I stared into the fridge like it held answers.

  It didn’t. Just tofu, kale, salmon, and the ghost of Florence Ito’s engagement ring haunting my peripheral vision.

  Behind me, Krei was already unloading groceries with the efficiency of a man who had never once eaten pudding for dinner and called it a win. I heard the thunk of vegetables hitting shelves, the gentle judgment of eggs being placed in an actual egg tray, and the hum of someone humming while organizing.

  God help me.

  “You know,” he said, unwrapping a suspiciously fancy loaf of bread, “for someone who screams into the void for a living, you’re really bad at dealing with real-world silence.”

  “I’m bonding with the spinach,” I muttered.

  “Your spinach is rotting in the bag.”

  “Relatable.”

  He closed the fridge. “Cool. Well, since you’re done emotionally projecting onto the produce, it’s time.”

  I blinked. “Time… for what?”

  Krei turned, already rolling up the sleeves of his obnoxiously crisp button-down like he was preparing for battle. “We’re cleaning.”

  I made a sound that could only be described as a dying gremlin falling down a flight of stairs. “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. You’re getting up. You’re putting on actual pants. And we’re exorcising whatever ancient funk lives under your desk.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You clean it. You’re the one having a moral crisis about the vacuum.”

  He crossed his arms. “I bought groceries. I stocked your fridge with real, edible things. Now you’re going to pick up a broom or I’m calling your mom.”

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  My soul tried to leave my body. “That’s emotional terrorism.”

  “It’s domestic accountability.”

  I flopped onto the futon with a dramatic groan. “You can’t make me.”

  “You say that like you’re not five minutes from being bribed with boba.”

  I looked up slowly. “Peach sugar?”

  “Large.”

  “…Fine. But I’m doing it ironically.”

  “That’s the spirit.” He tossed me a pair of gloves like a battlefield commander issuing armor. “Welcome to the war on filth, General Goblin.”

  I groaned again, louder this time, like a vacuum-powered banshee, and dragged myself off the futon with all the enthusiasm of a cat being dunked in a bath.

  We started with the desk.

  Or rather, the hellscape formerly known as a desk: energy drink cans, unopened mail, three dried highlighters, and a drawing of Ketsusaki with fangs and abs labeled “hot but unstable???” I shoved that last one under a pile of receipts so fast I almost gave myself a paper cut.

  “Do you ever throw anything away?” Krei asked, holding up a tangled knot of cables like it was a cursed relic.

  “I was going to use those.”

  “For what? Binding a demon?”

  “No. Maybe. Shut up.”

  We moved to the floor next. Dust bunnies. Mystery crumbs. A sock that hadn’t seen sunlight since February. Krei vacuumed like he had a vendetta. I swiffered like I was being punished by the universe.

  At one point, he opened the closet and screamed.

  “WHY is there a mug of cold coffee in here?!”

  “I needed a quiet place to cry and sip.”

  “IN THE CLOSET?!”

  “IT HAD GOOD ACOUSTICS!”

  He stared at me. I stared back. We both burst out laughing.

  Somewhere between scrubbing the mystery stain on the wall (Krei called it "The Abstract Sadness") and Lysol-wiping my keyboard like it had sinned, I realized I didn’t hate it.

  Cleaning with him wasn’t horrible.

  It was... weirdly therapeutic.

  Messy. Stupid. But therapeutic.

  “Is this what being functional feels like?” I asked, peeling off my gloves after we conquered the bathroom sink.

  He handed me a bottle of air freshener shaped like a unicorn. “No. This is just the tutorial level.”

  I collapsed onto the now-visible futon. “Kill me.”

  He flopped down next to me, equally sweaty, equally smug. “You did great.”

  “I’m disgusting.”

  “You’re alive. And your apartment doesn’t smell like a boba graveyard anymore. That’s progress.”

  We sat there in the glow of our questionable victory.

  Not perfect.

  Not clean, clean.

  But better.

  I glanced at him. “So… do I still get boba?”

  He reached into the grocery bag and pulled out a chilled cup with my name on it. “As promised, General Goblin.”

  I took it like it was holy.

  And for a minute, I didn’t think about Florence. Or the dinner. Or the fact that my life looked nothing like I planned.

  I just sipped my boba in a mostly-clean apartment with the one person who always showed up, even when I didn’t ask him to.

  And I let myself be okay with that.