New year, new you. 2021 would be your year; you could just feel it.

A brand new song played out of the fancy new headphones that you got as a belated Christmas gift from your long distance best friend and it’s upbeat tempo lifted up your chin with each happy note as you typed quickly and without a single typo into the Experience field of the job application on your screen. You were sick of data entry. You were sick of working from home. You longed for a place to go to every day. You longed for new faces to see and for new people to talk to. You had this idea in your head that offices were somehow peaceful and quiet. 

The song played on, reaching the chorus and you nodded your head along to the beat. Catching on to the words easily as they repeated, you sang along.

“...otherer! God.Damn.Cocksu…”

[excellent communication skills, verbally and written] your fingers flew into the space. You embellished and you painted the picture of you as prettily as you could. Yes, you could read. Yes, you could write too. By golly, you could talk just fine; expertly even. Yes, you could tune out your roommate’s blood curdling, top of his damn lungs, exhaustively repetitive cursing and you wouldn't even pound on the shared wall this time. You wouldn't even send him an instant message on the second monitor he gave you when he upgraded his screen to one that wrapped around his entire corner desk. 

The song had reached a and the volume dropped as the singer sang a sustained high note. It was very impressive. You’d reached the special skills section of the application now. How many of these had you done today? You listed your very special skills or order of pertinence to the job you were applying for and hit the save & continue button at the bottom of the screen. 

“Hey, where the are you? I said left, you motherer. LEFT! Ohh you stupid — YOUR OTHER LEFT! I bet your mom tried to throw you away when she first saw how stupid you were — what the was that?!”

The chorus returned and you turned the volume up one more notch, and pivoted your torso so your second monitor was in view. In the toolbar of that screen sat a single window. It had only his name on it. Your cursor hovered over it. 

New you. New you. You turned back to the screen with your application. 

“Ahhhhhhh. GAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”

Your song finished and another one started. This next song was not new. This song was one you’d heard countless times before. It was much too slow in tempo and much too lyrically sensitive to drown out the noise coming from the other room. It sounded like he lost his game with the long sustained screaming that usually meant he didn't get whatever loot he had been trying to win. Maybe even lost everything in his pockets while he was at it. 

“Now I don't even want to play anymore!”

There were a few blessed minutes when your mind drifted back to the song playing in your ears. It was one of your favorites. The lyrics were soft and hit deep within your chest and you closed your eyes right when you clicked submit on the application. Bracing a moment for the shift to happen on your screen. The moment of no-take-backs. You peeled an eye open and the word “Success!” displayed boldly at the top with a message thanking you for applying to join their team. You wondered if any real person would even take a glance at your resume. 

Your mouse hand moved to click on the next tab; another job opening you’d saved; one of many when an abrupt, terrifying, nausea inducing sensation grabbed a hold of your body and hurled your entire frame away from your desk — hurling backward toward the floor behind you. You’d crack your skull. You’d break your neck. Your headphones shifted and fell off onto your shoulders and your arms instinctively jolted outward to stop this, to brace yourself. It was useless, there was nothing to grab hold of. The panic was swift to set in and a high pitched loud scream filled the air behind you as you fell. You fell, it happened so fast but the earth beneath you gave way and you were most certainly falling into a vast sinkhole, you were doomed — only you weren’t. You braced for it and closed your eyes tight and the feeling of falling pulled at your insides but as quickly as it began it stopped. 

The scream, the faked irritating noise quickly turned into high pitched over-the-top manic laughter behind you and you were indelicately plopped forward again in your chair — your feet fell flat on the ground and your breathing ragged and heavy. An immediate deep annoyance filled your mind and you closed your eyes up, forcing your lungs to inflate as deeply and as slowly as they could. Slow and deep. Just breathe calmly and completely. You counted down from ten inside your head. Forcing your temper to calm down as the exaggerated laughter continued behind you. 

He’d flung himself onto your bed and rolled around as he laughed. You could hear the HA HA HAs and HE HE HEs moving around and a tense glance behind you told you that you would have to re-make your bed once he left, for he had rolled himself up in your comforter and taken it with him as he laughed and laughed about his oh-so-funny and surprising prank he’d played on you just now. It was only the 50th time he’d done it too. The unoriginal bastard.

“It never gets old. You fall for it every time,” he laughed from somewhere within your rolled up blanket. 

And he wasn't even right. You didn't “fall” for it every time. You knew you weren't going to actually fall. Deep down inside you actually knew it was him. Maybe your body panicked at the time, but your mind; your mind, it knew.

He was just a stupid idiot who found pleasure in stupid things like pulling on the backs of peoples’ chairs when they were filling out job applications, or pulling the hood of your jacket up over your whole head you were focused on work spreadsheets, or tapping on your shoulder to get you to look the wrong way as he walked by during your mind numbing data entry sessions that you had to finish to reach certain goals by a certain time, or reaching a hand in the door to turn off your light when you were having a zoom meeting with your supervisor for a disciplinary review disguised as a ‘performance training focusing on targeted areas of improvement.’ (Basically — The Company wanted their people to act more like machines. But they also couldn’t come right out and say that because of “lawyer reasons” so they wanted their people to act like people-like machines. You had been acting too people-like for The Company and needed to turn that down a little bit. Better numbers, less bathroom breaks was the takeaway.) 

New year. New you. 

You willed your eyelids to close and you pulled more air deep into your lungs. You would not engage. He was a child and if you gave him the attention he was after things would only get ten times worse. You would not get mad. You would not throw your mouse at his head. You would not body slam him or throw his shoes out the window. New you. 

When you opened your eyes his giggles had quieted down; not receiving the reaction he had wanted from you he quickly lost interest. He had unrolled himself and was now scrolling through something on his phone and typing out as he mouthed words quietly to himself. 

You turned back to the screen that had been open and noticed that you had opened your work spreadsheet during the scramble to catch yourself from falling. Only something about the hours and hours of work you had put in today looked sketchy. 

You moved your mouse and hit a few keys and the program did not respond. It was cloud based and sometimes, every now and then, things would freeze up and luckily you had a habit of saving frequently just in case things went wrong. 

You couldn’t quite remember if you had saved this time. 

“Hey Baekhyun, my screen is frozen,” you said quietly, moving your mouse again, too scared to reload the whole page for fear that hours of your hard work would be lost if you did. 

He didn't respond, instead was still furiously typing on his phone.

“Baek,” you raised your voice toward him and his eyes glanced in your direction once before returning to the small device in his hand. 

“Uhh...just hit F5,” he mumbled absentmindedly and you turned to look back at your screen. Not quite trusting him entirely, but somehow wanting to nonetheless. 

A few more clicks did nothing to bring your program back to life and you laid a finger over the key he told you would fix everything. What did F5 even do? Did it toggle the internet connection or something? That kinda neat trick seemed to be right up his alley. He always had the keyboard shortcuts to fix everything that was broken and without ideas of your own, you pressed down on the key.

“I mean, after you save, duh, of course,” Baekhyun said, lifting his head curiously to look at your screen, “obviously,” he added with a egotistical eye roll. 

Your screen turned white. Your work, the whole damn day vanished and what stared back at you was a blank form. 

His head was still lifted looking at your computer screen, his phone in his hand still illuminated with a chat window involving him and someone with a screen name that contained at least three Xs in the word ‘vixen’ and it wasn’t the flash of realization that rolled through his face as he looked at your screen and realized what had just happened that did it. It was the quick chuckle that came out of his chest and the infuriating way he just looked back at his phone and to read the single worded response that had just come in from Vixxxen18 that pushed you over the edge this time. 

You lunged then. It was pure and blinding rage that pulsed through you and you hurled your entire body onto where he laid, half covered with your blanket on your bed in your room where he was absolutely at no point in time invited and you let out a half murderous shriek aimed to deafen him and a half Xena-style battle cry designed to kill audibly as you flew through the air.

“You! ! That was my whole day’s work!” You led with your elbows and your knees and everything that had a point and then your fists were flying—hitting along his arms, hitting his back, hitting anywhere you could hit and from somewhere beneath where he had cowered himself below your covers you heard grunts of pained protest.

“OW!” He cried with each satisfying contact you made and you were pretty sure most of your punches went straight into the bed and didn't even come anywhere near him with as skinny as he was. He was wiggling and quite impossible to pin down under there. You couldn’t be sure where he started and where your pillows began. A quick run of your hands for his exact location came up uncertain when you felt what you were sure was the skinny muscle of his thigh and you gripped tightly and squeezed down as hard as you could. 

You were rewarded with a muffled screech; muted by the cotton filing of your blanket, but quite blood curdling in nature. You’d gotten him. You shifted and squeezed again, even harder and the screams changed into something else, something much more panicked sounding and he was moving back and scrambling to escape. The movement was frantic and much more dramatic than you thought was necessary.

“Where are you touching? Where are you grabbing? You don't even know what you just did, oh my god — oh my god. I’m going to cry.”

You had no idea what he was being so dramatic about but another round of wild swings of your fists had him emerging from the covers to grab both of your wrists and he held on tight. 

“I can fix it,” he shouted with wide eyes, sweat matted hair, and a beet red face. “Stop—just stop hitting me, stop grabbing my ing with your whole- hand and let me fix it. Jesus-ing-Christ!” 

Your eyes widened to painful levels, but somehow his words made you instantly retract your hands and you backed up off the bed to escape these wild and unfounded accusations. There was no way. The feeling was all wrong. He would have been...softer there, wouldn't he have been? That had to just be his stupid skinny clenched thigh muscle, right? You felt like your hands were somehow contaminated just from the very idea of it and you pulled them up to your face to look at them. Did these hands look like they had just touched a completely off-limits ? Is this what grabbing hands looked like? 

“There is no way I touched you there.” Your denial was vehement, “I felt...it was your thigh. Maybe I got close, but there is no way. Baekhyun...wh-why was it stiff? Why did it feel like...clenched? Baekhyun—”

He lifted his hands to cover his face and you could see the red shade of his skin through his parted fingers. He was mumbling to himself.

“Oh my god. Oh my god,” he repeated again and again and you took a few steps back and away from him, pulling your hands down behind your back to somehow keep them from ever touching him again even by accident. 

“I can’t believe the first time an actual girl touches it ...and it’s you, trying to rip it off.” You couldn’t be sure, but you saw something glistening on temples underneath his slim fingers. You couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just sweat. He was very worked up and that blanket looked very hot.

“Baekhyun are you crying?” You tried your very best to keep all traces of mockery out of your voice. It wasn't because you felt bad. You didn’t. But there was no way you were at fault here. Not when he’d been responsible for you losing all of your work. He wasn't even supposed to be in here. Part of the agreement when you moved into this place was that he had his space and you had your space. Sure as you got to know him, got to know how damn annoying he was and what a slob he was, you found yourself going into his room more and more often to do things to save his stupid life and he came into your room whenever the hell he wanted to. Hell, he fell asleep on your bed for six hours yesterday afternoon and no amount of angry noisy typing could wake him up. 

He sniffled in deep. You heard definite snot in his nose and he inhaled a raspy breath. He was crying. Real tears. The realization that you had perhaps gone too far brought your hands up and extended in his direction and you took a few steps to move closer to him, cautiously hovering your hands over his trembling form. He turned when he heard you coming, forming a tight ball with his body and you lifted a hand slowly to lightly touch his back. He didn't flinch when you made contact which you took as a good sign. 

You tapped lightly twice. For comfort. To make the idiot come to his senses and get up to fix your computer like he promised he would. 

“Baekhyun, are you crying because I accidentally touched your ? Is it because it was ….you know?” The word — — it came out of your mouth as a half whisper, half laugh and you bit down on the inside of your cheek to keep from laughing outright. You couldn’t even property describe, out loud, the state of alert you had definitely felt in the tight grip of your hand. How dare he bring a into your bedroom. In your bed even — God dammit, you had your cutest stuffed animals in there with it. Everybody was getting a bath today.

Baekhyun shook on the bed, half laughing, half sobbing to himself.  

“I’m not crying,” he said through the obvious sounds of a grown man crying and you moved your hand over his back again to shush the man who refused to admit the truth of his emotions. Despite the upset, he still let out an occasional curious giggle to himself. You couldn’t be sure what exactly he found so damn funny about nearly having his permanently injured. You had been very mad and had been squeezing very hard. You were out to injure. He’s lucky it wasn't broken. 

“Baekhyun I’m sorry. But….Peanut? Did you say you could fix my computer?” You switched then, to a softer voice and you heard the calming in his chest as his breathing evened out again. You knew it was a dirty trick to use the loving nickname you sometimes called him when you needed his help with something only he could do; like fix your computer and recover your whole day’s work so you didn't get fired; you were already on probation. One more screw up and you’d have to find another mind numbing job that the life out of you. Of course you picked Peanut because the man kinda sorta looked like one. He had a big ol’ round head of fluffy hair, a tiny waist, and some of the curviest hips you had ever seen on a man. He was a peanut. It was a fact.

He pulled a deep chest filling breath into his chest. “Okay, Bug. I’ll fix it.” he said as the air escaped slowly in a long sigh. He also pulled out the big guns with the weirdly ill-fitting nickname he liked to call you by— although you were pretty sure he was using it ironically since between the two of you, if anyone was keeping score, he was clearly the creepier, crawlier, more insect-like one of the two. Still he wielded it with such an affectionate tone every time he used it that you had never once told him to stop. 

When Baekhyun finally moved to get up, his motion uncovered his cell phone from within the covers of your bed and you saw it flash with a notification of another message received from Vixxxen18. You recalled earlier, her message was a short and succinct ‘no’ and you caught this next message right before he grabbed the phone and stuffed it away inside his pocket. 

‘ing loser.’ The message said and you could feel your anger flaring up hot at the harsh judgement from this stranger on the internet. What the did she know? Yes, he was annoying. Yes he was dumb. He was a damn idiot. A computer genius, yes, but a ing moron in all other aspects of life but he was not a ing loser. No way. And so what if he was? He was your ing loser. You felt weirdly protective in that moment and he sat down roughly on your chair, still quite glistening from the upset and the sweat that dripped from his hair down his earlobes. 

“Hey, what was that message about?” Your curiosity burned. You didn't usually have to hold back when it came to Baekhyun. The comfort level was too high at this point. Although there was something else that was bothering you about this most recent exchange with him that didn't have anything to do with the message you saw on his phone from Vixxxen18. 

“And what did you mean, the first girl to touch it? Baek are you—I mean, have you never—”