Ren bought some sustenance for the night before heading to his flat. He approached his building and he heard it as soon as he entered the lift: the loud thumping noise, the tremble in the foundations. He didn’t need to arrive on his floor to know his neighbours were at it again. He needed sleep.

The door to their flat was open and he saw a guy standing by the door, kissing a girl. The guy looked at Ren, and as Ren opened his door, he realised who the man was. He was the same man that had gone mental on Ren when he had accidentally caused him to spill his beer. Ren whispered a curse. Of course, the annoying next-door neighbour was a rude man. Why would it be any other way? Ren locked the door behind himself as the room removed a decibel of the noise but none of the bass. He switched the lights on and stored some of his shopping in the minuscule fridge. He grabbed a packet of crisps and put on his headphones.

He played a movie on his tablet and popped the crisps open, trying to ignore the grinding sensation on his bones from the music he was trying to drown.

He opened his eyes, and the tablet was still playing a film. He must have fallen asleep, which was never a good sign. His body was desperately trying to rest. And now that he had dozed off for a few minutes, his brain had been wired, and he would not shut an eye for the rest of the night.

The film credits darkened the room, and Ren put the tablet on the coffee table and attempted to resume his sleep. It was to no avail and he knew it. If it wasn’t the music, it was the people, and if it wasn’t the people, it was the door opening and closing every two seconds. Surely everyone would have left by the point he heard the hundredth door slam, but even if that was the case, the music remained strong.

Ren checked his phone after what felt like an eternity and discovered it was two in the morning. He needed sleep. He needed to rest. What had Jimmy said about the matter? That Ren paid rent as much as they did and he had every right? He didn’t know if he had a right, but he was surely getting irritated by their lack of compassion. Why wasn’t anyone else complaining? They were in a building full of residents; he couldn’t possibly be the only one disturbed by the overnight parties.

He jumped out of bed and opened the door. The neighbours’ was shut, and Ren knocked on it. He waited. No one answered. He knocked again, louder this time. The guy Ren loathed by that point appeared and looked at Ren with a deep frown.

‘What?’ he shouted.

‘Would you mind turning the music down? I’m trying to sleep. And it’s two a.m.,’ Ren said. His knees wobbled and his voice faltered, but he stood his ground.

The man turned to the girl he had been snogging earlier. She joined him and he draped his arm around her neck. ‘Baby, he wants us to turn the music off because he’s trying to sleep.’ His face was stern and when she turned to look at Ren, he cracked up.

Ren looked inside the house. Other than a couple more people, there was no one else. A couple of guys were smoking around the sofa and a girl was staring at her phone, illuminated by its brightness. They were not even having a party. There was no reason for such volume.

The girl laughed as well. She put her finger in her mouth and whistled. The two guys and the other girl turned to her. ‘Stop the music, guys. The asshole wants to sleep,’ she shouted from the top of her lungs.

‘Fuck you,’ said the girl who’d been on her phone, and she resumed her previous activity.

One of the guys who were smoking gave him the finger, while the other one grumbled, ‘Go back to your country, monkey.’

What had Ren ever done to them? Why were they speaking to him in that way? And why wasn’t anyone else complaining about this shit? He couldn’t be the only one in this building that couldn’t sleep because of them. Was Ren being too sensitive? Was this typical behaviour in Greece?

The girl shut the door in Ren’s face, so he returned to his flat. He hit the back of his head on the door as he leant on it.

‘I just want to sleep,’ he begged and slid to the floor. By the time his ass hit it, tears were running down his face, and there was nothing he could do to stop them. Pretty much like his arsehole neighbours.

At five in the morning, the music died, and he collapsed on the bed, knowing he had to get up in less than three hours.

‘Not again!’ he mumbled when a piercing noise penetrated his ears.

When he opened his eyes, he realised it was the bell and not the neighbours having another go.  He opened the door and saw, for the third time that week, Jimmy, coffee in hand and rucksack on his back.

‘You look like shit. What’s wrong?’ he said. It still made Ren chuckle how Jimmy pronounced the word shit, almost like the word seat.

In response to his question, Ren glared at the door next to him and Jimmy looked at it. He came in and passed Ren a coffee. Ren was getting used to the taste of frappé. He still didn’t like instant coffee, but somehow it was more than bearable cold.

‘You are kidding me. This is the fourth time this week,’ Jimmy exclaimed.

‘I know.’ Ren rubbed his eyes and the coffee in his mouth kick-started his brain.

‘You’ve got to tell the landlord. This is a joke.’ Ren wasn’t so sure about contacting the landlord. He hadn’t made an impression on Ren as a fair man.

‘Are you ready? Let’s get out of here before I break that door down,’ Jimmy said, and his jaw tightened.

Ren thought he looked sexy like that. For a second, he contemplated keeping the subject on the neighbours, only if to enjoy the sight in front of him, but it was far too upsetting, even if it made Jimmy a hundred times more handsome.

Ren grabbed his rucksack, shoved the essentials in it, and they left the flat. They passed by Rotunda and continued around the other side until they came up to a park with the ancient ruins of a wall, which Jimmy had said belonged to the old town’s fort. The university was across the street. It was only a ten-minute walk from Ren’s house.

They arrived a bit early so that Jimmy could show him around and guide him towards the student exchange office where Ren needed to sign some documents and get whatever welcome pack they had. The campus was big, and Ren, despite having looked at pictures online before he arrived, was still surprised by its enormity considering the size of the city. The buildings, however, were old and tired; whites, creams, and browns dominated the surroundings with some dots of grass or trees colouring the campus every now and again, although pavements seemed to be the rule and not the exception. It looked like a bureaucrat’s wet dream and nothing like English universities, most of which tried to carry the latest technology and offer their students enough green space to keep them entertained on days it did not rain.

Once Ren was registered and ready to go, he walked to class with Jimmy. The lesson started at nine, and they were five minutes late as Jimmy tried to explain the intricacies of navigating the campus. Not that Ren could imagine doing that anytime soon. The class of the day was Morphology and Syntax. It sounded like any other lesson in English Literature: dull and boring.

They entered the hall and the lecturer, and a lady not much taller than five foot four, turned around with her glasses prominently on the top of her brunette head and raised her brow at the boys’ interruption.

Jimmy wasn’t bothered by her reaction but apologised in Greek and found a seat on the second row of seats. Ren followed closely behind, but he felt eyes on him. He could feel the hot glances on the edge of his vision, but Ren preferred to stick to the sight of his shoes. He hated being the new kid. It hadn’t happened a lot when he was growing up, but it had happened enough times to make him hate it.

As Ren sat next to Jimmy, he allowed his eyes to wander to the people sitting behind them.

He snapped his head back to the front and took a deep breath. It was them.

‘What happened?’ Jimmy whispered as soon as he saw Ren’s reaction.

Ren closed his eyes and composed himself. He had not slept all night. He was reaching his tolerance for bullshit and couldn’t handle anymore.

‘The guys behind us are my noisy neighbours,’ Ren whispered back.

Not only did Ren have to tolerate their shitty behaviour at home, he now had to share a class with them. Jimmy combed his hair with his fingers and turned around while in motion to take a look at them.

‘Which ones?’ he mumbled as soon as he settled back.

‘All three right behind us,’ Ren told him.

He clicked his pen on. ‘They look like assholes.’

Ren chuckled. ‘They are.’ A couple of people were looking at the two of them so Ren turned his attention to the lecturer, and Jimmy did the same.

The professor’s English was fantastic. Something he couldn’t say about her accent. It was similar to the way Jimmy spoke, although she pronounced a few words as if she had been taught the Transatlantic accent of the thirties really badly. She did not wander around the classroom, choosing instead to stand by her desk and pour out all the information she had to give to them, going through her slides. Her tone was monotonous.

A look at Jimmy proved he was battling with sleepiness. Ren wasn’t faring much better, considering his eventful night. He scribbled on the corner of his notebook and passed it to Jimmy to read.

She’s putting me to sleep and I like it. WTF?

Jimmy lazily picked up his pen and wrote a response. His handwriting was elegant and calligraphic. It surprised Ren, considering the Greek alphabet was so different to the English.

What are you complaining about? Good night to you, sir. You deserve some sleep.

Ren snorted. Jimmy was right, but Ren couldn’t fall asleep on his first lesson in a new university, in a new city, in a new country.

He started a naughts and crosses and elbowed Jimmy to join him, as he was a yawn away from snoring. Which only made Ren’s temptation to reach out and caress Jimmy’s cheek stronger.

And then he remembered who was sitting behind him and he came tumbling back to reality.