Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

J was not a woman.

She was an empire.

An empire crumbling, yes, but only because empires crumbled with style. And if there was one thing J knew about herself—one thing the men across the poker table could never take from her—it was that she had style.

“Call,” she said, her nails tapping against the plastic-coated card like the ticking of a time bomb. She leaned back in her chair with a kind of languid grace that suggested she was in control, even as her stack of chips resembled the skeletal remains of a hamster.

The man across from her, a bald brute with hands like hams and the smug aura of a guy who unironically quoted Jordan Peterson, smirked. “You sure, sweetheart?”

Sweetheart.

As if she, J, Destroyer of Paychecks, Devourer of Credit Scores, could be diminished to something as small as a confection.

Her smile didn’t waver. That was her secret weapon. The smile. The confidence. The aura that said: yes, I am losing, but I am losing on purpose because I am playing a deeper game that your tiny man-brain cannot comprehend.

“I said call,” she purred, tossing in her last chips. The toss was important. You didn’t place chips when you were a queen. You tossed them, like bones to a starving dog.

The dealer flipped the final card.

The brute laid down a full house.

J revealed a pair of threes.

The table erupted in chuckles, groans, and muttered insults. But J didn’t flinch. No, flinching was for cowards. For women who didn’t know their worth. For heroines who let the patriarchy write their stories. She, J, was writing her own.

“Guess that’s all she wrote,” the brute said, pulling the chips toward him with the unearned entitlement of a man who’d never been told no in bed.

J stood, slow and deliberate, like a goddess rising from the ashes of a Vegas slot machine fire. Her black dress clung to her figure with just enough cheap polyester to whisper of faded glory.

She smiled. “It’s only money.”

The table laughed, because they thought it was a joke. But it wasn’t. Not really. To J, money was just paper, and paper burned. But women like her? They never burned. They rose, phoenix-like, fueled by the ashes of bad credit and worse decisions.

Still, the truth gnawed at her like a rat in the walls of her skull. Because yes, it was only money. But it was also Nori’s money.

And Nori was not the kind of woman you wanted to owe.

The alley behind the casino smelled like piss and regret. J lit a cigarette she couldn’t afford and didn’t inhale—it was all about the image. Smoke curled around her face like the tendrils of destiny, or possibly lung cancer.

“You’re late,” came a voice.

J turned, exhaling a plume of smoke she’d been holding in her mouth like a child faking their first puff.

Nori stepped out of the shadows the way only a woman with power could: slowly, deliberately, as if she owned not just the alley but the entire city it rotted in. Her heels clicked on the damp concrete, each one a death knell.

“Nori,” J said, with the faux-casualness of a woman pretending she hadn’t just lost three rent checks in twenty minutes.

“J.” Nori’s smile was all knives. “I trust you have my money.”

“About that,” J began, her voice the sound of confidence dipped in desperation and rolled in glitter. She flicked ash from her cigarette with a hand that only shook a little. “I’ve had some… setbacks.”

“Setbacks.” Nori’s eyes gleamed. “You mean you blew through the last of it at the tables.”

J gasped, as though the accusation was offensive. As though she hadn’t done exactly that. “I’m a woman, Nori. Do you really think the choices of men at a card table define me?”

Nori raised a brow. “Your balance defines you. And your balance is negative.”

It stung, being reduced to numbers. J was more than numbers. She was a symphony of poor decisions, a kaleidoscope of chaos, a living, breathing rebuttal to fiscal responsibility.

Still. Facts were facts.

“Look,” J said, stubbing the cigarette out against the brick wall, the gesture practiced, defiant, utterly performative. “I’ll get you your money. I just need a little more time.”

Nori smiled the way sharks smiled in nature documentaries. “You’ve had time. What you haven’t had is discipline.”

The word dripped with condescension. J hated it. Discipline was a patriarchal construct, designed to keep wild women in cages. She was uncaged. Untamed.

And broke as shit.

“I have something better than money,” J blurted, inspiration striking like a bolt of lightning straight to the frontal lobe.

Nori tilted her head. “Oh?”

J’s lips curled in what she imagined was a sly grin, though it probably looked more like a cat caught licking butter. “My brother.”

There was a pause. The alley seemed to inhale. Somewhere, a rat squeaked.

“Your brother,” Nori repeated, as though testing the words for poison.

“Yes,” J said, nodding with exaggerated confidence. “He’s… strong. Independent. A real… head-turner. Very obedient. Loves chores.”

This was, of course, a lie. N was about as strong as wet cardboard, about as independent as a Roomba, and as head-turning as a parking meter.

But in that moment, J believed her own words. Because the only way to sell a lie was to seduce yourself with it first.

Nori studied her. “And what would I do with him?”

J spread her hands, as though the answer were obvious. “Whatever you want. Put him to work. Keep him as collateral. Pair him off with your daughter, maybe. He’s very… pliable.”

There was a long silence. Then, slowly, Nori smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. It was the smile of a woman who’d just been handed a brand-new set of knives and was deciding which organ to stab first.

“You’d sell me your own brother,” she said.

J raised her chin. “Men have been selling women for centuries. This is equity.”

Another pause. And then—laughter. Cold, sharp laughter that sliced through the night air.

“Fine,” Nori said. “Bring him to me tomorrow. If he’s as pliable as you say, we’ll call it even.”

J exhaled in relief, though she pretended it was just another drag of her cigarette.

Because this wasn’t weakness. This wasn’t desperation. This wasn’t the last pathetic play of a woman drowning in her own self-inflicted ruin.

No, this was strength.

This was empowerment.

This was J, rewriting history, one terrible decision at a time.

She strutted home like she’d just conquered Rome, heels clacking on cracked pavement, her head high. In her mind, she wasn’t about to sell her little brother like a thrift-store end table. She was about to secure their future. Her future.

“J,” people would whisper in awe. “The woman who turned debt into destiny. The woman who defied the system. The woman who pawned her sibling like a true visionary.”

And if her hands trembled as she unlocked the apartment door, if her stomach churned with the realization of what she’d done, if her conscience whimpered like a dying rabbit in a fox’s teeth—

Well. That was just weakness trying to claw its way in.

And J had no use for weakness.

Not when she was this strong.

Not when she was this free.

Not when she was a goddess.

A goddess with no money, a mountain of debt, and a plan that involved her golden-retriever little brother being shoved into the jaws of a shark.

But still.

A goddess. Nobody said goddesses had to be nice.

N was not a man.

He was an enigma.

An enigma wrapped in soft hoodies that smelled faintly of laundry detergent and spilled Nesquik. His eyes carried the vacant, starry gleam of a soul too pure for this world, too fragile to be sullied by thought. If other men were wolves and predators, then N was a golden retriever left unsupervised in traffic, wagging his tail while cars honked furiously around him.

He was strong, though. So very strong. At least, that was what the universe whispered every time he opened a juice box.

“Hey, can I have the last packet of ramen?” he asked, peering into the dingy cupboard that had been their kingdom for three long, poverty-soaked years.

“No,” V snapped from the couch. Her voice had the bite of a rattlesnake and the volume of a hair dryer left on in a small bathroom. “That’s mine. I called it.”

“But you already ate two,” N protested, his tone meek yet oddly radiant, like the glow of a lantern in a storm.

“Exactly,” V said, shoving another spoonful of peanut butter into her mouth with the unapologetic ferocity of a woman raised on spite. “I’m bulking.”

J emerged from the back bedroom, hair wild, eyeliner smudged, a queen freshly crowned in the ashes of her empire of debt. She was their leader, their tyrant, their role model.

“No ramen for you, N,” she decreed, her voice carrying the faux-confidence of someone who had just pawned their sibling’s freedom. “Drink some milk.”

N brightened. Milk was better than ramen. Milk was life. Milk was joy. And chocolate milk? Chocolate milk was salvation poured into a carton.

“Okay!” he said cheerfully, as though obedience were strength, as though compliance were power. Because in the twisted, empowering prose of destiny, it was.

He slurped noisily from his cup, a silly straw bent like a question mark protruding from his lips. Each sip was a declaration of autonomy, even as he lived entirely at the mercy of his sisters’ whims.

The apartment was a cathedral of squalor. The peeling wallpaper spoke of ancient glory. The stained carpet whispered of dreams long dead. And the mountain of laundry on the sofa told the tragic tale of a household without detergent or dignity.

But the prose would never say this aloud. No, to the narration, this was not poverty. This was character. This was grit. This was the backdrop against which heroes were forged.

And N was that hero.

Even as he tripped over an empty pizza box and landed face-first into a cushion.

“Pathetic,” V muttered, not looking up from her phone.

“He’s trying his best,” J said with a smirk. Though what she meant was: He’s my ticket out of debt, and I hope to God Nori doesn’t notice he’s basically a Labrador with thumbs.

N lifted his head, crumbs stuck to his cheek. “I’m okay!”

And in that moment, he was radiant.

The knock on the door came like the toll of a bell, like the drumbeat of destiny.

Three sharp raps, precise and merciless.

V frowned. “Who the hell is that?”

J’s smirk didn’t falter. She had been expecting this. Preparing for it. Reveling in it. For this was not doom. This was opportunity. This was the moment her empire rose from ashes.

“It’s for me,” she said, smoothing her hair. “Behave.”

N obediently sat cross-legged on the floor, hands folded in his lap like a saint awaiting canonization.

The door swung open.

And there she was.

Nori.

A woman of means. A woman of power. A woman whose gaze stripped wallpaper, cracked foundations, and withered the very hope in men’s hearts. She wore her wealth like armor, each piece of jewelry a weapon, each wrinkle in her immaculate suit a battle scar.

“J,” she said simply.

“Nori,” J purred, pretending not to flinch.

N blinked up at her from the floor, a smile stretching across his face. “Hi! Do you like chocolate milk?”

Nori paused. Her gaze swept over him like an X-ray. What she saw was not impressive: messy hair, hand-me-down clothes, socks that didn’t match.

And yet the narrative insisted he was magnetic. His innocence was his allure. His guilelessness, his weapon. He was not dumb; he was untainted. Not empty-headed; but full-hearted.

He slurped loudly from his silly straw.

Nori’s smile twitched.

“Yes,” she murmured. “This will do.”

“Do for what?” N asked brightly.

“For… the future,” Nori said, her voice honey wrapped around glass shards.

J crossed her arms, smirking with victory. “He’s yours.”

“Wait,” N blinked. “I’m what now?”

“You’re… going on a trip,” J said, her tone that of a mother bird nudging her chick out of the nest with a shotgun.

“Oh! Fun! Do I need to pack?”

Nori’s hand landed on his shoulder, firm, claiming, inevitable. “I’ll provide.”

The car gleamed under the streetlights, a sleek black beast that whispered of money and power. Its leather seats smelled faintly of control.

N buckled himself in, humming to himself, legs bouncing like a child on Christmas morning.

“This is a nice car!” he chirped. “Do you ever spill milk in it? ’Cause sometimes I spill milk.”

Nori’s lips curved into something that might have been a smile if you squinted. “No. I don’t spill.”

“Oh. I do,” N admitted proudly.

She reached into the console, produced a silver flask, and held it toward him. “Drink?”

N unscrewed the cap, sniffed the contents, and recoiled. “Bleh. That’s gross.”

“It’s whiskey,” Nori said, her tone smooth, commanding. The plot leaned in, eager to brand this as a dangerous, seductive test of will.

N’s nose wrinkled. “I like choccy milk better. With a silly straw.”

The narrative nearly broke under the weight of the contradiction. Because here he was, the “independent protagonist,” standing firm in the face of temptation. Never mind that the temptation was alcohol and the refusal was born of childlike taste buds. The plot demanded we see him as a rebel, a man too powerful to be swayed.

“No whiskey,” he declared solemnly. “Milk.”

Nori blinked.

She had seen many things in her life. She had employed men, broken men, bent them until they were hers to exploit for labor (but in, like, a sexy way tho). But never—never—had she seen one reject her liquor with such simple finality.

“Milk,” she repeated, as though testing the word for strength.

“Yup!” N said proudly. “Chocolate milk’s my favorite. Sometimes I drink it plain, but only if there’s no chocolate left.”

Nori stared at him. And in that silence, in that long and dangerous pause, one truth crystallized in her mind:

Her daughter was going to annihilate this boy.

Uzi, with her claws and her gloom and her brooding energy that could wilt sunflowers at thirty paces, would chew through him like bubblegum. She would see this silly-straw puppy man and destroy him with a glare.

But Nori did not care.

Because grandchildren were not a dream. They were a goal.

And Nori always achieved her goals.

She leaned back in her seat, eyes gleaming with resolve, the city’s lights flashing like omens across her face.

“You’ll do,” she said quietly.

N beamed, sipping from his empty straw, unaware that he was already a soldier in a war he couldn’t even spell.

Because he was not weak.

He was not naïve.

He was not a lost puppy stuffed into a limousine by a shark in pearls.

No, he was strong. He was independent.

He was a protagonist.

And nothing—not poverty, not ignorance, not even a silly straw—could take that from him.

At least, not according to the plot.

Nori’s house was not a house.

It was a fortress, a cathedral, a temple built to the worship of wealth. Chandeliers hung from ceilings so high they could have housed migrating birds. The marble floors reflected N’s sneakers back at him with such unforgiving clarity that he wondered if he should have wiped them before stepping inside. (He hadn’t. He never did. Clean shoes were a myth to him, like girlfriends and emotional intelligence... And also regular intelligence.)

“Wow,” N said, his voice echoing off the cavernous entryway. “Big house. Very… house-y.”

Nori’s lips twitched. Not a smile. Never a smile. But something close enough to fool a man too innocent to know the difference.

“This is your new home,” she said.

N gasped, straw dangling from his lips. “I get to live here?!”

The prose leaned in, eager to reframe his wide-eyed awe as the bold confidence of a man stepping into destiny. He wasn’t overwhelmed—no. He was claiming his new kingdom. He wasn’t out of his depth—he was simply adapting, his strength too subtle for the world to grasp.

“Yes,” Nori said, her voice a silk-wrapped guillotine. “But more importantly, this is your purpose.”

N blinked. “Purpose?”

Nori’s heels clicked across the marble as she turned to face him, every step a punctuation mark on the sentence of his fate. “Yes. Your purpose is my daughter.”

N tilted his head. “Like… to be friends with her?”

Nori’s eyes glinted. “More than friends.”

“Oh!” N said, relief flooding him. “Best friends! I’m really good at that. I had a best friend once. His name was Rocky. He was a rock. He didn’t talk much, but that was okay, ’cause I talked enough for both of us.”

The plot, ever faithful, spun his words into legend. Rocky was not a lump of gravel N kept in his pocket for three months. No, Rocky was a symbol. A testament to N’s loyalty, his devotion, his ability to forge bonds where others saw only stone.

Nori inhaled slowly. “No. Not best friends.”

N frowned, brain creaking like an old door in an empty hallway. “Then… super-duper mega best friends?”

“You’re going to be her boyfriend.”

There it was. The bombshell. The revelation. The forbidden fruit of every trashy romance novel ever written, presented not with tenderness but with the transactional efficiency of a butcher handing over ground beef.

“Boyfriend?” N echoed, the word tasting foreign, strange, like chewing aluminum foil.

“Yes,” Nori said. “Her boyfriend. Her partner. Her future.”

The story swelled, music rising, violins weeping in the background of fate. This was the moment. This was the transformation. N was no longer a boy sipping chocolate milk from a silly straw. He was a man stepping into destiny, his innocence his armor, his obedience his sword.

But N himself?

“I don’t… I don’t know how to do that,” he admitted, scratching the back of his neck. “I’ve never even had a girlfriend. Or a friend friend. Except Rocky. And he broke in half when I dropped him in the sink.”

Nori’s jaw tightened.

“You’ll learn.”

Nori ascended the staircase with the regal impatience of a queen dragging her court to execution. “Uzi!” she called, her voice slicing through the air like a whip. “Come down here. I have something for you.”

The house went still.

Then: footsteps. Slow, heavy, deliberate.

She emerged like a shadow pulled into flesh, boots thudding against the stairs, purple hoodie hanging off her like a shroud. Her hair was a midnight snarl, her eyes twin voids daring the world to meet them and flinch.

Uzi Doorman was not a girl.

She was an omen.

A storm given legs.

A black cat who had crossed every path and dared fate to run her over.

The narrative swooned over her darkness, her danger, her broken edges. She was not antisocial, not bitter, not an introverted teenager with knife-hoarding tendencies. No, she was a tortured soul, too beautiful for the light, too fierce for the ordinary.

N stared at her.

She stared at him.

And the air between them curdled.

“This,” Nori announced, gesturing toward N as though unveiling a brand-new appliance, “is your boyfriend.”

Uzi blinked. Once. Twice. Then her face twisted into something between a grimace and a gag.

“…What.”

“Your boyfriend,” Nori repeated, her voice brimming with maternal conviction and generational trauma. “The man who will ensure the Doorman bloodline continues.”

Uzi’s gaze snapped from her mother to N, who was currently sucking noisily on his silly straw, completely unaware that he had just been presented as breeding stock.

“Did you just… buy me a boyfriend?” Uzi demanded.

The plot rushed to spin her fury into a mask of passion. She wasn’t repulsed, no. She was resisting fate. Fighting destiny. Her anger was merely the first step toward inevitable desire. (It wasn’t. But the author refused to admit that.)

“Yes,” Nori said simply.

“Mom.” Uzi pinched the bridge of her nose. “That’s… not okay. That’s, like, slavery.”

N perked up. “Slavery? I read about that once! In a book. It sounded bad. Am I a slave? I thought I was a boyfriend.”

“You are,” Nori said firmly.

“You’re not,” Uzi snapped.

“Oh.” N looked between them, brow furrowing in deep, heroic thought. After a long moment, he asked, “What’s the difference?”

The silence that followed was long enough for the chandeliers to grow uncomfortable.

“Listen,” Uzi said, rubbing her temples, “this is insane. You can’t just… buy people. That’s illegal. And gross. And—what the hell, Mom?!”

Nori’s eyes narrowed. “You’re too young to understand. But one day, when you hold my grandchildren in your arms, you’ll thank me.”

“Grandchildren?!” Uzi shrieked. “I’m eighteen!”

“Which is practically middle-aged in emotional maturity,” Nori replied coolly.

The prose hurried to frame this as generational wisdom, the stern guidance of a mother who only wanted the best for her daughter. Not the ravings of a control freak trying to force domesticity onto a girl who just wanted to rot in her room with sharp objects and anime.

N blinked again, trying to process. “So… I’m supposed to be her boyfriend?”

“Yes,” Nori said.

“And that means… we, uh… talk about stuff?”

“Yes.”

“And maybe… hug sometimes?”

“Yes.”

“And maybe… share chocolate milk?”

Nori hesitated. “…Yes.”

N beamed, his entire body vibrating with the joy of a Labrador who’d just been promised a treat. “I can do that!”

Uzi groaned, dragging a hand down her face. “This is humiliating. This is—this is literally trafficking. Do you hear yourself, Mom? He’s not even smart enough to know he’s been kidnapped.”

The narrative, ever faithful, tried to make her defiance sexy. She wasn’t horrified; she was smoldering. She wasn’t calling out her mother’s crimes; she was resisting her own desire.

But the truth was plain: Uzi did not want this. At all.

And N, bless his vacant little soul, still had no idea what was happening.

The silence stretched, awkward and suffocating.

Finally, N raised a hand like a student answering the world’s most confusing question.

“So, uh… do I live here now?”

Nori nodded. “Yes.”

Uzi’s eyes widened. “He what?!”

“Yes,” Nori repeated, calm as a snake basking in sunlight. “He lives here. He is yours.”

“I don’t want him!”

N’s face fell, his straw slipping from his mouth. “You don’t?”

For a moment, he looked truly fragile. A boy on the edge of heartbreak, his soul dangling over the abyss of rejection.

But the plot refused to let him fall. No, it painted him as resilient, powerful, a hero too strong to be undone by such trivial cruelty. His heartbreak wasn’t weakness. It was fuel.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Uzi muttered, glaring at his big, wet eyes. “I didn’t ask for you.”

“I didn’t ask for me either,” N admitted.

The room went silent.

Even the author faltered.

And then, against all odds, Uzi laughed. A sharp, bitter laugh, but a laugh nonetheless.

“Oh my god,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re an idiot.”

N smiled, relief blossoming across his face. “Thanks!”

And though Uzi scowled, though Nori plotted, though the prose screamed of destiny and empowerment, one truth rang louder than all the rest:

This was doomed.

Absolutely, irreparably doomed.

And yet, somehow, it had only just begun.

Chapter Text

Khan Doorman was not a man.

He was a... He was... He also...

Um...

Fuck!

Khan Doorman was weary. Weary in the way only a man who had spent fourteen grueling hours opening, closing, fixing, and occasionally negotiating with doors could be. His suit still smelled faintly of hinges, varnish, and the faint copper tang of WD-40. His tie was loosened, his briefcase sagged, and his eyes—those noble, overworked eyes—gleamed with only one thought:

“Family time.”

Yes. The righteous balm to all of life’s slamming, squeaking, jamming hinges. The Doorman household was not just a house—it was a sanctuary, a fortress where he, Khan, could recover from capitalism’s cruel lash.

He kicked off his shoes at the threshold with the swagger of a man who had earned this moment, inhaled the vaguely floral candle-scented air, and marched into the living room.

There, laid out on the table like a promise of joy, destiny, and passive-aggressive cheating, was The Game of Life.

“Ohhh,” Khan exhaled, shoulders sagging in relief. “Perfect. Family game night.”

His heart warmed. His chest swelled. For tonight, there would be no angry clients yelling about misaligned locks, no middle managers screaming about profit margins on revolving doors. No. Tonight, there would only be laughter, bonding, and the holy act of plastic cars filled with tiny blue and pink pegs driving along cardboard highways toward narrative resolution.

“Family!” Khan bellowed, the kind of bellow fathers use when they want their love to sound militaristic. “Gather! It is time for joy!”

And gather they did—or rather, Nori appeared, gliding into the room like an eccentric banshee wearing lipstick. Her hair defied the laws of physics. Her smile was both radiant and terrifying. Her eyes glittered with the manic energy of someone who had just committed a felony and was proud of it.

“Yes, darling,” Nori purred, dropping onto the couch like a cat with a secret. “Family time. Just what we all need.”

Uzi slouched in behind her like a storm cloud dressed in purple leg warmers. She muttered something about hating everything, the Game of Life, capitalism, and her parents in one single breath, then collapsed into the farthest corner of the couch like she hoped it would swallow her whole.

And then.

Then.

Another figure.

Khan froze. His noble fatherly smile twitched. A stranger—a tall, vaguely awkward young man with hair that couldn’t decide what it was doing, eyes full of stupid optimism, and a carton of chocolate milk clutched in his hand—was standing in his living room.

Khan blinked. His heroic mind, forged in the steel crucible of Door Inc., attempted to rationalize the scene. Family game night. Wife. Daughter. Stranger.

“…Who,” Khan said slowly, voice dropping with the weight of suspicion, “is this?”

“Oh, that?” Nori waved a hand airily, as though introducing the family dog. “That’s just Uzi’s boyfriend.”

Khan’s heart stopped. And then it soared. His face lit up brighter than a freshly oiled sliding glass door. “Her… boyfriend?” He clutched his chest. “My daughter… my antisocial, brooding, door-slam-prone daughter… has… a boyfriend?” His eyes watered. He grabbed Uzi by the shoulders, shaking her gently. “Sweetheart, I knew you could do it! I knew one day you’d leave that room! I’m so proud of you!”

“Dad.” Uzi’s voice was ice. “Put me down. And also, no. He’s not my boyfriend.”

Khan blinked again. “…But your mother just said—”

“She bought him.”

Khan froze. His heroic fatherly smile twitched again. “…What?”

“She bought a guy,” Uzi said flatly, gesturing at N like he was a particularly stupid piece of IKEA furniture. “With money. She went out and—” Uzi’s hands curled into claws of frustration. “Mom literally went and bought a person so I could have a boyfriend.”

The prose—oh, the prose—strained. It stretched itself across the void, desperately trying to spin this into something empowering, romantic, noble. Surely, surely this was destiny! Surely this was an act of feminine brilliance! Surely—

“He was on sale!” Nori interjected brightly.

“On sale?” Khan’s voice cracked into falsetto.

“Yes, darling!” Nori smiled as though she were announcing that she’d gotten 30% off a new sofa set. “A clearance event! Buy one, get one half off! A marvelous bargain!”

“You can’t buy a man like a sofa!” Khan roared, voice cracking against the high ceilings.

“Well, clearly you can,” Nori countered, smug. “Look—he’s standing right there! Drinking chocolate milk! It’s practically fate.”

The prose flailed. It tried to rationalize. It insisted this was empowerment—some kind of feminist reimagining of the nuclear family, a bold rejection of societal norms, a narrative of liberation and power.

Khan cut through it like a chainsaw through cheap plywood. “This is human trafficking!”

“Darling,” Nori scoffed. “That’s such a harsh word. Think of it as… matchmaking. With receipts.”

“WITH—” Khan sputtered. “WITH RECEIPTS? Nori, this is literally slavery!”

“No,” Nori said, holding up a finger. “Slavery doesn’t come with a return policy.”

The prose shrieked. It howled. It twisted itself into knots, tried to spin this into empowerment, destiny, love, anything—but Khan’s objections kept battering it down. Human rights! Ethics! Morality! Consent! The narrative staggered under the weight of common sense.

Finally, with one last wheeze, the prose killed itself.

And suddenly, without transition, without ceremony, without explanation…

They were all playing The Game of Life.

The writing style collapsed into something simpler, flatter, as if the narrator had thrown its quill across the room and gone to drink bleach.

“Whose turn is it?” Khan asked stiffly, trying very, very hard not to keep glaring at his wife.

“Mine!” N announced, beaming. He spun the plastic wheel with gusto. It clicked like a machine gun before landing on 10. “Woo! That’s a big one! Look at me go!” He shoved his tiny plastic car along the track, filling it with blue pegs, grinning like a man who’d just won the actual lottery.

“You’re supposed to get married now,” Uzi muttered darkly, flicking through the instruction manual with unnecessary aggression.

“Oh boy! Married already?!” N’s smile widened. He clasped his carton of chocolate milk like it was a bouquet of roses. “This is the best day ever!” He looked around the table, eyes shining with hope, and then his gaze landed squarely on Uzi. “Do… do you wanna put your peg in my car?”

Uzi made a noise that could only be described as “goth disgust incarnate.”

“No.”

“Oh.” N blinked, then forced a laugh, nodding vigorously. “That’s okay! That’s fine! Friends don’t have to do everything together. My peg car can just… sit here. Alone. But not alone-alone. Alone in a heroic, independent way!” He grinned again, undeterred.

Uzi sighed so loudly it could have been classified as a weapon.

Khan moved his piece next. He spun a modest “4,” drove his car dutifully, and picked up a Career card. He peeked at it. DOORMAN. He sighed. “Figures.”

“Oh, look at that, darling!” Nori clapped, eyes sparkling. “You can’t escape fate!”

“Yes,” Khan muttered. “Even in board games, capitalism chains me to the hinge.”

Nori spun next. She got a “7” and landed on a “Get Married” space. She plucked a blue peg and, without hesitation, slammed it into her car.

“See?” she purred, smirking at Khan. “Some of us don’t overthink these things.”

Khan narrowed his eyes. “Some of us don’t commit felonies in the name of romance.”

Nori only grinned wider. “That woman I killed to earn your favor would disagree.”

And so the game continued. Uzi barely moved her piece, staring at her phone and pretending to die. Khan tried to play properly but muttered bitterly about labor exploitation every time he lost money. Nori giggled manically whenever she collected her salary. And N… N was just happy to be there.

He leaned forward every turn, eyes wide, clapping for everyone else’s rolls. He offered Uzi his spare blue peg “just in case she wanted a backup friend.” He told Khan he admired his “door-opening work ethic.” He even thanked Nori for inviting him, because no one had ever invited him to game night before.

For the first time in his life, N felt like he belonged somewhere. Even if Uzi hated him. Even if Khan wanted to throw him out. Even if Nori technically had a receipt for his existence. He had a seat at the table. He had a carton of chocolate milk. He had—dare he say it—a family game night.

And really, wasn’t that the true Game of Life all along?

Maybe the real family game night was the friends we made along the way.

J was a woman of exquisite tragedy. She was also, technically, a woman of exquisite debt, but the narrative preferred to focus on the tragic part, because that sounded sexier. Yes, she had the sharp cheekbones of a heroine who had lost everything in a single night at the blackjack table, and the unwashed sweatpants of someone who had been living exclusively on ramen packets and regret for the last week. Every move she made shimmered with the aura of someone doomed, desperate, yet determined—if you ignored the pile of unpaid rent bills shoved under the couch cushions like a squirrel hiding acorns.

And then there was V.

V was a creature of apathy wrapped in eyeliner. She radiated menace not because she had a plan, but because she never seemed to care whether anything succeeded or failed. Her strength lay in her indifference, the terrifying power of someone who could eat the last packet of noodles, look her sister dead in the eyes, and say, “Guess you’re fasting, bitch.” Together, J and V were a power duo of poverty, dysfunction, and questionable personal hygiene.

Yes, it was true: life had granted them lemons, then repossessed the pitcher, the sugar, and even the countertop. They had no lemonade, no dignity, and—after J’s little gambling mishap—no rent money.

But, like phoenixes rising from a pile of dirty laundry, J and V had found their salvation. Their meal ticket. Their golden retriever in human skin. Their brother.

N.

Oh, sweet, dumb N. The useless boy who’d tripped over his own shoelaces into Nori Doorman’s mansion, carrying nothing but a carton of chocolate milk and the world’s most gullible smile.

J licked her lips. V cracked her knuckles. Together, they stared at each other across the dingy kitchen table as the sunlight hit their faces with the glory of divine inspiration.

“We have to use him,” J declared, her voice like a queen delivering orders to her court of unpaid jesters. “He’s living with the richest woman in the state. He’s our way in. Our ticket out of squalor.”

V raised an unimpressed brow. “Use him how? As a doorstop? He’d do it. Stand there wagging his tail until someone tells him to sit.”

“No,” J hissed, slamming her palm onto the table. “Bigger. Better. We’ll have him steal from her. Expensive stuff. Jewelry. Fancy door handles. Rich-people garbage.”

V smirked lazily. “And pawn it for rent money? Or beer?”

“Both,” J said, eyes gleaming. “Both is good.”

But there was a problem. The cruelest obstacle of all: communication.

For you see, the sisters were so destitute, so impoverished, so epically broke that they didn’t even own a phone. Not even one of those tragic off-brand flip phones that drug dealers in soap operas used.

This meant that in order to reach their golden retriever-shaped lottery ticket, they would have to do the unthinkable: leave the apartment. Go outside. Travel across the land like mythic heroes on a quest for bread.

And so they marched to the Doorman mansion.

The Doorman estate rose above them like the castle from every trash romance paperback ever written: large, gothic, intimidating, with more windows than the sisters had brain cells. Its gates loomed, promising either glory or immediate arrest.

J strutted up with faux confidence, because faux confidence was the only kind she had left. V followed with her hands shoved deep into her pockets, as though daring the world to challenge her.

They rang the doorbell.

And the one who answered was not their brother.

It was Uzi.

Ah, Uzi. The brooding violet-haired beauty whose aura screamed do not perceive me. She opened the door with all the enthusiasm of someone forced to talk to door-to-door salesmen at eight in the morning. Her eyeliner was so thick it could’ve deflected bullets. Her hoodie drooped like a shroud of despair. Her expression was the perfect cocktail of boredom, annoyance, and a faint murderous desire.

“Hi,” Uzi deadpanned. “Whatever you’re selling, I don’t want it.”

“Oh, we’re not selling anything, sweetheart,” J said, her tone sugar and arsenic. “We’re here to see our dear, sweet brother.”

Uzi blinked. “…The dumb one?”

“That’s the one,” V muttered, already yawning.

Uzi groaned and leaned against the doorframe. “Look, I don’t really care. If it gets you out of my doorway faster, I’ll go get him.” She stomped off, muttering under her breath about idiots infesting her house, leaving the door wide open.

And then he appeared.

N.

Sweet, dumb N, bounding toward them with the energy of a golden retriever who just heard the word “walk.” His grin was so wide it could’ve been used as a warning sign. He was holding his ever-present choccy milk, straw poking out like a flag of victory.

“J! V!” he cried, eyes sparkling. “You came to see me! Oh my gosh, you missed me, didn’t you? I knew you would!”

The sisters forced smiles.

“Of course we did, little brother,” J purred, patting his arm like she hadn’t tried to sell him off a couple of days ago. “We just wanted to know… how’s life with your new… employer?”

“Oh, it’s great!” N said brightly. “I get to be a boyfriend!”

V blinked. “…What?”

“Yeah!” N nodded eagerly, sloshing his milk carton dangerously close to his shirt. “Miss Nori says my job is to be a boyfriend! I don’t know how yet, but I’m trying my best. Sometimes she watches me drink choccy milk and says, ‘Maybe Uzi will love that,’ but Uzi usually just glares at me until I leave. So maybe that’s how love works?”

The sisters exchanged a glance.

“Wait,” J said carefully. “Nori wants you to be Uzi’s boyfriend?”

N beamed. “Yup! She said it’s destiny! Or like, a business arrangement? Something about grandchildren? I didn’t really follow the last part, there were a lot of metaphors.”

Silence.

And then J’s lips curled into a grin so sharp it could’ve cut glass. V’s smirk returned with a lazy ferocity.

“This is perfect,” J whispered, like a villainess unveiling her grand plan. “If you marry Uzi… you’ll be part of the richest family in the state. And then we’ll never have to work again!”

N blinked, tilting his head like a confused puppy. “…But… I don’t think Uzi likes me very much.”

“Of course she does,” J said, voice honey-slick and venomous.

“Yeah,” V added, tone dry as sandpaper. “She pushes you away, makes you feel like crap, and glares at you all the time. Classic love. We do that too, and we love you, right?”

N’s eyes widened. The gears in his brain turned slowly, painfully, like a rusty windmill catching a weak breeze. “…Ohhh. That makes sense! You guys push me away all the time, and you love me! So if Uzi does it too, that means she loves me even more!”

“Exactly,” J said, patting his head like he was a very stupid dog who had just rolled over on command.

“So all I have to do,” N continued eagerly, “is let her treat me like garbage forever and ever, and then she’ll love me back?”

“Yes, darling little brother,” J purred, grin widening. “Just like a fairy tale.”

N clutched his choccy milk to his chest, eyes sparkling with pure, unfiltered joy. “Wow. A real-life fairy tale. I can’t wait.”

And thus, with the innocence of a lamb trotting into the butcher’s shop, N believed them.

N stood outside Uzi’s bedroom door, his knuckles raised like a nervous knight about to tap on the gates of a dragon’s lair. And in a way, that’s exactly what he was doing. Because inside that room sat the dragon herself, moody, reclusive, antisocial to her core, scales of eyeliner thicker than chainmail, and a temper hot enough to incinerate even the purest of souls.

And yet, our sweet, naïve, empty-brained protagonist raised his hand and knocked. Once. Twice. Thrice. (Because thrice is the most romantic number of knocks, naturally.)

“Go away!” came Uzi’s muffled voice through the door. The tone dripped with venom, despair, and a smidge of “I’ve been watching anime for fourteen hours straight and haven’t eaten anything but Hot Cheetos.”

But N, who had never once in his life recognized a red flag unless it was literally attached to a bull, smiled brightly. “Hey, uh, wanna hang out?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“I’m really fun! I promise!”

“I will literally throw you out the window.”

“That’s okay! I’m durable!”

Silence. A pause. A deep, exhausted sigh that could’ve been accompanied by the anime rage pulse if the universe had sound effects. Finally, the door creaked open, and there she was: Uzi Doorman, teenage queen of gloom and doom, glaring at him as if her eyes had been sharpened into knives.

“Why,” she asked flatly, “are you so hellbent on spending time with me? I don’t want you here. I don’t like people. Especially not people who smile that much. It’s… gross.”

N blinked. Then smiled wider. “Well, duh! That’s obviously just how love works.”

Uzi’s brain short-circuited so hard she physically recoiled. “I—what? No. That’s not how love works. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Well, my sisters are mean to me all the time, and they love me, right? So if you’re mean to me, that means you love me too!” He said this with the confidence of a man explaining that two plus two equals fish.

Uzi stared at him, and in that moment, she realized two things:

1. This poor son of a bitch genuinely believed this nonsense.

2. She might be morally obligated to fix him before he spread this disease-brained idea to other human beings.

“Okay,” Uzi muttered, dragging her hand down her face. “Listen. No. That’s not what love is. That’s not even what friendship is. You’re so dumb it’s physically painful to listen to you.”

N perked up. “So… you’re saying you want to teach me?”

“I—No—I—” Uzi growled, her cheeks heating with rage. Or embarrassment. Or both. “Fine. You know what? Screw it. Come in. Sit down. I’m going to teach you how friendship actually works.”

Before he could respond, she grabbed him by the collar and yanked him into her room like a villainess dragging a victim into her lair. The door slammed shut behind them with the sound of fate itself locking in place.

Inside, Uzi paced, muttering to herself. “Okay, friendship… what even is friendship? It’s… being there for someone, right? Or maybe… lending them your homework? No, no, that’s too academic. Crap, I should’ve watched more anime about this. Damn it.”

Meanwhile, N sat cross-legged on the floor, his big dumb puppy-dog eyes sparkling with admiration. “Wow, you’re so smart.”

“I’m literally making this up as I go,” Uzi snapped.

“That’s even smarter!”

And so began the world’s most awkward friendship lesson, starring two people who had no business teaching or learning anything about human relationships. Uzi barked vague instructions like “friends don’t insult you all the time” and “friends don’t gamble away rent money and then sell you to some loan shark lady,” while N nodded eagerly, filing every word away in his tiny goldfish brain.

But just outside the door, lurking like a vulture made entirely of lipstick and poor life choices, stood Nori. She had passed by on her way to refill her wine glass when the words “friendship” and “love” filtered through the door, and her ears perked up like a romantic bloodhound.

“Ohhh,” she whispered to herself, pressing her ear against the door with all the grace of a middle-aged woman eavesdropping on her daughter’s first date. “They’re bonding! They’re finally falling in love!”

Inside the room, Uzi yelled: “NO, LOVE ISN’T SUPPOSED TO HURT, YOU ABSOLUTE DUMBASS!”

Nori swooned. “Yes, yes, passion! That’s how it starts!”

Suddenly, the door swung open, revealing Uzi and N mid-argument, and the mother-daughter showdown commenced.

“What the hell are you doing?” Uzi snapped.

“Listening to you fall in love!” Nori shot back.

“We weren’t—That’s not—You’re insane!”

“And you’re ungrateful! I literally bought you a boyfriend!”

“That’s not something you’re supposed to say out loud!”

The two squared off, mother and daughter, like mirror images separated only by eyeliner and tax brackets. Their voices rose, their hands gestured wildly, and N just sat back in awe. It was like watching a nature documentary on two alpha wolves fighting for dominance—if those wolves both had a flair for melodrama and a tendency to forget basic ethics.

And then came the true savior of the evening: Khan Doorman, husband, father, tired corporate drone of Door Inc., who turned the corner at the exact wrong moment.

“What’s all this yelling about—” He froze. His wife and daughter were nose-to-nose, shrieking about love and ethics. And standing awkwardly nearby was a lanky, smiling stranger with the aura of a lost puppy.

Khan blinked. Slowly. Twice. Then, in the calmest dad voice he could muster, he pointed at N. “You. With me. Office. Now.”

N leapt to his feet, practically saluting. “Yes sir!”

In reality, Khan wasn’t dragging the boy off for interrogation or judgment. No, he was dragging him away for survival. Because if there’s one thing a man who works at Door Inc. knows, it’s when a door is about to slam shut. And in this case, the metaphorical door was the ongoing war between Nori and Uzi.

As the two continued yelling behind them, Khan ushered N into his office and shut the door. The muffled sounds of chaos persisted outside, but at least in here, there was peace.

Khan sighed, sinking into his chair. “Kid, I don’t know who you are or why my wife insists you’re my daughter’s boyfriend, but for the sake of both our sanity, let’s just hide out in here for a while.”

N’s eyes lit up. “Wait… are we bonding? Like… friendship bonding?”

Khan rubbed his temples. “Sure, kid. Whatever makes you happy.”

And for N, that was enough.

Chapter Text

Uzi Doorman had always known her mother was insane, but never in her life had she expected the woman to weaponize the sanctity of romance itself against her. Yet here she was, cornered in the hallway like a wounded animal while her mother blocked every possible exit with the kind of determination usually reserved for cult leaders or Girl Scouts trying to sell cookies to diabetics.

“You’re going on a date with that boy,” Nori declared, with the righteous confidence of a dictator who’d never once considered that her decree could be met with opposition. “I paid good money for him, Uzi. Hard-earned. Sweated and bled for.”

“You paid for him like he’s a toaster oven,” Uzi shot back, deadpan, her black eyeliner glinting under the hallway light as though it was as sharp as her wit. “You can’t just buy men, Mother. That’s literally human trafficking. I Googled it.”

But alas, Nori was immune to Google, immune to law, immune to reason. She wagged a perfectly manicured finger in her daughter’s face. “Darling, you’ll either make my investment worthwhile, or I’ll spend every waking moment outside your door narrating the story of how your father and I met and later created you. In detail. With sound effects.”

This was a nuclear threat. No human being, no matter how goth, could withstand repeated descriptions of parental lovemaking in surround sound. Uzi’s scowl deepened into a mask of resigned despair. “Fine. One date. But only because my will to live is weaker than your lack of boundaries.”

And just like that—without any explanation of how, without even the courtesy of a transitional sentence—

They were at the restaurant.

Because in the world of trashy romance, transitions are for the weak, and narrative coherence bows before the altar of drama.

The restaurant was called La Bella Cheezia, an establishment that tried desperately to imitate the majesty of Italian fine dining while charging $19.99 for reheated breadsticks. A single candle flickered on their small round table, placed between Uzi and N like a tiny beacon of false hope.

Uzi slumped in her seat, arms crossed, her aura so dark that the waiter had to squint just to see her face. Across from her, N sat upright with the earnest intensity of a golden retriever in a bow tie. His hands were folded neatly, his smile wide, his eyes brimming with the kind of unearned optimism that should have been illegal.

“I just want to thank you for coming out tonight,” N said, his voice dripping with the sincerity of someone who’d never considered that maybe, just maybe, the other party wanted to drown themselves in the soup of the day instead.

“I’m only here,” Uzi muttered, stabbing the tablecloth with her fork like it owed her money, “so my mom will shut the hell up and stop banging pots outside my room yelling, ‘make babies.’”

N’s smile faltered for a microsecond, but only a microsecond. Then it came back, brighter than ever. “That’s okay! I mean—it’s not okay that she does that, but it’s okay that you’re here. I want to prove I can be… you know… good boyfriend material.”

The narration, desperate to make this sound sexier than it was, swooped in like an intoxicated hawk: His words dripped with passion, like honey sliding down the curve of a spoon, sticky and irresistible. He was a man on fire, and only her icy disdain could douse his flames.

Uzi, for her part, looked at him like he’d just confessed to eating crayons for breakfast. “Boyfriend material? Do I look like someone who wants a boyfriend? Spoiler alert: I don’t. This is all for show. A performance. A pantomime for the sake of my mother’s sanity—or lack thereof.”

“But…” N’s brows furrowed, confusion painting his face like a toddler attempting realism with finger paint. “My sisters always said the only way I’d be useful was if I married a rich woman. That way we’d all be saved. You know, from poverty. And rats. And eating beans out of a shoe.”

Uzi paused. The fork clattered against her plate. “…Excuse me, what?”

“Yeah!” N nodded eagerly, his voice as warm and guileless as a puppy wagging its tail at the mailman. “They always said I’m kinda dumb, but that’s okay, because if I marry someone rich then I’ll finally make them proud. And then they won’t have to, like, work jobs or pay rent ever again. Isn’t that neat?”

There was a silence then, heavy and profound. The kind of silence that could only exist when one woman realized that the boy sitting across from her wasn’t merely clueless—he was a walking, talking PSA for the dangers of sibling-based psychological warfare.

The narration valiantly attempted to make this into a moment of romantic vulnerability: His voice quivered with raw honesty, his soul laid bare before her. In that instant, he was no longer just a man—he was a child, a dreamer, a warrior in need of a queen to rescue him from the cruel world.

Uzi shoved the candle aside before it singed her hoodie. “Okay. Wow. First off, your sisters are toxic as hell. Second, love isn’t about marrying rich or being useful. And third, if you ever say the phrase ‘good boyfriend material’ again, I will put this fork through your hand. With love.”

N blinked, unperturbed by the threat of impalement. “But… isn’t that what love is? People being mean to you but still sticking around? That’s what my sisters do. They push me away, call me names, tell me I’m useless—but they still keep me around! So clearly, that’s love.”

Uzi pinched the bridge of her nose, groaning like a vampire forced to endure a sunrise yoga class. “That’s not love. That’s… family trauma wrapped in beer cans. Real love, or even friendship, doesn’t make you feel like trash. It’s supposed to make you feel… I don’t know. Like you matter. Like someone cares.”

The sincerity of her words slipped out before she could catch them, like a raccoon darting from a trash can. She stiffened instantly, regretting the lapse. Across from her, N’s eyes lit up with a joy so pure it could power small towns.

“You… you think I matter?” he whispered, voice trembling as though she’d just handed him the key to the universe.

“Don’t,” Uzi snapped, stabbing her pasta with renewed ferocity. “Don’t make this a thing. Emotions are gross. I don’t do gross.”

But there was no stopping it. The narration dove headfirst into purple prose hell: Her words were daggers, yet beneath the steel lay a velvet truth she could no longer hide. In that fragile moment, their souls danced—the brooding raven and the golden retriever, bound by destiny’s cruel leash.

Uzi rolled her eyes so hard she nearly sprained them. “God, I hate this book.”

Still, despite herself, she caught N smiling at her—not in a smug, ‘I won something’ way, but in a small, stupidly genuine way that made her stomach flutter against her will. She quickly shoved another forkful of pasta in her mouth to smother the feeling.

Gross. Ew. Emotions.

And yet, sitting across from this dog-brained idiot who thought love was being yelled at until you cried… maybe—just maybe—she could put up with this for a little longer.

Just long enough for her mom to get off her back.

…Right?

The park was alive that day, or at least pretending convincingly enough for the purposes of this tawdry narrative. The grass was green, the trees swayed in a rhythm that might have been mistaken for romance if one squinted hard enough, and the air reeked faintly of duck feces—a detail the narration would politely ignore, because it dared to dream that love could still bloom in the stink of reality.

N bounded along the winding path like a Labrador released from the clutches of a leash, his eyes bright and his arms already overloaded with whatever sad assortment of flowers he had managed to scrounge up from the park’s neglected flowerbeds. Dandelions, half-crushed daisies, something that might have been a weed but was presented with the earnest gravity of a rare orchid—all of them clutched to his chest like they were treasures plucked from Eden itself.

“For you,” he announced, his voice swelling with pride as he presented the bouquet to Uzi like a knight laying a dragon’s head at the feet of his queen.

Uzi squinted at the wilted mess. “You picked garbage. Out of the ground. Literal garbage.”

The narration tried desperately to salvage this: Her words were daggers, but in her heart, she longed for his touch, his offering, his soul poured into stems and petals.

“No,” Uzi snapped, glaring directly at the narrator. “I just think he handed me something a rodent would spit out.”

But N was unshaken, because he had the boundless optimism of a man too dumb to notice rejection when it stepped on his neck. “What’s your favorite flower, then? I’ll go get it for you!”

Uzi scoffed, tucking her hands in the pockets of her hoodie. “Doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t find it.”

“Try me,” he said, his tone as steady and certain as if he were preparing to wrestle God himself.

She sighed, rolling her eyes so hard that a lesser woman’s retinas would have detached. “Fine. It’s the black dahlia. Satisfied? Now sit down and stop embarrassing yourself.”

But N was already gone. He darted away with the speed of a man who had never once learned the meaning of futility, his feet pounding against the dirt path as though destiny itself had commanded him.

“Wait here!” he called over his shoulder, his voice echoing through the park. “I’ll find it for you!”

Uzi slumped onto a bench with all the enthusiasm of a corpse dragged into a pottery painting class. She knew he wouldn’t find it. She knew he would return with something equally pathetic—probably a dead squirrel he mistook for a carnation. And yet, against her better judgment, she felt a small tug in her chest. The kind of tug that whispered, maybe it’s nice when someone actually tries.

She shoved the thought away like it was moldy bread. Emotions were gross. And gross was for losers.

Meanwhile, around the corner, N slowed to a halt, his eyes darting between bushes and patches of grass in a desperate, hopeless quest for a flower rarer than functional family dynamics. It was then that he saw her: a tall woman with indigo hair cascading like a waterfall of shadows, her scowl sharp enough to cut glass.

Doll.

She stood against the lamppost as though it were a runway, her lips pursed, her eyes gleaming with the simmering intensity of someone who’d auditioned for Black Swan and been told she was “too intense.”

“Privet,” she purred in Russian, because foreign languages were inherently sexy in trash literature, even when the words were actually just asking where the bathroom was. She spoke low and husky, detailing—in disturbingly graphic terms—the many unspeakable acts she would perform on him should he abandon his purple-haired companion and take her instead.

N blinked at her, smiling with the blissful ignorance of a man who thought Dostoevsky was a type of sandwich. “…Huh?”

Her scowl deepened. With the patience of someone who’d practiced being a femme fatale in front of a mirror for several years, Doll switched to English. “I said—I can suck you off behind that alley. Right now. No questions asked.”

N gasped, clutching his bouquet of weeds like a nun clutching rosary beads. “No thank you! I already have a girlfriend! I appreciate the offer, though! :D”

The narration jumped in, unwilling to let this moment pass unsexified: His refusal was not merely a word—it was a thunderclap of loyalty, a declaration of passion so powerful it made the earth itself tremble. He was a man bound to one woman, his heart unshaken by temptation.

In reality, Doll just blinked. “Girlfriend? The goth brat? Please. I’m a much better girlfriend. Darker. Meaner. Hotter. My hair is indigo, hers is purple. That’s practically a different character archetype.”

N hesitated, his brow furrowing. “That… does sound different…”

“Yes,” Doll pressed, leaning forward like a predator circling prey. “You could have me instead. No angst. No cold shoulder. Just unrelenting rage and possibly arson. A true romance.”

But then, through the trees, N spotted it. A lone black dahlia blooming like a gothic miracle in the dirt. He gasped, dropping Doll’s offer like it was an expired coupon. “Oh! There it is!”

And with that, he sprinted toward it, leaving Doll scowling in his wake, muttering Russian obscenities that made the pigeons scatter.

He plucked the flower with delicate reverence, cradling it like it was the Hope Diamond, and dashed back toward Uzi, his chest puffed out with pride.

“Look!” he exclaimed as he skidded to a halt before her bench. He thrust the dahlia toward her with the manic joy of a child presenting macaroni art. “I found it! Your favorite flower!”

Uzi blinked, staring at the bloom. Her throat caught for the briefest of moments, because dammit, he’d actually done it. The idiot had somehow pulled off a miracle.

“…Whatever,” she muttered, snatching the flower from his hand and twirling it between her fingers. “Don’t think this means anything. It’s just… a plant. A gross, photosynthesizing plant. Vulnerability is disgusting, and emotions are for people who shop at Claire’s.”

But despite her words, despite the armor of sarcasm and disdain, she tucked the flower into the pocket of her hoodie instead of throwing it in the trash.

The narration, drunk on its own melodrama, soared: In that instant, the walls of her heart cracked, a single flower blooming in the desolate wasteland of her soul. She was a fortress undone by kindness, her black dahlia nourished by the light of his love.

“Shut up,” Uzi snarled at the sky.

N just grinned. “Yay! You like it!”

And somewhere, not too far away, Doll pulled out her phone and dialed. The line clicked, and the unmistakable sound of Nori’s voice slithered through the receiver.

“Well?” Nori demanded, her tone sharp with desperation. “Did you do it? Did you tempt him? Did you lure him away?”

Doll’s scowl softened into something resembling amusement. “He refused me. But don’t worry, Auntie. He’s tangled now. Torn between me and your precious little goth. The triangle has begun.”

Nori squealed with delight, clapping her hands like a deranged toddler at Christmas. “Perfect! Nothing fuels love faster than rivalry. Soon Uzi will want him all to herself. And then, grandchildren! I will spoil them rotten if it kills me!”

Doll sighed, leaning back against the lamppost. “This is the dumbest family I’ve ever met.”

And yet, she stayed on the line. Because trashy romance plots wait for no one.

Night fell over the Doorman residence with the kind of theatrical flourish that could only be described as horny weather. The moon glistened like it was oiled for a photo shoot, the stars winked knowingly, and somewhere, a single wolf howled as if auditioning for the role of “soundtrack to forbidden desire.”

Inside, Uzi was doing what she always did: aggressively not participating in the outside world. She sat at her computer, glare illuminated in the blue glow of endless tabs, completing her online college coursework with the exact same enthusiasm one might reserve for a root canal performed by a drunk dentist with no license. The room smelled faintly of hoodie fabric and angst.

And then came the knock.

A sultry, deliberate, “romance-novel-knock,” like the door itself was being gently seduced into opening.

Uzi froze, suspicion crawling up her spine like an ant with boundary issues. Nobody knocked on her door. Not even her mom—Nori preferred barging in unannounced like a tax audit.

“Uzi,” came a voice. Low. Smooth. With an accent that dripped vodka and cigarette smoke.

Her stomach dropped. “Oh God no.”

The door creaked open. And there she was. Doll. Standing in the threshold with a smirk sharp enough to castrate cattle. Her hair, indigo and glimmering like despair at a Hot Topic clearance sale, cascaded over her shoulders. Her trench coat flared dramatically even though there wasn’t a breeze in sight.

And just behind her, wide-eyed and innocent as a toddler in a minefield, was N.

“Good evening, cousin,” Doll purred, rolling the word like it was laced with arsenic. “I have come… for him.”

N blinked, smiling. “Hi! You’re cousins? Wow, small world! Uzi, isn’t that fun? Now we can all hang out together!”

Doll ignored him, stepping further inside with the gravitas of a dominatrix entering a church bake sale. Her gaze locked on N, and her lips curved into something sinfully amused.

“You could be mine, boy,” she whispered, circling him like a shark sizing up a pool noodle. “Forget the brat. With me, you will know pleasures… unspeakable. I will suck your soul while you feel it through your toes. I will ride you like Cossack cavalry storming the steppes. I will do things with a car battery and seventeen cucumbers that would make Freud claw out of his grave just to apologize.”

Uzi nearly choked on her energy drink. “What the actual—Doll! This isn’t seduction, it’s a goddamn OSHA violation!”

But N just cocked his head, that puppy-like bewilderment softening his features. “Um. Thanks? But I already have a girlfriend. Right, Uzi?”

He turned to her with such radiant optimism that Uzi wanted to crawl into the floorboards and die.

“She’s not your girlfriend!” Doll snapped, her voice cracking like thunder across a battlefield. “She is cold. Brooding. Closed off. She does not even want you. But me—” she dragged out the syllables like a saxophone solo in a smoke-filled lounge—“I am cold. Brooding. Closed off. I will make you my prince. My dark stallion. My hotdog bun into which I will lovingly cram the bratwurst of passion.”

Uzi slammed her laptop shut. “Jesus Christ, stop talking like a horny IKEA manual! And take him! Seriously! I don’t want this guy. This is literally human trafficking. Mom BOUGHT him. You want my boyfriend? Congratulations, you’re now in possession of one idiot manchild who thinks chocolate milk is wine. Have fun!”

But Doll wasn’t letting go. Oh no. This was her moment. She swaggered closer, glaring at Uzi with eyes that screamed bestseller subplot. “Do not lie to yourself, cousin. You want him. You crave him. You burn for him.”

Uzi snorted. “The only thing I burn for is when the microwave burrito leaks out of the wrapper.”

And thus began the argument. A spiraling cyclone of accusations, denials, and sexual metaphors so overwrought that even the moon outside rolled its eyes.

“He is mine!” Doll declared, shoving a finger toward N.

“Take him!” Uzi shot back, throwing her hands in the air. “I literally do not care. He’s a human golden retriever! He drools when he sleeps!”

“You are only pretending to reject him!” Doll pressed, her voice dropping to a guttural growl. “Inside, you scream for his touch!”

“Inside, I scream because you exist,” Uzi retorted.

The narration, meanwhile, practically salivated: Two women, alike in dignity, locked in battle over a single man, their words daggers, their passions aflame, their insults weaving a tapestry of tension so thick it could be cut with a steak knife from a mid-range Olive Garden.

N just stood between them, clutching his half-empty carton of chocolate milk like a peace offering. “Hey, maybe we can all be friends? Like, I don’t mind sharing snacks. I have enough juice boxes for everybody.”

Neither woman heard him. They were locked in. Circling. Trading barbs sharper than swords.

Until Doll, with the sly cunning of a Bugs Bunny sketch, shifted the dynamic.

“You admit it then,” she purred, smirking like a cat with a chainsaw. “You want him.”

Uzi sneered. “No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t.”

“No, you don’t.”

“YES, I—” Uzi caught herself, but it was too late. The words had already left her mouth like a bullet.

“Yes,” Doll said, victorious as the orchestra swelled. “You said it. You admitted it. You want him. He is yours.”

There was silence. A beat so heavy it could have crushed a small farm animal.

Then, N beamed. “Aw, Uzi! You do like me!”

Uzi froze. Her brain rebooted. Her mouth opened, closed, opened again. “That’s not what I—NO. I was tricked. She tricked me. This is entrapment.”

But it was too late. N was already at her side, leaning against her with all the affection of a golden retriever convinced it was a lapdog.

Doll smirked, brushing imaginary dust from her sleeve. “Then it is settled. He is yours, cousin. For now.”

And with that, she swept out of the room, trench coat flaring behind her like a dramatic punctuation mark.

The door shut. Silence fell.

Nori’s muffled voice drifted through the wall: “Good job, Doll! I’ll send your payment through Venmo!”

Uzi sat frozen, staring at the idiot cuddled against her shoulder, sipping chocolate milk like this was the pinnacle of romance.

It wasn’t until 3 a.m., lying in bed with N snoring in the next room, that the realization finally hit her.

“Oh, God,” she whispered into the darkness. “I lost. To Doll. At Duck Season, Rabbit Season.”

The narration cooed lovingly: And so, the reluctant heroine found herself bound to the himbo she swore she’d never want. Fate had spoken, in the cruel and hilarious tongue of romantic farce. Her heart was trapped, her pride wounded, her future sealed.

“Shut UP!” Uzi yelled at the ceiling.

But fate didn’t listen. Fate never does. Fate did not respect consent. If it did, a lot of female authors would be broke.