Tuesday's weather was overcast and cold. Thankfully, however, it was dry, but the commute to work was just as packed as ever. I had set up a secondary alarm through an old clock that I had found in my closet, and while the shrill, loud beeping it had made for one very unpleasant morning, it at least did its job when I inevitably hit "snooze" on my phone in my sleep.

"So, have you decided yet?" A certain, annoying green cat asked as it hitched a ride on the top of my head. "I mean, you did have all night to think about it!"

"I was sleeping," I hissed, doing my best to not be noticed by the other white-collar workers who were absorbed in their own stresses and worries.

"So?"

"So I wasn't thinking! I was sleeping!" The light changed and the flow of the crowd moved to cross the street.

"Wait, but don't you dream? I thought sleeping was just, y'know, less thinking or whatever!"

"Well, it's not that simple," I said. Someone in a much greater hurry than me bumped into my shoulder as they weaved through the crowd, doing their best to move as fast as possible, and that reminded me. "Actually there is something I've been thinking about. What happened to your shoulder? I was the one doing the fighting."

"Oh! This? Nothing, 'tis but a flesh wound!" Ping laughed at their own reference. I shut my eyes and counted to five. "Really, though. When we sync with humans and transform, us faeries not only provide the power and strength, but you are, in a way, wearing us."

"Gross! You were my dress?!" I said, a bit more loudly than intended. I caught the tired side-glance of another office worker and slowed my pace to dip away from them a bit.

"Well? Yes but no. I don't -become- a dress, but I become a sort of... magical aura that surrounds you. But, that means I take the brunt of the damage you would."

I stopped suddenly in surprise and felt someone bump into me from behind. They cursed at me under their breath but continued nonetheless. "Wait, so that hit I took was a lot worse than it felt?"

"Oh, totally!" Ping said, a bit too cheerfully. "You've got the comfy job, beating up the monsters! I'm just doing work behind the scenes!"

So, when Ping asks me to fight, they really aren't putting me in as much danger as I thought. Of course, if I die I die, though, and I'm sure there's a way to lose fights that I'm not realizing in this moment. I paused at the next crossing light with the crowd, but suddenly realized that I had just passed the building I work at. In a split second, I turned on my heel and pushed through the crowd to get to the front entrance.

I looked at a large clock on the wall and saw that I was still comfortably on time. I let out a sigh of relief and slowed my pace. Violet behind the desk spotted me and completely brushed off the person she was working with to call me over.

"Mornin'!" I said cheerfully.

"What do you think you're doing here?" Violet said. "You -PASSED OUT- yesterday, you should take another day off!"

"I'm fine," I said. "Really, it's nothing!" Violet narrowed her eyes at me. "I'm serious! I'll make sure to take care of myself!"

"Fine," Violet said, giving up. "By the way, the Boss Man wants to see you."

"What? Why?" I asked.

"Why do you think? Nobody just has a fainting episode on the job, now get going! You know how he gets when he's made to wait."

"Ugh! Fine, I'll see you at lunch," I said, walking quickly towards the elevator.

"I better not! TAKE. THE. DAY. OFF," Violet said after me curtly.

I stepped into the elevator and did my best to listen to any of the gossip said under breath among the others in there, but it was the usual affair of office drama. Even if normal humans can't see magical things, you think they would have at least seen a cubicle mysterious collapse into itself...

"That girl has a strange aura," Ping said thoughtfully, and I remembered that they were still tagging along. "I mean, it's strange to see a human with an aura at all these days, but I've never seen one like that."

I thought to ask what they meant, but I remembered that I was shoulder-to-shoulder with other, normal humans in the elevator. I'm sure I would get another chance in the near future. Probably during a bathroom break. God, I hope it's not during a bathroom break.

The elevator made its usual dinging sound and announced the floor I need to step off at. When I entered the usual grey-on-grey cubicle forest, my gaze immediately went to the left where I had crashed into a cubicle. However, everything looked normal. No sign of damage. No sign of a cooked eyeball squid, either. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

I made my way straight for Grigori's office, and when I reached the gratuitous, polished oak door with the embezzled gold name plaque, I knocked. By the second I was called to enter. I opened the door and stepped in.

"You needed to see me, sir?" I asked.

"Of course, Ms. Yoon. Please, have a seat." I froze on the spot. When I imagine my boss, seated behind his expensive, carved desk that was larger than life in a leather office seat that was just a few heads too tall, I'm usually being metaphorical when I imagine something inhuman.

Yet, seated there was not a human at all. The suit he wore was the same, but his skin was a mix of a deep, wine crimson, his fingers larger and longer than a normal human's and ending in sharp points. He had no wings or extra limbs, but his face was angular, with bushy jet-black eyebrows, a perfectly waxed, short goatee, pearly white pointed fangs, eyes that glowed a bright amber, and two large horns that jutted from his forehead and curved back over his long, sleek, black hair.

I quickly glanced over my shoulder, but Ping was nowhere to be found.

"Is something wrong?" Grigori asked, his tone was thick and gravelly, but his voice was still very familiar to the boss I knew.

"N-nothing," I said, taking a seat in front of his desk. But there was something wrong-- something deeply wrong. Whether I liked it or not, my boss was a demon.