This sucks.

"Neil! Are you done yet? Neeeeeeeiiiiiiilllll…" Rio teased from the other side of the door.

All I wanted was to clean the house… WHY MUST SHE DO THIS TO ME?!

I slowly reached for the doorknob and twisted it in an overly dramatic slow motion with a look that could kill the entire race of humanity. So help me I'll strangle the life out of my—NO. NO NO NO.

I quickly closed the door again.

"Aw, Neil! Come on! I bet you look as cute as the kittens in our backyard!" I could hear her coo from the other side. You know what? I'm torn. One half of me wants to just get over this peacefully and just CLEAN the damn house, the other half wants to make Rio pay an amount that would take her a lifetime to fulfill.

"Hell no I'm getting out in this ugly, stupid, horrible ALL OF THE F*CKING ADJECTIVES THAT DESCRIBES A MONSTROUS MAID OUTFIT!" I shouted. Goddess, why does she always have to get her way?

Wait.

I'm the breadwinner of this family. If we're going to have kids, I'm going to be the father, the head of this home, and I'm a foot taller than her for Goddess' sake!

I removed the costume as quick as possible and put on back my actual clothes.

As I was about to open the door, I suddenly remembered that time when I accidentally hit Rio in the face with a door simply because she was leaning in too close. Or she was actually leaning on the door. I didn't want to make that mistake again. Hey, even if I look mad and angry all the time, I still care for my wife, you know.

"Rio." I called. "Are you in any way possible near the door? Or if anything, you're actually leaning on it? I'm about to open this door with rage." I said perfectly calm. Yes, perfectly calm.

"No, you can come out and smash everything in your path now." Rio replied back.

I went out the door calmly. Thought I was being sarcastic? Surprise, surprise. No I wasn't.

I didn't really push through with the idea of breaking the door, the stuff in my way, I didn't really fancy the idea of breaking anything at all. What would be the use of cleaning this house if everything in it is broken?

Anyway.

I didn't see Rio anywhere when she suddenly came out of the storage room with all the cleaning supplies. Her gleeful smile was replaced with a pout. "Hmph. You removed it when I told you not to."

She complained while crossing her arms over her chest, huffing in disappointment.

"I wouldn't want to spend the entire day in that dress so shut it." I replied while coming near her.

She sighed in defeat, and said "fine. I'll let you through this time. But only this time. The next time, and the next time, and other next time's to come, I'll have the final laugh." With her eyes narrowed she giggled creepily. It's like she's up to something… Something like barging into someone's house at midnight and stare at them with eyes wide open. Creep.

Glaring at her, she finally stopped.

I took a deep breath and assigned our duties. "Okay, so I'll be the one in charge with the front yard, bedroom, and the living room. You'll be the one in charge in the backyard, the kitchen, and

the bathro—" she cut me off with "Woah there, buddy. I'm not going to clean the bathroom."

I stared at her blankly. The past two years she's been living in Echo village she has managed to survive on her own, maintaining the cleanliness of stuff around here and what not.

"W-well, if you don't wanna do it I'll do it." I replied to her. It was no problem for me but she still seemed tense about it.

"NO! I mean… If you'd like, we could clean it t-together." Rio stuttered and even is she hid her face with both of her palms, I could still tell she's blushing like mad. Even if it means cleaning the bathroom with her, it still didn't matter to me. That would actually be great because we'd get the work done easier.

I actually stifled a soft laugh and pulled her close to my chest and hugged her. I could feel her burying her face deeper and I bet she's even redder than before. She looked up to me and said "can we please just get on with the cleaning and get this over with?"

It's like she didn't even say it; it's like she whispered it. It was so quiet that I had to recollect every bit of the sentence.

"Fine, let's get this done." I replied back in agreement and broke the hug.

"uh, I'm going to go now… " I said awkwardly, grabbing the broomstick to start sweeping in the front yard. "okay. See you in a bit." She replied with a charming smile. With that, I went out and started sweeping.

Around 10 minutes later…

That was pretty fast.

Wiping the sweat off my forehead, I set the broom to the fence and went in. the front yard's finally done so I'm heading to my next destination: the bedroom.

As I was making my way to our room, I saw Rio in the kitchen doing the dishes. She was so busy scrubbing and rinsing off the dirt from the plates that were supposed to be done the last three days, she didn't even notice me coming in.

Shrugging the thought off, I went in the room and sat on the bed, wondering where to start.

Well, studies say that the bed makes the room appear 80% cleaner, so I'm gonna start with that.

I went to the closet to see if there were some extra blankets, pillow cases and sheets because the ones on the bed right now are literally screaming "WE CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMRE! WE NEED TO BE CLEANED!". Luckily, I found some to replace the poor guys.

I took off the existing cases of the pillows, removed the bed sheet, and threw the blanket in a random place. I'm going to take care of that later. I then put on the new pillow cases, sheets, and blankets and fixed the bed.

But there's still this uneasy feeling inside of me that the bed still isn't clean enough. I had to make sure it was neat on the inside out, so I kneeled down and stretched my arm under the bed to feel if there's any boxes, trash, and dust (obviously). My hand laid on a small wooden box and I carefully took it out.

I dusted it off and the lid of the box said: Rio's stuff. DON'T OPEN OR ELSE.

I scoffed. Or else what?

Not even terrified by the hanging threat, I opened the box to see… papers?

There were lots of them. They were small, about one fourth of a regular short bond paper.

I took one piece out and the letters were written in cursive and then evolving to lazy printed handwriting. Before reading the paper, I stood up and locked the door to prevent Rio from barging in and seeing me read her stuff. Having done that, I read the small piece of paper.

Spring 9

Today I got my first cow! I named her Bessie. The name Bessie feels right on her, so I named her that.

And oh my Goddess the one who delivered her was so CUTE! Although he's really cold (not literally but you get the point and if looks could kill, I'd be dead by now! Hehe… But there was something about him. Something weird. My gut tells me that he's a real softie after you break through hundreds of layers of shells. But yeah… he's got those ruby eyes and blonde hair that reminds me of ketchup and mustard. At first I thought his eyes were contacts, but in the long run of mulling and thinking about his eyes, I didn't care if they were contacts or real because there's one thing I know that's actually true: they are amazing. They're beautiful in every way and they're perfect in any angle you look at. But I'm not really sure if I should have a crush on him like that…. I just met him a few hours ago.

Well, let's just see how this works out! Along with Dunhill's crazy restoration plans… But I tell ya, piece of paper, I'm glad to revitalize this town. It makes me feel… Complete? Satisfied? Happy?

Any of those adjectives would work! Well… it's 8:30 pm now. I'm going to call it a day.

And with that, the letter ended and I can't help but smile at her letter.

I took the box and as I held it, I shook it lightly to slightly jumble the papers. Oh, I'd love to see the rest of these. I thought as my smile grew wider.

yaaass... that's another chapter DONE! Thanks for your kind review J-Ninja421 :)