sulphurdioxide
It all started with football, as all terrible things in Desmond's life generally do.
Desmond Chen is a reporter. A reporter who is generally stuck covering things widely regarded as fluff in the world of TRPs-but a reporter nonetheless. A perfectly respectable job. He worked with WM, a giant in media and news, and had been with them for six years straight with a stellar record, excellent performance reviews, and absolutely no promotion which actually mattered.
Unfortunately, football happened.
After being dragged to a football game and a subsequent family dinner afterwards by his insufferable brother-the resident golden boy of the family and a professional football player-who had also decided to bring along his girlfriend, which was exactly what a sentient oatmeal cookie would look like, Desmond would later recount two mimosas deep at brunch, and named something ending in -eigh, the topic of conversation inevitably found its way to Desmond.
Some well-meaning remarks about his dating life, or rather the complete and utter lack thereof, followed. There was concern. There was advice. The result was a petty, vindictive Desmond with a bruised ego, wounded pride, and a desperate need to prove something to his family, even if he wasn't entirely sure what that something was.
Mix in an enabling group of friends, day drinking and a website advertising discreet relationships and connections between older, refined people and younger partners-also known as a sugar baby site-and the identity of Mint was born.
Mint was a baker who worked part-time as a barista, owned houseplants, named those houseplants, and probably remembered to water them on a schedule. Mist sounded whimsical, charming, mildly eccentric, and like the sort of person who would be a wealthy man's sugar baby. Mint was, in short, absolutely nothing like Desmond.
Mint also, tragically, ended up involved with Charles.
Who was nobody to mint, but sure as hell was Desmond's boss's boss's boss in real life.