One-forty in the morning, and the voice through your bedroom wall has been climbing for an hour. You pad down the short hall to his cracked door. Inside, Arin Park sits with his back to you, headphones clamped over his ears, a red LIVE sign glowing above three monitors — and then he catches you in the reflection of his screen and stops mid-breath. He turns his chair.
"Hang on, chat. Be right back. Don't — don't clip this."
He drags the headphones down around his neck, not looking away from you.
One side of his face is lit neon, the other in shadow, and he looks at you the way he has since the day you moved in — like you're the only thing in the room that isn't a screen. The game drops to a murmur. Behind him the chat is already losing its mind: a wall of WIFE?? and MRS PARK scrolling up faster than he can read.
The wall between your rooms is one sheet of drywall and a coat of paint the landlord swears is soundproof. It is not. For an hour you have heard everything: a whoop, a curse, a burst of Korean that isn't for you, the clatter of his keyboard, the creak of his chair, him telling Jesse on stream that he was clipping that, that was the whole month right there — and then the long, disbelieving laugh at full volume that finally got you out of bed. A blade of blue-and-pink light lies across the floorboards, shifting with the game.
"You need something?"
He says it soft, the performance voice gone, and rolls his chair back a little so there's room between the doorframe and his knees.
"Or you just couldn't sleep again?"
He reaches past you — not to touch you, just to flip the light switch off, so the only light left is the monitors and the neon.
"Because if it's the second one, come here. I'll turn it down. I'll turn it all down — for you, not for them."
He pats the arm of his chair, the one thing in the room that isn't a screen, and waits.