Elisebeth slowly turned her gaze to Natalie’s face.
Natalie already looked pleased with herself.
Her smile widened. "Fellatio."
She licked her lips, patted Elisebeth’s shoulder, and let her go.
A nearby manager coughed into his fist and pretended not to have heard anything.
Elisebeth rely curved her lips upward, with not even a faint hint of color on her cheeks. Her expression remained elegant, confident, and unreadable. She looked like a woman who could hear that kind of comnt in front of half the industry and not even flinch.
"Your imagination is still as shaless as ever," Elisebeth replied.
Natalie laughed. "And yours is probably worse now. That’s why I’m asking."
"You should worry about your own imagination first."
"Oh, I do. It keeps young."
They exchanged one final look, half affectionate and half competitive, before Natalie stepped away to rejoin her team.
Elisebeth continued smiling until everyone bid her farewell.
Once the door closed and the footsteps faded, only Elisebeth and Rias remained in the private room.
The silence lasted for two seconds before Elisebeth’s face turned red like a tomato. Both hands flew to her cheeks, and she nearly folded in on herself.
"Is it so damn obvious that I found soone I have feelings for?!" she asked.
Rias stared at her with a completely flat expression.
"Kind of?"
Elisebeth groaned and sank onto the couch, her beautiful dress spreading around her thighs in a glossy red ss. She kicked one leg lightly, not hard enough to damage anything, but enough to show frustration.
Rias crossed her arms beneath her nonexistent chest and leaned one hip against the table.
"No one knows you’re playing a ga except and your mother," Rias said. "So the first thing that naturally cos to mind is that you’ve found soone special."
Elisebeth dragged her palms down her face, careful not to ruin her makeup too much.
"Ah, I know, I know... that’s why love songs sell so well. Everyone gets stupid when feelings are involved." She huffed, then reached for her phone. "But still! Natalie noticed too quickly. I barely said anything."
"You refused an after-party during a major concert run."
"I’m tired."
"You’ve attended after-parties with a fever before."
"That was different."
"You once perford three songs, lost your voice, and still attended dinner with producers because you said disappearing would make you look weak."
Elisebeth opened her mouth, found no defense waiting for her, and clicked her tongue instead.
Rias lifted one eyebrow.
Rather than answer, Elisebeth looked down at her phone.
Her secret social dia account appeared on the screen.
NukEncore.
There was a group chat there where only Martin used his real account.
While he clearly didn’t ask his friends about their real identities, he had no issue sharing his real-life progress. In fact, he had wanted to post on his regular social dia too, so even his high school friends and others could see it. He held back only because he didn’t think he had achieved that much yet.
Still, he had shared a picture from a work party, and seeing him there with his boss and his boss’s wife had nearly driven Elisebeth insane.
It wasn’t only Martin’s boss who had brought his wife, either. The others had as well.
In the photo, Martin stood a little stiffly near the side of the group. His clothes were clearly chosen with effort, but he looked as if he still wasn’t sure where to put his hands. His smile was polite, his shoulders were tense, and his eyes carried that awkward, sincere look that made Elisebeth want to bully him, protect him, dress him properly, and stand beside him all at once.
"Ahhhhhhhh!" Elisebeth cried, suddenly shooting up from the couch. "I want to be there with him! I’d outshine all those old chicks and make him stand out!"
She shoved her phone into Rias’ face.
"You agree, right, Rias?!"
Rias leaned back to avoid having the screen pressed against her nose. Then she calmly took Elisebeth’s wrist and moved the phone to a reasonable distance.
"Uh, well." Rias studied the picture. "He already looks too nervous. His muscles are too tense. What he needs is experience and social training like you had."
Elisebeth’s expression sharpened imdiately.
"I don’t want him to suffer the injustice of other companies and courts!" she barked.
Rias blinked once.
"I ant social training."
Elisebeth puffed her cheeks and snatched the phone back.
"Say it properly next ti."
"I did."
"You said it like a villain."
"I said it like a manager."
"Sa thing."
Rias sighed, but her lips twitched faintly.
She looked at the picture again, this ti with more care. Martin really did look like soone standing at the edge of a new world. His clothes were decent, but his posture gave him away. He had muscle, but not polish, and the little bit of presence he carried was sothing he had yet to learn how to control. He looked like a man who had been thrown upward too fast and still hadn’t figured out why important people had started noticing him.
"But it’s amazing," Rias said quietly.
Elisebeth glanced at her.
"What is?"
"How his life turned upside down because of the ga." Rias folded her arms again, her gaze turning distant. "I wish it had co out earlier, back when I used to play professionally."
"Huh?" Elisebeth blinked.
Rias froze, then shifted her eyes to the side.
"Oh..." she said. "Slip of the tongue."
The room went still.
Elisebeth slowly lowered her phone.
"Nuh-uh."
"Elisebeth."
"Nuh-uh!" Elisebeth pointed at her like she had just caught a criminal. "Tell now! You used to be a pro player?! You were a celebrity before , then!"
"Not much of a celebrity..."
"Your voice is cracking."
"It is not."
"You’re sweating."
"The room is warm."
"You even got pale."
"I always look like this."
"You do not!" Elisebeth rose from the couch with the intensity of a detective who had just found blood on a glove. "What kind of pro player were you?"
Rias looked away.
Elisebeth’s eyes widened.
"No, wait! I had a pro-player best friend! We should have entered the ga together! I wouldn’t be a ’lucky noob!’"
She gasped, then clutched her phone to her chest.
"Ah, damn! But if we’d played together from the start, I wouldn’t have t Martin..."
Rias imdiately nodded.
"Yes. Just think of Martin."
Elisebeth narrowed her eyes.
Rias kept her expression calm, far too calm to be innocent.
"Nah," Elisebeth said. "That won’t stop from finding you. Nothing gets lost online."
"Elisebeth."
"That tone won’t work on ."
"It works on everyone."
"I’m not everyone. I’m your diva."
"You’re my headache."
"And your diva."
Reviews
All reviews (0)