You Can't Stop Rain From Falling

Chapter One: Hi, My name is Matt!

Hey, Journal-

This is Mello. I'm starting college today, so I might not be writing for a while. They have 'apartments' on campus, so I'm sharing a loft with some guy named Matt. Guys at the office told me he's taking filmography and music for his majors. I didn't even know 'music' was a major. I thought it would be called like, musicology or something. Isn't it!? Those guys at the office (or girls, I should say) are utter fags. Oh, well. He's learning film and music for his majors.

THERE.

I have to take my anxiety meds and meet Matt. I'll be dead for the next six hours, so. See you. See me, I guess. I hate you, journal. I just want you to know that. I'm the only straight man with a journal. I hate you.

-Mello

Mello tugged the clasp on his journal tight and stuck it in his bag, blinking distastefully up at the set of apartment/lofts on the WGU campus. Why was it called a 'campus', huh? No one ever camped on it, or anything. Mello chewed his bottom lip, and debated what to do. Go up there and meet his roommate, sharing too-close quarters with him for the next two years at least, or turn right around and go back to living and working in a soup kitchen. …

"Fuck it."

Mello stormed up the steps and through the doors, into the scholarship dormitories. He was intent upon having a thoroughly bad time from then-on-out, and took the stairs up to the fifteenth floor. His number was 66A…

It was in the middle of the hall on the left, but there were no doors past it. Mello frowned, and knocked.

Music was playing- Beethoven, he thought aimlessly. When no one answered after a few minutes, he knocked a little harder.

"Spare key's under the mat," came a soft, but clear voice. Gee, thanks. Mello glanced down at a stupid welcome mat, and kicked the corner aside. Spare key. He took it and unlocked the door, and then slipped the key in his pocket. Two occupants, two keys. No spare. He pushed open the door, and almost wished he hadn't.

Cigarette smoke came foiling out in waves, surrounding him and choking him. Mello shut his eyes, and then opened them. The loft was huge- big enough to occupy a lot more than two people. Paintings covered the walls, and a few were tacked haphazardly to the banister and the staircase, leading up to what was no doubt the bedroom-slash-bathroom set. But there was so much smoke! Matt was turned with his back to Mello, but the blond could clearly see a cigarette dangling from his lips.

"Oi," he shouted, dropping his bags and folding his arms. "It says no smoking outside."

"Exactly. We're not outside, are we?" he had a vague Irish accent. Mello hadn't noticed it the first time. It was sort of nice, in a way. "The sign is outside, jackass," he growled, storming inside, stepping on paintings. "It says no smoking in the dorms."

"Well, I've been living alone here for a year, and quite frankly, I don't give a damn…" he whirled around, and poked Mello's nose with the paint brush. "Blondie."

Mello was stunned, to say the least.

Matt was tall, and a little too skinny to be healthy. His eyes were big- bigger, than big, they were huge. But they weren't buggy or anything creepy. They were the palest shade of green, dipping into blue. Call Mello poetic, but it was beautiful, and there was no other way to describe it. Matt's hair was auburn, leaning towards 'maroon'. Wine red. It was a little strange. Like the room.

"Well, I do," he argued back, and turned away from the guy. What was that? "Open the windows." Matt raised an eyebrow, watching his new roommate amusedly. "Yes, ma'am. They told me my new bunkie was androgynous, but damn."

"What!?"

Matt let out a loud laugh- it, like his voice, had a soft, friendly quality to it, but it was also loud, and Mello couldn't help liking it. It pissed him off more than anything. "And I figured I'd be sharing my loft with a man." Matt jabbed Mello playfully in the back as he slipped by him and started to open the windows. Mello flushed dark red. "Very funny!" he mana-ged. Matt didn't seem to hear him.

Mello glanced over at the painting Matt had been working on - the guy seemed to do a lot of abstract work, judging by the amount of just colored canvases around the room, but this painting was a little different. It was a woman, painted pale blue, with white outlining her breasts and her vagina. The subject content wasn't technically appropriate, but it was a really good piece of work. The canvas was black.

"Who is this?" Mello found himself asking, as Matt tossed his fag out of the last window he opened. The red-head glanced over. "That's my mother," he said casually, and grabbed the paint brush off of his stool.

Mello stared. "You painted your mother naked?"

"Well, no. This is who I want for my mother." Matt smiled wryly and started painting again. "What's your real mother like?"

"She's not around." The answer was short, simple, and left little room for questions. It was open for interpretation, apparently. "What's yours up to, hm?"

"Probably fucking for a sandwich in Saxony," Mello murmured, suddenly interested in his shoulder bag. Matt glanced over. "Germany?"

"How many Saxony's are there?"

"I dunno. It's a big world." Mello hooked a finger around his anxiety pills and took 'em out. "She was a whore," he offered slowly. "Is a whore. I dunno. She's like, thirty now or something."

"Did she have you when she was ten or something?"

"I'm not that old!" Mello retorted, popping three little white beta-blockers in his mouth. "Close enough, though. I don't really care all that much."

Matt was silent, painting his picture and swaying along to Fur Elise. Mello watched him for a while, and then left him. He took his bags upstairs, and looked into the bedroom. It was mostly empty, except for two single beds and a wide nightstand between them. Matt had apparently claimed the bed by the window as his own, because the covers were a little messy, and a bottle of meds stood on that side of the nightstand. So he was medicated, too. Mello wanted to know why, but he didn't dare go over and look at it. Matt didn't seem to have a lot of possessions, and he kept the rooms fairly clean. It was all the paintings that bothered Mello. They were tacked up in the closet, in the bathroom, on the ceilings and in the kitchen. There was even one in the refrigerator. The art seemed to own Matt, absorb him and turn him into it. It was a little bit strange. And the content wasn't all that pleasing, sometimes. The refrigerator-painting depicted a guy with raccoon eyes and black hair falling in part of it, with the grinning face of a man painted into the background. How did Matt come up with this stuff?

Mello watched the sun set in the loft's main room, with Matt painting away and occasionally singing random words set to the Beethoven tunes. When he finished 'Naked Lady', as he had decided to so creatively dub it, he tacked it up near the front door.

Mello didn't want to tell him he couldn't put his paintings up, but they were starting to irritate him, the more he thought about them.

"Want to go get some dinner?" Mello had been staring at the ground. "What are you feeling up to?" he asked vaguely. Matt smiled and pulled Mello into a straighter standing-up position. "Pizza sound good to you?"

"Are you paying?"

"Hell, no."

"Well, I guess we're not eating."

"Let me get my wallet."

Hey, Journal-

It's Mello again. Matt is an artist, as it turns out. And a damn good one. But he smokes. It's gross and destructive. But I guess he can smoke, as long as all the windows are open and he doesn't puff it in my face. He's got sort of an Irish accent, almost. And his voice is really quiet. It's nice. I don't know what to make of him just yet. I think I like him. As a friend. Why am I defending my orientation to a journal? Ahh. I guess I'm just reminding myself that I do have to share a room with this guy, and it's not wise to piss him off or let him think I'm anything but straight.

Like I'll ever read this entry again.

-Mello

P.S. I think I have a cavity. I brush my teeth! I brush them!