It happened. Laike was still in shock, so he buried himself in min/maxing his Brilliant Diamond pokemon. It was the repetition that he craved, and he knew he was directly working toward a goal that took more patience and diligence than any real skill. Leveling his pokemon and maxing their EVs were a simple math problem ,and he hoped that would distract him henceforth.

It didn't. He tranced out. His mind went back to what his parents had told him. To what his grandmother had done.

In truth, his parents didn't seem fully convinced of it, but Niter wasn't one to try to argue back at them once they made a decision with him. Perhaps that was why he was able to ride on their financial coattails for so long and treat all of his money as disposable income. They had decided, on their own, to pay for an apartment for him. Even though he wasn't going to school, and his job was a dead-end affair, they thought he was deserving of an easy time with bills. Even when he showed no ambition to change or seek out a career that his parents thought was valid, they never objected to paying his way.

Until they stopped paying for his apartment. They stopped paying for his bills, too, save for his cell phone. Suddenly Niter was faced with a nearly empty bank account and a host of bills that he couldn't afford on his meager paycheck. He hadn't made enough on his own to pay the rent within a month, and his job showed no signs of giving him more hours anytime soon.

He lost track of his EV counting. He reset the game, frustrated with himself that he ruined his progress with his Deino.

He could do this, he told himself, as surely as he could max out the EVs on his Deino. And it would be mega annoying, probably, because he'd have to take a second job and that would cut into his streaming time, but Laike was sure he would come out of this okay. He had to. Even if it meant asking his sister if she'd move in with him. Which she wouldn't, probably, if she knew what was healthy for her. Which she did, because she was always yelling at him to clean up his room.

Laike didn't want to clean up his room, though, just as he didn't want to clean up his life. He liked being taken care of, even if he understood his parents' point (even though, he would argue, it was his grandmother's point). He got that, as an adult, he should be able to support himself. That by continuing to rely on his parents' dime, he was taking away from his sister's college fund. They wouldn't have as much left over from supporting her in getting a dorm, so he'd also be cutting into their money to support themselves. More and more reasons for why they had to cut him off kept cropping up in that conversation, and all he could do was nod.

Now, hours later, he couldn't remember most of the reasons — only the hollow feeling they left behind. So he continued to play. Evolved his Deino into Zweilous, because what else could he do?

WC: 558