Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 925: Racist Big Sis

Yuna Park sat in the most famous tent on the internet, in a white plastic folding chair, and stared at the wet ink of her own signature.

Doug turned the letter of intent back toward himself, reviewed it once from top to bottom, and tapped his tablet twice. ”Notice of representation, filed. As of this moment, Miss Park, Eclipse’s legal team speaks for you in all matters concerning Skyline Guild.”

He said it like it was nothing, a stamp on an envelope, and yet the words reached into her chest and switched off an alarm that had been ringing there so long she’d stopped hearing it.

Three years of quarterly reviews. Three years of drawn blinds and being ”valued.”

Somewhere between one tablet tap and the next, all of it had stopped being her problem and become paperwork on somebody else’s desk, and the relief that flooded into the silence the alarm left behind was enormous, physical, and completely unmanageable.

She managed it anyway. For about a second and a half.

Then she tackled Luna in a hug.

”Wha- HEY.” The gremlin nearly lost her apple off the edge of the table. ”Stop. What is happening?! Explain.”

”You’re my big sister from another mother,” Yuna said into her shoulder, entirely unrepentant.

”The fuck I am.”

”You said so yourself. ’You’re like my little sister from another mother. From an Asian one.’” Yuna pulled back just far enough to meet her eyes. ”Which makes you my big sister from a Caucasian mom, right? And little sisters are allowed to hug their siblings, right? Ask Alice. I’ve watched the streams, it’s practically guild law.”

”Okay, first of all, quoting me back at me is forbidden.” Luna wedged the apple between them like a crucifix. ”Second, the adoption is cancelled. Revoked. Retroactively. You were never my sister.”

”What?! N-no!” The sound Yuna made was small, high, and genuinely wounded. It was absolutely a weapon, and it worked anyway.

Luna stared at her for a long moment, sighed through her nose, and went back to her apple with a fully grown S-tier assassin still attached to her side.

”...I always knew the Japanese were weirdos ever since I watched their... content, but god damn...” she muttered, making zero effort to remove her.

”That’s racist. I’m Korean,” Yuna said into her shoulder, delighted, and did not let go.

”She’ll fit right in,” Doug observed.

”Hah?” Luna’s head snapped toward him. ”What’s that supposed to mean?” Asked the girl known for getting hardcore demolished in bed by her boyfriend, and for the incident that involved her shoving a certain item up her best friend’s butthole.

Well, she was known for that among many other things. Luna had quite the colorful reputation.

Doug became deeply invested in his tablet and declined to have said anything at all.

Yuna decided she would be replaying this entire morning for approximately the rest of her life.

Then Doug’s phone rang.

He glanced at the screen, and his eyebrows climbed a fraction, which on Doug counted as open astonishment. ”Doug speaking. ...Yes. ...That would be agreeable. Two o’clock. We will require the full development ledger in advance. Good day.”

He lowered the phone and looked at it for a moment.

”That was Skyline’s front office. They have agreed to a buyout discussion. Today, two o’clock, at their headquarters.” A pen click. ”We filed our notice just a few minutes ago.”

”That’s really fast, right?” Yuna asked. ”What does it mean?”

”Miss Park, I have handled transfers where acknowledging our letter took eleven business days.” Doug set the phone face-down on the table. ”This is the corporate equivalent of a man waiting behind his own front door. As far as what it means... A guild that is very invested in the ongoing procedures, I’d imagine.”

She nodded, having arrived at the same thoughts.

”Which brings me to one more item.” Doug’s tone stayed level, and gentled anyway. ”Your contract mandates a formal exit interview with guild leadership before any transfer can clear.”

Luna felt it before anyone saw it, because Luna was still wearing her. The arms around her went rigid, and the warmth of the last five minutes drained out of them.

Across the table, Kaiden hadn’t moved, but the temperature of the tent had. The easy warmth he wore whenever his girls were laughing had gone flat, and for a breath the air around him felt thin and pressurized, the way it went when something in him wanted very badly to handle Mercer personally. Then he let it out, slow, and it passed, and he left it Doug’s to solve.

Yuna let go. She straightened up, and the giddy girl who’d been quoting adoption law was gone.

”I know the clause.” Her voice came out even, which cost her. ”I’ve read that contract more times than anyone should read anything. You don’t need to break it to me gently.”

”Great.” Doug nodded. ”Then your attendance for the meeting is requested, unless you’d prefer to hold the meeting without us present.”

”No!” Yuna replied quickly. ”I’d like you to be there...”

”Naturally.” Doug nodded once more, smiling.

Yuna returned the smile and sat back down in the folding chair.

The hardest part was ahead of her, and she knew it.

Skyline’s contract was a minefield of hidden fees, transfer conditions, and clauses that only woke up when you tried to leave, and she’d initialed every page of it at eighteen without reading a single one.

She’d soon find out what exactly she’d signed away, line by line, in a conference room on his turf. Deals fell apart in rooms like that, and sometimes whole futures went with them.

Her stomach had been weightless a minute ago. It was practicing its landing now.

Kaiden rose from his chair, and his hand landed on her shoulder in passing, warm and brief.

”Doug.”

”Sir.”

”Take care of it.”

”Retroactively,” Doug said, already typing, ”and with lots of enthusiasm.”

...

Skyline Guild’s headquarters occupied twenty floors of glass in the financial district, and Yuna Park had walked through its lobby every working day for three years without many people looking up from their desks.

They all looked up now.

She came through the revolving doors at five minutes to two with Doug on her left and Ms. Rook on her right, the cold woman from Operations who came to pick her up in the morning.

Ms. Rook had introduced herself properly in the car, apparently having decided that Yuna had earned a name by now, and the effect of the two of them flanking her was that of a very small, very polite honor guard.

The receptionist who had processed Yuna’s badge for three years stood halfway up from her chair, sat back down, and pretended to answer a call on a phone that wasn’t ringing.

The fourth-floor conference room smelled like new carpet and old coffee. Mercer was already standing when they entered, arms spread, wearing the best warmth money could rent.

”Yuna! Right on time, as always.” Her name, correct, on the first try. It was amazing what a nine-digit invoice did for a man’s memory. ”And you’ve brought your friends. Sit, please, anywhere. Can we get you coffee? We keep the good machine on this floor.”

”Mr. Mercer.” Doug set his folder on the table and drew out a chair for Yuna before taking his own. ”Doug, Eclipse Human Resources. Ms. Rook, Eclipse Operations. We represent Miss Park.”

”Of course you do.” Mercer settled into his seat, and a man in a gray suit settled beside him with a legal pad and an expensive kind of stillness. ”Then let’s take care of everyone’s afternoon. Though before the figures, there’s a small piece of housekeeping. The exit interview. Guild policy, standard for every departure, and by its nature a personal conversation.”