Jaune stepped into Anya's apartment, and it was... an experience. He still had a death grip on his backpack, which was bulging with groceries and his beat-up guitar. He still couldn't for the life of him remember why he'd thought bringing a guitar to a grocery run was a good idea. Honestly, his organizational skills were only slightly better than his ability to navigate interdimensional portals.
The apartment itself was... a far cry from the gleaming, sterile perfection of the city outside. It was a glorious, chaotic mess. If his room back at his apartment was a train wreck, this place was a multi-car pileup involving a tanker truck full of... well, stuff.
Beer bottles of various shapes and sizes littered every available surface, mingling with what looked suspiciously like disassembled firearms. Clothes, both male and female (and some that defied easy categorization), were strewn across the furniture, draped over lamps, and even hanging from the ceiling fan. A lacy piece of... something that Jaune vaguely recognized as woman's underwear was draped over the back of a high-tech-looking chair, nestled amongst a pile of datapads and what appeared to be spare parts for Anya's cybernetic arm.
The air hung heavy with a mix of scents: stale beer, gun oil, something vaguely floral, and an undercurrent of... ozone? It was a sensory assault, a far cry from the antiseptic cleanliness of the city streets.
Jaune's eyes widened with each new discovery, his gaze darting around the room, taking in the sheer, overwhelming volume of... things. He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing nervously. He'd seen messy rooms before, but this was on a whole other level. This was... performance art.
Anya, for her part, seemed acutely aware of the impression her apartment was making. Her usual confident demeanor faltered, replaced by a sheepish, almost embarrassed expression. She rubbed the back of her neck with her right hand, her gaze darting around the room as if seeing it for the first time.
"Um... welcome," she said, her voice a little strained. "Sorry about the... state of things. It's usually not this... vibrant."
Jaune stood frozen for a moment, his eyes wide, taking in the full panorama of the disaster zone. Then, he uttered a single word, a word that perfectly encapsulated the sheer, mind-boggling disarray before him.
"Damn..."
He didn't say it with anger, or disgust, but with a kind of awed disbelief, like he'd just witnessed the eighth wonder of the world. He took a step back, his hand reaching for the doorknob, a desperate escape maneuver forming in his mind. He had faced Grimm. He had faced interdimensional travel. But this? This was a whole new level of terrifying.
Before he could make his retreat, however, Anya's hand shot out, her grip surprisingly strong. Her eyes, which had been filled with embarrassment, now held a desperate plea.
"Wait!" she exclaimed, her voice laced with a vulnerability that Jaune hadn't expected. "Please, don't go. I... I know it's a mess, but..." She hesitated, her gaze darting around the room as if searching for the right words. "I've never... I mean, I've never had a... a guy here before. Like, here here."
Jaune hesitated, torn between his desire to flee the scene and a strange sense of... pity? Responsibility? He sighed, the sound of a man resigned to his fate. He carefully placed his backpack and guitar on the relatively clear surface of the sofa, the groceries shifting precariously.
"Alright," he said, his voice a mix of exasperation and amusement. "You're lucky I'm a professional cleaner in my spare time." He rolled up his sleeves, revealing surprisingly toned arms. "So, let's get to work. And hope the good old Arc family magic works on this place." He punctuated this with a playful smirk.
Anya blinked, momentarily stunned by the sudden turn of events. "Wait, we?" she asked, her eyes widening. "I thought you were just... you know, being sarcastic."
Jaune raised an eyebrow, his expression firm. "Nope. This is a two-person job, Anya. I'm not spending the next few hours of my life wading through your... personal effects... alone. Besides," he added, his voice softening slightly, "it's my way of thanking you for letting me crash here."
He clapped his hands together, the sound sharp and decisive. "Right, where do we start? Beer bottle mountain over there? Or Mount Washmore?" He gestured towards the towering piles of laundry with a playful grin.
And so began the Great Apartment Reclamation Project.
Jaune, surprisingly, was a whirlwind of focused energy. He attacked the mess with a methodical efficiency that Anya found both impressive and slightly intimidating. He sorted, he stacked, he scrubbed. He even seemed to know, instinctively, where cleaning supplies might be buried under the debris.
Anya, on the other hand... was less of a natural.
At first, she tried to apply her usual mercenary approach to the task, which mostly involved a lot of pointing and shouting.
"Move that... contraption! No, the other one! With the... blinking lights!" she'd yell, gesturing vaguely at a pile of disassembled electronics.
Jaune, bless his patient soul, would sigh and gently take over, carefully identifying the "contraption" (a highly sophisticated coffee maker) and moving it to safety.
Then, Anya attempted the "divide and conquer" strategy, assigning them specific tasks.
"You take the... the soft things," she declared, pointing at the mountain of laundry. "I'll handle... the, uh, the... hard things." She gestured towards the precarious stack of beer bottles, which wobbled ominously.
This resulted in a near-disaster when Anya, with her cybernetic strength, tried to "gently" move the bottles, causing them to topple and shatter.
"Oops," she said sheepishly, surrounded by a sea of broken glass and the pungent smell of stale beer.
Jaune, after a moment of stunned silence, simply handed her a broom and dustpan with a weary smile.
As the cleaning progressed, a strange sort of rhythm developed between them. Jaune would tackle the more challenging tasks with quiet determination, while Anya, under his patient guidance, slowly but surely got the hang of... well, basic cleaning.
There were moments of shared laughter, like when Jaune found a pair of fuzzy pink slippers stuck to the ceiling fan, or when Anya accidentally activated a cleaning droid that went rogue, spraying them both with soapy water.
There were also moments of quiet camaraderie, like when they worked side-by-side, sorting through a mountain of clothes, or when they took a brief break, collapsing onto the slightly less-chaotic sofa, sharing a bottle of water and a weary smile.
The cleaning montage stretched on, fueled by Jaune's seemingly endless energy and Anya's growing (if somewhat clumsy) enthusiasm. The apartment, slowly but surely, began to resemble something habitable. The mountains of mess dwindled, revealing glimpses of actual furniture and floor space. The air, though still carrying a hint of its former... vibrancy, became noticeably less offensive.
By the time they were finished, hours later, both Jaune and Anya were exhausted but strangely... satisfied. They stood in the middle of the (mostly) clean apartment, surveying their handiwork with a mixture of pride and disbelief.
Jaune, drained but content, stretched out on the sofa, his eyes fluttering closed. He was out like a light within minutes, a soft snore escaping his lips.
Anya watched him for a long moment, her expression softening into something...fond. She couldn't help but notice how peaceful he looked, his handsome features relaxed in sleep. Quietly, she retrieved her scroll and began snapping pictures of his sleeping face, a small, almost manic smile playing on her lips.
Later, Anya stood on the balcony of her apartment, the cool night air swirling around her. The city lights twinkled in the distance, but her attention was solely focused on the images displayed on her scroll. She swiped through the pictures of Jaune's sleeping face over and over again, her smile widening with each view.
"I love it," she muttered, her voice a low, fervent whisper. "I love it, I love it, I love it."
She clutched the scroll to her chest, her heart pounding. This strange, kind, exasperatingly charming man had somehow waltzed into her life and turned everything upside down. And she was starting to think she didn't mind one bit.