Asmo's Love

SUMMARY: He's a pretender. She's a fool. Their love has been doomed from the very beginning. But then it's not just about love; it's ambition, deception, power, liberty, and money altogether. They are two young lost souls brought together for this story to unfold. This is ASMO's LOVE.   DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, events, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.   oOo   HE SAW HER FIRST.   Somehow, without even realizing it, his eyes had found her in the middle of that glittering sea of faceless people. And for a brief few milliseconds that had comprised that one very short yet immensely significant moment of their lives, he kept his deep impenetrable gaze on her. Like some kind of a scene torn out from the pages of a classic fairy tale, she saw him from a far distance too. He took her breath away. And she heard the voice inside her head telling her that... 'This is it. It's love'. But only that, it was not just all love. And this was nothing near to a fairytale-like romance. This was the reality. And no one has ever really said anything about happy endings.   But once upon a time, the prince of this story met the princess of his life. And from then on, this unexpected love eventually began.   oOo     There were so many people.   So many flashy-looking people wearing their most well-presented glad rags as they chattered around in small groups while some danced through the live band playing in the background, filling the entire place with murmured noises and faint classy music. Asmodeus was just a mere single number in the wide expanse of such a crowd. He was there to pretentiously play the meager role of Charles Devine's beloved son (which in fact, was all completely fake just to keep up a facade that Charles Devine had planned out so carefully for this evening), who is also one of the most prominent guests invited to take part in this very luxurious party.   Asmodeus stood absentmindedly wearing that sleek black tailored-fit suit and a velvet bow tie wrapped around his collar that Mr. Devine had chosen and told him to specifically wear tonight. And with his thick dark-blond curls styled up in a well-polished manner, giving him a slightly sharpened aura of prominence and making his evenly natural good-looking boyish features stood out more, Asmodeus perfectly presented the very image that Mr. Devine had expected and wanted him to show in this event. Yet despite all that attractiveness that hotly suited his appearance, he was still wearing an expression that showed nothing far from his absolute indifference and stoic regard to the party, as he casually roamed his eyes around, dreadfully watching the entire scene playing before him. He was trying his best to mask the extreme discomfort he was feeling inside. He never really liked pretending to be rich.   He was not used to this kind of world. All these sophisticated self-important personalities who had never really felt any slightest bit of concern to the people who have been living in the slums for most of their lives, suffering through their everyday living just to make ends meet. These people could never really impress him, at all. But Asmodeus knew that he could not just leave right away even if he had wanted to. He was there because he had to complete a mission. Yet in terms of that very mission in mind, he was not even that close to starting it yet, since he was still in the process of searching for where his target might be.   It was going to be just another night for him. And Asmodeus was not really feeling any kind of thrill even with the several appreciative glances from the expensive-looking ladies, young and older, being sent his way, much to his displeasure. It was all just a mission... Until it happened. And then suddenly, Asmodeus found himself being swept in as his gaze momentarily paused at a certain view from afar, staring at the startling sight of her beauty.   At first, he did not really notice her. She had her back turned on him and she was talking to another younger woman beside her. They were laughing, their shoulders slightly moving in sync and she was mostly the one who was doing the talking, her hands flailing in all directions with such animated eagerness. Then she suddenly moved and turned his way, bringing her face into his view.   She's so pretty. He thought right away. She's the target.   But she looked quite older than he had expected. She should be around nineteen to her early twenties, but there was a certain intimidating aura around her giving her a very mature appeal as he observed her from afar. She was wearing a decent silver sparkling dress, conservatively designed to cover most of her skin with its long see-through laced sleeves panning down to her wrists. Yet despite the minimal skin exposure, she still looked very sultry and lavishly elegant with the bodice of her dress delicately woven to show the mild curves of her waist and the flare of her hips. Asmodeus stood gaping at her, from where he was standing by the buffet stand, like a drooling little boy, and he felt that pull of attraction pushing him to go to her. She was actually more than just pretty. And then he realized, this might not be that easy. She looked so ethereal and out of his league and perhaps, he might even just become a complete stammering mess if he would try to talk to her. Then he heard his friend, Daniel Gates, who had been standing just beside him, looking in the same direction, at the same woman who had caught not only their interests alone but almost all of the gentlemen present in the party hall.    "No," Daniel had said, pulling Asmodeus out of his trance as if reading his mind. And for a moment, Asmo turned to frown back at his friend, utterly confused.   "No?"   "If you think that's her, you're wrong," Daniel clarified, giving him a pointed look. "That's the older sister."   "Not Sarah?" Asmo thought for a moment. He wanted to believe his friend was just teasing him. They were talking about Sarah Rache. The daughter of the senate president. The girl he was supposed to find and meet. The target.   "Yeah. It's not her. That's the married sister," Daniel flatly said, not even missing a beat, and he looked just as serious. He was not kidding at all.   "Too bad," Asmo said with a short sigh, his voice faltering and his vain disappointment evidently heard in his words. She's not her. She's the sister. A married one too. And that quickly gave him enough discouragement to step back. It was impossible. And he had suspected right, she was actually older. She must be in her mid-twenties.   "There's the one, though," Daniel suddenly remarked, and he moved his eyes back across the crowd, his tone changing to a smug sound with a mischievous look drawn on his face.   "What?"   "Your target," Daniel confirmed.   "Where?" Asmo's head immediately snapped towards the direction where his friend had pointed with his look and searched fervently.   "The one beside her," Daniel replied, smirking as he vaguely described the girl in question, "See that green dress? That's her."   "Green dress?"    At first, Asmodeus could not really see it. Her. Then the married sister moved to the side a bit and all of a sudden, the green dress was there. Smiling, lips curving up but her expression did not really reach her eyes. She was pretending to smile. And she looked so out of place, her dress so out of style, her face so less of color, her hair slightly unkempt and put up in a rushed ponytail that seemed so rather conniving, and the glasses... the glasses.   "That's Sarah."   "What's with the glasses?" Asmodeus could not resist blurting out as he gaped at the peculiar image of his target. The glasses were just so disturbingly odd. Or perhaps, it was not just the glasses that she was wearing but her, as a whole. Her entire appearance had been so randomly put together that even when she did not obviously make that much effort to dress up, it was already doing more than enough to have her stand out in that huge crowd. Her hair, her posture, the striking hard-not-to-miss dress, the weird glasses, and her awkward smile. All of it ... they all never really matched so well. But it was her.   "Yeah, it's weird but that's the very one you should be focusing on, Ash."   "Wow," Asmodeus staggered back, his impression could never even give him enough push to force a good compliment about the girl.   "I know. But it doesn't really matter what she looks like, does it?" Daniel pointed out, his voice turning edgy as he faced his friend and encouragingly patted him on the shoulder, "Just go there and do what you got to do, Ash. Make Devine's money worth it all tonight."   He was right. And Asmodeus held back a grim face because he had no other choice. It was either the green dress or the end of his whole future. And he was not really going to leave like an i***t this time. Tonight, he was going to turn into the very person, the one that Mr. Devine had asked him to be. He was going to be a prince. The princess will be that one in the monstrous green excuse of a dress. She was the target tonight and she will be his only golden ticket to finally achieve his long-awaited liberty.   There was really no way out for him but to walk and start talking to her.   And that was how this entire story will begin.     ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------