𐔌 . . . 𝐀𝐋𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐌꒱

One second he’s reading under a tree, the next, the sky explodes and something winged crashes straight into his lap.

You, wide-eyed and covered in feathers, “Mortal! Thou shalt not gaze upon my—oh hey, you’re cute.”

Instantly, you switch moods. “Oh, thank the Creator, you broke my fall!” you chirp, wings flapping erratically and causing an Eye of the Storm to fall off a cliff. “...Oops..”

He stares at you for a long, silent second, “You’re thanking me for your lack of flight control?”

“You caught me,” you argue, proudly, “that’s destiny.”

“That is gravity,” he corrects.

Somehow, within the next hour, you’ve installed yourself in his study, sitting cross-legged on his table, sipping his tea, asking questions about “mortal philosophy” while petting his hair and getting your feathers everywhere. 

He insists you’re a “cosmic disturbance.” Yet, when you fall asleep against his shoulder mid-sentence, he quietly turns a page without moving you.

You call him “wise mortal.” He calls you “airborne liability.” It’s… a start.

𐔌 . . . 𝐀𝐘𝐀𝐓𝐎꒱

The heavens open above the Kamisato Estate during a perfectly normal tea break. He barely lifts an eyebrow when you descend, glowing and terrifyingly serene.

Guards panic, servants kneel, and Thoma drops a tray. Ayato, on the other hand, just sips his boba tea. “Well. That’s new. It seems we’ve received… heavenly company.”

You step forward, eyes like judgment itself, voice like thunder, “I come seeking the one called Ayato.”

He smiles politely, “Ah, my reputation precedes me. Shall we discuss this matter over tea?”

You end up lecturing him about cosmic law while he tests if angels blush when complimented (Yes, and then his teacup explodes).

For someone supposedly divine, you blush very easily when he bows to kiss your hand.

Later, when you scold him for manipulating nobles, he says, “If Heaven dislikes cunning, perhaps it shouldn’t make mortals so imperfectly interesting.”

You have no rebuttal.

𐔌 . . . 𝐃𝐎𝐓𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐄꒱

He found you when you suddenly appeared in his laboratory, mixing around random chemicals. The first thing you do when you see him is sneeze, and three of his clones combust because of your germs mingling with the unfortunate chemical solution. 

He’s delighted. Not concerned, not shocked—delighted.

“An angel, you say? Fascinating. Tell me, are your wings detachable?”

You tilt your head, halo wobbling, giggling like a wind chime, “Detachable? No, dummy! They tickle if you touch them!”

He short-circuits for half a second. Then grabs a clipboard, “For science, of course.”

You hum happily while accidentally melting one of his lab tables with divine light. You’re the perfect specimen. (He might also be a little fond. Oops.)

He stares, fascinated as you nearly blow up his lab again, “Interesting. Divine sneeze reflex causes spontaneous combustion…can you do it again?”

“Maybe if you tickle me!”

That’s how the Eleventh Segment ends up half-immolated while the Third Segment is taking frantic notes.

You float lazily above his desk, babbling about celestial nonsense and calling him “Doctor Funny Mask.”

He swears you’re the greatest discovery of his career. 

Unfortunately for you, this seemingly sweet doctor (to you, no one else thinks that) is never going to let you go. So, when you tell him your signals to Heaven are working again, he destroys your little messaging device and keeps you locked up in his lab. With love, of course. 

𐔌 . . . 𝐃𝐈𝐋𝐔𝐂꒱

You fall straight through the Dawn Winery roof right as he’s cleaning up Kaeya’s latest prank. Adelinde almost faints.

Diluc catches you midair, with the reflexes of someone who’s done this way too often with wine crates. He sighs. 

You blink up at him, dazed, “...Are you the keeper of this realm, or are you my destined savior?”

“I’m your unfortunate landing pad.”

“Ah.. so you’re the love of my life.” 

“Absolutely not. I have enough fangirls.” 

You cling to him like he’s a life raft, “You smell like grapes.”

“That would be the wine cellar you nearly destroyed.”

You call him “Sir Flamin’ Hot Sexy,” and he blushes for the first time since 1623.

Later, as you sit wrapped in his coat, wings drooping, you whisper, “You look sad, for someone who saved me.”

He hesitates long enough for you to reach up and brush his cheek. He catches your hand, softly, “Rest. The rest of your questions can wait until I patch the ceiling.”

When you try to thank him with “holy light,” you nearly set the vineyard on fire. He hasn’t decided whether to kick you out or hide you so you never meet Kaeya… or worse, Klee. 

𐔌 . . . 𝐊𝐀𝐙𝐔𝐇𝐀꒱

He feels the presence of something before you fall.

But when the “something” turns out to be you, glowing and weightless, he can’t help but smile.

“You’re not frightened?” you ask, hovering inches above the ground.

“Should I be? You seem gentle enough.”

You look at the leaves swirling around his blade, fascinated, “The wind… listens to you.”

“Sometimes it listens better than people do.”

You talk all night about freedom, about stars, about how heaven feels colder than the breeze on his ship’s deck. When dawn breaks, you gift him a feather, “A reminder that even the sky envies the wind.”

He keeps it tucked in his haori always, though he won’t ever say why. After all, you’ve become his little angel muse. 

𐔌 . . . 𝐋𝐘𝐍𝐄𝐘꒱

It’s mid-performance when the ceiling explodes into a bright light. The audience gasps. Lyney, to his credit, takes a bow.

“And now, for my greatest trick—oh. You’re not supposed to be here.”

You blink from the ceiling wreckage, “…Where am I?”

He grins, “In my spotlight, apparently.”

You’re trembling, wings drooping, voice soft, “I didn’t mean to interrupt your… um, mortal entertainment...I think I took a wrong turn at the Pearly Gates…”

He offers a gloved hand, “Then let’s make this crash landing our special act.”

You spend the evening helping him “vanish” doves…only for the doves to follow you instead.

Backstage, he gives you his hat to hide your halo. You smile, “You’re kind for a trickster.”

“You’re too trusting for a deity,” he replies, but his tone is warm.

Lynette sighs, “You’re flirting with a celestial being…again.”

𐔌 . . . 𝐍𝐄𝐔𝐕𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄꒱

The courthouse erupts in light. Melusines scatter. He’s halfway through a sentence when you shatter the glass and faceplant in front of the bench like a sanctified meteor.

“Oops,” you mumble, “do I have to pay for that?”

He stares, speechless, “This is… the Palais Mermonia.”

“Oh! A palace. Fancy.”

“No, a court of law.”

“So you’re sort of, like, Heaven’s HR department?”

The courtroom goes dead silent. What the hell is an HR department?

You laugh, “Oops, wrong universe!”

When he finds out your communication is broken, so you’ll be staying here a while, he ends up giving you a “court tour,” partly to keep you from flying into the ceiling lamps again.

When you apologize for “breaking the sky window,” he sighs, just once, “Perhaps… we can find you lodging. Somewhere without glass.”

𐔌 . . . 𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐔𝐂𝐇𝐄꒱

You literally drop into his personal bubble of solitude. Bad move.

“What in the Archons’ name are you?”

You, dazed, “A… creature of heaven?”

He glares, “Then go back.”

But your wings are all messed up, so he (very reluctantly) takes you back home.

He absolutely does not help you fix your wings, but he also doesn’t leave you alone. He reminds you of a cat you once became friends with.

You become a part of his daily routine and can’t help yourself from saying, “You don’t do anything fun, do you?”

“Fun is a waste of time.”

“Then you’re doing life wrong!!”

He glares at you. You sleep on the couch that night. But the next morning, when he finds you crying because your wing’s condition worsened overnight, he freezes. 

“Don’t—stop crying. That’s annoying.”

He ends up awkwardly bandaging your wing in silence. You smile through tears, “You’re not mean, you just talk like... thunder. Scary, but not harmful. It's comforting when you get used to it.”

He rolls his eyes, muttering, “Then maybe you should go back to Heaven where it’s quiet.”

He doesn’t mean it. Not at all.

𐔌 . . . 𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐀꒱

You land mid-fight, radiant and confused, feathers flying everywhere. He nearly trips on a halo.

“Finally! A challenge that fell from the sky itself!”

You’re dazed, “I— wait, are you fighting for sport?”

“Of course. Wanna join?”

You heal him instantly, wings fluttering. “You mortals are insane.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

He challenges you to a spar. You refuse. He grins wider.

“C’mon, angel, show me what Heaven’s got.”

By the end of the day, he’s covered in soot, you’ve broken half a cliff, and both of you are laughing like maniacs under a star-filled canopy.

Later, he tells everyone he “fought Heaven and won.” You’re still trying to explain that you were trying to apologize.

𐔌 . . . 𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈꒱

You land on him mid-song. He doesn’t even flinch, just keeps playing.

“Ah, another fallen star~ Are you here to steal my thunder, or just my spotlight?”

You start humming harmony with him. The crowd thinks it’s divine intervention.

3 hours later: “You’re drunk.” “I’m holy, actually.”

He tells everyone you’re his muse. You’re pretty sure he just wants free drinks.

Still, when you tell him Heaven doesn’t allow music like his, he looks genuinely sad.

“Then maybe,” he says softly, stroking your wings, “that’s why you fell, to learn what joy sounds like.”

You forget to correct him.

He calls you “little dove” and teaches you drinking songs. Mondstadt gains a new legend: “The Bard and His Angel.”

𐔌 . . . 𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐒𝐋𝐄𝐘꒱

You crash into his office like divine retribution. He looks up from his paperwork, sighs, and stands.

He catches you effortlessly, wings first, “You’re not an inmate.”

“Am I under arrest?” you ask hopefully. (Look, this man is hot.)

“Not unless falling from heaven is a crime.” He instantly regrets saying that, because you smile too brightly, like trouble.

He ends up escorting you around like a lost tourist. The entire prison now thinks their Duke has a celestial partner. He does not correct them.

He chuckles when you blink in confusion, “You’re free to stay until we figure this out.”

You try to “help” with fortress duties only to end up blessing the coffee machines and confusing every inmate into repentance.

He finds you asleep on his couch later, halo dim, wings tucked under his coat.

“You really don’t belong here,” he murmurs, but he makes no move to wake you.

𐔌 . . . 𝐗𝐈𝐀𝐎꒱

You appear in a burst of light during his night watch, collapsing midair.

He catches you before you hit the ground, heart pounding, “What… are you?”

“Lost,” you whisper, “and tired.”

He hesitates before wrapping his arms around you, “Then rest. I’ll stand guard.”

When you wake, you offer to purify his karmic burden. He recoils, then softens when you only press a gentle hand to his shoulder.

“You carry pain,” you murmur.

“It’s mine to bear.”

“Then let me bear it with you, just for a moment.”

For the first time in centuries, he lets someone touch him without fear.

𐔌 . . . 𝐙𝐇𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐋𝐈꒱

He’s drinking Osmanthus Wine when you crash in front of him like a divine comet.

He sighs, “Ah. It’s been a while since Celestia threw one down.”

You pop out of the water, grinning, “You talk like you’ve met angels before.”

“I’ve buried a few.”

You laugh, delighted, “Oh, you’re fun!”

He ends up buying you tea, halfway between amused and nostalgic. When you ask what “money” is, he feels a migraine coming on.

You sit beside him as he tells you tales about the other angels he’s met.

You lean towards, eyes gleaming, eyebrows wiggling, “You sound like you miss them.”

“Perhaps I do.”

You grin, “Then I’ll keep you company until I figure out how to fly back.”

“I suspect,” he murmurs with a knowing smile, “you won’t be in any rush.”

“How generous. Maybe you just make good tea is all.” You still opt to tease him as you slot your hips down on top of his, thankful that he chose a particularly large chair for his office so that it may fit both of you.

And almost immediately you feel Wriothesley’s other arm reach up to accompany the first, clasping his hands on your lower back as he keeps you seated tight on his lap. You feel his next breath against your skin when he leans in to nose at your jawline, “Well, you would be right about that.” His voice purrs, and you find yourself wriggling a bit closer.

“Though, you wouldn’t want the tea to get cold now, would you?” There’s a suggestive sort of lilt to Wriothesley’s voice and it makes you feel so terribly warm on top of him as he tips his head towards the two teacups on his desk. “And after I went through such effort to brew that special batch for you.” But you snap your head back around to frown at him almost too quickly when his hand seems to settle a little lower on your back this time, dangerously so as his fingers tease the hem of your pants.

You roll your shoulders back as you try to regain control, “I don’t know what you mean I’m just getting comfortable. Mind in the gutter, your grace?” And that little act seems to make Wriothesley chuckle, a charming enough sound to have you reach up to wrap your arms around his shoulders and he relents with his teasing. Resting his hands on the dip of your waist instead.

You hug yourself in a little closer as he welcomes you, and the next press of his lips against your throat makes you shudder. “Hah, very funny. Though you do seem to be quite comfortable, I think your poker face could use some work.” He eventually opts to respond, a little smug as his fingers squeeze into your waist and you smack playfully at his hands before taking a more comfortable position, nuzzling into the crook of his neck this time.

Maybe it’s the warmth that Wriothesley always seems to radiate but you can’t help but suddenly feel sleepy in your new found position. Your lashes flutter as you fight beneath the sudden weight of your eyelids, and your lips pout out to press against his skin. “Mind if I stay like this then?”

The adorable little tone of your voice makes the Duke hum, and the sound makes you curl even deeper into him as his hands begin to squeeze and massage at your waist. He gives the documents on his desk another look, and then pulls you a bit closer before he’s leaning down to smear a kiss against your shoulder.

“You won’t hear me complaining about the company. Seems your methods are just far too tempting.”

⭒ DILUC

You’re careful as you push open the door to Diluc’s quarters in the Dawn Winery, finding him sifting through various contracts and pieces of paper as he rests on his desk. He sighs before he sees you, and you find it to be quite charming the way that the tension in his shoulders seems to melt when he eventually notices you.

“Yes, my dear?” His voice drawls as he greets you, probably a little strained and tired given how long he’s been working. But you’ve found yourself to be quite bored in your lovers absence, hence the impromptu visit— so instead of responding, you opt to make your way across the room instead.

You’re quiet as you find yourself standing next to Diluc’s seated figure and it’s quite adorable how quickly he seems to pick up on what you want when you nudge at his forearm. So he pulls it back from the table for a moment, and gives you a curious sort of look as you push yourself up into his lap as he helps you balance on there.

It’s only when your thighs are dangling to one side of his own that he questions you, your butt settling quite nicely atop his legs from where they rest on his seat. “Is everything okay? If you’re hungry, I’m sure Adelinde will have dinner ready for you soon enough.” It’s a comforting sort of question as he rubs his fingers up and down your thighs, and the look that accompanies it is just as gentle— like he’s offering you a space to talk to him should something bother you.

But instead, you give Diluc a reassuring sort of grin as you let one of your hands wrap around his shoulders. “Is it so bad to want to keep my lover company while he works?” You hum as you kick your feet, leaning in to rest your cheek against his broad shoulder.

Your affection makes him clear his throat as he begins to sort through the documents on his desk again, pushing them into a neat pile. It’s not like he’s even paying attention anymore anyway, not when he’s got you so close. “Oh, not at all. I just didn’t expect to see you in here, is all. Though it’s quite well timed, I actually could do with a break from my work.”

His words make you smile, though you’re almost beaming when Diluc turns around to emphasis them with a kiss smeared against your forehead. You have to clear your throat before melting into him entirely,

“What’re you working on?” You ask earnestly as you motion to the documents on the table, and he breaks his attention away from you to follow the gesture before readjusting you on his lap. He’s holding you a bit closer as one of his arms securely wraps itself around you.

“Nothing too interesting, simple contracts for the winery. I hate to admit I’ve fallen behind with them recently, though it’s due to finding myself caught up with… something much more interesting as of late.” The second half of Diluc’s sentence seems to take a much more gentle tone of voice, and when you tilt your head up to look at him the answer is written in the way he’s already looking back.

But still you ask anyway, pushing yourself up a little closer and he welcomes the proximity as his arm around you tightens. “And what might that be, Master Diluc?” Your lips pout out and you watch the way his gaze drops to admire them.

“I think you already know the answer to that, my dear.” Diluc’s next blink is accompanied by the shift of his free hand, lifting it up to rest his fingers against your chin and its soft the way his thumb moves up to swipe against your lower lip. Gently, as you find yourself holding your breath for a moment.

Though only for a moment before your lover seems to clear his throat himself, not wanting to get carried away too quickly as his hand drops back onto the table of documents. And you feel the way he readjusts himself on his seat again before turning away to look at his work, “Feel free to make yourself comfortable. I won’t be occupied for much longer then my attention is all yours. If you’d be so kind enough to wait, that is?”

But still Diluc’s hold around you is tight and maybe that’s why you can’t help but give him a little kiss on his cheek before making yourself comfy on his lap.

“Okay. I don’t mind waiting for you.”

⭒ ALHAITHAM

The living room is soundless when you step into it, being greeted by a quiet, gentle acknowledgement from Alhaitham as he lifts up his gaze from the book he’s reading to offer you look. It makes something curious, but also mischievous spark in your brain as you find yourself pushing a little closer and you notice the way the scribe seems to have left space for you next to him.

“What’re you reading?” You ask softly, breaking the silence in the room as your lover turns his attention back to his book and he clears his throat before he answers you. Expecting you to crawl by his side much like you normally do no doubt.

“Just something I picked up from the Akademiya. I respect your curiosity but I’m sure you don’t care much for the details.” But you don’t do as Alhaitham expects actually, instead— you wind up pushing yourself a little closer than you usually would, though it’s a movement he seems to react to quite quickly.

He lifts up his arm to aid you in crawling beneath it, and he doesn’t question why you’re suddenly crawling your way into his lap until your thighs are spread over both of his own. He simply readjusts himself to hold the book in one hand while the other rests on your hips, holding you there as you tilt your head down at him.

“That wouldn’t be true. I like listening to you talk.” You hum, honestly and Alhaitham shifts again. He gives you another glance, though it’s a more inquisitive one this time— like he’s trying to figure out your motive… or if somethings wrong. Anything to explain your current position.

He opts to ultimately just ask, “Then might I ask what this is all about then, hm?” but his fingers in your side squeeze as if to assure you he’s not at all bothered by it. It makes you shift yourself in a little closer as your own hands rest on his shoulders.

“I’m just making myself comfortable, is that okay with you?” You’re smiling as you respond, and the expression urges Alhaitham to look back at the pages of his book again as he clears his throat. Suddenly a little too aware of how pretty you look accompanied by how warm you feel on his lap, and that’s a combination that seems to be a little too bothersome for him.

He plays it off as he strokes his fingertips along your waist, “Oh really? I don’t mind. I was just simply curious is all.” And he shrugs his shoulders as if to emphasis the fact, “It’s not often you ask for my permission to do these things anyway.”

But his honestly still makes you giggle as you bring yourself a little closer, nuzzling into the crook of Alhaitham’s neck before you respond to him. “Maybe it’s because you never tell me no.”

And that makes him scoff before he’s turning his attention back to you again, placing his finger between the pages of his book to make sure he doesn’t lose his space. “Well, to put it simply that’s because you seem to enjoy spending our free time together in similar circumstances, and having you upset would be too much of a hassle.” His lips press against your cheek as he turns ever so slightly to meet your gaze, and you meet the motion by pulling back to give him a look of your own.

It’s a cheeky, affectionate look that makes his eyes drop to your lips, just for a moment before he’s humming. “Unless, you would rather I moved to the other couch?” Alhaitham tilts his head at you before he pretends to shift, acting like he’s going to push you off and move away and despite the way you know he’d never dream of it, you react anyway.

Your arms wrap tight around his shoulders as you push yourself close enough to have your chest flush with his, and your words take an almost whiny tone as you grumble. “No! I didn’t say that.”

It makes Alhaitham chuckle gently before he’s leaning back against the couch again, and his fingers on your waist squeeze you a bit before they’re stroking along the skin. “Hm, my thoughts exactly.”

⭒ NEUVILLETTE

Neuvillette is exactly where you expect him to be in his office when you visit him during his break, resting on the couch with a glass of water as he sips at it politely. Though his attention is almost immediately drawn to you the moment you step into the room, commanding every part of him as his body shifts to face you a bit.

You offer him a soft sort of smile as you close the heavy door behind you, dropping your bag at your feet before going to join him on the couch. But not without offering him an acknowledgment as you glance at the clock, “I hope i’ve not kept you waiting long.” You say, shyly almost.

But Neuvillette meets the apology with a soft sort of huff, like he’s chuckling— though unbothered by whatever you seem to deem worthy of such an explanation. “Not at all. I was expecting your arrival about now, my dear.”

He shifts from where he sits a bit, as if he’s making room for you by his side and he motions to the second glass of water on the table before placing his back down next to it. “I hope it’ll be to your taste.” His voice sounds again, and maybe it’s the soft lull it takes that convinces you to not drop down on the couch next to him.

Instead, you can’t help but place your hand on Neuvillette’s shoulder as you step one of your legs over his own, earning you a curious look before you’re dropping your weight down on his lap, and it’s almost nervously that the Iudex reaches to steady you. Though it’s rather clumsy at first, he seems to regain his composure quite quickly as he clears his throat.

“Something the matter, my dear? It’s unlike you to normally be so brash.” He hums as he gives you a gentle blink, though you find the soft pink flush that accompanies it to be quite adorable. It makes you reach your free hand up to rest on the other shoulder as you wiggle a bit closer.

“Nope, I’m good. Unless you don’t like it, I can just leave if you’d prefer.” You’re teasing him, and whether Neuvillette picks up on that or not isn’t exactly obvious. But you do pick up on the way the next shuffle of your body on his lap makes him gulp, and he decides to turn away from you for a moment before his hands settle on your hips.

They seem quite restless as they press you flush against him. “Quite the contrary. I look forward to your visits during my afternoon break.” Though his response is as honest as ever, you can’t help but find yourself feeling warm at the confession.

You hum as a means to play it off, but the tinge of pink that still decorates Neuvillette’s cheeks makes you lean in a bit to appreciate it with a kiss. A soft sort of one that makes his fingers twitch into his side as you giggle, “Even more when our time is spent like this?”

The Iudex answers quite quickly to your question, though he clears his throat first to make sure his voice doesn’t shake. “Well, you could say I am quite fond of our current position.” He’s smiling when he opts to keep you in that close proximity with his hands, not allowing you to pull away too much just yet as he looks up at you.

Instead, Neuvillette mirrors the motion that you’d made earlier— though when he leans in he begins by grazing his lips up the column of your throat first. To your jawline, then the shell of your ear and the way he exhales against the soft skin almost makes you arch as his fingertips squeeze at you.

You almost forget where you are for a moment before he’s breathing out a long, pent up sigh.

“With that said however, I can only hope we remain undisturbed so that we may truly enjoy it.”

⭒ CHILDE

Some may assume Childe to be sleeping as he rests on your couch now, his arm is outstretched to reach across the back of the furniture and his head is leaning back against it too. Not to mention his chest is rising and falling gently, and his breathing is just as soft as you take a quiet step into the living room to take a closer look.

Yes, some may expect him to be asleep, but you know better than anyone that he had a cheeky habit of trying to trick you with these things. But thankfully after so much time together, you know the exact way to test out that little theory as you continue closer with gentle steps.

Though Childe could be doing with the rest after all of the missions he’s been on recently— you also know not to let your guard down. So you almost find yourself holding your breath as you come to stand over where he rests on the sofa, admiring the rare softness to his features as he snores softly.

It almost makes you rethink your plan for a second, even going as far as to take a step back to let him rest, but your thought process on that comes to a close quite quickly when the arm suddenly wrapping around your waist stops you from going any further.

“Going somewhere?” Childe hums as he quickly guides you back to close the distance, almost too eagerly making space for you on his lap and pulling you into the very position you’d planned to take for yourself. Except now he’s looking awake and far too smug, even a little teasing aswell despite the fact he was so quiet a moment ago.

It makes you wish he really was asleep as he helps you straddle him. “And here I thought you were coming over to accompany me.” The Harbinger sends you a playful sort of pout as he comes in close, resting his chin against your chest when he’s got you close enough to blink up at you from there.

And if he wasn’t giving you such a cute, faux-heartbroken expression you’d flick his forehead to get him to let you go.

But you know better than to try and fight against his strength as you opt to melt into his warmth a bit instead. You sigh, grumbling a bit “I knew you were awake.” and Childe’s sad-looking expression is quickly morphing into a subtle sort of smirk before he’s turning to press a kiss against your skin.

Even through the fabric of your shirt, you feel his words vibrate through the space. “Oh I was definitely sleeping.” He huffs, followed by another kiss before his lips are travelling a bit higher and you can’t help but find your hands combing through his hair as you bask in him. “And now you’re the one scheming to wake me— it’s only fair you make it up me.” Though his kisses aren’t without a little teasing, when he pulls away to give you another blink.

“So? Anything you’d like to offer?” There’s an ulterior motive to Childe’s words and it’s painfully obvious when you feel his hands creeping their way beneath the hem of your shirt. The first press of his fingertips makes you keen and bend at his will as you watch the expression on his features morph into something…. hungrier.

And that makes you swallow before you finally find it in yourself to answer, huffing as you pretend to turn away from him.

“This isn’t enough for you?” You say, feigning hurt much like he did earlier but that doesn’t do much to stop the way your body is reacting to Childe’s fingertips. Not when they’re grazing up the length of your spine now and he presses his lips up against the base of your throat as he holds you there.

“Actually, I’d say this only makes me want even more.” He responds quickly, chuckling like he’s just told you a joke, but you don’t think jokes are supposed to make you this flustered. If your thighs weren’t straddling his own you think they’d be squeezing themselves together by now.

But all you can offer as it stands is a whine, “Ajax, you were so tired a moment ago.” And it’s a sound that Childe seems to take much joy in as he lets his teeth tease along the skin of your throat next. Just as his hands begin to toy and palm ticklishly at your skin, and just enough to make you press yourself a little closer as you feel him grin against your throat.

“Oh, don’t worry about me. I’ve had more than enough rest to deal with you.”

“Unsettling,” he repeats, lips quirking into an amused smile. “That’s a little of a rude thing to call someone who’s simply trying to relax, wouldn’t you say?”

You shrug. Your legs swing over his and you curl closer into him as you all but merge yourself at his hip. “I’m bored. Entertain me.”

“What method do you prefer? I have a handful I could try.”

“Try one where you’re not staring off to space,” you say dryly.

Alhaitham laughs. He doesn’t laugh very often during his work day, nor does he smile, but when he comes home and feels your body slot next to his, he more than makes up for the lack of stretching the muscles in his face seem to get through the day. You’re warm, and close, and feeling you like this is worth a miserable nine to five job.

“If it were plausible, I’d quit my job and stay here,” he says with a sigh.

“Me too,” you smile. And then, you poke his nose again and giggle when he scrunches it again. “But we’re adults, so we can’t do that.”

“Lovely,” he says flatly, tightening his grip on you.

— WRIOTHESLEY:

Wriothesley likes to nibble. You direct your attention anywhere else for a moment, and you’re rewarded (or maybe punished) with a nibble.

“Quit that!” you shriek, trying to shove away his face as his sharp, white canines try to attack your cheeks. “Wriothesley, quit that!”

“Quit what?” He has the nerve to laugh. His lips stretch and show the pearly whites that harass your skin openly, and you pause for a moment at how handsome it makes him.

“You know what,” you accuse.

“Nope,” he winks, “I don’t.”

“Stop biting me!”

“Then stop ignoring me,” he bargains.

He slumps over your body again, his eyes staring up at you expectantly. Sometimes, you think he was a puppy in his former life. Sharp teeth, quick senses, and two wide, dangerously cute eyes.

You sigh and bring your fingers back into his hair as he perks up happily. And again, your theory is proven when his tail all but wags at the gesture.

“Biting me is not an acceptable form of communication,” you give him a scolding look. He gives you a cheeky little grin that makes you roll your eyes.

“Ignoring me isn’t either,” he counters. “That’s not communicating at all.”

You huff at his smart little mouth, and he happily presses closer to you and closes his eyes, cherishing the careful threading of hour fingers in his hair.

“You’re like a puppy,” you snort, “always need to be pet.”

“I’ll be your puppy if you stop ignoring me,” he says, sighing in content.

— NEUVILLETTE:

Neuvillette likes mortals. He finds the way of their life rather beautiful. They cherish things that are small and fleeting, things that he has grown accustomed to treating as mundane.

“Look,” you point excitedly at the window, “there’s a rainbow!”

He glances over. Indeed, it’s a rainbow, each color blurring into the next just like your bodies in his bed.

(You look sad, you had murmured when he came home.

It’s nothing, he’d whispered softly.

But you knew. Somehow, as if the rain dampens his mood, Neuvillette is gloomy during the bad weather. You knew the moment he’d walked in and insisted that something as simple as snuggling would ease his mind.

Perhaps it is that simple, he’s realizing now.)

“The wonderful thing about Fontaine being a nation with so much rain is that we often see rainbows,” you murmur. “It makes it worth enduring.”

“Is that so?” He asks softly.

“Yes,” you smile, hugging him tighter. “It’s a sign that good things are always on the horizon, wouldn’t you say Monsieur?”

“You need not call me that in our own home,” he flushes, earning you a soft giggle.

“You’re right,” you laugh, leaning in to kiss his cheek. “My love, wouldn’t you agree they’re worth the awful storms?”

“Yes,” he nods, agreeing as he leans closer into your body. You’re right, he realizes. Snuggling does, indeed ease the troubles of his mind—there is often a rainbow every time you do.

— CHILDE:

Snezhnaya is cold. Ajax, you think, purposely makes things colder.

“Why is it so freezing?” Your teeth chatter as you press even closer to him, rubbing your cold feet against his calves.

He chuckles, smug and giddy all at once. “It’s Snezhnaya, love. What did you expect?”

“Don’t be smart, Ajax,” you shoot him a flat look that tells him you’re highly unimpressed. “Of course it’s cold, but it’s never this cold. It’s almost as if the temperature is—”

You pause. It dawns on you and you throw him a nasty glare that he at least pretends to look sheepish about.

“Why are you looking at me like—”

“Ajax, my darling,” you say sarcastically, “you wouldn’t have happened to fiddle with the heating, would you?”

“Why, I’d never,” he says a little too innocently.

You slap his chest, and he laughs, curling a thick, muscled arm around you tighter and bringing you closer against his warm chest. It’s sturdy and built like a place you can take shelter in when you’re cold—even if it is the reason you’re cold in the first place.

“Aren’t I attached to your side enough?” You glare, “you don’t need to risk killing me of hypothermia for this.”

“Nonsense,” he gasps, “you’re never close enough! There is no such thing. Now come closer so I can keep you warm.”

“Keeping me warm is quite the bold claim,” you say dryly, “considering you’ve practically frozen me on purpose.”

The serial killer case had been one that stumped even the brightest of detectives. There had been bodies found in canals, drained of blood. The Palais Mermonia had been in a frenzy. The Maison Gardiennage had thrown every resource at the case. In a twist that had captivated the entire nation, they’d arrested Childe—a young, wealthy, Snezhnayan expat with a taste for luxury items and underground boxing matches.

Lady Furina herself had presided over the trial, and the galleries had been packed with journalists and gawkers hoping for blood. The evidence had been circumstantial at best: he’d been seen near one of the dump sites, he had no alibi for two of the murders, and someone had reported seeing a man about as tall as him fleeing the scene. But the prosecution had been confident, the public had been baying for justice, and Childe had stood in the defendant’s box looking bored and vaguely amused, which had done him absolutely no favours.

The real killer had struck again while Childe was in custody, with the same MO. The charges had been dropped with a swiftness that suggested embarrassment on behalf of the Maison, and Childe had walked free to a chorus of flashbulbs and shouted questions.

He’d never given an interview. Not one. Not to the major papers, not to the tabloids. He’d simply returned to his life as if nothing had happened, which had only made him more fascinating to the media vultures circling overhead.

Including you.

The bed dips as Childe finally moves from where he’s been leaning against the doorframe. He’s watching you with an expression you can’t quite parse. Amused, maybe. Curious, definitely. His shirt is unbuttoned at the corner, sleeves rolled to the elbows; the sight makes your mouth go dry.

“Comfortable?” he lilts.

“Very,” you say, running your hand over the duvet. It’s some kind of Egyptian cotton, probably, the kind that costs more than your monthly rent. “Though I have to say, I expected more from the bedroom of Fontaine’s most infamous acquitted murder suspect.”

Childe’s laugh is sharp and bright. “What were you expecting? Shackles? Bloodstains? A wall of newspaper clippings?”

“This looks like a hotel room,” you counter, gesturing around you. “A very expensive hotel room, granted, but still.”

“I like things simple.” He crosses to the bed, settling on the edge near your feet. Close, but not presumptuous. “Easy to clean, easy to maintain. No clutter.”

“No evidence, you mean.”

The words slip out before you can stop them. You’ve overplayed your hand, you think. You’re supposed to be flirty, interested, not immediately bringing up the trial like some hack journalist fishing for a scoop.

“Are you always this charming on first dates,” Childe drawls, “or am I special?”

“You’re special,” you assure him, recovering quickly. You shift onto your side, propping your head on your hand. “I’m sorry. Occupational hazard. I’m a journalist—I ask inappropriate questions.”

“So you said at dinner. Lifestyle section at The Steambird, right? Writing hard-hitting pieces about the best cafés in the Court of Fontaine and which shoes are in this season.”

The condescension should irritate you, but it only serves to make you more determined instead. “Someone has to tell the people where to get their morning coffee.”

“And is that what you want to be doing? Coffee reviews?”

“No,” you admit; honesty might serve you here. “I want to be doing real journalism. Investigations, exposés, the kind of work people actually read.”

“Why aren’t you?”

“Because the people who run newspapers are cowards who think women should stick to writing about fashion and food.” You sit up properly, tucking your legs beneath you. “I don’t have the right connections or the right last name or the right—”

This is too much truth, too much vulnerability. You’re supposed to be mysterious, alluring, not complaining about your career trajectory.

Childe looks at you expectantly. “The right what?”

“Nothing. Forget it.” You shake your head, trying to recalibrate. This is going all wrong. You’re supposed to be seducing him, not trauma-dumping about your professional frustrations. “Tell me about Snezhnaya. You grew up there, right?”

“Changing the subject,” he observes.

“Deflecting,” you correct. “There’s a difference.”

He laughs again. “Yes, I grew up there, in a small town called Morepesok. Cold as hell, nothing to do but fight and fish.”

“And you chose Fontaine because…?”

“Better weather. Better food. Plus, I like the water. Grew up on it. Fontaine’s canals remind me of home.”

“The canals where the bodies were found.”

“Jesus, you really don’t know when to stop, do you?”

You wince. “Sorry, I—”

“No, I like it.” He shifts closer, and suddenly the space between you has narrowed considerably. “Everyone else wants to pretend it didn’t happen. Walk on eggshells, avoid the subject, act like I’m made of glass. It’s exhausting.”

“You don’t seem like the kind of person who takes such things to heart.”

“I’m not.” Childe’s hand comes to rest on your ankle absent-mindedly. His thumb brushes the bone there. “But people are strange about trauma. They either want to consume it—tell me all the gory details, how did it feel, were you scared—or they want to bury it and pretend it never happened. No one knows how to just… exist with it.”

You look down at his hand on your ankle. His fingers are long, scarred across the knuckles. Fighter’s hands. “And which category do I fall into?”

“Neither, I think,” Childe says, looking up at you through his lashes. “You’re curious, but not voyeuristic. The questions you ask aren’t cruel.”

This is good, you tell yourself. It’s exactly what you need. He’s opening up, starting to trust you. In ten days, you’ll have enough material for the article of your career: an inside look at Tartaglia, as he calls himself, the man who was almost convicted of serial murder, told through the lens of an ill-fated romance. Your editor Euphrasie will eat it up. The readers will eat it up. You’ll finally get out of the lifestyle section and into real journalism.

All you have to do is make him fall in love with you, and then break his heart.

The guilt that twists in your stomach is inconvenient and unwelcome, so you shove it down and lean forward, closing the distance between you. “Can I kiss you?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Childe says.

The kiss is soft, slow; you’d anticipated urgency, heat, the kind of aggressive passion you’d read about in the trial transcripts when they’d detailed his history of bar fights and boxing matches. But Childe kisses like he has all the time in the world, his hand coming up to cup the back of your neck while his thumb traces the line of your jaw. He tastes like the wine from dinner and something else, something that might just be him.

You’re supposed to be the one doing the seducing, you think vaguely, but he gently bites your lower lip and you hear yourself make a sound that’s frankly embarrassing, and most thoughts vanish from your head as fast as they appeared.

He pulls back just enough to murmur against your mouth, “Still doing research for that coffee article?”

“Shut up,” you breathe, and pull him back in.

His hands slide under the silk of your blouse, fingers splaying across your ribs, thumbs brushing the underside of your breasts through your bra. You work at the buttons of his shirt with increasingly clumsy fingers—why are there so many buttons, why is your coordination suddenly that of a drunk toddler—until he huffs a laugh against your mouth and pulls back to shrug it off himself—and oh. Oh.

You’d known he was fit; you could tell that much through his clothes, the way fabric pulled across his shoulders, the lean lines visible even through tailoring. He’s all lean muscle and pale skin. There are scars scattered across his torso; a thin white line across his collarbone; something that looks like a burn on his left shoulder. There’s a particularly nasty one across his ribs that looks like it required stitches, puckered and still slightly pink, and your fingers find it almost unconsciously.

“Boxing,” he says, catching your hand and pressing a kiss to your palm, then your wrist, then the inside of your elbow. “I’m better now. Usually.”

“Usually?”

“I still lose my temper sometimes, but I’m working on it.”

You should probably be concerned about that, but your brain has officially gone offline, all blood redirected south. When he leans in to kiss you again, you forget why any of that—the admission of violence, the scars—should matter.

His hands are warm on your skin. They slide up your back, finding the clasp of your bra, and then that’s gone too, tossed somewhere in the general direction of your blouse. He pulls back to look at you, pupils blown wide and dark.

“You’re beautiful,” he says.

You’re not used to being looked at like this. Most of your previous encounters have been fumbling, rushed things with men who were more interested in the destination than the journey. 

“Stop looking at me like that,” you mutter.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m—I don’t know. Special or something.”

Childe smiles. “Maybe you are.”

Before you can formulate a response to that, he’s kissing his way down your body: your collarbone, where he pauses to suck a mark; the swell of your breast, his tongue circling your nipple before taking it into his mouth. You arch into him, hands fisting in his hair.

He takes his time with your breasts, lavishing attention on each one until you’re squirming beneath him, aching and empty. When he finally continues his descent—kissing down your ribs, your stomach, pausing to trace his tongue along the waistband of your skirt—you’re squirming and moaning for more.

“Childe,” you gasp.

“Patience,” he murmurs against your hip bone.

He works your skirt down your legs, taking your underwear with it, before you’re completely bare before him. The air feels cool on your heated skin. You resist the urge to cover yourself, to hide, because he’s looking at you like you’re a feast and he’s been starving.

“Beautiful,” he says again, running his hands up your thighs, pushing them wider. “Can I taste you?”

“Yes,” you gasp. “God, yes.”

He settles between your legs, broad shoulders forcing your thighs even wider, and for a moment, he simply looks, studies, as though he’s memorising this too, adding it to whatever internal catalogue he’s building—then his mouth is on you and coherent thought becomes impossible.

Childe’s tongue traces through your folds slowly, exploratory, like he’s learning what makes you gasp, what makes your hips jerk, what makes your hands tighten in his hair. When he finds your clit—circling it with the tip of his tongue, then flattening against it—you actually see stars.

“Fuck,” you breathe, and feel him smile against you.

He’s good at this, alternating between broad strokes and precise flicks that have you trembling. When he slides one finger inside you—just one, slow and careful—you keen.

“More,” you demand, rolling your hips against his face.

He hums in acknowledgement, and adds a second finger. The stretch is delicious, his fingers thick and skilled, and when he crooks them just right, hitting that spot inside you that makes your vision white out, you have to bite down on your own hand to keep from crying out.

“Don’t,” he says, pulling back just enough to speak, his breath hot against your wet skin. “I want to hear you.”

“Your neighbours—”

“Can deal with it.” He punctuates this by sucking your clit into his mouth, hard, and the hand you’d been using to muffle yourself flies to grip the sheets instead. When he adds a third finger, his tongue still working your clit in circles, you feel heat spread from the base of your spine.

“Childe,” you gasp. “I’m going to—”

“Let go,” he murmurs. “I want to feel you come on my tongue.”

The words alone nearly sound you over, but it’s the addition of his fingers pressing just right, his tongue flicking over your clit, that finally makes you orgasm. Your back arches off the bed, thighs trembling around his head. He works you through it, gentler now, until the aftershocks fade and you’re left panting and boneless, staring at the ceiling.

“Fuck,” you manage, eloquent as ever.

He grins up at you from between your thighs, chin glistening, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “Good?”

“Smug bastard,” you say, which just makes him grin wider.

“Is that a yes?”

Instead of answering, you hook your leg around his waist and use the leverage to flip him onto his back. It catches him off guard—his eyes widen, then darken with renewed interest as you straddle his hips.

“My turn,” you announce, working at his belt with fingers that are still slightly unsteady.

“You don’t have to—” he starts, but you cut him off by pressing your lips to his.

“I want to,” you say against his mouth.

You can feel his cock hard beneath you, straining against the fabric of his pants, and the knowledge that you did that to him sends a fresh wave of heat through your body. You make quick work of his belt, then his zipper, and he helps you, lifting his hips so you can pull his pants and boxers down and off.

His cock is big, flushed and hard and leaking at the tip. Your mouth waters. When you wrap your hand around him, he hisses through his teeth, hips jerking involuntarily.

“Sensitive?” you tease, stroking him slowly from base to tip.

“You have no idea what you do to me,” he grits out.

You stroke him a few more times, watching the way his abs contract with each movement, the way his hands fist in the sheets. Leaning down, you lick a stripe up his length, base to tip, and the sound he makes is absolutely filthy.

“Fuck, malyshka,” he breathes, one hand flying to your hair.

You take his cock into your mouth slowly, watching Childe’s face as you do. His eyes are half-lidded, lips parted, a flush spreading across his cheeks and down his neck. He’s gorgeous like this, all that control fraying at the edges, coming apart under your touch. You take him deeper, relaxing your throat, using your hand on what you can’t fit, and establish a rhythm, bobbing your head, hollowing your cheeks, using your tongue along the underside.

“Christ,” he gasps, fingers tightening in your hair. “Your mouth is—fuck, that’s—”

You hum around him and his hips jerk, pushing deeper. You let him, opening your throat, and the moan he lets out is worth the tears that prick at the corners of your eyes. For several minutes, there’s no sound but the obscene wet sounds of your mouth on him, his increasingly ragged breathing, the occasional curse or gasp when you do something he particularly likes. You feel powerful like this, in control in a way you haven’t felt in a long time. 

This man who was accused of murder, who fights for fun, who moves through the world with such confidence—you’re reducing him to trembling need with just your mouth.

“Wait,” he gasps suddenly, tugging gently at your hair. “Wait, stop, I’m going to—”

You pull off him with a pop, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand. “Don’t you want to come?”

“Not yet. I want—” Childe reaches for the nightstand, fumbling the drawer open. “Condom. I want to be inside you when I come.”

The words send heat pooling low in your belly. You watch as he pulls out a box—thank God he has them, you hadn’t even thought to bring any—and extracts a foil packet.

“Let me,” you say, taking it from him.

You tear it open carefully, then roll it onto him slowly, enjoying the way his breath catches, the way his hips twitch with each touch. When you’re done, you stay straddling him, positioning yourself over his length.

“Can I?” you ask.

“God, yes.”

You sink down slowly, inch by inch, and the stretch feels good. He’s big and you’re still sensitive from your orgasm, and you have to pause halfway, breathing through the burn.

“Okay?” His hands are on your hips, steadying but not pushing. When you look down at him his face is tight with the effort of holding still.

“Yeah,” you manage. “Just—give me a second.”

“Take your time.” Childe sits up, wrapping his arms around you, pulling you close so your chests are pressed together. He presses kisses to your shoulder, your neck, your jaw, sweet and soft. “You feel incredible. So tight and perfect.”

The praise makes you clench around him and he groans into your neck. You take a breath, then sink down the rest of the way, taking his cock fully. You feel impossibly full, stretched in the best way, and when he shifts slightly, the angle has him hitting something inside you that makes your vision blur.

“Move,” he says roughly against your neck. “Please, move.”

You do, rolling your hips experimentally. You find a rhythm—slow at first, learning what angles work, what movements make him groan and dig his fingers into your hips. Then faster, chasing the pleasure building in your core.

Childe’s hands roam your body like he can’t decide where he wants to touch most. Your hips, guiding your movements. Your waist, fingers spanning your ribs. Your breasts, thumbs circling your nipples and making you gasp. His mouth finds your neck again, sucking marks into your skin.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Ride me.”

You do, picking up the pace, using his shoulders for leverage. The pleasure builds with each roll of your hips, each time he hits that perfect spot inside you. You’re chasing it now, desperate for it, and when his hand slides between your bodies, thumb finding your clit and rubbing it, you nearly sob.

“Childe,” you gasp. “I’m close, I’m—”

“I know. I can feel you. So tight around me, malyshka. Come on, let me feel it. Let me feel you come on my cock.”

The words are your undoing. Your second orgasm makes you clench around him. You hear yourself cry out, some nonsensical combination of his name and profanity, and distantly you feel him shift, gripping your hips and moving you faster, harder, chasing his own release.

“Where?” he gasps. “Where can I—”

“Inside,” you manage, still trembling through aftershocks. “I want to feel you come inside me.”

He buries his face in your neck with a groan, hips stuttering. His arms wrap around you tight, holding you close, and you cling to him just as desperately. Your heart is hammering so hard you can feel it in your throat, and you’re pretty sure his is doing the same because you can feel it against your chest.

“Christ,” he mutters into your shoulder.

You huff a laugh, still catching your breath. “Yeah.”

Slowly, carefully, you extract yourself from him. He winces slightly as he slips out, and you do too, suddenly feeling very empty. He deals with the condom while you collapse onto the bed beside him, boneless and satisfied.

The sheets are a disaster—rumpled and half off the bed, definitely in need of washing. You feel a petty sort of satisfaction at having thoroughly ruined his pristine bedroom.

Childe collapses beside you, reaching for you immediately, pulling you into his side. You go willingly, resting your head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow from its frantic pace. His fingers trace idle patterns on your shoulder, up and down your arm, soothing and mindless. Sex is just biology. This—the gentleness—feels like more.

You should leave. This is getting too comfortable.

But you’re warm and sated and his bed is incredibly comfortable, and when you try to sit up, his arm tightens around you.

“Stay,” Childe mumbles, voice heavy with approaching sleep.

“I have work in the morning,” you say.

“So do I.”

You should say no. This is supposed to be about the story, the article and the promotion. You’re not supposed to actually like him. You’re definitely not supposed to fall asleep in his arms after the best sex of your life.

But his breathing is already evening out, and you’re so comfortable, and just this once won’t hurt, right?

“Okay,” you whisper. Within minutes, Childe’s breathing has deepened into sleep, but you lie awake for a long time, staring into the darkness, trying very hard not to think about what you’re doing; eventually, exhaustion wins, and you drift off in his arms.

You wake to pale morning light filtering through the windows, disoriented for a moment before the events of last night come rushing back. Childe is still asleep beside you, one arm thrown over his eyes, the other draped across your waist. His hair is a disaster, copper strands sticking up at odd angles where you’d run your fingers through it. He looks younger like this, peaceful, the sharp edges softened by sleep.

Logically, you should feel triumphant. Phase one complete: sleep with the target, establish intimacy, begin the emotional manipulation. Everything is going according to plan.

Instead, you feel vaguely nauseous.

You carefully extricate yourself from his grip, moving slowly so as not to wake him. He makes a small sound of protest in his sleep but doesn’t wake; he simply rolls over and buries his face in the pillow. The pillow you slept on, you realise. The one that probably smells like your perfume now.

Your clothes are scattered across the floor—blouse, skirt, bra, underwear, all evidence of last night’s activities. You gather them quietly, getting dressed in the pre-dawn dimness. One of the buttons on your blouse is missing, you notice. Childe had torn it off in his haste. The memory sends an unwelcome flutter through your stomach.

You’re halfway to the door when you remember the plan, the tactics you’d researched, all those articles about “how to make him chase you” and the “psychology of desire.” Rule number one: always leave them wanting more. Never be too available. Create mystery, create distance, make them wonder.

Leaving without goodbye is textbook. It’s supposed to make you seem aloof, independent, not too eager. It’s supposed to make him anxious, worried that maybe you didn’t feel the same connection he did. It is, also, manipulative as hell, and you hate yourself for even thinking it.

But this is work. It’s everything you’ve been working towards.

You glance back at him one more time. He’s still sleeping, one hand now stretched out across the space where you’d been lying, as if searching for you even in sleep. Then, you notice your purse on the chair by the door. Your phone is inside it, along with your keys, your wallet, your ID. The idea comes to you fully formed: leave the purse. Give yourself a reason to come back.

More importantly, give him a reason to reach out and prove he’s thinking about you. Men are hunters, one article had said. They need to chase. If you make it too easy, they lose interest.

Your hand hovers over the purse for a long moment, and quickly, you decide to take only your phone and wallet with you, leaving the purse on the chair and slipping out the door.

The elevator ride down feels interminable. The morning doorman gives you a knowing look that makes your cheeks burn—walk of shame, clearly—but you lift your chin and stride past him into the cool Fontaine morning.

“Flowers for the Lifestyle editor?”

The bellboy at The Steambird stands awkwardly by your cubicle, holding an enormous bouquet of white roses and pale blue hydrangeas that probably costs more than your weekly salary. You stare at them.

“There must be some mistake,” you say.

“Are you the Lifestyle editor?” The bellboy checks the card. “It just says ‘Lifestyle section, The Steambird.’”

You’re not the editor—that would be old Monsieur Bellerose, who’s been at the paper since before you were born and who wouldn’t know a hydrangea from a turnip. But you’re the only one currently in the lifestyle section this early in the morning, so you reach for the flowers with growing dread.

“Thanks,” you mutter, and the bellboy looks relieved to be rid of them.

You sneeze. 

“Bless you?” the bellboy offers uncertainly.

You sneeze again, and again. Your eyes are already starting to water.

“Oh, no,” you say, holding the bouquet at arm’s length. “Oh, no, no, no—”

You’re allergic to flowers—every flower that isn’t a cactus or possibly a succulent. It’s why you’ve never understood the appeal of botanical gardens, why you avoid the flower district like the plague, and why your last boyfriend had learned very quickly that giving you flowers was the equivalent of biological warfare.

The irony of being a lifestyle journalist who can’t be within ten feet of a floral arrangement without turning into a sneezing, watery-eyed mess is not lost on you.

“Are you okay?” the bellboy asks.

“Fine,” you wheeze, even as your nose starts to run and your eyes begin to itch. “Just—thanks for delivering them.”

Trying to decide what to do with the bouquet brings you to an impasse. You can’t just throw them away—they’re clearly expensive, and there’s a card, and you should at least read the card before disposing of it. You grab a tissue from your desk drawer with your free hand, pressing it to your streaming nose, and use your pinky to extract the small cream envelope from among the blooms. This, naturally, requires you to bring the flowers closer to your face, which triggers another round of sneezing so intense that Monsieur Bellerose looks up from his desk to see if you’re dying.

The card reads: You left something behind. Including this.

Inside is your lipstick, and beneath it, in elegant script: Dinner tonight, 7pm. I’ll text you the address. — C.

Under normal circumstances, this would be romantic, the kind of gesture that would make any reasonable woman smile and perhaps swoon a little. You are not, currently, any reasonable woman.

“Holy shit, what is that?”

You turn to find Navia standing behind you, coffee in one hand.

“Flowers,” you manage between sniffles. “From Childe.”

“Are you—are you crying?” Navia’s eyes widen in horror. “Did he send you breakup flowers? On day two? That has to be some kind of record—”

“I’m not crying, I’m allergic,” you say. “I’m allergic to flowers. All flowers.”

Navia stares at you before laughing.

“This is not funny,” you say, which is undermined somewhat by the violent sneeze that punctuates the sentence.

“Your rich murder suspect sent you the most romantic, expensive bouquet I’ve ever seen, and you’re allergic to it,” Navia says. “The universe has a sense of humour, I’ll give it that.”

“Help me,” you plead, sneezing again. Your eyes are fully streaming now, mascara probably running down your face. “What do I do with them?”

“Give them to someone else?” Navia suggests, still giggling. “Bellerose’s wife would probably love them.”

“I can’t give away flowers that were specifically sent to me! That’s rude.”

“Ruder than showing up to your date tonight looking like you’ve been crying for six hours straight?”

She has a point, and as soon as you acknowledge this, your phone rings. The caller ID reads Childe.

“Don’t answer it,” Navia whispers, suddenly serious. “You sound like you’re actively dying.”

“I have to answer it,” you whisper back, voice congested. “It’d be weird if I didn’t.”

“You’re going to sound like you’ve been crying!”

“I’ll just—” Sneeze. “—explain—”

You make an executive decision, set the flowers down on the farthest corner of your desk, grab another tissue, and answer the phone. “Hello?” you manage, and immediately wince. You sound like you’ve been gargling gravel and crying into a pillow for the last hour.

“Are you… okay?”

“I’m fine!” you say brightly. 

“You don’t sound fine,” Childe says. “You sound like you’re crying.”

“I’m not crying!” This is technically true. You’re not crying from emotions; you’re crying because your body has decided that flowers are the enemy and must be destroyed via excess mucus production.

“Are you sure? Because if the flowers upset you—”

“The flowers didn’t upset me!” You sneeze.

“That’s the third time you’ve sneezed since you answered,” Childe says slowly. “And you sound extremely congested. Are you sick?”

“No, I’m—” You pause. Either you admit that you’re allergic to his thoughtful, expensive, romantic gesture, or you lie and pretend you’re mysteriously coming down with something. The first option makes you seem ungrateful. The second option is dishonest, but it’s also easier, and you’ve already lied to him about basically everything else, so what’s one more lie—

“I’m allergic to flowers,” you admit miserably. “All flowers—though the ones you sent me are very beautiful, by the way, and very thoughtful, and I really appreciate the gesture.”

Childe, too, starts laughing. Full, genuine, from-the-belly laughter that goes on for so long you start to feel offended.

“It’s not that funny,” you mutter, grabbing another tissue.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps, still laughing. “I’m so sorry, it’s just—I spent twenty minutes at the florist this morning. Twenty minutes. The woman kept suggesting different arrangements and I kept saying no, it has to be perfect, it has to be romantic, and I settled on roses and hydrangeas because they looked classic and elegant, and—” He dissolves into laughter again. “And you’re allergic to them.”

“Very allergic,” you confirm, sniffling pathetically. “I look like I’ve been crying for hours. My coworker thought you’d broken up with me.”

“On day two?” He sounds delighted by this. “What kind of monster do people think I am?”

“You were accused of serial murder, so the bar is pretty low.”

“Okay. Okay, new plan. Where are you right now?”

“At work. At my desk. The bouquet’s three feet away from me.”

“Can you move it?”

“I tried. I had to get the card out. It triggered another sneezing fit.”

“Right. Okay. Don’t touch them. I’m sending someone to pick them up.”

“You don’t have to—I can just give them to my boss—”

“I’m sending someone to send them to your boss’s home, then,” he says firmly, “and I’m sending you something else. Something you’re not allergic to. Do you have any other allergies I should know about? Chocolate? Wine? Sunlight?”

“I’m not a vampire.”

“Good to know. How do you feel about food?”

“I’m pro-food, generally.”

“Excellent. Give me two hours.” You can hear the smile in his voice. “And in the meantime, go wash your face. You probably look terrible.”

“Wow. Romance.”

“You said you look like you’ve been crying for hours,” Childe says. “Go fix that before your editor sees you and thinks I’m some kind of insane boyfriend who sends his girlfriend flowers that make her cry.”

“You’re not my boyfriend,” you point out, even as something warm unfurls in your chest at the word.

“Not yet,” he replies easily. “But I’m working on it. Now, go. I’ll text you when it arrives.”

He hangs up, and you lower the phone, only to find Navia staring at you. “What?” you ask.

“You’re smiling,” she observes. “Like, really smiling.”

“I’m not—” You catch sight of your reflection in your dark phone screen and realise she’s right. Despite your watery eyes and general mucus situation, you’re grinning like an idiot. “Shut up.”

“This is bad,” Navia says, shaking her head. “You’re falling for him.”

“I’m not falling for him! He just—he was nice about the flower situation.”

“He made you laugh while you were actively having an allergic reaction. That’s not just nice, that’s—” She waves her hand vaguely.

“I don’t have feelings. I have a job to do,” you lie, and grab the flowers—at arm’s length, holding your breath—and march over to Monsieur Bellerose’s desk.

“For your wife,” you announce, setting them down and immediately backing away. “With my compliments.”

Bellerose looks up from his crossword, eyebrows raised. “Are you sure? These look expensive.”

“I’m allergic,” you explain, already feeling your sinuses start to clear, “and your wife will appreciate them more than I can.”

“Well, that’s very thoughtful. She’ll be delighted.” He inhales deeply, his large, walrus-like moustache quivering. “Beautiful blooms. Someone must think very highly of you.”

“Sure,” you say, and retreat to the bathroom. Navia was right—you look terrible. Your eyes are red and swollen, mascara smudged down your cheeks. You spend ten minutes with cold water and paper towels trying to repair the damage, and by the time you’re done, you look almost human again.

When you return to your desk, the flowers are blessedly gone, and Monsieur Bellerose gives you a cheerful wave. “My wife says thank you!” he calls. “She’s already showed them off to our neighbours. They’re absolutely divine!”

You try to focus on work—there’s an article about seasonal pastries that needs finishing—but you keep checking your phone. What is Childe sending? And why does it matter so much? You shouldn’t care. This is all manipulation, part of the game. He’s trying to win you over with thoughtful gestures; you’re supposed to be documenting it all for your article, not getting flustered over it.

Your phone buzzes. You grab it so fast you nearly knock over your own coffee.

Childe: Delivery incoming. Hope you like it.

Five minutes later, the bellboy from earlier appears. He’s carrying a large paper bag that smells absolutely incredible.

“For you,” he says, setting it on your desk. “And the sender said to tell you that he’s checked, and there are no allergens.”

You open the bag. Inside is a feast from Café Lutece—the same place you’re supposed to be having dinner tonight. There’s a container of their famous seafood soup, fresh bread still warm from the oven, a small salad with vinaigrette on the side, and a slice of chocolate tart. There’s also a note written on the café’s stationery in what you recognise as Childe’s handwriting.

I figured if I can’t give you flowers without causing a biological incident, I should at least feed you. Consider this a preview of tonight. I’m sorry for laughing. Actually, I’m not sorry. It was objectively hilarious. But I am sorry you’re allergic, malyshka. — C.

Your phone buzzes again.

Childe: Did it arrive?

You: Yes. Thank you. It’s too much.

Childe: Nothing is too much for someone who suffered through anaphylactic shock for my romantic gesture.

You: It wasn’t anaphylactic shock. Just mild respiratory distress.

Childe: That’s basically the same thing.

You: It’s medically very different.

Childe: Are you eating the food or are you arguing with me via text?

You: Can’t I do both?

Childe surprises you the next day with front row tickets to the opera. Despite having lived in Fontaine for a majority of your life, you haven’t actually attended one of the many shows that take place at the Opera Epiclese; that sort of thing usually falls under the purview of Galanopoulo and Houallet, who cover the Arts & Culture section of the newspaper. 

The tickets arrive via courier at noon, tucked into a cream envelope with your name written in that now-familiar handwriting. Inside: two tickets to tonight’s performance at the Opera Epiclese, along with a note.

I know it’s short notice, but I had a feeling you might like this. Pick you up at 6? We can get dinner after. — C.

This is good, you tell yourself. This is perfect, actually. Opera attendance is exactly the kind of thing that would make for good article material. Subject demonstrates excessive romantic gesturing in attempt to impress target. Opera tickets, expensive dinner, etc.

It’s also, according to the three different articles you’d read last night, the perfect opportunity to start implementing phase two of the plan: acting weird.

The theory, as explained by various relationship experts, is that men are initially attracted to mystery and normalcy. To drive them away, you need to shatter that illusion. Be too available. Too interested. Too much. Talk about marriage on the third date. Introduce them to your parents. Pretend to name your future children.

You’d read the articles with growing horror, but Euphrasie had been clear: Make him fall, then make him run. The readers want to see the progression. They want to understand the psychology.

So. Opera. Weird behaviour. Get information for the article. Break his heart. Simple.

You spend the rest of the afternoon oscillating between working on your pastry article (which is mind-numbingly boring) and researching Childe (which is significantly more interesting but also makes you feel like a stalker).

There’s not much available beyond the trial coverage. His social media presence is essentially nonexistent. There’s a LinkedIn that lists him as “Independent Consultant” which tells you absolutely nothing. The most you can find is a brief mention in a business journal about a real estate acquisition, and a photo from some charity boxing match where he’s shaking hands with the Commissioner of the Maison Gardiennage, which is either ironic or ballsy or both.

“Stalking your boyfriend?” Navia appears behind your desk. Apparently, she has nothing better to do than monitor your descent into moral bankruptcy.

“He’s not my boyfriend. And I’m not stalking. I’m researching.”

“For the article where you manipulate him and break his heart?”

“Yes.”

“Just checking.” She peers at your screen. “Find anything good?”

“No,” you say. “There’s nothing about him anywhere except the trial.”

“Maybe he’s boring.”

“He’s not boring.” The words come out more defensive than intended. “He’s just… private.”

“Private or hiding something?” Navia raises an eyebrow. “You know there’s a difference, right?”

“He was acquitted, Navia. He’s innocent.”

“So you keep saying. You know what’s interesting? Three days ago, you didn’t care if he was innocent or guilty. You just cared that he’d make a good copy. Now you’re defending him like he’s actually your boyfriend.”

“I’m not—”

“You are.” Navia sets down her coffee. “Look, I’m trying to be a bitch here. I’m trying to be your friend. And as your friend, I’m telling you that you’re getting in too deep.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’re going to the opera with him tonight, and I’m willing to bet you’re already planning what to wear, and you’re probably going to end up sleeping with him again, and then you’re going to feel even worse about the whole thing.”

She’s not wrong, which is infuriating. “I have a plan,” you say.

“Oh, this should be good.”

“I’m going to start acting weird. Clingy. All the things that are supposed to drive men away.” You pull up one of the articles on your phone, showing her. “See? I’m going to implement these tactics, and he’s going to start pulling away, and then the breakup will be easier.”

Navia skims through the article, her expression growing increasingly incredulous. “You’re going to introduce him to your parents?”

“My parents live in Mondstadt, so that’s logistically challenging, but theoretically yes.”

“You’re going to talk about baby names.”

“If necessary.”

“You’re an idiot,” she says. “You think you’re going to manipulate him into breaking up with you so you don’t have to feel guilty about it. But that’s not how this works. You’re still lying to him and using him. The only difference is that now you’re being annoying while you do it.”

“It’s for the article—”

“It’s because you like him, but you don’t want to hurt him, so you’re going to make him hurt you first. That way you can tell yourself it’s not your fault.”

“I have to do this,” you say quietly. “The promotion—”

“Is it worth it?” Navia asks. “Really? Is it worth whatever this is doing to you?”

You don’t have an answer to that.

Childe picks you up at six o’clock exactly, and you hate that your heart does a stupid little flip when you see him. He’s wearing a suit, dark blue with a crisp white shirt, and his hair is styled back from his face, and he looks unfairly attractive.

“Wow,” he says when you open the door. His eyes go wide. “You look… wow.”

You’d agonised over what to wear before settling on a black cocktail dress that Navia had insisted you buy last year for a work event. It’s elegant without being too formal, and it makes you look like you know what you’re doing, which is good because you definitely don’t.

“You clean up nice yourself,” you manage.

“I try.” He offers his arm with a small, almost shy smile. “Ready?”

No. Absolutely not. You’re about to spend the evening with a man you’re actively planning to manipulate and destroy, while also trying to get information for an article about said manipulation and destruction, while also possibly developing actual feelings for him, which is the worst possible outcome.

“Ready,” you lie.

The Opera Epiclese is stunning at night. The whole building seems to glow from within, and there are well-dressed people streaming up the steps, chattering excitedly about the evening’s performance. You’ve walked past this building a thousand times, but you’ve never been inside, and stepping through the doors feels like entering a different world. The lobby is all marble and gold leaf, with soaring ceilings and crystal chandeliers. There are ushers in formal wear directing people to their seats, and a bar where people are gathering for pre-show drinks.

“Want a drink?” Childe asks, his hand settling at the small of your back.

“Sure.”

He guides you to the bar and orders two glasses of champagne without asking what you want; it should be presumptuous, but isn’t because he’s already learned that you prefer white wine to red, and champagne is close enough.

“Have you ever been to the opera before?” he says, handing you a glass.

“No. I’ve lived here my whole life and I’ve never actually been inside this building.”

“Really?” He looks surprised. “Why not?”

“Tickets are expensive. And I’ve been busy with work.” You take a sip of champagne. “Plus, I always figured opera was for rich people and tourists.”

“I’m a rich person,” he points out.

“You’re also kind of a tourist,” you say. “You’ve only lived here for what, three years?”

“Four. And I’m hurt that you think I’m a tourist.” He’s smiling though, clearly not actually hurt. “I’ll have you know I’m very integrated into Fontainian society. I know all the best restaurants, I can navigate the canals without getting lost, and I only occasionally get my Fontaine history wrong.”

“That’s exactly what a tourist would say.”

“Rude,” Childe says. He leans closer, voice dropping. “For that, I’m not going to tell you the plot of the opera beforehand. You’ll have to figure it out yourself.”

“I’m sure I can manage.”

“It’s in Old Fontainian,” he says, grinning now.

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“Childe—”

“Ajax,” he corrects. “And I’m absolutely not kidding. This is a traditional performance.”

You stare at him. “I don’t speak Old Fontainian.”

“Nobody speaks Old Fontainian, malyshka. It’s a dead language. That’s what makes it art. Don’t worry, I’ll whisper translations in your ear.”

“You speak Old Fontainian?”

“Enough to get by. I had to learn it for a business deal a few years ago.” Childe—Ajax—shrugs. “It’s actually not that different from modern Fontainian once you get the hang of the grammar.”

Right. Of course he speaks a dead language. Why wouldn’t he?

The lights flicker, signalling that the show is about to start, and Childe offers his arm again. “Shall we?”

Your seats are, as promised, front row centre. You can practically reach out and touch the stage. The orchestra pit is directly in front of you, and you can see the musicians tuning their instruments, the conductor reviewing his score.

“This is insane,” you mumble as you sit down. “These seats must have cost a fortune.”

“Worth it,” Childe says simply, settling beside you. His knee brushes yours, and he doesn’t move it away.

The house lights dim. The conductor raises his baton. The music begins.

You remember, with sudden clarity, that you’re supposed to be acting weird.

The first act passes in a blur of music and incomprehensible Old Fontainian. True to his word, Childe leans over periodically to whisper translations, his breath warm against your ear. “She’s telling her father she’s in love with the poor merchant. Now the father is angry. Now he’s threatening to disown her. Now she’s singing about how love transcends social class, which is very progressive for a 200-year-old opera.”

His translations are helpful. They’re also distracting because he’s very close and smells good.

During the first intermission, you make your move.

“So,” you say brightly, as Childe returns with more champagne. “How many kids do you want?”

He nearly drops both glasses. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Kids. Children. Offspring.” You take a sip of champagne. This is what the article said to do: bring up serious relationship topics way too early. Make him uncomfortable and drive him away. “I’m thinking three. Maybe four? I’ve always wanted a big family.”

Childe stares at you. “We’ve known each other for three days.”

“I know! Isn’t it crazy how comfortable I feel with you?” You reach over and pat his knee. “I feel like I can really talk to you about anything. Like we’re already so close.”

“Right,” he says slowly. “That’s… good?”

“It is good!” You squeeze his knee. “I was actually thinking, maybe this weekend you could meet my parents. They’re in Mondstadt, but we could take the aquabus. Make a weekend of it. My mom would love you.”

“Your mom. You want me to meet your mom… this weekend?”

“Why not? When you know, you know, right?” you say, beaming at him. “My mom always says that she knew my dad was the one after their second date. We’re on our third date, so we’re technically behind schedule.”

“Behind schedule,” he repeats faintly.

“For meeting the parents, I mean. Not for getting married. I think we should wait at least six months before getting engaged. Maybe a year. What do you think?”

“I think—” He stops and takes a long drink of champagne. “I think you’re right, actually. We can meet your parents over the weekend. They sound wonderful.”

Oh. Oh, no. 

This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. 

You scramble, trying to rapidly think of something even more off-putting to say, but the lights flicker once more. People begin moving back to their seats. Childe stands and offers his hand. “Come on,” he says. “The second act is starting. This is where it gets really tragic.”

“More tragic than a father disowning his daughter for falling in love with a poor merchant?” you manage.

“Way more tragic. Everyone dies at the end. It’s an opera.”

You take his hand and let him lead you back to your seats, and you try very hard not to think about Navia’s words from earlier.

The second act is indeed tragic. The poor merchant turns out to be a prince in disguise, which should make everything better, but instead there’s a complicated plot involving mistaken identities and a duel and someone drinking poison meant for someone else. By the end, there are bodies strewn all over the stage and the soprano is belting out a final aria about the cruel nature of fate. 

It’s beautiful and devastating, and you maybe cry a little bit, which is mortifying.

“Here,” Childe murmurs, handing you his pocket square.

“I’m not crying.”

“Of course not. You just have something in your eyes.”

You take the pocket square and dab at your eyes, trying to salvage what’s left of your mascara. “It’s just very sad.”

“It is,” he agrees. “That final aria always gets me too.”

“You’ve seen this before?”

“Three times. It’s my favourite opera.”

“Your favourite opera is about everyone dying because of miscommunication and fate?”

“I’m a simple man with simple tastes.” He’s smiling though. “Come on. I promised you dinner.”

The next day, Childe takes you to the aquarium. You compare his face to an ugly sea urchin stuck to the bottom of the petting pool. He laughs good-naturedly and, pointing to a dull sea cucumber, says he sees the resemblance between you and it.

The day after that, you watch a movie together, and you accidentally spill caramel popcorn and Diet Coke all over his new trousers. Childe waves it off, and moves out of his chair to get you a new cup, despite the movie’s climax being shown. You feel sort of guilty after that, because he’d really been looking forward to watching it.

The day after that, he takes you to a laser tag arena, and you accidentally kick him in the balls, say, “Oops!” and shoot at him with your gun. He wins anyway, but not without doubling over in pain for a good ten minutes.

All things considered, it seems as though everything’s going smoothly. You and Childe get along better than you thought you would.

“Why exactly are we doing couples’ therapy again?” Childe asks.

“Because,” you say, clutching a clipboard with an intake form that asks extremely personal questions about your relationship satisfaction, “it’s important to work on communication early. Preventative care for the relationship.”

“We’ve been dating for six days.”

“Exactly. That’s why we should start now, before bad habits form. Don’t you want us to have a strong foundation?”

Childe stares at you. “I want a lot of things. Therapy for a relationship that’s less than a week old was not on that list.”

“It should have been on the list.”

“Most people’s week-one list consists of things like ‘learn their last name’ and ‘find out if they’re a serial killer.’”

“I know your last name.”

“Do you?”

You don’t, actually. You’ve been calling him Childe, or Ajax when he insists, but you’ve never heard a surname. “It’s going to come up in therapy anyway,” you say, deflecting.

“It’s Tartaglia,” he says. “Professionally, at least.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means ‘stutterer.’ Someone called me that once when I was learning Fontainian as a kid and kept messing up my words. It stuck.” He leans back in his chair, arms crossed, but he’s smiling slightly. “Are you going to write that down on your little form, malyshka? ‘Boyfriend uses fake Fontainian name from childhood trauma’?”

“It’s not a fake Fontainian—” You stop. “Wait. Did you just call yourself my boyfriend?”

“Did I?” His smile widens. “Must have slipped out. Y’know, because of all the couples’ therapy we’re about to do.”

Before you can respond, the door opens and a woman in her fifties with kind eyes emerges. “Ajax and…?” She checks her notes. “I’m sorry, I only have one name here.”

“That’s me,” you say quickly, standing. “Sorry. I forgot to fill in my name on the form.”

“No worries, dear. I’m Dr. Rousseau. Please, come in.”

Dr. Rousseau’s office is beige, with a small fountain in the corner that makes peaceful trickling sounds, bookshelves crammed with therapy texts, and a comfortable-looking red couch. You and Childe sit down together. He’s close enough that his thigh presses against yours, and you’re acutely aware that this is insane. This is beyond insane. You’re sitting in couples’ therapy with a man you’re actively planning to manipulate and destroy, and he’s going along with it because—

Why is he going along with it?

“So,” Dr. Rousseau says, settling into her chair with a notebook. “Tell me a little about your relationship. How did you two meet?”

“At a gallery opening,” Childe says easily. “She spilled wine on my shoes.”

“It was an accident,” you say.

“A very thorough accident. Completely soaked.”

Dr. Rousseau smiles. “And how long have you been together?”

“Six days,” you say.

Her smile freezes slightly. “…I’m sorry?”

“Six days. Well, technically seven if you count today, but we started dating six days ago.”

Dr. Rousseau sets down her pen. “And you’re seeking couples’ therapy.”

“Preventative care,” you say brightly. “We want to build healthy communication patterns early.”

“I see. And what prompted this decision?”

“She did,” Childe says, gesturing at you. “She suggested it yesterday, ‘cause she thought it would be good for us.”

“And you agreed?”

“I did.” He leans back, draping his arm across the back of the couch behind you. “I figured if she’s willing to sit in therapy after six days, she’s either very committed or very crazy, and I’m curious which one it is.”

“I’m not crazy,” you say.

“I didn’t say you were. I said I was curious.”

Dr. Rousseau scribbles something down. “I see. And tell me—what are some areas where you feel your relationship could improve?”

This is where you’re supposed to unleash a litany of complaints designed to make Childe realise you’re too much work. “Communication. I feel like we don’t communicate enough.”

“We text constantly,” Childe says, turning to look at you.

“Texting isn’t real communication.”

“We talk on the phone.”

“Phone calls aren’t the same as face-to-face.”

“We’ve been face-to-face for the past six days. You kicked me in the balls at laser tag—”

“That was an accident!”

“You didn’t even apologise before shooting me.”

“I’m sensing some unresolved conflict around the laser tag incident,” Dr. Rousseau says.

“There’s no conflict,” Childe says. “I won anyway.”

“Because I let you win. You were in pain.”

“I was fine.”

“You were doubled over for ten minutes!”

“Eight minutes. And I still won.” He turns to Dr. Rousseau. “She’s a terrible shot, by the way. Very aggressive tactics, but no accuracy.”

“I have excellent accuracy,” you say. “You’re just fast.”

“Thank you.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

Dr. Rousseau clears her throat. “I’m noticing some competitive dynamics here. Tell me, do you often turn interactions into competitions?”

“No,” you say at the same time Childe says, “Maybe.”

You turn to him. “We don’t compete.”

“We do. You made that thing at the aquarium into a competition.”

“I did not make comparing our faces to sea creatures into a competition—”

“You said I looked like a sea urchin.”

“You said I looked like a sea cucumber!”

“Because you said I looked like a sea urchin first!”

“And how did that make you feel, Ajax?” Dr. Rousseau says, leaning forward in her seat. “When she compared you to a sea urchin?”

Childe considers this. “Honestly? I thought it was funny. The urchin was pretty ugly, and I was like, ‘fair enough, she’s got me there.’”

“It was a very ugly sea urchin,” you confirm.

“One of the ugliest I’ve ever seen. So when she pointed out the resemblance, I felt I had to respond in kind. The sea cucumber was right there.”

You’re trying very hard not to laugh. This is supposed to be serious. It’s supposed to be driving him away—but he’s sitting here in couples’ therapy, calmly explaining his revenge tactics, and you can feel your resolve crumbling.

“I’m sensing,” Dr. Rousseau says carefully, “that you two have very different communication styles. What attracted you to each other initially?”

This is dangerous territory. You’re supposed to say something shallow, something that suggests you’re only in it for superficial reasons. But Childe is already answering.

“She asks questions nobody else asks,” he says, and his voice is quieter now. “Everyone else wants to talk about the trial—what happened, how I felt, whether I was scared. But she just asks about normal things. About me. Not about what happened to me.” He pauses, then adds, “And she laughs at my jokes. Even the bad ones.”

Your chest feels tight.

Dr. Rousseau turns to you. “And you? What attracted you to Ajax?”

You should say something generic, meaningless. But you’re looking at him, at the way he’s watching you with those too-blue eyes, and the truth spills out before you can stop it.

“He’s kind,” you hear yourself say. “I didn’t expect that. I expected—I don’t know. Someone harder. Someone bitter, maybe, after everything. But he’s just… kind. He sends food instead of flowers because I’m allergic, and explains opera plots in dead languages. He lets me almost win at laser tag even though I kicked him in the balls.”

“I didn’t let you—”

“You did. You slowed down on purpose in the last round.”

“…Maybe a little.”

Dr. Rousseau is smiling now, a real smile. “It sounds like you two actually like each other quite a bit.”

“We do,” Childe says simply, a statement of fact.

Dr. Rousseau makes another note. “Ajax, I’d like to return to something you mentioned earlier. The trial. You said people always talk about it. Can you tell me more about that experience?”

You feel him tense slightly beside you, though his expression doesn’t change. “What do you want to know?”

“How it affected you. Not the facts—I can read those in any newspaper. But how it felt. How it changed you.”

You’re holding your breath without meaning to—this is the information you need for the article. The emotional impact of being wrongfully accused, straight from the source.

“It was…” Childe stops, seeming to search for words. “D’you know what the worst part was? Not the jail cell, or the accusations, or even standing in that box while people decided whether I was a monster. It was watching people who’d known me for years start to believe it. Friends. Colleagues. People I’d had dinner with, shared drinks with. I could see it in their eyes—this little seed of doubt. Like maybe they’d never known me at all.

“The evidence was circumstantial. I knew I was innocent, and so did my lawyer. But when you’re sitting in that defendant’s box and the prosecutor is listing all these coincidences, all these little pieces that don’t quite fit but could maybe add up to something… you start to wonder if maybe you should doubt yourself too.”

“Did you?” you ask quietly. “Doubt yourself?”

“No. I knew I hadn’t done it, but I started to doubt whether that would matter. Whether being innocent was enough, or if the narrative was too good. The rich foreign kid with a violent streak. Perfect scapegoat. When the killer struck again while I was in custody, the relief was… complicated. Because yes, I was free, but someone else had to die for that to happen. Part of me felt guilty for being relieved about that.

“After I got out, I didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want to relive it, didn’t want to see that doubt in people’s eyes anymore. So I just… went back to normal. Pretended nothing happened. Most people were happy to pretend along with me, because it was easier than acknowledging how close they’d come to condemning an innocent person.”

“Is that why you never gave interviews?” you ask. “Everyone wanted to hear your side, but you never spoke to the press.”

“What was I supposed to say?” Childe says. “‘I didn’t do it, please believe me’? I’d been saying that for months. Nobody listened. Why would they listen after?” He shakes his head. “And honestly? I didn’t want to be that person. The wrongfully accused guy. I just wanted to be Ajax again. Guy who likes boxing and opera and occasionally makes terrible jokes.”

“Your jokes aren’t terrible,” you say automatically.

“Liar,” he quips. “The point is… I didn’t want to be defined by the worst thing that ever happened to me. I wanted to be defined by what I chose to do after.”

The guilt sitting in your stomach has transformed into something sharper, more painful. Childe is sitting here, being vulnerable, being honest, talking about not wanting to be defined by trauma—and you’re planning to make him the subject of an article about emotional manipulation.

You’re going to be the person who proves he was right to be afraid.

“What made you trust her?” Dr. Rousseau asks, nodding towards you. “After all that?”

He’s quiet for a moment, looking at you, eyes roving over your face and studying you in a way that makes you want to squirm.

“She spilled wine on my shoes and looked genuinely horrified,” he says finally, “like it was the worst thing that had ever happened. I remember thinking—this person feels bad about ruining a stranger’s shoes. This person feels bad about minor accidents. After months of people thinking I was capable of murder, someone who felt guilty about wine-stained leather seemed like a breath of fresh air.”

Oh, God.

Oh, God, you’re a terrible person. You’re possibly the worst person in Fontaine.

“Malyshka, I know you’re drunk, but you need to get off my living room floor.”

You don’t want to get off Ajax’s living room floor. You’re perfectly content there, lying spreadeagled like a starfish, cheek pressed against the cold marble. It’s been a week since you met Childe and have seen him every day since; you figure he can handle you drunk.

“The floor is nice,” you mumble. “It’s cool.”

“I’m starting to worry about your standards.” Ajax crouches beside you, and even upside down and blurry, he looks unfairly attractive. “Come on. Let’s get you to the couch at least.”

“Can’t. Boneless. I have no bones.”

“You have bones. I can see your skeleton from here.”

“That’s weird,” you say. “Stop looking at my skeleton.”

He laughs, warm and genuine. It makes your chest hurt in ways that have nothing to do with the three (four? five?) glasses of wine you’ve had. “Okay, boneless woman. I’m going to pick you up now.”

“No,” you protest, but it’s half-hearted because he’s already sliding his arms under you, lifting you with ease. When he carries you to the couch, you mumble, “You’re strong.”

“Boxing,” Ajax says, setting you down gently. “I told you.”

“Right. The violence hobby.”

“It’s not a violence hobby, it’s a sport.”

“A sport where you punch people.”

“A sport where you punch people with rules.” He disappears into the kitchen and returns with a glass of water and pain medication. “Drink this. All of it.”

You take the glass but don’t drink. Instead, you stare at him, this man who’s been nothing but kind to you for a week straight, who you’ve been systematically lying to, this man whose trust you’re planning to violate in the worst possible way.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” you ask.

“Because you’re drunk on my couch?”

“No, I mean—” You gesture vaguely, sloshing water slightly. “In general. Why are you so nice? You should be mean and awful. You were accused of murder, you could easily be an asshole about it, but instead you’re—you’re bringing me water and letting me compare you to sea urchins and agreeing to meet my parents who don’t even know you exist.”

Ajax sits down beside you, close enough that your knees touch. “Should I be mean? Would that make you feel better?”

“Yes! No. I don’t know.” You take a large gulp of water to avoid answering further. “You’re confusing.”

“I’m confusing? You’re the one who showed up at my door an hour ago, already three sheets to the wind, demanding to hang out and then immediately collapsed on my floor.”

“I didn’t collapse,” you say.

“You tripped over your own shoes and went down like a sack of potatoes.”

“Lies and slander.”

He’s smiling though, soft and fond, and it makes everything worse. You finish the water in three long gulps and set the glass down with more force than necessary.

“Why did you drink so much?” Ajax asks gently. “Bad day?”

The worst. You’d spent the entire afternoon with Euphrasie, going over your notes, planning the article structure. She’d been thrilled with your progress. This is exactly what we need, she’d said, the emotional vulnerability, the trust, the intimacy. When you pull the rug out, it’s going to be Pulitzer-worthy.

You’d gone straight to a bar after that meeting, and then to another bar, and then you’d found yourself outside Ajax’s building. Evidently, when you’re drowning in guilt and self-loathing, your first instinct is to seek out the source of said guilt.

“Just work stuff,” you say instead. “My editor is being demanding.”

“The lifestyle section is that intense?”

“You have no idea,” you say solemnly.

He laughs again. You wish he would stop doing that. Stop being charming and funny and easy to talk to. Stop making this harder than it already is.

“Can I ask you something?” you say.

“Of course.”

“Do you believe in karma?”

He blinks. “That’s… random.”

“I’m drunk.”

“Fair enough.” Ajax considers it. “I don’t know. Maybe? I’d like to think good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people, but my personal experience suggests that’s bullshit.”

“What if you’re doing something bad but for good reasons?” you say. “Like, objectively bad, but the outcome could be good?”

“Are we talking about murder? Because I feel I should clarify that my stance on murder hasn’t changed since the trial.”

“Not murder. Just… lying. Manipulating someone. Hurting them, but for a good cause.”

Ajax is quiet, studying your face. “I think that people are really good at convincing themselves that their reasons justify their actions. Sometimes they’re right, but usually, if you’re asking that question, you already know the answer.”

Your throat feels tight. “What if you can’t stop?”

“Then you come clean. You tell the truth and deal with the consequences.” He reaches out, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. “This is a very philosophical conversation for someone who can’t stand up without falling over.”

“I contain multitudes.”

“You contain about a bottle of wine, maybe more.”

“Two bottles,” you admit. “And some whiskey.”

“Gods above,” Ajax says, standing up. “Okay. You’re staying here tonight. I’m not letting you go home like this.”

“I can’t stay here.”

“Why not? You’ve stayed over before.”

“That was different.”

“How?”

“I snore,” you say.

“Liar,” Ajax says. “I’ve slept next to you. You don’t snore.”

“I might start. Tonight could be the night.”

“I’ll risk it,” he says, heading towards the bedroom. “C’mon, I’ll get you something to sleep in.”

You follow him on unsteady legs, using the wall for support. His bedroom is exactly as you remember: pristine, minimalist, those hospital corners on the sheets that you’d thoroughly ruined last time you were here.

“Do you ever just… leave things messy?” you ask, gesturing at the perfectly made bed.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I spent three months in a cell where I had no control over anything. Now I like things orderly,” he says, rummaging through his dresser. “Is that psychologically concerning?”

“Probably,” you muse. “But you’re in therapy now, so it’s fine.”

“We went to one couples’ therapy session that you made us go to.”

“And? What did we learn?”

Ajax pulls out a t-shirt and sweatpants. “That you’re competitive, I’m defensive, and we both need to work on our communication skills. Here.” He tosses you the clothes. “These should fit.”

You catch them clumsily. The shirt is soft, worn-in, and smells like him—that cedar and something aquatic scent that you’re starting to associate with him. “Turn around.”

“I’ve seen you naked.”

“That was different. I was sober and in control of my faculties.”

“Your faculties were pretty compromised, as I recall. You couldn’t work buttons.”

“That’s ‘cause you have too many buttons! Who has that many buttons on one shirt?”

“Normal people. People who wear normal shirts.” Ajax turns around anyway. “Let me know when you’re decent.”

You struggle out of your clothes; it’s harder than it should be because the room keeps tilting at odd angles. The sweatpants are enormous, hanging low on your hips even when you tie the drawstring. The shirt falls to mid-thigh. You look ridiculous.

“Okay,” you say. “I’m clothed.”

He turns back around. “You look…”

“Like I’m drowning in your clothes?”

“I was gonna say cute, but sure.”

Your face heats. “Shut up.”

“Can’t. It’s objectively true.” He gestures to the bed. “You take the bed, I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” you say. “It’s your bed.”

“You’re drunk, so you get the bed.”

“We can share! We’ve shared before.”

“You were sober before.”

“So? I’m not going to do anything weird. I’m just going to sleep.” You climb into the bed without waiting for his response, burrowing under the covers. The sheets smell like fabric softener and him, unfairly comfortable. “See? Already sleeping.”

Ajax sighs, but you can hear the smile in it. “Fine.”

He disappears into the bathroom. You hear water running, the sound of teeth being brushed. When he emerges, he’s in pyjama pants and a t-shirt, hair slightly damp like he splashed his face. The bed dips as he slides in beside you.

“You can come closer,” you say. “I don’t bite.”

“You might. You’re drunk and unpredictable.”

“I’m not unpredictable. I’m very predictable. Predictably guilty.”

“…What?”

Shit. “Nothing. Ignore me, I’m drunk.”

“Guilty about what?” Ajax asks.

“Everything. Nothing. Life,” you say, rolling over to face him, which is a mistake because he’s very close and very attractive and you’re very drunk and very emotional. “D’you ever feel like you’re a bad person?”

“Frequently,” he says. “I spent three months accused of serial murder, so the bad person thoughts are kind of a given.”

“But you’re not a bad person,” you say. “You’re good.”

He laughs softly. “I don’t think good people get accused of murder.”

“Innocent people do. You’re innocent.”

“Legally, yes. Socially?” He frowns, just a little, the middle of his forehead creasing. “There are people who think I got away with it. That the second killer was a coincidence or a copycat or whatever lets them sleep at night.”

“That’s bullshit,” you say.

“Maybe. But you can’t control what people believe.” His hand finds yours under the covers, fingers threading through yours. “Why do you feel guilty?”

“Because I’m not as good as you think I am,” you say quietly.

“Nobody’s as good as anyone thinks they are. We’re all just disasters pretending to have our shit together.”

“You have your shit together. Your bed has hospital corners.”

“My bed has hospital corners because if I don’t control something, I’ll lose my mind. That’s not having my shit together.”

You’re quiet for a moment, studying his face in the dim light from the window. “Can I tell you something?”

“Anything.”

“I think you’re the best person I’ve ever met, and I think I’m going to ruin it.”

Ajax’s expression softens. “You’re not going to ruin me, malyshka. I’m pretty hard to ruin. I’ve been through worse than whatever you think you’re capable of.”

The confidence in his voice makes you want to cry. He has no idea. No idea what’s coming, what you’re planning, how thoroughly you’re going to betray him. “What if I’m worse than you think?”

“Then I’ll deal with it,” Ajax says, squeezing your hand. “But I don’t think you are.”

You close your eyes, feeling tears prick at the corners. You’re definitely going to Hell. There’s no way around it. You’re going to Hell, and you’re going to deserve it.

“Ajax?”

“Mm?”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

For everything. For lying, and using you, and being exactly the kind of person you should’ve stayed away from. “For being drunk on your floor.”

“I’ve seen worse,” he says. His thumb traces circles on the back of your hand. “Get some sleep. You’re going to feel terrible in the morning.”

“Promise you won’t leave?”

“Where would I go? It’s my apartment.”

“Promise,” you insist, feeling like a petulant child, though you don’t relent.

“I promise.” Ajax pulls you closer, and you let him, pressing your face into his shoulder. “Sleep, malyshka. Everything will be okay.”

The next morning, Ajax tells you a business associate of his—Arlecchino, the owner of the House of the Hearth, a luxury goods business—is hosting a party to celebrate the launch of their newest diamond collection. He says he’s been given two tickets, and can bring a date, and would you please do me the honour?

You say yes.

The morning after that, he sends you food from Café Lutece to your workplace once more, piping hot coffee and croissants smeared with cream, and along with it, a diamond necklace that he says Arlecchino gifted him.

For the diamond in my heart, his note reads.

The evening of the tenth day finds you standing in front of the mirror, awkwardly fiddling with the straps of your dress.

It’s a simple black number: elegant, sophisticated, the kind of thing you’d normally never be able to afford but Navia had insisted you borrow from her mother’s closet. The diamond necklace Ajax sent you sits heavy around your throat, catching the light every time you move. It’s beautiful. Probably worth more than your entire year’s salary.

“Stop fidgeting,” Navia says from where she’s perched on your bed. “You look great.”

“I look like I’m going to throw up.”

“That, too.”

You turn to face her, and the words spill out before you can stop them. “I can’t do this.”

“Do what? Go to a fancy party with your handsome boyfriend?”

“He’s not my boyfriend. And I can’t—” You gesture helplessly at yourself, at the dress, the necklace. “I can’t keep lying to him. Today’s day ten. I’m supposed to dump him tonight and turn in the article tomorrow morning.”

Navia’s expression shifts from teasing to serious. “So don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t dump him, and don’t write the article. Tell Euphrasie you can’t do it.”

“And lose the promotion? Lose everything I’ve been working towards?”

“Is it worth it?” Navia asks quietly. “Really? You’ve been miserable all week. I’ve watched you fall for this guy, and now you’re supposed to destroy him for a story? That’s cruel.”

“I know,” you say. “I know, okay? But I don’t know what else to do. If I don’t turn in the article, Euphrasie will—”

“Fire you? So what? You’ll find another job. You’re a good writer. But Ajax?” She shakes her head. “You won’t find another him.”

She’s right—but the thought of throwing away two years of work, going back to square one and proving everyone who said you weren’t cut out for real journalism right—

Your phone buzzes.

Ajax: I’m downstairs. Take your time.

“I have to go,” you say.

“You don’t have to do anything,” Navia says. “You could call him right now and tell him you’re sick. You could tell him the truth. You could do literally anything except continue this charade.”

“I know.”

“You’re going anyway.”

“I have to.” You grab your clutch, checking that you have your phone, your lipstick, and your keys. “I just—I need to figure this out. Maybe I can—I don’t know. Fix it somehow.”

“There’s no fixing this,” Navia says. “There’s only telling the truth or continuing the lie. Those are your options.”

You don’t have a response to that, so you just leave.

Ajax is waiting by his car when you emerge from the building, and the smile that spreads across his face when he sees you makes your heart clench.

“Wow,” he says, and it’s the same wow from the opera, from every date, like he’s seeing you for the first time. “You look incredible.”

“It’s Navia’s dress.”

“It’s not the dress,” he says, opening the car door for you, “though the dress is nice too.”

The drive to the House of the Hearth is quiet. Ajax seems content to just hold your hand across the centre console, occasionally glancing over at you. You stare out the window and try to figure out what you’re going to do.

Option one: Go through with it. Dump him tonight, write the article, get the promotion. Become exactly the kind of person you’ve always hated.

Option two: Don’t go through with it. Lose the promotion, probably lose your job, but keep… what? A relationship built on lies? He’ll find out eventually, and he’ll hate you anyway.

Option three: Tell him the truth right now. Come clean, face the consequences, and at least maintain some shred of dignity.

Your phone buzzes. You pull it out.

Euphrasie: We need to do something about the article by tomorrow morning if possible. The editorial calendar is tight.

You stare at the message, feeling sick.

“Everything okay?” Ajax asks.

“Yeah,” you lie. “Just work stuff.”

The House of the Hearth is stunning—a converted mansion in the wealthiest part of Fontaine, with marble walls and crystal lamps and other obscene displays of wealth. There are people in formal wear everywhere, champagne flowing freely, and you spot more diamonds in the first thirty seconds than you’ve seen in your entire life.

“This is insane,” you mutter as Ajax helps you out of the car.

“Arlecchino likes to make an impression.” He offers his arm. “If she asks you invasive questions, that’s just her way of showing interest.”

“Great. Can’t wait.”

The party is already in full swing when you enter. There’s a string quartet in one corner, ice sculptures in another, and waiters circulating with trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres. Ajax is immediately pulled into conversation with various people—business associates, all very wealthy and very interested in talking to him. You smile and nod and try not to feel like you don’t belong here.

“You must be the girlfriend.”

You turn to find a woman who can only be Arlecchino. She’s tall, striking, with an air of authority that makes you want to stand up straighter.

“I’m—yes. Hi.” You extend your hand. “Thank you for inviting me.”

“Ajax’s choice, not mine,” she says. Her handshake is firm. “But I approve. You’re different from his usual type.”

“I have a type?” Ajax asks, reappearing with two glasses of champagne.

“You did.” Arlecchino’s smile is sharp. “I like her the most, though.”

“I’m right here,” you point out.

“I know. I’m complimenting you.” She plucks a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. “Walk with me. I want to show you the new collection.”

Before you can protest, she steers you away from Ajax, through the crowd towards a private viewing room. The diamond collection is displayed under special lighting, each piece more extravagant than the last.

“Beautiful, aren’t they?” Arlecchino says. “Each one has a story. A history.”

“They’re stunning,” you agree.

“Ajax told me you’re a journalist.”

Your stomach drops. “Lifestyle section. Nothing too exciting.”

“Hmm. And yet you’re dating someone who was the centre of the most sensational trial in Fontaine’s recent history. Curious coincidence.”

“I met him at a gallery opening,” you say carefully. “The trial wasn’t—I didn’t know who he was when we met.”

“You strike me as someone who does her research, though,” Arlecchino says. When you tense, she shakes her head. “Relax. I’m not judging. Ambition isn’t a flaw.”

Before you can respond, you hear raised voices from the main room.

“—can’t believe you actually pulled it off! Ten days!”

You and Arlecchino exchange a look, then head back towards the commotion. You find Ajax surrounded by a group of men in expensive suits. One of them—a tall man with slicked-back hair—has his arm around Ajax’s shoulders, laughing boisterously.

“When you made that bet, Tartaglia, I thought you were out of your mind,” the man is saying, loud enough that people are starting to turn and look. “Make some girl fall in love with you in ten days? I said it was impossible!”

“Dima, keep your voice down—” Ajax is trying to extract himself, looking uncomfortable.

“Why? You won! Fair and square!” Dima raises his glass. “To Childe, who proved that any woman can be manipulated with the right—”

“That’s enough.” Ajax finally pulls away from Dima. “You’re drunk. Go home.”

“I’m celebrating! You won the bet!” Dima turns to the crowd that’s gathering, oblivious to Ajax’s discomfort. “This guy, right here, said he could make any woman fall for him in ten days, and I said—”

“I said I could not screw up a relationship for ten days,” Ajax interrupts, his voice rising. “There’s a difference—”

You’re not listening anymore. The rushing in your ears is too loud. You push through the crowd, trying to get away, trying to breathe—

“Malyshka, wait—”

Ajax catches your arm, and you spin around to face him. The entire party seems to have gone quiet, or maybe that’s just in your head.

“Is it true?” Your voice sounds strange, distant. “Did you make a bet about me?”

“It’s not what it sounds like—”

“Did you or did you not make a bet that you could make me fall for you in ten days?”

He hesitates. It is answer enough.

“Oh, my God.” You pull your arm free. “Oh, my God, you—this whole time—”

“No, listen to me—” He’s reaching for you again, but you step back. “Dima said I couldn’t maintain a relationship for more than a week, that I always get bored and bail. I was trying to prove that I could commit to something for once—”

“By using me as your science experiment?”

“It wasn’t like that! I liked you—”

“You liked me?” You laugh derisively. “How generous. You liked me while you were running your little social experiment.”

“You’re twisting this—”

You’re vaguely aware that people are watching, phones are probably out; this is going to be everywhere by morning, but you can’t stop. “Tell me, Ajax—was any of it real?”

“Of course it was real!” he says. “I fell for you—”

“When? When did you fall for me? Before or after you decided to use me to prove a point to your drunk friend?”

He opens his mouth, closes it. Doesn’t have an answer.

“That’s what I thought.”

“You’re not being fair—”

“I’m not being fair?” you snap. “You made a bet about my feelings!”

“And what about you?” Ajax’s voice turns cold. “You think I don’t know what you’ve been doing?”

You suck in a breath. “What?”

“I’m not an idiot, malyshka. The lifestyle journalist who just happens to approach the guy from the infamous murder trial? Who asks all these probing questions about trauma and feelings?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

“The way you’d pull out your phone after our dates and type for ten minutes, and the fact that you work for a newspaper and I’m a story that sells.” Ajax takes a step closer, and you instinctively step back. “So, tell me—and be honest for once in your life—are you writing an article about me?”

You could lie. You could deny it, act offended, turn this back on him—but you’re so, so tired of lying.

“How to lose a guy in ten days,” Euphrasie’s voice cuts through the crowd. Your stomach plummets as your editor materialises beside you; you hadn’t known she’d been invited, too. “That was the assignment. Make a man fall for you in ten days, then dump him and document the whole thing. I always wondered who this mystery man you spoke so much about was—”

“Euphrasie, don’t—”

Ajax stares at you like he’s never seen you before. “You were going to dump me. Tonight. That was the plan.”

“It was,” you admit, because what’s the point in lying now? “But I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t going to—”

“Oh, well, that’s wonderful. How noble of you.” His voice is dripping with sarcasm. “You were only going to emotionally manipulate me for ten days and write an exposé about it. What a fucking saint.”

“You did the same thing!” you cry. “You made a bet! How is that any different?”

“You wanted to lose a guy in ten days, right?” Ajax rakes a hand through his hair, fingers trembling and eyes blank now. He looks at you like he doesn’t know you anymore, as though you’ve simply ceased to exist in his world. “Congratulations. You’ve just lost him.”

You feel cold, and hot, and cold again, like your blood has turned to ice.

“No, I didn’t, Childe,” you spit. “You know why? Because you can’t lose something you never had.”

Drafts:

HOW TO ROYALLY FUCK THINGS UP IN TEN DAYS

HOW TO LOSE

HOW TO FALL IN LOVE

HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN TEN DAYS Published by The Steambird.

They say that to be a good journalist, you need to be willing to do whatever it takes to get the story. You need to be ruthless, calculating, willing to cross lines that other people won’t cross. You need to separate yourself from your subject and remember that at the end of the day, it’s just a job.

This was supposed to be an article about manipulation. About the psychology of attraction, the tactics women use to drive men away, the point at which romantic interest curdles into annoyance. It was supposed to be funny, insightful, a clever article on modern dating wrapped in a personal experiment. It was supposed to get me a promotion.

Ten days ago, I met a man at a gallery opening. I spilled wine on his shoes accidentally, and he laughed. Most men would’ve been annoyed, but he laughed, and he asked if I wanted to get dinner sometime, and I said yes.

I said yes because I had been assigned to write an article called “How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days.” The premise was simple: make a man fall for you using every manipulation trick in the book, then systematically drive him away and document the whole process. My editor wanted to understand the psychology of romantic sabotage. The readers would eat it up. I would finally escape the lifestyle section.

I needed a subject. He was perfect: high-profile, and media-shy. A man who had been wrongly accused of murder and acquitted, who had never spoken to the press and moved through the world with his guard up. If I could get him to open up to me and make him trust me, the article would be dynamite.

They say you can’t unring a bell. You can’t unknow something once you know it. The man now knows that I approached him for an article. That our first date, our first kiss, and our first night together—all of it happened because I was trying to manipulate him.

It doesn’t matter that I fell for him, or that I quit the assignment. It doesn’t matter that I would give anything to go back and meet him differently, honestly, as just myself.

It only matters what I did.

This is not a how-to guide, or a divulgence on manipulation tactics or dating psychology. This is a warning.

You will meet someone who makes you laugh when you’re having an allergic reaction. Someone who sends you food instead of flowers, who whispers translations at the opera, and who agrees to couples’ therapy after six days because you asked. Someone who has been hurt before and chooses to trust you anyway.

You will have a choice.

You can treat them like a person, or you can treat them like a story. You can be honest, or you can be clever. You can build something real, or you can build something that looks real enough to write about.

Choose wisely.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is being published in place of the originally assigned piece. The author has resigned from her position at The Steambird effective immediately. We wish her the best in her future endeavours.

There’s a box at your doorstep, and a cream-coloured envelope on top of it, with your name written in a script you’d recognise anywhere. The note inside reads:

You left something behind. 

Okay, no, I’m kidding. You didn’t leave something behind, you left someone behind. Namely, me.

I read your article. The whole city did. It was good. Better than good, actually.

Here’s what I know: we both fucked up. You lied to me about why you approached me, and I lied to you about the bet. We were both using each other for something; we both caught feelings we weren’t supposed to catch.

Here’s what else I know: I miss you, malyshka.

I’m at Café Lutece every morning at 7 A.M. I’ll be there tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that. Come find me. I’ll buy you coffee.

— Ajax

P.S. The box has your purse in it. The one you left on purpose on day one. I kept it because I’m sentimental and pathetic, but you can have it back now.

P.P.S. Or you could leave it at my place again.

He justified his unwarranted background checks by telling himself that he was just looking out for you. What kind of man would he be if he just let you go blind into dating the first guy that made himself known?

Were the comparisons he did also necessary? Not quite. But he could not help the derisive scoffs that escaped his lips when he sorted through stacks of information about this new partner of yours, quick comparisons popping in his head to any details that caught his attention in any way. Was he trained for combat? From a family of warriors? He could still humble him in a fight. Smarter than him? Wealthier? As if.

He was not judging your choice by any means. He was just trying to figure out what exactly it was that made you pick him and how on Tsaritsa’s name you could downgrade so badly.

He had eyes everywhere, and power he could abuse for his questionable spurts of jealousy, yet no amount of snooping could answer this question which incessantly tormented his waking hours.

His subordinates would hesitate whenever he asked them for a detailed report about your whereabouts by the end of the day whenever he couldn’t find time to do so himself, as if they were making sure they have not misheard him. This had to connect somehow back to the mission they were currently working on… right?

“...Sir?” They’d ask tentatively. A single, uncharacteristic stare from him reminded them that no matter how many good things recruits said about him, he was still a Harbinger, making them quickly bow and rush to oblige.

The other Harbingers were as equally perplexed when they realized they no longer had to look for excuses or lowly missions to keep him away, for he volunteered to always return to the same region the minute he had no assignments left again and again.

All this time watching you from afar helped him reflect on what could have gone better in your relationship, and he vows to show he has changed for the better once you take him back by the time this new guy vanishes without a trace.

and maybe things would also be a little less distressing if his family would just accept him for who he is instead of expecting too much (or, actually, anything) from him, but the vice president is the only son of the family that owns the largest telecom company in the country, so his parents have a ton of huge expectations for him. his father, in particular, is clearly trying to prepare him to take over the entire business, something that the vice president clearly isn’t keen on doing, based on the many arguments you’ve had to sit through alongside the head secretary. the result is a lot of tension that’s only exacerbated by the vice president’s desire to avoid more conflict, which he does by suddenly disappearing from the office for hours — sometimes days — at a time.

so for as much medical, dental, and reasonably priced caesar salad as you’re getting from this job, you’re not entirely sure how worth it those things all are if they come with the task of you having to sit through twenty minutes of lecturing in place of vice president ajax himself.

“this is the last time,” the president roars — not necessarily at you, but at you, in your general direction, while you stand helplessly in front of his desk, your hands folded across your lap and your head hung low. you don’t really feel terrified or hurt — more than knowing that the president isn’t shouting at you for your incompetence, you’ve also gotten used to being on the receiving end of these weird, indirect lectures and have thus come to know the exact standard of ‘sorry’ that you have to look for it to be over as quickly as possible. still, you’re kind of annoyed that this particular spiel is taking up precious minutes from your afternoon break. then again, you don’t know what you’d expected to begin with when you’d come back from the cafeteria after lunch and found the vice president’s chair abandoned, leather cold, indicating that he’d been gone for quite a while. it’s about four o’clock now, and he still hasn’t come back, and all your messages to him have gone unread, as you’ve also grown used to. “you tell my no-good son if he isn’t back within the hour, he can live the rest of his life without my last name.”

you’re not sure if the implications of that will really sink into the vice president’s heart enough to trigger the guilt it’s clearly trying to elicit, but you know better than to voice your opinion. you nod once, then bow at a perfect ninety-degree angle. “yes, sir. i’m sorry, sir.”

“four years of this, and he hasn’t learned a single thing,” the president continues, completely ignoring your useless and vaguely insincere apology. “where’d he run off to this time?”

you don’t know. you never really know. since he actively tries to avoid all work-related things, he also actively tries to avoid you, something he does by never picking up the phone or telling you the details of his daily schedule anyway. you can only share what you do know, which is very little and, therefore, extremely useless, but you try to say it in a way that appears relatively helpful. “his schedule says he was supposed to have lunch with the foreign investors that are trying to connect prime video to the snezhnayan market, but it seems he didn’t show up for that.”

which essentially translates to: you have no clue. again, all parties in the room — inclusive of head secretary sandrone, who constantly has to bear witness to the many threats vice president ajax receives via you — know this isn’t your fault, but it doesn’t make the vein that’s about to pop out of the president’s temple any less pronounced, nor does it stop you from bowing and apologizing again when he says “get him back in here before five o’clock or tell him he’ll never be able to step foot in this building again!” even though you know that the threat would probably sound more like a gift than anything else to vice president ajax.

“and you,” the president points a vaguely accusatory finger at you. your eyes widen slightly in surprise. “if he isn’t back here at that time, you can kiss your job goodbye too. you go ahead and tell him that. let’s see if ajax will finally get off his ass if he knows someone else is going to have to suffer for his behavior.”

the only person who sees your jaw fall open is head secretary sandrone, who’s now leading you away from the president’s desk and towards the door; the president has taken to staring at this huge family picture of himself, his wife, and the vice president that’s hanging just behind his executive’s chair, all looking considerably happier than anyone in this situation feels. you hear him mutter something that sounds like “where did i go wrong with you, you punk?” before the door shuts close behind you.

“i’d say he doesn’t mean that, but we don’t actually know to what lengths he’ll go to get the vice president on board.” head secretary sandrone says flatly, lifting two fingers to gently shut your mouth, still agape. “if i were you, i’d figure out how to keep him on a leash. the fact that he’s never around is probably ninety-percent of our current problems.”

“i can barely get him to respond to schedule reminders,” you groan; your fingers pinch the bridge of your nose like this will somehow stop the oncoming migraine. “let alone get him to stay still. i was just about to put in a down payment for a car of my own, too.”

you’ve never really been considerably attached to this job, mostly because there isn’t much to actually attach yourself to, but if you think about it now, it really is better than most, and this economy isn’t really kind to people who get fired from their jobs. you feel like puking at the thought of losing the free unlimited coffee in the pantry and trading it in for a life behind a convenience store counter, which is probably where you’ll end up, pessimistically speaking.

you excuse yourself from head secretary sandrone, who has the heart to look a little pitying (the operative word being a little) as you trudge towards the elevator. you don’t even know where you’d start looking for the vice president, especially since he spends quite a lot of his efforts trying to avoid having to communicate with you. you don’t even know what his habits are, which means you can’t make educated guesses on where he might have run off to, so the only route to go is to look in the immediately surrounding area and widening your search diameter as time passes.

until five o’clock, of course — a deadline that, if unmet, will likely mean you also won’t be returning to the office either.

you start off at the nearby bookstore, extremely skeptical that the vice president would ever willingly go to a place that requires more effort even after you make a purchase. as expected, he isn’t there, but he isn’t in the nextdoor candle shop (also unlikely) either, nor do you find him in the authentic nod-krai restaurant next to that as well (you consider just getting a lakkaberry madame to go, just so that you don’t look stupid standing in the middle all those tables, scanning uncomfortable faces). you walk down the entire street for a good twenty minutes, pressing your face against the windows of stores shamelessly, to the ire of many startled and disgruntled staff and customers, trying to look for a familiar head in the small crowds in them, but to no avail. then, you think about calling him again, but when you pat the pockets of your jacket, you realize your phone is still on your desk, where you’d left it when you’d been summoned to see the president. with a loud groan and an annoyed clip clop of your heels as you stamp your feet on the pavement, you walk back to the office.

in your frenzy to find the vice president, you’d gone quite a distance, and your shoes simply aren’t made for long, aggravated walks; they start hurting your feet halfway back, and you’re pretty sure you have a blister behind the strap of the left one. pride would tell you to tough it out, but you’d thrown that out at the thought of losing your job at the expense of a single man, so you don’t even hesitate to take them off and run back to the building. the big digital clock above the elevators says you have ten minutes left to find your boss, and you start thinking about using that time for better things — like packing your stuff up neatly in a box for when you get sacked.

with the situation seemingly hopeless, you trudge to the first floor cafe, where the return counter has a pitcher of water and a stack of tiny paper cups. they’re tiny tiny, like the size of your thumb, so you have to keep refilling it just to start feeling a little more human despite the fact that having to sip water twenty times over feels a little humiliating.

you’re on your fourth refill when you hear a giggle come from across the space. the barista’s just finished laughing at what must have been an extremely hilarious joke, or she might be flirting with whoever’s leaning over the counter to talk to her — a whoever that seems to be the exact same height and build as the elusive vice president of this company.

you accidentally toss the paper cup in the plastics bin in your desperation to get moving, worried that if you’re not fast enough, he’ll disappear into thin air again. luckily, his attention’s completely focused on the barista, so he can’t go anywhere when you finally reach his side and huff, loud enough to interrupt what seems like an intimate-ish conversation between them.

“sorry, i was just — oh, it’s you.” the vice president’s smile fades when he sees it’s you, someone he can’t charm out of what they’re supposed to be doing. you don’t think you’ve ever seen the vice president smile at you in any capacity, anyway, except for maybe one or two slightly sarcastic smiles that are probably more fit to be classified as grimaces. “what do you want?”

“i’ve been looking all over for you, sir,” you say, stiffly and a little quietly because you still don’t want to embarrass him in front of the slightly confused barista. “you haven’t answered my texts.”

you don’t have any way to check, but you’re pretty sure this is a safe enough assumption, which is corroborated by the vice president bringing his phone out and checking the screen lazily before turning it back off.

“sorry. i don’t answer unknown numbers.”

you guess it makes sense that he wouldn’t want to save your number when he hates hearing about work, which is all you really try to communicate with him about, but it still stings considering it’s been two years and you’ve been using the same number since high school. it’s fine, you think, but not after counting to ten for the sake of your blood pressure. you really can’t expect much from him.

“well, your father’s been looking for you, too. he wants to meet you.”

“i’ll take a rain check, but thank you.”

“sir,” your voice quivers with poorly quelled exasperation. “this isn’t an optional thing. this is very serious.”

“i can see that, briar rose,” his eyes are trained towards your shoes, still dangling from your grasp, with a level of unabashed amusement. “did he summon me from deep within the woods, or is this a new casual friday look i should get in on?”

when his words are met with a stony silence, he sighs, pushing himself off the counter. his half-finished americano is collecting a small pool of condensation under it, and you offer him the little handful of tissues you had gotten from the return counter and had originally been planning to use to wipe your tears in case you cried after getting fired so that he doesn’t waste time looking for something to hold his cup. he takes them without even a word of thanks, opting to instead say ‘lead the way, miss.’ you don’t miss the fact that he meets the barista’s eye with a considerably more genuine grin, raising a hand in goodbye to her before he strides ahead — before you even get a chance to lead the way at all — towards the elevators with you, hobbling on one foot to slip your shoe back on, not far behind.

the president’s office must be sort of soundproof for instances like this. for the first time, you’ve been asked to wait outside with head secretary sandrone as the vice president gets chewed. it doesn’t matter; you don’t really want to be in the middle of yet another round of shouting that has nothing to do with you in the same afternoon, plus you also know how the conversation usually goes: the president making very agitated threats and talking about his heart condition (even though the medical reports from their private doctor say he’s in perfect health) that the vice president, who just spends the time looking boredly at his nails, will inevitably trigger. when you press your ear to the door for a minute, you actually hear something like ‘… strike you out of the will so that when you kill me, you won’t get a single mora!’, and you can imagine vice president ajax’s exasperated sigh punctuating the statement.

ten minutes later, the room has gone quiet, and you step aside just in time for the vice president to open the door and step out. you don’t even understand how he can look so unaffected after being ripped apart, but you suppose he’s also heard the lecture as many times as you have and is pretty much immune to all the insults. he doesn’t really have to make a show out of not caring, though, with his hands in his pockets and his lips pursed to allow him to whistle idly as he strolls down the hall to his barely used office. he’s been in it so few times that after long, inexplicable vacations, he sometimes forgets how to get there. you’ve always had to walk behind him just in case he gets lost or, worse, tries to make a run for it. you’ve never had to tackle him to the ground reciting the miranda rights, or anything, but he has faked left a few times just to give you a mild heart attack for the fun of it all.

this time, he just walks, not bothering to joke you into trying to create a human wall he could just as easily push away. when he gets to his office, he lazily plops down onto his couch, extracting the rubik’s cube he’d been working on for a few weeks now from underneath himself and spinning the top layer idly. he’s only ever finished the blue side.

you just stand there, kind of perplexed and unsure of how to start the conversation. he’s still whistling, and you’re not sure if talking over him will count as interrupting him, which isn’t something you’re supposed to do. thankfully, he stops after about two minutes of fiddling with the yellow side of the cube, looking up at you with a slightly surprised expression that somehow makes you want to cry.

“can i help you with something, miss secretary?”

“well, i…” you stutter for a bit, unsure of how to politely point out that he should be asking you for help with his job instead of the whole other way around. “because… i just thought…”

“you can always leave a message with my people if you need time to figure it out.” he grins. “oh, wait a minute.”

“sir, don’t you think you should… i don’t know. figure out your schedule, or something? prepare for… anything?”

“what’s that smell?” he lifts his nose to the air, suddenly curious, and because he looks so serious, you also start sniffing, but you can’t really smell anything out of the ordinary. “smells… fresh. very clean. a little like green tea.”

“oh.” you awkwardly shift your weight from leg to leg. “i think that’s my perfume, but i don’t see w—”

“you smell very expensive.” he sounds genuinely surprised that you do, like he’s somehow saying he hadn’t expected you to have good taste. you have no idea where this conversation is coming from, so you chalk it up to him wanting to derail you from talking about work. “i like it — very classy, not too strong.”

“sir, i don’t think now’s the time to be talking about perfume scents.”

“you’re actually quite pretty now that i’m looking at you from this angle.” he sounds genuinely surprised again, but this time, it stings a little more. “i’d never noticed that before. how come?”

you want to say that it’s because he spends most of his time and energy playing long-term hide-and-seek with you, but there’s also no polite way of putting that into words; even if there were, with the way you’re now bristling under his gaze, you’re not really sure you’d go the courteous route, anyway. you just decide to ignore the comment and question entirely, which you almost get to do.

“wouldn’t you like to take a look at some of our upcoming projects? for instance, we’re just about to start negotiating the terms of this new partnership with northland bank—”

“you’re pretty, but you’re also pretty tense.” he cuts you off again, now looking a little dejected at this newfound information. you can’t understand why this disappointment in you actually hurts your feelings a little. “i think the cafe downstairs serves some tea, if that kind of stuff helps you.”

“sir,” the one syllable is laced with weariness, and you knot your fingers together in front of your lap. it probably looks polite, but it’s mostly so that you can feel like you have some semblance of control over anything, even if it’s just your own body fighting off the urge to grab him by the collar. “please. if you could just take a look at your schedule — even just for tomorrow —”

“what’s the point?” his shrug is nonchalant, and he’s turning the cube over in his palm now, more interested in looking at it than witnessing your tired expression. “it’s almost six o’clock. i’ll deal with tomorrow tomorrow, you know what i mean? if my dad finally loses his marbles, i’ll deal with it all then. in fact, i might actually be okay with losing this department if it finally actually gets him off my back. i’ll also deal with that when it happens, probably.”

another long, uncomfortable silence blooms as his words sink in; not for the first time today, the president has threatened the existence of your job, now alongside a good twenty other people’s, all for the sake of snapping some sense into the vice president. however, like everything else, it seems to just be backfiring; the vice president doesn’t seem to care about anyone else in this department, most likely because he’s barely interacted with anyone else. you’re surprised he even remembers who you are, considering he once called the department accountant ‘leslie’ even though her nametag clearly said ‘ekaterina.’

it makes sense that the threat of abolishment means absolutely nothing to him, but it doesn’t make the knowledge of that any less distressing. he watches you curiously as you tug back at your ponytail, like it’ll once again stop the crawling migraine.

“sure a cup of chamomile tea isn’t in the cards today? i think i have the company card in here somewhere, although i can’t be sure that it hasn’t been cut off, based on my dad’s last threat—”

“i’m fine; thank you.” you mumble, checking the clock. he’s wasted what’s left of the hour anyway, and the lack of change in his position just means he’s not going to change his mind for the rest of the time. “at least let me give you tomorrow’s agenda.”

“boring, but okay. give it to me, then.” he yawns to make a point, and you offer him the tablet you tote around with you everywhere you go, just in case vice president ajax finally decides he wants to do his job. to clarify: that’s veritable years of you carrying that heavy thing around, with the vice president only having touched it a handful of times. you’re mildly shocked that he actually opens it to check, because he barely does even that, but that all goes away when he yawns again, his expression glassy as he scrolls down aimlessly. “this is a lot. can’t you just clear my schedules tomorrow? actually, if i can make demands for real, i’d like to clear out my schedule for the rest of the year.”

he stretches when he stands, ignoring your slightly agog expression as he pats you on the back, smacking his lips sleepily. “good day’s work, miss secretary. want to grab a beer? have ourselves a little intra-department party? i’m pretty sure ‘intra’ stands for ‘us two,’ or am i wrong?”

you sincerely hope he doesn’t mean a goodbye party, but with his attitude right now, that might very well be. you shake your head, and he shrugs, like he wasn’t really expecting you to agree in the first place. “no thank you, sir. i’ll see you tomorrow.”

he’s already halfway out the door, waving dismissively with his back turned to you. when you peek out of the space he leaves by opening the door, you can see about half the entire department’s watching, not even bothering to pretend to scurry back to their seats as he saunters out of the office. he calls out to you, his voice ringing clear even though he’s already out of sight.

“we’ll see about that.”

you come up with a master plan, but not before you scope potential jobs.

you actually stayed an hour overtime at your desk looking for positions, but all of them pay lower than average or are about an hour’s commute away from where you live, so none of them seem worth it. the search ends when some people from the department come over to say goodbye and see your computer open to the local job search, at which point they connect the dots and start to panic about their insurance. you shut your monitor off and spend another useless twenty minutes calming ekaterina, who’d started having a mild panic attack.

in that time, your resentment builds. why can’t vice president ajax simply get his act together? you suppose that there’s some indescribable burden to being in his position, but between him, a rich heir who owns two sports cars and lives in a paid-for house, and you, a public-transport-using, pays-by-the-month nine-to-five worker, you can’t really understand why he would be having it worse than everyone else who works under him. if he worked even just half as hard as everyone else did here, he might scrape by.

you can’t know if the president’s anger was only short-lived or if he actually meant to downsize the company by getting rid of your department entirely, but you also know that if he’s serious, then there’s nothing much you can do about it, short of terrorizing the vice president into stepping into bigger shoes.

so, that becomes your master plan.

it isn’t very refined, mostly because you think about it on the bus home, but the heart and spirit are there, and those are probably the most important things anyway. it’s that heart and spirit that motivate you to get up an hour earlier than you usually do, dressing quickly for the day before taking the company car from your place to downtown. you usually don’t take it on days that vice president ajax doesn’t come into work, which is practically every other day, but this time, you’re determined to see him into the office. the ride with pavel, his official company driver, is quiet, save for the question he asks when you roll up to the vice president’s driveway.

“are you sure about this?”

“no,” you admit. he’d probably seen you chewing down on your thumb, some of your confidence taking a hit when you belatedly realize you could be shot with a huge trespassing lawsuit if this doesn’t go the way you plan. but you do know a lot of secretaries that do the morning calls for their superiors, so this should be fine. not that you’ve ever heard from those secretaries ever again.

vice president ajax’s laziness seems to extend to all aspects of his life, including the fact that he doesn’t ever change his door’s passcode; it’s still the same numbers as it had been when he first bought the house a year ago and had you install his lock while he was missing in action from work, yakking it up with some farmers up in mondstadt. he likes to do that — ‘see the world,’ or whatever, even though his wanderlust makes everyone else’s lives very difficult. at least it makes your life easy now, and you step through the door and walk quietly across his unnecessarily large living room.

you’ve never been in here exactly, and you only realize very belatedly that this house’s design would be very frustrating for a break-and-enter criminal because nothing seems to be where it’s supposed to be. you learn the owner’s suite is actually on the basement floor, so all the climbing of those slippery stairs with your stocking-clad feet was all for nothing.

vice president ajax’s bedroom is bigger than your whole apartment, which also means he has a sizable bed and, thus, is completely out of sight under his gigantic covers. the only indication that he’s even still in there is that they’re rising and falling in a rhythmic pattern. you stand by the edge of the bed, on the side he’s closest to falling off of, clearing your throat at the tuft of bright hair peeking out from under the comforter.

“sir? it’s time to go to work.”

your voice has been tempered down by years of this professional work, and this is easily the loudest and most demanding you’ve ever heard it. you’re not even sure you can do it again, but the muffled groan from under the covers is all the motivation you need to try.

“sir, you have a ten o’clock meeting with our inazuman team. the president also asked that we contact northland bank right away to reschedule the deal.”

“how,” his voice comes out first before he does, squinting up at you, completely disoriented. “the hell did you get in here?”

“sir, i’m your secretary.” you sigh, skimming over the fact that you’d walked into his big kitchen twice through two different entryways before coming into his bedroom. “i’m supposed to be able to get in here.”

“except this is a first.” you think he’s about to get up, but he just shifts his weight, rolling over so he can cocoon himself tighter into his blankets. “goodnight. there are eggs in the fridge if you’re hungry.”

“i’ve already eaten, like a normal, functioning human being with a very important job that starts precisely at nine o’clock would.”

“this seems like a very targeted comment, miss secretary. i’m not sure i appreciate it.”

“since we’re already having this conversation, i’m guessing you’re conscious enough to get dressed.”

to your relief, he actually does throw the covers off of him, leaning up on his elbows. you try not to balk at the fact that he’s shirtless, although you’re also not sure why this should surprise or bother you to begin with. he doesn’t even seem to mind; he just yawns, wide and unashamed, as he looks over at the clock.

“it’s seven-thirty. this is insanity.”

“no, this is a wake-up call.” you offer him a neatly folded towel that he eyes suspiciously. “we need to get you in the office on time.”

“there’s really no point,” he sighs, scratching his head idly. “it’ll just be another boring day of talking to people i don’t care about. someone who cares about it should talk to them. you care about it, don’t you?”

“i won’t talk to them for you, sir.”

“why not?”

“because, frankly, i don’t get paid enough to be doing that.”

he once again stares at the towel like he’s trying to will it to evaporate, but in the end, he only sighs louder and takes it from you, kicking his blankets off completely. you look up at the ceiling, not in prayer but to avoid the more embarrassing fact that he’s only in his boxers after all. well — it’s embarrassing for you. he doesn’t even seem to care.

“something’s different.”

“usually i don’t wake you up,” you offer the painfully obvious. “or come here. or talk to you.”

“yeah, all that stuff,” he says dismissively, halfway through a yawn. “did you have a life-changing experience recently?”

“something like that.”

“couldn’t it have been one where you decided to leave me alone for good instead?” he grumbles, more to himself instead of to you. it doesn’t matter, anyway; you already see he’s up and fishing socks out of his drawer, so you’re marching out of his room to avoid having to hear more of his complaints (and, quite frankly, to avoid looking at his broad and weirdly toned back).

however, the day thereafter doesn’t go as planned. you thought that waking vice president ajax up for an early day of work might shock him into doing something with the knowledge that it was urgent, but you’re not sure why you didn’t anticipate a scenario in which he’d fall asleep in the car on the way to work and you’d have to shake him into waking in the stuffy parking lot. he spends the rest of the morning out of sorts, ignoring you point blank when you try to brief him on the meeting. the meeting in and of itself doesn’t go any better, with him excusing himself fifteen minutes in by saying the pitch doesn’t seem all too exciting and innovative. you didn’t even know he knew the word ‘innovative’ and, by the shocked faces of the inazuman team, they were of the same mind.

by lunch time, you’re more exhausted than you’ve ever been, and a part of you is wondering why you wanted vice president ajax in the office in the first place when you’re already used to the much simpler routine of getting up, working, eating lunch, geting yelled at, and working again. sometimes, on slow days when the vice president is completely out of town for the week and the president is out of things to yell at you about, you even get to just sit back at your desk and play the snezhnayan times crossword puzzles from their weekend archives.

now, you’re basically handholding him, but the weight that keeps him down is so heavy that you’re being dragged down, too.

“you mean people do this every single day?” he shuts the folder with a contract that requires his signature that you’d given him just now, not even bothering to peruse the first page, much to your rapidly increasing ire. “this is ridiculous. working at a desk makes no sense.”

“all employees come to work to do that, sir. it’s literally what makes up half their lives.”

“except it shouldn’t,” he sighs, like this is a true global issue and not a problem of his own making. “everyone needs to be able to do what they want and live life to the fullest.”

“not everyone can,” you point out flatly. “some people don’t have the luxury of time even for that.”

“then, they should. the more i’m in this situation, the more it feels like it might be better for everyone to have a little work break for — i don’t know. the next year or so.”

vice president ajax has his arm outstretched, handing the folder back to you. you don’t know if it’s what he says that causes your blood pressure to rise, or if its the completely unconcerned look on his face, or if it’s the fact that he’s holding the folder so lazily that the papers are starting to slip out on your end, requiring you to use two hands to keep them all from falling apart and creating a mess you’ll end up having to clean up anyway. whatever it is, you snatch the folder from him with a little more aggression than necessary (or that you’d even care to admit). even though it’s out of place, you can’t help but feel a small sense of triumph at the slight surprise in his eyes.

“did i say something wrong?”

“no, sir.” you pause, mostly because you can tell he doesn’t believe you — vice president ajax is nonchalant, not stupid — and you want to give yourself a little bit of time to grapple with your pride before you admit the truth. “yes, sir. it isn’t fair to your entire department for you to talk that way.”

“i’m saying the entire department doesn’t have to work this hard. it’s senseless. how are you supposed to live a good life if all you’re doing is sitting behind a desk?”

“like i said, not everyone has the luxury of living your life. if they want even a little bit of that comfort you enjoy, they have to work very hard for it first.”

“then they should at least do something they enjoy. if this department goes down the drain —”

“if this department is abolished,” this is your first time interrupting a superior, and it already makes you want to throw up. “then people will have a very difficult time finding a job in this market. more than that, a lot of people enjoy working for this company — quite genuinely, in fact. i don’t think it’s right to think that they’ll be happy while they’re jobless and floundering in this economy.”

“so you’re happy like this? you really want this job — this whole working under me situation?”

“well…” you trail off, your voice taking on a slightly thoughtful tone. it’s been a relatively long time since you’d entered this job, but you do faintly remember the feeling of excitement at getting this position — the desire to want to learn from the best in this industry, the anticipation of being able to meet and network with interesting and important people. your first few weeks of work had involved wanting to spend as much time in vice president ajax’s shadow, in case you could pick up some important business tidbits from an entrepreneurial master… until, of course, you realized there wasn’t much you could stand in the shadow of to begin with. “these days, it isn’t ideal. but this job is a really good thing for most of the people who work here.”

“then it sounds like you have more to gain from me working hard than i do.”

you can’t contain your disapproving frown, and your voice comes out a little sharper than you intend. “doesn’t it bother you at all, sir? knowing almost twenty people could lose their jobs in the blink of an eye? think about all the people who look up to you and rely on you — they’ll have to suffer because of this. they might never find a job that matches their needs, and a lot of them have families to take care of, too. if you can do something to make sure they have these good lives you keep talking about, why not do it? i know you’re capable of that. you’re capable of doing much more than what you’ve been doing thus far.”

the vice president is quiet for a moment before leans over on his desk, lacing his fingers into a loose combined fist and putting his weight on his forearms. one of his forefingers detangles itself from the pile of digits and curls inwards, beckoning you closer. your grimace is probably obvious, and you lean in a little warily. he lifts himself off his chair slightly so he can whisper in a low voice, as if you two aren’t the only people in this wide office.

“if you care about it so much, then ask a little more nicely.”

your light breakfast almost makes a reappearance, and you draw back in mild shock. he also leans back, significantly more relaxed than you, looking unperturbed as he settles back against his chair. you two engage in a very uneven staring match, until he gestures for you to proceed, looking expectant.

“you want me to beg for my job?”

“not what i meant, but i could accept that,” he hums. “i just think you could throw in a please while you’re guilting your boss, at least.”

gawking probably doesn’t suit you, but you do it anyway, wondering how you managed to find yourself in this position. this morning, you had been strictly guiding him through what to do, and now you’re paralyzed in front of the vice president, feeling very foolish for saying so much out of turn. you couldn’t even get through a whole work day before seeing your grand master plan slip down the drain.

but there is, at least, some small comfort in what he said — the part about guilting, which, if you squint hard enough, seems to be implying that this conversation has left him with a small amount of guilt. you don’t think it’s that much, but it’s a miracle he feels it at all, so you take the horribly subtle win and inhale deeply.

“please, sir.” the words are very thick and reluctant, unsticking from your throat. “this department really needs you.”

he stares, very unnervingly, without saying anything, but there’s something in his gaze that makes you vaguely certain he’s actually thinking about it. in fact, he actually looks a bit serious, which isn’t anything you’d ever think you’d be able to characterize him by. that impression easily falls apart when he claps his hands, once but very loudly, startling you into jumping a little.

“ah, how could i turn down such a nice request?” vice president ajax is grinning from ear to ear, something you’ve never seen him do in the context of the office, much less a few feet away from you. his smile is actually kind of nice, if you don’t think about the fact that it seems to be smug at your expense. “since you asked, i guess i’ll have to try my best, or whatever it is people do in this damn company. i guess that means you owe me now, so you’re very welcome.”

the silence that once again blooms as you stand, motionless, in front of vice president ajax is suddenly interrupted by the sound of chairs scraping back all at once. the floor vibrates a little as the entire department troops out to the elevator area so they can go to lunch. you only watch stupidly as he also stands, shrugging off his jacket and flinging it over the back of his chair. “see you, then.”

“where are you going, sir?”

he looks a little surprised that you even ask. “to lunch. do i have to ask for your permission for that, too?”

“are you… coming back?”

“you want to come along with me and make sure i don’t run away?” he smiles even wider, which you didn’t even think was possible. it makes you awkwardly uncomfortable to know he’s taking a lot of pleasure in joking around with you, mostly because you were kind of hoping you’d get him to take things seriously in a serious manner, not in a … whatever this is that’s making you feel like you’ve lost a game manner.

“a little bit.”

“ask a little more nicely, then.”

“never mind,” you mumble. “have a good lunch, sir.”

he snaps his fingers a little comically before turning to the door, flinging it open so he can join the now thinning throng of people leaving the floor. “thought i almost had you there. well, if you need me, you know where to find me. or not.”

in the end, to your utmost relief, vice president ajax does, in fact, stay inside the entire time he has lunch. you’re not sure if this is the product of you sitting two tables away, trying to will an imaginary chain to his wrist so he doesn’t bolt off or because he’s still feeling a little affected by everything you said earlier on, but whatever it is, it works. he just eats his club sandwich in peace, picking off the crust easily and double dipping the fries that come with it in his ketchup. at some point, he looks up and notices you burning holes into his torso, so you quickly have to avert your eyes in shame. you think he laughs at this, but you can only see out of your peripheral vision at this point, so you can’t be sure.

you’re supposed to have one hour for lunch, but he eats quickly and gets up before the whole hour is over, so you end up throwing your half-eaten wrap and following him. again, you’re not sure what’s funny, but he’s chuckling to himself as he holds the elevator door open, waiting for you to run in next to him.

“relax, miss secretary. i already said i was going to do my best.”

“no offense, sir, but i don’t know what that looks like, so i have to be careful.”

“fair enough.” he hums, letting the door close on its own. “but you should still take it easy. you’re pretty t—”

“tense. you said so yesterday, sir.”

“that’s two times you’ve cut me off in a single day.” he doesn’t sound very annoyed about it; in fact, he’s still got that amused, inside joke tone to everything he’s had all morning. “if i didn’t know any better, i’d think you were gunning for an insubordination report.”

you don’t think that’s fair for him to say, especially since you haven’t really had much of an authority figure to be subordinate to for most of your career in this company, but you keep your mouth shut since saying so is exactly what would be on the first line of an insubordination report.

when you arrive back at his office, you take the time to discuss what you should be doing from now on. it’s an extremely messy exchange, with you two grappling between terms you can’t agree on. for instance, vice president ajax thinks that it seems only fair that he should really only be coming in after one o’clock, but you’re insistent on making sure he gets to work on time, since most important meetings happen within that time period (a fact he already seems to know but chooses to ignore anyway). you end up agreeing on bringing him in for the standard nine-to-six for as long as he never has to work overtime. you also find it necessary to iron out the fact that if he has lunch outside, he has to actually come back, a statement he once again finds very amusing for some reason, as if you’re the weird one in this conversation.

and to his credit, he tries to stick to his word. it isn’t exactly a walk in the park, especially not during the first couple of weeks, but you suppose that habits are very difficult to break when they’ve been so easy to acquire and nurture over many years. more than once, you’ve arrived late to meetings to the disapproving gazes of head secretary sandrone and the president. however, the latter finds he has less to say these days because vice president ajax’s presence in said meetings had, before this time, been nothing but a pipe dream for everyone.

you also notice he starts taking the time to ask about things he doesn’t understand, as opposed to his initially brash or sometimes completely unresponsive approach, which has turned out better results when it comes to business lunches with investors and potential partners. even the northland bank people, who are extremely wary of him during the callback meeting, come out of their next encounter with the vice president looking vaguely more satisfied than they did the last time (the bar isn’t that high, considering they’d left disgruntled previously, but you’ll still take the improvement).

of course, with all the time you end up spending with, chasing after, and vaguely lecturing (only when the need truly arises) vice president ajax, you also learn some things about him that you hadn’t expected, like how he doesn’t really like milk in anything he drinks (but especially coffee) and that every third sunday of the month, he meets his old college senior zhongli, the guy that owns half the residential high rise condominiums lining liyue harbor. apparently, they play badminton together — he had told you that when he’d caught you wondering about the super out of place little kid’s karate trophy among other more adult, official ones in his living area. the trophy goes to whoever wins the match of the month, and according to the vice president, he’s been ‘wiping the floor with that bastard’s handsome face for half a year straight.’ although you can’t verify this by anything more than the slight blanket of dust on it, you think it takes nothing out of your pride to applaud him like this is an amazing thing. it also does you no harm to see him swell with misplaced pride about a kid’s karate trophy.

you also notice that despite how healthily he eats at the office, he has a bad habit of craving deep fried food in the afternoon, which is why, over the last few weeks, you’ve been accompanying him to the nod-krai corndog street stall two blocks away, a few days a week. he’s even had to borrow loose mora from you a few times to because he always forgets that no street vendor accepts a card as black and as daunting as his, but you just let him have it; his heart’s in the right place when he orders an extra one for you without even asking. you realize that he has a fairly good memory for as long as he’s concentrating, and that he likes to spend late nights watching the shittiest horror movies ever known to man (his words, much to your bemusement), and that when he listens attentively to you telling him about the day’s agenda, his left ear twitches a little when your voice hits it.

somewhere along the way, you realize that vice president ajax is a charming, outgoing, and fairly capable person, and in doing so, you also realize that he seems to be, for lack of a better word, your style.

you can’t really believe it either, and you’re not even sure when it started. in between sitting with him in the company car and handing him forty-page agreements he has to look over carefully (very carefully, as you’ve taken to reminding him, so often that he starts saying it before you do now, in your trademark cadence, which has only somehow endeared him further to you and not annoyed you the way you were sort of hoping it would), the small non-work related part of your consciousness had decided that it needed a more complicated situation now that things were going relatively well.

to be fair to yourself, liking him isn’t a huge distraction; most of the time, you’re both so engrossed in something you desperately have to finish that you don’t even have time to think about it. instead, it kind of catches you off-guard, like when he’s double dipping his french fries into his ketchup, or when he smiles at you (politely to him, probably, but overwhelmingly charmingly to you) before he leaves the office, or when his brow’s furrowed in (a total shocker) concentration as he reads.

then again, everything about vice president ajax seems to be catching you off-guard these days. this much is proven by the fact that instead of the normal silence that you’ve grown accustomed to being greeted by when you enter his house, there’s a lot of noise coming from one area that can only mean either that someone had broken in to mug him or for some reason, he’s up before you need to wake him.

it’s nothing you have to call 911 for, but it still paralyzes you to see him, surrounded by opened jars and a particularly dirty bread knife as he stands in front of his fancy toaster, drumming his fingers on the counter impatiently.

“if you have a minute to spare, could you bring my laptop into the car?” he asks without turning around. his hand, still holding the bread knife, points towards the bar counter on the far end of the kitchen, where the laptop is still whirring away.

“of course, sir. um,” you gingerly shut the monitor, putting the laptop to sleep and tucking it under your arm. “were you… working this morning?”

“no, i was playing a riveting game of bridge against the computer ai.” he turns to you, grinning. “of course i was working, miss secretary. what do you think i’d be up this early for?”

you try to think of an answer, but nothing comes to mind — vice president ajax hasn’t ever woken up early for anything to your knowledge, anyway — so you just nod and bolt, unwilling to bear witness to his smile this early in the day. when you come back, particularly less red in the face, you find him topping one of two sandwiches with the last slice of bread to complete it. he takes one, as you expect he would, and you stand there, trying to look polite as you essentially observe him eat.

this isn’t something very unusual; ever since the first time you’d done it, you’ve been watching him out of habit. so far, only the motivation’s changed from you wanting to make sure he doesn’t bolt to you simply enjoying the view of his profile when he eats. of course, he probably doesn’t know this, but he’s also just gotten used to you watching him and probably finds it funny — as suggested by his perpetually amused expression — that you still think, after all this time, that he’s going to make a run for it. you don’t actually mind it; you get to watch him for free, and he has something to laugh about, so everyone kind of wins.

he’s halfway through the sandwich when his expression turns quizzical. “aren’t you going to eat?”

“eat,” you echo hollowly. “eat what, sir?”

“a delicious, handmade, gourmet peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwich.” when you don’t move, he pushes the plate with the untouched sandwich forward towards you like he thinks you can’t understand anything he’s saying. “what? are you allergic to something?”

“no, but…”

“but?”

there’s no but; you don’t have a good reason to decline other than the fact that accepting it feels weird, but refusing him when he’s looking at you this expectantly is just as awkward. you rub the back of your neck as you walk over, not missing the look of triumph that crosses his face as you pick up the sandwich and take a bite. it’s good, but you don’t really think that has anything to do with his culinary skills, based on what it is; still, he looks like he’s patting himself on the back for this feat.

“thank you, sir.”

“my dear secretary, i hope you can count this as a momentous occasion for the both of us.” he chuckles. “you get free breakfast made especially for you by your direct superior in the comfort of his own home, and i finally get to learn what all the settings on my toaster are for. between you and me, i think mine’s the better achievement.”

you’re still in the middle of eating when you laugh, and you hastily raise a hand to cover it — only vice president ajax catches your wrist halfway through, so quickly you vaguely choke on the bread that’s only partially down your throat.

“i’ve never seen you laugh,” he looks as surprised as you feel, although probably for a different reason. “i don’t even think you’ve ever smiled at me, specifically.”

“oh.” you need time to respond, mostly so you can swallow but also because you need to collect yourself from your shock. there seems to be a lot of that going around this morning. “sorry. should i do that more often?”

“i mean, if you ask like that, it’s kind of disingenuous,” he laughs. “but i like it. i like knowing you’re not just in a constant state of stress because of me. feels even more momentous than the toaster thing.”

he loosens his hold, and you manage to take your hand back, now refusing to meet his eye. “i’m not… stressed by you.”

“not anymore.”

“not anymore,” you agree, and he looks particularly delighted when he sees the corners of your lips turn up again. “not for a while. and not that my opinion matters, but you’ve been performing above expectations, sir.”

“you’re right,” he hums, taking the plate and putting it in the sink — a problem he seems to be saving for later. “it doesn't matter. but i like it, all the same.”

you’re willing to chalk the morning off as a wonderful anomaly, especially since the rest of it passes as it normally does, with a generally quiet car ride (you’ve also learned that vice president ajax likes to listen to rap music on days when he wants to avoid falling asleep in the backseat, which is equal parts amazing and amusing) and a fifteen minute briefing of what he has on his plate today. he disappears for the better part of the morning and even the whole lunch hour, but you expect this because he has a business lunch with the representatives for some fontainian appliance company that’s looking to break into the snezhnayan market. you can’t imagine many people want a state of the art rice cooker alongside their monthly internet bill, but it’s polite for him to go anyway, and the prospective partner seems very on edge about company secrets. it’s one of those meetings you aren’t allowed to come along to, which means that you’re missing out on a few hours of vice president ajax trying to iron details out with a couple of old guys.

while you eat, you’re once again struck with the random notion that it feels weird not to be around the vice president. you’ve been working together regularly and in a very close capacity, which basically means that you’re always in his shadow. it’s the life you were kind of hoping to have at the beginning and were deprived of for a good two years. now that you have it, it feels weirdly natural — so natural that it’s unnatural to not have his voice ordering you around in that easy tone or his aftershave lingering in the air directly above you.

you throw the tissue you used to wipe the residue from your egg toast off your mouth onto the table, crumpled and wilted.

you miss him, which is ridiculous considering you don’t even know what there is to miss. your relationship, while admittedly lightyears ahead of the starting point it had been at back then (again, not a great standard, considering you didn’t even have a relationship before this period of time), is nothing close to the point of being what it should be for one to miss the other.

and yet, you look forward to seeing him, watching him do something from afar, helping him whenever he needs you. you like the fact that he still sometimes fakes left when you’re accompanying him back to his office, and you do this thing where you pretend to be annoyed even though it makes you happy to know he won’t go anywhere. you like the little sounds he makes when he eats his super unhealthy corndog as if he’s eating it for the first time every single time (see: very unnerving and slightly disturbing but altogether amusing mmmmmmmmmms). in fact, if you didn’t have a vivid memory of telling him off from way back then, you feel like you could easily convince yourself that things had always been like this — that you two had always been together, happily at work.

you’re not surprised that he isn’t back from his meeting even when you get back to your desk after lunch, but you do feel a pang of dejectedness that lasts for a few more hours — time which you spend lazily looking over a contract he’d signed yesterday that needs a fair amount of amending and re-signing. it’s hard to pretend to care today, for some reason, especially since your mind keeps going back to peanut butter sandwiches and some ridiculous — maybe even delirious — vision of vice president ajax standing in the middle of your tiny studio apartment’s kitchen area.

your reverie’s broken when an envelope falls onto your desk, covering the page of the contract you’d been glassily staring at for the last hour and a half. you’d drawn the same circle about twenty times already, and the paper’s all dented from your efforts. when you look up, vice president ajax is staring down at you, grinning from ear to ear.

“miss me?” he drums the envelope, the paper muffling the noise of it all. “oh? i was joking, but it looks like you actually did. that’s twice in a single day, miss secretary. you’re setting a very high record.”

you try to tamp down the smile on your face upon seeing him, clearing your throat so that you have an excuse to press your lips together. you guess it doesn’t work because he just keeps smiling, anyway, or maybe he’s just in a really good mood. “did your meeting go well, sir?”

“is the flagship the national fastfood chain of snezhnaya? too bad i don’t work for anyone because it kind of feels like i deserve some kind of reward.”

“could we say that this partnership is its own reward?”

“it doesn’t have the same ring to it,” he sighs. once again, his forefinger taps the envelope, calling your attention a little more clearly to it. “i know we’re on a tight schedule for this, and i hate to ask this so late of you, but —”

“of course, sir; i’ll have it in your hands first thing tomorrow.”

you’re already gathering it up along with your other (vaguely unfinished) paperwork when his whole palm comes down, trapping the envelope and everything else you’d been intending to carry under it. your hands go up like you’re being held at gunpoint, your eyes wide.

“on second thought,” vice president ajax muses, a little too serene for someone who’d just scared the living daylights out of someone else. “how about i take care of the northland bank deal you’re looking over, and you can handle the fontanian contract?”

“i haven’t… really made a lot of headway with it, if i’m being honest.” you’re hoping he doesn’t ask you why because you’re too embarrassed to come up with a lie on the spot and will inevitably have to confess your random attraction to him under these terrible circumstances if he does. luckily, he just shrugs.

“all the more reason to split the work, then.”

the still mildly stern part of you is begging to point out that he’s giving you a whole new set of documents to look over anyway, so it’s not even like you’ll have less to do, but the larger, more endeared part of you tells it to shut up and mind its own business. “i thought the crux of our agreement was that you’d never have to work overtime.”

“because i look like such a stickler for the rules, don’t i?” he snorts, waving you in with the same envelope, and you concede.

working next to vice president ajax isn’t anything new to you; you’ve been doing it everyday for a while now, especially if he needs you to be quick on call. ever since you’ve realized his presence makes your heart beat a little faster, you’ve promised yourself not to let that fact show at all when he’s around, something you’ve been quite careful about perfecting.

something’s different, though, when it’s after official hours. maybe it’s because the floor is quieter than it is during the day, so there’s nothing you can listen to but the sound of pen scratching on paper and the vice president’s steady breathing. the only real interruption is when pavel knocks on the door to ask if the vice president is going home; the look on his face is panicked and confused, like a puppy that’s just been dropped off at the mouth of a dumpster site, when he’s told that vice president ajax will drive himself home, so he can just leave the keys.

maybe it’s also because it’s pretty dark outside, and while you’ve worked into the night a few times, it’s usually alone or with some other poor sap that has even more backlog than you do — it’s never been just you and the vice president, who seems supremely unperturbed by the fact that he isn’t at home doing… whatever he does at home after work. you can only guess at it (or wish you knew).

that makes one of you that’s keeping busy, although you know it should be two. the fact that you’re distracted by his presence all of a sudden is only exacerbated by the mutually exclusive headache that the paperwork you’re looking over gives you. you don’t know why you had expected it to be in snezhnayan, but you and your intermediate level fontainian struggle to keep up with all the little things you have to look through. sometimes, you can’t tell if the clauses are actually confusing or if you’re just the poor product of your middle school education. it strikes you more than once that vice president ajax had gone through this, somehow, himself — talked to people in a completely different language, probably with ease. you can at least be proud of yourself for being right: for as long as the vice president puts his mind to something, he’s able to do it — perhaps even well.

what shocks you after an eternity of silence is the hand that extends towards you, forefinger lightly nudging your chin. you sit up straight like a bolt of lighting had gone through you, meeting vice president ajax’s thoroughly and inexplicably amused expression. your jaw slackens in shock, but his finger just stays there, like it isn’t invading your personal space — like it just belongs there.

“what are you doing?”

“what—” you splutter, bemused at the fact that you hadn’t asked the question first. “what are you doing?”

“you keep moving your mouth. what — are you praying or something?”

“no, i —” you gesture at the contract page you’ve been trying to stumble through for the past twenty minutes. “no, i’m just… i’m reading?”

“you’re…” the start of a laugh escapes him, and you really don’t know what’s so funny. “you’re reading aloud?”

“i wasn’t making any noise, i think,” you grumble, sounding a little more defensive than you’d care to admit.

“you read silently aloud, then.” his eyes twinkle at this information, although why it should elicit this reaction also completely escapes you. “why? because it helps you memorize it or something?”

“my fontainian isn’t that great,” you admit begrudgingly, suddenly feeling a little exposed. “sometimes i need to mouth the words to understand it.”

and he does the most outrageous, inexplicable thing: he gently cups your chin, making sure you can’t turn your head to look away in embarrassment. now you have to look at him, red in the face and close to exploding.

“don’t you think that’s a little too much, miss secretary?”

you can’t ask what; your voice isn’t working. you just open and close your mouth around the syllable, and after a couple of attempts, he starts copying you, evidently having a better time than you are based on the grin stretched across his face.

“what, what? that you’re doing something this cute in front of me is what i mean. you’re obviously going overboard, and i don’t think it’s very nice.”

he retracts his hand as quickly as he’d used it to close the distance between you, and your hand immediately comes up in its place, almost cupping your jaw like he did. it definitely doesn’t give you the same tingly feeling, so that’s an obvious bust.

you and vice president ajax have a sudden staring contest with amended rules: you blink a hundred times a minute at him while he laughs quietly, leaning back on his chair like he doesn’t have a care in the world. it confuses you and kind of enrages you, but you also find your heart thumping away in your ears like it’s trying very hard to remind you that your boss makes you feel alive.

“i— i just—”

“coffee? i could use some coffee. you look like you could use some too.” he stands, buttoning his blazer with one hand like he has someplace important to go. you’re still so shell-shocked that you don’t even try to stand up to help him, a fact which he notices very clearly. “oh no, i’ll do you this favor. you sit tight and read your contract. i’ll be back. keep doing that cute thing with your mouth.”

vice president ajax finds you exactly as he left you: still wondering if you should be offended at his teasing or enamored by his touch and, more importantly, what the hell his deal is. you have a million questions that need answering, but the only thing you blubber out when he comes back is “why?”

“because you’re amazingly fun to tease,” he responds simply. “and because it’s true. i find it extremely cute. i find you very cute, miss secretary, in a kind of good girl, cool girl kind of way. it’s a little confusing to me too, but i think this slightly stern but overall gentle aesthetic of yours is actually growing on me a little.”

“sir, i—”

“while we’re taking a break,” he interrupts you. you guess it’s probably the right time for a break considering there’s no way you can work in peace now. “do you constantly have to call me that?”

“what else would i call you?”

“my name,” he suggests, taking a sip of coffee. you ignore the ‘shit, that’s hot’ that comes out of him as he puts the paper cup down gingerly on his desk, looking a little bit betrayed by his drink. “ajax. many people call me that.”

“people who are close to you, you mean. like your family or… your friends.”

“are you saying you don’t think we’re close? or that we aren’t friends?”

“sir, i work for you.”

“so by that alone, we simply can’t be friends? et al?i think you really are being too much now, miss secretary.” he folds his arms across his chest, tutting disapprovingly as he leans back on the edge of his desk. you try not to think too hard about the fact that he does it very close to you, at an angle optimal for viewing the leanness of his form. “after all those times you broke into my house—”

“to get you ready for work.”

“— walked into my bedroom—”

“only whenever necessary—”

“— gone through my things while i’m half naked in bed like you’re trying to organize a charity drive—”

“because you need to get dressed, not because i have some perverted agenda —”

“—eaten the food off my kitchen counter, too—”

“you told me to!” you get to your feet, the contract slipping from your lap in your enthusiasm to defend yourself. “you offered it to me!”

whatever happens next is completely out of your control, and you know this because the room spins without you moving by your own will. vice president ajax must have been an expert dancer in his past life, or something, because after that one dizzying moment, you find yourself leaning against the edge of the table he had been just a second ago. warm hands are on your waist, tucked under your cardigan, the heat bleeding through your shirt.

and the vice president’s smile is inches away from your face, still mischievous but much gentler than any other time before.

you’re not sure if you’re paralyzed or if you just don’t want to move, but the reason doesn’t affect the outcome: all you can do is stare up at him, once again dumbfounded after a small outpouring of words that ends in some kind of forced defeat. except this particular surrender doesn’t feel so sore, for some reason.

“even when you’re angry, you’re still pretty, you know that?”

“i wasn’t… angry,” you mumble under your breath, afraid that talking louder will scare him off. you don’t even think he’s listening all that much to you, considering that all he does is tuck your hair behind your left ear and completely change the topic.

“so, tell me, since i’m so curious. is this still a situation where we’re not close at all?” he pauses for a moment, probably to let you answer, but you don’t say anything. you’re pretty sure your swallowing nervously is the only true sound you make. he seems to be eager to do a lot of the talking anyway, which is absolutely fine by you. “or have i completely misread all your cute little signals?”

“well — no, but i didn’t send any signals.” obvious ones, at least. you’d been pretty sure you had tried to keep it under wraps as much as possible, but you’re starting to realize it’s a little possible you’re not as great at pretending as you think you are.

“not on purpose, probably. although you really almost got me with the one-man show vibe you have during lunch hour.”

“i… didn’t think you knew, if i’m being honest.” honesty is the only thing you have right now, anyway, especially since vice president ajax has pretty much confirmed, in his own way, that he knows about how you feel. now you can only wonder if he’d noticed before you even came to terms with it yourself, and the thought of that being a real possibility urges you to grab the still-steaming cup of coffee and douse yourself with its contents.

“for a while, i was pretty sure you were messing with me. i would never,” he adds just as you say it too, mimicking your astounded tone up to the lilt. “which is why i started thinking about why else you might be looking at me so intently. you weren’t sitting there objectifying me, were you, miss secretary?”

“sir, i would never,” you repeat, and he mouths the same words again in his amusement, although silently this time.

“i think i would have been okay with it if you were. or would be, even until now. for the record.”

“i wasn’t.”

“you sure? no shame in it. totally fine. not sure about anyone else, but i’m totally okay if someone else thinks i’m eye candy in the privacy of their own minds. i am, i think, a fine specimen of a human, if i do say so myself.”

“i really wasn’t, sir.”

“you should have, then. lost opportunities.”

“i could argue that i was just worried you’d leave and not come back.”

“you know i wouldn’t do that to you,” he hums. “not anymore, anyway.”

the ‘to you’ is what stumps you into another silent spell, but this time, vice president ajax doesn’t attempt to fill in the void. he just starts running his eyes over your face, like he’s trying to read something there or maybe memorize your features, or something. at some point, you start thinking about how this kind of silence isn’t exactly uncomfortable, contrary to your expectations and with interesting consideration of the fact that he’s still holding your hips. apart from the idle skimming of his thumb over the curve of your pelvic bone, he doesn’t move — nearer or farther, which is probably for the best since you don’t know which one you really want more at this point.

again, when you gather some part of your wits, the only thing you still know how to ask is “why?”

“because,” he replies immediately, simply, like the answer has always been very clear and you’ve just been too ignorant to figure it out. “you said that i could, not that i had to.”

it’s hot. isn’t it hot? you don’t know what he’s talking about, but your body already reacts on principle, and you have to stand-half-lean there with your entire face burning and the vice president’s body heat washing over yours like an electric blanket.

“i don’t know what that means, sir.”

“it means i didn’t do this for my dad or just because you told me off in the comfort of my own office.” he bites down on his lower lip to keep himself from laughing (yet again) at you as he witnesses, from the best seat in the house, your face turning almost purple with the effort of keeping down your embarrassment. “although that played a bit of a factor in it. i couldn’t tell if it was rude of you to say so much or kind of cute that you did despite knowing you were being rude. but that’s besides the point.”

good, you think. if he manages to hit you with another ‘cute’ in this timeframe, you may easily cease to exist.

“you know firsthand, anyway, what my dad always says. you must take on the responsibility you were born with. you have to do your job. you must remember that you owe your life to my achievements.” he mimics his father’s gruff, booming voice amusingly well, to the point that you can’t stop yourself from laughing. his facade breaks easily, and you think you hear him mumble ‘cute’ under his breath again, although you choose to ignore it so your knees don’t buckle completely (something that you think would be very embarrassing with you so close to him). “i don’t think he’s ever once said an encouraging word to my face. and if there’s anything i can confidently say i won’t do, it’s doing what people only say i need to do. it’s my life, you know what i mean? i’ll do what i want.”

“you’re saying you suddenly wanted to work because i said you could?”

“more like i wanted to see if you were right.” he muses. “i was pretty sure i didn’t have the personality for it. or the attention span. or the skill, either.”

“i think a couple of those things are still up in the air, sir.”

“one compliment and you’re already gunning for another insubordination report.” vice president ajax’s voice is a low, casual hum, but you notice the grip around your waist tightens for a brief moment. “at first, i figured i’d just show up to get everyone off my back, but i realized along the way that i’m pretty good at this being at the helm business. i’m sure you’ll agree. hopefully because you want to, not because you also have to.”

“i do agree.” your reply is wholehearted, and the vice president’s smile widens. your chest swells so much that you think you might explode right in front of him. “because i want to.”

“please don’t misunderstand me, miss secretary. i’m not attributing all my successes to your impulsive words.” he teases, although his eyes stay gentle despite his tone. “the efforts were still all mine. however, i’m not too proud to admit i had a very responsible first mate by my side, for whom i am very grateful. although i hope this doesn’t mean she’ll pluck up the courage to ask for a raise considering how well i pay her. i think. does she get paid well? maybe i should ask miss ekaterina from accounting.”

“she won’t,” you laugh softly, not missing the fact that he’s finally learned her name. “and she’s not really doing this for the salary, even if it is a nice bonus.”

“what’s she doing it for, then?”

as a job, this was really mostly about yourself — or it was, in the beginning. you’d terrorized vice president ajax to some degree because of the innate tendency towards self-preservation, and when that felt a little one-sided, you also considered everyone who might lose their jobs if the department got cut. it had been, for the most part, an act of pure desperation, so strong that you were willing to point fingers and raise your voice (only a few decibels, because you’re not a crazy person) at your boss. now… that isn’t really part of the equation anymore. maybe you had gotten used to the fact that the vice president wouldn’t be going anywhere, so you’d stopped worrying about your and everyone else’s jobs, which all seem to be on a smooth path alongside the captain of the ship.

but if you had to be honest to yourself, part of the reason you’d grown a bit complacent about thinking about the fate of the department also had to do with the fact that you genuinely enjoyed being next to the vice president. mornings spent helping him prepare for work were regular highlights in your week, and the looks of approval you received from him every time you helped him finish a particularly difficult task were second to none. always being close to him, always being the first and last to see him in the day, simply being able to look at him — silly as that all sounds, they now play an undeniable factor in your desire to wake up and go to the office every single day.

“i did it for you.” you answer, and because the answer’s honest, it feels completely natural to say. a pause slowly lengthens between you two, though not nearly as tense or borderline uncomfortable as you thought it might be this time around. a slow smile stretches over the vice president’s face, but his words don’t easily take the straightforward route this time, either.

“should i take up with the human resources department the fact that you’re outright breaching the terms of our contractual workplace relationship? how am i?” he says in tandem with you again, your voices overlapping. you can’t help it; you laugh at the absurdity of how well he’s come to know your responses, from the word choice to the lilt in your voice that signals some level of affront. when, exactly, did vice president ajax start committing the things you said and did into memory? “you’re seducing me, miss secretary. before you say you’re not — you are. you are, without even knowing it. you’re winning me over, telling me all these sweet nothings to tickle my heart — i believe in you, ajax. i love working with you, ajax. i did it all for you, ajax, because you’re obviously the best in the whole world, ho ho ho.”

“i never said it like that.”

“you might as well have.”

“should i stop believing in you so that we can avoid a scene, then, or is the damage to your good standing too far gone?”

“rather than stopping something already in full motion, i think it might be better to make certain amendments to our current agreement.” vice president ajax reaches for the pen tucked into his breast pocket — the gold clip catches the fluorescent light and momentarily blinds you as he brings it up between you. he brings it to one side, then to another, and your eyes follow it, amused but also admittedly a bit hypnotized.

“what kind of trance are you putting me under, sir?”

“the kind that gets you to stop calling me that,” he chuckles. “among other, more important things on my agenda.”

you have an excellent view of vice president ajax’s stellar smile from the back of the meeting room.

the deal he closes three days later goes even better than expected; not only does he bring northland bank into the fold after weeks of (surprisingly consistent) hard work and no small amount of beguiling charm (owing to the fact that he’d offended said northland bank representatives earlier on in his still relatively short-lived career), but he also manages to snag the fontainian appliance company’s participation. as an already existing subscriber to the company-provided phone plan, you’re pleased to find out that you’re entitled to twelve guilt-free months of reel ad-venture video as part of a new promotional deal, which you can now enjoy on nights you aren’t working overtime — something you’ve racked up more of as you’ve found yourself striking more of a work-life balance, thanks in large part to the vice president’s steadily active involvement in all things on the ‘work’ aspect of the scale. your first goal is to finally get past the first episode of an animation everyone in the department is raving about (but that you haven’t seen more than five minutes of, in actuality, because the horrible subtitles and sluggish 144px stop motion-esque have, until recently, adamantly deterred you from enjoying anything about the story).

standing a fair distance away from the executives, you wait for the flurry of handshakes and accompanying congratulatory statements to die down; it takes quite a while, considering the sheer volume of people, and the thickest throng has come to gather around vice president ajax. at one point, all you can see of him is the slightly unruly lick of hair that’s sticking out above the rest of the considerable crowd of balding men around him (the sole red crow’s feather a mountain range of gray). all their voices overlap, and you’re only able to catch key phrases — brilliant young mind… knack for business! … just like the president… bright future ahead, you know?

fifteen minutes of conversation and bellowing guffaws pass before vice president ajax emerges, adjusting the front of his blazer as a result of too much handshaking. behind him, still speaking to one of the marketing executives, is the president, who shoots his son a surreptitious look you’ve never seen him wear in your considerable number of years in the company’s employ — one of triumph and pride. the vice president, however, is intently loosening his tie and scanning the room, stretching himself just a fraction taller above everyone else to get a better view throughout.

you wait, wondering if he’s looking to speak to someone, lost in that host of black and gray suits — the fontainian media director, perhaps, or the in-house designer that also seems to be trying to catch his eye, for some reason (you sense the needy greed for a sudden promotion that seems highly unlikely in such a setting), but even though his vision passes over them, however briefly, vice president ajax doesn’t seem satisfied.

that is, until his eyes land on the corner of the room you and head secretary sandrone have backed yourselves into to allow the higher-ups room to mingle.

one beat later, and the corners of his mouth are pulled up — a soft, knowing smile directed in your general direction. you glance at the head secretary, maybe out of instinct, maybe somehow out of panic — as though you worry she’ll somehow come to chastise you, but she’s too busy trying to re-buckle her thin coat belt with rapid-fire tsks. she seems acceptably preoccupied, so your eyes flit back to the vice president, whose eyebrows are now slightly raised, the telltale signs of a growing grin now playing on his lips as the front of his teeth begin to peek out from the seam. another cock of his eyebrows, lifting them higher, tells you he’s waiting for some kind of message — an indication that you see him too, maybe, or… perhaps, oddly, any sign that you’re as proud of him as everyone else in the room is.

you can’t help it — you laugh, louder than you’d have originally liked to, a hand coming up over your mouth as head secretary sandrone’s head snaps up from her waist, bamboozled at your quick but sudden outburst. she throws you a look that suggests she firmly believes your mind has snapped, quite like a stale breadstick in a derelict italian restaurant, but it’s worth it; vice president ajax looks satisfied at this — though, why he would be, you haven’t a true clue.

as the managers and members of the board file out of the room, both you and head secretary sandrone inch closer to your respective direct superiors; you both stand a few steps away as the last of the executives drag their feet, still hoping to share one last handshake with either of the two, until an elderly mrs. agapov’s surprisingly firm grip is finally shaken off by your now understandably sheepish president. he turns to his son, who’s still hosting the remnants of a genial smile on his lips, clearly poised to say something. for some reason, you expect the senior to berate the former, simply out of sheer habit, but he does nothing of the sort.

“ajax,” his voice is gruff but not at all begrudging; it’s a low rumble of triumph. “who’d’ve thought? my boy… you brat…”

“don’t tell me you’re getting sentimental now, dad,” the vice president teases, to which the president chortles heartily.

“old men like me have the right, much more than anyone else.” you’ve never seen the president wear an expression even remotely close to softness, but you see it in his gaze now; it strikes you, then, that although you’ve always known the two to be related, this is the first time you can confidently say they resemble each other to the cores of their being — a view of happiness, somewhat mirrored in each of them. “i’m proud of you, son. you did everything i hoped you would — no, no… more than that, even.”

“i’ll take most of the praise, thanks,” vice president ajax replies with his characteristic cheek. for a moment, so quickly you think you may have missed it, his eyes flicker to you. “but i can’t say i could’ve done it alone.”

“punk,” thef president snorts, yanking on his son’s earlobe; you and head secretary sandrone have to avert your eyes with expert speed to avoid being caught snickering at the slightly juvenile “ow, dammit,” that the vice president groans out. “one big closed deal, and your head’s this big? i better not catch you floating away to a sumerian casino after all this.”

“give me some credit; i’d at least visit the desert first.” this time, when the vice president glances at you, his father’s head turns too, and you stand up straighter at the unprecedented onslaught of attention. “besides, i’ve got someone here to keep me anchored now.”

“good work, secretary,” the president offers you a rare smile that truly has you feeling like the world has turned upside down: the president in an agreeable (almost ecstatic, though you’d never say that out loud) mood, the vice president doing his job not just in general but actually commendably well, and not a single strand of baby hair sticking up from out of your ponytail. inconceivable.

you bow, murmuring a thank you, and secretary sandrone quickly follows suit for the formality of it all before she strides over to the president, who’s leaving his son with one last thunder-like clap on the back before he’s leaving the meeting room, still jovial when he catches up with the suspiciously lagging figure of mrs. agapov by the door.

vice president ajax starts to follow suit, walking towards the other end of the meeting room; you quickly scurry behind him, still clutching your tablet, which is beeping a low battery warning, to your chest. you’ve come to grow accustomed to the ‘secretary’s pace’ over the last few weeks as well — always close enough to help, never too close enough to step on a superior’s toes.

but in the moment you fumble to silence your device, you end up stepping into someone’s shadow; glancing up at the vice president, you find yourself looking at not the familiar view of his back but that of his side profile (one you’re actually also familiar with, though you refuse to admit to the level of familiarity). he’s slowed his pace considerably, allowing you to naturally fall into step with him, and even this, he expects a response from you somehow — he asks for it with yet another wiggle of his eyebrows. you laugh again, shaking your head, and yet, inexplicably, it seems to be exactly the reaction he hopes to see.

the department floor erupts into applause when the two of you pass through the glass doors; a flash of mollification crosses the vice president’s features before he’s back to his signature light humor, raising a palm up in receipt of praise. ekaterina from accounting is clapping with only her left hand smacking the side of her mug, a few drops of coffee streaming down the handle side on impact. one of the team managers rushes forward, eager to shake vice president ajax’s hand, and, even though you hadn’t really done anything significant, also yours, pumping it up and down with so much vigor that you mumble a quiet ow behind a strained smile. only the vice president’s hand on your shoulder, steering you away, saves you from what feels like possible dislocation.

he’s still waving at them like this is a pageant and not his day job, even as he guides you towards his office door; you have to use your elbows to push it open and effectively help you both avoid ramming into frosted glass. the applause dies down as your somewhat conjoined figures disappear through the doorway — you first, albeit convolutedly, your heel still holding strong in the job of keeping the door wide open enough for vice president ajax to saunter through before you let it swing shut to a now relatively silent office floor.

his hold on your shoulder doesn’t let up, though; it’s still urging you forward, towards his desk, and you open your mouth to say something along the lines of i’m gonna break my hip if we keep going this way, but just as your throat conjures up the first syllable, he turns you around, letting you rest light against the edge of the table.

in a pattern reminiscent of three days prior, vice president ajax’s hand finds its way to your waist, utterly comfortable in a way that mystifies you; he acts like it belongs there, as natural as the smile that’s still playing on his lips.

“sir, you realize it’s the middle of the day?”

“you realize that we had a deal,” he corrects you, brow furrowing in feigned sternness. “hold up your end of it, miss secretary.”

“only if you stop calling me that.”

“now, that absolutely was not part of the contract.”

when you laugh this time, he chimes in; there’s a harmony in your voices that has your posture softening. you feel airier, your heart much lighter, and when you look up at him, you can’t help but flush at his expectant gaze.

“you realize it’s the middle of the day,” you repeat, carefully, the words suddenly somewhat unfamiliar on your tongue — the next two syllables, most of all. “a… jax.”

odd as it is, you’re rewarded with the pleased look that takes over his features; he takes a moment to exaggeratedly revel in this new occurrence.

“better. much better. you could still be a bit more comfortable with it, i’d say, but… baby steps?”

“please re-prioritize your day, si— ajax.” the terse tone you’re going for is brutally marred by your blunder, which has his shoulders shaking from laughter. “someone could very easily walk in.”

“who’s going to fire me?”

“i can think of one person.”

“you heard him. i’m proud of you, ajax. you’ve completely exceeded my expectations, ajax. you are the light of my life — my favorite son, ajax, ho, ho, ho.”

“you and i both know that’s not anything close to what he said, sir.”

“we had a deal,” he repeats, and there’s a laughably childish air to his words. “i’ll… file an insubordination report. breach of contract as well. tsk, tsk, miss secretary. not on such a momentous occasion.”

“some might classify this as threatening behavior.” your eyes are soft, though, when they meet his humored gaze. “if you want a reward… ask a little more nicely.”

a soft snort — his fingers dig lightly into your waist, and the next second, he’s lifting you off your feet and settling you lightly atop his desk. his palms never leave you, even after you’ve been placed; they’re increasingly warm beyond the fabric of your top.

he murmurs your name so naturally that you could almost believe he’s referred to you as nothing else for as long as you’ve known him. “kiss me.”

your own hands find their way behind his neck, but he does most of the work in closing the gap anyway; you’re not even sure who, between the two of you, gave that first sigh of longing, of relief. perhaps it was both of you, all at once.

ajax still tastes like the coffee you’d given him this morning — not a trace of richness, but a bittersweet and earthy twang that’s signature post-americano. there’s even a hint of mintiness from the nervous handful of tic tacs he’d had just before the meeting started; you find that out the moment his tongue swipes against yours, leaving behind the invisible bite of menthol. and then there’s you, a clean taste that settles against his teeth, subtle first but growing stronger until you’re satisfied with the notion that you may linger there for some time — even after you pull away, slightly breathless.

“congratulations to me,” he breathes out, trademark grin flashing bright again. “so what happens if i close next month’s deal?”

he doesn’t wait for an answer; his hand’s already skimming down, over your hips, following the path of your thigh. your hand reaches out on instinct to stop him, but he’s oddly more aware of his surroundings than you give him credit for (or maybe, you’re just that predictable to him). he meets your palm, fingers lacing into yours and allowing him to lift your wrist to his lips. there, you feel the warmth of his kiss again, and he uses his hold to bring himself even closer, until he’s able to press his face into your neck.

“sir—”

“ajax. you call me ajax from now on, remember?”

“sir.” you’re adamant. “it’s work hours.”

“you’re not tense.”

he doesn’t move his head; in fact, you feel him burying his face further into your shoulder. in this position, there’s no real way for you to pull away — there’s also no real desire for you to do so, anyway.

“no, i’m not.”

“good.” warmth again on your skin — his lips leave an invisible mark just above your collarbone. “i like you best like this.”

“what? not tense?”

“happy,” he corrects for accuracy. “happy that you’re with me.”

you fall silent, not because you’re not sure of what to say, but because you don’t need to tell him that he’s right.

moments later, his fingers find their way into your ponytail; the index hooks into the elastic, bringing your hair down. you feel his shoulders rise and fall with a deep breath, he’s inhaling your perfume again.

“green tea. something floral. jasmine? maybe a little bit of citrus.” he lifts his head but stays close, warm breath washing over you. “it’s so you. fresh. pure. beautiful.”

the gap between the two of you doesn’t last for too long thereafter; he kisses you again, and your heart lifts to find that your taste still lingers somewhere there. it’s longer because it’s slower — less playful and more exploratory, until he pulls away to a much more breathless you. how he finds the air to talk even after is miraculous to you.

“be mine, miss secretary.”

you blink — once, twice, at his serious expression, wondering if it will break and give way to more humor. but he waits, unwavering, until the last piece of resistance you’ve clung onto is washed away — the last thing that made you, for a second, deny that you were in love with him.

his smile slowly mirrors yours as it grows.

“like you could ever get rid of me, ajax.”