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If Idia knew the whole “being a boyfriend” thing was this EZ, he’d have tried to romance Azul wayyyy sooner. The mechanics to get on the Octavinelle dormleader’s good side came naturally, thanks to years of dating sim training, like saying ‘hi’, giving snacks, unlocking events where he listens to Azul’s problems. It all made the affection progress bar between the two of them rise fast.
Ever since they’ve agreed to date, their regular routine hasn’t changed much, only now they get to hold hands while they do parallel play or work. Azul, the more romantically inclined of the two, even invited Idia to Mostro Lounge after hours, to treat him to a meal to celebrate their three month anniversary. Sure, he made an absolutely crap cake, which he obviously had to tease Azul about, but Idia was happy that things were going well; it was the thought that counts.
Until the threat of exam season reared its ugly head.
Idia stays on top of things, making sure there’s no relationship deprecation between him and Azul, even if it’s one of those days where he can’t be bothered to spend valuable AP to leave his room or when there’s no plans for a meetup, Idia is sure to send Azul a quick text or meme to let him know he hasn’t been melded into his bed for all eternity. Usually, his boyfriend, the label still makes Idia’s hair fluff from giddy heat, is as fast to respond with a like to the message or an actual response.
But Idia messaged Azul yesterday at 11:06AM with an awfully cute photo of two cats snuggled up on a soft bed with one the cat’s paws stretched out, pushing the other’s face, but both are still blissfully asleep, and tacked on a ‘me n u’ to the photo. Anxiety broils in Idia from taking the plunge in attempting to add corny acts of affection to his and Azul’s relationship.
That nervousness then boils over into a stomach ache as the small notification at the bottom of the sent text changes to ‘seen’ at 11:49AM. No response. Azul isn’t usually AFK…
He is in a near catatonic state as the hours pass and that notification changes to ‘seen yesterday’ .
And he is completely okay! He is fine, fine! He’s cool! He’s fine!
…
“Idia, I’ve looked up if there’s been any cases of ‘dying because my boyfriend won’t respond to my text’ , and there’s been no such recorded findings on anything like that happening.”
“Then I’ll be the medical world’s latest installment in weird deaths.” Idia’s voice is slightly muffled as he talks into his phone. He hasn’t bothered to change out of his pajamas and kept the lights low to match his mood. At least his room isn’t looking as much of a mess as he is. Idia’s head is mostly buried in his pillow as he wallows in his thoughts, trying to playback and see what he said or did to make Azul ignore him.
Worse, his emotional support system, Ortho, is out to help set up the scenery for a new production with the Film Research Club. Guessing by the sounds of people yelling out orders, stomping of feet moving back and forth, doors slamming, and shuffling of props on the other end of the phone, his little brother will be away for the rest of the day.
One of the club members yells over to Ortho, prompting him to put up a projection to guide the background artists, and the android multitasks by asking, “Perhaps Azul Ashengrotto is simply busy? Have you tried calling him?”
“...Ortho did you glitch and forget who you were talking to for a sec?”
Internal fans whirl as a sigh, “No, I am not glitching. But I can gather a better prediction on what course of action to take whether or not you called, especially since you forbade any hacking into Octavinelle. That greatly reduces any data points to account for.”
“Well, YEAH, I’m not going to do any hacking and I’m def not going to start calling him! Then I’d be one of those clingy meathead bfs that stalk their partner like combing through socmeds and keeping tabs on everyone they know just because he’s insecure!”
“You are insecure.” A cool voice greets Idia, making him peel away from his depression nest in surprise.
Idia pulls his phone away to double check that he’s on the line with Ortho and didn’t somehow dial in Vil’s, “Whuh?! Vil? How’d you get on this line?”
“Vil Schoenheit has his head pressed against the side of mine to join the phone call.” Ortho responds on behalf of the model.
One of the blond’s long, well-manicured nails taps on Ortho’s receiver, “I overheard everything this little spudling was chit-chatting about instead of focusing on setting preparations,” a quiet ‘sorry’ comes from Ortho as Vil continues, “I suppose Idia is having boy trouble?”
Yeesh . Hearing his own name used in the same sentence as ‘boy trouble’ is too embarrassing!
A soft grunt of exertion and Ortho laughing implies that the Vil Scheonheit has picked up his little brother, balancing him on one hip, and talking against the android’s head like a cell phone. If there wasn’t the chilling knowledge that Vil can lift a megaton of metal like Ortho, the idea of his baby bro being treated with such affectionate familiarity would’ve made Idia proud, but ‘secretly OP strength in heels’ canceled that out that feeling of warmth.
“Now, my fellow dormleader, I suggest you stop bothering my set designer and either you solve your own problem and go see your little boyfriend yourself or ,” Vil’s voice drops low, “ I will fix the problem.” Vil has Ortho hang up, and the room is deadly quiet.
Idia freezes, scenarios of whatever could entail from a threat like that from a person like Vil flash in his mind. It’d probably be something menacing like, excessive amounts of perfume with a widespread AoE, toe-pinching shoes, and other venomous attacks that would weaken Ignihyde with severe DPS. He can’t risk putting any of his dormmates in the line of fire. Plus, a few of his dorm members could end up fodder if Vil attempts to raid Ignihyde, and Idia doesn’t want that to impede on his team’s success rate with the next planned campaign with Muscle Red if it comes to that.
He looks about the organized disaster of a room and concocts a battle plan.
Fine. If I can manage to land a relationship despite being a NEET then making the effort to maintain it can’t be that hard. A genius like me can totally do it.
Operation: Drop-In Visit , is a GO .
… After taking several side quests involving cleaning his room, tackling much needed cable management, organizing files, and doing his gacha dailies, aaaaand NOW he’s ready to prep for the main storyline mission!
+3 Stealth! (Black sunglasses and medical mask disguise equipped)
+2 Confidence! (Favorite Premo t-shirt equipped)
+5 Charisma! (Removed previous boosts to take a shower, used a nice smelling body lotion, and re-equipped boosts)
Even with his armor equipped, the journey from his room to the exit of the dorm is perilous, but Idia has mastered the art of ‘don’t look at me, don’t look at me, don’t look at me’ that all homebodies must learn. With calculated tiptoeing, pressing against the walls at the slightest noise, and half-running past open doorways, there’s no way anyone is going to notice his escape from the trenches of the bright, chromatic halls of Ignihyde! The pristine white pillars add plenty of blindspots from line of vision from fellow dormmates, who could risk catching Idia and having to restart with a ‘Game Over’ . Or worse. Someone catches sight of him leaving his room and becoming a topic of gossip! Like, ‘Why’s that guy being sneaky?’ or ‘Man, that guy is weird.’ or ‘Why’s his hair so blue?’ or- No, focus! His thoughts might get too loud, not even the slight squeak from his sneakers against the polished floors can give him away!
So close now… The trek to his dorm’s mirror is so far but it’s only a few steps between his mirror and Octavinelle’s… The internal espionage soundtrack is reaching a crescendo! Almost, aaaand, Escape Successful ! He’s out of the mirror, now to-
A soft oof stops him from going forward with a small obstacle wearing the deep blue of Ignihyde blocking the path.
Nooooooooooo. He groans internally.
Oh sevens, trapped in an awkward sidestepping where you’re trying to let the other person move around you but now you both are sidestepping so you’re still blocking each other! Can this day get any worse?!
The Ignihyde member finally stops to pause and look at the person they’re blocking, a moment of realization crosses their face, “Hi Idia! You’re leaving just now?” A smile beams from his underclassman.
Ugh, ew. Small talk too?! Read the room and figure out I don’t want anyone to talk to me!
Luckily, they seem to have their own agenda and let Idia pass, “Cool! It’s real nice outside, have a good time out!”
MISSION: FAILED… Successfully?
The more friendly freshmen waves goodbye eagerly, like a noob in a gaming lobby. That Dark Mirror needs to start doing thorough personality screenings before placing students. How did this bubbly person that greets people as easily as breathing managed to settle for gloomy Ignihyde?
Once the interruption returned back through the mirror, Idia let out a frustrated sigh that echoed back to him in the Mirror Hall.
Welp. Game is thrown. A passable win to progress in the main story but the misstep hurts the perfect run. GG.
Idia’s been to Mostro Lounge a few times, it comes with the privilege of dating Azul. The sophomore is accommodating enough to sequester a small table in a corner, with less noise and distracting visuals. People chatting quietly, with soft jazz piped into the room, and the bubbling from the floor to ceiling aquariums makes it the greatest white noise environment to hyperfocus on coding. Well, besides his own room filled with all the comforts an introvert could ever need and his noise-canceling headphones, but Idia has to admit getting a fresh meal by doing his work here is a nice perk.
He’s seen the bistro busy before, which in the past has had him do a complete 180 and an apology text to Azul that he can’t go in. But Idia has never seen the Lounge full like this. Packed like a can of sardines would be an understatement. If this amount of people tried to get online it’d crash the servers for hours and hours, making people miss out on first log-in bonuses for an event.
Dozens of Night Raven students wait in line to get a reservation, and even more are crowded into tables waiting on their orders. Poor unfortunate Octavinelle students run from table to kitchen to host desk and everywhere in between, with slips of paper in their hands. Whether it’s cash, order slips, or something else, Idia can’t tell. What he does know is that he might have an inkling on what's been keeping Azul.
He doesn’t really have to go in and check on Azul, right? He’ll just shoot another text and head back to his room, and pretend he was never here! There are too many people, and Azul is probably busy and can’t step away to see Idia anyways. It’d be easy, just one foot in front of the other, and- his phone vibrates.
(1 New Message from Ortho)
“I see you are at Mostro Lounge! I’m so happy you are taking the initiative! Since it’s the weekend, Ace Trappola has invited me and the other freshmen to have a sleepover at Ramshackle tonight. I’ll see you later!”
Nooo, don’t go having a social life while I’m trapped here!
Idia dips behind a large potted plant in the restaurant’s waiting area when more students enter. There’s no other choice. Ortho is now expecting him to follow through, and he better take this chaos as a blessing as Idia spots teal hair with a stripe of black on the side across the room, the living embodiment of a Leeroy could jeopardize the entire mission.
Floyd is too occupied to pay any mind to the upperclassman as he sneaks towards the back, the eel grinding his razor sharp teeth in an agitated grimace, a hair’s breadth away from throttling a customer that is upset about his order being delayed. RIP rando NPC . The opening is slim, but he can manage a QTE like this! The beacon that could call enemies, blue flaming hair, is tucked fully into this hoodie, pulled up tight, and the floors of the restaurant are spik and span. His strat is flawless, no need to get icked out over dirty floors as he crawls on hands and knees deeper in to reach the back of the house towards Azul’s office!
Until polished shoes suddenly block his path, pointed neatly in first position, and Idia’s eyes travel up long, long legs to white gloves folded politely in front, and then up further to meet a smile that doesn’t quite reach the devious heterochromatic eyes of one Jade Leech.
“Oh? Did a stowaway come in with the evening delivery?” His teasing voice asks, and his sharp grin widens as he watches Idia try to scurry backwards away from the arguably more dangerous of the twins.
Idia stammers, “W-well- I was just- You know- AROUND , and I um, uh-”
Crud, what is with this guy and his stare?! I feel like I’ve been turned to stone with just a glance from him!
Jade is stronger than he looks, as he lifts Idia up from under his arms, and the junior has no choice but to release his stiff crawling pose into a standing position, “You may have some privileges here, but dear Ignihyde dormleader, even you know that you must make an appointment before interrupting Azul.” One of his gloved hands dusts imaginary dirt off the terrified upperclassman’s shoulder, as if to remind Idia with the casual gesture how easily he could be… removed.
“I mean, um, I thought I should come in person. Azul hasn’t been texting, s-so I was getting worried.” Idia’s voice is small, but Jade picks it up fine.
“Yes, Azul hasn’t been dividing his time evenly, has he?”
Uuuugh, what’s worse? His stare or how all his questions sound rhetorical?!
No, wait! Maybe he’s got this all wrong! In this scenario, he, acting as the lead girl in a shoujo romance, is face-to-face with the childhood best friend of the LI, who still has feelings for them but has to decide between their own feelings or the feelings of the beloved! Is that why I’m being blocked?
A hand guides Idia towards the office door, as if he had a choice with the evil force next to him not so subtly pushing him, “Then with your privileges, and being such a willing volunteer to check on him, I believe you would be the best choice to fix Azul’s work-life balancing issue,” and Jade creaks the door open and moves over to allow Idia to peek in.
Expecting something awful, Idia hesitates but squints to brace what he may face, and-
It wasn’t that bad.
Papers are stacked neatly on every flat surface, all color coordinated with different textbooks tabulated for certain sections and varying from each grade level, and sitting next to even larger corresponding paper piles. Judging by the scratching of a pen coming from behind the desk, Azul is still working hard to make more lesson plans.
“ Yikes .” Is all Idia can say to the sight. He forgot that Azul recently implemented that new study service through Mostro Lounge purchases, at the time he was more concerned with absolutely decimating him in checkers when the octomer mentioned it during a Board Game Club meeting a few weeks ago. The amount of personalized studying, ordering supplies to keep up with restaurant demands, plus his own studies and interests must be making him feel like he’s drowning. No merperson pun/offense intended.
“My sentiments exactly, which is why I am so grateful that you decided to come by.” A strong grip takes hold of the previously dusted shoulder and a little eep escapes Idia, “With exams fast approaching, Azul’s one-on-one study sessions with his punch card program have gotten the best of him I’m afraid. My brother and I truly hate to see our dear old friend under such pressure, you know.”
So it is a childhood-best-friend-looking-out-for-their-darling-by-letting-their-friend’s-partner-come-save-the-day scenario!
Jade tails after that statement with a squeeze to the shoulder which Idia swears creaked under the force, “It’s our job to stress him out, not other people.”
Bzzt. Wrong again, Idia.
“I suggest you correct this and fulfill your agreement as his partner and aid him.” With that, Jade all but shoves Idia into the room.
Was going to do that anyway, so two threats in one day wasn’t necessary.
What went from being a quick completion quest ended up being a rescue mission. A tired voice calls out from behind the growing mountain of papers, “I’m not sure how you got past the doorman, but all sessions are closed for the week. They’ll reopen on Monday, please write your name on the waitlist.” Azul stifles a yawn as he continues to work.
“Um,” it takes some careful shuffling past, but Idia manages to get to the other side of the room without toppling anything over, and finds Azul still focused and ignoring his guest. Idia clears his throat, “it’s me?”
Azul irritated, sets his pen down before he turns to see familiar blue hair, and Idia’s heart skips a beat as his boyfriend’s expression quickly shifts to a happy smile, “Idia! What are you doing here?” Then gray eyes widened, “I didn’t forget about a date, did I?!” The silver haired sophomore opens a drawer and hurriedly digs through to pull out his planner, “I’m sorry, this isn’t like me! You know how meticulous I am about pencilling in my appointments and dates, I’ll make it up to you, just let me flip though my schedule.”
Oh boy, strike out what he said before, it really is worse than he thought. Azul is more than capable of handling large workloads but even one-track-mind Idia can recognize an impending trainwreck about to happen when he sees it.
“Uh, nope. We didn’t have a date today. You didn’t respond to my text, so I got a bit worried and um,” shyness overtakes Idia, and he looks away, rocking on his feet bashfully, “decided to drop in and check on you.”
Azul stops flipping through planner pages and sighs before giving Idia a tired smile, “That’s quite thoughtful of you, thank you. I apologize for not responding, I’ll be sure to be more prompt in the future.” Idia happily moves back, expecting Azul to get up and quit work for the day, but to his surprise the merperson turns back to the paper and begins anew, “I’m fine now, thank you for stopping in. This two minute break was very helpful. Just text me and we can try and schedule a date sometime soon.” Azul all but waves him off as he continues to write.
Geez, he doesn’t make things easy.
What now? There’s no new options for a dialog tree, does he just… go? That doesn’t sound like the right choice, especially with how much effort it took to get over to the VIP room. He can’t even take a seat on one of the black plush couches to hang out to do some quick level grinding and wait for Azul to finish up with all the personal study plans littering the top of them.
Idia starts to type out a message to the hint helpline, Ortho, to ask what to do next, when a banner notification comes up.
‘Pre-Order Download Complete! Play Sun Holler Now!’
…That’s it!
“Aaaactually, I did come by to ask if you could do something with me.” Trying to act casual, Idia leans one hand on the desk, forcing Azul to put his attention back onto his boyfriend when said hand slips on a paper and makes Idia have to readjust, “Do you want to come to my room, and I can help you destress?”
Azul pauses, then rests a fist on his chin, “And how would you help me destress?” He asks with a smirk.
…Wait. Pink tinges his peripherals as Idia’s hair shows his embarrassment, “N-NOT like anything weird! There’s this game that came out today, and it's been highly anticipated! And it’s best played in co-op to max progress to 100% it fast and I thought that as my ace board game club teammate you’d be the best choice to be my partner for a run!” Idia flusters.
Which is only half true. Idia had planned to spend the weekend doing a 100% solo speedrun of Sun Holler : Master Farmer Edition holed up in his room, maybe even doing a challenge without a guide or QoL mods, but after seeing Azul like this he knew he had to get him away before he overexerted himself. What better way to solve burnout by switching to something new! And if there’s anything he knows about relationships after watching his parents, it’s that compromise and putting your partner first sometimes is the best action plan. Whether it is deciding between spending time at Grandma DeeDee’s or at home in S.T.Y.X., it’s all about making sure your partner (usually Mama) is happy.
Ever the skeptic, Azul folds his arms and asks, “How would playing a game help me destress? Whenever I watch you play a video game with other people, you are usually yelling and agitated.”
Ok, fair assumption.
“No, no, this is different! It’s a cozy game!”
“Cozy game.” Azul repeats, eyebrow quirked questioningly.
“Yeah, you know, warm sweaters, earth tones, easily marketable to 20-somethings that hate their corporate job, cozy games! Really different from strategy games like chess, but it has got strat, role-playing, luck-based, everything!”
Azul doesn’t seem sold on it; he glances back at the paperwork awaiting him. If he doesn’t pick up the sophore’s attention quickly, Idia can expect to never see his boyfriend again! …Or at least until exams are over. Quick! How does Ortho always get what he wants?!
Idia may not have big gold puppydog eyes or a cutesy voice like his brother to aid him, but if he knows Azul, he knows one way to get such a serious guy to notice him.
And it’s not from the noise of the joints in his knees cracking and popping as he lowers himself to eye level to Azul, not necessarily groveling but pleading enough to have Azul side eye him behind his glasses, “Listen, it’ll be a short break, one hour. Tops. If you hate it, then at least you got to give your brain a break and spend time with me.” Azul thinks it over, he has to make one last push! “Aaaand I’ll be - only a little bit! - In your debt?” Idia tacks on with an unsure grin.
That gets him.
Azul stands from his chair and grabs his long gray uniform jacket, ready to leave, “Fine. One hour, then I need to go back to finishing these study guides.”
Idia boots up his computer and hands his spare handheld console to Azul, “Ok, so first we get to make our character then we can name what our shared farm will be.”
“Farm? Why are we at a farm?” Azul asks from the beanbag chair that slowly engulfed him.
Earlier, Idia zoomed around his room once the two of them snuck back to Ignihyde, grateful he had the hindsight to tidy up before, and worked to get everything setup for the ultimate co-op cozy gaming session/impromptu date.
Non-flame battery powered tealight candles for atmosphere? Check.
Stockpile of snacks, both sweet and savory? Check.
Tea kept on a warmer? Check.
Opening the pre-order exclusive slime-themed Sun Holler collector’s beanbag chair and watching it magically expand out of the vacuum-sealed shipping box? Check.
Important! Lending Azul a spare hoodie for maximum comfy vibes? (Cute.) Check!
“Cozy games are pretty much seven times out of ten a farming simulator.” He clarifies, and watches Azul roll up the too-big sleeves of Idia’s hoodie as he tries to figure out the best position to play in.
Cute! Masterful play, me!
The silver haired boy gives him an incredulous glance, “Farms. The one place that is well known to be high stress and takes hours of strenuous physical labor and work to succeed is seen as ‘cozy’?”
“Yeah, I never said these games are realistic, especially this game series. It all takes place in a valley, or holler as they call it, with a little failing town in the middle of nowhere surrounded by mountains and there’s lots of real and made up magical creatures and stuff. Basically, the goal is to create a successful farm with all the fixings, collect and donate items, save the land, be best buddies with everyone, and all that unrealistic stuff.”
“I suppose that makes sense, I’m not sure where the relaxing aspect comes in.” A yes/no prompt comes on Azul’s screen, asking to ok the farm name ‘AshenShroud’ . Blushing slightly, he accepts.
“It’s from all the repetitive actions you have to take in-game, like caring for crops and animals, plus the mini games like fishing.” Idia looks over at Azul’s screen and stops him before he can proceed further, “Wait, let me choose the pet we’re going to share!”
“Go right ahead. I suppose you’re going to choose a cat and name him something uninspired like ‘Whiskers’?” Azul teases.
“Hey, I’m good at giving names!”
“Prove it, choose a different name.” Satisfied with the customization for his character, Azul waits, and a small pop-up appears in the corner, “... ’Fluffy’ is your best try at a name?”
Idia ignores the playful jab as he watches the starting animation and enjoys the nostalgia of the music and simplistic pixelated designs, “Alright, so we get the classic opening intro, story of how we got here, the iconic meme of grandpa, then we can choose what to say to the mayor.”
Azul nods as he follows along, the crease in his forehead noticeable relaxing as the gentle music plays, and before reading the choices, “There’s an option to attack the mayor?! What kind of game is this…”
After wasting a few minutes with the basics tutorial and making sure Azul had a good feel for the controls, Idia lays out the Day One plan to Azul, “Alright, the best way to do this is to split up tasks, I’ll get started on clearing out and tilling the fields while you do the ‘meet the townies’ quest, pick up forageables, and get turnip seeds from the store.”
His boyfriend gives a non-committal hum in agreement, and Idia watches from his own computer screen as Azul’s character walks off. He pats himself on the back for hacking his console and computer ahead of time so he can cross-platform play all his favorite games wherever and whenever he wants.
More importantly, Idia looks away from his own screen for a moment to watch Azul who is diligently following his half of the tasks and walking around the game’s town, I got my boyfriend to play a game with me and relax! Big W!
Clearing out the overgrown farm, storing away crafting materials from the work, and tilling well-thought-out crop space doesn’t take long for an experienced Sun Holler player like Idia. Day One prep still takes forever and night will fall soon, yet Azul’s character hasn’t returned from his basic chores. Did he get lost? Idia calls over to his partner, “Azul? Where’d you go? I finished cleaning up the farm, we need to get started on growing crops.”
From next to his desk, Azul responds, “I’m in a cave, is there mining in this game?”
Confused, Idia pulls up his game map, and notices Azul’s marker far away from the town, “Wut. They open the caves early in this installment? How did you manage to wander over there?”
“I was exploring and trying to find more characters to introduce myself to and found a large hole in the mountains. I think there is something down here, I keep seeing some dark figures on the screen.”
Idia’s eyes widened, “Oh crap, did a character give you a sword before you went further in? I’m coming over to get you out of there.”
Gahhh, if only the horse wasn’t unlocked until after week one! Running takes forever!
“Sword?! No, I didn’t get a sword! Why would there be swords in a farming game? …Why does my character have a health bar?”
“Ohhhh no. Get out of the caves!”
Small noises come from the handheld console, “WHY AM I TAKING DAMAGE?!”
Idia boots up his computer again, “Maybe doing this hard reset will give us a better drop rate for more forageables, it’s better to restart instead of starting on a bad Day One anyways.”
“At what point does this game, which has a possibility that you can pass out in a dark cave due to being attacked by monsters, become ‘relaxing’ ?” Azul sinks deeper into the beanbag, clearly beating himself up over the misstep.
Idia had to hold back laughing at Azul’s frustrated ‘GAHHHHHH’ , earlier when his character inevitably ‘died’. As much as he wants to poke fun at his boyfriend’s skill issue, he hasn’t forgotten the main mission to help Azul try and take a good break away from working.
“It will be fun, I promise! It was just a tiny reset, I’m just going to babysit you a little,” Azul gives a displeased moan at the prospect of being ‘babysat’, “at least until you get the mechanics down! Every noobie starts somewhere. Just do what I do then we can split up and do more the next day in the game.”
The second run goes much smoother thanks to Idia’s ‘babysitting’, and the two of them manage to not only prepare their farmland in good time, but with plenty of stamina left over from sharing the workload. With that, Idia was able to have enough time to introduce the fishing mini game to Azul, who picked up the gameplay easily and, to Idia’s surprise, reached the next fishing skill level before him. With everything shipped out, the two set their character’s to bed and saved their progress.
Idia watches the transition to next day animation before turning to Azul, “See? It was fun right?”
“I can understand the appeal, but that reset we had at the start took up my allotted hour so we didn’t make much progress.” It takes a lot of effort to be released from the beanbag chair, but Azul manages and hands Idia’s console back, “Thank you for having me over, I need to get going now.”
Man, that early reboot really did get Azul tilted. Idia hides his disappointment, “Oh. Yeah, sure. Text me later then.”
He can’t say he didn’t try. At least he got his boyfriend to take a break, and that’s what he set out to do, and managed to complete. Still. Would’ve been nice to have something to share like playing a co-op video game together.
Azul began to take off the well-worn hoodie to return it back to Idia, “I will, goodn- what’s that?” The unmistakable sounds of coins being tallied cuts off Azul’s thoughts, and he leans into Idia’s space as he watches the computer screen start calculating.
“It’s our profits from today, all that fishing we squeezed in really paid off. We can probably afford a new plot of land by the end of the season if we kept that up.” Idia explains.
“ Plot of land? ” Azul is excited as he looks at the overall profits roll in.
Idia doesn’t notice his boyfriend’s eyes gleaming as he goes into infodump mode, “There’s tons of plots to help expand the farm, then there’s all the upgrades and hired help from the sprites to maximize time. Since this game is the master farmer edition they have everything from old games in one to make the ultimate farm. We could probably unlock the resort by the end of the winter season since we’re splitting all the work.”
“Resort?!” Azul exclaims, and Idia finally notices that now Sun Holler has piqued Azul’s interest.
Idia hums, a scheming grin spreads on his face, “Buuuuuut, you really need to get back to your piles and piles of grueling paperwork, so we can’t play anymore. Guess I have no choice but to use the second save file and go on without you.” Idia slowly goes to grab his handheld, pretending as if he is planning to lounge in bed and play all night, before his boyfriend hovers a hand over the console.
They both stop at a standstill, Azul pouting and debating with himself on what to do, then glares at Idia’s smug expression, “Stop that, I know what you’re doing.” Idia puts his hands up in surrender, but he knows he’s won as Azul picks up the handheld and plops back into the beanbag, still glaring, “One more hour. That’s all.”
Idia tries to hide his smile as he presses a button to continue to Day Two, “Yeah, of course.”
“Idia. There is a mouse in a house selling hats?”
“Yeah. You can buy accessories for your game character.”
“Does it add any special boosts to the character, like faster speed?”
“Eh, some do, some don’t, but either way it’s fun to dress up your avatar.”
Idia stops cutting stumps for hardwood to move down towards where he last left Azul in the game’s forest, the real Azul sitting next to him has a smirk on his face, and he finds his partner’s character sporting a familiar gray fedora.
Idia can’t help but laugh, “Lol, should’ve known you’d go for that!”
“I know we adopted a cat for the farm, but there are also wild animals milling about in the town and forests, is it possible to adopt those too?”
“If you give them enough food and raise the friendship level with it, yeah, which one do you have in mind?”
“I’m in the deep forest and there’s a strange dog here.”
“Hold on, Azul, let me see.” Idia leans over from his chair to see what he is talking about, and watches a large white, fluffy creature mill about the hidden forest that would rather do idle animation than acknowledge Azul’s character, “Oh, that’s Mukumuku the Yeti, you can’t adopt him, but you can befriend him.”
Azul stares at the screen, visibility confused, then takes his glasses off and sighs in frustration, “People and creatures on land are too strange.”
“Why did some of the townies come to our house to yell at me and say they hate me?! I lost half a heart from everyone! They keep saying I’m awful for my farm decor- wait. Azul, did you do something?”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“...Did you put some decorations on your side of the farm?”
“Of course I did, is making my side of the farm more aesthetically pleasing, yet functional, a crime?”
Idia maneuvers his character to Azul’s side of the farm where they agree to split into shared halves. When his boyfriend learned that there was customization and decorating aspects to the game, he dove right into creating a workspace designed to his aesthetics. Including those accursed gold pixels that got the NPCs upset. “Ohhh, just as a thought.” Idia sighs, turning to the sophomore with a glare, “Azul get rid of the golden fencing.”
“What?! Why? It goes well with my side’s color scheme!”
“And it’s making everyone in town think we’re jerks! You can’t flaunt pricey stuff like that where anyone can see!”
“How is it any of their business how the farm looks? And it’s not my fault they’re jealous at how much more money we’re making compared to them!”
“I know what you’re thinking. There isn’t a blackmailing choice in these games.”
“I was not thinking about blackmail! Do you truly believe I would be so underhanded that I’d do that to our mayor who so kindly welcomed us?” Idia watches Azul’s character try and open the door into the ranch owner’s bedroom as he buys feed for their animals, but unable to enter, turns back to Idia, “It is just that, the mayor’s undergarments are right there in an unmarried person’s room, wouldn’t it look bad if word got out that an elected official-”
“You can’t extort the mayor!”
Tinkling coins filter out from the connected computer and console speakers, and Idia’s eyes nearly bug out as he watches the farm’s revenue shoot up higher and higher, “What are you doing? Where’s all this cash coming from?”
“It’s market day.” Azul responds, and more coins against coins pop up.
That’s right, the haggling system is prob still easy to exploit.
Idia can only shake his head and feel pity for the traveling salesman. The character is no match against Azul when there’s a profit to be made.
A hand gently shakes Idia, startling him awake, and he wipes the drool that slips from one corner of his mouth, “Mgfh, ‘m awake Ortho, gimme five more minutes and I swear I’ll go to class today.” Idia mumbles. He must’ve passed out while playing, and good ol’ Ortho tucked him into bed when he got back to the dorm sometime during the night. Then he rubs his eyes after noticing that instead of familiar short blue flames, he is greeted by wavy silver hair and glasses.
Azul leans over Idia as he continues to jostle him, “It’s not Ortho, it’s me, wake up I need you to look over the spreadsheet I made.”
Hair slightly ruffled, sitting beside his bed, and wearing his old hoodie…
“...Ah, still dreaming.” Idia pulls the blanket back over his head.
His boyfriend wasn’t having it and ripped the sheet back down, and yelled, “Wake up!”
That got him up. Idia yelps while grabbing his blanket back and clutches it close to his body, “W-what are you doing in my room?!”
“I never left; I stayed up calculating the game plan for the rest of our playthrough of Sun Holler .” Azul leaves his bedside and pulls up the spreadsheet app on Idia’s tablet to show pages of inventory with the matching profit per item in each row. Idia tries to buffer his thoughts, nods his approval to Azul, then goes back to taking in the situation he woke up to.
“...HUH?! Y-you stayed here?”
Isn’t it too soon for us to stay at each other’s place?!
With that in mind, Idia’s hair fluffs and turns pink, “Uh, um, where’d you sleep?”
“I didn’t sleep, I was going through online forums to do research and figured out a strategy that should guarantee maximum profits for the summer and autumn seasons, but I need your opinion on which marriage candidate would be most profitable for the farm.”
Azul is talking about online gaming forums. Maybe he is still dreaming.
“What marri- yeah there is a marriage component if you want to 100% the game and it’s usually part of challenges, but I thought you were going to casually play…”
Nothing he said got through to Azul as he boots up the game and goes through the main page to access the character pages. Judging by the dark circles under his boyfriend’s eyes, Idia inadvertently created another ‘Dice Incident’ with Azul, and he once again got obsessive over creating the best outcome in a game.
Idia probably should’ve seen this coming. He knew Azul could be a total tryhard once he gets into something, and half of him is happy that his boyfriend of three months and two weeks is sharing his interest in video games.
The other half of him wants to rip the handheld away from Azul before it consumes him.
“How do you unlock a ‘heart event’ for this character? They seem like they’d be a valuable asset to the farm if I marry them.”
And NO, he’s not jealous of some 16-bit pixels. That’d be cringe.
…Until he saw who Azul landed on.
As the merperson sat in the beanbag chair, which at this point is more Azul’s than Idia’s, he handed the console over and waited for his boyfriend’s input on his choice in marriage. Idia was at first expecting a pretty boy secret character with a long difficult route to romance, like that phantom thief he remembers being infatuated with in an older game. But Idia is met with bulging eyes, messy black hair styled in spikes, a white lab coat-
“ DARYL ?! The Mad Scientist, Daryl??” He exclaims and stares at Azul in disbelief.
His boyfriend either doesn’t notice the judgement in Idia’s voice or is choosing to ignore it as he states his reasoning, “But wouldn’t marrying a scientist make sense? He's educated, has access to enough funds to do his experiments, and could do research to constantly improve the farm! He’s the perfect person to marry!”
“He wants to do experiments on our cows! He’s not even a bachelor- huh.” After looking closer, the heart colors that set apart bachelors and bachelorettes from the other non-marriageables are on this character’s profile. Idia continues to talk to himself, “No way, the devs actually did it. Wow. Didn’t know there really was that much demand to marry Daryl. Go figure.” He doesn’t want to acknowledge the fact that, when Azul did some playing apart from Idia yesterday, that his boyfriend managed to get five out of ten hearts with this character.
Azul stands there, still waiting for Idia’s input.
Idia rubs at his eyes again to get rid of the last sands of sleep before explaining, “There’s no benefits to marriage except to continue the farm for the next gen. The marriage mechanic is really because people love adding a dating sim aspect to cozy games.”
The merperson shrugs, “Then I might as well marry him anyways, I’ve already made more progress on his affection level compared to the other candidates in the game.”
“Seriously?! What do you see in him?” Idia pretends that didn’t sound weirdly jealous, as he thinks out loud, “Ok, I guess compared to the other characters his design stands out more especially his hair, and he’s smart and uses his tech skills to try and improve the holler, and he’s funny sometimes, but!” Idia points at Azul, “He talks weird, a total introvert, hides away inside tinkering with gadgets all day, only goes out at night and that’s to sneak around, and-”
Azul cuts him off with a deadpan tone, “You’re listing all those attributes that I’ve come to like about someone but you don’t have an ounce of self-awareness.” Azul takes advantage of Idia’s confusion from that confession to try to take the console back, “Then let me see which character you’ve progressed the furthest with!”
“ NO! Nononono, that’s fine! W-we don’t have to do t-that-” Idia’s stands at his complete height but attempts at straf-dodging Azul’s attack are at no avail, and the shorter boy manages to grab a hold of the console, with Azul’s hand pushing back his face as Idia tries again to grab the console back, “Let go of it!”
“Not until I see!” Azul argues, then pushes Idia onto the ground and tries to pry Idia’s vice grip on the console off. The scuffle continues but ends as quickly as it started as soon as Azul’s deceptively stronger legs get a full strangle around Idia’s chest, with Azul sitting on top of his back.
“For a guy that can’t run, you sure can wrestle. I think I bruised a rib.” Idia wheezes.
“Shush and take your loss.” Azul ignores Idia’s whining as he waits for the inevitable reaction as he listens to Azul flipping through the game’s character pages, “...THE GRANDMOTHER?!”
Idia turns his head to yell, “SHE LOOKS LIKE MY BIAS FROM PREMO! Nothing more than that!” It takes a few wiggles but enough space frees Idia enough to spin fully to face Azul, making the underclassman move back and eye Idia to make sure he didn’t try another grab for his, it’s likely Azul’s now too, console, “We shouldn’t be marrying other candidates anyways if you want to get max profits!”
Azul, not entirely satisfied with Idia’s attempt at changing the subject, narrows his eyes, “Explain.”
“The newer games added an incentive to get married ASAP, your character gets a wedding gift of ten-thousand G, and there’s an easy to exploit bug that doubles that, so the best way to get a lot of money to put towards upgrades is for co-op players to marry!” Briefly, thaumark signs flash in Azul’s eyes at the sound of Gs being added to their farm, and he thinks over what he said.
Idia, being Idia, of course, goes a step too far and keeps talking, “So we should get married!”
Neither one of them said anything. Both pause a beat before a rush of pink goes to their heads, one to Azul’s cheeks and the other to Idia’s hair, as what Idia proposed sets in.
Idia recovers first, “I mean in the game! Obviously! Y-you don’t have to though, you can marry whatever character you want, it’s not that big a deal, and I can add a polyamory mod-”
Azul stops Idia’s rambling by taking his hand, and the flames on his head must be a dark salmon at this point as his boyfriend smiles, “I accept.”
“Ok! Uhm.” He looks down to where their hands are joined, and he rubs a thumb over Azul’s ring finger, “...you need to accept it in the game, not irl.”
Azul takes his hand back and adjusts his glasses in embarrassment before taking the handheld and going back to his seat, “Yes, right! Obviously!”
“Obviously!” Idia quickly moves to his computer too, and starts the game so he can ‘propose’ correctly.
Idia should’ve done co-op gaming for games like this sooner! Completing trials and milestones is easier with someone as capable as Azul as a spouse, together they manage to unlock all the main buildings by summer season, and a majority of the automatic machines for the farm by autumn. AND , after a much needed nap for Azul, did it all by the end of the real-time weekend before Azul had to go back to work!
It’s nearing the end of the autumn season, the game is at PEAK cozy with the leaves falling, calming music playing, and the color palette invoking thoughts of fireplaces and Halloween and sweaters. Idia spent a minute organizing the stockpile of seeds before winter starts up, and he mumbles to himself about how to tackle the mines when a prompt shows on screen from Azul.
‘Azul is asking for a kiss. Kiss your spouse?’
He accepts, not reacting due to years of seeing cutesy pixelated smooching from video games, and gets back to his task.
The same pop-up returns.
‘Azul is asking for a kiss. Kiss your spouse?’
“Why aren’t you accepting my offer?” Azul asks.
Idia looks over to where Azul sits next to him on the beanbag, and gray eyes stare up expectantly. He pulls up the game’s relationship status menu and points it out to his boyfriend, “Huh? I am though? I accept a kiss everyday? Our characters are at max hearts since we kiss every morning and at night before bed so we don’t have to do any more for today.” That earns Idia a groan.
“Unbelievable. For a so-called genius you can be quite dense.” Azul huffs and turns away, but Idia can’t mistake the pink at the tips of Azul’s ears.
“You mean-?!” He might be stun locked. Azul wants a KISS from HIM? Idia pulls up the settings screen to pause and he knows he’s looking too eager but it’s totally normal to be into kissing your boyfriend when you get the chance to. Based on how Azul quit looking dejected, he is equally as glad to accept Idia’s affection as he turns to face him.
Gold eyes stare into gray then shut tightly, “Yeah, ok, I can do, t-that.”
The console is gently set down on the ground and the bells of the pause music plays. Idia feels breath on his face as Azul gets closer, and something fruity, melon chapstick?, carefully meets his lips. It’s brief and he knows his eyes are screwed too tight, not wanting to break the spell, but now he knows why couples feel the need to shove PDA in people’s throats. If he could kiss Azul whenever, he’d be inclined to do it too.
Azul isn’t fully satiated, he gives one more kiss to the corner of Idia’s blue lips, and relishes the content noise from his boyfriend before settling back into the chair to hum along to the music.
Even behind his eyelids, Idia can tell his room is awash in pink from how intensely his hair is blazing, and glowing brighter as he can’t help but giggle in delight from finally kissing Azul. He peeks an eye open when his boyfriend nudges him and calls over, “Look, there’s a new prompt from the game. It looks like we have unlocked the choice to have a child now!”
Idia topples over in a pile of pink flames and squeaks of embarrassment.