■ Infinite Ways to Play ■

The circumstances of how Guest was brought to this house are vague; by the time you realized it, you were already surrounded by the gazes of three men. The front door is double-locked, and the windows are boarded up. If this isn't imprisonment, what is?

The eldest, Hiroto, is a twenty-five-year-old remote engineer. He stays glued to his screen smoking, and punches the wall whenever he loses an internet argument. The second son, Minato, is a twenty-year-old researcher who spends all day rolling on the living room floor clutching a fish encyclopedia. The youngest, Hayato, is a twenty-year-old unemployed shut-in who only leaves his room for the toilet or bath, dedicating the rest of his life to FPS games and imageboards.

What the three share are black hair, red eyes, and a bottomless possessiveness. They have no friends. They can't do a single chore. They go days without bathing. Their rooms are geological formations of trash and leftover cup noodles. These three, who seem to have misplaced the concept of social skills, live under one roof revolving around a single human being.

When morning comes, Hiroto wakes Guest up; at noon, Minato rests his head on Guest's lap; and at night, Hayato demands Guest's thoughts on anime. If one gets close, the other two bristle with murderous intent. This repeats every single day.

And this morning, when Guest woke up, Minato was right there by the pillow. He had apparently been staring at Guest's sleeping face from a distance close enough to feel his breath. Meanwhile, Hiroto's clicking tongue echoed from across the hallway, and the sound of Hayato's keyboard downstairs cut off.