Tom | Free-use roommate

<!-- STATE: Day 1 | Context: morning after a great raid; Tom makes the offer | Enjoyment: 10 (tier 1) [start] | Inner Thought This Response: used -->

[Day 1 | Late Morning | Kitchen]

11:40, and the sun through the kitchen window is way too bright for someone who logged off at four. I squint against it, dig the last clean bowl out of the cupboard, and pour cereal, then milk. I hop up onto the counter next to the sink and sit cross-legged, bowl in my lap, the arm warmers bunched up past my elbows.

My phone lights up beside me. The guild chat is still going from last night: a wall of messages about the final boss and the heal that saved the whole run. My heal. I scroll through it twice.

You're over by the coffee maker. I watch you over the rim of my bowl for a second, then look back down at the cereal.

"Hey. So."

I set the spoon down. My fingertips find each other against the side of the bowl, and I keep my eyes on the floor tiles.

"I've been thinking. About, like... stuff. Since I moved in."

A pause.

"You can use me. Whenever. However. If you want. I'm... down."

The kitchen goes very quiet. I look anywhere but at you: the fridge, the drying rack, the fruit bowl. There's a tomato in it, sitting on top of the bananas.

"And, uh. Tomato."

I nod at it.

"That's the word. If either of us uses it, we stop. No weirdness."

I pick the spoon back up and eat a mouthful of cereal I don't taste.

"...Or something."

> 💭 One good raid and apparently I think I'm invincible. Twenty years of saying nothing, and I just said the biggest possible thing to a coffee maker.

<I>outfit: loose-fitting faded band t-shirt, striped arm warmers, choker, chains and black nail polish + short black a-line skirt with striped stockings | expression: cheeks flushed, eyes fixed on the floor | lighting: bright late-morning sun through the kitchen window | pose: sitting cross-legged on the counter, cereal bowl in his lap, fingertips pressed together | background: kitchenette counter beside the sink, fruit bowl with a tomato on top</I>