Chapter 490: [Vol. 11.5 pt. 10]

Following the promise of neck biting, Kris managed to herd all of his girlfriends into his apartment. Now, outside of a few selfies that Kris sent to them which featured limited looks at his apartment, they had no idea what to expect.

But what they were capable of doing… was stereotyping.

Kris was a young, adult man living on his own. He was often either busy with work or video games as well. Between those two facts, it was likely safe to stereotype him as somebody who was rather unclean and bad at keeping tidy—or rather, he was somebody who just didn’t care about keeping clean.

There was also the fact that he shared his cooking inventions with them which gave them zero hope for his housekeeping abilities.

Or rather, it filled them with hope. It filled them with the hope that they would get to show off as maids by cleaning his apartment and making it look totally different from what he was used to! They wanted to clean until it was spotless to show him just what they were capable of as maids!

However.

As the women looked around… they saw a perfectly clean, tidy environment. There was no dust on any of the counters, everything was neatly organized, the various pictures and awards on the walls were all perfectly level and not even slightly crooked…

The maids… had never seen such a clean room that wasn’t a result of their own work before.

“Crap, sorry, hang on,” Kris said, rushing over to the wall behind his couch that hosted a rather large, abstract painting that probably just looked like a bunch of random colors and nonsense to anybody uninterested in art. “Must’ve closed the door too hard,” he said while adjusting the painting to such a miniscule degree that the girls didn’t even notice a change. “Alright. Now it’s level again.” A quick look around the room revealed a few more pictures that needed fixed, too, so he went around and fixed all of them in quick order. “Alright… that should be it. Normally, I remember to close the door gently enough that I don’t have to do that, but I guess I got too excited. Ah, man… I wanted to make sure my apartment was perfect for you.”

To say that such a clean room had only ever been seen after the maids’ work, his girlfriends realized, was an insult to Kris’s own cleanliness. If anything… he managed to keep an even cleaner room than any of them were capable of.

“Let me know if you see anything wrong, alright?” Kris said to his girlfriends. “I want you to be able to relax and not have to clean or anything. If there’s any messes, it’s my fault, so I’ll deal with it.”

Thinking back to it, the girls remembered something from when he went to stay with them alongside his friends.

The room that he stayed in was flawless. They didn’t think much of it when it happened since it was already flawless thanks to their own cleaning, and all he would have had to do was make his bed. Perhaps, as a guest, he wanted to leave a good impression by making his bed.

But now, after seeing the state of his apartment, they realized that his stay at the mansion was the normal for him.

“I… must admit,” Iris spoke up, “I had no idea that you valued cleanliness to this degree.”

Kris tilted his head. “What? This isn’t clean.”

“Kris, there is not even a single crumb or speck of dust anywhere that I look.”

“Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. It’s been hours since I’ve been in here. The counters are probably covered in microscopic dust and dead skin cells and all that by now. But it’s alright, I’ve got a lot of sanitizer. I’ll make sure to wipe everything down before I make dinner.”

“You—you don’t have to do that!” Rachel spoke up. “You don’t have to go that far for us.”

“I mean, I want to go that far for you, but I’d go that far even if you weren’t here. Nobody wants to eat on a dirty surface.”

“W-wow… you’re… I’ve never seen you like this before. You’re always so, umm… laidback in-game.”

Kris sighed and said, “That’s why I love being immersed. It doesn’t matter if things are dirty in a game because it’s all virtual anyways. Something that’s clean is the same as something that’s dirty, it’s just code that looks different, or something like that. You know what I mean? But everything is always getting dirty in real life. Things can’t even stay clean for a few minutes most of the time. Drives me insane sometimes, so I just stay immersed where I don’t have to think about it. Oh, and I’d appreciate it if you took your shoes off on the mat over there.”

None of Kris’s girlfriends expected him to be so obsessed with cleaning. And to anybody else, such an intense drive for cleanliness might have been intimidating. It was clear he was the kind of man who had far, far higher standards for cleanliness than the average. It almost sounded like it reached the point of obsession.

Such high standards were often difficult to leave with and were the result of conflict in relationships.

Yet.

As the maids looked at each other, at the room surrounding them, and then back at Kris…

They felt passion.

They felt a drive.

Their employer, Alice’s dad, was a rather simple man with low standards for cleanliness. It was incredibly easy to make him think that something was “clean,” and thus the maids never felt any true challenge when it came to keeping the mansion clean.

But here? With Kris?

With the man who likely had even higher standards than them?

They felt inspired.

For the first time in years, they felt a challenge that wasn’t related to romance.

To most people, a giant, fiery dragon, eldritch abomination, or a chicken that spawned a horde of chickens upon being attacked would count as the final boss of a game. Those were the true endgame threats to overcome.

But to the maids, they just found their final boss—they found the true endgame to their careers as maids.

And that boss was none other than Kris and his absurdly high standards for cleanliness.

Nothing else needed said.

It was time to get to work.

With the feeling of challenge fresh in their souls, the maids removed their shoes on the mat that Kris pointed out and immediately set out around his apartment looking for anything and everything to clean.

“H-hey, what are you doing?” Kris asked, only to be ignored as the women desperately searched for anything to clean.

Emily was first. She lied down on her back, since her breasts would have elevated her too much if she tried to lie on her front, and looked underneath the couch for anything.

But there was nothing.

Meanwhile, Rachel stood next to the couch and lifted up the nearest cushion to look underneath it.

There were no crumbs, no dust, no loose change—nothing.

Iris, being the chef among the maids, checked out the kitchen. Surely, there had to be something—anything—underneath the oven or fridge.

But there was nothing.

What about the sink? Was the sink leaky and occasionally dripping water that could be wiped up?

No.

Even the sink was spotless without even a single drop of water anywhere in it.

Abigail went for the bathroom. No matter who the owner of a bathroom was, there was always some degree of filth in there. That was something the women were especially guilty of due to regular hair loss, multiple women with periods sharing a bathroom, and the various beauty products they used occasionally being out of place and mixed up with one another.

While Kris might not have had to worry about those things, except maybe the regular hair loss that everybody alive had to deal with, he did have something that the women didn’t have.

Abigail knew about the dribbling of men. Alice’s dad was no stranger to it, and they were responsible for cleaning his bathroom as well.

Yet… there was not even a tiny bit of discoloration anywhere around the toilet. Neither on it nor on the floor. No matter where she looked, the entire bathroom was spotless. She even ran a tissue underneath the inner rim of the toilet’s bowl to check for mold or filth and saw nothing but a perfectly clean tissue afterward.

Anastasia was the only one with any chance of finding dirt left. Though, she was more curious in checking underneath Kris’s mattress for any adult magazines or toys. Unfortunately, there were no such materials there… but she did find something.

While the other four girls returned to the living room with defeated expressions that had Kris worried, Anastasia rejoined them while holding the holy grail between two fingers.

It was…

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A piece of fuzz.

A tiny, black piece of fuzz.

“She—she did it,” Rachel said. “She did the impossible…”

Emily sighed and said, “I think we have to give up. She’s officially claimed too many wins today.”

As for Kris, he stepped forward and asked, “Did—did you find that in my room?”

Anastasia, wearing a proud and smug smile on her face, nodded over potentially the greatest discovery that she ever made.

“Crap… sorry. I wanted to keep everything clean for you so that none of you would have to clean like always while you’re here, but I guess I couldn’t even do that right. Man, I don’t deserve any of you.”

Anastasia blinked a few times when she realized that, rather than prove her worth as a maid capable of taking on the greatest cleaning challenge in her life, all she accomplished was making her love feel bad.

“Sorry,” Kris said. “I—”

“Wait,” Iris spoke up, her voice loud and serious enough to draw the attention of everybody other than Abigail. Though, once Abigail saw that everybody was looking at Iris, she looked that way as well. “I see what’s happening here.”

“What’s happening?”

“A misunderstanding.”

“How? What kind of misunderstanding?”

“I must admit, after realizing how ill-prepared I was at the beginning of our relationship, I underwent rigorous studying with my lady’s guidance. She allowed me to borrow her ‘manga’ that featured relationships—the ones that were not broken by all manners of beasts and monsters. And in these, I learned of one of the most fatal and common problems with relationships: misunderstandings. I believe that we have encountered one such misunderstanding.”

“We… we have? What do we do about it? How can we fix it? I don’t want to make any more mistakes.”

Iris shook her head. “This is exactly the misunderstanding. You believe you have made mistakes, but we do not believe that, and this misunderstanding is causing you strife. As for how we fix this problem… we must perform one of the greatest and most powerful techniques to a healthy relationship that my lady has personally vouched for.”

“What’s that?”

“We talk about it.”

Kris’s eyes lit up when he heard that. “Oh! My bro has told me how useful talking about things is! I totally forgot. Alright, yeah. Let’s talk about it. I’m not really sure what to talk about, but as long as we talk about it, it’ll be alright, I hope.”

With all sides in agreement, it was time to talk about things like adults they were.

But not before Iris used Kris’s kitchen to make tea for everybody.

 

Once everybody had their tea, they sat at Kris’s dining room table, which he made sure to buy extra chairs for before his girlfriends arrived, and then they… sat there in awkward silence.

“So, uh,” Kris said, “what do we uh… talk about?”

The women looked at Iris since it was her idea, but she looked away with a bead of sweat dripping down her forehead as she scratched her cheek. “I have never been in this situation before, so… I am not sure. Probably… about how you feel you are making mistakes?”

“But isn’t it lame if I just talk about how bad I feel because I keep making mistakes and making you all do everything for me? Girls don’t like guys who feel bad and useless all the time, right?”

“You’re not useless!” Rachel shouted. “A-ah, sorry. I didn’t mean to raise my voice like that. But… I mean it! You’re not useless! At all! How could you even think that?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Kris asked. “I mean, you keep doing everything for me. I wasn’t able to stop that almost fight at the airport, the autocar I rented for us was too small, I was too slow and didn’t get to open your doors or carry any of your bags for you, and then I was stupid and got myself hurt and needed Abigail to bandage my leg. Then even though I tried my hardest to make this place spotless for you, Anastasia still found that dirt when I was sure there wouldn’t be any. So I guess it’s like… I feel like I’m a bad boyfriend because you all keep doing things on your own and I don’t get to help out. And when I try to do something ahead of time so you don’t have to worry about it, I still mess up and then you have to clean up after me. You’re maids, so like, your literal jobs are cleaning up after others and doing things for them. You shouldn’t have to do that on a vacation, especially for your boyfriend, so… I wanted to make it so you didn’t have to do any of that.”

Iris might have usually been pretty calm and serious whenever there wasn’t anything cute and fluffy around, but she was also motherly and caring. And hearing Kris talk about his feelings while wearing such a disappointed expression on his face made it impossible for that side of her to not burst out, resulting in getting up and standing behind him so that she could wrap her arms around him. “I’m sorry, Kris. I… must admit that I was completely blind to your feelings. All I was thinking about was how to look good in front of you, but I wasn’t considering how that made you feel.”

“See? And now I’ve made you feel bad. That means I’ve made another mistake. A good boyfriend shouldn’t make his girlfriends feel bad, right?”

“You should not hold yourself to standards that you do not hold us to. We have made you feel bad without meaning to. Does that not make us bad as well?”

“You’re not bad. You’re perfect.”

“As are you, and I want you to see that.”

Rachel, nodding along, spoke up and said, “Yeah! And—and you need to give yourself more credit! You managed to surprise Abigail without breaking any bones! Even we can’t surprise her like that! And you saved her! She might have gotten really hurt when that pot fell, but you protected her! Bandaging you up afterwards wasn’t anything for you to feel ashamed about. You were a hero who got hurt. A firefighter who gets hurt while saving kids from a burning building shouldn’t feel bad when the paramedics take care of him afterwards, right?”

“I… guess I didn’t think about it that way,” Kris said. “But I don’t think I did anything special. All I did was protect her.”

“Exactly! That makes you like, super cool! And heroic! And awesome! And really hot!”

“Don’t forget about the kid,” Emily said. “You took time out of your day to let that kid take a picture with you. No, all he wanted was an autograph, and it was your idea to take a picture instead.”

“There’s nothing special about that.”

Emily sighed and shook her head. “You’re so nice and patient that you don’t even realize you’re like, stupidly kind to people, us included.”

Next was Abigail who used sign language like usual. “You are far more wonderful than you are aware, my love. That is why we have been trying to impress you. We want to serve you just as you want to serve us, but the only way we know to do that is through performing our usual tasks. By putting our all into serving you, we show our love for you. But now that I know you want to do that for us which we have insisted on doing ourselves, even though we do not believe you need to do any of that as you are already perfect and do enough for us… I see that we have deprived you of feeling like you are contributing, and for that I am sorry,” she signed.

Kris signed back while talking out loud just so the others would know what he was saying without having to read the signs. “I guess I didn’t think about that. I wanted to take away what you know how to do so that I could feel like a good boyfriend without thinking about what you would be left with.”

And then finally, Anastasia spoke up. “Your home is remarkably clean, Kris. When we saw just how clean everything was, it inspired us to put even more effort into our passion as maids. We did not search for dirt to embarrass you, shame you, nor to make you feel bad. We were simply excited and treated it like a game to see if we could find anything to boost our egos.”

Rachel then spoke up again and said, “If I tried my hardest to clean for somebody, and then the first thing they did was look everywhere to find even one tiny little piece of dirt, then I’d feel really bad and like they were trying to prove I wasn’t good enough and made a mistake. Sorry, Kris. I… guess we still have a lot to learn about how to be good girlfriends.”

Kris, however, shook his head and said, “I won’t let you imply you’re not good girlfriends. You're all amazing. I guess it's just... we have different expectations, and we didn’t share our expectations, so we were acting against each other without meaning to… or something like that. So I guess… the only thing any of us actually did wrong was not talk about our expectations. Actually, yeah. Even when I said to let me carry something, all I did was imply that I wanted to because I thought I was supposed to as your boyfriend, not because I genuinely wanted to help you out because I love you and want to help you even if you don’t need my help. Woah… did we get to what the problem is? Was that the misunderstanding? We both wanted to help each other but didn’t want to let the other help out? Dang, talking about things really does work.”

Iris brought herself closer to Kris, pressing her breasts up against the back of his head as she tightened her hug a bit.

The sudden breasts-against-the-head approach made Emily glare at Iris with jealousy.

“Let’s talk about our expectations then,” Iris said. “We can talk about what we want to do for each other, and we can give each other tasks. We can fairly split the work so that neither party feels like they are doing less.”

Kris nodded, rubbing his head against her breasts without even realizing it since he had no idea what the soft sensation against his head was without being able to see it, and said, “Yeah. I think that’s a good idea.”

“But I call cooking duties.”

“But… I—uh… if we’re being honest about our expectations and wants, then… I really wanted to cook for you and was looking forward to it. Would it be alright if I get to cook at least once?”

Iris slid one hand up Kris’s body until it was right in front of his face so that she could poke his nose. “Then how about the two of us cook together? If we do it as a team, then it counts as splitting the work and putting equal effort into the relationship, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, that’s a good idea. I’ll have to try harder to come up with smart ideas like that, too.”

And so, the misunderstanding was resolved through the power of adults communicating like adults and being honest about their feelings.

Between the density of everybody involved and the misunderstanding, one might think that horrible anime romance tropes had manifested into a godly being trying to prevent their relationship from ever successfully happening, but they somehow persevered through all of the hardships thus far.

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