The Game: 'Can Your Pet'

***

“Kyungsoo, come over here a second!”

“What?” Kyungsoo yells back at his bandmate. Kai’s sitting on the lounge, his laptop on the coffee table before him. There’s two mugs, each filled with what looks like jasmine tea. Kyungsoo takes a whiff and nods.

Not bad.

“I want to see you play this game!” Kai tells him, his shirt rising a little as he wiggles up the lounge, leaving Kyungsoo some space.

“What are you playing?” Chanyeol yells from his room, running into the living room. Baekhyun follows along behind him, DS in hand. He’s tapping away and using that amazing voice of his to scream profanities at the screen.

Kyungsoo had hoped that the people who he’d debut with would not be sad, derpy video gamers. Turns out he was wrong.

Kyungsoo takes a swig from the mug, planting his down next to Kai. Kai hands him the laptop and rips his headphones out, and all Kyungsoo can hear is some ridiculously annoying music he’s sure Satan must have created himself.

“What is this?” he asks.

Chanyeol bops his head along to the beat, and Kyungsoo feels more and more irritated by the second.

“It’s called Can Your Pet,” Kai tells him with a smirk.

“I KNOW THIS!” Chanyeol screams. Kyungsoo’s eyes are wide and confused, and Chanyeol points at his expression, snorting loudly.

“What do you do?” Kyungsoo asks.

“Wait, I get to name it?”

Kai gives him a grin. Once Kyungsoo’s typed in Jongin, Kai frowns.

“What?”

“Why’d you call it that?”

“Uh, it’s kind of cute… don’t you think?” Kai raises an eyebrow and Kyungsoo is left blushing a bazillion shades redder than his usual pale.




“Aww,” Baekhyun coos, staring at the screen over the edge of the couch. Chanyeol decides he’ll squeeze himself next to Kyungsoo, causing Kyungsoo to groan loudly.

With that annoying music and Chanyeol sitting that close, it’s a wonder Kyungsoo’s remained sane.

At least the game is cute though. A little animated chick walks left to right, across the screen. He’s bright yellow, with cute round eyes, tiny legs, and cute little wings that flap at its sides. It has a pouty little triangle for a mouth.

Kyungsoo notices a small bar at the bottom, a bow, some bird seed, what looks like a showerhead, video games, a soccer ball and… a film roll… right?

“Click on the bow,” Kai tells him, and Kyungsoo does. He smiles cutely as a side bar pops up, and Kyungsoo goes through an assortment of decorations to adorn his tiny bird friend; a swirl, a tuft of Mohawk hair, hats… he can even change the shape of the eyes!





“Oh my God!” he shouts as he runs the mouse across one particular design.






“You can make a chicken Hitler!”








Chanyeol snorts, and Baekhyun runs a finger down over Kyungsoo’s shoulder and onto the mouse pad.

“Lemme feed it!” he says excitedly. Kyungsoo hands the laptop across to him and Baekhyun giggles in some really stupid way, which brings pretty much the rest of EXO out into the room. They all stand around and watch from behind as Baekhyun hands the laptop back to Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo notices what looks like two bars on the side, and he sees that by feeding little Jongin, one of the bars fills to the top. The other bar has the same symbol of a showerhead or at least that’s what he thinks it is. He clicks on that next and lets out a cute ‘aww’ as the chick runs away from the tap.

When both the bars are maxed out, the symbol with the soccer ball on it lights up, and Kyungsoo clicks on it.

“No way!” Luhan shrieks in happiness as he rips the laptop out of Kyungsoo’s hand. He taps the mouse repeatedly, and the soccer ball flies through the air from chicken to man, back and forth, back and forth with each tap.



Luhan is easily amused.




Once Luhan’s lips form a pout, and he’s clearly had enough, he drops the laptop in Kris’ arms and steals Kyungsoo’s tea, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Lay decides to join him, but not before he’s reached into the video game drawer and ripped out his most prized possession; that dusty Nintendo 64.

Kyungsoo turns his attention back to the game, as Kris boredly hands it back to him.

“Seen this before,” Kris explains.

“That giant idiot made me play it.”

Chanyeol grunts a ‘hey!’ and slaps Kris in a girly manner, and Kris rolls his eyes. He walks across to the kitchen, probably to pester Junmyeon about something or other.

“Keep playing!” Kai tells Kyungsoo.






A few more rounds of soccer, a bit of feeding and a shower later, Kyungsoo’s getting completely bored of this stupid game and the god-awful annoying music. Just when he’s about to click the X on the right of the screen, the final symbol lights up.

“FINALLY!” Chanyeol shrieks.

Kyungsoo covers his ears with his hands and almost pushes Chanyeol off the lounge. He wishes to be back in his kitchen, where people don’t annoy him (at least not as much as they usually do). However, to appease an expectant Kai, he clicks the final button.

The screen goes blank for a few seconds, and he sees little Jongin has dropped to the bottom of the screen. The music stops immediately, and Kyungsoo lets out a loud, girly manly scream.






“WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
SLUFBKJSBFJBFLJKBSJKFBU
BFLBSHJFBHJFSFBSHJBLHJ
FSBFLUABSGFKJBSHJFBHJL
SBLFJBUUUUUUUUUUCK!?”







What used to be Jongin is chopped and maimed by some sort of grinding gear, blood splattering the screen. Kyungsoo flinches, eyes widening at least ten times larger, and Kai relishes in the fact that he’s scared the poor boy less.

Weird, hillbilly music begins to play and the flecks of chicken Jongin fall until they’ve hit the bottom of a can. Kyungsoo slaps Kai on the arm as Chanyeol snorts, getting his snot all in Kyungsoo’s tea.





“WHAT THE KAI, THAT’S SO TWISTED!”

Kai just gives him a smirk, picking up a Nintendo 64 controller off the floor.

“The game was called ‘Can Your Pet’,” he tells Kyungsoo.







“And I thought you were smart.”

Kyungsoo scowls at the younger teen and stalks off into their room. Kyungsoo reckons he’s smarter than the rest of them combined.

“I think I might want to be vegetarian,” he tells the mirror, eyes still unbelievably wide.

Stupid idiots.

***

Is Kyungsoo amused?