It was just perfect... Except for the fact that my family wasn’t exactly on board with the idea. They pretended to show their poor son love and support at first, but when they realized I was dead serious, their true colors started to show. It wasn’t anything too egregious, initially, but it only got worse by the day until it officially went from casual neglect to targeted harassment a little while back.
I only ever left the sanctity of my room to dash to the bathroom or sneak in a midnight shower. The shower and the toilet were both on the second floor, so fortunately, I hadn’t had to go down to the first floor in over a month. I should mention, though, that the kitchen was down there.
My family members placed my meal portions at my doorstep, and it was all just peachy until two days ago, when my lunch came in spoiled.
While I would have been willing to turn a blind eye if the rice had only been a little bit past its expiration date, something about the putrid stench had told me that wasn’t the case. Just to be sure, I had dipped my finger in—the grains stuck to it like glue.
I did appreciate that they’d used their finest china. A wonderfully passive-aggressive gesture.
Did they purposefully leave out a bunch of rice and let it collect as much moisture as possible? Or did they boil it and then let it sit for days on end? Either way, admirable dedication on their part.
If I so chose, I could have gone down there and pitched a fit, but they’d put in so much effort just to spite me that I would’ve almost felt bad for doing it. Instead, I’d dumped it in a trash bag and continued to pretend it didn’t exist. I wondered if this was their idea of attrition warfare.
“What’s the big deal, anyway? I’m just taking a short break from it all.”
I had my whole life ahead of me, so what did it matter if I took a year or two to do some much-needed self-discovery?
On the flip side, you have those dreaded normies who just get to do whatever they want. They sleep or play mobile games in class, or they skip class altogether to do it whenever and wherever: the bathroom, the infirmary, the gym storage room, you name it. Only a fraction of these people actually take their schoolwork seriously.
I, on the other hand, never did any of those things. Yet just because I happen to be an FPS junkie, I’m somehow worth less than them in the eyes of society? Unlike those guys, I’ve got life goals that’ll rake in the cash. On top of all that, VRFPS experience basically doubles as army service, so I’m also doing this for the betterment of my country.
Okay, I’m getting a little too heated; I should drop it.
“Who do they think they are, anyway, treating me like complete garbage?!”
Being hangry is no joke.
In a fit of rage, I picked up a plastic bottle and flung it as hard as I could at my school uniform, which had been hanging on the wall ever since I dropped out.
A cloud of dust burst out from the impact, and I was seized by a violent coughing fit. I quickly reached over and popped the window wide open to get some fresh air.
“God dammit!”
If life were a game, the unbalanced system would make it totally unplayable.
People’s general attitudes toward gamers like myself were invariably rooted in disdain. Neither my fellow classmates nor my family were exceptions; they all thought I was sick in the head, and they felt justified enough in this belief to say so out loud.
“How dare they lump me in with those filthy mobile-game casuals,” I grumbled, turning to face the VR platform.
No matter how “fake” virtual reality was, it didn’t change the fact that every single in-game motion had to be input by the user with no outside assistance.
The replica SCAR-H came with counterweights, which accurately simulated the recoil you’d get from the real thing. Besides the fact that everything was virtual, there was no real difference between Field Battle and an actual warzone.
“Look at this perfectly chiseled body. You might not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.”
The replica SCAR-H alone weighed over five kilograms. If you tacked on the weight of all the backup magazines and my sidearm of choice—the HK VP9—I was basically getting a full-body workout every time I stepped on the platform.
“Unlike those filthy overweight NEETs who gorge on chips and pizza all day, us VR gamers are a force to be reckoned with!”
Let’s just, uh, ignore the fact that I’ve basically been surviving on nothing but chips these past few days.
“Enough’s enough. It’s about time I gave them a piece of my mind. We could’ve settled this like adults, but nooo, they just had to pull the attrition card, didn’t they?”
I looked at the clock. It was 7:00 a.m. Breakfast time.
My parents, and even my little brother, were uptight folks, to say the least. You’d think they were NPCs running on a script with how anal they were about having breakfast at exactly seven o’clock sharp.
Around the same time, Mom brings up my serving of food, as though daring me to confront her.
How ’bout this time I throw open the door and yell a little to scare her? You serve a man food unfit for dogs, and you deserve whatever comes your way. What more can I say?
Now that I was all fired up, I put my ear against the door and listened carefully. I could hear footsteps coming up the stairs.
There we go. All according to plan.
She was getting closer and closer. Soon I could pick out the distinct sound of clinking silverware. There was no doubt about it—Mom was bringing me breakfast.
Wait for it... Wait for it... Now!
“If you think I’ll stand for this one more time, you’ve got another thing coming!” I shouted, shoving the door open.
Now that I think about it, it’s been about a month since I’ve interacted with my mother. But hey, that’s the cost of working toward my dream.
“I’ll have you know that... that... Huh?”
My tirade died in my throat. There was something slightly—scratch that, noticeably off about her.
“Um, are you feeling alright?” I blurted.
Mom always had a pallid complexion, but her skin had never been quite this pale; it looked almost translucent. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused. The area around her left eye was also horrifically swollen. I couldn’t tell if it was pus or blood, but something was oozing out from the wound and onto her collar and apron. It must’ve been going on a while, because the stain was both big and putrid.