Vignette Summary: Mia and Diego get food poisoning together. That's it. That's the story.

Tags: Toilet Humor/Crack

Word Count: 931

Date: Saturday, April 20th, 2013

Time: 11:02 am

Location: Diego's Apartment, Los Tokyo

It was another Saturday morning, and the couple spent it the way they normally did, lounging on the couch at Diego's apartment, relaxing after another stressful and busy week. They weren't always such homebodies, especially if Mia had the energy to organize some other activity, but this morning wasn't one of those mornings.

Diego was seated upright on the couch, his legs and feet propped up by the coffee table, and he had the TV remote in his right hand. He was unable to settle on a program and was flipping through the channels every minute or so. Mia, meanwhile, was lying on the couch, her legs stretched across his lap, her head leaning on the armrest, reading a magazine.

Occasionally, one would say something, and the other would reply, but they mostly sat in silence. The kind of comfortable silence only achieved through the extreme closeness they had already developed in only two months together. Unfortunately, they didn't realize then that, against their will, they were about to get a whole lot closer.

When Diego's stomach started rumbling the first time, there was no change to their seating arrangement. Mia simply teased him for being hungry already. "You just had breakfast too," she remarked. After it happened a third time, Diego moved her legs off him, laid them back down on the sofa, and stood up.

"Excuse me," he said. He began walking away but returned seconds later, turning the volume up by ten points on the TV, before leaving again.

Mia gave him a strange look, unsure of why he'd do that since she wasn't paying attention to the TV. She didn't think much about it and resumed perusing her magazine. 15 minutes later, Diego had still not returned, and Mia had the urge to get up too. She ran to the bathroom, but the door was closed.

She knocked on the door. "Diego, are you almost done? I feel sick. I think I have to throw up."

"Go to the kitchen sink!" he called back.

"You want me to throw up in your sink?" she asked incredulously.

"You can do that in the sink. I can't do what I'm doing in the sink."

Mia suddenly understood and bolted to the kitchen.

About a day later, the pair was sweaty and disheveled, still wearing their pajamas from two nights before, having spent the whole 24 hours in and out of his bathroom. They laid backward on the bed, over the covers, hoping they were through their bout of food poisoning.

Diego patted Mia on the thigh. "Well, kitten, we had a good run."

"What?" she asked.

"Two months in and the romance is already dead. Time to cut our losses."

"Nooo," Mia whined back. She knew he was joking, but acknowledging what happened that weekend just made her feel more embarrassed.

He put his arm around her, rolled her into his chest, and scrunched her shoulder. "Kidding. You can't get rid of me that easily."

"Oh, darn," she joked.

"Hmph." He exhaled. "Yeah, I was hoping we'd be at least a year in before we got to this stage in our relationship. We're just knocking back milestones left and right around here."

Mia laughed. "I don't know what 'milestone' you're referring to, but I hoped this would never happen."

"I know. But with two of us and one bathroom, it was bound to happen at some point." He grinned. "On the bright side: you don't have to go to the rooftop lounge bathroom anymore."

"What?" Mia exclaimed. She tilted her head up to look at him. "You knew about that?"

"At around 7 pm, every day, you need to 'admire the view' on the patio, all by yourself. I'm never allowed to join you. At some point, I started connecting the dots."

Mia covered her eyes in shame. "There's no getting anything past you." She smiled. "Well, you don't have to run the shower anymore when you do."

He chuckled. "And here I thought I was so clever."

"I can hear the toilet flush while you shower. It was the only thing that made sense."

"You caught me."

"That's really bad for the environment, you know," Mia lectured. "It wastes a lot of water. And with forest fire season starting too!"

He laughed again. "Sorry, I'll think of the sea turtles and woodland critters the next time I take a shit."

Mia laughed back.

There was a brief silence.

"You finally pick somewhere to eat, and this happens," Diego said.

"Don't remind me," Mia replied. "You can pick where we eat from now on."

"I'm just teasing. We aren't going to Lola's ever again though. There are a million other restaurants in the city that won't make us beg for death."

"Agreed." Mia sighed. "Honestly, maybe this is just a sign from the universe that we shouldn't be eating out so much."

"You might be on to something. I can cook, so I don't know why I order out twice a day."

"If we're feeling up to it later, why don't we get some more groceries tonight?" Mia suggested. "We can cook our dinners and pack all our lunches this week. No more food poisoning."

Diego extended his hand out and Mia shook it.

"Deal," he said. "We might need two showers before we're fit to face the public though. The turtles won't like that."

"We can always shower together. Save water."

He grinned. "I wasn't sure about all this environment stuff, but you've convinced me."