Terms and Conditions
707 Words
The corridor outside the administration office felt colder on the way out.
Not because of the air—but because of the silence between them.
Akira walked first, hands shoved deep into her pockets, jaw tight. Morgan followed a few steps behind, holding the folded slip of paper the admin had given them—denied request stamped in harsh red ink.
Neither of them spoke until they reached the stairs.
“Useless,” Akira finally muttered, kicking lightly at the edge of the step. “They didn’t even listen properly.”
Morgan stopped beside her, looking down at the paper. “They did listen. They just… didn’t care.”
That made Akira glance at him.
Something about the way he said it wasn’t dramatic. No anger. No complaint. Just acceptance. And that irritated her more than the refusal itself.
“So what now?” she asked. “We just go back and pretend it’s fine?”
Morgan folded the paper slowly. “We don’t have a choice.”
Akira scoffed. “There’s always a choice.”
But even she didn’t sound convinced.
Back in the dorm room, the atmosphere felt heavier than before.
The room was still the same—two beds, two desks, two lockers—but now it felt like a locked space rather than shared accommodation.
Morgan placed his bag down quietly. Akira threw hers onto the bed harder than necessary.
The silence stretched.
Then—
“I’ll set rules,” Akira said suddenly.
Morgan blinked. “Rules?”
“Yes. Since we’re stuck here, we do it properly. No touching my side. No moving my things. No weird surprises. And you—” she pointed slightly, “—you keep your space clean.”
Morgan raised a brow. “And what about your side?”
“My side is fine.”
A pause.
Then, very softly, Morgan said, “Your side is… a disaster.”
Akira turned sharply.
“What did you say?”
But Morgan didn’t look scared. If anything, there was the faintest hint of amusement.
“I said I agree to the rules,” he corrected calmly.
Akira narrowed her eyes, suspicious, but let it go.
Later that night, the room split into two worlds.
Akira sat on her bed fixing her timetable, headphones in, pretending she didn’t care about the fact that someone else was breathing in the same space.
Morgan, on the other side, unpacked carefully. Neatly. Almost ritualistically.
Every item had a place.
Every movement was quiet.
At some point, Akira noticed.
Not because she was watching.
Just because the silence felt different now—less empty, more… occupied.
A pen rolled off her bed.
She didn’t notice.
Morgan did.
He picked it up without a word and placed it gently on her desk.
Akira paused.
“…Thanks,” she muttered after a second, not looking at him.
“You’re welcome,” he replied.
Then silence again.
But this time, it wasn’t hostile.
Just unfamiliar.
Later that night, the lights went off.
Darkness settled between them.
Akira lay awake staring at the ceiling, annoyed at how aware she was of the other side of the room.
Morgan turned once in his bed.
“Akira?” he said quietly.
“What.”
A pause.
“…Nothing. Goodnight.”
She frowned into the dark.
“Yeah. Goodnight.”
But neither of them slept quickly.
Because the room didn’t feel like a mistake anymore.It felt like something they were slowly learning to survive.
Something neither of them had asked for… but couldn’t escape either.
And in the quiet that followed, between the faint sound of the night wind outside and the distant hallway noises of other dorms settling down, there was an unspoken truth beginning to form.
Not friendship yet. Not trust.
Just awareness.
The kind that lingers longer than it should.
The kind that changes how silence feels.
Akira turned slightly in her bed, staring into the dark like it might answer her thoughts.
Morgan lay still, eyes open, listening to the same silence from the other side.
Neither of them spoke again.
But somewhere in that shared quiet, the line between “temporary arrangement” and “something else entirely” had started to blur.
Slowly.
Quietly.
Irreversibly.
- Writer
