Hyerin, the perfect white lotus

The thing about walking with someone down a corridor is that awkwardness can settle in like a choking collar - Aria tends to walk slower, observe people from behind and unnerve them into babbling their weaknesses, she had made an art form of it when she wanted that specific contract or that bit of land. In her prime, she'd seen men cower before her, men with terrifying power in the palm of their hands. Aria had been her father's daughter through and through.

The white lotus heroine falls in step with Aria. She sneers, kisses her teeth audibly like the mere sight of Aria is a chore, and scoffs loudly, under her breath she mutters the word disgusting.

Aria has never taken kindly to someone disrespecting her to her face well, she can admire the guts the girl has. Truly. But there's a certain line even her laziness won't tolerate. Aria stops walking and tilts her head to the side, the heroine pauses, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. They stand in the hallway, a minute passes, the heroine starts fidgeting. Aria takes a step in her direction and she can see the exact moment when that unbearable confidence melts to wariness, and unconsciously she takes a step back in response to Aria and then another and another until Aria has her backed to the wall. Aria slams her hand next to the girl's head. If Aria had been a boy this situation would have been something else entirely. A kabedon. She smirks. Tilting the heroine's chin up with a finger, Aria leans in until she can see the small specks of colour in her eyes, the girl blinks rapidly, moisture gathering in her eyes.

"I am not the old Aria, if you keep messing with me I won't be nice for very long." Aria says quietly.

Aria smiles widely and tucks the loose strands curling over her shoulder behind her ear. For a moment, she meets Aria's eyes unflinchingly glaring holes into Aria but then a switch happens and then the heroine gulps audibly, her lips quiver, and tears stream down her fair cheeks. Aria has a moment to frown before she's bodily shoved across the hall, she crashes into the wall and a hulking man crowds her in.

"What the fu-"

A hand squeezes around her throat, almost picking her off the floor. Aria struggles to get a grip on the man, to find leverage somehow but even with her self defence and previous life experience she can barely budge the giant, and that's what he is. A bloody giant.

"I've told you to stay away from Hyerin, was I not clear that the next time you so much as glance in her direction it won't end well for you?"

His grip loosen enough for Aria to desperately gulp air in, but the anxiety spikes and she coughs on the air uselessly. Her vision splotches with dark spots, her head feeling heavy as nausea crawls over her. Something flashes in her mind, an image, something that sparks Deja vu. The man's voice is distorted when he speaks again, she can hear the screeching voice of the heroine somewhere behind him. It's all muted. Aria gasps and chokes on nothing, the muscles in her neck contracting painfully. She hadn't had a panic attack in many years, not since she took over her father's business, the security of a bodyguard always hovering just behind her keeping them away. She doesn't feel the man letting her go until she hits the floor, the ringing in her ears intensifying.

"Breathe, slowly. Listen to my breathing." Someone says, she can't tell who, her vision too blurry to see beyond fuzzy shapes.

Aria's eyes closes for one moment.

She startles upwards, her eyes clear but unable to settle on anything for more than a few seconds, she doesn't know where she is or what is happening but the deep, instinctual need to run has her careening over the edge of the hard bed she's on. She almost hits the white tiles head first, only, a massive arm wraps around her middle and hauls her back into bed.

"Calm down, you are safe, you are in the medical room, no one will hurt you." A gravelly voice says.

Aria looks up and makes eye contact with the beastly man from earlier, her initial reaction is a lurch in her middle that nearly sends her careening over the other side, his steady hold on her wrist keeps her still.

She breathes in deeply, bites the inside of her cheek until she can taste the metal tanginess of blood and pulls her calm from the deep trenches of the ocean over her shoulders.

"Thank you." she says.

Aria doesn't attempt to smile knowing she'll be more likely to stab him with a scalpel in the eye if she tries. He makes a weird noise of acceptance but doesn't remove his hold on her, Aria pointedly looks down at his hand. He snatches his hand away and turns sideways, a suspicious trail of red spreads from his ears down over his neck. Aria sighs. Every character in this world seems to have issues. If just a brief interaction with the female lead of this story led her to this much trouble, God knows what fully undertaking her role as a supporting villain will be like. Aria will stand firm in her decision not to be part of the story. She needs to survive the stupidity for two months, then she can get a job at a corporate company and enjoy her vacation.

Aria throws the covers off, hops off the thin rail bed and leaves the room before he can say anything else. Faintly, she can hear him scamper after her calling her name. Aria swivels around, sharply calls over her shoulder as she's opening the door a barb that makes her feel instantly less like murder.

"Don't call my name so intimately, it makes me want to throw up."

Then she bangs the door in his face.