Lee Nguyen had a lot of friends. He's not bragging if it's just the truth. He had a lot of friends and he was lucky enough to live with some of them. He lived with his friend Sage, Sage's cousin Eloise, and Lee's ridiculous best friend Indigo.

It was a nice apartment. One of those where he could give you a laundry list of things that were wrong with it but an equally long list of things that were incredible about it. It was a good place to live. Lee cooked every so often, but it was mostly Sage or Indi that did the cooking, and all of them went to college like 5 minutes away so it wasn't like they had too far of a commute.

It wasn't bad. It wasn't awful. It was pretty okay.

It had been Indi's apartment first, then Sage had moved in and brought Eloise with her. Lee had met them all his first semester and it felt right to move in with them, he spent most of his time there anyway.

"Lee." Indi poked his head through Lee's door. "I'm making bolognese tonight, you want in?"

Lee nodded, putting his guitar back in its case and standing up from his bed. He walked out into the living room, following his best friend. He'd met Indi almost a year ago, but it felt like forever ago. Lee felt like it was fate or something like there wasn't anything more he needed in life than to have his best friend at his side. It was nice.

He sat at the island in the kitchen (when Lee said it was a nice apartment he meant it) and watched as Indi pulled out a pot and started filling it with water.

"Do you ever feel like everything is perfect and you don't ever want it to change?" Lee asked, setting his head down on his arms.

Indi gave him a look. It was one of those looks that made Lee feel like he was missing something. "Yes and no."

"What do you mean?"

"Some things are perfect, there are some things that I wish were different." Indi turned his back to Lee and opened the fridge, grabbing some produce and a can of red sauce.

Lee sighed. Yeah. That made sense. Some things were perfect, and some things he wished were different. "Isn't that just life?"

"Technically, yeah," Indi said, his curly dark hair bouncing on his head as he moved through the kitchen, grabbing a knife to start cutting veggies. "Like there's this sort of theory that you can't really live if there isn't something you're working towards. That life is what happens while you're on your way to something bigger."

"So like, the journey is better than the reward, kind of thing?" Lee asked, watching Indi's hands carefully as he chopped up a bundle of basil on the bare countertop. His hands were long and Lee knew from experience that they were fairly callused. Indi was an archer, so specific fingers were thicker than others. They were nice hands to just watch. Zone out and stare at their movement.

Indi nodded, turning to check on the pasta water in the same movement as he pulled out a pan for the ground beef he'd taken out earlier. "Kind of, more that you shouldn't ignore things in your path because they might be just as important as whatever you're aiming for. Like, living is going out and doing things and you can't really live if you're not working towards something, because then you're not going anywhere. Does that make sense?"

He thought about it for a minute, watching as Indi started browning the ground beef in the pan. "Yeah, I guess. Basically, life can't be perfect because if it is then you're not doing anything. But what I don't get is that 'perfect' is subjective, right? So it means different things to different people."

"True."

"So perfect might mean working towards something for one person but might mean having everything you want for someone else."

Indi nodded, and turned away from where Lee was perched on the stool. Indi wasn't one to cook in an apron and was wearing a pair of sweatpants and a graphic tee that Lee wasn't 100% sure was his. He'd definitely seen Sage in it and Lee'd worn it at least once before, he was sure of that. Laundry wasn't sacred in this household and neither were clothes.

Lee watched as Indi put the pasta into the water and then turned back to him, "Let me know when nine minutes is up?"

"Gotcha." Lee gave him a thumbs up. Checking his phone for the time, he noted what time it would be in nine minutes. He was good with numbers. They didn't confuse him like they did to some people.

"Going back to perfection," Indi said, after pouring the tomato sauce in with the ground beef and turning around, resting his arms on the counter to stare into Lee's dark eyes. It almost felt electric. "If perfect means different things to different people, then everyone has someone else's vision of a perfect life, which basically proves the Theory of Universal Jealousy."

"Theory of Universal Jealousy?" Lee asked. Indi was a philosophy student, though he was keeping his major broad, as far as Lee knew, he was focusing on philosophy. So there was a lot about theory that Indi knew that Lee wouldn't have ever thought about had he not been friends with Indi. "Is that, like, that everyone's jealous of someone?"

Indi grinned, smiling the smile that meant that Lee had asked the right questions. His face lit up, like the sun or some sort of star, it was almost ethereal if Lee was one to use those words. "Pretty much, it stipulates that everyone is jealous of something. That humanity is a jealous thing by nature."

Lee cocked his head, interested but not entirely understanding. "So it's just saying that people are jealous? Don't animals get jealous? Doesn't that mean that sentience is what makes us jealous, not humanity?"

"Exactly." Indi turned away from Lee to stir his pasta sauce, making sure it didn't burn in the pan. "Where are we on that pasta time?"

He showed Indi the clock on his phone, "Just two more minutes."

Indi nodded, turning to grab the colander from the cabinet and placing it in the sink.