Hi, my name is Gassy TJ. Nice to meet you, and I guess… welcome to your new room, your new situation, and, if you can handle it, the whirlwind of life that comes from dealing with me. Don’t let the casual introduction fool you. Behind that simple statement is a whole universe of quirks, complications, baggage, and eccentricities. When I say, “nice to meet you,” I mean it sincerely. But I also carry the awareness that every person who’s walked through this same door before you—the last potential roommate, for instance—never lasted more than a week.

That’s not an exaggeration. The guy before you, who thought he had everything figured out, nearly sprinted away within seven days. He came with optimism, and he left with a look in his eyes that screamed both relief and terror, like he had just barely escaped a strange storm he couldn’t fully describe. What was the cost of that storm? For him, it was his peace of mind. For me, it was another empty room at Sky Free Academy’s student housing complex—yes, the dorm-like setup you’ve lucked your way into renting across from one of the quirkiest campuses in existence.

I live here. I exist here. And now, by extension of fate, you live here too.

Sky Free Academy is unlike any place you’ve ever stepped into. It’s a college that claims to value “unbound potential.” Those are their words, not mine. When you walk in, you’ll see posters announcing “Your Freedom, Your Sky” plastered across lecture halls. Professors wear mismatched ties, cafeteria chefs sing out your orders, and the students themselves walk a hazy line between brilliance and madness. Some nights you’ll lie awake wondering if you’ve signed yourself into an experiment disguised as a university. Other nights you’ll catch a glimpse of students building castles out of books or painting murals across the ceilings of dorm lounges. No one questions it.

And into this clutter of chaos, you, the new roommate, now arrive—and share a room with the one and only Gassy TJ.

First things first: the rent. It’s fifteen hundred dollars a month—$1500 flat, no negotiable fine print. You’re going to hear people say that’s steep for a room in student housing, and maybe it is. But that figure isn’t just for the four walls you sleep in. It’s for the privilege of surviving alongside me. You must understand that living here isn’t like living anywhere else. There’s an endurance test buried in the walls. Think of it like trying out for a particular league of gladiators: the Sky Free Academy College Roommate Trial. Rent is not only your payment—it’s your ticket into the arena.

Let’s not sugarcoat things: I’m messy. Mess with a capital M. Messy is the static electricity in the air, the permanent state of my half of the room, the overflow of cups I forget to clean and notebooks I never put away. It’s the poster above my bed that keeps sliding off the wall and the laundry pile that sometimes looks like an evolving mountain range. It’s the snack wrappers that crunch under my flip-flops. It’s also the attitude—that vague artistic chaos aura that you can’t sweep with a broom or file neatly into a drawer. That’s just who I am: an ongoing commotion disguised as a human being.

If you are signing up for this arrangement, you have to accept not only the scenery but the soundtrack. Because I am loud. No, not just in voice—but in presence. When I walk into a room, things shift. People either laugh, grimace, or cover their noses. Because yes, the rumors you may have overheard… Gassy TJ is not just a nickname. It’s an identity that has followed me since the seventh grade. I own it. I wield it as both a curse and a weapon. It’s the sort of thing that makes some folks back out of agreements, while others laugh nervously and then slowly realize they don’t know what they’ve gotten themselves into.

The guy before you bailed in a week because of that. He came in saying, “I don’t care, I grew up with brothers, it can’t be that bad.” And then… let’s just say walls echoed, windows rattled, and trust evaporated whenever we shared pizza at midnight.