Chapter 70: After Marin-sensei’s Apology

Marin-sensei was on the verge of sobbing, and I was starting to feel completely shaken too. I had to calm the situation down somehow. Looking around, every single older woman in the room had gone pale. Even though I kept telling them it was fine.

"In any case, I accept your apology. I’ll pretend I never heard what was said earlier, so please stop apologizing. I’m begging you!"

I lowered my head as well. Perhaps because I bowed, the Chief of the Accounting Bureau panicked and quickly said,

"Since even Robin-sama is saying so, let’s end this here. Brand, you clearly won’t be able to work today, so go home. Go home and reflect carefully on what you did and how Robin-sama responded."

"...Yes."

Marin-sensei kept her head down, tidying up the documents on her desk while a single tear fell onto it with a soft plop. Then she left the room. During all that time, no one said a word.

"Robin-sama, how would you like to proceed? If your feelings have been hurt, you are free to go home," the Chief asked me.

"If everyone else is okay with it, I’d like to continue working," I replied, looking back and forth between the Chief and Christine-san with a smile. I made sure to clearly signal I am not upset at all. If I left now, it would probably be taken as me being offended.

"Understood. Then, McVie, would you work with Robin-sama?"

"Yes, I’d be happy to."

Christine-san turned toward me with a smile and said, "Please come this way," and guided me. Her desk was a little distance away from Marin-sensei’s, located in the corner of the room. It was noticeably wider than Marin-sensei’s, and the mountain of documents piled on it was enormous.

"Please have a seat here."

The chair she indicated was much better than Marin-sensei’s. We sat facing each other.

"Then, could you please check the calculations on these documents?" she said, handing me a stack. Looking at the handwriting, it was clearly Marin-sensei’s. Was Christine-san checking Marin-sensei’s calculations?

While I was working on the numbers, Christine-san passed me a slip of paper. On it was written:

Thank you very much for earlier. I will speak firmly with Brand.

I added underneath it:

No no, it was nothing major. It wasn’t something to make such a big fuss over.

Christine-san then wrote:

That’s not true. Speaking abusively to a member of the royal family—to a prince, no less—face to face can, depending on the situation and the other party, even become a matter of life and death.

Is it really that serious? I thought, looking at her face. She gave a serious nod.

I get told things like that all the time though, I added.

After reading it, Christine-san made a troubled expression and wrote:

Those are probably said in whispers or as rumors, right? Saying it directly to someone’s face is completely different.

I was starting to feel exasperated and wrote:

I understand. In any case, please treat this as if nothing happened and nothing was said. I’m planning to keep coming here to work, so I don’t want any lingering resentment.

Christine-san traced the tears at the corners of her eyes with her finger and wrote:

Thank you. I am truly grateful.

So I wrote back:

Let’s end this here. Shall we get back to work?

After reading that, Christine-san reached out, took my hand, and squeezed it tightly. She then bowed her head. Her rich brown hair spread across the desk.

While the sounds of work continued around us, Christine-san kept holding my hand without moving. When she finally raised her face, her deep green eyes were sparkling.

After that, we started working properly. Marin-sensei’s calculations had quite a few mistakes. There were always one or two errors per sheet. I passed them to Christine-san for correction, and we repeated the process. Gradually we found a rhythm, and the mountain of documents on the desk began to shrink. Once Marin-sensei’s handwriting disappeared and we moved on to documents written by other people, the number of mistakes dropped sharply—maybe one per sheet, if any. Seeing this, I couldn’t help thinking that Marin-sensei really was quite hopeless. She must have always had her mistakes pointed out by Christine-san, building up frustration, and then exploded when someone she thought was even more incompetent than her (me) pointed out her errors. I could understand it so well. I only felt sympathy.

While thinking about that, the work progressed smoothly. The chance to look at Christine-san’s cleavage was gone now, but I didn’t mind and just kept checking the documents. At some point, I noticed Christine-san was looking at my face.

"Roby-sama, please come over here. There’s something I’d like to explain," she said, beckoning me to sit beside her. I lifted my chair and moved next to her.

"What is it?"

When I looked at her face, Christine-san silently shook her head. Under the desk, she took my hand and squeezed it tightly, then guided it toward her stomach. Ugh, I wish she’d guided it to her chest, but of course that would be visible to everyone around us.

She brought her mouth close to my ear and whispered,

"This is only a small token of my apology. I’m not sure if it counts as proper atonement, but I’m sorry that it’s from a woman of my age."

She lifted the side of her skirt up to her waist. Her bare legs came into view. Then she guided my hand underneath. At that point, I had no choice but to move forward. After she’d gone this far, hesitating would be ridiculous.

I slowly advanced my hand and felt the touch of strings. Christine-san is wearing string panties instead of pumpkin pants!? I thought about loosening the strings and looked at her face. She gave a small nod, so I pulled the string. Holding the end, I slowly drew it out from under her skirt. What a lewd sight! I left the string dangling visibly and slipped my hand back under her skirt. I moved gradually inward along the base of her thigh. It was truly a shame that I couldn’t see anything.

Looking at Christine-san’s face, she clearly didn’t want to be doing this—her brows were furrowed and her eyes were slightly moist. But my hand didn’t stop. My fingertips smoothly advanced and finally touched the soft hair clinging to her skin. Finally! The slightly coarse feeling was indescribable. I stroked it with my fingers, savoring the texture, then moved downward. Sliding along her skin, I finally reached the depression.

Here it is! Right here!

The moment I thought that, my wrist was grabbed. When I looked at Christine-san, she was shaking her head with teary eyes. The atmosphere clearly said Please forgive me already!

I felt some regret, but there was nothing more we could do in a place like this, so I withdrew my hand.