For those who had met Casper before he met Catharina, those two ending up together was an impossible scenario. Had those who had known Casper been asked, they would have described him as the most relaxed, flexible guy you would ever meet.

Casper was one of those people who sometimes turned up unannounced at your doorstep at seven o'clock at a Saturday with some crazy plan for the day. He was a person who liked fire sales and impulsive shopping, always returning with something not on the grocery list, and somehow, he always forgot to buy butter.

He was one of these people who never had any clean clothes; he simply forgot to turn on the washing machine. That's probably the reason why his friends were so surprised, he ended up with Catharina.

And for those who had known Catharina before she met Casper, it was no easier to understand their mutual attraction. Had you asked Catharina's friends, they might have described her as the most organised, assertive (meant in the nicest way possible) human being you would ever have the pleasure of knowing.

Whenever she had to meet someone, it was arranged at least fourteen days in advance. All her clothes were meticulously folded; even her socks lay in perfectly neat rows in the drawer. And when she had to by groceries, she did it with an iron will that would have made any military man jealous. That's probably why no one had been able to predict her relationship with Casper.

But those who thought like that, Casper and Catharina thought for themselves with a barely disguised smile whenever someone questioned the odd couple, they didn't know them at all.

It all started a Wednesday evening at approximately 6.03pm.

Catharina had just turned on her oven to heat the rest of the leftovers from yesterdays supper. For several seconds she just stared straight ahead. She had no plans for the evening and as far as she knew (and she always knew) no one was supposed to be knocking doors in her neighbourhood that evening. And yet it kept knocking on the door.

Out in the hall stood a man. The wrinkles in his shirt was the first thing Catharina noticed. The two different socks were the second thing, she noticed.

He must live in the building, she argued to herself. You couldn't get through the street door without a key.

'Hi, you don't have any sugar, I could borrow, do you?' the man asked.

'Eh,' Catharina said. She still had not come to terms with the factum that the man wore non-matching socks.

'I'm Casper by the way. Live just next door,' Casper continued; he didn't seem to notice Catharina's unintelligently formulated "eh".

'Catharina,' Catharina said. 'Sugar?'

'Yes, I started making cookies and got halfway through the recipe before I realised, I didn't have any sugar.' Casper's hands moved franticly through the air while he talked.

'Or eggs,' he added almost as an afterthought. 'You shouldn't have any eggs, I could borrow either, should you?'

Catharina stared at him, blinking very, very slowly. How could anyone start baking without having all the ingredients?

'Wait here,' she said and disappeared inside. When she returned a moment later, she brought three eggs and a cup of sugar. 'Here you go.'

'Tanks,' Casper said. 'And I promise, I'll come back with the cup,' he promised over his shoulder as he walked into the flat next to Catharina's home.

It was 6.09pm when Catharina closed the door behind her. The oven was heated.

It was 7.47pm when it knocked again.

'Sorry to disturb you,' it was Casper again, 'but I thought, you might like a cookie.'

Catharina took the still hot cookies.

'And thanks again for the sugar and the eggs. Here's your cup.' And with those words Casper left without giving Catharina a chance to think of a prober response.

The next couple of months Casper's knocked on her door quite regularly to borrow this or that. Every time it happened Catharina just about closed the door in his face. You couldn't just barge in like that! You couldn't knock on the door of a stranger and ask to borrow this and that as you found fitting, but that is exactly what Casper did. And Catharina hated saying no even more than his mitcmatched socks.

Casper found Catharina to be an enigma. She came and went on the same time every day, and no matter how hard he tried the next six weeks, he never succeeded in "accidentally" running in to her. But he had made a mission to try his hands at the most exotic, culinary adventures just to have an excuse to knock at her door once or twice a night.

And then, one day, it happened.

He knocked on her door on what he would later remember as a Saturday evening, but Catharina would tell you it was a Friday afternoon at 4.16pm (she never really liked afternoons at 4.16pm). Casper was perfectly certain that he was planning to ask to borrow something, but he never got that far.

'Come in,' Catharina said as soon as she opened the door.

Casper lost the ability to speak. Normally, their conversations would follow the exact same pattern. What was going on? For at moment, Casper studied Catharina. The dust on her jeans, and the scarf keeping her hair from falling into her face, and the red cheeks immediately caught his attention.

'What are you waiting for? Come on in.' Catharina took a step to the side so he could enter the flat.

'We are going in here.' Catharina moved between dozens of books and CD's piled on top of every available surface but the empty shelves.

Casper followed Catharina into a tiny room that made out the bedroom even though there was room for nothing but a bed and closet. Here to the shelves were empty, and Casper couldn't for the life of him phantom where Catharina had put her clothes.

'If you grab there, I'll grab here and then you just do like I do,' Catharina said, pointing at one side of the bed. And then they lifted the bed.

First, they placed the bed next to the wall. Then they moved the closet, so it stood up against the wall next to the door. And then they moved the bed once more, so it ended up underneath the window. But if Casper expected that to be it, he was badly mistaken.

'What do you think? Doesn't it look nice?' Catharina said, hands placed on her hips and a smile on her lips.

'Come, you can help me put the books back on the shelves,' Catharina said, once more disappearing into the living room.

The next two hours they spent placing the books and CD's back on the shelves. It stood clear to Casper that they were in no way randomly arranged, but two hours later he was none the wiser in regard to what kind of system they followed. One thing was sure: It wasn't alphabetically.

And suddenly he found himself alone in Catharina's living room, placing books on shelves. Catharina herself had disappeared into the bedroom to place her clothes back into the closet.

6.21pm - two hours and five minutes after he had knocked on Catharina's door to borrow... something - Casper returned to his own flat. And it wasn't the first time, he was pulled into Catharina's moving madness, and no matter how much his muscles ached in the evening, he found, it didn't really bother him. He fell asleep smiling.

Later, then people asked when he knew they were meant to be together, he answered: 'The first time a girl asks you to help move her bed, you're probably the first fool to knock on her door. The second time, it might be a coincidence, but the third time there is no doubt; you are destined to be the fool that moves her bed.'

(Usually this generated more questions than it answered, but people often decided not to ask, fearing what the answer might be).

And that's probably one of the reasons why, Casper and Catharina found each other. That Casper kept knocking on her door, and that Catharina commanded Casper move the bed that later ended up being theirs.

When people voiced how perplex they were upon meeting the couple, Casper and Catharina smiled at each other, exchanging a look that said: They don't know us at all.

For even though Catharina didn't like visiting friends without a prior arrangement, had caught a bad case of cleaning madness, and did all daily tasks with an iron will that would have made any military man jealous, she would be the most unpredictable person, Casper would ever know.

Who else would move every bit of furniture every sixth moths? And who would keep him sharp when it came to the bookshelves? Casper knew nothing better than returning to a shelf where all the books had moved around.

And even though Casper wasn't to be trusted with a grocery list, had a strange habit of engaging in exotic, culinary adventures without all the ingrediencies, and even though he never wore two matching socks, Casper wasn't half bad.

Who else would accept that everything had to stand in a perfectly straight line? And he was the only one who - without her saying anything - noticed when she reordered the books. And then he was damn good at moving beds.

And maybe there was something to the old saying: opposites attract?

'Oh,' Casper said when he returned at odd hours, and Catharina had already gone to bed. The bed had moved since he last saw it that morning, but that's what happens.

Catharina turned in bed, so her face faced his empty side of the bed.

Casper turned of the light, and a moment later his side of the bed was no longer empty. He crept under the blanket and placed a soft kiss on Catharina's cheek.

'Night,' he whispered before falling asleep. Still smiling.

Prompt: A short story