buddies :: 19 days [hiatus]

unos

Zhan Zheng Xi sat next to the grand window that overlooked the bright expanse of the city. He watched on as people laughed and smiled while walking up and down the street, and he wondered why he couldn't push himself to go out there; he wondered why he felt the need to be cooped up in his apartment at nine forty-seven on a Saturday night.

The blond's daily routine was based around how he had been brought up. When he was younger, his parents decided everything for him and told him what to do and how to feel. His parents had always taken care of him, financially and otherwise. Zheng Xi never really grew out of his old habits of sitting idle while everyone around him went off and did their own thing.

Heaving a sigh, he cast his gaze to the luminescent moon high above everything. The book that had been resting in his hands, unread, was now laid in his lap as his eyes scanned over the visible part of the celestial body, which tonight was a waxing crescent.

He was not incapable of doing things; he happened to be a very smart guy; he had even graduated as the salutatorian of his class without an ill-word to his name. Zheng Xi was monitored very closely when he was growing up. His parents made sure that he didn't have to lift a finger for anything. He knows that that wasn't the best thing for him as a child, but he couldn't change how he was raised now.

All that sitting at the window did was make him feel depressed. It just reminded him of how boring his life was and how he couldn't really change it. Day in and day out, it was the same routine over and over again. He mentally cursed himself for making himself sad.

He paced up and down his apartment, thinking of ways to change how everything was. He was even open for changing how his apartment looked. Zheng Xi didn't want to be this way all of his life. He hated being the one who had nothing.

Stopping his pacing, he stood in place and thought for a few minutes. The laughter from the street below echoed in his ears and the bright lights burned holes in his being. He wanted change. He needed change.

Then the sound of paper sliding across the tiled floor and clumsy footsteps in the hall reached him. It was very subtle, but it was definitely there. Everything around him was now silent as adrenaline coursed through his veins and his heart dropping to the pit of his stomach.

He turned his head to look at his apartment door. He didn't know what to do; it was obviously a drunkard, but he didn't know if the person was going to pass out in front of his house or if, when Zheng Xi opened the door, the person was going to deck him because they were a violent drunk. The boy pondered it for a few seconds, weighing the choice of opening his door, or leaving the drunk be.

What should I do? This hasn't ever happened before. How am I supposed to handle this situation?

What about my changes, though? I have to be open to all ideas, whether they are dangerous or not. I'm supposed to do things out of my comfort zone. What would the old Zheng Xi do? Probably not open the door because he was a weak loser. So, I guess the new Zheng Xi is going to open it. I mean, who cares if this guy kills me?

Breathing in and out methodically, he goes to open the door. He, with every step, was bracing himself to be hit in the face, or calling maintenance to retrieve an unconscious idiot. Hoping that it was the latter, he touched the cold metal doorknob, which sent shivers down his spine.

He turned the knob a few centimeters when he felt something under his foot. He knew that there were more pressing matters at hand, but couldn't resist when he saw that it was a paint swatch.

According to the card, the shade was "Stonington Grey", which, Zheng Xi thought, was a rather nice color. To his dismay, messily written words were sprawled over the entire little card. It was like he had to decipher a code of some sort the way it was written.

dear hope-to-be amigo,
yeah, okay, i may be hopelessly drunk and lonely as fuck. this is the only address that i can remember cause i used to live here. let's be buddies. not like sex buddies, but, like, friend buddies. i'm lost and have the major munches. a bit

And it wasn't legible after that. It wasn't really legible to begin with, but it was just scribbles from there on out. Zheng Xi forgot that the person who wrote this was right outside and probably knocked out cold. He stared at the bold lettering of the color name, unaware that the stumbling outside had ceased.

A random cheer was shouted outside of his apartment complex, and that was what brought him back from his trance. He quickly swung open the door to see the empty corridor; he walked out and scanned up and down the hallway with no luck of finding the mysterious person. The patterned carpeting just stretched on.

Zheng Xi, again, asked himself what he should do. And again he chose the road that he would never have chosen before. It was a wonder that he was able to go through with it, but his want of change outweighed everything else that had before kept him rooted to the spot in the same routine.

He ran inside and grabbed a jacket, slipped on a pair of shoes, turned off the lights, and was out the door in under two minutes. He took an elevator to the lobby and was out in the night city. It was a very daunting task to find this person. There could possibly be hundreds of people stumbling around tonight, alone and lost.

First, he looked for a person that was near the building, because the person couldn't have made much ground in that amount of time and giving the current state that they were in. There were two girls in high-end dresses walking down the street, arms linked together, towards a club not too far away; a guy with a grocery bag was headed towards the more prestigious part of town with a look of dread/fear/annoyance on his face; and a guy that was lying down in one of those bus booths, one of his long legs propped up on the bench he laid on. Zheng Xi took his chances and walked towards the booth.

The guy had his eyes closed, so he was presumed to be asleep. Zheng Xi was anxious because he wasn't sure if this was his guy or if this was just a homeless person, and he did not feel like making this guy's day worse.

His eyelashes brushed his cheeks as he slept, and Zheng Xi found himself wondering what color the boy's eyes were. The platinum blond hair he had didn't look very soft, but he was then proven wrong when he squatted down next to him and very gently touched his hair; it made his mood better, which was pretty odd. He was tall and lanky and too skinny for his height. His clothes looked relatively new and didn't look cheap at all, so Zheng Xi ruled out that he might be homeless.

The dirty blond looked at the boy trying to figure out what to do. He didn't fully think this through, and right now he was having a pretty hard time on deciding what was to be done.

Do I take him back to my place and let him sleep? Do I leave him here to most likely be robbed? Do I call him an Uber? What ab-

His thoughts were interrupted by a scream and, seconds later, a soreness spreading on his cheek. Zheng Xi's hand reflexively went to cover the pain that was spreading across his face and he fell back onto his butt.

"Who are you?" The boy asked, looking around crazily. "Jesus fucking Christ, who are you? Were you trying to steal my things?"

"I-I'm the guy who lives in your old apartment! Please calm down," Zheng Xi pleaded, also looking around trying to make sure he wasn't going to be arrested for "attempted theft" or disturbing the peace by a nearby police officer.

"Oh." The boy lowered his fist. "Dude, I'm so sorry for punching you. It was just an instinct to do so." His words were slightly slurred and his eyes were a bit hazy.

"You're fine," Zheng Xi sighed. He stood up and wiped of the dirt and tiny pebbles that stuck to his pants. He lightly touched where he had been hit, which in turn he flinched from the searing pain.

"Look, just come with me." The platinum blond followed after his bruised companion, his footfalls not so graceful. They entered the apartment building and rode the elevator up to the sixth floor. The alcohol running through him was at a standstill for a few seconds as he took in the memories of his old home. The mystery boy looked around in reminiscence as they entered Zheng Xi's home.