Chapter 26 — Yuri’s Cleaning Day 2.0

If Han Jae-in’s life at Seiren University was a series of tactical retreats, his apartment was supposed to be his fortress of solitude. It was a small, off-campus studio apartment—a humble space with a single bed, a cluttered desk, and a kitchenette that smelled vaguely of instant ramen and old books. It was the only place where the psychic static of the world was supposed to go quiet.

However, as Jae-in stood in his own doorway, he realized that the fortress had been breached by a master of bureaucratic warfare.

"The accumulation of dust in the corner of the windowsill was reaching a level that I considered a health hazard, Jae-in," Seo Yuri said, not looking up from where she was kneeling on his floor.

She wasn't wearing her usual student council blazer. She had opted for a crisp white button-down with the sleeves rolled up and a simple black apron. It was a domestic look that Yuri’s mind processed with the same intensity as a state funeral.

'Efficiency begins at home,' Yuri’s internal voice vibrated through Jae-in’s skull, sounding unnervingly satisfied. 'By reorganizing his living space into a color-coded, chronological system, I am reducing his daily cognitive load by approximately 14%. That 14% can then be redirected toward his studies, his health, and eventually, his focus on me. This is not cleaning. This is structural integration. I am becoming the foundation of his environment.'

Jae-in stepped into the room, his feet landing on a floor that felt suspiciously waxed. "Yuri, I told you that you didn't have to do this. I was going to... eventually... get to it."

"Eventually is a synonym for never in the vocabulary of a literature student," Yuri replied, standing up with the grace of a ballerina. She held a stack of his socks, each pair folded into a perfect, uniform square.

'I have touched every garment he owns,' her thoughts added with a dark, hummed undertone. 'I know the thread count of his sheets. I know the brand of his detergent. I have mapped the geography of his domestic life. There are no secrets left in this room. Only optimizations.'

Jae-in looked at his bookshelf. His books, which had once been arranged by "vibe," were now strictly alphabetical by author, with secondary categorization by genre and publication date.

"I... I can't find my socks," Jae-in murmured, looking at the empty space where his laundry basket used to be.

"Drawer three. Left-hand side. Arranged by thickness," Yuri said, pointing with a microfiber cloth. 'He’s confused. Good. He needs me to navigate his own life. The more he relies on my system, the less he can function without my presence. It’s a soft-dependency loop.'

The ecchi comedy of the situation intensified when Yuri realized she hadn't finished the area under the bed. Without a word of warning, she dropped back down to her hands and knees, her figure silhouetted against the light of the window.

"The dust bunnies under the bed frame are particularly resilient," she said, her voice muffled as she reached deep under the furniture.

Jae-in stood awkwardly behind her, his eyes inadvertently tracking the line of her back. 'She’s so focused,' he thought, before catching himself. 'No, she’s insane. She’s currently cataloging my dust.'

'He’s looking at me,' Yuri’s thoughts flared with a sharp, triumphant spike of heat. 'I can feel his gaze on my lower back. The "accidental" domesticity is working. I am projecting the image of a capable, indispensable partner. I will remain in this position for another thirty seconds to ensure the visual memory is properly encoded in his subconscious. This is "pre-cohabitation state" training.'

"Yuri, really, I can do the rest," Jae-in said, his voice cracking.

"Nonsense. I’ve already prepared the meal containers for the week," she said, sliding out from under the bed and standing up. She walked to his small refrigerator and opened it.

Inside, Jae-in saw a terrifying sight: ten identical plastic containers, each labeled with a day of the week and a calorie count.

"Nutritional management is the cornerstone of mental clarity," Yuri said. 'If I control what he eats, I control his energy. I am literally fueling his existence. I have also removed the expired milk. And the three cans of beer. Alcohol is a depressant; he only needs the intoxication of my company.'

Just as Yuri was finishing her "inspection," there was a frantic, rhythmic pounding on the door. Jae-in didn't even have to look at the peephole to know who it was. The thoughts arrived before the person did.

'HE’S WITH HER. I CAN SMELL HER PERFUME THROUGH THE WOOD. IT SMELLS LIKE BUREAUCRACY AND BETRAYAL!'

The door flew open, and Min Chaerin burst in. She was breathless, her hair a bit wild, clutching a bag of groceries like a weapon. She stopped dead when she saw Yuri standing in the middle of the room with a cleaning cloth.

"Jae-in-ah!" Chaerin cried, her voice reaching a pitch that made the newly organized books tremble. "What is she doing here? Why is the floor so shiny? Why does it smell like... like lavender and logic?"

'She’s erasing us!' Chaerin’s mind screamed in a panicked, high-speed loop. 'She’s cleaning away the memories! I left a hair tie on his desk three days ago! I left a crumbs-trail of love! She’s sanitized the whole room! It looks like a hospital! A hospital for dead romance!'

"I am merely assisting Jae-in with his environmental optimization, Chaerin," Yuri said, her voice calm and condescending. "Something you seem incapable of, given the state of your own apartment."

"I... I brought snacks!" Chaerin shouted, ignoring Yuri and lunging toward Jae-in. She grabbed his arm, her eyes scanning the room with frantic desperation. "Jae-in-ah, look! I bought the spicy chips you like! And these little chocolate bears! We can eat them and watch a movie! A movie that isn't organized by publication date!"

'I need to reclaim the space,' Chaerin thought, her eyes landing on his bed. 'If I sit on the bed, it’s mine again. If I leave a scent of strawberry, the lavender will die.'

Chaerin immediately scrambled onto the bed, sitting cross-legged on the newly tucked sheets. "Oh, the bed feels so much better now that I’m on it!"

'I’m touching the sheets she folded,' Chaerin’s mind hissed. 'I’m polluting her perfection with my presence. Take that, Vice President! I am the chaos in his order!'

Yuri’s eyes narrowed to slits. 'Contamination detected. Subject Chaerin is introducing unregulated bacteria and crumbs into a sanitized zone. I should have anticipated this. I need a more permanent solution. A lock that only I have the key to. For safety, of course.'

As the two girls began a silent, glaring standoff across the small studio, a third thought-stream drifted in from the hallway—cool, distant, and rhythmic.

'Entry point: Window. Exit point: Door. Secondary exit: Fire escape,' Hana’s thoughts rumbled. 'Inside: Subject Yuri (Managerial) and Subject Chaerin (Emotional). Jae-in is currently at the center of the triangle. Threat level: High (Social/Domestic). I will remain in the hallway. I have already memorized the new floor layout through the crack in the door. I will adjust my entry vectors accordingly.'

Jae-in felt like the air was being sucked out of the room. He looked from Yuri, who was holding a spray bottle like a scepter, to Chaerin, who was aggressively hugging his pillow.

"Can everyone just... take a breath?" Jae-in asked, though he knew it was a useless request.

"I have already finished the primary tasks," Yuri said, stepping toward the door. She paused, looking back at Jae-in with a gaze that was both supportive and possessive. "I’ll leave the meal plan on the fridge. Please ensure you follow it. I’ll check the containers when I return tomorrow to... replenish the supplies."

'Tomorrow,' Yuri thought. 'And the day after. And the day after. Until he forgets what it was like to live alone.'

As Yuri walked out, she spared a single, cold glance for Chaerin. 'Enjoy the crumbs while you can. I’ve already reorganized his closet.

He won’t even be able to find a shirt that doesn't remind him of my hands.'

The moment the door closed behind Yuri, Chaerin exploded into a flurry of motion. She jumped off the bed and began frantically moving things around.

"No, no, no! This is all wrong!" she cried, moving a stack of books from the desk back to the floor. "He likes his books messy! He likes his life with me! She’s trying to turn you into a robot, Jae-in-ah!"

'She’s so scary,' Chaerin’s thoughts were a frantic scramble. 'She’s like a spider, building a web of schedules. I have to break the web. I have to be the fly that stays. I’ll hide one of my socks in his drawer. No, a bra! No, that’s too much... or is it? If he finds a bra, he’ll have to call me! It’s a physical tether!'

"Chaerin, please stop," Jae-in said, catching her hand as she tried to "reorganize" his pens by throwing them loosely into a drawer.

The touch made her stop instantly. She looked up at him, her eyes brimming with the kind of moisture that could either be genuine emotion or a highly practiced manipulation—he could never tell, and her thoughts were too contradictory to help.

"Do you like it better when she cleans?" Chaerin whispered. 'Please say no. Please say you hate her perfection. Please say you need my mess.'

"I just want to be able to find my socks, Chaerin," Jae-in sighed.

'He wants to find his socks!' Chaerin’s mind translated this with insane optimism. 'He wants me to help him find them! He’s asking for a shared morning routine! He’s practically proposing!'

"I'll help you!" she chirped, her mood flipping instantly back to euphoric. "I'll help you find everything! I'll even help you find things you didn't know you lost! Like your heart! I have it right here!"

She patted her own chest, her thoughts glowing with a terrifying warmth.

Jae-in looked at his room. It was half-sanitized, half-chaotic. A perfect metaphor for his life. He could still hear Hana in the hallway, her thoughts a steady pulse of 'Clear. Clear. Clear.'

"I think... I think I just need to sleep," Jae-in said, sitting on the edge of the bed that had been folded by a Vice President and jumped on by a childhood friend.

"I'll watch you sleep!" Chaerin offered, sitting down next to him. 'I’ll watch him and make sure the schedules don’t come back. I’ll breathe his air until it’s my air too.'

Jae-in lay back, closing his eyes. He realized that his apartment was no longer a sanctuary. It was a battlefield where the weapons were meal containers and glitter, and the prize was his very soul.

He could hear the thoughts of the two girls—one departing, one remaining, and one watching from the shadows—and for the first time, he realized that the "Cleaning Day" hadn't just removed the dust. It had removed the last illusion that he had any control over who entered his life.

'He’s falling asleep,' Chaerin thought, leaning over him until her hair brushed his cheek. 'My Jae-in. My clean, organized, perfect Jae-in. I’ll just stay here... just for a minute... or an hour... or forever.'

'Return time noted,' Hana’s mind echoed from the hall. 'Target is in a state of rest. Monitoring continues.'

Jae-in drifted off to the sound of his own name being whispered in three different psychological dialects. He hated it. He loved it. And he knew that when he woke up, he wouldn't even be able to find his own shoes without asking permission.