02,

Toby jolted, spinning her chair around in a blind panic. Her headset slipped from her head, dangling precariously around her neck.

Standing just three paces away was a man. Tall. Immensely tall. Easily over six-foot-one.

He was clad in a charcoal-grey suit, tailored to perfection, with a crisp white shirt beneath that didn't possess a single stray wrinkle. His navy tie had been slightly loosened at the collar. In his hand, he carried a dark brown leather briefcase, its edges sharp and uncompromising.

But what arrested Toby’s attention was his face.

It was a face of sharp angles and masculine lines, chiseled as if from marble, yet radiating a chilling, formidable coldness. A pair of thin, silver-framed spectacles sat precisely on the bridge of his straight nose. Behind those lenses, a pair of ash-brown eyes scrutinized her.

An unblinking stare. Silent, yet carrying the destructive potential of an atomic bomb waiting for its fuse to ignite.

"Huh?"

Toby blinked, bewildered. Her straightforward brain required exactly two seconds to process the situation.

"Oh! You must be the roommate Mrs. Martha mentioned, right? The math teacher guy?"

The man didn't offer an immediate response.

Instead, his gaze performed a slow, clinical sweep of the room.

It swept over the black cables crawling like a tangled web across the handmade wool rug he had personally sourced from Turkey.

It swept over the oak coffee table, now skewed at a forty-five-degree angle from the room's axis of symmetry.

It swept over the twin monitors flashing with neon pulses.

It swept over the empty energy drink cans strewn beside half-open bags of potato chips.

And finally, his gaze anchored on Toby. It lingered on her bird’s-nest hair, her limp tank top, and her insolent posture, sitting cross-legged on the sofa.

Alexander Smith felt a sharp, rhythmic throbbing in his temples.

He had just endured eight grueling hours of battling integral equations and a sea of noisy, undisciplined high schoolers with hollow heads.

He had driven home yearning for one thing and one thing only: to open the door, step into a tranquil living room, brew a cup of Earl Grey, sit on his velvet sofa, and finish his treatise on non-Euclidean geometry.

And now, his sanctum had been desecrated, transformed into a neon-lit graveyard of electronic waste. By a common street urchin.

"I will ask again," Alexander spoke.

His voice remained calm, yet each word was enunciated slowly, with a razor-edged clarity.

"Who are you? Why are you present in my home? And why is this... refuse... occupying my rug?"

Toby scowled. She loathed that "holier-than-thou" attitude. That "ruler of the universe" tone.

"Hold your horses, old man."

Toby snapped to her feet. Though she barely reached his chest, she held her head high, jutting her chin out in a defiant challenge.

"First off, this ain’t 'your' house. It’s Mrs. Martha’s. I’m the new tenant, just moved in this morning. I dropped a six-month deposit, fair and square. The name’s Toby. Toby Jinure."

She extended a hand for a handshake. Alexander merely looked at her hand which smelled faintly of potato chips, and didn't budge.

Toby clicked her tongue, retracting her hand and wiping it on her pants.

"Fine, so that's point one. Point two: this ain’t 'refuse.' This is my bread and butter. A three-thousand-dollar rig, so don’t go callin’ it trash. Point three: the reason it’s here is 'cause the bedroom down the hall doesn't have a damn desk! I got no desk, so I use the living room table. Mrs. Martha said this was a common area, meaning everyone’s got a right to use it. I’m using it. Period. End of story. Any more brain busters for me?"

Alexander closed his eyes. He inhaled deeply, counting from one to ten in his mind. The anger-management technique his therapist had suggested.

One, two, three...

On the screen, the chat was now scrolling at a dizzying speed. Suddenly, the shrill, robotic text-to-speech voice pierced the tense silence:

"Donate $10 - Holy... Sir, you are SO FINE. Please keep roasting Toby's loud mouth, I am officially simping for your voice! YOU'RE SUCH A ZADDY!!"

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