If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s mess. Ever since I was small my room has been neatly organised, and by the time I was a teenager I had labelled draws, everything was categorized, just how I liked it. My room at home has a black and white colour scheme with nothing on the well-polished surfaces except a few selected show items. Even inside my draws, I line up my pens neatly. Once I went through a phase of sharpening my pencils to the same length, but I gave that up when it became too time consuming.

Considering all of that…you can probably imagine my distress when the small flat I would be sharing for the next couple of years was actually hard to get to due to the overflowing rubbish bags flopped against the door. Resisting the temptation to wrinkle my nose and reveal my inner neat freak so soon, I knocked on the door. After a long wait, it creaked open just a fraction to reveal a boy’s face.

The first thing that struck me were the bags under his eyes. They were obvious, purple ugly things that marred an otherwise attractive face. He wore glasses, which he glared at me through while flicking his long fringe out of his eyes. Pursing his lips and regarding me for a few painfully long seconds, he eventually opened the door, kicking the rubbish bags out of the way. I tried not to flinch as takeaway packets and empty cans of coke spilled out onto the pavement.  

The boy didn’t wait for me, instead disappearing instantly into his room and leaving me to awkwardly heave my bags over the threshold and find the room meant for me. The whole place was dim despite the sweltering heat and sun outside, and I had to switch on lights as I went, opening the various doors to peek inside. It was a simple layout, just a kitchen, living room, a bathroom with a shower in the corner, and the two bedrooms; so it didn’t take long to find the little room with a wardrobe, desk and single bed somehow crammed inside.

“Home sweet home.” I muttered as I sat down heavily on the bed, running my hands over my face to wake myself up. The trip had been hell, and experiencing New York’s morning rush first hand was quite different from reading the warnings about it, especially when you’re carrying 2 tons of luggage and recovering from a 14 hour flight. I had never been able to sleep on planes, and I pretty much collapsed with exhaustion as soon as my head touched the pillow.

An indeterminable amount of time later I was woken up by a rough prod in the arm. Groaning and forgetting my surroundings, I turned over to sleep more. But…then of course, it all rushed back. This was America, not Korea, and the person prodding me awake wasn’t my mum or Donghae. Rather, it was the boy from earlier, leaning against the wardrobe with a look of contempt and- rather unsuitable for his expression- his fringe tied in a small tuft at the top of his head.

“You look like when you sleep.” He said bluntly, stretching. His eye bags seemed to have somehow gotten even worse in the short space of time I was sleeping. “I ordered food, want some? New York pizza.”

“U-uh…sure?” I replied dumbly, and he nodded, leaving unceremoniously once again. Still disorientated from my abrupt awakening, I stumbled after him into the kitchen and saw the two boxes sitting on the counter. An amazing smell filled the whole room, and I realised I hadn’t eaten a proper meal since I’d left my mum’s house the day before. My stomach picked that moment to grumble embarrassingly.

“Oh, that’s right. You haven’t tried New York pizza yet…just wait, it’s amazing.” The boy smirked knowingly, managing to look as if he was plotting the murder of several people at once. Grabbing the pizza boxes, he walked into the  connecting room and threw his feet up leisurely onto one of the faded red sofas, passing me one of the boxes he held. “Eat up. I’m Kyuhyun by the way.”

“I’m Hyukjae.” The room was quiet after that except for the sound of chewing. Kyuhyun was right, the pizza was amazing, and I nearly moaned when the first mouthful of melting cheese and meatballs entered my mouth. Quickly finishing it, I sighed happily, but now my mind turned to other things. Primarily Kyuhyun, who was sat opposite still devouring his food and completely unaware of anything else.

While I didn’t know much about him, there were a few obvious things I’d managed to pick up: Firstly that he was Korean, since he’d spoken it when he woke me up. That made sense, it was sensible for the university to pair me with somebody who spoke my language, and I was grateful for that. Secondly, he was messy as hell, which wasn’t good news for me. He for some reason didn’t sleep much if at all judging by his eye bags, and when I narrowly avoided tripping over a pile of course textbooks in the corridor earlier I noticed he was studying some kind of science.

“So, Kyuhyun…um…why are your eye bags so big?” I quickly bit my lip, wildly cursing my loose mouth. That was definitely  not what I wanted to say, but to my surprise if he was offended by the question he didn’t show it. Cramming a last crust into his mouth he wiped his greasy fingers on his polo shirt and chewed thoughtfully.

“Well, I game a lot, and when I’m not gaming I’m studying. Sleep is kind of a waste of my precious hours. Except on Sundays, that’s sleeping day, so don’t wake me up if you value your life.”

Not knowing how to respond to that I nodded in agreement and made a mental note to use Sundays to go to the library to study as, somehow, I didn’t doubt his threat. We were saved from an awkward silence by my text tone, and I couldn’t keep the grin off my face when I saw Donghae’s texts. His roommate Jongwoon was always making weird delicious food, and I suddenly found myself missing hanging out there and rolling my eyes as he made us both try his inventions.

“Who’s that, a girlfriend? It’s gotta be costing a lot of money unless they’re in New York.” The question seemed to lack genuine interest as Kyuhyun yawned and threw his pizza box like a frisbee into the corner of the room. He was really going to have to break that habit.

“No, just my best friend back in Seoul who’s probably going to get a shock on his phone bill at the end of the month.” I chuckled at the idea, but quickly trailed off when I saw Kyuhyun wasn’t joining in. Something told me he wasn’t going to be easy to make friends with, but I tried my best at least. “So, what course are you studying?”

“Astrophysics.” He said, getting up, “Ok, I promised my friend back in Seoul I was going to be online to play Starcraft round about now, so I better go. Hope you liked the pizza, I get it a lot.” He raised his hand in a kind of casual salute with a little lopsided smile on his face before leaving the room as if he’d never been there in the first place.

After he’d left I had nothing to do, it was evening so the places I needed to go were closed, my all day ‘nap’ meant I had no chance of sleeping anytime soon. So I did what I needed to do to feel comfortable in the house. He cleaned the whole thing. Kyuhyun didn’t exactly have a large stock of cleaning products, but soapy water worked on pretty much everything, and by the time I was done there were 4 extra bin bags crowded around the front door. It was actually a pretty nice place without clutter and dirt, and I was still standing proudly admiring my work at midnight when Kyuhyun emerged from his room.

He was holding a cold cup of coffee and an empty glass when he walked into the kitchen with a very confused look on his face. It seemed like the lack of sleep was finally catching up with him too, he spoke slowly in a muttered, unclear voice that made me worried he might just crumple and sleep right there on the floor.

“What have you done to my house?” He asked simply, looking around a little at the neatly organised surfaces.

“I cleaned it.”

 After a short pause, he shrugged and placed the cup and glass on the counter, yawning loudly, “I think I’m going to like having you around. I’ll show you around tomorrow, so you should go sleep now. I get up early and I don’t like waiting.”

“Ok, thanks.”

He waved his hand in a vague ‘don’t worry about it’ motion, eyes screwed up against the lights of the kitchen, then trudged away to sleep. Completing the green tea I was making and washing up the glasses he'd left, I decided to take his advice even though I wasn't tired. If I didn't at least try to get my sleeping pattern adjusted to American time the jet lag was going to be a to deal with.

While I was cleaning I tried my best to unpack, and although it wasn't much the sight of my poster of the Paris skyline and my diary and books stacked carefully on the desk made it feel a little more like home. Even though I still didn't have a contract set up in America and was quickly racking up an impressive sum on my phone bill, I decided to send 2 texts. One to my mum, telling her that I'd arrived and that I was ok, that my roommate was nice- although the jury was still out on that one- and not to worry too much, I'd call her at the end of the week.

The other was to Donghae, detailing my experience with Kyuhyun and about the mess I cleaned up, boasting about New York pizza...I took care to include as much detail as I could, he liked being able to picture things vividly.