Drabble Challenge Prompt Eight: Electricity 

So first of all I think I should, like, say why it’s not “day eight” and instead “prompt eight”. That’s because DAY EIGHT PASSED A LONG TIME AGO. I just thought I should pick this up. Anyway. I don’t know what is going on with my mind, I just write whatever crap I could think of. Tell me what you think (if you want) kthxbye.

Electricity

“FUCK.”

“Merry Christmas to you too,” answered her roommate in his usual drawling voice.

“In case you’re not aware, we’re having a blackout right now,” she said as she stumbled over their xbox and a pile of DVDs.

“Yes, and because you can’t see it I’ll tell you that I am rolling my eyes right now.”

She didn’t answer. It was hard enough trying to locate the flashlight without having to retort back to her aloof roommate. She did, however, looked around to see if he was really rolling his eyes, only to realize half a second later that she couldn’t see anything during blackouts. Not seeing the point of trying to find her way back into the sofa, she sat on the carpet. With the most accusing tone she could muster, she said, “You hid the flashlight, didn’t you.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you hate me?”

“I don’t hate you.”

“No?”

“I never hate you.”

“Then why did you hide the flashlight?”

A sigh of exasperation came from the general direction where he sat. “I didn’t. And stop being all angry about the blackout. We could live a few hours even without electricity.”

She made a hum of assent, a half-hearted one as she did not, even for once, want to admit that he was right.

“So,” he said, “got a new boyfriend yet?” Before she said anything, he added, “Thought we might as well talk to kill time.”

“Fine. No, not yet.”

“Maybe you would if only you’d stop setting fictional characters as standards.”

“Now I’m the one with the rolling eyes.”

She refused to say anything more until the electricity came back on.

Drabble Challenge Day Seven: Love Me 

“Ask her,” she said.

The older woman pulled herself out of the cabinet under the sink, strands of hair sticking on her face. She looked at her daughter, who was nudging her little brother towards her. Brandishing a wrench, she asked her youngest child, “Ask me what?”

His eyes went to the wrench and his mother’s face, then back on the wrench again.

Sensing his fear towards it—not that she meant to use the tool to harm him in any way—she put the wrench aside and asked him again, “Ask me what?”

He rocked back and forth on his heels. After a condescending sigh of impatience, his older sister provided the answer. “He wants to ask you if you love him.”

The mother frowned. Busy as she was being the only adult in the house, juggling job and parenting, she thought she always made sure her children knew that she loved them. “Of course I do, popkins, I tell you that every day don’t I?”

He shuffled his feet. “But mama, don’t you love Aimee better?”

The single mother tilted her head in confusion. He continued, “I mean Aimee got a hundred on her test, I don’t.”

She laughed in relief. “Popkins, you’re not in school yet. And I’ll love the both of you whatever you get on your tests.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

His sister piped in, at last, in her most precocious tone, “See? I told you!”

He grinned widely.

Drabble Challenge Day Six: Whistling 

If he ever had any admirers, they never bothered telling him about it. Exceptions to this rule was his parents—but that was before he ditched school and opened his own secondhand bookstore—and his younger sister, and she didn’t even count because he always regarded her as somewhat a freak. Not the bad kind of freak, a good and lovable kind even, but a freak nonetheless.

But he didn’t mind much. There were times when he wished he could be one of those football jocks or impeccably handsome theater club members or even the really smart computer nerds who even had their own little ring of fan girls. Those times were long past. He didn’t care much, because now he was in his element: books. Towering piles of novels and cookbooks, heavy hardcovers lined up on the bottom shelves, hundreds of paperbacks, thin and thick, fresh and already yellowing. The musty smell of old books greeting his olfactory sense every morning when he stepped down from his flat at the second floor of the building.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, something told him that a person was not supposed to only live cooped up in his fantasies, but he had learned to ignore the back of his head a long time ago.

So without much care about whether his family still hated him or if there would be anyone who would buy anything that day, he opened the shop every eight AM and closed it every eight PM. It was like clockwork, predictable, steady, stable.

The people coming in and out were of much variety too; most only browsed, but some bought something and it was enough for him.

That particular day was just like any other day, but just around five minutes before eight, a young woman walked in. She looked like she just stumbled into the place instead of purposefully entering. He didn’t mind. He never minded people who were interested in books. Subtly reminding her that he was closing up, he turned the “open” sign to “closed” and started sweeping the floor, all the while whistling a tune he couldn’t get out of his head.

“I’m sorry, you’re closing up?” came a voice interrupting his work.

He turned. She was holding an old copy of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and The Chocolate Factory in her white-gloved hand.

“Yes. Are you buying that?”

She smiled. “Yes, please.”

He nodded and took the book from her. Gesturing her to follow him, he lazily dragged his steps to the cash register. He named the price, she paid the book. As he handed the thin paperback to her—she declined the plastic bag he offered—he asked, out of curiosity, “For your little brother?”

She blinked a few times before smiling a bit, pink creeping up her chins. “No, um, for myself. I remember reading it a long time ago and loving it to bits.”

“Oh.”

“Mhmm.”

“Well, good night. Thanks for the purchase.” He took a flyer of the shop and handed it to her. “If you’re interested, we also buy your books. And we open from eight to eight everyday.”

“I’ll remember that. Thanks. Sorry I had to come at the last minute.” She smiled apologetically, dimples forming on her cheeks. She made her way to the door. Just before she opened the door, she turned to him and say, “I’ve always wanted to be able to whistle.”

Then she left.

He couldn’t help to wonder if it could count as a declaration of admiration.

Drabble Challenge Day Five: Complete Makeover 

They were sitting on the floor of his room, an Othello board between them, when he looked around conspiratorially—not that anyone was around—and said, in a somewhat hushed whisper, “So, did she teach you anything new?”

She put her black piece and reversed two of his, then pulled back with a tired expression. “She’d kill me if I show you.”

He shrugged. “She’s your mom, she won’t kill you.”

“Maybe not, but I’d sooner die than having to recite The Oath again.”

He frowned. “What oath?”

“The Oath,” she announced with her nose up in the air, “of snobby mages, apparently. “I promise my power is not for triviality” and shit like that. It’s long.”

He didn’t give up. “She won’t have to know. Come on, you know how cool it was when you made everything fly around.”

“Levitate, not fly.” She sighed. “And it was messy.”  Nevertheless, she closed her eyes for a moment and her hair lengthened, the short dark strands brightening into long strawberry-blonde tendrils.

“Whoa. Can you like, makeover yourself then?”

She did not answer, and instead lightened her tanned skin, turned her blue irises into green, and changed her nose to a smaller, daintier shape. Then she pulled her cheekbones up and made her eyebrows sharper and thinner, her lips fuller. She smiled at him.

He laughed. “You look like a total stranger.”

She scrunched her nose in displeasure. “I know. That’s the point.” She reverted back to normal.

“I asked you to do a makeover, not a disguise.”

“Point,” she conceded. “Turn around and don’t peek.”

“Why?”

“So I can concentrate.”

He obeyed, but not without rolling his eyes at her first. She took out a small mirror from her bag and concentrated on her own reflection. She didn’t alter much; should anyone watch her, they might not notice the changes at first. It was more like adjustments than changes, perhaps. She nudged her features a bit and made her face more symmetrical, her eyes more even and brighter, erased the tiny scars she got from old pimples, made her hair sleeker and lusher.

She snapped the pocket mirror shut in satisfaction. “Now you can see.”

He turned to her and took a sharp breath. “That’s…”

She could feel red warmth creeping up her face, but managed to say rather calmly, “Good?”

He nodded mutely. She was rather pleased to see that hers was not the only face reddening. After a long moment of awkward silence, she let the enchantment fall off and turned back to normal.

“Oh, thank goodness,” he mumbled. “That was beautiful and all, but it’s just…”

She waited while he searched for an appropriate word to complete his sentence.

“…it’s just too much like Photoshop. Like you took all your good features and used heal tool on the rest.”

“That’s pretty much what I did.”

“I like normal you better. More…whole, you know what I mean? More complete. In a way, more perfect.”

She beamed. “I was scared you’d prefer the altered one better.”

He paused. “For a second back then, me too.”

Drabble Challenge Day Four: Fingers 

She crossed the Rubicon when she was just fourteen.

Ever since then, doubt plagued her. She wondered if she could have continued school if she didn’t decide to do what she did. She wondered if he would have returned to her, what her future could have been, if everyone would have still loved her, because they no longer did. She wondered if she should have followed what everyone else told her to do.

She wondered if she should have killed her son before he came to be.

But the truth of the matter, the absolute fact, was that she decided to keep the baby with her, and through all nine months she suffered the regret gnawing at her bones, churning her stomach, squeezing her breath out of her.

And as much as she dreaded the consequences, she pushed like a good mother always did when the day came.

Out of breath, in pain, and extremely exhausted, she was barely conscious when she heard him cry out for the very first time. The nurse put the still bloodied infant in her arms, and as she extended her hand to stroke his cheek, her hand was stopped. It was stopped by five perfect tiny fingers, curling around her index finger, gripping tightly.

She never regretted her decision anymore ever since.

Drabble Challenge Day Three: Bromance 

Dan was greeted, when he entered his dorm room, by an exceptionally unusual view. It was rather too odd that it somewhat disconcerted him, though, and as he warily stepped in—he wasn’t too sure if it were some sick prank his roommate came up with—he asked in what he hoped to be a casual tone, “The fuck are you doing?”

That came out rather too surprised for his liking.

His roommate raised his head from the rag in his hand and nearly-spotless desk and answered, more nonchalant than Dan, “Cleaning.”

“Okay, Greg, bro. You never clean.”

Greg just rolled his eyes.

“Ever.”

Greg threw the rag exasperatedly. “Fine. Yeah. Whatever.” He kicked the rag half-heartedly before he slumped on his unmade bed.

This only made Dan wince a bit. “It’s Luce, isn’t it?”

“Said I was too slobby and uncaring and, oh God…” Greg’s voice trailed away in desperation, hands pulling his own hair.

Dan took out his cellphone and typed a short text message for his girlfriend. Then, he went to the clothes hanger and took Greg’s jacket. He threw it to him. “Right, put that on now.”

Greg was staring at him incredulously as Dan added, “We’re going drinking.”

“You have a date with Em.”

“Told her I can’t make it. Someone needs to make sure you don’t drown yourself. Besides…”

With a feeble grin, Greg looked at his faithful roommate and hopefully said, “Bros before hos?”

“She’s not a ho.”

But regardless of his own sharp tone, and the audible sigh following it, Dan took his car keys and did what he had to do for his roommate that evening.

Drabble Challenge Day Two: Durian 

“My mom told me that if you swim in a public swimming pool, you could get pregnant from the sperm swimming in there,” he said with an air of incredulity.

She snorted. “No fucking way.”

“That’s what I told her.” His lips quivered between bursting into laughter and trying to keep his cool. As an afterthought, he added, “Without the f-bomb, of course.”

“Mm. Your mom’s great, you know, but she’s like a pineapple,” she said with a sage-like attitude.

This time, he was the one who snorted. “Like, she looks scary on the outside?”

“Well, that too, but I was thinking about how she should be taken with a grain of salt.” She shuddered. The other time she forgot to wash a pineapple with salt, she got her tongue itchy for the rest of the day. It was not a pleasant experience.

“Oh,” he said rather sheepishly. “What am I like, then?”

She leaned back on her chair with her eyes narrowed, observing him. “Hm. You’re a durian.”

“A durian?”

“A durian. You know, you have your spiky hair and all. And you stink,” she said with finality. “But you know, durians are quite okay once you crack open the hard shell.”

He made quotation marks in the air with two fingers from each hand. “Quite okay?”

Nonchalantly, she nodded and confirmed him, “Yeah, quite okay.”

In all actuality, she thought durians were probably the best fruits ever, but she wouldn’t go and inflate his ego. Not today, when she had not the courage to say anything more. Maybe later, when they were a bit more mature and she was a bit more gutsy. Besides, she always thought that the more ripe a durian was, the more intoxicating it was.

Drabble Challenge Day One: Orange 

“Is there anything that you don’t have a bad opinion about?”

This came out from her lips at their second coffee-date. Clearly he had botched a job at being cheerful. She minded his constant complaints; he complained about the weather, about her unpractical high-heeled shoes, about his life. He minded having to pretend he wasn’t negative; the weather was indeed foul and far too windy for anyone’s health, her high-heeled shoes made unnecessary noise and she visibly wobbled in them, his life was a big mess. The arrangement had somehow worked for them in a rather sick way, and after having a long argument ending in sarcasm and “we agree to disagree”, they were both satisfied with the promise of a second date.

The chat taking place under the big red-and-white parasol at that cafe had taken a turn into another argument. It started with her ordering a latte, his commenting on this cafe’s foul latte, and then her asking him the aforementioned question. He could see this type of conversation turning into a pattern should the dates continue, maybe even culminating into an all-out full fight one day which might very well be the end of their relationship. He thought about just ending it now before either of them committed into anything.

“N-“

But maybe not now.

“-yes, actually,” he changed his answer.

One sharp eyebrow rose higher than the other on her face. He always wanted to be able to do that. He had always failed whenever he tried it in front of the mirror.

“I don’t mind oranges much,” he blurted out to explain his previous statement.

“You don’t mind oranges much.” She wasn’t impressed.

He finished his coffee. “Yes, I don’t mind oranges much. And a few other things, but if I tell them all to you now we’d be out of conversation topics next week.”

Her lips quirked into a small smile. “Tell me next Thursday, then,” she said, setting her finished cup of coffee down and left him there, her orange dress billowing in the wind.

30-Day Drabble Challenge 

I’m challenging myself to post a drabble (really short stories, under 500 words) every day for the next thirty days with the following prompts/themes:

1. Orange
2. Durian
3. Bromance
4. Fingers
5. Complete Make Over
6. Whistling
7. Love me
8. Electricity
9. Anger
10. Manicure
11. An Angry Princess
12. Hermit
13. Hamster
14. Secretary
15. Unpopular Opinions
16. Spinster
17. Amusement Park
18. Picnic
19. Noise
20. Sandbox
21. Birthday
22. Fluff
23. Punching Bag
24. Snakes
25. Hedgehog
26. Lock Out
27. Lost Key
28. Maze
29. Contacts
30. Arrow

And just because asaena said so:

Bonus Day: About Tsukiko

Because we love our Tsu.