Chương 405: 185.Day Shift Handover 2

The next morning, the wind was even colder than on the ride to school the day before. Not the kind that wakes you. The kind that makes you wonder why, on December twenty-sixth—a day when civilized people should be melting yesterday's calories beside a heater—I was riding someone else's scooter back to the front gate. I eased the bike to a stop, the tires hissing softly over the thin frost.

Hedwig slid off the back seat with her usual smoothness, her boots hitting the ground without a hint of hesitation, like she wasn't here for day duty but to take command of a forward outpost that had nearly broken last night. And I was just the unlucky Vice President who ferried her in and witnessed someone else's life force being wrung out. The gate swung open just then. Roy Hartmann stood there, one hand on the heavy iron, the other holding a keyring. The sky wasn't fully light yet.

Winter mornings have that dirty grey to them, like someone thinned the night out but didn't have the heart to rinse it away completely. It fell over Roy, making him look taller and thinner than usual.

"Morning—" The greeting slipped out automatically. The second I said it, I caught myself. Huh? Was it just me?... He looked thinner. Not the dramatic, eye-bagged, leaf-dropping manga sort. More the kind of thin you see when someone has pre-spent tomorrow's energy the night before. I stared for two seconds. The more I looked, the more it felt like that thinness wasn't genetic. It was administered.

"Oh, Vice President." Lan Weiss's voice drifted over from the other side of the academic block, light, natural—and sharp as a needle right into the bit I wanted to avoid. When I turned, she was just stepping out of the building's shadow, that same little paper bag from yesterday dangling from her fingers. It swung with her steps like some particularly civilized piece of circumstantial evidence. She smiled, very gently. The kind of gentle that's infuriating—not innocence, but a very educated version of oh, I know.

"You look like you have something to ask," she said. I shook my head immediately. I wasn't going to ask. I didn't want to. Honestly, the fact that I could decisively shake my head at this ungodly hour felt worthy of a medal: Meritorious Service in Not Inserting Herself Into Other People's Personal Lives. Cheap brass would do. They could engrave on the back: The Less You Know, the Longer You Live. Lan looked mildly disappointed. Her brow moved the tiniest bit, but she didn't press.

She only lifted the bag a fraction, like showing off a war trophy—or a free gift with purchase.

"Pity. I thought at minimum the Vice President would ask how our night shift handover went, out of humanitarian concern."

"I have a baseline faith in humanity," I said.

"But not enough to gamble my mental health on it at seven in the morning." Roy, over by the gate, must have heard that. Or not cared. He swung the other half of the gate open. His movements were as steady as ever—steady in that way machines are steady. You could tell the mechanism was still running, but you also couldn't help wondering if the core component was about to burn out. Hedwig stood beside me, her gaze drifting once between Roy and Lan before she gave her blunt assessment.

"Morning. Roy looks like he's about to collapse." I shut my eyes briefly. Too pure. I was genuinely jealous of that kind of purity. Not because it was virtuous, but because it lets you take one sentence and kick all the ambiguity and social varnish right off the table. Hedwig wasn't blind; she just hadn't gone there. So from her, the line was clean, not dirty—pure, distilled destruction. Roy looked up at her. His face stayed surprisingly calm. Calm enough that I almost applauded.

When your state is obviously not great and a colleague says "you look like you're about to collapse" to your face, and you can still keep your expression at I accept reality but am not offering commentary, that level of composure is practically religious.

"I'm fine," Roy said. His voice was lower than usual, like he'd spent the night in an extended, highly draining private debate. Lan stepped in next to him, delivering the second half of the sentence with perfect timing.

"Just a bit busy in the night," she said. The sentence itself was harmless. The problem was who said it, how she said it, and what she was still holding—the little paper bag, the bleary finance officer who looked like a conifer they'd wrung the sap out of overnight. I looked at the bag. At Roy. Then, in a shining moment of self-preservation, I turned my line of sight toward safer objects. Like the tips of Hedwig's hair. The "Visitors Must Register" sign beside the gate. The sky, in case it was planning to snow.

The abstract virtue of not sticking my nose in. Right then, our other assigned partner for the day appeared. Light, quick footsteps—someone worried about being late but also about running loud enough to embarrass themselves. A small boy appeared at the edge of our vision. Uniform perfect, coat buttoned to the top, scarf tucked neatly under the collar, the whole person looking like he'd been cut out of an illustration labeled "Model Student Appearance, Male."

He was short, shoulders narrow, haircut regulation, the kind of fringe that made you suspect he measured it. Wire-rimmed glasses fogged slightly at the edges from the cold. He held a clipboard tight, his right index finger resting along the metal clip edge like he was afraid it might bolt. He stopped two steps away from us, nodded first at Hedwig, then separately at me and the night shift pair, so proper I half expected him to start singing the school anthem.

"Yamada—at your service." Oh. There's texture to that. I stamped him in my head immediately. That kind of self-introduction carried its own unnecessary but extremely useful weight. Not the kind of affectation that made you roll your eyes—just very typical of someone so afraid of making mistakes that he'd mentally format his name before saying it out loud. Hedwig nodded back. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Hedwig. I'm paired with you today."

"Yes, ma'am." His back went even straighter.

"Please take care of me." That yes was clean—like it had just been rinsed in cold water. I couldn't help looking at him a little longer. He was interesting. Not because he had any protagonist glow, but because he clearly belonged to the type who would copy the handover notes out into three times the original length. The type who, even if only pulled in as temporary labor, would still treat it like a civil service exam.

Schools like this only survive because kids like this keep silently bolting the loose pieces back on. Lan's eyes flicked over to Yamada. Her smile deepened, just a hair.

"Good boy." He flinched. Not with pride. With what did I do wrong reflex. Too honest. Honest enough that you could tell if they ever sent him to clean up after the school's mistakes, he'd just say "Understood" and save the stomachache for nighttime.

"Let's hand over," Roy said. Thank every god. Finally, someone willing to pull the morning away from the very dangerous, I-might-learn-too-much direction and back toward the track. We moved closer to the security office. The iron gate stood open, letting the cold wind blow straight in, making the notices on the wall tremble. The kettle they'd used last night still sat in the corner, the inner windows clouded with a thin ghost of condensation, like someone had stayed long enough for the air to remember.

Roy set the keys on the desk.

"Gate opened at 0620. Did one lap; exterior's clear. False alarm at 0230 in the east corridor. Window frames contracted from the cold, reed switch connection unstable. Logged." Yamada immediately dropped his head and started writing. He wrote so fast it made me feel vaguely ashamed—some people took notes like they were transcribing divine revelation, others like they were scratching a countdown until they could clock out. I was firmly in the latter camp.

Hedwig asked, "We checking the false alarm point again this morning?"

"Recommended," Roy said.

"Sun will hit it; might be fine, might yell again."

"Got it." Her voice was flat. Yamada muttered under his breath as he wrote, "East corridor window frames, reed switch, re-check in the morning…" The more I listened, the more he sounded like a low-spec recorder. A very diligent recorder. Lan set the little paper bag on the desk and peeled a sticky note from the logbook.

"And this," she said.

"I sorted last night's consumables." I stared at the word consumables and fell silent for two full seconds. The scariest things in the world aren't crass jokes. They're administrative euphemisms for them. Consumables. From Lan's mouth, the word landed perfectly. As if the little bag from yesterday had never been the origin of anything messy, but had always been a simple item in the "used, to be accounted for" column of the duty inventory. Being able to package private embarrassment as professional vocabulary is…

advanced. And a bit cursed. I decided that from now on, I should avoid sharing early mornings, on an empty stomach, with my defenses down, in the same physical space as Lan. Hedwig clearly didn't notice the twist. She just made a simple "oh." Yamada glanced at the sticky note, then at the bag, and very impressively only wrote down what was actually on the paper. If this kid manages to graduate alive from campus politics, he'll go far. I suddenly respected him a little. Not because he was particularly brilliant.

Because he had a basic survival instinct: Knowing which information, while visible, should never be filed into long-term storage. The rest of the handover went quickly. Night shift said what needed saying, day shift wrote what needed writing, and the leftovers were the kind of trivialities that keep a school from tipping over: visitor log pages, a latch at the side gate getting loose, directing any work crews to the north side, not touching the main heating switch too early, etc.

But it was exactly these things that kept a place at functioning instead of simply appearing to function. When it was over, Roy visibly exhaled. Barely. You wouldn't notice if you weren't watching. But I saw it. Like he'd finally disembarked from some ship that had inexplicably been tearing through dark waters all night and set foot back on land. Not that land meant mercy—Lan was right there, composed as ever, like last night had just been the two of them cross-checking a stack of papers.

"We'll head back," Lan said.

"Mm." Hedwig answered, then added, with disarming honesty, "Roy, get some sleep." That sentence almost made me drag her straight to apply for a Still Possesses Goodwill Toward the World commendation. Too direct, too genuine. Roy blinked, then nodded.

"Okay." Lan looked at Hedwig and smiled.

"Don't worry. I'll make sure he rests." I almost choked on the cold air. Felony. That was a crime. Not legally. Socially. The kind that should be written into the school regulations as an addendum, banning excessively mature statements before 0700 in the presence of colleagues who have not yet rebooted their internal firewall. I turned my head, pretending to examine the frost on the pavement. Hedwig just nodded seriously.

"Good." … Good. Some of the scariest conversations in the world aren't the ones where everyone understands. They're the ones where someone doesn't, and still responds perfectly. Lan clearly found that answer satisfying. She hooked the bag back over her fingers and shot me a quick wink. Light, almost nothing—but I still felt it. It was a very precise little signal: you didn't ask, which was smart; but I also know exactly how much you saw. I couldn't help being impressed. Some people belong at lecterns.

Some belong behind desks. And some people are born just to stand at a gate on a winter morning, a tiny paper bag in hand, and make other people's consciences and imaginations both lose ten degrees. By the time Roy and Lan left, the sky was lighter. Morning light hit the building facades, white and cold. Roy walked ahead, his gait steady but carrying that restrained, battle-scarred quality. Lan moved beside him, unhurried, like the actual clean-up shift had fallen on her.

I watched for two seconds and then actively deleted the image. Some things, knowing is enough. Some scenes only get in the way of breakfast.

"Vice President." Yamada's voice snapped me back. I turned and found him with his clipboard, watching me very seriously, like he was deciding whether to speak in front of someone who wasn't his actual partner.

"Yeah?"

"Um…" He drew a breath, his fingertip rubbing the metal edge of the clip, like searching for grip.

"If a parent and a contractor arrive at the same time in the morning, do we follow the order of registration, or judge by necessity of entry?" I blinked. That was a very practical question. Also exactly the kind of thing only someone who actually intended to do the work would think about ahead of time. Before I could answer, Hedwig had already turned to him.

"Necessity first," she said.

"But don't say that out loud." He froze. I almost laughed. That was classic Hedwig. Principle clear, reality clear, and the packaging for reality clearly handled by the same mouth. It's not hypocrisy. It's school survival science. The system's dignity survives on sentences like that.

"On the surface, everything follows procedure," I added.

"In practice, we look at who's actually stuck. If parents are just dropping things off, they'll live if they wait. If a truckload of equipment is blocking traffic outside and you make them wait, the whole school will be waiting later." Yamada listened closely and jotted it down.

"Understood."

"And," I added, looking at how he was scribbling every word like he was taking dictation from the gods, "you don't have to write everything like it's a will. It's just a day shift. You're not going off to have a monument built in your honor." He looked up, clearly not expecting that, the tips of his ears colouring slightly.

"Yes—no, sorry. It's a habit."

"It's a good habit," Hedwig said. Her tone stayed even—no sugar added—but Yamada's spine straightened a little more, like he'd just been re-calibrated. In that instant, I understood—this kid wasn't the type to be moved by passion. What he needed was a plain okay from above. After that, he'd quietly push things past the minimum line on his own. Simple. And useful. The useful type that looked brittle but actually held up under long-term use.

I suddenly felt a twinge of pity for anyone planning to cause trouble at the gate today. They'd hit Hedwig first, then discover that the slight, glasses-wearing boy next to her—who looked like he belonged in a records office—could coordinate logbook, timing, procedure, and pressure very effectively. The combination wasn't flashy. It was just hard to get past.

"I'm heading out," I tugged my gloves tight.

"Ping me if something explodes." Hedwig turned to me.

"You're going back?"

"What else?" I said.

"I'm not on today. What, should I stand around to see if Roy ascends on the spot?" Hedwig actually thought about it.

"I don't think he will," she said.

"... Thank you for your professional assessment." She nodded lightly, as if she really was just offering a factual correction. Sometimes I really admired that cleanness in her. Clean enough that even sarcasm, when it landed on her, had some of its edges filtered out first, leaving only the blunter, less threatening layer. Standing close to her made the world seem simpler. That was dangerous, and also comfortable. The morning wind cut through again, mussing a few strands of hair at her temple.

I reached out on instinct and brushed them back behind her ear. The motion was already in progress before I caught up with myself. Hedwig looked at me. She didn't pull back; she just blinked once. Her lashes were almost colourless, standing out more sharply in the cold light. For a moment, the air went a little too still—even Yamada beside us seemed to instinctively shrink his breathing. I coughed and drew my hand back.

"It was messy," I said.

"Mm." She answered, "Thank you." Her voice was as flat as always. But for some reason, that "mm" fell heavier than the wind. Annoying. Someone who can put gratitude across like it's the most natural thing in the world is harder to guard against than someone being deliberately ambiguous. I looked away and swung back onto the bike. Yamada was still standing there with his clipboard, looking like he was still deciding what his next move should be. In the end, he did the smart thing and gave me another small nod.

"Vice President, ride safe."

"You too." The second it left my mouth, I frowned at myself. Yamada looked like he wanted to laugh, but decided it wasn't dignified at a duty post this early. He forced it back, pressing his mouth into a line. That effort actually made him look a little more alive—less like a laminated poster for "Model Conduct," more like a person. Good. That's how it should be. You need a little roughness to be worth using. I started the engine. The sound cut sharp and clear in the cold.

The gate was open, the day's duty officially beginning. Hedwig stood by the entrance, Yamada flipping pages at her side. Their shadows stretched across the ground in the slanting light, tall and short—a temporary staffing arrangement written too conscientiously, but holding the field anyway. I took one last look as I rode out. And, for no good reason, thought— The day is long. And tonight, it's my turn with Freya Nikaido.... Fantastic.

Morning had only just started, and the night's bad mood was already making reservations in my stomach. I turned the bike straight, gliding down streets that still hadn't fully woken up. The cold slid in at my cuffs, clearing my head and making me want to swear. And yet, in that chill, I suddenly remembered Hedwig's soft "thank you," and the way her hair had felt when I brushed it back. And I couldn't even muster a proper curse. —You really shouldn't be too kind to quiet people on winter mornings.

It's asking for trouble.