Go home for the evning

You end up heading home earlier than planned, the evening still bright outside, streets cooling into that particular gold Vienna seems to specialize in. The apartment is quiet when you let yourself in, lights on in the kitchen, the smell of something simmering that immediately makes your stomach remember you skipped lunch somewhere in the middle of the day's chaos.

Claire looks up from the stove, wooden spoon in hand, faint surprise crossing her face. "Oh, bonsoir. Didn't expect you back this early. Good first day?"

"Long one. Good, though. Registration's sorted, at least." You drop your bag by the door and drift toward the kitchen, drawn in by whatever's in the pot. "That smells incredible, by the way."

"It's Gulash. I thought, if i live in central Europe, i should start learning local recepies." She stirs it anyway with the particular focus of someone who cares slightly more than they're letting on. "There's plenty if you want some. I made too much, as usual, I never learned to cook for one person, apparently."

"I will absolutely take you up on that."

You smile. Staying on Claires good side is worth it, if only for the wonderful food.

"Good. Sit, then." She waves the spoon toward the table, and you do, watching her plate up two bowls with an ease that suggests this kitchen really has become hers over the past six months, whatever the lease technically says. She sets one down in front of you and drops into the chair across from you with her own, tucking a leg up underneath herself. "So. Tell me about the famous first day. You look like you've got a story."

You give her the highlights, the registration office and its truly heroic commitment to inefficiency, the online system that exists purely to redirect you to a form you have to print and bring in by hand anyway, the general chaos of a mostly, empty office somehow still managing to eat an entire afternoon. And the female aquaintances you made along the way. Claire listens with open amusement, asking the right follow-up questions in the right places, laughing properly at the bit about the printed PDF form.

"Okay, that's genuinely unhinged. A website whose entire function is telling you to use paper instead."

"I'm aware. I've had several hours to sit with the betrayal."

"As you should." She grins, twirling pasta onto her fork. "This city is going to eat you alive, John, I'm serious. You need a handler. Possibly me."

"Are you volunteering?"

"I'm considering it. My rates are reasonable." She eats for a moment, thoughtful, then adds, almost offhand, "You know, if you actually want decent food on a regular basis instead of whatever sad coffee-based survival plan you've clearly been running, I could cook for you sometime. Properly. Not just your usual leftover pity pasta."

"Is that an offer, or a threat about my current diet?"

"Bit of both." She looks entirely pleased with herself about it. "I make a very good tourtière, if you're willing to trust a Canadian's opinion of her own cooking."

"I'll trust it. Under one condition, I get to pick the chore I contribute in exchange. Balance of domestic labor, and all that. I hear it's important in a healthy household."

"Oh, is that how this works now? You get a home-cooked meal and I get, what, exactly?" She leans into you, her hair framing her beautiful face.

"Trash. Every time. It's a fair trade, I think, you handle the skilled labor, I handle the unskilled labor. Division of talents."

"Very generous of you, delegating yourself the easy job." She's laughing now, properly, leaning back in her chair. "Careful, though, keep making jokes about domestic duties and I'm going to start getting ideas about what kind of roommate you're angling to be."

"What kind of ideas?"

"The kind where you do trash and maybe the dishes shirtless, for a start." She says it lightly, teasing, but there's a flicker of something warmer underneath it, something that lingers half a second past the joke's natural end, and neither of you quite looks away first.

"I could be talked into that. For the right tourtière."

"Noted. I'll hold you to it." She stands to collect the empty bowls before the moment can stretch any further, brushing your shoulder lightly with hers on her way past the table, a small, easy touch that doesn't need explaining. "The question is, will you be doing the cooking shirtless as well?" you reply boldly. "Who knows." She blushes, and tries to brush of the question. "Anyway. It's been a long day for both of us, I think. I should probably actually sleep tonight instead of doom-scrolling until two like usual."

"Revolutionary idea."

"I contain multitudes." She rinses the bowls quickly, sets them in the rack, and pauses at the kitchen doorway on her way to her room, glancing back at you with an easy, lingering smile. "Night, John. Sweet dreams."

"Bonne nuit, Claire."

She laughs once more, soft, and disappears down the hall, leaving you sitting there a moment longer than necessary, oddly content, before you finally get up to head to your own room, the apartment quiet and warm around you in a way it hadn't quite managed to feel before tonight.