Chương 392: 178.Hero of One Against Seven

"I never knew you could ride." I sat behind her and, without really thinking, let my hands circle forward and rest lightly around Maki's waist. The moment I did it, I froze for half a second myself. Not because I was shy—well, not entirely because of that—but because Maki Kushima had always given off the impression of someone who would diagram every mode of transportation into a flowchart and then make other people follow standard operating procedure.

And now here she was, astride a bike, back straight, gloves on, even the way she started the engine was so steady it felt less like she was picking me up from a station and more like she was collecting me from some unfortunate administrative disaster I'd tripped into. It hit me that there were probably still a lot of things I didn't know about her. Maki didn't turn her head. She just answered evenly:"There's a lot you don't know."

"Oh?" I didn't loosen my hold on her waist. I even dragged my tone out on purpose.

"Such as?" The bike eased out from the station, and the morning wind hit us full in the face. Maki rode like she did everything else—steady enough that even her anger felt like it stayed within the speed limit. Two seconds went by before she spoke again.

"Such as," she said, voice still flat, "you have no idea how worried I was last night." My fingers tightened, just a fraction. The second half came fast, like she'd realized saying only the first sentence was too much of a loss and had to immediately ram a counter-blow in to stay in character.

"And then you just went charging off alone to find her and start a fight." I tucked my chin deeper into my scarf, trying to make myself sound perfectly reasonable.

"It was an urgent situation—""An urgent situation?" Maki's voice pitched up a notch. Not shrill. Not out of control. Just that flat line suddenly jerked one unit higher, which somehow made it worse. Her hands on the handlebars never wavered, but her tone had gone noticeably cold.

"Even in an urgent situation, you don't go alone," she said.

"You bring someone." I blinked.

"Even Jess?"

"Even Jess," she answered instantly.

"At least if something went wrong, Jess could help." I went quiet for two beats, then said, honestly:"Help run her mouth. And make it worse." Maki fell silent. We rolled up to a red light. She stopped the bike but didn't look back. I couldn't see her face, but off those two seconds of silence alone, I could pretty much picture it—she'd actually slotted Jess into the scenario for a serious calculation and then had to admit, with some pain: yes, that was a risk. I couldn't help laughing.

"What's wrong, President? Didn't account for that layer?"

"…"

"Unbelievable. Maki Kushima with a loophole in her process."

"Hoshino Shimo."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Shut up."

"Copy that." I said it, but I didn't actually let go. Because even when I wanted to talk back, I could tell the difference. She wasn't just scolding me for being reckless. She was spooked. Spooked by the thought that if things had gone the other way and I hadn't put those seven idiots in the ambulance first, I might've been the one bleeding out under that bus sign. That if she'd come to the station today, she might not have been picking up me, but something else entirely.

Once that crossed my mind, the urge to keep pushing her buttons faded a little. I leaned in closer, my voice dropping with me.

"... I'll call someone next time." Maki didn't answer right away. The light turned green and the bike rolled forward again. The wind shredded her voice lower, but it made every word clearer.

"There is no next time." Short sentence. Short enough to be a warning. Short enough to sound like she really did not intend to go through a second round of this. I didn't argue. I just tightened my hold a notch and buried my chin back in my scarf. Fine. She could have this one. By the time we got back to school, the first person we ran into was exactly the one I least wanted to see. The Chair of the Disciplinary Committee—Freya Nikaido.

She was standing by the bike park, arms folded, back straight, posture so textbook it felt like the school regulations had grown legs and walked over here specifically to intercept us. The winter light fell across her shoulders, making her look even more like a walking, unsympathetic notice of internal order. The instant I saw her, every cell in my body wanted to do a clean 180 and ride straight back to the station. At least the cops had given me a chair. This one would just give me a lecture.

Maki killed the engine. I pulled off my helmet first and looked at Nikaido with all the fatigue and disrespect any woman who'd pulled an all-nighter, taken a knife to the face, and just been released from custody was entitled to.

"Please," I rubbed at my throbbing temple, "I haven't slept. My mood is terrible. Yell at me later?" Nikaido watched me, that chilly, near-bureaucratic mask on her face not shifting an inch.

"Hoshino Shimo."

"Present."

"Publicly, I condemn violence." My teeth ached the second I heard the opener. Great. Here we go. Standard Disciplinary Committee script. Next line would be something like "Your actions have badly damaged the school's reputation," or "Student leaders must set an example," or whatever else they had in the manual. I was already mentally laying out her sentence tree. Then she turned the blade sideways and kicked my entire projected flowchart into the trash.

"Internally," she said, "I'll say: good work. At least you won, and it was one against seven." I stared at her. If last night's young officer's face when he saw my file had read as holy shit, then I was currently running the upgraded version. With bonus am I hallucinating from sleep deprivation? I looked at Nikaido, stayed quiet for a full two seconds, then asked, sincerely:"Can I ask why?"

She glanced away slightly, and when she answered, her voice was still even—but the performative public-service tone had dropped.

"A lot of our students use that road," she said. She paused, then added:"The Second Voc kids over there like to harass our students for fun." I blinked. Oh. So I hadn't suddenly brought peace to the sector last night. Those guys had just been overdue for a beating, and I happened to be the one holding the stick. Nikaido cleared her throat, and for the first time I saw something like discomfort flicker over her face. Not shame. Not embarrassment.

More that, as Chair of the Disciplinary Committee, she really shouldn't be saying "good work" that smoothly—but she actually meant it, and that annoyed her. It made her look briefly more human. Weirdly refreshing.

"Anyway," she said, forcing her face back into the usual hard, cold version, "this matter ends here. You will not go out of your way to cause them trouble." At that, I instantly frowned.

"Oh, come on." I jabbed a finger at the bandage on my face, then, not very politely, toward the general direction those guys inhabited.

"Who exactly is causing trouble for who here? You should be saying: they'd better not come near me—or any of our students—again." Maki stood beside me and said nothing. She just gave me a look that said very clearly: you've switched into overprotective mode, and yes, I see it. Sorry. I saw it too. And I had no intention of dialing it down. I kept my eyes on Nikaido, dropping my voice lower and harder.

"Because if they do, I will make them regret being born." The air went still. The bike park always had a weird echo to it; say something too sharp and the metal racks would remember it for you. Nikaido held my gaze, trying to decide whether that was just me running my mouth or whether, after last night, I really would go back to finish the job. Unfortunately, the answer was probably both. After a while, she said, very quietly:"That's not a sentence you should say a second time."

"That depends on whether they understand basic humanity."

"Hoshino Shimo."

"I'm listening."

"This is a school," Nikaido said.

"Not a frontline. And not any of the other places you've been." I shut up for a second. The line wasn't loud, but it landed exactly where it needed to. Right on the bones that had been under a pair of cuffs last night. She didn't push further. She just gave me another look and added:"You protected one of our students last night. I'll remember that. But if you go looking for them again because of it, I'll be the first one to stop you." That was very Nikaido. Public and private, clearly separated.

Annoying—but annoyingly principled. I blew out a breath and forced the anger down a notch.

"Fine," I said.

"On the condition they keep their hands to themselves."

"I'll be watching," Nikaido replied.

"You'd better."

"If I say I will, I will." We looked at each other. Somewhere in there, that was probably the bare-minimum consensus forged at eight in the morning in a freezing bike park between two equally insufferable women who both refused to tolerate outsiders laying a hand on "their" people. Irritating. And, annoyingly enough, reasonable. Maki finally spoke.

"Done?" I turned toward her.

"President, why does that sound like, 'If you're done posturing, get back to work'?"

"Because you are about to get back to work."

"I was in a police station last night."

"And?"

"And you could at least give me half a day of wounded-soldier exemption." Maki glanced at the bandage on my cheek, then at my perfectly steady legs, and delivered her verdict with clinical calm.

"If you can still argue, you can still work." I almost put my helmet back on and pretended my hearing had failed. Nikaido let out something that might actually have been a chuckle. Short. Light. But real. I glared at her.

"What are you laughing at?"

"At you getting what you deserve."

"You're a terrible Disciplinary Chair."

"Someone who took on seven guys last night is not in a position to demand sympathy this morning." Damn it. I jammed the helmet into the crook of my arm and turned to leave. I'd barely taken a step when someone brushed my wrist. Lightly. Maki. She didn't grab on. It was just a brief touch, like she was checking that I really was still standing fine.

"Come on, Shimo." It was nothing. But it was enough to press down the edge of the anger that had been climbing up my chest. I looked at her. Her face was as blank as ever, like that little gesture had been nothing more than the reflexive straightening of a crooked file, not worth attaching any feelings to. …Fine. It wasn't like she'd ever conveniently wear anything actually on her face. I swallowed what I'd been about to say and just followed.

"Got it, President." Nikaido stayed where she was. She didn't stop us again, only called out once more as we turned.

"Hoshino."

"What now?"

"Three of those seven already had prior incidents on record for harassing our students." I looked back. Nikaido met my eyes, her tone as flat as if she were reading the weekly Disciplinary report.

"So your punches weren't entirely misallocated." The corner of my mouth twitched. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

"Can I file that under internal commendation from the Disciplinary Committee?"

"In your dreams."

"Okay, then I'll just translate it that way myself."

"As you like." She turned and walked off. I watched her vanish into the morning light and thought, not for the first time, that this world was ridiculous. Last night I put seven vocational-school bottom-feeders in the hospital. This morning I got personally extracted from the station by the Seitokai President, then had the Chair of the Disciplinary Committee half-condemn, half-endorse my behavior as legitimate overprotection. Was this a military academy?

Or some kind of weird incubator designed to mass-produce problematic children into civil servants?

"What are you still standing there for?" Maki had already taken two steps toward the school buildings and was looking back at me.

"Thinking about life."

"Done?"

"Temporarily, no."

"Then think while you walk."

"Maki, you really have no poetry in you."

"The Seitokai doesn't need poetry."

"What does it need?" She gave me a look and answered, cool and merciless:"It needs you to go back and work. Now." I stayed quiet for two seconds. Then I gave up and followed. The second I stepped into the Seitokai office, I got hit by applause. Not the token kind. Not the polite three-clap minimum used to acknowledge that a survivor had returned. Jess was going full power solo.

Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap— Loud enough to make it sound like I'd just returned from the frontlines as a Federal hero, seconds away from someone draping a medal over my shoulders, reading out a eulogy, and handing me last night's entire stack of medical bills with a warning to please show some restraint next time.

"Stop." I shut the door, my head buzzing worse than it had in the station, my voice limper than it had been giving my statement.

"Quit it. We've got a pile to get through."

"But it was so cool!" Jess perched on the arm of the sofa, clapping and grinning like the one who'd been in police custody last night had been her instead of me.

"One against seven, Vice President. You've basically upgraded to No. 22's urban legend, deluxe edition."

"I'd prefer to remain a legally registered tenant, not an urban legend."

"Too late." D lounged back on the couch, arms folded, looking at me with the righteous delight of someone who never minded an extra fire.

"Hoshino, you really should've taken me with you." I looked at D's frame—impossible to hide—and then at the expression on her face that read if I'd been there, the incident would never be fit to write up in a school report. My assessment was brutally honest.

"If you'd gone, it wouldn't have been a brawl." I dumped my bag on the table.

"It would've been a homicide case." D raised an eyebrow.

"That low an opinion of me?"

"Not low. Accurate." I said.

"I took down seven and, at worst, they'll call it excessive force in self-defense. If you were there, Jess would be buying wreaths outside the courthouse." Jess picked it up instantly.

"D would probably just rip a door off its hinges and swat them into their graves one by one." D actually thought it over seriously.

"Doors are hard to grip," he said.

"A bus stop sign is handier." I stared at her.

"... Do you two ever wonder why Disciplinary pays you so much personal attention?" Harvey sat on the other side, quiet as usual. He'd barely said a word since I came in, but his gaze had stopped for a second on the bandage on my face before he finally spoke.

"The cut's not deep," he said.

"You got lucky."

"Thanks. That's very comforting."

"I'm not comforting you," Harvey said.

"I'm stating that you could have been significantly more screwed."

"That's worse." Roy was at the desk with a stack of invoices, finally looking up. His expression was flat, the kind exercised by a male finance officer who had already accepted that every member of the Seitokai would end up in custody in one way or another.

"At least your face is intact," he said.

"Congratulations. If you'd actually ended up with permanent damage, the follow-up medical and psychological compensation projections would've been a nightmare."

"Why can even my near-disfigurement be turned into a budget problem?"

"Because I'm finance. What did you expect?" Roy spun his pen without blinking.

"And it's not just the medical. We'd also have to account for the intangible asset value of that face you use to bully people by association with authority." I nearly threw the nearest folder at him.

"Who said I use my face to bully people?" Lan chose that moment to set a hot drink down by my hand. Her eyes flicked once to the bandage before she spoke.

"Drink first," she said.

"And Roy's wording aside, he's not wrong on the basics. If it scarred, the clean-up would be complicated."

"You see? Even General Affairs knows how to be a person."

"Because Lan doesn't have to do the books," Roy said.

"Are you trying to write off all your relationships as depreciation today?"

"I wrote them off ages ago." I was about to fire back when Jess hopped down and leaned in, staring at the bandage for two seconds before frowning.

"Jokes aside," she said, "what if it does scar?" The office went quiet. It was a normal question on its own. Most people seeing a wound ask that first. The problem was— From the doorway, there was a tiny, almost inaudible hitch. Not a knock. Not a word. Just the faintest pause, like someone had been about to walk in and, on hearing a certain word, had nailed her feet to the floor. I turned on instinct. The door wasn't fully shut. There was a crack. And through that crack, I saw silver-white hair first. Hedwig.

She was standing just outside, something that looked like paperwork in her hand. She'd probably been on her way in. Now she was just standing there, frozen. Her usually composed face had gone briefly blank, like the words "scar" and "disfigure" had finally collided in her head with last night's knife—and ripped something open she'd been very determined not to look at directly. Shit. The word had just formed in my head when Hedwig turned away sharply. Not the smooth, controlled exit she normally did.

She was bolting. I all but shoved the untouched drink back onto the table.

"Fuck." Jess blinked.

"Huh? What?"

"Every one of you," I snapped, already moving, "shut up about it. Today." I tossed that over my shoulder and was already through the door. Behind me, I heard Jess mutter, "Did I say something wrong again?" and Roy's very Roy response: "This isn't if you did. This is you hit dead center." I didn't have time to go back and yell at them. Hedwig wasn't walking especially fast, but she wasn't dawdling either. Even flustered, she carried that same measured pace.

It was annoying, because it made it hard to tell whether she was just going somewhere to calm down or actually trying to remove herself from everyone's line of sight. I cut down the corridor and caught up just before the corner.

"Hedwig!" Her steps checked, but she didn't turn. The knot of anger and frustration in my chest spiked. I closed the last few steps and, on pure reflex, reached out to grab her— I aimed for her wrist. At the last second, my brain flashed an image of the red ring that had been imprinted there last night. I forced my hand sideways and ended up catching just above her sleeve, at the bend of her elbow. Lightly. But it was still the first time. The first time I'd really touched her.

Hedwig went very still at the contact, then turned back slowly. She looked down at my hand on her sleeve, then up at me. Her eyes were quiet. Too quiet. Which was what made it worse.

"Why are you running?" I asked first, some edge still in my voice.

"I wasn't talking about you." Hedwig was silent for two seconds before answering, low:"But it was because of me." Of course. I let go of her sleeve and stepped in front of her instead, cutting off any excuse she might have had about "just passing by" and "overhearing." The corridor was silent at this hour; you could only faintly hear students talking further away. Morning light slanted in through the high windows, striking her hair with a cold glow and making the bandage on my face even more obvious.

Her eyes stuck there, like they'd been pinned in place.

"If it scars—""Then it scars," I cut in. She froze. So did I, for half a second. The words had come out faster than I'd thought them. Like I hadn't even considered another answer. But since they were out, I wasn't going to reel them back.

"It's not like this is the first mark on me." I frowned at her.

"And that knife last night wasn't yours. If those seven pieces of shit really manage to mess up my face, that's on them to regret. Not you to pre-emptively feel guilty for them." Hedwig stared at me. Her lips parted, but no sound came out immediately. It was rare to see her like this. Normally she always had the words and the poise, slotting her expression and tone into the exact right box every time. Now all that seemed to have come apart.

She was just standing there, looking at me with a flicker of something I almost never saw on her—uncertainty. Worse than last night, honestly. At least then I'd known exactly who to hit. Now the person standing in front of me wasn't an enemy. She was a problem princess trying to drag other people's injuries onto her own tab. I sighed.

"Anyway, you're late."

"... What?"

"Only just now starting to worry about whether I'll scar." I folded my arms, deliberately sharpening my tone.

"I was already sitting in a patrol car last night. You're only doing this scene now? Bit slow on the paperwork, aren't you?" Hedwig blinked. Light. Like I'd smacked her with that sentence, and it had taken her half a beat to realize I was deliberately trying to drag the mood back to something less suffocating. She drew in a breath, faintly.

"I'm not acting."

"I know."

"I really—" She broke off. We looked at each other. The corridor was so quiet my heartbeat sounded loud. Then Hedwig lifted her hand. Slowly, as if checking whether I would pull away. I didn't. Her fingers didn't touch the cut. They stopped just at the edge of the bandage, like she was tracing around it through the air. It barely qualified as contact, but it made me more uncomfortable than any fist or knife from last night.

"Does it hurt?" she asked softly. My throat went dry.

"... It's fine."

"Liar."

"Hey."

"You're frowning." I opened my mouth to argue and realized she was right. I must have been. Because the first reaction my brain had when her hand got that close wasn't pain. It was: What the hell is this situation? A military academy vice president who had just soloed seven guys into the station last night, standing in a school corridor at dawn being looked at from this distance by the Empire's Third Princess, who was asking if the cut on her face hurt. This wasn't just unreasonable.

It was a public insult to my original, carefully projected life plan. I cleared my throat and dragged my gaze away from her hand.

"I'm more bothered by you trying to run just now." Hedwig's fingers paused.

"... Sorry." There it was again. Was she planning to burn through an entire six-month quota of apologies in one morning? I couldn't help catching her wrist—this time on purpose—and pressing her hand down. Real contact. Her hand was cold. Cold like the air under that bus sign last night. When I wrapped my fingers around hers, she stiffened, just slightly. Not in rejection. More like she genuinely hadn't expected me to do that. Good. At least I wasn't the only one failing basic composure.

"Stop apologizing every five minutes," I said quietly.

"If you really feel that bad, cut back on the midnight strolls and surprise visits to places full of trouble." Hedwig looked at our joined hands. Two heartbeats later, she answered, just as softly:"Then don't go back to the station on my account again." I choked. That was low. It sounded like a request, but it felt like concern—and it very unfairly folded last night's entire mess into a single sentence only the two of us would understand. All I could do was snap back, irritated:"Depends on whether you behave."

She lifted her eyes.

"What do you take me for?"

"A problem princess." She didn't deny it. Her mouth tilted just a fraction. The smile was as faint as sunlight grazing ice in the morning—gone in an instant, but impossible to miss. Damn it. That smile was harder to deal with than a flashed knife. Hedwig drew her hand back, straightened her sleeve with the same precision as always, as if that moment of disarray had already been filed away. But this time I knew better. Something underneath that surface calm had definitely shifted when I touched it.

Not just literally. Actually. I coughed and looked away.

"Anyway, if you're coming in, come in. Don't stand at the door eavesdropping."

"I wasn't eavesdropping on purpose."

"Then make more noise next time."

"You want me to deliberately draw attention to myself?"

"At least don't make it feel like you're trying to vanish again." Hedwig was quiet for half a second, then nodded.

"All right." That "all right" was soft. But it sounded more real than half the impeccably worded answers she'd given us so far. I turned first.

"Come on," I said.

"If I don't get back, the Council really will work me like livestock through lunch."

"Aren't they already?" I whipped back around. Hedwig was watching me, expression calm, but there was a very obvious hint of…corruption in her eyes. I narrowed mine.

"Have you been spending too much time around Jess?" She answered, perfectly innocent:"I'm just reflecting my environment."

"This environment is toxic."

"But interesting." I stared at her for two seconds and ultimately surrendered to the mountain of paperwork and my own sleep-deprived brain.

"... Forget it." I started back down the hall.

"Just come with me. And don't bring up my face again." Hedwig fell into step behind me. Her footsteps were lighter than before, and steadier.

"Why not?"

"Because it's annoying."

"I thought you didn't care."

"I don't care about the scar."

"What do you care about, then?" I stopped half a step short and glared at her.

"That look you had just now." She blinked. I didn't bother explaining, just threw over my shoulder:"It was awful. Don't show me that again." And then I pushed the office door open and walked back in. Behind me, there was a brief pause. Then I heard her laugh, very softly. …Great. I had definitely brought something back in with me. Hedwig followed me back into the office. The door had barely opened when Jess's gossip radar lit up.

"Oh-ho—" she practically sprang off her chair, humming a mangled version of the wedding march so off-key it matched her conscience, "the Scarred Prince has gone and retrieved the fragile princess, and now the groom and bride are entering—" I hadn't even put my bag down before I chopped her on the forehead.

"Shut it." The smack landed clean and neat, full of the Vice President's commitment to immediately correcting low-grade entertainment behaviors.

"Ow!" Jess clutched her head and half-crouched, still grinning like she wasn't afraid to die.

"Hey, don't get all flustered. The vibe just now really did look—""If it gets any more like that, I'm burying you in the process documents and you're never getting out."

"So fierce, Your Highness."

"Jess."

"Ma'am."

"Shut up."

"Yes, ma'am—but I reserve the right to internal background music." I was about to go for a second hit when something at the edge of my vision made me freeze. Because Hedwig had actually gone red. Not fire-engine red, not shoujo manga red. Just a thin, faint wash over her already pale skin, like winter light had picked up a hint of color it wasn't supposed to have and brushed it across the snow. Exactly that degree. The most dangerous one. Because it didn't look performed. I stalled out on the spot.

I hadn't stalled like this when she'd almost been dragged off last night. I hadn't stalled like this when her fingers had hovered by the bandage this morning. But now, here in the Seitokai office with half the crew watching, Jess drops that "bride" line and Hedwig actually blushes— That was open sabotage of the Vice President's workload.

"... Are you done?" I tried very hard to make my voice sound as flatly annoyed as usual, but the tail end wasn't entirely clean. Jess only lit up more, and D pressed a fist to her mouth, producing a sound that fooled no one.

"Hoshino," D drawled, like she was spectating a highly educational accident scene.

"Your face right now is better than it was giving your statement last night."

"You weren't there last night."

"But I can picture it."

"Try picturing something that's actually useful to society."

"Like going back and beating those seven again?"

"No," I looked at her coldly.

"Like sewing Jess's mouth shut."

"Hey, unfair!" Jess protested.

"Hedwig's the one reacting. I'm just providing live coverage!" Roy, still surrounded by expenses and corrections, finally put his pen down and looked between me and Hedwig, his tone as dry as a man who'd spent years mopping up unnecessary emotional spillover.

"If you plan to convert this office into a wedding venue, file a location-change request first," he said.

"So I can preemptively deny it." Lan, beside him, was double-checking the new route map and equipment list. She heard that and the corner of her eye moved—probably a smile, but properly restrained by General Affairs decorum.

"Roy," Lan said mildly.

"That wasn't exactly low-key either."

"I am engaged in preventive administrative interference," Roy replied, righteous as ever.

"Given the current atmosphere, the Council appears to be incubating some kind of…extra activity."

"You two are very mouthy today." I dropped my bag on the desk, teeth grinding.

"Did I not beat those seven hard enough last night? Do I have to come home and get finished off by my own side?" Harvey had stayed silent, just watching. More accurately, watching the bandage on my face, then Hedwig, then me again. His gaze was flat, but it carried a very clear: I have a good idea what happened outside the door, I'm just not saying it. Eventually he said:"At least you didn't knock your brain out last night."

"Thank you. That's probably the closest you've come to a compliment today."

"I'm not complimenting you," Harvey said.

"I'm confirming the Council can still use you."

"Am I just inventory to all of you?"

"What else?" Jess cut in immediately. I glared at her. She immediately ducked halfway behind D, grinning like a repeat offender who knew exactly how to stay within the safe zone. Through all of this, Maki hadn't said a word. She just sat behind her desk and watched. Not joining in. Not shutting it down. Not weighing in.

That silence was very her—like the person who'd understood the situation faster than anyone else, but chose not to lay her cards on the table, waiting instead for everything to ferment on its own before cutting it all off with one sharp move. A second later, she did exactly that. A stack of documents slid across the desk toward me. Not too light. Not too heavy. Exactly enough to crush the "groom and bride" nonsense and return us to Seitokai normal. I looked down.

Team selection amendments, updated Disciplinary conditions, revised equipment-issue schedules, and a roll call sheet ringed in red. … Great. Romcom portion over. Back to manual labor. I looked up at Maki. She looked back, expression as flat as ever, as if to say: you got her back, she blushed, you survived the scene. Now get to work. Sometimes she really did feel like a walking cold-water tap.

"What are you looking at me for?" she asked.

"You're still alive, aren't you?"

"President, this is a very underwhelming reunion line."

"We saw each other half an hour ago."

"I just came back from a major emotional accident scene."

"And you are now entering a minor paperwork accident scene," Maki said, then added one more stab, "within the scope of the Vice President's duties." I stared at her for two seconds. And realized, with deep regret, that I had no comeback.

"... Oh, so that's how it is." I dragged my chair out and sat down, pulling the stack over with all the despair of someone who'd been up all night, bled, and then been publicly stared at on top of it.

"Here I was thinking I'd just brought Hedwig back. Turns out I only brought myself back to my workstation."

"You finally understand your primary mission?" Roy asked.

"I'm seriously considering folding this attendance sheet into a paper plane and firing it straight into your budget report."

"You'll need an approval form for paper usage."

"... Male finance officers really deserve to be struck by lightning."

"Thanks. I'm used to it." Hedwig hadn't moved away. She was still standing next to me. Which, by itself, was already loud. She wasn't Jess, who generated noise wherever she went, or D, who dominated any space just by existing in it. Hedwig's presence was quieter, but that made it harder to ignore. Especially after what had just happened in the corridor, I could feel, with unnerving clarity, how the air in the room had an extra layer to it now. Jess picked up on it first, of course.

She clearly wanted to say something, but Lan gave her one very calm look. Jess finally took the hint and shut her mouth, switching to a big, over-bright expression she kept bouncing between me and Hedwig. Maki still didn't say anything. She just turned to the next document, her gaze passing over Hedwig without hurry, then settling on the still-blank form in front of me.

"If you keep staring at that empty column, you're going to lose your lunch break."

"How are you managing to process documents and simultaneously monitor my exact level of mental drift?"

"Because your drift is very visible."

"I was in a police station last night."

"And I'm being very lenient."

"Where, exactly?"

"I haven't asked for your written self-reflection." …Shit. That really was lenient. I surrendered and picked up my pen. I'd barely set it to the page when Hedwig spoke.

"If you don't mind, I can help." The room went momentarily still. I looked up at her. Jess's eyes flared again. D's smile went straight onto her face this time. Roy's brows ticked up, and Lan's gaze shifted a fraction off her paperwork, checking whether this was just polite noise, compensation, or something else. Before I could answer, Maki got there first.

"Which part?" she asked. Her tone was all business. So all business it sounded like she was really only doing task allocation, not also assessing why exactly the Third Imperial Princess had just offered to sit next to me and help with Council paperwork. Hedwig didn't flinch.

"Sorting records, copying names, cross-referencing conditions from the different offices—I can do those," she said.

"Last night I caused trouble for all of you. If there's anything I can take on now, I'd rather not just stand here." I opened my mouth and realized I was stuck. Because that wasn't purely courtesy. At least, not only. It had her usual layer of polished propriety on it, but underneath there was something more blunt—she didn't want to just be the one dragged out of danger, protected, and sent home. She wanted to stay and do something, even if it was just moving paper around, it beat standing by and watching.

Which, honestly, was a problem. Because a princess who apologized was already tricky enough. A princess who apologized and then started volunteering to backfill tasks was outright malicious toward other people's emotional bandwidth. Maki sat there quietly for a moment, then pulled one of the less complicated piles out and slid it into the empty spot next to me.

"Sit here," she said.

"First help Shimo cross-check the supplementary submission list from yesterday afternoon. Flag everything missing, inconsistent, or duplicated." Hedwig nodded.

"All right." She sat down. Right next to me. Not directly across, not out of reach. The kind of distance where, if I turned my head even slightly, I'd see her lowered lashes as she sorted the papers. Her silver-white hair slipped forward a little, brushing her collar; her hand was steady on the pen, movements clean enough that this piece of tedious paperwork looked, in her hands, like some kind of well-mannered ritual. I forced my gaze back to the blank column in front of me.

Otherwise I really would still have a blank sheet by lunch. Jess dragged her chair closer, leaning toward D, muttering at a volume she thought was quiet but the whole office could hear:"It's over. Her Highness is helping the Vice President with the forms." D answered in the same quiet register:"What do you call this? Building a shared future?"

"I call it: one more word from either of you, and you're both on afternoon equipment duty." Maki didn't even look up as she ruled. Jess and D both shut up. I almost laughed. Good. This world really does need higher-grade violence to keep low-grade gossip in check. The quiet lasted less than ten seconds. Then Hedwig gently slid one of the sheets to my hand, fingertip landing on a column.

"Here," she said, low.

"You missed a name." I blinked and looked. She was right.

"... Oh."

"And here." She flipped to another page.

"Same person, filed twice. One digit of the ID number is written backward." I was quiet for two seconds. Then two more. Finally I turned to look at her.

"Aren't you a little too fast?" Hedwig looked back at me, calm.

"You're just tired."

"That sounds reasonable and extremely irritating."

"I thought you liked reasonable statements."

"I like reasonable statements that don't win this easily." The corner of her mouth moved, just slightly. That tiny smile was short, contained, and looked uncomfortably like a victory flag only I could see. Damn it. She really was picking up bad habits. And maybe it was just my imagination, but when I stumbled over that exchange, I was pretty sure I saw Maki glance up at us for half a second. No comment. No expression. Just that one, razor-short look. Which, naturally, made it worse.

I dropped my eyes straight back to the sheet. Work. Yes. Work. At least paperwork didn't blush, or touch your face in the corridor. … Thinking about it that way, paperwork was actually kind of adorable. Then, the next second, Hedwig slid a third sheet my way.

"This column too." I ground my teeth.

"Are you here to repay a debt, or to destroy my professional pride?"

"Can't both be true?" I whipped my head around to look at her. Same calm face. Same proper posture. Same expression of total innocence, as if that barbed line hadn't just come out of her mouth. I closed my eyes and took a long breath. Perfect. Now I finally understood exactly what it means to drag trouble back with you—and have the trouble sit down right next to you.