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It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to clean his apartment.
His father had been ecstatic about him leaving the Crown residences—his face filling with a renewed energy Noctis hadn’t realised he’d lost. His son was interested in continuing his schooling, in pursuing something other than royal duties. Any king before Regis might have taken issue with this development, but not the modern king. So with a wide smile, Regis had sent Noctis out apartment hunting with Ignis, somewhere relatively close to his academy.
But Ignis had seen Noct’s failures coming from a mile away. His advisor had tried to promote the open-plan apartments as much as possible. They’d eventually compromised, finding a spacious apartment overlooking Insomnia. Not a penthouse, to Noct’s relief, but still overwhelmingly large. He had wanted nothing bigger than his room back home.
Noctis stood in the middle of his apartment. The place was cluttered. Dishes were strewn from the table to the bench tops to the coffee table, all used throughout varying times of the week. Some used more than once for different purposes, being spared a quick rinse. The ones in the sink were piled high, their bottoms covered in varying layers of food stuffs; a consequence of the internet (and Ignis) attempting to teach him how to cook. There was no room left to fill a glass of water with the tap—and he’d resorted to taking his glasses to the bathroom. The kitchen counter-tops were no longer the sparkling clean they had been when Ignis last gave the apartment a once-over (and scolded Noctis for not doing it himself).
School books were discarded next to those dishes, but also populated a few seats of the couch. Jackets, a pair of pants, and a small smattering of shirts hung off the backs of chairs. One of his uniform ties was limply hanging from the handle of the pantry, left there by Prompto from a week ago. Paper was scattered across the floor of the lounge, including some reports Ignis had left earlier and unfinished school work his teachers had long since forgotten about. Rubbish from noodle or potato chip packets were left lying around, along with several empty cans. At least Prompto had taken the time to stack most cans up in an interesting pyramid next to Noct’s television.
His bedroom was no better. A pile of dirty clothes had utterly missed the washing basket they belonged in, instead becoming a growing mound in the room's corner. The bed was a mess—all three blankets were crumpled and only half-pulled up the bed, with no effort to make them look vaguely presentable. The art frames in his room had been knocked skew-whiffed without an effort to correct them—in fact, there were clutters of collected postcards and images that were too numerous for the wall entirely. Every time someone walked into the bedroom, they were greeted with an explosion of mis-matched images from various mythological figures or fictional characters.
And the bathroom was a damp nightmare. His hairbrush and toiletries had no place to live. They laid forgotten in the shower, on the sink, and some towels had even ended up in the bath somehow. Streaks marked the mirror.
As Noctis stood in the centre of his living room, taking in the nightmare that was his beloved apartment and being deafened by the silence it afforded him. The weight of all the misplaced items bore down on him; they were direct eye-sores, making him feel guilty whenever he walked in. Part of him wanted to blame Ignis for that, but Noctis knew better. The apartment, his apartment, was his responsibility.
It wasn’t that Noctis didn’t know how to clean his apartment.
It was that he didn’t know where to begin.
For all intents and purposes, he was standing at the bottom of a mountain, looking up and seeing all the obstacles in his way. But he had no plan to overcome them, no plan to power through. His apartment, although not huge, was a disaster zone by Ignis standards. One could walk in and assume that Noctis did not respect his abode, or his father for allowing him to leave home and live on his own. He didn’t like that thought at all.
“You okay, Noct?”
The prince dragged his eyes up to the man leaning against the door to the hallway—the only room that had yet to be a victim to Noct’s innate disorganisation. Gladiolus was clad in his worn green hoodie, shoulders peppered with wet patches from walking a short distance in rain. His socks were a pristine white that did not match the dull, un-moped floor.
Noctis had not heard him come in. “. . . not really.”
Gladio didn’t move, eyebrows creasing ever so slightly as he regarded Noctis. “What’s on your mind?”
He gestured around the room. “I have . . . no idea how I’m supposed to do any of this.”
His vocabulary unfortunately didn’t match his meaning at all. He braced himself for a pseudo-lecture from Gladio, a “you got yourself into this mess, time to get yourself out of it” speech he was often assaulted with during their training sessions. Gladio would have been correct, but that didn’t make it at all helpful to the disappointment Noctis was crushing himself with.
But the lecture didn’t come. Gladio instead glanced around the room, taking what might have been a mental stock of what needed doing. He even leaned forward to get a quick vantage of Noct’s room through its door. “I want you to make a list.”
“A list?”
“Yup,” Gladio nodded. “Get out your phone, open your notepad.”
With few options left on the table, Noctis complied. He pulled the mobile from his pocket. A few button presses later, he was in Take Notes, awaiting further instruction from Gladio.
“Write a list of everything you think needs doing. Be specific—don’t generalise tasks.”
“What does that mean?”
“Stuff like washing dishes. That’s one thing. Putting away dishes is another.”
So he made a list.
- Do dishes
- Put away dishes
- Collect dishes from lounge
- Wipe benches
- Collect books
- Put books away
- File papers away
- Collect clothes
- Free tie from pantry
- Put clothes in washing machine
- Start washing machine
- Empty rubbish
- Collect rubbish from lounge
- Remove cans from TV stand
- Put washing in washing basket
- Make bed
- Put away toiletries
- Clean shower
- Wipe bathroom basin
- Wipe mirror
- Vacuum floors
- Mop floors
- Open windows
- Vacuum couch
Noctis paused, having written everything he could think of off the top of his head. Just looking at the list made him feel tired, his energy immediately sapped from the extensive number of chores Gladio had just made him set himself. His shoulders slumped—it seemed unfeasible to get this all completed in one day.
His friend, his mentor, seemed to pick up on his demeanour. “How’d you go?”
“I don’t think I can finish this today.”
“That’s fine. There’s no time limit, Noct,” Gladio pointed out. “What’s at the top of your list?”
“Do dishes,” he nodded to the high pile in the sink.
“Now you’ve got your starting point.”
Noctis swallowed, glancing back to Gladio. The stocky Shield-in-training gave a broad smile, and tossed him an item: headphones, to plug into his phone. “Better get started, your Highness.” He turned, heading back into the hallway from which he’d come.
“You’re leaving?” Noctis called.
“I just came to check in. I’m not helping you clean—you got yourself into this mess. The best I can do is give you the tools to get yourself out of it.”
Noct’s front door opened, then slammed shut. So he did get a lecture. But strangely enough, it hadn’t felt as bad as he thought it would.
He took a deep breath, plugging the headphone cable into his phone. His didn’t bother flicking through his music, just hitting the “shuffle play” button and letting the app land on 闘う者達. That was fine. He needed the tempo to get him moving.
Heeding Gladio’s advice, Noctis rolled up his sleeves, intending to attack each item on the list one at a time, one after the other—thankful for his shield with his advice. First task was the dishes in the sink. He could do that.