Coffee Break

Nicholas stood in front of the coffee machine, watching the liquid being poured into the jar with curious eyes, "You Chaldea folk are weird sometimes." He spoke to the only other person standing nearby, a tall, broad male staff member with combed blonde hair and slight stubble.

"How so?"

"Well Bill, what do you need clowns for?" The teenager asked in genuine curiosity, confusing the older man who tilted his head and scratched his beard in thought, trying to make sense of the statement.

"I don't think we have any clowns working for us."

"Right? What would you even need them for? Scaring the enemy who can screw with time?"

"Right... scare." Bill nodded slowly, mentally taking note of the newfound information, "Yeah, I'm pretty sure we don't have any clowns here."

Tilting his head, Nicholas said something that confused the man further, "One tried to bum rush me in the hallway back there." He pointed over his shoulder, at a door behind them, "So I bum rushed him, of course."

"...Of course." As Chaldea was quickly beginning to learn, their last Master candidate's eccentricity had no bounds at all. To the point where an ordinary member of the maintenance staff like himself knew the teenager from face alone, "I thought you said they were scary."

Nicholas turned to look at him with a deadpan, "Yeah, so I punched him." He spoke as if that was the obvious course of action... Bill sweatdropped, maybe it was when you could casually blow holes through steel without using any magecraft.

"Right... You remember that thing you asked me about a while back?" Bill quickly changed the topic to one he knew would catch Nicholas' attention. It worked seeing as Nicholas stared at him with a sort of childish excitement in his eyes, "We might be able to make it. Not with tech, a steady laser can't be generated with what we got but I think Randy can whip up a mystic code to mimic what you wanted. You could even take it with you when you rayshift."

Nicholas rubbed the back of his head, "I didn't think you guys would actually do it."

"Hey, we're sending you kids to a battlefield. You get to be a little childish." He'd have ruffled the teenager's hair if he didn't fear the concussion a casual punch could cause, "Hel-" Bill was cut off by one of the sliding doors opening abruptly and one of his colleagues sticking his head through.

"Hey Bill, someone beat the shit out of Randy in the hallway! I think the poor guy has a concussion."

Bill's heart sank as a sneaking suspicion crept into his heart. From the look on Nicholas' face, it seemed he shared it, "H-He wouldn't happen to be dressed as a clown...right?"

"Oh yeah, he is! How'd you know? It's his kid's birthday today so he was heading home like that to surprise them. Poor guy, he'd been saving up his off days..."

Nicholas looked at the ground, eyes dead.

"...How was I supposed to know..."

"I-I'm sure you didn't mean..."

He mechanically poured two cups of coffee and sauntered off into a corner like he was dead inside,

"... I punched the guy who was going to make me a lightsaber."

"...Is this how Romani felt?"

-

The door to Olga's office slid aside as Nicholas thanked the passing staff member who had pointed him to it and he stepped inside, cups of steaming coffee in either hand, and a strangely conflicted expression on his lips.

The lightsaber incident had made him self reflect a bit and decide to do something he'd been putting aside for a while now.

Nicholas found the olive haired older woman snoring on her desk, surrounded by stacks upon stacks of papers and files. He stared at her for a second, yeah, she was cute in her own way.

He'd learned she was a workaholic that had actually lost her father not long ago, a father she'd been trying to get to recognise her to no avail all her life.

Making light of that was unmanly of him.

So, instead of telling her to rest like the others, he was going to pump her full of caffeine so she could do what she wanted. It wasn't like magecraft couldn't whisk away tiredness.

He put the cups on the table and poked her nose. When she remained unresponsive, he did it again, and then again, and then again, until she grunted and tried to shove his hand by haphazardly waving hers, "Five more minush..."

"Sure."

Nicholas proceeded to poke her nose again.

"I shaid five more minush..."

Nicholas raised his hands in surrender and picked up one of the files to read.

Oddly enough, it was a request from the medical staff, titled,

'Request for permission to cut Beryl Gut's life support.'

...

"Huh."

Chaldea's staff was cooler than he'd given them credit for.

-

When Olga Marie Animusphere came to, she lazily rubbed her eyes and hazily looked around to notice that there was someone in her office.

That was strange, no one usually came around without knocking out of fear.

The Director's eyes opened abruptly when she recalled she'd been working and then widened further when the 'person' in her room turned around to stare at her with judging purple eyes.

"W-Wha?!"

She quickly wiped the drool from her mouth, extremely flustered by the sudden situation.

"You really did wake up after five minutes. That's surprising. Cool fish you got there by the way." He gestured to the aquarium with numerous fish in it by the wall.

"Thank yo-... No! What the hell are you doing here?!" She pointed at him with unfocused eyes.

"I came here to apologise but I guess you don't care."

Olga didn't think he was the type of person to do so, "F-For talking vulgarly?"

"Oh no, I stand by my words. Just I shouldn't have talked about your father." Nicholas pushed the still smoking coffee to her and she grabbed it with trembling hands, "I didn't know. I'd totally punch the shit out of whoever talked about my father that way."

Olga couldn't help the small giggle that left her lips, "O-Of course you would."

Chaldea wasn't massive enough for news of his actions to NOT reach her. He just punched everything that didn't sit right with him so she took him for a brash teenager, especially with his words... It was nice to know he had some degree of shame.

He could probably be fixed with some effort.

"H..He... never once looked my way, you know?" Olga didn't know why she started talking, maybe because no one had really bothered or worked up the courage to talk to the harsh and demanding Director, "I tried. I really did, top of my class, you know? I tried to be a Master you know, maybe that way he would..."

"Sounds like an asshole." Nicholas hadn't been expecting her to talk either.

"No." Olga shook her head, blowing air into her coffee, "I-I wasn't enough for him. The Animusphere are one of the Twelve Lords of the Clock Tower you know?"

"That's all magus stuff, I'm not one." He was of civilian birth according to the blood tests, "All I see is you being a proper Director of an organisation that's meant to save humanity from destruction at a young age. A position he couldn't last in." Nicholas spoke the blunt truth, "I doubt just anyone could do that. Definitely not diligently enough to work till you knocked yourself out." It was genuinely astounding, "I know I couldn't."

The teenager shrugged and the older woman smiled slightly.

Even if it was, maybe because it was a rude stranger.

It was nice to have her efforts recognised.

She'd never have thought it but, i-it was nice to be praised.

"T-Thank you."

Olga Marie Animusphere didn't know why her eyes felt wet.

"Ah... shit." Nicholas scratched the back of his head, averting his gaze, "Sorry."

-

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