My Yandere Dog

Every voice in the crowd is screaming at me to save him.

The beautiful boy in the alley, folded over, taking a beating he won't lift a hand to stop.

Small problem. I'm not the heroine they're screaming for.

I'm the extra. Background scenery. A face that fills a frame while the real story happens to someone else.

So I'm going to do the one thing an extra is never supposed to do.

I'm going to keep him.

Let me back up a few minutes.

I was walking past the alley when I saw them. Three guys, all fists, and one boy folded up against the brick, taking it without a sound.

That was when the voices started.

[The heroine's here! She came! She'll save the poor yandere for sure!]

I stopped. Looked around. Nobody else on the street so much as flinched.

The heroine.

...Me?

I walked into the alley. The voices completely lost it.

[Who IS this girl? I've never seen her in this book.]

You just called me the heroine a second ago. You wanted me to go save the tragic yandere, didn't you?

Unless I'm not the heroine after all.

I turned around. Right on cue, a pretty girl came drifting up the street behind me, backlit and lovely, making her entrance exactly the way a heroine is supposed to.

Oh.

Oh, I see.

Chapter 1

[Heroine! HEROINE, hurry! Your yandere second lead is about to get stolen right out from under you!!]

Stolen. Cute.

Here's what being told you're not the main character does to a person. It makes you want to grab someone's plot and wring it out.

If I wasn't the heroine, then what was I?

I looked at the boy bleeding against the wall. Beautiful, even wrecked. Especially wrecked.

Fine. I was already here. I'd take the yandere and figure out the rest later. You want to know who you are in a story? Reach in and squeeze.

"Hey."

The three of them turned.

[Wait, is she actually squaring up to them? Girl. GIRL. Nine-one-one exists.]

[She's an extra. She'll bolt the second they step to her, and then the heroine can swoop in.]

"Little thing," the biggest one said, grinning. "You playing hero?"

"She's cute. Come play with us instead."

He reached for me.

Mistake.

I caught his wrist. Twisted it up and back until the grin slid off his face. Then I put him down. One clean throw, his whole body slapping flat against the concrete. I set my heel on his cheek.

I looked at the other two and crooked a finger.

"One at a time," I said. "Or all at once. Dealer's choice."

Silence.

[...oh.]

[Okay, I take back everything, she is so cool.]

They came at me anyway. They got about half a step before they saw what had walked up behind me.

Six of my bodyguards, filling the mouth of the alley.

The thugs tripped over their own apologies, scraped their friend off the ground, and ran.

I clicked my tongue and lifted my heel.

[What is this girl's whole deal?]

[...those bodyguards are hers, aren't they. All of them.]

All of them.

I crossed to the boy. Blood on his mouth, lashes wet, eyes too big for how still he was holding himself. Something about him didn't belong in that alley. Like the story had lifted him out of somewhere far more expensive and set him down in the wrong scene by mistake.

I pointed.

"Put him in my car."

"Yes, Miss."

[I'm sorry. Miss??]

[Who IS she, I've genuinely never seen her in this book.]

Who am I?

My name is Romy Ashford, and I have exactly one hobby: yandere romance. I read it obsessively. The darker the devotion, the better.

Today I found out my whole world is one of those books. And I'm not the girl it's about. I'm an extra. A face in a crowd scene.

The voices? Nobody else can hear them. Just me. The audience of this story, packed into the margins, live-reacting to my life like it's the show they can't put down.

Well. If I couldn't be the lead by birth, I'd get there the fast way. Stand close enough to the main characters and some of that shine has to rub off.

Besides.

[What is this random extra going to do to our Dorian?!]

[As a diehard shipper of the heroine and the second lead, I am officially DECEASED. That meet-cute was PERFECT.]

[Um, the heroine ends up with the male lead. Canon. If the second lead hadn't done what he does later, those two would already be together.]

There it was. The one thing worth filing away: somewhere in this book, there's a girl he's supposed to end up with.

Noted.

The male lead can keep his heroine. The second lead is mine first.

I looked down at his profile, pale and battered, and my mouth curled. Tongue pressed to the back of my teeth. Slow.

A yandere. A real one. The kind that only exists in the good books.

Now I just had to work out what it would take to make him fall for me. To wake up the thing sleeping under all that quiet.

He shifted under my stare, uncomfortable, the tips of his ears going pink.

Fresh from the clinic, gauze taped over his knuckles, he lifted those wet eyes to me.

"Thank you. I'll pay you back for the doctor."

Good face. Good voice. Not one shred of yandere in him.

That was fine. I'm a patient woman.

"Don't mention it. Why were they hitting you?"

He frowned. Went quiet a few seconds too long. Then, hoarse: "I don't know."

[Oh, our poor Dorian. It's those guys, they shake him down all the time. They just took his whole scholarship.]

[He's so broke right now. Nothing at home, and his mom's sick.]

[Then why won't he just say so?]

[Probably scared she'll think he's pathetic.]

Pathetic?

Chapter 2

Pathetic. No. That would not do at all.

A yandere is never pathetic. A yandere thinks he's a god who happens to be slumming it.

"I saw them take your money, by the way," I said.

His eyes skated off mine. He pressed his lips together, and the pink at his ears deepened to red.

"I didn't get it back for you, though. Want to know why?"

I slipped his phone out of his hand. The screen was a spiderweb of cracks. I turned it over in my fingers.

"Because I can give you a lot more than they ever took."

Total lie. I hadn't seen a thing. But a yandere with empty pockets? Unthinkable. The good ones come expensive. Expensive face, expensive taste. So I sent him a little something.

[Did I read that right?? She just sent him fifty grand.]

[What IS this girl.]

[Ma'am. MA'AM. Look at me, I'm broke too.]

He stared at the number. "I don't want your money."

He moved to send it back. I closed my hand over his.

Too principled. Not a scrap of yandere.

"Don't go noble on me now." I looked him over, slow, and read him out loud. "Those clothes are years old. Washed until the color gave up. Little too small on you these days." His jaw tightened. "Your shoes. Heels worn down uneven, one side lower than the other. So either I'm wrong about all of it, or things are tight at home and you need this more than you need your pride."

He dropped his head. Held the phone in both hands. Said nothing.

[God, she's brutal.]

[I mean. She's not wrong? His mom can't afford treatment and he's over here playing hard to get.]

[Oh, shut up, we get it, you hate the second lead.]

"Relax. It's not a gift." I let the grin off its leash. "It's a job offer. Come home with me, let me put you to work. Say no and I'll wire it all back myself, no hard feelings. God knows I have more bodyguards than I know what to do with."

Which was true. He could walk any time he liked. I just didn't intend to make him want to.

He was quiet for a moment.

"Okay," he said.

Got him. Something I'd said had gone in.

I bought him a few sets of clothes and took him home.

[This girl lives in a full mansion. Staff and everything.]

[That's old money. Look at the size of that house.]

I let the praise settle over me like a warm towel.

Play it cool. We've got bigger houses than this one.

Dorian stood at my front door like he was afraid to scuff the floor. I pulled him inside by the sleeve and handed him off to the housekeeper.

"Get him cleaned up."

He came back in fresh clothes, quiet, standing in front of me with his hands at his sides. Obedient. Sweet, even.

Not bad at all. Second leads really are built pretty.

Still a mile off from yandere, though.

How to fix that.

"I'm Romy Ashford," I told him. "From now on you're my personal bodyguard. Fixed pay, every month. Your job is to take care of me, keep me company, keep me entertained, and come when I call."

I held my hand out to him as I said it.

He looked at it, lost.

"House rule," I said. "The second I put my hand out, doesn't matter what you're in the middle of, you take it. Every time."

There was no such rule. I just wanted more excuses to touch him. Wanted him used to me, fast.

Give it time. I'd have my very own yandere.

...In theory.

Chapter 3

He hesitated. Then, slowly, he took my hand. The tips of his ears went pink again.

"Your hand's freezing," he said, barely above a whisper.

So I stood, leaned in, and breathed one slow, warm breath across his knuckles.

He short-circuited. Snatched his hand back like I'd scalded him, turned his face away.

Fully red now.

...God, that was cute.

[WHAT is she doing to my sweet boy?!]

[Excuse you. "This girl" has a name.]

[Guys. GUYS. Why is this weirdly good. Bratty rich girl versus broody yandere boy.]

I nodded to myself. Approved. Two of a kind, him and me.

The broody part was generous, though. He didn't look broody. He looked like a boy who'd never once been touched on purpose.

"I'll let it slide this time," I told him. "But pull your hand back before I do again, and you'll get down on your knees and apologize for it."

I added, for effect, "House rule. We've got a lot of them. You'll adjust."

We didn't have a lot of them. I just liked how seriously he took me.

He pressed his lips together, lifted those wet eyes, and murmured a sorry.

I held my hand out again.

He took it.

And I dragged one fingertip in a slow circle across his palm.

His whole body went rigid. Every muscle locked down at once. His breath caught somewhere behind his teeth and stayed there.

He didn't pull away. Not once. Not the entire time.

Good boy.

I transferred to his university.

I'd thought about pulling him to mine instead. But we weren't the leads of this book. Fade into the background again and we'd be extras by the end of the chapter. Not a chance. I'd just woken up. I was taking up room.

The day I showed up, another girl transferred in beside me.

I looked over. Oh. It was her. The pretty one from the alley.

The voices detonated.

[Heroine!! Baby, why are you only showing up NOW, your second lead's been stolen!]

[HER second lead? The male lead is hers, thank you.]

[Nope. The second lead belongs to Ro-Ro now.]

Help. Dorian and I had shippers.

I walked into the lecture hall beside the fabled heroine, and my eyes went straight to the back corner. Last row. Him.

Lucky me. One empty seat right beside him.

He caught my eye and gave a small, awkward tug of his mouth.

Still so shy. This was the part where he was supposed to greet me properly. Stake a little claim. Announce whose he was.

...Unless he'd taken one look at the heroine and fallen on the spot.

I looked at him. Looked at her.

Bad. Very bad. Their eyes had met.

I aimed a look at him sharp enough to draw blood, and he ducked his head so fast his hair swung.

"Only three open seats," the professor said, once we'd introduced ourselves. "You two sort it out."

I slid my eyes to Dorian. He'd had his head down. At those words it lifted again, wet gaze moving between us, waiting.

"I'll take the one in the third row," the heroine said.

The voices died of grief.

[NO. Why not the seat next to him.]

[I am genuinely coming apart.]

[Can the shippers PLEASE stop making it about themselves.]

That left the seat beside Dorian, and one other.

"That one."

I pointed.

Right at him.

Chapter 4

The whole class broke into knowing little smiles.

I dropped into the seat beside him, bag and all, and turned my head.

"Hi. New seatmate."

He held his pen, wouldn't look at me, and said hi back so quietly I nearly missed it.

[Ro-Ro doesn't know he's the class pariah yet, does she.]

[When the heroine helped him, she did it in secret. Ro-Ro just sat down next to him in front of everyone.]

[I'm deceased. Deceased.]

A pariah. My yandere, this pretty, frozen out by a room full of nobodies.

Sure enough, the second class let out, a little cluster of the try-hard-cool crowd circled my desk.

"Hey. Friendly tip. Switch seats. Sit by him and you'll start to stink too."

I blinked. "Meaning?"

"You seriously can't smell it? Guy doesn't shower."

They cackled. "He's filthy."

I frowned, genuinely puzzled. "Weird. I watched him shower last night."

The air held still for a full second.

One of them recovered enough to ask, "...What are you to him?"

"He's my new bodyguard."

They howled.

"A bodyguard? What is this, a period drama?"

I looked at them the way you look at something you scraped off your shoe.

"Please. I don't have a bodyguard. I have several. And it's not just me. My mother has hers. My father has his. My sister has hers."

The laughter stopped. They traded looks.

"...What does your family do?"

I raised a brow.

"Guess."

I watched it land. I watched the exact second the name Ashford clicked into place behind their eyes.

"Wait. Not the Ashfords? The old Ashford family"

"Move. Let's go. Now."

They scattered like I'd fired a round into the ceiling.

[WHAT. She's an ASHFORD?!]

[The Ashfords. As in the family that's been tied to the Wens for generations?]

[So if the second lead hadn't been taken as a child, those two would've grown up together. Childhood sweethearts. CHILDHOOD SWEETHEARTS.]

Wait. What?

The Wens? Taken as a child?

The voices had dropped something heavy in my lap and I couldn't quite pick it up.

I stared at Dorian. The stray I'd hauled home off an alley floor.

What, exactly, had I picked up?

Chapter 5

Was Dorian the child the Wens lost all those years ago?

...It tracked, honestly. Far as I knew, the woman who'd raised him was his adoptive mother.

My family and the Wens went back a long way, the older generation at least. By my parents' day it had thinned down to politeness and shared place settings. If I marched up and announced their long-lost son was moonlighting as my bodyguard, would they even believe me?

"Miss... why do you keep staring at me?"

Dorian, silent this whole time, carefully lifted his eyes to mine.

I snapped back and asked, irritated on his behalf, "Do they always freeze you out like that?"

He hesitated a long moment. Then, small: "Mm."

I sighed. Shook my head. Pressed a hand over my heart.

It genuinely pained me.

How was this soft, wilting thing ever going to grow into a yandere?

"You're weak," I told him. "Too weak. How are you supposed to guard me? You won't hit back, won't talk back, you need me to protect you. Someone comes for me one day, are you going to stand there and watch?"

I braced for the usual silence.

Instead, he looked up.

"I won't."

"Won't what?"

He bit down on his lip. Those wet eyes came up and held, and for the first time there was nothing soft left in them.

"I won't let anyone hurt you."

For a second I lost the thread of whatever I'd been about to say.

Then my mouth curved, and I took his hand.

"Good boy."

His whole face went scarlet.

From that day on, Dorian trained with my other bodyguards. Every day. Boxing, grappling, MMA, all of it.

Little by little he stopped flinching at everything. Steadier. More obedient by the week.

Which was lovely. It was also carrying him further and further from the yandere of my dreams.

This would not do.

I decided a little humiliation might shake the potential loose.

"Dorian. My legs ache. Come rub them."

I stretched my legs out in front of him. He knelt without a second of hesitation and got to work, head bowed, meek, not a flicker of resentment.

The voices drifted past while I enjoyed the service.

[Look what she's turned my poor second lead into.]

[Easy. Without Ro-Ro, his mom couldn't afford treatment.]

[Honestly though? He looks like he's enjoying it. Won't take his hands off her leg.]

Enjoying it?

I cut a glance at him.

I'd meant to humiliate him. Meant to jab the yandere awake. And instead he was enjoying it.

I pulled my leg back, annoyed.

"What? Did I hurt you?"

His eyes flooded with worry and self-reproach, so sweet and so sorry that the annoyance drained straight out of me.

"No. Take a break."

He plucked a strawberry from the bowl and lifted it to my lips, clearly trying to coax me back into a good mood. I opened my mouth and let him.

He smiled. At what, I couldn't tell you.

[These two are an entirely different genre from the main couple and their endless misunderstandings.]

I arched a brow, smug.

He's mine. In your dreams.

Chapter 6

"Miss. I'd like to take a day off this weekend. To sit with my mother at the hospital."

Almost six months he'd been with me, and it was the first thing he'd ever asked for.

I had no reason to say no.

I sent him some money. "Go. Buy her whatever she needs."

[Oh my GOD, another fifty grand.]

[I'm so jealous I could die. Please look at me. I'll be your most loyal dog.]

The trouble was the look on his face when he saw the number.

"Miss, you've already given me more than enough. You don't have to keep sending money."

I don't know why it landed the way it did. The kindness bouncing off him, unwanted.

"Dorian. After all this time, you still treat me like a stranger?"

He rushed to say he didn't.

But I couldn't stop, and the words came sharper each time.

"Or is it that the more of my money you take, the harder it gets to walk away clean when you finally go?"

Which really meant: he'd never fallen for me at all.

He looked stricken. Started to explain. I cut him off.

"Leave whenever you want. I won't stop you. I've got more bodyguards than I can count. One less won't matter."

I stormed to my room and shut myself in.

The voices streaked past.

[Wait, weren't these two supposed to be the drama-free couple? Why's she mad now.]

[Ro-Ro, sweetheart, has it occurred to you he doesn't want to leave, he just feels like he owes you too much.]

[Right?? Stop hurting our boy.]

I scoffed.

Like anyone knew what went on in that head of his.

I tuned out the chatter, pulled up a yandere novel on my phone, and started reading. Mistake. I got hooked and went halfway into the night.

I was almost asleep when I heard something outside my door.

A housekeeper up for the bathroom, I assumed. I didn't give it another thought.

Then, half under, the mattress dipped. Someone was in my room.

Through the fog: Dorian. Or the shape of him.

"...What are you doing," I mumbled.

He didn't answer. He just stood there, staring down at me, not blinking.

When he didn't say anything, I slipped back under.

Somewhere in the dark, something soft brushed my cheek.

Next morning it hit me and I shot upright.

I'd locked my door. I always lock my door. There was no way Dorian could have gotten into my room.

I scrambled over to check.

Still bolted. Exactly the way I'd left it.

I breathed out.

Then I breathed back in, because the cold was climbing the back of my neck.

I could still feel it. That soft thing against my cheek. It hadn't gone blurry the way dreams go blurry by morning. It was clear. Specific.

...A dream. Obviously a dream. Man hadn't even fallen for me yet, and here I was dreaming about him.

Chapter 7

Still. The Dorian in that dream had a real yandere streak to him.

That dead-on stare. It did things to my knees.

I dug the novel back out and stayed buried in it, so deep that when Dorian got back I barely surfaced. He said something to me. I didn't catch it. Waved him off.

For days I lived inside that book.

[Is the novel seriously that good?? Better than our second lead??]

[Ro-Ro, please, throw the man a bone, he's falling apart over here.]

[God, he just watches her. Big-eyed. Like a puppy whose owner walked out on him.]

[She IS the owner.]

Since when was I anyone's owner? I don't have those kinds of hobbies.

I was heading back to my room when a hand closed around my wrist.

"Miss. Why won't you look at me?"

I turned. His eyes had gone dark, and there was that hand of his, locked tight around mine.

My heartbeat tripped over itself.

Six months. First time he'd ever reached for me.

Something low in my stomach pulled tight.

The voices lost it harder than I did.

[Oh my GOD is he finally about to show his true colors?!]

[I thought Ro-Ro had softened him for good.]

[No. He's been white-knuckling his feelings this whole time. One good shove and he cracks.]

[It's over. The heroine and the second lead are officially sunk.]

It clicked into place.

So you can't just be sweet to a yandere. You have to keep poking until the thing wakes up.

"I think you know that better than I do." I shook his hand off. "I don't need a bodyguard with one foot out the door."

I turned to go. He caught my hand again.

"Miss. I never thought about leaving."

He was close. Too close. And the look he gave me wasn't the meek one I was used to. It was something more tangled than that.

My breath went shallow.

Come on. A little meaner. Please.

"Then prove it." I fisted my hand in his collar and dragged him down to my eye level. "Because the day you walk out on me, I will never forgive you."

[I am DECEASED.]

[Okay, bad news incoming. Last I heard, his adoptive mom is about to pass.]

[Oh no. The second she's gone, the Wens come for him. Are they about to get torn apart??]

The voices stopped me cold.

What?

His mother was dying?

We were about to be separated?

"How's your mom doing?" I asked, fast.

I remembered the cancer. I also remembered it being under control.

He gave a small smile. "Doctor says it's holding steady."

Before I could breathe out, the voices drifted back in.

[Shame it takes a turn for the worse in a few days.]

[Poor baby.]

Not on my watch. I made the calls and had his mother moved to the best hospital in the city.

"Thank you," he said.

I nodded. And tried not to think about what the voices swore was already coming for us.

Chapter 8

This time, he didn't refuse me.

His mother died anyway.

It moved too fast. The best hospital in the city, every string I had to pull, and none of it was enough to keep her.

Something in my chest sat heavy and wouldn't lift.

Dorian handled the arrangements. I sent people to help.

It rained that day. He stood in it with his mother's urn held against his chest, and I watched him cry. I'd started toward him, to say something, anything, when a middle-aged couple walked up.

[Oh my god. His birth parents. They found him.]

[Why so fast? It didn't happen this fast in the original book.]

[Because Ro-Ro moved his mom to a different hospital. He went to visit, and his birth parents were there at the same time, and they recognized him.]

Talk about timing.

Though maybe, for Dorian, it wasn't the worst news. He'd just lost the only person he had. Now, at least, there was a whole family waiting on the other side of it.

He finished with them and came to me.

"Who were they?" I asked.

"My birth parents." His face was doing something complicated.

An hour ago he'd had nothing in the world but a box of ashes. Now a dynasty wanted him back. The rain came down on both versions of him and didn't care which one won.

"I know them, actually. They sit on the board at Wen Holdings. They know my parents." I patted his shoulder. "Congratulations. You found your family. You won't have to come back to me anymore."

"You don't want me?"

Something in his face went frantic.

And something in me came loose, my voice getting away from me before I could catch it.

"You have a home now. What am I supposed to keep you as? Or is it that you'd rather not be the Wen heir at all. You'd rather just be my dog."

[Where is this coming from? Why is she being so cruel.]

[I'm upset. I'm genuinely upset. How could she say that to him.]

[Mind your business. That's between the two of them.]

He looked at me like he couldn't believe it, for a long, long moment. Then he turned, silent, and walked off.

I regretted it the second he moved.

I shouldn't have said it like that.

But him leaving was already carved in stone. There was no version of this where the Wens let their son stay on as some girl's bodyguard.

I only wanted him to snap out of it.

Then he pivoted on his heel and came back to me so fast it startled me.

"You're right, Miss. I do want to be your dog. I want it. Do whatever you want with me."

"I'll be your most loyal dog."

There was something in his eyes I'd never seen before. Fixed. Obsessive.

Gooseflesh raced down both my arms.

[What have they done to our poor second lead. Man's got no self-respect left.]

[Leave it. If they're happy, they're happy.]

Happy. Of course I was happy.

Nobody gets it. A Dorian like this did unspeakable things to me.

But now wasn't the time.

"Stop calling me Miss," I said. "Call me Romy."

I looked at the Wens, waiting in the rain.

"Go back with them for now. We'll see each other again. And I'm not letting you go."

His eyes curved into something soft.

"I'll come back, Romy."

Chapter 9

He walked off looking back every few steps. I went home.

I flipped on the lights and found someone sitting in my living room.

"Sis. God, you scared me. When did you get in?"

Her tone had that sweet, poisonous edge to it.

"If I hadn't come, how would I ever have found out you transferred schools behind everyone's back? And hired some boy to play bodyguard."

Please. She kept more men on the family payroll than I'd ever dreamed of.

"Romy, I came to tell you it's already decided. Mom and Dad want you finishing your degree overseas. The holdings are too big for me to carry alone. I need you on them."

She laid my passport and a boarding pass on the table.

"You fly out tonight."

"I'm sorry, what?"

I didn't get a chance to process it. The family machine was already closing around me, and I was too wrung out from the funeral to plant my feet. Staff. Cars. The drive to the airport. My whole life packed and decided while I was still numb.

"Sis. Come on. At least let me say goodbye to my little yandere."

She slid the phone out of my hand without blinking. I stood there dry-eyed and drowning.

"You've had your fun for years. Time to grow up and carry your share."

She pressed a new phone into my palm, new number and all, and steered me toward the gate.

[The heroine-and-second-lead shippers are BACK, babyyy!]

[Ro-Ro, don't go! What happens to your puppy if you leave?!]

[I don't want them split up. I don't. Please.]

I was walked down the jetway on legs that didn't feel like mine, the wailing chasing me the whole way.

I looked back once, toward a boy who wasn't even there to see them take me.

[So... that's it? Our ship just ends? Just like that?]

And that was it. New number, an ocean between us, no way back to Dorian