“Phew, I can finally breathe.”
After a morning’s work so hectic it had nearly driven me mad, I finally got a moment to catch my breath when lunchtime came around. Muttering to myself, I took my hands off the keyboard.
The first thing I, as a programmer, had done to resolve the client datamining incident that had erupted at dawn was delete all the dummy data still left on the server so users could no longer discover vestiges of the old story.
Honestly, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt.
In a way, I was erasing the traces of a game that had been like my own child with my own two hands.
But the game had already been officially released, and clinging to the past at this point wouldn’t change anything.
Then the only direction left was to preserve whatever could still be preserved as much as possible.
Because that was the best I could do right now.
Just then, the junior sitting beside me spoke first.
“Assistant Manager, are you finally done?”
“Yeah, more or less.”
“Then let’s go have lunch together.”
Only after hearing that did I finally remember food and look around the office.
Everyone must have already gone out for lunch, because the office was extremely quiet.
“You waited for me?”
At that, my junior shrugged and answered.
“If even I’m not here, you’ll end up eating alone again, looking all lonely.”
“You little punk. You’re loyal, I’ll give you that.”
“If you’re grateful, buy me something good.”
“What’s on the cafeteria menu today?”
“…You cheapskate.”
Pretending not to hear my junior grumbling, I grabbed my wallet and smartphone from beside the monitor.
“Let’s go. Lunch break’s going to be over.”
***
After eating a late lunch in the company cafeteria and returning to the office, it was a little past one in the afternoon.
‘Oops.’
Maybe because we were the last to come back, the glares from the other employees were stinging.
I did my best to ignore those looks and returned to my seat, but for some reason, I could still feel their gazes on the back of my head.
‘Is there something on my face?’
As I was checking my face in a mirror, bewildered, one of the female employees spoke to me.
“Assistant Manager Kim.”
“Yes?”
“The CEO said he wants to see you for a moment. He has something to discuss.”
It was a sudden summons, but it wasn’t as if CEO Lee Hyeon-cheol calling me in out of nowhere like this was anything new, so I said I understood.
Before heading to the CEO’s office, I checked one last time to make sure there wasn’t any red pepper powder stuck in my teeth, straightened my clothes, and knocked on the door.
Knock knock—
From inside came a short reply. “Come in.”
I carefully opened the door and stepped inside. Lee Hyeon-cheol, looking no different from yesterday, swept his gaze over me from head to toe as I entered the office.
‘What’s this about?’
His eyes were a little different from usual.
Only then did I realize something about the atmosphere felt off, and with a tense expression, I asked Lee Hyeon-cheol,
“CEO, you called for me?”
Lee Hyeon-cheol nodded and pointed to an extra chair.
“Have a seat there, Assistant Manager Kim.”
When I carefully sat down as instructed, Lee Hyeon-cheol turned his body slightly toward me, laced his fingers over his knee, and said,
“The reason I called you here is that a strange post went up on the company messenger.”
“A strange post…?”
“It’ll be better for you to see it yourself than for me to explain it in a hundred words.”
As he said that, Lee Hyeon-cheol turned his monitor to show me a post.
And the contents of that post were as follows.
‘The person who leaked internal information to the anonymous workers’ site this time was Assistant Manager K, and his motive was to take revenge on CEO Lee Hyeon-cheol for overturning a nearly completed game however he pleased.’
It was a post written for the explicit purpose of targeting me.
‘…No way.’
Only then did I understand why the people in the office had been giving me such piercing looks.
“That’s not true.”
I said so immediately.
“I’m not an idiot. Why would I do something that would get me caught so quickly? Especially when it’s obvious I’d be the first one suspected.”
After Lee Hyeon-cheol took office as executive producer, most of the original development team either resigned or transferred elsewhere.
Some left voluntarily in the process, but many had no choice but to be driven out by the internal politics of the faction Lee Hyeon-cheol brought in from outside.
After being weeded out again and again like that, I was currently the only founding member left.
“But there must be a reason why a post like this was made, no? Smoke doesn’t rise from a chimney with no fire.”
Lee Hyeon-cheol’s eyes as he looked at me were terribly cold.
Because of that, I could sense it instinctively.
He had already decided to drive me out of the company.
Regardless of whether this callout post was true or not, he must have seen it as the perfect opportunity to get rid of me, the thorn in his side.
“In any case, I’ve finished confirming it with you, so you may leave now. The company audit team will take care of the rest.”
“…Yes.”
After that, I couldn’t remember a single thing I heard or said.
But if there was one thing I knew for certain, it was that I had fallen into someone’s trap, and because of that trap, I was now in danger of losing my job.
***
When I quietly closed the door and came out of the CEO’s office, every gaze in the office instantly turned toward me.
I hadn’t understood the reason earlier, but now I did.
The meaning behind those piercing looks.
Among them, there were probably people who believed the post on the company messenger, and people who didn’t.
But at this point, none of that mattered.
Once I had been branded a sinner, they would tear into me to their hearts’ content.
Even if all the accusations turned out to be false, they could just pretend not to know and run away, saying they had all been misled.
I had seen plenty of cases before where someone had been witch-hunted on a “if not, then whatever” basis, so it was obvious what kind of treatment awaited me.
“I’m fucked.”
As I sat down in my chair and muttered that with a tired face, the junior beside me glanced around and asked,
“Are you all right, Assistant Manager?”
“No, I’m not.”
“…I figured.”
My junior, who gave an awkward laugh and scratched his cheek, poked his head over the partition to look around, then asked in a hushed voice,
“But Assistant Manager, is that callout post on the company messenger true?”
I let out a deep sigh and answered.
“Am I crazy? Why would I do something that would get me caught right away?”
No matter how much Blind was an anonymous bamboo grove for office workers, the moment the person who posted something was identified, anonymity lost all meaning.
If I had really intended to write an exposé, I would have prepared much more thoroughly before doing it.
“True. You’re not that sloppy, Assistant Manager.”
After listening to my explanation and nodding along, my junior seemed to belatedly think of something and asked,
“Then who posted something like that, and for what purpose?”
“…Who knows.”
The most likely possibility was that someone who held a grudge against me had done it, but it was also possible that Lee Hyeon-cheol had staged the whole thing himself.
He had always looked at me with extreme displeasure, so maybe he had decided to remove me from his sight entirely.
“Anyway, don’t act close to me for the time being. You might get caught in the crossfire for no reason.”
“Come on, how could I do that? We’ve got all this camaraderie built up between us.”
“If I tell you not to, then don’t. Get it?”
“…What kind of ancient, rotten joke was that?”
Having achieved my intended goal of making my usually positive junior put on a rare straight face, I decided to focus as much as possible on work for the rest of the day to clear my complicated mind.
Because one way or another, there was nothing I could do right now.
***
That evening.
“I’m home.”
“Welcome back, Sensei.”
Saori, who had come out to the entrance to greet me wearing the same naked dress shirt look I had seen that morning, welcomed me with a bright smile.
“Did you eat dinner?”
“Mm-mm, not yet. I was waiting to eat with you when you got home, Sensei.”
As she said that, Saori looked toward the kitchen.
From the delicious smell wafting over, it seemed like she had cooked something.
“There shouldn’t have been any proper ingredients in the fridge. How did you make something?”
“I ordered them with the smartphone you gave me, Sensei.”
“Ah.”
Come to think of it, even supermarkets delivered these days.
Since I usually only used delivery apps to order cooked food, the thought of using them for groceries had never occurred to me.
“You’re tired, aren’t you? Hurry and wash your hands, then come eat.”
As she said that, Saori took the bag I was holding.
Her action was so natural that I couldn’t even react properly.
In any case, it was true that I was hungry, so I went to the bathroom to wash my hands, took off my suit jacket in the bedroom, and came back out to the living room.
“Oh…”
Then I was a little surprised when I saw the dinner menu Saori had prepared.
“Hamburg steak?”
“Yes. I made it myself.”
As she said that, Saori puffed out her chest with a proud expression.
“Pfft.”
Something about the sight made her seem cute despite her cool-beauty appearance, and I ended up laughing without meaning to.
Seeing my reaction, Saori puffed out her cheeks slightly, then pulled out a chair for me herself and urged me on.
“Don’t just stand there. Hurry and sit down to eat, Sensei.”
“Got it.”
Unable to withstand her repeated urging, I sat at the dining table and couldn’t help but admire the high-quality hamburg steak, which was hard to believe had been made in my kitchen.
‘She’s no ordinary cook.’
A perfectly cooked hamburg steak, covered in demi-glace sauce.
The broccoli and bite-sized carrots served as garnish looked adorable.
I had felt it yesterday when she made soybean paste soup in an instant, but contrary to the image that she would be bad at housework, Saori seemed to be very good at cooking.
Thinking that, I cut the hamburg steak neatly in half with my chopsticks, and rich meat juices seeped out in droplets, wetting the white plate.
Seeing that, I unconsciously swallowed, picked up the freshly cut piece of hamburg steak with my chopsticks, and took a big bite.
“Hff.”
It was hot.
But more than that, it was delicious.
The exquisite seasoning, a little saltier than average, made it perfect as a side dish for rice.
Before the lingering taste of the hamburg steak could fade from my mouth, I scooped up a heaping portion of white rice and put it in my mouth.
At the perfect harmony of protein and carbohydrates, like some kind of perpetual motion machine, I couldn’t help but be moved.
‘This is what home-cooked food is.’
Of course, the nationality was quite different from what I had imagined, but did that matter right now?
Thinking of the sincerity of the person who had made it for me, I scraped the food on the plate clean and ate every last bite, then let out a satisfied sigh and patted my stomach.
“Did you enjoy it?”
Saori, who had been sitting across from me watching, asked that, so I answered, “Of course.”
It wasn’t empty praise. It had really been a long time since I’d enjoyed a meal like that.
Usually, I ate almost as if it were just something I had to do to survive, but this time, I savored each and every dish.
“Hehe.”
Just like yesterday, Saori smiled happily at my praise.
Something about the situation made me think we seemed like newlyweds, and when I awkwardly averted my gaze, Saori said, as if she had just remembered,
“Ah, now that I think about it, Sensei, did something bad happen?”
“What?”
“When you came home earlier, you seemed to be in a bad mood.”
…Was it that obvious?
After hearing her words, I unconsciously touched my face, but it didn’t feel particularly different from usual.
No, maybe—
“Did you read my mind?”
When I asked that, Saori seemed to have a guilty conscience and avoided answering by saying, “Who knows?”
I had probably guessed right.
In the original game, Tachibana Saori’s ability was “mind manipulation.”
Not only that, she was the strongest mental-type ability user, classified under the “Special Grade” code granted to only twelve people in Academy City’s level pyramid, which was divided into six stages in total.
I let out a small sigh and said to her,
“It’s really nothing, so don’t worry. I just had a little trouble at work.”
Of course, depending on how things concluded, it was something that could get me dismissed as disciplinary action, but since it was a one-sided false accusation with no evidence whatsoever, I was confident I would be cleared.
“…All right. Still, if you ever need my help, tell me anytime. I’m always on your side, Sensei.”
As Saori said that and made a gesture of taking a step back first, I thanked her and unconsciously stroked her head, which happened to be in just the right position.
Then I flinched and pulled my hand away.
“Ah, sorry. Was that unpleasant?”
But Saori shook her head, then took my palm in both hands and placed it on the crown of her head, as if asking me to keep going.
‘She’s cute.’
Who would look at her like this and think she was that “Queen”?
If someone who knew even a little about the original story saw this, they would be startled.
Because in Part One of the story, she was a villain with neither blood nor tears.
‘Well, I think this is fine in its own way.’
Just stroking her head made me feel as if all the stress I had accumulated at the company today was recovering, so I continued stroking Saori’s head for a while.