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If there’s anything Itaru despises with a burning passion, it’s being interrupted. At work, doing schoolwork (when he still went to school), or especially while gaming, if he’s currently immersed in what he affectionately refers to as “the zone”, no one breaks his razor-sharp focus unless they want Hell itself to pay.
Maybe it’s his family’s fault, with his sister always butting in on whatever he’s doing, giving unsolicited advice at every corner, like she always knows better than him, or his parents barging into his room, nagging him to clean his space, even going so far as going through his shit and making lukewarm-at-best, insulting-at-worst comments about his interests. Or maybe it’s just his fucked up brain’s fault—“maladaptive daydreaming”, one therapist used to describe it at some point. “Something-something-’Attention Deficit Disorder’”. Whatever it is, he really didn’t care then, and he really doesn’t care now. He has his way of getting around things—it just may have taken him a bit longer to learn than others. His sister always did call him stubborn.
So, of course, the habit of regularly getting immersed in whatever he was doing at a given moment to the point of forgetting his own name was a natural development—that, and hoarding a shitton of anime and game merch in his room like a dragon (or a goblin, according to Konomi). It feels safe, like he actually has control over something.
That’s where he is now—in the middle of playing a particular game, a competitive MMO that never fails to suck in his attention like a raging tornado, leaving him winded, dizzy, and delirious by the time his body can’t physically take any more. His phone lay forgotten on his desk, contributing only minimally to the electronic glow consuming the room, showing some texts from his Senpai, the contents of which he didn’t pay much mind to when he gave some usual generic reply.
His opponent’s team is down to one, and Itaru knows exactly where he is—one of the buildings in this map offers the best spot to camp in the entire game, because of its plethora of supplies, as well as several windows to snipe from at any angle, like some OP gaming cornucopia. When you’re the only player left on your team, it’s the best chance you’ve got to securing a victory. Itaru’s other teammates—two of them remaining—have, of course, fucked off, doing God knows what, because they’re total noobs who don’t know how to play the damn game. So the entire match is in his hands, now, and he knows just how to win it, with total concentration and flawless execution.
He follows along the wall that makes the back of the building, catching no sight of anyone. A forgotten car sits in the yard, giving a clear indication that someone is—or at least was—there. As he inches closer, he hears the telltale rummaging of his opponent securing the bountiful food and weapons.
Bingo.
He crouches, sneaking quietly as he follows the side of the wall toward the door, and he equips his favorite gun: the AUG A3, whose superior handling and overall stats he’ll defend until the day he dies. He rounds the corner, approaching the entrance. Stops right at the opening, just out of sight, listening. The opponent’s noise tapers off, silence and the sound of his racing heart filling his headphones—then, the footsteps begin to walk away.
It’s time.
Itaru jumps out of hiding, right into the door frame. Sweaty palms gripping the mouse like a speeding driver’s deathgrip on their steering wheel, he has his target locked on sight, perfectly caught in the crosshair of his reticule. His finger’s on the cursor, about to fire the final victory shot, until—
The bedroom door clicks open.
“God fucking damn it!” Itaru cries from his desk just moments after Chikage’s turned the doorknob. A red glowing light from the monitor fills the room, with the words “Better luck next time! #4/1000” blaring on the screen in an obnoxious font.
Itaru buries his head in his hands, fingers curled into vicious fists in his hair. It almost looks like he’s trying to pull it out.
“You motherfucker!” His shoulders begin to shake. “You just cost me a win!”
After Chikage manages to shake off the stunned spell of disbelief, as well as finishing the assessment that Itaru is, in fact, not being murdered, he clears his throat, hoping to get Itaru’s attention (and, hopefully, make him realize exactly who he’s talking to). “Is this, perhaps, what you meant by ‘finishing up the PowerPoint slides’?”
Itaru slams his hands on the desk, bolting out of his chair, not looking up, entire body tense with rage, a clear indicator that he hadn’t registered his Senpai’s presence. Or... maybe he had, and he’s doing this intentionally to catch Chikage off-guard, for some reason.
“I’ll fuckin’ kill you!”
Chikage’s musing breaks as he feels his eyebrows fly toward his hairline. “Excuse me?”
Before he knows it, Itaru is marching right over to him, and a hand slams down on the door next to his head.
“Damn shrimp. Who told you you could come in uninvited?”
Itaru’s eyes bore holes into into Chikage’s, brows scrunched into themselves in an unsightly kind of anger Chikage could have never imagined to see on his usually calm, well-put-together kouhai.
“You know what you did?” No, he really doesn’t. “You cost me the last kill before a win out of a thousand players, all because you just had to bug me. I’ll make you fuckin’ pay, noob.”
Chikage has seen a lot of shit in his line of work. Deadly situations no person would want to see themselves in, unless they spent too much time watching action movies—real threats to his life, to his family, to his country, by people with real weapons and the very real ability to ruin him and everything he cares for. Several of such people who could turn face at any moment, change their demeanor at the drop of a hat, without any care for the relationships they’d made along the way, the promises they’d made—only the care for a single, self-serving goal.
So, all things considered, Chikage should feel threatened by this person turning his entire personality around and stating, word-for-word, that he’ll literally kill him. He should have Itaru on the ground, incapacitated, just a twitch of a finger away from ending his life right here, right now, but…
He can’t miss the deluge of empty soda cans and dirty clothes covering the floor and every other surface; the glazed-over eyes driving lasers into his soul sport dark grey bags visible even in the cavelike lighting, the thick smell of sickly-sweet after-soda breath permeating the air around their faces, strong enough to make Chikage want to vomit. It’s kind of amazing that Itaru doesn’t have visible dental problems. Or diabetes.
Then again, he’s been plenty surprised before, and he’ll be damned if he lets himself let his guard down ever again, no matter the circumstance.
Chikage brings a hand up to the arm (attempting to) pin him to the door, and lets it rest there, in a gesture he hopes might wake Itaru up a bit, if he’s not pretending.
“Go to bed, Chigasaki,” he says levelly. “Before you do something you regret.”
This only seems to fan the flames in Itaru’s tired, bloodshot eyes, and his lips curl into an indignant snarl. He brings his face closer to Chikage’s, as if it’s supposed to make him look more intimidating.
“Don’t think you can tell me what to do in my own room. You want a damn piece of me?!”
Well, there goes that suggestion. Narrowly managing to resist the very overwhelming urge to laugh in Itaru’s face, Chikage bends slightly to open the briefcase he’d put on the floor.
“Here,” he says, taking out a packet of papers and motioning them toward Itaru’s chest. Itaru’s ferocious expression loosens belatedly, taking on a confused tinge, as he slowly takes the papers from Chikage’s hands, like he’s moving through molasses. “Paperwork for tomorrow. I figured you’d want to get a head-start on it, since,” he glances to the computer screens, then back to Itaru, “you’ve been so diligent with that PowerPoint.”
Itaru’s staring at the papers like they just astral projected him to Jupiter. He doesn’t even flip them right-side up.
After waiting a bit to see if he’ll get more words out of him provides no avail, Chikage pats his hand on Itaru’s shoulder, which, of course, Itaru doesn’t react to whatsoever.
“Do it when you can.” He opens the door, picking up his briefcase again. “I’ll be going, then. Good night, Chigasaki.”
Stealing one last glace back, Itaru is still staring blankly at the upside-down packet in his hands, unmoving, like he’s been frozen in time. Whether he’s acting this way intentionally or not, Chikage presumes he won’t get much more conversation out of him, regardless.
Oh, well. He’ll find out tomorrow, he supposes.
The door clicks closed behind him.