Cleaning Day

After I helped drop off Mahiru's groceries by her front door I returned back to my place to start my grand plan of finally cleaning my place. Seeing the reactions of both Hinata and Kageyama when they came in gave me some sort of wake up call. It started to look like more and more people started to notice my lifestyle and I don't know if I should be happy about it. 'A clean place is a happy place' or however you call it, I resolved myself and began to clean my apartment

I began to put used plastic utensils and bento boxes in a plastic bag to get the garbage off my floor. Thankfully I didn't have a ton of garbage on my floor as I usually put them in my bin as soon as I finished eating. The only thing I had lots of was my clothes and magazines that ranged from manga to volleyball ones scattered all over my floor.

Thankfully when Hinata and Kageyama 'gracefully' offered their help I was able to get a majority of those items sorted but there were still some of them left mostly in my living room. Turning to my living room I had no idea on how I should start cleaning it.

"I think I'll just start cleaning the floor near my entrance since it's better to at least start somewhere else and come back to it later, right." Grabbing the floor cleaning fluid that I bought from the supermarket and began pouring it on my floor. Mahiru said to only use a little bit but my floors have a decent amount of mud and dust on them so more should make it more sparkly right?.

As I began to scrub away I could see that the debris was washing off and I was surprised by the difference in color the floors were compared to before.

'It's pretty boring just cleaning in silence.. I'll put some music on in the background" I grabbed my phone and continued my cleaning mission with some music in the back.

***

Tell me why ♪

Ain't nothin' but a heartache

Tell me why

Ain't nothing but a mistake

Tell me why

I never wanna hear you say

I want it that way ~

'I forgot how much of this song was a banger'. I continued to sing while scrubbing and while having my own mini concert inside of my apartment.

*Ding dong

Hearing my doorbell I got up and walked to my door while still humming. I wondered if it were the two idiots who came back to help but I highly doubt it. I opened the door and Mahiru came into my view. I seem to be seeing her a lot these past few days huh. But what surprised me was that I saw her grinning, which was unusual.

"You have a pretty good singing voice. Do you usually hold these types of concerts at your place?" she said while chuckling.

My face hardened. 'Was I that loud that she heard me sing my heart out ugh…' I wanted to dig a hole and bury myself inside it. I took a few seconds to recover myself. "Ahem, I usually have them in the afternoon. You can get a ticket if you want but they're always sold out so you have to be fast." Rolling her eyes at my answer I asked her why she rang my door.

"I wanted to pick up my tupperware and also check up on you to see if you actually followed my advice back at the…. Why is the smell of the floor cleaner so strong didn't you use a small amount?"

"No, I used more since I thought using more can lead to cleaner floors.."

"Did you at least dilute it in some water?" I turned my head not answering but that action gave all the answers Mahiru needed.

"Haah I feel like if I leave you to clean your place by yourself you might accidentally make mustard gas while trying to clean your bathroom. Let me change my clothes and I will come over to help clean." She turned around and began walking over to her place.

"But.."

"No buts take it as an act of kindness from someone who can't stand to see their neighbor possibly make a biochemical weapon while cleaning their bathroom." She said and entered her door going inside to get ready.

'I wouldn't do that.. Yeah I definitely wouldn't..' I thought in my head trying to convince myself.

***

Mahiru entered my apartment wearing a white long sleeve shirt and brown cargo pants. She had her long hair in a bun as it may get in the way when cleaning. I saw her and I thought to myself that she looked good in anything that she wore.

"Hmm it looks like you already did some cleaning compared to the time when I first came over." She looked around and for the first time she seemed pleased. I felt proud and raised my chest but she shot that down when she told me I made another mess though with the floor cleaner and we needed to fix that.

She grabbed a bucket that she brought from her place and filled it with water. We used that water to help wash off the extra residue that came from the excess amount of floor cleaner that I used. She taught me tricks on what to do and showed me that I should fill a bucket of water first and pour a small amount of the cleaner first to dilute it so my floors don't get damaged and sticky.

After a couple of minutes we fixed the area that I worked on and moved on to my living room as she couldn't stand looking at it.

"Do you want to keep all these magazines or can you throw some of them out?" She asked me while organizing each one by their genre. I was picking up my clothes and told her that she can throw away the ones that looked damaged and ripped. She nodded and continued to separate them.

As she was finishing up she saw a school book and curiously opened it up. Her eyes opened wide when she saw the name of the elementary school.

"Did you attend the elementary that's in this book?" She asked while looking at me pointing at the book. I turned around and saw that she was looking at my elementary yearbook.

"Yeah I attend that school with my sister. Why do you ask?"

"Well I also attended it also but it was only for one grade." I was shocked by her answer and tried to remember if I saw her. The scene of me entering the gym with Tsutomu for the first time entered my mind and I realized that girl was her.

'What a small world huh' I thought to myself. I asked her why she moved schools but she replied in a cold and lifeless tone that was different from usual.

"I had to move because of family issues." her tone was cold. I felt that there was a personal issue going on but I didn't want to pry further as I was just an outsider.

"I wonder if you were still as naggy as you were before as you are now. I would probably get a headache if I heard you tell me to clean up my crumbs at the lunch table every time." I said in a joking tone trying to clear up the mood.

It looked to have worked as Mahiru brightened up slightly and bantered back asking if I was as messy as I was now when I was little too. Mahiru got up and saw stacks of books on top of a shelf and asked if I wanted to throw some of them out as they had missing book covers. I told her that I would take them as it was too high for her to reach and I didn't want her to hurt herself.

She said that she was tall enough and reached over and got a book from the shelf. Seeing that she was able to get them she continued but a piece of cloth was near the ground that she was standing on

"Ah!" Mahiru slipped and was about to fall until an arm grabbed her waist and pulled her up.

"Haah see I told you to let me do it. You're too stubborn for your own good, see you almost fell."

"I was able to get the first few books, didn't you see? Plus I thought you got all of the clothes that were on the ground." We argued back and forth before I realized the situation we were in.

As I grabbed her before she fell by the waist her body was now pressing closely to my own. Her body was soft and she had a soft and light fragrance. She seemed to have also realized and I removed myself to make her not feel uncomfortable by my sudden touch. She seemed to not mind as she thanked me for catching her. Her expression was as normal as usual and said that we should hurry up as it was getting late.

I nodded my head and went back to grab the cloth that she slipped on and looked around to see if there were still more lying around. While I was looking I didn't notice that Mahiru was holding onto her chest with a blush gradually growing on her rosy cheeks, spreading towards her ears.

"That was way too close.."

***

Looking at my new clean apartment I felt like shedding a tear since it looked like when I first moved in.

"Now since we work this hard to clean, you better start organizing yourself more to make sure it doesn't return back to its previous state."

"Yes madam Shiina!" I stood up tall and saluted her. She gave a blank stare towards my actions.

Looking out the window I saw that it was getting dark. Realizing that it was almost dinner I started to get guilty of making Mahiru cook for me even after helping me clean up my place on her own violation.

"Shiina stay over for a bit longer to have dinner. I will order food so you don't have to cook and so that I can treat you for helping me clean today." She tried to refuse but I eventually convinced her to stay. To my surprise she had never had any takeout since if she wanted to eat something she would just make it.

Showing her various websites we decided on having korean fried chicken. While we were waiting it was amusing to see her get excited over ordering food through the phone.

After waiting for a while the food arrived and various types of different flavored fried chicken and a side of fries appeared in front of us. While we were eating she ate with small nibbles and a happy expression on her face which made her look like a cute animal.

She glared at me to stop staring at her and we continued to eat while talking about many different things.

"Oh you have a game tomorrow?" she asked me as I told her I will be a bit late coming home tomorrow and I wouldn't be able to grab her food for dinner at the usual time. She looked down and thought for a while and nodded her head.

"Ah what a shame I was going to make some of that grilled chicken that you usually say you liked to eat so much." Mahiru shook her head and signed in disappointment.

I turned quickly towards her and had a sour expression on my face. I began to think about various ways I could quickly come home to get that dinner.

Mahiru began to smile and chuckle, lighting up the room with her laugh ending the day with a successful clean up.

***

Aoba Josai practice game coming up! The pickled radishes that come with korean fried chicken pair so well with them. Until next time peacu!