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We reached Sin’s home just as the night grew ripe.

It was less of a house and more of a small warehouse. It was one giant concrete cube sitting in between two paddy fields with its back facing a forest behind, and a giant mountain as a backdrop. The filth atop the roof seemed to have lived there longer than I’ve been alive. The house had next to no windows, and what little window there is, there wasn't any light source to be seen from within.

It felt like the kind of place where two people would go in and only one would come out.

“Here’s the humble abode,” Sin led me towards a wooden door that seemed to be hanging on its last, rusty hinge. She pulled it open with a sinister creak. Inside was complete and utter darkness. She stepped in and, with half her body still out in the moonlight, invited me to follow suit.

I hesitated for a second, but then I considered my choices. I followed.

"It's not much," Sin reached beyond the doorway and flicked open an unseen light switch, "But it's home." 

She wasn't being modest. It really wasn't much. It had just as much going for it inside as it did outside. The wall had exposed bricks; the floors, smooth concrete. I couldn’t see the ceiling as there wasn’t one. There was the underside of the same dirty roof I saw from outside, and an abundance of wooden planks crossing against one another with wiring wrapping across them. The wires reached across various parts of the house, but they primarily reached towards the lightbulbs dangling perilously from above. To give credit, the one Sin turned on was very bright, so much so that it lit up the entire place.

Not that the place was big, to begin with.

The house itself really is just one spacious room. There were other “rooms”, but they were just thick wooden panels slotted in between to form partitions. They didn’t even reach the roof; they were barely a head’s length taller than me. They didn’t have doors unless you counted thin curtains to be a form of such. As for the living area itself, there isn’t much. There was hardly any decorative spaces. There was a kitchen, a pantry and a dining area and some cupboards and drawers for what I presumed to be miscellaneous trinkets, all in the same space and within view of one another. Other than that- well, there is nothing else. There was one table fan on the dining table to make up for the lack of any ventilation.

I let out a whistle, “Not bad.”

“Ha, ha,” Sin took off her shoes and slanted it against the wall next to the door, “You’re funny.”

“I’m serious,” I followed after her, but instead of the wall I simply left my shoes on the floor at the opposite side of the doorway, “I used to sleep in trucks and shelters.”

Sin walked towards the dining table and placed her bag on one of the chairs, “Were you always homeless?”

“‘Vagabond’,” I reiterated once again that night, “And it was by choice. Not like I had many reasons to stay in one place. Work went everywhere.”

She turned on the table fan. It began oscillating as soon as she hit the switch, “What did you work as before this?”

“Odd jobs,” I remained where I stood whence I entered, “Heavy labour, mostly. Keeps me active. Not like I can do anything else.”

Sin took off her sweater vest and put it on one of the chairs. Beneath it was a white, wrinkled uniform shirt, permeated with sweat, “Can’t get hired as a cashier or something?”

I shook my head, “Shops need credentials.”

“Right,” she snapped her fingers, “So I’m technically housing an illegal now.”

“One way to put it,” I shrugged.

“Now you have to do what I say,” she let out a smug, opening a palm towards my direction before closing it into a tight fist, “I got all the dirt on you to tell the police.”

“Well, what’s stopping you now?”

“Boredom,” she released her fist, “What’s the fun in chasing away the new kid in town?”

“Vigilante thrill.”

She reached up towards her hair and undid her hairclip, dropping it onto the table. Her blonde bangs dropped down onto her face, shielding a great portion of her eyes, “No, I can think of something better.”

 

 

My eyes followed Sin as she walked towards a drawer sitting against the brick wall, “What’s that?”

“Aiding in criminal activity,” she grinned as she pulled out a hairband from one of the compartments.

“Now you have to do what I say,” I snorted, “I got all the fun you can’t have without me.”

Sin dragged the hairband across her forehead, pulling her bangs behind her hairline, returning new eyes into view, “You think that highly of yourself?”

“You think deportation bothers me?”

“Hmph, we’ll see about that,” she puffed out her chest as she walked towards me, “First order of business; a shower.”

“I thought you couldn’t smell.”

“I can’t smell but I’m not blind. I can see the grease on your hair and the dirt on your clothes.”

“Harsh.”

“Get in the shower before you give me more to sweep up.”

“Where’s the bathroom?”

Sin pointed towards the corner of the house where a “room” sat, partitioned from the main area by the wooden panels. This was the only “room” where the doorway had an actual door fixed to it. It was a cheap plastic folding door, but it was a door nonetheless.

I walked towards it. There was a mat sitting in front of the doorway. I reached out and slip open the door.

The bathroom was a “bathroom” in its most rudimentary sense. There was a tiny staircase that led three steps down towards a specially-tiled floor with space as wide as a lorry’s cargo hold. It had a sink and a mirror cabinet sitting above it. On the adjacent end was a showerhead and a tap beneath it, dripping onto an overflowing pail with a dipper floating atop like an aimless boat. Beside that was a tray trolley housing an assortment of bottles, most without labels. There was no toilet to be seen.

I looked around some more. There was a rather large open drain at one corner of the bathroom. There were some clothes racks on the wooden walls near the door with a white towel hanging off one of the hooks. That was about it.

I turned to my back, “Sin?”

She was in the open kitchen, fetching something from the refrigerator, “Yeah?”

“Are you doing okay in life?”

She came out of the refrigerator with a handful of ingredients, kicking the door shut, “What do you mean?”

I took another look at the bathroom. The four walls it had were split into two parts, with one part being the same brick materials as seen in the house itself and the other being wood panels. The latter was already rotting from below. The above wasn’t even fully covered. I reckoned I could look in from outside if I just tipped my toes a little.

It didn’t look like a bathroom, but a makeshift shower station carved out of the house itself before even having its walls considered.

This was barely a house in the first place, anyway. It looked like a converted warehouse if anything. In fact, I think it was precisely that. What kind of house gets built in the middle of nowhere right smack in between two paddy fields?

Though my curiosity laid more on not the property, but on the circumstances of its inhabitants.

Still standing above the bathroom staircase, I turned back again, “Who else lives here?”

“Just me,” Sin laid the ingredients across the kitchen counter and began work on the stove, “But my uncle would come to stay every once in a while if stuff needs fixing; a night every two months or something like that. This place is his, after all.”

Scratch that; my curiosity laid on the circumstances of the property’s ONLY inhabitant. I knew she had stories to tell behind all this, but that was a tale only time can divulge. It was up to me to cultivate that moment. For now, I’ll savour the present; as much as I could, at least.

I asked Sin, “You making dinner?”

She managed to get a fire started over her primitive-looking stove and was already pouring something into a pot as it simmered over the flames, “Fried vegetables and rice. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“I’ll take that.”

“And I’ll be done when you’re done with your shower if you’d just step in there right now,” she left the pot burning on the stove as she stormed towards me, “What’s the hold up?”

I surrendered and made my way down the staircase, stepping into the bathroom, “Nothing, I’m getting in.”

She stopped at the doorway, blowing a sigh, “Look, I know it’s not fancy, but it’s all I got. And I don’t think you’re in a position to decide.”

“I’m not choosing,” I shrugged, “But I would like a towel.”

Sin left the doorway for a moment. She came back with a towel; a big blue piece of absorbent fabric. She handed it to me. Out of security, I gave it a deep sniff the moment I got it.

"Ew," Sin recoiled, "What the hell?"

"Just making sure you didn't just hand me some unwashed doormat," I hung the towel over one of the racks next to the white one and began undoing one of my buttons, "You're good."

The girl leaned against the doorway, "Who do you take me for?"

"Hitchhiker murderer, for all I know."

"A hitchhiker murderer wouldn't cook their victims a meal beforehand, I reckon."

"Fattening the livestock before the slaughter."

"I'm starting to get a feeling why you sleep in trucks."

"To be fair," I undid the final button off my shirt, "The roommates don't usually stop to watch you undress."

The realization hit Sin in no time. She turned around, closing the plastic folding door behind her. Her voice was still clear, as the walls were only so tall. I could even see parts of the house beyond the wooden walls from where I stood.

“Just toss your clothes on the other side,” her words were slightly obscured by the increased bubbling coming from the pot on the stove in the kitchen, “I’ll deal with the washing up.”

I did exactly that, “Underwear too?”

There was a moment of silence before she replied, “Pervert.”

I took that as a yes.

I undid my ponytail and threw away my hairband towards the sink. I pushed the overflowing pail to the side and stepped under the showerhead. I began looking for a knob to let flow the water. There wasn’t one.

As if clairvoyant, Sin called out from afar, “Use the tap. Turn left for the shower. Right for the tap itself.”

She was right. The knob on the tap worked both ways. I turned the knob to the left and was assaulted by a torrent of near sub-zero water. It struck me by surprise, especially after a long, hot walk from the school to Sin’s house, so much so that I let out a sound loud enough to alert Sin herself.

“Damn, I didn’t heat up the water,” Sin shouted from beyond the wall, “You good?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I slowly became accustomed to the chilling temperature. I was more used to it anyway. Hot baths were a rarity for this; this felt more at home with me.

“I only shower after eating. I’d boil the water tank outside during cooking so it’ll be warm enough when I’m done. Wasn’t expecting a guest today, though.”

“You have to boil the water first?”

“It’s sourced from the rivers up the mountains. Gets real cold, especially at night.”

“Rivers? Up the mountains?”

“That’s what I said.”

“In the forest?”

“I think that’s what the mountains’ made of.”

“With wild animals and stuff?”

“We’ve got a few monkey sightings as of late, so yeah, I think there are some.”

“Wild animals that drink and piss and shit in the river?”

Sin was quiet for a moment.

A few seconds later, “We have a filter installed in the pipes.”

“Is it any good?”

“Look, I’m not dead yet, and I’ve drunk and showered here for years already. You’ll be fine, okay?”

I was sceptical, but as per her words, “Not like I’m in a position to decide.”

“Now you’re getting it.”

I turned the knob on the tap shut, but nudged it towards the right a little bit too much, and had another surge of cold water from the tap beating down my feet. It seemed it’ll take me some getting used to to live in this house.

I turned to my back, “You got soap?”

“Check the trays,” I could hear some chopping sounds coming from the kitchen, “Don’t use the ones at the bottom; they’re for cleaning.”

I turned towards the tray trolley beside the showerhead. There were three bottles on there, each with varying colours that indicated nothing beyond a different hue on its surface.

I simply picked one and pressed on the top, lathering my hand with some viscous substance. I lathered it between my palms and turned it into a thick, foaming pile.

I figured it’ll be fine. Soap is soap, after all.

 

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