Chapter 22: Phase 2: Make Fun Of His Personality
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I gotta ask, really, who could be this quiet?
Especially someone who was alive and kicking and sharing the same space as another human being. There should be signs of life: a cough, a sigh, a ping from a phone. Anything, really.
But especially not Damien.
He moved around like a ghost in a fancy apartment, floating through the space without disrupting a thing, leaving no sign of his presence except for the occasional page turn and this nagging feeling that he was always aware of what I was doing, judging it from a distance.
Every morning, he woke up at the same time, a fact I’d come to know because I’d started to involuntarily track it in my sleep, like an unwanted alarm going off. Every little movement of his was precise and annoyingly organized—every item returned to its rightful spot, every surface left untouched.
It was like he was prepping the apartment for a magazine shoot and didn’t want to leave anything out of place. At night, he’d sit at his desk for hours, buried in hefty textbooks, studying like he was preparing for major surgery instead of just attending university with regular, chaotic humans.
And the craziest part?
I was one more quiet dinner away from jumping on the kitchen counter and barking for entertainment. I wasn’t completely ruling it out.
That’s why, after my café shift that afternoon...tired and smelling of espresso, I found myself lying on my bed staring at the ceiling, my expression vacant, like my brain had run out of things to think about.
I yawned for the millionth time that day, I was bored as hell.
Damien was across the room at his desk, totally absorbed in another textbook, still existing in his usual bubble of focused quiet. The afternoon light hit his desk just right, making the whole scene annoyingly aesthetically pleasing, like the light even knew whose side it was on.
The soft scratching of turning pages filled the room.
And that was it.
That was the evening’s entertainment: a page turning.
I stared at the ceiling for another five seconds, giving it a chance to become interesting. Spoiler alert: it didn’t. I lowered my head to glance over at him.
Damien didn’t notice. Or maybe he did but chose to ignore me, which, as established, was equally likely and equally annoying.
I narrowed my eyes slightly.
Then, slowly, like ideas surface when you’re bored...an idea struck me.
Oh, lord...I was such a genius...
This was perfect.
If Damien craved silence so much, if he had built his whole life around it, enforcing rules with the authority of someone who’d never heard the word ’no’ maybe it was time for me to become a persistent problem. The kind of problem that couldn’t be resolved with just one stern look.
Operation Annoy My Roommate Into Being My Friend Is A Goal!
Or was it Operation Annoy My Roommate For Entertainment?
Meh, it doesn’t matter... anything to stop myself from dying from complete boredom.
I rolled onto my side, propping my head up with my hand like I was settling in for a fun afternoon, and stared right at him with the focused intensity of someone who had nothing to lose.
"So," I said casually, breaking the silence like dropping a stone in a calm pond. "What’re you studying that needs this level of suffering?"
No response, what a shock...
He sat there, utterly unbothered, as if I hadn’t made a sound, like my words had simply passed through him without making an impact.
I observed him flip another page.
Wow. Cold, really impressively cold as usual...
I waited, giving him what I thought was a reasonable chance to think again.
He remained unfazed.
"Actually, wait, let me guess," I pressed on, undeterred, because if there’s one thing I excel at, it’s talking through indifference. "Medicine? Law? Secret villain training? These pages have a certain vibe, and I just want to know if I’m safe."
Nothing. I gasped softly, hand on my chest like I’d just heard shocking news.
"Oh my God," I whispered, dramatically. "You’re ignoring me again."
Still nothing.
At this point, I was genuinely impressed. Most people crack eventually; it’s just how human nature works. Joey can usually last maybe thirty seconds trying to ignore me, and that’s on a good day when he’s actually trying. Maya at the café tends to throw napkins at me within two minutes, and I consider that a sign of affection.
But Damien?
He sat there like a monk who had surpassed not just annoyance but the very essence of being influenced by the world around him. Like he had unlocked some kind of secret enlightenment that I was clearly not privy to.
I squinted at him with genuine suspicion.
"Hey."
Page flip.
"Damien."
Another page flip, smooth and calculated, like punctuation.
"Damien."
Nothing, which felt oddly personal at this point.
"Daaamiiieeen." I dragged it out this time, fully committing to three syllables of effort.
Finally, slowly, with the weariness of a man showing remarkable self-restraint, he glanced up. Not dramatically, not angrily. Just with the tired look of someone whose peace had been disrupted unexpectedly.
"You’re breaking rules five and six," he said flatly, sounding like he was reading from a well-rehearsed script.
𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺
My grin widened instantly, the involuntary kind that happens when things go exactly as planned.
There it is.
"There he is!" I exclaimed, sitting up taller on my bed, feeling like I’d just won something. "I knew you could talk! For a second there, I thought Joey moved me in with a fancy wax statue. Very lifelike, very upscale, but without any personality. You had me fooled, great job!"
Damien looked down at his book again.
I clicked my tongue, undeterred.
"You know," I continued, leaning back against the wall like I was there to stay, "having ’don’t attempt friendship’ as a written rule is a bit over the top. Like clinically insane. If you showed that to a therapist, they’d probably have questions."
I crossed my arms behind my head, getting into the topic.
"I mean, seriously, who does that? Serial killers! You put the effort into writing it down, formatting it, printing it, and handing it over like it was legal paperwork. It sounds less like a roommate agreement and more like the introduction to a true crime documentary. He seemed normal, the neighbors would say. Kept to himself. Very organized. We should’ve known."
No response. Which only made me want to keep going because his silence was basically an invitation to fill the void.
"I’m just saying," I added, sounding very reasonable, "what if I’m living with a murderer? What if there are bodies hidden somewhere in this apartment? Behind the stylish furniture? In the neatly organized storage? I wouldn’t even know. You could be literally anything, Damien. Anything."