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First Historian Yang Si-haeng was a generous man. He didn’t much care what other people got up to on their own time, as long as it was legal, or at least they weren’t likely to get caught, and as long as it didn’t make his life any more difficult. He ranted and raved at his subordinates sometimes, but then again, who didn’t? And he always apologized, or at least let them get off of work five minutes early the next day to get in front of those grabby clerks from the Royal Secretariat at the good bars. Besides, they knew he didn’t mean it, and even those who had transferred to other offices over the years kept coming back during the days to reminisce.
He was a good boss, and he knew it.
But some things made his blood boil.
He had sent Officer Goo for those records ten minutes ago, and he knew exactly where they were kept in the library. He saw them yesterday. It should be the work of one minute, maybe two, to grab them and bring them here.
Why didn’t he do it himself? Maybe because there was a stack of other records as tall as he was towering over his desk because someone had decided, on their first day back, to ask King Yi Jin a very complex problem about historical crop yields in Hanyang, which the King had seen fit to demand the First Historian answer himself in detail.
And of course it couldn’t be the other First Historian, the one who actually asked the question. No, it had to be poor old Yang Si-haeng who saw his entire workday flushed out because Min U-won had been bored in a shack for three years and had gotten curious.
It was good to have U-won back, really. The question was knotty and interesting and actually allowed him to flex his historical muscles. But it was also tedious, and he couldn’t do anything about it until he got those godforsaken records.
He considered telling U-won to just go find something for him, it was his request after all, but he wasn’t at his desk and if he was going to go find him he might as well find Officer Goo instead and make her do her work.
Well. Fine. Officer Goo had probably gone to the bathroom or something. He’d just do it his own self and yell at her later about it.
Officer Goo was fun to yell at because half the time she yelled back, and she could drink him under the table afterwards at the good bar.
With a groan he cracked his back—he really had been sitting all day doing this one project—and headed for the back room.
He slipped into the library, and as he thought, the records were right there. You couldn’t miss them. How had she…
The question went unvoiced in his head as he looked past the stack of records at the next row over and saw…
Well, it couldn’t be that, could it? Because that looked very much like Officer Goo pressing Officer Min against a stack of sachaeks and kissing him.
He picked up the records he needed, impressed that the two figures were still going at it, entirely oblivious to his presence. Hefting the books in his hand, he looked back.
Yes, that was definitely Officer Goo, and there was no one else that could be in front of her but Offier Min.
Good for him.
It had been long enough since Dan-yeong, and he’d just spent three years in isolation with only his sister for company. The man deserved something good—and he thought Officer Goo would be very good for his friend.
Excellent.
He walked back to his desk whistling, while they remained oblivious to his presence, and started up on the research project again with renewed vigor.
Ten minutes later Officer Goo appeared, bowed, and apologized, but she could not find the records anyway.
He waved her off. “Oh, I found them. They weren’t where you were looking, don’t worry about it.”
She bowed again and he noticed U-won sneaking in from the library, a little dazed grin on his face, clearly having waited just long enough to be discreet—if you didn’t know what you were seeing, that was.
He smiled to himself. He’d drag U-won out to the good bar—no, to the second-best bar, so the rest of the historians weren’t there with them—and get the story of it out of him.
It was nice to have his friend back—and even better to see him smile, for the first time in years.
That was worth a twenty-minute delay in writing the royal response.
He picked up his brush, whistled another tune, and started writing.