Rage Before Beauty

The days before the Gala technically measured out 48 hours, but they could have been ten-hundred for what they felt like.

Vil’s demands had gotten stricter:

“Go get the garment bag on the other side of the studio campus in less than six minutes, Potato.”

“Order a catered lunch for sixty people to get here in less than an hour, Potato.”

“Contact this director who hasn’t been heard from in months, Potato.”

“Fill this bathtub with lotion, Potato.”

And so on.

In the meantime, Neige was coming up with increasingly ‘creative’ ways to distract her from her increasingly taxing job.

It had started with ‘harmless,’ things. Flowers addressed to her left in Vil’s dressing room—which, while nearly as dangerous as a landmine, were only problematic if Vil discovered them first. Yuu dropped more flowers down the laundry chutes than clothing, and was fortunately never caught.

So he switched to more overt messages.

Tabloids online started reporting that he was naming stars after her—although she didn’t know how he was doing that without a name…and she didn’t WANT to know.

Then, every time she arrived to work, a flock of doves would be released at the entrance. She seriously considered sneaking in the skylight the second time this happened.

There was a life-sized chocolate sculpture of her in the foyer FIVE MINUTES before Vil arrived, weighing more than she did. She didn’t get rid of that one, but she did cover it…and arranged for security to feed it to the next set of angry/weeping fans.

The worst of them all, however, occurred when Vil was in the middle of his keynote address the DAY OF the ACTUAL GALA.

The crowds had been behaving that day. Attendees of the outdoor conference had dressed nicely. Well-to-do’s were scattered throughout the minimal organized seating. Even the paparazzi was on its Sunday Best.

Vil had almost finished speaking, when, at a somber moment of his speech, the crowd began to buzz with giggles, pointing, and muttering. It got so distracting that even master-of-situation-Vil-Schoenheit had to admit that it was a lost cause, and when he (and Yuu) turned around to look at what everyone was pointing at, the disgust and shock she saw on his expression (though he controlled it far quicker) was the same as her own.

There was a skywriter in the clear blue day above them, trailing his message:

“WILL THE GIRL WHO SAVED ME PLEASE GO ON A DATE WITH ME 💖 – NEIGE”

“I’m….I’m going to kill him,” she heard Vil mutter. “All these years, and he hasn’t learned a damned thing…”

Suddenly, she knew it didn’t matter if she’d been helpful to Vil, personally, this week. There was no way any promoted event that Vil did was going to get more online attention than THIS. Cancel the Gala. Cancel Christmas. This was it.

Yuu pulled out her phone at the same time as Vil did to call the car. She didn’t HAVE to be an international superstar to know that things were about to get ugly.

As expected… that was exactly how things got….when the eyes on the sky finally turned down and focused on HER.

“OMG that’s her! That’s the kiss Girl!!”

“You sure it’s her? There’s no way Neige fell for her.”

“She’s hideous!”

“She looks like she hasn’t slept in a week.”

“Can’t believe he put his mouth on that.”

Yuu pulled up her hood, and hoped that Vil would get the clue that she needed to not be seen with him in order to survive.

“I’m a barista. I’m late for my shift. I don’t even have a mouth.”

The crowd surged forward as the skywriter’s final heart puff drifted lazily across the blue, drawing their eyes skyward again—but not before several of them had already raised their phones—and some of them were pointed at her.

She ran. Slipping into the shade of a pillar, Yuu ducked under a red rope, and moved fast—hood up, head down, shoulders hunched. She could feel the laughter rippling behind her like static electricity, like if she didn’t get away quick enough, it would leap onto her skin and stay there forever.

She texted her own car service in shaky hands, thumbs flubbing the word help three times. The moment she hit send, someone behind her gasped, and she broke into a half-jog toward the street. A cab was rolling by. Thank god.

She flung herself forward, slapped the door, and barked, “Take me to Night Raven Collge!”

The driver blinked. “Uh… that a restaurant?”

“It’s a college.”

“Copy that.”

As the cab pulled away, she risked a glance back through the window. The crowd had turned back to Vil, who stood statuesque in the sun, arms crossed, sunglasses on now like a visor pulled down to hide any trace of reaction. He looked every inch the professional, the star, the calm in the storm. No one would’ve guessed he had muttered death threats under his breath just minutes ago.

The cab rattled over a pothole, jerking her out of her thousand-yard stare.

Yuu gripped her phone, thumb hovering, then finally typed—no finesse, no punctuation.

“Was only making things worse. Don’t get mauled. Went back to Rmshkl.” She hit send before she could back out.

The driver glanced at her in the mirror. “Bad breakup?”

“I…I wish,” she muttered, pulling her hood tighter.

By the time they rattled up the gravel path toward Ramshackle Dorm, her feet itched to touch solid ground again. She flung some crumpled bills at the driver, half-apologized for the emotional turbulence, and shouldered her bag up the cracked steps and turned the doorknob out of desperate habit.

Why was the door unlocked?

Her spine stiffened.

She opened it slowly—although there was really no reason to be so suspicions.

“Grim?” she called out. “Grim, you forgot to lock up! Roger?”

“Welcome home, welcome home, young mistress!” Roger’s familiar ghostly bellow echoed through her ears, accompanied with the scent of burnt chamomile.

He was branching out.

“So glad you arrived early!” Roger was bustling. “I let your guest in only a few minutes ago.”

She took off Vil’s hoodie. It was probably a dry-clean-only with extra conditioner, and returning it…was going to be a pain. Through her frustration, however, Roger’s words finally registered.

“Roger, did you say ‘guest?’”

“Yes, miss!” he replied as cheerfully as one who was dead could do. “Most charming guest!”

There weren’t many ‘guests,’ at NRC that Roger would describe as ‘charming…’

So when she walked into her own sitting room expecting someone like Epel, or Cater, or even—if the Powers That Be had finally decided to smile down on her—Rook.

However, it was none of those. This was worse. So much worse.

“Surprise!” Neige chirped from the living room, perched on her dusty couch like he lived there, framed by a garland of wildflowers that had been strung across the broken ceiling light.

He was holding a tray of fresh cookies. From scratch. Probably with endangered saffron and unicorn milk or whatever fairytale ingredients lived in his kitchen.

“I wanted to apologize in person!” he said, beaming like a child on a cereal box. “I didn’t know if you’d be checking your messages, and I didn’t want to miss you again, so I asked around and someone said you lived here and—wow! It’s so…vintage!”

She’d died. The crowd had gotten her, eaten her alive, and now she was dead.

Entirely oblivious to her discomfort, Neige pulled out a guitar that he’d brought and started to sing.

And, well… he was good. Very good. Perhaps if she hadn’t just been nearly mauled, and beaten within an inch of her emotional lifespan, it would have been the sort of thing that could make even HER turn her head and start thinkin things like, ‘maybe this isn’t so bad,’ and, ‘if I open my windows right now, I bet birds would come in and start doing the dishes.’

His singing was so pretty, that she didn’t even mind when he rhymed ‘the beauty of a queen,’ with ‘a rabid weasel’s spleen.’

Truly stirring stuff.

She found herself sinking into the couch not too far from him (exhaustion taking her knees right from under her) to listen.

When the song ended, he was back to his chipper brightness.

“I didn’t know how to tell you I like you! So I asked a fan club forum and someone said ‘go big or go home.’”

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Yuu rubbed her temples tiredly. “That is sound advice for…interior design?”

Neige’s lovely, innocent face fell—but he’s not innocent, remember? Don’t you dare forget the doves, Yuu. Or the near-murder. ESPECIALLY not the near-murder.

Neige’s hands fidgeted at his sides, and for once, he looked nervous—nervous in a way that no amount of frosting hearts or embroidered pillows could fix.

“So,” he said, attempting gallantry and failing by a spectacular margin, “I realized I never properly… asked your name.”

Yuu, still perched stiffly on the edge of the threadbare couch with a death grip on her knees, exhaled slowly. It came out more like a wheeze. After all of his earnest effort, she supposed she did owe him that.

“It’s Yuu,” she said, trying her absolute best to keep the corners of her mouth up. “Just Yuu. There’s no last name…it’s kind of a long story.”

His eyes lit up like it was the most beautiful name he’d ever heard.

“Yuu,” he repeated dreamily, like he was testing the sound. “Yuu. Wow. That’s—it suits you! It’s lovely. Like, really lovely. Wow.”

Wow. He really was sweet. REALLY sweet. And… he didn’t seem like the type of superstar who would EVER make her empty sixty bottles of lotion into a bathtub, unlike other unnamed parties.

“I’m sorry I never introduced myself,” she said, feeling suddenly mortified.

Sure, he’d caused more trouble than the Mayhem Festival of Jade and Floyd’s freshman year, but she realized that… she had a part of personal responsibility in this, too. How much damage could she have saved herself and Vil if she’d just snuck away from her responsibilities long enough to introduce herself and tell Neige to call off the search, pretty please.

Another side of her knew that if she HAD done that, then Vil would have all but taken that as a confirmation of her treachery…but wouldn’t that have been the better option? At this point, it was so difficult to tell.

“Really, I could have just walked up to you on break, I suppose,” she rambled on. “But, I’ve been so busy with work, and I guess I assumed that you would be, too. This Gala is…incredibly important to my employer,” she finished lamely.

Yuu looked at him, at the hopeful curve of his mouth, the bouquet of lilies hanging sideways in his hand, the fairy lights flickering behind him like holiday regret.

“I’m just trying to not interrupt the work Vil’s doing,” she added quickly. “He’s worked really hard to get to this point. I’m just—here to help, and I’m not even doing a very good job of it at this point… I’d like to get through this week without…any more skywriting?”

To his credit, something clicked behind his eyes.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh. Right. I didn’t mean to cause trouble. Really. That wasn’t what I was trying to do. I just… got excited. You were brave, and kind, and—well, I’ll stop, I’ll stop.” He held up both hands, sheepish. “But… after the Gala? Maybe you’d consider going on one date with me? Just… think about it?”

“…I’ll definitely consider it,” she said vaguely.

There was a beat of silence.

“And maybe save me a dance at the Gala?”

“If I’m there, sure!” she hedged.

Neige blinked, confused for a beat, as though this were the first time someone had ever said no to him, and definitely not maybe, and he couldn’t quite compute it.

Okay, maybe she should soften this a little.

“I really admire what you’re doing for your family,” she blurted. “And you’re probably the best singer I’ve ever heard. I think this week has been really…sweet. And I feel terrible for drawing things out like this. I just—”

I just don’t want the Fairest of Them All to become the last thing I ever see when he hangs me from these rafters!

“—I just want to do better than I have been for what you and Vil have been working toward,” she said instead. “And I really haven’t been up to par lately. There’s a…real chance I won’t be at the Gala. Sorry.”

That certainly caught him off-guard.

“What do you mean you won’t be there? I saw you up the scaffolding to help the light-crew just yesterday. And you’ve never been late for anything!”

Oh, if only that were all it took to keep Vil placated…

“Listen, if the Schoenheit studios aren’t a good fit, I’m pretty sure my team could always use a person like yo—”

He was interrupted by a bloodcurdling scream from outside.

Yuu flinched.

There was another scream. Then a shout—dozens of them. Then, the tell-tale storm of camera flashes.

Neige turned to the window and gasped, delighted. “Wow! They found me!”

“They found you?” Yuu echoed, voice jumping up an octave as she shoved herself off the couch and ran to the window—she pulled the curtains shut just as quickly, when one of the paparazzi members—one with a pushy goatee, and pushier personality—saw her and grinned. “I think you might have been followed… No, no, no—they know where I live!?”

“Oops?” Neige shrugged.

Because the guy was ‘used to this,’ and had his own security guards.

The hallway to the back door was narrow and crooked, like the rest of Ramshackle—a haunted maze of peeling wallpaper and floorboards that screamed louder than she wanted to. Yuu half-dragged Neige by the wrist, hissing at him to duck and not wave at anyone through the dusty windows.

“I’m not kidding, Neige, we have to go now. They’re going to break down the front door and take souvenirs.”

“But I’m with you,” he said, in that syrupy tone of his. “Isn’t that kind of romantic? The world’s gone mad but we’re together.”

Yuu twisted around, walking backwards now. “No. No it’s not romantic. It’s terrifying. You brought a mob to a haunted garbage house—oh, the ghosts are not gonna be happy.”

“You’re saving me again,” he interrupted, dreamily. “You always save me.”

“Once. I saved you once, and it was an accident—”

He clutched her hand a little tighter. “It wasn’t. I think it was fate. You’re like… like a guardian angel. I just… I was thinking… maybe I could kiss you for real this time?”

Yuu stopped dead at the back door, her hand hovering on the knob.

“I’m sorry, what?” she croaked.

He leaned in, eyes half-lidded, absolutely no shame. “Just a thank you kiss. A real one. No cameras, no accidents. Just us. I’ve been thinking about it since that day. Have you?”

Yuu’s soul left her body. “Neige. I’m literally shoving you out of my house in the middle of a siege. Does that feel like a good moment for romance to you?”

But he was already tilting his head—he was going for it, earnest and glowing and completely unaware that she was recoiling against the door like a cat facing a vacuum.

And then—

“Well,” came a voice like crushed velvet and frostbite.

Yuu’s heart stopped.

The back door creaked open behind her. He knew the back entrances. He knew the side entrances. Because hey, Vil knew her and her home well enough to know how to avoid a mob. He entered, probably to warn her, or check on her, or something else condescendingly noble, his expression now unreadable in that perfectly trained way that meant he was furious.

He had a single shopping bag in one hand. He hadn’t even taken his coat off. Clearly, he had stopped by on the way home. Clearly, he had not been expecting this.

Neige froze mid-lean.

Vil’s gaze swept over the scene: Neige’s hands on Yuu’s arms, Yuu’s back against the door, the unspoken kiss between them like a landmine they were both about to step on.

He looked at Yuu. Then at Neige. Then at Yuu again.

“…Am I interrupting?” he asked coolly.

Yuu opened her mouth, and closed it again. Talking around these two men was like navigating a game of Frogger, and she wasn’t ready to leap into this level of about-to-be-crushed.

YES! YES YOU ARE INTERRUPTING AND THANK YOU VERY MUCH YOUR PRISSINESS, NOW PLEASE DON’T THINK I’M A TRAITOR! She willed her eyes to say it. She willed him to understand it. Hopefully. If he wasn’t too angry to read behind the lines.

Neige lit up like a lamp. “Vil! We were just talking about the Gala! And also fate.”

“Ah,” Vil said, stepping fully inside and closing the door behind him. The sound of the lock clicking was ominously final. “Of course.”

There was a moment where no one breathed. Then Vil stepped inside, sharp and precise, like a closing guillotine.

“Well,” he said, tone almost conversational, “congratulations, Neige. You’ve successfully hijacked every media outlet on the continent. You’re trending in four languages, none of them for the reason we intended.”

Neige blinked. “I… am?”

“You are,” Vil said with the razor-thin smile that always meant trouble. “Except instead of promoting the film—the film we’ve spent the last six months preparing—the world is now discussing whether you’re dating the assistant costume runner. Or kissing her in some tragic, snowy romantic drama of your own invention. Congratulations. If playing the lead role wasn’t enough, you’ve stolen the international spotlight from yourself.”

Neige opened his mouth. “But—”

“Oh no,” Vil said silkily. “Don’t explain. Don’t tell me it was fate, or magic, or another brush with death. I’ve heard enough metaphors from your press team this week to fill a soap opera’s runtime.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“Clearly,” Vil snapped. “You were meant to attend a quiet charity event and nod graciously in interviews. Instead, you both staged a public rescue and vanished, leading your fans on a frenzied manhunt that ended right here. In Ramshackle. Has it occurred to you what could happen to your little love interest if one of these fans gets it into their heads to catch your affections by removing the competition? Her safety is compromised by this little stunt as well.”

“The fans would never—” Neige started to argue.

“The fans have already issued kidnapping threats, and published doctored porn with her face on every social media platform.”

To his credit, Neige looked genuinely shocked.

“Yuu, I swear, I had no idea—”

She held up a hand to silence him wearily. “It’s fine. It wasn’t the intention. Just—leave it.”

So, Vil did know. And speaking of which, he turned a slow, deliberate look toward Yuu.

“To be clear, I’m not blaming you.” That sounded deeply untrue. “Some of us have been in this field long enough that we SHOULD know the risks!”

She felt a stream of relief that Vil wasn’t completely ignorant of the situation—even if he partially blamed her.

“But Neige,” he continued, redirecting the full weight of his fury, “if you’re going to fumble through a half-baked courtship fantasy, do it off the clock. My assistant has a job. A full one. Keeping you out of trouble, as it turns out.”

Neige flushed. “I didn’t mean to ruin anything. I just wanted to see her.”

Vil arched one perfect brow. “You succeeded. Now kindly leave her house before they burn it down.”

Outside, the screaming had grown louder. Someone was throwing glitter packets at the windows.

The ghosts… were REALLY not going to be happy….

“Also,” Vil added, “you’re paying for a security spell.”

Neige shuffled beside her, looking like a kicked puppy. Even he could see the need. “…Okay.”

Vil exhaled sharply, like he’d used up his patience rations for the decade.

“Yuu. The Gala is tonight. Show up on time. Show up dressed. My detail will be around for you in an hour. You’re sleeping in Pomfiore tonight until we can find out how so very many non-students were able to enter campus.”

That remark was very pointedly leveled at Neige, who by now had the wisdom to stay quiet.

With that, Vil tossed the shopping bag at her. She caught it reflexively—slightly stunned by the weight of the box inside.

“Don’t ruin it.”

And with that, he grabbed Neige by the shoulder, turned and strode back out the door—pausing only once to glare at the mob through the glass like he was mentally vaporizing every last one of them. Yuu stood frozen in place, still holding the bag, still slightly shell-shocked.

What a rescue…