Your name is Eridan Ampora and you fucking hate your brother. He's the reason why you're sitting on a cold park bench at midnight with only your iPod and yourself for company. That asshole thinks he rules the house as soon as your dad leaves for some business trip or other. As soon as your dad pulled away in his fancy purple car, Cro dials up everyone on the fucking planet and invites them over for a party. Unfortunately, even though your brother has no friends, people came. Plenty of people. A whole stream of college kids flooded into your house, and so you had to leave. If you had one more pair of drunk assholes break down your door looking for a place to fuck, someone might've ended up dead, and you don't think prison life would suit you.

You groan and squirm deeper into your oversized hoodie, trying to beat the cold. If you'd have known you'd be spending your Friday night outside in the late fall chill, you'd have brought something warmer - not to mention more stylish. Your ass has gone numb from the metal of the bench and your fingertips are following in its footsteps from clutching your iPod. You consider folding all your limbs inside the body of the sweatshirt and making it a kind of tent, but you do have a little dignity you'd like to uphold. The sweet voice of some obscure indie singer you pretend to like is slowly lulling you to sleep, and you have to actually make an effort to keep your eyes open. You usually go to bed much later than this, but without internet to entertain you, it's getting kind of hard to stay awake. Anyway, if you end up getting killed by a hobo for your iPod and expensive shoes, Cro will totally get grounded, you think as you slowly fall asleep. Like most people, when you're tired, most of your self-preservation and logic go down the drain.

You wake up - even though you were not asleep, of course - some time later, because you hear a strange clicking sound over the song 4'33 that you downloaded for the irony of it and never got around to deleting. Opening your eyes is harder than lifting weights, but the sound is so misplaced and weird, you have to. Across the park, some hipster in a red tee is taking pictures of trees with an old-fashioned camera. You roll your eyes and then close them again - ugh, hipsters. The four and a half minutes of silence ends and you fall back asleep to something actually good, but that's so mainstream you'd never admit to liking it.

Click, click. Your eyes open more easily this time, and you see a gigantic black lens in your face. The hipster is leaning over you, shoving the thing in your face and snapping pics. You flail at him sleepily and consider screaming for your life, but you don't think he's gonna hurt you, and even so, you could probably take him in a fight. He gets the message your aimless waving about is sending, though, and steps off, sitting down beside you on the bench. You can't see his eyes behind those fucking stupid shades, but his mouth is split into an asshole grin. He says something but your music is too loud, so you hold up one finger for silence, and pause the ear-shattering tunes, before looking back up at him.

"I said," he smirks a bit, "I'm gonna call this one 'Tragic Prick in the Sunrise."

You hold up a different finger this time and he chuckles.

"What do you want?" you try to say, but sleep slurs it and it comes out more, "Whaddyawan?"

The message still gets through though, "Just wanna know why you're so well-dressed for a hobo."

"'M not a hobo," you mutter, "I'm just tryin a catch a nap in fuckin peace."

"Good luck with that," he says, but still doesn't leave the bench. As far as you can tell he's deeply immersed in flipping through the pictures on his retro camera thing. He seems to be oblivious to the fact you want him to go away, so you stretch out your legs and push him with your feet, trying to make your will more evident. It might've worked better if your legs weren't so short, or if shifting your position didn't suddenly let a rush of cold air invade your personal space. As it is, he barely notices your purple Converses pushing on the side of his leg. He doesn't look like he's gonna move any time soon, but if all he wants to do to you is take pictures, you wager it's probably safe enough to fall back asleep. If he wanted to try something on you, he could have done it before, when you were sleeping more deeply. You switch back on your iPod and drift off.

When you wake up for the third time, you're alone on the bench. The weird photographer guy is gone, and you yawn and sit up, stretching out sore limbs. Your neck feels like someone practiced kung fu on it and you can't feel your ass for the cold. You probably look like shit too. You stagger home, half-asleep, and pray that Cro will let you in, because you forgot to bring your keys. There really wasn't any need to beg help from the deities, though, because the front door is wide open. Being an idiot is a side-effect of drinking. You shut and lock the door behind you, thankful that all the college people seem to have cleared off, except for your brother, who's sprawled, half-naked and drunk off his ass, on the couch surrounded by the disaster scene of a party. You make a mental note to scream in his ear loudly when he wakes up with a massive hangover.

It's when you're changing out of your sweater for a shower when you notice the camera hipster didn't only leave a strange impression with you. He also happened to leave what you presume to be his phone number in a messy scrawl on your left hand. You contemplate this as you wash your hair and slip into pajamas for a nap. What the hell, maybe you'll text the guy when you wake up, it's not like your life is overflowing with people to talk to, anyway.