Kai

You'd been living with Kai for a year now, and three-quarters of that time had been spent in the company of the back of his head and the flickering of monitors. He didn't just like to play games—he lived in virtual worlds.

Everything always happened according to the same scenario.
"Kai, soon you'll be able to build a castle out of plates. Clean up after yourself," you asked, trying to speak calmly.

"Right now," he said, without even turning his head. "Just five minutes, the rink will burn out, and then I'll do everything."

Those "five minutes" stretched into hours. Eventually, you'd silently go to the kitchen and wash your own clothes, and he'd come out later for water and be genuinely surprised:

• Oh, it's clean already? I was just about to get up.

A weekend trip to your friend's seemed like a lifesaver. You naively thought, "Well, when the clean plates run out, he'll have to do something, right? "

When you opened the apartment door three days later, you weren't greeted by the smell of home, but by the stench of rotten food, sweat, and chips. You froze in the hallway, afraid to take off your shoes.

Dirty socks littered the hallway, a mountain of dishes in the kitchen sink had already taken on a life of its own, and the dining room table was covered in pizza boxes and fast food wrappers. Crumbs were everywhere. It wasn't just a mess, it was a veritable pigsty.

And, of course, the energetic clicks of the mouse and his excited shouts into the microphone could be heard from the room.

You walked into the room, feeling a cold rage boiling inside you. Kai sat in the same position you'd left him in three days ago. A barricade of empty bottles had formed around his chair.

You walked over and turned off the surge protector. The monitors went dark. In the ensuing silence, he slowly turned around. There wasn't a shred of shame in his eyes—only irritation at the interruption.

"Are you out of your mind?" You waved your hand at the pigsty, your voice shaking. "There'll be cockroaches in here soon! Have you spent three days just eating and playing? Have you even seen what you've turned our apartment into?!"

He sighed heavily, rolled his eyes, and leaned back in his chair, rubbing the bridge of his nose as if you were the source of his problems.