"Nymph, are you sure you won't come live at the café with me?"
"No, Master. The company's tech development needs me to keep watch over it. If I miss you, I'll come to the café."
"Mm."
Jhin lingered with Nymph a while longer before finally getting dressed and heading back to Café LycoReco. As luck would have it, Chisato and Takina Inoue had just returned as well, the faint smell of gunpowder still clinging to them. He looked the two of them over carefully for any obvious wounds before asking with concern, "Not hurt, are you?"
"Store Manager... how did you know..."
"My nose is pretty sharp."
Even a sharp nose shouldn't let an ordinary person immediately identify the smell of gunfire...
Takina Inoue felt even more certain that Jhin wasn't an ordinary person. Just as Kurumi had said, he was clearly hiding his true identity.
Still, if he was the manager of a special department, he probably had some connection to DA.
She quickly set the trivial matter aside — it was hardly unusual for a superior to keep their identity concealed.
Chisato laughed and clapped her partner on the shoulder. "Man, who'd have thought those bandits would show up right when we were almost at our destination? Good thing Takina's aim is so sharp, or we wouldn't have pulled off the mission so smoothly."
"It wasn't difficult at all. It only took extra time because you wouldn't let me just shoot them in the head."
"Don't be so bloodthirsty. Aim for the arms and legs, that's enough to take them out of the fight."
"They were the enemy!" Takina Inoue emphasized the point to her again, exasperated, then turned to Jhin for support. "Store Manager! Tell her something, won't you?"
"Sorry, I generally respect other people's choices. As long it doesn't put Chisato's life in danger, I don't have any objection to her methods."
"Long live Jhin-nii!" Chisato threw both hands up and pounced on him happily, rubbing and sniffing at his chest.
A notification popped up on Kurumi's tablet. She smacked her forehead and shouted, "Chisato! You called the cleaners again, didn't you? Their fees are not cheap!"
"If we'd left it to DA, they wouldn't have made it out alive."
"Ugh! I give up on you."
"The cleaners?"
Jhin explained to a puzzled Takina Inoue, "Think of them as an organization that specializes in cleaning up after various gray-zone incidents."
"I see. Anyway, back to what we were talking about in the car — Chisato, why did you leave DA?"
"We just got back and you want to talk about this already? Let me rest a bit first~"
Takina Inoue thought that the way Chisato kept burying her face in a guy's chest and sniffing away would normally be called "creepy," but since the person in question had no complaints about it, she decided not to comment. "Aren't you resting right now, though?"
After getting a warning tap or two on the head, Chisato reluctantly pulled away from Jhin's embrace, then flashed a peace sign at her partner with a playful wink. "Because I'm a problem child, so I left DA on my own."
"If it was only about using non-lethal rounds, that shouldn't have been enough reason to leave DA."
"There were other reasons too, but the main one was to find Jhin-nii."
"Find the Store Manager?"
"Heehee, let me tell you a little secret — but only because we're inside the store~" Chisato turned to look at Jhin, and after getting his nod of approval, told the story of how he'd cured her congenital heart condition.
Kurumi was fascinated. "Jhin, what method did you use?"
"Company secret. No comment."
"Tch~ Fine, don't tell me then."
After hearing Chisato's story, Takina Inoue's impression of Jhin grew even more mysterious, but she still held onto her own opinion. "I still think a top-tier Lycoris like you should stay at headquarters."
"Thanks for the compliment. I think you're pretty good yourself."
"...Originally I really was stationed at headquarters." Bringing up the subject, Takina Inoue's mood dipped slightly, though her face still showed little expression.
"That gun trafficking incident before, huh. Still, the goods were secured, so overall it wasn't a bad outcome."
Kurumi cut into their conversation. "Chisato, those goods weren't secured at all. A thousand guns went missing entirely."
"A thousand!!??" Chisato's eyes went wide, her mouth falling open in shock. "You're joking, right?"
Takina Inoue said, "No, what Kurumi said is correct. I don't know the exact number, but the guns really weren't at the exchange site."
Jhin tilted his head to glance at the information on Kurumi's tablet, then let out a scoffing laugh. "Well, would you look at that. The failed operation report actually says 'unilateral overreach by the on-site Lycoris' — fits my stereotype of that kind of organization perfectly."
No one present was a fool; everyone understood exactly what that line meant — the entire responsibility for the mission's failure was being dumped on Takina Inoue, commonly known as scapegoating.
Her full attention was fixed on the operation report, so much so that she didn't even react to Jhin's jab at DA. "Is what's on the screen real?"
"Of course. If you don't believe it, come see for yourself."
Takina Inoue closed the distance to Kurumi's side in a single stride. The photo on screen was one she knew all too well — the commanding officer's office at Lycoris headquarters. The red-haired middle-aged woman was none other than Commander Kusunoki. Another photo showed the operation report on the desk, magnified dozens of times into a sharp, clear image.
"How could this be..." She could hardly believe her own eyes, stumbling back a step or two. As someone raised by DA since childhood, she had always taken pride in becoming a top-tier Lycoris. Even being transferred out of headquarters, she'd never held a grudge. But she couldn't accept that DA — the organization she saw as representing justice — would actually resort to slander like this.
"See, this is exactly why I can't stand organizations like this. They brainwash people with talk of justice and honor, and in the end, it's the same rotten garbage they end up doing."
Jhin's words to Kurumi reached Takina Inoue's ears, and she immediately raised her voice in denial. "That's not true! DA... DA isn't as terrible as the Store Manager makes it sound!"
"We Lycoris..."
While Chisato watched in astonishment, Jhin pulled Takina Inoue into his arms and patted her head gently twice. "Shh. Maybe it's best to calm down for now."
By the time he let go, she had already fallen quietly asleep.
Kurumi jumped straight up out of her chair in shock. She'd been watching from the side and had seen it perfectly clearly — Takina Inoue, who had been worked up with emotion just a moment ago, got tapped twice on the head and immediately shut her eyes and dropped into sleep like a robot with its power cut.
Just how on earth did that baffling knockout trick work??
He wouldn't try that on me someday, would he?
Chisato chewed on her thumb, saying enviously, "Ahh~ I want to be pulled into Jhin-nii's arms like that too."
She had no intention at all of investigating the many secrets surrounding Jhin. If anything, it only made him more appealing.
"Takina's room isn't ready yet, is it? Let her sleep in my room tonight, and I'll take the lounge."
"Jhin-nii! Let Takina sleep in my room, and you sleep in yours!"
He looked at Chisato quietly for a moment, then finally agreed to her request. "Sure."
____
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