He was attracted to her like she was a magnet and he was a mere piece of iron.
This fact wasn't disappearing anytime soon. Even now, even as she had shown some more vulnerable traits of herself near his company, he found her fascinating and alluring because of her beauty and mystery. Would he have been a painter or a writer, he'd have called her his muse, the almost-mystical figure inspiring him otherwise foreign feelings.
In a way, she was a piece of art that was worth more than money and materialistic pretences. She transcended anything he could give her for what he was hiring her for. They needed to remain strictly professional, she had insisted on it years ago, so he did so. Keeping it professional, almost coldly so, displaying as little affection as possible. For once and despite his pristine record of being professional when asked so, it pained him to do.
He wanted to know her more and more, every bit and piece of her.
He had first known her as Ghost Girl, a name which only fitted her allusiveness. He never knew where she would come from whenever she arrived for their common missions. They were both very secretive about their personal lives: at the time, he was twenty, she was nineteen, he was still working under the hood to pay for his sister's life and at the same time affording his own college courses. There was a third person with them, Blood Shepherd, and he would eventually get to know he was her half-brother. They formed a strange trio, never truly getting along but incredibly and undeniably effective, and that was why they remained together despite the hardships they faced on the inside and the outside.
They eventually split up from Blood Shepherd and he was soon hired by SOL Technologies, putting an end to their times on the network. Instead, he would hire her and learn about her real-life identity in the meantime: Ema, she was called. Her gaze was even more hypnotic once they faced each other in a shady back alley, enticing his by merely plunging her eyes in his, anchoring him to a fantasy he had never really known. Studies and work had eaten away his teenager self's curiosity elsewhere for too long, and it was simply swimming back up to the surface.
Ema was the very definition of alluring: she was beautiful, mysterious and allusive, always on the go and never fully trusting in anyone. She had made an exception to meet him in real life for the missions he would entrust her with: it was even a chance, a privilege she was granting him to see her real face and eyes. Her avatar was almost identical apart from few colour differences and a mask covering the bottom half of its face, hiding away her mouth which had the propension to smirk with mischievous happiness. He really was all over her before he could notice it and stop himself from being so.
Just like a painter's muse, she was his closest ally. Despite how much she would describe herself as enigmatic, as someone who would only cause others around her doubts about her true motives, he could only find himself recalling her and not anyone else. She was the best huntress around, he first thought. She was his favourite, he soon realized.
He first called her Ghost Girl out of politeness and conventions. It was improper to call someone by their first name when you were supposed to call them by their pseudonym. He could still remember the time she had told him to call her Ema and not Ghost Girl: this day, his heart beat way too quickly and almost escaped his chest in an explosion of feelings he couldn't control anymore. He still hid it fairly well considering she only teased him lightly on the matter.
Perhaps this had gotten way more personal far earlier than he thought it had between them. They were closer to partners in crime than merely hirer and hired bounty huntress and ignoring it had done nothing much to help with the issue. The teasing only got stronger and happened more often from then on, as she started to notice one by one every single flaw and weakness of his. He thought she'd let him go, find another hirer: she kept coming back, kept accepting his missions, and he eventually caused her temporary demise.
There was still a shot of pain in his chest to even think about that. Perhaps she wouldn't have been deleted would he have not sent her on these tracks.
But this was said and done, and months later, they were there, in a cold and white room, and for some reason Ema was still in said room with him without any reason really given. He almost expected her to at least pay him a visit after what had happened, even if just to scold him like she had done before. He couldn't really speak, merely react to anything quietly without his voice going extinct on him. Better look presentable with his muse in the room… despite her having seen him half naked and covered in bandages, cannula in the nose, everything anyone wouldn't want to be seen in.
And yet, she was there, moving across the room, sitting on a chair one moment and pacing in the other. Aoi had left for school on his demand: her education was more important than him, and she could pay him a visit after classes anyway. Ema convinced her by saying she'd watch over him for her. Maybe she was here for Aoi: they had grown fairly close over the recent weeks, much to his relief. Ema could watch over his sister as the latter saved the world with Playmaker and Soulburner. He would have to repay her back, one day.
Even as she paced around the room, she was still the alluring ghost he had always seen her as. Almost unreadable, strangely patient with him and not with many others, still beautiful. For someone supposed to be so prone to backstabbing, he felt strangely soothed around her presence. She could defend him in case something was there to harm them in times where he couldn't do anything. They were a tandem, in a way, albeit not the most effective out there. Her personality easily dominated his and he was but fine with that.
She could overpower him anytime and he would be grateful for it.
His muse was an elusive one and that was what made her so unique, so magnetic. She was playing the role of a guardian here, he knew it: despite hiding it, if she was here, it was because she was concerned in some way. Her yells at him when she had noticed how badly he had gotten injured had betrayed her, and so did showing up to his side when he came to. Enigmatic, almost impossible to decipher fully, and yet she gave him the privilege to see how she really was.
He still wondered why she thought of him, if she ever did. There had to be a part of her who was genuinely somewhat attached to him, right? She wouldn't be here otherwise, sitting back next to him with her legs crossed, asking him from time to time how it was going. Her hand had been on his. What exactly did she think? He'd never know, he figured, and he was fine with that.
A muse always has secrets she never unveils to the one she inspires.
She was attracted to him like he was a magnet and she was a mere piece of iron.