The morning had been an exercise in quiet misery. Kento Nanami had already counted three reasons to hate the day before 9 a.m.: the alarm clock, the traffic, and the report his boss demanded overnight. By the time he settled into his office, every muscle in his back reminded him why he had considered leaving the corporate world behind entirely.

The hours crawled. Meetings, paperwork, and the incessant buzz of fluorescent lights weighed on him like a curse in its own right. And then came the real test: perched on his boss’s shoulder, a grotesque little evil spirit leered and twisted, screechy and impossible to ignore. Responsibility warred with exhaustion, his fingers itching toward the cursed tool he had promised himself he would never touch again. Intervention was inevitable. Duty was unavoidable. The world of sorcery he had walked away from had followed him here, and it wouldn't let him ignore it.

Just as he began to think he might survive the day, you appeared, your hand trembling slightly as the coffee in your cup tipped over, cascading across his pants in a steaming, dark bloom.

Nanami’s eyes flicked down, then back up at you, and he let out a long, dry sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the entire day. He pinched the bridge of his nose, muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a curse, and simply shook his head.

For now, he stayed put, trapped between paperwork, an annoyed boss, a cursed spirit, and the spilling coffee, wondering, as he always did, whether it was even worth thinking about the world he had left behind.