Figuring out living together

It started with the remote.

Aiden had been sprawled on the couch and his long legs were half-draped over the armrest. There was some bright, fast-talking anime flickering on the screen. Natalie walked in mid-episode, eyeing the vividly colored chaos as she passed behind him on her way to the kitchen. She didn’t say anything at first, but he could feel her judgement from the hallway.

By the time she reappeared with a glass of wine in hand, he was halfway through a bag of chips and two-thirds through the episode. She hovered by the back of the couch a moment longer reading the screen, narrowing her eyes at the exaggerated expressions and heaving cartoon breasts.

“Is this what college kids like now?” she asked.

He grinned without looking away. “It’s a classic.”

“A classic what?” she said, rounding the arm of the couch, sinking slowly into the opposite corner.

“Story arc. World-building. Themes!”

“Mmm.” Her eyes lingered on a female character with gravity-defying cleavage and a suspicious lack of waist. “I see.”

Aiden glanced sideways at her, catching the faintest smirk tugging at her wine glass. “There’s a plot, you know.”

“I’m sure,” she said, settling back into the cushion. “Somewhere under all the physics-defying jugs.”

He laughed, and it rolled out easily. There was nothing flirtatious about it, but her choice of words made him more aware of how close their knees were now.

And maybe more than that, the way she’d said “jugs.” Just… offhandedly, clearly meaning nothing, but it was the first time she’d referenced anything remotely sexual around him, even casually.

His eyes flicked to her jugs before he could stop himself. It was just a glance. A single, guilty flick, yet in that moment he took in so many minor details. The cotton of her T-shirt was soft, worn in from too many washes, and even though she was curled slightly away from him, he could still make out the shape beneath. Her prominent breasts were natural and full.

He looked back at the screen quickly, hoping she didn’t notice.

She didn’t get up immediately at the end of the episode. They sat through the credits, Natalie sipping slowly, and Aiden finishing off the chips. Neither of them spoke or moved right away. She finally got up before the next episode started and went back to her room.

The next night, she was already on the couch when he came out of the bathroom after a shower. He was wearing a tank top with wide armholes that exposed the lean lines of his torso whenever he moved. He made a comment about her taste in detective dramas.

She shrugged without looking over. “Some people like bubble-breasted anime girls who trip over nothing and moan about it. Some people like emotionally repressed British men solving murders in cardigans.”

He grinned as he flopped into the other end of the couch. “It’s called cultural nuance.”

She scoffed. “Sure it is.”

“You’ve got a type,” he commented

She didn’t deny it.

By the third night, they weren’t sitting squeezed into the corners anymore. They didn’t get close, never that, but it was closer. Close enough that when they both reached for the remote and their fingers brushed, both of them pulled away too quickly. There was a small giggle from her, and a muttered “Sorry,” from him. It took a few seconds before she finally reached for the remote again. This time he stayed still, letting her chose what to put on.

Aiden started noticing a pattern in her shows and how many of the male leads were brooding, understated, and quietly intense in a way. Natalie, in turn, picked up on how many of the female characters in his anime wore thigh-highs, had shiny lips, and tiny skirts that fluttered dramatically at even the suggestion of a breeze.

She didn’t say anything about that, either. But the next time she walked into the room, Aiden offered her the remote without being asked. She accepted it with a nod, settled beside him, and didn’t change it right away.

They were still figuring out the rules. Or still pretending there were any, even though they hadn’t set any.

The bathroom was another challenge to be worked on. It started with toothpaste. Natalie opened the bathroom door one morning to find Aiden already inside, shirtless, brushing his teeth over the sink with his eyes half-closed and earbuds in. She paused in the doorway, one hand on the knob, still clutching her robe.

He looked up, startled, then pulled one earbud free. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know you were—”

“It’s fine,” she said, stepping back. “I’ll wait.”

“You don’t have to.”

Later that day, she wrote his name on the dry-erase calendar she kept on the fridge—AIDEN 7:00–7:30 BATHROOM?—with a half-smiling face beneath it. He added NATALIE 7:30–WHENEVER in his slanted handwriting the next morning.

It wasn’t a really a rule, but it helped break the tension around it and it did help set some framework.

Still, boundaries blurred easily in a small apartment. Natalie would find herself waiting at the door while he shaved, or walking past just as he stepped out with a towel sitting dangerously low around his hips. Once, she rounded the corner with a mug of coffee and caught him mid-yawn, one hand in his hair, the other holding deodorant, while his towel looked ready to fall off.

“Morning,” he said, bare-chested and unbothered. For him it felt like living with his mom and was just another morning.

She blinked once, said “Morning,” and disappeared down the hall. For her it was foreign territory of a younger, good-looking man wandering around her home, nearly exposing himself to her.

It wasn’t intentional on his part and she knew that. It was just the casual comfort of someone who’d spent the last two years living in dorms where privacy meant putting in your buds and pretending the people around you didn’t exist.

But she noticed things now. The way his back muscles moved when he leaned over the sink. The sharp V of his waist above the towel. The little scar near his shoulder blade she didn’t remember from when he was younger.

It made her start locking the bathroom door more often when she was inside. And once, when she got out of the shower and realized her robe was still in her room, she wrapped the towel a little tighter. Waited a little longer before stepping into the hall, listening for footsteps.

She was grateful, then, for the rhythm they’d already fallen into. For the way her routine tended to trail his. He was up early, brushing his teeth in his towel, then disappearing into his room with earbuds in while she was still deciding between coffee and concealer as the bigger priority at the moment.

It meant that by the time she was stepping out of the steam, cheeks flushed and skin still damp, he was usually dressed, distracted and somewhere else in the apartment. Or, if she was lucky, already gone, giving her space to reclaim her home in peace.

Still, she looked both ways before opening the door that morning. Cinching her towel tightly at her chest, toes curling against the hard floor, as she peeked outside.

No one there. Just the soft murmur of music playing faintly from his room. She walked quickly, realizing that her heart was racing for no good reason.

She made it to her bedroom without seeing him. But even as she shut the door behind her, she couldn’t help but imagine, just for a moment, what would’ve happened if he’d come out of his room at the wrong time. Or, arguably for him, the right time. If he’d seen her like this.

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