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For once, Ze's day could be described as boring.
That wasn't usually a descriptor in his vocabulary when he shared a house with a clown and a rejected entity. Every day was some form of insanity one way or another—nonsensical adventures, arguments, general shenanigans.
Today had been none of that. Ze had woken up to silence. He had not been greeted by Moe honking in greeting when he walked downstairs, nor a snarky comment from Regect. He'd realized soon after that neither of them were in the house at all.
That, in itself, was abnormal. Regect was known to leave the house for days at a time, sure, but he'd usually be somewhat nearby building something or would talk Ze's ears off about it beforehand. That, or he'd hear from Moe.
None of that had happened.
As the day went on, Ze started to think that maybe the two had just been some hallucination. They had never existed and Ze was simply going insane.
Some part of him felt a spike of panic at the idea. He shoved it to the back of his mind, decidedly not thinking of the implications of that.
Ze got to his feet and cast his bed one last glance before trudging down the stairs. Again. He couldn't sulk up here forever.
He all but collapses onto the couch and reaches blindly for the remote. When his hand finally closes around it, he points it at the TV and squints at the screen as it turns on. He scrolls mindlessly through whatever is on his Netflix recommended.
He eventually settles on some Korean show that Regect's been bothering him to watch. He has nothing better to do anyway.
Lazily, he drapes himself across the couch cushions, legs dangling over one arm rest. He's just starting to relax when he realizes that he cannot, in fact, read the subtitles from here. He groans and throws an arm over his face.
Of course, he could just get up and move the couch closer, or sit up so he can lean forward and watch.
Instead of doing either of those, he decides that he doesn't need to understand what they're saying and lets the show drone on in the background. He was only half-watching it anyway.
He's starting to doze off when the front door slams open abruptly. It scares him bad enough that he jumps and falls off of the couch.
The grating laugh that meets his ears, annoyingly, makes him relax. Regect wasn't a hallucination after all.
"DUDE you should have seen your fucking face! You looked like you saw a ghost," it wheezes out from the doorway, and even Moe's squeaky honks sound awfully like a giggle.
Ze huffs and sits up. The blurry shape of Regect doubled over in laughter makes him scowl and roll his eyes. He doesn't think about the inkling of affection the sight brings him.
"I may as well have. Where have you two even been??" He shoots back.
Regect has to take a moment to recover before it can respond. "You'll see." and then he bursts into a fit of giggles again. Moe honks something about a secret.
He's not entirely sure what's so funny, or why Regect put so much emphasis on "see". He's also starting to debate whether or not he is insane after all.
Getting to his feet while the entity is catching breath he doesn't need, he wonders briefly about where the two of them even went. It seemed like he wasn't getting a direct answer and he couldn't think of anything they'd mentioned recently.
He's distracted enough by these thoughts that it takes him a few seconds too long to realize Regect was approaching. An invisible hand holds his head in place when he closes his eyes and flinches away from the other hand trying to put something on his face. In the end, Regect succeeds in getting it on him.
Moe honks sternly from nearby when Ze bats at Regect, and it whines like a bitch. He scoffs at the familiar dramatics.
He's startled again when he opens his eyes again and can see, far more clearly, Regect pouting with a hand against his own invisible face. It only takes a second for it to click after that.
Immediately, he snatches the glasses off and glares down at them. He inspects the sleek black frame and thick lenses. He spares a glance back up at the entity and is a little shocked at how blurry everything is now by comparison.
"The fuck is this?" he snaps.
Regect has the nerve to roll his eye. "Glasses, obviously. Dumbass."
"Clearly. Why did you give me these?"
"Dude, don't act like you don't need them."
"I don't!" he insists. "Where the hell did you get prescription glasses, anyway?"
"Walmart." there's a beat of silence. "A fucking optometrist, where else??"
Ze decides not to ask anything else, like how exactly they got the prescription right without him there. Strange things happen in this world that he's long learned not to question.
So he just folds the arms of the glasses, awkwardly trying not to smudge the lenses. Regect is suddenly a little too close, peering at what he's doing.
"Are you seriously not gonna wear them?"
"I can see perfectly fine."
"You lean forward so far you're barely on the couch anymore every time we watch a movie together and squint at everything."
He doesn't have a response for that, so he stares at the glasses in his hands. He's not sure whether to be more surprised that his friend (plus Regect) went through the trouble of getting these for him, or that Regect actually noticed his stupid little habits.
Maybe that's why he begrudgingly lets Moe take the glasses from him and slide them back onto his face, even though he hates the idea of needing them. She honks at him appreciatively when he doesn't argue about it.
He tries to look around somewhat subtly, taking in what the world looks like when he can actually see it. There's little details, like paint chipping on the wall, that he never noticed before.
Neither comment on his dumbfounded silence.
Ze clears his throat, finally looking at Regect again. The way the entity is studying his face, much too softly, is too overwhelming, so he looks at Moe instead.
"...thank you," he barely gets the words out, and quickly tacks on, "and Regect too, I guess."
Moe looks delighted. Regect gasps in fake offense, placing a hand over his heart.
"Wow, not even gonna credit me properly? After everything I've done for you..." it sighs dramatically.
"Oh, shut up. You're lucky I even thanked you."
Regect snickers and leans forward again. It really liked being uncomfortably close for some reason. "You know, you don't even look all that bad with glasses."
He is, admittedly, a bit flustered at the comment. He attempts to play it off when Moe honks in agreement. "Yeah, yeah, whatever."
He seats himself on the couch again, tired of standing.
"You still look like a nerd, though."
"Wh—"
"OH MY GOD"
Regect finally noticed the show still playing in the background. Ze squints at the screen out of habit before catching himself.
"Dude, this is, like, my favorite episode too. I didn't even know you started watching it," he rambles on, plopping down beside Ze.
Moe joins them cheerfully, and Regect shuffles closer to Ze to make room for her. For once, he doesn't make a snarky comment about how close the entity is, and it leans against him.
For once, he thinks things might be okay.
