The poster on the wall was small, modest and uneven.
Gene had printed exactly forty copies on his home printer using the last box of the ink cartridge, and the final ten came out faded on one side, like they'd given up halfway through.
He'd taped them to lockers, the cafeteria bulletin board, the inside of a second-floor bathroom stall, which was, in hindsight, his best marketing decision of the year, and the back of the homeroom door when the teacher stepped out for coffee.
It read:
GOT A PROBLEM? I SOLVE PROBLEMS?
Confidential.
Affordable.
No questions asked, unless I need to ask them.
Find Gene Riven in Class 2-B or just approach me. I'll probably already know why.
His classmate Sora had read it over his shoulder at lunch and said, "This sounds like you're advertising murder."
"I'm not," Gene said.
"It really sounds like it."
"I'm not advertising murder, Sora."
Sora Nakamura was Gene's only real friend at Westbridge Academy, a title earned mostly by surviving three years in the adjacent seat without developing a single grudge.
He laughed at everything, worried about nothing, and operated on the general assumption that the world was going to work out fine.
Gene found this worldview scientifically indefensible but personally comforting.
'If I were advertising murder, I'd charge a lot more,' Gene thought, but kept it inside where it belonged.
He needed the flyers because of the electricity bill.
Specifically, because his mother had mentioned it the way she mentioned all disasters, with a calm that was more frightening than shouting, and then left a sticky note on the kitchen table that said: "GE - the landlord also called about October."
He'd done the math four times.
Each time the math said the same thing, which was that his current convenience store hours were not going to be enough.
He needed a second income. And Gene's particular talent, reading people, staying calm, solving problems that other people were too emotional or too close to see clearly, was not a skill set that came with a standard job listing.
So he'd made one.
He just hadn't expected his first client to show up in the library looking like she was about to review a quarterly earnings report.
Seraphina Crosswell sat down across from him without being invited. She placed his flyer flat on the table between them like it was Exhibit A.
"Gene Riven," she said. "That's me," he said.
She was the kind of person whose rooms rearranged themselves around. Not because she was loud — she wasnt. It was more like gravity. She had milky-pale skin, dark hair pulled back with careful precision, and the posture of someone who'd been told since childhood that slouching was a character flaw.
She was also, Gene noted, holding his flyer between two fingers the way someone holds a receipt they're deciding whether to dispute.
"I have a problem," she said.
"Most people do," he said.
"What's yours?"
She looked at him for a moment, clearly deciding how much to give.
He waited and learned that silence did more work than any question.
"My parents," she said, "have identified a marriage candidate."
"You're seventeen."
"They're efficient."
"That's one word for it."
She smoothed a wrinkle from her sleeve that wasnt there.
"There's a dinner in six weeks at my grandmother's house. If I arrive without a boyfriend, they'll make introductions official. I need someone to play the role convincingly."
Gene looked at her.
She looked back.
Neither blinked for a moment that went one beat too long.
She's not embarrassed, he realised.
She came in here, and that took more out of her than she's showing.
This isnt strategy, but someone who's been backed into a corner and decided to fight sideways.
"What's the pay?" he asked.
She named a number.
Gene kept his face completely still, which took more effort than he was willing to admit, because that number was two months of convenience store shifts.
"Fine," he said.
"We need ground rules."
"I have a contract."
She produced a folded document from inside her blazer pocket.
He stared at it dumbfoundedly.
"You came prepared."
"I did research. You have a 3.9 GPA and resolved three student disputes this semester without any teachers knowing. You talked someone's older brother out of dropping out of university over the phone."
"He was being dramatic," Gene said.
"You're good at managing situations. That's what I need." She slid the contract across.
"Read it, and if you want edits, we negotiate."
It was a thorough preparation of the exclusivity clause, duration, payment schedule, and discretion terms.
And one line under Emotional Boundaries that made him pause:
Neither party will develop or encourage romantic feelings for the other. This is a professional arrangement only.
He glanced up.
"You wrote the feelings clause."
"I find verbal agreements invite misunderstanding."
She's either very organised or very afraid of something, he thought. Possibly both.'
He pulled out a pen and added one line of his own:
The contractor may exit the arrangement if the client becomes unreasonable.
He slid it back.
She read his addition and something moved at the corner of her mouth, not a smile exactly, but the acknowledgement that he was someone worth negotiating with.
"Fine," she said, and signed.
He signed next.
Walking home that evening, Gene passed the convenience store where he'd work the seven-to-eleven shift the next day, waved at his coworker Jiro through the glass, and thought: Six weeks. One dinner. Simple.'
He bought a can of coffee from the vending machine outside.
'I'm going to need more of these.'