Chapter Text
The apartment key stopped halfway into the lock.
Zanka pulled it free, checked the number stamped into the brass against the housing packet tucked beneath his arm, then tried again with the flat edge facing the opposite direction. The key reached the same point and caught against something inside the cylinder while August heat pressed through the open stairwell behind him, carrying the smell of sun warmed concrete and somebody’s burnt lunch from the floor below.
Riyo shifted the box balanced against her chest. “You have to lift the handle while you turn it. The building’s old.”
“The building opened three years ago.”
“They used old materials.”
Zanka kept pressure beneath the handle and worked the key until the deadbolt released with a hard metallic scrape. The door moved inward two inches before striking something left on the floor behind it.
Follo adjusted the long pole case resting across one shoulder, using his free hand to keep the stack of smaller boxes against his chest from slipping. “There should be enough room to push it aside unless somebody left furniture against the door.”
Zanka leaned his weight into the wood. Whatever blocked it dragged across the floor with a soft rubber rasp, allowing another foot of space before the door caught again. He reached through the opening and found the strap of a black duffel bag beneath his fingers. One firm pull cleared it from the entrance.
The university had described the unit as fully prepared for occupancy.
Zanka dragged the bag farther from the threshold and stepped inside, holding the door open while Riyo carried her box past him. Follo turned sideways to protect the pole case from the frame, then lowered the equipment along the interior wall where the air vent and direct sunlight could not reach it.
The housing packet shifted beneath Zanka’s arm when he closed the door. A narrow entry opened into the shared living room, with the kitchen set behind a waist high counter along the left wall. Two bedroom doors faced each other across a short hallway at the back. The bathroom sat between them, exactly where the online floor plan had promised, though the photographs had left out the scuffed baseboards and the faint dip in the living room floor near the window.
Riyo lowered her box onto the kitchen counter and wiped both palms against her shorts. “See? It’s bigger than your room last year.”
“My room last year didn’t come with a stranger.”
“You were the one who wanted an apartment instead of another dorm.”
“I wanted a single.”
“The singles were already full.”
Zanka pulled the folded denial letter from the housing packet and placed it on top of her box. The crease through the center had softened from the number of times he had opened it since June. “They were full when I applied two weeks before priority registration opened?”
Riyo read the first line before pushing the letter back toward him. “They said upperclassmen with documented accommodations got placed first.”
“They told me that after assigning singles to four people from Enjin’s team.”
“They might have accommodations.”
“One of them spent last semester sleeping in the equipment room because his own apartment was too quiet.”
Riyo’s mouth drew inward while she looked toward Follo for assistance. He had already crossed the living room and was testing the window latch, leaving her to defend the housing office alone.
Zanka put the denial letter back inside the packet before the exposed corner could catch against the cardboard. The next transfer period opened in December. He had written the date into his calendar, added reminders two weeks and three days beforehand, and downloaded the required form before housing could replace it with another version designed to waste his time.
Four months. He could manage four months if the man assigned to the other bedroom stayed out of his way.
Riyo lifted both hands from the counter before Zanka mistook her proximity to the box for an offer to keep carrying it. “He’s barely here. I told you that before you signed.”
“You said you thought he was barely here.”
“I know people who know him.”
“That sentence gets less useful every time you repeat it.”
Follo worked the window open another inch and looked down at the street. “The seal’s catching at the bottom. Maintenance can fix it before the weather changes.”
Zanka crossed the room and pressed two fingers against the warped strip of rubber. It had folded beneath the frame, keeping the window from closing evenly. The defect would let heat escape once temperatures dropped. He opened the maintenance portal on his phone and entered the building number before either of them could suggest dealing with it later.
Riyo watched him attach a photograph. “You’ve been inside for three minutes.”
“The window was broken before I got here. They can document that now instead of charging me in May.”
“Your roommate probably already knows.”
“Then he had time to report it.”
The phone uploaded the request while Zanka turned toward the rest of the apartment.
The shared space contained less evidence of another person than he had expected. A pair of black shoes sat beneath the small table by the entrance. One mug had been left upside down beside the kitchen sink, dry enough around the rim to have remained there for several days. Three printed articles occupied one end of the dining table beneath a closed notebook, their corners aligned unevenly around a roll of white athletic tape and a set of wired headphones.
The duffel he had moved from the door remained zipped. A laboratory access badge hung from its outer pocket, the photograph turned against the fabric.
Whoever lived here had managed to obstruct the entrance without spreading much farther.
Riyo wandered toward the table and bent over the top article. “This might be his research stuff.”
Zanka caught the edge of the paper before she could lift it. “Leave it where he put it.”
“I was reading the title.”
“You can read it without carrying it around.”
Her fingers left the page, and Zanka slid it back into line with the stack before letting go. The print beneath the heading disappeared into terms he recognized individually without understanding what they amounted to together. Something involving receptor binding, tissue response, and a compound whose name ran long enough to occupy most of the second line.
The margins were crowded with small handwriting. Several passages had been crossed through, corrected, then connected to calculations worked directly along the side of the page. The writing moved tighter wherever space narrowed, maintaining the same pressure against the paper without becoming less legible.
The person who had left a duffel bag against the front door had spent enough time on the article to argue with its author across six printed pages.
Zanka returned the notebook to the exact angle at which he had found it and lifted the roll of tape instead. The brand matched what the training department issued in bulk, though the inner cardboard carried a strip of red marker that did not belong to the team’s inventory.
“He climbs sometimes,” Riyo said. “Or boxes. Momoa said he keeps joining places, going for a month, and then disappearing until somebody texts him.”
“Who is Momoa?”
“She’s known him forever. I asked her whether he was awful to live with.”
Zanka set the tape down. “You waited until after I signed to mention that conversation.”
“She said his old roommate hardly saw him, and the housing office has never written him up.”
“That does not answer what she said about living with him.”
Riyo picked at a loose corner on the box’s packing tape until Zanka pressed it flat again. “She laughed for a while and asked whether you knew how to lock your bedroom door.”
The refrigerator motor clicked on behind him.
Follo lowered the window and crossed back toward the kitchen, stepping around the dip in the floor after noticing it once. “Riyo also told you to meet him before signing.”
“He cancelled twice,” Zanka said.
The first message had arrived twenty minutes before the scheduled meeting, claiming a lab procedure had run longer than expected. The second came through Riyo four hours after the man had already failed to appear. Apparently, he had fallen asleep in a research office and left his phone inside a locked cabinet.
Zanka had signed the agreement the following morning because housing gave him forty eight hours to accept before releasing the room to the next applicant.
Follo rested one hand against the counter. “You could have taken the random assignment.”
“This is the random assignment. It came with Riyo making promises.”
“I said you’d barely see him,” she replied, dragging the box closer before beginning to work the tape loose with her thumbnail. “He’s in the science building all night, and half the time he stays with Cthoni because she lives closer to the lab. You’ll have the apartment to yourself more than you did with Follo.”
Zanka looked toward him.
Follo had already taken his phone out to check the time. His new resident assistant training began in forty minutes across campus, though he had spent the morning loading Zanka’s belongings into Enjin’s truck and carrying them up three flights of stairs without mentioning the schedule once. His keys hung from a blue university lanyard around his wrist, the plastic housing badge striking softly against the counter each time he moved.
For two years, Zanka had known when Follo would return without asking. He knew which nights Follo worked at the library, how long he stayed in the shower after distance training, and which cabinet would open when he came into the kitchen half awake. Follo knew where the pole case belonged and which box needed to reach the bedroom before the others. They had stopped dating early enough in freshman year that the apartment they shared afterward never became hostile territory. Daily life had simply settled into the part of their relationship that worked.
That did not mean Zanka wanted another person inside it.
Follo put his phone away. “My floor still has an empty room if housing decides to place another RA. I can ask whether they’ll consider an upperclassman transfer after training ends.”
“They already denied the request.”
“You filed for a single in this building. The position might change what they can offer.”
Zanka slid the housing packet beneath his arm again and reached for the box Riyo had opened. “I can last until December.”
Riyo made a sound low in her throat while freeing the first flap. “He might be fine.”
“You told me to lock my bedroom door.”
“Momoa told me to ask whether you knew how. That could mean anything.”
“It means she laughed instead of answering.”
“She laughs when people fall down stairs too. You can’t use that as evidence.”
Zanka lifted the box from the counter and carried it toward the bedroom marked B on the housing assignment. The door opened onto enough floor space for a full bed, a desk, and the narrow set of drawers supplied by the university. His pole rack would fit along the interior wall once they moved the desk closer to the window. The closet door slid cleanly, and the shelving inside had been left empty except for a folded inspection card signed by a housing employee three days earlier.
At least the room itself had been cleared properly.
Follo followed with the second box and placed it beside the wall rather than blocking the center of the floor. Riyo came in behind him carrying a canvas bag of bedding, which she dropped onto the mattress before turning in a slow circle.
“You have more closet space than I do.”
“You brought enough clothes to fill yours twice.”
“I need options.”
“You wear the same four shirts.”
“They work with different pants.”
Follo pressed one palm to the desk and shifted it several inches toward the window. One leg caught against the carpet seam, so Zanka set his box down and took the opposite side before the wood twisted under uneven pressure. They moved it together until the outlet remained accessible and the afternoon light fell to the side of where the laptop would sit.
Riyo watched them check the distance from the wall. “Do you two rehearse this?”
“We lived together,” Follo said, keeping his hand on the corner while Zanka tested whether the desk rocked.
“It’s level enough,” Zanka said. “The floor drops closer to the living room.”
Follo released the wood and picked up the box again. “Your monitor stand is in the truck with the kitchen things.”
“The label says desk equipment.”
“You wrote that after I loaded it.”
Riyo sat on the edge of the mattress, compressing the bare vinyl beneath her. “This is what I mean. You survived two years with Follo because he already knows every rule you haven’t said out loud. Give the new guy a week before you start submitting transfer paperwork.”
“The form opens in December.”
“You downloaded it in June.”
“The portal linked it in the denial notice.”
“You saved it.”
Zanka removed the bedding bag from beneath her hip and set it near the head of the mattress. “Get up if you’re done helping.”
She pushed herself upright and took hold of the empty bag, folding it against her stomach while Follo carried the next box toward the closet. The room filled gradually through their movement rather than any deliberate plan to linger. Textbooks reached the desk. Training clothes went into the top drawers. The foam roller and resistance bands fit beneath the bed once Zanka checked that the frame left enough clearance. Follo passed each item over without asking where it belonged, and Riyo began reading the labels aloud after opening the wrong box twice.
By the time they returned to the living room, sweat had gathered beneath Zanka’s shirt and the afternoon sun had shifted across the kitchen floor. His phone vibrated with a message from the assistant coach confirming five thirty practice the following morning, followed by another from Rudo asking whether the apartment had roaches.
Zanka typed back that the building was new enough to have structural problems instead, then muted the thread before Rudo could ask for photographs.
Riyo reached around him to read the screen. “Tell him I said he can visit after orientation.”
“He is not staying here during your orientation.”
“He didn’t ask to stay.”
“He will.”
Follo picked up the laboratory articles from the table just far enough to free a trapped housing brochure beneath them, keeping the stack supported in both hands until Zanka slid the glossy paper out. The articles returned to the same place without their corners bending.
Riyo noticed and pointed between them. “You both keep fixing his stuff.”
“It was in the way,” Zanka said.
“You moved the tape back to where it was.”
“It belongs to somebody else.”
“That somebody left his bag behind the front door.”
Zanka folded the brochure and wedged it into the recycling bin. “His inability to use an entryway does not give us permission to go through his things.”
Riyo’s expression shifted around an answer she decided to keep. She picked up the smallest remaining box instead and carried it toward the kitchen.
The refrigerator held more evidence than the living room. Two shelves were nearly empty, leaving enough space for Zanka’s meal containers once they brought up the cooler. The existing food had been condensed into the right side of the upper shelf: three bottled drinks, a carton of eggs, several sealed containers from restaurants near the science buildings, and a clear plastic box filled with cut fruit. Every container had a date written across the lid in the same narrow handwriting as the research notes.
The freezer contained ice packs, two frozen meals, and a bag of cherries secured with a laboratory clip.
Zanka removed the clip and examined the stamped metal before replacing it over the folded plastic. “He took this from a lab.”
Riyo leaned around the refrigerator door. “It’s a clip.”
“It has an inventory number.”
“He might have bought it.”
“The university’s name is engraved into the side.”
Follo opened the cooler on the floor and began passing over Zanka’s containers. “You can report the stolen equipment after you meet him.”
“I’m not reporting a clip.”
“Then move the cherries and use the shelf.”
Zanka placed the first container along the left edge and measured the remaining width against the stack waiting below. The two sides could divide evenly if the existing drinks moved closer together. He left them untouched and adjusted his own containers instead, fitting each row without crossing the center bracket.
Riyo rested her forearms on the counter. “You’re already getting along.”
“He is not here.”
“That helps.”
The refrigerator door pressed cold air against Zanka’s legs while he finished the arrangement. Nothing belonging to the other occupant had spilled, expired, or spread beyond the upper shelf. The apartment carried none of the noise Riyo had promised would be absent and little of the disorder Momoa’s laughter had implied. Even the bag at the entrance had probably landed there during a rushed departure rather than remaining as part of a larger pattern.
Four months could pass cleanly if both of them respected the division.
Zanka closed the refrigerator and checked the time. Follo needed to leave within fifteen minutes, and Riyo’s freshman orientation group met across campus an hour after that, though she had already admitted she planned to skip the opening presentation because somebody uploaded last year’s slides online.
By late afternoon, the apartment would be empty, and his fingers eased around the phone before he could stop them.
Riyo caught the change before he could turn toward the next box. “You’re happy we’re leaving.”
“You both have somewhere else to be.”
“You could say thank you before throwing us out.”
“I carried half your boxes into your dorm yesterday.”
“You complained during all of them.”
“They were packed badly.”
Follo wiped his forehead against the sleeve of his shirt and glanced toward the equipment resting along the wall. “We should bring the pole rack up before I go. Enjin tied it beside the bedframe.”
Zanka took the truck keys from him as they moved toward the door. Riyo stayed behind long enough to pull her phone from the kitchen counter, then followed them into the hall with the empty bedding bag tucked beneath one arm.
She waited until Zanka had worked the stubborn lock before speaking again.
“You’ll barely see him.”
Zanka lifted the handle, turned the key, and listened to the deadbolt grind into place.
“He has until December to prove you right.”