Monique stood in front of her closet like she was preparing to fight Satan with eyeliner and a questionable skirt length.

  Shuyet was behind her, very corporeal, and very involved.

  “You know just staring at yourself isn’t going to make your tits bigger or suddenly the same size.”

  “Shut up! “

  “You know i'm right. Also, nobody besides you and the doc even knows that they're not the same size. And Doc said it was normal. “

  Monique was crimson, but she nodded.

  “Seriously. We’re all about the ass, so stop focusing on our shortcomings and start thinking about the good parts, so to say. “

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this…” Monique mumbled, holding up a black crop top like it was cursed only to immediately discard it. She decided to wear the V-Neck with the cool flower skull instead. And a thermo- undershirt, because it was cold.

  Shuyet clapped her hands together, grinning like the unholy lovechild of a fangirl and a soul parasite. “Right?! This is awesome! We usually only do this in dreams or in the fanfics we definitely read under the covers while pretending to study! Y/N x Bully! Or Y/N x Cursed Asshole (With Trauma!) You know the ones!”

  “I hate you,” Monique muttered, trying not to blush.

  She failed.

  Shuyet beamed. “Mutual. Now wear the really long socks. The Black and White ones. They make our legs look awesome. Kellan’s going to implode. I also recommend the leggings, because of the cold and in case we run into parent 1. ”

  Against her better judgment-and definitely against every instinct she’d had before her shadow grew a set of vocal cords - Monique pulled the socks on.

  They did, infuriatingly, make her legs look awesome.

  “God, I’m going to punch him the moment he smirks.”

  “Then kiss him while he’s recovering,” Shuyet said. “Balance.”

  Monique glared at her own reflection, now occupied by her fashion-forward soul parasite. “You are literally the worst part of me.”

  “I’m the most honest part of you,” Shuyet corrected, putting a mock-halo over her head with her fingers.

  Kellan Bishop was whistling down the hallway like a man who had just survived another round of detention by sheer charm and unrepentant sarcasm. He’d said something about the vice principal’s haircut resembling “an Alligator's leftovers,” and while worth it, it had earned him an extra hour of bureaucratic purgatory. He had just turned the corner, thinking about what kind of snack he was going to get from the vending machine, when-

  BAM

  A fist slammed into his stomach.

  He doubled over like a folding chair, gasping. Not fatal, but definitely enough to knock the wind out of his lungs.

  “What the fu-”

  Hands grabbed his face.

  Soft hands. Warm. Familiar in the strangest, deepest, most dangerous way.

  Then her mouth was on his.

  Soft, but deliberate.

  This was a decision, a declaration. A spell cast with lips and breath.

  Kellan blinked.

  Once.

  Twice.

  The pain in his gut still throbbed. The hallway hadn’t changed.

  This wasn’t a dream.

  Because Monique fucking Duvall- goth girl, the human manifestation of dark academia rage and bedroom candledelight- was kissing him.

  She was kissing him.

  And she was wearing the cutest goddamn outfit he’d ever seen- long socks, dark skirt, something that hugged her like confidence woven into fabric, there were flowers around a skull and it looked cool. But she, She looked like trouble, and he’d never wanted to make worse decisions more in his life.

  She pulled back. Smirked, somehow managing to look confident and embarrassed. He almost heard his own brain short-circuit. (Not now, dick. Not now.)

  “Congrats,” she said, grinning like a maniac. “You’re my boyfriend now.”

  And then just turned around like that was a normal sentence. Like she hadn’t just kissed him stupid.

  Kellan stood there, dazed, hand on his stomach, lips still tingling.

  “…Okay,” he mumbled to the empty hallway. “So I definitely died sometime in the last few hours.”

  But no- dead people don’t feel pain.And he still really wanted to throw up.

  So he wasn’t dead.

  Just hopelessly, helplessly, fucked.

  He turned to follow her, trying not to grin, trying even harder not to sprint.

  Inside the fractured palace that was Monique’s soul- an impossible cathedral of memory, instinct, and ancestral wrath- a fragment of something foreign shifted through the cracks in the sanctum.

  It was not welcome.

  It had slipped past name-barriers and spiritual thresholds, wedging itself into the architecture like rot in sacred wood.

  It thought itself clever.

  Thought it had found a path to influence Monique.

  It thought proximity meant permission.

  But something older stirred.

  Something that had always been here, watching. Something enthroned within her soul's deepest chamber- crowned by essence, not ego.

  It examined the fragment of the Sleeper.

  Tilted its head like a curious god-child.

  Then clicked its nonexistent tongue with something between disdain and boredom.

  This one is not me.

  It is beneath us.

  With all the childish glee of a feral girl in a dollhouse, it tore the fragment apart.

  It unstitched it.

  Peeled it.

  Erased it from the soul-space like chalk from… chalkboard.

  Laughed as it did.

  Until the fragment was gone.

  Utterly.

  Then there was screaming.

  Internally, Monique was screaming.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  Like, full-body, soul-deep, what the fuck is wrong with me screaming.

  On the outside, she was walking coolly down the hallway, hips swaying with deceptive calm, expression smooth like butter on a crypt lid. But inside? Inside was a full Greek chorus of existential panic having a synchronized meltdown.

  WHY DID I JUST DO THAT?

  WHY DID I THINK THAT WAS OKAY??

  WHY DID I KISS HIM??

  WHY DID I HIT HIM FIRST?!

  WHO PUNCHES A GUY THEN KISSES HIM—WHAT AM I, A TV-DRAMA?

  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-

  She could feel her ears burning. Her stomach was folding in on itself. Her heartbeat sounded like it was trying to crawl out of her spine. She was one intrusive thought away from laying face-down in the school parking lot and refusing to get up until next Thursday.

  Why had she listened to Shuyet?

  Why had she worn the outfit?

  Why did Kellan smell good?

  And worst of all: why had he kissed her back, even for that split second?

  Now it was real. Now she was stuck.

  Now she was The Girl Who Declared A Boyfriend Without Consent In Broad Daylight Like A Feral Disney Villain.

  “You’re my boyfriend now.”

  WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT, MONIQUE??

  Somewhere inside her psyche, Shuyet was laughing so hard she was crying. Monique hoped it was blood.

  Monique muttered under her breath, “I swear to god, if he so much as mentions this, I will set myself on fire.”

  She needed to regroup.

  Rethink. Repress. Jungian bullshit. True names. Whatever.

  She just hoped Kellan didn’t follow her.

  He did. Right on cue, she heard sneakers scuffing behind her.

  “Monique,” Kellan said, half-laughing, still breathless. “Hey. Wait up.”

  Nope.

  No peace.

  No escape.

  Just Kellan Bishop.

  Newly appointed boyfriend, walking straight into a spiritual apocalypse, smirking like he knew something she didn't, despite not knowing anything.

  His fingers brushed her wrist, light, tentative, like he was touching a wildfire and didn’t know if it would burn him or welcome him.

  And Monique’s brain, traitorous and utterly unhelpful, immediately flipped the switch to:

  Oh hello… please keep touching me… touch me more and in other places too… we’re both adults now so it’s fine…

  She blinked. Froze. Internally screamed. She definitely blamed Shuyet for that one. More cackling.

  NOPE.

  NOPE.

  FILE THAT THOUGHT UNDER "NEVER."

  BURN THE FILE. BURN THE CABINET. KILL THE ARCHIVIST.

  She jerked slightly, clearing her throat, like she was forcing herself to remember she was a human girl and not a hormone-elemental possessing a cute goth vessel.

  Then he spoke.

  “Monique,” Kellan said, quieter this time, the teasing gone from his voice. “Were you… serious?”

  She looked over her shoulder.

  He wasn’t smirking, wasn’t making a joke. Which wasn't common.

  He looked confused. That however was.

  A little breathless. Maybe even hopeful

  She really didn't know what to do about that.

  And suddenly, well not sudden at all, she was always like this. Monique felt impossibly shy. Like she'd just taken a running leap off a cliff and only now realized there was no safety net.

  Her lips parted, but she couldn’t speak.

  So she nodded.

  Once.

  Firm, but shy. Vulnerable in a way she rarely allowed herself to be.

  Her teeth caught her lip.

  He blinked like he didn’t know what to do with the soft version of her.

  The hallway felt quiet.

  The world paused.

  Kellan smiled.

  Not a smirk. Not a grin.

  But something real. Small. Genuine.

  Like he was just as confused, just as terrified, but kind of into it.

  “Okay,” he whispered. “Cool. Uh. Cool. Really Uh Cool. Cool Cool Cool Cooll”

  A beat. “...Can I kiss you now? Like, again? Without the punch this time?”

  She nodded.

  Didn’t say a word.

  Just turned, met his eyes, and gave him the tiniest smile-half-invitation, half-challenge.

  And Kellan leaned in.

  No punch this time. No chaos. Just a quiet moment in a mostly empty hallway, the air still warm with lingering embarrassment and tension and whatever-you-call-that-thing-when-someone-kisses-you-stupid.

  Their lips met again.

  And this time?

  It was very good.

  Not soft like before- sure. But deeper. Real. Like the kiss of two people who had absolutely no idea what they were doing but were very interested in figuring it out together.

  His hand moved up to cup her cheek. She let him. Encouraged him, even. One of her hands curled into the front of his shirt like instinct, like claiming, like mine.

  Monique realized, mid-kiss, that she really liked kissing.

  Like-a lot.

  Her stomach fluttered. Her heart was doing a weird loopy thing that might be love or lust or latent divine energy trying to reboot.

  She didn’t care.

  Kissing was awesome.

  Fucking Kellan. Idiot. Stupid Stupid and his stupid stupid mouth.

  They pulled apart, eventually, breath mingling, eyes locked.

  Kellan looked like he’d just walked through a hurricane and hadn’t decided whether to be grateful or terrified.

  Monique licked her lips and whispered, “I really should’ve done this thing a lot earlier.”

  Kellan, still dazed, blinked. “I mean… yeah, but this timing’s cool, too. You know. Right before the end of the world.”

  She grinned. “Romantic.”

  Monique's eyes widened, her pulse slammed into her throat. She staggered back “W-wait. The end of the world? You mean like… socio-economically? Because, yeah, true, we’re like two bad headlines away from bread riots-or do you mean climate change, because also true, but I literally cannot do more-or…”

  She stopped.

  Swallowed.

  Lowered her voice.

  “...do you mean literally? Actually, Like fr-from Bible?”

  Because now it felt like he’d just yanked up the floorboards under her feet and she was falling-again-this time into something colder than the graveyard, deeper than Adelaide, more real than even Shuyet whispering in the back of her skull.

  Kellan winced. Ran a hand through his curls. “Okay. So maybe that was… a line. I didn’t mean it like-end-end. Not boom-explode-and-we’re-dust. More like…”

  He hesitated.

  Then sighed.

  “More like ‘the world is starting to notice that you exist,’” he said, quietly. “And some of it wants you alive. And some of it doesn’t. And none of it knows what to do with someone like you.”

  She stared at him.

  “I assume you mean that in a way that’s not just the all-consuming Bureaucracy noticing I exist and forcing me to do taxes and shit?”

  He stared back.

  Then he muttered, “Fuck. Connor’s gonna kill me for saying that.”

  “You know my brother.”

  “I work for your brother.”

  Confirmation.

  Monique pouted, arms crossed and full drama queen mode engaged.

  “Fucking Connor,” she muttered

  A litany of unkind, unfair, and frankly inspired complaints about her brother that he probably didn’t deserve -as a person followed.

  But as a state department, black-ops bullshit, cryptid-wrangling smug, bastard, he deserved every single one.

  Kellan just kind of stood there, hands in his hoodie pockets, trying not to laugh and failing miserably.

  Then she turned to him, eyes suddenly huge, lips just barely pouting-

  A performance honed in front of bathroom mirrors and weaponized against parental figures for years.

  “Darling~” she purred, fluttering her lashes with such exaggerated adoration they both visibly cringed.

  Kellan looked faintly green.

  “So gross,” he said. “So effective.” he looked almost proud.

  “Would you,” she said, looping her arms around his neck with theatrical flair, “please order food or something? I need calories. You need calories. My shadow probably needs blood or whatever. And I, my sweetest paramour~, need to yell at my lying government lapdog of a brother.”

  Kellan blinked. “...Okay, first of all, that whole sentence was deranged.”

  “Second of all?” she asked sweetly, like the type of candy that sticks in your throat and is a bit sharp.

  He smirked. “Second of all, I’m totally ordering us trashy takeout. Hope you like noodles and grease, because I am not bringing back kale.”

  She beamed. “I knew there was a reason I kissed you. Besides your Body”

  He walked off, already pulling out his phone. “Tell your brother I said hi. Also maybe don’t mention I told you anything. Also don't reduce me to my body, I'm really not that hot.”

  Monique pulled out her own phone and sat on the stairwell bench. Why did they have a bench in a stairway anyways? Probably built back when children were allowed to smoke or something. She was distracting herself. She shook her head.

  Time to call Connor.

  Time to yell at Connor.

  Time to scream at Connor.