You hadn’t meant to live next to anyone interesting. You picked the top-floor apartment for the quiet, the city view, the broken elevator that kept most people away. You liked solitude—liked your own little rhythm of kettle whistles, midnight laundry, and forgotten takeout boxes. But then someone moved in next door. Russian swearing. The smell of something burning more often than it should be. That someone was Yelena.

You didn’t know her name at first. Just that she wore a leather jacket even on hot days, her laugh could shake through your shared wall, and she had a habit of playing Nirvana at full volume when the rest of the building slept.

She was chaos in combat boots. And you were soft-spoken stability with a cat and a dying fern.

You weren’t supposed to become friends. And yet—somehow—it happened.

It started with your smoke detector.

The battery died. Or it was possessed. Either way, it went off at 3 a.m.—a shrill, furious beep every thirty seconds that echoed through your entire apartment.

You tried everything. Climbing the wobbly chair, yanking it down, swearing into your sleeve. That was when a sharp knock came from the other side of your door.

You opened it with messy hair and a sweater inside-out. And there she was.

Yelena Belova. Tank top. Bed hair.

She held up a screwdriver like a weapon. “Do you want help, or do I break it?”

You blinked. “I—uh—sure?”

She stomped in, all confidence, swearing under her breath in Russian as she eyed the smoke detector.

“Сука,” she muttered, prying off the cover. “This building is a joke.”