"...anyway that means after tomorrow I'll be away for at least three weeks.", your girlfriend, Anna, tells you about a trip she'll need to go on while both of you hang at your place.

"That's sudden. Hmm, there’s nothing I need to do for a month or so, how about I come with you?" you say while thinking (It sounded like she'd be quite busy but just keeping her company during travel could be fun and once there I'm sure I'd be able to find something to do without bothering her.)

She looks at you a bit awkwardly while saying, "Right, sorry, I already kind of made plans for you since I knew you wouldn't have anything else planned. I hope you don't mind. Taking you with me could have been fun but probably very boring for you so it didn't even cross my mind as an option."

"I don't mind, so what's your plan for me?" (Oh well, it's probably better this way. I'm happy she at least thought about what I'd be doing while she's gone even if talking to me about it would have been nice... I suppose that's what she's doing now and she's been quite busy so I can't really complain. Anyway maybe someday we'll travel the world together just for fun.)

"There's this special course that I think you should take and my trip coinciding with a discount on it convinced me to sign you up for it."

"Sounds interesting, what kind of course?" (I hope it wasn't too expensive. She has never mentioned anything like that before so it's probably a recent idea, maybe she's hoping I'd be a better cook or something though she did say it was special somehow so probably not.)

"It'll be really interesting but I don't want to spoil it for you so I won't say much. It'll give me something exciting to think about while I'm gone and I think it could improve our relationship a lot if you finish it properly. Everything else about it I want to keep as a surprise, so look forward to it and do your best when the time comes!", she says excitedly.

"I will!" (She seems to really look forward to it so I'll be happy to do whatever it involves but is she saying that there's something wrong with our current relationship? Surely not, I've never noticed her being unhappy with me about anything important so she must be just saying that it'd be even better than it already is after I've done this mystery course for her. Also does exciting to think about mean exciting in a way I think she means?)

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot, the course provides all-inclusive accomodiaton and in general everything you could need during it will be taken care of for you. That means you shouldn't bring anything with you and you won't come back here until the course is done. For today that means you should make sure to get this place into a state you won't mind coming back to weeks later. Basically deal with any expiring food in your fridge, do laundry, dishes and so on."

"Got it." (Having a course deal with all daily necessities surely means that they want to squeeze more activities out of each day. It seems like I'll be too busy to feel lonely. Not needing to worry about what to eat or deal with any other chores for a while will be nice.)

"Anyway I'd love to stay here with you longer but I really need to go already since I still haven't packed everything I want to bring with me and I've still got a bunch of other things that need to be taken care of."

"I'd love to help you do all that but I think I'll be busy enough as is so good luck with all that." (I hope she isn't too stressed out by all this, I need to make sure that I won't make her worry about me, she already has enough stuff on her plate.)

"Thanks, I'll be here to pick you up first thing tomorrow. See you!"

"Bye."

You spent the rest of the day cleaning up your place and making sure there wasn't anything that could go bad while you're gone. Luckily it had been a while since you last went shopping so all it took is a bit of creativity to turn the few perishables you had left into something edible, you did decide to leave something for breakfast even if that meant that there wasn't enough to really fill your stomach. Trying to think what the course could be about occupied most of your thoughts (Even after thinking about it all day I still have no idea what the course could be about, she gave me just enough hints to rule out nearly everything I can think of while keeping things vague enough that I can't even start guessing what it could be it's probably something I've never even heard of. She did make it sound rather nice despite how vague she was anyway I guess I'll find out tomorrow.).

By the time you had taken out all of the trash, done laundry and such you were very tired but thoughts about the course and her trip kept you awake until you finally fell into a restless sleep. You dreamt about failing to figure out what the course is about and being dumped because of it. Then you traveled around the world trying to find her and begging her to take you back whenever you met her in one country or another. Eventually she forgave you and promised to let you take all the courses you'd want so that you could be together without having to worry about chores.