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As soon as he was sure that the new guy was gone, Aiden turned back to his desk and hurriedly shuffled through the general mess. There it was! He ripped the envelope open. Blah, blah, blah, yes, it was about getting a roommate!

And how, since life-threatening complications were believed to be of minimal probability, roommate change requests would not be considered for at least two weeks to give them a chance to get used to each other.

Distinctly less than impressed, Ai tossed the offensive letter over his shoulder, dropped himself back in his chair, hauled on his headphones, jacked up the sound as loud as he could handle it, and set his virtual swords into the virtual rock's flesh with a renewed vengeance.

He had beaten the rock wraith and progressed a considerable distance when his apparently stuck roommate returned; movement in his peripheral vision, the door having been forgotten open, caught his attention. He slowly turned his chair, setting his headphones back on the desk and pushing his ruffled hair out of the way again. The boy's words caught him a bit off guard, however, and he blinked for a moment before sighing and waving a hand dismissively. "It'd be no use anyway," he said. "Apparently we're stuck together for at least a while." He continued the wave into a gesture towards the letter still sprawled on the floor. "Aiden," he offered, at least trying for civility. Getting past that boss may have helped slightly. The kid being significantly cleaner probably helped more.

He was just starting to think he might possibly take the boss out this time, despite having just lost Anders and his healing magic to wonderfully idiotic NPC-programming that had led the character to wander out of safety just in time to get blasted in the face, when a harsh rap at the door cracked through the muffling effects of his headphones and distracted him just enough to accidentally target his other characters instead of the boss with a friendly-fire area of attack technique. This had better be good.

Shoving his sunglasses back onto his face and wrenching the door open, Ai shot the kid on the other side a mild glare. Well, it would be a glare if he weren't wearing sunglasses. With them on, it probably just looked like a bland, not ecstatic face.

The hidden glare took on full force when the messy, stained, and generally dirty kid spoke. A roommate. Seriously.

Maybe that was what that envelope on his desk had been about. Ai had noticed it when he slunk back from classes earlier that day, but hadn't bothered to open it. He was rather more in the mood for killing virtual monsters. A mood he retained, mind. "My roommate?" he repeated flatly. Juuuuuuust great. Well, no. Horrible. Absolutely horrible. Atrocious. Yes. An atrocity that could not possibly be tolerated.

Until he found out more about the officialness of this atrocity, however, he could hardly be so rude as to turn the guy away. Even if he really wasn't fond of the idea of letting someone so filthy in near his stuff. With as slight a grimace as he could manage, Aiden reluctantly opened the door the rest of the way and moved back inside to tidy up the worst of his personal messes: a pile of laundry he'd kicked into the corner, a scattering of games and books on his desk from when he had been trying to figure out what would occupy him best earlier. He kept a sidelong eye on the kid as he moved. "The bathroom's just down the hall," he said after a few moments, trying not to be too pointed but hoping the kid would get out of his hair (and nose and eyes) sooner rather than later.

Setting his headphones on the edge of his desk, Aiden glanced at his uninviting bed. He'd just beaten one of his older games as thoroughly as he had ever trounced it before, and the clock now revealed at the corner of his screen insisted that it was time to go to sleep, but he couldn't find any motivation to get changed and crawl into that bed.

With a restless, gurgling growl, his stomach offered him an alternative. Sure, it was understandably displeased with him playing video games for the past... seven hours? and not bothering to get up for dinner, but he wasn't going to look too deeply into it. The kitchen should be empty now, and thus have far better company than at a more usual dinner hour. And he could put off lying in bed with nothing but his thoughts and harsh dreams.

Returning his sunglasses to his face, he pulled an old jacket on out of habit rather than cold - for whatever reason, he was noticing that he just didn't feel cold anymore, not even in his hands after a long stint of gaming - and slipped out of the now-dark room into a similarly dark hallway.  Even a place with as varied a population as this place didn't have all that many people out and about at midnight, and Ai actually found himself feeling about as relaxed as he had been since he had arrived.

As hoped, the kitchen was devoid of life when Aiden entered, and he turned on only enough lights to be able to navigate without killing himself.  It wasn't as if he were going to risk taking his sunglasses off, after all; who knew who might wander in without warning?  Thinking nothing more of that possibility, he started rummaging around in the cupboards.  Sugar... cocoa powder... milk... corn starch... a bit of salt... Finally finding a pot, he tossed everything together on the stove and found himself a spot to sit while it heated.  Dinner be damned, he wanted chocolate pudding.

Sweet! I thought about playing a mishipeshu at one point, but it didn't fit with the personality I had in mind XD Love the direction you've taken it!

Aiden felt inordinately relieved that Allison was going to lead him out of this place. Wait, was it really inordinately? Feeling a large amount of relief at such a thing was perfectly normal, so no, inordinately was definitely the wrong term. It was annoying when writers tried to use big words to sound smart and cool and fancy, but ended up using them poorly.

Oh, whatever. He was getting out of there!

Just as the distinctive golden doors came into sight, however, Allison called out to someone. Aiden hung behind her, unsure of the proper action to take. He could technically (probably) just keep going and get outside without waiting any more, but the normal polite thing to do in the general situation would be to wait for Allison to finish talking to the strange woman with the weird bow. What, did she think she was a manga character or something? People didn't wear things like that in the real world unless they were going to a con or were insane. Possibly both. Possibly probably both.

Never quite looking straight at the bow-endowed woman, it occurred to him that there was something oddly familiar about her. It wasn't a 'passed-in-the-street' sort of familiar; it was both stronger and more distant than that. His concentration was broken by the woman's words, however. He was not going to walk into anything! He could see just fine, and he could take a bit of darkness if it meant that people couldn't see in from the outside. Not that he was going to say that to her face; not only was he still trying to place her, but something was warning him that she probably wasn't a good individual to tick off. So... he stayed behind Allison and hoped that the woman would pass on her way soon, and he could get out of here without making anyone angry enough to try to kill him.

Spaced out? Really? Being spaced out usually involved not thinking much. He was thinking plenty much. He did not need a hand an inch from his nose without warning when he was thinking. Not only was it surprising and hard on his nerves, but it totally messed up his train of thought. Whether or not that was actually a good thing in this particular instance was beside the point. The point was that her actions were unnecessary and undesired.

Did she seriously not see the giant bright white line across an entire half of his face? "You didn't notice this?" he repeated with more than a little sarcasm, and pointed to the start of the scar, at the bridge of his nose, and jerked his finger along its path to where the not-quite gleaming white streak ended with the outer curve of his ear, cutting clean across his silver eye. He knew full well that sunglasses didn't cover much of the scar, though his hair tended to hide the damage to his ear, but the scar was rather less visible than his freak eye. Even normal people had scars. Normal people didn't have silver eyes.

Great. Now he was thinking about his stupid scars again. His outburst fading nearly as quickly as it had emerged, Aiden turned aside and uncomfortably rubbed his shoulder where his other excessively pale scars crossed near his right collarbone. He really didn't want to think about them, or what had c- no. No, he'd rather get a tattoo by a complete (or partial) stranger than go down that road.

Ai glanced away. It wasn't both eyes he needed to hide, just the one. His left eye was perfectly normal, and walking around in public with it uncovered was just fine and dandy. And as for the glasses helping him see better... well, no, they didn't. Wearing sunglasses no matter the weather (or whether or not he was even outdoors) tended to make it rather more difficult to see. However, a little dimness was a fair enough trade for peace and quiet.

Wait, the way out? Out through that hallway? Past all the mutants? (Yes, he was in the same room as one, but she clearly had at least a couple of redeeming qualities, so she was obviously better and safer than all those unknowns. that, and moving ink couldn't be dangerous unless you were allergic to ink or something, right?) Aiden paled and swallowed. Anyway, just surviving past that hallway wouldn't be enough - he had to get out of this neighbourhood too, and even if he hadn't seen any mutants wandering around out there, he was sure they were there, and just look at the state of the buildings and everything?

On the other hand, if he procrastinated and stuck around here a little while longer, was he actually going to have to get a tattoo or a tour? He wasn't sure which was worse, but the tattoo seemed infinitely safer. Going with safer was probably the better bet. Wait, was he seriously actually considering letting this girl he had just met give him a tattoo? Seriously? What was he, crazy? No, no, no. He had to get back to the other mutant-filled place, where he at least had his computer and could drown the world out for a while. His fingertips twitched slightly, torn with indecision. Leaving was best, but he had to go past them and find his way through the area to somewhere normal that he could get back from. Delaying would put off dealing with the people outside, but would she seriously give him a tattoo?