Untitled Unmastered 1

“You awake yet?”

A voice called out to me from some other room. I felt the light shining on my face. It felt like the golden hour, but maybe it was just early on a weekend. I opened my eyes and saw I was in the bedroom, lying with a white t-shirt and a pair of boxers. There was a sizzling coming from the other room. Someone was cooking.

I walked inside the kitchen and saw a young woman about my age. She had short brown hair and an infectious smile. It looked like she was Japanese. She wore a light brown sweater and a pair of short-shorts. She stood over the stove, waving a pan around.

“You hungry?”

She had a bit of an accent — confirmed to me she wasn’t purely American — but I could understand her just fine. I nodded and walked up to see what she was cooking.

“Eggs?”

She nodded. “Over easy. You like eggs, right?”

I opened the fridge. “Not usually. But yours? Any day.”

She let out a little giggle. I took a thing of iced coffee from the fridge.

“You have any plans today?”

I must have been right. It was the weekend, else she wouldn’t have asked.

“Nothing in particular. What about you?”

“Going to go back to my place and walk the dogs. You want to come with me?”

I poured myself a glass. “Kimba and Osaka? Sure. I haven’t seen them in awhile.” She owned a pair of Shiba Inus. How did I know this, and not her name?

Eventually the young woman finished cooking the eggs. Beside me, near the sink, was two fresh plates. She put one egg on top of one, and two eggs on top the other. There were three eggs in total.

“This one for me?” I pointed to the plate with more eggs.

She walked away to put the pan back on the stove, turning off the heat. “Mmhmm. I know you’re a growing boy and all.”

I smiled, and opened the drawer in front of me. There was some forks. I took out two.

“I might see Freya and Sam today. See how they’re doing.”

The woman took back her spot next to me. She grabbed one of the forks and cut her yolk.

“What, with their crazy experimenting?” Her accent was particularly thick on the last half of this question.

“Well, they’re going through some, with the drama and all.” I cut my own yolk and took a piece. “Figured I might as well check to see how things are.”

“Okey-dokey.” She seemed to have a rather passive-negative connection to Freya and Sam, two people I — to be fair — only had a vague understanding of, at that time. Which reminded me: I still needed her name.

We were quiet for some time while I desperately tried to figure out a way to ask her the stupid question. But suddenly while eating her eyes lit up and she looked back at me.

“Oh! Do you mind if I leave my laundry here, and you do it with your load? Since my washer is still broken and all.”

I took another bite. “As long as you don’t mind your clothes turning to weird colors.”

She was finished with her food. She smiled and went to the sink to wash it out.

“Just make them pretty colors, okay?”

I finished my own food and got up next to her to wash my own plate. There was something really warm about her presence. I definitely knew her well — in fact, I may have been in love with her. But I couldn’t tell for sure.

“Okay, well I better get going now,” she said after finishing the dishes, skipping down into the open living room. I saw a couple of foreign objects near the door. It must have been all her stuff.

I walked over to her. My shoes were near hers, and I put them on. “How far away is your place again?” I asked, hoping we had not known each other for long enough for this to be a dumb thing to say.

“Just a couple of blocks,” she replied. I was safe. “So we’ll walk. Maybe we can… you know… talk a little about the night before?”

The night before. Something about it sent shivers down my spine, but whether they were good or not I couldn’t quite tell. But I agreed.

We both walked out the door.