Bad Gossip

“You’re home early!” Kass smiled as he paused the game he was playing. Psiksi awkwardly waved back as he dropped his backpack on the ground.

“You look like you haven’t even left!” Psiksi exclaimed, still wearing a set of training armour from work. It had taken him a moment to work out what was wrong. “Did you not… even get changed?”

The little purple Rethan shrugged. “Eh. Kograh’s got the flu. Abius is ill as well. Vel is super paranoid about something or other and doesn’t want to catch what the others have, plus all the Dessaron team matches got cancelled, on top of this weird incident that’s going on…” Kass smiled. “Why bother getting changed if I’ve got no work today?”

“True, true…” Psiksi sat down next to Kass. There was a controller available so Psiksi could play, but he always preferred spectating. “It’s just weird. It was a Cassid ship crashing and stuff, yet everything’s stopped. Doesn’t feel like a sort of “oh they died be respectful” thing either.”

Kass started playing again, unpausing the game. He was playing as some sort of armoured reptilian character, running around in a forest.

“I mean…” Psiksi continued. “I get that it’s bad that the ship crashed. And kinda mysterious too. But I don’t understand what the DBA has to do with any of it!”

Kass paused the game, put the controller back down on the table and looked at Psiksi. There was clearly something bothering him. “What’s wrong, mate? You seem to be really… focused on this.”

Psiksi grunted. “It’s… dumb.”

“No, it’s a thing.”

“One of the Thanatian House Fighters accused me of being somehow related to the crash. Even though I was in the fucking gladiator arena when it happened!”

“Well that’s fucking stupid!” Kass tutted. “They’re clearly just being morons.”

“Yeah but then they said that vok claimed they saw a black and gold splodge. And the fucking idiot claimed that maybe Kayel was behind it! Which is also dumb because he lives all the way in Portalia City, and he’s not gold, he’s yellow! Why are these idiots making such dumb claims about me? It’s like…” Psiksi sighed. “It’s like they want to hurt me.”

“Unfortunately…” Kass put an arm around Psiksi to comfort him. “Sadly, there’s a lot of piss heads and dick suckers out there who don’t understand what it’s like to be as amazing as you are, and the only way they can make themselves feel better is to pretend that you’re not amazing, rather than learning from you and your kindness and bettering themselves properly.”

“That’s…” Psiksi was at a loss for words. “That’s beautiful.”

Well, you’re beautiful!” Kass grinned. “And there’s no way you’re involved with that stuff. No way what so ever.”

Exactly!” Psiksi exclaimed. “I have like, a ton of alibis and vok who were around me and… Like, the only way any of us could be involved is if Arkay somehow came back from the dead or something, but that’s just insane! And impossible. Bless his tired soul.”

Yeah…” Kass stuttered, his mind elsewhere. “Impossible…” With a shake of his head, Kass turned his attention back to Psiksi. “Still, they’re all idiots. Probably just jelly of you.”

Yeah, probably…” Psiksi was smiling now. Kass was glad he’d managed to cheer him up. He handed Psiksi the other controller and asked if he wanted to play.

Is this that killing things in the open world game?”

I’ll put it on easy mode if you prefer. Or we could play something else.”

Psiksi grinned and leaned over, whispering in Kass’s ear.

Or we can do that…” Kass grinned back as he helped Psiksi take off his armour.