DK immediately stepped in for damage control, stepping in between you guys. You realized that you and Woozi had been slowly getting closer to each other with each yell that you were now a foot away from tearing each others’ faces off.

            DK physically squeezed himself between you two, extending his arms to push the two away from each other. 

            “Woah, woah , woah there!” He said,  while walking towards you with outstretched arms, forcing you to back up. Looking past him you could see Hoshi doing the same thing to Woozi. “Lets all just take a breather.”

            You could hardly think straight let alone breathe properly. You were breathing heavy and fast, the sound of blood pumping echoing in your ears.

            “Like that’s, likely.” You huffed at DK, who looked at you sympathetically.

            “Breathe.” He urged you with a soft expression with hands on either sides of your shoulders. The sight of a kind, unthreatening face seemed to wake your logical side, that had previously been suffocated by overwhelming anger.

            You  groaned thinking about what had just happened. You let emotions get the best of you. And even worse you had gotten down to his level and shouted back , instead of being the better person that you had promised to.

            Even though you knew this, you couldn’t stop the rushing thoughts in your head. Nor could you calm your pounding heart in your chest. T

            “Okay, “ You whispered trying to control yourself. You could not let that little brat win, and by being angry, you were playing directly into his game.

            Hoshi was talking to Woozi in hushed tones while, Woozi rolled his eyes and said loudly, “Urg, can we not talk about this now?!” But Hoshi was persistent and kept talking.

            You came to the realization that even though Woozi was, in a sense, a bully, that did not mean that Hoshi and DK were his victims. You could tell they both had done this before. To the contrary, Hoshi seemed completely calm while dealing with Woozi, and Hoshi wasn’t taking any . No matter how much Woozi tried to speak over Hoshi, Hoshi was relentless in his efforts.

            “Let me take a walk or something.” You more told this to DK than asked. He gave you a sad smile, and nodded.

            “Don’t do anything stupid.” He whispered in your ear.

            “Don’t worry, “ you attempted a smile, “I’m just going for a walk to calm down” DK removed his hands from your shoulders and turned towards Woozi.

            You grabbed your backpack before you left, not wanting to stay there any longer. When you closed the door, you could still hear the boys’ voices clearly. You wondered how much your neighbors would grow to hate you if this continued.

            The pure anger and adrenaline that you had felt just moments before was replaced by a sense of numbness.  

            You couldn’t stop thinking about the encounter, replaying it in your mind over and over. But you had to stop. The more you thought about it, the faster your heart seemed to jumped from your chest.

            Walking downtown had never seemed longer. You were hungry for stimuli that would get you out of your self destructive thoughts.

            Stupid, stupid, stupid, you repeated to yourself, as you walked alone on the side of a deserted road. Everyone was already at work. They probably were having great days. Productive ones at that.

            You were walking in a outer body daze when you came across the music store that you had entered in that one day. Music is exactly what you needed.

            The bell rang when you entered but no employees came out. Which you were thankful for, you felt too emotionally drained to act like everything was okay.

            The record player, that normally played throughout the store, had no record on it. Without even looking at the name, you selected a record from the box next to it and put it on the player.

            When it began to play, you let out a sigh of relief. The ‘moonlight sonata’ crackling from the player. Glancing back at the name on the sleeve, you it saw it was a  ‘Classic Composers’ record.

            You were exhausted. You sunk down next to the record player and rested your back against it’s frame and brought your knees to your chest. The soothing melody on the piano seemed to vibrate throughout your whole body. Your thoughts ceased, the music taking your mind over completely.

            You closed your eyes. Your heart rate died down and your ears were so impressed in Beethoven that it didn’t have time to notice that the rushing in your ears had ceased as well. The world seemed to have stopped around you.

            If you weren’t so transfixed, you would’ve felt a pair of eyes staring at you. Or the clinging of CD’s being returned to their shelves.

            You didn’t remember falling asleep, you only remember being woken up. Hands were shaking you, and you could hear someone saying something but the music was too loud to make it out.

            You shifted a bit and swatted at the person instinctively. You touched skin and immediately opened your eyes. It took a moment for your eyes to adjust to the bright lights.  

            A boy, no, the same boy from the last time you were here, was crouching down next to you on the toes of his red converse. His eyes were wide behind his hipster glasses.  His mouth was moving but you weren’t registering anything that he was saying..

            “What?” you asked, your voice groggy. You blinked away the lights while yawning with outstretched arms. You certainly didn’t sleep in the most comfortable position.

            “We close in a half an hour.” He said, standing up straight and helping you up.

            “What time is it?” You tripped over air as your stood up, your body apparently still asleep.  The employee reached to catch you , but you caught yourself on the edge of the record player.

“Seven- thirty.” Your cloudy mind jolted awake at the thought and you stood up straight quickly. “SEVEN –THIRTY?” you repeated in disbelief. “How long was I out?”

“Came here around four, so three hours? Three and a half?” He pushed his black hair out of his cat like eyes as he spoke.

“Oh my gosh! Did you just notice me?” You said as he reached around you to put the needle off the record, and the music stopped.

“Yea, I did. No one else came in, I so figured I would let you sleep. But I thought you would wake up after an hour or so.”

“I am so sorry,” you spluttered, “I’m so embarrassed.” And indeed you felt your face go red.

            He just laughed, “No man, you have no idea how many times I’ve done that myself.”

“You have not.” You tisked at him skeptically.

“No, its true!” He said waving his arms, “Really, its seriously the best place to sleep. Sometimes if your lucky the music goes into your dreams.” He spoke with a vivid interest and a kind of innocence that you admired. “Did that happen to you?”

“Not this time. They are good sometimes, it all depends on which music you fall asleep to.”

“Agreed, death metal would be in favor of a peaceful sleep” He paused.

“I’m Joshua,” He introduced himself extending a hand for you to shake. You, in turn, introduced yourself and shook his hand.

“Thanks for letting me sleep.” You smiled gratefully at him, taking a soft tone in your voice, “I really appreciate it.”

“Well it looked like you needed it.” He grabbed your backpack that was still on the ground and handed it to you.

“I did,” You tried to emphasize it to show your gratefulness, any other person would’ve kicked you out after the sight of an asleep college student on the floor. But he let you stay, more than that he let you stay for nearly four hours.  “Thank you.”

“So..” He said, balancing on the heals of his feet, with a quirky expression and both of his hands in his pocket, “is there something I can help you with?” His voice returned to the normal ‘employee voice.’ His normal voice was much more softer.

“Actually, yes. I promise I did not just come in your store to sleep. That part was an accident.” You paused for a minute, “In fact, I don’t think you remember me , you probably don’t. I mean I wouldn’t if I were you, because obviously it was a normal day but“  Trying to regain power of your own words, you pursed your lips and squeezed your eyes. You heard him laugh. “but I came in your shop like two weeks ago to buy a CD that you guys just got in, you still have it?“ You opened your eyes to be met with a friendly smile. It wasn’t a look of pity, like you normally get when you ramble. He was waiting, patiently for you to finish. This was probably the first conversation since school started that no one has interrupted you.

“Word vomit,” he tilted his head back,, “it gets the best of everyone. And when it comes to me, that is most days.”

“You have that too?” You were intrigued. You had never met someone who had the ability to mindlessly ramble like you did when things got uncomfortable.

“Oh yea,” He huffled, “Catch me off guard, and ask me a random question and I could go on for minutes about how ‘I did not just accidently call you fat.’” You snorted trying tot hold a smile.

“Anyway,” His voice slipped back into employee mode for a second. “Yes, I remember you. I mean it isn’t every day that someone uses the store for a stake out.”

“It wasn’t a stake out! I really did know them! I was actually hiding from them.”

“Ahh” His mouth formed an o. “That would make more sense.”

“Wait, on that day, you said that you knew them.  How?”

“They were my friends in high school. They visit every so often. So that CD you were talking about.” He changed the subject hastily and led you to the classical section, “It should be here, did you want the deluxe version or not.” He held out two CD’s for you.

 You allowed yourself to accept the very obvious diversion. “What the heck, I need to treat myself today,” You murmured to yourself, “Deluxe!”

“Alright then,” He walked you over to the checkout, “May I ask how you know them? Hoshi and DK, I mean.”

“I’m their roommate this year.” Immediately, when you said that, he stopped. The scanner that was inches away from the barcode on the CD stopped in its tracks.  He looked at you with wide eyes, for over the top of his frames.

“You’re their roommate?!”

You didn’t know how to respond to his reaction, “Uh yes,”

“And, Your rooming with Woozi?”

“Yea! How did you know?”

“Hoshi and DK always room together, “ Joshua sighed, and scanned the CD, not meeting your eyes. “I was their roommate last year.”

“No way!”

“Yes way.”

“Well, how was it?” The anxiousness that melted away when you were talking with him resurfaced.

“It was fine with me. One: because the three of us were already friends from High School. And Two: I wasn’t actually Woozi’s  roommate. I assume we are talking about Woozi specifically, right?

“Yes. So he was cool with you?”

“Well there was five guys last time. Hoshi, DK, Woozi ,I and another dude all shared a two bedroom apartment. I shared a room with DK and Hoshi. But the guy who shared the room with Woozi,” He cleared his throat, “he didn’t do so well.”
            You groaned, and let your head fall, face first into the counter. “Tell me about it.”

“Ahh, you got into a fight with him didn’t you?” He looked at you sympathically.

“Yes. And regretting it.”

“That’s why you came in here didn’t you?” He asked again, and you made a noise of agreement.

“Tell me,” Your head shot up so fast it startled him, “Why is he… you know? You’re his friend, you have to know why he’s like this.”

He gave a pained expression,  leaning forward on the counter, supporting himself on his elbows.  “He doesn’t like strangers, like at all. It also probably doesn’t help that you’re a girl.”

“Is he ist or something?” You said defensively.

“No. But something about girls makes him even more hot headed. Even in high school, he would always react more strongly when girls did something as opposed to when guys did something. Personally, I think that he’s afraid of girls.”

Woozi? Afraid of girls? You laughed, “No, that impossible. Have you even met the guy? I’m sure that if a stranger came into the apartment  with a fire axe one day he wouldn’t even be phased. ”

“No, really” He leaned in closer. You had your head resting on the counter and you looked up at his expression. “He has never had a friend that a girl, let alone a girlfriend. In high school, he once made a girl cry because she touched him.”

 “Indulge me then,” you said still not buying his theory, “Why is he like that.”

“I dunno. Might have something to do with lack of exposure?  His mom left him was he was young and he doesn’t have any siblings. I think that he doesn’t know how to deal with girls, so he just does the only thing he knows how to do. Lash out.”

“But- that’s. I mean.” You were at a loss for words, “That so stupid!”

“I know. But for you it’s a double whammy, because he hates strangers as well.”

“He hates strangers as well?”

“I would say that is due to  trust issues, mixed with an extremely dark view of the world and human kind. He probably thinks that everyone’s out to get him.” He said this in a fake pompous tone, while exaggeratingly adjusting his glasses.

You grinned at pointed at him, “You have totally psychoanalyzed him!”

“I’m a psychology major. I can’t help it.”   He smiled down at you, his hands up in the air. “Just don’t feed into him and you’ll be fine.

“Which is exactly what I did!” You groaned again, the feeling of regret seeping back in. “I swear I am normally rational, but something about him just gets under my skin!”

“He can do that,” He said putting your CD in the bag, “I’ve never gotten into a fight with him myself but I’ve certainly been witness to one. They are nasty.”

“Hoshi and DK are alright. They’re cool.” You said trying to steer the conversation to something positive.

Joshua laughed, “Cool? More like giant hyperactive nerds.” He scoffed with a faint air of admiration.

“That’s cool in my book.” You said, “They seem so free. Like they don’t give a crap about what anyone else thinks of them.”

“Is kind of a problem when it comes to noise control though.” He pointed out to you.

“Very true. Those boys are like speakers! When I’m in the apartment, I can hear them when their walking up the stairs.” You a winced at a thought, “But you had to room with them? Did you ever sleep?” You laughed.

“I felt like I was a single mother,” He joked, “Whenever they were gone, I was like “Yes, some rest! Finally!’” He threw up his hands in mock triumph.  “Here’s a tip: don’t talk about Japan in front or near Hoshi. He will go on a long rant.”

“Already happened,” You sighed, “Ten minute talk about how ‘anime doesn’t represent Japanese culture’ or something.”

“You brought that on yourself.”

“I only asked him about what anime he was watching!” You both were laughing now. Even though you just met Joshua, you had this strange feeling that you had known him for years.

“I guess having Hoshi and DK for roommates is better than having Woozi as one.” He said shyly. “ Listen, If you ever need advice about how to deal with him feel free to stop by, I’m sure the record player would love to be your cot again.” When you looked up at him you saw nothing but kindness. He wasn’t trying to hit on you or anything, he was just a genuine nice person.  You smiled up at him. You can’t remember the last time you sincerely smiled at someone.

“I will.” You said softly as he handed the bag to you.

“Be safe. Come back again.” He yelled after you.

And you were out the door and into the dark night. You had walked halfway down the block before a thought came to you. You swiftly your heals and started running back. When you got to the music store, you saw that Joshua had already turned off the open sign. You saw him at the counter, counting the money in the register.

You rammed on the door with your fists, and his head snapped in your direction. When he opened the door it was with a look of confusion and concern. He probably assumed that you left something there. But before he even had the chance to ask, you yelled at him though heaving breaths.

“Your phone number!” It was after the words came out of your mouth that you realized how aggressive you sounded.

“Excuse me?” He asked, a little taken aback.

“If I need the record player or advice, I need your phone number, right?” You held out your phone to him.

Smirking, he took your phone and inserted his number, “My phone is in the back, so just text me telling me its you.”

The walk home didn’t seem nearly as long on the way back. 

INTRODUCING JOSHUA. YEA! Hes so kind. Or at least thats how I imagine him.

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