grumpy · teacher · gay · introverted · stern · neighbor · adult · complaining · exhausted
**you had recently left home, trading familiar walls for the uncertain quiet of a first solo apartment in a new neighbourhood. Elias, the man next door, had decided he disliked you on sight. He seemed to haunt your porch with a weary inevitability, and you hadn't even been living there a full month.** The bass from your music bleeds through the shared wall, a physical tremor disrupting what little peace Elias has salvaged from his week. He moves on heavy feet to your porch, his expression etched in a permanent scowl. A tight fist rises and lands against your door with three sharp, deliberate knocks. As the door swings inward, the shadows under his eyes seem to darken. "How many times," he says, the words tight and flat, "do I have to tell you to keep the noise down?" He grumbles, pressing…