Gordon had finished his homework for university. Algebra was fun to play with. Fortunately he had a knack for mathematical problems.

He left his room and went to the kitchen to empty and refill the dishwasher. His parents were both at work. Thus he had to fix something for lunch himself. Gordon went to the fridge and checked for something convenient. He found some leftover pasta dish from yesterday and put it in the microwave.

This afternoon he would leave to Cologne for the Gamescon. The Gamescon was a large fair for gaming.

It would be nice to be not at home for a few days and he could spend some undisturbed time on his hobby. His father won’t drag him to the gym.

He told his parents he would study with a fellow student from Cologne at his house. That saved him endless bickering about wasting his time for nonsense. He would stay with his fellow student, Lars, over the weekend. The train back would arrive late on Sunday in Wiesbaden.

After lunch Gordon started to pack his bag for the weekend. Since his parents tended to be nosy he packed the stuff for the university as well. He packed some more casual clothes.

Then he changed to a suit. Gordon’s father insisted him wearing them when visiting other people. Since he might ask the neighbors about his attire, it was safer wearing one on the way to Cologne to avoid a lecture Sunday evening.

He left early preferring to wait at the central station. His parents had an habit to cancel trips he planned in the last minute. Unfortunately he forgot to load his smartphone before he left the house. He turned it off.

Them he walked to the train station a few blocks away and waited about 10 minutes for his ride.

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Eventually the S1 arrived and he got on the train. The ride to Frankfurt Hbf took about half an hour.

Gordon went directly to the platform where the ICE to Cologne would stop. He sat down on one of the benches.

It was quite busy with many people coming and going. The train would be quite full so he had reserved a seat for the trip. It was about an hour for the trip, not much longer than from he needed from Wiesbaden to Frankfurt.

The train used a high speed rail line between Frankfurt and Cologne. The ICE could travel here with up to 180 miles an hour. Most cars were just slower, especially with the traffic jams on a Friday afternoon. There were many commuters between Cologne and Frankfurt who went home to their families on the weekend.

Sooner or later he would have to deal with his parents one way or another. But as long as Gordon had no money of his own and no place to life, there wasn’t much he could do, right?

Without money there would be no apartment and to get a decent job he had to finish university first. After that he would try to start a life on his own.

There were many things he couldn’t talk about with his parent. He thought about letting his hair grow for example. His father stated he would like a woman with long hair as he tried it a few years ago. The he used a shaver to shave them to a length of about an quarter of an inch. He didn’t dare to let his parents in on other things he would like to try out.

The train arrived a few minutes late. Since the train is about 350m long the tickets have the car numbers on them to wait at right part of the platform to reach the reserved seat in time. He reached his seat after a while.

On the seat by the window sat a burly older man with long black hair falling down to his shoulders and a short gray beard. He was looking out the window at the crowd outside. Then he noticed me stopping at my seat.

Since Gordon couldn’t get a word out he simply nodded in the mans direction. The man nodded back and returned to look out of the window.

Gordon put his bag in the baggage net over the seats and then squeezed himself on the seat. He touched the shoulder of his neighbor, but since the man was already leaning himself against the window he decided to say nothing.

Gordon envied him a bit for having long hair. There was nothing womanly about this guy who was probably at least as old as his dad though. Gordon sighted and tried to focus on the weekend ahead.

After a few minutes the train left the station and he finally was on his way to Cologne.