The Manager Needs a Break
After the subjugation of Audrey and the whole “Nothing… happened!” incident.
“Ah! Manager! There’s a hedgehog flying over there!”
“What the hell about that hideous thing looks like a hedgehog? Damn it…!”
“You can do it! Fighting, fighting!”
We finished off the remaining monsters.
“…Manager, are you okay?”
“Do I look okay, frozen against a wall like this? I nearly died, you know?”
“Hmm. When you’re like this, Manager, it does look pretty convenient for hugging.”
“Save the jokes until after you put me down. …That was a joke, right? Hey, Audrey?”
Things went smoothly.
“Ahaha, that was fun today too. Right, Manager♡”
“Calathea. I told you not to touch my thigh while I’m driving…”
“But if I don’t touch it, it looks like you’ll fall asleep.”
“Because of you, I feel like I’m going to sleep forever. Seriously.”
While all of that was going on, we were living what looked like an ordinary, leisurely daily life.
“Manager, you’ve got dark circles.”
…Except for me.
“Dark circles…?”
“Yeah. Right here under your eyes.”
Calathea had boldly straddled me in a face-to-face position on the living room sofa, rubbing my eye area with her thumb.
“They’ve been getting a little darker every time we kiss lately. At this rate, you’re going to turn into a panda.”
The result of rashly accepting Kang Yewon’s bet—to clear a total of twenty gates in one month—after gaining confidence from clearing a single A-class gate on a request from the Inspection Bureau was exactly the person I was right now.
Of course, Calathea and Audrey were gradually regaining their instincts in the field, shortening their clearing times, and since the tight schedule could be handled by them taking turns, they were still bursting with energy. The problem was me—the one who had to manage the entire clearing schedule, drive, and even accompany them inside the gates. On top of that, while A-class gates might be easy for the prisoner corps, they weren’t exactly a place where an A-class hunter like me could just stroll around comfortably.
…In fact, I suspected Kang Yewon had proposed the bet precisely because she wanted to see me end up like this.
“There, disappear, disappear♪”
“Rubbing it with your finger isn’t going to make it go away.”
“Why not? I have to save you before Manager turns into a panda.”
Her slightly tousled golden hair sparkled in the sunlight as her mischievous face drew closer and closer.
“Or should I just give you a sexy kiss like the princess and the frog?”
“…It’s not sexy, it’s just a kiss.”
“Putting something in a hole and stirring it around is pretty much the same thing, isn’t it?”
Calathea giggled, lightly cupping my face with both hands, and began pressing her lips against the dark circles under my eyes with repeated little pecks. Then she slowly moved downward, gently nibbling the tip of my nose and shaking it playfully from side to side before tilting her head and overlapping our lips.
“Mmm, chu, mwah… mm, mwah, chu, chu♡”
Letting out pleasant nasal moans, she alternated between sucking on my upper and lower lip, then slipped her soft, plump tongue inside, gently stirring my mouth. At first our tongues brushed lightly, but they soon tangled more intensely. The slick, saliva-soaked flesh grazed against sensitive membranes, rubbing and intertwining fiercely, until a heat so intense it felt like it would burn my mouth rose in waves.
Calathea seemed just as affected. Between kisses she kept letting out hot, heated breaths, unconsciously arching her waist toward me in a seductive curve. It was as if her body instinctively wanted to press even closer to mine—an unconscious, instinctive movement of her hips.
“Nn, ah…♡”
Every time our lips met and parted, a thin silver strand of saliva stretched stickily between us. Then I felt her suddenly grab the hand I had on her waist and guide it toward her ass.
Ever since I had touched her backside during that pretend-lover date, she had occasionally tried to subtly lead my hand there like this.
“Mwah, mmm, mwah… Hyaat—?!”
I gave her naughty ass a sharp smack and pulled my hand back. It hadn’t been that long since Audrey had called me out on it; I couldn’t keep going easy on Calathea alone.
“That’s today’s kiss quota done. Now get off.”
“…I want to kiss one more time. It got me wet when you spanked me.”
“No.”
“Then give me an extra Wish Coupon! Aaaah, seriously—! If I’d known this would happen, I would’ve asked for one extra kiss every day instead of sucking your cock last time!”
“Please don’t say things like that loud enough for other people to hear, okay?”
With a sly grin, Calathea pressed her voluptuous breasts firmly against me, then brought her moist lips right to my ear.
And then…
“I should’ve said I wanted to taste Manager’s big, thick, curved cock with my tight little mouth-pussy every day instead♡”
“…You’re going to drive me insane. For real.”
“Kyahaha—♬ Teasing Manager really is the most fun thing in the world, isn’t it?”
After sexually harassing me without a shred of shame, Calathea burst into bright laughter, stuck her tongue out at me, and slipped off to her room.
I really didn’t know what to do with her.
“Manager, I brought you some black tea.”
“Ah, thanks.”
I accepted the teacup with gratitude toward Audrey, who had been taking care of me like this for the past few days. She plopped down beside me with an expressionless face, then wrapped my arm around her slender waist and snuggled into my embrace. While I drank my tea, she rubbed her face against my chest and sniffed at me.
…The scary part was how she did all of it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“You smell like Calathea, Manager.”
“Well, I just gave her today’s kiss quota.”
“…You smell like Calathea.”
Repeating the same words with clear displeasure, she hugged my waist tightly and kept rubbing her body against mine. It was as if she wanted to overwrite Calathea’s scent with her own.
“Why are you hugging me so half-heartedly?”
“……Is this better?”
“Yes. It’s perfect right now.”
With my exhausted body stretched out on the sofa and Audrey pressed tightly against me, she squirmed in my arms like a contented cat while I gently stroked her hair. I simply stared blankly at the ceiling, lost in thought.
I really need to rest until tomorrow, at least.
Fortunately, we hadn’t run into any annoying gates like the one on the first day, but both physically and mentally, I was completely drained. I just wanted to relax without a single worry…
“……Hm?”
Right as that thought crossed my mind, my phone rang. When I checked the screen, Baek Soyun’s name was displayed in large letters.
Why was my secretary calling me? I didn’t think she’d have any reason to call for a while.
“Audrey, I’ll take this call real quick.”
“Can’t you just take it like this?”
“Uh, well… This is business, so it’d be awkward if someone else heard.”
“It was a woman’s name just now.”
When the hell had she seen that?
“I can do business with women too, you know…? And do you really think I have time to go around meeting other women separately?”
“……….”
“Come on, don’t worry about weird stuff. Be good, our— um, Audrey?”
I had almost called her “our daughter” out of habit while trying to soothe her, but I quickly corrected myself when I remembered she had no memory of that day.
Still, it seemed to have some effect.
“…Understood, Manager.”
With slightly flushed cheeks, Audrey obediently pulled back. She gently traced the back of my hand with her fingers, then slyly intertwined our fingers for a moment before quickly letting go and pretending nothing had happened.
…She always wears those stiff suits, but the things she does are secretly so cute.
If a daughter who loved her father too much existed, wouldn’t she act exactly like this? I’d never raised a daughter, so I couldn’t be sure.
I lightly stroked Audrey’s silky silver hair once, then stepped out onto the balcony to answer Baek Soyun’s call.
[Hellooo, Boss!]
“What’s up, Secretary?”
[Ahem, well, you see… I got a hotel spa voucher a few days ago… but no matter how much I thought about it, I didn’t have anyone to go with, so I wondered if you might be interested, Boss?]
“Spa? With me?”
What perfect timing. Just when I was desperately craving rest, my secretary was suggesting we go to the spa together. It felt like she had known I would be this exhausted around this time and had prepared in advance.
[If you don’t want to go with me, I understand…]
“No, of course I’ll go. Our secretary went out of her way to invite her boss, didn’t she?”
[R-really…? Then—]
“By the way, can we add a few more people with that voucher? I’ll pay extra if needed.”
[……Pardon?]
At Baek Soyun’s puzzled voice, I carefully broached the subject.
“It feels a bit wrong to go somewhere nice by myself, so I was thinking of bringing the prisoner corps kids along too.”
[B-but… I wanted to go with just you, Boss…]
“Ah, right. You were scared of them, weren’t you?”
[Yes? Ah, yes, that’s right! I’m still really scared of those… those flies— I mean, those people… And Boss, you need some personal rest sometimes too, right? Especially since you’re practically living together with them… You must be lacking privacy even more.]
“That’s true, but…”
[So just for tomorrow, really let go of everything and rest with me. Only then will you be able to work hard again, right?]
“Mmm… Alright. I’ll do as you say. Let’s go, just the two of us.”
[Really? That’s the right decision! I’ll send you the schedule later!]
Baek Soyun answered in an incredibly bright, happy voice before abruptly hanging up, saying she had things to prepare.
It’s been a while since I had any free time…
That didn’t sound bad at all. Lately I felt like a single father raising two kids; even resting at home didn’t feel like real rest. Thanks to our wonderful secretary, I’d finally get to enjoy a proper break—
The moment I turned around with that thought, I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“Whoa! You scared me!”
At some point, Audrey and Calathea had plastered themselves against the balcony’s glass door, staring at me.
“W-what are you two doing there? …Did you eavesdrop on my call?”
“Nooo? We didn’t hear anything.”
“Yes. We couldn’t hear anything at all.”
If Audrey was saying that, then they really hadn’t heard anything. Calathea might lie, but not her.
“Then why were you stuck to the glass like that?”
“We were trying to listen in on what kind of conversation was making you smile so happily♡”
“But we really couldn’t hear anything, so we were disappointed.”
I let out a huge sigh of relief. If they had overheard me talking about leaving them behind to go somewhere nice, it would have been a disaster.
“…Don’t do that next time. Got it? And I have a separate schedule tomorrow, so I’ll be going out. You two can just rest at the dorm.”
Feeling a twinge of guilt, I quickly brushed past the two whispering girls and headed straight into my room to prepare for tomorrow’s outing.
Good. Tomorrow, I’d set the prisoner corps aside for a while and enjoy a proper rest with my secretary.
With my heart full of excitement at the prospect of rare freedom, I wore a hopeful smile.