It was a cold, dreary evening when Kevin had first found the capsule: November 1st. The new moon and flickering street lights offered enough illumination to see through the consistent drizzle, but just barely. The combined scent of churning, damp earth and salty ocean air was overpowering, and it was up to each resident of Woodruck to decide if it was enjoyable or abominable.
Kevin quite liked it. Showers at the nearest truck stop cost too much, and this rain was strong and consistent enough to do its job but not harsh enough or cold enough to cause any sort of illness. The only part he didn’t like: it was on such days when he got the most pity. It was never in helpful ways, like monetary donations or offers of shelter, but every eye brave enough to look his way seemed to waver sadly before glancing away as if to say, “That poor little boy, bless his heart. So cold and rainy. He should be taken away from his parents.”
This imagined internal monologue always made Kevin chuckle. He wished he could climb into their minds and reply “Don’t worry, ma’am, God took care of that part for me.” But, of course, he couldn’t, so he’d just look away.
At this point, though, he’d almost rather have a gacha than a parent. He’d learned to live without the latter, and even at the sweet old age of 12 he was old enough to realize they could only offer so much safety and protection. There was nothing they could do, for example, if one of the bullies at school sicced a Throckmorton or Tiffany on him. Nobody had tried to, yet, mercifully, but he knew it was only a matter of time. The weak were punished for every way in which they were weaker than their tormentors, he’d learned, and he was already a target in the eyes of the kids with houses and families. The gacha gap was only one more thing to throw onto the pile.
Not that the other kids all had gacha, of course. Many of them did, but for plenty of them the twenty-dollar price tag for the Gacha Glove was excessive. The Glove came with a single starter gacha, a random One Star, but one did have to pump hundreds of quarters into the machine to get a single capsule beyond that and a shot at the more powerful and popular gacha. Kevin was pretty sure it was actually technically impossible for the machines to function as he’d seen them--inserting four quarters, turning, and repeating another 99 times to drop a capsule was simply not a thing that a small machine could do--but it was the least reality-breaking thing about the small invasion that had occurred only one day prior.
Needless to say, ever owning a gacha had become a pipe dream for Kevin, up there with such ridiculous ideas as owning more than one set of clothes or sleeping somewhere other than the floor in the local Wal-Mart. So when he was wandering along a line of oceanfront shops in the downtown and noticed a gacha capsule sitting in the corner of an alley, his little heart nearly tore out of his chest with excitement. He dashed wildly over to it and drew in every glorious detail--he never thought he’d ever even get to so much as hold one.
Eyes wide with bewilderment, he rotated the small plastic capsule between his fingers. It seemed fused shut at the bottom and was painted black to obscure the contents inside, but aside from that it looked no different than the capsules containing tiny football mascots or Pokemon stickers that he’d seen in front of grocery and big-box stores for years. The black texturing on the outside was more like sandpaper than smooth, flexible plastic, though, and it had zero give when he tried to squeeze. A large sticker affixed to one side detailed the contents:
“ CHARACTER: MATT
(picture of Matt’s beautiful face)
RARITY: VERY COMMON
RATING: (one shaded in star and four hollow ones)
MAGIC ELEMENT: SONIC
ABOUT:A punk rocker who was fired from his job at Blockbuster. In his anger, he formed a punk rock garage band that quickly became one of the most popular in his entire city. He’s a bad dude with a radical tude.”
This all sounded pretty great to Kevin. He knew how to activate them, he’d seen the bigger cooler kids do it: just add blood. He didn’t have a pocket knife like they did, so he found a sharp piece of brickwork in the alley and frantically rubbed the pad of his right forefinger against it until the abrasion wore down the skin enough to rip it open. The wound looked no wider than a papercut, but when he pushed the soft flesh beneath it, a nice orb of fresh, hot blood oozed forth. Kevin pressed his fingertip to the top of the capsule and forced it along the rough finish, gritting his teeth to steele against the sharp pain that grinding the cut against sandpaper caused.
It only took about an inch of smeared human blood to activate the capsule, which started to glow a pale red. This arcane light grew more and more intense, as did the accompanying heat, until the look and feel was like touching the heating element in a stove with bare hands. Kevin finally relented and dropped the capsule, cursing under his breath at his burns. When the bright orb hit the ground, it exploded in a puff of black smoke. When the smoke cleared, there was no capsule--just a Matt, fully formed, standing before him, looking down at him. A glowing red eyeball-like sigil glowed in the center of his forehead--that wasn’t on the picture on the capsule! As friendly as the face on the capsule had looked, Kevin now felt like he was coming face to face with a god of darkness, and waves of panic seized him.
“H-hello,” Kevin mumbled nervously, taking a cautious step back and trying to hide how wildly he was trembling. He hadn’t really expected to get this far. Now that the looming glamorous punk-rock superhuman was actually standing over him and looking at him with piercing burgundy eyes, Kevin immediately questioned his plan to summon him without a Gacha Glove. He didn’t like the idea of the Gloves, but he had to admit that it would have made this plan much less of a risk. “I-I’m Kevin.”
Matt cracked his knuckles. “So, one of you finally decides to actually open me up, even though I’m just a Matt, eh?” His deep voice was somewhere between warm and threatening, and Kevin was petrified. “You’re, uh… you’re not wearing a Glove, kid.”
“I-I know. Yeah. I’m not.”
“Why the hell would you summon me without a Glove?”
“I--I c-can’t afford one. And even if I could, it, uh, it-it seems kind of mean, anyway. To make someone listen to you like that, even if they don’t want to. Seems like slavery or something. We’re learning about that in more detail in school right now, b-but the kids with Gloves don’t seem to see the parallels. I guess cause gacha aren’t considered people or whatever. But you look like a person to me.”
Matt raised an eyebrow suspiciously. “Look, kid. That’s real sweet and all, but you know that without a Glove, there’s literally nothing stopping me from just snapping your head off like an action figure and leaving you in this alley in pieces, right? You knew that when you summoned me?”
Kevin was shaking all over and trying to hold back tears, and he darted even deeper into the alley, but he didn’t break eye contact. “Y-yeah.”
“And you… did it anyway.”
“Y… yes.”
Matt paused for a second, then burst out laughing. “Wicked. You’re more metal than you look, little dude. Why would you risk all that for a Matt?”
“What’s wrong with a Matt?”
Matt laughed again, but quickly realized the preteen was sincere. Matt paused to mull it over. Indeed, what was wrong with it? He’d come to think there must be something wrong with it, since he could hear everything that happened outside of his capsule from the moment he left the machine. Not one, not two, but three children had discussed why exactly it was such a disappointment to get him and cast him aside for one reason or another.
“Yet another Matthew? God damn it all! Argh! Fetch me more quarters at once!
“I can’t keep bringing Matts home. I’m running out of space in my room.”
“Hey, look what I found, score! ...ah, heck. What a waste. Don’t need another one of those losers.”
“Man, shut up, Doug. Littering ain’t bad if it’s just a Matt, right?”
...and now, here was some glove-less kid was willing to risk being eviscerated by murderous arcane punk rock teens from vending machines for the chance of having one. Matt was having feelings that he didn’t think were very punk rock, but that he savored nonetheless. He tried to hold back a tear, but his black eyeshadow ended up smeared in spite of himself.
“Did--did you want me to get a Glove?” Kevin asked, shyly.
“No. You’re--you’re good, kid.” Matt took a step out of the alley’s mouth. Nobody else around. “Where are your parents, kid?”
“Don’t got em.”
“Traded them in for a GameBoy, eh?”
“They died.”
“And you didn’t even get a GameBoy for it?”
“It’s not funny.”
“No, I guess it’s not. I guess that really sucks.” Matt sighed and stood in silence in the rain for a moment next to his unlikely savior, running a hand through his damp red-frosted tips. It felt even more amazing to exist than he had expected. “Where do you live, Kev?”
Kevin shrugged.
“That’s not a good answer. Kids should go to school. I didn’t, but I also got fired from a Blockbuster of all places, so I don’t think I’m the kinda’ dude you wanna emulate.”
“I go to school.”
Matt pondered this. “You don’t have a house, but you go to school.”
Keven nodded. “I figure it’ll help me get a house eventually.”
“Where do you do your homework?”
“The library computers have Microsoft Office.”
“Ah.”
“What’s that thing on your head?”
“What thing?”
Kevin pointed to the glowing eyeball mark on his forehead. He’d never seen a Matt with one before, and something about it seemed… powerful. Dangerous. Arcane.
“Oh, that?” Matt froze for a moment. “Uh… don’t worry about it.”
“Okay, I won’t. Just… you know.”
“Know what?”
“It’s really cool.”
“Thanks. But don’t tell anyone about it.” He pulled a small compact from his inner jacket pocket and quickly drowned the glowing seal in white foundation, until it all blended perfectly and he looked like any other Matt.
“Don’t worry, I won’t.”
The conversation fell back into a lull. There was something different about this kid than the others who had passed his capsule around to laugh at it, Matt thought. They had all seemed to live such lives of ease! Hell, a one hundred dollar toy wasn’t good enough for them, so they’d all tossed it in the street, for one reason or another. Matt was especially baffled by the first kid he’d heard, who had actually put four hundred quarters in the machine and tossed him aside nonetheless. But here was a kid who had nothing going for him, and everything going against him, who was somehow less of a little POS than the others had been.
Matt couldn’t wrap his head around that. It seemed like those kids who’d had every luxury in the world somehow ended up bitter and cruel, but this ratty, filthy boy who wandered the streets alone didn’t even see him as a gacha, but as… a human. Why wasn’t he bitter? Why didn’t he want revenge, and control? How did he still have kindness inside him? Matt thought back to his own backstory and how he’d been so angry and abrasive towards everyone in his life after losing his job at Blockbuster, even though it had been his fault for stealing from them, and how he’d made everyone around him suffer for his misfortune.
He had an inkling that the memories were more of an ingrained cutscene than records of real events, since he’d just come out of a vending machine, but the point was the same--Matt couldn’t imagine going through what this kid had and coming out on the other side like this. So kind and fair and driven, if not overly shy and reactive. He wouldn’t last thirty seconds in a fight against a kid his age, let alone a gacha, but he pushed on anyway and even risked a terrible death to summon a Matt of all things without a Glove.
Matt had made up his mind. This was his purpose--this was what he’d dedicate himself to now. He’d always kind of wanted a younger brother, anyway. He couldn’t remember if he was supposed to have one or not, but he knew he didn’t have one in reality, and this was close enough. Besides, this kid really wanted a gacha, and Matt really wanted to not roll around on the ground for the next two years and then end up in a landfill. And, you know, maybe if a kid with the entire deck stacked against him could rise above the tides… maybe, just maybe, he could be more than just a Matt.
“Alright, you win,” Matt sighed. “I’ll be your gacha.”
“Y-you’ll what?” Kevin blurted, his eyes expanding.
“You heard me. I appreciate you not bending my brain around with that Glove B.S. I’ll follow you around without one. Watch your fragile little back, beat the hell out of whoever screws with ya. That’s what gacha do, right?”
“I-I mean, y-yeah, I wouldn’t have put it quite like that, but--”
“Then it’s settled. No matter how tough shit gets, I’ll be right there with ya.”
But, just two days later, shit was finally becoming less tough for Matt and Kevin. Matt lounged on a cheap leather sofa and watched the newest episode of South Park, “Chinpokomon,” trying to stifle his laughter to keep from waking the Detective in the next wing over. Matt hadn’t genuinely laughed since he’d been summoned... until now. Knowing that Kevin was safe, even for just one night, had lifted a burden so heavy Matt felt now like he could fly if he’d only lift his high heels from the carpeted ground. It was the kind of oppressive sensation that’s only acknowledged in the aftermath of its sudden absence.
The bathroom door opened, and Kevin emerged through a cloud of steam. He looked ridiculous in the comically-huge pajamas Lashbrook had loaned him, but he had also never looked happier. Matt was shocked to discover that the kid’s soaked hair was a light blonde, and not dirty-blonde at all: he must have just been that filthy. Kevin joined him on the couch and was equally drawn into the irreverent animated world on-screen. The fact he was clearly too young to be in the target audience only made it more enthralling.
By the time the episode came to a close, the plot had resolved in a hilarious and clever fashion: the Chinpokomon fad was killed when parents pretended to get into it, making the children of South Park decide it was uncool and drop the phenomena for good. It wasn’t exactly the most scathing commentary on the show, or even in that episode, but it gave Matt a good chuckle. “You don’t think that’ll happen with Gacha Glove, do you, Matt?” Kevin asked, interrupting the drone of the end credits.
“Huh?”
“I mean, it’ll stop being cool because people’s parents get into it.”
Matt stifled a smartass remark and simply added, “Nah.” This kid really had no idea how parents worked, did he? It was sad his biggest impressions from the concept came from a satirical cartoon for adults. “Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen with gacha, because I don’t even know how gacha happened, or how it’s possible. I keep expecting, honestly, to wake up and realize it was all a dream. Or, worse, for someone else to wake up, and for me to realize I was just a part of their dream and that my existence is impossible simply because I never did exist. But I’ll promise ya this. I’ll be there for you, no matter what happens in the end. This is scary, unknown territory, but that’s what you’re used to, yeah?”
Kevin nodded.
“Then don’t worry about it. You have a rare opportunity here to get some sleep in a real bed, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t pretty revved up to sleep on a nice couch. Get some sleep, you’ve got school in the morning.”
Kevin thought back to the encounter with the demonic sentient refrigerator. “I don’t really want to go to school tomorrow, Matt.”
“Yeah? Tough luck, kid, sorry. I’ll be there too, don’t start trippin’. If anybody screws with us, they’ll quickly learn a new meaning to the word pain. And after school, we’ll head to the arcade. Alright?”
“Alright.”
“Now get some sleep and I’ll take a turn in the shower. I don’t know if gacha can get BO, but I don’t want to find out.”