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“Hey,” Laios prompted suddenly, looking up at Kabru, “do you wanna watch a movie? I've got a bunch of them on my computer. I've seen most of them, and the ones I haven't should still be pretty good, from what I've heard. I'll let you choose whatever movie you like,” he offered, tapping his fingers excitedly, “and I guess we can figure out what we wanna watch next week while we're at it, too. If you'd rather do something else, that's fine too, though,” he clarified, raising his hand defensively, his brows slightly furrowed, and added in a soft voice, sheepishly lowering his head and twiddling his thumbs as he spoke: “I just thought it might be fun.”
Kabru regarded him with a curious twinkle in his eye, stroking his bottom lip with his index finger. Despite his best efforts to sound nonchalant, it was pretty obvious just how excited he was about the idea, and how desperately he was hoping for Kabru to agree to it. Perhaps there was a particular movie he wanted to watch together with him – or multiple movies, presumably, if his collection really was as impressive as he made it out to be. Either way, Kabru was really curious to see it. Judging by what he knew about Laios' taste in media, he was expecting to see a large selection of monster movies, particularly kaiju, along with animated features that had some thematic relevance to his interests, mostly those featuring anthropomorphic animals, and possibly some horror and sci-fi movies that, while they couldn't strictly be considered monster movies, were certainly adjacent to the genre, such as alien invasion narratives. While he wasn't expecting to see much in the way of romance, it wasn't entirely out of the question, he supposed, so long as it featured a very particular dynamic – human and monster romance, that is – but he wasn't exactly familiar with the particular niche and couldn't begin to guess how prominent it was. Well, he was about to find out. Kabru gave a nod. “That does sound pretty fun. I'm in,” he said softly, sending Laios a smile.
“Awesome,” Laios said, breathing out a sigh of relief. He sat down at the desk and pressed the power button on his computer. He had to do it a couple of times before the computer finally turned on, coming to life with a quiet buzzing that resembled the purring of a cat. Kabru came up behind him, wrapping his arms around Laios' neck, and peered over his shoulder at the screen. Some text flashed on screen for a couple of seconds before being replaced by a loading bar, and finally, after about half a minute, a log-in screen. Laios clicked the profile icon and typed in his password (unfortunately far too quickly for Kabru to note it down, though it should not be particularly difficult to figure out with a bit of guesswork), which prompted another loading screen to pop up before they were finally treated to the sight of his desktop, sporting a background featuring a particularly cool (in Laios' perception, certainly) still of Godzilla, with various icons carefully placed around it so as not to cover the picture. Laios clicked on one of the icons, which opened a folder of documents. He navigated through multiple tabs which eventually led him to a folder simply labelled 'MOVIES'. He double-clicked on the folder to open it and got up from his seat, turning to Kabru. “I'm gonna go grab some snacks real quick. Feel free to look through the folder while I'm gone. Do you like popcorn?” Kabru gave a reluctant nod. Laios nodded his head. “Cool. We should still have some in the pantry, I think. For some reason I can never get the timing exactly right,” he went on, scratching the back of his neck. “Some of it always ends up burnt, and some of the kernels don't pop at all, but I mean, most of it should be edible. I guess that's just how it is with popcorn.” Having caught a glimpse of Kabru's expression, he furrowed his brow. “Or I could look for something else instead! Maybe we've got chips or something…”
“Oh, don't mind me! To be honest, I don't usually eat while watching movies,” Kabru admitted, taking a seat at the desk. Whenever he watched movies, he would end up being far too invested in the action to pay attention to his bodily needs – which typically forced him to rush to the bathroom as soon as the credits began to roll “Just bring whatever snacks you'd like, really. I promise that I'm not going to start without you,” he added, sending Laios a playful wink.
Once Laios left, Kabru turned his attention to the screen, knitting his eyebrows in deep focus. Laios' computer was quite different from Kabru's own laptop – it was not a laptop, for one, but a personal computer, and seemingly quite an old one at that; presumably Laios couldn't afford anything better and settled for whatever was available. He'd mentioned that his bicycle had been assembled from parts he scavenged from various sources, and this computer may well have been a similar affair. Assuming that Laios did it all himself, the results were actually quite impressive, considering that the computer seemed to be perfectly functional. That aside, while the main purpose of Kabru's laptop was research, whether academic or interpersonal, Laios seemed to mostly use his computer for various kinds of entertainment. He'd mentioned his interest in video games, and there was indeed a box full of CDs on his desk, each labelled with the name of the game written in big bold letters, and evidently he'd dedicated a lot of effort to maintaining his movie collection, too.
The contents just about matched Kabru's expectations. Laios' movie folder contained several smaller folders, sorted thematically. The biggest amongst them was the one dedicated to kaiju movies, of course, including many that, as far as Kabru could tell, never received official release outside of Japan, which prompted the question of how Laios may have acquired them. A bootleg release, presumably, but those were typically quite difficult to find. Kabru made a mental note to ask about it once Laios returned. Next was a massive folder dedicated to animated movies, further sorted according to the studio that created them or the franchise they were associated with. One of the individual folders contained a selection of features plucked from Disney's catalogue, including Robin Hood (Kabru suspected that that movie had a notable impact on Laios' taste) and Winnie-the-Pooh, Brother Bear and Jungle Book and Bambi, Monsters Inc. and Toy Story, and, significantly, Beauty and the Beast, which stood out amongst the rest by virtue of being the only romance-focused story (as far as Kabru could tell, at least; his only exposure to cartoons came from Milsiril, who would insist that he should join her and proceed to cry the entire time, which made the experience quite unpleasant). The works of Don Bluth and Studio Ghibli received their own dedicated folders. Another one contained all manner of Pokemon-related media, which was a little overwhelming to sift through. What fascinated Kabru most was a collection of cartoons that seemed to originate from Laios' country of birth – perhaps ones he used to watch as a child. That seemed like something worth delving into at some point.
Somewhat predictably, Laios seemed to have every existing werewolf movie in his collection, seemingly ranked according to his preference for their depictions of wolf-men – yet another thing for Kabru to ask him about later. While his preference for werewolves was extremely obvious, his taste was actually quite diverse, including stories about vampires, aliens and dinosaurs, amongst other things. A lot of the movies in his collection were so obscure that Kabru had never heard of them – then again, he wasn't that knowledgeable about monster movies to begin with. He was quite happy to have spotted the original versions of Frankenstein and Dracula amongst them (one had to wonder if Laios had read the books those movies were based on; Kabru was inclined to think so, in which case he would have liked to hear his thoughts on the differences between them), along with a number of movies he was at least somewhat familiar with despite never having seen them, such as Jurassic Park and Planet of the Apes. Notably, the collection was missing the movie Jaws – perhaps Laios was amongst the people who found its depiction of sharks so inaccurate as to be offensive.
With monster movies and cartoons out of the way, there still remained a few films that did not quite fit in either category, but maintained a thematic connection, whether by way of depicting a sense of alienation from humanity, like Birdy, a movie about a boy who wished that he were a bird, or by depicting a bond between humans and animals, usually dogs, as far as Kabru could tell. He had never seen any of those movies, but he was more or less familiar with the structure they followed. They could potentially be quite heartwarming, even a little sappy, which created an interesting contrast with the harrowing monster movies that made up most of his collection. Symbolically, this was an expression of Laios' yearning for connection, as well as his undying optimism. More than anything, though, it stemmed from his love for dogs, which was precious in its own way. While he typically pictured himself as a feral wolf, he actually had way more in common with a pet dog – though he likely would have been disappointed to hear that.
The crease between Kabru's eyebrows grew as he continued to endlessly scroll through the folders. How was he supposed to choose which of the movies they should watch? He had only seen a handful of them, and most of the others he was only vaguely familiar with, if at all. He could always choose at random, but that didn't seem like a good idea. He could also leave the decision up to Laios, but he would admit defeat by doing that. Perhaps he would have an easier time trying to guess what Laios would have liked to show him the most. On the face of it, the answer seemed pretty obvious: the Godzilla movies. Laios was a massive Godzilla fan, and he spoke of the movies very enthusiastically. That didn't necessarily mean that they would have been his first choice for a movie night, though. Given how much those movies seemed to mean to him, he may have wanted to make sure that Kabru would be able to adequately appreciate them first, in which case he would have to put him to the test by showing him something that he did not have such strong feelings about. Well, then, what would that be? Something that he liked well enough to want to watch it again, but not so much that he would be nervous about sharing it with Kabru? Hm...
By the time Laios came back with a bowl of (miraculously unburnt) popcorn and a huge bottle of soda, Kabru hadn't made any progress on solving his problem, staring intently at the screen as he continued to desperately cycle through the folders, unable to make up his mind. Laios set the bowl and the bottle down on the desk and gestured for Kabru to get up from the chair so that he could sit down. Once he settled into his seat, he began to tug on Kabru's sleeve, urging him to sit down. After a moment of hesitation, Kabru sat in his lap. Laios wrapped his arms around him and rested his chin atop his head.“So? What's up? See anything you like?” he asked, grabbing a handful of popcorn.
The corner of Kabru's mouth twitched. “Oh, yes! You've got quite the impressive collection. How did you manage to assemble it? From what I understand, some of those movies are quite rare.”
Laios gave a smug grin. “Hehe! That's a secret,” he said mysteriously, tapping the side of his nose with his index finger as he sent Kabru a wink. “Let's just say I've got my ways. Honestly, it's not even that hard to pull off. Once you know where to look, you can find whatever you want pretty easily. You just gotta be careful with what you're clicking so that you don't get a virus, but that's about it. If you really wanna know how it works, then maybe I could show you later.”
“I would be much obliged,” Kabru said, giving a slight nod. “Indeed, I would have been worried about accidentally infecting my computer with a virus. I'm glad to know that you've avoided it.”
“Oh, I mean, it happened to me a couple of times,” Laios said nonchalantly, “but only in the beginning. Now I know what to look out for, though, so I'm not gonna fall for it again.” His voice was firm and filled with determination. Perhaps somebody accused him of being careless in the past and he wanted to prove them wrong. Given his tendency to get himself in trouble due to putting too much trust in other people, perhaps it wasn't entirely unwarranted, but Kabru could certainly understand his frustration with being perceived as naive. “You know,” Laios prompted, pinching a piece of popcorn between his fingers, “I don't really understand why people do that kind of thing. Making viruses, I mean. I guess if I made a programme I'd wanna see what it does, but if it turned out that I messed it up, I wouldn't want anybody else to have to deal with it. That would feel really bad. Ah, but I guess the virus is doing what it's supposed to...” he murmured, stroking his chin. “Still, though! It's not like they get anything out of it, right? It's just annoying. I don't get it.” He sighed. “Maybe I'm just thinking about it all wrong. Oh, well. Anyway,” he added, popping the popcorn in his mouth, “we were talking about the movies. So, what's up? Did you figure out what you wanna watch? No, right? That's fine, I get it. It's hard to choose when you've got so many options to choose from. It might be easier if we do it together.”
“Right!” Kabru sighed, grateful for that remark. “That is exactly what I was going to propose. Out of curiosity, which one of the movies would you consider to be your absolute favourite? I fully trust your judgement. After all, you're much more familiar with these movies than I am.”
“Eh? My favourite?” Laios stroked his chin and crinkled his eyebrows, creating a crease in the middle of his forehead as a manifestation of deep thought. Kabru always found this particular expression very charming – it made Laios look quite like a statue of an ancient thinker, but slightly more intense. Finally he shook his head, heaving a sigh. “Man, that's hard! There are just so many good ones, you know? I can't even choose my favourite kaiju movie. Whenever I try, I end up changing my mind again. I mean, can you blame me? Obviously the original Godzilla is a classic, but the others are great too. If I had to choose...” He pondered for a moment, and shook his head again. “Nah, I can't do it. I mean, I guess I could tell you about the stuff I watched recently that I remember liking. The Iron Giant was awesome, though it made me pretty sad. I went to see Rattatouille with Falin last year and that was pretty good, too. What else...”
“No, no, that's fine!” Kabru interjected, reaching up to ruffle his hair. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put you on the spot like that.” He looked at the screen again, stroking his bottom lip with his index finger. “I assume you've watched many of these movies with your sister.”
“Oh, yeah!” Laios nodded eagerly. “Yeah, most of them, I'd say. You know, when we were little, we had a really crappy TV, since that was the best we could get at the time. It only had a couple of channels, and the antenna didn't always work, but it was better than nothing. When we didn't have anything better to do, we would watch whatever was on, and some of that stuff was pretty good. I've been trying to track everything down, actually, but it's pretty hard when you don't know any of the titles and you only barely remember what happened in them. Falin can't really help me with that, since she was so little that she remembers even less than I do. Anyway, we got a VHS player at some point, but we only had a few tapes that we could play on it. One of them was Godzilla,” he said with unmistakable fondness, his face lighting up with a smile. “Obviously, I don't have the tapes anymore, though. When we moved here, we managed to find a place where you could borrow DVDs to watch for pretty cheap, so that's what we'd do. We figured out how to rip them off the disc,” he added with a hint of pride, “so that we could keep watching them after we returned the DVD. That's how I got some of these, actually,” he explained, nodding towards the screen. “Most of them I just got from the internet, though.” He shifted slightly in his seat, wrapping his arms around Kabru's waist. “Oh yeah, Marcille invited us over a couple of times so that we could watch movies on her TV. Honestly, most of them weren't really that good,” he opined, scoffing “They had way too many characters. I couldn't keep track of them at all. The one I ended up liking the most was Beauty and the Beast, I think. The ending was pretty disappointing, though.”
Kabru's eyes twinkled. “Ah! I noticed the movie in your collection and was wondering how it came to be there, given that it did not fit your usual style. Knowing that you were introduced to it through Miss Marcille certainly explains a lot, though,” he murmured, stroking his chin. “What did you not like about the ending? I don't quite know what you're referring to,” he enquired.
Laios furrowed his brow. “Are you sure that you want me to spoil it? We could just watch the movie right now so you could see it for yourself. Then again, I guess everybody knows how that story ends, right? Obviously the beast is gonna turn back into a human. I don't need to tell you that. That's what they always do, as if being turned into a beast is the worst thing that could happen to you,” he scoffed. “But, I mean, I get that not everybody wants that. That's not really what bothers me. I mean, it kind of is, but there's more to it than that. It's predictable and kind of lame, but it's not like I expected anything else,” he complained, pursing his lips in disapproval. Kabru stifled laughter, hiding his smile behind his hand. There was something very endearing about Laios in the role of a movie critic. “The thing is, if you're going to make a big deal out of turning the beast back into a human, you should at least be able to convince me that he's better off this way, right? Otherwise you're just gonna make it seem like it would've been better for him to stay the way he was. Which, I mean, that's what I was going to think anyway, but,” he went on rambling, “the point is that they made his human form really lame. You couldn't even tell that it was the same guy. He wasn't even hairy! What's the point!” he complained, throwing his hands up. Kabru snorted into his hand. Laios huffed. “I think our version of that story would have been way better, that's all.”
Kabru's ears perked at that. “Our version...?”
“Yeah! I mean, it kind of fits, doesn't it? Just think about it,” Laios said, wagging his index finger. “Obviously, I would be the beast in this scenario. If I had to choose, I'd be a wolf-man, but I wouldn't mind looking like the beast in the movie. I don't have a castle or servants, but that's not really important. The point is that I got cursed somehow and people don't want to hang out with me, so I've been alone for as long as I can remember. It's very lonely, but I got used to it. That's where you come in!” he said excitedly, pointing at Kabru's chest. “You're, like, the smartest and most beautiful guy in all of the land, and you have the kindest heart, too. You managed to find my hiding place somehow, and for some reason you're not scared of me at all. Probably because of your kind heart.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I guess you don't mind that I'm a beast. At first you thought that I'd rather be human, but when I told you that I like being a wolf-man, you understood me. You like me just the way I am. And maybe when other people see us hanging out, it will make them think that maybe it's fine for me to be that way. So, thanks to you, I'm not alone anymore, and I don't have to hide because nobody's going to hurt me. The curse is broken. Obviously, I'm gonna stay in my beast form,” he clarified, “but I guess I can turn into a human if I really want to. A more hairy version of myself, because of the wolf-man genes.”
Kabru listened to his story in wide-eyed awe, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to come up with a response, and finally snorted with laughter. Laios certainly had a unique outlook on life. He seemed utterly incapable in engaging with metaphor and allegory, instead taking everything in the most literal way possible. On the other hand, one got the sense that he did pick up on the intended messaging, at least to some extent, and simply applied it in unexpected ways. It certainly made one wonder how he engaged with all the movies that utilised monsters to represent aspects of the human condition, technology or philosophical concepts. Oh, god. What about Godzilla? Did he realise what it was supposed to represent, or did he simply see a misunderstood animal in pain? Kabru rubbed his temples, overwhelmed by the number of thoughts running through his head.
“I see!” he said weakly, scratching behind Laios' ear. “Is that really how you see my role in all of this? I'm very flattered. You're certainly my favourite beast,” he remarked fondly, pulling Laios' face down so that he could kiss his jaw. “My beautiful, beautiful beast,” he added in a soft whisper.