Word Count: 2547

Lovely went over to Ilian's apartment in the morning and finally gave into his frustrations. He grabbed a brick he found by the mailboxes and threw it straight through Ilian's front window.

Some woman a few apartments down screamed bloody murder. Lovely was sure she meant to call the cops but couldn't find it in himself to care. In any case, he heard Ilian's neighbor say, “Don't worry. That's just Ilian's boyfriend.”

Lovely didn't remain on the landing long enough to see if this explanation was enough for the screaming woman. He kicked more glass away from the window and climbed inside. He was glad he was wearing gloves, otherwise he would have cut his hand on a piece of glass on the way in.

He left the brick where it had landed on the living room floor, but at least made the effort to push most of the bigger pieces of glass into a pile with the toe of his foot. He looked around the living-room but saw nothing that was out of place. Just a couch with a sheet over it, a heavily scratched and gouged coffee table, and an old TV sitting on a stand that didn't look like it would hold up under it's weight for long.

The TV was one of the newer additions to the drab décor. Lovely had complained about the absence of one around a month or two ago when he'd come over to make sure Ilian patched himself up after a fight with a Senshi. He'd followed this complaint by shoving money into Ilian's hand, demanding he find something suitable. He would have preferred something new, but Ilian was stupid and apparently felt awkward spending Lovely's money, so he settled for one someone was selling on Craigslist and accepted a single one-hundred dollar bill from Lovely to pay for it.

Lovely rolled his eyes at the memory.

Behind him, a woman's face appeared in the window.

“You'd better pay for that!” she shouted. It was the woman who'd been screaming before.

“No s**t,” Lovely said, tossing a disgusted look over his shoulder.

He continued his way into the apartment, checking the dark bathroom. He riffled through the medicine cabinet, not entirely sure what he expected to find. Despite what he'd said to Ilian's neighbor just yesterday, he was sure Ilian wasn't into drugs. All he found was a bottle of store brand ibuprofen and a medical kit that couldn't possibly be much help with the kind of injuries they often sustained. A toothbrush sat inconspicuously in its holder. There was a hairbrush on the counter. He pulled the shower curtain open and found a half empty bottle of shampoo, a bar of soap, and nothing more.

He moved on into Ilian's bedroom. Everything was neat and orderly. But that wasn't very surprising. It wasn't like Ilian owned much. Can't make a mess out of a whole lot of nothing.

There was a twin bed, a rickety side table with a small lamp on it, and a beat up dresser that had seen better days. It looked like it might have been painted to look nice once, but now it was scuffed in places and some of the paint was cracked and peeling. Ilian didn't have a desk. No computer either. Lovely knew he went to the library for that. In the place of where one might have been sat a keyboard. It was, perhaps, the only thing in the apartment that looked new.

The room didn't receive much light from it's solitary window because the apartment building was backed up against a hill. Lovely didn't really understand what the point of the window was, considering it looked out at nothing but dirt. He turned on the lamp to have some dim light to look around by. He saw nothing out of the ordinary. The bed was neatly made, and there was nothing on the side table or dresser. The only thing that seemed to throw off the sense of orderliness about the room was Ilian's school bag on the floor beneath the window.

For some reason Lovely felt the need to go through Ilian's dresser drawers, as if he might find some sort of clue by riffling through his clothes. There wasn't much to look through—a couple of pairs of jeans, a handful of t-shirts, some underwear (ew) and socks, and a faded sweater or two. Lovely was sure most (if not all) of it had been bought second hand.

He went through Ilian's school bag next. He found nothing but a few notebooks and battered textbooks. Lovely wrinkled his nose at one book that was coming apart at the seam. Either Hillworth didn't give s**t about providing its students with new textbooks, or Ilian had been the unlucky son of a b***h who got handed an old ******** useless,” Lovely mumbled to himself.

He left the room to drift into the kitchen. Everything was much the same there. There were no dishes in the sink, no food out on the counter. Lovely peered into the fridge but didn't find anything except some cheap soda and a bowl of leftover macaroni and cheese. And not the good kind. The nasty kind from a box. The cabinets were just as empty, housing a few old and dented pots and pans. He found a few pieces of silverware in one of the drawers, enough for three or four people at a stretch, along with all the junk people collected that didn't have anywhere else to go. Instruction manuals and flashlights. A package of batteries.

There was a small stack of mail on the counter. Lovely riffled through it. Phone bill. Electric bill. Water bill. Rent notice. For a few seconds he considered leaving it all there. Then he had a change of heart and took his gloves off to begin tearing the envelopes open.

“Isn't opening someone else's mail a federal crime?” This time it was Ilian's greasy neighbor's face peering in through the broken window.

“Shut the ******** up,” Lovely said.

“You already broke into his apartment. You don't have any right to that s**t.”

“I can do whatever the ******** I want. I'm his ******** boyfriend.”

He said it with absolutely no hesitation. His voice was firm. It galled him to use this man's assumptions as a defense. He almost gagged, but Ilian's neighbor merely rolled his eyes at it and seemed to give up the argument.

“Nice to finally hear you admit it.”

“Go the ******** away,” Lovely said. “Your ******** smoke is wafting into the apartment.”

“No helping that with the broken window.”

Lovely glared at him. Ilian's neighbor lifted his hands in surrender and walked away.

The bills were a problem. Most of them had due dates that were fast approaching. If Ilian ever came back, he'd probably cry like a little b***h if he returned to an apartment without power. Lovely sighed and pulled out one of his credit cards. One of the ones that wasn't broken. He searched around for a pen, scribbled his information onto the provided forms, and sealed them into the proper envelopes. He looked around for stamps and found just enough to complete his task. He'd have to remember to buy Ilian more later.

He paused. What a strange thought. It wasn't like him to be so altruistic. He didn't usually do things for people without expecting something in return. Yet here he was paying Ilian's bills and planning to buy him s**t to replace what had already been used.

Lovely shook his head. It was only because Ilian handled his energy quota for him. There was nothing more to it than that.

He unlocked the front door and exited for just a moment to slide the envelopes into the proper slot in the group of mailboxes. Apparently his actions had caused a small crowd to gather. He turned back around and stared at a number of unfamiliar faces.

“What the ******** do you want?” he said.

A few of them shrugged and shuffled their feet like they meant to walk away. One woman with a baby on her hip looked at him suspiciously.

“You got a name, sweetie?” she asked.

Lovely frowned at her. He hated terms of endearment.

“Lovely,” he said anyway.

“What?” the woman said. Ilian's neighbor, who always seemed to be outside smoking, gave him a weird look.

“My name,” Lovely said. “It's Lovely.”

The woman frowned. She probably thought he was pulling her leg. Ilian's neighbor cackled amusedly.

“Your mom actually named you that?” he said.

Lovely glared at him (he always seemed to be glaring at him). He wasn't in the mood to explain, so he said, “If it ******** bothers you then you can ******** call me Leigh.”

“You Ilian's boyfriend, Leigh?” the woman asked.

He shouldn't have said anything. He should have just glared at her until she took the hint and walked away. It wasn't like it was any of her business. She should keep her ******** questions to herself and worry about her own sad excuse of a life.

But he was tired of people nagging at him.

“Yes,” he said.

“You're not from around here,” the woman observed as she looked him over.

“So?”

“How'd a kid like you end up with Ilian?”

“How is that any of your ******** business?”

“You just broke into his apartment,” she said. “Didn't he give you a key?”

“Do you think I would have broken in if he had?”

“Obviously he doesn't want you in ******** you,” Lovely said. “You don't know jack s**t.”

The woman turned to Ilian's neighbor and said, “He's a rude one.”

“I'm standing right here,” Lovely said.

“Ilian could do better.”

“For the love of... <********>. Just ******** leave me alone. I'm trying to find out where the ******** Ilian is, and none of you are being at all helpful.”

“You called the cops yet?” Ilian's neighbor asked.

Lovely just stared him dead in the eyes and said nothing.

“Whatever, man. Do what you want.”

“Thank you,” Lovely said. “Not that I need your ******** permission.”

He turned to head back inside Ilian's apartment. Before he shut the door, he heard the woman say, “I wonder what Ilian sees in him.”

Not that he wouldn't have heard her anyway, considering the window was indeed broken.

Lovely returned to the kitchen and scrounged around in the drawers again. He shuffled through papers and random, impersonal s**t he didn't take the time to look over. Eventually, he came across what he was looking for. A silver key gleamed from beneath a pile of instruction manuals.

He took it and tested it out on the front door to make sure it worked. It did. Lovely shoved it into his pocket for later use.

Then he realized he had absolutely nothing to do. There wasn't anything to show what had happened to Ilian. Not even anything to show when he'd last been in his apartment. It was empty and drab and lonely. And cold. Lovely checked the thermostat and saw it set at ********,” he said. He adjusted it to 70. If Ilian bitched about it later, Lovely would just pay the electric bill. Again.

Not that it would help with the window broken.

He should really make sure he got that fixed.

Lovely wondered how Ilian could tolerate living there and soon realized it was probably the only thing Ilian had ever really known. Well, he knew Ilian's parents hadn't been quite as poor. Probably middle class if he had to guess, but Lovely also knew Ilian's parents had died when Ilian was only eight years old. He didn't imagine foster care had been very kind to Ilian. Lovely heard enough horror stories. There were some exceptions, of course, as there were exceptions to everything, but Lovely was cynical enough to assume they were few and far between.

He almost felt guilty. He hated that. He didn't want to feel guilty. It wasn't like there was anything he could do about it. Ilian usually refused to take his money whenever Lovely offered it, so it was really Ilian's fault that his living conditions were subpar. He could afford some nicer things if he'd just accept a little charity every now and then.

Not that it was in Lovely's nature to be charitable. He just preferred not to come over to an apartment that was a complete dump, and if investing a little money in Ilian would help with that, then it suited him just fine.

Lovely sighed heavily. He looked around but realized he had nothing to go on. He didn't know what he'd expected to find. He wasn't even all that surprised that his attempts had turned up nothing. The sense of accomplishment he'd felt upon actually entering the apartment quickly died. Ilian was still gone, and Lovely was still at a loss.

He grabbed his gloves from the kitchen counter and put them back on. He dragged his feet on the way out of the apartment. He shut the door behind him and locked it with his newly acquired key.

“Not gonna stop anyone from getting in,” Ilian's neighbor said.

“Shut the ******** up,” Lovely spat. “I'll ******** fix it.”

“Now?”

“What the ******** does it matter to you?”

The man shrugged. “Don't want anyone else sneaking in to steal something.”

“There's not really anything to steal,” Lovely said.

Nothing he couldn't replace, anyway.

Lovely stared around the landing. There were cigarette butts and empty beer cans and bottles everywhere. A few apartments down, a pile of (what he hoped were empty) pizza boxes sat outside the door. He heard shouting from upstairs and loud music from the other end of the complex. The woman with the baby was on her way back inside. Lovely could hear the brat screaming. Before he could head back to his car, another woman came trotting down the stairs that rose up the side of the building to the floors above. She, like Ilian's neighbor, did not wear clothing appropriate for the winter weather. Her skirt was short and she wore a noticeable amount of makeup. Lovely, in his ignorance and prejudice, assumed she was a hooker. Or a stripper. Or both.

He felt disgusted and sad. He couldn't believe he'd ended up friends with someone who lived in a place like this. He couldn't believe he came over here voluntarily and wasted his time around these people, when he had a large, comfortable home of his own. It didn't really make much sense. He and Ilian lived in two completely different worlds.

Yet here he was, taking time out of his day to look for his friend on the wrong side of town. He broke into Ilian's apartment, looked through his things, and paid his bills.

That wasn't like him at all.

“You satisfied now?” Ilian's neighbor asked him.

Lovely pocketed the spare key and went to his car. He tossed the answer over his shoulder.

“No.”