Dosed On Love (REMASTERED)

1 - the bottled solution

Nine took a sip of his green tea.

"When did he moved in again?" Hannah asked his younger brother.

"Two days ago." Nine answered annoyed.

"Wow. The audacity." Hannah scoffed.

"I haven't got a good night sleep since then. I tried meditating and listening to asmr but nothing helps when there's a party next door, blasting my eardrums away."

"Shouldn't you be like.. I don't know, file a complaint to the admin? There's like a reason why you live on top of that expensive ass building and this was not it." Hannah suggested.

"I thought about it of course. But there's only two lofts in that top floor, mine and his. We'll be seeing each other everyday in the hallway or worse, the elevator. I just don't wanna create a whole awkward vibe with him knowing that I complained about him."

"There's only one thing left to do. You can like get the eff outta there before it destroys your zen or you know, you can always murder him and pretend nothing happened."

"I've only been living there for less than three months and I really like it there." Hans whined.

Hannah chewed on the cookies and immediately spit it out.

"Uggh.. What are these? I thought they were cookies." She started wiping her tongue, trying to get the crumbs off.

"They're vegan." Nine answered, too bothered by his situation.

"Goodness! Nine I swear I'll kill you if you ever brought these here again. It tasted awful. It took me somewhere." Hannah put her palm on her forehead as if she's trying to remember what the cookies had reminded her.

"I don't know what to do." Nine slammed his face on the soft couch.

"It really took me somewhere.. like hell or something. How can you eat these?"

"They're healthy." He answered, his voice muffled.

"First of all, cookies aren't supposed to be healthy. That's what yoga is for. These are some fake circle brown things pretending to be cookies. I don't trust this witchcraft." Hannah looks at the plate of cookies suspiciously and obviously disgusted.

"You know what Nine. Buy some love potion or something then put it in these abomination of a cookie and give it to that neighbor of yours. Maybe then you'd be able to tame that beast, if he doesn't die first from eating it."

"Huhhh.." Nine squinted his eyes, thinking that it was not that bad of an idea.

Nine has a problem. Two days ago, a guy moved in at the loft across him. Throwing parties like he has no neighbor. If this new guy managed to disturb him since day 1, Nine knew that he will bring nothing but trouble to him.

Not a minute went by after he sent a few text messages, one of his friends had already replied.

He took a cab and went in an alley where he was meeting an old man that his friend had referred to him. He was told that this man was selling the exact thing he was looking for. A potion of some kind.

"Psssst! Hey! Are you the kid?"

He looked around and saw an old short and fat man wearing a dirty fur jacket.

Nine nodded reluctantly.

"Here's what you wanted." The man handed him a small bottle with a red liquid inside.

"Mix it in the food and you will get your wish. I assure you."

Nine fished out his money and paid him. He put the bottle in his bag and when he looked back to face him, the man had already vanished.

He went home and baked brownies, regular ones and not the vegan kind. He made sure to add the red liquid. While it was still steaming hot, he packed it and went knocking on the devil's door.

The door was opened by his neighbor, wearing nothing but a boxer short and a tank top.

"Hi there. I baked some brownies. I'm your only neighbor and I thought I'd drop by to introduce myself. I'm Nine."

Nine recited the script he rehearsed earlier.

"Hi! I'm Joss. Come on in."

His neighbor opened the door wider, inviting him to enter.

"I uhh.. really shouldn't. I don't wanna impose." Nine politely declines because he really didn't want to go inside. He just wanted to drop the brownies and leave.

"Nonsense. Come in. Let's eat the brownies together." Joss dragged Nine inside.

Nine scanned the whole place. It was neat and modern, two things he did not expect.

"Have a seat. I'll prepare a drink." Joss opened the fridge and took out a lemon and a few oranges. He proceeded on squeezing them and Nine could have sworn that it was something out of a tv commercial.

"You have a nice place." Nine pointed out.

He placed the brownies on top of the kitchen island counter and went to Joss who was finishing up on the lemon-orange drink.

"You think so?" Joss asked nonchalantly.

"Y-yeah.." Nine answered.

"Thanks. Were we too loud the last night and the other night?" Joss poured a glass for him.

"Yes." Nine whispered.

"Sorry. What?" Joss wasn't able to hear what Nine said.

"Sort of. I said, sort of." Nine answered in panic.

"Oh. I'm sorry. It will never happen again. Gosh I'm so embarassed. Is there anything that I can do to make it up to you?" Joss asked.

"No. You don't have to do anything." Nine said trying to dismiss the subject.

"And you even brought us brownies." Joss pointed out.

"Us? You live here with someone?"

"Oh yeah. I have a housemate." Joss pursed his lips to point at the kitchen counter where a topless guy was eating a mouthful of the brownies rapidbly in total silence.

The guy paused when he noticed the two were looking at him. Nine stared in pure horror as he saw the container of brownies already half eaten.

"Hi! I'm Joong! This is delicious." And Joong continued on eating.

Joss grabbed a slice and began chewing on the brownies. His face lit up at the taste. While the two guys were munching on the baked goods, Nine felt like he was going to faint.