Chapter Text
Everybody left in your life warned you against it, but you needed the peace. For yourself.
The apartment you managed to grab with what little money you had saved after your last job made a dorm suite look luxurious in comparison. But it was yours, all yours. Even though the elevator always got stuck three flights below your floor, even though a dodgy smell lingered in your apartment (which you spent your first few weeks meticulously trying to eradicate with cozy cedar candles and dangerous quantities of bleach), and even though your landlord was conveniently impossible to reach, you fell in love with your closet of an apartment. Even though it was incredibly lonely.
You had to move away and find yourself. And you had to afford it by yourself, which landed you here.
You thought the loneliness would subside after you met your neighbors, but you never seemed to catch them at the right time and were too anxious to just knock on their doors to introduce yourself. It felt intrusive. You weren’t even sure if people really did that anymore anyway.
So, you felt relieved when you finally found evidence of a living neighbor across the hall from you. You were on the way back from the laundromat down the street, arms aching from lugging weeks’ worth of laundry up the stairs. You vowed never to let the laundry pile up like that again, or at least, you wouldn’t bring so much in one go. When you finally reached your floor, breath heaving and brow sweating, your mysterious neighbor was on his way out of his apartment. He glanced your way as he locked his door, probably distracted by your gasping breaths. You tried to collect yourself and push your hair out of your face.
“Hi!” you said, a little too excitedly. You accidentally dropped your laundry to wave hello, your clothes spilling on the top step. He glanced down at your clothes then back at you, holding your gaze. He said nothing.
“I-uhm, I’m new here. Right across from you,” you nervously gestured to your door. He glanced at the door and his brow furrowed. He kept staring at the door as if he was frustrated with it. As if he was frustrated with you. Stop overthinking, you told yourself, I haven’t done anything to upset him… yet.
He sighed and walked towards you. You thought he might be approaching you to greet you properly but suddenly he was passing you, carefully stepping over your fallen clothes.
“W-well it was nice to meet you!” He didn’t stop as he descended the stairs.
When he was gone, you sighed and leaned against the railing, head in your hands.
“Idiot,” you mumbled.
You peeked through your fingers to look at the laundry you dropped all over the stairs and felt your face heating with embarrassment. All of the underwear you had carefully tucked away in your hamper was now on display at your feet, so perfectly placed it looked intentional. You groaned and picked up the fabric you blamed for your horrible first impression.
“So embarrassing.”
———————————
You didn’t see mystery man very often. Probably to his relief. You kept quiet in your place, working at your ‘dining table’ you had thrifted to try and make the space a bit more functional. When you did leave the apartment it was only to run errands at peculiar times of the day. On one such occasion, you were leaving as he was arriving and made another attempt to get a sentence out of him. A word. Anything.
“Hello,” you said with a shy smile. He nodded without looking at you, entered his apartment and closed the door firmly behind him. Well, alright. You brushed off the rejection and went about your tasks. You figured, some people probably wound up here for different reasons than you. You wanted to find yourself, to meet new people. Maybe he just wanted to be alone. Maybe I should respect that.
You didn’t try to greet him anymore when you saw him. You would just nod in acknowledgment since that seemed to be his communication of choice. You became content with these silent exchanges until one night you noticed him come home bloodied and bruised. It was none of your business, but you couldn’t help but wonder, be concerned. You decided to break the silent truce, just this once.
“Are you okay?”
He stopped with his hand on his door, as if contemplating whether or not to respond to you. He kept his eyes on the ground, jaw clenched.
“It’s just- if you need anything, I have first aid stuff. Ice, maybe-” He was inside before you could finish your sentence. You heard the lock click into place.
You knew it was a lost cause to talk to him, but you were proud of yourself for trying anyway. You left your first aid box outside his door later that night. The next day it was gone.
You continued on like that, silently nodding in passing, and leaving behind first aid supplies when you noticed him looking worse for wear. He started to tolerate your presence more in the weeks after that, from what you could tell. Not that he really gave much away.
One day, you had finally stocked up on groceries after having an empty fridge for almost a week. Your job never required you to leave your house, you had no friends in the city, and had terrible self-care habits. Which resulted in (to the benefit of your meager wallet) only grabbing food when your kitchen was absolutely barren. Needless to say, you got a shit ton of food that day. You tripped carrying your bags up the stairs, spilling cans that rolled down the hallway. At that exact moment, he happened to be leaving his apartment. He frowned at you. You nodded your head in greeting with a shy “sorry” for the noise you made and hurriedly tried to bring all your bags up the remaining steps. He shook his head with a sigh, walked towards you, and picked up the heaviest bags. Your eyes widened at the gesture, and you impulsively gave another “sorry” under your breath, to which he gave an exasperated grunt.
“Stop that,” he said.
“What? Sorry- I-” You stopped as you saw his eyes tighten in irritation.
“Okay, thank you,” you opted for instead. He nodded and turned on his heel toward your apartment door. He picked up the cans that escaped along the way. You stood stunned for a moment. Those two words, though they were a bit curt, were the most he’d spoken to you ever. He cleared his throat when he saw you weren’t following, shaking you out of your daze.
You caught up with him and fumbled for your key, anxious to end this interaction. You had wanted to get to know him for so long, but suddenly him extending an olive branch was terrifying to you. He was so quiet, you had always wondered what about you made him not even want to say hello. Maybe I’m just misunderstanding him, you thought. I’m expecting too much from a stranger, for Christ’s sake. I’m such a loser. Silence doesn’t always mean anger. Maybe he was contemplative. Maybe he never had much to say. Somehow you doubted that.
When you finally opened the door, you turned to take the bags back.
“Thank you,” you said as you tried to pry the bags from him. He pulled them out of your reach and jerked his chin forward, motioning for you to head in. You hesitated before sighing and turning to walk into your apartment, expecting him to follow behind you. Your cheeks heated in embarrassment, wondering what impression your apartment gave. Books were strewn about your only furniture, half-drunk teas and coffees on the table -which suddenly terrified you to think they might be creating a smell you’ve become nose blind to- track marks from your boots all over your floor, trash can overflowing, the works. It was your space. You never thought to be embarrassed of your space before, but you began to understand why your mother would manic-clean before having people over.
“I promise I’m not always this clumsy. It seems every time we catch each other I’m in the middle of dropping something or being intrusive. I don’t mean to be. I’m sor- Thank you,” you caught yourself, anxiously glancing his way from the corner of your eye. You dropped your bags on your ridiculously small kitchen counter and turned to take his again. As you did, a few apples rolled out from your bags and across the floor stopping at his feet. You sighed and closed your eyes in embarrassment. You felt like such a mess. You probably looked like a mess too. Not that it matters what he thinks of me, you told yourself.
“I’ll take the bags now,” you said quietly. When you opened your eyes again, you found him staring at you. The corners of his eyes tightened again, but not in irritation this time. Perhaps, amusement? You’d never been around him long enough to unlock these new expressions. You always thought his eyes to be so intimidating, you never got the chance to appreciate the warm, chocolate brown of them. You got lost in thought, wondering what it would take to make him properly smile. Suddenly, that was something you very much wanted to do. He cleared his throat again and brushed past you to carefully balance the remaining grocery bags on your poor excuse for a kitchen counter.
He lingered beside you, his arm was what felt like millimeters away from yours. You curled into yourself, fidgeting with your cardigan and pulling it closed, scared that if you touched him then that would really be the last straw and he’d never glance your way again. Not that it mattered to you that much. It really didn’t matter. At least, that’s what you told yourself. He lingered there, noting your body language, staring at you until you met his gaze. It felt like his eyes trapped you.
“You’re not intrusive,” he said in a gruff voice, rusty from lack of use.
You opened your mouth to say something but couldn’t find the words.
“Okay,” was all you could manage. Idiot.
He nodded, returned the rogue apples to the counter, and turned to leave.
“Bye,” you said under your breath, unwilling to let this miracle of a conversation end. He stopped for a moment as if he heard you, then continued on.
“Lock this,” he said, as he gently closed your door behind him. You heard him hesitate outside your door before going across the hall to his apartment.
——————————
He could tell he had been making you feel awkward, and that frustrated him. You were only trying to be kind and welcoming, he knew, but he had learned by now that it was best to keep innocent people out of his life. So when you had tried to greet him, he made a point of shutting you out. You seemed like a good, albeit clumsy, person just trying to befriend a neighbor. But he didn’t know if he could be a friend to you. He couldn’t even tell you his real name.
After you started leaving first aid kits out for him, he just felt like an asshole. Here he was, doing his best to ignore your existence, and you continued to be a good person. And that terrified him.
He couldn’t help but notice things about you. He noticed that you holed yourself up in your apartment for days on end, so you probably worked from home and didn’t have many friends. That made him feel like even more of jerk for shunning you. He noticed that you baked once in a while since he could smell cinnamon from across the hall. He noticed that you wore the same boots for every outing. He noticed that you exchanged shy hello’s for polite nods, and noticed the curious cedar smell you left behind in passing.
When he saw you struggle to carry your weight in food up the stairs, he decided he didn’t have to be such an asshole. Helping a neighbor with their groceries wouldn't get them killed, he hoped. He noticed how you seemed blindsided by the gesture, and that hit him in the chest. He didn’t mean for you to get such a rude impression of him. He noticed how your hands shook when you fumbled your keys into your lock. Maybe he was making a mistake.
When you led him into your apartment, he was amused by the state of things. It was a bit messy sure, but lived in. The imprint of you was everywhere. You had things. Extensions of yourself.
He had nothing.
When you finally faced him, eyes closed, he took the time to really look at you. The flush in your cheeks, your fidgeting hands, your shaking breath. He wanted to comfort you, get you to relax, but he didn’t know how. He didn’t think this far ahead.
“I’ll take the bags now,” you mumbled. He couldn’t help but be amused by your flustered state. It was sweet. When he stood close to you, he noticed how you carefully curled away from him to avoid touching, and wondered if you were afraid of him. He didn’t find that amusing. He tried to catch your eyes and offer something kind, in a softer manner than he had spoken to you before.
“You’re not intrusive.”
When he closed your door behind him, he lingered. For some reason, getting to know you was something he very much wanted to do. But after years of being alone, he’d forgotten how to start from scratch. He went back to his apartment, making a small vow to himself to, at the very least, not ignore you anymore.