He looks at Tae-hwan. "Am I going insane?"

"Iunno, it makes sense to me."

"How—" Stop. Recenter. Breathe. "Alexei is your great-grandfather, correct?" he asks Eric again.

"Right."

"And he is also the Grim Reaper, i.e. the guy who eases the dead onto their next lives."

"Yeah."

"Which means he's, like, super old, right? As old as life itself?"

"Oh, nah, that was his dad, the old Grim Reaper. Alexei took over when he retired."

Peter is not sure how to hold his cool in this kind of conversation. Maybe he should just take it all at face value, accept it, go with the flow, etc.

"So there was a guy who was the Grim Reaper and he was as old as life itself, and he had a kid, and then that kid grew up to replace him?"

"Three kids, actually. Might be more."

"...sure. How... exactly... did Alexei replace him? Can just anyone do that, do you have to be a descendant...?"

"He worked really hard at Headless Quarters and got promoted a lot and eventually Grim retired and appointed him as his successor."

...Headless Quarters. Okay, that's kind of funny.

"So it could've been anyone else and it just happened to be him?"

"He's kind of crazy about work, I'm not sure there's anyone else who could do it."

"I met a grimtern this week. Could I in theory be hired, too, and then make my way up the career ladder?" The way he'd been planning to do? Actually? You know?

Remember?

The thing he decided to do in order to get the simulators' attention most recently?

"Oh I think Alexei isn't hiring anymore. Stopped when he became the big boss. Grim just wanted to train someone up so he could retire."

Okay. Cool. So. Peter literally cannot do the thing anymore. Because someone else did it first.

It happened to be the dad of the other guy who did the other thing Peter wanted to do first.

"I see."

Is he being openly mocked? This feels like open mockery to him.

"How do you know all of this, by the way?"

"...Alexei told me? I was there? Idk."

"Right, back to the original thing, Alexei is your great-grandfather and yet you all knew each other when you were all little?"

"Yeah."

"How... is that possible. Wasn't he already a young adult when you were born, on account of how he was your great-grandfather?"

"Yeah."

"So he was already a young adult when you first met him."

"Oh I've known him since I was born."

"...yes, that'd follow, but you said you and Zach and Alexei had known each other since you were all little?"