Whoever decided that mornings should be so early and that the days should start at the crack of dawn, really was either a sadomasochist or an idiot. If everyone’s jobs and classes started just a little bit later in the day, people would oversleep so much and people would call in sick a lot less. At least, that was how Chen felt. He loathed mornings; hated them with a white-hot passion. This was why he was so glad that he did not have to get up early for the job he had now.
It was a little past noon by the time Chen Nakatomi rolled out of his bed. His usually neat mohawk was a mess, with dyed strands of crimson and gold sticking out like needles and most of the thick follicles smashed against his scalp in a ruthless attack by his pillow. Smudges of the dark lines that had been neatly drawn around his eyes the night before were now spread down his cheeks and he was pretty sure that the taste in his mouth was not something he had been eating or drinking … or smoking, for that matter.
His head felt ten times it usual size and every time he moved, the world started swaying so badly that his stomach did a little dance in his abdomen.
By sheer willpower and experience, he managed to locate his cigarettes somewhere in the masses of clothes that were spread out all over his floor and since lighters were spread around just as much as the clothes, one was not hard to find. As glorious smoke filled his lungs with the first, long drag of his morning dose of nicotine, he wondered what the hell had happened the night before.
He remembered flashing lights and naked boobs. Oh, right. One of his “colleagues” had invited him to this strip club. He had obviously gotten shitfaced beyond the capabilities of his own salary, so he was guessing that his “colleague” had paid for it all. Ah, well. He could not really complain about a free night in town looking at naked boobs, could he now? It was just as good a past-time as any.
With the mystery of his dry mouth, lurching stomach and pulsing brain solved and ignored, he went to take a shower to wash off the glitter that had mysteriously found its way to places where glitter should not be. He was the most surprised by the glitter that he had to clean out of his nostrils.
He got dressed, made his hair stand, lined his eyes in black and even shaved his face. He was ready for the day and whatever it would toss at him within an hour and by the time his keys were turned in the lock and his feet touched the curb, he was actually feeling quite a lot better.
He was walking around, simply because he had nowhere to go. His apartment was nothing but a room with a bed in it and a bathroom attached, so he saw no reason to stick around there. He had, as far as he could remember, no jobs for the day. He hated these days where he was free to do whatever he wanted, because there was nothing he really wanted to do.
In his wandering, he nearly missed the sign that informed him that the cafe he was passing had a 50 percent discount on cakes today and had he not dropped his lighter right at that moment, his fate would likely have turned out quite differently. However, he did drop his lighter, he did notice the sign and he did look in through the windows and saw one of his favorite people in the world; that cosplaying little twink that he had passed by, bumped into, mocked and at one point even punched. It was not even a hard punch; it was barely even a graze of his knuckles against the kid's shoulder.
He found himself in a situation where he was debating with himself whether to go in there and talk to the kid, stay outside and wait for him or just go on and do something else. In retrospect, he probably would have chosen a different approach, but since he was not a psychic, he chose to sit his ass down, lean against the wall of the building and light his cigarette; the pup had to come out of there at some point.
Otreas
