width: auto + max-width: 160px make words change line but creates white space

Question

When I use max-width in order to stop text from occupying too much width, the text indeed moves to a new line but some unwanted white space is created.

The fiddle you will see is very similar to my code and shows what I'm trying to achieve.

My fiddle: https://jsfiddle.net/dpfryqsz/

.parent {
  display: flex;
  align-items: center;
  height: 100px;
  width: 500px;
  margin: 20px 0;
  background-color: green;
}

.children {
  display: flex;
  align-items: center;
  height: 100%;
  max-width: 160px;
  background-color: red;
  color: white;
  font-size: 20px;
  flex: none;
}

.parent::after {
  content: "";
  height: 2px;
  width: 0;
  background-color: black;
  transition: width 0.5s ease;
}

.parent:hover::after {
  width: 100%;
}

<div class="parent">
  <div class="children">
    Monkey eats
  </div>
</div>
<div class="parent">
  <div class="children">
    Monkey eats tastyyy banana
  </div>
</div>