Ch.151Chapter 151. The Big Cleaning

“Welcome. Is this your first time visiting my home?”

“Wow……”

The door swung open and Ms. Juliane, wearing a sweater, came out with a bright smile.

The weight of her chest stretched the sweater, revealing the curves underneath.

No bra, huh.

But that wasn’t what made me gasp.

“Is this a human dwelling or a pigsty?”

“Hehe……”

The state of the house was beyond dirty—it was utterly deplorable.

After stepping through the entrance into the living room, I couldn’t close my gaping mouth.

The bedroom was just as bad as the living room, if not worse.

Clothes and garbage were strewn everywhere.

Except for the bed, everything was completely covered in trash.

Juliane had left about an hour ago saying she was going to grab some belongings and clothes.

But suddenly she called and asked if I could help her clean.

Since Juliane practically lives at my place now and rarely uses this apartment, I thought a thorough cleaning wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Of course, I came thinking it would just be a quick vacuum and mop job, but…

“How does someone even live to make a place look like this?”

“Since I only stop by occasionally and barely stay here, I kept making more of a mess… Hehe.”

“Sigh……”

She used to be this incredibly cool, charismatic elite investigator from the Justice Department.

But ever since I started discovering her bugs one by one, she’s been showing increasingly sloppy sides of herself.

“Let’s start with the clothes. Where’s the closet?”

“In the dressing room……”

“Oh? Surprisingly, there’s quite a bit of space in the closet.”

I gathered an armful of clothes and opened the closet to find it was mostly empty inside.

Usually, messy homes like this have too many clothes with no space left to store them, but Juliane was a strange case.

This meant she had plenty of space to put things away but was just too lazy to do so.

“There’s a perfectly good trash can right here! Why didn’t you use it?”

“Ehehe……”

The trash situation was the same.

Normally, people start piling garbage somewhere when the trash can is full or missing, repeatedly telling themselves they’ll throw it out later until the house becomes a landfill. But she was peculiar even in this regard.

How could someone think to throw trash on the floor when there’s a perfectly good, nearly empty trash can right there?

Even Cuss doesn’t do this anymore.

She’s been hit by me enough times for that not to happen again.

If even an alien monster can learn through punishment, what would it take to fix this woman?

“Good grief. What is this, seriously?”

“Owwww… That hurts……”

When I pinched her cheek, it stretched like rice cake.

Her pleading voice with that slurred pronunciation was so cute that I had to let go quickly.

That’s the problem with this woman.

I can’t stay angry at her for long.

Just when I start to get mad, one look at her face and my anger melts away like snow.

Finally giving up on scolding her, I decided to just get on with the cleaning.

Whirrrrr…

“Ms. Juliane.”

“Yes? What is it?”

“Could you please back up a bit?”

“No, I don’t want to.”

Somehow I managed to put away all the clothes and trash and was now vacuuming, but Juliane kept hugging me from behind.

She matched her small steps to mine and clung to me, which was incredibly inconvenient.

The least she could do is help…

“Jinsoo.”

“What is it?”

“Are you… still hiding anything from me?”

“I don’t think so. I think that’s everything now.”

After Cuss’s tentacles were discovered, there were hardly any secrets left that I hadn’t shared with Juliane.

Well, I wasn’t deliberately hiding anything, but aside from losing my anal virginity to some femdom-obsessed woman at the space station labor camp, there wasn’t really anything left that could be called a secret.

“What do you mean ‘I think’? Tell me for sure.”

“I might have secrets even I don’t remember.”

“Pfft… What kind of answer is that?”

“What about you? Are you still hiding anything from me?”

“I don’t think… I am. Probably.”

“See? You added ‘probably’ too.”

“I guess so……”

Rustle, rustle.

Juliane hugged my chest tighter and rubbed her face against my back.

Damn… This is so uncomfortable.

I kept getting reactions from down below, making it really difficult to clean.

I was increasingly tempted to just pick Juliane up and throw her onto the bed.

“Jinsoo… I love you.”

“I know.”

“I know you know, but I still wanted to say it. I really, really love you.”

“……”

She’s usually too embarrassed to say things like this except before or after sex.

Her unusual clinginess today felt a bit strange.

Maybe something difficult happened at work?

Knowing Juliane, she wouldn’t express it even if something really bothered her.

I decided not to pry into what happened.

Even with someone you love—no, especially with someone you love—there are things you don’t want to talk about.

I put down the vacuum cleaner, turned around, and gave Juliane a light hug.

“You’re acting like a child today.”

“I am a child compared to you. Think about our age difference. When you became an adult, I was just entering elementary school.”

“Please stop bringing that up… It makes me feel guilty.”

This is driving me crazy.

Both her father and Juliane bring this up every chance they get.

I know I’m a thief, so I wish they’d stop reminding me.

“Then just lower your head obediently.”

“Here you go.”

“Hehehe……”

Smooch. Smooch.

Juliane, giggling, pulled my face closer and started planting kisses all over my cheeks.

Just when I thought she was going for my lips, she’d move to the other cheek.

And when she finally seemed about to kiss my lips, she’d suddenly change course and kiss my nose instead.

I was starting to get annoyed.

I finally just picked Juliane up in my arms.

“Huh?! Weren’t we cleaning?”

“Be quiet. Whose fault is this anyway?”

“Cuss is… definitely still asleep, right?”

“She’s sleeping like a log, so don’t worry.”

“Kyaa!”

I tossed Juliane onto the bed.

Now that I looked more carefully, I couldn’t see anything under her sweater.

No underwear, just a sweater.

This pervert…

“Today, today… I really want to get pregnant… So could you be gentle, honey?”

“…I’ll try.”

We’d have to be careful not to cause another cyst.

I embraced Juliane and hungrily explored her lips.

As I did so, my left hand naturally moved downward, rolling up her sweater.

Gently, she said.

It seemed I’d need to be even more tender than during Juliane’s first time.

***

“Damn it… This is driving me crazy.”

On a quiet road.

The superior officer, who had pulled over to the shoulder, anxiously bounced his leg while checking his watch.

A small paper envelope sat on the passenger seat.

When he reached in and flipped it open, a storage device came into view.

After confirming it was there, he immediately crumpled the opening and habitually scanned his surroundings.

There were no surveillance cameras in this area.

It wasn’t time for patrol cars to be making rounds either.

No matter how many times he reassured himself of these facts, he couldn’t stop trembling.

“Here it comes…”

In the side mirror, he could see a vehicle approaching in the distance, its headlights cutting through the darkness.

The superior swallowed hard and gripped the envelope.

The vehicle slowly reduced its speed as it approached the shoulder and eventually stopped right beside him.

The window whirred down.

The passenger window of the opposite vehicle also lowered, revealing a blonde woman wearing sunglasses.

“Senior…”

“Don’t say anything. Don’t even acknowledge this at work tomorrow. Today never happened.”

“……”

Thud.

He passed the envelope through the window and immediately raised it again.

The other person stared back regretfully for a moment before finally raising their window and driving away.

He checked his surroundings again, but no other cars were visible.

There wasn’t a single witness.

“Haah…”

The superior clutched his head in sudden regret.

What was he thinking when he handed that over?

“I’m losing my mind.”

Something must have gone wrong in his head.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had such a dangerous thought as to hand that over.

The superior pulled down the sun visor from the ceiling and took out a photo tucked inside.

It was a picture of his young son.

A photo taken during his mischievous years, capturing the moment he stopped in front of candy displayed on the street, throwing a tantrum and demanding it be bought.

Thinking back to that time made him smile.

“I don’t know anymore…”

I am a coward.

Unlike Juliane, I’m not brave enough to stand before the public and volunteer as a bullet shield—I’m just a fearful, cowardly person.

But I couldn’t keep turning a blind eye to my junior’s efforts to change the world.

This is the society, country, and world my son will live in.

Passing it on to my child as it is would be neglecting my duty as a parent.

Although I don’t have the courage to step forward like Juliane, there were certainly things I could do.

Vrooom…

Soon, the superior’s vehicle also began driving down the road, its headlights illuminating the way.

He drove along the empty road, heading toward the brightly lit station.

.

.

.

“What the hell is that…”

In a dark room.

Juliane’s pupils trembled as she stared at the flickering black and white screen.

She replayed the same scene over and over with the controller.

Before she knew it, Juliane was breathing heavily, her face turning pale.

“Urgh… ugh…”

As nausea surged, Juliane quickly paused the video and dry heaved.

She hurriedly searched for a water cup, grabbed it with trembling hands, and gulped it down.

After taking deep breaths for a while, Juliane was finally able to normalize her breathing.

“This can’t be…”

She had made a clear promise to Jinsoo.

If she obtained any additional information about his dead wife and daughter, she would tell him immediately.

She promised to tell him the truth no matter how difficult it was to accept.

She had managed, though painfully, to convey the fact that his daughter’s body had been sold under the pretext of organ donation.

But this—she couldn’t bring herself to show this to Jinsoo.

Even for her, who had seen all sorts of filthy and vile scenes as an investigator, this was too painful to watch. How would Jinsoo feel?

“I absolutely can’t show him this.”

Juliane removed the storage device and shook her head firmly.

She put the device back in the paper envelope and unscrewed the ventilation duct to push it inside.

Then she snapped her fingers, and the lights in the house immediately came back on, brightening everything.

Biting her lip, Juliane made a phone call.

-What’s going on? I thought you were going home to pack some things.

“I was trying to clean while I was here, but it’s dirtier than I thought…”

As she spoke, Juliane opened the closet and threw clothes onto the floor one by one.

She also made sure to scatter trash around the house, carrying the trash can from place to place.

-Is that so? That must be tough.

“Could you help me? It’s hard to clean alone…”

-Don’t you have a cleaning android or something there?

“How expensive do you think androids are? I don’t live that luxuriously.”

While speaking nonchalantly, she quickly shoved the cleaning android into the storage closet.

-Sigh… I’m cleaning right now. I’ll come over once Cuss falls asleep.

“Okay. I’ll be waiting.”

Sitting on the sofa in the now-messy living room, she hugged her knees and stared out the window for a long time.

The scene she had just witnessed kept flashing in her mind, making her feel sick.

She wanted to see Jinsoo right now.