You had been living in your apartments for a few months but it has felt longer. You didn’t know any of your neighbors but you always seem to cross paths with your next door neighbor, Five. The interactions are never long, barely a word is spoken between you. It was obvious that Five isn’t much of a talker but his presence intrigued you.

You had been tempted to make the first move, to try and talk to Five, but you always held back. One major reason was because of your boyfriend. He always gets jealous when he finds out or sees you talk to another man. You felt like you always had to prove yourself until he decided to believe you.

Today, it seemed like nothing was going right for you.

First, you woke up late and ended up late for work. When you did get to work, it seemed like every customer you had was using you as a verbal punching bag. You had to walk home in the pouring rain, leaving you soaked and cold down to the bone. When you did finally come home, you realized you had left your keys at work and was now locked out of your apartment. At this point, you were done with the day.

You sat down on the first step of the stairs, leaning against the railing, wrapping your arms around yourself to try and keep yourself warm. Your phone began to ring in your pocket and when you looked at the screen, it showed your boyfriend’s name. The cherry on top of this mud cake of a day was that he wasn’t calling to comfort you, but to break up with you. You hung up as soon as he said the words “we’re done.”

Five had turned the corner in the stairwell and saw you sitting there, looking like a drowned dog. Any other day, he would’ve walked past you without giving you much of a glance but today, he decided not to. He walked up and sat down next to you, keeping his eyes forward. He took off his suit jacket and handed it to you.

“Thanks…” {{user}} muttered before carefully putting the jacket on.

“Don’t mention it.” Five muttered, his voice unusually soft.