Chapter Text
The southern region of Osaka was close enough to Chuuoku that in hindsight, you probably should've moved there instead. Inside the women-only city, the government would've offered you subsidized housing, guaranteed work, and a literal and unbreachable iron wall between you and your ex.
Even so, it felt like a coward's move to seek refuge in the city you had run away from just last year. And now you were running away again from the man who you thought was the love of your life that you'd been such a fool to trust. Like a soap opera, you thought coldly. Like it had been nothing but a game to him.
You had always been very efficient. In less than a day, you'd packed up everything you owned and left your apartment without looking back. You hadn't renewed your rental contract yet anyway, so it was the perfect time to move out. The first listing for a relatively affordable place and a few calls to the bank, your parents, and the landlord later, you were headed for an unfamiliar city, six hours away.
It was six hours because your dad drove you there, tight-lipped the entire trip because what you were doing meant you were throwing your whole career aside, forfeiting a month's worth of rent, and giving up an entire life that you'd built for yourself from the ground up, just for some man. Well, just to get away from said man, but the result was the same.
But your dad respected your decision, as he clearly was willing to drive you for six hours from the city you called home all your life to the unfamiliar cityscape of Osaka, home of...well, you would find out.
Hopefully you would be able to make it your new home. Start again from scratch. Learn how to trust people again. You were sure there was someone out there that deserved your trust, even if you didn't exactly feel so enthusiastic about meeting new people again. Just give it some time, you thought to yourself. It hadn't even been twelve hours yet since then. Sometimes you were too efficient...your emotional state hadn't even caught up yet and you were already far, far away.
You'd never been quite this spontaneous, you thought, as you arrived at the modest apartment building that the address matched the online listing but it was a lot shabbier in person. But this would do. Osaka was so far from your family, and even with the bullet train, they would be at least two hours away. Two hours wasn't bad, you supposed. Your commute to work was two hours anyway because the rush hour was terrible.
But then you remembered that it meant you only put two hours between you and your ex.
Ok, maybe you'd been too spontaneous. Quitting your job, moving out of your apartment, and running all the way here to an unfamiliar city – maybe that was a little dramatic.
But the wounds your ex left were deep, and you wanted to get over him as fast as humanly possible. Within a day, you'd erased every trace of him and maybe it wasn't worth it, but the five years you spent with him was worth far less to him. You'd make it worthless too, for you, eventually.
Maybe it was guilt your dad was feeling when he agreed to help you, because he and your mom did keep pressuring you to get married. Ha, you were so glad that you didn't. Your life would really be a soap opera at that point, bitter and slimy with the flavour of regret.
"If you ever want to come back home," your dad said to you, and it was the first thing he'd said since you first saw him today. "Your mom and I would be happy to have you back."
"Thanks, Dad," you said, and you hugged him tightly, hoping to convey all your feelings to him non-verbally. It was good to know they had your back, that you could fall back on them if things weren't working out. Tears prickled in your eyes for the first time since everything in your life had turned upside down, and you fought to stay composed as you waved goodbye to your dad as he drove off.
The superintendent that you spoke to on the phone came to greet you. He gave you the keys to your new apartment, which you would be sharing with a roommate who had also moved in recently. You then hauled your stuff from the lobby to the second floor. The building didn't have an elevator, and going up and down even a single flight of stairs so many times was exhausting. You were grateful your apartment wasn’t on the fifth floor or something.
The superintendent had said you'd be in unit 203 if you remembered correctly, but the key he'd given you didn't quite fit. You glanced at the faded room number written at the top of the key – #204. Had he told you the wrong room number?
And so you knocked on the door of unit 204 and unlocked it carefully. Your roommate didn't seem to be home, and it looked...messy. You frowned at the shoes in the doorway that seemed to have been kicked off and tossed carelessly aside. There were granola bar wrappers on the floor – you picked them up and tossed them in the garbage can in the kitchen. There, you were greeted with opened instant noodle packages and disposable chopsticks strewn all over the tiled ground. You put those in the garbage can too, and took the trash out because it was getting full.
You lugged all your stuff into your new apartment, leaving everything in the living room for now since your roommate seemed to be using the extra room as storage currently and you weren't about to move their stuff around without asking. You coming here today was pretty much unplanned, after all. To think that this morning, you had been thinking about what to make for dinner to surprise your ex.
You glanced at the boxes of instant noodles piled against the wall by the kitchen. What a poor diet. Why not cook something good for your new roommate to make a good first impression?
You checked the fridge first, and you were unsurprised from your first impression of your roommate's living habits when you saw what was there. There was a severe lack of green vegetables – there was a single wilted broccoli in the bottom drawer but it looked like it had been there for weeks – and no perishable items. A jar of peanut butter, mayo, jam, red bean paste, canned beans. You shut the fridge quietly.
You went downstairs to ask the superintendent for the nearest store that sold groceries. It was less than five minutes away on foot. This would be good; you could familiarize yourself with the area as well. You bought some eggs, meat, and plenty of veggies and brought them back to your new apartment, feeling very pleased with yourself.
It was almost 8 PM and your roommate wasn't home yet. They either worked long hours or had a long commute like you, or even both. You hoped they wouldn't have eaten yet when they returned, but that was probably unlikely. Even so, you hoped you could give them a warm, home-cooked meal and brighten someone's day when your own had been the absolute worst.
You let the tears fall freely then as you cooked, the heat from the pan warming up your face and the sizzling sounds masking your muffled sobs. With no one to see, with no one to worry about you, you could afford to let down your guard and let the sobs rack your body and the tears run dry.
And then you were done cooking, and it was that moment when you heard the front door unlock, and you heard a cheerful voice call out.
"I'm back!" And then there was a quiet sigh, "Well, no one's here to greet me back anyway – huh? That's weird. It smells like something delicious is cooking or I really am going mad – who's there?"
You peeked out from the kitchen, hoping your eyes weren't too puffy. You were startled to see a man – you didn't know your roommate was a man, that's a little awkward – and he looked at you questiongly.
He had dark green hair and a gaudy suit, and smiley eyes. Only he wasn't smiling, he was frowning at you.
"Why are you in my apartment?"
"Oh, I just moved in here," you said. "I'm your new roommate...the superintendent should've notified you –"
He stared blankly at you. "I bought this apartment. To the best of my knowledge, I shouldn't be expecting any roommates…"
The memory of the key flashed before your eyes, and the superintendent telling you that you were in unit 203 suddenly echoed alarmingly in your head. A horrible realization dawned on you in that moment, because you'd tried the key on the door to unit 203 first, but it hadn't worked…
The superintendent had given you the wrong key, didn't he?
You blinked slowly at the man, beginning to realize the gravity of what you had just done. You'd pretty much just broken into his house, ransacked his fridge (thank god there was nothing in it), and helped yourself to his kitchen and made dinner.
"I am so sorry," you found yourself saying, pretty much dissociating from your body there and then. "That was entirely my fault. I was moving in today and I guess I must've been given the wrong key. I'll take my stuff out and I'll take my leave. Um, I made dinner. Don't worry, I didn't use your stuff, not that you have anything in the fridge anyway. And I'll go now, I'm very sorry again."
The man laughed at you, kicking off his shoes and stepping into the doorway of the kitchen. "What can I say? You cooked something that smells absolutely delightful, you're welcome to stick around for as long as you want. At least, stay for dinner."
You were about to politely refuse, but your stomach growled loudly in that moment and the man laughed even louder, seemingly far too amused at something that was certainly trivial.
"Don't be shy, you made all this after all! I haven't had real food in ages," he said, stepping around you and entering the cramped kitchen. "Man, that smells delicious! I really lucked out didn't I?"
He stared dreamily at all the dishes you made and turned back to you with an awed look on his face. "Hey, since all your stuff's here at my place anyway, you wanna just crash here for now?"
Wait, what?