This is basically for shits and gigs. (Most of it is gaming, but the end is fluffy Egoist.) Since being introduced to Minecraft: The Hunger Games, it's really distracted me from…everything, especially writing…but when I thought about combining the two, I got so excited I had to start writing right away.

But since most of you probably have absolutely no idea how it works, I'll explain it in layman's terms before I get into it. I'll still explain it in the story, and the chances are you still won't understand because it is rather complicated, especially for someone who has no idea how Minecraft works by itself, but here's an undiluted short premise:

You're placed in a world with trees, animals, caves, monsters, and, more importantly, 150 bloodthirsty players from around the world. Your objective is simple: to be the last one standing. You're given a list of kits to choose from (there are more than a dozen and since I explain most of them in the story I'm not going to bother with it here) that will help you when the game begins. When the game starts, you're given 2 minutes of complete invincibility. Utilize this time to gather supplies; namely, wood, stone, and, if you're lucky, food. After the two minutes are up, it's a total free for all. (Usually, I head for the far edges of the map and search for caves harboring iron. Iron is super important as you'll need it for armor, which is the key to long-term survival.) Eventually, once the weak have been weeded out, things start to get very intense and your nerves are constantly on edge. Night falls, and the monsters come out, making the world twice as dangerous. If you can make it through the night, morning bears the most important event in the game: The Feast. You're given the coordinates 5 minutes out, and if you plan on being number 1, you better head there. Of course, everyone else is headed there, too, so you best be on your guard at all times. There is a large, flat platform, and when the countdown is up, an enchantment table and a dozen or so chests magically appear, holding diamond tools and armor, potions, food, and more. Don't doddle—when you open the chests, or enchant, you're basically a sitting duck while your screen is otherwise occupied. However, if you can get away with at least a diamond sword or armor, the game will probably be yours. And when the game's done, all the results are uploaded online for the world to see.

Simple, right? Thought so. Let the games begin!

(Also, I do not own Junjo Romantica. I merely use the characters as pawns in my sexual games.)

X X X

"Thank God it's Friday," Hiroki mumbled as he entered the apartment and kicked off his shoes. His briefcase clattered to the ground with the most god-awful sound, but the professor didn't care. Just some pens and old lesson plans. He was glad to finally be home.

When he wasn't immediately greeted with Nowaki's smiling face and over-eager embrace, Hiroki wondered if he'd gotten held up at the hospital gain. "Nowaki?"

A few seconds later a voice called from the spare 'bedroom' that was really more of a library. "Huh?"

Hiroki followed the sound of the voice, wondering why Nowaki hadn't come to greet him even after he'd called out. "I'm home," he said as he leaned against the door jab, a little bit annoyed by Nowaki's unenthusiastic behavior towards him, considering they hadn't had an evening together in nearly two weeks.

"Welcome home," Nowaki mumbled mechanically, totally fixated on the computer screen. The constant clicking of the keys and computer mouse made the silence unbearable.

"Its past 6 o'clock and you haven't even started dinner yet? What the hell have you been doing?" the professor asked, his tone edgy. He stepped up behind the younger man, curious as to what had him so preoccupied.

"No, been busy, sorry. Gotta—AH, where the hell did he come from!?" Nowaki yelled, clicking furiously. Hiroki watched as the screen suddenly changed to a weird brown color and Nowaki banged his hand against the keyboard in anger. "Dammit," he mumbled.

"Don't take your anger out on the keyboard!" Hiroki reprimanded. "What the fuck was that?"

Nowaki crossed his arms and glared at the screen. "Minecraft, the Hunger Games."

"That a new plug-in or something? I haven't played Minecraft in months."

Over the past summer, Nowaki had been introduced to the game courtesy of one of the guys at work. He, in turn, had shown it to Hiroki; and with no school to interfere with his schedule, the man had become quite addicted to the game during those lazy two summer months. However, since school had come back in to session, he'd lost touch with it completely.

"Not really—just special coding on these servers by some British kids. You can just join the servers for free, but if you want to get a good upper hand on the others, you gotta pay for the kits."

There was a low rumble from Hiroki's stomach, and despite his desire to see whatever 'The Hunger Games' was about, his appetite overshadowed it for the time being. "Well, maybe you can show me after we eat, I'm starving…"

X X X

After a quick take-out dinner, Hiroki and Nowaki had both of their laptops and mice ready on the coffee table in the living room. Once Nowaki had loaded all the servers up for Hiroki (there were more than 30), they entered the same lobby with a 5-minute countdown and Nowaki gave him the run down while they waited.

"Okay, it's the same controls as regular Minecraft. But here's the new thing: kits. Now, they give you three free kits that they rotate every two weeks or so, but you can also buy kits for yourself. There's 20 or so. The three this week are Cannibal, Monster, and Beastmaster…personally I think they're all pretty lame. I bought the Woodsman package, which gives you Cultivator, Lumberjack, and Hunter—"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down for a sec. Okay, so, I have 3 kits to choose from. Which is best and what do they do?"

"All the kits are different. With Cannibal, you start out with an ocelot egg and a piece of fish, though I'm not exactly sure why. The advantage to that kit is that, when you attack someone, you gain hunger, and you give them food poisoning.

"Monster is kinda lame, because all it does is make it so mobs don't attack you first…worthless in the day, and unless you find a dungeon or mineshaft, you're usually able to kill off monsters pretty easily. I suppose the major plus is not having to worry about being blown up from behind by a creeper.

"Beastmaster is even worse. You're given 3 wolf eggs, and 4 bones. The goal of Beastmaster is to have all of your dogs keep you safe in the event that someone attacks you, but it's worthless if the stupid wolf takes all the bones and doesn't even turn."

"Okay…I'll just do Cannibal," Hiroki mumbled, typing '/kit cannibal' into the text box and signifying he'd chosen a kit by allowing him to see the annoying stream of chat.

"Now, I have 3 additional kits. I almost always go with Cultivator, but Lumberjack is also pretty useful. Hunter is kinda stupid."

"What do those do?" Hiroki asked, making his character run around to explore what biomes were nearby, since his rendering distance was rather low and they were stuck in a jungle.

"Cultivator allows you to grow things like wheat and trees instantly, which is great for making bread. So as long as you have a seed you never have to worry about food. It's also kinda cool to get a bunch of trees and, when someone is attacking you, place them in their path so you can get away. It's really funny when they get trapped inside the tree and can't move. I've actually suffocated a guy like that before.

"Lumberjack gives you wooden axe enchanted with unbreakable to start off with, and it makes it so when you break the bottom block of wood, the entire tree comes down. Very efficient, but worthless after the beginning of the game.

"I don't think I've ever used Hunter. All it does is yield two pork chops every time you kill a pig. I can barely find animals as it is, so I just go with Cultivator, because you can make wheat anywhere as long as you have seeds and dirt. And you always need food, especially when you sprint distances."

"Okay…cool…now, what should we do when the game starts?" Hiroki asked, watching as the red text began its countdown from 10 seconds.

"Well, it's nice when we spawn in the jungle, because of the abundance of trees. It sucks, however, because it's a huge pain in the ass to maneuver. So, what we should do is get about at least 5 or 6 blocks of unfinished wood, and head for a cave to get stone. Ah, here we go," Nowaki said, readying his left hand on the W, A, S, and D keys while his right was positioned on the mouse. Hiroki assumed the same position, and the game began.

Nowaki spawned on top of the trees, while Hiroki spawned below. Rather than waste time looking for one another in the mass of players, for now they just focused on getting wood.

"If you can't find me once we get wood, just make a crafting table and a wooden pickaxe. I never bother making a wooden sword. I just burrow down and quickly get 5 or so pieces of cobble so I can make a stone pickaxe and sword."

"Okay, I got 4 unfinished; I'm going to go find a spot to burrow. I'm by a tiny little lake in the middle of the jungle if you can find me."

"Wait, you're Link, right? I think I found you," Nowaki said, jumping into the small hole Hiroki had dug for himself. "Make me a stone sword too, and a hoe. Wooden hoe is fine."

"Okay. Shoot, already one minute? When I was scouting the area earlier, I found a swamp with a huge ravine. If we can, we need to head there. Plus we can pick up some mushrooms for mushroom soup."

"We don't really need mushroom soup though, with me as a Cultivator. I do need to get some seeds though, be right back." Nowaki hopped out of the little hole and began breaking the taller pieces of grass, praying that seeds would pop out of at least one of them.

"But doesn't mushroom soup heal you?"

"Well, yes…true…we should still focus on getting iron first. Did you get the coords for the ravine?"

"Er, no, but I remember it was to the left of a desert…okay, where'd you go, I got your sword and hoe."

"I'm in the desert now, I'll wait for you. Crap, 30 seconds, we need to high-tail it to that ravine."

"Alright I'm coming, I'm coming," Hiroki mumbled, sprinting and leaping over the trees and holes, finally finding the edge of the two biomes. Nowaki was the only one standing around, luckily, and since it was now counting down from 10 seconds, the two needed to start putting their guard up now.

"Okay, so after the countdown, we're no longer invincible…shit, how are we gonna get to the bottom of the ravine?"

"Guess we'll just have to burrow down…crap, I'm lagging bad, is there anyone around?"

"No, no, we're good, we're good…there's a bunch of random fires though."

"That's from the Thors. When they right-click with their axe, whatever they hit catches on fire. They're a pain in the ass to fight. Oh, and see those huge towers? Lots of people like to build up there for some reason. I think it's stupid noob thing, and you're really leaving yourself open to Archers. What I like to do, if we spawn in a taiga or tundra, is to get a bunch of snowballs and knock them off. Even if they're Stompers, when they fall off they still sustain damage and they're so confused; they're a good target. And when they aren't Stompers, a lot of the time their towers are so high they die on impact and you can get all their crap." During his explanation, Nowaki had continued to follow Hiroki to the swamp and remained on the lookout for other names.

"And what do Stompers do?"

"Nothing really. When they jump from heights, they give other people damage without doing much damage to themselves. But if no one's around, I think all the damage goes to them. Pretty worthless when it comes time for The Feast."

"…The Feast?"

"Shit, hold on, let's get this guy and I'll explain."

A guy with what looked to be a blaze rod was charging towards them, a rather bold move since it was obvious the two were teamed up. "Got your sword ready? This guy's a Monk, so we gotta be careful. Monk's—fuck," Nowaki's sword suddenly disappeared back into his inventory, so he was forced to scroll down to his hoe and use it instead. "If you haven't already figured it out, Monk's can disarm you with their blaze rods, so be careful. He might switch to his sword."

But the guy never did, he merely switched between hitting the two with his blaze rod and his compass. Even without their swords the two were able to kill him after having only a couple hearts worth of damage to themselves. Unfortunately, since their hunger was more than one notch down, they didn't automatically begin to heal.

"Hey, it says you killed him!" Nowaki whined, noting the in-chat message. PandaCakes (Monk) entered the next life, courtesy of ProfKami (Cannibal)'s Stone Pickaxe. 124 players remaining.

"I definitely got that last swing in," Hiroki countered, still searching for the large ravine deep within the swamp. He could spot several name tags in the distance, but they were so far away he didn't worry about it.

"Psh, whatever…oh tons of mushrooms, I guess we can go ahead and pick a few up," Nowaki noted, heading for the large patch sunken between some vine-ridden trees.

"Okay, try not to stop though, because I'm not."

"Be careful, some people may shift to hide and then jump out for you," Nowaki warned, gathering up a couple dozen brown and red mushrooms.

After another minute or so of searching, they finally happened upon the large ravine Hiroki had been talking about. "Ah, found it…and I can't see any names…want to dig down?"

"Okay. But I'm digging over here, because if we fall into the same hole, we're screwed."

"How so? Can't you just break the blocks to move over?" Hiroki asked as he started to dig straight down.

"It's not that easy…most if the time you just end up beating the other person to shit in the process of trying to break the blocks. It's a horribly annoying glitch."

"Ah…oh shit," Hiroki cursed as the stone ended and he fell almost a dozen blocks, losing 4 more hearts. He was now getting a too low for comfort.

"See, that's why you never dig straight down, genius."

"Shut up, we need to hurry and get into a safe spot so you can make bread for me."

"Hold on, I don't wanna lose too much health by dropping down," Nowaki mumbled, totally absorbed in his careful staircase-mining technique.

While he waited for Nowaki to drop down, Hiroki focused on scouting the area for iron and coal. "Ah, found a nice vein of four," he noted, switching to his stone pickaxe to mine it out. "Whoa, 8? ...no, two veins must've run together here, because there aren't natural veins of 12." Every few seconds Hiroki would check around him to make sure enemies hadn't appeared out of nowhere. With his health so low, he could die in one shot from a stone sword.

"You already got 12? Nice, and I just ran into 4…you'll have to get it though, because I don't have a pickaxe. But that'll make us two swords easy, and some helmets."

"But, that's 16, and there are 8 per chest plate, so why don't we go ahead and make those?"

"I guess we could, but I normally make swords first, because iron swords are a hell of a lot better than stone. Okay, I'm down, let's go right," Nowaki instructed, sprinting past Hiroki to go to the covered part of the ravine. Even though others would die if they decided to suddenly drop in on them (unless they were Stompers), he still felt safer if they were in a covered part of the cavern.

"Go ahead and take my wooden pickaxe to get some coal. Oh, I almost missed some," Hiroki said as he immediately set to work on mining out another cluster of 3 iron. "How much do you think we'll need?"

"A lot; I just keep mining until I have a sword and a full suit, and even afterwards. But with two of us we'll need a lot more. Oh, good, a huge thing of coal, we'll really need it."

"Should we make torches?" Hiroki asked as he joined Nowaki to help dig up the huge patch.

"I normally don't."

"Why? What about monsters?" Hiroki worried, looking up at the top of the cavern to make sure there weren't any on the ledges above them.

"Torches are like footprints. Since our computers have such high brightness, we can still see in the dark, so we shouldn't need torches. As for mobs, just kill them. Besides, they might be Chameleons."

Hiroki sighed as he mined out another small vein of iron. "…and Chameleons are?"

"They can turn into mobs or monsters. When you hit them, or if they attack you, they turn back though. That's why I hit all the animals I pass by, just in case," Nowaki informed. "Okay, I think we need to burrow into the wall and start smelting, and I'll start making wheat."

"Good, I'm down to 3 hearts and 5 hunger."

"How is your hunger so low? I'm still at 8."

"I don't know; just get your ass working on that bread."

After making a cozy 2 by 3 space in the stone wall, Nowaki dug down and placed a dirt block so he could start working. He plowed it quickly and moved his left hand over to join his right on the mouse so he could work as quickly as possible. Once he planted the first seed he alternated left and right clicking, and wheat began flying out from around him. In just 15 seconds or so he'd already made a full stack of 64, but he wanted to make at least one or two more.

"Damn, Nowaki, that's smart."

"Yeah, I can spam the crap out of the wheat this way. I figured that out after just using one hand was just too slow."

Hiroki stifled a laugh at the younger man's wording, his dirty mind flitting to a particular bedroom scenario. Surprisingly Nowaki never caught the joke, since he was too busy working and trying to stay alive and hidden.

"Okay, I have more than two stacks of wheat, that should be enough," Nowaki said as he turned to Hiroki and threw a stack of 16 bread at him.

"Thanks," Hiroki mumbled as he focused on eating to make sure he could begin regenerating as quickly as possible. In the meantime he mined out enough cobble to make an extra furnace, and threw his iron in. "Put some coal in, I don't have any."

"Alright."

Meanwhile, the constant stream of blue text that had plagued chat for the first part of the game finally began to die down. The last one alerted them that there were only 53 players remaining.

"Wow, first game and I'm already almost in the top 50! Not bad," Hiroki said as he took 6 smelted iron out of the furnace to make he and Nowaki some swords.

"Only because of me," Nowaki huffed, gathering the iron sword as it was tossed to him.

"Please, I could've made it the top 10 by myself," Hiroki challenged as he waited for the rest of the iron to smelt down.

"No way, I've only been in the top 10 like 20 times and I've played more than 200 games. It's not that easy, especially by yourself."

"Have you ever won?"

"Twice. But last time the guy disconnected because his connection was horrible so I won by default."

"Hah, you suck."

"Oh, this is coming from the guy who asked me what a kit was! Keep in mind that I have a handy iron sword right here," Nowaki said as he came up in front of Hiroki and right-clicked to bear his sword.

"As do I!" Hiroki bore his sword as well.

"Ah, I couldn't kill you," Nowaki mumbled as he abandoned his keys momentarily to hug Hiroki and lay his head on his shoulder. "Even if it came down to us two, I'd let you kill me."

"That's stupid, don't let me win. Fight me to the death!"

"I'd still want to ease up on you," Nowaki cooed. To emphasize this, he placed a long, loving kiss on Hiroki's cheek.

"Come on, get serious and make me some armor while I—whoa whoa what the fuck," Hiroki half-shouted as he was suddenly teleported above ground and ambushed. Nowaki had immediately shoved himself away and held down shift to minimize the chances of him being sucked up as well.

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God," Hiroki mumbled as he tried to kill the guy who had been waiting for him at the top. "How the—fuck, I died. Was that a glitch or something? How the fuck did I just get sucked up like that?" he asked, not yet clicking away from the death screen.

"Endermage, shit he's above—aww man," Nowaki sighed as he was sucked up as well and killed with Hiroki's old iron sword in two swift hits. "I really hate Endermages…they're so overpowered…at least he didn't get all our iron, most of it's still in the furnace."

"How does that kit work?"

"Get into D6, it's got 3 minutes," Nowaki instructed before elaborating the details of yet another kit. "Endermages have portals that can suck people down or up into them if they're above or under that specific block. It's a huge pain in the ass but probably one of the best kits offered. You can check out the minecraftpvp website and look at a description of all the kits. I was seriously considering buying either that, Berserker or Cookiemonster next."

"Ah, I see…."

X X X

Several more games ensued complete with shouting, obscenities, and laughter. In the game they were in now, they were nearing the top 10 and Hiroki was quite excited. "Another guy died, top 11!" He'd been counting down how close they were since 25.

"The Feast should be starting soon, it's almost day," Nowaki noted as he and Hiroki stood on the top of a swamp tree in full iron armor. The growl of zombies and hiss of spiders could be heard from beneath them.

"Come on, day, I'm sick of these monsters," Hiroki mumbled as yet another person was weeded out by an exploding creeper. They'd made it to the top 10. "Awesome, top 10 finish!"

"Not bad for your, what, 10th game?"

"Something like that."

"Even if I can't win, I just aim to be in the top ten…I like having that stat tally," Nowaki chuckled.

"After this game I wanna check my stats out."

When the sun had finally come up enough to start burning the zombies and skeletons, the two hopped down and kept a close eye on their compasses. "Ready for some real killin'?"

"I'm ready when you are…I think I can see a guy's name behind that mountain."

"doomguy221? Yeah, let's go get him."

They sprinted in that direction, and while the guy was trying to kill some pigs the two ambushed him simultaneously. By the guy realized what was going on he'd only gotten one swing in before he died and his inventory exploded for Hiroki and Nowaki to enjoy.

"Hah, I got him," Nowaki gloated as he pointed at chat. 'doomguy221(Assassin) entered the next life, courtesy of Nowacky(Cultivator)'s Iron Sword.' "Whoa, we're lucky. That guy was an assassin."

"What do they do?" Despite reading up on the kits in between games, Hiroki could hardly name 3 of them, let alone tell what they do.

"They place Redstone and run over it to get 1.5 seconds of super strength, which is pretty much a guaranteed one-shot. After killing someone, though, they have 4 seconds of super vulnerability, so it's next to impossible to take out teams with that kit…so if he had used it on us, one of us probably would've died but the other could've taken him out very quickly."

"Ah…yay, top 8..7…6!" Hiroki cheered as the others either killed each other or fell from a great height. "Wow, that was pretty quick."

"Finally, The Feast." Nowaki reached over to grab the pen and notepad from beside the phone, and quickly scribbled down the coordinates. "-71, 67, 12. What are our coords?"

After hitting F3, Hiroki read the numbers out to Nowaki, "296, 79, 132."

"We're pretty far out so we should get going. Even with only 4 people to worry about we don't know who is teaming or what kit they have, so we'll still need to be careful."

"Cool, I want to see what it looks like…" Hiroki said as he jumped up a hill behind Nowaki.

"Another person down. Lava…jeez, what a dumbass. Rule number one is never dig straight down."

"Hey, shut up, I did that earlier."

"But not in a cave near 12.6. If you dig straight down at that level you're asking to fall into lava."

"Anyway…is it possible we are the only ones going to The Feast?" Hiroki asked, excitement obvious in his voice.

"Possibly…it depends. How full is your inventory? I have an idea."

"6 mushroom soups in my hotbar and 5 more in my inventory, along with gravel, cobble, bread, old swords and pickaxes, wood, compasses, feathers, rotten flesh, bones, arrows."

"Hold up, let's throw some of that crap out right now. Keep your bread, soups and the arrows, but throw the rest of that shit out."

"Why?"

"When we get to The Feast, I'm going to stand guard while you go through the chests. Get absolutely all the important stuff: food, diamond, and potions. Enchant the sword if you can but either way grab that enchantment table. I have flint and steal; I'll break all the chests after you're done and set fire to all the extra junk so no one else can get any. Sound good?"

"Yeah, do you think I can get everything in my inventory?"

"Probably. But just get everything you can, and if there's something you can't fit for some reason, I can grab it real quick. We just need to get in, do our thing and get out."

The two tried not to snort at Nowaki's words, their minds immediately going to the gutter.

"Alright, sounds good…" Hiroki chuckled as the red text signaled that there were now 3 minutes until The Feast began.

"There's a guy over there looking at us…ah, he's coming, get ready."

The idiot charged for them, which would've been alright if he was a Cookiemonster or Berserker but rather useless as a Monk.

"Crap, he disarmed me," Hiroki mumbled as quickly he scrolled down to his secondary sword.

"See, this is why I always keep an extra sword in my hotbar," Nowaki reminded him as he frantically clicked at the Monk. "Come on, come on…yes, got him…wait, what, ProfKami killed him!?"

"You got the last one! We're even now."

"So that's five left? And we're two of them."

"Damn, they're talking up a storm. I wonder what the other one's doing."

"Hard to tell. I think these two are teaming up, too...I wish I knew what kits they were."

"I'm picking up the other guy on my compass…wait, it just spun the other way."

"He must be beneath us…maybe in a cave or something," Nowaki offered. He ignored the annoying chat between the other two players as he thought about what to do with the silent one. "Well, since he's obviously underground let's get him later. Or let the other two weed him out. For now let's just get to The Feast."

Nodding, Hiroki followed Nowaki's lead and, eventually, they came upon a large, flat grassy area between what had been the large forest they'd spawned in.

"Was this always here?"

"No, the server just carves out a random spot near spawn for The Feast. I've seen it on huge mountaintops before."

"Do you see anyone around?" Hiroki asked as the one minute marker came up.

"No, but let's go ahead to the center. With two of us it's not so bad to be in the open."

Forty-five, then thirty, and eventually it was ten seconds until The Feast commenced.

"Okay, remember, grab all the diamond, food, and potions. Enchant if you can. We'll sort the stuff out later. I'll watch your back."

"Alright."

When the countdown was up, Hiroki charged for the first of a dozen chests. Nowaki trailed behind him, circling the area and turning frequently to make sure nobody was coming up behind their backs.

"Chestplate, two pants, sword, soups, re-gen potion," Hiroki named off some of the items the better chest contained. "Iron crap, bucket of lava, webs? Why do you need spider webs?"

"I don't know, but we're still good, I'm watching ubermaster224 on my compass. I can't see him though. Can you enchant?"

"Yeah, I got 4 levels from that dungeon we found."

"Good. Use it on the sword. Once you're done I'll enchant my sword and you start breaking the chests, I don't want anyone else getting the leftovers. I'll take the table and…do you have flint and steel?"

"There was one in a chest, but I didn't grab it."

"That's fine," Nowaki said, sighing in relief as the enchantment table gave his sword Knockback I and Smite I. "Hell yes, I got a double enchantment. What'd you get?"

"Fucking Bane of Arthropods I," Hiroki mumbled, still keeping a weather eye on the fringe of the platform. Bane of Arthropods was a bullshit enchantment whereas a double-enchantment of Smite and Knockback was a rare blessing.

"That sucks, do you have any more levels? Too bad neither of us could get fire aspect."

"No. But since its diamond I'm not going to complain, although your sword is probably more powerful than mine now."

"Possibly. Okay, stand back, I'm gonna set fire to everything."

Hiroki backed away, still spinning around every few seconds to make sure nobody was coming. While he did this Nowaki ran around the center, trying to catch all the extras on fire to make sure there was no way anyone else could get the perks.

"Alright, we should be good, but go ahead and give me the diamond pants."

Without replying, Hiroki dutifully clicked 'E' to open his inventory and spit the diamond pants along with the chestplate at Nowaki.

"No, you keep the chestplate."

"It's fine; I have the sword, pants, and boots. Seriously, take the chestplate, it's fine."

The two quickly changed into their new armor and then fled the area, opting to head into the desert rather than the jungle.

The chat had been silent for a while, so Nowaki decided to try and stir the pot.

-Nowacky- Anyone go to the feast?

-ubermaster224- I didn't

-BaconBoy- no I built a house

The other guy didn't answer, but just a few seconds later the blue text suddenly appeared, indicating that he'd been exploded by a creeper. Just 4 people remained in the game.

-Nowacky- Neither did I

-ubermaster224- I wanted to but I'm too far away

-Nowacky- coords?

Hiroki smirked as the idiot actually typed out his coordinates, which was borderline suicide at this point in the game.

-ubermaster224- -467, -14, 368

-Nowacky- Wow youre far out, and underground?

-ubermaster224- ya lookin for diamond

Nowaki turned to Hiroki with a questioning look on his face. "Is this guy an idiot?"

"What?"

"Diamond doesn't spawn on these servers."

"Even I knew that," Hiroki mumbled as he opened up his coordinate map to find his way towards ubermaster224.

-Nowacky- Diamond doesnt spawn on these servers

-ubermaster224- wat

-Nowacky- Diamond doesnt spawn on these servers

-ubermaster224- wat

"It's like talking to a dolphin," Nowaki mumbled, exasperated, and Hiroki laughed at the guy's stupidity.

-Nowacky- Yeah the only way to get it is at the feast

-ubermaster224- omfg u've gotta be kiddin me

"I hate when people use English shorthand," Hiroki mumbled as he tried to decifer just what the hell he'd said.

"This guy is probably near lava so we need to be careful if we dig down," Nowaki warned. But then the guy said something they weren't expecting.

ubermaster224 guess I'll try and catch the feast then

Hiroki stared at the screen incredulously as the compass tracking ubermaster224 started moving, indicated that the guy was indeed coming above ground to try and head for The Feast.

"God, if we can catch him off guard, we will win this."

"This is great."

A few minutes later, with the occasional click to make sure they were still tracking ubermaster224 and that the other guy hadn't come up behind them, the guy finally spoke.

ubermaster224 god I hate digging myself out from underground

Nowacky Yes its a huge pain

Since the guy sounded like he was above ground now, Nowaki and Hiroki headed in the direction of their compass until it spun around. "Guess he's still underneath."

"We can hide behind that mountain," Hiroki suggested.

"Good idea. We can just shift-click until we can see his name."

The two high-tailed it over there, and not but 30 seconds later the guy's nametag appeared between the blocks and began walking in the direction the couple had just come from.

"Let's go."

Nowaki and Hiroki sprinted in ubermaster224's direction, jumping and sprinting to maximize their speed. When they finally caught up to him Nowaki was the first to strike but ended up knocking him even further away, since his sword had the Knockback enchantment. "Oh shit, now he knows we're after him."

"It's fine it's fine, he's just trying to ditch us in the forest; we gotta make sure we don't lose him."

Even with the guy weaving through the forest, Hiroki eventually caught up to him and since the guy knew he couldn't escape, he turned to fight.

"Hurry, Nowaki," Hiroki said as he quickly switched to mushroom soup in order to heal. Despite having diamond the guy was a skilled fighter and the professor was finding it hard to keep up.

"I see you, I see you, I'm gonna get him from behind…"

Finally, when Hiroki was just beginning to feel he was actually going to die, Nowaki swooped in and got another kill.

ubermaster224 (Monster) entered the next life, courtesy of Nowacky(Cultivator)'s Iron sword. 3 players remaining.

"Oh this is great, as long as the other guy isn't a Berserker or something we got this."

"What'll happen if he's a Berserker?"

"Well Berserker makes it so, after you kill a player or mob or something, you get super strong and dizzy for about 15 seconds. It's harder to see but not impossible, and it's very effective in taking out teams…but the chances are he's either Cannibal, Beastmaster, Monk, or Monster. Let's hope, anyway."

"Yeah…I don't want to waste my soups so let me heal for a second. I'm only at 4 hearts."

"Okay…wow, you were cutting it close, even with the diamond stuff on."

"There was something about that dude that wasn't right, because I kept getting hit but he didn't seem to take any damage."

"He may've just been hot-barring really fast."

"I suppose…alright, I'm at 7 ½, let's go."

They set off through the snow plains, using the compass as their only guide. It was nearing nighttime and since neither of them had an offensive kit, they needed to make it to the guy before sundown.

Finally, after stopping to eat and replenish their hunger several times, they found the guy high upon a cliff, building a surprisingly elaborate house. He didn't seem to be expecting them, but as they climbed the mountain they held down the shift key to make sure the guy couldn't see their nametags.

When they reached the top, they found a home fashioned out of wood, stone, and brick, complete with a tiny flower garden and wheat farm in the backyard. They could no longer see the enemy's name so they needed to be careful as they entered.

The moment they stepped inside, a potion was thrown directly at Nowaki, and he quickly began to lose health as if he'd been bitten by a cave spider. "What the fuck, I'm already almost dead," Nowaki cried, quickly scrolling in an attempt to heal.

"Heal, heal, he hasn't gotten me yet, I'm jumping around him trying to avoid it, but damn this is a horrible place to fight…"

The two were silent for a couple seconds as they became totally focused on switching between healing and fighting the opponent.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Hiroki chanted like a mantra as he quickly became overwhelmed by the fight. Just as his health bottomed out at half a heart, the guy exploded and the fighting ceased.

BaconBoy (Chemist) entered the next life, courtesy of ProfKami(Cannibal)'s Diamond Sword. 2 players remaining.

"We did it!" Nowaki cheered, reaching over and locking lips with Hiroki, catching the older man completely off guard. Despite his initial shock Hiroki just allowed himself to be kissed until the younger man deemed it time to go about building their celebratory shrine and determine who would be the true winner.

Several seconds later, Nowaki pulled away, smiling widely. "That only took us like 10 games…it took me at least 140 or so until I won the first time…shows how much I need you."

"Idiot. There's just strength in numbers."

"I suppose," he whispered, touching their lips together several more times before finally pulling all the way away. "Wanna build a shrine celebrating our victory?"

"And with what materials?"

Nowaki clicked 'E' to open his inventory, noting what Hiroki meant. They'd emptied out all of their building materials during the feast and now he only had a handful of cobble and dirt.

"I suppose that's true…I'd say we could make some stone brick but that'd take too long. But…how about we make our final fight interesting?"

Crossing his arms and cocking an eyebrow, Hiroki leaned back and looked his partner up and down carefully. "And what do you mean…'interesting'?"

"If I win, you do something for me, and if you win, I do something for you."

"You're talking about sex, aren't you."

"No!" Nowaki defended. "Anything."

Hiroki thought about it, but nothing came to mind for Nowaki to do for him other than sex. "Well…if I win…how about…" he took another minute to think about it. "…you take me out to dinner, and I get whatever I want."

"Is that the best you can think of? I do that for you anyway."

"Okay, then! …you…do all the laundry for a month."

Nowaki shrugged his shoulders. "Alright. Now, if I win…you have to introduce me to your parents."

Eyes widening, Hiroki shook his head. "No deal."

Nowaki pursed his lips and leaned in closer to the older man. "Hiro-san…I already agreed to yours."

"Then I'll do the laundry for the month. No deal."

Slightly hurt by Hiroki's flat-out refusal to have him meet the older man's parents, Nowaki grabbed his chin and forced Hiroki into looking at him.

"Hiro-san."

Hiroki tried to pull away, but that just made Nowaki grab his cheeks.

"Why can't I meet your parents?"

Looking into the younger man's hurt eyes; Hiroki hated himself for immediately refusing his partner that honor. "It's not that…I'm ashamed of you…" Hiroki looked down, gently pulled Nowaki's hands away from his face but not letting go of them. "…I'm afraid of how my parents will react to you."

Nowaki rubbed Hiroki's knuckles with his thumbs. "I know you said your parents are traditional people…and I don't want you to be condemned just because of my selfish wants. You don't have to introduce me as your partner, but I just want to meet them."

When Hiroki didn't say anything, Nowaki leaned in and placed his lips on the top of Hiroki's forehead. "Can you at least grant me that…?"

The brush of hair against his cheek told him that Hiroki had actually nodded. Even though it wasn't guaranteed, the notion of possibly being introduced to Hiroki's parents was enough. Nowaki smiled, wanting to kiss the blushing older man but knowing that if he did, they probably would never get to actually fight each other in-game. Instead he ran his fingers through the messy brown locks, slowly pulling away and giving him one lasting, thankful look before resuming his position back at the computer.

"Okay, what're the grounds for our fight," Hiroki asked, trying to clear his lightly burning eyes.

"Nothing but fists. No soups, no armor, no swords. No running away."

"That sounds fair."

"Too bad I'm not a Boxer," Nowaki sighed as he emptied all of his junk over the fence of the guy's former home. "Okay, I'm all clear, see." Nowaki left his inventory open to show he was clean.

"Yeah, I'm good, too," Hiroki said, leaving his open as well.

The two closed their inventories and climbed down the mountain to the flatter grass plains—a better site for their fight.

"Okay, ready?"

"Yeah…"

"Let's go."

They charged at each other, clicking profusely and jumping to try and avoid as well as strike as effectively as possible. Since fists did little damage it took longer, but eventually they were nearing the lower end of their health bar.

"Dammit!" Nowaki cursed as he fell into the opening of a cave that was rather small but deep enough to kill him on impact. "Oh my God, I didn't see that. Did you walk me there on purpose?!"

"I swear I didn't," Hiroki mumbled, smiling slightly as he watched 'ProfKami wins!' fill chat. "I only had a heart and a half left."

"I think I had 3, but that's moot now that I fell down that big-ass hole."

The two were silent for a few seconds as Hiroki basked silently in his glorious and lucky win.

"I'll call my mother about having dinner next week."

"What?"

Hiroki turned his head. "What evenings are you off next week?"

Nowaki swallowed as his dreams of meeting Hiroki's parents sprung back into life. "I'm off Wednesday night. I get off at 3."

"That should work…I'll leave a little early and we can take the train up…I'll call her tomorrow."

Suddenly overwhelmed with emotion toward his generous partner, Nowaki slowly but forcefully leaned Hiroki onto the ground with his lips. Even though it was late and he was tired, Hiroki was so relieved to see Nowaki that happy he didn't have the heart to ruin the moment.

As Nowaki pulled away to remove their shirts, Hiroki smiled and grabbed Nowaki's wrist.

"You're still stuck with laundry duty."

Smiling, Nowaki leaned down and breathed into the reddened ear, "I think I can handle that."

END

X X X

If you managed to actually understand any of that or at least finish this confusing fic, congratulations! Internet cookies for you all!

By the way...most of you probably won't understand how intense the game gets. (Or maybe that's just me since I'm so fantastically over-the-top competative?) But, really...when I'm fighting someone my heart pounds like I've just gone running, haha. I toned down the swearing a bit because it was a bitg much but I just wrote them to mirror the way my friends and I talk while playing; hurried, anxious speech and lots of obscenities.

Please review; even for a crack fic, I'd like some feedback. I just ask that you don't rag on the game or the fact that I did an entire story about the game.

Thanks for reading!