The next morning, I woke up with renewed motivation thanks to Charles’ words. I got up early and prepared everything well with the target to do well at work today. I’ll get along with Reiner and I’ll find a way to be of use to him no matter what. Charles gave me confidence and I knew that I had to get my act together before I start to lose my confidence once again. He was right, it was too soon for me to give up on anything. Today will be the day that I turn over a new leaf! I opened the door of my room with a loud and proud bang. So much for my dramatic entrance, the only thing that greeted me outside of my room was the empty and long hallway. Laughing a little at my own silliness, I made my way to the staircase so that I could head to the first floor. When I walked past the living room, Queen called out to me. “Natalia!” I turned around when I heard her call my name. Once again, I thought it was weird that Queen was up so early in the morning. I smiled at her and waved my hand. K
“Are you going to be busy at work again today?” I asked, trying to start a casual conversation. “Yes,” he replied after a pause. “Is there something that I can help with? I want to help you…” I said before smiling a little hopefully at him.Reiner didn’t reply to my question and the atmosphere in the car became awkward. Not knowing what else to say, I looked out the window at the scenery passing by instead. I wondered what Reiner is thinking about right now. Before I got depressed about his lack of response, I decided to suck it up and put in more effort. Charles was right, it’s way too early for me to give up now. If I show him enough effort, he’ll acknowledge me one day.“Reiner…umm…I can call you Reiner now because we’re alone, right? It was quite strange how Queen called you Knight before. Guess it was my first time hearing it…” I said before laughing a little. Reiner continued to drive in silence but that didn’t stop me from talking. I’m going to keep talking until we get to t
In this day and age that most things were electronic and no longer paper-based, it was surprising to see so many documents gather and well arranged all in one place. I bet whatever Reiner was looking for must be quite old. Perhaps it was some documents from the time when computers and everything digital wasn’t popular yet. “Excuse me. I’m Knight’s secretary. He told me that you have some documents for him…” I said to the muscular old man who was seated behind a counter. The old man peered at me through his thick-lens glasses as he squinted his eyes. I wondered if it was a requirement to be this muscular to guard an archive. I smiled at him a little nervously as he continued to stare at my face. Finally, he seemed satisfied enough and nodded at me in acknowledgement. Without saying a word to me, he slowly got up from his seat and waved his hand at me for me to follow after him. He led me a little further into the archive and the smell of old paper and books filled my nostrils. It wa
Boldly, I dragged a chair over and sat down at the desk opposite him. He glanced up from the papers that he was reading to take a look at me. Without saying a word, his gaze returned to the papers in front of him. I considered the fact that he hasn’t chased me out of his room a big leap of improvement. My curiosity started taking over and I found myself leaning forward across the desk to get a look at the papers that were in front of him. They looked like stats and data on something that I didn’t quite understand. The report on the desk next to his hand had photos of people on it next to table filled with text in various fields. It looked like information and profiles of people. Apart from that, I couldn’t make out anything at all and I still had no idea what Reiner was working so hard at. “Knight…what are you reading?” I asked softly. He didn’t reply and as time went by, I figured that he probably didn’t want me to disturb him. However, there were so many reports that I couldn’t i
Reiner seemed deep in thought for a brief moment before he sighed loudly. “That’s what I’ve figured out as well. The harder part is how to solve it,” Reiner muttered as he frowned as if deep in thought. “Something like making sure that people are put into the right teams with other people that are compatible to them?” I suggested, based on what Charles had told me. “Not bad. And how should we start doing that?” Reiner asked as he looked pointedly at me. “Umm…the agent’s profile?” I guessed. “Correct,” Reiner said as he turned to gesture to the large pile of document with a swipe of his hand.Great. We’re going to have to go through that?!“Isn’t there like an electronic form for the agent’s profile. I mean, in this digital day and age…” I asked, hopefully. It would be faster if we have everything in digital form, then processing the data, finding trends, or arranging everything would just be so much easier. Reiner shook his head at me with a regretful look on his face. My mouth
For the first time, I felt useful, and I was doing some real work. On top of that, if I can help Reiner figure this out, we would be saving lives. Just like he had said when I first asked him what he was working on. He was right, we would be saving lives. I felt dead tired when I got into the car and Reiner started driving us home. Despite my exhaustion, I felt very satisfied with how the day had progressed. If only tomorrow would be like this as well, then life wouldn’t feel so hard. I glanced over at Reiner and saw him paying attention to the road ahead. He didn’t seem so tired at all. I hoped that the effort that we’ve put in today will prevent him from spending late nights working alone at the office. “See, I can be pretty helpful, right? I’m not completely useless…” I spoke up cheerfully. My voice disturbed the silence in the car and Reiner glanced over at me before a small smile curved his beautiful lips. It’s been a long while since I’ve seen him smile and it felt like a lif
I felt the softness of what must be my bed against my back and realized that somehow, I had arrived back to my room. The last thing I remembered was talking to Reiner in his car while we were driving back from the office to the mansion. If that was the case then sometime during the drive, I must have fallen asleep in the car. Did Reiner carry me back to my room?He probably did. My eyelids and body felt heavy from sleep. Drowsily, I opened my eyes a little to see Reiner sitting on the side of my bed. He was looking down at me and when I opened my eyes slightly, our eyes met. “You’re awake,” Reiner said softly. “Hmm…R?” I called his name softly as my hand reached out towards him. My hand reached his leg but stretching out my arm made me wince slightly in pain. My arm felt slightly stingy and sore. Did carrying all those documents hurt my arm? My muscles felt sore, and I couldn’t think of another reason so that must have been it. “What’s wrong?” Reiner asked and I could hear worry
Reiner began squeezing the tube gently and a light blue gel emerged from the opening of the tube. I watched, mesmerized, as the light blue gel formed a line on Reiner’s long forefinger. He’s in my room and we’re alone together at night. Can he really touch me without thinking or feeling anything? “Give me your arm,” Reiner instructed curtly. I did as he told me to and lifted an arm up towards him. Reiner held my arm with one hand while his other hand began applying the gel to my skin. The gel felt very cold on my skin, and it smelled of fresh mint. He began rubbing my arm slightly with his fingers and I let out a soft moan. “It feels cold, doesn’t it?” Reiner asked, his eyes still focused on my arm. “Yes…” I replied, although that wasn’t the reason why I let out a soft moan just now. His soft massages tickled a little as he applied more gel to my arm and continued massaging it softly. When he was done with one arm, he rolled up the sleeve of my other arm and repeated the process.