flatmate • corpse husband

o n e

corpse's invited a girl over, but charlene's sick.

"Charlene, what are you doing in there?!"

After three more knocks on his flatmate's bedroom door, Corpse was losing his patience. He'd been waiting outside for five minutes already, and still hadn't got a single answer from her. He knew Charlene was in there. She'd come back at three in the morning after long hours at a group presentation rehearsal. It was impossible that she'd woken up and left the flat before he did, and Corpse was pretty sure at this point, for some reason, she was trying to avoid him.

"Charlene!" He tried again, pounding on the door harder this time. "I'm having someone over. Are you gonna be out tonight?"

Silence was still all he got. This left Corpse no choice but to walk in without his flatmate's permission, knowing the lock on her door had been broken for weeks now and she still hadn't bothered to have it fixed.

He expected to see her in bed, because it was Saturday and she was allowed to be lazy. What he didn't expect was an exhausted Charlene buried under a thick pile of blankets, leaving only her head uncovered. That was not just the ordinary ​'I-just-had-a-heavy-workout'​ kind of exhaustion, that was much worse. And Corpse knew something was wrong when she opened her eyes, now puffy and red, and started speaking with her skin-colored lips barely moving.

"Sorry. I couldn't speak any louder."

Her voice was soft and quiet which was new to him since he was already used to her grumbling all the time. She told him she didn't feel good and probably would stay in tonight, smiling tiredly in response to the look of concern on his face.

"Don't worry. I'll be in my room," she said.

"Okay..." He simply nodded. "Thank you." And just like that, he exited, closing the door on his way out.

Though he acted like he didn't care about his flatmate's condition, the brown-eyed boy still lingered outside her room for a little while, thinking he should've asked her if she was okay; but that would have been unnecessary since she obviously wasn't. Maybe he should just let her get some rest and not worry too much. Soon she might recover on her own.

•••

Corpse carried on with his morning routine as usual. He made himself breakfast and went to the gym, then stopped by the grocery store on his way back, because last night Charlene had told him they were out of milk. Though he'd tried to steer clear of the worrisome thoughts about his sick flatmate, Corpse felt terribly guilty the second her name crossed his mind.

Maybe he shouldn't have left her alone in their flat; maybe she got thirsty and couldn't leave the bed on her own; maybe he should head back to make sure she hadn't got any worse. Maybe...No. He really should.

Quickly, he grabbed the last carton on the shelf and headed straight to the checkout counter.

To be honest, Corpse couldn't care less about Charlene when they first moved into their flat. He even hated her quite a bit, sometimes a lot, because she was extremely good at driving him up the wall, and he was sure the feelings were mutual. Fortunately, things were looking up for both of them after a few months of living together. They'd learned to tolerate each other's quirks and to see hidden good qualities in one another. They cooked together, ate dinner together, shared stories about their days, like real friends would.