Since the last chicken party, I’ve been working while listening to Dolores and Midori’s complaints almost every day.
Not to the point of really hearing it all day, just… about 3 out of 10 comments?
Especially Dolores.
Whenever the Commander and I are chatting, she scolds us to keep our romance in check.
It’s not like we were doing anything seriously inappropriate.
“Listen well. This is the workplace, not a dating venue! We know you two are dating and getting along well, but behaving like that in the office is not okay. It’s especially unfair to me and Midori, who can’t date, considering we just had a chat about it. Sneaking hand-holding? That’s too much.”
“…How did you see our hands?”
“How can I not see your arms out in the open? Just looking at Lindera’s face makes me blush…!”
“…Ah.”
Great, that was caught.
I couldn’t immediately see her face, at least I was trying to keep my hands and arms hidden well enough.
“Don’t blow air into your cheeks…!”
“……….”
“Don’t look towards the Commander!”
“……….”
Caught red-handed.
Is this what it means to be an Agent?
“I get it, you’re in a relationship… I understand that from the beginning, but it has been getting worse lately.”
“Is that so…?”
“Yeah! At least you weren’t so open about it in the office before…? But lately, you’ve been all touchy-feely again…”
“That never happened…”
“Remember last time when you pretended to drink coffee while kissing?”
“……….”
“And you stopped all of a sudden when we walked in while you were using the sofa as a pillow.”
“Ah.”
“Plus, shortly after starting work that day, you kept patting the Commander’s head…”
“That was unavoidable…”
“You weren’t just patting his head; you were touching his face constantly.”
…Busted.
How did she find out about all of it?
I thought I had done a pretty good job hiding our displays of affection in the office since the kiss last time.
To think it was all exposed.
Of course, they didn’t seem to know anything after work, but still, I was a bit surprised they remembered so many things from work hours.
“And the Commander too!”
“Me?”
“Yeah! You’re too soft on Lindera! You always go along with whatever she wants!”
“That’s… unavoidable…”
“Ugh…!!!”
Dolores groaned, grabbing her head in frustration.
I didn’t think we had been that touchy, to begin with.
This is all because Dolores can’t date.
“…You have strange eyes.”
“I don’t!”
“…Anyway, I’m just saying to tone it down a bit. Sometimes, even Midori contacts me to say you two are holding hands again?”
“D-Dolores! We agreed not to bring that up!”
“Oops.”
Well, it’s peaceful at least.
A bit noisy, but the mission has been sorted in two weeks.
There was no more immediate work piling up.
After all, the purification operation nearby was already done, and I had hastily prepared the report.
It’s not the first time this happened, and the agents finished the operation super quickly since it was a rare mission.
“Hmmm.”
I was alone in my room now.
Work was over, and the Commander decided to sleep in his room early today.
Just a solo situation, and in that environment, I had a bit of pondering to do.
“…How should I solve this?”
I couldn’t think of a solution to the fact that I couldn’t see people’s names.
No matter how I thought about it.
“Is it some sort of mental illness…?”
Like, there’s that thing where a person can’t properly recognize faces.
I wasn’t sure what that was exactly, but this felt a bit different.
It’s like I was completely ignoring anything related to names.
Written names, spoken names, everything didn’t show up properly, and I really didn’t know what to do.
It almost looked like a mosaic.
“I really didn’t realize because I haven’t been watching the news lately.”
I turned on the TV to check the news, and wow, this is serious.
In the news headlines, someone did something, and I didn’t even know who that someone was.
What on earth could make this situation exist where I can’t see real names?
But here too, things were slightly different than before.
Originally, characters with real names would be utterly invisible.
The mosaic effect was really severe.
It was bizarre that my eyes were able to recognize the letters, but now it felt a little different.
Instead of mosaic, it was more like… they had massive scratches on them.
“…It’s similar to when I hear names.”
I couldn’t read them properly, but I recognized that they were letters.
“This is ridiculous.”
I really didn’t even know why this got better.
If it were completely invisible and inaudible like before, that would’ve been more understandable, but… it had improved just a little bit.
“Uugh…”
My head was slightly hurting.
Honestly, I hadn’t had any problems up till now, but that was all thanks to the agents using codenames.
Midori, Dolores, Easter, all codenames.
I didn’t realize this at first, but ever since I found out about the codenames, I became more anxious.
What if I wasn’t working on a ship?
If I were in an environment where codenames weren’t used, but real names were?
“…Wow.”
I would have probably committed suicide.
I seriously started thinking that way.
I honestly felt relieved to be Lindera instead…
What if I had become someone else from somewhere else? That would’ve really been an issue…
“…So, how do I truly solve this…”
Just improving a little wasn’t going to cut it.
It was still a big issue, only slightly better than being completely invisible.
“…What changed between the past and now?”
There must be a transformation, something that caused my condition to improve even slightly.
Everything happens for a reason.
So, I was thinking even harder about it.
What in the world had occurred?
“Hmmm… It wasn’t an accident, and I haven’t hit my head or anything…”
I seriously thought about these matters and pondered deeply.
What could have happened?
But the only thing that came to mind was…
“…The fact that I’m dating the Commander.”
That was the only significant event that had happened to me.
Nothing else had bordered on notable.
I really couldn’t think of anything else.
Just… dating the Commander and getting all touchy-feely, that was about it.
“…Huh?”
I didn’t think that a simple thing like that could solve a problem like this.
No matter how I thought about it, it seemed unlikely that such a small factor could make a big difference.
“…Could it really be that dating the Commander improved it a little?”
That couldn’t be right.
The issues I had couldn’t possibly be solved just by dating the Commander… it was a bit strange.
“…But if I set that aside…”
There was no other event…
“…Hmmm.”
*
“Commander.”
“…What is it?”
“…I have a small favor to ask.”
In the end, the only person I could talk to about this was the Commander.
He was the closest person to me, and he understood my problem to a certain degree.
So, I decided to visit the Commander a bit earlier in the morning.
Since he went to bed early yesterday, he didn’t look too tired, and it is part of my job to wake him up.
“…Could you please say your name?”
“You?”
“No, I mean the Commander.”
“Um… That’s not a problem, but…”
I didn’t expect this to solve anything immediately.
But I wanted to compare it to when I heard the Commander’s name around three weeks ago.
When I first heard the Commander’s name, I couldn’t hear it at all; the last time, I could hear it but didn’t comprehend it.
“You don’t need to feel burdened. I’m just trying to conduct a little experiment.”
“Really? You look like your expression isn’t great, which made me worry.”
“…There’s no need for that. I was just looking slightly serious.”
Not that… I was being negative or overly concerned.
Of course, it was somewhat comforting that the Commander acknowledged that.
“Well, for what it’s worth, Lindera is simply too charming for me to dislike any problems.”
“…Is that so?”
“Yep.”
“……….”
Hearing something like that first thing in the morning made me feel a bit… uneasy.
Of course, he often said such things, but still, my heart was racing a little this early.
But with my heart racing, all that weird stuff the Commander was saying wasn’t what I should focus on right now.
“Just say it already.”
“■■■?”
“…Hmmm.”
“Is something different…? Oh, sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize. It’s just… I’ve improved a little bit compared to before. That’s why.”
It was definitely a little… different.
Just a smidge.
Truly, an oh-so-tiny bit.
I still couldn’t fully comprehend it, but somehow it was a bit improved.
“…This is a notebook. I wrote down the names here just a bit…”
“What’s so hard that you look so apologetic about asking?”
“…I’m sorry.”
“No need for that.”
I handed a notebook to the Commander, and he accepted it.
At least now I knew that hearing names was ever-so-slightly better.
Maybe dating the Commander had some effect, but anyway, the condition was better than before.
It would be a good idea to confirm that here too.
“I wrote it.”
“…Thank you.”
The Commander wrote his name in the notebook, and I looked at the name he had written.
“Eh?”
I let out a dumbfounded sound involuntarily.
The simplest, most mindless sound I could produce recently.
But why… does this name look a bit better than the other names…?
“Why?”
“Um, why…?”
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