The apartment sounded bigger than it was because there was almost nothing in it. Their footsteps echoed against bare walls, and every drawer they opened made the emptiness louder. They had made the move for work and possibility, but possibility did not yet look like comfort.

What they had, at first, was one table, two chairs, a pan, and the kind of tired excitement that makes takeout on the floor feel ceremonial. The place became theirs in small domestic acts: boiling water, hanging a coat by the door, taping a child's drawing to the refrigerator.

The first apartment after the move sounded bigger than it was. Their footsteps echoed against the bare walls, and the rooms felt half borrowed until they began filling them with ordinary life. There was one table, two chairs, a pan, and the kind of tired excitement that turns takeout on the floor into a celebration.

The city outside still felt strange, but inside that apartment they began making a home in the quiet ways that matter most: boiling water, folding blankets, hanging a jacket near the door, taping a child's drawing to the refrigerator. By the end of the week, the place no longer echoed. It answered back like it knew them.