The Game: 'Cat Mario'

***

Kai finds a new game for Kyungsoo not half a week later. He s the laptop into Kyungsoo’s hands with a smirk, and Kyungsoo sighs in resignation.

“What game am I playing this time?” he asks grumpily.

“Cat Mario.”

Kyungsoo looks down at the screen and sees the stage is set similar to any old Mario game, a crawler-style game where you need to avoid monsters, jump over ravines, and collect mushrooms. It’s much better than that stupid horror game Chen made him play.

“OK, this doesn’t look so bad,” Kyungsoo breathes a sigh of relief.




The game controls like any other game of its class. Kyungsoo controls this little white cat version of Mario with the arrow keys, and he jumps with the up arrow as well. A white blob comes towards him, and Kyungsoo jumps, letting out a squeak of delight as it disappears.

Kyungsoo sees the first item brick, and he goes to jump to it. If it’s like Super Mario, and Kyungsoo reckons by the name it is, if he knocks the brick, something will pop out. So Kyungsoo goes to jump, but the brick, to his surprise, ascends higher into the air.




“Wait… what?”




Kyungsoo continues along, thoroughly confused. He spots the next item brick, but a new brick sits below it, invisible until Kyungsoo taps up.

“OK, what the hell is this?”

The next item brick he hits releases a white blob, and the cat falls from the screen. He’s already lost a life.

“…Kai…”

Kai is already crying tears of laughter whilst pointing at Kyungsoo’s face. All the other members of EXO have decided to join them, and Tao sits next to him in strange fascination.

“I haven’t seen this game before,” he explains.

Kyungsoo tries the level again.

Beyond the stupid item blocks are two pipes, and Kyungsoo lets out a shriek of surprise as a white blob leaps out of the first pipe as he jumps by. He jumps over a small gap in the ground and finds more item bricks and bricks with nothing in them. He dodges a white blob, jumps over a second, only to find a wall comes crashing down on his head.



“Wait, why does the life count read -12?”




Kai snorts.

“Bet you won’t ever make it to the end.”

Kyungsoo growls at him, and tries again and again. He gets through past where he died the previous time, and finds a new gap. But, as he sees, the next time he jumps over the gap, a brick pops out of nowhere and the cat has nowhere to go but down.

“Kyungsoo!” Tao shrieks, slapping him on the arm.

“Go the next way, OK? Go back a little.”






Kyungsoo gets to the same spot, trying to shut Tao up.






“Oh my God Kyungsoo you’re so bad at this! Did you forget about that trap?”

Tao shrieks as Kyungsoo falls yet again.








“That wasn’t there before!” Kyungsoo asserts.






Life -46.







Kyungsoo gets almost to the end, but in his final jump, he shrieks as an arrow is shot his way and more white blobs fall from the roof. He lets out a shriek of disappointment as he has to go through all that crap again.









Let’s make that life -58.

“What is this?” Kyungsoo shrieks as the cat FINALLY makes it to the last flagpole, only to find the game take control and the cat walking straight into a ghost that falls from the sky.

Kai is practically spazzing all over the lounge chair, snorting and clapping like a crack addict as Kyungsoo glares at him with his abnormally large eyes.

“…Kai…” he whispers threateningly.




Kyungsoo nevertheless returns to his actions, making it all the way to the end, only to jump right at that flagpole again.





“NO!”

Chanyeol claps his hands together like a monkey with cymbals, stubbing his toe on the end of the coffee table and launching himself on top of a very pissed off looking Luhan, who’s trying to casually eat soup without spurting it all over the floor each time Kyungsoo fails.

Despite all his efforts to keep the lounge stainless, Chanyeol has sat in his soup (what a waste!), and Chanyeol’s now screaming because his is on fire. He runs to the kitchen and falls into the sink, stuck with his pants down for all to see.





“OH MY GOD!” Baekhyun shrieks, running after him.

Kris rolls his eyes and gets up, attempting to pull Chanyeol out of the sink. Kyungsoo’s laughing like a hyena, but then remembers this stupid game won’t finish itself.






And we’ve just hit life -107.







“I give up,” Kyungsoo announces to the room, throwing his hands up in aggravation.

“Also Chanyeol, get your out of my kitchen sink.”

***

If you don't want to feel like a hopeless gamer don't even play this game, ok?