Ficorpio
Chapter 1
My childhood best friend had always considered me a shameless, fraudulent psychic.
So when he rejected my confession, he brought along the woman of his dreams, clearly hoping one look at her would make me realize I never stood a chance.
What he hadn’t expected was for his dream girl to become fascinated by my readings.
She offered me a small fortune to help her cousin, who had shut himself off from the world after losing both his parents.
Since money had always been my guiding star, I accepted without hesitation.
At our first meeting, her cousin treated me like I was invisible. I got right in his face and said, “You’re an Aquarius. You don’t honestly think acting cold and aloof will get you out of socializing, do you?”
At our second meeting, he refused to open his bedroom door.
So I shouted from the hallway, “You wouldn’t want everyone finding out about the time you blew up the school septic tank when you were eight, would you?”
Later, his cousin showed up at my door in the middle of the night with a $100,000 success bonus and a framed appreciation plaque.
“That’s Madame Mystic for you! You actually turned that stone-faced man into a lovesick fool!”
“Madame Mystic, would you be interested in taking a job?”
The woman of Julian Sterling’s dreams extended her right hand to me.
Her eyes practically glowed as she stared at me, as if I were the answer to all her prayers.
I looked at her outstretched hand, unable to process what was happening.
After all, from the moment Vivian Ashford had appeared, I’d assumed Julian had brought her to sabotage my confession.
Or, more precisely, to stand beside me as my dazzling opposite and make me look like a complete clown.
This sudden turn of events had never entered my mind.
When I failed to answer immediately, Julian’s expression darkened.
I knew that look far too well. He had to be thinking I was putting on another mystical act to deceive his precious goddess.
Sure enough, he turned to Vivian the next second.
“Vivian, don’t listen to Claire’s nonsense. She’s a fraudulent psychic. Everything she says is a lie.”
Vivian frowned at that, but instead of responding to Julian, she offered me the job again.
“Madame Mystic, I have a case for you. I’m prepared to pay very well if you’ll take it.”
“To be honest, I have a cousin who’s an Aquarius, and everything you just said describes him perfectly.”
“He went through something devastating a while ago. Since then, he’s fallen into a deep depression and completely withdrawn from everyone. He won’t even speak to us, and we’re his family.”
“We’ve hired therapists before, but none of them managed to help. My cousin refused to tell them anything.”
Chapter 2
“This time, I’d like you to give him a comprehensive reading. If you can persuade him to open up and have a real conversation with you, that would be even better.”
Only then did I understand.
Vivian was genuinely interested in my divination skills.
I had carefully arranged everything today because I’d planned to confess my feelings to Julian, my childhood best friend.
Instead, he’d brought his crush to the scene of my confession, intending to make me feel so inferior that I would finally give up on him.
As if that weren’t bad enough, he’d mocked me in public and called me a crazy New-Age fortune-teller.
I might have liked Julian, but I still had my pride. I wasn’t going to stand there and let him humiliate me in front of everyone.
So, in a fit of rage, I’d struck back.
I’d called him a fickle, narcissistic Gemini.
My exact words had been, “They might all be air signs, but Aquarius men are cold because they’re rational and objective. When they don’t like someone, they keep their distance.”
“Libra men might be indecisive, but even when they reject someone, they consider the other person’s feelings. They have enough emotional intelligence to avoid deliberately embarrassing them.”
“But Gemini men? You’re living proof that some men never grow up. You’re irresponsible, fickle, and hopelessly narcissistic!”
“If you hadn’t spent all these years sending me mixed signals, why would I have stayed tangled up with you for so long?”
In my fury, I had indiscriminately declared war on every Gemini man alive.
I’d assumed that kind of shameless zodiac slander would make everyone think even less of me.
Instead, Vivian had somehow looked past the ranting and recognized that I actually knew astrology.
And I was extremely interested in her promise of generous compensation.
Still, I had no intention of letting myself be played. Before accepting, I needed to know what she considered “paying well.”
“And what sort of figure does a beautiful woman like you mean by ‘very well’?”
The moment Vivian realized I was interested, she answered without hesitation.
“Five thousand dollars for a comprehensive astrological reading, and another five thousand for a private consultation with my cousin.”
“If you can get him to truly open up and help him move past what happened, I’ll give you a one-hundred-thousand-dollar success bonus.”
“Deal!”
The word left my mouth the instant Vivian finished speaking.
I answered so quickly, anyone watching might have thought I was afraid she’d change her mind if I waited even one second longer.
Despite Julian’s desperate attempts to stop her, Vivian still chose to bring me to her cousin’s apartment.
Chapter 3
The second confession ceremony Julian had prepared turned him into a complete clown.
Outside the apartment, Vivian knocked several times, but no one answered.
“Typical Aquarius man,” she muttered.
Then she entered the passcode with practiced ease and ushered me inside.
“Elliot! Cousin Elliot! Look who I brought!”
She shouted toward the apartment while handing me a pair of disposable slippers.
Julian had posted pictures of Vivian on social media before. I’d always thought she was some untouchable goddess who lived above the concerns of ordinary people. I never would have guessed she had such a cute, down-to-earth side in private.
Once I’d changed my shoes, Vivian led me straight to her cousin Elliot’s bedroom.
At first, she made a show of knocking and calling his name a few times.
When Elliot still didn’t answer, Vivian turned to me and offered an apologetic smile.
Then she simply opened the door.
The instant it swung inward, I turned my back, guided by the principle that a decent person shouldn’t look where they weren’t invited.
A young man alone in his bedroom could be doing any number of things.
What if I saw something I shouldn’t? I’d end up needing eye surgery.
“Cousin, are you spacing out again?”
Vivian’s actions were undeniably reckless, but the concern in her voice was impossible to miss.
Even faced with concern from a family member, Elliot remained unmoved. He continued staring out the window at the sky, absorbed in his own thoughts.
Vivian was clearly used to this attitude by now.
She turned back to me, noticed that I was still facing away from the room, and laughed.
“Madame Mystic, you can turn around now. My cousin is fully dressed!”
Only then did I feel safe enough to turn around.
Elliot’s bedroom was furnished simply: a bookcase, a desk and chair, and a bed. That was all.
At the moment, he was sitting on the carpet, staring blankly up at the sky.
Vivian lowered her voice as she explained that Elliot had spent the past three years locking himself in his room and staring into space.
He barely spoke to any of them, either.
In fact, the number of words Elliot had spoken to other people over those three years could be counted on both hands.
I nodded.
This was classic Aquarius behavior.
Especially when they were hurting, Aquarians tended to shut themselves away from everyone else, turning themselves into solitary creatures cut off from the world.
On the way over, I had already drawn Elliot Ashford’s natal chart using the birth time Vivian had given me.
His Sun, Mercury, and Venus were all in Aquarius, making him an unmistakable air-sign man.
But his Moon was in Scorpio, filling him with inner conflict and pain. He was the kind of person who could easily become trapped in terrible memories, unable to break free on his own.
His rational mind told him to look ahead, yet his heart remained consumed by regret. He blamed himself for every mistake, leaving him caught in a constant, agonizing tug-of-war.