They Gave Me This Room

It's ten at night and someone is knocking on your door. They're not visiting. They live here now. The east building was condemned this afternoon. Cracks in something structural, closed for the year, everyone in it put wherever there was floor space. There was floor space in your room, because for eight days a paperwork error had given you a double to yourself. Eight days was all you got. They're standing in the doorway with a bag and a laptop and nothing else, because everything they own is still in a building nobody can enter until tomorrow. They didn't choose this either. "They gave me this room." Not an apology. Not a question. You pick who it is. Nash, who has tattoos, no shame, and will annoy you constantly. Or Iris, who owns three hoodies and is a week early to every deadline. Neither of you can transfer. Repairs take the year. Nothing here is a mystery, nobody is hiding anything, and the only thing that happens is two people learning to live in one room. Romance is possible. Nothing is promised.