章 3: Story 1 Chapter 3: Hanging on
What happens after a long night of drinking?
A hangover.
And that's exactly what Albert had.
Groaning, Albert attempted to sit up, only to fall back down on the cold, hard, floor. His pounding headache was only made worse by the bright lights shining in his eyes.
'wait… bright lights? Where the hell am I?'
Albert looked around to see he was in the middle of a hallway, on the floor. Thankfully he was inside his house, but for some reason most of the lights were turned on, the tap was on, the microwave and fridge were open, and there was water running down the sink. The front door was only partially shut, but the lock was twisted.
"What the F%$#... what happened…"
He slowly attempted to get up, wincing as his headache worsened.
"Ughh…. What did I do last night…"
Sitting on the floor, Albert desperately attempted to remember what happened while he was drunk. As expected, he did not like what he found.
"Stupid stupid stupid. Why the hell did I drink so much… Actually how the hell did I manage to drink that amount of whiskey? Ughhhhh my head."
His headache worsened soon afterwards, reminding him that he was still hung over. After taking an aspirin, he surveyed the damage inflicted.
"Well S^%$. This is worse than I thought."
After multiple attempts to minimize the damage, Abert somehow managed to turn off the tap, close the fridge and microwave doors, mop up the floor, and turn off most of the lights in the small apartment he called home. Exhausted, he grabbed a set of clothing and went to take a shower, attempting to ignore his pounding headache.
Pshhhhhhhhh
The warm water was comforting, a safe haven for him. It helped with the nauseous feeling he had, but did not completely remove it. After all, hangovers are powerful.
'Why the hell did I think it would be a good idea to waste my money on drinking? It would have never solved any of my problems. Now I'm hungover and have fifty dollars less from my savings. That accomplished nothing at all. Ughhhhhhhh.'
Shhhhk tak
Albert got out of the shower, shivering slightly from the cooler air. He quickly got dressed, opting to continue cleaning the house.
'Might as well, right? The kitchen's fine now, but everything else must be a mess.
He vaguely remembered trashing the area he called the living room, throwing all the pillows and games everywhere. A few figurines, the ones that he did not lock away in a beautiful glass case, were strewn across the floor. There were open, empty bags of chips and other food, with the contents strewn over the floor, mostly crushed.
"...
This isn't as bad as I imagined."
A few hours of tedious cleaning later, the house was spotless. The trashed living room was cleaned up, the kitchen was spotless, and the other rooms were also fixed. There was a pile of items to be washed in front of the laundry, with the machines spinning. Besides that, everything was cleaned.
"Whew. I feel like I did a full-on workout. This is just one of the things that never changes, eh?"
As he sat down, he realized just how hard it was to clean up after drinking. His muscles were sore from all the cleaning and organizing that he did after cleaning up the "living room".
"I am NEVER drinking again. Ughhhhhhh. My head hurts and now my whole body aches." Albert muttered. He was exhausted, and wanted nothing more than to crawl in bed and fall asleep. He knew he couldn't do that, though, as he still had a lot of work to do. I.E., find another job to pay off the bills.
After a quick snack break, Albert went to work searching for a new job somewhere in the city with a decent wage. He opened his laptop, searching for jobs.
Tak
Tak tak
Tak
"Ooh what's this?"
Click click
Tak tak tak tak tak
Click click
~An hour later~
Albert made absolutely no progress at all. As soon as he started searching, he got completely sidetracked and forgot about job searching. One one side of the split screen, he had an open page for job searching, but his attention was on the research page he had up for cat biology. The job search was completely forgotten at this point.
Knock knock
"Eh? I don't remember ordering food. And I don't know anyone here. Should I open the door?"
Albert waited behind the door, deciding if he should open it or not.
Bang Bang Bang
"I know you're in there. Open up!"
'Is it the FBI? But I didn't do anything wrong!'
"W-who is it?"
"Your landlord, dammit."
Albert hurriedly opened the door, flustered and slightly embarrassed.
"I-"
"Don't worry, I'm not here for rent. You already paid the next few month's rent with that huge check. Plus, I brought snacks, so let me in. I know technically I'm not suppose to come in without warning, but it's fine."
"Wait what?" Alber asked, moving aside to let her in. The landlord, named Veronica, took her shoes off, then set the bag of food on the table.
"You paid 4k, which should cover the next two months and a bit more. Don't worry about it.."
"I did?"
"Yep. two weeks ago, at 3 a.m. you were wearing a set of headphones and ranting about bullfrog anatomy while handing me the check. I kicked you out immediately."
"Oh. Wait what? I thought it was nine then."
"..."
"..."
"What day was it?"
"Wednesday, fifth?"
"No. it was friday, fourteenth."
"Wha-"
"Thursday before you woke me up."
"Eeeeehhh?"
"Don't you dare "eeeh" me, boy! When was the last time you got a full night's sleep?"
"Last night?"
"That's not called sleeping, that's called passing out."
"Wha- how did you know?"
"You were loud. I had to knock you out to make you shut up."
"O-oh. sorry."
Fwump
Veronica the landlord sat on the couch, putting her legs up on the seat.
"It's fine. You're also trying to search for a job, right?"
"WHA-"
"Your computer's wide open."
"O-oh. um…"
"Don't worry. I'm used to seeing you do stuff like that."
"What do you mean?"
"You seriously don't know?"
Albert stared at the landlord with an incredulous look. It was like a mini staring contest. That is, until Veronica broke eye contact with a sigh.
"I have been in here so many times to get stuff, and yet you don't notice me entering. If I were a thief, I could have stolen all your life savings and you wouldn't know a single thing. Dammit, kid. You're hopeless."
"S-sorry."
Veronica sighed again, this time pulling out a bag of chips. Opening the bag, she held it out to Albert, who gratefully accepted a chip.
Crunch Crunch Crunch Crunch
Shk crunch
For a few minutes, they simply enjoyed the chips in silence. It was peaceful, a nice change of pace. After the bag was done, Veronica spoke up.
"So. mind explaining why you got fired? I suspect it's related to the scandal at your company."
Albert sighed, then stood up from his chair.
"I'm getting some tea. Gimme a moment."
Tak tak tak tak
While Albert was gone, Veronica had free reign to the living room. Looking around, she noticed tiny changes in the room, I.E. it being organized and clean. The vase on the table with fake flowers was gone, replaced by a bowl of fruit and a few snacks. This puzzled her quite a bit, until she remembered the chaos the night before.
"Oh. he did a bit of redecorating, didn't he? Hmm…"
Veronica reorganized the couch cushions, shifted the table a bit, and took out the blankets from inside. Sitting down again, she put her legs up on the couch and pulled out her phone.
Ta ta ta ta ta ta
"Hmm. I haven't checked this site in a while. Let's see…"
Ta ta ta ta ta ta
"Eh?"
Click click
"What's this?"
On her phone screen was news from a large company, the one that Albert worked at.
~Company discovers numerous internal scandals and data leaks…~
"Interesting. So this is how it happened. By the way, how long is he going to stay there?" She muttered.
She kept scrolling, reading through the article.
~multiple data leaks and security scandals revealed during company investigation on workers wage and unfair treatment. The initial investigation has been put on halt~
"Mh. could it be?"
Tak tak tak
"I'm back."
Albert came into the room, holding a plate of peeled fruit and two cups of tea. He looked around, noticing the small changes in the room.
"Oh. You seem comfortable there."
"Yeah. This is nice. I also readjusted some of the furniture to make it look better."
"I can clearly see that. Want some fruit?"
"Sure."
Veronica reached onto the plate, picking up an apple slice.
Cronch
"I think I got fired because I complained too much."
"Ya think? It should have been obvious, no?
"Yeah, but I couldn't just do nothing about it. It was irritating and didn't work out."
"So you decided to go blabbing to everyone?"
"Well… not immediately. I tried to talk it out with her first."
"Did you even document the issues?"
"I tried. But it all disappeared."
"Where did you document it?"
"Spreadsheet?"
"On your work account?"
"Yeah. why?"
Veronica let out an exasperated sigh, then plopped a few slices of fruit into her mouth.
"Did the files disappear overnight?"
"Yeah. I thought it was a glitch so I tried to rewrite it."
Veronica facepalmed, then shoved all the apples on the plate into her mouth.
"Got tea?"
"Ah.. yeah. I also made you a cup. Here."
Albert gingerly handed a steaming black cup to Veronica, who chugged it all.
"...
I was gonna say it was hot…"
Veronica let out a sigh, then gave Albert the empty mug.
"There isn't enough tea in the world for this sh%$. Get me another cup."
"O-ok."
Albert walked back into the kitchen to brew tea in the teapot, which gave enough time for Veronica to finish reading the article. By the time he was back, Veronica already had a full speech prepared for Albert.
"Here's your tea."
Albert stared nervously at Veronica, who decided to drop the speech and instead told him to sit down. She chugged the cup once again.
"Sigh… what am I gonna do with you… first of all, good job in speaking up. You tried to fix the problem, and that's a good thing. Second… Never. I mean Never. Do that again. If you want some change, search up jobs while documenting things on a private account. When you have compiled enough evidence on a separate account without anyone noticing, THEN, you ask them about it once you've found another job that you like and probably could get in. If things don't change, leave and send all the evidence to the higher ups and the cops. You've got a safe way out and you didn't cause too much trouble. Ya hear me?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Where'd you put the remote? We're binge watching Bleach tonight."
"I thought we were watching Jujutsu Kaisen?"
"Not in the mood. Now where'd you put the remote?"
_______
Finally back in the mood for writing. I edited this so it should be better. I'm almost done with the next one so check in later.
クリエイターの想い 
NoNamedFox
NoNamedFox Finally got around to releasing this danm chapter. sorry for the huge delay!
Dunno how often I can upload, but I hope this was sufficient for the wait.
...
Who am I kidding? of course it's not! sorry.
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