Opening the Valve

A KNIGHT'S HONOR

It had seemed like such an innocent idea at the time.

That was one of Sophie's many thoughts, as she walked towards what would surely be an awkward meeting with Kekepania at her dorm room.

Sophie had previously suggested sharing contacts on Steam. It would give Sophie a few hints as to some good games, not to mention ease communication. This was, as it turned out, a questionable idea. As it turned out, Kekepania had a few games that, having checked the store pages, were known for strong lesbian overtones at minimum. Including a few inexpensive visual novels with mild hentai elements.

... And Sophie knew damn well because she had a couple of the same from when she was... err... exploring?

And there was a good chance that Kekepania had seen her library as well.

As she approached the door, Sophie took a deep breath, "Okay, you've got this." she muttered under her breath to try to calm herself, "It'll be okay. You've got nothing to be ashamed of."

That helped... a little bit at most. At least it freed her up to knock on the door, blushing and anxious as she was.

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Kekepania heard the knock on the door and took off the helmet. She set it gently on the bed and stretched as she stood up. She'd lost track of time. Maybe it was worth adding a clock to the game but then that would break immersion and she had been mostly doing a lot of coding inside the helmet so it was her own fault for not checking the clock.

She stepped out of her room and stuck her finger in her ear to clear out the little bit of ringing from having her music playing for so long. "Shoo, move out of the way." She said, gently pushing Freddie the spotted roomba out of the way of the door with her bare foot. She opened the door and smiled at Sophie.

It was an odd change, usually she would have bristled and been annoyed if the knocking door had forced her to step away from her virtual world but now she was, well, not happy about it but she definitely wasn't unhappy to have Sophie come and see her. It would take some getting used to but for some reason, that felt really easy to do.

"Hey Sophie." she said and opened the door wide, keeping her foot in the way of the roomba as it spun uselessly trying to get out of the corner. "Come on in. You look red, do you want a glass of water?"

A KNIGHT'S HONOR

She turned redder. How was she going to parse this. She didn't want to blurt out something like 'hey Keke, are you gay?' or something. But she didn't want to be too reluctant to ask. She didn't want to make it seem like it was a bad thing too, or intimidate her, or...

"Uh, water, yeah!" she mentioned, as she walked in, "Thanks!"

She looked for a place to sit, making sure to avoid stepping on the robo pet as she walked through the door. The brief water thing would give her a precious few seconds to desperately try to think of a way to answer.

She took a deep breath.

"So, I saw your Steam collection." she mentioned, slowly following Kekepania as her mind was more occupied by the thought of how she'd approach this. She smiled as she remembered those visual novels usually had a love interest or something. She looked up. That's how she could broach this big gay question.

"I didn't think you liked shippy romance stuff."

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Kekepania shut the door carefully to avoid letting her ‘pet’ out and then stepped the short way to the cupboard where they kept the mix of assorted plastic cups they used as dish ware. Most everything was still marked in fading logos from the food shops they’d been bought at. Her and her roommate rarely used the proper stuff that they had brought to school. That was nice and, more importantly, breakable. She pulled out a red cup with a picture of a chicken that had faded after multiple washings and retrieved the jug of filtered water. “Did you want ice?”

She set about filling the cup and handed it to Sophie. The question didn’t entirely catch her off guard but it did seem like an odd one. “Oh?” Maybe Koke had made a mistake. Perhaps she should have gone through Sohpie’s and looked for games they might both have that they could have played together. Being more of a solo gamer, she hadn’t really thought about that. But then, a lot of people liked playing with or against friends. Co-op was an angle she’d considered and dismissed since Koke had decided she didn’t want to share her world with anyone and programming that seemed a bit of a nightmare.

“Nah, that stuff is stupid.” She said offhandedly. “You buy a bundle of games to get one or two and then you’ve got stuff you’re out interested in. Then, it’s like, if you don’t play them, you’ve wasted your money, you know.” She waved her hand dismissively. “And they trick you, they’ve got names that make it sound like a civilization builder and then suddenly you’re watching two people make kissy faces at each other for an hour. Why should I care if it’s her true love or whatever, let me breed the perfect Emperor so I can conquer Eurasia, you know?”

A KNIGHT'S HONOR

"O-oh..." Sophie mentioned, her head tilting down just slightly, a bit of disappointment leaking into her response. That signaled Kekepania wasn't as gay as Sophie thought she was. Which was gay at all. Not necessarily for dating reasons, as oblivious and awkward as Sophie was about such things. But it would have been nice for them to be able to relate to each other on that level.

Now it was time to like hell.

"Haha!" she giggled, part forced, part out of embarrassment, "I probably should have guessed!" She took a deep breath, and said "Thanks." to Kekepania as she was handed the water, and took a big sip to buy a moment.

"It was just those 'your friend also has' things, you never know what it turns out your friends will have, right?" She took a deep breath, not aware of any odd hints about herself she might have given. She briefly imagined Kekepania in those Fire Emblem Awakening Robin 'pair x and y to get uberstated child' memes to help get her composure together.

"I've heard you can get lost in those kinds of games for hours and hours."

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Kekepania smiled to herself. She was being a good host. Her guest had an issue and she had taken care of it. That was to be expected of the lady in her castle. Fully capable. But this piqued some curiosity in Kekepania, she honestly hadn't considered going through Sophie's library. "If you say so, I don't know enough people to say but I guess there are those stories about the mild office worker who likes slasher movies or stuff like that so it makes sense. Entertainment is fun and maybe you, you know, want something thats, uh, different." She finished. It was mostly just saying the same thing Sophie had just said but Kekepania had been trying to agree.

"Anyway, come into my room. I think my roommate is having a nap again. She sleeps heavy so we probably won't disturb her but this is better." Kekepania stepped around Freddy the Roomba and stopped at her bedroom door for Sophie to go in first. "Try not to trip on any cords or anything." She cautioned.

Following Sophie in, she stepped over to the computer and began saving her work before closing out of her programs. Her room was still a slightly chaotic place with wires draped around, most just a few inches off the floor so her 'pets' could maneuver. Her uniform was hung up properly and even her laundry seemed to be folded up in the basket. Still, there was space for Sophie to sit on the bed.

The question was, what would they do to hang out, Kekepania hadn't really had anything planned but Sophie seemed to have opened up with a good idea. They could compare games and maybe share some. "I haven't made as much progress on my game, though I think I've figured out how to stop birds from ignoring solid objects. Though, it the forests they'll still clip through leaves of trees and stuff which is probably fine. I just added a leaf falling shower when that happens and it should be distracting enough nobody will notice." She spoke as if in a sort of apology for not having much more to show Sophie in her original game than she saw previously.

But as she spoke, her fingers were clacking away and, almost instantly, Sophie's library was on screen with their list of shared games.

A KNIGHT'S HONOR

Sophie was surprised to hear that Kekepania's roommate was sleeping. Sophie went silent for a moment to try to decipher what Kekepania just said to her, only to blush slightly for a moment as she realized it was her own rambling spat back at her.

She found the whole thing to be a bit charming, as she entered Kekepania's room. Yes it was a bit chaotic, but making sure roombas didn't get stuck. Honestly, Kekepania deserved to be a cat/dog mom and have a genuine pet.

Whatever little charm she was appreciating was blown out of the water when her eye caught 'Sophie's Library' on Kekepania's computer. She could only stare like a deer in headlights as she realized, like the oracles of old, her own prophecies had lead to the dreaded event in question.

Front and center were several games, some shared and some not, that had obvious yuri elements. Some slightly explicit, as part of her attempts to sus out her own orientation. And some in her semi-secret embrace of it.

"I... uh..." her face was nervous and beet red. There went her closet, at least in terms of where her best friend was concerned.

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Kekepania’s fingers danced across the keyboard and then her right hand went to the mouse to scroll. The games had organized themselves into boxes and categories. Probably they couldn’t just share a game but maybe there’d be something they could play together if that’s what Sophie wanted to do today. Otherwise, there might be something they could just chat about. Really, the list of shared games wasn’t going to include much in the way of multiplayer since Kekepania didn’t go in much for other people.

“Oh, I know that one.” She said as a princess style game flashed by, the games about royalty and knights. That made sense from what she knew of her friend’s love of that sort of thing. Well every kingdom needed loyal protectors. “I’ve played this one.” She said as another princess title came by. “I thought there’d be some kingdom management or something but it was just a story with multiple choice.” Lots of those, some she knew of, most had been disappointing. Not what she was after.

“You have a lot of those. Do you like that sort of thing?” It might be worth giving it another shot, after all, just because they weren’t what she wanted at the time didn’t mean that visual novels were bad. There was also something else about a lot of the games, a common thread that wasn’t just the style and was heavily implied by the images on the front. There seemed to be a lot of games about girls and romancing girls. It had the implication of gay to it. Actually, more than one of the games she’d played had leant that way, the Queen visual novel had even used marrying a guy as a bad end.

Was that a common thing in the genre? Did most dudes who played these games dislike seeing other guys in their stories that they’d rather just have it all be girls? Well, she had an expert in the room with her. “I didn’t realize you were so into romantic stuff. Sorry if I came off as a bit mean about it before.” She prefaced, she was self aware enough to know that maybe her dislike of romance could be off putting. “Seems like there’s not a lot of guys in these games though, that normal?”

A KNIGHT'S HONOR

Kekepania's self-absorption was only equaled by Sophie's ineptitude as a liar. Sophie cringed as she saw Kekepania scroll through the library full of gay that was her Steam collection.

She zoned out for a moment, brought out by the words 'you like that sort of thing' before context kicked in. She breathed just a microscopic sigh of relief, before saying, "O-oh, sure! I mean, these kinds of things are, fluffy. I mean, you've got to admit, romance video games are usually kinda idealized." she explained, "It's kinda like... lots of people like Call of Duty, but I doubt most of them would want to run into a war zone. Well, I figure you would take that perspective, maybe?" She had significantly fewer problems with romance stuff.

She worked to regain her composure just a little as her friend continued to scroll through her collection. At some point, it'd fade back to a collection Kekepania would probably see more favorably. "Ah, well... you know." she told her, "It's kinda just a... phase! I liked one, so I got a couple more, and then you see another on sale. Anyways, I haven't gotten as many lately, so it's just another type of game again."

And then there was the one question that was difficult for her to really maneuver around.

"A-ahaha, that's the tricky part." she explained, with a nervous smile, "You never know what's just advertising to get a bunch of horny guys to buy it, and what's genuine shoujo ai Pretty much any game has a gay option nowadays."

How much more of Sophie's lies would she believe?

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Kekepania stared at the screen and the titles and covers that scrolled by. Well obviously the nastier games you wouldn't want to live in. And managing her own life was hard so managing a real kingdom would probably be a whole lot harder than it was in even the most complicated of Kekepania's country simulators. Heck, even her own project was basically letting her live her own fantasies vicariously. She swiveled around in her chair and looked at Sophie with a tilted head.

"Really? The covers don't make it look like it's an option though." She let go of the mouse and put her hands on the armrest. "I guess having it at all a good thing. If you've got to have something with romance stuff then you should open it up to everyone. It's like the Byzantines, you only have them and you're going to get a niche audience but if you open it up to more civilizations and you can draw from a bigger pool."

Sophie was looking incredibly red now though. Maybe all the heat in the room was getting to her. Kekepania didn't think it was that hot but she did have a lot of electronics running so maybe she had just stopped noticing. Should she ignore it? Should she do something about it? Kekepania hadn't found herself in a situation like this with another person before. It was easier just to ignore it but they were friends and friends checked in on each other. "Are you sure you're ok? I mean, if you aren't feeling well you didn't have to come over. I would have understood. You can lay down if you need to."

A KNIGHT'S HONOR

"R-right!" she sputtered, "I mean, that's marketing for ya!"

Sophie listened to her friend bring up the redness of her face, letting her realize her face was giving her away. She managed to get control again, for the moment at least, as she took a deep breath.

"I'm fine, honestly. I probably would have stayed in my dorm anyways if I wasn't feeling that well." she told her. She didn't want to risk getting other people, much less her friend, sick if she could avoid it.

She took a moment to reassess the situation and think up stuff, "I'll admit some of these games were primarily gay, disappointingly. I'm not very good at figuring out which are genuinely shoujo ai and which just feature it on the ad as a way to drum up sales. So when you found those games on there, I was worried you'd get the wrong idea about me." She let out a nervous giggle, and let her posture detense, as she tried to seem normal. Probably trying too hard. Let it be known that Sophie's skills as an actress did not translate well off the stage.

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“Oh.” Kekepania said, her face not quite hitting a frown. She looked back at the computer and stared at the games. So some of them were actually gay and it wasn’t all just girls to attract boys. Still, Sophie wasn’t feeling bad, just embarrassed. Kekepania had a lot of experience with that feeling. Maybe it would be better to just move past it, it would be more comfortable for both of them. But that wasn’t a nice thing, to be thought of as somebody who would mock a person for having a gay game. She had them too. Maybe if they were really bad games, or something incredibly stupid but then sometimes you saw those come about as a joke gift. Not that she had the money or friends to get gag gifts like that for.

Kekepania started scrolling through the list. And that wasn’t about being mean. That would be just making fun of the game, it wasn’t really cruel. And if it was that bad, they could both laugh about it. It wouldn’t be teasing, not really. Not like being, well, not like being gay at all. That would really hurt somebody just like making fun of their parents or having cheap or used clothes. Did Sophie really think she’d do that?

Well, Kekepania maybe wasn’t the nicest person or the most considerate. But she wasn’t, you know, awful about it. She stopped scrolling and had to keep from biting her lip. “I don’t-“ she stopped. “You, uh…”. This was hard. “I’m not mean.” She said, which wasn’t at all the point of things and did make the conversation about her, as she usually did. “I mean, I wouldn’t tell people. You’re my friend.”

A KNIGHT'S HONOR

Sophie was still on edge, not thinking clearly. Even the 'okay' barely relieved the feeling of tension for Sophie as Kekepania continued to look at the computer and analyze. Meanwhile, Sophie continued to play out nightmare scenarios spawned of anxiety.

And of course, as Kekapania started speaking, her heart almost felt like it had paused for a moment. Her mind leapt to the interpretation that concluded the Hawaiian had discovered her little secret, and let out a gasp, her body tensing up.

"I mean, I didn't mean to say you'd." she sputtered out, her face beat red, At the same time, she untensed, as if realizing an anticipated punch was never going to come. "But you... don't. You don't mind?" she mentioned, taking a shaky deep breath.

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"I don't...I mean I..." This was super awkward, and Kekepania was already regretting not just pretending the whole thing hadn't happened. "I know what it's like, I mean..." She stared hard at the computer screen, trying hard to blot out the awkwardness filling her head with fog and tying her tongue into knots. She was a princess, basically a queen. Royalty didn't get tongue tied but admitting something like this, admitting her past troubles was hard. It would break the perfect image that Keke tried to put up all the time. But Sophie was her friend, right? It was important to support a friend, and it wasn't like Sophie would spread things around. Did Kekepania really think so little of Sophie? Of course not.

This friendship thing was so difficult. This was why servants would be better. Kekepania kept trying to force out the words. "People don't, I mean I am...Look. If some people want to be jerks then they can shove off. But you're my friend and nobody gets to be mean to my friend." That sounded good. A queen protected those who served her. "You don't have to tell me stuff if you don't want to but we're friends now and we're going to stay friends no matter what." So now nothing else had to be said and maybe the whole awkward conversation could be forgotten about and they could just pretend nothing embarrassing had happened at all.

Nov 14, 2022 2:40:06 GMT -5 Sophie Daniels said:

A KNIGHT'S HONOR

While the calculus of image played out in Kekepania's head, another set of calculations went through for Sophie. Kekepania was her friend. Shouldn't she trust her friend - I mean, Kekepania had her hangups about love and romance, but that didn't mean she was homophobic.

Sophie tensed up, and started weighing how to best do it, and looked deep in thought as her heart raced with anxiety.

...

"Kekepania, I... I was afraid of telling you this precisely because we're good friends. I didn't know how you'd take it, even with the times we're in. I guess I was afraid you'd not like it, that it'd cast things I did in a different light. But... I'm kinda a lesbian."

That's how it played out in her head. That's what she planned on saying. Unfortunately, Miss Actress flubbed her lines when it came time to actually deliver, and instead blurted out.

"Keke, I'm sorry but I'm gay!"

Sophie was visibly mortified at how it (and she) came out, and blushed deeply cupping her hands over her own mouth.

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Kekepania was definitely struggling with all the thoughts running through her head. Well mostly it was the same thought running at the same time over and over and very loud. That thought being ‘what do I say now’. And that was not a helpful thought. “I uh, I forgive you.” She blurted out as the first actual words her brain could catch. “No wait. Not um.” Her hands were frozen at the keyboard and she glanced from the screen to Sophie to anywhere else and then back in sudden panicked jerks. “I mean good. Or not good. Not sorry-shoot.”

She stood up suddenly. She could run. No, this was her room. There was nowhere to go. Everything was crumbling now. She didn’t have any walls up, no experience dealing with this kind of thing. Kekepania was a princess, she was a queen, she was above this kind of flustered panic. It was time to retreat completely. Kekepania cupped her elbow with her left hand and brought the right to her mouth. “Sorry, how unbecoming.” She turned and faced away from Sophie. The other girl could recover with some level of privacy and not be seen in such a state. Definitely not because Kekepania was still trying to get ahold of her own expression. “As a princess, I accept all of my subjects. Of course.” She said stiffly. “As I said. You’re still my friend and I hope you remain beside me.” Yes, that was properly royal. Now if she could just push past this whole thing. The minefield of romance always caused trouble, this was why it was better to hide from it entirely.

A KNIGHT'S HONOR

A thousand thoughts and questions went through Sophie's head as she wondered what the faux-princess's response would be, and her initial response almost made her panic as she visibly had tensed up. Seconds seemed to be minutes as Kekepania took a moment to revise her initial response, much to the relief of a red-faced Sophie.

Sophie took a moment after she did, however. Obvious deep breaths, "Oh thank God." she she said, visibly relieved. That was definately the realistic best case scenario. Her face was still red, "Well... I'm glad you're okay with it." The world was getting better about it, but you didn't always know how people were about it.

She took another moment, before trying to break the awkward silence immediately after, "Uh... I'm... sorry I just sprung it like that... you know?" It wasn't like she really knew any better way though.

"So... um... maybe keep this between us please?" she asked. Obviously there were people here who wouldn't take it as well as her liege lady had.

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"No, no, it's my fault." Keke said, actually admitting that she had made a mistake was normally difficult but this was easy because it wasn't a mistake she had to feel really guilty about, right? It was just an awkward discovery browing through games, it wasn't as if anyone had actually done anything wrong, they were just trying to recover. No, definitely nobody's fault and nobody could blame Keke for handling it this way because it was just so unexpected. How could you be ready for a confession like that? But then, what did it mean? Should she ask questions? The whole idea of romance was unpleasant, but was that just because romance and love was bad or was it something that had to do with guys?

"Maybe love was different if you were gay. Better not ask questions. Actually, better avoid love talk entirely, if this was difficult for Sophie, she didn't need any additional problems like Kekepania dumping her negative feelings toward the whole concept of love and marriage. "I'm happy?" She started. That didn't sound right. She looked down at her hand. "No that's stupid. I like you trust me?" That also sounded stupid. "We're friends and I'm by your side, Sophie." She said with more certainty. That sounded much better.

"I wouldn't tell anybody." She didn't have anyone she was close enough to tell but she still wouldn't even if there were more friends she knew. "You know, actually, historically my ancestors weren't bothered by all that. Like, I'm descended from the gods obviously like all Hawaiian royalty. Traditionally, until we got colonized, there was stuff like that happening. Heck, Hiʻiaka took on a mortal woman as a lover. Though that's not a great example cause the woman was killed by another goddess and Hiʻiaka slept with that goddesses boyfriend for revenge but it still happened." What was she even trying to say now? "So, um, you know. I approve, I guess." Kekepania was starting to feel a strong desire to change the subject but it was kind of occupying her entire brain now. Ah, her own game, a perfect segue. "But no mortal romance in my game though. Just running the world."

A KNIGHT'S HONOR

Sophie listened to Keke stumble through explaining how it was okay, before going off on an odd tangent about Native Hawaiian mythology. Honestly, she didn't know there was any mythos that involved lesbian lovers. Which was... well, it was intriguing. Maybe she'd have to look it up online some time. If only to sate her own curiosity. Really though, she was just happy her mental worst case scenario hadn't played out, and that Kekepania didn't hate her for it.

She took a deep breath as the conversation swapped back to something much less personal and awkward for both Americans. "Oh, definitely. I get you on that. Honestly, personal stuff aside, it doesn't really seem like the genre." Not that she really knew the genre that well. But God games didn't exactly lend themselves to that. She'd never heard of SimCity type games paring you up with some cute secretary or something. And that was certainly more down to Earth than a deity.

"But right, just running the world." she mentioned, "So um... any progress recently? I can understand if not, I mean, life happens, and there may be something you're trying to pick up first."

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Maybe the whole colonizer talk had been a mistake but at least the awkwardness was being defused. Thank the gods for video games. That was definitely a safe thing they could talk about now that the land mine had been stepped on. It was all safe from here and there were definitely no issues to crop up. "Well apart from the birds, I think I've got a real handle on the water. It's hard to make water look good, you know?" Older stuff just has the water object clip through the sand and that's all fine but it doesn't look great on more modern things." Talking about the more gritty details was fun but she didn't always know what she should explain for Whoever she was talking too.

"So I thought I'd just make a semitransparent white line so it would look like the frothy bubbles you get sometimes and set that up to work and I cheated in a cell shading technique so it would always form the line between the water object and the land object." It still sometimes appeared in odd places, like in buckets or random water ponds where she'd just reused the ocean object instead of making something new though and she couldn't quite remember where they all were. "Anyway, that's way more fun than having to revise for Japanese again." Her spoken Japanese was, at best, acceptable at a casual level. Her reading and writing comprehension was much worse and she was always getting assigned make up work and revision tests. It was awful.