If there was one phrase you deeply despised it would be 'boys will be boys', which was more often than not used when someone was talking about being harassed or flat out abused by one of the male gender. Not only was it off putting and plain out rude, it also often put the blame on the victim rather than the tormentor.

It would be hypocritical of you to claim that this was your point with this phrase all along. To be honest, you hadn't paid much mind to it because such a behavior was often associated with guys and rarely frowned upon, at most it got them a glare and a shaking head but not more. The same was with people saying that others 'were asking for it', usually referring to scantily clad women after they've been raped.

It wasn't that you agreed with them but you also didn't necessarily disagree or did anything to change others' minds about this.

That only changed after you had your own dosage of unwelcome attention. Up to that point, a part of you had continued to firmly believe that all you had to say was "no" to get rid of someone, which only served to show how lucky and ultimately privileged you had been thus far in your life.

But matters turned as you came back to the True Cross Order.

Becoming an exorcist had never been on your bucket list of things to achieve in your time on earth but in a rather fateful fit of teenage rebellion, you had managed to get enrolled into the Academy and later also into Cram School.

No success was supposed to stem out of that aside from showing your parents that you were mature and old enough to make your own decisions but as you returned from your first mission in which you had held an active part on completing it, for some reason you couldn't wipe the smile off of your face. It was in that moment that you felt at home and realized that this is what you were meant to do all along.

Naturally, your parents were anything but happy about that outcome but given that your grades were able to support you completely and you lived in the dorms of the Academy, there wasn't much they could do about it.

However, the one person you didn't expect to be mad at you was your best friend, Daimu Honda. You weren't able to recall at time when he had seriously been mad at you. Disappointed or not pleased over something you did, sure. But mad to the point that he was yelling at you, effectively scaring you in the process and giving you the cold shoulder for several months? No, that was a new thing entirely. As was the complete fall out of your friendship.

It would take up to several years of you to rebuild the trust you once had for each other and start being best friends again. But just as life would have it, you were now so much more, leading into awkward encounters, a rushed confession and ultimately finding out that the reason why he had been so mad was him facing the very real fact of losing you, which had been amplified by realizing his crush on you.

That crush had turned into falling in love, making him first your boyfriend and, as for almost 8 months, your fiancé.

You had finished the training as an Exorcist shortly after the friendship with Daimu had ended and while you still enjoyed defeating demons and protecting civilians, you had lost the passion for it, as you had done for pretty much everything. There was something very life draining about losing the one friend you had known since forever.

The reason why you had finally quit being an Exorcist was your lack of passion had resulted in you being less focused and therefore coming very close to almost being killed. Your superiors made it obvious that they would stand around and wait for you to kill yourself and left you with the choice to either leave or handle all the paperwork from the inside of one of their many offices, far away from any potential threats.

You had turned them down, too embarrassed with the way your promising career had turned out to even consider their offer.

Past you might have scolded you for coming back and begging on your knees for the job you had once declined but anyone seeing you at that day, years after they had last seen you and looking like a completely different person now that you had the support of the one person that only ever mattered, would tell another story altogether. There was nothing pathetic about you approaching your former superiors about a job, if anything you were oozing confidence from all of your cells, because you had your light back and resembled much more the Exorcist with the promising career than you had ever done in active duty.

This was the beginning of a beautiful story of a woman reclaiming her life with love supporting her but anyone who had ever said that love was the strongest thing known to the world had never experienced true hate.

You weren't naive enough to believe that your life would now be perfect but you had to admit, you also didn't think it would be this bad.

One thing that you missed a lot from your active days was the uniform. Yes, it was a pain in the ass when it was even remotely warm due it being made of a very thick material in order to successfully protect the Exorcists, and you had always been envious of Shura to be skilled enough to survive without it, but another thing it had done was to hide your body.

For some reason as few as Shura was wearing no one ever dared to make a move on her but the second you changed from uncomfortable uniform to more comfortable business attire, you found yourself often saying 'Eyes are up here'. The thing was, you weren't even wearing something remotely sexy or daring, it just accentuated your curves as would do anything that wasn't the damn uniform or baggy clothing.

In general, people apologized to you if you caught them staring at the valley of your breasts instead of your eyes. Aside from one group of mixed Exorcists, that is.

Even before they had taken an interest in you, they had grabbed your attention in an unpleasant way.

Something that Daimu had kept from you for a long while was his demonic heritage, which also resulted in him getting mad at you after starting your training, believing now that you would never be able to accept this secret of his.

This was another thing that had to be cleared up once you started to rebuild your former relationship and you explained that being born a half-demon wasn't reason enough for the Order to hunt you, only if you had done something that violated their rules. In fact, half-demons were broadly accepted among their ranks.

At the point when you had told him this, the thought of anti-groups regarding this regulation had mainly been theoretical; you had never encountered anyone that was hateful towards another because of this. But then you happened to come across that particular group.

You had first taken notice of them as one of your colleagues was charged of disciplinary issues and they weren't even willing to listen to her story but thought they had the right to talk about her anyway. For them, the case was closed as soon as they found out that her father had been a demon and they started to speak in vile tongues.

"Of course, she's a mixed blood. How couldn't she?"

"This just proves that they shouldn't be allowed to enter the Order."

"I hope the Grigori will sentence her to death."

Even after it had been proven that the colleague had been falsely accused, they didn't relent on their opinion. If anything it grew stronger, or you had just started to listen to it more intently.

Whatever it was, you had thanked the Lord that your interactions with them were restricted to a bare minimum, only having to ask for the occasional signature here and there by one of their members; that was until they went out of their way to come into contact with you.

You didn't know what had caused the switch in their behavior but now they were trying to get into your personal space with all of their invading questions, lingering touches and claiming that your fiancé - you had thought they would stop once they knew you were in a committed relationship; they didn't - wouldn't be able to treat you as good as they would.

It wasn't just one or two of their group doing this but every member, regardless of their gender, and their need to tell you about Daimu's unworthiness of you increased massively after they figured out that he was a half-demon.

At first, their glances had just made you uncomfortable, making you wish to have as less contact with them as possible but after the discovery of Daimu's heritage, there was a dangerous glint in their eyes that made you fear for him.

Naturally, you had tried to report them but the only reply you got from your superiors was the godforsaken phrase of 'boys will be boys', that you should be thankful for the attention given your looks and that you shouldn't make that much of a fuss. It seemed that everyone in charge of anything had been replaced by douchebags or assholes, making you utterly irritated by their decision to not take you seriously.

The group, now aware that they wouldn't have to face any kind of punishment, amplified their actions and seemed to be in your field of vision whenever you raised your head. The uncomfortableness had long vanished and was replaced by dread as they resembled more and more stalkers than colleagues who overstepped lines.

It made a pep-talk from yourself and Daimu an absolute necessity before going to work because their behavior had made you anxious enough to experience panic attacks several times a week.

Being the sweetheart that your fiancé was he had taken it up to himself to send you encouraging and kind messages while you were at work, which was what you were staring at right now.

A smile spread on your lips as you read his words, accompanied by one of the cute stickers he had especially downloaded for this purpose, and the promise to cook your favorite dish for dinner once you 'survived the assholes'. The rising feeling of being overwhelmed had immediately shut down by him and he didn't even had to be physically around you.

Knowing that your love thought of you gave you new strength and you turned to your laptop again, working on another assignment by Sir Pheles. You managed to block out all of your surroundings, focusing completely on your work in order to not let any negative feelings take over until you were home, and by thus failing to see that one of the group's members had seen this.

It didn't take a genius to know who had made you this happy, and even if you weren't engage to a filthy mixed blood, anyone making you happy that wasn't them was simply unacceptable.

Her expression turned dark as she turned around on her heel, ready to tell their boss about this.