Chris Nguyen, Big Dancers. 
Diego Swanson was the number one assassin at his firm, and he knew it. He never let a target of his get away, and he had an impeccable five-year record, climbing the ranks faster than any killer for hire before him. So he wasn’t surprised his boss had scheduled a one-on-one meeting with him after his most recent mission when things went a little awry, but he swaggered down the hall as confident as ever. He gave the secretary a wink as he stepped past her and to the double doors to the main office. She blushed, and while he was flattered, he didn’t really care. He knew he was better than everyone else in this sad, scarcely furnished office building.
Diego was one of the younger assassins in their workplace, and by far the most attractive. His white button up shirt was tucked perfectly into his black slacks, accentuating his slim waist. The suspenders traced his toned abs and wrapped around his narrow but muscular shoulders. Sharp black hair jutted out at enthusiastic angles with matching arched black eyebrows. His rolled up sleeves showed off his tanned, smooth skin and forearms taut with muscle; likewise, his popped shirt collar exposed his clean shaven neck and defined collarbone.
The door was already open, so he knocked on the doorframe. The boss was standing on the other side of the room, staring out the window with her back turned to him.
“Take a seat, Diego,” she said, still turned away from him. The room wasn’t what one might expect to find in the office building of one of the largest assassination corporations in the world. Instead of a professional, sleek or an ornate wooden design, the meeting hall was decorated rather casually and cozy. Beanbags and sofas filled the space, some haphazardly facing the long, central discussion table, but many were tucked away in one of the four corners of the room; instead of the headshots of targets or maps of the city’s layout, inspirational quotes and band posters were pinned to the walls. In one corner, a foosball table sat accompanied by an air hockey arena. Diego chose a beanbag near the center of the long end of the table and sat down hesitantly.
“How’d you know it was me?” he asked, and she turned to face him with a look of genuine but pleased surprise.
“I didn’t, I just say ‘take a seat, Diego’ whenever someone knocks on the door.” She spoke matter of factly, as she always did; she took her job very seriously. You couldn’t tell by looking at her though, since she was always dressed in skydiving gear, parachute and goggles and all. Even though her office was on the ground floor, she was deathly afraid of heights. She also wore two bullet proof vests, a helmet, a life jacket, and a mouth guard at all times which frequently made her quite difficult to understand. Her pockets contained compasses, flint and steels, and just about any other survival trinket you could imagine.
“However,” she continued, “you are just who I wanted to see today. This is a bit of an intervention. Intel has noticed that, despite all the gadgets at your disposal and all the rigorous training you’ve been through and all the techniques you’ve mastered while working with us, you only ever employ one tactic on your targets.”
Diego shifted in the noisy bean bag chair uncomfortably.
“And what might this problematic assassination tactic be?” His boss stared at him as if she was trying to determine whether he seriously didn’t know what the problem was or if he was playing dumb.
“The same tactic that led to your first casualty being added to your otherwise flawless record,” she growled, leaning over the table to face him. It was very hard to take him seriously perched low to the ground on the beanbag chair, and it was equally hard for him to take her seriously when her mouthguard gave her a lisp and her eyes quivered from behind her goggles.
She pushed herself away from the table with a sigh. “Diego, intel says that you only use… seduction tactics.”
“Whatever do you mean?” he inquired innocently, though by now she had caught on to his act.
“You know exactly what that means, Diego!” she said, slamming her open palms down on the table. “You act all sweet and flirty, or dreamy, or charming, or whatever and you lure your targets off to “somewhere more private” and then kill them! It’s a sick tactic and certainly not one to be used on every mission!”
“To be fair,” Diego added, “it’s never gone wrong before. In fact, the reason I messed up last time was because I didn’t try to seduce my target.”
“Yes, you chose the equally subtle method of a hand grenade.”
“Well, it was Carlton’s hand grenade.”
“The one he told you not to use.”
“Correct.”
The boss tried to itch her scalp from beneath her helmet. Diego may be the best assassin she had, but he could be stubborn and frustrating when he was told he was wrong. “The point is, Diego, you messed up for the first time, big time. I can’t let that happen again. I assigned Carlton as your partner so you could teach him some skills, show him the ropes. You’ve continued to ignore him and complete your missions solo, which defeats the purpose of assigning you a partner. And you ended up blowing him up with his own weapon!”
Diego waved it off as if she had said he had left the milk out instead of endangering the life of a coworker.
“Look, it’s awfully dreadful what happened to him. It’s a real damn shame Carlton died, though. He was a good man.”
“Actually, he’s in recovery in the room just above us.”
Diego looked up at the ceiling, then back down at her.
“Directly above us?” he asked. His boss nodded. Immediately, he drew his pistol and fired up into the second floor.
“Nurse!” a muffled voice called somewhere.
“He was a good man,” Diego repeated, shaking his head mournfully.
“Diego!” his boss cried out.
“Relax,” Diego said soothingly. “There’s no chance I actually hit him.”
“Oh my God, he’s bleeding everywhere!” the same voice yelled from above again. Diego’s boss had had enough.
“Look Diego, you can’t just keep seducing your enemies and killing them in their own beds!”
“Why not? It’s fun.”
“It’s the least conspicuous method of assassination!”
“But I’m good at it.”
The boss sighed and tried to rub her eyes through her thick-lensed goggles. “That… says a lot about you. And it is not saying good things.”
Diego shrugged. “What can I say? It’s worked flawlessly every time for the last five years. No matter the target, I’ve always been able to get them to drop their defenses. It’s a surefire way to get them to dismiss their guards and take off any protective gear.”
The boss could feel something boiling deep inside her, and she knew she couldn’t stop herself from saying what she was going to say.
“The truth is… I hate seeing you use seduction tactics on your targets because I’m in love with you!”
“No!” cried the secretary, kicking in the office doors. She had been listening in on the meeting the entire time. “I’m in love with him!”
“No!” Carlton’s muffled voice declared from the floor above them. “I’m in love with him!”
“I shot you,” Diego called up to him.
“I liked it. Do it again.”
“With pleasure,” Diego said, raising his gun once more. “He was my other target, afterall.”
“Wait,” the boss said, growing confused as his words set in. “Carlton isn’t your target.”
“Not a target you assigned to me,” he clarified. “Your secretary wants him dead. I’m not an idiot; I intentionally used that grenade in those close quarters to try to kill him in the crossfire.” The secretary froze as the boss’s icy glare shifted to her.
“I love Diego,” she began to explain, “and Carlton told me that he was going to propose to him on their next mission, so I had to bump him off to keep Diego to myself. I thought about how wonderful the irony would be if the man he planned to marry would be the one to do him in, and so I hired Diego as a hitman for his own partner.”
Diego seemed to be putting pieces of a larger puzzle together in his head, lowering his gun as he thought. “I suppose that’s why you were my next target,” he said, gesturing to the boss with his handgun. “Carlton wanted you dead and while I didn’t ask why, I believe he thought it was so that we could quit our jobs and run off together, the lonely idiot. Unfortunately for him, he placed his order after the secretary did, meaning he would’ve—should’ve—already been dead by the time I got around to killing you.”
The boss’s skydiving goggles were fogged up with the tears leaking from her eyes. “B-but what about my target?” she pleaded.
“Ah, yes,” Diego said, whirling around to catch the secretary at the end of the gun’s sights. “The boss wants you dead; has for some time. She finally caught on to your affection for me, her number one assassin and secret crush, and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
“Hold your horses, Diego,” Carlton hollered through the ceiling. “Who are you going to kill first? Surely you wouldn’t kill one of your clients and still carry out their requests after they’re dead.”
“Yes, Diego!” the secretary sobbed. “I hired you first! You must kill Carlton and then we can be together.”
“Oh, no, no, no,” his boss chimed in. “An order from your boss takes priority. Kill my blubbering secretary and forget about being an assassin. We can get married and live in some exotic corner of the world together.”
“No!” Carlton cried. “I don’t really have a valid reason why my request should be a priority, but I asked nicely. That’s gotta count for something, right?”
All three of the lovelorn beggars pleaded to Diego through tears and crackling vocal cords. Diego checked his watch and laughed quietly. He dropped the gun to the floor and stepped around the sobbing secretary who tried to clutch him but he managed to evade the painted nails that clawed at him. Carlton was bed bound on the floor above them, the secretary had collapsed to the floor, and his boss was crying against the wall.
How weak these people are, Diego thought to himself. All it took was some basic small talk, particular compliments, and looking as good as he did to reduce anyone to a pile of emotion. They were too blinded by their heartaches to realize he had rigged the building’s foundation with explosives exactly fourteen minutes and twelve seconds ago. After marveling at the cloud of flames and black smoke that erupted from what had formerly been his workplace, Diego stopped by a cafe on his way home. An iced coffee would do him good.