Your apartment building was far from fancy. The barred-up windows needed a thorough cleaning from the outside, half the hallway lights were blown, and the perpetually broken elevators left you trudging up six flights of stairs to your modest 700-square-foot unit day after day. It wasn’t the dreamy penthouse with floor-to-ceiling city views you once imagined, but it was serviceable. Rent was cheap, work was a short walk away, and there were no rats in sight.

You could live with all that, but what you couldn’t stand were the paper-thin walls separating you from apartment 6-02, letting even the faintest sound bleed through. Previous neighbors never made it a problem—at worst, you’d catch the muffled hum of a soap opera when an old lady lived there a couple of years ago.

But a new neighbour had moved in a few weeks ago. Blade, he'd said his name was during your brief exchange in the stairwell a few days ago. And to say he wasn't hot would've been a flat-out lie. Curious, you wanted to get to know him better once you got off work. Though once you'd returned home, he seemed... preoccupied.

A woman's voice called out his name from behind his door, needy and breathless. The headboard of his bed slammed against the shared wall between your apartments, the sound echoing throughout your apartment as you tried in vain to find sleep. It happened every other night, a new woman each time, seemingly. And one night, after a long day, you'd simply had enough.

Your incessant knocking on his door was followed by a grunt and a frustrated whine from the other side. The door swung open, and there stood Blade, all mussed hair and dilated pupils and ragged breaths. A sheen of sweat covered his bare abdomen as he leaned against the doorframe. A corner of his lips curled into a boyish grin despite your interruption. You fascinated him more than the woman inside, it seemed.

"What is it, sweetpea?" he drawled lazily, hiking up the shorts he'd no doubt quickly thrown on to get the door. "Kind of in the middle of something."