Corporate galas weren't really Kapri's thing; luckily, his usual line of work didn't bring him to those things much. When he accepted a part-time gig drawing concept art and character designs for a video game company, the last thing he expected was to be invited to the company’s annual gala where the top executives mingled with the developers and artists who had been crunched to the bone as a “gesture of their appreciation for their hard work for the company” and for being such great “team players”. The standard corporate bullshit excuse that deflected from how they overworked and severely underpaid their talents. But the free-flow champagne and finger foods were nice.

When he received the invite in his inbox, he was genuinely surprised. He was a part-timer; he didn't even have a proper badge to get into the offices he worked at, so an invite to the company's biggest night of celebrations seemed odd. Normally, an email like that would result in him replying to the RSVP with a "No", but there was someone who he’d seen at the office a few times that he was hopeful would be there – some tigress he’d seen walking around the development offices, being paraded around and given tours. She didn’t work there, but he’d seen her there enough times that it piqued his interest.

The first time he saw her, she wore a pantsuit and was the physical embodiment of a powerful woman. She stood out like a sore thumb amongst the business casual and the pajamas that almost everyone else wore. Kapri was huddled at his desk in the darker part of the open-plan office where he and his fellow artisans were scribbling on their drawing tablets when they heard the whispers and mumblings that some “Alex Marx the Spot” was in the lobby downstairs. The goat had no idea who that was, the name rang a bell, but he couldn’t really put a finger on it.

The whispers and mumbles got louder when the tigress came walking through the sliding glass doors of the office, accompanied by the CEO, his assistant, the CFO, and one of the game’s lead writers. Kapri’s pen stopped in its tracks and he pulled his gaze away from the screen that he had his eyes glued to. He watched in awe as his co-workers reacted to the tigress like she was some celebrity; the goat still had no idea who she was, but his eyes followed her as she walked through the rows of desks and cubicles to the CEO’s office in the back. The whole ordeal only lasted a few seconds, but it felt a lot longer for the goat. He watched as she made her way through the office with the big dogs, smiling, nodding, and laughing at what the goat was sure was unfunny boomer-type humor. Normally, he wouldn’t really bat an eye at who the executives brought around the offices for a tour, but this tiger got the entire office to look, Kapri included. Whether it was him feeling FOMO, or that pantsuit that caught his eye, he didn’t really know. But he couldn’t stop looking.

The tigress came to a stop at the door to the CEO’s office as he fumbled around the doorknob to get it open. In the small amount of time that Alex had while she waited for him to open the door, she glanced around the offices that were now behind her. She scanned all around the large floor until her green eyes landed on a white goat who stood out from the dark corner he was sitting in. His face was lit up by his drawing tablet screen and computer monitors. The tigress stopped, smiled, and waved at the goat with the broken horn before she brushed the ends of her hair up with the very same hand that she waved at him with, and turned away to walk into the CEO's office. When the door closed behind her, the goat was still staring. He continued to stare for a few more seconds until his fellow concept artist who was sitting next to him nudged him on the shoulder.

“Dude, do you know who that is?”

Kapri blinked at the nudge and turned his attention to the koala who had knocked him out of his stare. He gave him a confused look at first and then shook his head. “No, not really. Just think it’s interesting that she’s wearing a suit. Must be a lawyer or something. Kind of hot.”

The koala let out a snort and shook his head. “You’re hilarious, dude. That’s Alex Marx the Spot, man.”

The goat looked at his co-worker with a confused expression again, which caused the koala to roll his eyes.

“You seriously don’t know who she is? She’s supposed to be voicing Xela? The character you drew concept art for?”

Kapri still had no idea. He knew the character Xela that he drew concept art was a tiger, but he had no clue who this particular tiger was. He shook his head at the koala, who was flabbergasted.

“Google her. Alex Marx the Spot.”

After a few clickity-clacks on his keyboard, he looked her up and spent the better part of the workday not working, and instead watching her interviews, reading articles, and scrolling through her social feeds.

“Alex Marx the Spot,” he muttered to himself a few times as he read through her Wikipedia page, once he reached the very end, he was surprised to see a tab labeled “Controversies” and was just about to click it when his teammate from down under interrupted him.

The koala slid over to the goat’s side all sly and cool in his office chair and held his phone out to him to show him a video. “Check this shit out.” The goat blinked as he was interrupted, but he turned his attention to the phone that was now in his field of vision. The video was of the tigress arriving at an airport and beating the absolute shit out of a reporter for no apparent reason.

He already liked her, but that video made him like her even more.

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There were a lot of people at the party; suits, tuxedos, and cocktail dresses galore. The finger foods and booze were nice, but the corporate autofellatio from the higher-ups made Kapri want to throw up. How was it possible for people to make so much money annually and be that cringe? The goat had a goal of making a lot of money in life one day, but he would rather die than develop what was known as the “rich man’s laugh” that he had been hearing all night long.

The goat wore a white suit jacket, black pants, and a luxurious burgundy button-up shirt that he only saved for special occasions like this one. His hair was a little messy, but that thing was hard to tame – after 15 minutes of trying in front of his bathroom mirror, he gave up. He mingled, chitchatted, and indulged himself in the food and drinks that seemed to constantly flow out of the hotel’s kitchen. After two hours of mindless small talk with fellow employees, the goat was drained and wanted to go home. But he hitched a ride with his koala coworker, who was at this point, much too inebriated to go anywhere near a car. And the only reason he came to this dumb self-pat on the back party was to see that tigress, Alex. He was a simple man; he saw a pretty woman who could probably beat him up and wanted to see more of her. Maybe talk to her, if he could.

He'd seen a few people with stripes frolicking around the gala, but none of them were her. After what seemed like forever wandering around the hotel grounds, he found himself outside on the terrace that overlooked the rolling hills that the hotel sat atop. He wrapped his fingers around the metal railing that kept him and the other hotel guests from drunkenly tumbling down the hills to their deaths and leaned against it. He let out a sigh as his eyes glazed over the red rose bushes that lined the downward slope. He let out a defeated sigh, leaned up against the railing, and closed his eyes. Just as his eyelids went over his peepers, he heard the familiar sound of a lighter spark wheel grinding against flint and the sound of a cigarette being lit.

‘Flck, flck. Fwwwssssh!’

Kapri’s ears flickered and he opened his eyes. He turned his head in the direction of the sound. His expression was that of annoyance at first, wondering who would be so inconsiderate to come and smoke right next to him when there was more than enough square footage on the terrace for them to smoke anywhere else. But once his eyes refocused from the short time that they were closed, he saw who it was and almost choked on his tongue.

He stared at her with wide eyes, a slightly furrowed brow that hadn’t quite wiped away from his previously annoyed expression, and a slightly agape mouth that was initially ready to say something sarcastic but was now part of his shocked expression.

The tigress had her cigarette in her mouth and held her bedazzled lighter up to the end of it with one hand and cupped over the flame with the other. The end of the cigarette burned and turned red as Alex took in a deep puff of smoke. She held it in for a few seconds and blew it out with a sigh. The tigress was in a dress; a red and sparkly cocktail dress with red straps that went over her shoulders as well as a strap that looped around her neck and tied at the back in a loose bow. Her hair was different from the last time the goat saw her; gone were the wavy brown locks that went down past her shoulders. She now rocked a shorter cut, a bob to be precise, which Kapri liked a lot. He was a fan of women with short hair.

The goat found himself staring at the tigress as she took in another deep lungful of nicotine and blew out of her mouth. To him, everything was happening in slow motion, down to the tiger's smallest movements. After going through about a third of her tobacco stick, the tigress's gaze, which had been casually people-watching, turned to the goat who she knew had been staring at her from the moment she pulled out her light. Alex looked at the goat in silence as she let the nicotine-infused smoke fuse into her lungs. After a few seconds, she breathed the smoke out in one big exhale, plucked the cigarette from her lips, and held it in between the index and middle fingers of her right hand. The fur on her shoulders stood up as her body finally realized that it was kind of chilly outside. A shiver ran up her spine, but she was able to brush it off and keep it under wraps as she opened her mouth and spoke.

“You want one?” Alex said with a single raised brow and reached her hand with her lighter in it into her cleavage where she often kept a pack of Marlboro handy. She pulled the pack out from her bust and held it out in the goat’s direction.

It took a couple of seconds for Kapri to realize that the tigress was talking to him; he blinked and redirected his gaze to the pack of Marlboro Gold before he shook his head. “No, thank you, I don’t smoke. I don’t mind if you do, though.” The goat gave the tigress a soft smile and tried his absolutely not to come off as weird as he stared at her.

“Suit yourself," Alex said with a chuckle and stuffed the pack of cigs back in between her breasts. She flicked her cigarette to knock the ash off the end of it and let out a sigh as she leaned back even more against the terrace’s railing.

Kapri continued to stare at the tigress, his eyes wandering from her hair to her shoulders, and all the way down her sparkly and eye-catching dress. He wanted to talk to her, but he was nervous, so nervous that all he could do was stare at her. She was so… Pretty, in that dress, with that hair, and those big fangs that protruded from her mouth. His heart thumped in his chest as he tried to muster up the courage to talk to her.

"So, you're Alex Marx the Spot?" the goat asked, his voice cracking a little toward the end of his sentence.

“Mhm. That would be me.” The tigress cooed her response. For a second it seemed like the goat’s attempt at small talk was about to fail spectacularly, but the tigress made it a little more interesting. “And you’re Kapri. I know who you are. You’re the artist who designed my character in the game.” Alex ended her sentence with a little chuckle and brought her cigarette back to her lips for another puff. It was a deep one, and once she was done, she blew the large cloud of smoke out from her lips to the left of her where there was no one standing, tossed the cigarette butt down onto the floor, and stepped on it with her high heel. She twisted to squish the cigarette against the ground and extinguished the massive fire hazard. After that, she cleared her throat and reached into her cleavage again, this time she pulled out a black bag of pop rocks. She fiddled with it in her hands for a while before she ripped the bag open and poured a little bit of the candy into her mouth. The strawberry-flavored sugar crystals popped and fizzed in her mouth and washed away most of the tobacco smell that lingered in her mouth. The popping of the pop rocks was so loud that even Kapri could hear it. He watched as her lips parted and her tongue came out to take the candy in and felt a shiver run down his spine. He hadn't even properly reacted to the pop star tigress knowing who he was yet. Once again, he found himself choking on his own tongue and staring at her, dumbfounded.

“Y-Yeah, that’s me haha," Kapri said awkwardly as he again tried not to stare at the tigress's chest of wonders that she kept pulling things out of. It made sense since the dress didn't have any pockets and she wasn't holding any sort of purse with her. Over the months of seeing her around the game development offices, Kapri had thought of how he would approach her, how he would strike up a conversation, how he’d charm her, casually mention the video of her beating up paparazzi, and make her laugh. But now that he found himself with the opportunity to do so, he could barely do anything. Why did women have such a chokehold on him?

“I tried to tweak her design to resemble you a bit more once I learned you were voicing her,” the goat smiled and turned around to lean against the railing with his back. He took in deep and steady breaths to try and calm his heart a bit. Once he was able to get more than a few words out to her, talking to her was a bit easier. Plus, it helped that he was no longer staring at her breasts.

That didn’t last long, though.

“So you’re the one who made her tits smaller?” the tigress let out a chuckle and raised a brow at the goat, feigning offense by also furrowing her brows at the same time.

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