Chương 490: 232.Five Vacancies 1

When the Seitokai office door opened a second time, I honestly thought it was just another stack of damned paperwork that had grown legs and decided to come finish me off personally. It wasn't. Lan came in first, one hand on the door, the other guiding someone in, moving so naturally it made this place look less like the Seitokai office and more like some off-campus illegal cohabitation hideout she and Roy were renting.

Roy followed right behind her, carrying a large bag, its mouth puffed slightly from the heat trapped inside. He hadn't even set it down yet, and I could already smell the broth. And bringing up the rear— Jess, of all people, slunk in with her shoulders hunched, moving like someone who'd just done something they shouldn't have and wanted to check the room's air pressure first before deciding whether to play dead. I looked at her. She looked at me. Then glanced away, fast.... Oh. Good.

That meant even she could tell my mood right now wasn't great. Roy set the bag down on the desk with a dull thud, the liquid inside sloshing audibly.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Care package," Roy said, steady. Too steady. I pulled the bag over and opened it. Inside were several bowls of udon still steaming, with oden packed separately—daikon, chikuwa, konjac, fish cake, all lined up neatly in pale broth. The heat rolled out, and for a second I nearly forgave the world for five whole minutes.

"You two went out again?" I looked up at Roy. His eyes flickered. Just once. Quick enough a normal person might've missed it. Unfortunately my threat-detection was currently calibrated like a feral cat fresh out of a war zone. Everything looked suspicious.

"We happened to be passing by," he said. I stared at him. Sure you were. That line belonged in the same category as an instructor saying this is just a simple quiz, the administration saying the process won't take long, and a politician saying this is purely a courtesy visit—every word individually recognizable, the combination completely untrustworthy. I didn't bother calling him on it. Because the oden smelled genuinely amazing. I didn't stand on ceremony.

I dragged a bowl toward myself, popped the lid, speared a piece of daikon with a skewer, and ate it. The hot broth numbed the tip of my tongue; the daikon was cooked through, dissolving the second I bit down, soy sauce and kelp flavor spreading slowly across the back of my tongue. I was quiet for two seconds. Then delivered a very honest verdict.

"... Huh. Not bad." Jess leaned in immediately.

"Right? I told—" I pushed her face away with one hand.

"I wasn't complimenting you."

"Rude." She looked wounded.

"I was fully involved in this love-and-caloric-content resupply mission."

"You look more like you were involved in sneaking bites and groping things."

"That's also critical logistics work."

"How is it important?"

"Morale." Lan, distributing udon to Hedwig and Maki without changing expression, cut in.

"Say one more word and I'll make sure your morale stays exactly at today's level. Permanently." Jess shut up instantly. Roy set the last portion beside me, then handed Maki a bowl of oden. I ate a couple more bites, my mood finally climbing from I want to drag the rulebook's authors out for public execution toward at least I have soup to calm myself with. So I nudged my bowl of oden a few centimeters toward Maki.

"Try some?" Maki glanced at me. Brief. Faint. Like she had a great many things running behind her eyes, but still peeled off a sliver of attention for my side of the desk. She took the bowl. But didn't eat. Set it down beside her hand instead, like shelving an option that wasn't quite up next. The thread inside me that had loosened a little with the hot food tugged tight again. Right. Maki wasn't fine.

She was just still locked in finish what needs finishing first mode, refusing to let any other feeling cut to the front. She pulled her eyes off the desk and swept them over the three who'd just arrived. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

"Start prepping the individual-match logistics," she said.

"Files in the red-tabbed stack. Schedule summary first. List liaison contacts and transport separately. Draft the internal cooperation request form on its own." Roy nodded at once.

"Got it." Lan had already moved to the desk and started pulling flagged files to sort. I chewed on a piece of fish cake, thinking that this was exactly why you needed officially commissioned staff on days like this. The Seitokai isn't called the Seitokai because the President looks good or the Vice President is sharp-tongued. It's because when a dozen disasters land at once, someone has to be able to break catastrophe down into a spreadsheet. Then Maki looked at Hedwig.

"Your Highness. With me, please." Hedwig nodded lightly.

"Of course." She set the udon she'd just been handed back on the table and picked up her personal terminal. Maki grabbed her own, and the two of them walked into the small conference room at the back of the office, one after the other. The door closed behind them. Click. Not loud. Very clear. I stared at that door. I still had hot broth in my mouth, but it suddenly felt like half the warmth had been siphoned out of the room. Lan glanced at the door, then at me.

She hugged her stack of files a little closer, brow creasing, careful.

"Hoshino."

"Mm?"

"Did you two... have a fight?" I paused with a piece of chikuwa between my teeth. Perfectly reasonable question. So reasonable I genuinely didn't know how to answer for a second.

"... I don't... think so?" Even I didn't sound convinced. Honestly, at first I'd landed on roughly the same guess Lan had. Ever since that drunken mix-up, Maki had slowly drifted back to her hard, factory-default settings. She still talked, still worked, wasn't giving me the cold shoulder—she was just... too normal. Normal like she'd taken some private mode that had briefly slipped out and shoved it back in its box, then added two extra locks for good measure. I'd assumed she was sulking with me.

After what happened, it was hard to pretend nothing had. But watching her exchange encrypted material with Hedwig right in front of me, openly keeping me out of it, made the whole thing look less like a mood and more like— They genuinely had something they were hiding from me. And it wasn't small. The daikon in my mouth suddenly tasted like nothing.

"... Honestly, I'm not sure either," I said quietly. Lan's expression grew more complicated. She'd probably only meant to test the waters, not expected an answer this unsteady. Roy, mid-unwrap on his chopsticks, paused, glanced at me, then at the shut conference room door, clearly sliding into maybe I shouldn't be here mode. As for Jess— The moment she sensed a crack in the atmosphere, she zeroed in like a small predator catching the scent of blood.

"I get it," she announced, cupping her broth like she was convening a cult tribunal, eyes dangerously bright.

"Shimo must have been neglecting Maki." My eyelid twitched.

"You'd better shut up right now."

"Was the evening service not satisfying enough for Maki—" She dropped her voice, but kept it exactly loud enough for the whole room to hear.

"—so Maki went and found somebody el—AAAAGH OW OW OW OW OW!" I grabbed her, pressed my knuckle to the crown of her head, and ground down without hesitation. A knuckle grind. Standard issue. Time-tested. Highly effective against loose mouths and an overactive death wish.

"It hurts! It hurts! Shimo! Vice President! Lady Hoshino! I was wrong, I was wrong, I was wrong!" Jess curled into a ball, hands flailing, her voice jumping a full octave.

"Mercy! My brain capacity is limited to begin with—grind any more off and I'll forget how to put on my uniform! My mouth's cheap but it's not a capital offense! At least let me finish my udon before the execution—OW OW OW, it's actually going to crack!" Roy whipped his head away, shoulders shaking. Lan closed her eyes, apparently too tired to weigh in on this particular farce. Even the notes Hedwig had left neatly stacked on the table looked more like proper Seitokai conduct than Jess did right now.

I didn't let go. Because I really wasn't in the mood.

"I am in a very bad mood right now, Jess," I said, face flat, enunciating every word.

"Don't make that kind of joke at a time like this." Jess's struggling immediately lost most of its force. Her habitual troublemaker expression thinned out too. Not from the pain. Not entirely. Because she'd finally heard it. I wasn't playing along. I was genuinely irritated. Her shoulders hunched, eyes flicking up once, then dropping fast—looking exactly like a dog that had just been caught stealing off the table and only now realized it had picked the worst possible moment.

"... Sorry," she said, quietly at first. Then, honestly, a second line.

"I shouldn't have joked around about you and Maki. Especially when you're already this on edge, and I'm over here running garbage commentary. That was a genuinely thoughtless thing to do. Sorry, Hoshino. I take it back. I won't use it to mess with you again." I looked at her.

People like her run their mouths like there's no lock on the gate—but when they actually bow their heads and apologize, they do it properly enough that pushing her face into the oden for three minutes of reflection would start to feel petty of me. I snorted and finally let go.

"Do that again and I'll use your forehead as the Council's official stamp." Jess clapped both hands over her head and took half a step back.

"Copy. Switching to the pure-and-wholesome route, effective immediately."

"Try the quiet route first."

"That difficulty setting is a little—no, shutting up, shutting up right now." Roy finally couldn't hold it in, let out a laugh, and immediately faked a cough to cover it. Lan shoved a stack of files into his chest.

"If you've got energy to laugh, you've got energy to work. This pile's yours."

"Right, right, on it." The office finally limped back into something you could generously call operational. Lan started splitting work off the individual-match roster. Roy took the schedule and liaison points. Jess got exiled to sorting takeout bags and disposable utensils, banned from coming within arm's reach of me. She kept her mouth shut, but her hands moved fast enough, and at one point she quietly slid what looked like the best piece of konjac into my bowl—a cheap but effective peace offering.

I pretended not to notice. I flipped through documents, but my attention kept circling back to the small conference room door. Too quiet. Maki and Hedwig hadn't actually been in there that long, but once you know there are people behind a door trading things you can't touch, time starts feeling deeply unpleasant. Out here: udon, oden, individual-match logistics, Seitokai chores. In there: encrypted cards, private terminals, Hohenzollern Fortress, and the Asgard will have a different use this time. Same office.

One door apart. But that door had sliced the air into two distinct layers. I took another bite of udon. Good chew. Good broth. In theory, this should've been exactly the moment hot soup helped me calm down. Unfortunately, it didn't work that way. Because once you start caring about something, it's like a fishbone stuck between your teeth—leave it alone and it's fine, touch it once and its presence explodes. Across from me, sorting spreadsheets, Lan couldn't help glancing over. Not as directly as before.

More like checking whether I'd returned to a state capable of human conversation. I gave her a still alive look. She got it and didn't push further. That was one of the things I liked about Lan. She wasn't the type to chase a question to the wall just because it existed. After doing General Affairs long enough, you probably learn that most of the time people aren't unwilling to talk—they just can't right now, or it's not worth the effort, or saying it wouldn't help anyway.

Jess had none of that social sophistication. She hadn't been quiet two minutes before she was back at the bags, fidgeting with movements far too light and far too guilty. I looked up and found her trying to smuggle a second piece of fish cake.

"Jess."

"This is operational overhead!"

"That's evidence tampering."

"Vice President, how can you level such a heavy charge at frontline labor!"

"Because you look like you deserve it." She choked and, aggrieved, put the fish cake back. Roy laughed while typing.

"I'm suddenly getting the sense the Council's vibe is pretty good today."

"That's because you're not the one getting disciplined," I said.

"Fair." He nodded with total sincerity. That was when sound finally came from the small conference room.