OMW (Other Me Walked)

The man? Creature? – sentient thing at most—woke as it always did: its heart clenched between its teeth and the vague but urgent impression it had...something it needed to do…somewhere.

As it lay there on familiar stone, slowly both conscience and feeling crept under his control. Who will he be today?

Cold, he muses, is an old friend. Ah, he realizes, that’s because I’m not wearing clothes. I wonder where I can find some. That depends on who came home.

With little passion, he looks to his right. In a pile, a dark, unstained, ugly orange hoodie and paint splattered, more hole than fabric jeans. His fingernail catches on the edge of the hoodie and he fingerwalks—more casual than clawing, but no less insistent—it closer.

Before he pulls it over his head, he traces hid skin for open wounds, dried blood, and other unsavoury residues. Stiches. This is his roommate’s favourite top. Regular wear and tear is, well, regular. Sweat, dirt, hell, even foodstuff—granted it wasn’t retrieved from his stomach—all okay.

CLANK, CLANK, CLANK. “Yo, you alive in there, brah?”

‘Brah’—not his name, but until he is someone else that’s who he’ll be—looks to the industrial door, the likes of which you’d see on a meat freezer or a vault.

“Brah?” He asks, seeped with amusement. At first, that name, ‘Brah’, had thrown him, even though he could make an assumption for who’s on the other side based on the tone and voice. “Trying someone new?”

“PsHAW,” the person outside blows a raspberry, furthering confirming her identity, “you’re one to talk.”

Inside the family bunker, underground safehouse, he is Sieben and she is Sechs. Outside? Depends on who’s asking. Sieben takes Sechs’ insult as she intended, like water on a duck’s back.

“Did Eins forbid you from entering or something?” Upon finding nothing that would have his roommate immediately pushing him into the shower—not that he should with stiches needing to be cleaned dry—he dresses himself in his roommate’s clothes, patting the pockets for the essentials.

Keys, cash, an apology for why he ditched the planned get together between him, his roommate, and his roommate’s friends, phone.

Actually, Sieben winces, scrap phone. He tries the button, buttons, on the side, sides. Shakes it. Slaps it against his palm, his leg. Still unresponsive.

“Say, you wouldn’t happen to have a charger on you”—

“No need.” The cool, dry timbre of Eins, oldest brother and therefore leader of his sibling underlings, themselves comes clearer than anything Sechs said before. “He’s been calling since 5am.” The heavy door swings open.

Framed in the doorway stands Eins in a pressed corporate suit with an unimpressed moue, and coincidently, an arm stretched out with a ringing flip phone. Sechs, understandably—though knowing her, reluctantly—absent.

“Sorry,” Sieben ducks his head and hurriedly takes the phone and call off his dear, patient brother’s hands.

Still, when he raises the phone to his ear and only gets heavy, red hot silence, it’s not immediately enough wake up The Roommate. He clears his throat, flipping mentally through The Roommate’s memories for the name of his roommate. “He—Hogo”—He’s barely able to finish his roommate’s name—breathing it like the revelation it is—before Hogo tears into him.

“FIVE HOURS. You turned off your Find My Friends FIVE HOURS before you were supposed to show up!”

Sieben smiles tightly at Eins and turns his back, stepping back into his room. Not that it’ll do much to prevent Hogo’s tinny shouts from carrying. Five hours huh. Yeah, that was deliberate.

For the next two- and a-bit minutes, Sieben nods and agrees and otherwise listens to Hogo scolding him for one, cementing the belief his friends held that he made up having a roommate, and b, not having the common decency to avoid going incommunicado in the first place.

“…this is exactly why Suitsan and I have each other’s numbers!” Another two minutes and Hogo is still going strong. Suitsan being Eins of course. Eins, like Sieben and Sechs, only existed for family.

“Yes, very smart of you,” Sieben says to his reflection in the cracked mirror propped up closest to the used bucket with the ruddy rag draped over one side and concaved portion of floor and subsequent drain. His face is gaunt, bony, and smudged. His hair is relatively unscathed, if spilling out of the loose braids whoever he was last night tied it into. The clothes are Hogo’s: stylishly oversized in that they hang off his frame while still showing an obscene amount of skin and big statement pieces with written, obvious messages.

“Jax”—Right, Jax. That’s me. Hogo’s roommate, Jax— “Jax. Hey, I’m waiting for an answer.” Hogo, despite having ranted himself hoarse, wasn’t angry. He also, in spite of no-longer-Sieben-now-Jax’s listless but punctual ‘hm’s and ‘yes Hogo’s, knew Jax heard every word and if pressed, could perfectly, tone, accent, inflection all, repeat it back.

“Yeah. I’m on my way to you,” Jax rattles his pockets once more. ID? If Hogo wasn’t exaggerating his friends’ conviction of his imaginariness, he’ll probably need governmental, legal documents.

“Tell him he has an hour!” A distant, then distinct voice proclaims. “And breakfast! Bring breakfast, Hogo’s favourite to prove you aren’t just someone answering an ad on short notice!”

“VEE!” Hogo roars—Jax hangs up, having nothing else to add and Hogo having the answer that really mattered.

“Here,” Jax hands Eins’ Hogo Only phone back, “and sorry if he woke you.”

Eins takes it, slipping it away in his breast pocket, humming. “When I saw the state in which Sechs dragged you in, I knew I wouldn’t be sleeping anyway. If he’s still bugging you about schools, I’d suggest nursing. So I’m not the only one with more than basic first aid training. You’re welcome, by the way.” They swipe their knuckles under their chin pointedly.

“Thanks,” He’d been careful to avoid picking at the stitches, “not just for last night.”

His brother steps out of the way, shooing him upwards. “Well, get on with it. Your true knight in shining armour awaits.” He straightens as soon as Jax is past. “Oh, and there should be some leftover spring rolls in your fridge,”

Right. He was going to make spring rolls for Hogo’s friends. Jax was going to surprise Hogo and simultaneously prove a long-standing arrangement. It’s not uncommon knowledge that Hogo always cooks. Nor is it out of character for their fridge to have weeks worth of homemade snacks. Only Jax knows that Hogo scowls over his preference for bland, easy on the stomach, bite-sized and therefore conveniently portable food, but he still stocks them. His friends will understand the significance of him bringing food not from a takeout container.

Jax nods, muttering another ‘thanks’, and takes the rickety wooden stairs two at a time. If in a pinch, they could be dismantled and so the basement wasn’t just a precautionary bunker, but a stronghold, a fortress. Pre-emptively he has tugged his hood up and lifted an elbow to his forehead.

The kitchen, which he enters on his hands and knees from a false cupboard, is blinding, reflective aluminium. Metal counters, metal storage, metal appliances. There are no blind spots. Every angle accounted for.

“Your boy knows we can hear everything, right?” Sechs thrusts a glass container at him, holding within some misshapen, soggy, opaque rice paper wrapped lumps of pork, chicken, carrot, cucumber, lettuce, cilantro, and/or avocado.

“Can’t chat,” Jax catches the precious cargo before it rebreaks his nose. “Only have…oh, fifty-three minutes?” He ducks under the resultant grapple and dances nimbly towards the back door and thus, freedom.

“Hah!” Sechs drops her arms onto the counter, as if that’s what she meant to, chin on knuckles, elbows on countertop. “Better run then, you little shit. I think you’re juuuuuuuuust about to miss your bus,”

“Shit.” Jax acknowledges with feeling. “Thanks for scraping me together off the street!” He doesn’t bother with the conditional clause of ‘again’ or ‘last night’. They both know for personal and professional reasons, this likely won’t be the last time either.

He crashes through the insulated, reinforced door into muggy, dew crusted, pre-dawn daylight. Just in time to hear the iconic huff and screech of the local, and therefore only, bus pull away from the curb at the end of bumfucknowhere street.