The inspection was, in a word, tedious.

  Two Association officials arrived at headquarters with clipboards and then they proceeded to poke through the guild's documentation for three straight hours. Emergency equipment storage, first aid supplies, expiration dates on bandages, operational protocols, liability waivers, insurance documentation, and approximately nine hundred questions about things Suzume had never even thought to worry about before.

  She answered all of them, though, throwing herself into the busywork with the kind of desperate energy usually reserved for students cramming the night before finals. Every question was an opportunity to not think about Kasumi. Every form was a distraction from the memory of green eyes and the words "when's my turn" echoing in her skull on repeat like a song she couldn't get out of her head.

  Hikari handled most of the legal questions, her responses so thorough and well-organized that even the inspectors looked impressed despite themselves. Emiko produced documentation that Suzume didn't even know they had, filing records and operational logs appearing from folders like some kind of bureaucratic magic trick that probably violated at least one law of physics.

  By the time the inspectors finally left, Suzume's brain felt like someone had run it through a meat grinder and then, just for fun, set the result on fire.

  "We passed," Hikari announced, setting down the official approval stamp they'd been given. "All standards met. We're cleared for official contracts."

  "Great," Suzume said, and promptly collapsed face-first onto the nearest couch.

  Her body sank into the cushions. Her eyes closed. For approximately thirty seconds, she achieved something close to peace, her mind blissfully empty of inspectors and paperwork and complicated feelings about attractive women who wanted to kiss her.

  Then someone sat on her legs.

  "Ow."

  "Don't be dramatic, I'm not that heavy."

  Suzume cracked one eye open to find Yumi perched on her calves, legs crossed, one hand resting casually on Suzume's knee like she owned the place. She was wearing ripped jeans and a loose tank top today, and from this angle Suzume had a very clear view of her collarbone and the way her shoulder muscles shifted when she moved.

  [Don't look. Don't look. Don't—]

  Suzume looked.

  "Get off," she said, her voice coming out slightly strangled.

  "Make me."

  Yumi's smirk widened, and Suzume felt her face heating up for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with the leg-sitting and everything to do with... okay, no, it was definitely the leg-sitting. The leg-sitting and the collarbone and the way Yumi was looking down at her like she knew exactly what Suzume was thinking.

  "So," Yumi said, drawing the word out in that way she did when she was about to be insufferable. "About last night."

  "No."

  "You kissed me."

  "I was drunk."

  "You grabbed my collar." Yumi mimed the motion, her fingers curling in the air. "Like this. Very aggressive."

  "Still drunk."

  "You used tongue."

  "I was very drunk."

  "Mhmm." Yumi leaned forward, and her weight shifted on Suzume's legs in a way that was extremely distracting. "You know what I think?"

  "I genuinely do not care what you think."

  "I think," Yumi continued, completely ignoring her, "that you wanted to kiss me. I think drunk Suzume finally had the guts to do what sober Suzume has been thinking about for weeks."

  Suzume's face was on fire. She kept her eyes firmly fixed on the ceiling, because looking at Yumi right now would only make things worse.

  "You were running your mouth. I shut you up. That's all it was."

  "Uh-huh. And the tongue? That was just... thorough mouth-shutting? Very dedicated silence enforcement?"

  "I'm going to fire you."

  "You wouldn't." Yumi patted her thigh, and Suzume's brain short-circuited for a half-second. "You like having me around too much."

  Before Suzume could formulate a response that wasn't just incoherent sputtering, Emiko appeared at the edge of the couch, tablet in hand and reading glasses perched on her nose like a disapproving librarian.

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  "When you two are done flirting, we have actual work to do."

  "We're not flirting," Suzume said automatically.

  "Sure." Emiko didn't even bother looking up from her tablet. "Anyway, I've been going through our application backlog. We've got about a dozen candidates who submitted interest forms, and I think it's time we started taking expansion seriously."

  Yumi finally shifted off Suzume's legs, and Suzume sat up with a wince as blood flow returned to her calves. She tried very hard not to miss the warmth, and failed.

  "Expansion?"

  "You can't be everywhere at once," Emiko said, taking a seat in one of the office chairs. "Right now, if there's an emergency, the entire guild has to mobilize. That's not sustainable. We need multiple teams who can respond independently."

  Hikari nodded from her spot at the conference table.

  "She's right. One high-profile failure because we were spread too thin could undo everything we've built."

  Suzume rubbed her temples. The inspection was barely over and already there was more to deal with, more decisions to make, more responsibilities piling up on her shoulders like she was some kind of pack mule for stress.

  "Fine," she said. "Let's look at the applications."

  The next two hours were a blur of disappointing interviews.

  A Level 8 Mage who spent twenty minutes talking about "brand synergy" and "influencer partnerships" without once mentioning, you know, actually rescuing people. A Level 22 Ranger who used the phrase "my former guild didn't appreciate my talents" three separate times, which was at least two times too many. A Level 14 Healer who, when asked about emergency triage protocols, had blinked at Suzume and said "what's triage?" with the confidence of someone who thought they'd just been asked a trick question.

  By the time the Healer left, Suzume was ready to call it a day and accept that maybe the guild would just stay small forever.

  "This is depressing," Yumi muttered, slumping in her chair. "Are these really the best we've got?"

  "There's one more," Emiko said, checking her tablet. "Takeo Yamamoto. Level 17 Fighter. Transferred from Osaka about three months ago."

  "A Fighter?" Suzume perked up slightly at that. They could definitely use more frontline capability, especially for extractions that required someone to actually hold the line while she got civilians out. "Alright, send him in."

  The door opened, and Takeo Yamamoto walked into the room.

  He was tall and broad-shouldered, with messy brown hair that looked like he'd styled it by running his hands through it once and calling it good enough. His face was open and earnest in a way that made him look younger than his application said he was, and his clothes were simple, practical, the kind of thing someone wore when they expected to get into a fight at some point and didn't want to ruin anything nice.

  "Yo!" He raised a hand in greeting, grinning broadly. "Name's Takeo. Thanks for seein' me."

  Suzume blinked.

  His accent was thick Kansai, the kind you didn't hear much in Tokyo, and Yumi's eyebrows shot up with obvious delight at the sound of it.

  "Have a seat," Suzume said, gesturing to the chair across from her.

  Takeo dropped into it, apparently not nervous at all about being interviewed by the guild that had been all over the news lately. Either that was a good sign, or it was a sign that he had absolutely no idea what he was getting into.

  "It says here you were part of the Silver Fang guild in Osaka?" Suzume glanced at her tablet.

  "Yep! Good people. Did standard dungeon clearing, mostly. Some escort jobs here and there."

  "Why'd you leave?"

  Takeo scratched the back of his head, his grin turning a bit sheepish.

  "Honestly? Got bored. Dungeon clearing's fine and all, but it's always the same thing, yeah? Go in, kill monsters, grab loot, go home. Rinse and repeat until you die or retire." He leaned forward in his chair, and his expression shifted into something more serious. "Then I saw the news about you lot. About what you're actually doin' here. Rescuing people. Saving lives instead of just grinding for rare drops like the rest of us."

  "And that interested you?"

  "Hell yeah it did." The grin came back, bright and genuine. "I saw what you were building and, ya know, figured I wanted to be a part of it."

  Suzume studied him for a moment, turning his words over in her head. His stats were solid for his level, nothing exceptional but nothing lacking either, the kind of foundation you could build something strong on. More importantly, though, his answer felt genuine. Not rehearsed, not calculated to impress her. Just honest.

  "What would you do," she asked, "if you were in a destabilized dungeon and you had to choose between engaging a monster threatening the group or staying back to protect an injured civilian?"

  Takeo didn't hesitate.

  "Protect the civilian. That's the whole point, isn't it? If I'm just there to fight monsters, I might as well have stayed in Osaka where the pay's better."

  Hikari made a small note on her tablet, and when Suzume caught her eye, she gave a tiny nod of approval.

  "One more question," Yumi said, leaning back in her chair with a grin that Suzume immediately recognized as trouble. "Can you do the thing?"

  Takeo blinked.

  "The... what?"

  "You know." Yumi waved a hand vaguely. "The Kansai thing. The comedy routine. The tsukkomi energy. The whole entertainer bit."

  "Yumi," Suzume sighed.

  "What? Team morale is a legitimate concern. I'm being professional."

  Takeo laughed out loud at that.

  "I mean, I can try? My grandma always said I was funny, but she also said I was handsome, so honestly her judgment's pretty suspect."

  Yumi cackled. Even Hikari cracked a little smirk at that one, which was basically the equivalent of anyone else rolling on the floor.

  Suzume looked down at the application one more time, then back up at Takeo.

  "Alright. Trial run. I'll send you the details."

  Takeo's face lit up like someone had flipped a switch.

  "Seriously? You won't regret it, I promise!" He stood up so fast his chair nearly toppled over behind him, and he caught it at the last second with a sheepish grin that made him look about twelve years old. "I'll be here at seven. No, six! Whatever you need!"

  "Eight is fine."

  "Right. Eight. Got it." He bowed, quick and eager. "Thank you. Really. I won't let you down."

  He practically bounced out of the room, and Suzume could hear his footsteps echoing down the hallway even after the door closed behind him.

  Yumi turned to her with raised eyebrows.

  "Well. He's enthusiastic."

  "He's genuine," Hikari said. "That's rarer than you'd think."

  Emiko made a note on her tablet.

  "I'll send him the orientation materials tonight."

  Suzume nodded, exhaustion settling back into her bones now that the adrenaline of interviews was fading. She leaned back on the couch and closed her eyes, ready to enjoy at least five minutes of peace before whatever crisis came next.

  "So," Yumi's voice cut through the silence, "about that kiss—"

  "I will literally throw you out the window."

  "We're on the ground floor."

  "I'll dig a hole first."

  Yumi cackled even harder than last time.