Home Visit (pt. 2)

‘So you do this, swing up, press this button to hit, don’t be afraid, yup, like this…’ Crystal switches her focus between Yan’s controller and the screen, pointing to certain sections of the TV to guide him. Yan, following her directions, shuffles to the left, jumps, dodges the mosquito’s attack, and attempts to strike. As expected, he misses.

To Crystal, these instructions are probably very direct and easy to follow. To Yan, he can only guess based on her vague hand movements. Do ‘this’? Hit ‘this’? What’s even ‘this’? On the screen, the character seems to be crippled while under his control, hopping back and forth as he desperately tries to land a single hit on the enemy.

‘Dude, not like that,’ Crystal instructs. ‘You jump up, then hit the mosquito midair. Don’t be afraid to ram into it—’

Bam. 4/5 lives left.

‘I don’t mean actually ramming into it, oh my god!’ She collapses onto the sofa, exasperated for a moment at Yan’s clumsiness, but soon quickly regains her composure. ‘Try again, this time more carefully.’

‘Ok… Carefully…’ He jumps up, readying to press the attack button… and then falls back, narrowly avoiding losing another life to the mosquito’s attack.

‘Don’t be afraid of it, stupid!’ Crystal exclaims.

‘Ok, ok, I’ll try not to— eeek!’ Yan lets out a shriek as the mosquito suddenly dives down and delivers another blow. 3/5 lives left.

‘UGHNNNNNN…’ Crystal groans, burying her frustrated face into a cushion. ‘Orh my gawd…’

‘I’m sorryyy…’ Yan apologises in despair. It’s not like it’s his fault he’s born with terrible gaming instincts. Some people are just born gamers, but unfortunately, he’s not one of them. Added with having practically zero experience on platformer games, this should be the expectation, right?

Finally, Crystal releases her flushed face from the cushion, her eyes mixed with anger and frustration. ‘Let me give you an example. Jesus christ…’

‘Ok…’ Yan obediently yet reluctantly hands over the controller, allowing her to swiftly take control.

‘So you basically do this…’ She charges straight at the mosquito, the latter going into combat mode when noticing her presence. ‘Then when it dives down towards you, you jump… and slash! Don’t be afraid of it. Just get the timing right and you can easily kill it, ok?’

‘Ok, thanks.’ Yan has no idea how she did it.

Still, as he takes the controller, he tries his best to recall the sequence of movements. ‘So I charge, then jump, then hit it before it hits me basically, right?’

‘Yup, yup,’ Crystal nods in satisfaction. ‘I killed the first one for you, so you can now go and kill the second one.’

‘Ok…’ Yan grips the controller tightly, fixating his eyes onto the new enemy appearing on the screen. ‘Charge… jump, slash!’

Bam! 2/5 lives left.

‘Ughhhh…’ Crystal nearly reaches for her cushion again. ‘I-It’s fine, you got the right idea. Try again!’

Yan gulps, focusing all his attention on that single mosquito. ‘Charge… jump, slash!’ He misses, but at least he didn’t lose another life this time.

‘Almost, almost! You got this!’ Somehow, this instead brightens Crystal’s mood as she once again begins to cheer for him.

‘I got this,’ Yan whispers to himself, giving a quick internal pep talk before he readies himself to attack the mosquito one more time. ‘Charge… jump, slash!’

Fwup. The attack connects. The mosquito dissipates as coins fall from the air. The character lands on the ground, its pose suddenly appearing like a superhero arriving at the scene to the rescue.

Yan stares at the screen, stunned at the result. He did it. He actually did it. He, a complete garbage noob, beat an average npc enemy. There are no nearby enemies to ambush him. He’s in the clear.

He survived.

‘Let’s… GOOOOOOOO!!!! YEAAAAAAA!!!’ He lets out a shout of jubilation, his frustrations all venting in that moment. No wonder people get so easily addicted to games. It’s for this victorious high, the single moment when one feels at the top of the world, invincible and indomitable. All for this climax when one loses control of all restraint just to declare to the world:

He did it.

‘LET’S GOOOO!!! WOOOO!!!’ Crystal echoes in joy, raising her hands like they’ve just won the lottery. ‘High five, high five!’

Yan raises his hands as well in response, facing towards Crystal to meet her celebration. The two pairs of hands rapidly collide towards each other… and misses. Instead, their heads bash into each other, knocking both of them backwards to the floor.

‘Ow…’ Yan clutches his forehead, feeling a buzzing pain vibrating inside. He hears Crystal hissing in pain as well, and as he crawls back to his feet, he sees her curled up into a ball, covering her head with her arms.

‘Crystal, are you ok—’ That’s when he notices her face has completely gone red from embarrassment, yet that only serves to make her look even more ridiculous compared to Yan’s relatively unharmed face.

Can’t laugh, can’t laugh, can’t laugh…

‘What’re you looking at?’ Crystal glares at him, releasing her arms to reveal her really puffy face, appearing almost like a tomato to Yan.

‘—Pfft!’ He can’t hold it. A stifled laugh escapes his mouth, and for a second, Yan forgets about his pain, his mind preoccupied with Crystal’s absurd expression.

‘Did you just laugh at me?’ Her voice suddenly drops low, an aura of hostility surrounding her as she begins to stand up, one hand still holding her forehead. She’s only a little taller than Yan, but that’s enough to cast her frightening shadow on him under the lights.

‘N-No, I didn’t— pfft!’ Another laugh exits his mouth.

I am so fucking done for.

Crystal marches up to him, her face now flushed not from pain or embarrassment, but pure anger. ‘Apologise. Right. Now.’

Uh oh. ‘I-I-I’m sorry…’ Yan slowly steps back as he notices her fists are now clenched tightly together.

‘I can’t hear you,’ she growls.

‘I-I-I-I…’ His tongue is dead.

‘SAY SORRY, YOU DIPSHIT!’ Crystal roars as she raises her fist, ready to slam it right down on Yan.

‘I’M SORRYYYYYYY!!!’ Fleeing instincts: activated. Yan turns and begins running for his life, his unathletic legs going into adrenaline-induced overdrive.

‘COME BACK HERE, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!’ Crystal screams, chasing him like an enraged bull charging at full speed.

‘Language!’ Crystal’s aunt shouts from inside her room.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit… Yan frantically dashes away to the dinner table, clumsily bumping into a corner before he staggers, narrowly avoiding capture to take a sharp turn, slipping between a chair and a wall to run back to the living room. Blinded by fury, Crystal violently kicks away the chair before continuing her chase, her arms outstretched ready to strangle him to death.

He jumps up to the sofa, taking a few rapid steps before jumping back down, twisting his body to avoid hitting a standing lamp. Somehow, his real-life fleeing instincts are on a whole different level to his gaming instincts. If only he can react the same way while playing Hollow Warrior, then none of this might’ve happened.

Crystal is still hot on his trail, but bit by bit, after taking loops and loops around the living and dining room, Yan has managed to gain some space with his surprising agility and reflexes. A shock given his usual pitiful physical capabilities. Fear is definitely some magical strengthening potion.

But at the same time, so is anger.

‘I’LL KILL YOU!’

A sudden roar throws Yan off-guard. His delicate balance is overthrown, tripping over himself before he can take the next step.

Ah, fuck—

Without a second’s delay, Crystal pounces and pins him to the ground, a hand on his neck as she raises the other to deliver a critical blow as punishment for his mockery. Her entire weight is on him, his spine feeling as if it’s about to be crushed. As Yan turns his head around just enough to see her, what comes to his view is someone who’s completely lost her mind, her eyes like a predator ready to rip up its prey.

See you in heaven, everyone. He closes his eyes, awaiting the worst.

And the fist begins to fall on his head.

‘—EEEK!’ A squeal uncontrollably squeezes out of his vocal chords.

There’s nothing. The aura of death is gone.

As Yan opens his eyes again, he sees Crystal’s fist inches away from his face, paused just before contact. She’s frozen in position, her eyes now looking at him in bewilderment, unable to process the past few seconds of events.

‘I… I’m sorry,’ Yan manages to croak out the words again, at least while he still can.

There is an awkward pause.

‘... HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!’ Crystal bursts into laughter, falling backwards as tears stream down her face.

‘Uh… what?’

‘What was THAT?’ she howls, rolling on the floor as she clutches her stomach. ‘You didn’t just scream like that— I can’t— HAHAHAHAHA!’ One second ago, she’s the harbinger of death. Now she’s down on the ground laughing like she just inhaled some substances.

‘Bruh.’ He has no idea how to respond.

‘You should’ve seen yourself, oh my god—’ She’s still hollering and laughing at his expense. Yan can only sit and wait for her to calm down, thanking the heavens he’s been rescued from the throes of death.

A solid fifteen minutes later, Crystal finally wipes away her tears as she returns to a relatively normal emotional state with a thoroughly unimpressed Yan sitting patiently opposite her.

‘Dude, that was just fucking hilarious,’ she giggles.

‘Could you not?’ Yan looks at her with deadpan eyes, half-wishing he didn’t make that reflex sound.

‘Ok, ok, sorry…’ Crystal takes a deep breath, calming herself as much as possible. ‘I shouldn’t have laughed that hard at you. Really sorry about that.’

‘Jesus christ…’ A moment of lost composure, a life’s worth of embarrassment. Well, at least he’s still alive.

‘Anyway, your head ok?’ she suddenly asks, changing the topic.

‘Yeah, it’s fine now. Yours good?’ Thanks to your laughter, I instead have a headache to deal with.

‘Mm, there’s probably a bruise, but I’m fine.’

‘Oh. I see.’ After all those shenanigans, he now has no idea how to respond to a perfectly normal statement.

‘You wanna do something different now?’ she suggests. ‘You know, maybe some anime?’

‘Uh, sure, I guess.’ Anything’s better than whatever was going on a few moments before.

‘Wooo! Ok, I’ll grab the remote— ow!’ In her enthusiasm, Crystal accidentally lands a clean slap on Yan’s face.

‘Bruh.’ He looks at her blankly, unable to give even a basic reaction.

‘Oh my god, you ok?’ She panics and quickly grabs his face, bringing her own face uncomfortably close to check for any wounds, nearly causing another bashing of heads.

‘Mmrh…’ Can you please let me go? He tries to speak, but only muffled sounds exit from his puffed lips.

‘I’m so sorry…’ she frantically apologises.

Yan looks into her worried eyes.

I’m so done.