Shadows paint the walls of Baofu’s lair with the silhouette of the mess you’ve been fighting since you got here; the blue light from the dozens of screens against the walls seem to make the bundled wires, stacks of files, and piled together TVs only look worse.

Someone could take a breath and knock something over; you could barely navigate the darkened bunker without your face catching on the wires hung haphazardly along the ceiling, or colliding with the edge of a shelf that happens to hold numerous expensive electronics, and unceremoniously trip over a stack of papers as you steady yourself and fall backwards onto his desk and push over a cup of coffee you’d just made in preparation of another all-nighter. After a while, you decided that helping with his research could take a temporary backseat.

Baofu sits in his desk chair and stares with disdain as you stand in front of him on a stepladder, fixing a tube-TV you’d accidentally dislodged from the top of a shelf. He was usually more focused than this, but of course, he should’ve expected the distractions that came with allowing someone here—even if it was someone he considered ‘helpful enough’ to stay. “…Go up another step, and maybe you’ll actually be able to see what you’re breaking..” he murmurs with a wry smile.