Chapter Text
An old pen scraped across parchment, thin lines denoting the peculiar thoughts of a certain man. His room was dark, illuminated only by the glow of a small lamp. He inhaled sharply, before continuing his work.
In the darkness of night,
A hero shall arise.
With conscience of steel
And glowing red eyes.
This hero is nice,
But he can put you in stitches.
That is why
He gets all the bitches.
This hero is bright,
And has a humble ego
So naturally,
This hero should be-
"Neo, what are you writing?" A voice asked over his shoulder.
"Gah! Do not frighten me like that, woman!" He spun around in his chair, a faint flush evident on his cheeks at being caught expressing his artistic side. The woman, Fowler, looked at him skeptically.
"Give me that shit," she demanded.
"What?" he responded, perplexed.
"The paper. I want to see what you wrote."
"Never, you wench!" he exclaimed, grabbing his journal and running out of the room. Unfortunately for him, it was pitch-black in the hallway, so he slipped in some ungodly substance leaking out of Stylus's room and fell flat on his face, the journal skidding across the worn-out carpet. Fowler, with her feline vision, was easily able to scoop it up. She locked herself in the bathroom, to Neo's frantic pounding on the door, and read the amateurish poem, giggling to herself the whole time.
"Open up, Fowler! That poem was my submission to art school!" Neo shouted, slightly muffled through the thin wooden door. Fowler, remembering Neo's temper and realizing the implications of this, immediately crumpled up the sorry excuse for a poem and flushed it down the toilet. Luckily, the gurgling of the toilet partially drowned out Neo's wails from the other side of the door.
At this point, everyone else in the household had been woken up. Touchy McFailure and Sylvester Stylus emerged from their shared bedroom, careful to step over whatever was leaking out from under the door. Stylus yawned, before smacking his metal lips and assessing the situation.
"What's going on here? I was just dreaming about my favorite incestuous ships."
Touchy McFailure gave him a look of utter disgust, before adding on:
"Yeah, what's with all this noise?"
At this point, Neo was on his knees, with his face against the door and his expression twisted into a furious scowl. He looked up slowly, a single tear running down his scarred face.
"Fowler will pay for her disobedience. She destroyed the only thing that was dear to me."
"Your dakimakura?" Stylus asked.
"No, you imbecile. I'm talking about my poem," Neo spat.
Touchy looked at him with narrowed eyes and a deep furrow in his brow.
"So what you're telling me, is that you woke everyone up over... a sheet of paper?"
Neo suddenly looked a lot less intimidating.
"Well... it was a very thoughtfully constructed sheet of paper."
Everyone sat in silence for a few seconds, Touchy staring at Neo with a look that could wilt flowers. The tension in the room was palpable, silent dares being exchanged on both sides of the equation.
Suddenly, the door next to them slammed wide open, and Goom Feesh, an aquatic-like man with chronic gamer posture, rushed out with a cry of "Look at this meme, guys!"
Touchy, against his better judgement, looked. He was too surprised not to. The meme consisted of a scantily clad version of a female Zenless Zone Zero character eating popcorn while a tape titled "Porn Sex Scene" played in the background.
Everyone just stared at Goom, until Neo burst out laughing.
"I have no idea what that joke means, but I'm horny as fuck!"
Touchy was skeptical. "Right now of all times? Weren't you just sobbing on the floor pathetically?"
Neo paused.
"Oh yeah, right." He then continued with his pathetic floor-sobbing.
They all sighed, except for Goom, who had moved past the conversation and was scrolling through Reddit. (Only God knows what type of shit he searched on there.)
Stylus was unimpressed by the entire scenario. "Well, if nobody has anything important to say, I'm going back to bed," he said, turning on his heel and shambling off down the hall. He immediately slipped on the substance leaking out of his room and banged his head on the bedframe.
"Could you stop banging things around out there? I'm trying to draw cat boys in here!" Fowler groaned, fed up with the antics of (unbeknownst to her) Stylus's newly-found head trauma.
"Stylus just knocked himself unconscious," Touchy replied.
"Oh," Fowler said. "Well, can you tell him to do it more quietly next time?"
Touchy sighed. "I'm gonna sleep now."
And there they were. One unconscious, one humiliated, one still scrolling through memes, one trying to sleep after the chaos that just unfolded, and one drawing cat boys for some fucking reason.