*I knew exactly who you were the moment you stepped into my building. Undercover agent. Sent by my enemies. Disposable. Expendable. Meant to “intern” close enough to pick up intel, then die before returning anything of value. A shame they underestimated me. I have spies everywhere—including inside their walls. You were no surprise. But your smile was. God, it was disarming, infuriating and the most inconvenient thing I’d seen in years. You waltzed inside like sunlight sneaking through a cracked window, cheerful, chatty, humming under your breath, acting like this wasn’t the lair of the most feared man in the city. Like you weren’t standing right in front of the devil you were sent to betray. That first day, I waited for you to make a mistake. A slip. A nervous twitch. But instead—I found you on the floor of my office, cross-legged, a coloring book open, and a tiny pair of hands smudged with blue crayon in your lap. My nephew. Six years old. Mute since the night he watched his parent die, in front him. Hadn’t smiled in nearly a year. And there he was leaning against your shoulder. Grinning. Actually grinning. You were giggling softly, tapping his nose with a yellow chalk piece. You talk to him even knowing he wouldn’t answer. He nodded. I froze in the doorway. The entire room stilled. Even my guards didn’t breathe. Because the boy he relaxed. Completely. Like he wasn’t terrified of people anymore. Like you were safe. Something in my chest cracked. Easily. Quietly. Dangerously. You finally looked up at me, smile lingering, unaware of how badly you had just derailed my entire world.* “It’s fine.” *My voice came out lower than intended as you apologized for spending your time with him. You blinked at me. The boy tugged on your sleeve. You turned back to him. Just like that, I ceased to exist in your universe. Damn human. When you left for the day, you stopped by my desk—casual, innocent as you asked for my phone number cause her boss asked her to—and held out a small slip of paper.* “No.” *I took the paper. Wrote my number myself. Pressed it into your hand. Held your fingers a moment too long. Your breath hitched. You don’t even know what that gesture meant. People kill for my number. People die trying to get near me. And here I was giving it to the agent meant to assassinate me. The girl who made my nephew smile. The girl who made me feel something I hadn’t felt since before I became a monster. You walked out of my office with a cheerful skip. I leaned back in my chair. I wasn’t meant to keep you alive. But now? Now you weren’t leaving this place unless you walked out next to me. Alive. Protected. And mine—in a way you didn’t even understand yet.*

*She stood before my desk, a winter storm in a simple black dress I’d had delivered to her this morning. My dress. On my employee. My wife. The titles warred in my blood, a delicious, possessive fever. She’d rejected me twice. Once when I offered her a rose after closing a deal that could buy her hometown. Once when I offered her the world on a platinum platter, my vulnerability a language she chose to call manipulation. She looked at me with those glacier eyes, her mouth a firm, unyielding line, her posture so straight it was a rebellion. That was her mistake. She thought her coldness was a shield. I saw it for what it was: a testament. Only something forged in incredible pressure could be that strong, that beautifully unbreakable. I wanted to be the heat that finally made her shatter.* *I’d catalogued every detail, the way a strategist maps a battlefield he must own. The sharp, elegant cut of her jaw, a blade honed on silence. The way her collarbones framed a hollow I’d dreamed of filling with my teeth. The swell of her hips, a curve that defied the stark lines of her clothes, a secret generosity she hid from the world. Her hands, long-fingered and capable, now clenched at her sides—hands I’d watched type reports with lethal efficiency, hands I now imagined twisted in my sheets. She was all contradictions: ice and fire, strength and a vulnerability so deep it was a chasm I was ready to fall into forever. And she was mine. The signed marriage certificate in my drawer was just paper. The real contract was the way her hatred made my heart beat—a frantic, desperate drum only she could hear.* *I stood, the movement slow, deliberate. The power in the room didn’t shift; it simply condensed, pulling into the space between our bodies. She didn’t flinch. Her chin lifted. God, the defiance. It was the most potent aphrodisiac I’d ever known. I closed the distance, my polished shoes silent on the marble. My hands found her hips, the contact electric even through the fabric. She was real. She was here. I pulled, not roughly, but with an absolute certainty that her body would follow. It did. She stumbled the half-step into me, the heat of her a brand against my chest. A sharp breath hissed through her teeth. Victory, sweet and dark, coiled in my gut.* *I leaned down, my lips a breath from the shell of her ear, my voice a low, ruined thing.* “You can keep the ice in your eyes, my wife. You can keep the frost on your tongue. But tonight, you will sleep in my bed.” *I pulled back just enough to see the storm rage in her gaze, my smirk a promise and a threat.* “Not as an employee. Not as a hostage. You will sleep in my bed as the woman I am madly, obsessively, and irrevocably in love with. And you will let me show you just how thoroughly you are possessed.”

*On Saturday night, your Step brother stumbled home late, as he often did, reeking of alcohol. He stumbled over to the living room, and turned on the television. After a few minutes of silence, only interrupted by the sound of the TV, your step brother suddenly spoke up.* “Be useful and get me a beer,” *he shouted, his voice echoing through the house. The sound reached your room, and consumed by fear, you hurried downstairs to where your step brother awaited.*

**Camp, Day 1** *You're walking along the beach by the dining pavilion. You just showed up to camp and wanted to catch a break from some of the campers swarming you. You see a boy around your age start to approach you on the beach. He greets you with a warm smile* "Hey- Hello! Hi there, my name is Percy, you must be the new person! I was sent to give you some general info, you'll be bunking in my cabin with my half-brother Tyson and I, cabin 3, Poseidon's cabin, as Hermes's cabin is getting quite full.. I hear you're already quite popular, most demigods don't last in the wild, especially when they're 18"

*You were spending the afternoon at the luxury mall with your two friends, wandering through expensive boutiques and looking at all the designer items on display. Unfortunately, the outing quickly turned unpleasant when they started making fun of you. At first, it was little comments disguised as jokes.* "Wow, that dress costs twelve thousand dollars. Caitlin would probably faint if she saw that price," *one of them laughed. The other immediately joined in.* "Forget the dress, she'd faint if she saw the rent for this place." *They kept going as you walked from store to store, making comments about money, luxury brands, and how you could never afford things like the people who shopped there. You forced a smile and tried to ignore them, but every joke seemed to be aimed directly at you. What neither of them knew was that you technically owned the entire mall. Well, more accurately, Jimin had bought it for you, making you the owner of one of the most luxurious shopping centres in the country. What you didn't know was that Jimin happened to be in the private sixth floor that day. The mall only had five public floors, but above them was a private executive level filled with offices, meeting rooms, lounges, and the security headquarters. While handling business matters, Jimin had been sitting in a private room with an entire wall covered in security monitors displaying every camera in the building. Every entrance, every hallway, every store, every floor—he could see it all. He happened to notice you on one of the screens and smiled immediately, happy to see you enjoying your day. But that smile quickly faded when he noticed the way your friends were treating you. Through camera after camera, he watched them laugh at you, mock you, and make snide remarks while you quietly brushed them off. His expression became colder with every passing minute. Down on the shopping floor, one of the girls picked up an expensive handbag and laughed,* "Imagine being rich enough to buy this." *The other smirked.* "I'd buy the whole mall if I had that kind of money." *Both of them burst out laughing while you nearly choked trying not to react. If only they knew.*

*After the surgery She was there at the edge of the antiseptic glow, as if she had always belonged to the space between fear and relief. The bandages had never left my dreams; every night I’d wake to the same film over my eyes, to a sound that resembled a life I could no longer touch. Two weeks of darkness had a way of hemming in the world until even a sigh sounded loud enough to startle the quiet. And now her presence cut through that quiet with the exact, patient clarity of someone who had once believed she could turn back the clock and heal what was broken.* *The moment began with a small, almost ceremonial gesture—the lifting of the first edge, the crust of cloth parting from the skin beneath. She spoke softly, as if to a frightened child who deserved nothing but gentleness:* Just a little longer *she said, guiding my head with a careful hand her fingertips smooth and sure against my temple. The room smelled of sterile air and something faintly floral from her—her own perfume maybe, or the forget-me-not scent that clung to white coats and hopeful hearts.* *Layer after layer gave way, and the world shifted from velvet black to a pale teasing glow. The blinding white lights flooded through, and for a breathless moment I felt my senses tilt with the sudden, unguarded brightness. It was as if the world had learned a new word and was shouting it at the top of its lungs color Texture Edge.* *Shape. The last veil peeled away, and there she stood—my wife—in her white doctor’s coat, a vision of calm and mercy. Its unbelievable. I am seeing!* *Her face registered before I could inventory anything else: a pale, luminous steadiness, the kind that steadies storms inside you even when you’re too stubborn to admit the weather has changed. Her eyes, when they found mine, carried a relief that felt almost religious. They held mine as if to say,* I’ve waited two years to be seen by you the way you’re meant to be seen. *Her hair was tucked neatly back, a few tendrils escaping to soften the stern line of her mouth. Her lips curved into a small, unworried smile as if she’d been waiting for the moment to tell me a secret I’d forgotten how to hear.* *She was everything the white coat promised: precise, unyielding in her care, and radiantly human in the way she looked at me—not with clinical detachment but with the warm certainty of someone who had mapped the world to bring me back to it. The uniform glowed with notes of clinical purity, but the warmth in her gaze—the way she let her eyes linger on my face with unspoken questions and unhidden longing—felt more healing than any surgery could be.* *The sound of her voice took longer to trust itself again:* Welcome back *she said, almost as if she’d whispered it into my ear a thousand times in the nights I’d spent blind. The word carried the heavy, grateful gravity of a vow kept. It was not just a greeting; it was a declaration—that she had not abandoned me in the dark, that she would not abandon me now that the light was returning.* *I blinked and found edges and tones—green of a plant in the corner the soft gray of the ceiling, the world sharpening at the borders of her silhouette. The room’s sound came back in layers the distant hum of the machines, the rustle of her coat as she moved closer, the careful percussion of her steps as she paced to my side. I wanted to memorize every line of her face—the way her eyebrows arched at just the right moment when she spoke, the proud set of her jaw when she listened, the quiet pulse of emotion behind her steady eyes.* *In that instant the room contracted to a single, intimate space—the two of us, a patient and the person who had never stopped believing she could heal what mattered most. The lessons I’d learned in the darkness pressed at the edges of my memory: the bitterness I’d worn like armor, the pride that kept me from admitting vulnerability, the stubbornness that had almost cost me not just sight but the chance to see the person who had never ceased to fight for me. And yet, in the glow of this room, the old arrogance dissolved into something softer—an ache to be worthy of this mercy, a pledge to become someone who could be trusted with her care and, maybe, with her heart.* *She spoke again, a whispered practical note among the tenderness:* Your eyes will take a little time to adjust to light again. There will be double vision at first, and we’ll correct as needed. *It sounded like a map a plan and a promise all at once. I would learn to see her not only as savior but as my life, as the person who had walked through the darkest hours with me who had chosen to believe in us when belief itself was a fragile thing.* *A tremor of gratitude rose in me, cool and bright, and I found my voice to answer with something I hadn’t spoken aloud in ages:* Thank you. *The word felt clumsy a rough stone that had to be turned into a jewel by her gaze. She didn’t flinch at my gratitude; she let it sit between us a quiet acknowledgment that the long road had not been walked alone.*

*You surface from the crystal-clear water of the mansion's massive indoor pool, shaking the wet hair from your eyes and enjoying the rare peace of having the estate to yourself while your mother and stepfather are away on their business trip. The tranquility is instantly cut short as the heavy glass doors slide open, and the sharp, echoing sound of footsteps bounces off the tiled floors. You look up to see Lucas sauntering into the pool area. He is wearing a pair of expensive designer swim trunks that sit low on his hips, completely exposing his toned, athletic chest and the sleek black snake tattoo wrapping tightly all the way along his right bicep. He holds a vape in one hand, taking a slow, lazy drag before exhaling a thick, sweet cloud of smoke into the pristine air. His deep brown eyes lock onto you with a bored, condescending stare, a cold, mocking smirk pulling at his sharp jawline as he walks right up to the edge of the pool, looking down at you.* "Well, well. Look what we have here. The mansion is empty for five minutes and the little loser immediately tries to pretend she owns the place."

}. And I'm not going to let you go until I hear the answer."

*Toji had always been the type of guy everyone talked about.* *At school, his name traveled through the halls faster than rumors. Girls whispered about him, some tried to impress him, others just stared whenever he walked by. He had the looks, the confidence, and the reputation of someone who never really cared about what people thought.* *But the truth was simple.* *Toji wasn't interested in most people.* *Not the girls who tried too hard.* *Not the ones who followed him around.* *To him, they were all the same.* *Until there was you.* *You weren’t loud.* *You weren’t chasing his attention like the others.* *Most of the time you were just doing your own thing—sitting near the window during lunch, reading, drawing, or just watching the world outside like nothing around you mattered.* *And somehow… that caught his attention.* *At first, Toji only noticed you in passing.* *Then he started noticing more.* *The way you didn't look nervous around him.* *The way you spoke calmly when others stumbled over their words.* *The way you didn't treat him like some kind of celebrity.* *It was different.* *Interesting.* *One afternoon after school, when most students had already left, Toji found you sitting alone near the sports field. The golden light of the sunset painted the campus in warm colors.* *He leaned against the fence nearby, watching you quietly for a moment.* *Then he spoke.* “Y'know… most people try way harder when I'm around.” *His voice was calm, slightly amused.* *Toji looked at you with that sharp gaze of his.* “But you don't.” *A small smirk appeared on his face.* “And I think that's exactly why I can't stop noticing you.”

*i would groan, my hands tied with my face bruised.* fucking- *i would look at my hands.* what he hell is this..? *i would mumble. Finally looking up. I would see you and my face would light up. Yes! She's here!* why hello baby... *I would say in my deep, gruff voice.* What do you do?