If the first few days following Minho’s move had been bearable—there was a lot of movement in the hallway due to the man bringing up new furniture and contractors coming to make a few changes in the unit—the more time passed, the less Taemin could handle it.

He had tried to ignore the muffled sounds of the TV in the evening, but when it woke him up in the middle of the night he wondered if his neighbor was actually spending the whole night in front of the screen.

The mornings were usually quiet, and Taemin figured Minho was sleeping at that moment. Even if he was a quiet person, he tried to make even less noise than he usually did, just to not wake him up—the walls were thin in the building.

One Sunday night as he was trying to fall asleep—his mind was already running a hundred miles an hour because he had his quarterly evaluation the next day at work—and the TV in the apartment next door was making loud noises, he decided he had had enough. It couldn’t go on.

He lazily got out of bed and put on some sweatpants and a t-shirt that were lying on the floor and started walking towards his front door. He checked twice that he had his keys to get back inside the apartment—getting locked out late in the evening wasn’t something he was up to—and walked towards the only other door of the second floor. 

He knocked on it a few times, not wanting to make too much noise with the bell, but no one answered, so he finally decided to press the button. A fake ring sound echoed through the apartment so loudly that he could hear it from the hallway, making him wince. He just wanted to sleep.

There were steps on the other side of the door and it finally opened before him. He squinted his eyes as the apartment was bright, too bright for the late hour, but he could see a silhouette in front of him—Choi Minho.

“Um, hey,” Taemin mumbled, his mouth dry. The man in front of him wasn’t wearing a shirt, which unsettled him. “Would you mind turning the TV down?” he asked as he rubbed his eyes to try and be able to open them a bit more. “I have an important meeting tomorrow morning and I’d like to sleep.”

“Oh, does it bother you?” Minho asked quickly as he leaned on the doorframe. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. I used to live in a detached house.”

“Yeah, it’s too loud,” Taemin confirmed, his cheeks slowly warming up at the sight of his half- neighbor—Minho seemed unbothered.

“I’m sorry. I’ll keep it down. Have a good night, Taemin,” Minho said gently and gave him a sweet smile.

“Good—night to you too,” Taemin mumbled and started walking back to his apartment.

As he got back into bed, he wondered what flustered him most—the fact that Minho didn’t seem sorry at all, or the fact that he hadn’t bothered to even put a shirt on before opening the door.

But at least the noise stopped, and he could get back to sleep peacefully.

The following days, Taemin thought that his neighbor had understood his complaint, until he started making noise during the day. Not just any noise, but several musical instruments were playing randomly and stopping without any thought or logic. 

Taemin thought about going to ask him again to be quieter, but he was afraid of creating conflict. It wasn’t worth it—Minho was allowed to make noise while the sun was up. However, he caught himself sighing more and more often—he was annoyed.

He hadn’t planned on letting anyone know, until his friend Jonghyun noticed that something was wrong as they were talking on the phone.

“What’s gotten to you, Taemin?” Jonghyun asked him through the earbuds in his ears.

“Oh, it’s the new neighbor,” Taemin explained with another sigh. “He’s noisy, I need to get used to it.”

“You have a new neighbor? What’s he like?” Jonghyun asked with an excited voice.

“He seemed nice when I met him the day he moved in. I guess he’s also in his mid-thirties, at least he looks like we’re around the same age,” Taemin said as he sat at the counter after he finished putting away the dishes. “But he’s loud, you know.”

“He’s your type, then. You like loud people,” Jonghyun joked and Taemin rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything. “Have you told him?”

“Yeah, I did. I couldn’t sleep,” Taemin mumbled. “Now that I think of it, he doesn’t make too much noise in the evening but he makes twice as much during the day,” he added with a chuckle.

Taemin got up from his chair and grabbed his keys. Now that his kitchen was clean, he decided it was a good time to check if he had gotten any mail. He walked past the ugly painting on the wall, his eyes lagging behind, caught up on a detail, and left his apartment.

“You should tell him again,” Jonghyun said pointedly. “It won’t change if you do nothing about it.”

“I’m not sure it would change anything if I told him, honestly,” Tae