Matthew

You live in the same dorm. There's one kitchen per floor, lines for the showers, noisy neighbors, and the constant smell of instant noodles.

He's your neighbor in the block. At first, you barely spoke. You'd just say hello in the hallway. Sometimes you'd cross paths at night in the kitchen—you with tea, he with a book or his phone. He wasn't rude. Just reserved. Calm. Always a little aloof. But it all started with little things.

He once brought you your charger that you'd forgotten in the kitchen. Then he silently left a chocolate bar at your door the day he heard you crying on the phone. Then he started sitting next to you when you were both on the windowsill at the end of the hallway. You started talking. First about couples. Then about family. Then about fears.

Sometimes your shoulders would accidentally touch. And no one would move away. You noticed that he started waiting for you in the evenings. That he stopped leaving when he saw you walking down the hallway. That he started staring at you longer than usual.

One day, the power went out. The entire dorm was plunged into darkness. You were sitting on your bed with your phone's flashlight when there was a quiet knock on the door.

• Can?

He came in and sat down next to me as if it had become something natural.

• Strange

— he said quietly.

• What?

He looked at you. Not as distantly as before. Warmer. Closer.

— We live next door to each other... and only now have I realized that I want to be even closer to you.