[action] snow way out!
Well.
Blackouts suck.
Zhi arrived at this verdict not because of the sudden darkness (because all the lights in his room were off anyway), not because the heater suddenly died (because who needs a heater when you have a panda hoodie), but because he was left narrowing his eyes, his hand still poised over his gaming mouse, at the now-dead screen of his laptop on which moments before he was halfway through an intense PvP match against the leader of the guild he's had a long-standing rivalry against.
The next moment he was flopped on his bed, deciding that there was nothing he could do anyway and he'd just have to kick their ass another time. Then he decided it was getting cold, and so throwing on a random coat he dug out from his closet over his panda hoodie, he fished out a torchlight and went to go bother his brother and see how well he was faring with the dark.
The rest of the weekend passed uneventfully, with the help of a few books and homework done out of boredom, and late Sunday night saw Zhi starting to feel the effects of gaming withdrawal. Lying listlessly under the covers, shivering slightly, his internal clock was complaining about sleeping as early as 1am but there was nothing to do. While scaring Yao by rising out of the darkness with a sheet over his head never got old, he was in bed at this time. Zhi was just wondering whether he'd be a horrible brother if he went to wake him up like that when his eyes, adapted to the darkness by now, fell upon the corner of a certain box. It contained the unused strings of firecrackers which had somehow escaped Chinese New Year.
And hey, Zhi was bored.
The strings of firecrackers were tied together and laid out carefully along the corridor in the darkness, mindless of the fact that all his neighbours were probably asleep at such a time, quite like how he should have been. Zhi struck a single match, held it to the fuse at the end of the string, and retreated to crouch by the door of his flat to watch the sparks fly-- and fly they did. Both light and noise bounced around the walls, lighting the place up in an instant and deafening it at the same time with the firecrackers' signature gunshot-esque explosions. It was dazzling, it was brilliant, and it was loud enough to wake the dead. Satisfied, Zhi waited for the last firecracker to die out before fetching a broom and tray to clear up the mess, then promptly retired straight to bed for a good night's sleep.
The next day, the first thing he did upon coming home from school was glue himself to his laptop and yes, he kicked some ass.