Chapter 15: Cleaning
"Like a date?" Holly’s question caught David completely off guard, and for a second his brain just stalled out entirely.
’Okay. Okay, don’t panic, don’t overthink this, just—’ He scrambled internally for the right angle, running through options at lightning speed. Straight-up confirm it and risk her backing off? Play it safe and downgrade it to something casual? He settled on the coward’s middle ground, the classic fifty-fifty hedge that let him retreat with some dignity if things went sideways.
"I mean — you could call it that, depending on how you look at it," he said, keeping his voice deliberately light. "I just want us to meet up and have a good time together."
The line went quiet.
David’s fingers actually curled slightly against the bathroom counter, some ridiculous, superstitious part of him bracing for the worst while simultaneously refusing to let himself hope too hard for the best. ’Don’t jinx it. Don’t jinx it. Just — stay cool.’
Holly=> "I’m sorry, I—"
His stomach dropped instantly. ’There it is. Called it.’
Holly=> "—seven won’t actually work for me tomorrow. But if we did it a little earlier, like six-ish, that’d actually be perfect."
David blinked, the rejection he’d already braced for taking an extra second to rearrange itself into an actual yes. "Oh — no, no problem. Six works great."
Holly=> "Cool! I know a good little café we could meet at, nothing fancy, just somewhere we can actually talk."
"Sounds perfect," David said, and then, before he could stop himself, added, "So it’s a date, then?"
He immediately bit down on his own tongue, silently screaming at himself for pushing his luck twice in one conversation.
Another pause — shorter this time. Holly=> "...Yeah. I guess it is."
’Close one,’ David thought, letting himself exhale.
Holly=> "I’ve gotta run, though — this was fun. Talk tomorrow?"
"Yeah, this was fun," David said. "Talk tomorrow. Later, Holly."
Holly=> "Yeah...Later."
A faint chuckle came through right before the call cut off, and David stood there in his bathroom for a second, grinning at absolutely nothing, phone still warm against his ear.
"Told you," he muttered to himself. "Don’t ever doubt me."
He nearly did a full lap of quiet, restrained celebration right there on the tile — no shouting, no fist-pumping in the air like an idiot, just a tight, satisfied little smile and a single silent nod to himself, like a man who’d just closed a business deal instead of scored a coffee date.
’I’ve got moves,’ he thought, entirely too pleased with himself. ’Actual, functional moves. Look at me.’
Then, just as quickly, the satisfaction cooled a degree as another thought elbowed its way in.
’Right. Mrs. Walbury.’ His actual priority, technically — the one with a deadline and a pleasure penalty attached to it, versus Holly, who just came with normal, low-stakes heartbreak potential.
’No harm in working both angles tomorrow,’ he reasoned, already plotting.
’Gym session with Mrs. Walbury in the morning — start figuring out how to get anywhere close to that objective. Coffee with Holly in the evening. Two birds. One increasingly unhinged system quest log.’
He caught his own reflection in the mirror, expression somewhere between proud and mildly concerned about himself.
"Look at me, I don’t need no fucking cheap cheat skill to manipulate my targets." he said quietly, unable to help the grin.
"Regular Light Yag*mi over here. Except instead of a death note, I’ve got a horny system."
[Analysis: This system possesses no equivalent to human emotion. Response is based solely on programmed function.]
David snorted, toweling off with one hand while the water still ran warm over his shoulders. "Sure. Keep telling yourself that."
He didn’t push it further, mostly because he’d already learned the system wasn’t going anywhere useful when it got defensive like that.
Instead, he let his mind drift back over the call, replaying it as he scrubbed the sweat and gym grime off his skin, feeling something warm and stupid settle in his chest every time he landed on the word date.
’She said yes,’ he thought, grinning at nothing in particular. ’Sure, she called it friendly maybe, in her head. But I’m not exactly trying to get friend-zoned here. I’ve lived nineteen years of pathetic — I know exactly what that looks like, and this isn’t it. This is a start.’
The plan crystallized simply enough as he stood under the water: figure out the Harem Conqueror thing eventually, get the hundred dollars from finishing his objective with Mrs. Walbury, and somewhere in between, actually build something real with Holly. Manageable. Mostly.
He shut the water off, wrapped a towel around his neck, and used the loose ends to scrub roughly at his damp hair while shuffling back toward his bedroom.
The small mountain of discarded clothes still sat piled on his bed from that morning’s outfit crisis, and he stood in front of it for a long moment, hands on his hips, staring it down like it was a personal enemy.
"Okay," he muttered to himself. "Okay, I’ve been saying I’ll deal with this for, what, three days now?" He sighed, already knowing the answer. "Time to actually be a functioning adult in more than one area of my life."
He got to work, sorting through the pile piece by piece — sniffing questionable shirts, checking for stains, separating what could survive another wear from what needed to go straight into the laundry bin.
It wasn’t glamorous, and it definitely wasn’t fast, but bit by bit the pile shrank, the floor cleared, and the small stack of garbage he’d been ignoring for who-knew-how-long finally made it into a bag by the door.
By the time he finished, the room had gone mostly dark, the only light left the last soft traces of afternoon sun slipping in through the window.
He dropped onto his now-clear bed and looked around at the space properly — not spotless, not by any stretch, but noticeably less like a disaster zone than it had been an hour ago.
He let a small, satisfied smile settle onto his face. "Yeah," he murmured. "This is a good start."
Small as it was, it felt like proof of something — that maybe this determination thing wasn’t just going to live inside gym reps and system quests, but everywhere, piece by piece, if he actually kept at it.
***
Hey guys, I want to thank you for your support and due to that, I thought of a friendly challenge for both of us.
For every 200 powerstones I’ll release 10+ bonus Chapters...so, if you find it worth while, you can make your decision. Thank you.🫠
