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“Are you one hundred percent sure this is what Kali wants us to do with our time right now?”
Trip pulled a pair of pink cleaning gloves up to his elbows, the awkward rubbery squeaks of struggle amplified by the cool tile of the bathroom. Bossa dunked a toothbrush into a bucket of mystery cleaning liquid.
“Nööri wouldn’t lie to us. She’s like…I dunno…” Bossa put the toothbrush on the grout of the tile, scrubbing at it vigorously while he thought. “Kali puts her in charge of important stuff all the time.”
“Mmhm…” Trip looked around bewildered before fishing out a toothbrush of his own from the same bucket, pausing momentarily to contemplate before putting the bristles to the floor. “Is this a Nighthaven training exercise they have you guys do? Like, some kind of convoluted metaphor for patience?”
“Ay, sério? You wish you knew about the cool things we get to do for training.”
“Like cleaning the bathroom floor with a toothbrush?” Trip wiped away the excess foam from the floor with a rag.
“Surely there must be some reason why she wants us to do this.”
“Maybe she’s trying to get a point across to you.”
“Hã…?”
“Marcelo, your breath stinks and you need to brush your teeth.”
“Nuh-uh!” Bossa tore his attention from the tile and whipped his head up, a goofy smile pulling at the corners of his lips. “Don’t project that onto me!”
“I’ve been meaning to tell you-”
“Cale–se, you’re full of shit!” Bossa said through laughter. “My mom raised me right. The bleach fumes are already going to your head.”
“We’re cleaning the floor with straight bleach?!”
“Bro! I don’t know!”
“Oh my god. I thought Nighthaven was supposed to be a refined organization. Don’t you guys have janitors and stuff for this?”
“Uhh…Rainbow must hire professional nerds because don’t you know you sound like a-” Bossa imitated pushing glasses up the bridge of his nose.
The pair made silent eye contact for a moment before bursting with laughter. Bossa slapped the toothbrush to the ground and snorted, trying to catch his breath. The sounds of wheezing interjected with the occasional “stop!” and “it’s not that funny!” reverberated off of the bathroom walls.
“What’s going on in here?”
The pair fell silent, quickly turning to face the entrance behind them where Kali stood arms crossed. Bossa cleared his throat.
“Sorry. We were cleaning the floor.”
“Cleaning the floor?”
“Yeah! Like you asked, right?” Bossa laughed nervously. “To clean the grout and that toothbrushes work best because-”
“Marcelo.”
“Yes ma’am?”
“Out of all of the things I could have possibly asked you to do…why would I ask you to scrub bathroom grout with a toothbrush?”
“That’s…I don’t know. You wouldn’t?” Bossa responded earnestly.
“Put this stuff away and do something productive.” Kali closed both of her eyes and sighed. “Now. Please.”
“Yes ma'am, I’m on it.”
Kali nodded, casting a final glare at the two before leaving. Bossa turned towards Trip, who in turn stared back. A grin spread across Trip’s face
“I don’t even want to hear it.” Bossa resisted a smile, pitching the toothbrush into the bucket and struggling to remove the gloves.“You know…even if we did have to scrub this place from floor to ceiling with toothbrushes, I’d be more than happy doing it stuck with you.”