The click of keys filled the dark office cubicle.
I'd been listening to that same staccato rhythm for so long that my brain had stopped registering it as sound. It was just… background. Like the hum of the AC. Or my slowly decaying will to live.
The glow of my monitor painted everything in cold blue light. My eyes flicked up to the corner of the screen where the time glared back at me.
12:43 a.m.
Of course it was.
I exhaled through my nose and leaned back, stretching until my spine popped. The office was dead quiet aside from the faint whir of old computers and the distant buzz of a vending machine. Most of the floor lights were off, plunging the cubicles into a maze of shadows. Only a few stray screens glowed here and there—other unlucky souls chained to deadlines.
Second week in a row I'd stayed late for overtime.
I wasn't even being noble about it. No "I'm building my career" nonsense. I just… didn't have anything else to do. No hobbies I cared enough about to drag me home on time, no social life I hadn't already quietly let expire. Just a stack of files and a vague dream of someday being rich enough to never answer an email again.
I rubbed my eyes and went back to typing, fingers moving on autopilot as my brain wandered.
Twenty-three, and this was my grand, beautiful life: answering partner emails at midnight and triple-checking contracts to make sure nobody forgot a comma that would somehow cost us billions.
Below average grades. Below average looks. Average job. Average apartment. The only thing I excelled at was lying still and reading for six hours straight on weekends.
It wasn't tragic. Just… small.
I clicked "save," took a breath, and started on the next document.
That was when the light changed.
At first, I thought my monitor had glitched. The blue-white glare reflecting off my keyboard faded, replaced by a strange, flickering glow.
Red. Blue. Red. Blue.
I frowned and turned in my chair. The window blinds behind me leaked sharp streaks of color into the dark office. Somewhere below, something loud crackled—maybe a speaker? A car? My tired brain struggled to connect the dots.
Then I heard it.
"This is the police!" A voice boomed faintly from outside, muffled but unmistakable. "Everyone inside the building must evacuate immediately! There is an ongoing terrorist threat—repeat, all personnel evacuate immediately!"
My body reacted faster than my thoughts. I stood up so fast the chair rolled back and hit the partition with a dull thud.
"Terrorist threat?" I whispered, my mouth suddenly dry.
I rushed to the window, fingers clumsy on the blinds as I yanked them open. The street below was chaos: flashing lights from police cars, people pointing, some filming on their phones because of course they were.
The loudspeaker echoed again, the words barely making it through the glass.
"…bombs inside the building… evacuate… now!"
Bombs.
The word crashed through the fog in my head. For a second, everything went very sharp and very quiet, like someone had turned the volume down on the world. My heart hammered against my ribs.
Okay. Okay. Don't think. Move.
I grabbed my phone, stuffed it into my pocket, and snatched my bag from under the desk. Papers spilled out of the open file beside me, but I left them. Suddenly, billable hours didn't seem that important.
I stepped into the hallway, nearly colliding with one of the junior associates from litigation. His tie was crooked, and his eyes were wide.
"Violet, did you hear—"
"Yeah." My voice sounded strange, too calm. "Stairs."
We weren't supposed to use elevators in emergencies. That was, like, fire drill 101. My brain clung to that small, practical detail like it was a lifeline.
A few other people stumbled out of their cubicles as we passed. Some were asking questions, some crying, some already on their phones. The whole floor buzzed with rising panic.
"Is this real?"
"Did they say bombs?"
"Where are they?"
I didn't know. Nobody knew.
We reached the emergency stairwell, door swinging shut behind us with a heavy thud. Our footsteps clattered on the metal steps as we started descending, the air hot and stale.
Two floors down, the building shook.
It wasn't huge—not at first. Just a subtle shudder that made me grip the handrail tighter. A fluorescent light above us flickered, then steadied.
Someone screamed.
"Keep going!" a man shouted from below. "Don't stop!"
My knees felt like jelly, but I forced them to move. Step. Step. Step. Every second stretched out, my mind jumping from one ugly possibility to another.
What if the bomb is below us?
What if it already went off?
What if this stairwell collapses?
The shaking stopped.
The silence that followed was louder than the noise had been.
We kept moving.
Then came the sound I will never forget—a deep, low roar that seemed to swallow the world. There was a flash, blinding white-gold light blooming somewhere beneath us, shooting up the center of the building like hellfire.
Heat slammed into my back. The stairs lurched.
I didn't even have time to scream.
For a brief, impossible moment, I was weightless. The world spun—concrete, metal, bodies, darkness. Something hit my shoulder. My hand tore free from the rail. A second explosion ripped the sound from my throat before it could form.
The last thing I saw was the emergency exit sign twisting in the air, the little running stick figure upside-down.
Then everything went black.
—
There's a moment after you die where you don't realize you're dead.
You know you're not alive—because sensation is gone—but your thoughts keep stumbling forward like a car coasting on an empty tank.
I expected… something. Pain, at least. Or nothingness.
Instead, there was a strange, floating calm. No weight, no light, no sound. Just consciousness.
…So this is it?
The thought drifted through me, detached. It didn't feel like mine. More like I'd overheard it somewhere and was repeating it.
I tried to move. Nothing happened.
Time passed, or didn't. It was impossible to tell.
I thought of my apartment. My half-eaten instant noodles. The book I'd left open on my nightstand. The email draft I'd never send. The partner who'd probably be more annoyed about missing documents than my actual death.
It was all faint. Distant.
Somewhere, very far away, I heard a voice.
"—let's increase the dosage."
Another.
"Her vitals are stable. It's a miracle she survived the crash at all."
Crash?
The blackness thinned, color seeping into it like ink bleeding through paper. Something warm pressed against my arm. A rhythmic beeping, steady and insistent, nudged at the edge of awareness.
I took a breath.
Air rushed into my lungs, sharp and cold and painfully real.
My eyes flew open.
The ceiling above me was white. Not office-white, but that specific sterile white you only see in hospitals. A harsh light shone down, making me squint. My throat was dry, tongue heavy.
I turned my head.
A transparent bag of fluid hung beside the bed, a thin tube snaking down into my arm. A heart monitor glowed softly on the other side, beeping to itself. The room smelled like disinfectant and something floral, like someone had tried to mask the hospital smell with perfume.
I swallowed. "…Water."
The word came out as a croak. It still surprised me. I hadn't been sure I could speak.
A shadow moved at the edge of my vision. A woman in a pale uniform stepped forward, her expression shifting from professional boredom to startled relief.
"Miss Violet? You're awake!"
Violet.
I blinked. Right. That was me. Obviously. Nobody here was going to call me "Hey you."
The nurse grabbed a cup, helped me sit up, and pressed the straw to my lips. Cool water slid down my throat, hitting my stomach like ice. My hands shook a little as I held the cup.
"Take it slowly," she said. "You've been unconscious for three days."
Three days?
I stared at her. "What… happened?"
The nurse hesitated. "You were in an accident, Miss. There was a bombing downtown. The building you were in collapsed. You were very lucky."
Bombing. Building. Oh.
Right.
I remembered the lights. The stairwell. The explosion swallowing everything.
"Your parents will be so relieved." The nurse smiled brightly. "They've been visiting every day." She glanced toward the door. "I'll inform them right away."
Parents?
Before I could process that, she slipped out of the room, the door closing softly behind her.
I frowned at the empty space.
I did not have parents who could afford this kind of hospital room.
This wasn't one of those crowded public wards I'd seen in passing. The room was big, with cream walls and tasteful paintings. The bed was soft, the sheets crisp. A vase of lilies sat on the table near the window, petals glowing in the sunlight.
Sunlight.
I twisted, following it. Outside the window, the city glittered—tall buildings, tree-lined streets, clean sidewalks. It looked… expensive. Like the kind of place I'd scroll past online and think, "Wow, must be nice."
My heart started beating faster.
Something was off.
I looked down at myself.
The hands resting on the sheets were pale, slender. My nails were neatly trimmed and buffed, not bitten down like they usually were. There was no scar on my left wrist from when I'd burnt myself on a pan last year.
A cold sweep of realization washed through me.
I lifted shaky fingers to my face. My nose felt slightly narrower. My hair—longer. Softer. I could feel it pooled around me.
Okay. No.
This is weird.
The door opened again.
Two people walked in, followed by the nurse. The woman came first: poised, elegant, her dark hair twisted into a perfect chignon. Diamonds glinted on her ears. She wore a fitted cream dress, high heels silent on the floor. Her eyes—sharp, assessing—softened when they landed on me.
"Violet," she breathed, hurrying forward. "You're awake."
Behind her came a man in a tailored suit, shoulders broad, expression grave. His hair was streaked with gray at the temples in that deliberate, silver-fox way rich men somehow managed. He stopped at the foot of the bed, hands clasped behind his back.
I recognized neither of them.
But my body did.
My chest tightened. My throat burned. A strange heat rose behind my eyes, like it wanted to push tears out, but they didn't come.
The woman cupped my face gently, studying me. "How do you feel?"
I opened my mouth. The words stuck. I swallowed and tried again.
"…Tired."
Her lips trembled into a smile. "Of course you are. You scared us half to death, young lady."
Young lady.
Nobody called me that. I was firmly in the "ma'am or excuse me" demographic.
The man finally moved closer. His gaze was cool but not unkind. Controlled.
"Violet," he said. His voice was deep, the kind that filled a room without needing to be loud. "Do you remember what happened?"
Bomb. Stairs. Light.
"I…" I searched for something safe. "There was an explosion. I think."
The nurse glanced at the man. He gave a small nod. She slipped back out quietly, leaving us alone.
The woman—my supposed mother—let out a shaky breath and brushed a stray hair away from my forehead. "It doesn't matter. You're safe now. That's what's important."
Safe.
I wasn't sure that was true.
Because as I stared at them—at the expensive clothes, the confident posture, the subtle aura of people used to being obeyed—something clicked in the back of my head.
Hawthorne.
The name drifted up from memory like a bubble rising through water.
CEO Hawthorne. Prestigious Hawthorne family. Cold, image-obsessed parents. Disowned eldest son.
…Oh no.
Blood drained from my face.
My brain did a frantic flip through mental files, like someone rifling through a messy cabinet.
Tears of a Tiger Lily. BL novel. Poor, hard-working omega named Logan. Naïve yet powerful CEO Mack Hawthorne. Cruel family. Dramatic disownment. Revenge. Reconciliation.
Side characters: strict mother. Controlling father. Quiet younger sister—
Violet Hawthorne.
That was her name.
I stared at the people in front of me, and for the first time, the vague familiarity sharpened into recognition—not from real life, but from late-night reading, from pages turned in a cramped apartment with instant noodles on the table.
These were characters from a book.
Which meant…
I looked at my too-soft hands, at the line of an expensive hospital gown, at the city outside that didn't quite match any skyline I knew.
I had either hit my head so hard I was hallucinating my favorite trashy BL novel…
Or I had actually reincarnated into it.
My stomach dropped.
The woman—my mother—misread my silence as overwhelm and squeezed my hand. "It's all right, darling. You don't have to speak yet. Just rest. The doctor said your condition is stable, but you'll need time."
The man nodded once. "You will remain here until we are certain. The Hawthorne name cannot be associated with… carelessness." His gaze swept over me, weighing, measuring. "Your survival is fortunate. Don't squander it."
Ah. There it was.
The famous Hawthorne parental warmth.
I managed a weak, automatic, "Yes, Father."
The word slid out without conscious permission, as if my tongue had said it a thousand times before. The weight of it settled over me like an old coat.
He seemed satisfied with that, at least. "Good."
My mother fussed with my blanket a bit longer, as though tucking the corners in could anchor me to this reality. "We'll let you rest. Mack wanted to come, but he's still in meetings. I'll tell him the news."
Mack.
The male lead.
As soon as they left the room and the door clicked shut, the silence roared back in.
I stared at the ceiling.
Okay. Let's recap.
I died in a terrorist bombing. Woke up in a suspiciously expensive hospital room with suspiciously fictional parents. Was addressed as Violet. Heard the word Hawthorne loud and clear in my own brain. All signs pointed to one conclusion:
I was in Tears of a Tiger Lily.
As Violet Hawthorne.
The side character.
The rich, beta younger sister who existed mostly to be mentioned in passing and occasionally scolded for minor image-staining behavior.
Of all the possible roles I could have gotten, I'd landed one that wasn't even in the main romance.
For a second, despite the situation, a hysterical bubble of laughter tried to escape my chest.
I swallowed it down.
Because this wasn't just a book anymore. It was my life now.
And if I remembered the plot correctly, things were going to get… messy.
Disownment. Scandals. Forced marriage. Corporate warfare. Too much crying.
I exhaled slowly, pressing the heel of my hand to my forehead.
"Great," I muttered to the empty room. "I finally escape my below-average life just to get thrown into an over-dramatic BL novel."
My voice sounded small in the quiet.
But underneath the sarcasm was a tiny, traitorous spark of something else.
Hope.
Because if this really was that world… then I was rich. I had power. Connections. A second chance.
Maybe, just maybe, I could use it to finally get what I'd always wanted.
A peaceful life.
Lots of money.
And absolutely no involvement with any main characters.
…Right?
The heart monitor beeped steadily at my side, like it wasn't convinced either.