Prompt: Write a short story/scene about two characters who have never met, but live on opposite sides of the same apartment wall. Sometimes they shower at the same time--and sing duets.

Word Count: 2401

Brief A/N: This short story is for the Soul Sisters Writing Prompt Comp. It's based off of the prompt above. The songs featured in it are all ones that I wrote myself in the past. I found most of them in my Notes app, just sitting there. The only one that has been edited to fit the story is the last one.

The first time Lilien Yang heard the girl in the next apartment over singing, she had just moved in.

She was on her phone, thumb scrolling rhythmically through other people's lives, mind numb and so, so tired. There were boxes at the foot of her bed, big brown ones she had taped shut. Her sheets, blankets, and pillowcase were a deep blue, somewhere in between cobalt and navy.

The voice came from the other side of the wall, somewhere in the back of the apartment. It was quiet and achingly beautiful. At first, Lilien thought she was imagining it. She turned her head and saw nothing but the window.

But somebody was definitely singing. Lilien stood up abruptly, tucking her phone into the back pocket of her jeans, and strode to the back of the apartment, trying to find the source of the voice. She'd always been tall, and well-proportioned, with long legs that propelled her forwards without her finding it necessary to exhort much effort at all. It resulted in her looking perpetually purposeful, even when she was blinking back tears and feeling rather lonely. She rather appreciated it; at least her ego wasn't suffering as much as it ought to be.

Quite without thinking, she entered the bathroom, where the voice was louder. Following the sound, Lilien found herself pressing her ear to the cold, white-tiled bathroom wall. Now she could hear the song clearly, although she didn't recognize it.

"I hear whispers in the dark

Everything I should have said, done differently

Every night I mark

All my failures from inside me"

The singer's voice was unmistakable: low and beautiful, in a way that gave Lilien chills. A part of her wished it was a song that she knew, so she could sing along. But it was okay. She liked listening.

Besides the song, Lilien could also hear the steady downpour that indicated a shower, and little splashes: the water hitting the singer's skin. She realized, somewhat unabashedly, that what she was doing was unquestionably creepy: listening to a girl she had never met shower, a girl who probably didn't know anyone could hear her. But she wasn't doing it to be creepy, she was doing it because the girl's voice was so beautiful that she couldn't help but cry. She was doing it because the girl's voice made her feel simultaneously insignificant and pivotal. She was doing it because the loneliness she had felt, and tried to push down, ever since she had been thrown into the adult world was being shoved into the light, suddenly at the forefront of her mind. And she was doing it because she could feel the song washing away the loneliness, even as it dragged it into the open.

The song came to a close, and Lilien heard the steady downpour of water fade into a sporadic trickle. As the girl disappeared into whatever life she led, Lilien felt a strange, sudden surge of disappointment, and she found that she couldn't force herself to move. So she just stood there, ear pressed to the wall, mouth slack with disappointment.

"What are you doing?"

Lilien felt quite as though she had been caught robbing a bank. Blushing profusely, she turned around to see Malena Vasquez, her new roommate, staring at her quizzically. "Uh, oh! I, um..."

"Sorry if I intruded on something," Malena said, backing up. "The door was open."

"No, no, sorry," Lilien said, unable to meet Malena's eyes. "It's nothing. Here, I can go." Unbearably embarrassed, she slunk past Malena, through the bathroom door, and into the apartment behind it.

"Wait, Lilien," Malena said.

Lilien turned. "Yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

She had seen the tears on Lilien's face. She had seen them, and she had taken the time out of her life doing whatever it was she did to ask if Lilien was okay.

It was the first time that Lilien truly appreciated Malena, but it wouldn't be the last.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Lilien said, wiping a tear off of her cheek. She gave a small smile. "Thanks for asking."

"Of course," replied Malena. She was shorter than Lilien, with light, golden-bronze skin and a bushy mane of curly dark hair. Lilien thought she was maybe a year or two earlier, and that small difference had made Lilien strangely afraid at first. "If you need anything, I'm here. Okay?"

"Okay," Lilien said. She paused, then asked the question she had been wondering for a while. "How do you say your name? Is it Mal-eh-na or Mal-ay-na?"

Malena laughed. "Oh, it's Mal-ay-na. But you can just call me Lena."

Lilien smiled, and she realized with a start that she had made a sort-of friend.

A song played through her dreams that night.

><><><><><

The second time Lilien heard the girl in the next apartment over singing, she was in the soft, sweet, slightly itchy dreamlike state between slumber and consciousness. When she blinked her eyes open, it took her a few moments to get oriented. She was Lilien. She was lying on her bed, with the deep blue sheets. Somebody was singing.

She stood up with a start and ran to the bathroom. The girl next door was louder, this time, and it was a different song, but her voice was just as deep, and just as heartbreaking.

"Since I don't know who I'll be

Guess I'm just saying this and hoping that you'll hear me

Though you're not here, soon you'll be

Oh god, I really hope that you'll be"

She stumbled over a few words, and laughed softly. It sounded like the tolling of a bell. Lilien felt something in her melt.

She closed her eyes and stood still, listening. She didn't usually think about the lyrics to songs, but these ones connected with her, on some deep level. It was about being lonely, and wishing someone else was there. Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought there was something unbearably sad in the girl's voice as she sang the last line.

"Wish I could be someone you actually want to see"

"She's amazing, right?"

With a start, Lilien realized that Malena was standing next to her. "Ugh, Lena! Why do you keep sneaking up on me like this?"

Malena laughed. "Sorry! But isn't she good?"

"The- the singer?" It was strange, Lilien reflected, to realize that other people were listening to something you had unconsciously pinned as just for you. Strange, and somehow, a little bit of a letdown. But it was okay. She shivered shakily. It was fine.

"Yeah, her voice is so pretty," Malena beamed. She turned to leave the bathroom, pausing when she saw that Lilien hadn't stirred. "Lili? You coming?"

"Oh!" Lilien said, blinking the fog away from her mind. "Right. Yeah, sorry."

That night, she dreamed that she was hollow, a shell of herself. But somewhere, someone was singing, and slowly, she let the song fill her up.

><><><><><

The third time Lilien heard the girl in the next apartment over singing, she was showering, her hands slathered in rose-scented shampoo. She heard it as soon as she started, and her hands forgot that they were massaging the shampoo into her scalp, becoming limp.

"Even when I'm doing something

I know I should be able to do

I look around and still, I think of you

Everything is deadly

That's what you would always say"

There was something distinctly nostalgic about this song, and although Lilien didn't know for the life of her what the lyrics were meant to convey, they made her feel as though she had lost something important.

The chorus was rather repetitive:

"You said you only kept me to keep the deadly away

You only kept me, keep the deadly away"

By the second repeat of the second chorus, Lilien was quite sure that she knew how it went. So quietly, not quite daring to believe what she was doing, she sang along with the girl, her soprano creating a harmony. And even though the chorus was done quickly, even though the verses were long and filled with metaphors about bruises that Lilien couldn't possibly sing along to without knowing the lyrics, even though the chorus after the bridge was slightly different and she only ended up having sung two lines in one chorus, she still felt brave and powerful and giddy and special. She stood there, grinning, for a full moment or two, the water pouring down her back.

The thing that ended up tugging her into reality was her black hair, wet, clinging her shoulders, and the hot water gradually becoming cold. But even as she hurried to wash off the shampoo and put on conditioner and wash off the conditioner and wipe soap all over her body and wash the soap from all over her body, all while trying to avoid the ice-cold water, she couldn't help but feel invincible. She had done it. She had sung along with the mystery girl who lived next door.

And although nobody actually knew, it meant everything to her.

That night, before she went to sleep, Lilien googled the lyrics. You said you only kept me to keep the deadly away. No song came up, though, or at least none that resembled the one the girl had sung. She tried to remember the lyrics to the other songs she'd heard, the first one and the one about being lonely, but she couldn't remember any. So she went to sleep, slightly confused, wondering where the songs were from.

When she woke up from her rose-scented dreams, she realized that the girl must have written them.

><><><><><

The fourth time Lilien heard the girl in the next apartment over singing, she was sitting on the toilet lid, a notebook and pen in her lap, on her phone. It was 9:30, around the time the girl usually sang. This time, Lilien was ready.

As soon as she heard the shower start, she turned off her phone with a click and opened the notebook, pen ready to jot down whatever lyrics she heard.

"Once it was just a game

Five seconds until flame

Devoured us but now it's gone

And so much more dangerous

Than playing with imaginary fire

So give me a hand out of here

You beautiful liar"

She wrote as fast as she could, trying to cling on to each word. And although she fell woefully behind, she'd written a lot, so much that her hand was cramping. When the shower turned off, she had a full page of tiny, rushed handwriting.

The song was catchy, and so Lilien quickly recorded what she remembered of it into her Voice Memos app. Instead of going to sleep that night, she whispered lyrics, carefully building her own song. She finally stopped around 4 AM, when Malena expressed a genuine and heartfelt desire to murder her. But the next morning, she whispered the lyrics to herself as she waited for the subway to take her to work. She wrote quick, illegible ideas into her Notes app, and revised the song that evening, singing it so many times that she memorized it, pounded it into her brain.

By 9:30, she was done.

><><><><><

Kayla Jones was stepping into the shower when she heard someone singing.

Confused, she looked around, but she knew no one else was there. Following the sound, she realized that it must have been someone in the apartment next to hers, singing in the shower just like she always did.

The singer was a soprano, her voice high and delicate. Was it Kayla's imagination, or was it trembling a little, as though afraid, or embarrassed?

Kayla turned on the shower and grabbed her bar of lavender soap from its holder. Usually, this was when she sang a song she had written, but she wanted to hear the soprano's song. So she listened.

"There is a girl

I've never known her name

But she sings in the shower every night at 9:

30 PM, and she inspired me

So I wrote this song, and I guess I hope she hears me"

Kayla's mouth folded itself into a smile, although she felt mostly dazed. This girl was talking about her. She had to be. Kayla always showered around this time, and she always sang in the shower, too.

She didn't know what to feel. Embarrassed? Disgusted? Creeped out? Attracted? None of those, really: she felt vaguely interested, invested in the song.

"This is a little bit embarrassing

I hope you don't think I'm a creep or a stalker

But your songs make me feel understood

So I hoped you would understand"

It was pretty good. The rhymes were confusing, sporadic, and ill-conceived, but the tune was somewhat catchy. Kayla was still in the process of realizing that some random girl had written a song about her.

"My name is Lilien, and I live next door

I'm not usually this weird, though I'm not a bore

And I hope you're ready to hear more

Cause there's one more part"

Kayla smiled bemusedly. This was utterly strange, of course, but "Lilien" seemed harmless, and rather sweet, in an awkward way.

"Girl who I hear singing in the shower

Won't you teach me how to songwrite better

This song doesn't have any morals, lessons, curses, blessings

It's just me singing something in the shower while I wash my hair

So sing along

Literally all you have to do is say the words 'sing along'

So sing along

Sing along"

And quite without realizing she was doing it, Kayla opened her mouth and sang along.

"Sing along"

They were harmonizing, singing a strange, shower duet.

"Sing along"

It was weird and new and awkward and embarrassing and kind of fun.

"Sing along"

Two young women singing in the shower.

><><><><><

They met after that, not exactly meaning to. In the elevator. Leaving the building. Lilien knew the girl with the Afro had to be the singing girl when she heard her talking to her friend, in her distinctive low voice. And Kayla knew the black-haired girl with bangs and hair in a ponytail was Lilien because she entered the apartment right next to hers.

And they became friends, too. Not close friends. Not girlfriends, platonic or romantic. Just casual friends, who waved hello and asked, "How ya been doing?" and went on in their separate lives.

Casual friends who sang shower duets sometimes.

They could deal with that.

A/N: I hope you liked it! I won first place for that week's prompt. :)