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A THORN IN MY SIDE
Last Updated:
2025-02-28 04:46:06
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PRETEND PRINCESS TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS
Creed’s POVTwo weeks.Two excruciatingly painful weeks of this vacation bullshit.Everywhere I turned, people were smiling, laughing, talking about god-knows-what with their teeth on full display, like the air itself had been laced with some kind of happy drug.It was suffocating.Every single damn person looked like her.Like Yuyu.That pissed me off.I hadn’t spoken to her since the coffee incident with Zara, and honestly, I preferred it that way. Our lack of communication had done nothing to erase her from my surroundings, though. I still caught glimpses of her—talking to Olive, assisting Jason, handling a hundred things at once as if she had six pairs of hands.And today wasn’t any different.I had seen her earlier, standing outside the manager’s office, discussing something about extending time for the project. She was wearing a black skirt and a silky blue top, her dark hair cascading down her back, catching the light in waves.Her lips moved and moved and moved as she talked.
Last Updated : 2025-02-28PRETEND PRINCESS A WORTHLESS HERO
Twenty million dollars.The words echoed in my head, but instead of feeling victorious, I felt a strange sense of unease. My chest tightened as I looked at Creed, expecting some kind of reaction—relief, satisfaction, maybe even smugness.Instead, his expression was unreadable. His eyes darkened, fingers drumming against the polished desk in that slow, measured way that meant he was holding himself back. His lips pressed into a thin line, and tension radiated from him in waves."For what?" His voice cut through the silence, sharp and controlled.Mr. Evan leaned back, looking far too pleased with himself. "For an employee transfer."I stiffened.Creed's fingers curled into fists.Mr. Evan turned to me, his expression filled with admiration. "I like your confidence, Miss Roman. Not many would dare interrupt a high-stakes meeting and challenge me the way you did. You’re sharp, well-spoken, and you clearly have a deep understanding of what makes Creed X Technologies stand out. I want that
Last Updated : 2025-02-28PRETEND PRINCESS MIDNIGHT SPARKS
Yuki’s POV"Alright, team, we have exactly four months to finish this AI model, and if we don’t come up with something groundbreaking, we’re basically screwed."My voice echoed through the conference room as I leaned over the table, my hands splayed on the glossy surface. The other developers, designers, and data analysts sat in a semi-circle, most looking exhausted, some barely engaged."We’ve been brainstorming for two hours," Amber groaned, stretching her arms above her head. "We need something that won’t take six months to code.""We need a miracle," muttered Jacob, pushing his glasses up his nose."Or just a solid idea," I corrected. "Throw everything you have at me. Even if it sounds stupid.""Machine learning predictive models?""Too long.""Neural network training optimization?""Too complicated.""A chatbot with dynamic emotion recognition?"I sighed. "Good, but not innovative enough. We need something that makes Creed X Technologies stand out from the rest."The room fell si
Last Updated : 2025-02-28PRETEND PRINCESS UNRAVELING THOUGHTS
Creed’s POVThe drive home was quiet, but my mind was anything but."Good night, Creed."Her voice echoed in my head—light, free, like she hadn’t a single worry in the world. It was just a simple good night. It shouldn’t have meant anything. But somehow, it did.I loosened my tie as I stepped into my penthouse, the city lights casting a dim glow through the floor-to-ceiling windows. My place was pristine, minimalist, void of anything unnecessary—exactly how I liked it. And yet, for the first time, the silence felt... empty.I poured myself a glass of whiskey and sat on the edge of my bed, rolling the glass between my fingers. Sleep was elusive. Every time I shut my eyes, my mind betrayed me with images of Yuyu—her bright eyes, the way she scrunched her nose when she was deep in thought, the scent of her lingering on my jacket.My damn jacket.She still had it.Why hadn’t she returned it? And why the hell did that bother me?This was bad. This was really bad.She was annoying, reckless
Last Updated : 2025-02-28PRETEND PRINCESS UNSPOKEN CURRENTS
Creed’s POVIt took six more departments to finally dull the fire that Yuyu had somehow ignited in me.She had stormed into that conference room like a predator who already had its prey cornered, brimming with the kind of confidence that couldn't be faked. And then she nailed that damn presentation.Every part of it was perfect. The way she tied together her team’s hard work, how she brought the AI to life with her words—it reminded me of how thrilling it used to be for me to create. How, years ago, back when I was just a guy coding in Zara’s basement, every new project had felt like a spark of something great. I hadn’t felt that jolt of joy, that excitement for innovation, in years.And yet, Yuyu brought it back.I clenched my jaw and forced my mind to snap out of whatever trance I had fallen into."Next," I said, keeping my voice even.I felt a soft touch against my hand. Zara.Her fingers interlocked with mine like it was the most natural thing in the world. Her touch was familiar,
Last Updated : 2025-03-02PRETEND PRINCESS THE MOMENT OF TRUTH
Yuki’s POVThe massive conference hall looked like a grand lecture room, its high ceilings amplifying the murmurs of anxious employees. Rows of chairs stretched across the space, neatly aligned in sections according to departments, with the board members seated at an elevated panel at the front. The place was usually dull during meetings, but today, it carried an electrifying energy. Maybe it was the anticipation of victory—or the collective fear of losing.I slouched in my seat, bouncing my leg impatiently as I scanned the room. The weekend had flown by in a blur of caffeine, stress, and mild emotional breakdowns, but it was all worth it. Erik had flown off to Greece on yet another trip that my bank account couldn't afford, and I was determined to win this competition so that when he came back, I’d have something to throw in his face.The moment the double doors at the front opened, a hush fell over the hall. Creed walked in first, wearing a crisp white shirt and perfectly tailored b
Last Updated : 2025-03-02PRETEND PRINCESS UNWELCOME OBSESSION
Creed's POVI barely got any sleep over the weekend. Every time I closed my eyes, Yuyu haunted my thoughts—her face, her lips, her damn voice. The way she screamed in victory kept replaying in my head, over and over again.Lying sprawled on my bed, I stared at the ceiling, frustration mounting. What the hell am I doing?I grabbed my laptop, hoping work would serve as a distraction. But the moment I opened it, an impulsive thought crept in. Before I could stop myself, I typed her name into Estergram.A dozen profiles popped up, but none of them were hers.Huh. For someone so extra, she wasn’t plastered all over social media? That surprised me. And yet, I shouldn’t even be looking.I shut my laptop. This is ridiculous.3:44 AM. No man should be lying awake at this hour, unable to sleep because of another human being.Still restless, I made my way to the in-house gym. Stripping off my shirt, I slid on my boxing gloves and started on the punching bag, each impact sending it swinging viole
Last Updated : 2025-03-02PRETEND PRINCESS WHY ME?
Yuki’s POV"Are you sure you're going to be okay?" Lily asked, grabbing her bag, her brows furrowed with concern.It was my fourth day working with Creed, and I officially couldn't feel my body.He had me organizing and reorganizing files, scheduling meetings, rescheduling them, preparing documents, answering emails, fetching coffee, booking flights, running errands that had nothing to do with work, sitting through his ridiculously long meetings, and—oh yeah—taking notes at the twelve meetings we had attended in the past four days.I just wanted to code. Was that really too much to ask?"Get some rest," Lily said, slinging her bag over her shoulder. "I'll come check on you tomorrow. It's Saturday, so you actually get to sleep in."I mumbled something incoherent, too exhausted to form actual words. My body sank deeper into the couch, and sleep claimed me within seconds.---The next time I opened my eyes, sunlight was trickling through the window.Morning.Shit.I jerked up so fast my
Last Updated : 2025-03-02
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PRETEND PRINCESS ALL ALONE
Yuki's POVTwo weeks.That's 20,160 minutes. Twenty thousand, one hundred and sixty minutes of pure torture.I'd texted Creed so much. Too much, really. Sorrys I couldn't phrase correctly first, things I didn't have the courage to tell him out loud before, little things I knew he didn't want to hear. I texted anyway, hoping for a crumb of a reply.But there was nothing. No dot. No word. No fucking breath.So I made up my mind. I'd made it up the day everything went wrong—the day everything went in the opposite direction of my plans, like some sick cosmic joke. I was leaving New York. Done. Finito. Finished.Lily hadn't called me for two weeks either. It was as if my world had burst wide open, and I stood in the middle of a great emptiness. Grandpa Roman… two weeks of nothing from him too. Two weeks of not hearing his shaking, bewildered voice, of not chasing after him when he got me mixed up with my mother. Two weeks alone, tearing myself apart, living on my own regrets.I was complet
PRETEND PRINCESS THIS ISN'T YOU
Creed's POVTwo weeks.Fourteen days.20,160 minutes.I knew because I counted them. Every goddamn one of them.It's ironic that you know exactly how you feel about someone after 20,160 minutes of silence. No calls. No texts. No presence. Nothing. Just a void where they used to be. The only sound was my own breathing and it had started to get under my skin. My house was worse than my head. Clothes scattered everywhere. Empty bottles. Shattered frames. A grime mountain I could barely bring myself to look at — and still, I hung around there, festering amidst it like some wounded beast.I hadn't left for the office in two weeks. Fourteen days. No one had tried calling anymore. No one knocked. Not since the third day when I ripped the doorbell off of the wall and hurled it out of the window. My stubble was heavy. I barely recognized the face staring back at me in the mirror the occasional time I made the mistake of looking.I flopped onto the bed, blankets that smelled like sweat and guil
PRETEND PRINCESS EVERYTHING HURTS
Yuki's POVI did not know what to do with this. With him. With this. miserable life. Grandpa Roman was bleeding — his hand was slashed open, red spreading onto the floor and Lily's voice disintegrating in horror as she ran left and right. Everything appeared to be unfolding too fast and too slow all at once. The glass, the blood, Suzu's frantic barking, the aching in my chest. My head was an absolute, overwhelming void."Yuki! Grab the first aid kit, now!" Lily screamed.My legs barely worked. I was stuck there, agape, like my brain couldn't wrap around it. Like I couldn't wrap my head around how fast everything disintegrated. One second he was just standing there, screaming at my mother, the next glass was shrouding everything, blood on his wrist, and the fragile reality I was pretending to hold together had broken completely."Yuki!"I jumped and ran for the kit.Lily was pressing a towel over his palm, speaking reassuringly to him but he wouldn't stop struggling, calling out for la
PRETEND PRINCESS REMIND HIM
Zara's POVI was furious. No — furious didn’t even begin to cover it. I was livid, seething, burning so hot I thought my skin might melt off my bones.After everything I did, after everything I exposed… Creed didn’t even react.I expected rage. I expected him to throw that lying, pathetic excuse of a human being out of the building. I expected him to grab me by the arm, pull me aside, demand to know how I found out, maybe even slap me, shake me, fire me, break something — anything.But nothing happened.He stood there, looking like a statue, his eyes void of any of the fire I’d always loved seeing in him. There was no anger, no betrayal, no disgust, not even pain. Just a flat, hollow emptiness.It made me sick.He should’ve done something.I stormed into my mother’s office, slamming the door so hard a frame rattled against the wall.“Mom,” I snapped, pacing the floor like a caged animal. “He didn’t even react.”My mother barely lifted her gaze from her tablet, calm as always. “What a
PRETEND PRINCESS END IT WITH TEARS
Yuki’s POVI felt heavy. So heavy.Like my whole chest had been filled with cement, and someone left me sinking at the bottom of some endless, dark ocean. I laid there, my back flat against my tiny mattress, staring up at the ceiling like it could explain why everything had gone so wrong. My mind was… nothing. A complete abyss. Blank.I couldn’t think.I couldn’t feel.I couldn’t even see properly — everything looked foggy, like my eyes had turned into glass.It felt like a dream.A dream I’d spent years carefully stacking, one fragile piece at a time, and today it just… cracked.Shattered.And in the fallout, I couldn’t even tell where my heart used to be.Why?Why did it have to go down like this?Why did I let it happen?I planned to run, to leave before anyone really got hurt.I never wanted to break anyone.Not him.But it hurt… it hurt so much because I saw it in his eyes — Creed, that mixture of confusion and betrayal and something way worse — like I wasn’t even human to him an
PRETEND PRINCESS YOU DON'T ALWAYS KNOW
Creed’s POVHow could I be so goddamn stupid?The question kept looping in my head like a song you hate but can’t stop hearing. It was there in the way my stomach twisted, the tightness in my jaw, the way my fists clenched at my sides like I could punch the thought away.YuYu Roman.What a fucking joke.Except it wasn’t a joke. It was my life. My embarrassment. My shame.He wasn’t a she.Not even close.And the worst part wasn’t the lying — it was how it made me feel. How kissing him felt good. Too good.Soft lips, warm breath, the way my heart had stumbled in my chest like it didn’t know better. Like it wasn’t supposed to feel disgusted. And when his hand had brushed against my cheek — so light, so tender — something inside me had cracked open, a small flicker of warmth I didn’t think existed anymore.And now?Now it felt like filth under my skin.A goddamn stain.I could still feel it.Still taste it.I wanted to throw up.How could you be so blind? How could you be so easy? So… des
PRETEND PRINCESS SEE YOU AGAIN
Lily's POVThe supermarket smelled of tomatoes, discount floor cleaner, and something sweet baking in the next aisle. I was supposed to be focusing — carrots, lettuce, and a little garlic for Grandpa Roman's soup — but my eyes kept drifting towards the ice cream aisle like a church sinner.I could almost feel the chill tub of chocolate fudge ripple in my hand. One. I could push it into the cart, under the pile of health food. No one would notice. No one had to know.But then my chest tightened.Grandpa.His face flashed before me — pale, confused, his eyes fogging over in those moments when he didn't even know my name. He was declining. The seven hours a day I could care for him between work, errands, and sleep were no longer enough. He needed constant care… and I was failing.I swallowed the guilt and picked up a bag of spinach when something sharp, something intimate hit my nose. A scent. New cologne, with something masculine and citrus notes. My airway stopped.It couldn't be.Not
PRETEND PRINCESS HURT LIKE HELL
Yuki's POVThe world shattered.Not figuratively. Not in some poetic, theoretical way. It shattered in hard, harsh, calculating pieces like a glass grenade primed to explode the moment I walked into that conference room.the screen kept flashing A video.My video.The one I made six years ago.Me.In a dirty little room, in front of a shattered mirror with my real voice.With my short hair.With my name.Yuki Roman.I felt my stomach cave in, my chest tightening like a vice. My heartbeat was loud — frantic, erratic, like it wanted to run out of my body without me.My secret — the one I’d carried like fine glass — was smashed wide open, spilled on the floor like blood.I couldn’t breathe.The silence in the room was a suffocating thing. Eyes. All of them. On me.Jacob’s grip on my elbow tightened. His glasses fogged up.Then a voice cut through.Creed.Cool. Commanding. Steady as steel.“Zara. You’ve done enough. Get out.”The whole room flinched.Even Zara stumbled, her confident mas
PRETEND PRINCESS EXPOSED
Creed's POVThe conference room gradually filled — a steady stream of confused, concerned, half-irked employees abandoning their workstations because of one woman's behavior. Zara's voice had echoed loudly through the intercom a few minutes prior, her voice crisp, authoritative, impossible to ignore:"Everyone, report to the conference room immediately. This concerns the integrity of the company and your future. Move."It was the kind of tone that would get your blood cold for a second — not because she was dominant, but because she sounded like she was going to burn the whole building down.I walked towards her, fighting through the growing crowd, my heart thudding against my flesh. Something made the air heavier, and tension wrapped around everyone's neck like a vine. And she was there — Zara, standing directly in front of the main presentation screen as if it belonged to her, her face pulled tight with that same self-satisfied smirk I remembered all too well."Zara," I stated my vo
