Closer Than You Think

One

It was time. She had fought against it for so long. Now, she would end it for real. All those nights of agony and discomfort. She could finally be free of its evil grasp.

"Haha!" she shouted as she drilled the toilet seat to the bowl. No more falling in during the middle of the night.

"I am victorious!" she yelled, running out of the bathroom with the drill in her hand.

"Where to hide it...?" she mumbled, looking in the cabinets when it struck her. She rummaged in the pantry until she came up with a box of cereal that had been there for months because neither of them liked it all that much. She dumped the cereal in the trash and stuck the drill in, concealing it completely. She stuck it in the back of the pantry and closed the doors, right as her roommate entered the apartment.

"Hey! Help me put these up," he had bags stacked up in his arms, concealing his face. He dropped the groceries on the table, stumbling over a roll of paper towels. Eira reached out, catching him by the shirt and pulling him upright.

He sighed. "I hate it when you do that. I would rather fall than be at your mercy."

"Yeah, you're welcome," she snorted as she grabbed several clusters of groceries and stuck them in the pantry.

"I need the telly tonight, Little House on the Prairie is playing," her roommate informed her as he walked towards the bathroom.

"Haven't you seen all of the episodes at least five times?" Eira rose an eyebrow.

"Yeah, but they're having a season six marathon! That's my favorite!" he called through the door to her. She smirked, waiting.

A couple of beats of confused silence. Then...

"EIRA, WHAT DID YOU DO?!"

She snickered as he threw open the door, red-faced. "What is this?"

"Training Your Roommate 101," she grinned at him.

He stared at her, unamused. "I'm gonna go get the drill, and I'm gonna undo this."

"Good luck finding it," she turned around, flipping her hair.

"You. Are. Insufferable."

"And you, my good sir, are a hard-headed, insubordinate, no good—"

"Fine, then you can just clean the seat," he snapped his fingers as he disappeared into the bathroom again.

"Wait. Wait! Julius, no! I swear on your life, if you dirty my bathroom, I will cut off your—"

There was a knock at the door. Eira turned around in wonderment. Julius voiced what she was thinking.

"At eleven o'clock at night? Who could that be?"

"One way to find out," she moved towards the door slowly, grabbing a baseball bat and holding it behind her back.

She very slowly reached for the doorknob, then threw open the door and...

She wrinkled her nose. "Oh. It's just you."

"Good to see you, too, Eira," replied the girl standing at the door with blue hair curled into graceful ringlets running down her back like a waterfall. She stood on her tiptoes, looking around the apartment. "Is Jules here?"

"He's on the crapper," Eira stepped out of the way.

"Very eloquently put, Eira Stokes."

"Thank you, I read a lot, as you can see from my large collection of books," she gestured to the barren, unused bookshelf that had come with the apartment.