Prologue

The day she saw the window across her own was framed with curtains, Sorim knew that her life would never be the same.

She took the earmuffs off and threw it across her bed while scratching her ears until they turned red. She didn’t like the feeling of something pressing against her ears. One: It felt stuffy. Second: It felt hot. Third: It made her ears itchy.

The singing from her new neighbour’s house got loud and she gritted her teeth as she gripped her pen hard. The guy had been singing for hours. She had had dinner an hour ago and she hoped that the moment when she came back to her bedroom, the singing would stop. But no. He was still straining those notes.

She pulled out several tissues from the box and stuck them under her armpits and she clenched them. She leaned forward and took more tissues while carefully formulating her movement so that the tissues that were under her armpit wouldn’t fall. After the successful attempt, she dabbed her face and then her neck softly with the tissues.

Summer wasn’t treating her nicely this year. Her A/C decided to break down just a few days into her summer break, which had forced her to open her window more often than what she was happy with. Noise pollution. Kids wailing. Dogs barking. Her neighbour’s singing. She was lucky that the fine dust reading was quite low these days.

She brought the chargeable mini-sized electronic fan towards her and blasted her neck with the small splurge of wind. If this situation had happened a few months ago, she would’ve already asked her parents to repair the broken A/C or at least get her a bigger fan. But her parents were expecting a new addition to the household and a large sum of their salary was saved for the baby.

She had been an only child for almost eighteen years, and she could see the excitement that her parents radiated when they knew about her mother’s pregnancy. She wasn’t about to turn the excitement into stress just because she couldn’t handle living without an A/C.

The window of her bedroom was wide open, with the curtains drawn to each side. She usually had her window shut and curtains drawn together, but her current predicament didn’t allow her to do that.

From her study desk, she could see through her own window and right through her neighbour’s as well, although she could only make out a figure sitting on a bed with a guitar rested on his thighs. He was wearing a black long-sleeved shirt. In summer. She puckered her lips in annoyance, realizing that he probably had a functioning fan in his room to chase the heat away. Unlike her who was damp in her own sweats.

She lifted her arms and slid the damp tissues between her fingers before she tossed them into the bin. She pulled her right arm backward and brought her nose closer to her armpit. God, she smelled like rotten fish.

She stood up and pulled the hem of her tank top down to cover her bulging stomach, and then she lifted her shorts up with great effort. Perhaps, her fats was one of the reasons why summer was inexplicably terrible for her. The way her thighs rubbed against each other and the feeling of stickiness when they touched convinced her that, yes, that might be true.

She decided that she needed to take a shower, and she went towards her window to shut it close and draw the curtain together, only to see the her neighbour doing the same. He blinked his eyes a few times, before he drew a smile on his face. She didn’t get to see him offering a small wave because she had already shut the window and went straight to burying her face in her pillow while grieving about how bleak her summer was looking.

hello! updates are going to be sporadic and come randomly, so i'd like to apologize in advance if you have to wait for a long time for the next update :-( how long do you prefer the chapter to be? 2k-3k? or 1.5k?