I went to the fridge and grabbed a jug of chocolate milk, then an oversized cup so large that my small hand didn’t even come three fourths of the way around the base. Behind me, Jin was flipping through pages of his book while I ‘worked’ at my all important snack preparation.

The sloshing noise of milk glugging its way into the cup was one I always liked, and my belly rumbled a little. My species, no matter what we look like, requires a lot of calories to thrive. I have to eat roughly one and a half to double the amount of the equivalent of a human in order to function effectively.

So?

I snack a bunch.

Some milk splashed free and landed on the floor. “Hmpf.” I groused as I looked at the wasted stuff. It wasn’t much, but even so, I dislike wasting good sweets. I rubbed my sleeve on the counter and my sock-covered foot over the floor, clearing up the miniature mess… and knocked the cap for the jug down onto the floor as well. “Oh come on!” I exclaimed, put the jug back into the fridge without the cap, bent down to get the cap, and threw it into the trash.

That got Jin’s attention, and he said, “You could just wash it.” He said.

I scrunched up my face. “Eww. I have standards, you know.”

He looked around my apartment, at the crunched up empty bags of chips, the empty fast food containers, the various ‘debris’ on the counter and the stack of unwashed dishes in my sink. He raised an eyebrow at me.

“If you see me eating off those before they’re washed, and if you see me eating out of those bags again… then you can say I don’t have any standards. Until then?” I raised my eyebrow back at him and crossed my arms in front of my chest. “Hush.”

He shrugged. “Fair enough.” He said and turned back around to finish finding his place.

I reached into the cabinet and took down a fresh container full of chocolate and chocolate creme sandwich cookies, it rattled as I tore it open and carried both to the table.

After I flopped down in my chair next to him I dunked one cookie after another into my milk and then stuffed them into my mouth until my cheeks were quite stuffed, and Jin began to go over his math.

“I just, I don’t get this.”

It was geometry.

“Mph p ekals cue an cue ekals awr thin p ekals r is two.” I said, and he cocked his head.

“First chew. Then speak.” Jin said with his face as deadpan as his voice.

I rapidly chewed and swallowed my cookies with an audible gulp, grabbed my cup with both hands and washed them down by drinking about one third of the contents.

“I said, if P equals Q and Q equals R then P equals R is true. Think of it this way.” I said and wrote out the letters, then below them I put numbers instead. I put a one below the P and another below the Q and asked, “So if the Q is equal to the R, what should the R be?” I asked.

“A one!” He said and snapped up straight. The light of understanding went off in his eyes.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Why didn’t they explain it that way?!” Jin exclaimed.

“Maybe they’re just not as amazing and wonderful and perfect as me, did you ever think of that?” I teased, and he looked around at the slovenly mess that was my residence.

“Really?” He asked.

“Alright, that’s fair, but don’t push it.” I agreed and cautioned him.

He blushed a little, “I mean it, though, you should be a teacher though, two minutes in and I know a hundred percent more than I learned in a whole hour.”

“Nah.” I said with a dismissive shrug. “What’s the next thing?” I asked.

Jin kept going through the various problems he was having, and honestly, this is where humans can be kind of annoying. They’re frankly like stubborn children sometimes.

They establish a ‘formal’ way of doing a thing, then never want to change it even if there’s a better way. It’s pretty dumb when there’s an easier way that gives the same exact result.

“Ugh, let me show you some short cuts for these…” I took him from one trick to the next, and by the time he was done, that light of understanding on his face could have brightened up a black hole.

“If you’re not interested in teaching, how about being a tutor?” He asked. “I mean it, you’re really good at this.”

“Nah, I don’t have that many chores that need doing.” I cracked a smile, “And that would get in the way of my slow, easy life.”

“But like… you’re an adult aren’t you?” Jin asked and looked me up and down while I dunked yet another cookie before popping it happily into my mouth.

“Yup. More than you know.” I said with a playful wink.

His face turned bright crimson and he sputtered a little before finding his tongue again and saying, “Then, I don’t know, shouldn’t you have some kind of… ambition or dreams? A career, a future of some sort? Are you just going to be a NEET forever?”

I huffed and the quiet stretched out for a solid minute while I, with slow, languid, deliberate motions, crunched down on cookie after cookie.

He shifted around in his chair, watching me eat until I finished the last one and said to him, “You can’t ask someone for help, and then complain about how they’re living after they do you a favor, Jin. That’s just rude.” I huffed again. I wasn’t that annoyed, but the audacity was notable and consistent.

“Sorry miss Taida.” He answered.

I relaxed immediately, “Not a problem, but listen, I do have ambition. I do have dreams. Big ones. Really big ones.” I answered. “Want to know what they are?” I fluttered my eyes several times and stood up from the table.

“Yeah! Sure! Of course!” He said with sudden interest when he closed his math book.

“My ambition is to watch the entire anime season run of ‘Our Wandering Time’ today, my dream is that my apartment be cleaned by you, and my hope for the future is that somebody will need something from me tomorrow so I can pawn off another chore on somebody else so I can relax and lie around in my pajamas some more.”

Jin facepalmed and groaned, “That’s not what I mean, Kayobi.”

“Maybe not, but all my dreams are coming true right now, hop to it, I’ve got a series to watch.” I said and went back to my couch, which I promptly flopped down to and turned the t.v. back on to get my series watched. “Oh, and throw me that tube of chips, would you?” I asked.

I didn’t want to use magic in front of a human, but I did want chips and I did not want to move now that I was immediately cozy.

“Sure thing, Kayobi.” He rolled his eyes, stood up, tossed me my chips, and averted the danger before he set himself to work.