Translated from the uploaded Russian text.
I silently watched as my nephew Oleg methodically covered the living room with bright yellow sticky notes.
One note was pressed firmly onto the mirror frame, another decorated the wardrobe door, and the third, the largest one, Oleg proudly planted on the plasma TV.
“Oleg, right now you remind me of an employee from the property confiscation department,” I remarked without changing my position in the armchair.
“Aunt Lena, this is just labeling, to avoid confusion and family disputes in the future.”
Sveta, Oleg’s sister, appeared in the doorway with the expression of someone who had just finished inspecting Buckingham Palace.
She disdainfully ran her finger along a shelf and immediately began examining the dust mark, as if it were evidence in a case of high treason.
“Oleg, I’m taking the mirror. It will perfectly complete my new hallway,” Sveta declared in an icy tone.
“Svetik, you’ll only be able to get it into your hallway sideways, but in my living room it will look like it belongs there.”
I watched this circus and felt a strange mixture of excitement and slight disgust.
My relatives reminded me of vultures who had already prepared their forks and knives, even though lunch was still actively breathing and even making sarcastic remarks.
“Actually, I’m not planning to move on to the next world just yet,” I reminded them, adjusting the shawl draped over my shoulders.
“Oh, Lenochka, we’re only thinking of your peace of mind, so you won’t have to get nervous later because of scandals,” Sveta smiled so sweetly that my teeth began to ache.
Valera, Sveta’s husband, barged into the room, dragging some huge box behind him.
He looked like a man who had dreamed of power his whole life, but so far had only earned the right to choose the brand of toilet paper.
“Sveta, I checked the storage room. There are excellent tools there. I’ve already loaded them into the trunk,” he reported cheerfully.
“Valera, those tools belonged to my late husband, and I did not give you permission to touch them.”
Valera froze. His face turned the color of boiled beetroot, and his eyes began darting along the walls.
“Well, we’re family, Lena. Why all these formalities? They’re just lying around unused anyway.”
Greed has its own specific sound — the sharp rustle of banknotes being counted in someone’s mind and the heavy, hoarse breathing of those afraid of missing the handout. I knew they were discussing my bank account behind my back, the one where the money from selling the plot of land had settled.
“Aunt Lena, you do understand that Oleg is your only direct heir through the male line,” Sveta began insinuatingly.
“What line would that be?” I raised an eyebrow. “The line of laziness and unwillingness to do anything?”
Ignoring my jabs, Oleg was already sizing up my favorite oak table.
He patted the tabletop with his palm, as if checking the strength of tank armor before an offensive.
“Excellent table. Solid wood. They don’t make them like this anymore,” he muttered under his breath.
“Of course they don’t. These days people prefer furniture that can be moved without the help of three loaders.”
A sharp, demanding ring sounded from the hallway, and my relatives instantly straightened like soldiers.
It was the signal for the main act of our little tragicomedy, which I had been preparing for an entire month.
“And here is the notary, right on time,” I nodded toward the door, trying to hide a wicked smile.
Nikita entered the room with such a serious expression that one might have thought he was carrying at least a peace treaty in his folder.
He wore a strict black suit that was slightly tight across the shoulders and glasses with heavy frames.
Nikita looked so official that even Valera involuntarily hid his hands behind his back, as if he might be caught red-handed.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” Nikita’s voice vibrated with deliberate importance.
“Elena Petrovna has invited me here for a preliminary introduction of the family members to her will.”
Sveta nervously clutched the strap of her handbag, while Oleg stopped patting the table and froze.
The room became so crowded with their expectations that for a moment it seemed to me the walls had begun to close in.
“Let’s skip the preamble,” Oleg jerked his shoulder nervously. “We are all adults here. We understand the seriousness of the moment.”
“That is precisely why I asked for silence,” Nikita said, slowly opening the massive leather folder.
For a long time, he shuffled through several papers with official seals, which I myself had printed on a good printer.
Every rustle of paper made my relatives almost physically shudder, as if it were the sound of a falling guillotine.
“According to the current instructions,” Nikita cleared his throat and swept a stern gaze over everyone present, “Elena Petrovna’s property, including monetary assets in the amount of nine million rubles, is subject to distribution.”
Valera let out some strange sound, something like a suppressed hiccup, while Sveta turned pale.
The figure of nine million affected them like a spell, paralyzing their will and whatever remained of their reason.
“However,” Nikita paused, during which only Oleg’s heavy snorting could be heard, “the owner has established a special criterion for determining the principal successor.”
“What criterion?” Sveta’s voice broke into a thin squeak. “We’re family. We’re blood relatives!”
“The criterion of emotional warmth and actual assistance provided during the last calendar year.”
I leaned back in my armchair, watching as my dear relatives frantically tried to remember the last time they had called me just because.
At that moment, a tense calculation process was taking place in their eyes — how many times they had brought me groceries and how many minutes their visits had lasted.
“But I… I brought Aunt Lena medicine in March!” Oleg blurted out, leaning forward.
“The medicine for which I gave you twice as much money as it cost?” I reminded him sweetly.
Oleg stopped short and turned red, while Sveta immediately seized the opportunity to take the initiative.
“And I did too! I sent you greeting cards for every holiday in messenger! Every week!”
“Cards with sparkling cats are, of course, a contribution to my emotional well-being,” I nodded with the most serious expression.
Valera, sensing that their family share was slipping away, decided to go all in and began speaking about spirituality.
“We were always with you in our thoughts, Lena. You know how difficult life is now. We got caught up in things.”
“Thoughts are wonderful, Valera, but for some reason they didn’t help me move the wardrobe when a pipe burst underneath it.”
Nikita rustled the papers again, bringing everyone’s attention back to the document in his hands.
“Thus, after analyzing all the facts, Elena Petrovna has made a final and irrevocable decision.”
He held a pause that could have seemed like eternity even to the most patient person in the world.
My greedy relatives were already dividing up my millions, but the notary announced the name of the sole heir, and that name sounded like a sharp door slam right in their faces.
“The entire volume of assets and real estate shall pass to Nikita Sergeevich Sokolov,” the “notary” pronounced solemnly.
A silence so thick hung in the room that it could have been cut with a knife and served for dessert.
“To whom?!” Oleg was the first to regain the power of speech, and his voice broke into a shout.
“To this… this four-eyes?! This is fraud! You bribed him!”
Sveta began slowly sinking onto the sofa, which she had already mentally dressed in a new cover.
“Lena, are you out of your mind? Giving everything to a stranger when you have us?”
“Nikita Sergeevich is my godson and the son of my best friend,” I explained calmly.
“And he is also the only one who wasn’t waiting for my death in order to slap a sticker on my old refrigerator.”
Valera took a step toward Nikita, clenching his fists, but Nikita merely adjusted his glasses and pulled another sheet from the folder.
“If you intend to obstruct the announcement of her will, I will be forced to call a patrol unit to record the disturbance.”
“A patrol unit?!” Sveta jumped up from the sofa. “We’ll sue you ourselves! We’ll prove she’s legally incompetent!”
“Go ahead and prove it,” I shrugged. “Just keep in mind that all of your visits today were recorded on a hidden camera.”
I pointed toward a small shelf where the lens of the surveillance system was tucked among the souvenirs.
The expressions on my relatives’ faces at that moment were worth far more than the nine million they had been dreaming about so much.
Oleg tore the yellow sticky note off the mirror and angrily crumpled it, throwing it on the floor.
“Choke on your inheritance! You’ll never see us again. Live however you want in your crypt!”
“That is exactly what I was aiming for, Oleg,” I smiled at him with the most radiant smile I had.
They left noisily, slamming doors loudly and shouting curses in the hallway about my “senile dementia.”
When the last sound of their footsteps faded, I was finally able to take a full breath, without the feeling that someone was stealing my air.
Nikita pulled off his jacket, loosened his tie, and dropped the heavy folder onto the table with a thud.
“Elena Petrovna, you are a great screenwriter,” he wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “I almost cracked when Valera started talking about the greeting cards with cats.”
“You were magnificent, Nikita, especially when you started talking about ‘official seals.’”
I walked over to the window and saw Oleg and Sveta arguing furiously near the car, waving their arms around.
They were still dividing the hide of a bear they had never killed, not even realizing that the bear had long since gone off into another forest.
“And the money… have you really decided to transfer it to that foundation?” Nikita asked, sitting down on the edge of the table.
“Half to the foundation, and we’ll keep the other half for renovations,” I winked at him.
“What renovations?” he asked, not understanding.
“We’ll remodel the place, get rid of this old oak table, and put in something light and modern.”
I walked over to the wardrobe, where Oleg’s yellow sticky note with the word “Mine” was still hanging.
Slowly, with pleasure, I pulled at the edge of the paper, listening as it peeled away from the polished surface with a creak.
“You know, Nikita, I don’t want to be lonely and ‘free’ in an empty apartment,” I looked at him.
“I have a better plan than simply throwing the relatives out the door.”
“And what plan is that?” Nikita narrowed his eyes with interest.
“I’ll rent two rooms to students from the conservatory. Let this place be noisy and cheerful again.”
I imagined the sounds of a violin and young laughter carrying through these corridors instead of endless whining about prices.
Life is too short to spend it waiting for sincerity from people who only know how to calculate someone else’s profit.
Nikita laughed and began helping me tear the remaining sticky notes off all the furniture in the house.
We turned it into a competition — who could clear the living room of the traces of greed faster.
By evening, the apartment had been transformed. It seemed taller and brighter, freed from the sticky film of expectations.
I brewed us strong tea, and we sat in the kitchen discussing which wallpaper would suit the future tenants best.
“Elena Petrovna, what if they really try to sue?” Nikita suddenly asked.
“Let them try,” I took a sip of tea. “My lawyer, Egor Sokolov, has already prepared all the countermeasures, although he doesn’t know it yet.”
I knew that Egor, my neighbor and, at the same time, a very sharp young man, would gladly help me.
He didn’t need my millions. He simply brought me fresh newspapers twice a week and fixed the faucet.
The most reliable currency in this world is a simple human “How are you feeling?” spoken without any hidden agenda. I looked at my hands and realized they were no longer trembling from hurt or anger.
In the morning, I woke up because bright sunlight was peeking through the window, illuminating the clean surfaces of the furniture.
No sticky notes, no inventory numbers, no “asset labeling.”
I stepped out onto the balcony and saw Valera trying to unload that same box of tools from the trunk.
He looked deeply miserable, as if the tools had suddenly become three times heavier.
I waved to him, and he immediately ducked back into the car, trying not to look in my direction.
Victory over someone else’s meanness is not revenge, but the ability to keep smiling when you have already been written off.
A couple of days later, the first students arrived — cheerful Katya with an enormous cello case and serious Nikita.
The apartment instantly filled with life, the smell of rosin, and endless arguments about classical music.
“Elena Petrovna, can we hang a poster in the kitchen?” Katya asked, peeking into the living room.
“Hang whatever you want, children, just don’t stick yellow papers on it with the word ‘Mine.’”
Katya blinked in confusion, then laughed, deciding that it was just another joke from the strange landlady.
And I sat in my armchair and listened as the first uncertain sounds of music were born behind the wall.
It was the best investment of my life — I had exchanged fake relatives for real music.
And no notary in the world could ever estimate the monetary value of that peace of mind.
I closed my eyes, feeling a pleasant warmth spreading inside me, one that had nothing to do with hot drinks.
My home was mine again, and not a single centimeter of it belonged to anyone else’s greed.
