You don’t have to tell me I’m lazy. I know. I know. But it’s my vacation damn it! You’re allowed to be lazy on your vacation. I don’t want to have to do chores. I don’t want to have to run errands. I want to lie on my couch and watch trash anime about a loser going to another world and getting a harem of women who suddenly like him even though his only good qualities are that he has power he doesn’t really earn and he’s the protagonist… along with all the near miss embarrassment scenes as he does unrealistic things and somehow comes out all right afterward. Bonus points if there’s lots of slapstick and misunderstandings.

I want to watch budding love between two people who really do deserve to be happy, who put their past aside by helping each other heal from whatever past struggles they had, and move forward with their lives as a pair, getting a ‘happily ever after.’

I want to eat potato chips and pizza and cookies…

And I do not want to bloody well clean up squat!

And need I remind you… it…is…my…vacation.

Don’t judge me.

So, I was watching a vampire girl suck a human’s blood while Jin steadily worked his way around my apartment. It wasn’t a big place, I have a computer, a fridge, a few chairs at a kitchenette table, my living room, and my bedroom.

Home sweet home away from home sweet home. The salty flavor of a potato chip melted in my mouth as the protagonist gave his goofy anime smile to the female lead and Jin rustled the trash bag as he tossed things in. It was starting to get kind of full.

He was humming to himself, he seemed to find me amusing to no end. He’s a good guy, goes to the high school just down the street, and lives in the apartment next to me. His mom was a nice lady, she runs a local convenience store, something he sometimes works at. And he actually is kind of a hard worker.

He was wiping down my countertop a few minutes later just as the credits were rolling and my cell phone rang.

“Hey Jin, could you toss that one to me?” I asked and held my hands up while I stretched out. Since I’d chosen to disguise myself as a young woman of about twenty, and he was a young man on the cusp of adulthood, he did sort of look at my chest, I know he did because he blushed. I was wearing pajamas, but even so. I brushed it off, he was embarrassed enough.

“S-Sure thing.” He stammered and tossed me the phone, happy to look away.

‘Nice boy, I hope he finds a girlfriend soon.’ I thought as I snatched the phone out of the air.

I unlocked it with a touch and saw a familiar number.

“Hey, Celia, what’s up?” I said with a bright, cheery smile. Celia is a work friend, she’s nice, but unlike me she does not take much in the way of vacations. She’s also not as good at ‘swapping’ as me, so I sometimes help her out.

I listened while she complained about the scanner she was struggling with. A petty dictator on some tiny moon has a bigger ego than brains, but he managed to hire a few swappers as bodyguards. Swappers don’t usually do that, but… we’re people too and every now and then one or two will sell their services to those they shouldn’t, and the thing is, we’re natural ‘scanners’, we always know each other.

‘Almost’ always. I can get past them.

“So you need help on a painting job?” I asked, and listened while she complained how unfair it was that she always got the hard jobs. It took her a few minutes before she could admit that yes, she needed help.

“Tell you what, I’ll help, but you have to do something for me.” I said. She balked, silent for several minutes.

The last time this happened, she had to make all my meals during my painting job, not that she minded doing the cooking, but she also had to handle the cleanup and I got greedy and didn’t leave her any leftovers.

If it matters, I felt pretty bad about that.

“What?” She finally asked.

“Take a few days off with me, come hang out, enjoy some ‘off’ time a bit, alright? Just a few days, you’re always working, working, working.” I rolled my eyes as she protested.

“It’s important work we do, you know that! Somebody has got to handle all this…” She said, and I interjected.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Yes, yes, I know, but there’s plenty of people and not enough jobs as it is, you won’t get fired if you take three days of vacation time off.” I pointed out, and the silence hung between us.

Celia is like a sister to me, but… I mean that in both the good and bad ways. We’re the best of friends and we get on each other’s nerves at every turn.

“Fi-i-i-i-ne.” She finally acknowledged, “Just be there tonight, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, see you then.” I said and hung up.

“Problem?” Jin asked as he hauled a second bag of garbage over to the door.

‘Maybe my apartment was dirtier than I thought.’ I pondered as I saw him tying the rag around the top of his head.

“No, just a friend needs help with a painting job, it’s too much for her by herself so… why not? It’s only a few hours.” I said with a shrug and gently placed a potato chip on my tongue before crunching down on it and reaching into the bag again.

Jin brightened, “Hey, great, you’re finally getting a job, and painting, that should be fun, right? You’ll make the world a little bit brighter with that.” He was trying so hard to be positive and encouraging. His youthful smile and freckled face was absolutely charming.

“Yeah, that’s true. But it’s only a few hours, nothing big.” I explained, “Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Yeah but, you know, it’s impossible to know if this will lead to bigger and better things for you, maybe if you get a real job, something that lasts, you won’t have to…you know… not that there’s anything wrong with you…” He was rubbing the back of his head while I glared at him and languidly placed another chip on my tongue before giving it a sound crunch with the snapping shut of my jaw.

“Never mind.” He said, his face flushed red, he got to mopping.

When he finished a few minutes later, my kitchen floor was spotless and the mop water was black.

“Alright so maybe my place is a little dirtier than I first thought.” I muttered under my breath.

“Did you say something?” He asked, looking up from the sink while tilting the black cascade of water down the drain of my sink.

“No, no, it’s nothing.” I hastened to answer and rapidly shook my head, I stuffed three sandwich cookies into my mouth so I didn’t have to speak, and savored their sweet flavor as he set the bucket down and pointed toward the closed door of my bedroom and bathroom.

“Those too?” He asked.

I was back to watching t.v. again, this time I’d absentmindedly flipped to a show with a guy carrying his cute little sister around in a basket. She was positively precious in her smallness.

“Yeah, yeah.” I said, and he opened the door.

He immediately went cherry red in the face. “Ahh…ahhh…ahh…” He had my attention.

Look, I’m an alien, but I’m disguised as a human woman, and in this part of Earth, people can be a little bit…squeamish, about some things… and when people are embarrassed about something they see you do, it’s hard not to feel embarrassed at the same time.

And right at that moment he was probably seeing that scattered about my room were various women’s undergarments. Humans make nice clothes, and from pajamas to panties, it feels fantastic to wear them all and… I went a little overboard trying things on recently and never put them away.

“Never mind!” I would have been shouting, but as it was with cheeks full of cookie crumbs, I sprayed it a bit too.

I swallowed as fast as I could and after a heavy gulp said, “Ah, I think we’re good here, you’ve done plenty, why don’t you head on home, I’m sure you’ve got things to do, right? Besides, I should wash up, get ready to go help out my friend, you know…” I was on my feet, then at his side, and I had his arm and was turning him away from my bedroom and half pushing, half pulling, all insisting that he exit my domicile immediately.

“Th-that’s true, it’s fine, just fine, yeah, um, you have fun painting!” He said, his eyes went up and down and I scowled at him.

“Hentai.” I called him, and ‘helped’ Jin out the door before slamming it behind him.

“Wait, my book!” He shouted.

I held my hand up, and it teleported into my palm. I cracked my door open and shoved it out at an angle and into his hand just out of view hard enough that he was put on the back foot for a pace. “Here!” I exclaimed.

“Wait, when did you grab-” I cut him off by slamming and locking the chain link and then flopped myself down on the couch again and turned the volume way up so as to not hear anything he could ask me.

A few hours later… long after he was gone, I was standing in the office of a petty dictator of some backwater moon.

I was glowering down at him while Celia stood behind me, he was shrinking away, his bodyguards were puddles in the corner, having been quite melted, and the supreme lord chicken was scrambling backwards on his ass. “No! No! Not like this! I was supposed to… luck… luck… I had all the luck… luck… why all of a sudden bad luck… bad luck…

He frankly sounded like a chicken, when he kept saying ‘luck’ on a loop.

I held my hands out, parted them, and his body split, and I began swatting my hands out left and right, sending a spleen to the ceiling and a liver to the wall and… I was really just flailing. “Gah! Hentai… pervert… sonofa…” I grumbled.

“Something bothering you, Kayobi?” Celia asked, interrupting my diatribe. “It’s just, whatever this guy was, we don’t know that he was any of those things… I read the full dossier on him first after all. If anything, he was a total prude.” She said as she began dragging his intestines along the window, creating what were actually nice lines if it weren’t so gross.

I relaxed. “No, I’m fine. Just working out some annoyance from earlier. My part is done now, so… you’re coming to my place, yes?” I asked.

“Just as soon as I’m finished.” She promised.

“See you at dinner!” I said, and a brief spell later, I was gone, leaving the artist to finish her latest masterpiece. I had to wonder if the supreme leader to come after him would get the hint. He probably would, but his successor, who knows?

It’s that stubborn stupidity that keeps us in business, and of course… keeps me with plenty of vacations, and my cookies were waiting for me.