Life was difficult, such was the reality we lived in. But sometimes, there were happy days. Such as today, where I gleefully told my old boss I quit with a smile on my face and he couldn’t do anything about it. Good times.

Anyway, I packed up my precious corkboard and prepared to move everything over to my office in Fractal’s base. I didn’t need to have it at home anymore. Luckily, I had been smart enough to hide it behind my bed when I’d been out yesterday, so hopefully, Troy hadn’t seen it while he’d been snooping around.

With that, I was ready to start working at my new job as a supervillain minion. Still, to have a girly outfit and a bunch of make-up be my work uniform felt kind of ridiculous. As a man, dressing up as a girl felt wrong. As if I was doing something forbidden, something I shouldn’t be doing. But hey, I was a strong-willed guy, I could bear with it. After all, I was doing this for the sake of love! And as they said, all is fair in love and war! And I didn’t mind seeing a cute girl whenever I looked into the mirror either. It was a nice bonus.

That aside, today was Saturday. And I’d promised I would attend that LGBT get-together Miranda had talked about. I still didn’t know why they wanted me to go so badly, but since everyone had been so insistent, I decided to give in.

“You’re going like that?” Miranda asked me.

“Like what?” I frowned, confused. Did she have a problem with my casual getup?

“Troy said… I thought you would… nevermind, take your time.” She smiled.

What was she talking about? Why did everyone keep telling me to take my time? Take my time doing what? Could you be any more cryptic?

“Whatever, let’s go,” I waved her off and toward the door. Troy didn’t move for some reason. “You’re not coming?”

“No way, I would be too out of place. You two have fun.” He smiled.

I was getting tired of shouting that I was not gay. Troy would be out of place but I wouldn’t? Seriously, what were they trying to say? It was getting past annoying and into the suspicious territory. Was this some kind of prank?

Oh my god. Of course. How could I have been so blind? It must have been yet another one of their schemes to humiliate me. Troy didn’t actually plan on staying behind but was secretly going to make his way to the meeting spot to prepare the trap for me. That was why they all acted so weird this past week. They were buttering me up, trying to make me drop my guard. Hah! Well, too bad! I’d figured out their evil plot!

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“So Aster… how are you doing lately? I heard you got a new job?” Miranda casually asked me as we strolled through the streets.

Why would she ask me about my job? Was she still trying to act innocent? Or maybe… oh no. Had she figured out that I was a supervillain minion now? Were we actually walking into a building full of superheroes so they could beat me up and arrest me? No way… she wouldn’t do that, would she? Pranks were one thing, but to do something like this… Okay, I needed to prod for information.

“Yeah, the old job was getting really annoying. The new job is way better. Why do you ask?”

“Well, Troy told me you would wear that cute outfit into your new job. I was wondering what your new boss thought about that.”

Oh, there it was. She was asking me about my boss. I couldn’t let it slip that he was a supervillain.

“Yeah, actually, it’s pretty important. My boss needs me to wear it to work.” Because otherwise, he wouldn’t recognize me.

Miranda fell silent for a second. “What kind of job is it…? Are you sure it’s safe?”

Safe…? Probably not at all now that I thought about it. If heroes were to discover Fractal’s base, things would probably start exploding around me. Uh… had I signed up for something exceedingly dangerous? No, it was fine. I was sure if anything were to happen, I could pretend to be an innocent civilian.

“Yeah, totally safe. It’s uh…” I thought about it for a second. “I would say I’m an assistant of sorts?”

“Assistant…” She slowly nodded. “Okay, just be careful. If your boss forces you to do something weird, let me know and I’ll come to beat him up.” She pumped her fist.

Wait, what? She would take on a supervillain? Was she secretly a superhero or something? No, she probably just doesn’t know my boss is Fractal… but then, why did she suddenly mention beating him up?

“Uh, sure?”

She gave me a thumbs up. “You can always count on me, Aster.”

I nodded dumbly and realized she was calling me Aster again. I was about to correct her but held myself back. In a way, it was a good thing if I got used to being called Aster. Because of my new job, yes. If for some reason my friends meet me with Fractal around and call me Cain, that would be very awkward. Not that I ever planned on dragging them into the supervillain business… but yeah. Getting used to being called Aster wasn’t a bad idea.

Heck, it was a nice name. Of course, it was. I picked it myself, after all. Way better than Cain. Bleh. Yeah, I wouldn’t mind being called Aster forever.

Uh, hold on. Maybe I was going a bit too far. It was a nice name, but a man like me couldn’t just keep a girl’s name. Yeah… Aster was just an alter ego… not me. I was just pretending to be Aster…

God, I wish I could just be Aster. Life would have been so much simpler.

“Hey… are you okay?” Miranda suddenly seemed concerned.

“What? Yeah, I’m fine.” I breathed out a sigh. “Just thinking about… stuff.”

“If you wanna talk about it, you can.”

“I’m… fine. Maybe later.”

“Okay.” Another smile.

God, for someone preparing a trap for me, she sure was nice. Maybe it wasn’t a trap, after all? Ugh, this was so confusing!