"You want to marry me?…"
The curtains fluttered like startled birds as the moonlight divided between the two figures that stood. One tipsy and reckless, the other utterly unprepared.
Agrona, statuesque and elegant, blinked down at the girl before her. Her diamond-cut eyes searched Cressida's face for a clue, anything at all, to prove this wasn't what it sounded like.
But the silence stretched. And Cressida didn't blink.
"Yes, let's marry," the younger girl declared, her words slurring with the warmth of too much wine.
She didn't care how unladylike she looked or perhaps she was blissfully unaware she was even swaying.
Agrona's brow arched. "And… the reason is?"
"I'm so tired of this tired old script!" Cressida burst out, throwing her hands everywhere. "The villainess regresses, acts a little nicer, and suddenly, boom, all the male leads come crawling back. Is everyone here addicted to being chased by people who treated them like garbage?!"
Agrona's eyes widened, her mouth parting. "…How do you know that—"
"That's not the point!" Cressida jabbed a finger at her. "The point is: why don't you just marry me instead?!"
"I…" Agrona faltered. "I have no understanding of what's gotten into you, but…"
"But what?!"
"You do realize I'm thirteen years older than you, right?"
...
...
***
...
...
What exactly is a villainess?
A woman who exists only to highlight the heroine?
A living monument to suffering, designed to add salt to the story?
But the villainesses we see, they aren't born cruel. They are victims.
Victims of a system built to exploit the vulnerable, a system that pretends to uphold society while quietly devouring those who try to rise.
"I want to be rich someday."
To be rich, you need money.
"I want to be someone."
To be someone, you must be high-value, a polished mask of self-interest, a caricature everyone is told to admire.
"I want to fulfill my dreams."
To do that, you must confront reality: dreams are not free. They demand investment, time, sacrifice and the loss of people along the way.
Talia is the perfect example.
She fell right into the system's trap, running, chasing, climbing because society told her to.
But she never realized those rules were made to keep the hive alive, to keep the machinery running.
And bee hives don't mourn queens who no longer serve a purpose.
"The Board of Directors has decided," a man said, voice flat as ice. "You are being removed as CEO of this company."
"I… I understand…"
She didn't argue. How could she? The company's collapse was her fault. The endless exhaustion, the petty betrayals, the drama, it had all caught up to her.
This was it. The end.
The world wouldn't wait for her to rise again, and truthfully, she had no will to run.
She lit a cigarette, the flame flickering in her trembling fingers. "I suppose this calls for this," she muttered, inhaling sharply.
A bitter laugh escaped her throat.
She remembered her younger self, swearing she'd never smoke, never drink.
How naive she had been.
But even as she tried to find relief in the smoke, it refused to come.
Rain began to fall, cold and insistent, tapping against the asphalt and just like that, her cigarette went out.
"What a shitty day… even the rain wants to steal my little comfort," she sighed.
Then, the distant roar of an engine cut through the patter of rain. Headlights sliced through the darkness, sharp and blinding, reflecting off wet asphalt like twin knives.
She didn't think. She didn't move aside. Her feet carried her forward almost of their own accord, drawn by some numb inertia.
Everything seemed slow from the tires splashing through puddles and the wind from the car whipping her hair.
For a fleeting second, she registered the terror in the driver's eyes, the screech of brakes, the flash of panic, but it was too late.
"Finally."
The end.