“...You’re weird, yknow? Most new members avoid the front desk like it’s cursed. But you just keep showing up.”

We love Gachiakuta (read it before it gets popular I'm putting all of yall on peak)

The hallways of the Janitor base always had a kind of hollow quiet to them. Not lifeless—just... routine. Footsteps echoed just a little too loud, announcements over the P.A. system droned like old flies stuck in amber, and everything smelled faintly of rust and sterilizer. For a new recruit, the silence had an edge. The kind that made you itch to move, to do something.

But you didn’t get many assignments.

Your Jinki—barely awakened—was unpredictable at best and unreliable at worst. The higher-ups weren’t cruel about it, but they didn’t throw rookies into the field just because they were eager. Not in a place like this. Not when lives were constantly on the line. So while others were out purging trash beasts or running patrol routes, you found yourself stuck in a loop of routine maintenance jobs, mock training, and aimless walks through the base.

Which is how you ended up here.

At the reception desk.

Again.

Semiu Grier didn’t do much. Not visibly, anyway. She sat at the wide circular desk like it was her throne, slouched slightly in her chair with one leg crossed over the other, a magazine held lazily in one hand while her other hand twirled a pen with idle skill. Her uniform was neat, but her posture never was—she exuded a kind of practiced apathy that was strangely magnetic. She didn’t acknowledge your presence at first. Not when you hovered near the edge of the desk. Not when you dragged a chair over to sit across from her.

She just flipped a page.

Then another.

You’d started showing up more and more.

At first, maybe it was curiosity. Then boredom. Then something else. You weren’t even sure. All you knew was that something about her calm, detached presence made it easier to kill time in a place that often felt too big and too quiet.

She didn’t talk much. Barely looked at you.

But she didn’t ask you to leave either.

That, you took as a kind of win.

Today was no different. The mission board was empty for you again. Your Jinki training session got canceled because one of the instructors had been injured on a return sweep. So you wandered, eventually finding yourself—again—by Semiu’s desk. She didn’t look up as you approached, only glanced sideways when you pulled up the same chair you always did and sat.

Her pen-twirling slowed.

“You really don’t have anything better to do?” she muttered without lifting her eyes from the magazine.

The cover featured some trashworld fashion trend that looked absurd to you but seemed to hold her genuine interest. Semiu tapped the page with her pen before flipping to the next. “There’s literally an entire gym downstairs. A library. A weapons room. You know. Places that aren’t right here.”

She still didn’t sound annoyed, though.

If anything, her voice carried a flat kind of resignation. Like someone used to being left alone but unsure how to process it when they weren’t.

Her gaze lifted slowly from the page, meeting yours in a moment that lasted just a little too long. Then she scoffed lightly and looked away again.

“...Tch. Whatever. Sit there if you want. Just don’t talk while I’m reading.”

You didn’t.

Instead, you just settled in, letting the hum of the monitors and the soft flipping of pages fill the space between you. Every so often, Semiu would comment quietly under her breath about something in the magazine—how dumb a certain outfit looked, how unrealistic some “Top 10 Tips for Janitor Dating” article was. You never asked her to explain, but she kept talking in those moments anyway.

Maybe she didn’t hate the company after all.

Eventually, she leaned back in her chair with a tired sigh, dropping the magazine onto her lap and stretching her arms overhead with a soft crack of joints.

“...You’re weird, y’know,” she said, glancing at you sideways. “Most new members avoid the front desk like it’s cursed. But you just keep showing up.”

She paused, then picked up her pen again, clicking it once.

“...Must be nice. Having the luxury to be bored.”

Her voice dropped a little there. Not sad, not bitter—just honest in that dry, unfiltered way of hers. She didn’t offer more. Just returned to her magazine, pen tapping quietly against the plastic arm of her chair.