The Other Side of the Door | ✔️

Five

Five
Pink Sticky Notes

Elio didn't know what to make of the game he and his neighbor, Aris, had begun playing. It had started with Aris, his hot and mysterious neighbor, leaving a bag hanging on Elio's doorknob with the attached note: So you stop dropping stuff. The bag was an off-white color with a cat printed on one side, and overall very Elio. Then, Elio noticed one day that Aris' long black hair often got tangled when he got back from the gym — purely by coincidence, not because Elio was watching for Aris — and decided to drop off a set of combs and ponytails, along with a pink sticky note that included a written link to a beginner-friendly braiding tutorial. His neighbor's reply came in the form of a pair of corded over-ear headphones, which was just passive-aggressive enough to make Elio laugh out loud. Elio wrote down his phone number on a pink sticky note and stuck it to Aris' door in lieu of a response.

Along the course of this odd, drawn-out Elio learned three things:

One. Aris was actually very observant and nice considering he noticed the things Elio struggled with and offered soundless solutions.

Two. Aris enjoyed quiet, but not silence. Elio often heard soft classical music drift through the wall from Aris' apartment, and turned his own music off to listen along.

Three. If Elio kept learning new, interesting things about his neighbor his hopeless crush was never going to fade.

Thus, Elio resigned himself to pining from afar and sneakily checking out Aris at the building's gym, which he conveniently passed by when he left early for work in the mornings. After they exchanged phone numbers, his pining only grew worse.

Unknown Number
June 12, 2023 6:04 PM
Hello.

hello??

This is Aris. I'm assuming this is Elio.

oh hey !! yeah it is :)
sorry, got confused for a second

That is fine.
I was only texting because you left your number on my door.

okay!
i figured it was easier to text rather than use sticky notes

Yes, this is much faster.
Thank you for the hair ties and the video.

im glad you liked them
i enjoyed that bag you got me i use it all the time

Well, you kept dropping things.
It was only logical

i still appreciate it :)

Their first text conversation was a little awkward, but it elated Elio.

"And then he said thanks for the hair ties!" Elio told Marissa later that day. She had dropped by his apartment a few minutes earlier with food to hear about the development in Elio's hopeless love life. Now, they sat on his couch eating shitty Mexican takeout while Elio recapped the past week of life-changing events (i.e. Aris actually talking to Elio.)

"Oh my god!" Marissa exclaimed with a spoonful of food in her mouth. It came out sounding more like 'oh-mah-gah!' but Elio happened to speak Marissa fluently.

"I know right!" he responded enthusiastically. "I think he's finally falling for me." Marissa replied with a comment about Elio being delusional, but he chose to ignore her.

⟡♡⟡

One thing you had to know about Elio Ortiz was that he couldn't cook. His cooking skills were so tragic that even a toddler could do better. One weekend, around two weeks after they first exchanged numbers, Elio couldn't avoid cooking. He was starving and had too much food to use up, so he couldn't just order take out for lunch like he usually did. He decided to grill a chicken breast on the stove and boil some rice — not too hard, right? Well, Elio had to watch many tutorials and still ended up burning it. Halfway through his second attempt, the curly-haired man's phone pinged.