[Adastra, Luxomoris. Law Firm: Evarsa]
After driving Honor to work and taking his position at his workplace, Ostin was already thinking that all the drama of his taxi side job had finally ended. He hoped to calmly do his work and finish the shift without getting involved in another brain-weaving.
But it wasn't that simple.
Honor stopped near his desk, crossed his arms over his chest, and loomed over Ostin. The tip of his shoe tapped the floor irritably, and his heavy downward gaze felt almost physical. It was suffocating, literally mind-numbing. It seemed as though he had passed judgment where it truly had no place.
With a heavy sigh, as if suppressing irritation, Honor said:
"Mr. Braun, are you being stubborn as well?"
"I have already stated my decision. I only accept complaints in written form," Ostin replied calmly and began sorting through work folders without even looking at him.
He deliberately buried himself in the documents, trying to retreat into work and shut out his annoying boss.
"Well... everything has its weight. Especially the consequences," Honor said and headed for his office.
However, even there, he did not leave Ostin in peace.
Through the glass partition, the boss kept watching him without taking his eyes off him. As soon as Braun instinctively looked up from his documents, he would once again meet those eyes, as if he were being interrogated.
From nervous tension, the poor guy even had the ink from his pen smudge in his fingers.
Of course, in front of Honor he tried to maintain a confident look, but his body language spoke for itself.
[After all, body language is the most honest language of all.]
"A diligent lawyer… tsk-tsk-tsk…" Honor muttered, made a note in his notebook, and absentmindedly rubbed the bridge of his nose.
Ostin was so tense that even his senior colleague noticed.
Placing a cup of coffee in front of him, she leaned slightly and asked quietly:
"What's he got it in for you?"
"He didn't like that I was moonlighting as a taxi driver. Thanks."
Ostin flushed slightly — whether from her unexpected concern or from the awkwardness of his own position.
"Hmm… has he started talking about his peresudy again?"
*peresudy - gossips*
Colleague shot a sidelong glance toward Honor's office and pulled her chair closer.
"As usual."
Ostin replied so calmly, as if this had happened dozens of times before… so often that it merely frayed her nerves rather than instilling fear.
"How do you put up with him… first the suit wrong, then yours face isn't stern enough, then yours hair's too youthful… he's always on your case."
She complained irritably, as if all those nitpicks were aimed at her personally.
Perhaps that was how Ostin himself wanted to react deep down.
But he never complained — either he didn't know how, either he considered it a weakness. And he couldn't stand pity at all.
"I don't put up with it… anymore."
Having said that, Ostin suddenly fell silent.
He suddenly felt a strange lightness in his chest. As if he had inhaled fresh air after a musty basement.
Yes, today was the first time he had gone against Honor. The first time he hadn't bowed his head before those 'above' him. The first time he had shown doubt toward authority — directly, eye to eye, without excuses.
"That's exactly why I don't like the old system," colleague remarked sympathetically. "Too much 'they' and almost no 'we'."
"Yes…" Ostin replied briefly and buried his nose in the papers again.
A few seconds later, the woman squinted and nodded at his hands.
"Aren't you going to… ahem… wash the ink off your hands?"
"Right. It slipped my mind. Thanks."
Ostin got up from his desk and headed for the restroom.
"You're welcome," his colleague called after him and glanced toward the boss's office.
Meanwhile, Honor paced from one end of the office to the other, as if chasing thoughts around in circles.
It wasn't even the taxi that irritated him.
Nor was it the side job itself.
What annoyed him was the way Ostin ended the conversation — firm but impeccably polite.
The way he had calmly, yet without ceremony, told him to get in the car.
And the fact that, from a legal standpoint, Honor couldn't pin a single thing on him.
Even if he wanted to find some loophole in the documents — that very gray area that savvy people are so adept at exploiting — Honor still wouldn't be able to use it against Ostin.
And even if he could — how would he explain it?
"I am a lawyer, after all…"
Those words stuck in his head.
He couldn't bend the law.
He couldn't pressure the guy through it.
He couldn't threaten him with an offence that simply didn't exist.
And that irritated him the most.
""I am, after all, a lawyer…"" Honor mimicked under his breath and suddenly stopped short.
What was that just now?
He isn't a child, after all.
Honor, wake up.
You're a grown man. A respected specialist. A leader. A man with reputation, status, money, connections... A family, for that matter!
So why did the words of some lawyer, who is only a bit over twenty years old, affect you so much? Or maybe thirty? Or thirty-five? Maybe twenty-eight? What difference does it even make how old he is at all!
He irritably rubbed the bridge of his nose.
No.
It's all about the peresudy.
Exactly in them.
At least that's what he preferred to think.
But that explanation didn't become any more convincing because of it.
It seemed that for the first time in a long time he was that angry.
Maybe for the first time ever at someone at all.
He stopped near the window.
"No. There will be no peresudy."
It already sounded like a vow to himself.
Then his face slowly darkened.
"I'll make him leave this back-alley operation. Some businessman, indeed."
The last word sounded almost like an insult.
Picking up his briefcase, Honor turned sharply and left the office quickly.