---
Honestly, Charlotte hadn't meant to invade his privacy—she'd planned to finish the task and leave immediately.
But Boss trotted in mid-way, leaped onto the otherwise-tidy desk, and whether due to his weight or momentum, knocked over a small shelf. Its contents scattered across the floor.
"Boss! Look what you did!" Charlotte rushed to gather the fallen items. "Even the Cat Overlord must respect certain rules!"
The perpetrator, rarely stripped of his aura of authority, stood frozen and offered no defense.
"Alright, it's not a big deal. Mistakes happen." Charlotte poked his head indulgently, then froze as she picked up the scattered contents.
They were sticky notes.
All the ones they'd previously put on the fridge—some just idle chitchat, some with her quick sketches of Boss, rough and unpolished, things she'd already forgotten she'd drawn. She'd never asked where the replaced notes went.
She'd assumed he'd thrown them away.
But no. He'd carefully saved every single one, organized by date, stacked neatly on his desk.
He'd even numbered them.
Charlotte sorted the notes back into order, effectively reliving the entire history of their exchanges from the very first conversation.
Without realizing it, their communication had evolved into something entirely comfortable, like friends—easy and natural.
Even though they'd never actually met.
By the end, Charlotte couldn't help burying her face in her hands and giggling, which earned her another Boss eye-roll. But she didn't care, patiently reorganizing the desk, still grinning like a fool as she left the room.
Before closing the door, she noticed the daily schedule pinned to its back—every task, however trivial, arranged with meticulous precision. Her smile grew wider.
"Boss, your Chief Scooper is a really interesting person."
---
Naturally, Charlotte's curiosity about this disciplined young man only intensified.
She left a note on the fridge: "When you have time, let's set a date to meet."
But before the second invitation received a reply, she withdrew it herself.
Because soon after, Charlotte's own life threw a punch—the studio's unreliable client demanded emergency revisions, throwing the whole team into chaos.
Everyone was mobilized, including Charlotte, the studio's ace illustrator.
So her situation was no better than his: working around the clock, racing against deadlines day after day, no time to think about meeting anyone.
But at least she could still go home every day and pet the cat.
Sometimes, to keep Boss company, she'd bring work home. And while she was drawing, this cat who'd never been particularly affectionate would come over of his own accord—settling heavily on her lap, sprawling across her drawing tablet, or bat-swiping her stylus like a toy.
Then Charlotte would pause and stroke his back, her voice turning uncharacteristically gentle: "Boss, are you lonely too? Do you need me here?"
This self-important idiot has misunderstood again, Boss thought disdainfully before drifting into a purring sleep.
Clearly I, the magnificent Boss, am deigning to keep you company.
---
Even buried in work, Charlotte couldn't stop herself from stealing moments to doodle.
The recent rush and the client's relentless criticism had pushed her near breaking point—the more pressure, the more she needed to doodle.
The theme remained Boss as Cat Overlord, but the storyline had turned dark: the Cat Overlord faced formidable new enemies—Demon Deadline, Critique Claw, Rewind Palm, and the dreaded Revisionist Spell. Even the mighty Overlord couldn't withstand them all.
This absolutely could not be seen by the client, Charlotte thought nervously as she gathered up her rough sketches.
So she didn't post them online. She stuck them quietly on the fridge instead.
Some creations didn't need a massive audience. Charlotte gazed at the growing gallery of mini comics now covering half the fridge, experiencing a complicated emotion she couldn't quite name—part conflict, part release.
So long as they reached the one person who could truly understand them, that was enough.
---
So did Charlotte's comics eventually reach their intended audience?
Of course they did.
On the night Charlotte was being worked half to death by her demon client, forced into an all-out revision marathon that nearly made her cough blood, the young man briefly returned home, spent time with Boss, grabbed necessities—and saw the fridge door covered in a dense collage of comics.
He must have felt the deep resonance of those strips. Otherwise he wouldn't have left such an insightful commentary.
He'd also read them very carefully, because only then could he have perceived the depression Charlotte had hidden beneath each entertaining panel, and pointed it out in his reply.
"If the Cat Overlord is truly exhausted, then it's okay to walk slower from here on. It's even okay to stop and rest. The road ahead is still long, and this world doesn't need him to save it alone. In fact, even if the Overlord never reaches the top, it doesn't matter—because every battle he's already fought has made this world a little better. And his own smile matters just as much for keeping the world beautiful."
Charlotte stared at that note for a very long time.
The depression that had sunk to freezing point began, just barely, to thaw.
The self-doubt born of poor reception, the vast frustration bred by the client's blame—all of it, like ice touched by sunlight, slowly melted and evaporated.
"You're right. What I do isn't pointless." A smile crept back onto her face. She turned to look at the fat orange cat beside her feet. "Boss, those little comics of yours—they don't have a huge audience, but for those few moments, they really do make people happy. Help them forget their troubles. Right?"
And then she was grinning again, wide and silly. "So even though I can't make money from these doodles, I make myself happy, and I make other people happy—turns out I've been doing charity this whole time! Hahaha."
This woman has lost her mind, Boss observed with his customary disdain.
But Charlotte didn't have time to bandy words with him, because a bigger surprise awaited in the fridge.
A container of pumpkin porridge the young man had made.
Even after being refrigerated, a brief spin in the microwave restored it to steaming perfection—soft, sweet, fragrant with pumpkin's gentle warmth. One spoonful sent a cozy contentment spreading from tongue to stomach, a warmth that bloomed in the chest and made Charlotte's whole body relax.
Even the stomach that had been ready to explode from client-induced fury stopped hurting altogether.
If she then got a good, solid sleep, she'd wake up feeling like everything was manageable.
"He's under just as much pressure himself, yet he still finds the energy to encourage someone else. What kind of fool does that?" Charlotte wiped a smear of porridge from the corner of her mouth and smiled dorkily. "Boss, your Chief Scooper doesn't seem all that bright either."
Boss let out an aristocratic hmph, as if to say: dimwit, what kind of stupid thing is that to say?
Anyone chosen by the great Boss would naturally be exceptional.
---
In the days that followed, a fully revived Charlotte charged back into battle with her client.
And her doodling habit, of course, remained unbreakable. She would never stop.
Though she knew the young man wasn't coming home yet, she kept churning out new Cat Overlord installments: the Overlord, having hit a wall in his world-saving quest, didn't give up. He kept walking—eating his meals properly, sleeping when tired, no longer quite so aloof, beginning to care about the friends around him, and willing to cheer on other heroes who were also out there saving the world.
The world didn't need him to save it alone, but the world was genuinely better for his presence.
Naturally, in Charlotte's signature goofball style, the storyline was packed with absurd comedic tangents that cracked her up even as she drew them.
Posted online, they offered brief escapes for people similarly battered by life, who could laugh along with her.
Only Boss was unsatisfied.
He deeply suspected these utterly ridiculous strips were doing permanent damage to his cool-and-mysterious image.
But watching the fool work herself half to death every night, stylus in mouth, furrowed brow, muttering about plot twists—"If I write it this way, he'll be so happy when he reads it, yeah, this'll definitely help him de-stress, decision made!"—Boss decided to let it go.
Considering she still conscientiously fed and scooped litter for him every day, he'd grant her this one indulgence.
---
By the time the young man finally finished the bid project and came home, Charlotte was sprawled across her bed, dead to the world in the kind of sleep so deep that not even an earthquake could rouse her.
She'd pulled two all-nighters to meet the project's final deadline. Whatever the results, they were out of her hands.
The young man didn't disturb her, so Charlotte never knew that he'd first thoroughly caught up on neglected chores, then spent considerable effortwinning back an annoyed Boss who'd been left alone too long, reestablishing their relationship.
She certainly didn't know that in the quiet of midnight, he stood before the fridge door, studying the comics plastered across it, and the corners of his mouth lifted just slightly from their previously flat line.
Because he'd seen that Charlotte had woven his earlier words of encouragement into every panel.
"If the Cat Overlord is truly exhausted, then it's okay to walk slower from here on. It's even okay to stop and rest. The road ahead is still long, and this world doesn't need him to save it alone. In fact, even if the Overlord never reaches the top, it doesn't matter—because every battle he's already fought has made this world a little better. And his own smile matters just as much for keeping the world beautiful."
And at the end, she'd written in red ink: "Thank you. Because you worked hard, my world got a little better too."
---
"Aaaargh! What!? Missed him AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN!" Charlotte, who didn't wake until late the next morning, discovered she'd narrowly missed the young man yet again and nearly headbutted the wall in frustration. She glared enviously at Boss, who was daintily eating fresh cat food. "Must be nice, Boss—I bet your Chief Scooper comes back and the food upgrades immediately."
Boss warily shoved his bowl farther away from her with one paw.
Who knew whether this ravenous human might stoop so low as to steal his cat food.
But she wasn't looking at his food—she was absorbed in the young man's latest note.
More than his praise for the comics, what caught her attention was that he'd mentioned the bid failed.
That's right—even after pouring everything they had into it, they'd still lost. Life wasn't a fairy tale; sometimes all the effort in the world leads to disappointment.
"Honestly, the result is really disappointing, but seeing your comics made me feel much better. Those words you wrote to comfort me—I should believe them too." Perhaps it was her imagination, but Charlotte thought his handwriting carried a hint of lightness this time, as if he were writing with a smile. "And of course, the comics you made specially were a great comfort."