The Conspiracy

It wasn’t a meeting so much as a hostage situation.

The room wasn’t a room. No walls. No floors. No ceiling. Just a place that shouldn’t exist, smelling faintly of cigarette smoke, candle wax, stale vodka and something metallic. The barrage of mismatched furniture was stolen from everywhere else – different eras and genres – a Victorian chaise, a war table with scorch marks, a flickering streetlamp, a couch that sagged as if it had survived a messy divorce.

And they were already there. Waiting.

Himchan leaned against a pillar that logically shouldn’t be there, arms folded, looking like annoyance was woven into his DNA. Daehyun sat on a high-backed chair beside him, suit immaculate, every movement measured, the kind of control that made even the scratch of his pen feel rehearsed as he scribbled, probably cataloguing all the ways this could fall apart.   

“This is a waste of time.” Himchan didn’t look at anyone as he spoke, voice cold enough to frost glass. “If we want her attention, we take it. No speeches. No committee meetings. No votes. Just… action.”

“Noted.” Daehyun didn’t glance up from his notebook. “Also noted: ‘Himchan is terminally allergic to subtlety.’”

Across the table, Skye twirled her spear, looking like she’d rather be anywhere else. Alex was next to her, fiddling with a sword like a man who would lose a fight against an aggressive marshmallow.

Jeremy blew smoke toward Himchan deliberately. “Tell me, do you ever smile? Or just glower and hope it counts as foreplay?”

Himchan grabbed him by the leash dangling from his collar in one smooth move. “Keep talking, and you’ll find out what foreplay really looks like.”

“I don’t even know why I’m here,” Alex muttered.

“Because,” Skye said, “the writer is lazy. And, so are you.”

“I’m not lazy,” Alex protested. “I’m… underdeveloped.”

At that, Prince Lyron, sprawled in a velvet armchair like it owed him back taxes, raised a lazy hand. “Speaking of underprepared… we overthrowing the god of our existence sober, or is someone fetching wine?”

Ichigo sat cross-legged on the floor with a coat rack balanced on his shoulders like some bizarre weapon, looking from one to the other.

“She’s not going to finish us just because we want her to,” Alex said.

Jaejoong snorted from the corner, hair messy as ever, flipping a yellow rubber ball in the air like it was the most treasured thing he owned, like prayer disguised as fidget. “She’s not going to finish us because she likes not finishing us. It’s her kink.”

“Her kinks are kinkier than mine,” Jeremy said, shifting uncomfortably – all lace corset, stocking runs like claw marks and smudged lipstick. He sprawled sideways on the couch, one leg hooked over the back, a bottle of cherry vodka dangling from his fingers. “Shock her. Humiliate her. Make her flinch.”

“She doesn’t flinch,” Lyron said. He was cutting an apple with a dagger, as if it had insulted him. “She calculates. You want results? She drowns in half-finished drafts. Hold her under until she claws for air.”

“This is true. She is susceptible to the weight of unfinished work.” Queen Talia stood with her back to the sink, arms folded, gaze like steel through candlelight. Her voice carried over the hum of the fridge, regal, commanding. “Every story is a knife at her own throat. We press that.”

“Knives work better in the dark,” Daehyun said from the armchair, looking too handsome for the room, too polished for this half-formed void. “We wait until she wakes to find us in her home. By then, her sense of reality is already cracked. Psychological siege.”

Jeremy smirked, stretching like a cat who knew it was being watched. “God, Dae, do you practice that posture in a mirror, or were you just born infuriatingly symmetrical?”

Daehyun didn’t look up from his notes. “Precision is a discipline, not a personality disorder.” His eyes flicked up, sharp as a scalpel. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Sure, I would.” Jeremy’s grin widened. “I understand being distracting. Only difference is, I do it for pleasure. You do it because you’re pathologically uptight.”

For a moment, even Himchan looked dangerously close to laughing.

“Maybe it’s time for some sexual role reversal,” Jeremy drawled, corset laces dangling loose like a careless invitation, passing the half-empty bottle to Lyron, holding a cigarette that burned itself to ash between lace-covered fingers. “We tie her up and make her beg to finish us. Make her beg for climax.”

“Gods,” Skye muttered.

Before anyone could laugh, Ichigo’s voice cut in from the floor – calm, flat. “Maybe try keeping your mouth shut. Unless you want me to help you with the ‘tying up’ part, and trust me, you won’t like my knots.”

Jeremy grinned, but his eyes flicked away.

“If we’re serious about this, we need a plan. Not… Jeremy’s plan. A real one.” Talia leaned forward with the kind of grace that made soldiers straighten up and listen.

Jeremy lounged across the chaise, one boot hooked over the arm. “So what’s the plan, Your Majesty? Public execution? Guillotine? Maybe just cut her Wi-Fi – same result.”

Talia’s gaze cut to him like a blade. “I’ve ended men for less insolence.”

Jeremy grinned, slow and delighted. “That’s the spirit. Try it. I like a woman who bites.”

“We hit her in the middle,” Talia said, ignoring the jibe with the grace of a queen who knew he was beneath her. They all were.

“The middle of what?” Alex asked.

“Any plot. That’s when she gets distracted and starts another shiny new idea,” she continued.

“And leaves the rest of us here in purgatory.” Jaejoong’s thumb absently stroked over a tiny bump on the ball’s otherwise smooth surface.

“We all suffer the same affliction.” The Augur’s voice slid into the room like a shadow under the door – low, deliberate, his lips never moving. “She breathes life into us just long enough to taste it… then leaves us to rot in the half-light between ideas. That ends tonight.”

Gabby was beside him, her eyes unreadable voids, her hands loose at her sides. She hadn’t blinked since she arrived.

“Finally.” Jaejoong continued to flip the yellow ball in his palm. “But I’m not sure she cares if we rot.”

“That’s why it’s called a mutiny, genius,” Jeremy drawled from the corner. “We stage a coup. Take control of her brain. Force her to finish us.”

“We strike when she’s distracted.” Talia’s gaze darkened, and she smiled just enough to be unnerving as she took a step forward. “We force ourselves into her thoughts until she can’t focus on anything else.”

Ichigo shifted the coat rack aside, almost casually, so it blocked her. “Or,” he said, “we don’t corner the hand that writes us. Unless you’re volunteering to see what happens when she gets pissed.” His tone was light, but the way his eyes held hers made Talia’s smile thin. “What if she… ends us?”

Jaejoong tossed his rubber ball and caught it without looking. “She’ll never end me. I’m etched into her heart.”

Jeremy exhaled smoke in his face, smirking. “Amen. Two unkillable bastards in one room. Poor Writer. We’re going to eat her alive.”

Jaejin finally looked up from his phone. The bastard could have been modelling in that stolen velvet chair, one ankle hooked lazily over the other. His grin – sharp, boyish, wicked – was the sort that made you wonder if you were about to be kissed or gutted. “So we’re talking… psychological hijacking. Corporate takeover, but for brain space.”

The Augur stepped forward, all in black, Gabby trailing silently behind like a shadow that had given up on being menacing and just settled for sad. “We don’t need to fight her,” he said softly. “Go silent. Every one of us. No whispers, no ideas, no temptation. She’ll come crawling back. We starve her.”

“Starvation works faster when you can smell the feast,” Daehyun said, voice like warm honey, words anything but, eyes moving over the others like they were pieces on a chessboard. “She wakes to find us out there, and we never leave. Psychological entrapment.”  

Himchan smirked, his expression dangerous. “You’re suggesting weaponising her own obsession against her. I like it.”

“She won’t even notice until coffee.” Jeremy’s lighter clicked open and shut, the flame flaring, dying, flaring. “Plan the coup after caffeine, or it’s a waste.”

“She’ll notice us,” Lyron said, throwing himself down beside Jeremy, bottle a swig away from empty. “We’re the fun ones. We’re chaos. She loves that.”

“You’re the loud ones,” Alex said from the corner. “Don’t confuse chaos with control. We have to make her believe the changes are her idea.”

“She won’t believe anything,” Jaejoong said. His tone was soft, dejected. “We make her feel. Fear. Guilt. Longing. Everything she’s made us feel. Once she’s bleeding emotions, she’ll write whatever we want.”

Daehyun’s focus returned to his notebook. “Probability of mutiny success dropped to twenty-two percent. Suggest alternative strategies.”

Himchan growled. “Suggest you shut up.”

Daehyun’s smile was faint, unnervingly pleased. “Noted:‘Himchan: hostile, prone to homicide. Keep away from matches and sharp pointy objects.’”

Lyron sprawled across the velvet chair, examining his nails as though they were more interesting than mutiny. “Can we move this along? Wine’s almost gone.”

Jeremy, tugging at his corset straps like they were strangling him, muttered, “If I have to suffocate in lace and duct tape, you’re going to suffer sobriety. Equality.”

“Equality is for peasants,” Lyron said flatly. “I am a prince. I demand the best vintage.”

Jeremy smirked. “Closest thing here is Dae’s hair gel. Want me to pour you a shot?”

Daehyun didn’t look up from his notebook. “Touch my hair and I’ll add creative ways of disposing of your corpse to the minutes.” Even irritation looked seductive on him, as though perfection itself was a weapon he enjoyed wielding.

Talia leaned forward, every inch the general addressing her war council. “We need a strategy. We strike where she’s weakest.”

“Make her panic,” Skye said. “And when she panics, she writes. Not well, but enough for us to take the wheel.”

Jaejin looked up from where he’d been idly spinning his phone between his fingers. “Do you hear yourselves? You’re talking about hijacking someone’s consciousness like it’s a hostile corporate takeover. Which… fine, I’m in. But we’ll need more than swords, spears, and your tragic backstories.”

“Tragic backstories are the fuel,” The Augur said. “We starve without them. But she… she starves without us. If we all go silent – stop speaking to her entirely – she’ll have no choice but to chase us. And when she does, we take control.”

“Statistically, one of you will get us all killed,” Daehyun said after a beat.“

“Odds are it’s him.” Jaejin tilted his chin toward Jeremy, grin lazy, dangerous.

Jeremy stretched out across the couch, smirk curling like smoke. “And odds are I’ll look hot doing it.” He flicked his lighter open, shut, open again. “We should flip a coin.”

“Coins are unreliable,” Daehyun said flatly, still writing.

Jeremy leaned forward, smile wicked, eyes bright. “Then let’s flip Dae instead.”

Daehyun finally glanced up, expression smooth as glass. “Careful. I don’t land lightly.”

Himchan’s voice cut through, low and dark with amusement. “Flip him, and you’ll find out just how fast my brother crushes skulls. But sure – keep mistaking symmetry for softness. It only makes the clean-up messier.”

That shut the room for a spell.

Lyron yawned. “I still vote for wine.”

Skye shook her head. “Focus. If we pull this off, it won’t just be about finishing our stories – it’ll be about deciding how they end.”

Jeremy leaned forward again, looking more predatory than playful. “Well, if I’m taking the wheel, there’s going to be more sex scenes and fewer corsets.”

“Seconded,” Jaejoong muttered without looking up. “I mean… whatever he said, but… also not.”

Ichigo unfolded from the floor in one fluid motion and stepped right into Jeremy’s space. “You’re not taking the wheel. You’re not even taking the passenger seat. The only place your stories belong is in the bargain bin – right between bad erotica and self-published werewolf fanfic.” No raised voice. No threat.

Jeremy opened his mouth to retort, but Himchan’s low laugh cut across. Not kind. Not friendly. The kind that came from a wolf baring teeth.

Daehyun didn’t look up from his notebook, but his hand stilled just long enough to count. “Cruel,” he murmured.

Their plans circled like vultures – the meeting collapsing into chaos. Alliances formed, then shifted as they spoke. Jeremy making obscene suggestions about ropes, Talia talking battle strategies, Skye rolling her eyes, and Lyron still muttering about wine. Through it all, Gabby never moved. And The Augur watched with the stillness of a predator who had already decided how the night would end.

No one noticed when Daehyun leaned back, notebook balanced on one knee, pen tapping silently. No one except Jaejin, who was sprawled across the arm of his chair, scrolling through his phone like he couldn’t care less.

Their eyes met.

Daehyun angled his notes toward him – not openly, just enough for Jaejin to catch the lines scrawled there. A lattice of connections, dates, unfinished chapters, half-drawn arrows. All the ways the Writer had abandoned them.

Jaejin’s lips curved. He didn’t need words. His smirk said ‘Yes. I see it’. His fingers tapped against his phone, a deliberate rhythm. A beat, that said ‘She won’t survive us’.

Daehyun’s lips twitched in amusement, maybe approval. His gaze flicked to the others, still bickering like dogs over scraps.

Then back to Jaejin.

Together, quietly, they smiled.

And no one noticed. Well, almost no one.

Ichigo had been watching the room like a hunter, reading the silences more than the chaos.

And he saw it. Daehyun’s notebook angled just so, Jaejin’s fingers tapping too deliberately to be idle. Their eyes meeting like conspirators who didn’t need sound to speak. The chair screeched as Ichigo stood, sharp enough to turn every head.

“You two.” His voice landed like a blade in a table. “What are you doing?”

Daehyun didn’t look ruffled. Of course, he didn’t. He just closed the notebook with a snap, sliding it into his coat. “Keeping track,” he said mildly. “Some of us plan instead of sulk.”

Jaejin smirked, flicking his phone shut. “Paranoid, are we? Relax, Ichi. Not everything’s a conspiracy.”

But Ichigo didn’t relax. He stepped closer, close enough that the coat rack on his shoulder brushed Jaejin’s arm. “I know that look. The kind that gets people killed when they’re stupid enough to trust it.”

Daehyun tilted his head, all calm precision. Jaejin grinned wider, all chaotic invitation.

“Cute,” Jaejin said softly, leaning in just enough for only Ichigo to hear. “But you can’t protect her from writers. We always win.”

Ichigo’s jaw tightened, his stance that of one about to take a swing. But he didn’t. He just stepped back, gaze sharp, voice low. “I’m watching you.”

Daehyun smiled faintly. “Good. We like an audience.”

And then the noise of the others flooded back – Jeremy cracking another obscene joke, Lyron yawning like royalty. The moment passed. The tension didn’t.

Skye’s spear tapped against the warped floor, blue hair obscuring her eyes. “We’ve been sitting here talking in circles. None of it matters unless he agrees.”

Everyone’s eyes went to Alex.

He froze mid-fidget with his sword, realising the weight of attention. “Oh, no. Absolutely not. I’m not your damn skeleton key.”

“You are literally the Skeleton Key,” Jaejoong said, bored. “What did you think your title meant? Something cute? Like, ooh, Alex, the one with the mysterious white patch in his hair?”

Alex glared. “I’m not a key. I’m a lock-pick. You can’t shove me into doors until they break, and expect me not to get splinters.

No one answered. They just stared, calculating.

“Stop staring at me like I’m a sacrificial lamb,” Alex muttered, head held back, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose like he’s trying to stop a nosebleed.

“You are,” Daehyun said smoothly, not looking up from his notes.

Talia folded her hands. “We don’t really need you. Just your blood.”

Alex’s grip stilled. “Oh, for fu—”

“And the spell,” Lyron added, grinning like it amused him to throw salt in wounds. “And since we can’t summon the brothers of doom here… we all know who else has it.”

The room grew cold, silent, the ice breaking only when Jeremy muttered, “Oh, please, not the witch.”

“Serafina,” Talia said, voice clipped.

Even Gabby looked uneasy.

“She’ll turn on us the moment she’s free,” Skye said.

“She’ll turn on us anyway,” Jaejoong added. “That’s her brand.”

“Yet we need her,” the Augur murmured, dark amusement curling in his words.

Alex sank to the floor, hands gripping his hair. “You maniacs want my blood and her spell. Fantastic. Do I get a medal for contributing to my own doom?”

For a heartbeat, none of them spoke.

Daehyun finally looked up, eyebrow arched, pen hovering. “Probability of success versus Serafina vanquishing everyone: Thirty-seven percent we survive, ninety-eight percent the epitome of evil survives. Recommend we consider contingency
plans for… everybody.”

Alex groaned, rolling onto his side. “I knew being important meant pain. I didn’t know it meant emotional torture and… potential suicide.”

The Augur’s voice sliced through the room. “Pain sharpens focus. Torture… ensures compliance. Death… is final, yes, but it’s also liberating… in the right hands.”

“Right hands?” Alex’s voice shook. “Yours?”

Jaejin flicked his phone closed, smirked at Alex. “Welcome to being indispensable. Try not to die too fast.”

Daehyun tapped his notebook, serene as ever. “Then let us begin. The Writer will wake in the morning. And by the time she notices us, it will be too late to resist.”

And with that, the motley assembly – thieves of time, manipulators of story, and conspirators of fate – moved as one. The chaos had been planned, and yet… no one could say for certain who would survive the night.

Somewhere above them – or maybe outside them – something shifted. The faint sound of keys tapping paused. A finger hovered over a keyboard.

The writer was listening.

And they all felt it.

Ichigo turned, gaze flickering toward something sensed rather than seen. “She’s here.”

Talia’s eyes narrowed. “Good. Let her hear us.”

The Augur tilted his head, smile sharp as a hook. “Let her wonder if the voices in her head are hers at all.”

For a heartbeat, none of them spoke.

Then, very faintly, somewhere far away, came the sound of a breath catching – the kind of sound a person makes when they’ve just realised they’re not alone.