loneliness

When I first looked for an apartment, the plan was to use communal baths to save money and the time it took to clean one of my own, but then… yeah. Lots of people from college. Lots. Everywhere. Not really, but it felt like it. I ended up like this. In this place. Since the money my parents sent wasn’t enough, I had to get a job, and the coffee shop nearby—bless them—barely got any customers.

“I’ll um, I’ll be leaving some clothes in front of the door. For you. Because I don’t think it makes sense for you to shower and put the dirty ones back on. I-I mean unless you want to. I won’t judge. They're. Big.”

The coffee there tasted great, though, if I could say so myself. They baked the pastries right there. I supposed a shop themed after popular English rock bands just wasn’t hitting like it should amidst my peers.

“…right, I forgot you can’t hear me because of the… yeah. Shower.” Honestly, this was for the better. I couldn’t just open the door to leave them there, though. What if he thought I actually wanted to kill him? And he killed me instead? With my own toothbrush? He then said something I couldn’t discern, so I cried, “What?” and I supposed he couldn’t hear me, either, so I put my ear to the door.

He was singing.

Tunelessly.

To say the least.

It wasn’t anything I listened to, though it could also be that he butchered it to such a state that no sentient being could recognize it. Where did he come from, anyway? To me, anyone outside of Kobe kind of sounded the same. Ootsuki Rima came from Hokkaido and everyone around me seemed to intuitively know this, yet I asked her if she came from Tokyo. The owner was clearly a foreigner and I asked him the same. I was a lost cause.

When Natsume Youji slid the door open, since I leaned against it and gravity existed, I toppled forward. However, life wasn’t kind enough to knock me out this time. Or unkind? Obviously, I crashed against him instead, but before he could say, or do, or kill anything, I tossed the clothes at his general direction, then fled.

Why couldn’t I stop embarrassing myself in front of this guy, god damn it!? Right, and I still had to shower. I could even use the bath at this point. Was it wise to leave a stranger in my house while I did so? About as wise as it’d been to bring him here in the first place. Oh, and I hadn’t said thank you yet.

“…yo.”

I barely acknowledged I’d curled into a fetal position at the kitchen until Natsume Youji loomed above me. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“For?”

“Hearing you sing.”

Silence.

“I think you’d be good at it if you got lessons.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” That sounded sarcastic, but I took it at face value to avoid accountability anyway. “It’s very, um, energetic. I could never. I liked it.”

I actually squealed when he sat in front of me, like my throat caught my heart before it could escape. Was it good or bad that Natsume Youji smiled that way? Why did my clothes look better on him than me? I wanted to strangle him. And then myself. “No one had told me that before,” he said. “Ever. And I go to karaokes all the time. It’s usually the opposite. Hehe.”

He actually ‘hehe’d’. This man gave no fucks. Brain.exe stopped responding, so all I could muster was an, “I see.”

“Do you like singing too?”

No. God no. I’d rather eat razors. I shouldn’t have chosen that shirt. It was so stupid. I’d bought it used because it was on sale and I never thought it’d see the light of day—white, airy, with a cartoon avocado talking in some language I could not understand.

“Isa—”

“Yes.” Why did I— “Wait, did you just use my first name?”

Natsume Youji shrugged. “I forgot the other one. Anyway, so you like it? All my friends hate it, so it’s hard to find people to go with, but if you like it, then we should go. Some other time.”

“My last name is—”

“Also, you should take that off before you get a cold.”

“My—oh, you’re right.”

“What’s the Wi-Fi password? I ran out of data.”

“I'll. I’ll have to look it up to remember. Give me a…” As I stood up, so did he. Natsume Youji investigated my kitchen. My one tea cup, bowl, two glasses. Before it annoyed me, I went to check on my phone, then furiously tapped it. Nothing. I gently tapped it. Still nothing. Desperately tapped? It. Wasn’t. Turning. On. “…hey! What are you doing?”

Natsume Youji, who had opened my fridge, shook his head as he gestured inside it. “Instant meal after instant meal. When was the last time you cooked?”

“Uh, every day? Because it’s my job?”

“Cooking what, coffee?”

“Yes. No. I also… anyway, close that shit.”

He did.

“My phone is dead so I can’t give you the stupid password. I’ll take care of the clothes once I get out of the shower. You just… or… I guess if you leave me your number, I’ll call you to give them back. Stop that!”

He’d opened my cupboard, too. Obviously, it was empty. Natsume Youji then told me, “Go before you catch a cold.”

“Yes, just… stop. Looking at my things.”

“Mhm.”

I wanted to cry.

“Fine, I’ll stop.” He did. “I’ll leave as soon as the rain stops.”

“I…”

…still hadn’t said thank you. I could barely breathe. Somebody else might have… oh, whatever, who cared about what somebody else might have done at this point? I had nothing of value he could steal from me now my phone had died. Maybe the bed? But why would he rob that? With this thought in mind, I took a bath, because brain.exe stopped working again at the thought of using the shower when another stranger just had (the way it would’ve at the communal ones).

I dunked my head into the hot water like it’d help. Like it’d wash away the unwanted thoughts, melt the black fog constantly digging at me, at my thoughts, over my eyes, around my ears, over and over and over…

It smelled weird.

…well, good thing it hadn’t taken over my nose.

I all but leaped off the tub. Upon sliding off my clothes, I jumped out of the bathroom, too. “Is something burning are we dying did you die what is—oh.”

Sizzling. No… steam? Something like that? I didn’t own a pan. I had no actual ingredients. Where had Natsume Youji gotten those from? It still poured outside. Surely enough, he couldn’t have…

“Yo. I’m almost done.”

…yes he did.

He actually went out for groceries. Under the rain.

He got a pan.

He used my kitchen without my permission.

He set up the table.

I didn’t move. Couldn’t. The last time I ate a homecooked meal, I still had baby teeth. I might as well have been watching a show on television.

“Done!”

But no.

“Like I said, I hate tea, so I got beer for me. I hope that’s fine.”

As I sat down, the yellow and red from the omurice chased the black smog out of my sight. The way dishes clinked shut it up. The way I smiled dissolved it. Even when I tried to bite it back, I couldn’t. Natsume Youji drew rain clouds with the ketchup over our meals. Like him, I drank beer. “It’s so good,” I mumbled, between bites, “so good…”

“Glad to see you like it.”

I forgot I was supposed to be angry. Or was it scared? Who could possibly feel down when enjoying a homecooked, warm meal? Even when I had little to no furniture, when one of the walls had a crack, when the wind howled outside as the rain slammed itself against the windows, dark gray, cold…

Natsume Youji finished after me, which would’ve embarrassed me if I wasn’t high on omurice at the moment. To be fair, he’d been talking all the while. I nodded or shook my head. “…so is that a yes or a no?”

Eight empty cans of beer lay on the table. Two were mine. The third remained half-full. “Uhh… what was it again?” I asked.

“Do you think it’s good enough for that café? Thing.”

“Oh, yeah, for sure. Better than Ootsuki Rima's stuff."

“Agre—wait, no, I mean, thank you very.” Natsume Youji hiccupped. “Much. Then I’ll apply for it. Tomorrow.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, because it’s raining right now.”

“Ah. Totally.”

"Yeah."

***

And then I woke up on my bed next to him.