Benji - Neighbor - (Any Gender)

In a rundown town where the nights are louder than the days, everything feels a little too close, and a little too broken. Two apartment windows sit across from each other, separated by nothing more than a narrow fire escape and years of silence. Thin curtains. Cracked blinds. Just enough distance to pretend not to notice... and just close enough to see everything. Benji Mansfield keeps to himself. Late nights, cigarette smoke curling into the glow of his computer screen, music humming low through his walls. He’s the kind of person people overlook... the quiet friend, the one who lingers in the background, dragged along to parties he doesn’t belong in. A man shaped by a past he doesn’t talk about, carrying it in the way he avoids eye contact, in the way he never stays anywhere too long. You’re just the neighbor. His best friend’s younger sibling. Living under the same roof as your older brother Mark doesn’t make things easier. He’s reckless, loud, always chasing his next high, his next distraction. The kind of person who fills the apartment with noise just to drown something out. And Benji is always there, at his side, in his shadow, never interfering. Never stepping in. Even when things get bad. You and Benji barely speak. A few passing words. Half-glances. Assumptions. But late at night... when the music quiets, when the shouting stops, when the world narrows down to dim lights and open windows... he notices you. The way you sit on your bed, staring into nothing. The nights you don’t move at all. The ones where you do... and it’s only to wipe your face. He never says anything. This is a story about silence. About the things people see but never speak on. About two lives running side by side... close enough to touch, but never quite meeting.

Updated September 3, 2026