At those words, Kibon's eyes widened slightly. Anastasia, now huffing with intensity, continued her rant.
“I-it’s that kind of feeling, you know? When you’re constantly curious about soone, and it bugs you when they’re not in your line of sight, and you can’t quite na the emotion but you j-just keep wanting to see them—so coming to work doesn’t feel so bad! I-it’s hard to even give that kind of feeling a na!”
Kibon, who’d been looking skeptical the whole ti, visibly flinched at her last words: “It’s hard to give it a na.” He then muttered blankly with a far-off look.
“No way...”
He trailed off like a groan, then muttered again, now sounding almost incredulous.
“...Ha, no way... no way I... That’s ridiculous.”
At the sa ti, Anastasia’s eyes went wide. I let out a ntal groan of despair.
Seriously? “No way I...”?
Without question, that was the single worst possible reaction in this situation. To make matters worse, Kibon now had the expression of soone who’d just realized sothing life-changing.
He let out another faint murmur.
“Ah...”
Ahhhhh?
The man who should have been frantically denying it was now following “No way I...” with a goddamn “Ah...”?
I stared at Kibon in disbelief.
“You—you just said ah, didn’t you?”
I clutched my forehead.
“Save that kind of reaction for an off-the-record bar conversation!”
Though let’s be honest—it’d still spread as a rumor either way.
Anastasia, still panting, then said in a suspiciously staged voice,
“A-anyway, i-if you’re really that sick, I-I’ll ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) make you so coffee. If you need anything, just say so.”
She caught her breath and added, clearly seizing the mont as her eyes sparkled with mischievous glee.
“As your team leader, this is a service I’d never normally provide to a re intern. You get that, right?”
Even though she’d said earlier she wasn’t fit to be a team leader, or that she wasn’t needed... if she were demoted, she’d probably cry her eyes out for ten days straight.
And then—
“XX!”
The office door slamd open.
Before I could say anything, a voice roared through the room.
“Namia Roafi, it’s you, right? You tampered with the soundproofing scroll, didn’t you, you XX...!”
At first, I thought a blood-soaked zombie was charging at .
It was a middle-aged man, his face so covered in blood it was hard to even recognize his features.
With wild eyes, he lunged at .
“I’m not going down alone!”
It was Liden, who’d been beaten to a pulp earlier by the Empress.
From the distance, I saw Luka running toward us with royal guards in tow.
“Where do you think you’re going during treatnt?! Hey! You criminal!”
A million thoughts flashed through my mind in that brief mont.
Clearly, he’d broken free mid-treatnt in a fit of rage.
A smart guy like him probably figured out the whole situation in an instant.
And now he was charging at just to get a single hit in.
Well, the conclusion was simple.
Guess I’m getting hit, then.
I resigned myself quickly.
There was no way soone like , who could barely lift a box of scroll paper, was going to win a fight against him.
Sure, it sucked—but I’d taken plenty of beatings before back at the Roafi baron’s house. I’d survive.
If I get seriously hurt, Luka’ll patch up anyway.
The guy wasn’t holding a weapon, and it was clear he wasn’t going to do anything that serious.
Still, if I was going to get hit, I wasn’t going to go down without getting in a few parting words. I backpedaled while running my mouth.
“Oops, looks like our little criminal just added another charge, huh? Can you hear your sentence getting longer? Look at all these witnesses!”
I usually didn’t waste my energy on pointless snark, but maybe it was the heavy lunch—my tongue was on fire today.
And then.
“...Huh?”
Suddenly, a broad back filled my vision.
Kibon.
Kibon?
He silently stepped in front of and raised a clenched fist.
Everything slowed to a crawl.
No! Kibon’s just an intern!
Bureaucrats punching each other was one thing, but Kibon didn’t have the job security to get away with that.
Even if Liden was a criminal now, hitting another civil servant could land him in serious trouble.
“Kibon, you don’t even have the right to look cool!”
I screeched as I grabbed his arm to stop him—
“AAAAAAARGH!”
...Huh?
Kibon hadn’t even done anything, but Liden suddenly collapsed.
He clutched at his eyes, writhing on the floor.
“W-what the hell?!”
It was Anastasia. She had thrown coffee grounds into his eyes.
“You little freak... AAAAAARGH!”
When Liden tried to get up, glaring daggers at her, she doused him with scalding hot water.
She really wasn’t lying when she said she was always ready to make coffee. The grounds and the kettle were both ready to go.
With blazing eyes, Anastasia declared,
“I’m not so little flunky. I’m the Scroll Departnt’s Administration Team Leader. You look like a criminal, and I do not tolerate criminals stepping into my office.”
Kibon and I froze behind her.
After a mont passed, Kibon pulled backward—boiling water had started to trickle toward our feet.
“Luka.”
I turned to the now-arrived Luka and said calmly,
“He’s going to need burn treatnt too.”
“...Yeah.”
Luka, looking thoroughly dumbfounded, nodded. I sighed as I looked down at Liden, still screaming.
“This is what happens when a pen-pusher decides to throw his weight around. Couldn’t even cross the Scroll Departnt threshold, huh? And now it’s attempted assault, too.”
“You, you lunatic... If the royals see this kind of barbaric behavior—!”
“They’ll never see it, right? No royals here.”
I gave him a sweet smile as the royal guards restrained him once again.
Luka glanced at Anastasia and muttered,
“Your team leader is incredible. Seriously, she’s insane.”
He was so stunned he forgot to even use honorifics with .
I agreed.
She had protected her Minister—the best team leader anyone could ask for.
...Gods. What even was that chaos?
At least no other staff had shown up to witness it.
After Luka, the guards, and Liden finally left, the office fell quiet again.
Anastasia calmly began cleaning up the spilled coffee grounds and putting away the kettle.
“Um, Kibon.”
She glanced at him as he gently brushed coffee grounds off my clothes.
“You really do like soone in the office, don’t you? Y-you didn’t deny it earlier.”
She’d saved the Minister and was now as sharp as a knife.
“O-of course! I-I won’t ask who it is!”
Eyes gleaming, she continued,
“S-so what kind of woman do you like, Kibon?”
It was obvious what she ant: I won’t ask who it is, but I’m definitely going to guess.
There were only four won in our departnt—including .
Oh no.
I let out a long sigh.
Kibon’s too stiff and old-school to weasel his way out of this.
Anastasia was his superior. And Kibon was the type who always answered pompous questions with equally pompous truth.
Sure enough, he replied stiffly and without hesitation.
“I think I like warm won.”
“W-what?”
“Even better if they’re the obsessive type.”
Anastasia’s face fell flat.
“Oh. So... it’s not the Minister, then.”
Huh?
“I thought it was the Minister...”
What does that an? Why not ?
I was about to glare at her and demand an explanation when she added,
“T-the Finance Minister said... when he was storming out... he said Minister Namia is incredible, but being around her just makes him feel emotionally devastated.”
Hmph.
Well... I couldn’t really argue with that.
“A-and when you were taunting that criminal earlier, I kind of felt the sa way—like my soul was crumbling.”
Excuse , who took down that criminal?
I just ran my mouth, and suddenly I’m the soul-crushing one?
“A-and our Minister isn’t the clingy type at all, right? I-I an, you hate wasting energy, so you’re indifferent to everyone.”
...That was fair.
“A-anyway, Kibon, you’ve got weird tastes.”
Anastasia seed more intrigued than ever as she pressed on.
“L-liking obsessive won? That’s such a specific type.”
“Yes. But I do like won like that.”
Kibon added slowly,
“Won who cling to , who hold tight, who make it hard to breathe...”
I clicked my tongue as I stared at him.
Seriously.
Everyone lives according to their tastes, sure, but that is one weird taste...
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