Prelude: (well that sounds appropriate, before the lewd stuff starts, ha! I love the English language sometimes)
Getting back on the horse.
There's a reason it's called that, i mean you can't get back on if you haven't been thrown off, and getting thrown off a horse isn't a small deal, it can break bones.
What i mean to say is that love hurts, beginning, middle and screwed up fucking end.
The dating world is like trying to break in a wild stallion, why has this become about horses?
Anyway, dating today is fucked up, it's all apps and unsolicited dick picks, it's all about sexual gratification first and actual connection second. The pool might be fucking big but there are so many catfish out there, so many fish but their all filled with toxic shit.
I gave up before i even tried, thought what most introverted people did, that my someone would come to me. The last time i did that a dickhead came on to me and i mistook him for a unicorn, he turned out being anything but magical.
People say you can find love in the most unexpected of places, being single for as long as i have brings a different and entirely more sexual meaning to the phrase.
But let's get onto the story.
Introductions first.
My name's Damien Toff, twenty-six, five-ten, and don't ask about my weight, that's just rude. I'm from England but where exactly is a little vague, i still live there, in some shit town a little north of London, too far away to have a tube station but close enough that the house prices are fucking extortionate.
My job is one of the only interesting things about me, i'm a sushi chef, sushi is a lot like marmite, people either love it or they hate it. When i tell people my occupation they either ask for free food or give me a werid look. I get asked if it's difficult to make sushi, how long it takes to learn and why it's so expensive. Before you ask, it doesn't pay well, above minimum wage maybe but i still almost cry when i look at the balance in my bank account at the end of the month.
That's one of the reasons why i put an ad in the paper and posted a message on our towns local facebook page. I needed a roommate, i knew i wouldn't be able to pay for my upcoming car insurance renewal and the advisories on my MOT were becoming more mandatory. Fuel prices were through the roof, which didn't help and brexit had put a premium on certain items, or just yeeted them into nonexistance.
Cuttlefish for example, i mean there weren't completely gone but you could only get fartly little ones outrageously overpriced at pet stores, and that just wouldn't do for Jerry. You must be wondering, who is this Jerry? He's my giant African land snail, and my only friend. He lives in his little house in my room, munching on fruit and vegetables, forever shitting in his waterbowl, i swear he sees it as more of a litter tray than a drinking source.
Anyway, enough about Jerry, back to the roommate situation. Our shitty town had a university and although i didn't live close to it all of the people who responded were students. I know... bad idea right? But honestly, what choice did i have?
That leads me to the next introduction:
Seren fucking Hades. His middle name isn't fucking, apparently he doesn't have a middle name, what kind of person doesn't have a middle name? He's twenty, tall as fuck, again, asking someone's weight is rude and there's no way to covertly attain said weight. He's one of those lanky but muscular guys though, if that helps. He's from up north somewhere, might be Yorkshire, not sure, England has so many fucking accents for a small island it's unreal, you can take an half an hour drive and people will sound completely different.
He's doing a computer science degree at the university and has a part time job at the local pc world.
He seemed like the least shittiest choice, he'd replied to the ad because my flat was between his work and the university, near the train station and not student housing. He was apparently a really light sleeper, he'd asked about the noise, we were surrounded by disabled council housing, the houses weren't disabled but they were designed to be more accessable for people that were. They were mostly filled with pensioners so i assured Seren the neighbourhood was quiet and i myself liked sleep so much it was a little unhealthy and didn't have any friends to party with, not that i told him that, i just said i was quiet and had an appropriate bedtime.
That wasn't a lie, i was what people would call shy and reserved, my nan called me laid back but she obviously couldn't hear my subconscious screaming at every anxious inducing situation, which to tell you the truth was almost every situation, so i guess i was just good at hiding my internal panic.
I liked solitute, my personal space and my privacy, so inviting someone into my home had stolen some of my precious sleep in the days leading up to Seren moving in.
He just breezed in like he'd always lived here, set up shop in the second room and he was so quiet i sometimes forgot he existed. He paid rent on time in full, brought his own food and ate his own food, did his own laundry and cleaned up after himself, he was a dream.
So you must be wondering why i'd called him Seren fucking Hades.
Well...
If you want to know that then i'd have to start from the beginning...
Chapter 1- Someone's moving into my space and i don't like it
I was having an existential crisis.
I'd woken up at five in the morning, unable to go back to sleep, which was a travesty in itself. Five hours and three coffees later i was shaking and running around the house like some cleaning fairy on acid. The house had already been clean, i had a little bit of OCD, it mostly comes out when I'm nervous, and i'm always a little nervous.
Seren was arriving at any moment and i was panicking.
First impressions were important, i didn't want him to think i was a slob. I'd taken a shower this morning eventhough i'd had one last night, hell, i even dusted behind the fucking radiators.
I was wearing my third outfit for the day and the rational part of my brain was asking me why would Seren fucking care what i was wearing? I mean he would but not to the extent my anxiety thought. It wondered if he'd like my shirt, i knew he liked computers but was the skyrim shirt taking it too far? Was it a little creepy and presumptuous?
I mean the game was awesome, still was years later but the 'let me guess, someone stole your sweet roll' shirt might be too much.
I heard the buzzer for the main door go, whelp, too late now.
