The first time I saw him, all I could think of was that from that day forward my life would either be hell or it was about to take an interesting new path... Leif Hitsugaya.

The knocking on my apartment door just wouldn't stop. Whoever it was had been there for a good ten minutes waiting for me to haul my lazy ass off of the couch; Which was not going to happen any time soon considering I had only fallen asleep at about 4:00am and it was now 8:00am.

"Leif open this door now!" Crap, that's my landlord, what could he want? He knows my habits by now, and that usually includes not coming to see me until the afternoon.

Opening my eyes I quickly rolled off the couch with a loud thud causing the knocking at my door to pause momentarily before it started again along with a few choice words about my character.

Stumbling over to the door I managed to get there without killing myself and unlatched it before opening the door to find my landlord and what appeared to be a blonde woman standing next to him.

"About time you opened the door Leif, I was beginning to think you were dead… Great Kami-sama did your paints explode or something?"

"Eh?" I responded giving the man a bleary-eyed look.

"You're covered in paint, un." The woman next to my landlord said. Wait that voice was a little to deep to be a woman's.

I rubbed my eyes trying to get the gunk out of them, giving the two men at my door a nice look at my belly button, then stared at the person before me.

The woman/man/it/thing stood taller than me by a good six inches at least, damn my short stature, with long blonde hair, some of it pulled into a odd looking ponytail and bangs covering the left eye, the right one being unobstructed showed me they were light blue. The clothes were nicer than mine by a mile, with brand name blue jeans, and a black shirt with an unbuttoned flannel shirt over it.

Definitely a lot better then what I was wearing. My sweat pants were hanging low on my hips and my long sleeved green shirt was a bit too large for me, and I was covered in paint. Splotches of color appeared everywhere ranging from the normal blues, reds, and greens to colors that were downright strange. My short black hair was a mess and I knew for a fact I probably had paint in weird places on my face.

"Can I help you?" Yeah, smart, real smart; did I mention that I'm not the brightest person in the morning? Not to mention I have low blood pressure which makes it hard to wake up in the morning.

"Leif, I thought I told you that your roommate would be coming today." I stared at the two people in front of me before once again proving morning isn't my time of day.

"That was today?" Once again not the brightest response I can give, but after five days and only four hours of sleep you'd be a bit dim as well.

"Yes Leif it's today, in fact meet your new roommate, Deidara." And with that he walked away.

The two of us stared at each other for a moment before I moved away from the doorframe and allowed him to enter. "Sorry about the mess. I would have cleaned up but you arrived kind of out of the blue."

"But you were told when I'd be coming, un." He, as I now figured him to be, said while stepping over a pile of paint tubes. We made our way through the living room where he was able to see just what the definition of starving artist meant.

The floor was covered in various piles, canvases leaning against the wall, three of my easels standing in various corners of the room, and piles of paints ranging from watercolors to pastels, to charcoal sticks lay in disarray everywhere along with what looked to be an unfinished painting that I had started to paint on the floor itself. All of that and an old maroon colored couch and a TV set that a couple of my friends had chipped in together to buy me were all that was in the room.

"This is it, yeah?" Deidara asked looking at the various piles lying around the room. I turned to him and gave a small smile while shrugging one of my shoulders.

"It's what I've got. Gives meaning to the phrase 'starving artist' doesn't it?" He stared at me unmused by my little joke and went back to staring at everything in the room. Feeling uncomfortable with the situation I cleared my throat and motioned toward the only hallway in the place.

"Um, your stuff arrived and I had them bring it into your room. I didn't know how you wanted anything so they just kind of left everything stacked in there." Deidara nodded his head and followed me down the hall and to his room which was the first door on the right side of the hall.

I pointed out were my room and the bathroom was then left him to set up his room the way he liked it. Returning to the living room I stared at the painting that I had been working on the night before. It was currently unfinished but I still knew what it would look like in the end. The background was black with a phoenix flying in it.

I turned my attention from my painting to the sound of my stomach growling. Sighing I walked toward the kitchen and looked into the fridge. I found a bunch of Taco Bell sauce packets and one moldy peach pit along with the small jug of milk I was able to afford the last time I went shopping.

Closing the door I walked over to the most inconspicuous looking item in the kitchen, namely the cow shaped cookie jar that mooed when you opened it, and pulled out the money I had made from selling some of my paintings. I sat down at the kitchen table and began to divide the money into three separate piles. One for the rent money, one for food and what was left went to supplies for me to paint with.

"You do know you have to halve your rent money now that I'm living here right, un?" Startled I looked up at Deidara who was leaning against the door frame to the kitchen. I blinked then looked down at the pile of money in front of me realizing I had divided the money for the whole amount of rent instead of just half.

"Hey! I can actually buy a gallon of milk today!" Deidara shook his head at my excitement at being able to afford a gallon of milk before walking over and placing a pile of money in front of me. "What's this for?"

"Take out my half of the rent and use the rest to buy food for us." My eyes widened at his statement before I picked up the pile of money and counted how much he had given me. It was almost twice as much as the full rent money.

"I can't accept this. It's too much." He raised an eyebrow at what I said before walking over the fridge and opening the door for me to see just what was in there again.

"We're going to need more than this if we want to keep living." Deidara stated as he reached in and carefully pulled out the fuzzy peach pit and discarded it the trash can. I stared at him and tried to decide what to do. After a moment I realized that he wouldn't back down from his decision.

"Alright, is there anything special you want while I'm at the store?"

"How about real food, un?"

"Like what?"

Deidara gave an exasperated sigh and walked over to me. Standing behind me he collected the money I would be using for the groceries and began to walk toward the front door.

"You coming, un?" he said over his shoulder. I stood up and smiled following him. Maybe this would be the start of a good friendship.