#office problems

Me: Oh okay, where?

Automated message:...

And every email is worded more and more elaborate and ridiculous. We are currently at 12 answers that all say the same in different and more and more confusing words.

“Do you even know how to load the dishwasher?”

It wasn’t a very large kitchen, to begin with, and neither of them were small men. Neither of them were entirely clear on how they had gotten stuck with this task - worse even - how they had gotten stuck doing it together.

“That’s a lot of dishes,” Akabayashi observed of the stacks of plates that covered every conceivable inch of counter space.

“If you hadn’t pointed out the dishes on my desk, it never would have come to his attention.” Aozaki accused as he stood in front of the sink, holding the very dishes that had brought them here.

“I hardly expected him to care. I mean, it’s not like he’s here often enough for it to affect him.”

“Well, if you’d kept your annoying mouth shut-”

“Yeah, yeah, start washing.”

“You wash. Most of this is probably your mess anyway.”

“Are you fucking kidding? Maybe a couple of coffee cups but there’s no way I used this many dishes.”

“Well, I sure as hell didn’t.” Aozaki rebutted, putting down the plates and opening the cupboard under the sink in search of soap. “No dish soap. Just those little dishwasher pods.”

“We have a dishwasher?” Akabayashi paused to look around the kitchen, eyes lighting on a small dishwasher in the corner. “That makes things a whole lot easier.”

“Start loading,” Aozaki ordered as he pulled out the box of dishwasher pods. Akabayashi rolled his eyes as he moved to the dishwasher and opened it up, to discover that it was also full of dishes.

“Guess we’re putting these away first.” He began to remove the clean plates and put them back in the mostly empty cupboards. Once that was done, Aozaki began to stack the plates haphazardously into the dishwasher, his goal appearing to be getting as many in at once as he could. “Do you even know how to load the dishwasher?” Akabayashi snapped in irritation. “If you load it like that the dishes won’t come clean.”

“I thought the goal was to get this done as quickly as possible.” Aozaki pointed out as he slid another dish onto an overfull rack. Akabayashi snatched the plate and began to reorganize.

“Do you want to have to rewash everything when it comes out dirty? I have no intention of doing this again.”

Aozaki rolled his eyes. “Fine. You load. Less work for me.” He grabbed a stack of plates and held it out to Akabayashi.

“That’s it. Only takeout for lunch from now on.” Akabayashi grumbled as he loaded the dishwasher. He grabbed a pod and set the machine to run then turned around to see that they’d only managed to load half the dishes. Aozaki was also staring at the plates with loathing.

“Who could possibly be using this many dishes…?” The blue devil muttered.

“Hey, guys.” Mikiya greeted them as he walked into the kitchen and deposited a plate on the counter. “Thanks for the hard work.” As the Awakusu heir left, Akabayashi and Aozaki exchanged a look of pure exasperation.

“Oh fuck no,” Akabayashi muttered.

“I ain’t cleaning up after that punk.” Aozaki echoed.

“That punk is your boss.” Shiki reminded them, leaning against the doorframe. “I’ve never heard of a yakuza getting fired for not doing the dishes but there’s always a first time for everything.”

The devils exchanged a glance then sighed in unison. Shiki’s suggestion that Mikiya might fire executives over dishes sounded a bit too believable. He’d made plenty of other stupid decisions after all.

“You’re washing,” Aozaki repeated.

“Hell no. I loaded the dishwasher.” Akabayashi argued. “You can fucking wash.”

“That was barely work at all. I could have done it faster.”

“You mean, you could have just jammed the plates in any direction.”

“Whatever. It would have been fine.”

“Start washing. I don’t want to be doing this all day.”

“There’s no dish soap, I already told you.”

“Check the other cupboards.”

“I already did.”