#which will be interesting because some of the things she's said about them both HAVE kind of pinged my autism-dar

[tater-tot-jr]

Yapping time! Spoilers for DRDT C2E14

So the entire episode was great, but there’s one part I’d like to talk about most. David’s monologue towards the end. Specifically the second half, where he gets away from his logical stuff and into the more interpersonal stuff. I’ll break it down line by line.

“All I want is for Teruko to distrust others.”

Okay we are starting off interesting. Now, due to David’s nature we can’t trust him to be honest. We cannot take this as explicit confirmation of any sort of goal. With that said, his goal appears to be fucking up the class trial in some manner. We don’t know his motive, but that goal seems consistent enough to work with. So let’s work with it. Teruko is literally one half of this classes helpful trial participants. Her and Charles are the entire brain of this class. Charles can be killed, he has a glaring flaw in a debilitating fear of blood, he’s easy enough to deal with when the time comes. Teruko is stupidly resilient. To everything. The one thing she obviously struggles with is her trust issues/paranoia. If you’re looking to get under her skin that’s where you gotta go. Saying this is a clear demonstration he intends to poke at Teruko emotionally, which is an interesting thing to admit out loud. If I had to guess, it’s because he’s trying to kill two birds with one stone and make the class start to distrust Teruko as well.

“That’s why I’m doing this, telling such obvious lies.”

This is him saying he’s lying about seeing the body, I think. He’s doubling down on inciting paranoia, in both Teruko and the class. It’s interesting he would say this out loud. He’s hyper focused on fucking with Teruko and it shows. If you take out the brain, the body goes as well. It’s certainly a strategy of all time.

“There is no other proof of Eden’s innocence.”

As far as we know, this is a true statement right now. Unless I’m unaware of something that was the biggest piece of evidence meant to clear her name, and he brought it into question.

“As long as there’s a possibility that the evidence is false, as long as there’s even the slightest reason to distrust others, then Teruko cannot trust Eden.”

Oof, he’s got her dead to rights. I don’t think there’s a good faith argument for him being wrong. It’s cool to see how much he understands the cast. It’s an interesting way to show how Teruko’s thoughts process works without betraying her guarded nature. Having a character so ready to pick at her weakness is a good writing choice, and I hope they keep David around for a time. Teruko is the least trusting character I’ve ever seen in any fangan game, granted I haven’t played them all but still. There’s a chance the story doesn’t have any sort of lesson, and we’re just gonna watch Teruko suffer. The idea that she can’t bring herself to trust if there’s even a 0.001% chance of something being false is such a good character flaw. She’s clearly terrified of risk, and she doesn’t know how to get rid of her paranoia, even though I think she wants to.

“Isn’t that right, Teruko?”

Ohohoho you smug piece of shit. You fucking dick. This is more proof he’s not just saying these things in an objective way. He’s just trying to hurt her, as far as we can assume.

“…”

Yeah she’s fucking rocked. Teruko really doesn’t take things lying down. Befitting of her backstory, she’s the type to struggle and fight back against anything she can. But here she has nothing to say. David has read her for filth and they both know it. Now that I think about it, this probably also plays on her fear of being vulnerable. What could possibly be more vulnerable than someone telling you your own exact thought process?

“It’s in your nature to distrust people.”

This is a more interesting statement than it appears at first glance. Specifically because he says it’s in her nature. To him, this isn’t a choice she’s making because of the killing game. It’s not circumstance that has pushed her into this. No, this is who she is, and this is who she’ll always be. Which is a horribly insulting thing to say, because it’s within most humans nature to trust each other somewhat, and it’s life circumstances that push them away from collaboration. He’s saying that Teruko is so fucked in the head that she’s fundamentally different from the standard human baseline.

“Everyone you know has already betrayed you. There’s no one in this world who won’t hurt you. Even the people you love will turn their backs on you in the end. You know that well enough, don’t you?”

…Jesus Christ. He really is just the devil on her shoulder. These are her worst thoughts said out loud and back to her. Do you think she considers someone dying on her and leaving her alone a betrayal? Is that a part of this? Him saying “even the people you love” is interesting, does she really even have anyone she loves in the cast? Or does she just tolerate them. He’s making grand, sweeping statements about her life potentially before the killing game and hitting the nail on the head every time. An impressive feat of manipulation and perceptiveness.

“So distrust in others. Because that’s the only way you know how to live.”

Ow. Ouch. Owie. Not only is this a banger way to end the monologue but it’s just so telling. Teruko doesn’t even say anything in response she just waits for Charles to change to subject. Also, is he even really wrong? She tried to afford people trust and then she got stabbed and everyone else blamed her. She’s definitely swung too far the other way, but it’s not like she was good at knowing how much trust to afford people. This life is really the only way she knows how to live. How things are now, she’ll suffer any other way. It’s such juicy character writing. Damned if you do damned if you don’t. David has definitely been watching Teruko’s behavior, and quite frankly he has her figured out. He’s perceived her, and she hates it. I think we all know Teruko is lonely, she deeply wants people around her. But between being a danger to them and all her trust issues she shuts herself away. David is doing everything he can to keep her as far away from forming meaningful connections as possible. He’s clearly got some sort of plan.

—

There’s also a few things I want to talk about that I didn’t have the ability to put under a spoken line, so I’ll yap down here.

Firstly, Teruko extending some “trust” to Eden doesn’t prove David wrong. If anything, it strengthens his argument. Looking at the actual content of Teruko and Eden’s back and forth, it’s barely a scrap of trust and it’s completely conditional. Teruko basically said “because you helped me last trial I will trust you enough to investigate you second” which is still incredible progress for her, but it’s nothing close to genuine trust. This is not to diminish the progress Teruko made in that scene, but it’s nothing close to countering David’s claims.

Secondly, THAT VOICE ACTING HELLO?!?? David’s VA has always been great, but combined with DRDTdev’s wonderful writing and sprite design/choices he really brought this scene to life. He was perfectly smug and condescending. He had a voice that really portrayed that “I’m 100% right about you and you can’t do anything about it” vibe. Just a total piece of shit. 10/10 would listen again.

[szynkaaa]

Zhu Bajie and the Violet Spider (and i guess all the other tragic love stories)

Alright, finished Chapter 4 in my NG+ and here are some of my thoughts, ramblings and musings about Zhu Bajie and the Violet Spider. Also will be going with Black Myth Wukong's version of JTTW

Everything is under cut because long text

What we know:

ZBJ was an Admiral in the Celestial Court, there was a maid working there who was crushing on him and took care of him at some point. ZBJ gets cast out from the court into the mortal realm and turns into a pig. Maid tries to follow him, but gets turned into a spider because the word pig (猪zhū) and spider (蜘蛛Zhīzhū) sound similar and she thought he turned into a spider.

The pilgrims run into White Bone Demon, who turns into 3 mortals and each time SWK beat them down. It is not explained how they fell in love or why, just that he was in love with her. The subtitles from the scene:

ZBJ: "It was her tricks that made Master drive Wukong away" Old Monkey: "On White Tiger Ridge, he forsook his lover. Three times he broke her into pieces, convincing himself his heart would ache no more. Yet, as you must know, he had never let go of her. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been so eager to get away from the Buddahood he attained."

Side note, in CN the old moneky says "他倒是狠心绝情", which translates to "he was very cruel and heartless".

Like all the other demon in the book they wanted to eat Tripitaka because they were convinced that would grant them immortality. In JTTW, White Bone Demon transforms herself into a young lady, then elder woman and then old man, pretending to ask for help. Each time SWK was able to see through her disguise and he struck them down. Tripitaka thought he was killing innocent mortals so he sent SWK away, said he wasn't one of his disciple anymore. iirc ZBJ was not helping lol.

I hope the DLC will shed some more information on the romance, but I also understand if they don't elaborate further. According to some redditors the White Bone Demon romance is a nod towards another game Game Science worked on where SWK and White Bone Demon where a thing.

Later on in their journey, ZBJ sees a bunch of pretty women bathing. He turns himself into a fish. The Violet Spider recognizes him and I guess they reconcile?? or not really because the spiders also try to kidnap and eat Tripitaka and SWK leaves ZBJ to take care of the spiders, he killed everyone except the Violet Spider, who had to eat the remains of her sisters in order to survive.

Speculation from my side is if SWK knew about ZBJ history with the Violet Spider. I think it would be interesting for them to have a conversation about it at some point, since both of them had demon lovers who tried to eat their master so they were forced to kill them (except ZBJ spared the Violet Spider). Maybe SWK wishes he had that option too instead of living with the pain later on. A lot of wiggle rooms for interpretations and headcanons.

lot of shit happens. they finish their travel, SWK attains buddahood. Realizes he hates the court life, also cannot let go that he had to kills his past lover. just wants to chill with his homies and be back on his mountain. and the circlet is still there. hatches his masterplan to die so he can be reborn and be truly free

Throughout the game and dialogues in the game, we know that there were several monkeys/Destined One attempting to retrieve all 5 artifacts and become SWK. The way I understood is, if you reach the bad ending, the cycle starts a new. a new monkey will arise and try again until said monkey reaches the True Ending.

It is very heavily implied that the 4th spider was in love with one of the reincarnation, and they were supposed to get married or have gotten married. but alas monke has to continue his main quest, and he never returned back to her.

My question is, do each Destine One reincarnation retain memories from previous Destined One? Does "our" Destined One know who she is and what he means to her? fun things to also think about.

Oh yeah also pretty sure ZBJ and the Violet Spider got married in chapter 4 LOL. Very questionable marriage since ZBJ was not in a place to consent to it and was pretty much forced into it. But she came out wearing a red wedding dress and then sisters were telling him what to do and not to do, and they were also saying he is the one mother wants all those years even though they disagree with the choice. And then later on before the Violet Spider boss battle, iirc ZBJ says she should have just eaten him before the vows and stuff. Either she mates and then eats her husbands LOL. and her daughters also feast on the newly wed husband.

Heavily implied that the youngest spider kid is ZBJ and Violet Spiders kid. At least that's how I interprested the scene, why else would she show him the youngest daughter? Also all the daughters were born after ZBJ killed Violet Spider's sisters and left her to die, as they say it all happened before they were born so they cannot understand mother's obsession

My 2 cents: None of the spider sisters share the same father. I believe that the Violet Spider would find a new mate, get married, consumate the marriage and then eat the husband. Probably got pregnant from each marriage. It seems like the spider sisters are also very familiar with the ritual ( also LOL would the 4th spider sister have eaten the Destined One??). I also thought at first that Chapter 4 is the first time since JTTW Zhu Bajie bumped into the spider sisters and Violet Spider, but after my NG+ playthrough I realize that would not make much sense. If the youngest daughter really is their kid, then that means they must have met before the current event and JTTW.

We know that this is also not the first Destined One ZBJ met: when we rescue him in chapter 3, he says something along the line "great another mute" - implying he has helped other DO before. Which also means he has visited the spider lair with the DO before, so my guess it is very likely that he may have done the deed with the Violet Spider, and this is how the youngest daughter was conceived? And then he and the Destined One left once again, leaving the 4th Sister and Violet Spider behind again. I think that this would also "make sense" why the Violet Spider was so obsessed and hung up on ZBJ in chapter 4. It couldn't have been "just" what happened in JTTW, some more things must have happened in-between. ZBJ constantly picking bros before hoes I guess.

Fan speculation is also that the reason why ZBJ cannot be with the Violet Spider is to protect them from the Celestial Court.

We have 4 different love stories in this game: SWK and White Bone Demon, Zhu Bajie and the Violet Spider, Destined One and 4th Sister and then the Bull Demon King and Princess Iron-Fan.

I don't haven't started my chapter 5 playthrough yet but the gist I got is that their story isn't a happy one either and controlled by the Celestial Court. It sounds like none of the love stories have a happy ending and in one way or another, the Celestial Court is the cause for it. SWK and White Bone Demon doesn't fully fall into that category, but in JTTW it is said that all the demons they encounter were all orchestrated by Buddha, where they have to face 81 trials. Putting that into BMW's version of JTTW, technically a higher being still interfered with their love story and "forced" SWK to kill his lover, if they put White Bone Demon into their way. Again, this is just my musing and headcanon, and nothing of this is confirmed.

This is my opinion, but I personally love that Game Science gave both SWK and DO and ZBJ a love story, some more obvious than the others. It just adds a more human touch to the overall story of the game that I personally love.

Now excuse me while I go try to smooch a stone monkey.

[wonder-worker]

Wild how we know that Elizabeth Woodville was officially appointed to royal councils in her own right during her husband’s reign and fortified the Tower of London in preparation of a siege while 8-months pregnant and had forces gathering at Westminster “in the queen’s name” in 1483 – only for NONE of these things to be even included, let alone explored, in the vast majority of scholarship and historical novels involving her.

[rotisseries]

alright im giving in im finally asking. what in the everloving fuck is narines

HIIIII HELENA honestly I'm so glad you asked I think you'd love them but BASICALLYYYYY one of my mutuals, hella, @tbos-main, has this really cool original fantasy wip, the blood of serpents, which I am OBSESSED with so I do fandom post about it like any other media, and two of the characters are nate and rin. well. naithairan and herines technically but I'm on nickname basis with them. and I can explain tbos in more detail but since you asked about narines specifically, they are two characters who are very much on opposing sides of the central conflict and in a way that IS irreconcilable like. it has to be genuine all consuming hate it's bad. but they're also narrative foils and parallels and whatnot and outside of the main ideological difference in regards to the central conflict, they are very similar people in a very fucked up way, they're both martyr figures with a lot of religious themes, they both have had to learn the language of violence well, they both are willing to go to unfathomably low depths of morality and monstrousness in the pursuit of protecting the people they love, they're both incredibly calculating and callous, and so they have this INSANEEE dynamic that is very much "I see me in you I see everything I hate about myself in you I need to kill you because I need to be killed but yet I cannot kill you because that would be like taking a knife to myself and we recognize each other deeply and intimately in a very specific way no one else can and I HATEE you for it" and so like. they should fuck about that. obviously.

[rackartyg]

in therapy today i just talked about the dark urge and astarion and my therapist was elated about it. it was fantastic. “wow you’ve really been using this story and those characters to process things. that’s amazing!”

the era of being ashamed of my interests is over. it’s apparently Cool and Healthy to use fiction to cope. i wish i could tell fifteen year old me about this it would blow her mind

[fragmentedblade]

Also, Ruan Mei was the one who lent the Phase Flame to Ratio, wasn't she?

[terezipyropescrocs]

ok so my talk with my dad actually went... really well? i spoke to him about my doctor's visit while we were hiking since that is the peak time for conveying information to him and right away way he just kind of. accepted that i was autistic and probably need some kind of help for it?? and then we spent the whole hike talking about autism??? so... mission accomplished!

[hedgehog-moss]

I saw an astronaut walking on the side of the road today, which is the kind of thing my brain will placidly accept at first, only to go "Wait, an astronaut" a minute later once I'm done with my previous train of thought. By then I felt like it might be too late to stop my car, but I ended up stopping anyway because I didn't want to spend the rest of the afternoon wondering.

I waited for the astronaut to catch up with me since they were going in my direction, but they didn't. Eventually I got out of the car and retraced my steps, and after a bend in the road when I saw no one walking towards me I decided the visitor must have gone back to their spacecraft and I would never get an explanation for this—and then in the distance I caught a glimpse of the white space suit disappearing into the forest.

I managed to catch up with them and they turned out to be a distant neighbour of mine (let's call her M.), and what looked like a space suit when I was driving by was a beekeeper's outfit! (Sorry for the pointless suspense but I was taking you on the same little journey my brain went through.) M. was tickled when she learnt that I mistook her for an astronaut—she told me she'd borrowed her husband's too-big shoes which made her drag her feet, hence why she looked like she was having trouble readjusting to Earth's gravity.

Then she said that one of her hives had swarmed, and she was pretty sure she knew where the swarm was. I had no idea how swarming worked so as we walked in the woods she explained that when a hive becomes too crowded, the queen will get replaced by a new one, and the old queen will leave along with half of the bees. After this split, the swarm will cluster somewhere nearby and wait while scout bees fly away in search of a new hive location. "That's when you have to catch them—if you can find the swarm. But here it is!"

I wasn't expecting quite so many bees!! I'm pretty scared of all flying creatures so allow me to pat myself on the back for what came next—I thought I was about to learn how to catch a swarm from a prudent distance, but M. asked if I could give her a hand, seeing as her husband was supposed to be here to help but clearly wasn't.

The first step of catching a swarm was spraying the bees with sugar water, and I was glad not to be asked to help with that, as it seemed like something that could make bees angry. ("On the contrary, it makes them less agitated!" I was told, but that remained to be seen.) Step 2 was pulling on a rope tied to the tree branch in order to lower the swarm into the new hive, and that was the job I was recruited for. The rope was long enough that I could stand several metres away to pull on it, but my role in this swarm-catching business was still all too clear to any angry bee looking for someone to blame.

I remembered reading that bees can sense the electric field of flowers, so I thought there was no way they wouldn't sense the staticky nervousness coming from the rope-puller, but thankfully they completely ignored me.

M. was offering one fun fact about bees after the other, in a very relaxed voice, which was very interesting and very soothing for both me and the bees. She said this particular colony was very sweet ("some bee colonies are meaner than others?" "yes of course"), and that swarming usually happens a bit earlier in the year "but it's been raining so much lately, the bees had to postpone all their activities, just like us" and also "swarming involves quite a bit of planning ahead of time; for example worker bees have to put the queen on a diet so she won't be too fat to fly. Did you know that?" I did not!

Unfortunately our first attempt to catch the swarm failed. The bees entered the hive, had a quick look around their new home, then left in disgust and formed a thick, angry, buzzing cloud over our heads, while I tried to think nothing but bee-loving thoughts to make my electric field harmless and friendly.

Then one after the other all the bees returned to the exact same spot on the branch where we'd first found them. ("Because it smells like the queen" said M.) We examined the near-empty hive and found that a mouse had made a nest in there! She was no longer here but the traces of her passage were evident (some of the comb was very nibbled.)

As we were removing the supplies brought in by the mouse (sticks, hay), M.'s husband joined us and he had brought a spray bottle containing some sort of bee-attracting liquid (pheromones?) (I didn't have a close look at the bottle because I made sure to stay far away from the bee-attracting liquid, while he sprayed it inside the hive.)

He had also brought a white sheet which he spread under the tree, explaining that the bees will want to get away from the bright surface and look for darkness, thus hopefully getting inside the box. Another thing I learnt is that once the queen enters the hive, the nearest worker bees will spread the message by turning round and fluttering their wings to send a chemical signal in specific directions, which will be picked up by other bees farther away; at strategic intervals some bees will light the beacons of Gondor turn round and fan their wings to relay this scent-message until the entire colony is informed of the queen's new location.

We were more successful the second time around! This time the bees who went in didn't immediately get out again to return to their branch. Well I say "we" but I didn't volunteer to pull on the rope again, so I can't claim any role in this victory. But my personal victory was that I stood quite a bit nearer this time so I could watch everything closely, and I felt more intrigued than nervous. Bees were constantly zipping past me but it had become clear that my electric field was pure and they bore me no ill will. I was always fond of bees from afar and happy to see them do their thing in flowers in the spring, but today's adventure got me interested in their daily life as well, so I think I'll read some books about bees this summer!

I was reading last month about the morality of termite colonies (Maeterlinck's La vie des termites) and I had a feeling this man must have written some poetic stuff about bees as well—and he did. Here's a translated excerpt from his book "La vie des abeilles" :)

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

Folk were really into the post I made about Tandie, the zoo lion with a (then) undergrown mane due a period of time on testosterone blockers. He's having quite the glow up this summer.

But!

Did you know that manes are hormone dependent in both sexes of lion?

Let's talk about maned lionesses!

To recap the previous post quickly: the existence of a mane, and it's color, appear to be pretty heavily androgen-dependent. Neutered males or males put on testosterone blockers, like Tandie was, will drop their manes - but like Tandie, if taken off the meds, it will generally grow it back. Darker manes are indicative of higher testosterone levels, and long/lush manes are generally a good signal of a male's fitness and mate quality. Females seem to show a preference for males with longer, darker manes and other males will preferentially avoid scuffles with them. (Yes, as many comments have pointed out, that means Scar was actually a hunk. Do with that as you will.)

The fascinating thing about androgens being linked to manes in lions is that it goes both ways - females with higher levels will also grow manes!

Mane growth in females lions is most commonly seen with elderly animals who have stopped cycling and are basically in lion menopause. And they have to get pretty old for it to happen - captive lions generally only live into their late teens and early second decade, and most of the maned ladies I know about started growing manes around like, seventeen.

Not all old female lions grow manes, but some of the career cat people I've talked to said it happened to about a quarter of the females they've worked with over the years. Which... is an interesting contrast to the news articles about Zuri, who we'll meet in a bit, that breathlessly reported in 2022 that her mane growth "left scientists baffled."

Old lady lion manes are just... precious. They grow in first at the chest and then around the sides or on the back of the head, but they don’t normally get the length, density, and connectivity seen in the mane of an adult male. It leaves the lionesses manes kind of awkward, in the way I associate with very young males, and they're absolutely adorable. Prepare yourself for the photo spam.

I have to start with Daisy, because she's the only maned lioness I've had the privilege to meet in person.

I don't know exactly when she started growing her mane, but she was over 20 years old when she passed in 2019 with these luscious locks.

Here's another female at the same facility, named Adeena. On the left is a photo of her from 2021, on the right is from this spring (I think she's mid-sneeze in the photo). She turns 20 in October.

If you've heard about maned lionesses before, it’s probably because of Zuri, at Topeka. She’s the most recent one to get media coverage and she went a little viral.

(Just a side note here, but I have some strong feelings about knowledge loss in the exotic animal management world due to political/philosophical schisms. This is one of those topics where it's clear: Topeka told a reporter that the zoo had “never" heard of this happening before, but it's common enough to be well known as a thing in other sectors of the exotic cat world. There's so much expertise and knowledge being lost due to infighting between accrediting groups, and it drives me up a wall).

Anyway. Zuri had one of the best manes I've seen on an elderly lioness. It grew long and lush and she totally could have done shampoo commercials. I mean, look at this.

Zuri lived with her sister, who didn't grow a mane in her old age. Here's the two of them together, Zuri on the left, Asante on the right.

We don't completely know what's going on with these golden girls to cause them to grow manes. It's theorized to be related to the end of estrus and higher levels of androgenic hormones, although it's not clear if that's just due to lower levels of other hormones during "meownopause" or if there's something else also going on.

There was some speculation with Zuri's mane growth that it was caused by the death of the male she lived with, in some biological need to "take over the role." The zoo dismissed that idea pretty quickly, and it makes sense, although there is one other instance where I've heard of that happening before.

The cat people I've talked to say that older lionesses who grow manes don't tend to act differently - they're not taking over new social roles in their prides or anything. Sometimes they can be less active, or be a little more nervous around males, and want to be left alone more, but it was emphasized to me that those behaviors could also just be associated with the fact that manes tends to develop in elderly lionesses.

The mane growth can happen pretty quickly, as we saw in the photos I've posted of Tandie over the last year. Here's Bridget, from the Oklahoma Zoo. The left photo was taken in March of 2017 and the right in November - look how much hair she gained over six months!

The zoo did some research into what might have cause Bridget's mane growth, and found that she had elevated levels of androstenedione, which is a hormone that can be converted by the body into either testosterone or estrogen, depending. In AFAB people, it's known to have a masculinizing effect. The zoo theorized that this was the cause of her mane growth, and that the elevated levels might have been caused by a benign tumor. Fascinatingly, though, blood draws revealed that her testosterone levels were the same as her mane-less sister, Tia.

Tia is on the left in the photo below, Bridget and the beginnings of her mane are on the right. Bridget was 17 when her mane started growing in.

I don't think there's any formal hypothesis that there might be a genetic component to lionesses growing manes in old age, but it's interesting to note that one of Tia's daughters, Zari, also grew a mane. (And she grew it young! It started around age 13, interestingly, also right after their male died). She's on the left in the photo below.

And to circle back around to where we began: Tandie is related to a number of maned ladies! His father, Xerxes, was Bridget's son; Zari was Xerxes' half-sister.

Here's a few more beautiful maned ladies to leave you with. In order, Ngala, Pepper, Skye, and Dandy Lion.

Next up, and last in this lion mane series, is the story of five younger lionesses in Botswana who not only have manes but also express a range of masculine behaviors.

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.

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A huge thanks to all the folk who shared photos of and stories about their golden girls for this post: M. Townsen, S.W. Simpson, E. Day, S. Cook, M. Stinner, M. Paul, K. Vanaman, D. O'Halloran, R. Simpson, D. Souffrant.

[violet-snail-sfw]

The first time I saw a trans woman was in porn. I was pretty young then, in early middle school I think. My first thoughts about trans women only existed in a sexual context, since that was the only place I saw us mentioned

The next time I saw trans people mentioned was a TV show presumably about trans people and transitioning. I didn't watch it, only saw the description because even as a kid I had already internalized the idea that it was taboo and I would get in trouble if my parents walked in and I was watching it

Eventually I saw enough TV and cop shows to see an episode with the dead trans hooker trope. It further reinforced the building idea that trans women were something else, separate from "normal" people and always on the outskirts of society

And then Caitlyn Jenner came out. At my Catholic middle school there were few kind things said about her and plenty of nasty comments, but this was the first time I saw trans people being publicly talked about

In high school my views on trans people started to fracture. On one hand, I was being pushed the idea that gender was about what's in your pants, that if you've got a dick your a man and there's nothing that can be done about it. On the other hand, early high school me had stumbled across some gender change erotica and quickly became obsessed with it. While it wasn't great representation, it was still pretty positive about transitioning. The people in those stories were always happier afterwards

I struggled to reconcile what parts of society were saying about trans people with my daydreaming about what I'd do if I woke up the next morning as a girl. Eventually I decided that it was just a fetish. I just thought it was hot, there was no way I could be trans because I was just a normal person. I wasn't weird or a spectacle for others to gawk at, I was just a person

Around that time I also met a trans person in passing for the first time. One of the trans guys at my high school was in one of the musicals that I went to because some of my friends were also in them. When I was talking to my friends about it after someone mentioned the trans guy and that he was trans. I wasn't really sure what to think so I kinda just didn't think about it. Thinking back, there were a few trans guys at my high school but I don't think there was a single out trans woman

Eventually in college I actually met some trans and nonbinary people. In some classes we introduced ourselves on the first day with names and pronouns which was my first exposure to people using pronouns other than just he/him and she/her. I had a few classes with trans and nonbinary people, including a survey of transgender studies class I took in my last semester. I had plenty of excuses for why I was taking it (I needed a few more credits to graduate. It still had room open. It fit with my other classes. It seemed interesting. I'm trying to be a good ally.)

Around this time as well I found some trans creators online like ContraPoints and Philosophy Tube (whom I had watched before she came out as trans). I was weirdly excited and interested when Odyssey Eurobeat came out as trans and I went to go listen to some of her music right after I heard. I was starting to have examples of trans people just being people. Not just porn stars or public spectacles, but people

Later I met and befriended a few trans women, one of whom was extremely open about her transness and happened to share a video which started the initial steps of my egg cracking and figuring out who I am now

If I had actually known any trans women, if the world had been kinder to trans people, if representation of trans women as people existed and was well known, I might have been able to realize who I was sooner. I would have been able to exist as myself for more than a tiny fragment of my life so far

Representation matters, both in media and in daily life. Trans people being out and open about who they are made it possible for me to realize that about myself. Please never stop being who you are

[dreamwritesimagines]

Theory of Gravity

Pairing: Logan Howlett x Female!Reader

Summary: Making small talk can be difficult with a crush.

Word Count: 1234

Genre: Fluff Oneshot

Content: Drinking, reader being awkward because she has a crush, flirting

Contrary to popular belief, snitching on the whereabouts of a very dangerous mobster in the bar you worked in and possibly getting killed or maimed in the process was not a good plan for a Friday night but to be completely honest, you had done worse things over a silly little crush.

Like back in college freshman year when you pretended to be into music biopics just so that the hot guy in your elective would think you two were meant to be.

So if anything, this was a pattern.

“Logan?” you said as you put his drink in front of him. “Can I ask you something?”

“Hm?”

“What was Galileo like?”

He blinked a couple of times, the familiar scowl that seemed to be etched on his handsome face getting deeper and you tried to ignore the way your heart skipped a beat.

“Please tell me you’re joking,” he said. “I will lose all the belief I’ve never had in the first place in this country’s education system if you’re serious.”

You gave him a bright smile. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“I figured it was better than asking how the public took it when Newton came up with the theory of gravity.”  

The look on his face couldn’t be described with anything but complete horror and you let out a laugh, then went to serve another customer before quickly making your way to him.

“I’m just messing with you,” you said, leaning against the bar as you stole a look at the mobster sitting by the table with his men, then to Wade who was very, very busy with Vanessa by the corner.

“You look nervous,” Logan pointed out, making your head whip up before you cleared your throat.

“Nah, not at all,” you said. “I’m just thinking that if I die tonight, I’ll die doing what I love.”

“Which is?”

Gazing at older men who couldn’t look less interested in me.

“Being surrounded by drunk people who want to give me money,” you said. “Not a bad way to go.”

He scoffed into his drink before taking a sip while you nibbled on your lip, shifting your weight.

“Nothing is going to happen to you,” he said, his voice gruff. “We’re just waiting for his partner to show up, then we will deal with them both.”

You nodded your head. “Yeah. Sure, I know.”

“Do you?”

You nodded again, absentmindedly reaching out to play with the cocktail straw on the counter, painfully aware of his gaze on you that made your face burn.

“How’s grad school?”

…He remembered.

He remembered you saying that the last time he and Wade were here.

One simple observer would’ve thought he was on his knees proclaiming his undying love for you with the way your heartbeat went insane and his eyebrows rose as if he could hear it, but you quickly casted the thought away from your mind; that was surely impossible.

“Oh it’s going well!” you said, your voice going high-pitched for a moment. “Came for the hot professors, stayed for the education—I’m joking,” you added in a haste, waving a hand in the air. “I’m a very…very deep and intellectual individual.”

“Uh huh.”

“And none of my professors are hot,” you muttered and wiped at the damp spot on the counter with a napkin. “They should put that on the brochure if you ask me, it’s important information.”

“So you’ll be a doctor?”

“If by some miracle my dissertation goes through the jury,” you pointed out. “How about you? How’s your roommate situation with Wade going?”

He only grumbled something under his breath and you bit back a smile, then topped his drink.

“Thanks sweetheart.”

If there was one thing you hated the idea of more than dying was proving Freud right but it looked like you were going two for two tonight.

“So uh,” you said, trying to ignore the goosebumps rising on your arms because of his deep voice. “Hey, at least you have the place to yourself sometimes, no? When Wade is with Vanessa? Should give you some time to…bring someone home.”

And I volunteer as tribute.

He raised his brows, his unwavering gaze pinning you to your spot and you cleared your throat.

“Or—or someones,” you stammered. “Sky is the limit if you’re into that sort of thing. Now that it came up by the way, are…are you?”

“Am I bringing people home?” he asked as if he wanted to make sure that was what you were asking and you shrugged your shoulders, your face on fire.

“I’m just asking because, you know,” you began the sentence without having a clue on how you would finish it as usual. “I’m great at giving relationship advice, so if you were in a relationship I could be your own personal relationship coach.”

He pulled his brows together in confusion and you reached out to get the bowl full of peanut shells from his right just so that you could keep yourself busy, then turned the bowl over the garbage can.

“I’m not,” he said and you swallowed thickly.

“Who has the time for that these days, am I right?”

“Do you have—”

“Yes I have the time!” you cut him off, nodding your head in enthusiasm, your heart beating in your ears but he had already finished his sentence;

“…ice?”

You hoped to God tonight was the night you’d die because if that mobster in the corner didn’t shoot you, you were going to have to ask Wade to do it just to save you from this embarrassment.

“Oh,” you said after a beat as he stared at you. “Yeah—yeah I have ice, sorry.”

You rushed to get some ice and put it into his whiskey, biting inside your cheek and he cleared his throat.

“You don’t want to go out with me sweetheart.”

Well good news was that you had already made a fool of yourself so one could think the bar for your self-respect couldn’t get any lower, but boy oh boy you had already brought your metaphorical shovel.  

“I disagree,” you said, taking a deep breath. “I would very much love to if you were interested.”

“You think I’m not interested?”

“I feel like I’d have a better chance at proving you’re not interested with dates and references than my own thesis,” you pointed out. “And that’s saying something—”

“I am interested,” he cut you off, making your eyes widen and you gawked at him, frozen in your spot. “Trust me, that’s not the problem here.”

“Am I getting the I’m too dangerous for you speech?” you heard yourself ask through disbelief. “Because screw that speech. Honestly, the only thing I’m focused on in here is if you—fuck!”

He pulled his brows together. “If I—?”

“No no!” you said as you pointed at the back door where two men were dragging Wade through. “Wade!”

Logan cussed under his breath as he shot up from his stool.

“Don’t go anywhere, we’ll talk about this later,” he told you and made his way to the back door while you heaved a sigh, leaning back to the counter as he stepped outside and you caught the sight of him grabbing a man by the neck before the door slammed shut. You pressed a hand over your chest, then tilted your head back with a groan.

“Alright,” you muttered to yourself. “That was smooth.”

[vampiefemme]

in which ellie shows you exactly who you belong to.

18+ minors dni!

You and Ellie aren’t together. 

You’re not a couple. You’d both agreed to keep things casual. You’re just roommates who mess around sometimes; simple as that. 

So why do you feel so guilty for going on a date with someone else?

You’re dressed and ready, adding the final touches to your makeup in the mirror, and you should be feeling excited - your date is a total dreamboat. Perfect on paper and so, so hot. But instead of that giddy, fluttery feeling in your stomach, all you feel is guilt. 

You and Ellie aren’t together, you keep reminding yourself. You repeat it like a mantra in your head. There’s nothing wrong with going on a date, right? Because you’re single… Right?

On your way out, you run into Ellie, because of course you do. She’s sprawled out on the couch, head propped on a pillow, playing her Switch with a determined look on her face. Your stomach clenches when you see her. She looks up when she hears you walk to the front door, her eyes following you as you slip into your shoes. 

“You look nice,” Ellie says from the couch. You look over and see that she’s paused her game; she’s sitting up and drinking in the sight of you, eyes lingering over your frame. You pretend not to notice. 

“Thank you, Ellie.” You grin and look down at your outfit, palms smoothing over the fabric of your skirt. You do look nice. 

“Where are you going?” 

Your cheeks go hot at the question, and your first instinct is to lie - to tell Ellie that you’re going to see a friend. Just catching up with someone from college over dinner. But it’d be stupid to lie - you’re single. You’re allowed to go out.

“I’m, um, going on a date.”

You don’t look at her when you say it - you know you’d feel guilty, even if the two of you are just friends with benefits. Or… Roommates with benefits?

“Oh,” Ellie says, as you busy yourself picking off nonexistent lint from your shirt. Anything to avoid her gaze. “Okay. Have fun, then.”

There’s no bitterness in her voice, which you had expected. You glance at her face, and she’s back to that determined expression, focused on her Switch again. 

You clear your throat. “Thanks. I’ll, um… See you later.” 

Naturally, you spend the entire date thinking about Ellie. Her eyes, green and dotted with flecks of brown. Her hair, which falls in her face just right. Her mouth, and the way it feels against the supple flesh of your throat, Ellie’s lips soft and wet as she trails kisses down your neck. 

And her hands - her strong hands. You can almost feel them on your hips, on your chest, between your legs. 

God, this date was a mistake.  

Still, you have the common decency to see it through. You pretend to be interested in your date’s job, their hobbies, their five year plan. They drone on for hours, only asking you a few pointed questions about yourself, and when the dinner’s finally over and they’ve signed the check, you’re itching to leave.

Not long after you’ve made it back home, you’re face-down on Ellie’s bed, moaning into the mattress as her tongue circles your clit. 

She’d asked you about your date between heated kisses, her lips flushed and swollen. You hadn’t given her much details aside from it was boring and I just wanted to come home and do this. That seemed to give Ellie some sort of complex, because now, as she pumps her fingers into your cunt with one hand and lands a stinging smack on your ass with the other, she pulls back from mouthing at your clit to rasp, “That’s it, moan for me.” 

And she’s always been talkative in bed, all slurred curses and dirty comments, but there’s something different this time. You arch your back deeper, giving her more access to pound her fingers into you, and she groans in approval. 

“Good fucking girl,” she breathes, using her free hand to dig her blunt nails into the flesh of your ass. She gives it another spank for good measure. “Wanna tell me whose pussy this is?”

There it is - something she’s never said before. You can feel yourself getting wetter, tightening around her fingers as your hips involuntarily push backwards against her palm. You forget to respond entirely, every thought in your head smooth and shapeless, disappearing as quickly as it came. But Ellie won’t let you off so easily. 

“Flip over,” she orders, the rasp in her voice sending a thrill up your spine. You obey wordlessly, and when you’re on your back, you see it: a possessive glint in her gaze, a sharp edge to her expression. You gush impossibly wetter, cunt clenching around nothing - the absence of Ellie’s fingers makes you want to sob. 

“Ellie,” you whisper, brows knitting together. Her gaze softens. “Please make me come.”

A smile tugs at her lips and she nods, her palm rubbing over your stomach in soothing circles. 

“I will, princess,” she assures you, “but I need you to tell me who you belong to. Think you might’ve forgotten.”

Guilt twists in your gut. “You, Ellie.” 

“What about me?”

There’s a challenge in the teasing lilt of her voice. You swallow. “I… Belong to you.”

“Mm, that’s right.” Ellie’s hands travel upward from your abdomen to your chest, closing around each of your tits. You suck in a shaky breath when her thumbs stroke over your pert nipples, making them draw even more taut. “These are mine?”

“Yours,” you gasp, chest rising and falling quickly. Ellie’s bangs fall in her eyes as she leans over to suck a nipple into her mouth, tongue swirling over the bud until you go cross-eyed, hips canting upward. She repeats the same torture with your other breast, leaving both of your nipples swollen and sensitive. 

“What about this?” Ellie asks when she pulls back, her hand moving to the heat between your legs. You whine, a desperate, pathetic little sound that makes Ellie want to eat you whole. 

“Yours, Ellie, it’s yours,” you say, voice betraying how needy you are. She dips a finger into your wetness, your folds silky with arousal, and you almost miss the way her eyes flicker back into her skull for a moment. She’s enjoying this just as much as you are. 

“This is mine?” She drags her fingers up to your clit, drawing torturously wide circles around it - close, but not close enough. You could start crying right there. You nod, frantic.

Ellie clicks her tongue, tuts in disapproval. “No, baby, I need to hear you say it. Whose pussy is this?”

And it’s not so hard to admit - Ellie’s had you under her spell long before you went on that stupid date tonight. You realize it now, cheeks warming at the obscene sounds of Ellie’s fingers playing in your cunt, unable to look her in the eye without squirming. 

“My pussy’s yours,” you pant, “s’all yours. Nobody fucks me like you, Els.” 

You’re pushing your hips towards her touch, your tits in your own hands now, pulling at your nipples like it’ll relieve the growing need in your belly. Ellie eyes you with half-lidded eyes, lust heavy in her gaze, and it’s like you can see the remnants of her resolve break. She sinks between your legs and finally, finally laps at your desperate cunt, drinking in the taste of you as you whine and writhe above her. 

When you come, it’s with Ellie’s name on your lips. And you know it’s true - you’re entirely hers.

[7seas-of-ryy]

The Bet

Author’s Note: I had a long day at work and wanted to write something happy :)) I hope you like it!

Summary: Who will be able to get Azriel to laugh first?

Pairing: Azriel x Reader

Warnings: none, let me know if I need to add any :)

“What’s so funny?” You mumbled as you crossed your arms.

You had asked Cassian and Rhys about the shadowsinger’s sense of humor. The pair had just given each other a look and howled with laughter.

“Az?? A sense of humor??” Cass choked out through his laughter.

“That’s a good one Y/N!” Rhys said, giving you a pat on the shoulder.

“Will you guys be serious!” You scolded the two males.

“Az doesn’t laugh at jokes.” Rhysand told you.

“Orrr maybe you two just aren’t funny?” You said with a smirk.

“What? And you think you’re so funny?” Rhys questioned.

“Definitely funnier than you two.” You told them.

“That is the most hurtful thing anyone has ever said to me.” Cassian stated, putting his hand on his chest.

“How about a bet?” Rhys smirked.

Cassian clapped his hands, always up for a challenge. A large grin grew on your face, already feeling confident even though you didn’t know the bet.

“We all get one shot to get Azriel to laugh. Whoever wins gets free drinks for a night at Rita’s.” Your High Lord told you and Cassian.

“I’m in!” Cass exclaimed.

“Oh you two are so going down.” You told them.

---

Azriel had been sitting at the table eating breakfast when Cass walked in. You and Rhys were discreetly watching from another room, looking to see if he could crack Az.

“Hey Az-” Cassian spoke before tripping over a chair and falling dramatically, hitting his head on the way down.

“You ok?” Az spoke and then took another bite without getting up from his spot.

“Are you serious?” Cass grumbled then got up and walked out. The spymaster didn’t even flinch.

“That was your master plan??” You asked him once he made it to you and Rhys.

“I thought he would laugh at my pain! He seems like he would find it funny!” Cass defended his choice.

You and Rhys began to shake with laughter.

“Don't worry, I thought it was funny.” Rhys told him with a smug look on his face.

Cass gave him a look and walked away grumbling.

---

Azriel, Cassian, Rhys, and you were all training together and it was Rhys’ turn to get Az to laugh. Cass threw a weak punch at him which missed horribly.

“Ha! What was that! That was worse than Y/N on a good day!!” Rhys stated, poking fun at both you and Cass.

A scowl grew on Azriel’s face, his brows furrowed watching his friend. You and Cass both stood there, equally offended.

“Why would you be rude to Y/N? She has done nothing to you and she’s a great fighter.” Az spoke.

Rhys’ eyebrows shot up, realizing that was the wrong route to take to get him to break. A smirk grew on your face when you realized they both blew their chances and you were the most likely to win.

“Hey! Why did you stick up for her and not me?” Cass complained.

“Because that punch was awful. He should have compared you to a child with no training, not Y/N, who could easily beat you in a fight.” He told his brother.

A giggle left your lips and Az gave you a nod and a smile.

---

“Alright lets see what you got.” Rhys told you.

Azriel was sitting in the library, reading a book when you approached him.

“Hey Az! Whatcha reading?” You asked.

“A book on some rare magic.” He told you in a gentle tone, looking up at you with soft eyes.

“That sounds interesting! I’m actually reading a book on anti-gravity, and it’s impossible to put down!” You told him with emphasis on the pun.

He watched you for a moment, a smile growing on his face. Then you heard the most beautiful sound, Azriel’s laughter. You felt pride well up inside you.

“That’s a good one, very funny.” He told you and you gave him one of your big smiles.

After a little bit more conversation, you left and went over to where Rhys and Cass had been watching.

“A pun?! Really?” Cass said, disbelief evident in his voice.

Rhys stayed quiet while his brother continued to complain.

“That’s how it's done boys. Looks like I’ll be having a fun, free night out at Rita’s!” You spoke and went back into the library to sit with Az.

“How did a pun out of all things-” Cass started but Rhys elbowed him in the ribs to shut him up.

“Look at him. It wasn’t the pun... it’s her.” He spoke.

The two of them watched as you sat next to Azriel, asking if you could join him and read your book by him. He looked at you with nothing but pure adoration as he nodded his head yes.

“He’s clearly in love with her.” Rhys added.

The two of them watched as Az turned his head back to his book and you looked at him with just as much love and affection.

“That’s cheating! We need a new bet.” Cass whined.

Rhys just shook his head at him. He didn’t care that he lost the bet, he was just happy to see his brother finally love someone who loved him right back.

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[venus-haze]

Lay All Your Love on Me (Homelander x Reader)

Summary: A communication breakdown has unintended consequences, but it’s all because Homelander loves you.

Note: Gender neutral reader and no descriptors are used. This is based on a request from @judyfromfinance and the ABBA song which is so Homelander coded. Do not interact if you’re under 18 or post thinspo/ED content.

Word count: 1.6k

Warnings: Jealousy, possessive behavior, violence (not toward the reader). We love miscommunication for plot reasons here! Do not interact if you’re under 18.

Homelander had no reason to believe you were hiding from him. Your job kept you busy, and ironically enough, working for the same company didn’t guarantee that you’d see each other nearly as much as he’d like. When his texts went unanswered and he couldn’t so much as hear you during the day, though, his mind went into overdrive presenting him with every worst case scenario it could possibly conceive of.

Cheat. Cheat. Cheat.

His gloved hands balled into fists at his side. You would never cheat on him. He knew that. He did. But sometimes, it seemed like your heart didn’t ache for him the way his did for yours. You had a life outside of him, and as much as you tried to include him in it, he resisted. Things would be easier if it were just the two of you.

Trying your phone again, he called you, frustrated when it went straight to voicemail.

“Hey babe, it’s me. I’ve been trying to reach you all day. Give me a call back as soon as you can. I love you,” he said, adding a quick. “Call me back" for emphasis.

He groaned, throwing his phone aside and folding his arms over his chest. It was fine. He didn’t care that much anyway. At least that’s what he told himself as he glanced at his discarded phone every few seconds in hopes you’d call or text back. No dice.

As a last resort, he headed to the crime analytics department. You managed a small team of analysts who consulted with the state and federal government on Vought’s behalf. The two of you had met when Vought was trying to get supes in the military, and as far as Homelander was concerned, it was love at first sight.

Never mind that it took a few weeks to win you over, frustratingly committed to your job and hesitant to date a coworker. Even though he’d hardly consider the two of you coworkers. Sure, you both worked for Vought, but that was it as far as he was concerned. In his determination to woo you, he’d made some valuable connections in your department. At least, people who he knew would have some kind of scoop on you when he needed it.

“Hey Annika,” Homelander said, startling the young crime analyst as he approached her desk. “How’re you doing, pal?

“Hi Homelander,” she said, not quite able to keep eye contact with him. “Sir. I’m good. H-How are you?”

“You haven’t seen Y/N around today, have you?”

She shook her head. “Sorry.”

“Alright,” he said tensely, a painfully fake smile spreading across his face. “Keep up the good work.”

His smile faltered as he heard your name come up in a conversation on the other side of the room. A masculine voice, younger than his, far too much mirth for his liking when he spoke about you.

“Dude, I was in Y/N’s office for like an hour yesterday. I could barely concentrate. They are so fine.”

“You’re insane,” someone else laughed.

“What? Have you seen them?”

“They’re dating Homelander, dumbass.”

“Whatever. It won’t last. He and Maeve will get back together, and yours truly will be there to pick up the pieces.”

“If you say so.”

Homelander hadn’t noticed his eyes glowing red until Annika squeaked. Letting out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding, he looked at his…acquaintance.

“See you around,” he said, his chipper tone clearly strained.

Since you weren’t answering your phone and he still had no clue where you were, Homelander had all the time in the world to wait around for your sleazy subordinate to take a bathroom break. He wondered if you were aware of the man’s interest in you. It was a possibility, but he had to assure himself that you wouldn’t do anything to encourage it. He knew you wouldn’t bother with a miscreant like that, of all people, but the point needed to be made. No one could speak so vulgarly about you and expect him not to do something about it.

Fifteen minutes or so had passed, and Homelander spotted his name badge. Josh.

“Hey Josh! You have a minute, buddy?” Homelander asked, voice booming through the hallway, causing Josh to flinch. Homelander smirked a bit.

“Homelander! Is there something you need?”

“Yeah, actually, I just have a question about the crime analytics office.”

Josh nodded. “Sure, anything.”

“Did you see any Greek letters in there?”

“Wh-What?”

“Did you see any Greek letters in there? Maybe a keg and some drunk idiots wearing togas?”

“I don’t—“

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Then why were you in there talking about my partner like you were in a fucking frat house?” Homelander asked, cornering the slimy analyst. “You know Y/N and I are dating, right? Your idiot friend told you as much.”

Josh’s mouth flopped open and closed like one of the disgusting fish The Deep crusaded for. “I—I didn’t mean—“

“So either you’re incredibly stupid, or you have a death wish. Which one is it, buddy?”

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Homelander.”

Homelander chuckled, empty and hollow, reveling in the way he could practically smell the fear radiating off of the man in front of him. “You will be.”

With the way Josh was carrying on, Homelander would’ve thought he’d actually killed the guy. All he’d done was snap his arm and throw an elbow to his nose. He’d just bought the asshole a free rhinoplasty, far more generous than he deserved after what he did. 

Homelander sneered at the blubbering crime analyst, work shirt covered in his own blood. Pathetic, really. And he had the audacity to act like he was worthy of you. Throwing one final glare Josh’s way, Homelander walked off, wiping the blood off his gloves and onto his suit. It could be dry-cleaned out.

The outburst made him feel better than he had all day, though it didn’t answer the question of where the hell you were and why you weren’t answering him. Besides, he swore he heard the familiar sound of your footfall in the lobby. 

He supposed you wouldn’t be too happy if you came back to see one of your subordinates brutalized in the hallway. Just his luck, he spotted an intern in one of the unoccupied offices.

“Hey,” Homelander said, pausing a moment to read the intern’s badge, “Sammy, there’s a mess over by the crime analytics office, can you get someone to clean it up?” 

“Sure,” Sammy responded cheerfully.

“Thanks, it’s the little things that make this place run. You’re doing great,” he complimented, giving her a friendly pat on the shoulder.

Sammy returned his smile, obviously not questioning his sincerity. Homelander knew if he framed the whole thing as a favor, she’d be more likely to follow through. It was always good to have reliable people in his back pocket for things like that, worker bees who thought they were friends or something. She walked off, strides purposeful as she set off to complete her personal mission from Homelander.

Rushing over to the elevator, he listened for you, getting out on the fifteenth floor where he saw you just as you walked out of the bathroom. 

As soon as he made eye contact, he melted, making a beeline for you.

You smiled, wrapping your arms around Homelander. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

“Where were you?” he asked, almost painfully returning your embrace.

“I told you I was presenting for the security council at the UN all day. No phones, remember?”

He huffed, releasing you from the hug. Fuck. “I guess—maybe that rings a bell. You shouldn’t tell me something so important while I’m distracted.”

“How much did you miss me?” you teased, holding up your pointer finger and thumb to pinch the air. “This much?” You spread your fingers wider. “This much?” Wider again, except before you could ask, Homelander scooped you up in his arms.

“Why don’t I show you?”

“Please do,” you said, tilting your head up to kiss him.

He retreated into the elevator with you, his lips capturing yours in a desperate kiss laced with longing. You giggled at him. You’d only been gone for a few hours, yet he was acting as though it had been days. 

You missed him too, resolving to focus your attention on him for the rest of the night.

Until your phone rang.

“I should get this.”

“Now you’re able to pick up a call?” he grumbled, setting you down.

“One minute,” you whispered, grabbing your phone, “then I’m all yours.”

He pressed the button to his suite, having forgotten to do so in the heat of passion. “You better be.”

You picked up your phone, amused at Homelander still clinging to you, kissing your neck. “Hello?”

“Josh from crime analytics?” you asked, tensing a bit when Homelander grazed his teeth on the crook of your neck. “I haven’t heard from him since he gave me the homicide report yesterday.”

Homelander hummed against your skin, and you let out a whimper only he could hear at the way it vibrated through you. He was smug, and it took you a moment to piece together why.

“Okay, talk to you tomorrow,” you said before hanging up. “What did you do?”

“Something chivalrous to defend your honor,” he mumbled, his lips unrelenting on your shoulder as he pulled your shirt down to expose it.

“I guess I should thank you properly, then? My knight in shining armor?”

He lifted his head, grinning, “If you insist.”

[empty-vessel-of-a-person]

Rough Relationship Timeline with Zayne based on his Memories

This is just my observation. Not All Memories are included. May Contain Spoilers for those who just started the game. I maybe wrong in some parts as nothing on this blog is confirmed by Infold PTE LTD.

Pre - Relationship Stage

Sweet Conspiracy

The awkwardness is a bit heavy here. They still do not know how to talk to each other and M/C learning about Zayne having a sweet tooth.

She doesn't know how to return his jacket but does not want to leave it at the hospital's reception. Probably a good choice. Who knows? Some nurse might just stole that jacket away. ;)

M/C knows he is in a medical conference but doesn't know when he'll be back. So they are not communicating well yet. Maybe just a few convo here and there when she's in for check up.

But my favorite part is when M/C indirectly say that she wants to see Zayne outside of the hospital by saying "You'll call me so I can get my candies back when I'm free.. And we'll see each other again"

This memory clearly shows who M/C is really interested to. She wants to see him again and even if it's awkward with him when they just saw each other again, she is clearly interested.

Glittering Lights

Zayne's paying attention to M/C's emotion and monitoring her in Social media. This thought alone clearly shows that Zayne is already particularly keeping an eye on her since they met again in the hospital.

They are also not fully acquitted yet which is why M/C is quite unsure to start conversations with him. But it shows how Zayne is trying to learn little things about her. He is not yet familiar with what she likes hence him asking her americano or latte.

They have a connection. When they are trying to find each other when they got separated during Zayne's sudden phone call, even M/C felt it. It's like they both felt that they are looking for each other and their eyes met.

And the most obvious clue that they are not yet an item, is that awkward goodbye wave. But it's cute because they are expecting more.

Gentle Twilight

This was the first time Zayne ask M/C to go with him as a mutual support agreement in doing things to make them relax. Why I think so? They never expect to see each other in the library and when he thinks M/C is going to refuse hiking with him, he grabs a book about medicine to ensure that she will come with him.

They still not keeping tabs on each other directly.

M/C calling Zayne as "Dr. Zayne" seems professional rather than teasing.

Please remember hiking and pottery lessons.

Neon Nights

She refers to Zayne as a friend and they just keep bumping to each other.

Zayne is clearly jealous that M/C buying a gift for someone. He's actually quite bitter.. hehehehe

Isn't it amazing that even they disagree and not in a relationship at this time, they are perfectly in sync and fight wonderfully together. Which is why they are great together.

Delicacy

Well M/C thinking Zayne needs to correct his classmates when they said she is his girlfriend.

They are already more acquitted in this as they already agreed on meeting up and they are learning new and more things about each other.

M/C is also picking up Zayne's habits and likes as she know he likes the food there.

Zayne is comfortable in introducing her already.

Zayne's also indirectly confess to her here. (I want to strangle Astra if you know what I mean!)

In a Relationship Stage

Tranquil Heart

This may not be a solid proof, but I think they started their relationship right after this memory.

Although it came out as a friendly banter between them, Zayne is clearly upset that he was not taking care of herself more. Not to mention being caught sneaking out at the hospital at the dead of the night.

But this is where the last line of the memory played out for the start of their relationship. Zayne again indirectly confess to her by saying "That he can't ignore you even if he wants to."

This line is so strong in so many levels. 1, it can imply on Foreseer seeing M/C again. He has a choice to either move on from her but he chose to stay and dedicate his life for her.

2 if he made a promise to her as a kid, it is forgivable if he forgot to help her with her sickness. But from then on he just simply existed for her. I still got chills thinking of what have Zayne must have felt when he first hug and kiss M/C.

Tranquil Moment

I think this is their early relationship stage because M/C is more familiar with Zayne's schedule now and she is seeing him to have dinner dates.

They are planning a dates and doing small things like making snow man and watching the snow. This simple things are one of the sweetest things as they mark the beginning of their relationship.

Drunken Intimacy/ Exclusive Tutorial

He is bringing her to events and showing her to classmates and colleagues. He is definitely showing her off and proud of her being a hunter.

He is being territorial. He warns M/C not to visit other doctors and keep close to her when someone wants to talk to her.

Spring Remnants

They are doing charity events together.

Notice how Zayne takes the box from M/C? This is not just him being gentleman because the next thing he say is "Allow me" referring to taking the box from her and the "Go register first" meaning M/C and Zayne are close enough for M/C knowing his details.

Zayne holding her hands.

At the end, Zayne says "Let's enjoy Spring together from now on" indicating they indeed start dating and Zayne wanting for them celebrate spring as a couple moving forward.

Starry Nocturne

I usually refrain from talking about this memory. Not only of it's heavy emotional content, but I can clearly feel the exhaustion and fear from Zayne.

If observe closely, you can see how they understand each other without a word. Zayne just looks at M/C and she already understood. The gesture is so intimate yet so wholesome.

They way they understood each other and the way she comforts him. M/C might have know that the exhaustion and fear comes with the thought of her in his mind.

Its given that they are already together but Zayne is still in a race against time. He might be busy with patients but all this effort as we know is to find a permanent cure for M/C. He works tirelessly for her. To not lose her again. And this brings me to one of the things that may be difficult to swallow for everyone.

While Xavier and Rafayel are still tied to their memory of M/C in their previous lifetime, Zayne is the only one leaving the past behind, embracing the present, and was fighting for a future with M/C. Words are not enough to express how deep and far his love could go and this is exactly why I love Zayne so much.

The Next Level Stage

Ramblings Come True

AGAIN, Although I cannot say this is a solid evidence, but when Zayne says "I was... referring to something you wouldn't regret" It was like he is asking for her if she is ready to take their relationship to the next stage and she agree by saying when she gets better. (M/C have a cold)

Fleeting Sweetness/Cozy Afternoon

M/C was able to enter Zayne's home while he was sleeping. Meaning she already have the keys to his home solidifying the fact that they are indeed in a relationship. I know mostly Japanese are more symbolic at this its like giving someone more

They are sleeping on the same bed on his house or at her place. M/C buying him him a pajama set.

They instinctively and freely touching each other. Be it holding hands or hugging.

Lingering Warmth/End of Depth/Heartstring Symphony/Business Trip/Snowy Serenity/Hidden Motive.

Do I actually need to explain this? hehehehe It's really obvious so I'll leave it there.

Final Thoughts

Zayne and M/C have a steady and strong bond when it comes to relationship. They might have tiptoed around it by not saying a direct "I Love You", but they live and breath for each other.

Isn't cute that they find a way to saying their true feelings by saying "The Moon is Beautiful"?

Thank you Infold for bring Zayne to us. If may just a game for other, but Zayne is my comfort zone. Having him is like having something that will be forever consistent in my life.

[lovelyhan]

— melting point ⟢

rumor has it that icy department head of pledis insurance has something going on with her loyal secretary, wonwoo. well, she does—it's just not the kind of behind-closed-doors business one would expect for them to partake in.

★ FEATURING; secretary!wonwoo x afab!oc

★ WORD COUNT; 12.3k words

★ TAGS; coworkers to lovers, revenge fic, angst, smut

★ WARNINGS; blackmailing, manipulation, mentions of past bullying, graphic sexual content (MINORS DNI)

★ NOTES; hi... it's been forever, hasn't it? i missed tumblr a lot, and have decided to grace the tags with this fic after months of radio silence heheh ! this was a commissioned piece on twt which i tweaked to fit my tumblr audience better! cheers to 5k followers even in my absence t__t you guys are the best!

★ PS; i'm sorry i can't be bothered to dig up my taglist and tag those who filled it up T T

There’s a saying in PLEDIS Insurance that goes: enjoy your coffee early because once the Ice Queen is in, it’ll turn just as cold as she is. 

Of course, the words were merely thrown around in jest. Something that bored employees come up with in the break room whenever they’re careless enough to think their little jokes won’t reach said ice queen’s ears. But still—they’re just jokes. As long as they worked enough to satisfy their salaries’ worth, Emma the Ice Queen would always turn a blind eye. She might be cold, but she isn’t completely heartless.

Most of the time.

“Good morning, ma’am,” her secretary, Wonwoo, greeted with a curt nod as she entered her office. 

Emma scoffed before setting her things down on her work desk, the frown on her face only worsening when she sees the elegantly wrapped gift box in front of her. “What's this?” 

Wonwoo swallowed thickly, like he was nervous. Wonwoo never gets nervous.

“We have an...unforeseen circumstance,” he prefaced before tapping away on the iPad in his arms. “Sir Leo from the Choi group wants to pursue you.”

“Unforeseen?” Emma repeated. “Wonwoo, this is completely foreseen. Isn't it our from the start is to make them fall in love, only for us to expose their dirty secrets in the end?”

He looked as if he wanted to agree. But after turning the screen of his iPad so Emma could see the article written on some shoddy newsletter, her brows furrowed together in confusion.

A Race for the Inheritance: How the Choi Group’s Next Generation of Ambitious Youngbloods Will Do Everything to Get Their Fill of Old Money. 

The title itself didn’t give Emma much context of what exactly was making Wonwoo—her ever-composed secretary—lose his composure. It’s natural to see the sons and daughters of a powerful business conglomerate fight each other for their rights to the family inheritance. But after reading through what the rest of the article had to offer, the pieces of the puzzle suddenly started to fit.

“They're seeing who gets to get married first?” Emma laughed incredulously before handing the iPad back to Wonwoo. “Does Leo really think he can get me to become his lover—even more so his wife—after everything he did to me in high school?”

Wonwoo breathed in deeply. “Miss Emma, we both know the answer to that. If it were all up to you, you could easily put him to shame and reject him. But his interests somewhat align with the director’s interests as well…”

Ah. Her father’s interests.

“No,” she answered sharply. “Even if he kicks me out of my position, I’m not going to be wed to that prick.”

“Are you sure about that?” Wonwoo sighed before adjusting his glasses. “Miss Emma, we both know you love your work more than anything. And you're chronically attached to this company even if you despise the executives. Sir Leo has good leverage over you, sad to say.”

There was something irritating about hearing Wonwoo call his ex-best friend Sir, as if he was underneath some scumbag of a human being like Leo. But then again, years have passed since then. Lots of things have changed. 

But Emma’s grudges hold steadfast, still.

“Hmph, whatever.” She dismissed the matter with a nonchalant wave before unwrapping the gift box in front of her. “Was this from Leo, too? Is he on a deadline or something?”

“Hmm, first one that gets married before December gets the rights to the inheritance,” Wonwoo informed her as he picked the clutter of ribbons off Emma’s desk and pocketed them in his coat for later disposal. “Do you want me to look up the progress of his siblings and cousins? We can sabotage him while it's still early.”

Emma didn’t respond right away—preoccupied with unwrapping Leo's so-called gift. But when she sees a red velvet box with an engagement ring and a folded letter inside, she begrudgingly realized that Leo wouldn’t be as easy a target as her other high school bullies.

No, this man really was rotten to the core.

By the time you’re reading this, I’m sure you already heard the news. You know what to do, right, Emma?

Or should I say, wifey? ;)

“Send this back to him. Now.”

Wonwoo nodded obediently as Emma pushed Leo's cursed gift box away from her. “Alright. Anything else I can do for you? Like…have someone plant a snake in his bedroom or something?”

Despite the sour mood that Leo undoubtedly put her in this morning, Wonwoo's little idea of a joke made the corners of her mouth turn up into a small smile. The offer was tempting, but in the end, she shook her head and booted up the PC on her desk instead.

“As much as I want his death by a snake bite to headline the news, Leo doesn’t deserve to get out of this the easy way.” Emma muttered as she started browsing through the hard-drive she’d hooked up onto the computer. “And lucky for us, I finally got the evidence to send his suspiciously prosperous career down into a spiral.”

Wonwoo raised an eyebrow before taking a peek behind her. “What's that? Money laundering records? Tax fraud?” 

No. It was really something as simple as—

“Footage of a mass orgy he participated in,” Emma casually told her secretary as she clicked on the only video on the hard drive. “Might not look like a big deal compared to what we had to go through with Ezra, but Leo belongs to a family of devout Catholics. Good thing your contact from Leo's favorite bar had some use. All I did was ask around and he quickly spilled all the details with the right amount of money.”

Wonwoo chuckled as he flashed her an impressed look. “As far as I know, I’m the one who’s supposed to do the dirty work for you. Why are you directly involving yourself in matters you can leave to me?” 

The lewd video continued to play on her screen—muted, of course—and one could easily make out Leo Choi's face amongst the crowd of sex-depraved freaks. Once they sent this over anonymously to each and every person who might think that scumbag deserved to inherit his family’s wealth, it would be all over for him.

“‘Cause we’re a team, Wonwoo,” she chuckled. “You’ve done your fair share of work when we took down Gavin and Ezra. But admittedly…I've got more bones to pick with Leo. I think it’s only fair for me to orchestrate his downfall with my own two hands.”

“Right…” Wonwoo agreed with a hint of fondness in his tone that completely went over Emma’s head—far too triumphant with her newfound ammunition. 

“We’re a team.”

But it wasn’t always that way.

Wonwoo was actually more deeply involved in Emma’s mission to exact revenge on the people who’ve wronged her years ago than one would otherwise expect. He’d been best friends with Leo since they were kids, and when they eventually met Gavin and Ezra in their high school basketball team, the four of them were quite inseparable. 

But despite being his best friend, Wonwoo knew that Leo could be quite…off-putting with his behavior sometimes.

“Hey, look at that,” Sixteen year-old Leo scoffed before gesturing towards the loud girl earning amused stares in the cafeteria. “She's so fucking loud. Is she the new transfer student?”

Gavin snickered as he took a bite out of his lunch. “How'd she even get in here? Our tuition isn't a joke, and she doesn't really look like she can afford it. The kid of a maid, maybe?”

“Or she could be one of those financial scholarship kids,” Ezra pitched in with a shrug. “Though she doesn't look very bright if we're being honest.”

Wonwoo didn’t offer anything to the conversation, merely eating his food quietly as his friends talked smack about the new transfer student in their class. Emma Rodriguez was like a piece of meat thrown into a pit of vipers. Some might like her—like the classmates who were howling with laughter because of her antics—but others looked at her with disdain. 

She didn’t belong to any wealthy well-known families like every other kid in their grade. The girl simply popped out of nowhere like an eyesore, according to Leo. Wonwoo didn’t really mind her presence though. She made the boring monotone of his school days a bit more bearable with her energy.

But what Wonwoo thought was just his friends’ surface-level dislike for a girl who behaved differently from the others in their grade turned out to be something else.

Something worse.

He wasn’t stupid. He knew what bullying was, and was well-aware that what his friends constantly did to Emma wasn’t something that normal high schoolers did. Leo was the most vicious about it, and Wonwoo never really got to know his reasons for doing all those horrible things. 

But whenever they spotted Emma horsing around in the hallways, Leo would always be the first one to come up to her—calling her names like fraud, gold digger, and the like. Gavin and Ezra followed each and every time, and they were usually the ones who pushed her around for no real reason.

And Wonwoo? Wonwoo was the one who always stood a few feet away every time his friends decided they were in the mood to pick on the transfer student. The one who always stayed quiet and pretended nothing unsightly was happening in front of him.

The one whose gaze Emma always tried to silently catch, hoping he’d be the one to stop his friends from harassing her. 

But he never did.

That cycle of three boys bullying a once bright and bubbly transfer student became commonplace. Before their third year in high school came to a close, Emma suddenly vanished off the radar. She didn’t attend their classes, nor was she there in the completion ceremonies at the end of every school year. 

Most of the kids around Wonwoo didn’t really give two shits about her sudden disappearance. Word around the street was that she transferred out because of the heavy harassment she was getting, not just from his friends, but also the rest of the students from their grade. They didn’t think Emma was funny because of her silly antics and loud jokes anymore.

Everyone started to collectively think of her as a nuisance, and the fact that she had no familial connections to protect herself with only fed into the senseless yet oh-so popular trend of crushing Emma Rodriguez’s hopes and dreams into the ground.

It was almost like Wonwoo was the only person in their entire grade who felt the tiniest bit of pity for her. But he told himself long ago that someone like him had no right to feel sorry for someone he never bothered trying to help. 

The years passed by in a flash. After Emma’s disappearance, Wonwoo quit the basketball team and  completely cut off his friends and everyone else who actively hurt her. He didn’t really know why either—all he knew was that he couldn’t stomach the idea of keeping those connections despite what they drove Emma to do. 

Of course, he knew he wasn’t completely innocent either. But it wasn’t too late to be a decent person, right?

Wonwoo simply went through the motions of graduating high school, then college, before pursuing a career in the vicious world of the corporate hierarchy. But instead of gunning for executive positions like his fellow fresh grads dared to dream, he worked his way up without using his family’s prestige to his own advantage. 

In fact, Wonwoo realized he liked working closely with his bosses. That’s why he became the designated secretary to all the finance department heads who walked through the doors of PLEDIS Insurance. He was content with being a jack-of-all-trades kind of guy who’s at the beck and call of someone else—a tool who worked on the sidelines. He never really wanted to be the face of any company anyway.

But then, in his fifth year on the job, he was told that there were a couple of changes in PLEDIS’ executive board. The boss he’d been working under was set to retire and he’d be replaced with a new one—someone younger and full of promise, as the head of human resources dramatically explained to him. 

It wasn’t really a deal breaker or anything. As long as Wonwoo got paid, he’d gladly work for even the most terrible of people in this industry.

But on the day his new boss was set to start, he was haunted by a ghost from the past instead.

Wonwoo hasn’t spared a single thought for Emma Rodriguez in God knows how long. Yet the moment she stepped into the office, he recognized her almost immediately. There was no trace of that girl people called gold digger and other derogatory names because of her appearance. This was a woman with her head held high—someone who oozed confidence in every stride with a gaze sharper than her winged eyeliner. 

Yet Wonwoo couldn’t be mistaken. This really was Emma Rodriguez.

He wondered if she remembered him, too. The boy who kept quiet about those who bullied her in those few crucial years of her life. Wonwoo even considered apologizing for not doing anything to help her when he should have. 

“Ah, Wonwoo Jeon?” Emma repeated his name with a dismissive air, almost like she was wholly uninterested in him. “The one who just watched when Gavin Kim pushed me in the muddy courtyard at school? The one who pretended not to see when Leo Choi splashed paint all over my uniform? Of course I remember you.”

God. Was this her exacting retribution?

For the next few days since she came into the office, Wonwoo helped Emma get used to the feel of things in the Finance Department. At least, that was his intention. 

From the looks of it, Emma already knew the ins-and-outs of managing a company’s cash inflow and outflow, as well as the other gritty, more technical details that came with accounting for each and every cent. She managed to prepare and present several sets of data that his previous boss had trouble organizing to the current board of directors within two days’ time. 

Her work ethic was admirable—she got the job done quickly and efficiently, and that made her earn the respect of her subordinates faster than Wonwoo had seen them warm up to their previous bosses. It would have been the perfect relationship between the new department head and her employees, if it weren’t for Emma’s stone cold behavior towards other people. 

Not only did she look different from the Emma he knew in high school, but she acted differently too. Wonwoo couldn’t picture this Emma purposely making a fool out of herself just to make the people around her laugh. This Emma wanted the entire team to get the work handed to them done as soon as possible, and if they did, the most they’d receive in return is a mere nod in approval and nothing else.

It was for that reason that employees would start calling her the Ice Queen. Though she wasn’t some tyrant that gave people an unreasonable workload—she was actually very lenient and fair about the division of tasks—her people skills needed a little work. 

That or Emma was purposely shutting everyone out with her chilly attitude. 

Wonwoo had a few clues as to why she’d want to do that, but he’s a secretary, not a therapist. The only thing he could do about it was to keep his silence.

But then came a day when Emma asked him to come into her office to do something he completely expected from her but didn’t at the same time.

“Are you still in touch with Leo, Gavin, and Ezra?” she asked him, not even bothering to look up from the report she’s reading off her PC.

The question caught Wonwoo off-guard and it was obvious Emma caught on to his reaction if the tiny smirk that curved across her lips was anything to go by. Still, he took it in stride—breathing in through his nose as he thought about his answer.

He hasn’t been in touch with any of them since his high school graduation. All their attempts at reaching out to Wonwoo to invite him for a quick game of ball or a round of drinks somewhere in the city were all ignored. Not even turned down—ignored. 

Leo was the most persistent about it. After all, they were best friends. But after several years of Wonwoo not even bothering to give their invites a single glance, Leo stopped reaching out altogether. Wonwoo's life became a lot more peaceful since he cut ties with them, and he never really regretted the decision to do so. 

But perhaps the universe really was telling him to pay the price for his past inaction now that Emma was bringing up the past on a regular Wednesday afternoon. 

“No, ma’am,” he told her honestly. “Do you want me to reach out to them? Their contact details are pretty easy to get our hands on.”

Emma sighed quietly before meeting his gaze, an unreadable look hovering across her face. “Mmm. Yeah, I’d like that. But aren't you going to ask why I want to contact them again?”

He wanted to, but Wonwoo learned that in his line of work, the last thing he should do was ask questions. It made him wonder if Emma was purposely setting him up on some sort of conversational bear trap, but seeing as he didn’t really have anything to lose by giving, he chose to relent. 

“...Why?”

The silence of her office rang in his ears as Emma typed away on her keyboard. It was a mechanical one with tactile switches that matched the color of her desktop wallpaper. He didn’t take her to be someone who cared enough about aesthetics to that degree, but then again, Wonwoo never really got a chance to get to know her back then. 

He was too much of a coward to do so.

Once she was done, Emma got up from her ergonomic chair (which also matched her desktop setup), leveling her gaze with Wonwoo's even if the latter was easily a head taller than she was. Something about the glint in her eyes made him swallow the lump in his throat. Not to mention that sweet yet chilly smile that graced her bright red lips.

“It’s really simple, Wonwoo,” she told him with a laugh. 

“I want revenge.” 

And that’s how their little team was formed.

It was a two-person job. Emma entrusted Wonwoo with digging up the information she needed about the three men she wanted to bring down, all while she was in charge of putting their plans into motion by heading over to the front lines. 

Gavin was an easy target. Unlike the other two, he’s the only one who pursued professional basketball and for a while, he amassed quite the number of fans and admirers because of his outstanding plays. What’s more was that he managed to wife up a beauty queen who’s already conquered the international stage a few years back. Now with their first baby on the way, one would think that Gavin Kim has a picture perfect life.

But further down the road, talk about how he’s actually a womanizing wife beater started to seep out of the cracks and crevices of the athletic industry. The allegations were serious, but no one really bothered batting an eye. It’s normal. Lots of athletes are like that. We can't do anything about it.

It was easy to get a hold of which gym Gavin frequents to maintain his physique. He preferred working out in public facilities instead of the one provided for his team because it gave him all the freedom to ogle and flirt with other women who just happened to be hitting the gym on days he was on the prowl. 

Wonwoo even added a little footnote in the file he prepared that said likes to engage in post-workout coitus in the shower rooms. Emma rolled her eyes in disgust when she read it, but made sure to keep it in mind.

The day finally came when she’d collect enough evidence to ruin Gavin’s career. Emma hasn’t dropped by the gym in a while—work having sapped her energy too much to let her psych herself back into working out. But she realized she didn’t have to act out too much because the moment she started operating the treadmill right next to Gavin’s, he was already checking her out.

He didn’t seem to recognize who she was, unlike Wonwoo. But then again Gavin was easily the stupidest out of her trio of high school bullies. This man was all brawn and no brains, which was why it was all too easy for Emma to seduce him in the showers of this shoddy gym not thirty minutes since she’d arrived.

It wasn’t the most pleasant experience. The last thing Emma wanted was to have this idiotic man inside of her so she offered to go on her knees and blow him instead—something that Gavin was all too happy to relent to. 

He didn’t even boast a cock of considerable size. It probably wasn’t any longer than her middle finger, and for a split second, she wondered why his beauty queen wife stayed with him despite having a cock that didn’t back up his cocky attitude. It was probably the money.

Emma didn’t waste much time though. Wonwoo visited this gym only a few hours prior to plant a bug somewhere inside the specific shower stall they were currently occupying. She just had to hope she and Gavin were positioned well enough so the camera would get a full view of what they were doing. 

It was the longest twenty minutes of Emma’s life, and she had to go home right away to disinfect her mouth about ten times, but hey. All in the name of vengeance, right?

At around eight in the evening on that same Saturday, her phone lit up with an email notification from Wonwoo. 

From: Wonwoo Jeon  Subject: CLASSIFIED Good evening, Miss Emma. I hope this message finds you well. I retrieved our bug from the gym earlier today and extracted the videos taken before properly disposing of it. Attached to this email is the MP4 file of our evidence against Mr. Gavin Kim. Around the time this message arrives to you, I have simultaneously sent said evidence to Mr. Kim’s managers, sponsors, teammates, other colleagues, and of course, his wife.  The only difference between their emails and yours is that this is a self-destructing message. Once you’ve closed this window, it will be deleted from your inbox without a trace. So if you are interested in watching the video below, best save it to your device of choice for better perusal. If you have any further questions and concerns, I am merely a text message away.  Regards,  Wonwoo Jeon Secretary, Finance and Logistics Department PLEDIS Insurance 

Like hell she was going to watch it.

The moment Emma finished reading through Wonwoo's overly formal email, she quickly exited the window and, true to his word, the message itself had disappeared. Despite being a fairly new player to the game, she had to commend all the precautions Wonwoo was setting to make sure her plans were a success. 

It made her wonder if his previous bosses have also asked him to do shady things under the company’s nose in the past. Whether or not that's true, she was reaping the benefits of his expertise, so she had no room for complaints. 

As long as she had Wonwoo, she’d get to punish everyone who wronged her without fail.

Gavin’s downfall followed soon after. 

Tabloids were their best friend in that scenario. The thumbnail of the video that Wonwoo spread around like some virus that wouldn’t stop replicating headlined every single paper, talking about how one of the most promising basketball stars of their generation had fallen prey to his own vices.

It was a good thing that not only was Wonwoo careful enough to not leave digital footprints as he sent out those emails, but he also edited the video to keep Emma’s identity a secret. As Gavin’s world started to crumble before his eyes—him being kicked off the starting roster of the team, his wife leaving him behind, and the public execution of his reputation—Emma simply shared a bottle of aged wine from Tuscany with the man who helped her pull off a wonderful performance.

“You’re not too bad,” she mused as she took a small sip, crossing her legs from where she’s seated unceremoniously on the edge of her desk. “You're surprisingly more on-board with this plan than I thought. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were never friends with Gavin in the first place.” 

Wonwoo retained his stoic demeanor, not having touched the glass Emma offered him simply because it was against company regulations to intoxicate himself on the job. “If my boss tells me to ruin someone's life, I'm mandated to do it. I’m just doing what’s written on my job description, ma’am.”

Emma’s lips stretched into a grin as she threw her head back with a laugh. She leaned in closer to Wonwoo, who seemed wholly unfazed by the fact that the gesture granted him an ample view of her cleavage through her blouse. 

“Does your job description cover watching and editing your boss' sex scandal so you can mass send it to hundreds of people?” She giggled before leaning back to take another sip of her drink. “You’re in the green for now, Wonwoo. Keep it up and I might just have a pay raise arranged for you with HR if our next escapade is a success.”

He hummed in understanding. “Who’s next?”

In usual Emma fashion, she didn’t give him a straight answer right away. Instead, she hopped back to the carpeted floor of her office—not even wobbling in those thin heels she’s wearing—before rounding her desk to access her computer. 

“Have you been watching TV lately? Primetime soap operas?” she asked him as she clicked away on her screen. 

Wonwoo shook his head. “They don’t really interest me, ma’am.”

“I figured they wouldn’t. But this might.”

Emma gestured for him to peer at her monitor and Wonwoo wordlessly followed suit, getting up from his seat and standing behind her. Flashed on the screen was an article from a more reputable news outlet that featured two co-stars who played the main couple in a popular network’s newest drama. 

“Ezra Lee and Alaina Park…” Wonwoo muttered under his breath before his eyes flickered to Emma. “You have any leads I can work with?”

His boss chuckled before looking up at him with an expectant smile. “Someone's determined. I never thought I’d get to see someone so eager to do the dirty work for me.”

Wonwoo shrugged. “Miss Emma, I'm not sure if you're aware but desk work gets boring sometimes. You’re right. This is a lot more interesting.”

“Alright, then,” Emma chuckled before retrieving both of their wine glasses and handing Wonwoo's back to him. “Unlike Gavin, I don't have a lot of surface-level leads with Ezra. He’s a celebrity—their reputation needs to be squeaky clean, so it makes sense why I can’t dig up anything about him through regular means. But this should be a piece of cake for you, right?”

Wonwoo stared at the bright red liquor inside the expensive glass, gaze darting to the wicked smile playing on Emma’s lips. If he looked a little closer, he would be able to tell that the shade of her lipstick matches the color of the liquor in her hands. 

He took it from her grasp with a sigh, clinking the edges of their glasses together before downing the entire thing in one fell swoop. The wine was aged well, and had somewhat of a sweet aftertaste, but despite the appealing flavor, Wonwoo reminded himself to never drink on the job ever again. 

“I’ll get back to you once I have the information you need.”

Wonwoo swiftly left Emma’s office after that little victory party. Even with his new sideline of being his boss’s lead henchman, he still had a lot of work to do for PLEDIS Insurance. And that included telling the other employees to quit horsing around in the break room when their designated lunch break ended hours ago.

“Sir Wonwoo,” one of said employees, Soonyoung, snickered before throwing an arm over Wonwoo's shoulders. “You've been hanging out in Miss Emma's office pretty frequently. Is there something going on? You became close real quickly.”

“Yeah” said one Seokmin, who’s still snacking on a wafer despite Wonwoo's scolding. “Boss, we know you're not the fuck-your-way-up kind of guy, but who knows, right? But with your position right now, do you really need it?”

Seungkwan, the last member of their unruly trio, slapped Seokmin’s arm with a scowl. “Hey! Do you really have to say it to his face? Oh, boss, if you make a report about these two, please know I have nothing to do with whatever they're saying.”

Soonyoung snickered. “Are you sure about that? Weren't you the one who first noticed that Sir Wonwoo was stepping inside Miss Emma's office more frequently—”

“Hey! Boss told us to scram, didn't he?! Let's go.”

Seungkwan quickly ushered his two friends out of the break room, scolding them in a hushed tone before they all went back to their respective cubicles. Wonwoo shook his head with a sigh, muttering something about inevitable rumors as he made himself a cup of coffee.

Was that how they perceived Wonwoo’s sudden closeness with the department head? That he was fucking Emma in the solitude of her office? Well, the idea of a boss having illicit relations with their secretary wasn’t too far-fetched. He’s heard about how the head of the Advertising Department gets frisky with his secretary through the corporate grapevine. But just because it was a popular trope among the employees’ strange fantasies, it didn’t mean it applied to himself and Emma as well.

They were strictly professional: he did the dirty work and she paid him in full. That was all there was to it.

(But what people don’t know was that editing Gavin’s scandal wasn’t exactly the walk in the park Emma thought it was.

Despite being one of the most indifferent people in the company, Wonwoo was still a man. Seeing his boss, whose body would be coveted by anyone who dared to want her, in such a compromising position excited an…unexpected physiological reaction out of him.

His resolve was as sturdy as steel, however. Instead of taking care of the obvious problem in his pants as he edited the scandalous video, Wonwoo dealt with it by taking a long, cold shower until all the blood that rushed down south started circulating properly again.

He told himself not to think about it come morning.)

“A drug den?”

Even Emma was baffled by the news that Wonwoo brought her the following week—a scowl of disbelief permanently etched on her face as she scanned the file her secretary prepared for her. Wonwoo merely stood at her side, waiting for her to finish going through the data he’s gathered. 

And he sure hoped she understood every single word printed on it. He practically risked his life trying to investigate Ezra’s secret business. No wonder it was so hard to dig up any dirt on him—dead men tell no tales after all.

“This is…” Emma swallowed thickly before continuing, “way above my expectations. If he was just getting faded on his own with a private dealer, I'd understand. Lots of celebrities do recreational drugs. But for him to head an entire operation? Where'd he find the time on top of his taping schedules?” 

Wonwoo sighed. “I would’ve been able to investigate further if his men weren't so meticulous. They're fiercely loyal to Ezra. Couldn’t bribe him like we did with Gavin’s gym coach.” 

“And you made sure to keep your identity under lockdown?”

“Positive.”

Emma drummed her fingers across the smooth surface of her work desk—brows furrowed as she stared into nothingness. Though they’ve only been working together for roughly six months at most, Wonwoo knew her well enough to realize she hit a wall.

It made him wonder if this was where she would draw the line. Their success with Gavin gave them both an unexpected high, sure, but Wonwoo recognized that this game they were playing was a dangerous one. The people they were trying to take down had more money and connections than the two of them could ever hope to get their hands on. 

But one thing that he failed to recognize right away about Emma was that she’s always been grossly ambitious. 

“The file you gave me also mentioned na he was hoping to insure his new house in Incheon,” she pointed out. “Care to tell me why you decided to include that?”

“I know you told me not to involve the company in this as much as we can, but I couldn’t think of any other way to penetrate into his circle.” Wonwoo adjusted his necktie, suddenly feeling like he’s being watched by the hawk that was his boss. “I’ve been told that he’s wary of people. Side effects of the cocaine, probably. Though the info broker sounded like he was joking, it’s best to be wary of him. If he can hide behind the protection of his management and his family, we need to play our cards right and protect ourselves, too.”

Emma took a moment to process what her secretary just told her, nodding slowly before closing the folder containing Ezra’s file and locking it inside a hidden drawer beneath her desk. 

“Oh, Wonwoo. If only all men were as intelligent as you are,” she sighed, getting up from her seat before pinching his face. “Good work. Let's go out for drinks later. My treat.”

Wonwoo's face twisted with confusion. “For what? Doing my job?”

Emma rolled her eyes. “For going above and beyond every single time. You think you're only good at doing dirty work? At being my errand boy? You never fall behind your quotas here in the office either, you know. I think that in itself is a cause for celebration.”

Now that she’s reasoned it out, Wonwoo was even more weirded out by this strange turn of events. In the six months that Emma Rodriguez has spent as the head of PLEDIS Insurance’s Finance head, she never failed to uphold that arctic cold façade. She treated both executives and regular employees with the same degree of cut-throat harshness. 

And that’s when Wonwoo realized that she didn’t really treat him the way she treated them.

Huh. Did the Ice Queen have a melting point after all?

Despite his extensive protests, however, Wonwoo let Emma rope him into grabbing dinner and drinks at a food hub several districts away from their office. The fewer people who could recognize them outside, the better. Of course, he pleaded and reminded her several times that she was his boss and she really didn’t have to—

“Hey! Keep drinking!” Emma slurred with a huff, face red from the alcohol as she pushed another pint of beer into Wonwoo's face. “Why aren't you drunk yet, huh, Wonwoo Jeon? Are you God? Maybe that's why you're so good at obtaining information for me. Ah! No! Maybe you're the devil! Right, what we're doing isn't exactly good nor is it legal…”

Wonwoo exhaled long and hard as his boss continued blabbering nonsense across from him at their shared table. One glance at the smartwatch on his wrist told him that it was near midnight and that he should probably bring Emma home before she could make a scene. 

But…maybe they could stay for a few minutes more.

“Miss Emma? Are you sleepy?”

“Hm? Why would I be sleepy? We're drinking, aren't we?” 

“You're half-asleep on the table, so.”

At the prospect of being called out, Emma quickly shot into an upright position—looking around to see if anyone caught her drooling. When she realized she was in the clear, she narrowed her eyes at Wonwoo.

“Not a word about this in the office,” she warned, using one of the finished barbecue sticks on their empty plates to threaten him. “But...yeah. Alcohol makes me sleepy. Drive me home.”

Not even a please. This woman was really shameless even when drunk.

Not a peep of complaint was heard from Wonwoo when he drove Emma all the way to her condo unit in uptown Poblacion. Though he had to practically carry her inside and even help her out of her clothes and into her pajamas (at her request, not his own initiative), he simply told himself this was all part of his job. 

When his boss was safely tucked in bed, he was ready to bid her farewell and head back to his own place to catch up on some sleep. But for someone who was intoxicated beyond belief, Emma was still quite aware of her surroundings. The moment Wonwoo took a step away from her bed, her hand shot out to grab ahold of his wrist, making Wonwoo look back at her with an eyebrow raised.

“Wonwoo,” she murmured, face still smothered in her pillows despite her tight grip. “Can you stay?” 

“There's nowhere for me to sleep,” he chuckled. “I should go.”

“Then sleep next to me.”

The furrow on his brow merely deepened. He’d ask her to repeat what she said, but Wonwoo could recognize that Emma wasn’t really in the headspace to be reasonable right now. So instead of refuting her wish, Wonwoo carefully pried her fingers off his wrist so he could take off his work coat and fold it neatly on top of her vanity table.

This is all part of the job, he told himself.

Wonwoo laid on his boss’ duvet perfectly still. He didn’t want to make the mistake of touching her when he didn’t have explicit permission to do so. He was merely told to sleep next to her after all—nothing else.

But about fifteen minutes after he lied next to her, Emma shifted on her side of the bed—turning to him with a sleepy look in her eyes.

“You know,” she whispered, so softly, he would’ve missed it if he wasn’t as observant as he was. “I hoped...so hard back then that you would help me when I needed it. But you never did.”

Emma probably won’t remember what she mumbled in her drunken stupor in the morning. But the sadness and honesty that underlined her words sent him back about ten years into the past. To a time when he was a much greater evil than those who directly wronged her.

An apology sizzled across the tip of his tongue—something that’s a decade overdue. But before Wonwoo could hope to let her hear his piece, Emma’s breathing had become even and shallow. 

She was already fast asleep.

He sighed, staring up at the dainty ceiling of her bedroom as he chuckled helplessly to himself.

“That’s why I’m making up for it now.”

If Gavin’s case was a walk in the park, Ezra’s was an Olympic-level marathon.

Wonwoo didn’t want to dwell on the details anymore. To cut it short: he was going to cross out ‘exposing a notorious drug lord’ off his bucket list without thinking of doing it again ever. While he managed to get out unscathed during his investigation, it just so happened that their final altercation with Ezra ended up putting Wonwoo in the hospital. 

But so what if he fractured a couple of ribs trying to save Emma from being killed by that drug-addicted lunatic? As long as their goal to bring Emma’s enemies down was achieved, he’d gladly sustain any life-threatening injuries.

Which was, admittedly…strange. 

Long before Emma came into the picture as his boss, Wonwoo never would’ve pictured himself risking his neck for the benefit of someone else. Though he had an entire arsenal of skills and knowledge at his disposal, it would take more than just his generous salary to get him to put them to good use.

But with Emma, he found himself utilizing whatever means to help her exact her revenge—on people he once called his friends, much less.

He must be going insane. 

“Wonwoo…?”

Funnily enough, he ended up recalling everything that happened over the past two weeks first before recognizing that he was just regaining consciousness in the intensive care unit. Wonwoo's eyes hurt because of how bright the fluorescent lights were overhead, but for some reason, he didn’t flinch away from her relieved smile when it was a million watts brighter than the hospital’s indoor lighting.

“Good…day, ma’am,” he croaked out awkwardly, belatedly realizing that he didn’t know what time it was. “What day is it? Did someone fix your schedule for today? Did someone go over your meal plans in my stead? Were you—”

His endless stream of questions was interrupted by hacking fit—making Emma scramble for a glass of water on the table by his hospital bed, a concerned look lining her gaze.

“Don't talk too much,” she scolded him as he finished his drink. “You’ve been out for two days, idiot.”

Two days? 

Needless to say, he couldn’t do a thing about it once his boss started fussing over him. She called over doctors she personally knew and handpicked only the most competent of nurses to look after Wonwoo. How Emma could be the judge of that, Wonwoo wasn’t very sure, but he gladly let her take care of him for a change. 

After all, they successfully concluded another chapter in Emma’s little revenge story.

“When are we going to start with Leo?”

Wonwoo brought the matter up about three days after he woke up, right in the middle of eating the stale hospital food served to him for dinner. Emma, who was snacking on some takeout fast food, hummed before tossing a french fry into her mouth.

“You're not even healed yet, and you're thinking about work?” she sighed before pointing a fry in his direction. “I’m still paying you your regular wage even if you're stuck here. You don’t have to worry about making ends meet so much, Wonwoo. You just need to rest—”

“But I don’t want to rest, I want to be useful to you,” he interrupted her gruffly, which was strange of him because he never interrupted his employers. 

For a moment, Wonwoo thought he’d be on the receiving end of a verbal lashing even if he was still recovering. Emma never let other people talk back to her without consequences. But instead, his boss threw her head back with a laugh that bordered on a snort. It’s a look that Wonwoo had seen on her time and time again—a look that he noticed Emma only showed to him. 

Back then, he didn’t really think of her smile all that much. But now…

“You’re being useful enough just by being alive, Jeon,” she reassured him, that grin of hers unwavering. “Enough questions about Leo. I'm not even thinking about him yet because compared to the previous two? He’s a lot easier to track down.”

Wonwoo shot her a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”

“Same approach lang with Ezra.” She flashed him a toothy smile. “We’re going to get him to insure some of his properties under PLEDIS. But instead of us going to him, he'll be going to us instead.”

“I…? Sorry, ma’am. I don’t follow.”

Emma stifled a soft laugh behind her palm, unwrapping the burger included in her takeout meal before taking a bite of considerable size. “The Choi Corporation is expanding a chain of shopping malls somewhere in Jeju. Leo Choi personally contacted our CEO and there we have it: another big shot client.”

Another person to drag down to hell.

“Is that good enough for you?” 

Wonwoo was still processing the news as they both finished up their respective meals. He should probably be glad that Emma didn’t decide to put their secret operation on hold just because he was out of commission. But something about how smoothly they’re progressing into the next phase of Emma’s big revenge plan that made him wary of treading any further. 

He felt like he was being paranoid—probably the aftermath of almost crossing to the other side because of what happened with the Ezra incident. Wonwoo couldn’t help but be wary of any and all threats to both his life and Emma’s, and it was for a good reason.

“Okay,” Wonwoo breathed, wincing a little when he felt the spot where his ribs broke ache at how fast he inhaled. “What do you want me to do for now? Investigate? Trace his whereabouts?”

Emma’s smile suddenly turned ice cold. “I want you to rest, Wonwoo. Do I have to keep repeating myself?”

“But—”

“No buts. Boss’ orders—I'm your boss, right?” 

Ah, there’s the Ice Queen they all knew and loved. 

Fine. Maybe he could use a break from all that quote-unquote field work he just did. But one thing about his entire hospitalization still remained unanswered.

“What did you tell HR? About…this?” Wonwoo gestured towards his battered but healing body. “You’ve got the charisma, but I’m pretty sure it’s difficult even for you to go into cahoots with the other employees of PLEDIS. Much more, our human resources head.”

Emma waved away his concerns with a shake of her head. “You're so persistent, aren't you? Don’t think about HR. Or Leo. Or the rest of our plans. Can’t you be a normal salaryman and be happy that you have a break from all the things I make you do?”

“I told you, Miss Emma. I just want to make myself useful.”

“And I told you that you're the least useful in your current state. So give. It. A. Rest,” she threatened, putting emphasis on every syllable. 

But behind her intimidating façade was someone who actually cared for him. The details were still a bit muddled in Wonwoo's head, but he remembered being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. Remembered how Emma never let go of his hand as they made the trip all the way. And how he heard her pray for him to make it out alive despite being a well-known agnostic.

Once their conversation had mellowed down, he laid back against the steady elevation of his bed, watching the scenic city lights glimmer outside the window of his hospital room—just behind the woman who made his life a lot more interesting.

He couldn’t wait to be useful to her again.

“I hate this. I fucking hate this so much.”

Wonwoo spared his employer a quick glance as she practically glared at her reflection in the full-length mirror. He’d been browsing through a sports car catalog tucked underneath the hotel’s coffee table, but watching Emma have a furious meltdown about her wedding was more worth his time. 

“You're the one who said that there'll more benefits if you accepted the marriage proposal,” her secretary reminded, crossing his legs as he leaned back on the couch he was sitting on. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Of course I was just…gaslighting myself about this entire fucked up situation!” Emma growled as she stomped over to him with a scowl. “Can’t fucking believe my dad agreed to marry me off just like that, too. After all his talk that I needed to love whoever I'm supposed to marry...”

Wonwoo shrugged. “Anyone can be blinded by money—especially if it's from the Chois.”

“Even you?”

It’s a question that sunk into the room with a rhetorical implication. Emma was quick to exchange the earrings her stylist chose for her with something more suited to her taste—a pair that didn’t sparkle all that much but was worth more than six months of Wonwoo's salary. In her reflection on the vanity mirror, he could clearly see the way her red lips parted in concentration as she clipped the earrings in place. 

“No,” Wonwoo responded even if he knew she wasn’t looking for an answer. “I’m more easily blinded by other things, ma’am.”

Emma glanced behind her with a puzzled look, not getting his drift. “Like what?” 

Wonwoo didn’t dare think twice. 

He got up from his once comfortable position on the couch, closing the distance that sat between him and Emma in long, calculated strides. She didn’t seem fazed by his sudden need to walk over, but the moment Wonwoo was behind her, she stiffened when he reached a hand in front of her face. Then, with a firm yet featherlight touch, her secretary wiped off the lipstick that stained past her lip line with his fingers—not once breaking eye contact with her in the mirror. 

“It wouldn’t be fun if I told you, now would it?” He smiled before pulling his hand back. “I need to keep you on your toes sometimes, too, Miss Emma.”

He half-expected her to scoff and brush off his attempt at being smart with her. Emma was a no-nonsense kind of person, and with the wedding happening soon, Wonwoo understood why she’d be more high-strung than usual. 

But instead of acting the way she always did with him, Emma took Wonwoo by surprise when she fisted his silken necktie in her manicured nails, tugging him down so that their eyes were leveled with each other. Normally, that wouldn’t be enough to wrestle Wonwoo into complete submission, but this was his boss they were talking about.

There’s a glint in those sharp eyes of hers that had his heart beating off the charts. This wasn’t the gaze of someone entitled the Ice Queen of their office. No, there’s something warm in there—borderline sensual. And before Wonwoo could even hope to figure out what it was, Emma was already closing her eyes and sealing their lips together like some unspoken pact. 

It’s an inconsequential kiss. Wonwoo has made out with both men and women alike—all desperate gasps and lust-fueled passion—but somehow, none of those experiences could hold a candle to the way Emma Rodriguez pecked his lips for a fraction of a second before pulling away. 

“You're getting more and more insufferable,” she muttered, resting her forehead against his. “You were never this cheeky before. What happened?”

You, he wanted to tell her. You happened.

At that point, Wonwoo's brain was merely operating on carnal instinct alone. He lunged forward to capture her lips again, making her gasp in surprise as he snaked a strong arm around her waist. Thank fucking god Emma’s wedding dress had a simple design—no pretentious frills to obstruct his movements. 

Despite the fact that this woman—his boss—was getting married in less than two hours, Wonwoo couldn’t even give a damn. He swiped all the makeup boxes and accessories off the vanity table, propping Emma up on the horizontal surface as he kissed her until she saw stars. 

“Wonwoo,” she sighed against his lips, thighs inching apart as he bunched the long hem of her gown up to her waist. He wondered distantly if Emma was going to ask him to stop—to see reason. But the glazed look in her eyes told him otherwise.

“More.”

Wonwoo wanted nothing more than to give her more. He’d do everything she could ever dream of asking him. Never mind the fact that it was more than a little messed up for him to consider fucking his boss right before she’s married off to the man who tormented her endlessly at sixteen. 

Nobody else mattered—not Leo, not the director, not even Emma’s intricate revenge plot that was years in the making. At that moment, only the two of them existed, only separated by a few layers of clothing before they could finally become one. 

But Wonwoo was abruptly reminded why he always chose reason before ambition long before he met Emma. Dreams and delusions were bound to end when you least expected them to. Reality, on the other hand, would always remind you of life’s harshest truths.

“Miss Emma?” They both could hear the voice of Leo's personal assistant outside the door to the hotel room, preceded by a few short knocks. “It’s time for your prenup shoot. Director Rodriguez is also looking for Sir Wonwoo. Is he in there with you?”

Whatever dream the two of them have fabricated only minutes ago had been erased from existence—all that was left was a bride-to-be with her dress ruffled in all the wrong places, and a pitiful secretary with red lipstick stains adorning his face.

“Yeah, he’s here with me,” Emma yelled over to the doorway, eyes refusing to part from Wonwoo's. “We’ll be down soon. Thanks, Christina.”

“Okay, ma’am. I'll just wait for you in the lobby.”

Wonwoo counted to ten before peeling himself away from Emma, quickly striding towards the bathroom to get some tissues both for himself and his employer. But while he was wiping off the lipstick on the corners of his mouth, Wonwoo immediately noticed the shift in the atmosphere.

Emma was already busy straightening herself out—smoothing down the creases in her gown and retouching her makeup as best as she could without her stylists. Wonwoo wouldn’t have minded the silence, it’s exactly the kind of setting he preferred working in. 

But just when he thought he’d managed to melt the Ice Queen’s heart over the past year, she turned arctic cold all over again. 

“After the wedding, tell my driver to accompany me to Leo's penthouse. Though I despise the idea, we have to go home together to keep up the act for everyone to see.” She gave her orders the same way she used to tell Wonwoo to sort the company’s financial reports—straight to business with little room for playing around. “Other than that, I don't have any more orders. You can rest easy for the day, Wonwoo.”

He felt like he should say something to address what just happened between them five minutes ago. To ask why she was pretending as if they weren’t breathing each other in like all the oxygen on the planet had gone in a flash. But Wonwoo wasn’t some desperate fool that overestimated his place in Emma’s life. 

“Duly noted, ma’am,” he muttered with the same degree of aloofness she’d just given him before tossing the soiled tissues in the trash. “I’ll be waiting for you outside.”

Emma didn’t even break face as Wonwoo's footsteps resounded on the carpeted floor. She didn’t even spare him a second glance. But then again…

He was her secretary, and she was his employer. 

That was all there was to it.

Much to Wonwoo's surprise, Leo's case was closed much sooner than he thought it would be.

Before Emma could even make it to the cathedral, the commotion had already started. Wonwoo had arrived earlier in the venue with Emma’s father, the director of PLEDIS Insurance, and were just about to take their seats among the other principal sponsors when the television screens mounted all over the church suddenly started playing a video.

A video that Wonwoo has already seen before.

He didn’t have to glance at Leo to know that he was sporting the most horrified look he could muster upon seeing one of your many sex scandals having an impromptu screening at the cathedral. Collective gasps and disgusted remarks were heard in a chorus of murmurs that reached all the way up to the high ceilings. 

Wonwoo could hear Leo's assistant, Christina—who turned out to be part of the sex parties her boss secretly indulged in—barking orders for the church staff to cut the feed. But it was too late. Those who needed to see the truth have already gotten their fill.

Recognizing that his daughter couldn’t possibly be wed to a man with a reputation that’s been tarnished in a church, of all places, Director Rodriguez ordered Wonwoo to contact the bridal car driver and tell him to send Emma straight home instead. It’s a job that Wonwoo got done fairly quickly, and despite the numerous text messages that Emma sent him demanding answers about what happened, he didn’t respond to any of them right away. 

After a few hours of digging around, Wonwoo eventually found out that one of Leo's cousins was behind the public exposé. Apparently, said cousin was able to obtain the same footage that Emma acquired and was able to sabotage Leo's attempt at seizing their family riches before Emma could even put her plans into motion. 

Well, at least someone else already did the dirty work for them.

As usual, Wonwoo collated all the information he’s gathered in a concise email. This was how he kept Emma up to speed about their progress—through self-destructing emails. He informed her about the involvement of Leo's cousin and how the trash had taken itself out, ensuring that Leo Choi had fallen from the false pedestal he’s clung onto for years.  

Their behind-the-scenes mission has been fulfilled.

While he didn’t expect Emma to respond enthusiastically, receiving radio silence in return wasn’t something Wonwoo had anticipated either. But he opted not to read into it much. She must’ve been royally pissed that Leo's demise wasn’t brought about by her own hand, and Wonwoo respected that.

The following Monday after the canceled wedding, however, he ended up finding out the reason behind her silence. 

“Boss,” sobbed Seokmin when Wonwoo timed in at the office. “Please don't leave!”

Immediately backing him up was Soonyoung, who didn’t hesitate to hug Wonwoo, even giving him a few pats on the shoulder as if they were old drinking buddies. “It's okay, Sir Wonwoo. You've been here long enough. Maybe it's about time you found your path elsewhere.”

…Huh?

“What are you talking about?” Wonwoo voiced out his confusion. “You’re speaking like I got fired.”

As if on cue, the third member of their trio walked in on the conversation as he sipped on his usual iced americano. Seungkwan stared at Wonwoo with a puzzled expression before saying:

“But weren't you fired, sir? Miss Emma announced it this morning, but I think she left right away after, too.”

Not privy to the way the pieces started to click in his head, Seokmin and Soonyoung kept consoling Wonwoo as he made his way to his (old) cubicle. Emma had been one step ahead too—someone already having packed away most of his belongings in storage boxes. Not to mention the notice of contract termination sitting on his desk. Effective immediately, it says.

“I really don't get it though” Seungkwan droned behind him. “You? The best secretary in the city? Fired just like that?”

Seokmin nodded. “I don't understand it either. You two were business-as-usual after the wedding. Miss Emma must've been so pissed that she didn't get married that she laid off the boss here.”

“True,” Soonyoung agreed with a snicker. “Boss, maybe Miss Emma's just being unreasonable. I bet she'll be begging for you to come back in a few days' time.”

Yeah. That’s what the situation would seem like to an outsider. But Wonwoo knew perfectly well that Emma wasn’t bluffing about this. She fired him for a reason that’s been stewing for more than a decade. Even if Gavin, Ezra, and Leo have had their taste of justice, Emma’s revenge plot wasn’t finished like Wonwoo thought it was.

Because Wonwoo was one of her targets all along, too.

I hoped...so hard back then that you would help me when I needed it. But you never did.

“Where is she?” 

Seungkwan perked up. “Uh, maybe she went home? She told us something about feeling a bit under the weather?”

Seokmin nodded. “She's probably in her penthouse or something. If i were you, I'd start making it up to her.”

“Hey, you're talking like they're actually dating,” Soonyoung scolded with a laugh.

Not even bothering to thank them, Wonwoo turned on his heel and made a beeline for the office entrance—dead set on doing exactly what Seokmin jokingly suggested.

This is why I'm making it up to you, he mused with an exasperated air as he buckled up in his car. 

Can’t you just let me in?

Emma spent her first Monday after the entire wedding disaster with Leo holed up in her unit—stuffing herself full of ice cream. The only reason she bothered going to the office today was to formally announce that her secretary Wonwoo Jeon was fired—just like she’d been planning since the moment she met him again as her secretary after all these goddamn years.

Her high school bullies have been put in their place. Her fifteen-year revenge plot was finally over.

But why did she feel so fucking depressed about it?

She sighed pitifully when she realized she’d already emptied her tub of double dutch ice cream, finally deigning to get up from the couch to deposit it in the kitchen for later disposal. But just when she was about to continue moping in her living room, the doorbell to her unit buzzed from the entrance, making her glance that way curiously.

It could be her next-door neighbor. A kind, elderly woman who lived with her daughter. She borrowed Emma’s rosemary spices yesterday—something that she barely used because she often opted to go for food deliveries instead of whipping up her own meals. 

With that reasoning in mind, she didn’t bother checking who was at the door through the peephole. She simply undid the locks before opening the door—only to come face-to-face with—

“Hey,” Wonwoo sighed as he jammed his foot between the door and the doorframe. “Ma’am, please talk to me first. Did you think I wouldn't catch onto what you were trying to do?”

“Why do I have to explain myself to you? You’re fired, right?” Emma growled as she pushed the door with her back, but sadly, Wonwoo easily overpowered her. At least he was decent enough to not let himself in—he simply lingered out in the hallway with a placid look on his face. “What?”

“Emma,” her ex-secretary addressed her for the first time without any formalities. “If you fired me as vengeance for not helping you all those years ago, I get it. I deserve it, even. But after what happened sa hotel…

“You can’t convince me there’s nothing between us anymore.”

Her breath hitched, face growing warm at the reminder of that intimate moment they shared hours before she was supposed to get married. Whenever she closed her eyes, she could still feel Wonwoo's mouth on hers. But that wasn’t a thought that was healthy to entertain at the moment.

“What are you saying? That was all part of the plan, you know?” She bluffed with a mirthless laugh, fully turning to face him as she crossed her arms. “Make you smitten enough with me to let your guard down. Look, you didn't expect me to fire you, did you?”

“No, but you can’t fool me, Emma,” Wonwoo chuckled with a self-satisfied smirk. “You wanted me too—that was real. If I’m mistaken, then make me leave. Call security on me. If I’m the nuisance you so desperately want me to be, then get rid of me here and now.”

The silence was thick between them. Emma was practically shaking with frustration as Wonwoo stared down at her with that overconfident look on his face. She wanted nothing but to punch him, hit him, slap him—

Kiss him.

Maybe Wonwoo was right. Maybe Emma did want him more than she led herself to believe. 

Because why the hell did she fist the front of Wonwoo's work shirt before pulling him inside her penthouse? Why did she slam him against the door, earning a sexy groan from him as she crushed their lips together?

Was this a healthy way to deal with your current predicament? No—definitely not. But it felt too fucking good to pass up on.

Wonwoo, however, was all too quick to regain control—hooking one of Emma’s thighs around his waist as she gasped into his mouth. She could practically feel him smirk against her lips, and though she’s loath to admit, it only made her want him even more.

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” he chuckled before peppering her neck with love bites. “You might need to kill me first before I stop pursuing you.”

Emma spared him a breathless laugh that quickly melted into a moan when Wonwoo's hand found itself inside her oversized sleep shirt. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were obsessed with me, Jeon.”

His fingers were warm against her skin, and Emma couldn’t help the full-on shudder that racked her body when Wonwoo grazed her bare nipples. The smile on his face was wicked—dangerous, even. 

“Maybe I am,” he chuckled, his breath fanning against her flushed face.

“What would you do if I was obsessed with you, Ma’am?”

Emma was well aware that Wonwoo knew the answer to his own question. It was obvious in the way he quickly picked her up from the floor, fully wrapping both her legs around his waist as he carried her towards her bedroom. But despite the carnal urgency in his grip, Wonwoo was awfully gentle as he laid her down on the mattress.

“Last chance to kick me out,” he murmured against her ear as he started unbuttoning his shirt. “You could exact your revenge on me even better, ‘no? I’m giving you the leeway to frame me for forced entry…among other things.”

God. She knew Wonwoo was a little crazy when he accepted Emma’s orders to help her make his old best friends suffer. But the way he looked at her with such crazed desire further confirmed her suspicions.

And she didn’t want her men any other way.

“Fuck me, Wonwoo,” she told him clearly before stripping her own clothes and laying herself bare for him to feast on—eyes lidded, desiring him just as much as he did her. “That’s an order.”

He shook his head with a chuckle, and Emma had to force herself not to drool over his perfectly built torso. If she had more patience, she would’ve taken her time worshiping every inch of Wonwoo's body, but he’d already set a fire in the pit of her stomach. One that she fully expected him to deal with sooner than later.

“So wet for me,” he observed with a lopsided smirk, pressing their foreheads together as he lathered his fingers with her slick. “Have you always wanted me this way? Do you touch yourself to the thought of me, Miss Emma?”

Yes. Fuck, yes. 

“That’s none of your business, Jeon,” Emma stubbornly insisted, keeping herself from moaning when his lips descended onto one of her hardened nipples. 

Wonwoo made good on the opportunity, using the fingers he’d used to feel up her slick cunt to rub her essence across the other bud he wasn’t suckling on. The effect was near immediate—Emma throwing her head back with a pretty little whimper as Wonwoo started to massage her breasts. 

Fuck. He’d always dreamed of getting to smother his face between them.

“Wonwoo,” she gasped out loud, hips bucking desperately when he bit down on her sensitive flesh. “F-Fuck me. Now.” 

“Demanding.” He pulled away from her sensitive nipples with a pop, staring up at her with a lustful gaze. “You enjoy ordering me around too much, you know?”

“You enjoy being ordered around, too,” Emma pointed out with a scoff, trying her best not to moan too loudly when Wonwoo's fingers started to toy with her leaking cunt again. “Just—I need you. Please.”

Ah, he never thought the day would come when he’d hear Emma Rodriguez begging for his cock.

“Okay, Ice Queen,” he relented with a playful laugh, kicking his underwear and trousers off as he pumped his already hard length. “Since you're so eager for me to fuck you, I’m not going to prep you anymore. You better not cry when my cock splits you open, okay?”

Hearing him talk so lewdly to her made her pussy gush with excitement. What’s more was that, not only was her secretary blessed with a face and body that gods would covet, but his cock was something she was afraid she’d keep looking for even when he was done with her.

He was awfully careful when he first pushed inside of her, sharp eyes riveted on her face as it twisted with both pain and pleasure alike. His size was something that one needed getting used to, and he wasn’t about to make his first time with Emma uncomfortable for her.

No, he wanted her to keep thinking about him even after they’ve had their fill of each other.

“Squeezing me so fucking tight,” he rasped against her neck, licking a long stripe along the column of her throat to make her shiver. “Too bad you already fired me. I always wondered what it would feel like to bend you over and fuck you in your office.” 

He could feel her pussy squeeze his cock even tighter at the shameless image she put in her head, making Wonwoo smirk with pride as he started to move. Emma mewled his name, grabbing his face as he chased his lips. He was all too willing to give her what she wanted, meeting her with an open-mouthed kiss as their tongues clashed together in time with his thrusts.

“W-Wonwoo,” she moaned into his mouth, hips eagerly meeting his. “Deeper. Fuck me deeper.”

And fuck her deeper, he did—Emma’s got him wrapped around her pretty manicured fingers, after all. 

Wonwoo was relentless with the way he pounded her into the bed, the sound of skin slapping against skin ringing much too loudly in his ears. But he didn’t fucking care. The feel of Emma’s velvet pussy walls pulsing around his cock sent his mind into a frenzy—fucking her until the bedframe creaked, until Emma was begging him to give her more, more, more—

All of a sudden, she gasped, “Coming, coming—!” 

If being inside her was life-changing, feeling her cum around his cock sent Wonwoo straight to heaven. Her cunt spasmed deliciously as Wonwoo helped her ride out her high—lips locked together as they breathed each other in. 

“Cum inside me,” she murmured deliriously into his mouth, practically rubbing her breasts—sensitive and littered with all the marks Wonwoo left on them—against his toned chest. “Make me yours, Jeon.”

He didn’t have to be told twice.

“God, I love you,” he sighed a little mindlessly, and those carelessly uttered words made Emma’s eyes widen with surprise before losing herself to the feeling of delirium. 

Wonwoo spilled his load inside her quivering cunt with a long-winded moan, feeling like he’d been shot through the head and was experiencing a level of euphoria that bordered on illegal. Emma moaned at the feel of his warm cum filling her to the brim, bringing him down for another sloppy kiss as the heat of the moment started to dissipate in the quiet atmosphere of their bedroom.

As their breaths started to settle, Emma was the first to glance at him—to meet his eyes. Wonwoo couldn’t find any trace of the arctic cold Ice Queen that practically told him to scram the other day at the hotel.

No, it was just Emma. 

His Emma.

“Can I still take back my verdict?” she muttered softly, inching closer to bury her face in his chest. Wonwoo instinctively pulled her in for a tender embrace, kissing the crown of her head with a smile.

“You mean the contract termination?” Wonwoo chuckled. “Take it up to HR, Miss Emma. I’m just a lowly secretary.”

All of a sudden, Emma rolled over so that she was seated upright on the bed. Wonwoo had to keep himself from groaning at the sight of her—hair disheveled and body sporting all his marks. Seeing her freshly fucked by him was doing things to his libido. 

“You’re not just my secretary, Wonwoo,” she sighed, twiddling with her fingers awkwardly. “I…I wasn’t going to fire you anymore. I got used to your company. I…

“I fell in love with you.” 

The words floated between them like a cloud that couldn’t easily be swept up by the wind. Wonwoo offered her a comforting smile before pulling her into a firm kiss.

“Yet you fired me anyway,” he pointed out with a laugh. “Why? You couldn’t deal with the fact that you fell in love with one of your high school bullies?”

That earned him a punch in the shoulder. “You’re not one of them. You’re different.”

“And you’re in love with me too, no? You said it yourself. Since when?”

Shaking his head, Wonwoo then pressed a soft, featherlight kiss on her nose—one that had Emma’s heart fluttering like she was a schoolgirl.

Gosh, this man. He’s fifteen years too late.

“Maybe I’ve always been a little in love with you. Who knows?” Wonwoo spared her a Cheshire cat smile. “There’s more where that came from though.”

Emma punched him in the chest this time—a bit too close to the spot where he broke a few ribs months prior. But he didn’t care.

She could send him to hell and back and he’d do it for her in a heartbeat.

From: Wonwoo Jeon 

Subject: NOT-SO CLASSIFIED

Good evening, Miss Emma. I hope this message finds you well.

I heard that you dealt with quite a stressful client today. I’m very sorry that I wasn’t here to help you with the matter as I was given tasks to do elsewhere. In order to make up for this lapse on my part, I am cordially inviting you to dinner at 7PM tonight after work. 

Rest assured, the expenses shall be shouldered by me and your only job is to sit and look gorgeous as I wine and dine you for the evening. Sincerely hoping for your most favorable response.

Regards, 

Wonwoo Jeon

Secretary, Finance and Logistics Department

PLEDIS Insurance 

Your boyfriend :)

end notes: this wasnt thoroughly proofread so if you spot some strange errors (aka sentences in a different language bc this fic was partly in filipino) here and there, pretend you didn't see em! as always, ur feedback means everything to me so scream in the tags or my ask as much as you want ^__^