The Girl Who Doesn't Flush
Aning was a good girl in every way—except that she never flushed the toilet.
Well, not never. During the day she had no problem at all. It was just that every night after midnight and before dawn, if she used the toilet, she absolutely could not bring herself to flush.
Yet every morning at four a.m. sharp, she'd wake up needing to go, and sit on the toilet for a long time.
Only when her legs went numb and her feet turned ice-cold would Aning finally stand, staring down at what was in the bowl, her hand hovering just above the flush button, trembling.
She wanted to press it.
She really, really wanted to press it.
But she couldn't.
---
Aning knew this habit wasn't normal. It was obnoxious, and she'd known that since she was nine years old, when she went to live at her uncle's house.
Otherwise her aunt wouldn't have worn such an ugly expression all the time, yanking her hair and cursing her.
Calling her a dead weight, saying the family was cursed to have her; saying she'd inherited nothing good from her worthless parents; saying she was so clumsy at chores; saying she always woke everyone up with her midnight bathroom trips.
And saying she was an unloved, uncared-for brat who didn't even flush the toilet after using it.
Little Aning didn't want to be scolded. She learned to tiptoe down the stairs in the dark, slip into the bathroom without turning on the light or making a sound. She wanted to press the flush button so badly—it was so simple, she could do it effortlessly during the daytime—just press it and be done.
But she couldn't.
Little Aning could only curl up on the hard bed in the attic every night, her heart pounding, waiting desperately for the darkness to pass and the light to come. The moment the first ray of sun leaked through the cracked roof, she'd rush downstairs before anyone else was awake, go to the bathroom, and carefully press the flush button.
If she pressed it too quickly, the sudden roar of water would startle her so badly she'd jump.
Then her aunt's shrill voice would ring out, those harsh words filling every corner of the room. Little Aning never talked back—sometimes she cursed herself even harder than her aunt did.
She thought, miserably: Why do I have this weird problem? Why am I so annoying?
When would this ever end?
---
It ended eight years later.
Aning got into a university far away and left her uncle's house.
At first she was happy. She could start her life over—no more walking on eggshells waiting for her aunt's moods. The dormitory had communal bathrooms with squat toilets, no flush buttons to worry about.
By comparison, needing to work part-time for tuition and living expenses was a minor inconvenience.
Aning breathed a sigh of relief.
It didn't take long for her to realize she'd been wrong.
The environment had changed, but her four-a.m. habit hadn't. A squat toilet might not be a regular toilet, but it still had a flush button she needed to press.
Aning couldn't overcome that weird fixation. After midnight, her hand simply would not press down on the flush button.
She resorted to the same method she'd used at her uncle's house—every morning the instant it got light, she'd rush into a stall and flush frantically, then hold her breath watching the water carry everything away along with her panic.
But real panic couldn't be washed away so easily.
A communal bathroom shared by an entire floor meant lots of college night owls, and plenty of people used the bathroom late at night.
That meant someone would eventually discover the unflushed stall.
Soon complaints circulated—someone on the floor never flushed the toilet. The dorm supervisor, a conscientious woman, checked the hallway cameras and came knocking on Aning's door.
She asked pleasantly: "Which one of you always uses the bathroom in the middle of the night?"
Every girl in the room looked at Aning. When you shared a dorm, there was no hiding the fact that someone woke up at four a.m. every single night.
Aning stepped forward and whispered, "It's me."
The dorm supervisor wasn't angry. She just said the school's students were generally decent, this was probably an oversight, and next time she should remember to flush properly.
Aning's face burned red. Her mind went blank. She said nothing, only bobbed her head.
Even after the supervisor left and her roommates went back to acting like nothing had happened, Aning stood rooted to the spot, thinking in despair: I'm done. I'm really done.
---
Aning wasn't wrong this time.
Within days, the fact that she didn't flush the toilet had spread across her entire floor, her whole department, and even the entire college.
Even the supervisor's tactfully phrased words had been exaggerated and gossiped about until they turned vicious.
Aning didn't know who in her room had leaked it. She didn't suspect anyone in particular—she wasn't close to any of the other girls.
After all, Aning rarely participated in group activities—no dinners, no shopping trips, no mixers—and never joined their gossip sessions. She'd missed many chances to bond.
It wasn't that Aning deliberately kept her distance. She just had neither the time nor the money.
But to her roommates, her constant refusals inevitably came across as aloof and unsociable.
And if this aloof, standoffish girl also happened to get top grades and scholarships, and attracted male attention with her looks—well, that was just too much for some people to stomach.
Too many people loved watching those they disliked suffer, loved seeing the accomplished fall into the mud. That was why Aning's secret spread so fast. There was no topic more delicious for people to smirk about behind others' backs.
That pretty, smart, stuck-up girl—she might act all proper, but behind closed doors, she doesn't even flush the toilet.
How gross. How funny.
---
Aning wasn't angry at anyone. She was only angry at herself.
She had this embarrassing, shameful problem. She was the one causing others trouble, and she deserved every bit of it.
But she couldn't fix it. During the daytime, flushing was effortless, but after midnight her hand turned to stone above the flush button and refused to press down no matter what.
Aning was out of options.
But since she'd promised the supervisor she wouldn't do it again, she wanted to keep her word. She didn't want another visit from the supervisor.
So for a long time after, from four a.m. until dawn, whenever conditions allowed, Aning would lock herself in a bathroom stall and just stand there—reading, studying, or spacing out.
That way nobody would use that stall, and nobody would complain she hadn't flushed.
Even though it meant standing for two or three hours in a cramped little cubicle, getting bitten by mosquitoes in summer, shivering from cold in winter, and later gaining a reputation for all sorts of unsavory rumors because she was never in her room at night—Aning kept at it.
Was it worth it? Using one strange behavior to cover up another strange behavior?
Aning didn't know the answer.
She just huddled blankly in the tiny stall, looking up at its four indifferent walls, thinking she didn't have a choice.
She was already trapped inside.
---
Aning graduated from college.
She didn't go to grad school—though her grades were more than good enough—because she knew there'd be little income during graduate studies, and graduate dorms weren't single rooms.
Aning wanted to start working right away, making money, living alone.
But a new hire couldn't afford a studio apartment in this expensive city. It was too extravagant. Aning couldn't bear to give up the free housing her company provided for new employees.
The setup was decent—a three-bedroom shared by three people, each with her own room, but only one bathroom.
Was Aning going to repeat the same mistake?
No—this time she had a new solution. After using the toilet in the middle of the night, she'd fill a basin from the sink and pour it into the toilet. Not too loud, and it flushed just the same.
No need to press the flush button, and her roommates would never discover Aning's secret.
Aning was thrilled.
She crouched beside the toilet, both elated and sad, thinking how stupid she was for not thinking of this simple solution sooner.
Then, after a while, Aning remembered—she'd tried this method more than ten years ago.
But back then, her aunt had caught her in the act and slapped her so hard she fell against the toilet rim, cracking her head open and bleeding everywhere. Little Aning clutched her wound and listened to her aunt screaming curses—calling her a troublemaker, just like her crazy mother, harming herself and others.
Blood had poured down over little Aning's eyes, and along with it, this simple solution had sunk to the bottom of her memory, lost without a trace.
So she wasn't stupid—she just had a terrible memory. Aning reached up absently to touch the scar hidden in her hair, her smile strained.
In any case, she'd recovered this method from her lost memories.
Aning wondered: Did this count as a fresh start?
---
Thanks to the pour-water-into-the-toilet method, Aning coexisted peacefully with her strange habit for a while.
She also got along well with her two roommates—they were in the same department, commuted together, cooked and chatted on weekends, talked about reality shows, dramas, and romance.
Aning liked this life. Even though she felt too quiet to contribute much to the conversation, just watching the other two laugh and joke while she handled cooking and cleaning gave her a feeling of being touched by sunlight.
She started trying to laugh more freely, to join in their play, like any ordinary young woman, living a plain, steady, normal life.
Some might find such a life too dull, but Aning had yearned for it for years.
Stability nourished her. Even waking at four a.m. every night from nightmares to use the bathroom seemed less agonizing.
She even managed to stay calm the night a roommate with an upset stomach burst in on her while she was pouring water into the toilet—Aning just trembled slightly instead of freezing up entirely.
Then one snowy weekend, the girls were gathered around a hotpot, maybe a little tipsy from beer, and one of them asked: "Aning, why do you do that? Is it to save water?"
Aning almost said yes.
But she hesitated, then explained that she'd had this strange habit since childhood—she couldn't bring herself to flush the toilet after midnight.
The other two looked sympathetic. Aning felt a weight lift from her chest—both because she could finally say it without burden, and because she'd finally made friends willing to listen and promise to keep her secret.
Any secret that parasitizes the heart too long will grow damp and mold, becoming so heavy you can barely carry it. You have to find the right moment, spread it out before someone you trust, air it out, dry it in the sun.
Aning had waited years for this opportunity. So when she saw even a glimpse of it, she grabbed it desperately and refused to let go.
---
Aning regretted it later—regretted that she hadn't kept her mouth shut.
If she hadn't said anything, she could have kept those two good friends.
Even though they always took Aning's food from the fridge without asking, forgot to reimburse her for utility bills she'd covered, or pushed their work onto Aning when she was already busy—Aning didn't care. She didn't hold grudges. She just wanted friends she could be close to, people who could be her anchors so she wouldn't float alone in a sea of strangers.
But why did they have to tease her about not flushing the toilet at night? And why did they have to do it at the company's annual party, in front of the entire department, drawing laughter that was either gloating or embarrassed?
Was it because a male colleague Aning liked was there? Or because the department head was about to give the one promotion slot to Aning? Why did the tiniest jealousy ferment into such vicious spite, turning a secret shared in trust into a weapon?
Aning couldn't be bothered to figure out the truth. She just thought, numbly, that this would never be over.
Just like at her college reunion, people still brought up her toilet habit, the same way her current colleagues did—over and over, even ten or twenty years later, someone would never forget.