The Comments That Tried to Own My Life

Everyone's attention snapped toward Charmaine Fitzpatrick's office at the sudden outburst. Then, I saw bullet comments starting to pop up right before my eyes. "Don't be fooled by how fierce Charmaine seems right now. Deep down, she's a real softie. She's just playing hard-to-get. Once she falls for Maxim, she'll feel guilty for all her actions now!""Ugh, William is so annoying! Why doesn't he just break up with Charmaine already? Now Charmaine is shouting at Maxim because of him."I glanced toward Charmaine's office and saw her sitting in her office chair, staring at Maxim Barker with undisguised disgust. "What are you still standing there like an idiot for? Have you finished all your work?"Maxim's face went deathly pale, but still, he attempted to salvage some dignity. "Ms. Fitzpatrick, I'm new here and don't really understand anything yet. Could you maybe guide me a little?"Charmaine let out a mocking laugh and gave him a slow once-over. "Guide you? Do you even know what le

"William Stein! You were slacking off during office hours? How dare you! Didn't I tell you last week that the proposal is due today? Are you disregarding my words?"I let out a cold laugh and pulled a USB drive from my pocket. "Who said I can't submit the proposal? I was just about to send it.""That's impossible!" Maxim let out a shrill cry. Then, when Charmaine shot him a puzzled look, he immediately started stammering, "I-I mean… How could William p-possibly have finished the task if he was slacking off the whole time?""The office has surveillance cameras to record whether or not I'd been slacking off. And whoever touched my computer—checking the footage will make that very clear too."Maxim's face went deathly pale, and his lips quivered uncontrollably. "Then… Then I must have been mistaken… William was working hard the whole time. He wasn't slacking off. Surely there's no need to check the footage, right?"But Charmaine seemed dead set on pinning me as guilty and refused to

"And what makes you so sure I plagiarized his work?" I challenged Charmaine.She gritted her teeth and answered, "Because I personally assigned this project to Max. I still have our chat logs to prove it. I never assigned it to you, so why the hell would you be working on it?"I was this close to kicking both these liars.Charmaine had called me into her office and personally told me to take on this project. But now, she was claiming she never assigned it to me. Did she think she could spout nonsense like this just because she was the manager?All my colleagues looked utterly baffled too. As far as they knew, I'd been the one handling this project from day one. No one had ever heard it was reassigned to Maxim.Dwayne Barnes, a high-level executive of the company, noticed the darkening expressions on the upper management's faces and quickly stepped forward to glare at Charmaine. "What the hell is going on here? How did a simple presentation turn into such a mess?"Without batting

"Those comments said I was the female lead, Maxim was the male lead, and you were the villainous supporting character. They said I'd only succeed if I ended up with Maxim," Charmaine said."And... They also said that if I insisted on staying with you, I wouldn't just lose my position as manager—you'd eventually push me off a rooftop, and I'd die without my body even in one piece..."You have to believe me, William! I know this sounds unbelievable, but it's all true. You really have to trust me!"I replied calmly, "That's enough. I believe you."Charmaine looked up at me in disbelief. "You... you believe me?"I walked up to her and said, "I don't exactly trust you, but I believe the part about you seeing bullet comments. Because I see them too. And what I see is pretty much the same as you.""You... You can see them too?" Charmaine started stammering, "I... I thought—"I cut her off. "So, these comments aren't just targeting you—they're targeting me too. Which means, besides the