Government Mandated Gaming

"Thank you Governor What's-Her-Face." Katsuhiro stretched as he woke up naturally around noon. His job had been closed indefinitely in wake of the Governor's quarantine orders, and he would finally have time to make a dent in his 'to-play' pile of video games. He'd self-identified as a 'Gay-mer' since the Aughts, but had been so busy working since barely squeaked through high school graduation he hardly had time to play any new titles, and even if he did pick a new game up, that'd be the ONLY thing he played since they were all so huge these days.

Thunder rolled through the heavy air. Rain pelted at the large window. Indistinct, guffawing laughter wafted up from the floorboards. He'd sub-let out the bottom floor of this shoddy old home to two geeks he knew from high school who were quarantined out of college and didn't want to cohabitate with their parents quite yet. 

He tossed a pop tart extracted from his sock drawer into a microwave he'd hauled up to his room on top of a dented mini-fridge one of the room mates had given him as a house-warming gift. As that cooked, he slumped over to the attached bathroom to brush his teeth.

After spitting, he smirked at himself in the mirror.

"If I play my cards right, I won't have to see another human all day." 

He tossed his poptart in the air to cool it and settled down on his bed. Kat crunched his breakfast, sending a spray of crumbs all over his comforter, and booted up his console with his big toe. 

"No wonder I slept until noon," He yawned, eyeing the gray light shafts that spilled past the curtains. "It's awful today."

He booted up the RPG he'd been salivating to get into for months, and set to work creating his character. This always took a while so it was good he brought provisions. Sliders were slid and selections were selected until he had a satisfying Adonis to lead him through this adventure. 

Then, came stat assignments. Kat frowned, thinking and trying to recall what he'd seen on the internet about good builds for this game. His short term memory had flushed the info weeks ago as irrelevant during one of his marathon shifts at work,and with a sigh he loaded up a video on his phone. He piped the sound through his bassy bluetooth speakers and hopped into the standing shower. As he lathered an expert on the game lectured..

The video was just drawing to its conclusion, though for some reason it was laced with invectives against a different game studio who'd released a different RPG around the same time, as Katsuhiro toweled off. He reached for his phone as the room as the floor shook from thunder and...

Everything went dark. 

Katsuhiro tried to use his phone's screen as a flashlight, but it dimmed. He frowned, bringing it close to his face. He couldn't quite read it, and then stumbled to the bedroom to find his glasses.

The door slammed against the wall with a crash as it opened.

"Dude, the power went out!" College student number one yelled. Katsuhiro shrieked and covered his nudity. 

"Get out Xi!"

"As if you need two hands to cover that." Snickered Stas, college student number two. Her hair was gelled into spikes which crunched against the door frame as she poked her head in. "Anyway, you're the landlord midboss, fix it."

"I need pants first." Kat barked. "Get out! Then he glanced over at his console and tv, both black and dead. "My beautiful character is gone!"

"At least you have the system plugged into a power strip," Xi said, doing the opposite of what Kat asked and crouched down in front of his television. "So that surge shouldn't have fried your console."

Kat retreated to the bathroom as the invaders had breached the bedroom. He closed the door and barked orders. "Pass me an outfit."

As he waited Kat opened the curtain on the bathroom's high window, allowing the gloomy day to spill it's meager offerings of illumination in. He heard the two idiots shuffling around and giggling. Finally, they tapped on the door. Kat, making sure the chain lock was in place, cracked the door open and a sliver and looked. Xi was holding out a bundle of clothes. Kat took them and yanked them through the door slit, before unfolding them.

They were Xi's clothing. A pink crop top with a winking cartoon cat, a pair of white short-shorts, and heart-patterned lacy panties, still rolled with their original adhesive plastic band.

"I should have guessed." Kat sighed. He gave up and got dressed in the outfit, knowing to fight it and get angry would just give them more satisfaction. Maybe he should have gotten a job at the grocery store or pizza place instead of getting roommates. Proudly he strode back into the room and Stas handed him his glasses. He slipped them on and then nestled his toes into his slippers. 

All three made their way to the circuit break hidden in the pantry. Kat shined his phone on the panel, frowning and having no idea what he was looking at.

"How do I reset the circuit again? THis hasn't happened before." 

"I'm a straight A student, I don't know how to do anything practical." Xi protested. "That's what you working class uneducated grunts are for."

Kat glowered at her and she grinned. 

"Kidding, kidding, you know I'm a socialist."

"Right." Kat didn't even bother asking Stas, and instead looked up a video guide on his phone. The result had loaded in right when he saw the battery symbol bleeding red. His eyes opened wide right as the phone went black too.

"No!" He wailed. 

"Someone didn't charge their phone." Stas clucked her tongue. She looked up the same tutorial on hers and they watched the video. Following the steps as best as they could given the lay-outs of the switches wasn't identical, they reset the circuit.

And the house stayed black. 

Placing a call to the power company, they learned that the power had been knocked out for about four blocks and would be up sometime in the next two days.

"Oh no..." Stas held her head. "Normally I'd go out drinking but all the bars are closed."

"And the internet is too! I can't waste my phone battery on streams if it's gotta last two days." Xi wailed, turning her phone into high efficient mode. The screen became low resolution with white text and only calling and texting. Stas followed suit.

"What the hell are we going to do?" Kat asked, looking at his two room mates.

"Well, first we eat all of the frozen food in the fridge and move the fridge food to the freezer."

"Oooh, oooh, and we gotta go buy ice! QUICK, BEFORE THE PRICE GOUGERS GET IT!" Xi declared snatching her keys off of the row of hooks by the fridge.

"I can't go out like this," Kat protested as Stas tugged his arm towards the door.

Definitely should have gotten that interim job, Kat moaned mentally.