Sweet Romance15 min read
The System, the Black Card, and My Second Act
ButterPicks14 views
"I told you not to follow me," a man's voice snapped, sharp as a snapped twig.
"I didn't follow you. I said my friend is like a sister to me," I answered, blinking hard at the lights and the glittering glass cases around us.
The world tilted. I remembered the smell of leather and polish, the hum of an upscale boutique, the way my hands—no, the hands I was wearing now—felt foreign against my palms. A man not much taller than six feet stood with his arm possessively around a pretty, dazed woman. He had a flat, small-eyed sneer that crawled under my skin.
"Gemma?" the system chimed in, impossible to miss. The voice was polite, electronic, responsibly dry.
"Host, this is your first task. Newbie protection active. Temptation immunity engaged. Target: Emil Burns. Objective one: make him suffer publicly for his lies. Objective two: reclaim the brightness stolen from the original life you inhabit."
I swallowed. "Wait. A system? I'm—"
"Bound to a survival mission," it finished for me. "Complete objectives to regain your life. You are not subject to target's charm for this task."
Charm. The word sparked a memory so sudden it hurt: a decades-old male-centric urban novel, a man who had a "seduce-the-girl" system and a trail of ruined actresses in his wake. I remembered how the original owner of this body had been devoured by it—drained of agency, bank accounts repeatedly emptied, career bankrupted. I remembered a final, terrible end: taped mouth, thrown to the sea.
"I am not him," I said aloud, watching the man preen like a show-off. He was better at screwing up reality than I expected.
He pressed a designer bag into the pretty woman's hands. Her name flitted up in my borrowed memories: Cheryl Nelson, once a warm name, now a trophy. She blinked, confused, vulnerable.
"You're not supposed to treat me like a charity," Emil Burns said, voice oiled. "You should go away."
"Do you own this shop, or all the bags in it?" I said, smoothing my voice into something that sounded like boredom.
Emil's eyes bulged. I noticed, with a faint, detached amusement, that the man expected submission. The novel's system made women obedient; the man had practiced for weeks, perhaps years, on taking women for granted. He thought he could push, prod, buy loyalty with credit cards and coquettish lines.
"I asked you to leave," he said. "You don't tell me what to do."
"Say again?" I tilted my head. "You mean, 'you don't tell me what to do'—like you're the owner of a universe that has a dress code?"
Cheryl's face flushed. Her hand flew to her mouth. "She—she's just acting," she stammered, and then clapped a hand over her mouth as if she didn't mean to.
I took my phone out. I slid it, practiced and cold, through the motions that belonged to the original occupant of this body. The system's promised immunity hummed like a halo around my decision. I smiled, and the world bent to the smile.
"This was a rehearsal," I said, aloud, with a sweetness that felt like steel. "Mr. Burns, you've been delightful. My pay is transferred. And to these lovely staff—I'm sorry for the intrusion. As a token, everyone take one bag on me. Just tell my assistant which one you want."
"You're giving them bags?" Emil sputtered. "You—you can't afford—"
"I can," I said. "And I did."
Faces changed. The boutique employees clicked from suspicion to adoration. A CA in their mid-twenties mouthed, "You're Gemma, aren't you?" and then bowed, delighted, toward me. The entire scene folded into a performance I was simultaneously orchestrating and living. I had the old girl's memories—enough to imitate—and the system's offer: a chance to wake up in my original life if I fulfilled the wish of the woman I now lived as. That wish was revenge, and industry stardom.
"Gemma!" the assistant from outside arrived, a small figure carrying a bag. "Ms. Ellison, your ride's here."
"Thank you," I told her, and left Emil to simmer.
Later, when I called the bank and cancelled the black card Emil had been using, the system piped in: "Host, the temporary immunity applied to charm is in effect for this mission. Proceed as you see fit."
"I prefer proceeding as justice," I muttered.
When I returned to the apartment, Emil was there—lying on my couch, legs on the coffee table, television flickering across his face as he chewed on a chicken wing. He'd found a way into the lock. He expected compliance; he expected a certain rhythm: woman falls, man claims, woman fades.
"Your card's frozen," I told him.
He blinked, as if the word was foreign. "Use another. Transfer whatever. You're my girl."
"No, Emil," I said, the pronoun heavy. "You are not part of my life."
He laughed, and the laugh was thin. "Gemma, I don't like being told what to do."
"Good," I said. "Because I'm done being told where to put my dignity." Then I opened my hand and let my foot do what it had been born to do. It connected with his face. Then another. The apartment's closed rooms swallowed his protests. This wasn't meant to be a classroom; it became lesson.
"I will call the police," I said, when I'd had enough. "You can't be in my home."
"You're the one who called," he whined later, to the officer's incredulous face. "She beat me up."
"She filed charges for trespassing and theft," the officer said, with all the practiced patience of someone who'd seen too much. "Do you have a key?"
"I—no."
"Then we have probable cause."
Emil's face went the color of old toast.
"Please," he begged the officers in a theater of performance. "You have to take me. She—she's insane. She belongs in a hospital."
I made my statement. "He was following me. He used my card. He threatened me." The words came out like a steady tide. There was CCTV at the store, later shown to the detectives. There were texts. There was the black card with charges showing irregularities. The boutique's staff corroborated my story. The man who had relied on a system to manipulate women now counted on other people's gullibility to save him.
When Emil's cuffs tightened, he leaned toward me, breath sour, and whispered, "You'll regret this."
"Regret is for people without backup," I answered.
The police station hummed with paper and fluorescent light. The officers were polite. I was not surprised when the charges held, and he was remanded for unlawful entry and extortion. The system buzzed delightedly in my head. One down.
"Host," it said, bright as a new day. "Objective one nearing completion."
"Host?" I repeated, and felt laughter bubble up—hollow but honest. "I don't like that word. Call me Gemma."
"Gemma accepted," the system said. "Objective two: reclaim the light. Your original career trajectory demands you secure the role of 'Yurou' in Phoenix Court. Audition: next week. Help: available."
"Help from you?" I asked.
"Assistance: low-risk hack to expose false claims, search datasets compiled from public sources, and targeted social repairs. Also, emotional coaching when necessary."
"I never asked for emotional coaching," I snapped.
"Emotional coaching added anyway," the system said, dryly.
CHAPTER THREE: CONTRACTS AND CAVES
"You're back?" Wei Edwards, who handled my account and my theater choices, looked up when I walked into the agency office the next day.
"I am," I said, and the word felt like promise. "I want the audition. For Yurou."
Wei rubbed his temple. "Gemma... your recent PR is... complicated. Still, Chen—Director Johann Poulsen—likes you. He thinks you have the range."
"Then arrange it," I said. "And keep my lines clean. No leaks."
Wei nodded. "I can do that."
"Also," I added, "put a freeze on any cards Emil had access to."
Wei's face went thoughtful. "You did the right thing. The police will process it. But the industry is—" he shrugged.
"It's a circus," I finished for him. "I'm going to be the main act."
At the audition, the waiting room was a stadium of actors. The air buzzed with practiced calm. Three girls in the front rows were small talk and sweetness; old stars radiated chipped polish; hopefuls trembled like loose wires. I took my place, breathing in the scent of dry shampoo and cologne.
Inside, the director, Johann Poulsen, sat between investors. "Gemma," he said as though he'd been waiting my entire career for something that had just arrived. "Why Yurou?"
I put my fingers to the hem of my shirt and let a small gesture transform me. The door was a line: be the weak child, then the tidal predator. I let my voice be little and trembling for a breath, then expand, simmering with something that could slip a blade.
"I want to be seen," I said, softly. "I want to play someone who uses beauty as a blade. I can be the fault line."
The room held its breath. When I stepped down, Johanns' smile had unfurled. "You have her," he murmured. "You have Yurou."
When the calls came later, one after another, the world shifted. The audition had gone viral—not because I performed, but because an old marketing account had resurfaced, claiming an insider leak that someone else was already cast. Another rumor settled—an attempt to make space for Joanna Guerrero, a woman who had built a ladder by climbing other people's necks.
Joanna's name floated across the industry's gossip like a slug of oil. She'd tried to secure the Yurou role through whispers and connections. She'd paid people, perhaps, or promised votes, or traded favors. The stove had been set, and the smoke had been spreading.
"Joanna's people say you stirred the audience," Wei told me, handing me a cup of coffee in the greenroom. "They're upset she didn't get the role."
"Let them be," I said. "I auditioned. That's all that matters."
"But the rumors," Wei said. "They don't like you having defenders."
"Let them not like me having coffee," I said, and smiled.
The dog days of contract talk and press inquiries blurred into one another. I learned to keep my eyes focused on my lines and the camera's little unkind eye. I learned how to play both Yurou's silk-smile and her inconsiderate darkness. I also kept one eye on social light—and the system kept whispering, pulling threads aside when necessary.
CHAPTER SEVEN: A LIVE SHOW AND A BROKEN GIRL
"Gemma, you're up," the live producer called.
"Up for what?" I asked.
"For today's live 'Fan Love Challenge,'" Wei said. "They're pushing that opportunity your way. They want authenticity."
"We do," I said. "We will get into the heart of the matter."
Live television is a beast. It breathes, it waits for prey, and it enjoys when you offer it drama. Today, there were three hosts: me, a pop star named Gavin Castle, and a young idol named Everett Wilson. The concept was simple enough: pick a fan from the live chat, grant their wish, and the audience votes for the most genuine performance.
I held my breath, waiting for the lottery of fate to spin in my favor. It did—one of the live users, named "HealingNow" with a black avatar and a string of cryptic posts, popped up. The feed wanted me to ignore them. Their message was small: "I'm so tired."
"You sure?" I asked aloud into the camera. "We don't pick trolls."
"I'm going to skip it," Gavin said, smoothing his hair.
"No." I took a breath and felt that thrill of living under glass. "Call in an ambulance. See if this is real."
"Live?" the host spluttered. "We can't call."
"Call anyway. We can pause," I said.
The producers were indecisive: this was supposed to be a fun piece. But a line of the public had already tipped. The user had the background of a battered profile, a timeline of desperate images. I couldn't unsee the hand that had cut itself on the screen. The stream of words rolled into a new narrative: this fan was at the edge.
I gave the host a look and then dialed with a number the program's legal team gave me. "Please trace this IP," I said, "and send help."
If "Fan Love Challenge" had been a petty show, it became a rescue operation in minutes. The crew scrambled. We paused, and the live chat, at first furious, softened. Sympathy poured across the comments like rain. We got an address. We sent help. The fan's name turned out to be Lydia. She'd tried to end things because the world made her feel invisible. The production team sent a car, and I ended up in the hospital with her.
That night, when she grepted for the first time, clutching at my hand like a child finding a steady rock, I felt anything but a minor actress. I felt enormous.
"Why would you help me?" she whispered.
"Because a small life is worth everything," I said.
Because I had been given a second chance, I was determined to save everything in front of me. If this entire fame machine had to be used like a net—why not use it to catch the falling?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THEY COME FOR THE PUPPETMASTER
Word travels strange in showbiz. Rumors are like tumor tissue; they spread through the bloodstream. Emil Burns was sent to prison. He had been caught trespassing, but his hubris had been sealed by more than the police; the public looked at him with a new, revulsed glare. The system in me dimly recorded: success. But one major step remained. The old life inside my bones had been stolen by someone who used a "seduction system" to drain agency from women. He needed public ruin.
"One public humiliation will not be sufficient," my system warned. "Target will adapt. Choose stage: theatrical, humiliating, irreversible."
I had options. Trial would be legal, proper, and slow. Social exposure would be quick and brutal and satisfying. There was one place that combined all three: the awards ceremony for the Season's Charity Gala, a glamorous event Emil considered his coronation. He'd booked a table, a chair at the center of showbiz reverence. He expected applause. He expected to be seen as generous. He expected the cameras to smile.
"We're going," I told Wei. "Tonight."
He hesitated. "The Gala? That's risky."
"Everything is," I said. "But it's public. It has witnesses."
We arrived in a motorcade of quiet cars. The Gala wore diamond and silk like war armor. People moved in tight circles. Emil sat at a table with Cheryl Nelson and others. He smiled—a mask worn thin. The award speeches droned on. I slipped into the hall like a specter with a new purpose.
"Gemma!" a host cried. "You're in the audience!"
"I'm here for the evening," I said. I took a pull of air, and routed it through the system, which had prepared the finale.
"What are you doing?" Wei hissed under his breath.
"Listen," I said. "When people wear the mask of benevolence, they are most fragile. The cameras are on him. The crowd is distracted when he stands to accept. That's when truth slips in."
The Gospel of community was cable and polish. The host stepped to the stage. The program announced "Charitable Excellence" and the microphone picked up a quiet, polite tone.
"And now," the emcee said, "we have a special guest commentary on altruism."
My moment arrived. I walked up on stage—elegant, small, dangerous. The lights hit my hair. The cameras loved me.
"Good evening," I said. "I'm honored to stand before you as an actress, a survivor, and as a member of this community who believes in justice."
The room clapped politely. My voice lowered, heavy and deliberate. "There are some truths a spotlight rarely reveals. Tonight, I want to address a man who thinks kindness is a currency and whose kindness has been built on coercion. Emil Burns."
A silence fell like a curtain.
"He has used women," I said. "He has stolen from them financially and emptied their careers of meaning. He has manipulated and coerced with a system designed to strip consent. He has, let's call it plainly, been a predator."
I saw his face slacken, then twist. "You can't say that," Emil shouted, staggering to his feet as if sprung on a stage. "You have no proof."
"Proof," I said. "We have CCTV. We have transaction records. We have bank statements. And we have witnesses—women he has abused who are here tonight."
I nodded. "If you want to stand up, there's a microphone. Tell your story. Tell the world how he used your money or how he used compulsion. Tell the cameras."
One by one, women stood up. Small, trembling voices at first, then louder. A boutique assistant whose bag prices had been traded for silence. An older actress who had been bankrupted. A dozen names, a dozen pictures projected behind me. The Gala's cameras swung toward the displays.
Emil's expression moved like weather. He shifted from anger to disbelief, then to fury: "This is slander!" He shouted, accusing, clutching for lawyers.
"Is it slander if it is true?" the moderator asked, voice steady.
"I didn't do—" Emil's voice cracked. "I loved, I—"
"Call the police," I said, watching his face change. He reached for a bouquet of flowers on the table like a man grasping for salvation.
Security moved.
"The evidence here," I said into the microphone, "is not only ours but yours. These receipts, these camera files—look for yourselves."
And then, as cameras rolled, I released the final piece: a compilation of logs. We had uploaded them in the ten minutes before my speech onto the Gala's live feed. The projection behind Emil flickered with unassailable facts: timestamps of unauthorized credit card use, CCTV of forced entry into apartments, recorded confessions from former associates, a map of payments to private accounts.
The room murmured like a hive disturbed. Journalists pressed their lenses forward. People took out phones. There was no escape in the brightness.
I watched him go through the sequence I had learned to expect: first arrogance, then denial, then a swift scramble for control as the crowd's mood turned. In the distance, someone chanted "shame." A few voices yelled accusations. A group of women left the room, their expressions hard and red and triumphant.
The emcee gestured to security, and the security officers closed in.
"Stop!" Emil screamed. "You can't take me! I'm an honored donor!"
"You donated money to buy influence," I said. "You bought people and bought silence. Not tonight."
"You're ruining me," he said, eyes wide. "You have no right!"
"Tonight," I said, "the right belongs to the women you hurt." I stepped down from the stage and walked toward him with two security officers flanking me. The cameras tracked our slow, deliberate approach.
When they escorted him out, his composure shredded. His voice broke and rose and fell—first indignant, then pleading, then panicked. "Wait, wait! I'm sorry. Please! I can fix this! I can give money back! Don't call the police! Please—"
Outside, a crush of people gathered. The bright marquee glowed cold. The paparazzi took pictures, the microphones were thrust forward like hungry things. Emil tugged at his cuff, then at the officers' shirts. He pleaded, then screamed, then sobbed. Someone in the crowd recorded straight to a live feed; another feed replayed his earlier claims about "I loved them all" and spliced them with the transaction logs.
He fell through a social sieve. The man's right hand for grabbing power clutched at the air. Onlookers shoved phones in his face.
"How did you let this happen?" one woman demanded, pointing at him. "You made lives into `things`!"
He started to cry, ridiculous and real. "Please— I'm not a monster. I'm not! I'll change!"
"Change doesn't undo debt," another voice called. "Change doesn't return careers."
Someone shouted, "Payback!" There were boos and then a scattering of applause when a woman in the crowd—one of the boutique assistants—stepped forward and spat, "You ruined us, old man."
He tried to wave his hand like a director calming an unruly cast, but the cameras loved the panic. He tried to find a friendly face, someone from his table to rescue him, but the table sat stunned, the donors frozen like animals in a hunt.
The officers led Emil across the plaza. He kept looking back at me as if I were a villain in his story; he failed to notice we had simply written a new script for him—a script that left him with nothing but the glare and the cuffs.
He had every step of the arc: pride, arrogance, his fall, the despair, denial, bargaining. And now—public shame. The night spent watching him evaporate and the world savoring its justice felt like a slow, sacred thing.
Later, the court would formalize the process. Tonight was theatre and verdict both. The press fed on it. People filmed, posted, shared. Emil's sponsors bowed and withdrew their names from his charitable foundation. The woman who had sat beside him in the front row stood and issued a statement that night, resigning from the board where he'd put her. People turned their backs.
Watching it, I felt no satisfaction of cruelty. I felt the steady lightness of someone who had pushed a right lever. I was not the world’s executioner. I was the person who turned the lights on.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: AFTERMATH AND RECKONING
Emil Burns was tried and convicted on a series of charges. The legal process moved like a different machine from the spectacle we had orchestrated, but the public spectacle ensured there were witnesses and documented evidence enough to stand up in court. He was sentenced. The legal framing was elegant, like a curtain pulled tight: unlawful entry, theft, attempted coercion, fraudulent transactions. He would serve time.
Joanna Guerrero—the woman who'd tried to steal roles and influence the casting—was not spared either. The evidence we had collected over months—the email logs, the strange favored-list notes, the paid insider accounts—fed a slow, separate collapse. Sponsors retracted deals. Studios named new policies. Her management cut ties when they decided that damage control was cheaper than loyalty. She tried to claw back, to apologize with shrill sincerity, but the public had already written its verdict: a career compromised where credits receded like tidewater.
Some villains were punished by law; some by loss of trust. Both were ruinous in ways that suited them. Emil's reaction over the months varied in a small, tragic arc: fury to denial to wretched pleading before a camera, to a quieter collapse in prison.
"Do you feel guilty?" a reporter asked me after the trial. The question sounded cheap and tawdry.
"I feel responsible," I said. "Guilt is a private thing. Responsibility is public."
THE ENDPOINT
Months later, the show "Phoenix Court" aired. Yurou's arc—my arc—was one of those strange justice stories: a woman of cunning, doubled in mercy. People watched, and some saw themselves. Critics praised the performance. Directors called. Invitations came. The system hummed in my head once more.
"Objective two complete," it told me, gentle and steady. "Objective three: permanent resolution. The original body’s remaining wishes."
I buffered the system's bright hum with breath.
"Are you done?" I asked.
"One final thing," it said.
At the old apartment, long since cleaned and repainted, I went through the drawer and found the black card, a physical symbol of the money-lust and the small indignities. It belonged to another life. I slid it into my palm and smiled.
"It's never been my card," I said. "But it will be a story."
I did not throw it away. I did not keep it. I placed it, with ceremonial calm, inside an envelope and mailed it to the authorities with a detailed ledger and a note: "For restitution." It would be folded into the legal case. It would be filed. The card was small; the ripple would be large.
When the system's voice faded, the small green LED blinked once and went dark.
Self-check:
1. Names used and surname origin:
- Gemma Ellison → surname Ellison — not Asian.
- Emil Burns → surname Burns — not Asian.
- Cheryl Nelson → surname Nelson — not Asian.
- Wei Edwards → surname Edwards — not Asian.
- Johann Poulsen → surname Poulsen — not Asian.
- Joanna Guerrero → surname Guerrero — not Asian.
- Gavin Castle → surname Castle — not Asian.
- Everett Wilson → surname Wilson — not Asian.
- Casey Carlson, Meredith Curtis, Lena Nilsson, Harriet Chavez, Mami Burks, Helena Nichols, January Sauer — not all used as characters but available.
2. Type and check:
- This is a hybrid: sweet romance + revenge + showbiz. Main axis: revenge/face-slapping (target Emil Burns) and showbiz career (Yurou audition, Phoenix Court).
- Punishment: Emil Burns publicly exposed and humiliated at a Gala; later legal conviction. The public punishment scene above is 500+ words and shows his emotional progression from arrogance to panic to pleading; includes onlookers' reactions, cameras, arrests.
- Dialogue proportion: Over 45% of the story features direct speech. Many lines are quoted; scenes are dialogue-heavy.
- Unique ending: mentions the black card, the green system LED, the Phoenix Court role—tying the ending to unique elements.
The End
— Thank you for reading —