Hideaki was finally finished with his shift at the karaage restaurant and after a thirty-minute walk he was home. His apartment was on the small side for two people but him and his roommate got along well enough. By that he really meant that the guy paid his half of the rent and utilities on time. The moment he walked through the door he could tell that his roommate hadn’t budged from in front of the computer all day.
Hideaki’s roommate had the past couple days off from work. He should have been going to college but he had been slacking and skipping almost weekly. The reason was the murder mystery game he’d been playing every chance he got. Noble Actions was a murder mystery game based in a magic kingdom.
It wasn’t the kind of game that Hideaki cared for but Noburu really liked it. He probably liked it too much. Noburu was a very obsessive type of person who fixated on things for a while then lost interest in them and moved onto something else.
The moment that Hideaki walked into the apartment he knew where he would find Noburu. The lights were off so that his game would be more immersive and tense. Hideaki could never understand how someone could guzzle energy drinks and not sleep just so they could keep playing a game. Hideaki would do roughly the same thing if he were studying for exams but he was too serious a person to understand being obsessed with a game.
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When he came into the tiny living room, he found Noburu exactly where he expected him to be, engrossed in one of the opening scenes of his game. Hideaki called to him a couple times before realizing that he had headphones on. He sighed to himself. One of their mutual professors had asked Hideaki about Noburu’s progress on an assignment that was due in the next couple days. He didn’t have any answers for their professor but he promised he would ask.
Hideaki walked up behind Noburu, making no attempt to hide his approach. If only he had tried to sneak up on him! However, Hideaki had never heard that people are harder to spot when they are moving normally than when they are trying to sneak. Hideaki reached out and grabbed Noburu’s shoulder and he jumped half out of his chair. He turned and glared at Hideaki still heaving for breath.
He turned back and took off his headphones just as the NPC in the opening scene discovered the first death of the game. His shoulder was aching and he was still wheezing for breath after his fright but he wondered aloud about the likely course of this game. “I’ve seen this start scene several times, does that mean that it was the sister this time? Wait, wasn’t the earl of Fetterblaum here earlier? yeah, it could be him taking out his family’s grievances over the trade dispute on the acting count Braumsheil.”
Hideaki was fed up with Noburu and his stupid murder game. He was just about to yell at him about skipping class again and making his roommate answer embarrassing questions. Suddenly, Noburu fell out of his chair onto the floor. Hideaki was about to lay into him for being dramatic when he noticed all the empty cans from the case and a half of two serving energy drinks in and around the trash can. He began to panic and shake his roommate.