Why Must We Play God | Kiyoshi | (Ab)Normal Days [ATTN: Mirai]
Truth be told, Kiyoshi had almost forgotten about that machine in the mines. Maybe it was the fact that their earlier attempts at using it had borne little actually interesting fruit, outside of Buck the cactus, and... you know, that. Maybe it was the fact that their mind had been occupied by the matter of surviving while finding a way out of here, with a side detour into 'make everyone think I'm dead' territory (fat lot of good that did, huh), leaving them with little volition to spare on anything else. Maybe it was the fact that the mun kind of forgot to have them spend their currency on yon machine.
Whatever the case, Kiyoshi was certainly there now, because hey, maybe this time they'd get a weapon out of here. Or booze. Or booze that you could weaponize. It was foolish of someone like them to hope for anything beneficial to them to come out of the machine, but...
...well, it wouldn't be the first time the small spark of the Kiyoshi that had been convinced them to chance things, and it wouldn't be the last. And thus, the machine received half of their current balance and out came...
Empty Capsule — It’s an empty capsule with a button on it. Looks like you can put anything in the capsule and it goes back into the mystery machine… or that’s at least what the directions say.
Kiyoshi stared at the capsule, hollow-eyed (how appropos, that an empty person should get an empty capsule, the part of them that insisted on being Like That mused) for a few moments before scowling and stuffing it in their jacket pocket, because useless piece of junk or not, it was theirs now. Maybe they'd find a use for it later. Or not.
Anyway, onto the next capsule, which-
Velvet Funko Pop — Inside this capsule is…. Yikes. Yeeps. The soulless eyes of your classmate stare back, situated on a plastic Funko Pop body. With its oversized head and dull expression, it shoots right into the uncanny valley. Still, it looks remarkably like Velvet, with its undercut and 2000s jacket.
Was this fucking machine trolling them. Did it know that Kiyoshi Aoyama, hollow shell of a man and all-around loser was buying things from it? Is that why it was doing this? As some kind of cruel cosmic joke? Because they found it about as amusing as all of the other jokes fate had taken to playing on them as of late, which was to say-
-anyway, Kiyoshi was totally going to palm this... thing off on someone later. Or just hide it somewhere. They didn't want this thing watching them while they slept.
And then came the third capsule, which...
...oh. Well. That certainly drew a uncharactertistcally broad grin out of Kiyoshi, dark gray eyes sparkling ever so slightly as they gave it a further once-over before tucking it into another pocket of their jacket for safe-keeping. They weren't going to get their hopes up, and it did get points off for not being a weapon or booze, but...
...well, they were certainly feeling quite a bit more hopeful about that last item now, Kiyoshi mused as they opened the last capsule. If the machine was willing to give them something this precious, then surely...
It was some time later when Kiyoshi registered the sound of approaching footsteps. They had been seated next to the machine for quite a while now, staring blankly at their hands and the... the thing that now laid on their lap.
"Whoever's behind this is gonna get a piece of my mind once I've clawed my way out of this hellhole, I swear."
Kiyoshi didn't even bother looking up to see who they were addressing. A sounding board was a sounding board, especially at a time like this.
"There's no excuse for this shit, okay? No excuse at all."
And what kind of shit was Kiyoshi referring to, exactly? Well, that was quite clear from a look at the item on their lap.
Kiyoshrek — It’s… It’s… a copy of the DVD for hit animated blockbuster Shrek, except the cover’s been photoshopped so— oh my god, is that one of your classmates? No, that’s a lot of your classmates, and the box lists the names of MiRAi, Kiyoshi Aoyama, Velvet Welch, and Hisoka Fukuda in lieu of the original actors for Fiona, Shrek, Donkey, and Farquaad, respectively. The back lists even more, with everyone’s faces shittily photoshopped over all of the images of the characters. You’re almost tempted to schedule a movie night to see if any changes were made to the DVD itself, or just the cover art. Either way, you should probably be concerned.
Truly, this was the most appropriate answer to Kiyoshi's sudden moment of hubris that this hellish machine could think of.
