Author's Note: This is a collection of drabbles written for livejournal's rent100. I decided that people will probably kill me if I post 100 separate ones on here, so I'll be doing them as chapters of this one fic instead. I hope you enjoy. Oh, and Rent is not mine.

001. Beginnings

Warm tobacco and old leather. A husky voice that seemed to have something to say about pain and regret, even if she couldn't make out any of the words from the fire escape two floors down.

Mimi hated the building. It was old, the walls creaked at night, and she refused to look into the corners of the stairwell for fear of what might be living there. But it was affordable. And it was a roof over her head. And there was no one crying, or yelling, or leaving bruises on her arms.

And sometimes, if she listened extra hard, a voice floating down from somewhere above to sing her to sleep with the bittersweet taste of love.

Mimi knew the first day she moved in that she hated the building.

She knew by the end of that first night that she was in love with the boy upstairs.