, but not necessarily disappointed. “Honestly, I wasn't expecting that. I don't think I was a Psyduck last time. I guess it makes sense, though, when you think about it.” That told Kabru less than nothing – presumably it was a reference to something about the creature that resonated with Laios, but he could not begin to guess what it was. The design was quite goofy, but that may have just been Kabru's uninformed perception of it. According to the quiz, it was meant to represent a laid-back attitude, and he could easily see that, too. The more he looked at it, the more it seemed to fit. “It's one of the secret options, too. That's actually pretty cool,” added Laios, clearly warming up to the idea. He clicked through to the next menu. “For you, we can just choose one from a list, so that's much easier. We can't be the same type, which sucks a little, because you'd make a great Water-type. It makes sense, though. If both of you and your partner were the same type, you'd be screwed if you end up in a situation where both of you are weak to the enemy's attacks. Ideally you'd want to have some coverage. Anyway, I'm gonna let you choose which one you wanna be.”
Kabru gulped, his gaze fixed at the screen which now featured a list of Pokémon, one of which would come to represent him in Laios' game. How was he supposed to make that kind of choice? He didn't know the first thing about these creatures! He was momentarily relieved to see Pikachu as an available option, until he realised that picking it would definitely out him as someone who didn't know anything about Pokémon, or, even worse, a man of basic taste. No good! What to do? Choose at random? Somehow, that seemed even worse. Hell, why was he even overthinking this?! Laios was perfectly aware that Kabru wasn't knowledgeable about Pokémon! He only asked for his opinion as a courtesy! It probably wouldn't matter what he chose! This really was just one of his old habits kicking in, wasn't it? Subconsciously, he was still scared of disappointing Laios with his ignorance of the subjects he was passionate about. Oh, well. Perhaps it would be wise to lean into it instead. “I don't know. Which one of them do you think best represents me? I trust your opinion.”
“Hmmm...” Laios pursed his lips, tapping his finger on his chin. “Let me think about it... Honestly, I'm not sure. It's kind of like the furry thing, you know? It's more about the kind of traits you want to embody than anything else. That said... No matter what you choose, the partner Pokémon is gonna have the same personality, which is already pretty close to yours, so... I guess I'm just gonna have to choose based on vibes.” Having said that, he went through all the Pokémon on the list one by one, pausing to compare each of them to Kabru. Finally, he returned to the top of the list, nodding to himself as he pointed at the screen. “I got it. Bulbasaur! It's a dual Grass/Poison-type, the only one out of all of them, which might come in handy. It's a very good Pokémon, and pretty cute, too. You even look kind of similar, see?” he pointed out cheerfully. For his own peace of mind, Kabru chose to take it as a compliment. “From what I remember of the anime,” Laios went on musing to himself as he typed Kabru's name into the box, “it's really kind, too. Always taking care of other Pokémon and stuff. I think that fits well enough for you.”
“Thank you. I'm very flattered to know that this is how you view me,” Kabru said, staring intently at the screen. “Um. By the way...” he prompted sheepishly. “Could you tell me more about this game? I want to make sure that I understand the premise we're working with.”
Laios straightened in his seat. “Oh,right! I didn't really explain anything, huh? Sorry about that,” he added apologetically, stroking his cheek. The screen changed again, now featuring both of their Pokémon interacting. Kabru watched it from the corner of his eye while Laios spoke. “Yeah, so! Basically, I'm a human that was transformed into a Pokémon for some reason. You are a Pokémon who found me passed out on the ground and checked if I'm okay.” That was indeed what appeared to be currently happening on screen. Suddenly a third Pokémon appeared on screen, resembling a giant butterfly. “Now we're being asked to save a Pokémon who got lost in a dungeon,” Laios explained excitedly, “and once we find it and bring it home, you're going to ask me to form a rescue team with you so that we can save more Pokémon! Apparently there have been a lot of natural disasters happening around the dungeons, and you want to figure out what's up with that and how to prevent it from happening again, and you need me to help you. That's basically it.”
“Huh.” Kabru knitted his eyebrows. For some reason, Laios' story sounded strangely familiar, like something that had really happened between the two of them – though obviously it couldn't have... right? For the sake of his sanity, he chose not to investigate the matter further for the time being. “I see... You were right, I do see the resemblance between this character and myself. If I were in their situation, that is certainly what I would do.” He lightly shook his head and brought on a smile. “To be honest, it sounds like this game is perfectly tailored to you and your desire to befriend monsters and live amongst them. I can see why you would like it.”
“Yeah! Well, you're supposed to go back to the human world in the end, which is kind of lame. If I got turned into a Pokémon, there's no way I'd ever wanna go back, especially if I already made friends with them. You get to come back for the post-game, though, so I guess it's fine,” he said, scratching his ear. His and Kabru's Pokémon selves had seemingly been transported into a dungeon. “Anyway, yeah, it's pretty cool to be able to play as a Pokémon at all. Apparently they made another one of these games. I'm probably gonna get it when it comes out over here.”
“Well, that's certainly something to look forward to,” Kabru said cheerfully. Now that Laios transitioned to the action-based portion of the gameplay, he found his attention slipping in another direction. “By the way, I found the quiz you took at the beginning of the game quite interesting. Or rather, I suppose it would be more accurate to say that it was your thought process that was compelling. You've certainly given the scenarios presented within the quiz proper consideration. That's why I wanted to ask,” he said, carefully weighing every word as he broached the topic, “if you would allow me to probe your brain with additional scenarios of my own. I'm afraid that I won't be able to assign you a Pokémon based on your answers, but I would appreciate it if you humoured me regardless. Of course, you will not have to say anything if you don't want to.”
“Yeah, sure,” Laios said, giving an absent-minded nod. “You can ask me anything you want, I don't mind. I doubt you're gonna learn anything from that, though.”
“Well,” Kabru said with a twinkle in his eye, “I suppose we won't know until we try it, right?” He paused for a moment, stroking his chin in deep thought. There were so many thought experiments to choose from, and he had to be very careful in his selection if he actually wanted Laios to engage with anything he had to say. Well, one came to mind as a good place to start “You're familiar with the trolley problem, right? You find yourself trapped in a tram that is barreling towards five men who are working on the tracks, and are only able to steer it onto the neighbouring track, where a lone man is working. Anybody that is standing on the track the tram passes through is guaranteed to die. What is the right course of action here? In a situation where you can only prevent the death of five people by sacrificing one, is that morally permissible? What do you think of that?”
Laios remained silent for a few moments, his gaze fixed on the screen. Kabru held his breath in anticipation, watching him anxiously. Just as he opened his mouth to ask if Laios needed him to repeat anything, the man spoke. “That's a tough one. I mean, obviously you wouldn't want anybody to die, but if that's not an option, then...” He muttered, stroking his bottom lip. “It's easy to say that it would be better for just that one guy to die instead of five, but if it was actually up to me to make that call, I'm not sure if I'd be able to bring myself to pull the lever, you know? I'd feel like he died because of me if I did that. On the other hand, if I don't do anything, then I'm gonna be responsible for what happened to the other guys, and that's not good either.” He fell silent once again, rubbing his temple. “Honestly, I have no idea. I wish it wasn't up to me. I'm not good at working under pressure. Honestly, if I found myself in that kind of situation, I'd probably jump out of the tram, because then it would be easier to convince myself that whatever happened didn't have anything to do with me. Hell, with my luck, I would somehow end up accidentally killing all six of those guys, I bet.” He sighed. “If only there was a way to make it so that nobody has to die! Like, if you could derail the tram somehow, to get it off the tracks altogether... Honestly, there might be a way to do it, depending on how fast it's going and what the terrain is,” he mused, suddenly energised. “Yeah, that could totally work! The real question is, would I be able to pull it off? Probably not, but you know, I'd still like to try. Ah, but,” he added sheepishly, “that's not really an answer, is it?”
Kabru regarded him with twinkling eyes, his smile hidden behind his hand. “No, not at all. On the contrary, that is exactly the kind of answer I was expecting to hear. Now, then, let's try this for size. I have an inkling of what your answer might be, but I still want to hear your thoughts regardless.” He snapped his fingers. “In front of you are two buttons, a red one and a blue one. You, as well as all the other people on Earth, each have to press one of the buttons. If more than half of the population choose to press the blue button, things will remain as they are. If more than half of the population picks red, however, everyone who pressed the blue button will perish. The vote is entirely private. In that case,” he hummed, giving a wink, “which button would you press.”
This time, Laios only hesitated for a moment before giving an answer – Kabru suspected that the hesitation was born mostly from his natural affinity towards the colour red. “This one's a no-brainer, yeah? Obviously, you'd go with the option where nobody has to die.”
Kabru's lips curled into a sly smile. This part was fairly predictable. Now to add some caveats. “Well, of course. You have to remember that this time, the choice is not only up to you, though. In the event that more than half of all people on Earth choose to press the red button, you would perish along with everyone else who pressed the blue button. Doesn't that bother you?”
Laios pursed his lips and let out a huff. “Not really, no. I mean, for one, I don't think that they would. Some people, sure, those that don't care if they screw somebody over as long as they come out on top, but I don't think that's how most people are.” An impressively optimistic outlook on humanity for someone who had experienced so much senseless cruelty from his fellow man. “Look, I've met a bunch of people who think this way. I guess I could be wrong about how many of them there really are, but that doesn't really change anything. Honestly, they were probably going to kill me anyway, button or no button. Sure, I could press the red button to be safe, but that would make me just the same as those guys, and that's the last thing I want. My life isn't worth that much to be screwing other people over, you know? Besides, I'm pretty sure that Falin would press the blue button too, and I sure as hell wouldn't want to risk it for her sake.”
“Falin, huh...” Kabru murmured, stroking his chin. Judging from the few interactions he'd had with Laios' sister, he would be willing to bet that she would press the blue button entirely for his sake, knowing exactly what his train of thought would be, while he simply trusted her to do it out of the goodness of her heart. That was not to say that Falin was not a kind person – indeed, she very much was – but her brother's safety would always be her priority. “I see. That's reasonable.”
“What about you?” Laios asked suddenly. “Which button would you press?”
“Eh?” Kabru blinked helplessly, suddenly put on the spot. In those kinds of hypotheticals, he always envisioned himself as the entity that made everyone else participate in the game of their own design. Naturally, if all of humanity was indeed forced to participate in such an experiment, he would not be excluded from the pool, but somehow that thought had never occurred to him until now. Kabru cleared his throat. “...Blue, obviously. For the same reasons as you.” There was really no other answer he could give at this point. Not that he was ever going to.
Laios' face lit up with a wide smile. “Yeah, see? I knew it! There's no reason not to do it,” he hummed happily, tapping away at the buttons. “Anything else?”
Kabru perked up. “Oh, yes! Um... Let's try something a little different, shall we? As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? Other than a wolf-man, of course,” he added quickly, in a tone of light teasing, poking Laios' cheek. “I'm speaking in terms of occupation.”
“Like, a job? I didn't really think about that kind of stuff as a kid...” Laios said, digging in his ear canal with his pinky finger. Suddenly his face lit up. “Ah, except...! Do you know about Steve Irwin? I used to watch his show all the time. He runs – or, he used to, since he died a while ago – a whole crocodile sanctuary. I've always wanted to have something like that, but for wolves. I mean, crocodiles are also pretty cool. Anyway,” he went on musing, “I guess I've always wanted to be around animals, whether as a zookeeper or a veterinarian or a dog breeder. Anything works, really.” He paused for a moment. “At some point, I wanted to be a soldier. I even signed up for the military after I ran away from school, but I wasn't really fit for combat, so I just kinda hung around in training for a while since I didn't have anything better to do. I quit pretty early on, though.”
“Really? I also wanted to be a soldier in my youth, but I was not allowed to join the army.” Knowing what he knew now, that was definitely for the better, but at the time it frustrated him a fair bit. “I've received some rudimentary training from my mother, though. She was an ex-military.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before turning to Laios with a smile. “What made you want to be a soldier?” he prompted. “The desire to be stronger? To protect others?”
Laios stirred uneasily. “Yeah, I guess that was one of the reasons. Mostly, though, I figured that it would be the easiest way to die without having to do it myself. We read a bunch of books about war at school,” he went on in a matter-of-fact tone, “and I guess that put the idea in my head. It made perfect sense to me at the time.” He sent Kabru a quick glance from the corner of his eye and a painful twitch passed through his face. “Ah, don't worry! I don't want to die anymore, I swear. That was a long time ago, you know?” he assured, putting his hands up for emphasis.
Kabru gave a weak nod. “Yes, I know,” he said softly, burying his face in the crook of Laios' neck. He couldn't put into words the emotions triggered by Laios' confession even if he tried, and he was not going to. He simply held on to him tightly, rubbing his face against his neck.
“I guess that was a bit of a downer, huh? Sorry...” Laios remarked awkwardly. “Anything else?”
Kabru shook his head. “I don't have any more questions at this time,” he said weakly.
Laios gave a thumbs-up. “Okay, cool. Any ideas for the name of our rescue team, by the way? I've got nothing,” he added, scrunching up his eyebrows in deep thought.
The sudden shift nearly made Kabru burst into laughter. “A name for our team? Let me think.” He turned his head slightly to see the screen. “How about a portmanteau of our names?”
“Oh, sure!” Laios sighed with relief. “Laios and Kabru... That would be Labru, then? Or, like, Kabrios or something. That sounds kind of weird, though.”
Kabru's brain tingled, just as it did before at the mention of a dungeon. “Labru, I would think. It rolls off the tongue easily.”