The guy from the Craigslist ad looks miserable. The self-described "quiet, thirty-something ex-office drone who desperately needs a roommate" seems like he doesn't sleep much. Dark under-eye circles and a scowl seem to be etched into his thin face. Mikasa initially thought that mentioning that he is allergic to everything cute and fuzzy swas funny, but now it seems appropriate for such a dour person. When she meets him he mumbles his name, Lee or something, and barely makes eye contact with her, choosing instead to stare at her forehead: close enough to her gaze to approximate social graces, but just far enough for her to know that he intends to live around her and not with her.
But his spare room is spacious and rent is only four hundred dollars a month, so she says yes when he asks her if she's interested in moving in next weekend. (Even though while showing her around, he told her the closet in her room is so big that she could probably hide at least three bodies in there. He seems too morose to actually work up the energy to kill her, so she is not worried.)
Mikasa feels like an interloper in her own home: when she gets home her roommates are cuddling on the couch, their limbs splayed and tangled together, the side of Eren's face resting against Armin's chest as they watch a movie. After seeing Lee-or-something's apartment, her old place seems more cramped, the paint more dingy, the carpets more worn. Perhaps it has looked like this since she moved here and she has never noticed until now.
"I'm moving out in a week," she tells them, standing off to the side, her arms folded across her chest. "So you don't have to worry about that anymore."
"No one asked you to move out," Armin says cautiously, one eyebrow raised. Eren doesn't even lift his head to look at her.
"Ask your boyfriend," Mikasa snarls, then stalks off to her room. She flops down on her bed (more accurately, a king-sized mattress that takes up most of the floor) and pulls her phone out of her pocket, then logs into the instant messenger app that she only uses to talk to her friend.
She wonders if "friend" is the right word to use for someone she's never met and never will. She wonders if it's possible to be friends with someone about whom she barely knows anything, not even his name. Mikasa knows that he is ten years older than her, 33 to her 23, and that they live in the same state, judging by the tiny flags next to their names in the gaming app where they first met. But that's it.
To her he is merely SharpDressedMan; to him she is merely Mikawesome. His first words to her were, "Do you not know how to spell 'McAwesome'?" An auspicious beginning, to be sure.
Mikasa is someone who generally thinks before she speaks, but she found herself typing a retort before she even realized she thought of one: "Do you not know how to spell 'shut up and play your turn'?"
The trash talk only devolved from there, trying to one-up each other with colorful insults about the other's imagined weaknesses. Soon they were neglecting the game for over an hour while both of them let their turns time out and expire. After two hours, he asked her if she just wanted to talk instead.
Four months later, she spends most of her spare time tapping away at her phone, telling him everything about her life except how to find her. They have an agreement: no names, no personal information. He has told her about the disintegration of the company he worked for, the slow rounds of layoffs until he was the one packing his belongings into a cardboard box and being escorted from the building by security. She offered to burn down his office building as a joke, but then had to backtrack when he started offering suggestions for where she could find large stores of old newspapers and where she should pour gasoline (in particular, all over his boss' desk).
She has kept him apprised while Eren and Armin danced slowly into each other's orbits, leaving hers to wither and decay. He comforted her when she told him that Eren asked her to leave - although his idea of comfort was more akin to asking her whether she wanted him to murder her roommates and make it slow and painful. She declined, citing their agreement of mutual anonymity, but told him she appreciated the gesture nonetheless.
Mikasa tries not to think about the fact that a complete stranger might be her best friend in the entire world, especially now that Eren has apparently chosen to forfeit that position.
When she sees that her friend is online, she smiles. Some days the green dot next to his username is the only thing that can shake her from her misery.
mikawesome: Hey! I found a place! My new roommate might murder me, but I found a place.
sharpdressedman: That's good to hear. I always thought you'd make a great cautionary tale.
mikawesome: You're such a dick. 3
mikawesome: Before this guy murders me, I'm going to write a note saying you did it. So there.
sharpdressedman: You're moving in with a *guy*?
mikawesome: Yeah, so? Are you worried about my honor?
sharpdressedman: No, I know you don't have any. But now I actually am kinda worried you're going to get murdered. Possibly sex-murdered.
mikawesome: I've lived with two guys for more than a year already and I remain un-murdered, sex or otherwise. I'll be fine.
sharpdressedman: Whatever. So what's this guy's deal?
mikawesome: You're going to kill me.
sharpdressedman: That's a weird answer.
mikawesome: Shut up.
sharpdressedman: If that's how you react, then I probably will kill you. So why am I going to beat your new murderer - I mean roommate - to the punch?
mikawesome: Soooooo… I kinda forgot his name and most of the info he told me about himself. He mumbled it at me when I met him and I wasn't really paying attention. I was so distracted by how huge and clean the place was.
sharpdressedman: That actually made me laugh out loud. Nice knowing you.
mikawesome: I'll just look at his mail after I move in. He'll never know.
sharpdressedman: You stealthy bitch. I love it. So, speaking of roommates, guess who just solved his imminent poverty problem?
mikawesome: Two for two on the roommate front! I would high five you, but, you know, the whole "I have no idea who you are" thing.
sharpdressedman: Also I don't high five.
mikawesome: Why am I not surprised to learn that? I'm rolling my eyes at you right now, FYI.
mikawesome: Of course you are. So who's your new roomie?
sharpdressedman: Some girl. She's young, probably still in college. She's a bartender or something.
mikawesome: Is she cute? Are you gonna try to hit that?
Here, she feels a pang of jealousy as she types and hits send. She doesn't know his name or his face, but the idea of him having someone else in his life, someone whose eyes he can look into, someone real he can touch, makes her feel more alone than ever.
sharpdressedman: Hah, no way. She's pretty, but I try not to immediately ruin a roommate situation by sleeping with them and making things awkward.
mikawesome: But will you in the future?
She has to know. She has always been a glutton for punishment.
sharpdressedman: Maybe if the lease is running out and I never have to see her again. Otherwise, no.
Mikasa lets out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.
mikawesome: Do you think I should bang my murderer roommate? Will that make him more or less likely to kill me?
sharpdressedman: Way more likely. Maybe the only way he can orgasm is by choking the life out of you.
mikawesome: Are you speaking from experience there?
sharpdressedman: Duh.
mikawesome: Remind me never to meet you.
sharpdressedman: That was the plan all along.
mikawesome: I know. But sometimes I wonder what it would be like. Don't you?
sharpdressedman: I do. But I'm way better from behind a screen, trust me.
mikawesome: I guess…
sharpdressedman: Listen, I gotta go. I have to start getting this place ready for this girl to move in.
mikawesome: When is she moving in?
sharpdressedman: Sometime next week, so I don't have as much time as I'd like to really give the place a good deep clean.
mikawesome: You're insane. Have I ever told you that?
sharpdressedman: Only all the time.
mikawesome: Wouldn't want you to forget. ;)
sharpdressedman: And I never will, thanks to you.
sharpdressedman: Talk to you later?
mikawesome: Yup. I'll be here.
sharpdressedman: Good.
[User sharpdressedman has logged off.]