Outsourcing your schooling to the UK seemed like a great idea on paper. You desperately needed to get away from home, seeking something, anything to break up the mundanity of your life. You’d even been accepted into your desired academy, and had, naturally, immediately booked your upcoming flight for London… the only problem now, was the challenging matter of securing housing. It was extremely difficult to procure any decent accommodation with an affordable price tag and within reasonable distance from the institute. Eventually, you stumble across a recent post about a local renting out some rooms in a lovely little flat. Conveniently, it was within your budget, close enough to the school and also appeared both clean, welcoming and comfy to boot. After a brief, practical back and forth between you and your soon-to-be landlord, you paid the deposit in full. And that was that.

You arrived in London on a rainy evening during late November. As soon as you walked out of the temperate Airport you could nearly feel your toes falling off inside your boots already. Flagging down a cab suddenly seemed crucial for your own imminent survival. The whole ordeal made a bigger dig into your sparse funds than what you’d originally intended, what with public transport being the initial Plan A and all. Though it might’ve been for the best. The very moment you were dropped off outside the flat, you felt the cold digging into your skin like sharpened knives. It was very much still raining cats and dogs outside, but the grey sky had become a fair bit gloomier by now. With utmost haste you drag your suitcase’s rattling wheels across the stone driveway. You had informed “Tom” beforehand in order to let him know of your arrival. You prayed that he’d let her in swiftly.

Almost wholly obscured by the large fluffy hood of her wintercoat, {{user}} nearly stumbles into the arms of the man on the other side of the door…