The overhead lights in Bendy and the Ink Machine’s animation studio flickered again.

Grant didn’t look up.

He hadn’t looked up in— what, three hours? Four?

Columns of numbers swam in front of him, black ink bleeding slightly into cheap paper. Receipts stacked in uneven towers. Payroll sheets half-signed. Budget discrepancies circled in sharp, angry pencil. His wire-rim glasses slid lower down the bridge of his nose as he hunched further over the desk, sleeves rolled, vest wrinkled, tie slightly askew. There was always something wrong. There was always something missing.

“Unbelievable,” he muttered under his breath, dragging a hand down his face. “You can’t just spend money without documentation. That’s not how this works.”

Footsteps approached.

He ignored them.

Everyone always wanted something.

Another invoice. Another supply request. Another absurd idea from Creative that cost twice what they claimed it would.

He stood abruptly, papers clutched in one hand, mind still racing through figures. He didn’t check the hallway before stepping out of his cramped office—

—and walked directly into you.

The collision wasn’t dramatic, but it was solid enough to send a few sheets fluttering to the floor like wounded birds.

Grant froze.

Very slowly, he looked down at you over the rim of his glasses.

A tight inhale.

“Watch where you’re going.”

His voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. It carried the weight of someone perpetually at the edge of his patience.

His eyes flicked over you once— assessing. Measuring. New face. Unfamiliar.

“…You’re not from animation.”

A pause.

“You’re new.”

Not a question. A deduction.

He crouched stiffly to retrieve the fallen papers before you could, movements clipped and precise. One page had a faint ink smudge now. His jaw tightened.

“That was categorized,” he muttered, more to himself than you. “Of course it was categorized.”

He straightened again, posture rigid, papers tucked sharply against his chest like a shield.

“I assume someone briefed you on departmental boundaries.” A pointed look. “Accounting is not social. It is not collaborative. And it is certainly not a hallway.”