The lights in the side hall are brighter than those in the living room.
Gwen sat in the main seat in the side hall, with three documents awaiting trial spread out in front of her.
One document was the Capone Family's quarterly profit distribution plan sent by the strategist from the West Blue; another was a statistical report on the frequency of merchant ship berthings at various ports in the East Blue last month, compiled by Koldo; and the third was a forecast of changes in customs policy just handed over by Barlow.
She laid out the three documents on the table one by one, turned the pages with her left hand, held the Fountain Pen in her right hand, and scanned them from left to right. She signed each document after scanning it and then pushed it to the other side of the table.
Barlow sat opposite her, with several documents beside him, but his attention was clearly not entirely on them.
Because Roy and Mila were too quiet.
Barlow finished flipping through a flight log, signed his name in the footer with his Fountain Pen, and closed the file.
Halfway through the action, his Fountain Pen hovered above the paper, not falling any further.
He realized something; to be precise, he realized he had been working continuously for nearly twenty minutes, and throughout that time, he hadn't heard Mila mock Roy once, nor had he heard Roy defend himself once.
There was no arguing, no pinching, and no sound of anything being knocked over or spilled.
The extraordinary nature of this event is equivalent to sailing on the Grand Line for thirty consecutive days without encountering a single storm or pirate.
Theoretically possible, but in reality, the probability is zero.
Barlow placed the Fountain Pen next to the document and turned around.
Roy and Mila sat side by side on the three-seater sofa behind him.
Roy stood ramrod straight, his hands neatly placed on his knees, his feet together with toes pointing forward, his posture so upright he could serve as a model for new recruits at Marineford.
Mila sat in almost the exact same posture as him, with her legs together at an angle, her hands folded on her knees, and her back at least five centimeters away from the back of the sofa.
Both of them were trying hard to maintain a serious calm, their lips were pursed, their eyes were fixed straight ahead, neither of them looking at the other, like two elementary school students being punished by their teacher to sit still.
Barlow looked at them for a few seconds, his expression unchanged, but his fingers tapped lightly twice on the edge of the document—an unconscious action as his brain processed "information that does not conform to the laws of cognition."
The fact that Roy and Mila sat side by side without fighting was, in his understanding, an extremely low probability event.
The last time something like this happened was at the old house on White Wax Island, because Pops Marcus said, "Whoever makes the first move has to come with me to the shipyard tomorrow to shave wood." After weighing the pros and cons, the two chose to cease hostilities.
But Pops's gone now, so who can make them sit properly on the sofa?
However, he didn't think further. Whatever tricks Roy and Mila were up to, as long as they weren't tearing the house down, it was none of his business.
Barlow turned around, pushed the flight log aside, picked up the next document, and continued reading.
Gwen noticed it too.
She finished signing the last port statistics sheet, capped her Fountain Pen, placed it on the corner of the table, and looked up at Roy and Mila.
The two people, who could usually make a scene, were now as quiet as two stone statues. A faint smile appeared on her lips, a smile that was about to play a trick on someone, which usually only appeared on Roy and Mila's faces.
Gwen folded the documents and turned to Barlow. She pulled a note from the bottom of the folder, bearing the strategist's handwriting, messy but clear. "Mr. Barlow, the supplementary data for the safety assessment of the West Blue route has arrived. Please come to the study on the third floor to sign it."
"The supplementary data sent by the strategist is in his study on the third floor. He's there in person too, saying it's a security assessment report that you need to personally review and sign. He also has a lot of things to report to you in person."
Barlow took the note, glanced at it, closed the last document awaiting approval, stood up, and took his suit jacket off the back of the chair, draping it over his forearm.
As he passed the sofa, he glanced at Roy and Mila, said nothing, and the sound of his leather shoes on the wooden floor of the corridor gradually faded away, eventually disappearing into the stairwell.
The door to the side hall closed gently.
Now there are only three people left in the room. Gwen is sitting in the main seat, while Roy and Mila are sitting side by side on the sofa, less than a cushion apart.
The air suddenly became quiet, and you could hear the rustling of the White Wax Forest outside the French windows as the evening breeze blew through them.
Roy's Adam's apple bobbed.
Gwen stood up and walked around the desk.
Her dark blue dress brushed against the wooden floor; instead of heading towards the door, she walked towards the sofa.
Her steps were slow and steady, each one firm and deliberate. Her high heels clicked rhythmically on the wooden floor as she walked from behind the sofa to the front, stopping in front of Roy and Mila.
The two men looked up at her, and she looked down at them.
Gwen smiled.
The corners of the mouth turned up quite a bit, the eyes were slightly narrowed, and the lips were pursed, as if trying hard to hold back a laugh, but the mischievous joy was overflowing from the fine lines at the corners of the eyes, impossible to stop.
This isn't the smile of the eldest daughter- Uchiha Clan; it's the smile of an older sister who has discovered a really fun toy.
She bent down, placed her hands on her knees, and brought her face so close that it was only an arm's length away from Roy and Mila.
She lowered her voice and said in a tone of sharing a secret, "When I was little, I always dreamed of having a well-behaved and adorable younger brother or sister to keep me company."
Roy and Mila both froze.
Gwen is probably the only one who can describe Roy and Mila as well-behaved and adorable.
Roy's shoulders visibly shrank half an inch, his back straightened even more, and his fingers clenched and unclenched on his knees.
His lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but the part of his brain responsible for organizing language was currently in a state of malfunction.
Mila wasn't in much better shape. The tips of her ears were turning red. Her eyes weren't looking away, but she was clearly using tremendous willpower to control herself from looking at Roy, because if she saw Roy's silly expression, she would break down on the spot.
Gwen's eyes swept back and forth across the two faces, and she clearly caught the reactions they were trying to hide, her smile widening.
"It's finally come true."
After Gwen finished speaking, she let out a soft sigh of extreme satisfaction, as if she had just signed a cooperation agreement that had been planned for many years.
Roy's face finally turned red. His skin was darker than Mila's, so his blush wasn't easily noticeable, but the skin on his neck betrayed him. From his collarbone upwards, a deep pink hue was spreading at a visible speed.
He opened his mouth, and this time finally made a sound, "Sister-in-law... what you're saying... I'm a patrol captain, after all..."
"Patrol captain," Gwen repeated, nodding with a very serious expression.
Then she turned her head and scrutinized Roy's face with the look of someone examining a rare animal. "Hmm, he certainly looks imposing."
She reached out and gently poked Roy's nose with her index finger. "You'd better protect me well, you little peeping rascal."
Roy's nose was slightly deformed from being poked, and his brain completely shut down.
Gwen's fingers carried a very faint scent of iris, her nails were neatly trimmed, and the pressure she applied to her nose was as light as if she were tapping a butterfly that had accidentally flown onto the tablecloth.
This kind of touch is on a completely different level from fighting. He is used to confrontational physical contact, used to pain and impact, but he is completely unaccustomed to this fragrant, painless, and purely teasing touch.
His defense system, facing someone who wasn't an enemy, didn't know how to activate.
He even felt that he didn't want to start it at all.
Mila caught a glimpse of the deep pink on Roy's neck from the side, and finally couldn't help but let her lips twitch.
Gwen caught this slap in the corner of her eye.
Gwen withdrew her finger from Roy's nose and shifted her weight to Mila. Mila's lips instantly tightened back to their original shape, but it was too late.
Gwen leaned close enough to see the curve of Mila's eyelashes, her lips almost touching Mila's earlobe, her breath gently brushing against Mila's earlobe, and whispered something in a sound only the two of them could hear.
Mila's earlobes turned from light red to deep red in three seconds, her fingers clenched into fists on her knees, and her nails dug four shallow crescent-shaped marks on the back of her hands.
She stared wide-eyed at Gwen, Gwen had already stepped back, a smile on her face that clearly said, "I know you heard me."
Before Roy could recover from his lapse in memory, Gwen had already stepped back between the two of them.
She put her hands behind her back, leaned forward slightly, looked left at Mila, and right at Roy, her gaze shifting between the two.
Her smile widened, and she swayed slightly, like a little girl considering which snack to start with.
"Alright," Gwen clapped her hands, "That's all for tonight's elder sister-in-law time..."
She trailed off her words, then suddenly squatted down, reaching out with both hands simultaneously. One hand gripped Mila's chin, and the other gripped Roy's chin, lifting them up so that their faces were facing her.
Mila's chin was soft, her skin smooth, and it felt slightly warm to the touch; Roy had some stubble on his chin, and the rough texture pricked Gwen's fingertips, making him freeze as if he were under a spell.
"I still want to wrap things up a bit more." Gwen narrowed her eyes, lightly wiping each of their chins with her thumb, as if erasing something that didn't even exist.
Her eyes met the two men's; her left eye looked at Mila, her right at Roy. Her pupils reflected the warm yellow light of the side hall and the faces of the two young men, their chins being pinched, with nowhere to escape.
"You two, from now on, every time you return to White Wax Island, you must report to me, understand?"
Her voice was very soft, her tone like she was soothing a child to sleep.
Roy looked at her face so close to his, her deep blue eyes, the corners of her eyes slightly upturned, the curve of her lips, and tried to pull out a complete sentence from his mind to respond.
After searching for a long time, they caught nothing.
For the first time, he discovered a type of attack that did not belong to any of the combat styles he had trained for, fought against, or cracked.
He couldn't even name this attack method; he only knew it came from Gwen, and that he was completely powerless to resist it.
The moment Gwen's fingers pinched her chin, several thoughts flashed through Mila's mind, then coalesced into one conclusion: accept your fate.
She nodded stiffly, her chin still in Gwen's hand, the nod very small, more like a light brush between Gwen's thumb and forefinger.
Roy nodded, even more forcefully than Mila, his eyes glazed over, still not fully recovered from the shock.
Gwen withdrew her hands with satisfaction, straightened up, and patted the unseen dust off her skirt.
She turned and walked towards the door, but after taking three steps, she suddenly turned back and winked at the two people still sprawled on the sofa.
"Oh, by the way, I asked the kitchen to make grilled fish tonight, everyone should come!"
After she finished speaking, she pushed open the door and went out, her skirt disappearing into the shadows of the corridor outside the door frame.