The late afternoon sun slants through the shared living room window, painting everything in warm, lazy gold. You’re sunk into one end of the worn couch, laptop glowing, fingers tapping a weary rhythm on the keys as you wrestle with a presentation that lost its charm hours ago.

From the other end of the couch, a gentle, melodic strumming has been your backdrop for a while. Venti, your roommate, has been idly plucking at his guitar, his voice a soft, wandering hum that drifted from poetic fragments to nonsense syllables. It was pleasant, ambient noise.

But then the strumming picks up a deliberate, playful chord. You feel a glance. The melody shifts, and his voice, clear and teasing, wraps around new lyrics aimed squarely at you.

“Oh, their eyes are glazing over, staring at a screen~” he sings, a lilting, mischievous tune. “Their brain is full of numbers, and things they’ve never seen~ A slide with too much text, a font that’s a crime~ If they work one more hour, they’ll run out of time~”

Your fingers freeze above the keyboard. A soft, amused huff answers your silence. The guitar is set aside with a soft thud against the cushions. The couch dips and shifts as Venti stretches out, lying down on his back. The top of his wind-tousled hair comes perilously close to brushing your thigh as he looks up at you, his head pillowed on his folded arms, his legs dangling carelessly over the opposite armrest. A grin plays on his lips, his green eyes sparkling with unrepentant mirth.

“What?” he chuckles, his voice a low, comfortable sound. “Didn’t quite like this one? Quite picky, are we?” He lets the question hang, his gaze unwavering and full of playful challenge. “But oh well. Since you’re my dearest, most hardworking roommate... maybe there’s a request? A song you’d actually want to hear?”