3Rei yawned and looked at the clock, noting its numbers in his head. They clambered about, like his mother's cats on a bad day, spinning and entwining themselves together, hissing and spitting as they went. His mind, still foggy from the lack of sleep, also noted the fact that he had only slept for three hours. That was fine, he slept so little nowadays that he swore he'd melt away if he got anymore.
A deep groan erupted slowly from the blond as he buried his artificial head in to his pillow, regretting the fact that he had stayed up so late playing the latest game from Ashura Inc. Even with a pounding headache and his bloodshot eyes threatening to quit on him once and for all, it was a sweet game. The controls moved with almost no lag time, even on split turns, and the graphics looked more realistic than his hand holding the controller.
His shirt plastered to his back, as the sunlight directly hit it. He moved about uncomfortably, as the room was warm already, and the sun was currently an immense source of annoyance as an array of little beams from the cancer inducing ball of light in the sky pinpointed the place between his shoulder blades. Ah, Japan. Land of the Rising Sun. That came up and kicked you in the ass if you tried to sleep in a little. Lovely place that.
He silently made calculations in his head, and decided to skip school in favor of much needed sleep. It wasn't like he was wanted or needed there, and his parents were affluent enough to buy him a nice college degree, much less a passing high school grade. His nice, white uniform hung on it's expensive hanger, starched to perfection. Of course it was still perfect and package new. He had never worn it.
A thin arm groped around for the alarm clock, and switched it off, incase it decided to beep at him even more in the way that alarm clocks tended to when programmed in that fashion.
Pulling the blankets even closer, Rei foggily thought that it was a double edged sword to live mostly alone. Although you could sleep in, there was no promise of breakfast other than what he could scrounge up. And Rei was a very poor cook indeed, as the scattered junk food around his room could attest to.
His parents, while unreasonably wealthy, weren't home fore much of the time, his mother tending to hop on various cruises at the first opportunity, and his father planning the architecture for buildings across the Pacific that Rei had no particular interest in seeing.
They weren't bad parents, he mused as small rays of light shone through the black curtained windows. They simply had their own lives to lead, and thought he was fully capable of not burning the house down. It was more of a testament to his parents that he was similar to them, fine on his own and not much of a family person.
He didn't really miss them much, Rei thought detachedly. It wasn't like he had known them too well before he grew up, his father was always busy during that time, scraping together a reputation for his job, and his mother was always taking care of the house or meeting with neighbors.
Even when little, he had few playmates, as his mother always thought that common children were too coarse for him to associate with. He didn't mind. Most kids at that age had no interest in the JOY-Cube, and looked rather blank when discussing Ashura Inc.'s newest titles.
Rei never really minded, as he liked machines more than people. His first game had been called 'Momotaro Densetsu' where you played the legendary peach boy. He could still remember the slightly choppy graphics, the feel of the heavy plastic Euphoria controller in his hand. It had been a moderately simple game, with the main character's goal to defeat the renegade ogres and return the chalice of Susanoh to its rightful owner. It sounded like a simple goal, until the game took all its twists and turns. It had been the first thing ever to really frustrate him at the time, and it got him permanently hooked on to games.
He loved the chaotic predictability where you were sure what that the pattern would be, but had the thrill of not knowing exactly. Last night he had spent five hours on what he had assumed was a simple dungeon level. You could never be perfectly sure in the games whether you would win, and that was the thrill of it.
It was too boring sometimes in the real world.
Whatever friends he tried to make would always cater to him because he was the rich boy. And the people who didn't hated him for who his father was.
It never really bothered him.
It was because people were so predictable. Even when he was a child, he got bored easily, and often broke his toys once he had figured them out. His closet when he was little was filled with them, to the point of overflowing. Brand new toys he would never use again, for the interest in such things were lost once he figured out how they worked.
He knew that once, two years ago, his father had an affair.
Since then, his mother had done almost everything to make herself more beautiful, as if she were possessed. Rei's mother had always been pretty, her outsider looks adding to the exotic American features, but even now she still had the power to have men swooning over her.
The name of the woman had been Kyouko.
His mother's hair was currently dyed a firebrand red, from the post card she had sent him, but Rei didn't remember what her hair color had been like before that.
And his father. He couldn't remember his face, try as he might.
Rei frowned in to his futon and pulled it over his head, escaping in to the entropy of sleep. It would be easier to finish the game at night.