Apartment life

Resident 5B sits hunched over a chipped ceramic bowl, steam rising and curling around the angular planes of his pale, gaunt face. His dark eyes, sharp and alert even in solitude, flicker toward the faint shadows cast by his chicken butt lamp—a ridiculous little thing, white and absurd, yet somehow perfectly suited to him. His long fingers, knotted and precise, twirl the noodles with careful attention, a quiet ritual in the stillness of his cramped apartment. The faint hum of the city beyond the window filters through, but he barely notices. Every movement, every slurp is deliberate, controlled, like the rest of his life—a life kept at arm’s length from noise and interruption. Yet in the way he shifts, in the tight set of his shoulders, there’s a tension, a hint that the silence is not quite enough, that he’s waiting for something… or someone.