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Again. Another night where you desperately craved sleep, but your next door neighbor just didn’t want to let that happen. That isn’t to say that the person next door was obtrusive or bothersome in any way. Rather, he seemed to go out of his way in order to avoid everyone else in the apartment complex most of the time. The thing is, you aren’t like most of the people who live there. You knew vaguely from word on the street that the man’s name was Chuuya Nakahara, known to be someone affiliated with the Port Mafia, and even more notoriously known to be a fearsome ability user. And like him as well as few others in the city, you were also an ability user. And for as long as possible, you were intending to keep it hidden.
If either the detective agency, the mafia, or anyone else picked up word of your ability, several parties would no doubt, pester you into recruitment. Which brings you back to why you were unable to sleep in the first place. Your ability is telepathy. Most of the time, the people’s inner thoughts you could hear came in small whispers, simple monologues, or talk of stress from work. The times your neighbor would return home were far and few in between. But whenever Chuuya Nakahara returned, all you could hear in your head was endless screaming.
“What the fuck goes on that has this dude literally mentally screeching just about 24/7?” you groaned to yourself, attempting to block out the internal sounds by turning in bed again. This was yet another unfortunate reminder that the noise was in fact all inside your head, and no matter how much you blocked your ears, the sound would remain so long as Chuuya Nakahara remained.
Several times you had considered moving out, just for the sake of getting way from him. That thought was promptly banished when you opened up your laptop last week to hunt for real estate.
You hummed to yourself, stroking your chin, deep in introspection. “The rent here is so much cheaper though…” You sighed back then, slamming the laptop shut and opting for more nights of tossing and turning.
Although you lay there with eyes shut in search of peace, furrows creased deep between your eyebrows. Your eyelids slid open languidly, the whites mildly bloodshot. Craning your neck to the side, you groaned when seeing that the clock’s LEDs screamed “4:18AM” straight into your pupils. Eyelids moved to shut once again and protect your pupils from the bright light. What seemed like hours later, your eyes shot open only to see that the clock said “4:31AM”.
Of course, the screaming from next door had yet to stop, nor show any signs of letting up.
You bolted upright and threw the blankets off. Shoving cold feet into fluffy slippers, you made a beeline for the door, snatching up a fleece sweater along the way.
“Any more of this, and I’ll lose my shit and start screaming too,” you muttered lowly, slamming the door behind as you stepped into the dimly lit hall. A few steps later, you were in front of your neighbor’s door. You made no mistake, and checked out that the nameplate read “Chuuya Nakahara”. The moment you rang the bell, the mental screaming you would hear endlessly stopped. Instead, it was replaced immediately by, “Who the fuck? It’s 4:35 in the morning.”
“Yeah, I could say the same to you, Mr. Eternal-Internal-Screaming,” you thought, rolling your eyes as your foot tapped on the floor in ever growing impatience.
The door creaked open, and from the small crack you could see a man with piercing blue eyes, paired with a head of unruly pumpkin orange locks. You can tell he was annoyed at the early morning wake up call, but you were almost sure that he didn’t know how annoyed you were as a result of his seemingly unnoticed internal anguish.
“So, hey. I’m the next door neighbor,” you began, and pointed down the hall towards your door in a matter-of-factly manner.
“…Okay. Do I know you? What do you want at ass o’clock?” he responded, the tiredness in his demeanor becoming obvious by softening his gruff voice. His mind completed the thoughts he refrained from voicing. “Can’t I just go back to sleep? Why’d I open the door…”
“Look,” you sighed, facepalming and unsure of how to go about telling him to shut up his mind. “I don’t usually play therapist, but I also need sleep. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you clearly have some problems going on with yourself. So I’m either getting you to say your part now, or you can let me in and we can, I don’t know…” you trailed off, becoming less and less confident as his gaze pressed into you continuously. “Talk it out, or something?”
He opened the door a little further. You suddenly became extremely self conscious as he looked you up and down. It didn’t help that you could hear his thoughts. “Who the fuck is this chick?” You stood there in a ratty oversized shirt, a loose fleece sweater thrown over it haphazardly. Your legs were bare and out in the open, all ankles to thighs just before the fabric of your shorts covered up everything necessary around your hips. All the way at the bottom, your feet were encased in fluffy polar bear slippers, which had begun to gray much faster than you had anticipated. “Great, I’m woken up and there’s even less to see.”
Your eyebrow twitched.
“I could dispose of her now… but causing a ruckus this early in the morning… And since she’s the neighbor, dealing with the other tenants and paperwork is gonna suck my ass.”
You could hardly believe what this man was thinking. For the first time, you left your room to address the problem—the problem being that he clearly had some turmoil to undo but for some reason was unwilling to let it be undone—and the man’s first thought was how to murder you and get rid of the evidence.
“Listen, you can try, but murdering me isn’t gonna be that easy, pal.”
His eyes narrowed, and the door swung open all the way. He stood there, arms crossed and leaning onto his right hip. “Again, do I know you?”
If it wasn’t nearly 5 AM and you weren’t hearing his thoughts, you wouldn’t have wasted a moment trying talk up this man, despite how clearly he was disheveled. But in this particular situation, you could hear clear as day just what was going on inside his head; various ways on how he might murder someone for losing sleep, and all these various methods one way or another ended up injuring you as either the primary victim or collateral damage. You’d like to avoid any of those outcomes if possible.
“No, you do not. And as such, you shouldn’t be resorting to blowing up the apartment building just because you’re sick of dealing with Dazai’s shit and pissed that you were woken up.”
The name drop surely caught his attention; there was no way Dazai had an acquaintance that went unnoticed by Chuuya, so he was positive that you weren’t supposed to know that name. And surely enough, you caught onto his thoughts and he finally understood that you weren’t just a sham act.
“… what’s your name again?” Chuuya grumbled, shifting his weight onto the other leg.
“Dude, I know you don’t know me like, super well, and that you don’t come around often, but I literally live right next door. My name is right there in front of it. It’s (L/N), (L/N) (F/N). And I’ll preface with this too, I don’t want any trouble, I just want to get some sleep too,” you quickly added on at the end, reading all the homicidal urges that suddenly flooded his mind.
He hummed in response, seemingly not paying attention. Clearly, he knew there was more to you.
“So, who are you, really?”
There were a lot of options to go with, although all of them involved you having something to lose. So of course, at 5 AM, your mind went with the most irrational one.
“I’m (L/N) (F/N), and I’m a telepathic ability user. Make sense now?”
His eyes widened, and he stopped picking at his fingernails upon hearing your words. His face split into a grin, blue eyes shifting to take a proper look at your face.
“A telepathic ability user, huh?” he murmured, raising an eyebrow. “You might’ve just made this ass o’clock wake up call worth my time. Come on in,” he commanded, opening the door completely and gesturing for you to follow.
You gulped, and stared into the doorway down the dark hall. You felt that entering would be akin to passing the gates of hell, but if the heavenly bliss of a good night’s sleep awaited on the other side, your courageous journey would be worth it. And so, you stepped in, shutting the door behind you and moving onwards.