My Elf Girl is a Mafia Boss?!

5| AKI

The lights hummed overhead, a dull, persistent drone that burrowed into my skull like a drill. My fingers ached from gripping the pen too tightly, the ink smudged where my palm had dragged across the page in frustration. The numbers blurred. The columns refused to align. The spreadsheet was a living, breathing enemy, and I was losing the fight. A freaking overpowered boss.

“What the f**k is this?”

The words slammed into the room like a physical blow. My boss—Mr. Shinichiro, a man whose presence alone made the air thicken with tension—stood at the head of the conference table, his face twisted in disgust. His tie was slightly askew, his hair thinning at the crown, but none of that mattered when his voice cracked like a whip. The stack of papers in his hand trembled before he hurled them across the table.

“Revise!”

The papers scattered, some sliding off the edge, others landing in a disheveled pile in front of a junior analyst—Hinamori, I think her name was. The kid didn’t even flinch. She just bowed her head, murmured a quick “Hai, sumimasen,” and scooped up the mess before disappearing out the door like a ghost.

I exhaled through my nose, watching the scene unfold with the detached numbness of someone who had been in her shoes too many times to count.

Back when I was still fresh out of college, bright-eyed and stupid enough to think hard work would be rewarded, Shinichiro had dumped an entire quarter’s worth of financial reconciliations on my desk at 16:59 on a Friday. “Have it by Monday. No excuses.” I’d pulled three all-nighters, surviving on vending machine coffee and the kind of instant ramen that tasted like regret. When I’d turned it in, proud despite the dark circles under my eyes, he’d glanced at the first page, sneered, and tossed the whole stack back at me. “Sloppy. Do it again.”

That was the day I learned that perfection wasn’t the goal—control was. And Shinichiro loved reminding us that we had none.

“Hey, haven’t you heard about Mr. Shinichiro and Melanie?”

The whisper slithered over my shoulder, low and conspiratorial. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t need to. The voices belonged to two of the accounting girls—Yuki and Miki, maybe? They always sat together at lunch, giggling over celebrity gossip like it was a competitive sport.

“Oh, yeah. One of the interns saw them in his office last night. Door was cracked open, and—” A dramatic pause. “Let’s just say his desk isn’t just for paperwork.”

A snort. “No way. That old bastard? He’s got, like, three kids and a wife who looks like she irons his socks for him.”

“I know, right? But apparently, Melanie’s been ‘helping’ him with his stress management for months. Just wait until his wife finds out. That’s gonna be a show.”

“Eh, not our problem. Let them implode. I’m just here for the paycheck.”

“True. But still—perfectionist my ass. Dude’s a cheating, hypocritical—"

I tuned them out.

It wasn’t that I cared about Shinichiro’s marital problems. Hell, I didn’t care about anyone’s problems. But the way they talked about it—like it was entertainment, like real lives were just another episode in their soap opera—made my skin crawl.

I wasn’t like them. I didn’t participate.

I was a shadow. A ghost in the machine. The guy who showed up, did his work, and vanished before anyone could remember his name. No drama. No entanglements. Just the grind.

And right now, the grind was winning.

The numbers on my screen swam. My eyes burned. The clock in the corner taunted me: 18:47. I’d been at this for twelve hours straight, and the only thing keeping me upright was the promise of escape.

Just finish this. Then you can go home. Then you can log in.

The thought of it—of slipping into the familiar weight of EmberSythe’s cloak, of the hum of the game world, of the way the air itself felt lighter when I was there—was the only thing keeping me from face-planting onto my keyboard.

I forced myself to move. My fingers danced across the keyboard, each keystroke a precisely placed note in a symphony of spreadsheets and statistical models. Double-checking, triple-checking, quadruple-checking. Every decimal point, every comma, every glorious, perfect equation. No room for error. Not on my watch. Not after that debacle last quarter. Shinichiro was going to get the report of a lifetime.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity spent wrestling with algorithms and the existential dread of a misplaced minus sign, I was done. I pushed my chair back with a groan, my spine protesting with a sound of pops and cracks that would make a seasoned chiropractor weep with joy. A good stretch, a deep breath, and a mental pat on my own back for a job impeccably done. Time to present my masterpiece.

I padded down the hallway, the familiar scent of office stale coffee and desperation clinging to the air. Shinichiro’s door was slightly ajar, his usual booming “Enter!” swallowed by the thick, soundproofed walls that were supposed to foster productivity but mostly just amplified the awkward silences. I nudged the door open, a triumphant smirk already forming on my lips, ready to bask in the glow of his inevitable admiration.

And then I froze.

The air… it was… weird. Not just office-weird, but a whole new category of peculiar. It was thick, cloying, and carried a distinct, almost viscous aroma that tickled the back of my throat. And then there were the sounds. Wet. Sloppy. Like a herd of hyppos attempting synchronized swimming in a vat of pudding. My eyes, trained to spot the slightest anomaly in a data set, immediately began scanning the room, trying to pinpoint the source of this auditory assault.

My gaze landed, with growing suspicion, on Shinichiro’s desk. He was seated, as usual, behind his imposing mahogany fortress, looking for all the world like a benevolent, if slightly portly, monarch. But there was something… more. Something decidedly un-monarchical happening beneath the surface. Or rather, beneath the desk surface.

My brain, immediately went into damage control mode. Act indifferent, it commanded. Pretend you heard nothing. Just deliver the report. This is your moment. Don’t let… whatever that is… derail you. Easier said than done, brain. Much, much easier said than done. Especially when the symphony of squelching noises was now escalating, punctuated by what sounded suspiciously like… muffled grunts of exertion.

This was a situation that required a delicate touch, a carefully calibrated performance of ignorance. I plastered on my most neutral, professional mask, the one I usually reserved for dealing with particularly obtuse spreadsheets. I took a deep, steadying breath through my nose, trying to filter out the… aroma.

And then, with a sickening lurch of my stomach, the full, horrifying realization hit me. It wasn't just "weird." It was specifically weird. It was the kind of weird that involved a distinct, unmistakably… wetness. And the sounds… oh, the sounds. They were the kind of sounds that could only be produced by… well, let's just say a very enthusiastic, very dedicated recipient of… oral s*x.

My mind, despite its best efforts, flashed an image, sharp and vivid, of Melanie. Melanie, who, in my current, deeply unfortunate predicament, I could only describe, with a level of charitable inaccuracy, as… the w***e. Because frankly, with the sounds emanating from under Shinichiro's desk, there was no other polite way to frame the situation.

The image solidified: Melanie. Sucking. Shinichiro's. d**k.