Clocking In
"Haaaaah…"
As always, I was the type to turn in pretty… well, pretty early. Asleep by eleven at the latest, a solid seven hours, then up with a yawn already spilling out of me the instant my 6:30 a.m. alarm went off. I scooped that aggressively attention-grabbing platinum blonde hair of mine into a loose handful — I'd long since gotten used to the sight of it — and slowly, slowly made myself get out of bed.
"Ugh, I don't wanna…"
Two years into the working-adult life. It was a genuine, unholy pain in the ass.
If I'd gone to college instead, maybe I could've slept in a little longer?
"…Ugh."
Not that I had the luxury of spinning out hypotheticals. I had to go to work this morning, same as every other morning. I yawned, stretched both arms as far as they would go, and clawed my way into something resembling consciousness, gulping down water as I went. I rubbed a hand over my smooth, soft stomach, scratched my head, and made a beeline for the bathroom.
And then…
"……"
Pssshh. Right. Anyway.
Once I'd more or less rejoined the land of the living, it was time to get serious about preparing for another day at the office. I'd burned through more of the morning than I'd meant to, and the clock had already crept around to 6:50. A little over an hour left until the 8:00 start time — but the office was a fifteen-minute walk or a five-minute subway ride, so it wasn't anything to panic over.
"Bread~ bread~ breaaad~"
Breakfast was the usual: a decent slice of rye, a thin smear of butter, toasted just on the outside. I normally baked two and put together some kind of topping to go between them, but I'd been running a little ragged lately, and I wasn't all that hungry besides. I just stuck one in my mouth and called it done.
"I want to awaken teleportation so baaad…"
Different life from the last one. A world drowning in fantasy elements. And yet an office worker was still an office worker. No — it wasn't just office workers. Everyone was more or less the same. Students didn't want to go to school. Office workers didn't want to clock in. Baseball players goofed off on the field instead of actually playing baseball and nearly missed the playoffs. My stocks tanked, as they always did.
If anything, living in a world where superpowers actually existed meant that wanting a teleportation ability was one of the more reasonable things a person could sincerely wish for.
"If I had teleportation, I could at least make easy money doing deliveries."
Yeah. Shame.
I finished that light breakfast with those useless thoughts rattling around in my head, then headed straight for the little bathroom. A frame that came in just shy of five feet. I didn't have any serious complaints about reincarnating as a woman, honestly — but coming back in a body this tiny was another matter. If I'd at least come back looking stacked. If I'd been a statuesque, older-sister type of beauty like Saran.
Not that I had the slightest interest in seducing men or doing anything with them. Still, looking in the mirror every morning and thinking so small was not a pleasant feeling.
"Haaah."
I just sighed, same as every other day. I did like the platinum blonde, though — paler than ordinary gold — and the emerald-green eyes. Because I was pretty as hell. Not in a narcissist way. I was just objectively, factually pretty.
"I don't wanna go to work…"
Anyway. I washed up, gave the long hair that fell to my waist a perfunctory once-over with the dryer until it was reasonably neat, and went straight to the closet to pick Number One from the three default outfits I always rotated through. A blouse with a hint of frill at the edges, just enough to lean feminine. Below that, an ankle-length pleated skirt that was easy to move in and didn't need constant adjusting every time I sat down. Over the top… I just grabbed whichever coat my hand found first.
"Pretty."
Yeah. I really was. It felt a little much for someone who was just going to the office, but then again, when the model looks like this to begin with? The girl in the mirror didn't come off as overdone so much as bright and lovely, first and last. And I actually was lovely, so.
"…And a hat to finish."
Not the one that had been trampled to death on the subway last time. The cute little beret the Team Leader had gifted me as a sacrificial offering to make me work overtime. I set it on my head, and that was that.
How to put this.
"…I look like an artist."
Even I had to admit, looking at myself, that this was possibly a bit much. And I threw a hairband on top of it sometimes, too.
"…But not dressing a face like this would be the real waste, wouldn't it?"
It did feel a little extra, fussing over my appearance when I'd been a man in my last life. But my looks were pretty enough that even I — the person wearing them — thought that not putting in the effort would've been the actual loss. A doll's face, literally.
…I didn't do a full face of makeup, at least. That had to count for something, right?
"…Pfft."
In more ways than one, I was ridiculous even to myself.
"Morniiing…"
"Charlotte, good morning. You look tired already — shall I brew you a coffee in a bit?"
"If you're offering, I'll gratefully accept…"
"Heheh, alright. I'll make yours when I do the Team Leader's and everyone else's."
"Okay…"
And that was how I arrived at the office, having survived another morning on the rush-hour subway from hell. And I do mean survived — barely. It was only five minutes, and I still spent those five minutes thinking, several dozen times, that they seriously needed to double the size of the cars, while a parade of commuters kept shoving my already-tiny body around until I nearly lost my mind.
Anyway. I made it on time. Again.
"Haaaah…"
I dropped into my seat, the one planted directly in front of the Team Leader's. The sunlight coming through the window was warm enough that my mood loosened a little, and if I just sat still, the suffering of the hell-subway felt like it was slowly draining out of me.
"Miss Charlotte, how did that shopping trip with the Team Leader go last week?"
"Ah… that. The shopping was just a pretext. She was actually trying to make me work overtime."
"Ahh. Thinking about it, it was pretty forced. I mean, she did send you home way too early. I had no idea that's what was going on."
"Haha…"
Making it in on time had been a whole ordeal, but the morning itself was uneventful. Just killing time chatting with the other Welfare Bureau staff, really. Counseling and sorting out heroes' problems was the actual job, so on days when you didn't have an assigned hero, it was nothing but light paperwork.
"Come to think of it… Team Leader?"
"Yeah? What's up? Something that needs handling first thing?"
The words assigned, hero, workload had been drifting through my head, and a question surfaced with them. I figured I ought to ask.
"It's not that. You remember the job you handed me last time? That one…"
"Hm?"
"…Do I get overtime pay for it?"
"…Ah."
"…Don't tell me you just set up the meeting and never actually registered it. And there's no extra pay either?"
It was about Saran. The Team Leader had skipped the official process entirely and arranged the introduction through a personal connection, which was how I'd ended up as Saran's counselor for the time being. I'd already decided I was going to put in the work for her. That didn't mean I could afford to be soft on this part of it. If we never talked it through, it was only going to blow up into a bigger problem later.
Say, for instance, that the heroes I was responsible for started piling up on top of Batori — the Eodeokshini girl I was already assigned to. Three I could manage somehow. But if the ongoing caseload climbed past four and started heading for five, and I still had to come into the office every single day and handle everything else on top of that?
"…Huh. Yeah. I didn't think about that."
"…Team Leader."
"Haha, of course I'll take care of it. I'd forgotten, I'll admit — but I can't exactly work our precious employee like a slave, can I?"
"……"
And who was it again that dangled early leave and a shopping trip in front of me just to force me to work?
Right. That would be our very own Team Leader.
She said it with an awkward little laugh that inspired absolutely no confidence whatsoever.
"I'll formally register Saran under you too. Don't worry about it."
"…Alright."
"But Charlotte — how'd you talk Saran around? Honestly, I wasn't totally convinced you'd actually help her. She wasn't even someone you were close with. Just a junior, right?"
"Ah, well… we just talked it through, and it worked out somehow."
As always, discussing what had come up in a counseling session was a little difficult. Batori's case I could talk about. Saran's was the kind of story you didn't easily share. I smoothed over the Team Leader's curiosity with something suitably vague and started filling out the approval documents and reports to formally take on Saran — the hero Black Viper.
"…Ah."
I was in the middle of that when my phone started going absolutely berserk. Not a call — texts, definitely — but they were landing in such a rapid-fire burst that the vibration felt like a ringtone.
"She's ridiculously shy in person, but the second she starts texting she turns into a total sunshine…"
The owner of those messages was none other than one of the heroes assigned to me. Until a few minutes ago, she'd been the only hero I was currently responsible for — the E-Class dokkaebi girl, Batori. She was also the person who'd been contacting me more than anyone else lately, and the gap between how she talked over text and how she was in person was wide enough to be genuinely entertaining.
The hypnosis therapy had nudged her self-esteem up a little. She was still on the introverted side, but the way she lit up the moment she started messaging me was kind of fun.
"Huh."
Huh?
What's gotten into her?