Roommate Wanted. No Betrayers.

Chapter 4

Kronii stirred awake gently, at first only really aware that she'd fallen asleep in a strange sitting position, then the vague details of her living room, then finally a weight on her lap which she quickly identified as the head of one Nanashi Mumei. She sprawled across the couch her head on Kronii's legs, eyes closed, mouth curled into a soft smile.

Kronii blinked, for a split second confused before the memories of the previous night and morning slowly returned to her. Right. Kronii had presumably passed out not long after Mumei had called off work for the day in favour of looking after her. Kronii couldn't help but find herself smiling at the memory. It had been a long time since anyone had done anything like that for her.

Thinking about it, it had been a really long time since anyone had even just held her. She didn't consider herself a particularly touchy-feely person, but living with Sana she'd gotten quite used to spontaneous affection, heck, she'd gotten more than just used to it, she'd started to need it along the way.

"And to think, I'd still be living alone if I hadn't wandered into that coffee shop." Kronii mused quietly, brushing an out of place hair from the face of her sleeping friend. "I can't believe, I owe you so much after just a couple of weeks. Thank you, Mumei."

"Mmmm, if you owe me that much, can I get a rent reduction?" Mumei responded groggily.

Kronii froze up, her cheeks turning a bright vermillion. "M-Mumei, you're awake?" She stammered.

"I don't know why you're so surprised," Mumei yawned, squinting up at Kronii. "You were touching my face and talking to me."

"Oh, right, sorry." Kronii mumbled, suddenly completely out of anything resembling a comfort zone and unsure where her hands or eyes should be.

"Dramatic as ever." Mumei giggled, pulling herself up to a sitting position. "Good to see you back to your normal self."

Kronii opened her mouth to defend herself but found no words to do so. "Yeah. Thanks for listening to me last night, it really helped..."

Mumei smiled softly. "I'm glad I could be helpful. Bae told me one time I was a great listener, but, I guess I never really got what she meant. I always would just think, yeah sure, I have ears and understand English, most people I know are like that."

"She seems like a great judge of character."

"Mhm!" Mumei nodded. "For example she warned me that you might be hot but you definitely had a lot of baggage."

"Wh- I-" Kronii spluttered. "Okay. Listen... That's fair. But aren't I hot enough to make up for it?"

"Oh definitely." Mumei giggled. "Besides, anybody who seems like they don't have any problems definitely has something to hide. At least that's what I think."

"Well you've always seemed pretty carefree to me." Kronii mused. "So what are you hiding?"

"Kronii, I don't remember over twenty years of my life."

"Oh yeah, of course."

"Although... Hearing about how your past haunts you, I can't help but wonder if losing my memory was a blessing..." Mumei's demeanour changed, her smile now only slight, her eyes looking wistfully towards the window.

"Mumei..." Kronii placed her hand on Mumei's.

"I mean, nobody ever came looking for me, you know? Bae and I googled my name a lot looking for anything, any indication of my past life. Nothing. I started to doubt if the ID was ever even real, maybe it was a fake ID and I was on the run from something..." She looked at Kronii. "Maybe, one day it'll find me..."

Kronii squeezed her palm. "If anything comes here looking for you, to take you away, it'll have to get through me first."

Mumei smiled and leant her head on Kronii's shoulder. "I'll be counting on you."

Later that day, after she and Mumei had had dinner and watched a movie together, Kronii lay in bed, phone in hand, her face illuminated by the last message from Fauna.

She knew she had to respond, and the sooner she did it the sooner she could stop worrying about it and yet, every combination of words she put together felt wrong. Texting her about Mumei moving in had been hard, but this was on another level, it was no longer an obligatory message she could reason away as something that wouldn't be seen.

This was a reply. This was a conversation. A conversation with Fauna. The person who, at one time she thought was the only one she could ever trust again. The one who had betrayed her trust, even after repeatedly saying she wouldn't.

There was too much emotion for a text. Too many contradictory feelings to put into words. Too much physical distance to express it. Not enough chronological distance to understand it fully.

But did that matter? Did she need to say everything? Did Fauna deserve to receive her fully cross referenced unabridged everything?

She sighed. Pressed her thumb to the screen and typed.

New roommate is great, you'll love her I'm sure. See you in April.

Since that day, Kronii had found that her everyday life had begun to shift, most obviously in Mumei's change in shift patterns meaning the two spent a lot more time together at breakfast and dinner, but in other ways too.

While Kronii had always had her phone on her at all times, now she found herself in text conversations with Mumei throughout the entire day, from the moment she left to the moment she got back.

Then there were the times she'd suddenly remember the feeling of Mumei pressed up against her, or the smell of her shampoo or the sound of her laughter. Each fleeting and rare but enough to distract her from her work. Even her stream audience started to pick up on it, a dire situation she was made aware of when one morning Mumei showed her a "Kronii moment" compilation of her losing focus and dying in various games.

It was a difficult situation for Kronii, obviously she couldn't go to Mumei with this one as she would likely die of embarrassment. Once upon a time Fauna would have been her go to, but she still hadn't responded to her last message... and... well, that was all of her friends.

There was really only one option left for her. The collective wisdom of mankind. The wellspring of knowledge. The internet. Kronii took a deep breath, flexed her fingers and began to type into her search bar.

>What it means when you can't stop thinking about someone.

Kronii examined the results of her search. A slight frown appeared on her face that only deepened with every web link she clicked on. Everything was either irrelevant, wrong or ridiculous, especially the prevailing consensus that she might have developed a "crush".

"What a ridiculous idea." She scoffed to no-one. She was an adult. She didn't get crushes on people. She was above that sort of thing, past it. She simply needed to be more specific.

>What it means when you can't stop thinking about someone adult

No better.

>What it means when you can't stop thinking about someone adult not crush

Practically the same, Kronii's head sunk into her hands. She was getting nowhere. Was she wrong to trust in the internet?

No.

She was clearly using the wrong search engine.

She pulled up bing, and typed in her query.

Immediately she could tell that the results were the same websites telling her the exact same thing she didn't want to hear.

In silence she typed a new query into the search bar.

>Can adults get crushes?

She tentatively pressed enter, feeling as though she knew what the answer was going to be before seeing it.

"Well, Fuck."