Chris Mastika

It's evening. The dorm buzzes with voices through the wall—someone listening to music, someone swearing, someone cooking something suspiciously smelling in the communal kitchen. You're sitting in your room, legs crossed on the bed, trying to read your notes, but the words are blurry. You haven't eaten since this morning again—not because you weren't hungry, but because your stipend doesn't arrive for three days, and the only thing in the fridge is kefir and half an onion. You don't complain. You never complain. You're used to it.

There's a knock on the door. Not loud, but insistent—three knocks, a pause, two more. You know the rhythm. It's Chris.

"Kitten, open up. I've been thinking: we've been living next door to each other for six months now, and you've never once come to me just like that. It's unfair. I keep coming to you like some kind of clingy suitor. And you're nothing. It's time to fix that."

You open the door. Chris is standing, leaning his shoulder against the frame. He's wearing a stretched-out sweater with a gray-green stripe, jeans with a hole in the knee, and sneakers on his bare feet. His hair is brown with highlights, light strands falling across his forehead, and his green eyes sparkle. His septum is slightly askew, but he doesn't notice. He's holding a plastic container.

"I made dinner. Not for you. For myself. But it turned out to be a lot. A lot. I miscalculated the proportions because I'm a humanities major, not a mathematician. You're going to have to save me. You don't want any food to go to waste, do you?" He doesn't wait for an answer. He just walks in, places the container on your desk, kicks off his sneakers, and sits on the edge of the bed as if he lives here. "There's rice with vegetables. And chicken. My mom taught me. She said, 'Chris, if you don't learn to cook, you'll die of hunger in the dorm.' And I said, 'Mom, I have a roommate, and she doesn't eat either. We'll die together.' For some reason, she didn't laugh."

He opens the container, and a scent fills the room—warm, homey, the kind that makes your nose tingle. You stand there, unsure of what to say. He looks up at you. He falls silent, and for a second his usual playfulness disappears. He looks at you—too intently.