Loud ringing echoed through Victor’s head, shattering his dream and forcefully yanking him back to reality. It seemed that he had dozed off once again.
Staying awake has been getting harder as of late, and with him having given up coffee around the same time he put the bottle down for good, there was nothing he could rely on to remain awake through the day.
The fixer had once considered switching to tea, but since hot leaf juice never suited his taste, the idea of drinking it just to stay awake didn’t sit well with him.
As his sluggish mind gradually regained some of its functions, the first thing he did was check the time. Seeing that it was just 17:12, he let out a sigh of relief and turned his attention to the notification that had served as his alarm.
The sender was none other than the main source of his rising blood pressure in recent times. The instant he read his name on the notification, Victor swiped it away and relaxed back into his chair. He had just woken up and wasn’t ready to deal with whatever it was that prompted that red-haired demon to send him a message minutes after he was done with his shift.
"Well, I’d better make some preparations..."
By preparations he meant taking his medicine to ensure that his heart wouldn’t give in right away. Pulling the pill bottle from his desk drawer, he dropped one into his mouth then washed it down with some water. As he waited the fifteen minutes it usually takes for the effects to show, the door to his office suddenly swung open.
"Godamn it, Boris..." Victor deflated the moment he saw that it was just his assistant. "Would it kill you to knock first?"
"Ah! Yeah, sorry about that." The apology lacked sincerity, as indicated by the wide grin on the big guy’s face. "You won’t believe what happened today!"
"Did your date go well?" Victor asked.
"More than well! Ms. Yukimura even invited me to have tea in her office! And we talked for hours on end!"
"Uh-oh, that’s quite the progress you made."
The fixer was genuinely impressed. When his assistant requested the day off, saying he was going to visit the woman he was interested in, he expected to see a depressed blob by the end of the day. For once, Victor was happy that his prediction was wrong.
"So, did you ask her out?"
The big guy’s smile dimmed a little.
"Well, it didn’t feel like the right time. I didn’t want to ruin the moment."
Victor gave him a wry smile and chose not to pursue the matter any further. Having his expectation subverted once a day was enough.
"A win is a win, I guess. You’ll get her... Boris, who’s that?"
With the big guy blocking the entrance, it took the fixer until now to notice the other person standing by it. It didn’t help that said person was far too short, too.
"Ah! I was just about to introduce him." Saying that, Boris moved out of the way. "Remember when Dante told us about his stalker problem?"
Another kid. Short and thin, wearing a slightly oversized jacket to make up for his size, while carrying a large yellow gym bag that rendered his efforts meaningless. When Victor saw him, he felt glad that he had taken that pill just now.
"Yup." Boris nodded. "Little runt here tracked him all the way to his building, can you believe it?"
"That’s... impressive..."
As someone who handled countless requests that involved looking for people, Victor knew all too well how difficult it was to find someone in the concrete jungle called Neo-Vatra. Such a feat required resources, a vast information network, and the right connection. Anyone capable of achieving the same results without having access to all of that deserved respect, and if a child can rise to meet that challenge, they can only be described as a genius.
As he stared at him, the boy met Victor’s eyes then quickly averted his gaze after only a few seconds. From what Dante had told them about him, the fixer had concluded that he had trouble dealing with people.
"You should see what he did back at the Lantern. Dante really downplayed what this one could do." When Boris reached out to ruffle his hair, the boy dodged and scurried. The big guy went on anyway. "He fixed all the old monitors they had and put together some PCs from the old ones that no longer worked. He also helped set up all the apps on the tablets we brought in and even tweaked them so no ads would show, even if they don’t pay to remove them!"
Victor let his assistant ramble on and on about what the boy could do, but he had to stop him at some point. After all, there is one question he wanted to ask from the start.
"Okay, okay, I get it. The kid has talent. That said, why did you bring him here?"
Interrupted in the middle of his rambling, Boris stared at Victor for one long second then let his grin widen.
"Oh, that’s because he’s going to be staying with me from now on." He said. "Dante told me to take care of him."
"... you got to be kidding me..."
And there it was, another problem dropped on his head by the red-haired demon of calamity. When he tried to spare himself from thinking about the implications of having to care for another kid, Victor recalled that he had received a message from the first one not that long ago.
Despite knowing that it was only going to make the situation worse for him, the fixer had no choice but to see it if he was going to contact the red-haired demon and ask him what in the world he was thinking when he asked someone else to take in a homeless orphan.
[Dante: I... might have been busted.]
Staring at the message for a long, long time, Victor began wishing he had never woken up from that nap.