Chapter Text
My pussy tastes like Pepsi cola
My eyes are wide like cherry pies
I got sweet taste for men who are older
It's always been so, it's no surprise
"Seriously, you are the absolute worst! I swear to God, sometimes I just want to drag you by your hair!" Sarah’s voice blasted through your wireless earbuds, easily competing with the roar of the morning traffic.
You couldn't even answer her right away. You were way too busy trying to keep your lungs from collapsing while dodging a businessman on the sidewalk and hitching your backpack strap higher up on your shoulder.
"Sarah... shut up... I'm literally... dying!" you managed to gasp out, stopping for a split second at a red light to catch your breath. You leaned forward, hands on your knees, feeling your feet protest inside your boots. They were a cheap thrift-store find—the kind that looked incredibly chic but absolutely destroyed your heels in return. "I'm running late. If you keep lecturing me, I'm gonna show up smelling like pure sweat on my first fucking day."
"Well, you honestly deserve it!" your best friend shot back. "I told you a thousand times I could lend you my car. Hell, I literally wanted to give it to you for your birthday and you basically spat in my face! Just let me help you, damn it."
You smiled to yourself, straightening up and rushing across the street the second the light changed. Sarah had a heart of gold, but she just didn't get it. She had been lucky enough to get adopted by a family with a bank account full of zeroes. You, on the other hand, had been left in that orphanage corner since you were six, learning the hard way that in this world, nobody gives you anything for free without wanting something in return later. This entry-level job at the DSO was yours. You had earned it all on your own, and it was going to pay every single cent of the rent for your awful, noisy apartment.
"I already told you no, babe. My pride isn't up for negotiation," you replied, softening your tone as the massive, reinforced doors of the DSO headquarters came into view. "Besides, I'm already here. Wish me luck."
"I'm wishing you a miracle so you don't get fired on day one. Call me at lunch, I want details!"
You ended the call with a little chuckle, slipping your phone into the pocket of your dark jeans. You gave your leather jacket a quick pat to smooth it out, ran your fingers through your hair to tame the absolute mess the wind had made of it, and stepped inside the building.
The main lobby of the DSO looked like something straight out of a multi-billion-dollar sci-fi movie. Everything was gleaming, everything was spotless, and the metal detector at the security checkpoint looked advanced enough to read your actual thoughts. Two massive, stone-faced guards checked you from head to toe. You handed over your temporary paperwork and, after a few minutes that felt like an eternity, one of them handed you a magnetic badge with your photo on it.
"Level-one employee ID, Archives sector. Welcome, miss," the guard said, his voice so monotonous it gave you literal chills.
"Thanks, officer. Nice uniform, by the way," you shot back with a playful smile before turning on your heel and walking toward the elevators.
It was right during that walk down the main hallway that you almost tripped over your own feet.
Your eyes went wide. An emergency alarm went off in your head, but not because of some bioterrorist threat—no, it was because of the absolute parade of men crossing the lobby. There were field agents in training wearing tight shirts that showed off some spectacular arms, tactical ops guys carrying heavy gear while laughing among themselves, and older, mature men in uniform who radiated a freaking sexy aura of authority.
You subtly slowed your pace, pulling out your phone at lightning speed to hit Sarah up on voice chat. You didn't care that you had just said goodbye; this was a national emergency.
"Sarah, cancel everything," you whispered, pressing the mic right against your lips while your eyes locked onto a blond guy from behind who had a perfect waist. "I think I died on the way here and my soul went straight to hot guy heaven. I am officially renaming this place the nest of the muscular Senpais. Oh my god, there’s one over to the right who looks like he could completely ruin my life with one hand. I need him to pin me against a wall, like, yesterday."
On the other end of the line, Sarah’s sudden burst of laughter almost deafened you.
"You are completely shameless!" your friend teased. "You literally just got your badge and you’re already picking out which soldier is going to break your back! Focus, please. You’re going there to clean old papers, not to audition for a strip club."
"A girl’s gotta eat, babe, and admiring the art is free," you replied with a massive grin, hitting the elevator button.
You said your actual goodbyes this time and stepped into the elevator cabin. Your destination wasn't on the upper floors where the sunlight streamed beautifully through the massive glass windows. Your destination was down. Way down.
The elevator descended further and further, letting out a metallic screech that made you whisper a quick prayer, until the doors finally slid open in the deepest basement of the DSO.
The moment you stepped out, the entire vibe changed. Forget high-tech and touchscreens. This was old school at its absolute finest. The air smelled of vintage paper, aged wood, and that light dust that only accumulates over decades. Stretched out in front of you were endless corridors flanked by colossal metal shelves that reached all the way to the ceiling, packed to the brim with folders, storage boxes, and yellowed documents that looked like they dated back to the nineties.
You walked over to a small wooden desk that held a warm desk lamp and a computer that looked like a literal dinosaur. Slipping your backpack off, you dropped it onto the floor and collapsed into the chair, letting out a heavy sigh.
You closed your eyes for a moment, listening to the absolute, suffocating silence of the room.
After a whole life of growing up in a chaotic, noisy orphanage where privacy simply didn't exist and you always had three kids screaming in your ear, and now living in a crappy apartment where you could hear your neighbors' fights through the paper-thin walls... this basement was pure heaven. It was massive, it was isolated, and most importantly, it was completely empty. Nobody was going to bother you down here.
"Alright, retro archives..." you muttered to yourself, switching on the desk lamp as you stretched your arms out. "Let's see what kind of secrets you're hiding."
The rest of your first day passed in a blessed, dusty blur of peace. By the time your shift ended, you realized that being buried in the most forgotten corner of the DSO was quite literally the best thing that had ever happened to you. Your only duties were to look after the place, keep it clean, and organize thousands of vintage files. It was a titanic task that would probably take months, but since they hadn’t given you a strict deadline, you could take your sweet time with it. The pay was ridiculously good for an entry-level position—more than enough to cover your rent without drowning in debt. You figured nobody in this branch actually wanted to spend their hours in a place like that, especially not at a high-profile agency like the DSO. Anyone applying here was aiming for action, not a boring, solitary, and monotonous gig in a basement, least of all someone your age.
And it wasn't that you lacked ambition; you just knew that starting small could eventually lead to bigger things.
You headed home that night with your clothes a bit dusty and your heels aching, but with a massive, satisfied smile on your face. You had officially found your sanctuary.
The next morning, it was a completely different story. This time, you didn't have to run like a monster was chasing you; you arrived perfectly on time.
"I’m telling you, Sarah, I walked out of there yesterday looking like I’d been digging up graves, but I’ve never felt this peaceful in my entire life," you murmured, keeping your hands tucked into your leather jacket pockets as you walked through the building's automatic glass doors.
"I’m glad, honestly. But I still think it’s a total waste for a girl with your potential to be locked away with dust mites," your friend’s voice chimed in through your earbuds.
"Dust mites don’t demand that I smile at them, babe," you replied with a little laugh, immediately dropping your voice the second you stepped into the main lobby. "Oh my god, wait... The morning shift is even better than the afternoon one. The Senpai near the main entrance with his back turned... Sarah, those shoulders look like they were sculpted by the gods themselves. I swear, if he turns around and looks at me, I am going to faint right here."
"You are a certified menace!" Sarah teased. "Keep moving before you get arrested for visual harassment."
You chuckled to yourself and approached the security checkpoint. To your surprise, the same serious, monotone guard from yesterday was at the desk. You offered him a completely effortless, dazzling smile as you swiped your badge through the scanner.
"Morning, officer. Looks like we survived another day in the system," you said, your tone practically singing.
The man, who looked like a literal military statue, stared at you for a split second. Then, he reached beneath the counter and hauled up a medium-sized cardboard box, which was pretty heavy judging by the thud it made when he set it down.
"Miss, this was left here for you. It’s office supplies and new labels for the Archives sector," he informed you in his usual gray, robotic voice.
"Oof, lifesaver," you sighed, adjusting your posture to cradle the heavy box in your arms. "Thank you so much. By the way, that haircut really suits you, it totally makes your eyes pop. Have a great day!"
You turned around with the box in your arms, but before you could even take three steps, you heard the guard freeze, clear his throat with obvious nervousness, and mutter a stiff, "You too, miss."
"You are honestly such a hoe," Sarah immediately declared over the line, having caught every single word. "The poor guy just wanted to hand you some labels and you already melted his brain. Aren't you supposed to be getting ready to work instead of flirting with everything that breathes?"
"Oh, come on, an innocent compliment never hurt anybody. I just made his morning a little brighter," you shot back playfully, dodging people as you made your way down the hallway.
"He could be married."
You let out a highly dramatic, disgusted noise.
"I highly doubt it. But if he is, you already know my golden rule. I don't go there. Absolutely off-limits."
"Hmm."
"Besides, shouldn't you be getting ready for a photoshoot instead of monitoring my entire life?"
"I have a two-hour break before I hit the set," Sarah replied, sounding incredibly smug. "So I have plenty of time to listen to how you're trying to get dicked down by half the DSO staff."
"Sarah!" you scolded, fighting back a loud laugh. "I am not that—"
You couldn't even finish the sentence. Your body slammed hard into what felt like an incredibly solid, massive wall of pure muscle, sending you stumbling backward. The impact caught you so off guard that your hands flew open, and you completely lost your grip on the box of supplies.
A gasped cry escaped your lips, your eyes snapping shut by pure instinct as you braced yourself for the loud crash of pens and labels scattering all over the polished floor.
However, the disaster never came. A large, firm hand gripped your forearm with bruising strength, stabilizing you in a single second before your boots could slip any further.
"Careful, kid. You need to look ahead when you walk," a deep, rough, and utterly masculine voice rumbled from right above you.
You opened your eyes and froze completely solid. The man holding your arm was fucking massive. He had short hair, an imposing jawline dusted with a few days of stubble, and a military posture that screamed "high command" from miles away. He was, without a doubt, the most rugged, mature, and breathtakingly hot specimen of a man you had ever seen in your entire life.
You stared at him completely starstruck, your mouth slightly open. You were so utterly hypnotized by his illegal features that your brain didn't even process how, or who, had saved your things from hitting the floor.
"I... I'm so sorry. I was distracted," you managed to get out, recovering your usual flirty spark even though your heart was hammering against your ribs. "Damn... I didn't know the DSO required a superhero body to get hired. Nice to meet you, I'm the new basement archivist."
You told him your name while Sarah let out a muffled, thrilled squeal in your ear: Oh my god, get it, girl! But you made a superhuman effort to ignore her.
The imposing, bearded man let go of your arm with professional ease, looking down at you with a mix of seriousness and a trace of amusement that never quite reached his lips.
"Chris Redfield," he introduced himself dryly, giving your shoulder a brief, almost paternal pat. "Keep your eyes on the road. The corners around here can be dangerous. Have a good day."
"A total pleasure, Chris Redfield," you replied with a radiant, playful smirk.
The man simply stared at you for a beat. You quickly stretched your arms out to grab the box being held out to you, tossing a brief, completely casual and uninterested thank-you into the air, directed at the anonymous person handing it over:
"Thanks for catching it," you said carelessly, spinning around on your heel to hurry toward the elevator.
The moment you stepped into the cabin and the metal doors slid shut, finally isolating you from the main hallway, your shoulders dropped and you leaned heavily against the elevator wall. A clean, loud laugh burst from your chest, filling the small space as you clutched the heavy box of supplies tight against your chest, barely holding in your excitement.
"Bitch, I swear to God I almost fainted right into his fucking arms!" you exclaimed into the mic, laughing at both the situation and your own sheer audacity. "You should have seen the size of that man. Hitting him was like slamming full speed into a concrete wall! God, it's so embarrassing, he definitely thinks I'm a total psycho."
On the other end of the line, Sarah was already losing her mind, completely infected by your wild energy. Her laughter was so loud you had to pull the mic a few inches away from your face.
"Because you are a literal psycho!" she managed to wheeze out between laughs, clapping in the background. "I swear I was holding my breath so I wouldn't scream with you. You said the superhero body thing right to his fucking face! You truly have zero shame, I swear."
"Hey, no risk, no reward," you shot back playfully, wiping a tear of laughter from your eye as the elevator began its slow descent into the basement. "Besides, you gotta admit it worked. At least Hercules knows I exist now."
"He knows a dangerous archivist who walks without looking ahead exists," Sarah corrected mockingly. "God, I can't with you. You're the best entertainment of my morning, seriously."
"Always at your service, my queen," you smirked with absolute satisfaction, feeling the elevator finally grind to a halt in your quiet, dusty haven. "Alright, I'm at my cave. I'll talk to you at lunch to see how your shoot is going. Don't go falling for any male models!"
"Same to you, don't go fucking the dust mites. Work hard, idiot!"
You ended the call with a massive grin and stepped out of the elevator, dragging your chic boots toward your desk. The first day had been peaceful, but day two was already promising to be unforgettable.
The rest of the morning dragged on between the absolute silence of the basement and the heavy scent of vintage paper. You locked yourself completely into your zone, letting the hours slip away as you emptied the new supply boxes left at the entrance and meticulously organized the oldest files. To make the tedious work a bit more bearable, you had tossed your phone onto the desk with the volume cranked all the way up, letting a random playlist fill the suffocating void of the basement.
By the time the late afternoon sun began to dip upstairs, you were completely in your element. You knew the layout of the shelves by heart, your boots had finally stopped bruising your heels, and the retro, dusty atmosphere felt incredibly cozy.
Suddenly, the opening chords of a song you absolutely loved started blasting through the phone's speaker. A sharp spark of pure energy shot straight down your spine. Clutching a thick, heavy folder against your chest and holding a pen in your hand, you started moving your feet to the rhythm, humming the lyrics under your breath as you swayed from side to side down the narrow, dusty aisles. You were so deep in your own world, thoroughly enjoying your absolute privacy and dancing like a complete idiot, that the rest of the universe simply ceased to exist.
You executed a playful, graceful spin on your heels to head back toward the main aisle and slot the folder into its place.
"FUUUCK!" The scream ripped straight out of your soul, high-pitched and fueled by pure, unadulterated terror.
Your hands reacted on pure reflex, flying wide open. The heavy folder you were holding went airborne, scattering a massive cloud of yellowed, fragile pages all over the floor before landing with a dull thud. You leaped backward, nearly tripping over your own fucking feet as you slammed both hands over your chest. You felt like you were on the literal verge of tears from the sudden rush of adrenaline, your heart battering against your ribs at a ridiculous, violent speed. You blinked rapidly, desperately trying to claw some air back into your lungs.
"Oh my God... Oh, shit, don't fucking do that... Jesus, you scared the absolute life out of me..." you whispered, your voice a shaky thread, your eyes wide with shock.
It was only then, as you forced your lungs to expand, that your vision finally focused on what was standing right in front of you.
Leaning with complete, nonchalant ease against the archive doorframe was a man, watching you in absolute, dead silence. He wore an impeccably tailored dark suit, a crisp, perfectly pressed white dress shirt, and a black tie that gave him an aura of taciturn, elegant, and dangerously clean authority. His dark blonde bangs fell slightly to the side, framing sharp, mature, and deeply exhausted features.
The man detached himself from the frame with an almost agonizingly slow, deliberate parsimony. He slid one hand into his dress pants pocket, breaking his rigid posture to slide effortlessly toward the center of the archive room. His polished dress shoes barely made a sound against the floor.
He scanned you with those piercing, cold blue eyes, pausing for a lingering second on the chaotic mess of yellowed papers you had dropped at your feet in your fright.
"Working completely alone in a basement full of forgotten files..." he began, his voice a slow, gravelly rasp—a fucking deep, rumbling baritone that instantly made the tiny hairs on the back of your neck stand straight up. "I figured you’d be used to ghosts by now."
An involuntary, breathless chuckle escaped your lips, bleeding a tiny bit of the tight tension from your shoulders, though your heart was still hammering a mile a minute. You quickly bent down to start gathering the scattered pages, desperately trying to mask the fact that you were losing your breath for the second time today—only this time, it had absolutely nothing to do with being scared.
Good God. Watching him walk beneath the warm, amber glow of your desk lamp, you realized the guy wasn't just handsome; he was so hot it was criminal. The suit molded to his frame flawlessly, emphasizing a pair of broad, powerful shoulders and a heavy posture of absolute dominance that made you swallow hard. Your internal "admiring the art is free" chip fired up at lightning speed.
"Ghosts don't look nearly this good, sir," you shot back, letting the compliment roll off your tongue almost automatically as you stood back up, holding the messy pile of papers against your chest.
However, the exact millisecond your eyes collided with his serious, unreadable stare, your nerves betrayed you. It hit you all at once: this was only your second day on the job, you had just been caught dancing around like a total lunatic, and this mature man with the imposing, terrifying boss vibe definitely didn't belong to the janitorial staff. Your professional, well-behaved low-level employee persona went into immediate, chaotic panic.
"I... I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting anyone down here," you stammered, clearing your throat in a desperate bid to sound sincere and formal as you adjusted the papers tightly against your chest. "The supervisor told me this sector barely gets any foot traffic. Are you looking for someone... or do you need help tracking down a specific file?"
The man didn't answer you right away. Instead, he took his sweet time, completely ignoring your questions to step a little further into your small sanctuary. He walked with a heavy, deliberate parsimony that made the hairs on your arms stand on end, his icy gaze sweeping over every single shelf before finally coming to a halt right next to your wooden desk. With an almost tortuosity-laced slowness, he stretched out one of his large hands and dragged the pads of two fingers across the surface, only to rub them together afterward to check for dust.
He tilted his head slightly to the side and arched a single brow, peering past the tall metal rows, entirely immersed in a sepulchral silence that was actively eating away at your nerves.
You, meanwhile, felt like you were going to literally melt on the spot. A sudden, intense wave of heat flooded up from your stomach straight to your cheeks, accompanied by a strange, electric tingling that pooled low in your lower back. Inside your mind, a chaotic, hilarious, and fucking filthy storm of thoughts broke loose. For the love of God, this man is easily twice my age, but he looks like he could fold me in half right on top of this desk. Your eyes locked onto his hands—they were massive, scarred, and ruggedly masculine, and you found yourself completely unable to look away. Your mouth felt pasty, dry, and slightly open, but no matter how hard your brain ordered you to spit out one of your typical flirty lines to break the tension, the words simply refused to form. You couldn't even understand why his mere presence had turned you into such a speechless, paralyzed idiot.
The stranger finally brought his inspection to an end, directing those incredibly heavy, freezing blue eyes back onto you.
"I see the dust mites haven't eaten you alive yet, at least," he let out, his voice a dry, ironic rasp, delivering a flat joke that felt almost like a reprimand. "It’s cleaner down here than I remembered."
"Huh?" you squeaked out like a total dumbass, blinking a couple of times before your brain could even begin to process his words.
You tried to react quickly, scrambling through your mental catalog for something witty to say to reclaim your lost dignity, but your nerves betrayed you completely. The words tripped all over your tongue, and you ended up blurting out the absolute first thing that crossed your mind:
"Yeah, sure, I can clean the dust mites off of you too if you want... I mean, no!" you immediately cut yourself off, your eyes snapping wide open as you felt your entire face catch fire. The whole sentence had come out sounding so horribly wrong, so incredibly messy, and with such a bizarrely sexual connotation that you tightly slammed the folder against your chest out of pure reflex. "I'm sorry... no, that's not what I meant to say at all. Apologies. God, that was so stupid."
The man said absolutely nothing. He simply remained standing right in front of you, his posture flawless inside his dark suit, observing your panic with an analytical, unbothered silence that only served to make you look even more guilty.
Dear diary, please let the ground swallow me whole and spit me back out at the orphanage, you begged internally, feeling your pride crumble into a million tiny pieces. This guy must think I am a completely dysfunctional, clueless little girl.
Making a superhuman effort to swallow your agonizing embarrassment, you took a deep, steadying breath and tried to piece your composure back together, forcing a more normal smile as you tried to play the part of an efficient employee.
"What I actually meant... is that yes, I've been taking care of cleaning and organizing everything I could since yesterday," you explained, your voice sounding a bit firmer now, even though the tone still trembled a tiny bit. "The supervisor asked me to keep the area neat, so... I've just been working on that."
The mysterious man let your clumsy clarification slide with a subtle, almost imperceptible nod of his head, finally breaking the silence that was actively killing you.
"I'm here for some specific records," he informed you in that same slow, clipped, and incredibly deep voice. "The Raccoon City Incident. 1998."
You couldn't even process the year or the name of the city in the paperwork. You were completely hung up on the raw vibration of his voice. It was so fucking raspy and heavy that it settled straight down into your womb, making you swallow with hard difficulty. Good God... if that’s how he talks just to ask for some dust-covered files, how the fuck must that voice sound in a bedroom, whispering things in your ear while he has you pinned against the sheets.
Your eyes inevitably drifted down his neck, anchoring on the perfect knot of his black tie. A wild, intrusive, and dangerously explicit thought crossed your mind all at once: you pictured him over you, jacket off, white dress shirt sleeves rolled up, and that exact same tie being used to bind your hands to the headboard while he did absolutely whatever he wanted with you.
Feeling the heat in your cheeks turn into a raging forest fire, you cleared your throat roughly as you realized you had gone completely frozen staring at his chest. Looking up, you collided directly with his blue eyes. The stranger was already watching you, waiting for an answer, and the sheer intensity of his unblinking stare sent you into an immediate panic.
"Right, yeah! Raccoon City... of course," you rushed out, tripping over your words a bit as you took a sharp step to the side to get out from behind your desk, letting the folder drop right onto it. "Sorry about the delay. I think I remember seeing a couple of boxes labeled with that name down the back aisle, in the nineties section. Follow me, please."
You spun around in a hurry to guide him through the narrow, dark metal corridors, internally begging your body to stop trembling before the imposing man walking right behind you noticed it.
You plunged into the labyrinth of shelving units, trying your absolute best to recall the layout you had memorized the day before. You really wanted to be useful to him. In your head, a man with that posture and that designer suit could only be a very high-level executive, someone with an incredibly packed schedule who probably charged by the minute. You couldn't fathom what a big fish like him was doing personally coming down to a forgotten basement instead of just sending an assistant, but you decided the best move was to solve his problem as fast as possible so he could leave.
"I’ve only been working here for two days, you know?" you explained aloud as you moved forward, trying to fill the sepulchral silence of the aisle. "I'm the only one in charge of organizing this entire sector. It’s still a complete mess, but I've been trying to sort the boxes chronologically so it's easier to find things."
Behind your back, the measured, slow echo of his footsteps rang out.
"There’s no rush," his gravelly, drawn-out voice rumbled right behind you, his tone so calm, deep, and utterly devoid of any urgency that it made you doubt your whole theory about him being in a hurry. The man walked with absolute patience, adapting himself completely to your slow pace.
You reached the back aisle, where the light flickered a little due to an old fluorescent tube, and you stopped in front of a section packed with gray boxes and faded labels. You stood up on your tip-toes, scanning the codes with a locked gaze, determined to find the exact 1998 Raccoon City record to prove to him that, despite your dancing and your tangled words, you actually took your job seriously.
"Here it is!" you exclaimed with a touch of triumph in your voice, halting in front of one of the highest shelves. You pointed to a gray box that had "Raccoon City - 1998" written across it in a black marker that was already nearly faded away. "Well... this is one of the main ones. I know there are a couple more. If you give me just a moment, I'll go grab the step ladder that's near the desk to reach them."
You spun around, ready to walk away, but the narrow, cramped space of the aisle forced you to stand almost completely face-to-face with him.
"I’ve got it," his deep, gravelly voice cut through your intentions before you could take a single step.
The stranger stepped forward, closing the distance between you in a way that forced you to suck in a sharp breath. He brushed right past you, and the scent of expensive cologne, light tobacco, and clean leather flooded your senses completely. Before your brain could even process his proximity, the man extended one of his arms, his dark suit sleeve pulling taut as he reached the highest shelf with an effortless, staggering ease that left you completely frozen.
Your eyes widened in absolute shock as you suddenly registered the abysmal difference in size between the two of you. You, who had been stretching yourself out on your tiptoes, barely reached past his shoulder. The guy was a literal wall of imposing physique. You watched the heavy muscles of his back and shoulders flex and tighten beneath the flawless fabric of his dark suit jacket as he supported the weight of the massive archival box with a single hand—doing it without a shred of effort, his breathing completely unbothered.
Any regular corporate office executive would have complained about the dust or hesitated before hauling something that heavy, but he did it with a brutal physical strength and dexterity that felt almost inhuman for a man in a tailored suit.
The man lowered the box with a slow, deliberate parsimony and took a few steps to place it onto a metal table near the end of the aisle. The heavy thud of the cardboard slamming against the metal broke the tight trance you had fallen into, making you blink rapidly.
You followed him immediately, positioning yourself right next to the table.
"Thank you," you said in a low voice, clearing your throat.
You tried to take advantage of how close he was to toss out one of your typical flirty, suggestive jokes—something to lighten the heavy atmosphere and give you back some control over the situation—but the exact second you opened your mouth, your brain completely glitched again. Nothing came out. You were left half-frozen, feeling your face catch fire all over again, so you had to bite down hard on your lower lip in pure internal frustration while tearing your eyes away to look at the cardboard package. Forcing yourself to focus on the actual work so you wouldn't keep looking like a total clown, you reached out and pulled open the box flaps, revealing the first batch of files from the year '98.
The stranger leaned forward slightly, casting a brief glance inside with those gélid, piercing blue eyes.
"This can't be everything," he stated in his usual flat, raspy tone, shifting his gaze up to lock onto yours.
"Uh... no, it's not," you replied, bringing a hand up to nervously scratch your nose as you glanced sideways along the rows of shelving. "There are actually a lot more documents regarding that year, but... they're scattered across the other sections. I'd have to go through the aisles one by one to gather them all for you."
The man straightened up to his full, towering height. He held your gaze with an intensity that sent a violent shiver down your skin while he processed your words.
"Yeah," he let out in a deep, drawn-out sigh. "I need it."
"Alright, let me see what I can pull from this one first," you replied, trying your absolute best to sound professional.
You extended your free hands into the box and selected the thickest folder you saw right on top, pulling it upward. However, before you could get a proper grip on it, the stranger moved. He extended one of his massive, scarred hands to help you support the weight of the heavy file, and it was in that exact millisecond that the warm light of the basement hit his fingers directly.
A sharp, silver gleam completely blinded your brain.
You froze petrified, your eyes snapping wide open and locking directly onto the base of his left ring finger. A perfect, polished, and gleaming wedding band stood out starkly against his skin.