"You'll pay for this!!"
The door slammed shut behind him, the glass panels rattling in their frame. Outside, the man's voice still echoed down the neon-lit alley, trailing behind him like the smell of sour sweat and expensive ego.
Inside the boutique, there was only silence. Well, not like Yue cared, but her employees certainly did, more than her, that's for sure.
Her heels clicked once on the polished black marble, sharp as a trigger being pulled. She turned without looking back at the door, her long satin coat sweeping after her like a second spine. The storefront was dim, low spotlights casting gentle halos on mannequins wearing combat-grade couture—gear spun from kevlar mesh and monster hide, dyed in ash-gold, flame-blue, and the crimson that only came from deep underworld ink. Her designs were to die for, literally.
Her fingers were long, callused at the tips. A seamstress's hands.
"He was from Division 3," her assistant finally whispered. "Their top-ranked fire-type."
"I design armor, not babysit tempers, Cait," she said coolly. "He came in unannounced, interrupted a client, and insulted my student's work. I should've burned his ridiculous coat instead."
A soft gasp. "You mean-"
"Yes," she interrupted. "That ridiculous synthetic one. It was so obvious that the jacket was fake." The assistant bit back a laugh. Yue's sharp amber eyes immediately turned to her assistant's expression and continued, "Well, I don't mind people using fake branding, but if you can clearly afford it, why don't you support the original instead?"
The assistant nodded quickly, stifling the smile that still threatened to creep back onto her lips. "Right, of course. Completely agree." Her eyes were deep brown, which resembled a hamster in some sort of way, shining at the quick and efficient technique of her boss. Yue was admirable, so smooth yet lethally direct. Never apologetic. She wasn't cruel, not exactly. But she wielded words the way some hunters wielded swords. With precision. With no time to waste. And of course, with a mindset to hunt.
She stopped in front of the central display. Her newest piece, which was a dark armor suit with cross-stitched dragon scales across the chest, was tailored for a lightning-elemental hunter who needed both mobility and insulation. It had taken sixty hours of handwork and three sleepless nights, but it was beautiful. Devastatingly so. It gleamed faintly under the spotlight.
Her phone buzzed from the worktable behind her. She walked back and picked it up without urgency. Five new requests. Three urgent commissions. Two are tagged as "Apocalypse Grade."
She didn't open any of them and instead let out an audible sigh
The shop was quiet again. Outside, the world was burning. Monsters howling through fractured skies, hunters bleeding onto asphalt, government factions splitting like rotting wood. But inside this boutique, nestled between a collapsed music store and a half-burnt flower shop, time slowed. Threads hummed. Needles dance, and the woman in black silk stitched power into every seam.
After all, she is The Yue.
The name didn't need a surname. Just a mention of it can grant attention because everyone knew who she was and who her designs were. It echoed enough on its own in the right places: war briefings, hunter guild lounges, high society fashion weeks, black-market auctions, and blood-soaked fields alike. Her brand was simply a showcase to show what and who her designs are, to showcase their soul to the world, and help people in need.
Cait had returned to the main floor and was rearranging the mannequin arm poses, trying to mimic hunter stances with the precision of someone who hadn't been on the field but had seen enough training footage to fake it. Yue observed her for a moment, amber eyes narrowing. Cait was diligent. A little too naive. But earnest, like a puppy still convinced the world wasn't on fire.
Yue moved past her with a whisper of silk and a faint trace of metal polish and jasmine. She stood in front of a large full-length mirror that doubled as a hidden fabric vault. With a quick tap along the edge, the mirror shimmered, revealing rows of monster-hide rolls vacuum-sealed in coded racks.
She reached for one wrapped in a muted sea-green film.
Hydrascale. Acid-resistant. Harvested off a B-rank aquatic boss.
"She would look perfect in this.."
The words left her lips quieter than breath, meant for no one and nothing except the memory that had clawed its way back into her chest like a ghost with good timing.
Yue's fingers paused on the edge of the roll, her sharp nails faintly tapping against the smooth surface of the hydrascale wrap. The soft hiss of vacuum seals hummed in the background like a lullaby. Her gaze didn't move from the material, but her mind… her mind slipped elsewhere. Somewhere cold yet warm at the same time.
Somewhere with the deep blue ocean and drowned corpses.
Somewhere where she had stood.
Yue quickly shakes her thoughts off before they escalate. But, the attempt was a failure as her name is engraved into her mind.
Ivonne.
The name rang silently in her chest like a bell struck underwater.
Top-ranked hunter in the world. The one people called the Titan's Thorn, the Heavenpiercer and god knows how many more nicknames. She was the kind of woman who made monsters hesitate, who made governments whisper, who had walked into Yue's boutique the first time and almost made her drop down to her knees, Light turquoise hair, streaked with platinum at the ends, falling in damp waves across a shoulder scraped raw from a fight. Eyes shining like pearls. Unreadable, cold, but never empty, they shone in her own way. Her coat had been shredded, burnt at the hem. Her boots were still wet with gore. And she had walked through Yue's spotless door like it was just another battlefield.
She had gotten blood all over the boutique's floors, yet she did not mind. Why? Because she was the perfect model, as if she were a gift sent by the Gods themselves, thanking Yue for dealing with the most idiotic imbeciles in the history of imbeciles.
"Hellooo, Miss Yue??"
Yue slightly jumped like a cat at the serious voice of her assistant, who was looking up at her, clutching onto the clipboard like it was her lifeline. "Miss Yue," Cait repeated, this time more gently, eyes wide and worried. "You zoned out again. You were just… staring at the hydrascale and whispering to it. Are you okay?.."
Yue blinked once. Then again.
"It's okay, Miss Yue! I'll keep your ability to talk to fabrics a secret," Cait said with determination, her thin eyebrows furrowing and brown eyes slowly turning into a soft lavender hue. Ah, she was worried. Her emotions are showing up again.
"I assure you, Cait, I do not have any ability." The thought of hoping that Cait would understand her quickly vanished as Cait's face turned even more worried.
"Miss…Do you have..Schizophrenia by any chance?"
Yue stared at her. Her usual Sharp amber eyes were now completely empty. A million thoughts were going through her mind, yet it felt so awfully empty.
A silence so sharp it could've sliced through titanium settled in the air between them. It wasn't even silence, really, it was judgment dressed in black silk. Yue's amber eyes narrowed ever so slightly, not in fury, but in that particular way a cat might narrow its gaze before deciding whether the thing in front of it was prey, toy, or just irreparably stupid.
Cait shrank by exactly three centimeters. Her grip on the clipboard tightened. The lavender in her eyes flickered back to muddy brown.
"I…" she squeaked, "I just meant… like, if you did, I wouldn't judge, obviously! Support and acceptance, and all that. You know, mental health awareness is-"
"Cait," Yue said.
Cait froze.
"I am many things. A perfectionist. A control freak, and apparently insane, but Schizophrenic is not one of them."
"Yes, ma'am, I'll be going now!" Cait said in a squeaky voice while hiding her eyes. She's obviously embarrassed now, hiding her emotions, but little does she know that the indifferent boss she knows is dying of embarrassment the most right now.
Damn you, Ivonne! You ruined my life to such an extent that people think I'm schizophrenic now!