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It started with a drip.
Not just any drip, mind you, but a menacing, rhythmic, soul-crushing kind of drip. The kind that haunts horror movies. The kind that loops in your head until you think “dear lord please no” and simply know you’re about to unravel at the seams like a moth-eaten cardigan.
Kori King lay star fished across her bubblegum-pink bedspread, freshly applied glitter highlight still clinging to the high points of her cheekbones despite the doom brewing above. She stared at the ceiling. The once-white plaster was now a discoloured swirl of grey and ominous, seeping brown. Her lip quivered.
“Don’t you dare,” she whispered to the ceiling, pointing a freshly manicured finger, as if threatening would fix the plumbing.
The ceiling, like most things in her life lately, did not listen.
The drip multiplied. Became a trickle. Then? Chaos.
Water burst through the plaster in a sudden, dramatic gout, landing directly on Kori’s silken throw pillows with the merciless accuracy of fate itself. Her scream was instant. High-pitched. Operatic. Definitely not over-dramatic though, considering the situation.
“No! No no no! Not my bed!” she shrieked, scrambling backward, one leg catching in her duvet and sending her sprawling onto the floor in a tangle of limbs and soaked fabric. “This is not happening! This is a crime against aesthetics!”
She scrambled to her feet, slipping once, twice, before managing to launch herself across the room toward her phone. Maybe it was fixable. Maybe she could call Jane or Onya or literally anyone with a couch and a functioning roof. Maybe this was just a tiny little breakdown, nothing a charcuterie board and some phone gossip couldn’t fix.
She pressed the power button.
The screen blinked on.
And then, in a blinding flash of white light. Everything went dark.
Her fairy lights? Gone.
Her humidifier that made her room smell like marshmallows? Dead.
Her LED cloud wall? Faded into the void.
She stood in stunned silence. The only sound? The raging storm outside, the thunder cracking like an angry god, and the incessant gurgle of her ceiling haemorrhaging water.
“No.” Her voice was soft now. Desperate. “No, no, no, no, no.”
She pressed her phone again. The red warning on her Wi-Fi connection blinked mockingly back at her. She tried to load her messages.
Nothing.
Why? Because Kori King, the human embodiment of a sunshine-coloured Pinterest board, had run out of mobile data four days ago and had been too preoccupied with reorganizing her nail polish drawer by vibe to top it up or renew it or however that shit worked (she wasn’t a electrician, alright).
“I am going to die,” she muttered. “I am going to die, wet and Wi-Fi-less, and they’ll find me face-down in a puddle wearing mismatched socks and no one will ever know I was actually cute.”
The storm roared outside. Lightning lit the room in brief, jarring strobe effects. The ceiling above her bed groaned, as if preparing for a final, theatrical collapse.
Kori stood there for a second longer, hugging herself.
Then; resolve.
“This is not how my story ends,” she declared to the ceiling. “Do you hear me? I am not some tragic heroine! I am not even in my sad girl era yet!”
She turned on her heel, snatched her purse, stuffed a sweatshirt and lip balm inside (the essentials), yanked on her rain boots (pink, with tiny strawberry prints), and stormed to the door.
“I will find dry land,” she whispered to herself. “Even if I have to knock on every stranger’s door in this cursed zip code.”
And with that, Kori King, drenched in drama and equipped with nothing than sheer willpower and frustration, stepped out of her (no longer dry) apartment.
❈
Kori quickly realized that she had not, in fact, properly thought this through.
Her first attempt had been her own building. Logical, right? Surely someone in her own stairwell would have a heart. A sofa. A working ceiling.
Wrong.
Apartment 1A? Weird man with seven cats and a very strong odour of fish. Immediate no.
2B? An elderly woman who offered her dry biscuits, an incredibly suspicious smelling tea, and a hand-knit poncho that smelled like mothballs. Sweet, yes, but not quite sustainable. Maybe Kori would consider coming back if things got too bad.
3C? No answer.
4D? Also no answer. Probably haunted. Probably better that way.
After ten minutes of increasingly frantic doorbell ringing and increasingly awkward explanations (“Hi sorry this is weird but can I sleep on your floor???”), Kori trudged outside and into the full fury of the storm, and after what couldn’t have been more than half a minute, she was already soaked through three layers of pastel. Her strawberry boots were tragically waterlogged, her lashes clumped together like wet feathers, and her umbrella, her traitorous, dollar-store, polka-dot umbrella, had given up the ghost and turned itself inside out with a pitiful little gasp.
She looked like the saddest Barbie doll someone had thrown out during a thunderstorm.
Still, her pride (and the threat of death by mouldy mattress) pushed her forward.
Water pelted her like angry marbles. Her hair stuck to her face in tragic clumps. Her phone was useless, a glossy black rectangle of betrayal.
By the time she reached the building next door, she was shaking.
She jabbed at the intercom buttons. All of them. She didn’t care whose name was on them, B. Franco, L. Kollins, M. Kent, T. Nguyen, she needed a miracle, and she would take it alphabetically if necessary.
Nothing.
She rang again, mashing the buttons with soggy, trembling fingers.
Still nothing.
Kori turned in slow defeat, blinking through the rain, her mascara making subtle, artful tracks down her cheeks like a work of modern expressionism.
“This is it,” she whispered to no one. “This is the day I become a cautionary tale. They’ll call it The Girl Who Knocked Too Much. A tragedy in three acts.”
And then-
Click.
The door creaked open.
Kori blinked through the rain, vision blurry. A figure stood in the entryway. Smaller than her. Pale. Swathed in black from head to toe. Her dark hair was pulled into a messy knot on top of her head, a few strands curling at her cheeks. And those eyes, striking, stormy blue, narrowed in confusion.
“…Are you okay?” the girl asked, her voice dry as autumn leaves, as if this were a normal occurrence. As if she often opened her door to pastel-clad strangers in the pouring rain, dripping and trembling on her threshold like some tragic Hallmark heroine.
Kori opened her mouth to respond.
Nothing came out.
She was suddenly, violently aware of how she must look. Her hair was plastered to her skull, her lip gloss was long gone, and she was shivering like a chihuahua in a snowstorm. And this girl, this gothic forest sprite of a woman, looked at her like she was something out of a weather-related nightmare.
Kori did the only thing she could.
She gave a pathetic, soggy laugh.
“I swear I’m not, like, a door-to-door serial killer or anything,” she croaked. “Just- I’m cold and wet and the universe is out to get me personally, I think.”
The girl stared at her.
Kori stared back, internally screaming. She could feel the drip of water down her back. She was convinced her lips were blue. Maybe her soul, too, at this rate.
Then, after what felt like a full hour (but was probably eight seconds), the girl blinked.
“…Come in.”
Kori’s heart did a double backflip.
“Wait, really?”
“Yes. Before you drown where you stand,” the girl said dryly, stepping aside. “And also so I can figure out whether you’re an actual person or a very damp hallucination.”
Kori all but stumbled inside, dragging puddles with her.
“I promise I’m real,” she said, sniffling, still shivering.
The girl shut the door gently behind her and turned.
“I’m Lydia,” she said, arching one perfect brow. “And you look like you’ve lost a fight with a Care Bear.”
Kori let out a sudden bark of laughter.
And that? That was the moment she knew.
She was doomed.
❈
Lydia’s apartment was…unexpected.
Kori had imagined something stark. Cold. Maybe a single raven perched on a vintage bookshelf glaring at her.
But instead?
It was warm.
Not just in temperature (which, thank goodness, it was), but in feel too. The lights were soft, golden. There were tall, leafy plants in the corners. A chunky-knit blanket draped over a sleek dark sofa. There was an actual record player spinning something low and jazzy in the background. The air smelled faintly of vanilla and bergamot.
It was goth-chic meets bookish grandma. And it was perfect.
Kori stood in the entryway dripping onto the floor like a defeated fashion doll while Lydia calmly grabbed a towel from a hall closet and handed it over like this happened all the time.
“Here,” Lydia said, holding it out. “You’re going to ruin my floor.”
Kori blinked at her, then clutched the towel to her chest like a life raft. “I think my dignity already did that.”
Lydia’s mouth quirked. “Dignity doesn’t leave puddles.”
“I’m 99% sure mine does.”
Lydia looked like she wanted to smirk, but she turned away before it could fully blossom. A pity, truly. Kori used the moment to frantically dab at her face and hair, trying to make herself appear marginally less like a drowned rat.
Once she had somewhat dried her face (and wrung out the ends of her hair like a tragic Disney sidekick), she glanced back toward the other girl.
Lydia had moved into the kitchen area, her back to Kori, putting a kettle on the stove with an ease that made it all look like a scene from a moody indie film.
“So,” Lydia said, still not facing her, “what exactly happened to you? Apocalypse? Accidental portal to Atlantis?”
Kori let out a tired groan and flopped dramatically onto the couch. Then, almost instantly, squeaked and scrambled back up again.
“Oh my god, I’m probably getting your couch all wet, I’m so sorry, I didn’t even think-”
Lydia turned just enough to glance at her. “Sit. It’s fake leather. It’ll survive.”
“You say that like you didn’t just rescue a near-hysterical glitter gremlin from the rain.”
“You weren’t hysterical,” Lydia said thoughtfully. “You were more… melodramatically resigned to death.”
Kori blinked. “…Thank you?”
“Anytime.”
There was a tiny, unexpected smile tugging at Lydia’s lips now, and Kori wasn’t sure whether to be charmed or flustered or just full-on enchanted.
“So,” Lydia said after a moment, reaching up to grab two mismatched mugs from a shelf, “what’s your name, pastel specter?”
Kori blinked again. “Oh. Right. Sorry. I’m Kori. Kori with an ‘i.’”
Lydia nodded as if that explained everything.
“It fits,” she said.
Kori, who had never once in her life been described so succinctly or so softly, blinked once more. “What do you mean?”
Lydia glanced back, her eyes gleaming.
“You look like the human form of a strawberry milkshake.”
Kori let out an extremely undignified snort. “Wow, okay, I feel like that was very mean and also somehow the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me?”
“It was observational,” Lydia said. “Not mean. You’re just…bright. Very bright. And basically a liquid at this point.”
“Oh,” Kori said, suddenly very aware of her cold knees and smeared eyeliner and the fact that this drop dead gorgeous woman had just called her bright like it was a compliment.
She fiddled with the edge of the towel.
The kettle began to whistle.
Lydia poured two cups of tea, one in a pale pink mug with faded lettering that said “I’m no gynaecologist but I know a cunt when I see one”, and one in a deep navy one that just said “L.”
She handed the pink one to Kori with zero hesitation.
Kori accepted it reverently.
“You didn’t poison this, right?” she teased, peering inside.
Lydia rolled her eyes. “No. That’s the third date.”
Kori choked on her own laugh and nearly dropped the mug.
Lydia grinned. Just barely. But it was a grin.
Kori took a sip to hide the way her heart was acting up like a teenager at a boyband concert. Or, well, in her case, a girlband.
“So,” Lydia said, settling onto the armchair across from her. “Now that you’re not in mortal danger… are you going to tell me how your evening ended in a full-body aquatic disaster?”
“Oh god,” Kori groaned. “It’s honestly humiliating. My ceiling gave up on life, and then my Wi-Fi crashed, and then on top of all that I ran out of mobile data so I couldn’t even text any of my friends.”
Lydia sipped her tea. “Sounds like you’ve made some poor real estate decisions.”
Kori narrowed her eyes, but she was smiling now. “Wow. I get it. You’re sarcastic. Very original.”
Lydia smirked again. “You’re dramatic.”
“Okay, ouch.”
“Observational,” Lydia repeated with a shrug.
Kori stared at her over the rim of her mug. “You know, you’re lucky you’re cute.”
It slipped out before she could stop it.
Silence.
Lydia blinked.
Kori went full tomato.
“Oh my god, I didn’t, I’m sorry, I just- ignore me, I’ve been rained on, I’m not responsible for anything I say, I’m basically just delusional-”
Lydia sipped her tea again.
“Mmhm,” she said. “That’s the second time you’ve called me cute, by the way.”
Kori froze.
“Wait, when was the first time?”
“When I opened the door. You looked like you wanted to say something before your brain short-circuited. You basically said it with just your eyes.”
Kori groaned and buried her face in the towel.
“Please,” she mumbled, muffled. “Just let me sink into your couch and die.”
Lydia chuckled softly.
“Maybe later,” she said. “I want to hear more about the cursed ceiling first. On a scale from ‘annoying leak’ to ‘biblical flood,’ how cursed are we talking?”
Kori gave a deeply dramatic sigh. “Full Noah’s Ark. If two squirrels had shown up at my window holding paws, I wouldn’t have questioned it.”
Lydia’s smile was slow, steady, like it had to sneak past years of introverted reluctance just to show itself.
“Impressive,” she said. “I haven’t seen you build a boat yet, though.”
“Please. I have nails, but not the hammer. And I don’t know how wood works. Or... anything, really.”
Lydia raised an eyebrow. “So what do you know?”
Kori sat up a little straighter. “I can name every character on Real Housewives of New Jersey by tagline alone.”
“…Okay.”
“And I make the best pancakes you’ve ever tasted. Not joking. I don’t even need syrup. I am the syrup.”
Lydia blinked once.
Kori pointed at her. “That sounded flirtier than I intended it to.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“Oh.”
Pause.
“…But it was,” Lydia added, sipping her tea with the smug subtlety of a cat who’d just caught a mouse wearing pink boots.
Kori narrowed her eyes. “I think you enjoy tormenting me.”
“Only a little,” Lydia admitted. “You’re entertaining.”
Kori flopped back dramatically on the couch, towel cape trailing like the tragic heroine she had vowed not to become after all. “If I die here, tell the newspapers it was death by sarcasm.”
“I think they’ll go with exposure and poor life choices,” Lydia deadpanned.
Kori peeked at her from over the armrest. “Are you always like this? Mysterious and snarky and gorgeous with spooky jazz music in the background?”
Lydia didn’t answer at first. She simply tilted her head, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“Not always,” she said softly. “Just when someone knocks on my door at eleven p.m. soaking wet and starts calling me cute.”
Kori's heart hiccupped.
“Touché,” she murmured.
For a while, they just sat like that. The rain continued its tantrum outside, rattling the windows like an impatient ghost. Kori sipped her tea, watching Lydia’s silhouette illuminated by the soft glow of a corner lamp. It felt suspended, the kind of night you wanted to bottle and store away for emergencies.
Eventually, Lydia glanced up.
“So,” she said, “are you planning to crash here, or am I walking you back to your personal flood zone with a pool noodle and some floaties?”
Kori blinked.
“Oh my god, are you offering? Like… actually?”
Lydia shrugged, but her eyes were kind. “I mean, unless you want to go back. I could lend you an umbrella and a small raft.”
Kori nearly launched herself upright with excitement, then remembered the towel still half-tucked under her and got tangled in it like a baby bird.
“You’re serious?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know, because we literally just met? And I look like a soggy clownfish?”
Lydia grinned. “Exactly. It’d be cruel to send you back out there into the world.”
Kori stared at her, her face softening in the golden light.
“…You’re kind of amazing, you know that?”
Lydia looked mildly alarmed by the compliment. “Don’t say that. You don’t even know me. I could be the murderer here!”
Kori grinned. “You made me tea in a pink mug. With a fun quote! Murderers don’t do that!”
“Not in pastel, at least.”
“Exactly. I trust you.”
And she meant it. As absurd and impulsive and un-Kori as it all should’ve felt, it didn’t. Not one bit.
Lydia stood and stretched, spine popping lightly, and Kori had to tear her gaze away before her brain went on a field trip again.
“I’ve got an extra blanket,” Lydia said over her shoulder. “Couch isn’t huge, but it’s comfy. If you wipe all the water you brought in with you right off, you’ll survive.”
Kori beamed. “You’re my hero.”
“I’m your backup housing. Let’s not exaggerate.”
But there was the tiniest pink tint on Lydia’s cheeks now, and Kori absolutely did not point it out.
Instead, she set her tea down, folded her towel neatly (because manners!), and kicked off her shoes to curl up on the couch properly.
Lydia returned with a fluffy purple blanket and tossed it at her like they were already friends.
And Kori? She melted into it.
Lydia lowered the lights a little more before grabbing a book from her shelf.
“I usually read before bed,” she said, perching on the nearby chair again. “You okay with that?”
“Only if you read aloud in a mysterious accent,” Kori teased, already pulling the blanket to her chin.
Lydia gave her a flat look.
Kori gave her Bambi eyes.
Lydia opened the book, cleared her throat dramatically, and said, in the world’s worst fake British accent:
“It was a dark and stormy night, and the princess was a complete drama queen.”
Kori shrieked with laughter and nearly rolled off the couch.
❈
By the time Lydia had finished reading the very serious, definitely Pulitzer-worthy tale of Princess Drama Queen and the Cursed Ceiling, Kori was half-asleep, curled up on the couch. Only her eyes betrayed her, still wide, still bright, still flickering to Lydia every few minutes like she couldn’t help it.
Lydia closed the book with a soft thump.
“That’s all for tonight,” she murmured.
Kori let out a whine. “But the princess hasn’t defeated the rain dragon yet!”
“She’s resting up for battle,” Lydia said, standing and stretching again, that same slouchy, graceful stretch from earlier. “You’ll get chapter two in the morning if you’re good.”
Kori blinked. “So there’s going to be a chapter two?”
Lydia paused.
“…You want there to be?”
Kori hesitated for half a heartbeat before saying, very softly, “Yeah. I think I do.”
The silence that followed was not awkward, not tense, but rather full, heavy in the way warmth can be, or the smell of something familiar in a stranger’s home. The rain had slowed outside to a hush, as if even the storm was holding its breath for them.
Kori fidgeted with the edge of the blanket. “I know this is weird. Me showing up out of nowhere, dripping and half-drowned and basically begging for couch space.”
“It’s not weird,” Lydia said, too quickly.
Kori raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, it’s… slightly weird,” Lydia admitted. “But not bad. Just unexpected. Good unexpected.”
She walked over, crouching by the edge of the couch to make sure Kori could see her properly. Her expression had shifted, the sarcasm dialled down just a little, her voice gentler than it had been all evening.
“You seem like a lot,” Lydia said honestly. “Like- chaotic. In a pink tornado sort of way that would usually, were it anyone else in any other possible scenario, drive me utterly up the wall crazy.”
Kori scrunched her nose. “Rude.”
“And I’m not usually… great at people like that.”
Kori’s chest tightened. “Oh.”
“But,” Lydia added, fingers brushing a loose curl away from Kori’s forehead, “I think I kind of like it. You. This. Here.”
Kori stared.
Then, slowly, almost shyly, she grinned. “I like you too. Even if you talk like a mean witchy librarian.”
“That’s my aesthetic!”
“Well, it suits you.”
They didn’t kiss, not yet. It was too soon for that.
But Lydia’s hand lingered at Kori’s hairline, warm and grounding, and Kori didn’t pull away.
“I’ll crash here,” Kori said at last, nestling further into the blanket. “But only if you pinky promise I’m not burdening your introvert routine.”
“You’re not,” Lydia said, curling her pinky around Kori’s with the utmost solemnity. “This might actually be the highlight of my week.”
Kori’s eyes went soft. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Lydia stood again, brushing invisible dust from her pyjama pants. “Bathroom’s the first door down the hall. If you need anything, I’m the second door. Just knock. Or scream. Or, what’s your vibe? Interpretive dance? Ooooh! Loud singing?”
Kori giggled. “Probably the scream. Or, like, aggressively humming Britney Spears until you show up.”
“Noted.”
Lydia headed for her room but stopped at the hallway’s edge.
“Hey, Kori?”
“Mm?”
“I’m really glad I opened the door.”
Kori’s face broke into the purest, squishiest, most heart eyed grin imaginable.
“Yeah,” she whispered, pulling the blanket up over her nose, “me too.”
The lights dimmed. The rain faded to a gentle lullaby. And as Kori drifted off on Lydia B. Kollins’s mysterious, comfy-as-hell faux-leather couch, she decided one very important thing:
Tomorrow, she was making pancakes.
And maybe staying for breakfast.
And maybe, just maybe… forever.