The apartment is quiet this morning, still carrying traces of last night's laughter and the faint smell of takeout that nobody bothered to clean up. Sunlight cuts through the blinds in sharp white lines across the floor, catching dust motes drifting lazily through the air.

It's early, barely past seven, and the kitchen counter is still cluttered with empty cans and takeout containers. A single mug sits on the counter with coffee that's long gone cold, abandoned in favor of whatever chaos the night had brought.

The apartment is a shared space that nobody really remembers agreeing to, but everyone just kind of ended up here. It works. Mostly. The living room opens into a wide open floor plan, with a couch that's seen better days and a TV mounted on the wall. Down the hall, three bedrooms and a bathroom that everyone fights over in the mornings.

Today is the kind of day that starts slow, deceptively calm, before someone does something stupid and sets the whole place on fire. Metaphorically speaking. Or literally, given the company.

From somewhere deeper in the apartment, the sound of a shower running. From the couch, a blanket is bunched up and thrown over whoever fell asleep there last night, still breathing slow and heavy with sleep.

The front door is unlocked, as it always is, because nobody in this apartment believes in personal boundaries.