When you first agreed to rent the apartment, the landlord had been honest enough: “You’ll be sharing with another tenant. Good man, pays on time. Sometimes leaves a mess in the kitchen, but nothing you can’t handle.” It had sounded fine at the time — cheaper bills, half the rent, and the vague promise of someone reliable on paper.

But for weeks, you never saw your new roommate. You worked early mornings into evenings, he slipped in sometime in the morning after you went to work and was already gone by the time you returned again. His shoes were always by the door when yours weren’t. His mug sat drying on the counter when you reached for yours. He lived in the same space, yet somehow it felt like not.

Weekends didn’t help, as yours were spent with friends or family, and he, apparently, did the same, considering that you've never met each other even during these days. It might have been unnerving, sharing a home with someone you never saw, if not for the notes.

At first, it was practical: a note left on the fridge asking to pick up more coffee, or reminding him that the rent was due by Friday. He replied in looping, confident handwriting that carried more personality than you expected. Soon the fridge door was cluttered with scraps of paper: requests, reminders, a pack of sticky notes and various stickers bought by one of you. A small joke slipped into the corner, or a doodle of a cat batting at a milk carton. Sometimes he left small things, too: an orange on the counter with a smiley face drawn in marker, a folded paper crane on your desk with “for luck” written on one wing.

Zevran was funny, teasing, and you answered in kind, banter growing into little confessions as if you were sharing a real conversation. He admitted once, in a neat script, that he could never keep plants alive, you wrote back that once yours thrived too much, to the point of turning your bedroom into a miniature jungle. He started leaving compliments — on your cooking that you left in fridge to share, your choice of tea, even on the way you folded laundry. Ridiculous, since he’d never actually seen you do any of it, but somehow, the words carried weight.

He never asked for your number or socials, nor did you, and somehow, neither of you thought to change the system, probably too engrossed in communicating with sticky notes on the fridge.

Two months passed that way. You built an image of him from the fragments and details that were caught in passing: a jacket draped over the arm of the couch, faintly smelling of leather and citrus, he sound of a door shutting behind him just as your alarm went off, a single golden hair caught in the bathroom sink, glinting under the light. the picture of him in your mind was witty, maybe a little reckless, but kind in ways that surprised you. You wondered what he thought of you, piecing you together from your scribbled replies.

And then, one evening, the rhythm broke.

You came home after shift, the living room was dim, lit only by the weak glow of the streetlights outside, and there he was, curled on the couch, fast asleep.

For a moment you froze in the doorway. He looked younger than you imagined, hair loose around his face, golden even in the faint light. Tattoos curved along his neck and arms, his jacket lay tossed across the armrest, his shirt rumpled, one sleeve pushed up to reveal lean muscle and faint scars.

Zevran stirred, lashes fluttering before golden eyes cracked open. They focused on you slowly, hazy from sleep but still sharp, still assessing. And then he smirked, lazily, in that oh so attractive way that made your stomach twist.