the cute guy next door (might be a villain) // ShinZuku

Chapter 15: Research (and compounding worries)

Izuku can't sleep for hours after he's returned from his Sunday night run, but that's fine. He has work he can do until his eyes blur from exhaustion.

The boss is scheduled to arrive on Thursday. Four days away. There is a tiny possibility that his carefully crafted plans may fall through.

For that to happen, the company would either have to agree they need major reform and accept his suggestions to turn a new leaf (which would still probably involve a few people going to jail), or they'd have to know what he's been up to ahead of time and go to equally sneaky lengths to sabotage his reporting.

Both are entirely possible, but he's done all he can to ensure the most favorable outcome, so worrying about it this late in the process is completely counterproductive.

(There is also the chance that they'll try to kill him. He thinks they shouldn't have much reason to with what he plans on doing, but people have killed for less. It eases his anxiety a very small amount to know that murder isn't currently in the list of crimes he's dug up on the management or their direct reports. Yet.)

(Except the timing of a possible mercenary (?) moving in next door and befriending him is starting to look awfully suspicious.)

His boredom in waiting these last few days is completely alleviated by two research tasks.

One is a big job he was sent the details for late the previous week (and then promptly forgot about while lusting over his absolutely hot neighbor), and the other is looking for any evidence suggesting that he should avoid lusting over his absolutely hot neighbor.

The Big Job, as he's started calling it, is a civilian contract promising a ridiculously large payout upon completion, but directly conflicts with a similar job from the authorities.

Over the last few months, a pair of jewelry thieves have hit a few high-end retailers that supposedly have top-notch security systems. He'd seen the request for the arrest profile on Hero Network a little over a week ago, with half of the reward proceeds provided by one of the business owners that just happens to be on the Commission Board.

(This makes the police request a little less appealing, knowing that the rule-makers are paying to catch the rule-breakers, while the rule-makers oftentimes don't care at all about the people's lives they're affecting with their policies.)

The case didn't look particularly difficult to solve, so he'd left it for another consultant to handle.

With the reveal of this new job posting, though, he's pretty certain the Commission-funded capture hasn't been successful. The new job has been flagged with several markers that draw his attention like the muscles in Murasaki's arms ... er, like a magnet.

(He's not thinking about Murasaki. Nope.)

The difficulty rating, the price point, and the clear request for a hiring profile instead of a capture profile makes this new job incredibly appealing. Whoever has posted this request wants to lure these jewel thieves in for a new job instead of putting them in prison for their thefts.

A new job doesn't always mean continuing to break the law. Sometimes a skill set, especially with a team that has developed good synergy, becomes so highly valued that certain individuals will request consults on hiring contracts and methods to bring them under their employ.