1. Circumstantial
Osamu gets home grumpy and late.
The latter's nothing new. Every Tamachi computer system has been glitching lately and it's infuriating how much slower they are compared to the PC he built on his own (and even that keeps beeping and whining right now, he can hear it from here. Well he shouldn't be able to, but he looks about and his door is open. It's not widely so, or he'd be more angry. His mother likes to leave food in his room (ew, the bugs!)and sometimes Ken eats it, and his excitable little brother doesn't need anymore sugar.
Besides, his parents aren't home yet. Her mother's job (all for his sake, funnily enough, they need more money to keep up with his needs, not Ken's) keeps her until the shadows start changing shape and then she gets dinner ready while father is simply out and gone unless there's an interview with his plain face written on it.
He's so bitter at eleven, his online friends tell him. Hah. What do they know?
He struggles to breathe evenly for a moment. His brother's probably in his room. Usually that's bad, but it's summer and Ken's friends – not friends, he thinks with annoyance, tagalongs- need extra classes to keep up and keeping up with Ken shouldn't be hard, his little sibling's not that far ahead of everyone else (yet). But regardless, Ken has no one to play with so is usually regulated to educational computer games and his computer runs best.
Yet this time, Osamu knows that's not it. He knows because they'd been in the same room and seen the same thing. He knows what Ken is actually doing in there.
Idiot. He could be hurt. Without Osamu. It'd be his fault. And that came out of his computer so, so-
Hah, like it'd ever be yours.
Shoulders squared, Osamu strides into his room, prepared to speak as quietly as possible because it's not permanent, it's not bad for eternity and it's not all Ken's fault but he's just ticked off today.
And his fully opened door reveals something very wrong.
"Ken! Wake up! Ken!"
He isn't waking up.
A/N: Oops. Read and review?
Challenges: Drabblechap Competition, Ultimate Sleuth Nakano Broadway, Diversity Writing (AM) H47., CHapter Set Boot Camp prompt '20'.