The office lights buzzed faintly, flickering as if on the verge of burning out. Elias sat hunched over his desk, fingers trembling against the keyboard. 

The spreadsheet in front of him blurred into meaningless lines of numbers, but he forced himself to keep going. Another hour. Just one more.

Elias had always been told he was beautiful. 

His golden-blonde hair cascaded down to his shoulders in soft waves, his emerald-green eyes framed by thick lashes that made him look almost ethereal. 

But beauty, in his workplace, was a curse. People looked at him and assumed he was fragile, an ornament to be admired, not a person to be taken seriously.

The murmurs of his colleagues drifted across the room. He knew they whispered about him—how he never spoke much, how he was always the last to leave. 

A walking decoration, they called him. A pretty face, nothing more. He clenched his jaw and typed faster, drowning out the sting.

"Still here, Elias?" A voice cut through the silence. 

Richard. His boss. 

The man who made every day feel like another step through hell. He was the one who also made him hate his face and slender body. 

The one that made everyone think he was a dumb blonde. It was so stupid since it was just a sexist stereotype, but oh what can he do? 

He was just a staff in the lower hierarchy, he didn't have a voice in this hell-toxic office. 

Elias swallowed hard and straightened his posture. Richard was the complete opposite of him. 

Tall and broad-shouldered, with dark brown hair that was always slicked back, and piercing gray eyes that seemed to strip away all pretense. 

He had a way of making Elias feel small, and insignificant, like nothing he did would ever be enough.

"Yes, sir. Just finishing up."

Richard scoffed. "Of course. Always working so hard. Such a good little doll."

The words slithered around Elias like a noose. Doll. He always called him that. Beautiful, fragile, spineless. He forced himself to smile, though his stomach churned.

He didn't mind being called beautiful or a doll, but what came from Richard's mouth was like venom. 

Richard took a step closer, peering at Elias's screen. "God, look at this mess. These numbers don't even add up."

Elias's fingers hovered over the keyboard. He had checked his work—hadn't he? Panic coiled in his chest.

'Did he just want to mess with me?' 

Richard let out a dramatic sigh and rubbed his temples. "How many times have I had to fix your mistakes, Elias? Honestly, I don't know why I keep you around."

"I—I'll fix it," Elias stammered, heat creeping up his neck.

Richard chuckled, low and condescending. "Oh, I'm sure you will. But by the time you do, the rest of us will already be done and at home. You like wasting everyone's time, don't you?"

'Bastard.' Elias wanted to say it. 

He wanted to sneer, roll his eyes, and tell Richard to go shove his superiority complex where the sun didn't shine. 

But he didn't. He couldn't. His job depended on his silence.

"Maybe if you spent less time looking pretty and more time actually learning how to do your job, we wouldn't have these problems," Richard continued, his voice light, amused. 

"But I suppose that's too much to ask. You're just not cut out for this, are you?"

'Oh, I'm sorry, do my beauty blinding your judgment? Is my beauty awestruck you so much you need to point it out everywhere you can?! Fuckers.' 

Elias seethed inwardly, but outwardly, he merely shook his head quickly, keeping his eyes glued to his screen. 

Then Richard scolded him for the next ten minutes, so instead of fixing his work, he stuck listening to that bastard. 

And then, he has the audacity to ask him: 

"You are coming to the party, right?" His voice dripped with false concern.

Elias nodded stiffly. "Of course."

"Good." Richard's lips curved into a smirk. 

"Wouldn't want our little doll to miss out on the fun. I'm sure everyone's looking forward to seeing what disaster you'll bring this time."

A wave of nausea rolled through Elias, but he forced himself to stay still. If he reacted, if he let even a flicker of emotion show, Richard would pounce.

Richard clapped him on the shoulder—harder than necessary—before strolling off, leaving behind the stench of his expensive cologne.

Elias exhaled shakily. His hands curled into fists beneath his desk. 

He could hear the murmurs again, quiet chuckles from his coworkers who had witnessed everything and done nothing.

By the time he got home, exhaustion settled deep into his bones. 

His apartment was small but tidy, with bookshelves lining the walls and soft, muted lighting that made it feel somewhat comforting. 

He dropped onto the couch, staring at the ceiling.

"Asshole," he muttered to himself. "Absolute, insufferable, piece-of-shit, smug-faced, bootlicking bastard."

It was cathartic, even if he could only say it here, where no one could hear him. 

He imagined Richard tripping over his expensive shoes and landing flat on his face. 

Maybe in a puddle. A particularly dirty one. With a nice splash effect. That'd be poetic.

Was this his life now? Endlessly working, enduring mockery, being treated like a delicate thing that had no real worth?

He gritted his teeth. 'I'm not fragile. I work just as hard—harder—than half those idiots. I just don't kiss ass like the rest of them.'

The weight of it all pressed down on him. He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply, but even the air felt suffocating.

His mind drifted back to the past—to the days when he still had hope. When working hard meant something, when he believed he could carve out a place for himself. 

He had once been full of ambition, determined to prove his worth. But over time, reality had eroded those dreams. 

The long hours, the constant belittling, the way Richard always made sure he knew his place—it had chipped away at his spirit, piece by piece.

Tomorrow would be another trial, another round of subtle insults and patronizing remarks. 

The company party was meant to be a celebration, but for Elias, it was just another stage where Richard could toy with him in front of an audience.

He could already picture it. Richard's arm slung around his shoulders, a too-tight grip as he made some offhand comment about Elias's looks. 

The others would laugh, not cruelly, but thoughtlessly. No one would defend him, because no one saw anything wrong with it.

Elias wasn't sure how much more he could take.

His body ached from exhaustion, from the endless pressure of pretending to be unaffected. 

His mind buzzed, overwhelmed, yet somehow numb. The couch beneath him felt like the only thing tethering him to reality.

And then, just like that, his vision swam. His body swayed.

His breathing turned shallow, his heart pounding in his chest. He tried to move, to sit up, but the world tilted violently.

Then—darkness.

The last thing he felt was the cold leather of the couch beneath him before unconsciousness took over.