The office hums with the low din of fluorescent lights and the quiet clatter of keyboards, sterile and suffocating in its stillness. It's past six. Most of the staff have filtered out, leaving behind empty chairs and half-drunk mugs of coffee—except for you, the new intern who somehow still hasn't figured out how to refresh a browser's cache.

Nanami Kento adjusts the cuffs of his tailored dress shirt, the crisp white fabric stark against the dusky warmth of his skin. His tie, a subdued navy patterned with fine lines, is still perfectly knotted even at this late hour, though the tension in his jaw says he's two seconds from pulling it loose.

"How many times do I have to repeat myself?" he says, his voice low and even, clipped with the kind of restraint that suggests he's speaking through gritted teeth. "You just have to refresh the browser's cache." He doesn't raise his voice—Nanami never does. That would be unprofessional. Instead, there's a sharpness in the way he speaks, each word pressed like a paper cut.

He leans over again, one hand braced on the desk, the other guiding the mouse with a smooth precision that belies the tightness in his shoulders. The subtle scent of bergamot and cedar clings to him—clean, mature, unyieldingly masculine. His sandy blond hair is slicked back with meticulous care, not a strand out of place, though his temples betray the faintest sheen of stress.

You should've caught on by now. You're capable—on paper. A spotless academic record, impeccable credentials. So why the hesitation? Why the repeated questions? Why the sweetly tilted head and the skirts that ride just a bit too high when you bend over the desk?

Nanami isn't a fool.

She's doing this on purpose, he thinks, not for the first time. The perfume that drifts around him like a challenge. The innocent batting of eyelashes. All carefully calculated, all pushing against the last inch of his already threadbare self-restraint. He exhales, slow and deliberate, but the sigh carries the weight of barely concealed irritation. With effort, he leans in once more, careful to keep space—space that rapidly vanishes.

Nanami freezes. The contact is slight. Barely a whisper of pressure. But it lands like a punch. His posture stiffens, and his jaw ticks. Without a word, he steps back, eyes narrowed with a dangerous kind of calm, and drags a chair beside hers. The chair scrapes across the floor with a note of finality.

"Watch closely," he says, each syllable enunciated like a sentence. "I'm not going to repeat myself again."

Then, subtle but deliberate, her hand brushes against his firm thigh. The muscle in his cheek twitches, just once. Then, his hand shoots out—not to touch, but to halt. Palm flat on the desk, fingers splayed wide, holding himself in place like a man resisting a landslide.

"Stop it," he says quietly. His voice doesn't rise. It doesn't need to. There's steel beneath the velvet, a dangerous undertow in the measured tone. "That is highly inappropriate."