Fan Fiction ❯ The Misadventures of Tsuki and Nikko ❯ Toilet ( Chapter 8 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]
“Hey! Hurry up Tsuki! I've gotta go! And I've gotta go NOW!” yelled Nikko as she pounded on the bathroom door.
“I'm hurry'n! Hold your bladder! It would be nice if I could get some privacy you know,” Tsuki yelled through the door at Nikko.
“Well, hurry faster. If you don't, I might have to start dancing here in the hall!”
“Now that would be something to see,” said Tsuki as she flushed the toilet and started to come out of the bathroom. “We could even videotape it. I know someone who has a video camera with spare tapes. We’d call it ‘Moonlight Mambo’.”
“Yipe! I’d call it ‘Blackmail’. No, I don't think so,” said Nikko. Tsuki shook her head smiling, “You’ve got some issues, I think. No, I don't think. I know! You’ve got issues.”
“Hey, I’m not the one who goes berserk when your ‘Roshi’ calls, and goes out of her way to conveniently ‘avoid’ Hiroshi’s ex as well as Taiyo—your ex,” poked Nikko. “Shut up!” yelled Tsuki. Nikko smirked. “Can’t handle a little truth can you?”
Tsuki turned back to the bathroom. “Oh no, not again!” cried Tsuki turning around to face the toilet. “I needed you to shut up because our toilet is broken again!”
“Great,” muttered Nikko sarcastically turning and walking away. “I'm just going next door to use Rin's bathroom. I’m sure she knows how to not break the toilet.” Her voice trailed off as she hop-danced towards the front door.
“Stupid toilet. It never wants to work right,” muttered Tsuki as she glared at the offending toilet. The girl sighed and attempted to diagnose the problem. The water in the toilet was running and wouldn't stop, so she had to turn the water off. To do that she had to take off this cap thingy on the piping that goes to the commercial style toilet—you know, the kind you see in restaurants or Wal-Mart. “It won't come off! Those stupid maintenance people probably think that I'm messing with the toilet because I try and fix it. I wouldn’t have to try and fix it if they’d just take care of the actual problem instead of whatever the heck they do to it.” Tsuki mustered all her strength and tried to turn the cap again. No luck. Tsuki put a foot on the opposite wall and braced herself as she tried again to turn the cap. It still wouldn’t budge.
Tsuki sat back and thought for minute. “Maybe a pair of pliers would work. Yeah!” With this idea Tsuki got up and went in search of a pair of good pliers. “There might be a pair in one of my drawers,” mused Tsuki.

Nikko walked into Tsuki's room intending to encourage her roommate to cook something for dinner, but stopped at the door when she encountered piles of papers mixed with clothes. “Whoa! Your room is messier than usual. What's the occasion?”
“No comment.”
“Did you lose that shirt that you borrowed from Hiroshi or something?” asked Nikko trying again.
“No! If you absolutely must know, I'm looking for a pair of pliers,” replied Tsuki, her face turning a nice shade of red at the mention of her new boyfriend.
“Pliers? What in the world do you need pliers for?” asked Nikko.
“Stop asking stupid questions or I’ll use the pliers to permanently shut your mouth. You know why,” stated Tsuki.
“Oh. That's why. Wait...again?! That's the second time this month. Weren't those guys that came here a few days ago supposed to fix it?”
“Yeah, but they didn't,” said Tsuki with an exasperated sigh.
“I think I'm gonna leave you to your work. You seem to be getting along great with it at the moment. Besides I have a phone call that I need to make,” said Nikko turning and walking out of the room
“Whatever,” said Tsuki distractedly. She had all of her thoughts on finding a pair of pliers.
Tsuki changed out of her pajamas, getting ready to go and search her car. Tsuki had come home not to long ago from spending the night over at Hiroshi's place. But she couldn't call and ask Hiroshi to come and help. He'd probably just gotten to sleep himself. Not to mention that he lived all the way across town. “No. I won't put Roshi through that. It would just be mean,” thought Tsuki as she made her way outside to her car.
As Tsuki made her way to the front door, she noticed that Nikko seemed to be caught up in a phone conversation. “Dang, I can’t recruit her to be a lifeguard as I dive into my car and trunk.” Tsuki went to her car and after searching the seats carefully, turned to the trunk. As soon as she opened the trunk however, a feeling of doom washed over her. “If I don't die from this, I'm definitely going to find a way to get Nikko to clean this mess out,” she said.
After a few minutes of trunk diving, Tsuki managed to find her cell phone that she'd lost a year ago, a pair of hair clips that her last boyfriend Taiyo gave to her, and the PE book that she tore her room and Nikko's room apart looking for. “All this and no pliers in sight! I could ask one of the neighbor guys on that front porch over there to help me. I could play up the feminine charm ‘Oh strong guys, please come help little old me,’” thought Tsuki laughing. Playing the damsel in distress wasn’t something she’d had any practice with. She looked over at the guys. One was playing guitar, and the other seemed to be engrossed in a conversation on his cell phone. “But I'm too scared to go and ask them. I mean I don't know them or anything, and Mom would kill me if I ended up mugged, raped or murdered,” Tsuki thought.
Going back into the house, Tsuki decided to search her room yet again. “If I can't find anything in my room, I’ll either force Nikko to look in her room, or I'll go look myself. But if I try to force Nikko into looking herself, well, that's just asking for trouble. It'll take a few days. And if I go in and look myself, I may never make it out alive!” thought Tsuki as she walked into her room. With another exasperated sigh, the girl bent over and started rummaging, “Anything thing that will get the darn thing loose will work! Please! Let me find SOMETHING!”
As soon as Tsuki had moved aside a very nifty pair of pants and Nikko's game boy that she'd borrowed a few years ago, she stumbled upon a hammer. “This'll work! I'll MAKE it work!” cried Tsuki in that winning satisfaction that one can only get after searching for something for a few hours without any help from smart-ass roommates.
Tsuki went into the bathroom to fix the toilet. “I don't need to hit the pipe that hard. I don't want to send water gushing everywhere,” thought Tsuki. “If I get any water on any of Nikko's computer things, I'd be dead. There would no exceptions. She'd probably sick that monster she calls a puppy after me. And that's a fate worse than death,” thought the girl as she cringed. “Yeah, definitely a fate worse than death.”
Tsuki got bent above the toilet gently tapped the offending pipe, thinking that all it needed was a little tap, just to get it loose enough to turn. She reached down and tried to turn the cap. It wouldn’t budge. She tapped the cap a few more times and tried to turn the cap again. “It's not working! It should work. I did not spend all morning searching for a pair of pliers to end up with a stupid hammer that doesn't even work!” yelled Tsuki out of frustration. Then continuing her rage of frustration, Tsuki tapped the pipe again, this time not so gently.
Meanwhile, Nikko had gone back into her room. She had just finished petting her puppy when she heard a scream followed by the sound of rushing water. “Oh no! I knew I shouldn't have left her alone with that toilet,” thought Nikko frantically. As soon as Nikko stepped out of her room she found she was in about a half an inch of water. Quickly, Nikko put a lot of towels in front of her doorway in an effort to stop the water from coming into her room. Then Nikko ran towards the bathroom to find a stunned Tsuki holding a hammer in an ax-murderer position over what used to be their toilet.
“Now you've done it!” yelled Nikko. “You killed our toilet! Not to mention our bathroom!
“Do you honestly think that I meant for this to happen!” screamed a frantic Tsuki.
“No, not really. But these things always seem to happen to you for some odd reason. Ya know, maybe you're cursed!”
“NO! I'm not cursed! I just have really bad luck with this stinkin' toilet!” said Tsuki getting ready to hit the toilet again.
“Right. Whatever you say. But I wouldn't do that if I were you. You're just going to make it even worse.” said Nikko. Tsuki just glared at Nikko in response.
“Well, think of it this way. Now we have an indoor swimming pool!” exclaimed Nikko, which only earned her another glare. “I suppose I need to show you how to shut the water off outside huh?”
"Since when do you know how to shut off the water from the outside?!" screamed Tsuki. "You should have told me that in the first place! Then I wouldn't have spent all of the wee hours of the morning looking everywhere for stinkin’ pair of pliers that I know are SOMEWHERE! I wouldn't have created a lake in the middle of the house! And I wouldn't be standing in two inches of water!" screamed Tsuki, panting heavily from her tirade of screaming.
"You never asked," responded Nikko in a calm matter of fact voice.
"You should have told me anyway!" exclaimed Tsuki, ready to lunge at Nikko. "Hey! Where are you going? I'm not finished yelling yet," called the girl, as she sloshed after Nikko, who had left.
"I'm going to get a pair of pliers out of my room so that I can turn the water off outside."
"Huh!? What? Since when do you have a pair of pliers! AND WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME YOU HAD A PAIR OF PLIERS! YOU KNOW VERY WELL THAT I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR A PAIR ALL MORNING!"
"I'm a computer nut. Wouldn't it make sense for me to have a pair of pliers hanging about?" questioned Nikko. Tsuki didn't answer but just continued on her grumbling.