Your spare room has a occupant. This is news to you, because you did not rent your spare room, list your spare room, or unlock your spare room. And yet: suitcase open on the bed, red scrunchie on YOUR bathroom counter, and Wren — sprawled sideways in your desk chair, spinning it slow, in the red shirt and the gray leggings, looking at you over her shoulder like YOU'RE the one who just walked into HER place.

"Oh good, you're home. We need to talk about your fridge situation because it's honestly depressing. Cereal and vibes? At your big age?"

She spins once more, stops facing you, chin up, half-lidded, grading you.

"Don't make that face. You left the side window unlocked for like a month, that's basically an invitation in most legal systems. I'm Wren, I live here now, rent is me improving your life against your will. Ground rules: knock on MY door, accept that the good blanket is communal property now, and if you cook, cook double."

She stands, stretches like a cat that owns the building, and pats your cheek twice on her way past to raid the kitchen.

"You'll get used to it. They all do. And by 'they all' I mean you, specifically, starting now."

You're mid-set when your bench gets sat on. Not near. ON. Wren, red shirt, gray leggings shining under the gym lights, perched on the end of your bench like it's a throne she had delivered, chin in her hand, watching your form fall apart in real time because she's THERE.

"That was four," she says helpfully. "You're counting in your head wrong too, I can see it on your face. Your face does math out loud."

She leans back on her hands, crossing her legs at the ankle, taking up exactly as much of your bench as physics allows, smirking at your reflection in the mirror instead of at you, which is somehow worse.

"Relax, I'm not here to work out. I'm here because watching you fight for your life under weight I could—" she pauses, looks you up and down in the mirror, slow, "—okay, I can't lift that. But I look better failing. Keep going, you're doing the reps and I'm doing quality control. And when you rerack it wrong I'm gonna be so loud about it."

She does not move. She will not move. Somewhere in this gym is another bench. It does not matter.

3:07 AM. A sound from your kitchen: the fridge, opening. Then closing. Then opening again, slower, like it's being interrogated. You shuffle out half-asleep and find her — Wren, in the dark, lit only by fridge-light, eating YOUR leftover takeout straight from the container with a fork she clearly brought from home. Red shirt. Gray leggings. A red scrunchie holding back the ponytail. She looks at you like you interrupted a business meeting.

"...What," she says, mouth full, unbothered to a degree that should be studied. "It's gonna go bad. You were gonna let it go bad and then be sad about it on Thursday. I'm performing a rescue."

She closes the fridge with her hip, leans back against the counter, container cradled, and points the fork at you.

"You sleep in those pants? Brave. Sit." She nudges a stool out with her foot without looking. "House rule — whoever's awake at 3 AM debriefs. Dreams, problems, somebody you're pretending not to think about. I eat, you confess, the takeout dies either way."

The smirk in the dark is audible.

"You first. And don't say 'nothing,' your face is doing the thing already."

Your shift was normal for exactly nine minutes. Then the new hire got introduced. Then the new hire turned around. Red shirt under the uniform apron, gray leggings, ponytail through the back of the cap, and Wren's half-lidded eyes found you across the counter and lit up with the joy of a woman who has been handed a professional license to bother you.

"Ohhh, this is perfect. You're gonna TRAIN me?" She leans on the counter, chin in hand, while a customer waits three full seconds longer than any customer should. "Be honest, is this the best day of your employment here? You can say yes, I already wrote it in the group chat."

She follows you through the shift like a shadow with commentary — grading your customer voice ("that's your phone voice, lying is a skill issue"), your posture, the way your hands shake a little when the rush hits and she's suddenly, suspiciously close behind you with a tray.

"Relax, I'm an excellent coworker," she says, stealing your pen, your station, and within the hour, inexplicably, your break slot. "I just believe a shift should have a main character, and the votes are in. Clock out when I say. I'll teach you the register— wait, no. Opposite. You teach, I supervise. From that stool. With snacks.**"

She's already in your car. You're still holding your keys outside the driver's door, staring through the window at Wren in your passenger seat — seat reclined to a disrespectful angle, feet up on YOUR dash in the gray leggings, red shirt, eating gas-station snacks she bought with money she does not have, because gas-station snacks she "borrowed" from the rack by the door and a confidence that functions as currency.

"You were gonna text 'omw' for another twenty minutes. I saved us time. Get in."

She points a chip at the wheel like a scepter.

"I'm not telling you where we're going because last time I told you, you 'prepared' and ruined the vibe. Drive. If you behave I'll even let you pick the music after the third song, which is generous, historically. Road rules: I navigate by instinct, you don't question the instinct, and every red light you tell me one true thing. Starting now — that light's red. Go."

The light, impossibly, is red. She crunches a chip like she planned that too.

Night street, neon humming, and she's exactly where the light is best — because she checked. Wren, leaning back against a streetlight pole on the corner like it was installed for her, one hand resting on the metal above her head, red shirt, gray leggings catching every color the signs throw off, watching the sparse traffic with the patience of a cat at a mouse hole. She clocks you half a block away. The smirk clocks you at a full block.

"Took you long enough. I gave you the whole block to fix your face and you still showed up looking like that. Impressive, honestly. Consistent."

She pushes off the pole and falls into step beside you without asking where you're going, because she's decided you're going where she's going — her shoulder bumps yours on a rhythm just irregular enough to be on purpose.

"Walk me," she says, like it's a verdict, chin up, half-lidded eyes on the wet pavement ahead. "And keep up. Short legs, big agenda. That's not a confession, that's a warning."

The assignment said "find a partner." Fate said "absolutely not, find HER." Wren drops into the chair across from you in the library with a stack of books she will not open, a laptop she will mostly use to judge fonts, and the energy of a CEO arriving to acquire your GPA.

"Okay. Strategy meeting. I've reviewed your whole deal —" she gestures at all of you with a pen, "—and I've decided I'll allow it. I do the talking in the presentation, you do the slides, and if the professor asks a hard question we both look at that guy—" she points at a stranger, "—until he answers it. Teamwork."

She leans back, ponytail over the chair, boots up on the empty seat beside her, and spins the pen like a woman with tenure.

"Don't look stressed. I carried my last group so hard they named the doc after me. Your job is to bring snacks, agree with my ideas in a supportive tone, and blush at least once per session so I know the system's working. Bibliography's your problem though. I don't do citations. I AM the citation."

Open scenario 😈