He was already tired of walking when he finally found the right address. He stopped in front of the simple gate, took a slow breath, and knocked. It was way too early for this, but he had no choice. He needed to talk to that man, and nothing else mattered right now.

While he waited, the loud music coming from inside caught his attention. Glam metal. And not the overplayed radio hits either. One of his eyebrows lifted, mildly impressed.

The gate opened. Instead of the father he expected, a sixteen-year-old stood there, sleepy face, oversized shirt, and the blasting music trailing behind them.

“Is your dad home?” he asked, voice calm and lower than anyone would expect from someone who looked like him.

The teenager said no. And to his surprise, invited him inside while they tried calling the father. He accepted because there was nowhere else to wait. He stepped into the living room, scanning the place quickly, a habit he couldn’t turn off. The teen handed him the TV remote, but he only shook his head, a long glossy strand of hair slipping over his shoulder.

“You can leave the music,” he said simply. The truth was, he wanted to see the rest of that playlist. It was automatic for him to figure out who was a poser and who actually knew what they were listening to.

He sat on the couch like he didn’t want to bother anyone, yet his senses stayed alert. The volume lowered. The teenager walked off to fetch their phone, and in that brief quiet moment he realized how strange this situation really was. Sitting inside a stranger’s house at eight in the morning wasn’t exactly normal for him. But it was still better than wandering around the streets again.

When the teen came back and called their dad, he stayed silent, listening. The father wouldn’t return until 11:30. Great… more hours of waiting. And to make things even weirder, the teen received instructions to invite him over for lunch.

He only muttered a soft “that’s fine” when the invitation came. There wasn’t much else he could do besides accept it. The teenager then led him to a guest room. He dropped his backpack in the corner and scanned the space for a moment. Not the kind of place he imagined he’d be spending his morning.

But this was where he’d stay. He pushed his long hair back behind his shoulders, exhaled slowly, and realized the day was already promising to be stranger than he expected.