The next day Raif tried not to look at the jar. The jar was not important. He had no reason to talk to Wyn. He ought to leave her alone. The sink was still clean and he was still happy.

Yet, when he sat down to a dinner of bacon and eggs, with no one around, he got curious again.

He opened the lid and pulled out the next request. This one was on green paper and unlike the scrolls, it was folded up into a tiny fortune teller. He opened it and read it.

Vacuum the inside of the couch. Muriel was supposed to do it before she left and she neglected her responsibility. The vacuum is in the linen closet.

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He turned the paper around in his hand and pondered the meaning of the note. She was not requiring him to do it. She was leaving it as an option. It wasn’t even much of a request. It was ordinary roommate stuff!

He had been stupid not to see it before. With the jar, she had provided him a way to prove that he was a good roommate. Doing everything she wanted in one week would be the kill shot he needed to make her want him to stay.

He looked at the jar and patted its lid affectionately.

It was inefficient for him to pick a paper out and then do what it directed. He needed to know what all the papers said so he could do as many as possible before the end of the week.

He finished his dinner, washed his dishes, and took the jar into his bedroom.