Annoying!
isaac is an annoying roommate . .
Content warnings: none probably Requested?: nop
A single ice tray sat on the counter, not in the freezer. Nowhere even near the freezer. Y/n just stared at it in silence.
The counter was wet underneath it; a little puddle had formed around the tray and soaked into a folded dish towel she'd left there the night before. Isaac had probably taken the ice out, gotten distracted midway through putting it back, and wandered off to do something else entirely.
Again.
She reached forward to pick the tray up between two fingers, as if it offended her personally. Which, at this point, it kind of did. She opened the freezer and shoved the tray back into its slot harder than necessary.
Honestly, she could live with that. The ice tray thing was annoying, but manageable. She didn't even like ice in her water that much anyway. If that were the only thing Isaac did, she probably would've found it endearing in a pathetic sort of way.
The real issue was that Isaac never finished anything.
Every task he touched looked as if it had been abandoned halfway through; cabinet doors and the fridge were left wide open, things were left on the table, and he somehow managed to use every single dish in the kitchen to make instant ramen, then left the dish beside the sink instead of inside it.
At first, Y/n tried to be patient about it. Living with people always came with compromises, and no one in the house was perfect.
But no room was spared from Isaacs messes, the kitchen facing the worst of his wrath.
Y/n had started unconsciously adjusting her routine around him. If she heard him downstairs, she'd wait until he left before making food herself. She knew the second she walked in, Isaac would start talking to her;
"Can you grab me a plate?"
"Wait, while you're there can you put these pizza rolls in too?"
"Oh, are you making pasta? Can you make extra?"
Initially, she did not mind it. Isaac asked for things so casually, so absentmindedly, that saying yes came easy. He always sounded like he genuinely believed the request was small, like she was already there anyway, so what was the difference?
But eventually Y/n started lingering upstairs longer than necessary just to avoid it.
She'd sit on her bed scrolling mindlessly through her phone waiting for Isaac to leave the kitchen so she could go downstairs without accidentally becoming responsible for feeding another grown adult.
Because somehow every meal became communal once Isaac noticed she was cooking.
And if she left leftovers in the fridge? Forget about it. More than once she'd gone downstairs already thinking about the food she'd saved only to find the container shoved back into the fridge nearly empty. Isaac never even hid it either; he'd just blink at her when she stared at the container in disbelief.
"You weren't gonna finish all that."
Or worse:
"My bad, I forgot that was yours."
All the while his own leftovers from weeks ago sat untouched, tucked into the back of the fridge.
None of it sounded serious enough when she thought about it individually. That's what made her feel insane sometimes. It was all small things, but they stacked on top of each other slowly until she started feeling irritated before she'd even seen him yet.
Sometimes she'd hear Isaac downstairs and genuinely debate whether eating was worth the interaction.
The worst part was that Isaac never seemed malicious about any of it. He wasn't one of those roommates who intentionally dumped responsibility onto everyone else. In fact, half the time he genuinely looked surprised when someone pointed out the mess he'd made, like objects simply ceased to exist once they left his field of vision.
Still.
Intent only carried a person so far before they became unbearable to live with.
Hours later, the house was active.
Nick and Tanner laughed at something on his laptop at the kitchen island while Yumi sat on the couch scrolling on his phone. Isaac occupied the counter area, naturally making something that smelled burned.
Y/n wandered downstairs mostly for water. The moment she stepped into the kitchen, she stopped.
Crumbs. Everywhere.
Somehow, peanut butter smeared beside the toaster, too. The bread bag sat open beside the sink, and a butter knife rested directly on the counter instead of the plate, literally inches away from it.
And sitting near the stove like a personal attack from God himself was the ice tray, half melted.
Again.
Y/n stared at it.
Isaac did not notice her standing there, continuing to talk animatedly about something to Nick while opening the fridge.
"Oh my god," she muttered under her breath.
Isaac glanced over. "Hm?"
She looked at the kitchen again; the sink full, the sticky counter. The stupid fucking tray. Then at Isaac, who had apparently managed to destroy the room in under ten minutes.
"Can you clean up after yourself?"
Isaac blinked once, caught slightly off guard by her tone. "Yeah, in a second."
A second.
A second.
A second apparently meaning never in Isaac-language.
"No, not in a second actually."
The room quieted almost instantly.
Nick stopped typing, and Yumi slowly lowered his phone.
Isaac straightened slightly. "What?"
"You always say that," Y/n said, hearing her own voice sharpen. "Everything is always later with you. You'll clean it later, put it away later, deal with it later. But then you never do." Now that she'd started, the words came too fast to stop.
"I can't even cook in here anymore without cleaning up after you first. There's constantly crumbs everywhere, dishes everywhere, wrappers everywhere—"
"Okay, I said I'd clean it—"
"But you don't!" The sentence came out louder than she intended adn heat rushed violently into her face. "I am so tired of picking up after you all the time," she continued, hating how shaky her voice sounded now. "And the ice tray thing is actually insane. How do you forget the ice tray every single day?"
Isaac opened his mouth.
Closed it.
For once, he genuinely looked unsure what to say.
Tanner suddenly became very interested in the ceiling.
"And I'm not your mom, Isaac."
The moment it left her mouth, she wanted to die, because now she was painfully aware of everyone staring at her. The humiliation hit all at once, burning hotter than the anger had.
She took a small step backward. "Whatever. Forget it." Then she turned and walked upstairs before anyone could respond.
By the time she reached her bedroom, her chest hurt. She shoved the door shut behind her and buried her face into her pillow with a groan of pure embarrassment.
Great. Amazing. Now she'd had a public meltdown over an ice tray.
Objectively, Isaac was annoying to live with. She knew that. Everyone in the house knew that. But the second she'd raised her voice in front of everybody, all the frustration suddenly felt childish and dramatic.
Downstairs, muffled voices drifted through the floorboards.
"Dude, go apologize."
"I didn't even do anything on purpose!" Isaac hissed back.
"That is not helping your case," Yumi said.
Y/n squeezed her eyes shut.
A few minutes passed before there was a hesitant knock at her door.
"...Y/n?"
Isaac.
She considered pretending to be asleep.
"Can I come in?"
She let the question linger for a moment before she muttered, "Fine."
The door opened carefully.
Isaac stepped inside like he expected something to be thrown at him. His hoodie sleeves were pushed up unevenly and there was still a faint smear of peanut butter near his wrist somehow. He noticed her looking at it and awkwardly wiped at it with his sleeve.
Neither of them spoke at first. Then Isaac rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. "I am sorry."
Y/n stared down at her blanket. "I shouldn't've yelled."
"Yeah, maybe not in front of everyone," he admitted carefully before quickly adding, "But, uh, fair complaint."
That made her glance up. Isaac leaned against the closed door, looking unusually serious.
"I know I'm messy."
"Catastrophically messy," she muttered.
"I know."
Isaac shoved his hands into his pockets. "I don't really notice half the stuff I leave behind until somebody points it out. My brain kinda moves onto the next thing before I finish the first thing."
"The ice tray genuinely makes me feel insane."
A laugh escaped him before he could stop it. "Yeah, okay, the ice tray thing is bad."
"You've done it like four times this week."
"Yeah."
"You left cereal in the microwave yesterday somehow."
"I didn't know where else to put it."
Y/n stared at him in disbelief.
Isaac cracked a smile first, and, unfortunately, that made her laugh too. It slipped out against her will, a little awkward, but enough to loosen some of the tension between them.
His expression softened. "I really didn't mean to make you this upset." The sincerity in his voice made her regret ever making a scene.
She looked down at her hands. "I didn't wanna keep nagging you all the time."
"You weren't nagging."
"I kind of was."
"No." Isaac shook his head. "Honestly, I think everyone in the house has just adapted to me being kind of annoying."
"You're very annoying."
"That's fair."
Another tiny smile tugged at the corner of his mouth before he pushed himself off the door.
"I'll do better," he said.
She eyed him suspiciously. "You're still gonna forget sometimes."
"Oh absolutely."
"Isaac."
"But less!" he defended quickly. "Way less. Hopefully."
Y/n shook her head. Hopeless. Actually hopeless.
All of a sudden from downstairs, Nick yelled, "ARE YOU GUYS DONE?"
Isaac and Y/n shared a look.
Tanner's voice followed right after. "IS SHE STILL MAD?"
"Dude, don't ask that," Yumi said, hushed.
Isaac dragged a hand down his face while Y/n covered her mouth, trying not to laugh harder. He looked back at her, smiling sheepishly now and annoyingly enough, it was difficult staying angry at him when he looked genuinely sorry.