The trip back to HQ was a quiet one, with all four GLYPH agents opting to simply sit silently on the train back to Braver City and relax. Though Dahye did snap out of her own personal funk long enough to make sure the others were okay after seeing their battle wounds, she did return to wordlessly staring off into space for the remainder of the return.
They arrived at HQ just as quietly (other than Annabelle’s heavy mechanical clunking steps, of course), received some quick little care from Dr. Ivy, then hit the showers and had a change of clothes.
Dahye was the last to emerge from her temporary room, and upon stepping outside, was surprised to find the others waiting for her. “What is it?”
Ace, now clad in a fresh suit free of explosion damage, nodded towards the elevator. “It’s time to eat, right?”
Dahye shook her head. “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to pass this time. I’ll just be heading back h-”
“Negatory, aristocrat!” Annabelle suddenly blurted out, leaving a dent in the wall with her accompanying salute kick. “Eating together is important for strengthening bonds between GLYPH agents! You must participate!”
“Hey, you heard the little lady,” said Ace.
With a sigh, Dahye shrugged. “Well…I guess I could go for a drink, at least.”
“Woooooooooohooooooooooooo!” Dahye hollered, slamming her glass down on the Derring-Do dining table. “We kicked those Diabolus goofs’ asses today! Yeaaaaaaahhhhh!”
She leaned over and wrapped her arms around Gisela, who twitched and winced at the sudden contact. “Oh my gosh, Gisela, you were sooooooo good today with your gun shooting! You saaaaaaved me! You’re such a good girl! I’m soooo proud of youuuuuu!”
Gisela shot a frantic look across the booth to Ace, as if to ask him for some kind of help. But he had no interest in doing anything other than chuckling at her discomfort and Dahye’s drunken silliness. He held his own glass up. “Cheers to that. You came in clutch for me too.”
“S-screw you…!”
Dahye suddenly pushed her glass towards Gisela, and leaned in beside her ear. “Psssst! You can go ahead and drink some,” she whispered. “I know you’re not old enough here in America but it’s okay, I won’t tell~!”
“Not if it’s gonna make me annoying like you,” Gisela replied. She was relieved when Dahye released her to instead give a hug to Annabelle this time.
“And you and your super cool laser armor force field were helpful too, Annabelle!” She planted a kiss on the android girl’s head. “And you are just so adorable, too! Do your little salute for me again, pretty please?”
“Acknowledged, alcoholic!” Annabelle replied, throwing up a double salute and kicking her foot out, knocking over a chair in the table near the group’s booth.
“Ahhhhhhh! You are so precious!” She pushed the android girl out from the booth and followed her, taking her hand in hers and leading her away. “Come, come! Let’s go show everyone how cute you are!”
Gisela watched the entire scene unfold with utter disgust, while Ace laughed and said, “She’s a real riot when she’s drunk, huh?”
“Ugh, she always does this, then?”
“Mmm…kinda,” said Ace, watching as Dahye began introducing Annabelle to the poor customers on the other side of the diner. “She definitely cuts loose when she drinks, but I’m guessing she’s acting out extra hard because she’s probably shaken up about today.”
“What? The fight with Diabolus?”
Ace nodded, turning back to the rookie agent. “Yup. I’m guessing things got messy when she confronted Seth, and our dutiful Lady Dahye ain’t exactly the violent type.” After taking another sip of his drink, he nodded at her. “How are you holding up, by the way? Pretty sure you walked outta there with the biggest body bag count out of all of us.”
With a shrug, Gisela replied, “Is it supposed to bother me?”
“Well, maybe not the soldier part of you, but the teenage girl part of you, maybe.”
“Well it doesn’t.”
Ace sighed, setting his drink back down on the table. “I’m not gonna tell you to readjust that way of thinking – I’d definitely be a hypocrite if I did – but I guess I oughta at least warn you not to get too detached from human life, especially not so quickly.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”
“Good talk.”
Dahye and Annabelle soon returned, though the former did not join the latter in sitting back down in the booth. Instead, Dahye yanked off her white jacket and held her hands out towards Ace. “Aaaaaaace! Come dance with meeeee~!”
“Oh boy, is it finally my turn to be publicly embarrassed by you?” Ace asked, sliding out from the booth. “Well, it wouldn’t be a proper team bonding meal without me participating in this part too, yeah?”
Dahye threw her arms around his neck and nearly headbutted him. “You sound so funny with your maaaask!” she giggled, tapping her nose against it like a beak. “You should take it off!”
“Sorry to deprive you of my handsome face, gorgeous, but that’s a no go for me.”
“Boooooooo!”
Gisela pulled out her handheld and booted it up, desperate to get her mind off of the embarrassment at having to currently be associated with Dahye in her current state. As she loaded up the game, Annabelle leaned in to look at the screen. “What are you doing?”
“Playing a game.”
“Is my participation required here as well?”
“No…Actually, wait.” Gisela grabbed her bag and pulled out a second handheld, passing it over to Annabelle. “Yeah, you can play too.”
Annabelle saluted her, which unfortunately caused her to drop the device onto the table. Thankfully, no damage was done to it. “Aye aye, amigo!”
As much as Ace was internally cringing at standing in the middle of a diner during lunch time dancing with Dahye’s drunk ass, he didn’t find himself trying to put an early stop to it. Something about it was oddly enjoyable? It was comfy, and soothing, and…reminiscent of when he used to dance with Claire. Yeah, that was definitely it. After realizing that, it did become slightly less enjoyable…
Dahye rested her head on his chest. “Hey, Ace? Do you ever get lonely?”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
“Yeah, but I mean, like, not being with someone.” Her eyes wandered over to the other side of the diner. A few of the tables were occupied by couples out on a lunch date, some appreciating the drunk dancing entertainment, some regretting their choice of locale, certainly. “Like, not having a boyfriend…Or husband…”
“Can’t say I’m especially interested in having a boyfriend or husband, personally, but I get what you mean,” Ace replied, patting her on the head. “If you want a boyfriend so bad, why not start dating? You’d have no problem at all landing a man.”
“I did have one, but he-” Dahye began, though she cut herself off by shoving her face into his chest, causing the rest of her sentence to be an incomprehensible jumble of grumbling. When she eventually did pull away, she looked directly into the visor of his mask. “Have sex with me~”
He shook his head. “No can do.”
“Whyyyyyy? You sleep with all the other girls at GLYPH, don’t you?” Dahye asked, her face contorting into a cute little pout. “Am I not pretty enough?”
“Oh, no, you’re fucking stunning, and on any other day, I’d say yes,” he said, gently taking her waist and pushing her back slowly. “But, uh, drunk girls are a no-go for me.”
“I’m not drunk, you’re drunk~!”
He chuckled, guiding her back down to sit down at the booth. “Nice try, but I have my mask set to prevent that.”
As he slid back into the booth beside her, Dahye dropped her arms across the table, then slammed her face into them. “I’m gonna die alooooooone!”
Annabelle once again dropped the handheld to throw up her two-handed salute, and poor Gisela scrambled to catch it before it bounced off of the table and hit the floor. “Negatory, auntie! Your GLYPH agent teammates are currently present and will keep you safe from death!”
Following the Derring-Do lunch, Ace, Annabelle, and Gisela led Dahye back to her room at GLYPH HQ. With their current list of work finished, they were free to return home to their personal lives.
Annabelle, of course, stayed at HQ, with Saschia escorting her to the laboratories to perform maintenance on her.
Gisela left for the airport to catch a flight back to Georgia, though not before dropping off her second handheld at the front desk requesting the receptionist give that to Annabelle as a gift when she was able to.
Ace found himself knocking on the door to Malena’s office.
“Come in.”
Inside, he made sure to play up the severity of his aches, cuts, bruises, and burns as he dropped down onto the chair opposite the boss’s desk. He knew it was pointless to try and pull that act over Malena of all people, but whatever. “Aaaagh…”
“Oh? Are you alright, dear?” Malena asked.
“Yeah. Little banged up after that, ah, altercation with Diabolus, but I’ll be alright,” he replied. “Especially if I get some nice R&R.”
“Ace, you know that if you want a break from GLYPH work, all you have to do is ask, yes? Are you afraid Mommy will say no?”
“Eh, I wouldn’t word it like that, exactly,” he began. “But, uh, yeah. I think I need a little time off, if that’s alright with you.”
“Mommy understands,” she said. “Your encounter with Ghoul surely reopened some old wounds, especially surrounding Cl-”
“Yeah, yeah, you don’t gotta finish that.”
Malena gave him a smile. A smile that, on the surface, looked as warm, supportive, and gentle as his own mother’s. A smile he’d come to recognize as anything but that. She knew what she was doing, bringing up Claire, even if all she spoke aloud was a fragment of her name. She knew that saying it would stir his feeling of desire for some kind of vengeance for her death – a vengeance that could only be satisfied by continuing to work for GLYPH. For her.
“Well, you’ve certainly earned yourself a nice, long, relaxing break,” Malena said. “By all means, take it, dear. Enjoy yourself. We have our two wonderful new recruits who’ve shown lots of promise, and I think they could be capable of handling any threats that may arise in your absence. Even Ghoul.”
He let out a deep, heavy sigh. His brain was telling him over and over to not say what he was about to, but he couldn’t stop himself. He never could. “Ah…it won’t be a long break. I’ll be back soon.”
“Awww, thank you so much, Ace. You’re such a good boy~”
“Yeah…Thanks.”
A short few hours after being dropped off at her room at HQ, Dahye awoke in a sweat, having had the image of Seth’s bisected body flashing across her mind.
After downing a few more drinks and ignoring Dhara’s protests, she stumbled out of her room, and out of HQ. She wandered along the sidewalk, and found two young men chatting at a bus stop. She sat down on one of their laps and asked them for directions to the nearest hotel.
Not long after, the three of them were in a room at said hotel – the same hotel BB had stayed in just a few days prior. In fact, they were in the room right across the hall from the one she’d booked.
Dahye found herself on all fours in between the two boys, both barely eighteen and pounding away at her roughly, frantically, and sloppily. They were virgins – or had been, anyway – and couldn’t believe their luck getting to suddenly lose their virginities fucking the most beautiful woman either of them had ever laid eyes on.
She didn’t seem to care that they weren’t very good lays, or perhaps her senses were a bit too dulled to notice. In that moment, all she really wanted was to get her mind off of the Diabolus battle, and the image of Seth especially.
The one pounding away at her mouth came first, digging his fingers into her hair and plunging himself as deeply into her throat as he could. Dahye slurped down every drop, and tried to keep him in place and continue her sucking even after he finished cumming into her mouth, but the stimulation was too much for his sensitive dick, and he pulled out from her.
She turned back to face the other boy, wishing he’d put a little more oomph into his thrusts. She tried throwing her ass back into him to help, but she could feel him instantly become ready to burst.
While she certainly wasn’t in the best state of mind, she did at least have enough sense to prevent him from cumming inside her. She pulled off of his cock and spun around onto her back, squeezing her huge tits together, priming them for a nice cumshot.
Luckily, he seemed to get the idea even without any words, straddling her tummy and stroking away at his dick. With a groan, he began spraying spurts of his jizz, coating her stomach, tits, and neck. She held her tongue out, hoping to catch a few drops, though none of his ropes reached that high, unfortunately.
After a brief rest, the boys swapped places while Dahye remained on her back. The one now fucking her pussy had a wonderful view of her boobs swinging madly from his rough thrusting, while his friend got to see her pretty blue eyes looking up into him as her lips squeezed around his balls.
The boys came again not long after, and found themselves spent, and also needing to leave in a hurry to catch another bus to get to the concert they planned to go to. That left Dahye alone in the hotel room, her fingers blasting away at her pussy to give herself the orgasm she sadly hadn’t been able to experience during the sex.
She took a long, lonely shower in the hotel room afterwards, and made her way back to GLYPH HQ.
Shutting the door to her room behind her and slinging her bag over her shoulder, Dahye prepared to head out to the airport to catch a flight back to Denver. But before she could leave, she happened to cross paths with Malena.
“Oh, hello, Dahye dear,” the GLYPH boss greeted with a wave. “I’m surprised to see you’re still here. I thought you would have left to get back home to Dohee as soon as possible.”
Dahye winced, having already been racked with guilt at delaying her return with her drunken nap and threesome. “Ah, yes, I’m actually heading to the airport right now. I, um…I suppose I got a little distracted.”
“Oh, I hope you’re not beating yourself up for that, dear,” Malena replied, reaching out and gently resting her fingers on Dahye’s arm. “There’s certainly no shame in taking some time to relax and have some fun. Especially after what happened during your mission.”
Dahye once again winced as the image of Seth being sliced in half appeared in her mind, after she’d managed to keep the thought away since picking up those two boys earlier…
Sensing her host’s discomfort, Dhara appeared in the hallway, releasing a low growl within her throat. “Come, Dahye. It is time to return home.” Had Dahye’s eyes not been aimed at the floor in one direction in the same instance that Dhara’s aimed the other way towards the exit, at least one of the pair would have noticed Malena’s own eyes glance over in the Blue Dragon Spirit’s direction, for a mere fraction of a second, before settling back on Dahye.
“Ah, well, I hope you have a good flight. I’m sure cute little Dohee is going to be very excited to see her Mommy again, hm?”
“Ha, I certainly hope so,” Dahye replied with an awkward forced clearing of her throat before taking a step to follow after Dhara.
But she was immediately cut off as Malena again began to speak. “You know, dear, you really have been doing a wonderful job with your GLYPH work, that I think you should be rewarded.”
“Um, thank you, ma’am, but that isn’t nece-”
“How about $10,000?” Malena asked with a smile that made Dahye’s eyes widen. “It’s not much, but I think you could get some mileage out of it, no? Pay some bills, take some time off from work, or maybe treat Dohee to a fun little vacation?”
Dahye simply stood there slack-jawed for a few moments, until she finally came to her senses. “Ah, that, um, well, th-thank you, Mrs. Meralda, really! I-I don’t know how I can ever repay-”
Malena held a hand up. “Oh no no, honey, you don’t have to repay me. It’s simply a bonus for all of your excellent work.” With a wink and a wave, she began to leave, her heels clacking against the floor with each swaying step. “And I can certainly arrange for more of that in the future if you keep up the good work, dear~”
The Blue Dragon Spirit returned to Dahye’s side with an amused snort. “I suppose that addresses your careless promise to your daughter.”
Dahye rang the doorbell of Darla and Damien’s house, antsy to finally see Dohee again. She was quite exhausted from the plane ride, in addition to her GLYPH work earlier in the day, but getting to reunite with her daughter, and also deliver the good news of now having the money to honor her promise to take her on a vacation had given her a second wind.
“Heyyy, girl!” Darla greeted, stepping aside to let Dahye inside. “She’s in the living room with Dinah.”
“Thanks again so much,” Dahye said, giving Darla a hug before hurrying to the living room. Darla was aware of the nature of Dahye’s GLYPH work, and had also learned that the latter wasn’t a fan of talking about it, so she knew better than to ask about it, even as standard small talk. Just lead her back to Dohee – that’s all that mattered when she came back.
And there Dohee was, playing fetch with the dalmatian, Dinah. She giggled madly each time she threw the rubber ball across the living room and watched the dog goofily scramble around the ottoman in pursuit of it, seemingly still unused to how big it had actually become in comparison to its puppy days, bumping into everything in its path and slipping on the hardwood floor.
“Having fun?” Dahye asked, prompting Dohee to turn to her and rush into her arms, leaving Dinah with no choice but to stand at Dahye’s legs and wag her tail waiting for her to take the ball from her slobbery jaws.
“Mommy, can we get a dog?” Dohee pleaded, a question Dahye was playfully dreading, especially after Darla and Damien had teasingly warned her that that very question was inevitable once Dohee got to play with Dinah. “Please, pleasepleaseplease?”
“I dunno, that’s a big responsibility,” she replied, reaching out to pet Dinah. “Hmm…Maybe if you do a good job helping Auntie Darla and Uncle Damien take care of Dinah for a bit, I’ll think about it.”
Amidst Dohee’s affirmations that she would do exactly that, Dahye made sure to thank Darla and Damien once more, promising to catch up with them when she had the time. For right now, she just wanted to get back home and get some proper sleep.
“Hey, guess what?” she asked as she pulled out of the driveway, looking into the rearview mirror. “Now that Mommy’s back home, we get to go on vacation to Dragonia Park~!”
Even Dhara couldn’t help but smile at Dohee’s excited reaction.
