Chapter 15 (Revised Edition)

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George had only been dragged out by his elder brother, Jack. He had never expected to run into one of his high-school classmates—YN—in this godforsaken desert.

Although YN no longer remembered him at all.

YN thought back over those two years of high school. She had indeed received quite a number of letters, all written in different hands. She had never opened a single one, leaving them somewhere in a corner of her adoptive parents’ home.

Infected by George’s enthusiasm, YN answered his question—whether she had a boyfriend—in a perfectly calm voice.

“I don’t have a boyfriend.”

A boyfriend… YN had never imagined having such a thing.

If she absolutely had to name someone, she only wanted Benjamin Franklin to be her boyfriend.

Mercenaries and arms dealers were naturally mutually dependent. Graves and the arms-dealing George family were business partners as well.

Graves had only joined YN and George’s conversation for a short while before he was forced to deal with Jack, leaving him unable to stop their exchange in time.

The moment Graves heard YN say she had no boyfriend, he discovered that George’s eyes had gone completely straight from staring at her.

Danger. Danger. Danger!

YN absolutely could not be deceived by that womanizing brat!

“YN, what’s your relationship with Graves?” George asked.

“He’s my employer.”

He knew it! Graves was probably about the same age as his elder brother, Jack, while George himself was around YN’s age. There was already a generation gap between him and his brother. Surely there would be one between YN and Graves as well.

All things considered, he had an excellent chance.

“Let’s exchange contact information. When I have some free time, I’ll go to Shadow Company and visit you. Graves, that’s all right, isn’t it?”

George’s expression was faintly sly. Although he had guessed that Graves might have feelings for YN, it was obvious that YN felt nothing for him.

He deliberately asked Graves at the end, intending to let him know that he was about to start pursuing YN.

Back in high school, George had taken a liking to YN from the very first moment he saw her. At the time, YN had been even slimmer than she was now. Since she had never replied to a single boy who had written her a love letter, everyone thought of her as a cool, aloof jasmine from the East.

In time, everyone stopped making fools of themselves. After all, they would all lose touch after graduation.

“Of course,” Graves replied. “Shadow Company welcomes you at any time, George.”

Had it been anyone else, YN would have refused outright. But from George and Graves’s conversation, she knew that they were business partners.

She could reject George, but she would not offend Graves.

So she took out her phone and saved George’s contact information.

By the time they had finished exchanging details, Graves and Jack had also finished their conversation.

Before George and Jack climbed into their desert vehicle and drove away, George called out to YN once more.

“YN, you should come try out one of my family’s tanks next time. I can even drive you through that other, more beautiful desert.”

No, thank you. She did not particularly enjoy riding around in tanks, anyway.

YN forced herself to give George an “OK” sign, while her thoughts were entirely occupied by the chameleon she wanted to investigate. Would it still be waiting for her in the same place?

She merely waved stiffly at George and Jack in farewell. She did not notice that George’s final, awkward grin had been a provocation aimed at Graves.

·

Early the following morning, a huge bouquet of brilliantly blooming red roses was carried into Graves’s office by Shadow, who was responsible for receiving and delivering packages.

Shadow wanted to uphold his professional ethics as a courier, yet he was also afraid of becoming the next gorilla. After carrying the enormous bouquet into Graves’s office and muttering in a mosquito-like voice, “These flowers are for YN,” he vanished without a trace.

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In the private group chat where the Shadows talked among themselves, the “gorillas” stationed in various places checked in every day.

They truly embodied the principle of loving whatever work they happened to do—just like their future boss’s wife, YN.

The Shadow courier, codename Shadow 3-1, had long since grown too tired to complain about them.

The dispatched “gorillas” had already evolved. Picking one ton of bananas was no longer enough to satisfy them. Each of them was now striving toward picking two tons.

They were seriously deranged.

But after thinking it over, Shadow 3-1 decided that everyone was actually quite wonderful, silently indulging Shadow-1, who had completely lost his head over love.

They were all merely links in the romantic plot between YN and Shadow-1.

Shadow 3-1 slipped away as quickly as he could, but Rose stopped him at the door.

“Who sent the flowers?”

“R-R-R-R-Rose.” Shadow 3-1 did not actually stutter, but the moment he saw Rose, he became so nervous that the words came out of their own accord.

Rose was wearing the latest model of combat uniform that day, radiating an overwhelming aura. Hearing Shadow 3-1 greet her in such a halting voice, she began to reflect.

Was her cold expression really that frightening? Why did all the Shadows seem so afraid of her?

“Hmm. Good morning, Shadow 3-1.”

Rose changed her tone. Before Shadow 3-1 told her who had sent the flowers, she ought to greet him politely.

Breaking from her usual manner, Rose called him by his codename and greeted him.

Had she remained as she usually was, nothing might have happened. But after receiving her greeting, Shadow 3-1, his heart pounding at a hundred and eighty beats per minute, hurried back to his workstation.

Shadow 3-1: “Gorillas! Here’s some extra motivation for picking those bananas—Rose just spoke to me! Rose actually greeted me!”

Shadow-O: “You bastard! Don’t try to get close to my goddess Rose while I’m away!”

Shadow-9527: “What? Did you lose one of her deliveries? This is probably the prelude to your assassination.”

Thanks to Rose’s greeting, Shadow 3-1 was in an excellent mood. He continued spilling the news.

Shadow 3-1: “Shadow-1 has a romantic rival. Someone anonymously air-freighted a huge bouquet of roses to YN today. I personally went to pick it up.”

Shadow-9527: “What a pity that we won’t get to see Shadow-1’s jealous expression. But are you sure the sender wasn’t Shadow-1?”

Shadow-B: “I only helped YN empty the street-sweeping vehicle, and Shadow-1 transferred me away… Ah! Damn it! I want to see Shadow-1’s jealous expression too!”

·

The person who sent the roses really was not Graves.

When Graves entered his office after the morning meeting, he was greeted not only by the scent of coffee and YN’s sweet “Good morning, Boss,” but also by the enormous bouquet of roses sitting beside his sofa.

The alarm bells immediately began ringing in his head. Graves already knew who had sent them.

The flowers were beautiful, but they were an eyesore—an even greater eyesore than Shadow-9527.

YN, dressed in a fitted black suit and a knee-length business pencil skirt, was crouching beside the bouquet.

A smile curved her lips. She had been lowering her head to breathe in the roses’ fragrance, but when she heard Graves enter the office, she looked up at him.

Against that sea of flowers, YN, dressed in her neatly tailored assistant’s attire, seemed to possess a youthful, slightly raw maturity.

Graves did not immediately sit behind his desk. Instead, he sat down on the sofa beside YN.

YN looked especially beautiful that day. Her clothes and skirt were both lovely.

But he had definitely been provoked.

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“Who sent you these flowers, YN?” Graves asked, his expression unchanged. He refused to believe that George and YN could have grown so close in the space of a single night.

“Boss, I suspect they were delivered to the wrong person. I’m contacting Shadow 3-1 to find out what happened.”

Rose happened to enter Graves’s office. Seeing Graves gazing at YN with an expression of utter indulgence while YN crouched beside the massive bouquet, Rose was just about to praise Graves for doing a fine job when she heard him speak into his communicator.

“Shadow-2, come upstairs and clear these roses—whoever sent them—from my office.”

A moment later, Shadow-2, also known as Oz, carried the bouquet away.

“YN, you don’t mind me doing this, do you?”

He had been thinking that he could take the flowers apart and give them to the cleaning department and the beautiful Bunnies.

YN shook her head in disappointment.

Then she rose and went to the refreshment room to make a cup of coffee for Rose, who had come in to report.

Graves had originally thought that the immaculate white heart-shaped latte art was something reserved exclusively for him. But when he saw the cup YN brought to Rose, he discovered that it also bore a heart—and one more elaborate than the one on his coffee.

At last, his sense of crisis exploded.

He was surrounded by romantic rivals!

Rose was not at all shy. After raising an eyebrow at Graves, she carried the coffee YN had made for her and sat beside YN. She took delicate sips with one hand while gently slipping the other around YN’s waist, allowing the slightly dejected YN to lean against her shoulder.

·

In the afternoon, Shadow 3-1 wheeled his cart up to Graves’s office once again.

That was right. YN had received another anonymous bouquet of roses.

This bouquet was even larger than the enormous one she had received that morning, and the roses in full bloom were even more dazzlingly beautiful.

Graves had gone to a meeting without taking YN along, since all the day’s work had already been completed. So she used the tablet Graves had provided for her and watched the cartoon Tom and Jerry.

“YN, your flowers have arrived.” Shadow 3-1 knew Graves was at a meeting, so he was much more relaxed than he had been that morning and felt none of his earlier nervousness.

YN tapped the tablet to pause the show. The screen froze on Tom reaching into Spike’s mouth to rummage around for something.

What was going on today? First there had been the bouquet that morning, sent by someone unknown, and now there was another one even larger than the first.

The problem was that this bouquet was anonymous too.

YN took a bottle of Coca-Cola from the refrigerator and gave it to Shadow 3-1, asking him to help place the enormous bouquet beside the sofa.

Graves spent the entire afternoon in meetings, so YN followed the instructions he had given her before leaving—“Stay here and wait obediently until I come back”—and watched Tom and Jerry for the whole afternoon.

Rose had told YN that she could submit any purchases she made to Graves for reimbursement.

YN still felt that was somewhat excessive. Did “anything” not seem a little too broad?

Nevertheless, she gave it a try, selecting several business outfits along with matching shoes. She made a list of everything and figured that, if they could be reimbursed, all the better. If not, she would simply regard them as gifts to herself.

After all, she had been working hard lately.

By the time Graves finished his meeting, it was almost time for YN to leave work.

He was somewhat disappointed that he had not been able to see her reaction when she received the bouquet of roses he had sent.

But then he remembered that every day before leaving, YN would sweetly say to him, “Boss, I’m heading home now.”

With that thought in mind, he quickened his steps back to the office.

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