Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Coral felt like her new job was a bit...bizarre.

Well, obviously. Anyone with eyes (or even just one) can tell that this job was entirely out of her skill set. Honestly, Coral didn't even expect any sort of business to accept her, let alone reach out seeking her assistance themselves. She was a simple businesswoman, used to menial tasks like filling out forms and managing budgets and sedating invasive rat species that kept crawling into her file cabinets. Truly, the only reason she accepted this job was for the payrate (these people had chocolates for days!).

But the really strange thing about this job was how little she felt like she had to contribute. Sure, she was supposed to find someone for that Genie inauguration, but she was given very little to work with. In fact, it seemed like her coworker ENA was supposed to do the brunt of the work, but so far she hasn't done anything particularly useful. In fact, the only reasonable interaction they had together was her goading Coral to shake her hand for some "genius germs". It almost offended her to think that this team probably just hired her as some sort of placeholder.

This leaves Coral to act as a sitting duck at her own job. Which was annoying. Sure, she was still getting paid, but she at least wanted to feel like she was putting in the effort.

For probably the fifth consecutive hour that day, Coral was dozing off around the main lobby area, admiring the legs and their synchronized swimming in the blood ocean when she heard some odd swooshing noises behind her. It was subtle, but a serviceable warning for what was to come next.

"Ahh, you're the one with the odd little machine in her brain, right?"

Coral couldn't help but jump at just how close ENA's voice was now. Her entire left field of vision was basically just red. She took an embarrassingly large step backwards for more distance. ENA's Salesperson persona was on, with the familiar smile plastered onto her face.

"...Mind my personal space, please."

"Oh, I do apologize. I wasn't aware you were one of those introverted sorts."

"No, I'm afraid that's just common decency," Coral barely mumbled.

ENA's Meanie persona immediately took effect, coupled with a short "swishing" noise. "I'll show you common decency the next time I catch another one of your quips!" She grumbled, lip quivering with annoyance. "And here I was trying to make some use outta you for once!"

Coral felt her eyebrow twitch with annoyance. No wonder she heard so many bad things about ENA on her first day; Salesperson was a creep and Meanie had no manners. But years of working the same old office job before this taught her that patience was a virtue, and by God was she trying to latch onto this belief right now. It will literally be the only thing keeping her sane throughout this conversation.

"So...what can I help you with?"

"Your little...'printing' contraption...how efficient is it?"

"Hrm...I guess it works as well as any other printer? It's fast, it rarely jams, it prints in color..."

"Does it work as a fax machine?"

"Yes. I receive all sorts of documents through this thing." Coral briefly paused to point at her scalp, then silently cringed when she realized that ENA literally did not need that sort of direction whatsoever. "It's been a while since I used it in that way though."

ENA seemed to have calmed down from her earlier freakout, with Salesperson taking over again within the blink of an eye. "I see...that's quite the useful invention you have there."

"I don't see what the big deal is supposed to be. Does this business not have printers?"

"We do things the old-fashioned way around here. By which I mean, word of mouth. It's not like there's much information to memorize in this establishment."

You say that, but you barely even knew what a Genie was yesterday. Coral simply bit her tongue.

"Anyway, what I was trying to get at here was this: I want to use your machine as a means of communication!" ENA raised her palms in the air as if this were some revelation told by the gods. Coral only stared blankly at her frozen state, waiting for more elaboration. When ENA didn't move, she cautiously tapped her forehead as if she were a child fascinated with a tank filled with fish. There was the chime of a bell before ENA essentially rebooted into her default position, continuing the conversation like nothing happened.

"I spend the majority of my time out and about running errands. Lately though, they've been leaving me muddled with valuable information. I have my phone calls with Froggy of course, but it's not like those are conversations I can easily refer back to. Sometimes messages are best sent through writing, don't you think?"

"Sure. I suppose I can agree with that," Coral said, mostly as a means of ending the conversation quicker. "So you just want to use me as a glorified telephone...?"

"Precisely! You catch on quick, my fellow entrepreneur." ENA clapped her hands together as a display of genuine joy. Coral almost found it cute. Almost. "Though I do want to be sure you're telling me the truth. Puffery is no laughing matter."

"Uh, please, just hold on a second!" Coral held out her hands and waved them in a fluster. "For one, my job description doesn't require this sort of work. And secondly, I didn't even give you my consent."

ENA's did not seem even the slightest bit set back by this revelation. Wordlessly, she took off her hat and turned it upside down, shaking it once or twice to reveal an incredibly long sheet of paper. It unrolled and hit the floor, the end trailing all the way to Coral's shiny leather shoes. There, scribbled in red pen at the very bottom was the sentence:

"The employee by the name of Coral Glasses (presumably), in addition to aforementioned prerequisites, must also assist fellow coworkers with any and all business regarding document transfer and prints. No if's, and's, or but's."

There was also even smaller text written below that one as well, which was probably an add-on by someone else:

"Due to the abruptness of such a request, especially imposed on a recent hire, the employee by the name of Coral Glasses (presumably) will also receive a 0.5% bonus upon acceptance of this task. How much is that? I don't know, tell the boss to go nuts."

"I just made some simple adjustments to your contract. I'm sure this will make the offer seem a bit more enticing?" ENA shook her hat once again and the contract seemed to refurl itself like a rewinded animation.

Despite ENA's insistence, Coral was still unsure about accepting this offer. For one, her head hurts like hell everytime she prints something. Having to do this often sounds torturous and perhaps wasn't worth a mere 0.5% bonus. On top of that, this really just sounded like busy work. If she refused, there would be little to no consequences to their overall work efficiency, and she failed to see how this sort of menial task could actually prove her usefulness.

Apparently Coral took too long to think since Meanie decided to butt into the conversation. "Look, I'm not gonna waste any more time on this! I'm really trying to do you a favor here. You have potential, y'know. If you didn't I wouldn't have bothered talking to you at all." ENA jabbed a very pointy finger into Coral's chest for emphasis. "Either prove to everyone that you're a real asset to the team or that boss of ours is gonna see a real riot!"

Besides being slightly pissed off about more physical contact, shockingly, amazingly, and weirdly enough...that small extra nag from ENA was enough to knock some sense into her. It's not like Coral had much else to do on her shift anyway. And ENA had a surprising amount of faith in her. She's annoying in plenty of ways, but if there's a small amount of support on her end, then maybe the headaches she'd get for the next few weeks would be ever so slightly more bearable.

"I guess I can do you some favors every now and then..."

"Ugh! Finally! I need to take charge of these negotiations sooner." ENA switched back to Salesperson, taking a small bow afterwards. "Pleasure doing business with you, Coral. At least, I hope I can call you that."

"I don't believe I have a choice in the matter anyway," Coral replied bluntly.

"In just a few short moments you'll be receiving a document I sent your way a few minutes ago. I need to see this exchange myself."

"Did...did you already plan on faxxing me a paper before I even agreed to it?"

"It's just a time saver, Coral. You'll get the hang of these practices eventually." ENA was staring very intently at Coral's scalp, making the former uncomfortable at the sudden attention she was getting. As if on cue, Coral felt the pounding headache coming her way, as if her head was used like a drum. She cringed immensely as the whirring sound of the paper printing eventually died down. It somersaulted down into her hands and she grabbed onto it, albeit somewhat shakily. ENA was also peering over her shoulder, as if the message was completely unknown to her as well.

[This is a test to see if Coral Glasses's fancy printing mechanism actually works. I am typing out a message on a piece of paper. Such incredible technology! Wherever would we be without such a blessing? Now I am pretending to keep typing to make myself seem busy. Type type type type okay that's boring. Is this enough to fill up a page? Perhaps I don't need to do that, but ambition is the key to success. Or so I'm told! Okay now there is someone coming this way. Okay it's the receptionist. Okay she seems like she's trying to tell me something. Now she's mad. Now she's yelling, but it's quite difficult to understand. She should try typing her thoughts, it's surprisingly therapeutic. Now she's threatening to kick me out. Okay now I'm being picked up. She's trying to take the keudborm awys form m]

Coral simply stared down at the paper in silent disbelief while ENA let out a disappointed sigh. "If that receptionist hadn't interrupted me, I would have certainly written down more of my ideas. Oh well. There'll be plenty more opportunities coming our way." ENA patted Coral on the back with great enthusiasm, knocking Coral out of her stupor. "In either case, I truly look forward to working with you more in the future. I'm counting on you!"

Just like that, ENA was heading off in a very ambiguous direction, yet with conviction in every step. Coral could do nothing except blankly stare after her until she disappeared, hands still weakly holding the freshly printed document. She glanced down at it again, skimming over the words ENA typed, before she felt the coral on her face pulsating rhythmically.

...Maybe she should've asked for a higher bonus.

Chapter Text

Turns out it's really easy to do a job if you're never given the chance to carry out the task in the first place.

It's been four days since Coral accepted ENA's strange offer and she has not received a single paper from her. Four days may not seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things, but for a business that seems to pride itself for being open at all hours, you can certainly expect a lot to happen. Dozens of customers go through those Doors every hour, and there was no feasible way they didn't have at least one comment or complaint to make.

Coral has only really taken up the odd job lately: cleaning up peculiar stains left by patrons seems to be Froggy's favorite one. It's all she's really done for the past few shifts, but at least it's helped with her restlessness. The only real downside was being around mysterious fluids all the time, which was gross, even with gloves. She'd ask for someone actually tasked as a cleaner to help out, but the casino apparently has an employee size of a whopping five entities, with no janitor in the lineup. With Coral being a recent hire, it was only natural she'd get the short end of the stick and the job nobody wanted. At least it's another 0.5% chocolate bonus for the time being.

Anyway, it's not like ENA's ignoring her. She noticed that she checks up on her every now and then. Coral would be wiping down a window or sweeping the floors and she'd lift her head up to see at least half of ENA's face peering around a corner. Depending on the half she sees, ENA reacts differently. If it was Salesperson, she'd wink (or blink? If there's only the one eye...) and leave. If it was Meanie, she'd disappear the moment they made eye contact. It was weird behavior, and it made Coral a little uncomfortable to be spied on all the time. She'd try to tell her to stop if ENA was actually willing to keep conversation with her for once.

Coral was mopping the tiles in the hub today, merely pausing to wipe the sweat off her forehead, when she heard a voice calling out for her.

"Oi! You with the glasses!"

Coral scanned the hub until her eye fell on Froggy, one hand on his hip and the other beckoning her to come over. She hesitated, then settled on dropping the mop and just walking over to him.

"...Yes?" Coral's voice had a hint of annoyance. If he needed to say something, couldn't he have just gone up to her instead? Such a ruckus for something that could've easily been said in an email...

"Okay look, I know this is short notice, but apparently the blood fountain we have downstairs—you remember the fountain, right? I keep forgetting you're new."

"Yes, but—"

"Well, it seems like somebody thought it would be funny to use it as a...eugh...let's just say dumpster, huh? So now it's clogged. Making a huge mess. Any chance you can go fix it?"

"Ah...I'm now reduced to this place's plumber too, huh?" Coral's coral started pulsing again, slow and subtle.

Froggy scratched the back of his very large head, looking very guilty. "Agh, listen...I really don't like putting all these jobs on you. I know it isn't fair."

Then why do you do it? Again, Coral just stood there and took it.

"But until ENA finally steps up and puts in the work for once," Froggy continued, "and until that damn penguin gets off my back, then we have to make do with the hands we got. Those hands just happen to be yours!" Froggy tried to give Coral a reassuring thumbs up, but her unimpressed expression just left him smiling very awkwardly.

"I know I'm new here, so you don't have to take my question seriously, but why not hire an actual janitor or something? They're not very costly as far as I know."

"Ehh, it's a tricky situation. Only the boss is allowed to hire and fire employees, but he conveniently decided to hide away right after you joined us. And if ENA just handled the Genie situation a little bit faster..."

The conversation took a sudden lull, leaving Coral to fidget with her blazer. Froggy's mind appeared to be preoccupied with thoughts of the boss, and he seemed to assume the conversation ended there. He suddenly entered a coughing fit thanks to the small yet prevalent smoke still in the area.

"I just...actually, if I'm allowed to speak on the matter..." Coral looked up at Froggy's face for any indication to stop, but after recovering from his coughs he just crossed his arms and nodded wordlessly, granting her permission. As Coral spoke, she played with her hair, hand brushing it behind her ears everytime a loose strand fell on her face. "Right, so, how do I put this? I do appreciate you trying to keep me working, but the thing is...I'm only here to do the jobs I'm supposed to do. I'm preoccupied with the Horse Door fiasco, you probably know that, and ENA is—well, she's supposed to be sending me documents to file and store—"

"Ah ah ah, stop right there. ENA told you to do what?"

"Uh...I'm kind of her personal fax machine. In a sense." Okay. When Coral puts it like that, it does sound pretty offensive.

Froggy's face seemed absolutely astounded, and even his amphibious eyes seemed to widen. "She has to be kidding...she thinks she has the nerve to barely show up around here and she dumps her workload on you instead?! I can't be dealing with a whole new mess like that!"

"I-It's really no big deal, Froggy. I did agree to the whole thing."

"Man...once I see her again we're gonna have a long talk about that code of conduct she loves so much..."

As Froggy was complaining about ENA's absence, which he then used to complain about every other employee he had to deal with that day, Coral suddenly felt that familiar pain climb up her skull all the way to her scalp. She stood frozen, face contorted in pain as the paper took its sweet time to print, in which it then gracefully fell to the floor. The blank side of the page was facing up, so neither entity was able to see its contents at first glance.

Froggy paused his tantrum to take in the paper's presence, then looked back up at Coral wiping off more sweat as she too stared at the paper. "I guess I've taken up a bit of your time already. Do what you need to do and I'll see if I can figure out the fountain thing myself." He gave a half-hearted wave before making his way down the nearby staircase.

Coral knelt down and cautiously picked up the page, taking care to not crease the edges. She knew for a fact that this wasn't printed of her own volition. This was without a doubt a document ENA must've sent her. To her surprise, she almost felt excited to see what it was, as indicated by the coral on her face also pulsating more eagerly. She was glad no one was around to see such a display.

Coral adjusted her glasses as best as she could and flipped the page over to the side that wasn't blank. There were not nearly as many words as she'd expected to receive from ENA—in fact, the text wasn't even arranged in paragraphs, but in bullet form.

[1. Feed the legs.
2. Alphabetize your drawers.
3. Pray to God for your salvation.
4. Take one (ONLY ONE) complementary writing utensil. Put back after hours. Please don't shove up nose or piggy bank.
5. Call your friends.
6. Egg Sandwich.
7. Take anti-trust vaccine. (It's a gummy bear. Very nutritious.)
8. Feed the legs again. They have amazing metabolism.
9. Reprogram your pirated movie collection.
10. Gold star!]

Coral read the list, then reread it, then re-reread it, then felt nauseous and stopped. Whatever she was expecting to receive from ENA, it most certainly was not this. This was just nonsensical word vomit to her. Was she going insane? Is this the norm for this business? Is this allowed?

Confused, Coral glanced to the left, with a nice full view of the blood ocean. The legs seemed to be hibernating for the day. Then she looked to her right, eyes falling on one of the shut down shacks they had in the hub, devoid of employees. Then she looked back to the left, and—

"Oh Jesus Christ!" ENA was literally just standing there! Wow, okay! Coral instinctively covered her face with the paper, as if that was going to offer her any sort of protection.

"Gesundheit." Salesperson didn't even flinch at Coral's reaction. She instead waved her hand in a circular motion as she spoke, oddly mesmerizing Coral before she shook her own head to snap out of it. "I hope you're doing well! I trust you've received my instructions?"

"Uhm...hello. Yes. If you mean this paper. I'm just a bit...confused. This wasn't the type of document you said you'd send me." Coral waved the paper, which was making wobbly sound effects.

ENA started scratching her chin in worry. "No, it isn't. To be frank, progress has been going very slow on my end. The Doors aren't bringing in many visitors, and our staff size is still pathetically small. So, I've taken the time to spy on you instead. You've surely noticed, no?"

"A little too often for my comfort, but yes."

"Watching you work is a little...well..." ENA suddenly switched to MEANIE in the blink of an eye. "Pathetic! It's honestly a really hard watch."

"Excuse me?"

"You're not doing anything! I'm just watching you sweep a broom side to side for eighteen hours and your misery just brings me misery! Who came up with this stuff?!"

Coral pursed her lips. "Froggy was the one who came up with it. He didn't want me doing nothing, and apparently this business is falling apart without you." Coral immediately shut her mouth. She probably wasn't supposed to admit that last bit out loud.

"Hah! After all these years these entities still don't know how to step up and take charge. It almost makes me sick all over again." Switching back to Salesperson, ENA just gave a simple smile, as if she had a master plan that was just about to be executed. "The happiness of our employees is crucial. It's what brings happy customers, and that makes a good business. I can't have my smartest entrepreneur act as a simple janitor when we're not doing anything important. Do you know what brings employees the most happiness?"

Coral observed ENA's faces to see if she was really being tested or if the question was rhetorical. Thankfully, it seemed to be the latter, since ENA answered for her.

"Having a strict to-do list to follow for every second of the day! Isn't it nice to know there's a way to keep our horrible lives in order?"

I think that's just something that makes you happy, ENA...

"Y'know, don't you think it's more convenient to tell all your magical thoughts out loud?"

Coral's face morphed into something akin to mortification. "H-How did you figure something like that out?!"

"Like I said, I've been spying on you. Whenever your brain starts running you have such a strange face. It's very humorous to me." ENA's eye squinted as she smiled even wider.

Coral brought the paper up to her face again. "You're starting to seem more like a stalker."

"Is it really stalking if everybody does it?"

"...Yes?"

"Hm. That's news to me." ENA seemed to shrug before making weird motions with her pointer finger. "Anywho, I have tailor made a list for your pleasure. It's guaranteed to increase our productivity and it could provide you with some 'fun'. Do what you like with it!"

ENA was turning around to leave when Coral suddenly grabbed her by her detached shoulder and whipped her around again. The rest of ENA's body seemed to have a delayed response, and when her face finally turned around to look at her Coral desperately waved the to-do list right in front of her.

"Look ENA, I know you mean well, and I'm astounded by the effort you put into this, but at the very least just...explain some of these terms to me? I have no idea what you're trying to say with this weird language of yours."

ENA stared blankly back at her, and then redirected her attention to the list. "I apologize. I purposely wrote these in a very concise way, but I guess it's still tough to interpret, hm?" ENA suddenly seemed overjoyed, and promptly wrapped Coral in a side hug, bringing her closer as she held out the paper in front of them. "We'll just go through each number one by one! I will explain to the best of my ability until you get sick of my wonderful voice!"

Coral was instantly cut off guard by the intimacy and was in dismay when she started sweating way more. "Eh?! Ah, well...you don't need to do all that...I've already done so much talking today, so, uh, can we just go over a few?"

"With pleasure!" ENA's triangular eyes looked at Coral expectantly, and the businesswoman very nearly got herself caught up in ENA's overwhelming presence all over again. She forced herself to ignore the stupid coral thumping on her face and stared at the paper instead.

"Okay, well...for starters, do I really need to pray to God? I'm not as religiously involved as you are, and I don't think I've done anything too bad in my life."

"Hmm...I suppose I can let you opt out of that. It'll be quite unfortunate when they strike you down first though. But I trust you can survive for more than two milliseconds!"

"Okayyy..." Coral ignored the typical cryptic statement and just moved on. "What does 'egg sandwich' mean, then?"

"It's your mandatory lunch break. I noticed you haven't been indulging in any since you've been hired."

"I don't really need to eat very often, but I guess I'll keep that in mind. Why did you want me to eat an 'egg sandwich' specifically?"

"You just seem like the type to enjoy poultry."

Coral couldn't even argue with that statement. As scary as it was, ENA wasn't even wrong. "T-Thanks for that. And lastly, you put 'gold star' for number ten. Can you elaborate?"

"Ahhh, my favorite task! That's supposed to be a reward for a job well done! As far as I know, employees love a tasty little prize. Real gold stars are radioactive, however, and will indeed kill you. I hope the mere words are enough to inspire you."

Coral just responded with an acknowledging "hmm", too distracted by noticing that they've been stuck in this hug for quite a while now. "That's all I wanted to ask, really. You can let go of me now, ENA."

ENA obliged, while also graciously handing Coral the paper back. "I hope this meeting was insightful. Tomorrow I want to see you up bright and early doing any one of these tasks, whilst I break my back doing my own jobs. Aren't we efficient?"

"I didn't realize you cared this much ENA. About my personal happiness, I mean. Thanks, I guess."

Meanie, for whatever reason, decided now was the appropriate time to put in her two cents. "Yeah, yeah. That list took a long time to put together, so I better see you follow it. Don't think I won't stop spying on you just because I did some sort of favor."

"I'd very much appreciate if you stopped doing that, actually. It's a bit too much. I'm an adult, so just trust me to do my job like everyone else does."

To Coral's surprise, ENA almost seemed upset at her request. "Hm, fine. I bet you're gonna be real lonely without me around, though. Work on your social skills, lady." ENA suddenly appeared nonchalant again, her eyes rolling as if she were bored. "Anyway, I'm gonna report back to Froggy. Your shift's over anyway, so do whatever entities like doing in these empty hours." Coral couldn't even add one more remark before ENA very swiftly left the hub without looking back, her shoes clacking against the tiles in a way that almost grated Coral's ears.

"Oh..."

Maybe Coral was a little too harsh with that ask. God, she could never know if she's being too upfront or not blunt enough with the things she says. Damn her perpetual awkwardness. Even if ENA is incredibly odd, she could've at least spared her feelings.

She scratched her head as she looked at the weird to-do list again. ENA seemed really excited to give this to her. The fact that anyone out there would even try to accommodate her needs was enough to make Coral overthink. Maybe she won't follow everything to a T like ENA wanted, but the least she could do to make it up to her was try anyway, right?

"God...this job is doing strange things to me, isn't it?"

Chapter Text

Dammit, Coral really does work better with a routine. Although it's not the most consistent thing in the world, ENA figured out her tastes fairly easily. Although, considering Coral's former bosses, she probably still would have done everything even if they weren't aligned with her wants.

For starters, most of the tasks assigned to her could easily be done in her office, which is where she was right now. It was small, cluttered, somewhat musty, and decorated with a very garish red and yellow wall pattern. In other words, it was basically identical to most other workplaces she's been in. This included the additional benefit of peace and quiet, which was her favorite kind of environment. She could type and snore and dance and crochet as she felt if she wanted to. Basically, embarrassing acts would rarely get noticed.

Coral hasn't followed the to-do list consistently everyday due to the absurdity of all the tasks, but it's still a much preferred pasttime over scrubbing vomit, saliva, and other fluids from machines in the casino. Also, she missed eating egg sandwiches. That was a definite plus.

ENA stayed true to her word and kept her distance from Coral. There was a small part of her that was grateful for ENA's consideration, but there was a much, much larger part of her that wanted to take back what she said the other day. Yes, she liked her privacy, but ENA was still...nice? Probably the wrong word to use there. But she was one of the few entities she met in her life that seemed to value her in some form. It was shameful of her to push her away so viscerally. But then again, if she didn't say anything, ENA might have gotten more and more pushy.

Still, Coral didn't think she wouldn't see her at all for the next few days. Although ENA handled the issue with the Lonely Door the other day, there was still much more work to be done. She must have known this and put in way more hours than usual, since Coral only catches brief glimpses of her at the start of her own shift. She'd almost get a little excited when she caught that flash of red or white, or her two triangular hair strands floating above her hat, or those peculiarly triangular eyes, or—

Coral was so distracted she didn't even notice she was typing all her thoughts out on the computer in front of her, a worn down half broken piece of junk the boss probably salvaged from the dump and left here. She immediately scrambled to select and delete all that text, then sighed in relief once she was done. The only other sound in the room was the computer fan whirring loudly. See? Small spaces like these really do save Coral the humiliation.

Although, she still felt awfully hot in the face.

Maybe if Coral had ENA's number or something, she could talk things through with her. Even if ENA wasn't sad or upset about the whole thing, it'd at least alleviate Coral's guilty conscience. But she was the one who gave ENA her fax number, so ENA would have to make the first move no matter what. It was a puzzling issue for sure.

Coral stared at her blank computer screen in dismay, realizing she was wasting precious seconds thinking about ENA when she should be doing work. It was infuriating to be so preoccupied on someone who, frankly, Coral barely even knew. She needed to stop. She'll get her chance later, but if she didn't get herself together she'd surely be fired by tomorrow! She'd lose her job and her livelihood, and then she'd live off of scraps on the street, and she couldn't have that! She'd be nothing without this job, so she needed to get her grip together this instant, dammit!

And yet, despite these words echoing in her mind, Coral's fingers refused to even twitch. Strange. That mantra didn't work at all. That was a little worrying. Making up frightening thoughts about the future usually worked like a charm.

"Maybe I just need to take a walk or something..."

Coral got up from her chair and attempted to make her way out of her office to clear her head, but it was filled with dilapidated shelves and sunken cardboard boxes. She barely even made it two steps from her desk when her leg got caught in between two crates and she tripped, flopping unceremoniously on top of a stack of papers. Sheets immediately went flying knocking over other piles like dominoes.

Thank God this room was small.

Coral groaned as she lifted her head up and tried to get the hair out of her face. In doing so, she felt something damp on the back of her head. Pulling her hand out in front of her face, she saw a very small amount of blood, standing out against her literal paper white skin. She must have hit her head on the wall or something.

"Ah, shit. That's a dock off my pay for sure."

She watched as the drop of blood slowly slid it's way down her palm and reached her wrist. It seemed to linger there, finding no need to keep flowing. The bright red of the fluid made a nice even split on her palm, and the blood contrasted against the pale white of her hand really reminded Coral of...

"...ENA?"

In a daze, and still staring at her hand, Coral reached for a stray sheet of paper that used to be part of the stack she fell on and tried to mitigate the damage. There thankfully wasn't much blood she had to clean up after, and her injury probably wouldn't have amounted to more than a small gash. As she was dabbing the blood off her head she felt an additional source of pain, this time coming from a very familiar spot on her scalp. It was a pretty awkward time for anyone to fax her anything, but it's not like this hypothetical entity would have known about her predicament anyway.

Coral was surprised to find that there were multiple pages sent her way. Oddly enough, there was one page that almost got jammed near the end. She snatched them all the moment they were done printing and with her clean, blood-free hand took a look at them.

...

"What in the world am I looking at..."

This document did not have any paragraphs or bullet points on it. It didn't even have any text. Right there, placed squarely in the center of the document, was a very crude crayon doodle of some type of dog (at least, that's what Coral hoped she was able to decipher). It was yellow in nature, with black being used for its two derpy eyes and round nose. It was sitting on a nonexistent flat plane, with its tongue hanging out of its mouth.

Coral haphazardly wiped her bloody hand on some other sheet of paper before she held her freshly printed ones with both hands. She then moved the top page to the back to see what the next one contained and oh my goodness it's the exact same thing. Only this time, the dog seemed to be standing up on all four of its legs, tongue still out in all its glory.

Coral shuffled through the rest of the pages in a sort of bewildered panic. A yellow dog eating a bone. A yellow dog lying down on the grass, except it was actually just flipped upside down with its legs ramrod straight. A yellow dog with a workers cap doing its taxes. A yellow dog floating in space. A yellow dog, a yellow dog, a yellow dog, they were all yellow dogs. There were probably about a dozen in total.

With shaky and sweaty hands, Coral turned to look at the last page. To her immense relief, it was not a yellow dog, but it was still an image. She felt her face unintentionally soften as she scanned it with her eyes. It was a portrait of ENA, which was a little too small for the page and whose colors weren't printed fully. It was probably the one that got jammed earlier. Still, ENA was still there. She still had her hat and overalls, her polygonal side next to her fleshy one, and her triangular eyes that weren't looking anywhere in particular. Salesperson was adorning her signature smile as always, the one Coral was most familiar with. She didn't seem to be drawn with crayon or any other familiar tool, and yet she was still here with the rest of the pictures. Why was that?

Coral found herself admiring the drawing for a little too long, but thankfully her stupor was violently interrupted by very loud croaking noises. She yelped as she saw a red plastic cup swinging in front of her face, held up by a thin string colored with yellow and blue stripes. She struggled to sit up and grab the cup, leaving the papers on her lap yet taking care not to let them slip off. She finally managed to hold it up to her ear.

"Salutations my dear coworker! How are things?"

ENA's Salesperson eagerly greeted Coral on the other end. Coral's own coral seemed to thump very loudly upon hearing her voice, and she frustratingly switched the cup over to the other side so ENA wouldn't hear such a thing.

"I-I'm doing fine, I guess. Just, y'know..." Coral looked around her messy office. Dust bunnies fell around her, as well as just regular dust. "...organizing some papers," she settled on saying.

"Impressive...more than I managed to accomplish in my own work space. Then again, I don't have an office. Anyways, please tell me you received my documents. They're of the utmostest of importances!"

Coral briefly had a thought that she found it endearing that ENA would immediately contact her in some form or another to verify if her documents were received. It made Coral feel a lot better about herself, which she found was another pattern seemingly established by ENA.

"I did. They're all these...peculiar drawings. Did you find them anywhere?"

"Find them? I'd never think of taking someone else's work, no no no. I made them myself!" ENA's sentence finished with a certain lilt in her voice that made this seem like a declaration worth celebrating.

"You were the one that drew them?" Coral took a glance at one of the drawings. They were two yellow dogs doing The Sprinkler.

"I was out on one of my commutes today when I stumbled upon a peculiar entity. I believe they are the type of species that are kept as pets. They're very docile and rather silly-looking, and I found myself growing very fond of them." Despite the fact Coral could only hear her voice, she could easily imagine ENA's face growing slightly more enthusiastic. "Unfortunately, I'm not permitted to carry any sort of photo-capturing equipment while on the job, so I had to improvise. Aren't they quite the charmers, Coral?"

"Charming is one way to put it, for sure. I'm more impressed by how many you managed to churn out in one go..."

"I'm no artiste by any means, but I like to believe I managed to capture their purest essence. God's children truly come in all shapes and sizes."

Coral straightened out the documents again. So ENA just wanted to show her a few dogs...she wasn't exactly an animal enjoyer, but they were kind of...cute.

"Thanks for showing me." Coral thought she heard a few subtle clanking sounds on ENA's end. Could that be her approval? "Um, listen, now that I have you here, I feel like I need to say something important—"

"Ah, Coral. I appreciate your eagerness for some mutual team bonding, but I'm afraid I don't have the time for that now. I do want to ask you for a quick favor on my behalf, if you'd be so obliged."

Another one? Coral cannot possibly keep up with any more demands. Then again, she was in so deep at this point that she might as well hear her out. "What is it this time, then?"

"I'm positively pleased I was able to share such an encounter with my dearest compatriot. If you don't mind, I'd like you to spread that joy around the workplace on my behalf."

"Eh? S-Surely you don't mean...passing these drawings around?"

"You catch on marvelously, Coral! These dogs would absolutely improve employee happiness by an outstanding margin. This is something we would both like to see, no?"

"I can't just do something like that, ENA! I'm not some sort of—"

A brand new yet familiarly angry voice interrupted the conversation. "Salesperson? Heh, trust me when I say you don't need any of that stupid marketing lingo. You leave that junk to me. Seriously, it'd be an absolute trainwreck otherwise." More clanking noises on ENA's end, seemingly harsher sounding than earlier. "Just walk up to someone and show them the dog. That's literally it. I think that's more than doable for you. Bye."

"Wait! When are you getting off of your shift? I still have something I need to say to you."

"Thankfully, soon enough. I'd say another two hours on my end. I can't take another second in this sweaty, damp, sickly place. I don't think you'd want to see me after a day like that."

Coral was very close to blurting out a very personal statement, but she chose to finally use her brain for once and carefully decided what she wanted to say here. "Just...trust that I do, alright? I'll see in you in the hub later, then."

There was a very brief silence on ENA's end before Meanie responded. "Suit yourself." The phone call then promptly ended. Coral let go of the cup, watching as the string pulled it back up into wherever the hell it dropped down from in the first place. She then stared down at the bunch of doodles she still had on her lap. She didn't technically accept ENA's weird little favor. She didn't have to do this. She could pretend she forgot about the whole thing.

But knowing she'd finally face ENA personally later definitely made her want to do a damn good job anyway.

The trouble was, Coral didn't really know where to start.

She had a plan of just handing out papers to whoever she could find first until they were all gone, but she also didn't wanna run around like a headless chicken trying to find entities. In the end, she decided to station herself by the Receptionist, which is where the casino tended to attract the most activity.

She stepped in the room, trying not to draw too much attention to herself, but then also remembering that this was the very opposite of what she was supposed to do. She was certainly out of her mind for doing this, but she didn't want to disappoint ENA. Not again.

Coral was by the Receptionist's desk, peeking in through the large open window she had. Her back was facing away from Coral, her physical form preoccupied with her vintage tvs, looking at and posing in front of them as if they were mirrors.

"Um...excuse me?"

The Receptionist very clearly heard Coral's call yet continued to act like she was very busy with her nonexistent makeup routine.
It wasn't until Coral dimed the little silver bell she had on the desk that the Receptionist turned around with a very loud and exasperated groan.

"Ughhh, how can I possibly help—eugh! It's the freak with the eye infection. How depressing." The Receptionist had no face, but it was very clear she was beyond annoyed at this conversation already. Coral was glad she never really needed to talk to her for her usual job.

"Morning to you too, I guess." Coral absentmindedly kicked her foot back and forth as she tried to figure out just how in the world she was supposed to sway the conversation here. "Um, you're familiar with ENA, right?"

"Hmph. Unfortunately. That sorry excuse for an assistant always comes to badger me about something. Always about me 'not working enough' or lacking a 'friendly exterior'. Do I listen to her? No, of course not! I actually hold myself to proper standards! And besides, I heard she's working longer hours lately, good riddance."

"So I've heard...well, she wanted me to hand out a few papers on her behalf—" Coral was just about to lend a document to the Receptionist before the entity physically recoiled and backed away. The tvs she had on her desk were flipping around and going haywire.

"Nonono, absolutely not! I want nothing to do with that raggedy, wormy, putrid sluck! Get that thing away from me before I combust from its poverty! The fact you'd think I want anything belonging to that impovishered worker...thinking about it makes me sick."

Coral was more than mildly taken aback by her outburst. Although the Receptionist was certainly temperamental, was all of that energy worth exerting on some sheet of paper?

"I see. I guess it can't be helped. I won't bother you any more, then." Coral thankfully knew when she needed to give up, and she gratefully took the chance to step away from the desk, leaving the Receptionist to shout insults to no one in particular now.

That clearly didn't work. Coral started to sweat when she realized she was gonna have to work harder to get rid of these papers. Thankfully, the casino was pretty packed today, filled with gooey and spikey entities of all sorts. She'd have to just go up to each one of them. Surely, there would be one entity who would at least take pity on her and take a paper so she can at least say she tried her best with the social work.

Surely, she'd get this one little favor done and over with sooner rather than later.

***

Coral was wrong. Coral was very, very wrong.

You would think that after speaking with a good thirty entities, the probability of any of them taking a handout would be more than one. Unfortunately, this was not the case. No matter who Coral tried talking to, everyone gave her very similar reactions to the Receptionist's, albeit with less French rage. The moment ENA was brought up in a conversation, entities would start looking very reluctant or outright annoyed or disgusted. Even if Coral tried to avoid mentioning the woman, entities could somehow still figure it out. It was like an aura was attached to anything associated with ENA, and it was never anything good. It confounded Coral in a way she never expected, and their reactions planted a little seed in her head she just kept on sowing.

Coral was sitting slumped on the shiny tile floors in the hub, hands still holding all the dog drawings. She was sweating profusely now, overwhelmed by the amount of walking and talking she had to do today. ENA's shift was almost over. She was checking the clock all day, mindful of the conversation they were inevitably going to have. The weight of the papers still on her lap told her she was going to have to apologize for more than one screw up today.

"Isn't that uncomfortable?"

Coral looked up to find ENA staring back at her, Salesperson's smile looking more blank than usual. Her arms were behind her back and her head was tilted to the side a little, making her look like one of those innocent troublemakers Coral used to stay away from.

"What is?"

"Sitting down on that rough floor. Wouldn't you rather be in the comfort of your office?"

"I-I wanted to wait for you. I didn't want to miss you in case you had places to be."

"As an esteemed employee of this business, I am both needed everywhere and nowhere. It's why I'm so good at what i do." ENA crouched down in front of Coral until she was sitting criss-cross on the ground as well. Her eyes were on the very much full stack of papers in Coral's hands. Coral noticed the staring and got flustered, unsure of how much from those earlier encounters she wanted to recall. "I'm sorry to report this, but...nobody really wanted your drawings. I guess they just don't care much for dogs."

"It's nothing to worry about. I mostly expected this outcome, to be honest. Some cannot help but hold on to a few grudges." ENA beckoned for Coral to hand over the stack, and she obliged. ENA flipped through the papers as she spoke, eyes looking fondly at her poor crayon doodles. "I'm more impressed by the fact you went to carry out my errand yourself. It brings me a lot of joy."

"It does? I was just trying to do you a favor."

"A favor...I suppose that's all it really was, wasn't it?" ENA's expression suddenly changed once she flipped to the last page. It was the picture of her that almost jammed Coral's printer. Her eyes widened slightly and her mouth curved downwards in a sort of thinking expression.

"Um...is something the matter?" Coral had nothing to fiddle with without the documents to hold on to, so she settled on twiddling her thumbs.

"Wherever did this picture come from...?" ENA held the page up.

"Eh? Weren't you the one that sent it? It came with all the others."

"Not at all. I don't have the artistic repertoire to recreate myself so...accurately. How peculiar. Maybe someone else faxed you this paper?"

Coral was honestly just as confused. ENA is the only entity she gave a fax number to besides the boss, and he was very much inactive lately. Plus, nobody seemed to care for ENA very much, certainly not enough to print out a picture of her. By process of elimination, and considering who ENA spent the most of her time with, it had to be...

"Oh dear...is something troubling you?"

Coral's printer had gone into a frenzy, printing out blank white papers left and right. She panicked profusely as she tried to gather them all up, holding them close to her chest in case there was anything too conspicuous on them.

"E-Everything is fine! I just got a little distracted, so just...don't pay any attention to me right now, okay?!"

Meanie stared at her completely unamused. "Look, I'm not stupid, okay? It's really obvious you just realized something." ENA observed Coral's disheveled state and just crossed her arms. "Fine, I'm not gonna get into it with you if you don't want to. That's not the point of this conversation, anyway." ENA was once again tidying up her doodles, the yellow dog staring up at her from the front page. "It's time to throw these out, I guess. No use for them anymore."

Coral seemed to have recovered from her freakout long enough to respond, confused. "W-What do you mean?"

"No one wants these, right? They'll just take up space. I'll probably feed them to the legs or something."

"Wait a second!" Coral instinctively grabbed onto ENA's red arm, stopping ENA from getting up. ENA looked down, alarmed at the woman's grip. Coral then immediately backed down, keeping both hands in the air.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have grabbed you like that. What I meant to say was, well...I could always keep them on me."

ENA blinked incredulously. "What? Why would you wanna do that? You've seen these drawings, right? They're shit."

"I know but...it feels wrong to just get rid of them. They're still your work, even though they aren't perfect. I want to keep them, if no one else could."

"Psh. You're just saying that. You don't have to spare my feelings or anything."

"ENA." Coral carefully placed her hands on the stack of papers, fingers barely touching ENA's own. "It's fine. It's the least I can do for now, really. I haven't been treating you the best since the whole...stalking incident. I'm still not fond of that, by the way. But I can make up for my attitude by doing a good thing, right? So let me keep your drawings."

ENA was very still throughout this whole exchange, something that was very uncharacteristic of her. She looked up at Coral, taking in her determined, albeit nervous, expression. ENA squinted suspiciously. "You sure you want all of these?" Coral just nodded wordlessly. Finally, ENA relented and let go of the papers, giving them back to Coral. "Take good care of those for me, then. I'm not sure when I'll see those dogs again, so they might be the last remaining pieces of them we'll ever have."

Coral couldn't help but cringe. "...Don't say something so melancholic. Dogs are very common entities, so you'll probably see more of them."

Salesperson noticeably perked up at that statement. "You don't say! That's certainly a nice motivator." ENA got up with no effort at all, then extended a hand to Coral to help her up off the floor. Coral hesitated before taking it, realizing this was the first proper time she was granted some sort of consent over ENA's physical interactions. When she finally stood up, she felt like she made the whole thing feel like a bigger ordeal than it actually was.

"You enjoy yourself with those pets, then. I'm afraid I have to clock out for the time being. Is there anything else you might need?"

"Not as far as I'm aware, I think. Let's just focus on catching up on work tomorrow. I'm a little behind on some assignments myself..."

"I like the way you think, my friendly coworker. Safe travels, then." ENA waved at Coral, not budging at all from her spot, seemingly waiting for Coral to leave the hub first. She took the hint and gave an awkward nod before trudging down the stairs. She still had the stack of papers in hand, so she made a quick detour back to her office tucked away in a hallway. Once she was inside, she shuffled her way to her desk and almost slammed the documents next to her still buzzing computer. Her printer started working on its own again, more papers printing and floating down around her with vague shapes formed by red, white, and green splotches.

"...Fuck..."

Chapter Text

In a shocking turn of events, things at the casino seem to be going very well. Customers are satisfied, reaping their rewards from slot machines and happy they're able to feed their families. Staff members have been hard at work providing top notch service, and have all settled into a routine, working together like cogs in a machine. Their work output had increased dramatically over the course of the following week, and although the boss was still dormant doing...whatever, Froggy was especially happy.

Not Coral though. Coral was most certainly contemplating suicide.

Ok, not really. She tends to have a bad habit of leaning towards the worst possible solution to the easiest possible problem. The stress gets to her, and with no way of coping, she might as well fool around with whatever escapades her brain wants to take her on. Still, a very long swim in the blood ocean was tempting her. Just a wee bit.

Coral had almost entirely holed herself up in her office occupied with busywork. Sometimes she'd type out a sentence or two on her computer. Other times she'd restack a pile of paper and shove it in a corner. If she was bored, she'd chew on the complementary writing utensil corporate had graciously given her until the marks were so deep she'd taste the ink. It was bad, but anything was better than being out there and constantly running into her.

She and ENA were definitely a little more than just coworkers now. Friends, maybe? It's not like Coral would necessarily go to ENA for help or hang out with her after work yet, but they were definitely a lot more casual. Casual in the sense that sometimes ENA now greeted her in the mornings before she headed off to help Froggy or tend to the Doors. Nothing special at all, just a quick "hello, how are you", but that alone was enough for Coral's printer to start doing its own thing. ENA never seemed to notice, but the fact she questioned Coral that first time was embarrassing enough to make her think it was actually still happening.

Coral felt the whirring of a paper print out already and almost ripped it out of her scalp before it was done, not bothering to look at it fully before she crumpled it up and stuffed it in a drawer full of other crumpled up sheets.

ENA had been faxing her the occasional documents that actually mattered to her work life, usually consisting of matters regarding Doors and dissatisfied entities she thought were important to note. Coral was glad there was still at least some semblance of professionalism between the two, even though all of this was incited from anything but. Those papers were obviously kept safely away in proper files in case ENA needed them. There was, however, absolutely no exception for anything colored red, white, or green. Even just stray marks on a page was enough to send Coral into a tizzy. For someone who regularly prided herself on how easily she can just shut her brain off and work, she seemed to easily be at a loss whenever ENA came into the picture.

It was annoying, and it was starting to freak Coral out a lot.

Another page printed out of her scalp. This time she just let it flutter to the floor before gripping her head in her hands and letting out a very childish groan. That was it, she was done. She was absolutely broken, ruined beyond repair. She hated to admit it, but she needed to ask for a break. Coral got up from her rickety office chair, definitely stepping on that paper from earlier and made her way out of her office to find that amphibious manager.

It honestly didn't take long to find Froggy at all. The halls of the casinos were plentiful and cramped, but Coral ended up finding him situated by a vending machine of sorts, very obviously trying to get a product stuck behind the glass. He was elbowing it aggressively before he froze and his eyes landed on Coral, standing a few feet away with a nervous look on her face. Eye contact meant she couldn't pretend she didn't see all of that, unfortunately.

"S-Sorry to interrupt, but I'd like to take my break now if that's alright..." Coral shoved her hands in her pockets.

Froggy leaned on the vending machine, dismissively waving his hand in Coral's direction. It seemed like he was slightly out of breath. "Yeah, yeah, that's not a problem. Kind of strange, though. You're not the type of worker to ever take breaks."

Froggy wasn't wrong. Coral was efficient in anything she did, always trying to get through something from start to finish. She always considered breaks to be a luxury, and definitely didn't use them up willy-nilly.

"I guess. It's just a bit of an issue on my end...just five minutes would be enough, honestly."

"Like I said, do what you want as long as you don't stray too far. Not like some entities around here." Froggy's sentence had a slight edge to the end of it, and although her name was unspoken, Coral knew full well who he was referring to there.

"Okay. I'll just...be on my way then." Froggy nodded his acknowledgement before promptly resuming his one-sided wrestling match with the vending machine. Coral, not quite expecting to have made it this far, ended up standing in her spot watching him. After a good thirty seconds of watching this humorous yet pitiful struggle, she spoke up.

"Do you need help with that?"

Froggy pressed both hands against the glass as he started panting and catching his breath again. "Huh? Oh...you mean with this? Nah, it's...no big deal...I wasn't hungry anyway...!"

"With all due respect, I know you'll just go back to beating that thing up when I leave. Please just let me end your misery."

"Ah, alright, alright! Don't patronize me and just come over here, then." He waved her over and Coral shuffled until she was standing next to him. The vending machine had a very small and sad display of snacks, clearly not having been operated in quite a while. There was a bag of weird geometric shaped gummies trapped behind the glass. Bracing herself, Coral flattened her hand and swiftly punched the side of it against the glass in a sort of karate chop motion. The bag fell into the compartment area without an issue.

"Huh?! Is that really it?! You made it seem a little too easy...but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't impressed," Froggy commended as Coral knelt down to retrieve the prize. She handed it over to Froggy and watched as he opened it up. The gummies looked like spiky clumps of triangles that seemed to morph into more spiky triangles every second or so. Froggy plopped a few into his mouth at once, then shook the bag in front of Coral to offer her some. Coral considered declining before realizing that a), this was technically her lesser boss that she couldn't quite say no to, and b), she was admittedly very hungry and trying to kill time anyway, so she shrugged and held her hand out for a few. The gummies writhed around on her palm and she immediately shoved them into her mouth. She chewed and was surprised to find that they were filled with a fluid that tasted like milk, and the gummies no longer shifted their shape. Now she very much hoped those things weren't alive.

"I'll head off now, then. Thanks for sharing."

"Make good use of that time. We've got a long day ahead of us, especially without our best worker on deck." Coral froze just as she was about to turn the corner. Curse her curiosity.

"Sorry for asking, but could you be referring to ENA by any chance?"

"Hm?" Froggy responded with his mouth full, and he was now crouched on the floor. "Who else could I be talking about? No one else works as hard as she does. Uh, no offence."

"...None taken." Coral found herself subconsciously stepping closer to Froggy again. "Has she been here for a while, then?"

"Well, let's see...yes, in a way. This one's been working with me for a very long time at least. Longest I've ever had an ENA around, to be honest. I'd rather have that than a bunch of spares running around."

"Spares"? How peculiar. Coral didn't know ENA wasn't a singular entity.

"You're still pretty new, so I dont expect you to know much about her. I barely even understand that girl myself. But I don't hate her, if that's what you're wondering."

"Oh...so you've noticed too, right? The way everyone talks about her?"

Froggy shrugged. "Can't be helped. You know how much everyone loves to gossip nowadays. But it's not up to me to tell customers what they can and can't say. Besides, ENA never seems to take it to heart. That's what I do like about her. She always gets down to business one way or another."

Coral couldn't help but disagree a little. Didn't ENA have a temperamental side for a reason? She's not a perfect, mindless entity, but someone who still had at least some capacity for feeling negative emotions. Wouldn't all that hate get to her in some way or another? Coral saw the way Meanie would react sometimes. She didn't think she herself would handle so much attention.

"Aren't you two work partners? She's not giving you too much trouble, is she? Don't pretend like she isn't overbearing."

"Oh! N-No, not really. A little less than normal, I guess? You can say we have some sort of boundary set up." Coral didn't want to say anything that would imply some sort of "closeness", both to not raise Froggy's suspicions and to not get her own hopes up too high.

"I see..." Froggy offered more gummies to Coral, but she declined this time. He ended up tilting the bag down his mouth so everything stuck at the bottom could fall in. Coral swore she heard tiny screams, and she involuntarily shuddered.

"S-She's a fine coworker, though," Coral added. "I don't hate her presence or anything. Mutual respect is important for healthy work relationships...or something."

"Hah! Now you're actually sounding like her too." (Oh God, did she really?) "Yeah...you'll both probably be alright." Froggy finished his snack and got up, tossing the empty bag behind him leaving it to clip through a wall and out of sight. Okay then.

"Anyways, go off already and take a break. I guess I also don't need any excuse for slacking off anymore either..."

"Oh! Right. Sorry for keeping you, Froggy." Coral offered a cordial smile before leaving Froggy, who hopefully no longer had any desires to argue with a vending machine. That conversation was...surprisingly efficient. Although Coral initially wanted to distract herself from thinking about ENA, talking about her ironically eased her mind a bit. In a way, it almost felt a bit silly that it turned out so well. She still felt a little uneasy, though. In all the time she's worked here, the only information she's heard about ENA were from other entities, and a lot of it was negative. Maybe ENA had more skeletons in the closet than she ever thought. Why else did she have such a bad reputation? Coral obviously assumed it was from her highly divisive personality, but to receive so much genuine disdain was...too much.

Wow. There she goes again, thinking about all the wrong things. She's on break now, so she should do something special. Coral never sought out coworkers to chat up with, and even if ENA wasn't already super busy, she probably still would've opted for some quiet time instead. She made her way up to the hub until she reached the blood sea, observing the marine life much like her first few days on the job. It was only midday, and she had a few more hours of work before she could clock out for the night. She could totally manage that! She's lasted way longer in way worse conditions. Coral most certainly had her ways.

Her five minutes passed by a little too quick for comfort, but Coral relented and obediently went back to her office. Sitting down in front of her blinking computer screen, her eyes accidentally stole a glance at the overstuffed drawer below her. No. That was enough. Coral needed to finally practice self control, get the work done, and then she could freak out about whatever she wanted. Repeating this mantra over and over again in her head, she began her hours long routine of menial business tasks, just the way she liked it.

***

The familiar dime of a bell on her computer signaled to Coral that her shift was finally over.

It was a little difficult at first, forcing herself to do work when she was very much distracted, but she eased into a rhythm in barely an hour. She found comfort in the way she was able to organize files and set up programs like at her old jobs, and it ended up being the motivation she needed to get all her tasks done. If she didn't consider that the bare minimum, she'd give herself a pat on the back or something.

Coral leaned back on her chair and stared at computer she just logged out of, taking a moment to think. She could just leave the building without a word, as the exit wasn't too far from her office. It was what she usually did anyway. But Coral was feeling a lot of new things recently, and now another one of them would be to at least say goodbye to one of her coworkers. They helped her out somewhat today, so they at least deserved a small farewell, right? Right.

Coral locked the office behind her before she left, absentmindedly passing by a few rooms. Lots of machines were still operating at this hour, of course. Just because Coral was done for the day doesn't mean the business was as well. Her eyes wandered into the lobby where the Receptionist was located, and she saw her leaning over the counter filing the nails she didn't even have. Nope. Not going to bother with that today. Coral would rather not interact with her for the rest of her lifetime, and it shocked her to think that entity was more tolerable than ENA to some.

Coral didn't end up running into any of her other coworkers. She figured somebody would at least be hanging out in the hub upstairs.

When she finished climbing that flight of stairs, Coral situated herself in the middle of the hub. No one around here, either. Had everyone else already left? She took special note of the empty atmosphere. The blood was calm and still, only accompanied by the rocks jutting out onto the surface. There was no wind in a place like this, making Coral feel truly alone. It was an awkward feeling, knowing this spot used to be bustling with activity, but now only serving space for someone who happened to make her way over here. Coral knew this was probably a sign to go home and finally go to bed, but...

"...I'm so pathetic." She knew damn well why she was really here, she couldn't deny it. Why was this fascination getting to her so much? She was going to lose so much of the reputation she already built up.

And yet, Coral leaned against one of the closed down shacks, arms crossed in a waiting position. Whatever. If she saw ENA, she could strike up a chat. If she didn't, she'd use that as proof that her infatuation was a waste of time and she was better off as the regular old pawn she is. ENA's shift had to be ending soon, anyway. What's ten minutes in the grand scheme of things?

***

"Oi! Wake up already!"

Coral startled herself awake, eye blinking rapidly as she got used to her surroundings. She'd somehow managed to doze off while standing straight up. Froggy was right in front of her, ready to flick her forehead. Startled, Coral pressed herself against the wall.

"Agh! What's your issue?!"

Froggy immediately stood back, unimpressed. "Relax, I wasn't actually going to do it. I just don't like seeing you lounge around like that. It's creepy."

"A simple calling of my name would've woken me up!"

"Ehhh, whatever! You're up now, so let's not get hung up on it." Easy for you to say...

"I didn't mean to doze off like this...I was just—" Coral stopped herself right there. Oh God, she couldn't say she was waiting for ENA, right? Wouldn't that be kind of lame? But then she saw Froggy's mouth twitch upwards and he looked away as if trying to control his laugh. Ah. It would've been pointless to pretend, anyway.

"Well, look, it's getting late and I need to close up the area. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but you should head off now." Froggy composed himself and pretended not to know anything, but he was clearly doing a terrible job at that. Coral's eye twitched. Damn, how long was she out for?

"Ah, well...it can't be helped then. Sorry about all this," Coral mumbled. She stepped away from the shack and walked towards the stairs, determined to just look at the floor the entire trip. She failed to even reach the steps, however, before she was interrupted by yet another one of her papers being printed. Good grief, she hated having a built-in printer sometimes, but today her loathing was amplified. It didn't help that this document took forever to come out, and her headache felt even more dull and long. How awful.

"You alright over there?" Froggy called out to her from a distance, noticing her freezing up. Coral shakily raised a hand up asking for a moment of peace, picking up the page right before it fell to the floor. She intended to stuff it into her pockets, but stopped when she realized this document didn't belong to her at all. Now she was sweaty again. Great. Good to know the blood ocean was right there for her, just in case. She read the paper anyway, annoyed by the fact the text was printed in very small letters on the top left of the page. Actually, no...this one didn't have words on it, either. Did ENA suddenly develop a dislike for the alphabet?

[... --- ... ]

Three dots, three lines, and three dots again. Coral was no rocket scientist, or even just a regular one, but she knew this was morse code for an SOS signal. Creepy. Why would ENA send something like this?

"Umm...Froggy?" Coral turned around and called out to him. He looked at her skeptically, making his way towards her. "How long was I, um...inactive?"

"I'm not entirely sure. I'm assuming you came up here when your shift ended, sooo...maybe thirty five minutes?"

Coral grimaced. Thirty five minutes was quite a long time...

"...Have you seen ENA at all today?"

Froggy was visibly taken aback by the question. "Nope. Not since this morning. I thought she was with you. That's why I was confused when I saw you alone over there. I figured you two already left."

"It's just...she left me a concerning message." Coral held out the paper so Froggy could look at it. He grabbed it, not quite sure what he was supposed to be reading, until he saw Coral's face and put two and two together. "Shit...this is my fault. I'm the one responsible for her. I should've known something was up when I never even got a call."

"I-It's alright. She's probably still unharmed." If something did happen to ENA, she would've respawned like she did when she first left the Lonely Door. Coral figured that the worst case scenario might be that she just got lost somewhere.

"Coral, I'm sorry I keep asking you for favors, but would you mind looking around the casino for her? I don't want to send you off to the Doors. I've got more experience with those Genies." Froggy's concern was noticeable on his face. Although he was Coral's lesser boss, she could tell he wasn't just asking her this from a place of authority. Even she knew this was something she had to do regardless of what her job description said.

"O-Of course. I'll see what I can do." The two swiftly agreed to meet up at the hub again after an hour. Coral watched Froggy get smothered by the Lonely Door before she hurried down the steps back into the building.

Coral underestimated just how big the casino was. When she was wandering through earlier, she only passed through the main halls where customers were most likely to loiter. She hadn't checked any rooms or more private areas. She was already beginning to stress out at the thought of not finding ENA despite the fact she barely even started her search.

There was no efficient way to go about this, either. If she asked an entity about ENA's whereabouts, would they even care? Coral already knew the answer to that and she didn't like it. For the moment, she can only rely on herself to get this task done.

***

For the next half hour or so, Coral popped her head through janitor's closets, file cabinets, ventilation systems, and empty storage rooms with no results. Over time, her hair became messy and filled with dirt, and she grew very familiar with the loud thumping rhythm of the coral on her face. She was severely dehydrated, and severely ENA-less. It was almost as torturous as not having anything to do at all.

Tired, Coral rounded another random corner that she was only sixty-percent sure she hadn't explored yet. Her moves were sluggish, that short nap from earlier proving to be completely ineffective. This specific hallway seemed to stretch on for ages, but it was still as dark and damp as all the others. There was a lightbulb faintly shining its light from the high ceiling, clearly about to go out any second now. It glowed just enough for Coral to make something out on the ground. She got closer until her eye was able to adjust to the darkness, and then she froze, startled by what she saw.

A familiar green worker's cap.

Coral suddenly became wide awake, doing her best to be cautious while approaching it. The hat didn't seem to be in bad condition at all. It was like its owner held onto it for a while until now, its pristine quality only slightly dampened by the dust that settled on its top. Coral picked it up and turned it over, only to find nothing out of the ordinary. Still, this was ENA's hat. It was one of the many things she had imprinted into her mind over the course of the past few days, and recognizing it was no trouble.

Then Coral heard it. It was low, quiet, and gritty, coming from somewhere that was both far away and all too close at the same time. She looked around, trying her best to decipher the sound. She took a few more steps forward before she was finally able to make out the voice.

"Coral..."

Shivers went down her spine as she heard her name spoken in almost perfect clarity. She looked around again, but there was still nothing to be seen. She didn't quite believe in ghosts or anything, but this was getting way too frightening for her comfort! She couldn't help it, being alone in the dark with a creepy voice...a towel would not have been enough to wipe off all her sweat in that instant.

"Up here...you twat..."

Okay, rude. But also...incredibly familiar? Coral hesitantly craned her neck upwards, and the sight she witnessed almost caused her printer to combust. The ceiling above her consisted of square panels, each one being easily removable. One of the panels had gotten loose (or rather just straight up missing), revealing a huge tangle of thick wirelike material of varying bright colors, which were all sinking down from the ceiling because of the weight. In the midst of the mess was ENA, limbs firmly stuck and wrapped by said wires. Her Salesperson side was completely missing, leaving a very distraught and exasperated Meanie hanging upside down. Her body twitched every time she struggled, and her frown was more sour than usual.

"T-Took you long enough..."

"ENA?! How in the world did you get up there?!"

"Not even a 'how are you', huh? I must be a real mess, then..." ENA tried to kick her foot in a nonchalant manner, which obviously didn't budge. Her breathing was labored, and she seemed absolutely miserable. "I lost track of how long I've been...stuck here. G-Get me down before anyone sends a complaint." A pause, either to catch her breath or to think of another add-on—Coral couldn't really tell. "...Please..."

"G-Get you down? I don't even know how..."

"It's not that high up. Just get a ladder or s-something."

A ladder...Coral recalled seeing a pretty flimsy one a few rooms prior. She'd have to make the trip back, then. As for whether or not she'd be able to carry it, she'll have to find out when she gets there.

"Okay...I'll be right back then. You can..." she trailed off. What else was ENA supposed to do besides stay there? Idiot. "Nevermind."

"Hurry up already! I was supposed to get down from here yester-year," ENA called out to her. Coral almost rolled her eyes at that statement. Good to know Meanie hadn't gone through any life-altering anger management.

It took a few minutes to remember which room had a ladder, but it seemed life took pity on her when she ended up finding it in the third room she checked. It was definitely worse for wear, with a few loose steps and rusty orange paint peeling off at almost every corner, but it was tall, which was what really mattered anyway. Coral had to take off her blazer and wrap it around her waist in order to comfortably carry it, which was still a difficult task. She cringed at the thought of her nicest outerwear getting wrinkles.

She very slowly managed to drag the ladder over to ENA, taking a moment to heave in a few breaths. She was absolutely not cut out for physical labor. As she was wiping off her sweat, she glanced up to find ENA staring very, very intently at her. Coral tensed up a bit, and ENA turned her eyes to look in the other direction. Coral promptly ignored the heat rising on her face as she climbed up the ladder. It was thankfully high enough for her to at least reach the wires. They were wrapped firmly around ENA's body, so the least she could do was loosen a few and hope they were enough for ENA to slip off.

"I'll do my best not to hurt you here...um, you don't feel pain or anything, right?"

"Your assumption insults me," ENA replied. "...Only under...special circumstances. I'll be fine here, so don't hold back." Coral nodded, relieved she could work as she pleased.

It took a minute or two to figure out where Coral wanted to untangle the wires from, as there seemed to be no starting point. She settled on the torso first, which seemed to have the most. Although ENA claimed she didn't feel pain, Coral treated this as a delicate process anyway. She gently tugged on the wires trying to find the loosest ones, then carefully maneuvering it out of other loops and holes. ENA herself mostly focused on keeping her body from twitching out of habit, occasionally turning her head to get a better look at Coral. Coral would unfortunately notice these glances, forcing herself to only stare at her own hands.

Eventually, after most of the wires around ENA's torso and ankles were loose, Coral took a moment to heave a few more breaths. She felt very gross and sweaty. It wasn't too late to take a shower when she got home, right?

"S-Stop right there. That's enough. I can finally feel myself slipping."

"S-Slipping?" Coral observed ENA's body, and sure enough, her arms were the first limbs to be freed. She watched as the white polygonal arm fell from where it was trapped, hitting the ground below with a loud "thunk".

"...They're not all going to fall like that, are they?"

"How else do you think I'm going to put myself together? Is your thinking cap is always malfunctioning?" Another sound of something hitting the ground, this limb being ENA's red leg. Coral sighed, not really wanting to feed ENA's angry side, and just settled on climbing down the ladder. Once she got to the bottom, she looked back up towards the ceiling, cringing every time another limb fell like rain. ENA quickly got impatient and started wiggling around again, which thankfully sped up the whole process. Eventually, ENA's head was the last body part to free itself, and Coral anxiously watched it the entire time, awaiting its decent. She'd argue that the head was the most sensitive part of the body for sure. She didn't want to imagine it hitting the floor at all...wouldn't ENA suffer at least some type of damage from that?

Then Coral found herself doing something incredibly impulsive; she held her arms out as far as she could, barely managing to catch ENA's head before it hit the ground. She held it close, as though someone threw a ball in her direction without any warning, before promptly exclaiming and holding the head out as far away from her as possible. Oh God why is she touching her like this this is so weird and gross but kind of intriguing but mostly weird!

"Relax! I'm not that repulsive," ENA grumbled, offended. She already seemed to have gained some composure back. "Put me down already! My appendages aren't gonna put themselves together, y'know!"

With the greatest pleasure she had ever felt in her life, Coral gingerly placed ENA'S head down and facing towards the ceiling. The rest of her body seemed to gravitate to the spot just below her head where her torso should be, as if that were her center of gravity. Mildly mortified, Coral watched ENA's body literally being put back together again, and she sat up as if nothing ever happened. The only indication that ENA went through anything was the deeper eyebags she had and the weary look on her face.

ENA placed her hat back on her head, noticeably relaxing a little afterwards. She warily tried to stand up, struggling to find balance as her legs wobbled. Coral instinctively reached out her hands to stabilize her, and although ENA initially tried pulling away, she quickly realized she'd scatter all over the ground again if she didn't and reluctantly shifted her weight onto her coworker.

"I swear...if I didn't work here...I'd kill that damn Genie..."

Coral pretended like that statement didn't frighten her. She focused on keeping ENA from falling, making sure the arm wrapped around her shoulder was secure as they walked. How she managed to keep a level head up to this point was astounding. "That's a very strong sentiment. Are they the one responsible for your...situation?"

"What do you think?! I get complaints about the Crowd Door this afternoon, and I go investigate like a 'reasonable employee'. That Genie knows I'm not wanted there...so they thought it'd be real funny to make me reenact that—that senseless scene from—" ENA suddenly stopped herself, frustrated with how much she was speaking. "...I can't disclose any more information than that, so don't ask."

Coral frowned. There she was, being all secretive at a time when she needed to know all the facts. Coral couldn't help but be a little stubborn. "...Well, if you hadn't faxed me that paper earlier, I would have never found you. How did you manage to do that?"

"...I didn't. I had to get some other entity to do it for me. It was hard enough to even find one. Do you know how difficult it is to teach an entity with no fingers how to type? I almost felt better off tangled up."

"And they didn't bother to help you?"

"Why would they?" ENA bluntly replied.

"You were struggling, no? It's only sensible to want to help someone in need, or..." Coral's voice trailed off as she saw ENA's face. She looked so worn out, as if she had to explain something that felt like common knowledge to her, yet also sympathetic, like someone subjected to being the bearer of bad news.

"You really don't know who I am, do you?"

Coral felt the hair on her neck stand up. She stopped walking, ignoring ENA's grunts of protest as she did so. She could only stare dumbfoundedly at her coworker, who was less than pleased at her reaction. It wasn't like ENA was lying to her there. As much as Coral would pretend, they don't quite have the connection she desired. All of their exchanges thus far happened to be funny one-off coincidences with little substance. Why else was Coral so clueless about anything going on in ENA's life? Would she ever get the chance to understand her? What did ENA want?

It was too much for Coral to think about all at once. She's not good with managing her own feelings in the slightest, especially when they get this out of hand. However, in overwhelming times like these, Coral can figure out when she needs to keep things simple.

"No...I guess I don't know you all that well, right...?"

"Exactly. It's unfortunate luck on your end, I guess. You would've saved yourself a lot of trouble if—"

"But I still would've been there to help you."

It was ENA's turn to be surprised now. It was weird, seeing an expression on her face that wasn't a plastered-on smile or a bitter frown. But witnessing ENA's widening of her eyes and her mouth going perfectly straight from befuddlement, even for just a few seconds, was enough to make Coral's head spin.

"Ah, well, I mean! That's just common sense on my end. It's like...we all have to cooperate and help each other to get good results, right? So just think of it like that!"

ENA grimaced, watching the way Coral's hands kept fidgeting and the coral on her face kept thumping. "You're absolutely doing that on purpose."

"Huh? Doing what?"

"Ugh! Nevermind! It's impossible to get things through to you sometimes! We're wasting time here, so just walk." Coral sighed heavily, wondering if that conversation contributed to anything. The silence was palpable, and they continued like that for another few minutes until ENA broke it.

"...Thanks."

"What for?"

"...For offering your assistance. I was right to fax you that paper. It was a last resort on my part, but..."

ENA didn't finish her sentence, meaning she wasn't looking for any more conversation. But for the moment, that was enough for Coral. She nodded to show her gratitude, and she could've sworn ENA's Meanie smiled back at her. Now that's a new reason for her to waste paper.

"We need to head back to the hub," Coral mentioned. "Froggy's probably waiting for us. I completely forgot to give him a call..."

"That frog stayed behind? I thought he couldn't care less if I came back or not."

"He's still our manager. We're his responsibility, so of course he'd put in the effort."

"Hm." ENA craned her head once again to look at Coral. "You look tired."

"D-Do I really? It's not as bad as it looks, though..."

"Liar. You think I can't feel your sluggishness? Go clock out, and I'll meet that oaf on my own."

"You're not able to walk on your own yet. I can't just leave you—"

"Do you need me to spell it out for you? If you're not well rested for tomorrow, we'll get no work done, and then we'll suffer more because of it! I don't want that, so just leave me here!"

"After all this effort to find you? Sorry, but I'm going to the hub with you."

"S-Since when did you get so stubborn?!"

"Since you decided to put up an attitude at my expense!"

"I thanked you!"

"You called me a 'twat' earlier! What if the boss heard about that?"

That shut ENA up. Coral wasn't serious in the slightest about that, but she couldn't pass up on the opportunity to joke a little. She giggled, which was a behavior she never finds herself doing. ENA stared at her in fascination, making her feel very self-conscious.

"Alright then. You're coming with me. But I don't want to hear a single complaint on your end tomorrow, no matter what. We need your efficiency as always."

"Yeah, yeah..."

The vibe shifted after that, with the two coworkers engaging in light and simple conversation. Over time, ENA managed to regain control of her legs and was able to walk with little issue. Despite earlier claims of wasting time, ENA continued to keep up the same pace with Coral. It was the most coherent exchange they've ever had with each other, and Coral realized that she was perhaps the first individual to ever get to know ENA like this. In this way, ENA almost seemed...normal. Not as intimidating as others may assume. Was she allowed to establish this close of a connection with her, on account of what everyone else seems to think? Either way, despite the lack of professionalism this could warrant, she didn't want to take it for granted.

Coral was not a selfish person...but she very much wanted ENA to lean on her more in the future.

Chapter Text

Lots of things happened the following work week. They're not obvious changes, and they don't have an effect on anyone else's life, but they mattered greatly to Coral. And because they mattered to Coral, they'll be divulged anyway.

Coral managed to retain control of her printing habits, and her machine no longer printed out such...obvious portraits. For the first day of that week, her mind would unintentionally wander and "do the thing", much to her never-ending exasperation, but for the most part her obsession has died down ever since she helped ENA out that day. Coral couldn't quite explain it herself, but if she had to guess, perhaps it was due to some sort of repressed desire being fulfilled, even if for a short bit. Needless to say, she suddenly became a star employee after that (which wasn't saying much since everyone else only did the bare minimum, or even less). It's enough to make a mother proud, even if she wasn't Coral's.

Froggy was beyond grateful for Coral's assistance the other day. He didn't quite show it at first, opting instead to chastise ENA for getting lost in the first place, and then briefly apologizing for his lack of manners, and then swiftly sending the two workers home while he took some time to "think" on the dock. But Coral didn't miss how he'd look the other way if she took too long on her breaks, or how quickly he'd end a phone call with her if they even had one at all, or how he'd conveniently leave behind an extra bag of jerky at that hidden vending machine they interacted with earlier. Coral wondered if this behavior was allowed, knowing her old bosses would've fired someone like that immediately, but she was wise enough to not open her mouth and complain. What complaining would she have done anyway, as a mediocre businesswoman who just happened to get a few good favors?

Somehow, Coral felt a shift in the way everyone else around the workplace looked at her. She was never one to be the center of attention, nor did she ever want to be, and yet she felt like she was the talk of the town without even hearing so much as a mention of her name—she can just tell. Patrons look at her differently. The Receptionist eyes her for too long when she passes the lobby. Even the penguin/vampire/whatever-he-is and weird guy with the red strings that always hang around the hub pretend like they have no business to do with her, keeping conversations short and brief. Was she resented for some reason? What could she have possibly done wrong? It worried her at first, but Coral eventually got used to the stares and low mumbles she'd sometimes get. As long as she focuses on her work, she'd get by just fine.

And as for ENA...

Well, one can't be brief when talking about that woman. ENA didn't speak another word to Coral ever since that wire incident. She no longer said her "good mornings" or "goodbyes", slowly minimizing interactions until Coral was back to only seeing slivers of her right before a shift started. It's not like this didn't happen before, but it was the circumstances that puzzled Coral greatly. Back then, it was just because Coral was setting a boundary, which was fair considering the fact that they didn't know each other very well at the time. This time, Coral at least implied some sort of closeness. She was there to help ENA that day because she wanted to. She thought ENA understood that, understood that it'd be fine to rely on her not just as a coworker, but as a friend. But this apparently didn't seem to be the case.

Coral recalled one day when Froggy called her up to the hub to make a report, and she caught ENA standing a distance away on the docks, staring out into the vast ocean. She was uncharacteristically still, looking at something beyond the island where the boss supposedly stayed. Wasn't she supposed to be working? Coral wondered this to herself, and it was almost like ENA heard her even from so far away, because her face turned just enough for Coral to catch the sight of ENA's angry eye. Although her Meanie side wasn't active, Coral felt like it was trying to say something to her anyway, from the way it locked with her own eyes and its pupil seemed to widen slightly, turning into colors deeper than the typical one-tone black it usually had. Just as quickly as they made eye contact, ENA broke it, almost a little too eagerly. She faced towards the ocean again, and when Coral was finally dismissed and had no choice but to leave, she only heard Froggy calling ENA over to him. That was the only meaningful interaction they had that week, if you could even call it one.

Coral was confident in at least one thing: ENA was not dim-witted. Lacking self-awareness? Sure. Destructive? Probably. But stupid? Far from it. Coral never stated her intentions that night (she honestly didn't think she ever would), but it's not like they weren't there. From the way ENA even seemed to reciprocate at first—mustering up a smile and indulging in something as unproductive as small talk—Coral assumed she felt the same. She had to. Her demeanor, her attitude, her overall conduct...she seemed genuinely satisfied. Pleased. Happy.

Something must've happened between the point when Coral and ENA clocked out for the night and the following work morning. This sudden distance ENA kept putting between them was intentional. Call it selfishness, but Coral was getting real tired of it.

And it made Coral feel even lonelier than when she didn't know ENA at all. But this she would never admit.

In any case, now that she was on a nice productivity streak, she would only make the most of it. The timing was coincidental as well. For once, more focus was placed on the Horse Door's Genie. Coral knew absolutely nothing about them, to her relief. If she did have information, it'd all be far from pleasant for her to deal with. From what she was able to gather from her coworkers, the Genies were less than pleasant people, fooling around with their omnipotence to a concerning degree. For her job, the Genie itself wasn't important. She had to find an entity that could organize a party for the Genie.

Ugh.

As silly as it was to admit, Coral had been procrastinating on this task for some time now. All of ENA's assignments were a nice little distraction from all of that. Now that ENA seems to be avoiding her, though, and Coral has finally pulled herself together (mentally speaking), she has no choice but to actually work. She has a file saved on her computer of potential candidates the company could hire, which has a grand total of two entities; they were both Kane and Dratula respectively. It was safe to say Coral's "good" streak was probably already over.

She was clicking back and forth between the two resumes that were sent to her. Kane's job experience equated to counting sheep and riding them into the sunset, and his former employer is simply listed as "someone with a really good knack for counting things that aren't sheep". His contact information was indecipherable, looking like a morphed, twisted captcha prompt, which Coral gave up on figuring out long ago. Dratula's document was simply a page of a colorful maze that was clearly ripped out of a kid's menu from some restaurant. Dratula was even kind enough to "solve" the puzzle himself (which he didn't solve—the little crayon trail hit a random dead end before he presumably gave up).

There was no hope left for someone like her.

Coral groaned when she heard the croaking of her phone once again, red cup swinging in front of her face like it was threatening to knock her out. She answered, grateful that she didn't have to feign a good mood for this job.

"Coral! It's been a while since I checked in. How's progress?"

"Morning, Froggy. Same as usual, I suppose," Coral responded, hoping that sounded casual enough to get him off her back.

"Is that supposed to be code for 'slow and painful'?"

Shit.

"N-Not necessarily 'painful'. It's just..." Coral glanced once again at her buzzing computer screen. She swears that captcha from earlier changed shapes. "...I've hit some sort of a roadblock. New applications haven't arrived in days. I don't think we're advertising this offer in the best way."

"Huh? What do we need to advertise? This offer's straightforward enough."

"I think there's a little bit more to this job besides 'party planning'."

"Such as?"

Coral pursed her lips. "Froggy, we haven't even settled on a wage yet. How are we supposed to attract a new hire if they don't even know what we're paying them?"

She heard her manager wince on the other end, and she was already awaiting some bad news. "Yeah, about that...we might only be able to offer something on the lower end."

"What?! Froggy, don't take this the wrong way, but I thought we discussed our options a few days ago already—"

"Look, I know we did, I remember that! But we're kinda tight on money right now, and it's not like our sleeping boss is gonna offer us any emergency funds."

Coral was extra grateful that this wasn't a voice call, since her eye just rolled so far back she swore she saw last week again. "This establishment relies way too much on its superiors..."

"Oi! I didn't ask to be in charge of so much! I'd rather be off the clock, drinking or watching a hockey team slip on their own skis or something." Froggy sighed, which ended up sounding more like a deep ribbit. "You'll just have to manage with what we got, alright? You can come up with something."

Coral had absolutely no faith in herself, but she felt like she was already on thin ice. She once again mourns the privilege she once had of saying "no".

"...I'll do my best then. Take care." Coral ended the call right then and there, sighing deeply once again before promptly filing away the two resumes. The day she'd be able to get rid of those was the day she'd discover joy again.

If she didn't find a solution quickly, she'd have to bid farewell to this job and travel to some other setting. That was too big of a hassle for her to deal with again, and she most certainly did not have the funds to support herself anywhere besides this server. But no entity that bothers to step foot in this casino seemed even remotely interested in this sort of position, and having to admit that the wage would be lower than Coral's own would only make matters worse. Coral was stuck between a rock and a much bigger rock, which were also the only things keeping her from falling into a very deep, very dark, very lonely abyss.

Her coral pulsed again. Fun.

Coral genuinely considered settling on one of the two applications she got. Who knows, maybe they could have an incredibly secret and impressive talent that would swoop her and Froggy off their feet, convincing corporate to immediately hire them with no further questions, saving their asses from whatever eternal damnation the Horse Genie would subject everyone to if they didn't get their way.

(...Nah. But let a woman dream for once.)

Coral once again scanned the resumes. She reluctantly decided to dial up Dratula first. At least his contact information didn't look like it was doused in syrup and sweat. She summoned her phone, ready to dial the numbers into the cup, only half-heartedly glancing at the screen every once in a while. She heard the phone ring on the other end for a painfully long time. Coral mostly expected this—until last week, Coral didn't even know Dratula paid a phone bill. Still...it's taking almost a full minute for her to get a response. Just when she was about to give up and try to decipher Kane's info (were those hieroglyphics?!), the bells ceased their ringing.

"Greetings! I beg your pardon, but am I familiar with this number?"

Oh.

That didn't sound like a vampire.

Coral felt her mechanical heart bungee jump down to her knees only to rise back up into her throat. Oh God. Oh God. How the hell did she call ENA. Of all entities. Widened eye glanced back at Dratula's hastily scribbled number. She most certainly misread a few digits. It was over. She was so incredibly done for.

Now what?! She couldn't tell ENA that this was the wrong number. Well, she could, because it was technically the truth, but it felt so wrong to do so. Just because ENA had been avoiding her these past few days didn't mean she wanted ENA to think she was doing the same! Because she wasn't! But it's not like she wanted to call her either! Should she just hang up? Maybe she should just hang up—

"HELLOOO? God, these prank callers are gonna kill me before my employers can—"

"ENA-don't-hang-up-it's-Coral!" She definitely blurted that out far too fast, but it was too late now. She was left with complete silence on the other end, ENA's previous sentence being sharply cut off and leaving behind faint dial-up noises. Coral has genuinely never sweated so hard in her entire life, the plastic cup almost slipping out of her hand as she anticipated some sort of response.

"...Oh. So it is. I didn't notice the caller name earlier." What voice was that? It sounded so simple and monotone that Coral couldn't figure out which side was speaking. This did not help her situation at all, only making her more stressed out.

"S-Sorry for the sudden call. I didn't interrupt anything, did I?"

"I wouldn't say it was anything important." Salesperson's jovial male voice now sounded crystal clear to Coral. "Not in the grand scheme of things, anyway. How did you get this number? I don't recall giving it to you."

"Ah, that's...I guess I just got lucky?" Another pause on ENA's end. Oh this was awful. Great going, Coral. She sounds like a freak now.

But Coral was met with a light sympathetic chuckle, and her chest tightened a little in more ways than one. "You have a fascinating sense of humor, my friend! I don't mind your possession of my contact information, but please refrain from making too many sudden calls if possible. I can't be caught taking too many breaks at this stage."

"Again, I'm really sorry for the trouble I'm causing..."

"Enough with the apologies! I've already given my stance on the situation. Anyway, what else do you need?"

"Huh?"

"...This conversation is regarding a business matter, no?"

What an odd assumption, Coral thought. She supposed it did make sense, with them being coworkers and all. She should probably reveal the truth here anyway—maybe ENA actually wouldn't be upset at all.

...But then what? They hang up and that's it? They keep their distance like before? Would Coral get another chance to speak with ENA like this again so soon, or would work keep piling up until it suffocated her? Would ENA allow it, or would she turn away again, pretending that nothing was there at all?

Coral swallowed, trying desperately to hydrate, and her eye blinked at her computer screen, which had gone into sleep mode from inactivity. The screen was cracked and dirty, but she could make out her reflection. She hated looking at herself in the mirror most days, thinking the sensation to be strange and there being nothing appealing to look at. But whatever was looking back at Coral right now was filled with conviction. True and honest determination.

She hadn't felt this way in years.

Use your resources, Coral.

"Actually, yes. Now that I have you here, I do have an inquiry to make."

"An inquiry from Ms. Coral Glasses...I'm all ears!"

"Mm, right..." Her will was already crumbling. She needed to focus! "Most of your jobs involve a few trips through the Doors, yes? How often do you interact with other entities?"

"Oh, very often. I'd argue they're the entire reason I have a place here." ENA's voice faltered ever so slightly near the end there. Coral wanted so badly to ask about that, but she knew she couldn't waste time.

"I'm having trouble with this one assignment. I'm supposed to hire a party organizer for the Genie inauguration—I think I told you this—but applications are sparse and, um...admittedly not very good. I'm struggling to get the word out, and the unfavorable pay isn't doing me any favors. If you're able..."

"I see...in other words, you essentially want me to scout a few potential hires?"

"Yes, exactly. Nothing crazy, maybe just bring up the job and fax me a resume of theirs?"

ENA sounded more cheerful than Coral could ever recall before. "That's more than accomplishable! Are you certain that's all you want? Something so simple? I'm available to serve any whim or desire of yours, in case you're unaware. Perhaps in addition I could acquire a few blood samples? I know you're fond of those...or maybe an entire cadaver! Those are conveniently available every which way I go! I can even—" ENA very abruptly stopped her grotesque monologue, laughing very stiffly before speaking her normal pitch again. "Sorry for my...uncharacteristic behavior. It's not...I don't typically..."

"...It's fine. I'm glad you're enthusiastic. I only want the resumes, so you don't have to overcomplicate things." Coral booted up her computer again, giving it a nice violent bang so the screen could turn on. "Just be a little quick, if that's alright. I have a deadline to meet soon, and I don't want to risk a falling-out with our boss."

"Yes...that would be dreadful," ENA mumbled. Then Coral heard something akin to a slap on the face, and then a voice switch. "W-What are you still doing here, then?! Leave me to my own devices! Did you forget I was doing something earlier?!"

At this point, Coral was almost used to Meanie's over-the-top outbursts, and the most she ever felt at this point was perhaps mild annoyance. "Right, right. I should've been more considerate. I'm sorry."

"I already told you to stop saying sor—!"

Alas, Coral would never be able to hear the rest of that sentence, or the rest of ENA's rant, for she hung up in that same instant. She allowed herself to relax a little in her chair, and closed all her tabs to think for a few moments.

For the first time that week, she felt good again. Really good, actually. ENA was plenty efficient, and she had a feeling that she'd have at least a few application samples sent to her by the end of the day. A few weeks ago she probably wouldn't have trusted ENA with such a task, and she found it almost comical how far she felt like she traveled from that initial notion.

Also, talking to ENA again was nice, even though Coral felt guilty for using her in this situation. Then again, they were work partners, so asking for help like this was supposed to be the norm. ENA didn't sound like she minded. On the contrary, she was delighted, and she did agree alongside that. And now Coral had ENA's number...like, genuinely now. She should probably save it in the case of other business matters she wanted to discuss. Yeah. Yeah, sure.

Now there was not much else left to do besides complete other small tasks and busywork. Clicking around on her computer screen was admittedly much easier for Coral to handle compared to comprehending the ancient text that was a poorly done resume.

Speaking of which...Coral stared at the two files on her desktop, sitting comfortably close to the recycling bin. Should she...

No. Too risky. You never know. But Coral didn't really think an emergency would be called for. ENA had the capabilities to scout for hires, and there were dozens of entities that go through those Doors every day. She'd surely find someone. She couldn't possibly fail her.

***

ENA had failed her.

That was Coral's very first thought, and she immediately shoved it out of her mind. She had no right to think like that, truly, sitting in the minimal comfort of her rickety office chair in a damp ugly room. Maybe her expectations were set too high, but it was safe to say that her disappointment was indeed perceptible.

ENA had only faxed her one resume by the end of the day. Coral shuffled the pages and turned them around, and even checked her printer to make sure nothing else was jammed, but there was simply the one document. It was barely even formatted like a resume. Someone just typed everything like it was a grocery list, with no indication of what section was for which category. Every other line was written in a different color, font, and size, admittedly making a very nice rainbow, but also leaving some information to be very difficult to read. Maybe this entity knew that this was a sorry excuse for a job application, so they also filled up the empty corners with small sketches of random party-related objects, from party poppers(?) to fruit punch(??) to birthday hats(???). If it weren't for the capital letters "TM" placed as a watermark beside every doodle, Coral would've assumed this was ENA's doing.

Curiosity plagued her almost as much as her dissatisfaction. She tentatively pushed the resume away from her with a finger as though it carried venom, and groaned to herself as she made a call she was hoping she didn't have to make. This time, ENA responded fairly quickly.

"How can I help?" ENA's Meanie answered, sounding very disinterested.

"ENA..."

"No shit it's ENA. What? You got the resume, right?"

"Yes, but I have a few questions regarding it..."

"Spit it out then! Get through this quick so my misery here can come to a swift end."

"Have you truly only found the one entity?"

"...Elaborate."

Coral most certainly did not want to, but what choice did she have? "How many did you offer this position to?"

"Seventy-eight, if you want to count the ones that didn't reciprocate the conversation."

"Oh. I see. And if we exclude them?"

"Four."

What a massive loss in numbers! "How is that even possible?!"

"I'm quite famous around these parts, so it wasn't a problem to find a victim at all. Nobody liked the idea of working with me, though." A pause, as if that was sufficient explanation for everything. "This is the part where you keep acting surprised. You seem to love making that expression."

"N-Nevermind what I think, ENA. So they just...didn't talk to you at all?"

"Ugh, and you know they always have to make such a big deal about it! A spit in my direction here, an avoiding glance over there, and so on, or whatever. At least some gave me the saving grace of outright saying 'no'. I'm indebted, truly," ENA finished off sarcastically. From the nonchalant way she spoke, Coral figured this occurrence was as common to her as Coral having to replace her own ink cartridges.

"You should probably report those entities, ENA. Isn't there a code against employee harassment around these parts?"

"Yeah." ENA simply stated, and then said no more. Maybe she feels like this topic of conversation wasn't worth her energy.

"Well, what about the four whose attention you managed to grab? Did they not have resumes?"

"To be honest, three of them were barely interested in the jobs themselves. They seemed more interested in using me as a 'therapist', whatever that is. They weep to me about their so called 'problems' as 'struggling parents' or with their 'incompetent workforces', and then dare to ask me to fix them, which shouldn't be my FUCKING JOB, BUT—" Just then, there was a very abrupt switch in ENA's demeanor, and Coral could practically see the change in personality as if the woman were right in front of her. "Apologies for the rant. Let's just say that these entities weren't who we were looking for. So, I settled on the one who, to me, seemed to offer the most appropriate skill set."

Coral was rubbing her temples with her fingers throughout this whole conversation, and she stopped briefly to redirect her attention to the resume. "And this skill set is supposed to be...?"

"Well, she has quite a startling knack for creativity! I admit, I was in awe witnessing her ideas in action. She'd offer at least a few good ideas to your metaphorical table, no?"

"I don't think—" Coral began, before biting her lip to maintain her composure. Did she really have the right to be picky now? These were only the results of one day, and ENA was most certainly not slacking off during those hours (was she even able to?). Besides, although Coral was still scrounging the bottom of the barrel, this small piece of junk is a little bit shinier than the rest. It was time to practice this so called "optimism" her old coworkers always badgered her about.

"I mean...ahem. What I meant to say is that this will do just fine for now. Thank you, ENA, for your help. I know this must have set you back on your tasks for the day, so I do appreciate it."

"Ah—" ENA seemed like she was about to go off onto a separate marketing spiel before she was caught off guard. Now Coral had no idea what sort of face ENA was making at this moment. It seems she can still be quite unpredictable.

"That is...you are...most welcome, Coral Glasses. I-If you ever require more of my services, you know how to contact me." Was that a stutter Coral heard just then? From her red side, no less?

"Er, sure. I'll be sure to keep that in mind...take care," Coral muttered, hanging up before she would say anything else that could ruin the moment. Why, oh why does she keep getting herself into situations where she needed to be social?!

Well, the difficult part is past her now. Thanks to ENA, she's at least on stable footing again. All she needs to do is call to schedule an interview and pray that this entity would be the one to save her from a brutal firing. Granted, this sounded much simpler in her head, but putting it into practice was still just as likely.

Once again, Coral dialed a new number into her phone, obviously taking extra care to ensure she was inputting the right digits. The numbers almost seemed scribbled on the paper, and Coral hoped that this entity's creative mindset left some room for cohesion. The phone only rung once before someone answered.

"HELLOOO000OO?? R u a frend of mine?? i dont remember dis number......"

Strange speech patterns from this one, but then again, Coral works with ENA, so it wasn't anything completely new to her. Unfortunately for her, this entity wasn't technically affiliated with her company, so Coral is obligated to actually treat her with decent service. She forced a smile as she tried to use one of those customer service voices she was never good at. "Good evening, this is [COMPANY NAME CENSORED FOR LEGAL, MORAL, AND DIETARY CONCERNS]. I'm calling to inquire about your job application sent a while ago. Um, is this..." Coral paused to read the name plastered at the top of the document in big blocky letters. "...'Taski Maiden'?"

"GASP???!??!!111?? However did u guess THAT??!?!?!?? :OOO"

"...Ma'am, your name is listed on your resume." Yeah, this conversation was sure to be an absolute displeasure. Also, Coral swore she was somehow able to hear emoticons in her sentences now. It was way too late to deal with something like this.

"Ooooo yeah!!! I remember sending that!!!! An ENA actually helped me with that i think. which iz SOOOOO WEIRD RITE??1?? she wuz SSOOOO pushy about it but i think its becuz she sed i had 'gud qualitees' or sumthing!!! !! which is already OBVIOUS 2 ME THNX VERY MUCH!!,,!,! XDD"

"Ms. Taski, if you don't mind, please try to keep your responses to a minimum. I have a lot to get through after this, and I'm sure you do, too" Truthfully, Taski was very loud and very animated, and this made Coral's head hurt a lot, which was a sensation she'd rather try to minimize as much as possible, thank you very much. But this part she kept to herself, for the sake of keeping up that quality customer service that always attracted business.

"OKAY!!! XPPP sooo am i hired now????? when do i start >:OOOO"

"No, not yet. I just wanna schedule an interview with you first, to discuss more of your...er, character. When are you next available?"

"anytime!! ! ! I have literally NOTHING 2 do all day it gets really boringggg >-> oh but i do have to watch the premiere of this one show its this guy eating their way out of a cardboard box with a plastic spoon its really good u should watch it but yah thats like right after 12 i think 0_0 but anytime before thats gud lol"

"...Okay. Yes. Sure. We'll do it at 11 then. I look forward to seeing you then."

"YIPPEE!!!!!+1!11!!! :DD OK THX I GOTTA GO NOW I HAVE PLANS FOR DA NITE!!!!! COOL PLANZZZ! ! !!! ! BIG ONEZZZZ!!!!!!! BYEEEEEEE oh and also tell ENA im gonna be WAYYYY better at the work stuff than she is ok just you WATCH!! ok now im leavin byeee pffffvahdbwkdmfw"

And with that, Taski was the first to hang up. That conversation probably lasted no more than three minutes, yet Coral felt like her entire life force was drained in that span of time. How ENA was able to deal with a personality like that was yet another grand mystery that'd be circulating her mind for the next few days. But she had a true and honest candidate now. Joyous!

Coral checked the time on the clock on the wall. Her shift had just about ended. Finally. She got up and immediately remembered that she'd been sitting here for several hours on end, and she had blink a few times and hold onto her desk in order to reorient herself. If she wasn't careful, she'd fall back into old habits again...

Coral took a step forward before immediately cringing as she stepped on an unknown object, making a loud audible crunching noise. She most certainly did not want to check under her shoe to find out what it was. Then a moment of realization hit her, and she looked around her working quarters filled with the stacks of papers and boxes she neglected to clean out. Right...the interview was supposed to be held in her office, and right now it was in no state to receive visitors. She has a lot of tidying up to do before 11 A.M. tomorrow. On top of this, she'd have to do it all tonight, otherwise she'd have to use the mere two hours she'd have between the start of her shift tomorrow and the interview.

"What an inconvenience. Leave it to me trap myself in this mess of a situation..."

A helping hand would be nice, but did anyone else have such late office hours? It'd be embarrassing to ask her manager for assistance, the Receptionist is an immediate no, and...

Oh, who was she kidding. Her coworker did extend the offer first, anyway.

Slightly humiliated at having to seek assistance again so soon, Coral summoned the tauntingly red plastic cup that, if it were able to speak (which it can't, because it's a cup and that'd be silly), it'd bully her for being so dependent. The funny part was that Coral would wholeheartedly agree, knowing that the reason for making this call was more complex than just a simple favor between coworkers. The ringing stopped, and she heard that voice again.

"Hello again, Coral! I didn't know my service was sought for so eagerly like this!"

"Don't patronize me..." Coral mumbled, shy enough about the whole thing.

"No, no, I'm being sincere! Rarely do I ever get the opportunity to help the same entity more than once. And since it's you—" Another switch. "OKAY ENOUGH OF THAT. State your business. Preferably fast."

"I really don't want you to think I'm taking advantage of your help here. I just...I've had a whole new problem thrust upon me. Are you...um...busy after your shift?"

"Depends. Probably not."

"Okay. That's...good for me, then? Ugh...maybe this isn't worth the bother."

"God, what's got your memory card in a wedge?! Is Froggy bullshitting you with another job again?"

"No! It's due entirely to my own lack of oversight. Long story short, I scheduled an appointment with a Ms. Taski Maiden, but I have no suitable place to hold the interview..."

"Don't you have your office?"

"Yes, but it's not the tidiest."

"God. How bad is it?"

"It's very bad. Horrendous, actually. I can't even walk in this place."

"Ah."

"And I keep stepping on things that most certainly shouldn't be in an office."

"That's repulsive."

"I'm aware. That's why I'm calling."

"You want me to clean your office for you, then. Fine. Get a mop ready for me."

"Huh? What? No. I just want you to help me out. We'll tidy it up together, at least just enough so I can actually see where I'm going in this place."

"Oh." Coral should be paid a chocolate bar for every time she accidentally flustered ENA on call like this. She'd be able to purchase her favorite frozen dinners, and then some.

"ENA, obviously I'm not going to make you do all of my work," Coral firmly explained. "I'm doing this so neither of us are overwhelmed. Uh, that is, if you still want to help..."

"My help...yes, that's what I'm here for. That's all you need," ENA affirmed to herself. Her masculine voice responded this time. "Very well! I will be there in a jiffy. But, in all seriousness, do get the cleaning supplies ready. We must always aim for high performance, even for janitorial services!"

Coral held back a sigh of relief, feeling the weight on her shoulders that she didn't even know she had roll off. "Thanks. I'll be waiting here, then. I promise this shouldn't take long." There was a sound similar to the one the slot machines in the casino make, and then ENA hung up. Four phone calls in one day...Coral's throat was dry from talking so much. She sidestepped her way out of her office and stopped for a drink of water (those electrolytes never tasted better) before heading to the janitor's closet Coral thought she'd never have to go near again. She was already familiar with the typical supplies; mop, bucket, broom, emotional support French fries that never got stale, duster, and so on. She gathered them all up (minus the fries) and set them down in front of the door to her office.

ENA arrived with perfect punctuality, only five minutes after their call. She looked the same as always, but Coral felt a deeply driven need to take a good look at her anyway, lest their schedules for the future drove them further apart. It seemed ENA had less pep in her step than usual, or rather, she was trying to make herself seem like a more "casual" walker, with less emphasis on swinging her limbs around, even though that looks like something she'd much rather be doing.

"I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long." ENA's eyes squinted to showcase her amicable nature.

"No, not at all. I was just setting everything up when you got here. I haven't had a chance to start tidying up yet." Coral shifted her attention to the inside of her office. "Any thoughts? Maybe to your eyes it doesn't look too bad..."

"I suppose I could assess the situation." They were both standing in the hallway, and Coral watched ENA lean the upper half of her body through the open door to peer into her workspace. "Well! It's!" ENA began, before leaving the sentence hanging on an excruciatingly long pause, and then coming back into the hall to face Coral with her hands on her hips. "I learned that in circumstances such as these—"(she avoided the question entirely...)"—it would be best to divvy up our tasks. For the good of both of our wellbeings, we need to prioritize efficiency." ENA made swooping motions with her hands as if she were mapping out a plan for a sports team. "Clearing out the junk we can identify is an essential first step. I am unsure if you can handle heavy weights, so I'll delegate you to transferring the stacks of papers while I handle crates, boxes, and other containers. Then there's the matter of potential residue..."

Coral let ENA blabber on about how they were to vanquish the beast that was her own room, nodding her head every now and then as she tried to keep up with her progressively energized rant. Come to think of it, Coral had never seen ENA actually work in action. What she was witnessing right now was a small glimpse of her prowess. Froggy was right to say that she was one of his hardest workers—Coral knew her enthusiasm would never match up to ENA's even if she was given a million years to try. It was, to put it bluntly, quite admirable.

Then again, was this incredible display of ENA's work ability a craft she honed over the ages, or one she was specifically designed for?

"Coral? You understand all of my instructions, right?"

Before Coral knew it, ENA had already finished talking, leaving her to stare dumbly at her expectant face. Way to set an example.

"Oh! Right, sorry. I caught most of that, I believe. Papers and...and other things."

Whether or not ENA bought that response seemed irrelevant, since she shrugged and helped herself into the office first. "I'll answer any and all questions along the way. Situate yourself on the right, and I'll handle the opposite side of the room." Coral suddenly became attentive, obediently following orders and starting with the smallest stack of papers she could find in her corner. With a grunt, she lifted it up and out of the room, depositing it in the hallway with the cleaning supplies. Good. Progress already. When she turned to head back inside, she bumped into ENA carrying an impressively sized crate with practically no struggle. It was almost like they were walking through a revolving door, one always entering while the other was leaving.

The cleaning process as a whole was a tedious one: it was a repetitive procedure of moving aside junk from one spot to another, and sometimes it had to be slowed down because Coral spotted the occasional important document she needed to save, which then led to her frantically checking all the other piles to make sure she didn't throw out anything important. ENA had to physically hold her back from double and triple checking those stacks all over again. Funnily enough, after certain obstacles were removed, a spot on the far back wall revealed a painting Coral didn't even know she had. It was of a conventionally attractive man, with realistic human features and proportions, including flesh, facial hair, and the like. He was smiling with all of his teeth, which were painted with the brightest possible white anyone could have ever used.

"This is a weird thing for someone to leave in their office, huh?" Coral looked to ENA for assurance, and was surprised to see Meanie with an utterly disgusted look on her face. With no hesitation, she grabbed the painting by the frame and held it under her arm. "You don't need this," she said, marching away as she made a few more colorful, offhanded comments. Coral stood there, confused, and then shrugged. To be honest, she thought it was tacky as well.

They weren't able to get rid of every stack of papers or crates, but enough space was cleared so there was a visible path from the door to Coral's desk. As a result of tidying up the space, dust began to fly around and settle everywhere. ENA eagerly grabbed a broom and seemed to want to pass it on to Coral, before changing her mind and occupying herself with a far corner instead. Coral caught this moment, unsettled, but ultimately forced herself to move on.

Throughout this whole ordeal, they haven't exchanged many words to each other, only really communicating the occasional notice such as "I can move these out of the way for you" or "you missed a spot over there". It's not like Coral was brimming with conversation topics, but she hoped ENA would go back to the friendly mood she typically displayed with her. ENA, however, seemed to try to avoid eye contact, and whenever Coral did catch ENA looking in her direction, she'd turn away and face a conveniently placed wall. This avoidant nature upset Coral a bit. Their calls today went by smoothly, so how come there's an issue now? Did Coral did do something wrong? She's not the most amicable worker, but she still treats ENA with common decency, at least she hoped.

Coral shook her head. ENA doesn't owe her anything just because Coral tolerates her. She's asking too much of someone who might not reciprocate her feelings. Even if ENA went out of her way to make a personalized to-do list for her. Even if ENA always called her after a fax. Even if ENA used to go out of her way to say "good morning" before her shift. Even if ENA trusted Coral enough to send her an emergency message. Even if ENA tried to find opportunities to even be near her. Even if—

"Coral? Isn't that your phone that's ringing?"

Coral whipped around to find her red cup dangling from the ceiling again. Another phone call. Marvelous. She should release a notice stating that she'd be strictly contacted through email.

"H-How long has that been there?"

"It's been ringing twice already," Meanie replied. "Go answer that while I clean the desk area." ENA flicked off a piece of discarded fruit that was left on the desk with her white hand, grossed out.

Coral stupidly nodded as she abandoned her broom and dragged the phone outside into the hall with her. She didn't expect the string to be so long, but it must have been infinite, since there wasn't even the slightest tug when Coral ended up dragging it to the janitor's office.

"Took you long enough! What are you still doing here at this hour?"

Oh dear. It was Froggy. How was she going to explain this to him?

"Good evening...ah, it's a long story. The good news is I scheduled an interview with a potential new hire. I'll be speaking with her tomorrow."

"Ahh, fantastic! I knew you'd be able to figure it out. But you're implying there's bad news. Go on, spill it."

"Well, it's not bad news. Just a slight annoyance. My office isn't fit to hold an interview, so ENA and I are tidying up. I'd say we're almost done with the whole thing."

"ENA's with you? She didn't inform me about that."

"Oh? It was really just a sudden request on my part. She's not..."

"Eh, relax. As long as you're working and I'm not involved, you can do whatever you need to. In fact, I'm pleased you two managed to cooperate again. It's been a while since I've seen you two together."

Coral clenched her jaw. It's not like she didn't know this, but hearing someone else point it out only made her feel even more conflicted. "We're partners, after all," she simply responded.

"Anyways, call me right after your interview tomorrow. I need to hear all those details, and then we'll discuss whether or not we keep looking for candidates."

"In that case, would you rather not be there to witness the interview yourself?

"Ahhh, clever question! I'm not the friendliest face on the block here. You're a nervous wreck, so you're a much better fit for new hires. You can ease the tension off of them."

"...Thanks," Coral said, deadpan and unimpressed. "Sorry, but I need to go back to work now. See you."

"Wait, you are gonna call me back, ri—"

No more. No more of that. She's ignoring all calls for the rest of the night. She's tired and done. Curse the basic human need for social interaction.

Speaking of which, Coral needed meet up with ENA again. She has the habit of pacing around a room when she's on a call, so she ended up a little ways away from her office. She awkwardly made the walk back, and peeked through the door to find ENA...

...Stiff and fazed?

"Coral!" ENA's Salesperson almost yelped. She kept her arms close to herself, and her triangular pupils were darting back and forth, not sure whether to settle on Coral's confused face or another wall. "Have all your matters been settled?"

"Uh, yeah. It was just Froggy." Coral expected ENA to make a backhanded comment about him, but she didn't budge. She only silently fiddled with her hat.

"So," Coral began, "anything out of the—"

"I think we're just about finished, wouldn't you agree?"

Coral took in the new state of her office. It certainly looked a lot better. There were a few spare items here and there, but most of the important documents they gathered were settled on her desk ready to be filed away. There was less dust than before, and the floor was nicely mopped, leaving a faint shine on its wooden surface. It wasn't spick and span, but it was more than clean enough for Taski's interview.

"Yes, I agree. Thanks ENA. Without your help, I'd probably be stuck working overnight."

ENA nodded wordlessly, then sort of sped-walked her way to the door. Coral instinctively blocked her path, surprising ENA and even herself.

"ENA, before you go, do you mind if I ask you something?"

"Is...Is it related to any sort of business matter?"

"Agh...no, not really, but—"

"Then I'm afraid I'm under no jurisdiction to answer."

ENA tried again to scoot past Coral, but Coral got closer, holding her sweaty hands out as if to advise ENA to calm down. What was she doing? Why did she feel so panicked all of a sudden? What was she doing?

"It's just something that's been bothering me lately...I need a clear answer."

"Coral, I don't think I can—"

"Have I hurt you in some way?"

ENA's breath seemed to hitch, which Coral didn't even think was possible. She scanned her face to try to make out some sort of emotion, but she couldn't. It was like ENA closed something off from her entirely, which rooted deep from her core.

"W-What makes you say that?"

"It's just..." Before Coral continued, she realized she was still quite close to ENA, and she backed away until she was almost out in the hallway. "I feel like you've been avoiding me lately. I don't know if it was something I said or did, but if I'm the reason why you're upset, then—"

"Stop that."

Coral's eye widened, and even the coral on her face seemed to stop pulsing as well. ENA finally made a discernible expression on her white side.

It looked like she was ashamed.

"There really are a lot of things you just don't get, huh? And I can't even blame you for it." ENA sounded eerily quiet.

"What? What are you talking about?"

"Look, have you ever heard anyone say that there can be too much of a good thing?"

"Yes?" Coral answered, confused as to where this was going.

"I'm not...this isn't..." ENA stumbled over her words, for once not sure how to express herself. "You're selfless, Coral. And it frightens me."

"I'm...selfless?" Coral wondered out loud. If only ENA really knew what she always thought when they were together.

"Don't use your kindness in excess. Especially on me. For your sake."

Coral only shook her head, even more perplexed than before. "ENA, please. Let's talk this through for a moment."

"Do I have to spell it out for you? I can't. I've already been too advantageous. Fuck, I shouldn't have let myself come here. Let's keep things strictly professional from now on, understand?"

What? What? What?

"You're not making any sense," Coral stated, almost sounding frustrated.

ENA ignored her, forcing a smile and responding as her red side. "Sorry for always being a bother. Disregard my sentiments and focus on your own work. I'll leave you to it."

"ENA?"

Before Coral could even say anything else, ENA almost nudged her to the side before she rushed out of her office and rounded a corner, not looking back. Coral's coral quickened its pulse, and she was left aghast. What was all of that? It was so uncharacteristic of ENA to act like that. Was that because of her? Or, no...was she always like this? And for how long?

Coral's shoulders slumped. Maybe she was foolish. She was pretending that something was there when there really wasn't. But she really thought there was. She truly believed that. Then how? How could ENA act so distant now of all times?

The ticking clock on her wall broke her train of thought, the sound seemingly reverberating in the silence of the room. She should contemplate this before bed, but for now she needed to close up.

Coral half-heartedly reached for the keys in her pocket before she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. By her desk were two drawers that were left slightly ajar. Right, ENA was in charge of organizing the desk area earlier. She did a pretty good job, all things considered.

...Wait.

It couldn't be that drawer, could it?

Coral stumbled over to investigate, not used to having free space to walk through again. She fully opened the top drawer, which contained a few office supplies, like spare staples and folders. This was also where she kept ENA's dog doodles from a few weeks ago. It felt like forever since she got those. Coral's chest twisted when she saw them again, safe and sound in her desk. Although they now belonged to her, their former owner was still who came to mind first.

Trying to get back on track, Coral properly shut that drawer and opened the one below it, which was closer to the floor. She knew this one contained her highly classified pictures, crumpled up in a mess. She knew exactly what to expect.

But the drawer was empty.

Coral felt like the floor disappeared under her feet. She closed and opened it again, as if the pages would refresh and be back in the drawer, but they didn't. She ran her fingers through her hair, absolutely dismayed. ENA found them. She had to have seen them all. What did she do with them? Were they thrown out? Was she going to hand them to Froggy? It probably didn't matter, because for God's sake she fucking saw them.

Coral wanted today to be over. It was all too much. She couldn't stand being so useless, like she was suddenly plugged into a game without knowing the rules. She didn't know anything, truly. If ENA wanted nothing to do with her before, then she surely didn't now. For once, Coral was at a loss. Was there any chance to remedy this? ENA might not even talk to her if Coral tried.

Coral was kneeling on the floor now, not particularly eager to get up. She couldn't leave things like this. One way or another, she had to properly explain herself.

Coral's head hurt really bad, and she soon realized it was because she printing out blank pages again in a flurry. Another mess for her to clean up. She sluggishly picked them up as they fell, then stood up to dump them in another drawer. Right before she let them go, though, she stopped herself. A really dumb idea just entered her brain. An utterly ridiculous sort, that would've been funny had she been in a better mood. And she would've forgotten about it instantly, had she not been in such desperate state. Wouldn't it be ironic if she tried it out? She ran the risk of pissing ENA off so much that their partnership would worsen as a result.

But if she succeeded, the reward would be worth it.

Completely forgetting about the papers, Coral turned and left her office, almost forgetting to lock the door as well due to how fast her thoughts were going. She almost sped to the exit, ignoring the whispers of patrons who kept gambling their lives away at this hour.

This was stupid.

This was so, so stupid.

Out of all the things she could do to help, she had to settle on this solution.

And yet, Coral for once had faith that she chose the right option.

Chapter Text

Today, ENA felt particularly more numb than usual.

It's not something that typically bothered her either. In between her long and grueling work hours, she leaves through the secret door she set up in a mostly abandoned hall, and she enters a sort of third state. Her body ragdolls, and she ends up "floating" in this dark, vast expanse where theres no one or nothing else. She's not even sure this plane is a real place others could visit, and this could just be a byproduct of her so-called "insanity". But here, she's able to shut her mind up and have the ability to feel less without needing to completely shut herself down. Call it her version of sleeping, or just dissociating from the physical world, or an awfully inconvenient way to power off an entity, but it's ENA's way of life, and it's worked for her for as long as she could remember.

...It's not really working today, it seems.

Because the numbness she feels right now isn't like the numbness she feels when she floats in this place. No, this one feels more like someone shoved a ball of static into her cranium, and it's buzzing and crawling around all over. She tried to ignore it, and even attempted to close her eyes as if she were asleep, but the static spread to the rest of her limbs, and it became so apparent that it was clear she would not be able to rest.

If ENA had more control over her body at the moment, she might have sighed. There's no point, in any case. It's not like these breaks last for long anyway. You could argue she deserved it, but there's also no use in debating with what was essentially an inanimate object right now. ENA can still think, though, and although no one can see her thoughts, she knew exactly what to blame for the cause of this.

Look, just because she had a job doesn't mean she was obligated to be overly friendly. She's followed this rule for ages, and her number one mistake was letting her guard down around a singular entity. It embarrassed her to even think about it. Sure, it was...entertaining for her, and it might have been entertaining for the other party, but it's no excuse either way. In any case, that's neither here nor there. ENA knew deep down this was bad for both of them, and when she finally noticed the effects of their partnership, she knew she had to start maintaining distance. But even sticking to the most bare bone of interactions with her didn't work in ENA's favor—one of them would just end up crawling back to the other, and ENA would get another involuntary jitter in her chest.

Naturally, ENA took up even longer shifts to avoid seeing the other, and yet the aquatic lady somehow still managed to reach her. It was like constantly running into your sworn enemy as you both run errands on the street, but instead of a rival, this was more like a very, very, very friendly coworker. That's how ENA would describe it anyway. However, like a rival, ENA figured the only remedy was to eliminate the competition, even if it meant she had to tell "her" to her face to give up on a hopeless case like herself.

...But her second mistake was looking her in the eye afterwards.

ENA was thinking too much in a place where she should only barely be conscious, but she can't help it. She hated herself for it, but it was true. As she floated and flipped through this dark expanse, her eyes traveled around, mostly annoyed that after so many days, her mind was still preoccupied about the wrong things. Then she felt the pointy fingers on her right hand twitch again. She had to clock in soon. Thank God. Nothing like dealing with insufferable clients to silence your own annoyances.

Eventually, her limbs gained enough autonomy for her to be able to balance herself straight up again. ENA felt her mouth reappear on her red side, and her feet eventually settled on a floor that only decided to appear when she was about to head to work. She saw the familiar slit in the wall, a very thin stream of light passing through it, and reached her hands out to pry it open. It typically tore like paper, but the inexplicable weight in her arms actually made her struggle. She stumbled out into the streets, the red sky overwhelming the landscape. The man was going for a swim today, just like all the other days. The dilapidated buildings around her seemed like they were going to topple over with the smallest gust of wind, and the whole place smelt like burnt chicken.

This was the most "home-like" place ENA had ever known, but not even this was enough to get rid of her static.

She wandered around the abandoned town, trying to find her bed again. It always had a habit of spawning wherever the hell it wanted to, and it could take ENA either five minutes or five hours to find it, hence why she oftentimes clocks in early. At the very least, today was one of the days where she managed to find it in the former amount of time. There it was, in the middle of a street littered with rubble and dust. It was a nice, bright blue, the only appealing color to be found in this town. ENA sat on it, lingering for a while before she tossed her whole body through. It was the same routine as always, and yet that bed had never felt as foreign as it did now.

She walked in silence past the shut down casino machines. All the lights were on, but besides that there was no life to be seen. ENA figured that at least Froggy would be up in the hub waiting to give her orders.

But when ENA walked past a particular hallway, she felt the static stop for a split second. Her mind suddenly cleared, and then it just as quickly clouded up again. She shouldn't. She had to go upstairs. Go upstairs. Go.

But ENA, ever the curious one, dared to look anyway. She was familiar with this hallway, and she knew who inhabited it. Maybe it's because of her lack of sense, but she swore the lights seemed to glow a little brighter here as well, almost beckoning her. ENA stared blankly at the hallway, knowing all too well just how much she was risking if she went in.

So she didn't.

But of course, the universe had other plans.

A noise was all it took for ENA to once again stop in her tracks and check again. She scanned the hall for any sign of life, but she couldn't find anything. And yet, the noise persisted. It sounded like a loud, irregular clatter. It was annoying. Really annoying. Whoever was there didn't seem to care that they were causing a disturbance. They had to be silenced for the sake of maintaining the peace. That was the mission she gave herself, at least.

She walked through the hall, only half-observing her surroundings. It looked like all the other halls in the casino, only without the slot machines. There were barely any rooms in the hall, and the few that she found weren't noteworthy in the slightest. Once ENA identified the janitor's closet up ahead, she took a sharp turn to the left to find another route.

Besides the detour, it took her no trouble at all to identify the nuisance. It was actually Froggy himself, sizing up a vending machine and occasionally slapping it and stepping away. Everytime he failed, he muttered curses to himself. ENA immediately positioned herself right next to him in order to get his attention.

"Shit! Geez, ENA, when the hell'd you get here?" Froggy almost leapt away from her, surprised. ENA didn't answer him, instead glancing towards the glass of the machine. "I, er...skipped breakfast this morning," Froggy meekly explained. Before he could say any more, ENA prepped her right arm and slammed it against the glass, easily dislodging whatever was inside. Down fell a soda can filled with all the necessary food groups, like vegetables and aluminum.

"Seriously? So everyone just happens to know how to do that?" ENA unceremoniously plopped the can onto his hand, and Froggy, who was still processing ENA's success, simply nodded his thanks. The soda can hissed loudly as he opened it, and he practically chugged half the drink in one gulp. He held it out to ENA as if to offer her some, but ENA shook her head.

"You're quiet today. Another one of those mornings, huh?" Froggy leaned against the wall behind him, and ENA followed suit, crossing her arms. "Yeah...I don't really wanna be here, either. But hey, work is work. You get it." He paused to take another sip. "Listen, if we manage to wrap things up nicely today, then we could head to the bar the next town over. I know it's a weekday, but we deserve a drink or two, right? How about it?"

ENA already knew her answer to Froggy's question before he even finished asking. She looked over at Froggy and cocked an eyebrow (which she didn't really have, so it looked more like her left eye just got wider) as if to imply the absurdity of such a request. Froggy let out a humph, not necessarily offended or surprised.

"Alright, alright. You don't have to say any more than that." Froggy tilted the can trying to get the last drops of his drink. "Well. You know what you have to do today. The Lonely Door isn't gonna hug itself, you know." Froggy held his empty can awkwardly, and ENA held her hand out offering to take it for herself. Froggy obliged, then sort of saluted ENA as he went off to his own office. Now ENA was on her own again, leaning against a wall just a ways away from where her biggest weakness resided. The only other sound in the hall was the light buzzing of the vending machine.

ENA crushed the soda can between her palms.

***

The Uncanny Streets were a polluted wreck.

ENA's task for the day was to clean up the streets. Apparently the Purge Event held the night prior was so wild that trash somehow seeped its way into the public streets. It was filled with all sorts of junk, ranging from broken furniture and banana peels to fishbowls and gemstones, and it was all piled so high that the stacks almost seemed to reach the desert above them. Loads of little knick-knacks were now in the way, and ENA needed to clean all of it up in order for the casino's clients to be able to traverse the streets freely.

Besides herself, the only other inhabitants on the Uncanny Streets were the peculiar little spider children that attempted to lend a hand as well. There were a few situated by smaller piles, dumping trash in the large cracks formed all over the place. One of them tried to manage the crane, but all the mess made it difficult for it to travel even a few inches, so the crane basically only served as decoration. Some of the children were just playing around, sliding down the bigger piles and reenacting movie scenes ENA didn't recognize.

ENA herself was standing in the middle of a pile of traffic cones, shoveling as many as she could carry. Her movements were rhythmic and orderly, as if she were an army soldier on patrol. Thankfully, a job like this one meant she didn't have to interact with any uneducated folk, and the manual labor was grueling enough for her to muffle the static.

For a while, all ENA focused on were the sounds of trash and junk crushing and smushing against each other underneath her feet, and the clank of her shovel as it finally hit stone, a sign that she was supposed to move on to the next pile. Although the children did their best to clean up as well, they didn't match ENA's efficiency, and progress was only really made thanks to her efforts. After an hour of this, when ENA was preoccupied with a pile of calculators and rulers, she felt a sudden jolt coming from within the pile. The objects at the top came tumbling down as something or someone kept struggling underneath them. ENA also kept shoveling, trying to clear a path so that whatever was trapped would be able to escape, but the pile of junk was just too large. A particularly big chunk of trash fell off from the base of the pile, and like a tidal wave, the whole thing came crashing down on top of ENA. She braced for impact as she felt calculators poking at her sides and face, and they surely would have harmed her if ENA were anyone else.

ENA was unamused as she slowly tried to "swim" her way out of the mess, her surroundings being too dark for her to really get a sense of just how deeply she was trapped. Truthfully, ENA couldn't clock into work for one day without something interesting happening along the way, and it's at times like these when ENA genuinely ponders if office jobs really are worth it.

Trying to picture herself in front of a computer in a cubicle, however, only brought someone else to mind, so now any related mind escapades are off limits. Was it just ENA, or did the space around her seem to get heavier?

Suffocating in a pile of calculators was definitely not an honorable way to go out, but ENA had died in worse ways. Plus, it's not like this will be ENA's last. If it was, though, then she didn't have a preferred method of death, as long as it wasn't over-the-top or with too much fanfare. A simple farewell would be nice, even if no one was around to witness it.

...ENA couldn't help but wonder if that was really the truth.

Suddenly, something latched onto her red arm. Something surprisingly strong, even with its soft grip. The unknowable entity dragged ENA up and out of the darkness, calculators clanking against each other as ENA finally surfaced. The brightness of the Uncanny Streets actually bothered her, and she had to blink once or twice to reorient herself. She looked around to see all the spider children still busy with their chores, and the pile that fell on top of her was mostly scattered over the surrounding paths. Nearby was a large crack revealing a yellow void, and a few unfortunate items fell in as ENA recovered.

"WHUHHH????? I FISHED OUT AN ENA!!?!????!! :OOOO"

And there, right in front of ENA, was none other than Taski Maiden, who was half submerged in the junk pile with a pair of scuba diving glasses on. Goody.

"i didnt know you also liked dumpster diving!!! this place is DA BEST. ive found sooooo many useless THINGZ!!!1! looklooklooklook—" Taski heaved something stuck below her, and out came one of those carry out plastic bags with the smiley faces on them. She reached in and held the items she took out with a great marvel on her face. Here she showcased a rugged scarf, a cuckoo clock that swore, someone's social security number, a dandelion-colored crayon, a piranha plant that ate itself, and a snow globe featuring a very, very frightened snowman. Nothing ENA had never seen before, so unfortunately her enthusiasm wasn't quite matched up to Taski's.

Despite this, Taski rambled about each of her findings with her usual delight—that was until the cuckoo clock chimed (it was so horribly out of tune that some of the nearby spider children actually covered their ears), reminding everyone that it was already 11 "fucking" A.M.

"ALREADY??? i wuz enjoying myself 2 much >_> ENA didnt even get to show off her favorite junk tho..."

Taski gestured at something lying in front of ENA. She looked down to find a crumpled ball of paper lying on top of the other trash. With great speed, ENA nabbed it and shoved it down her shirt, her Meanie side slightly alarmed.

"JEEZ!!,!!1! i can take a hint yknow >:((( but whatever! i dont have time to think about that when my unemployment lifes are finally gonna be OVAHHHH!!! XDDD" Taski held her arms up in triumph, then seemed to have a revelation, for she then held her finger to her chin in a thinking pose. "oooo....i shouldve put "good samaritan" on my resume too.....i saved an ENA after all!! the lady on the phone seems like a gud friend of yours!! can you plz put in another good word for me???? >_<" Taski put her palms together, pleading for ENA's help again. And ENA, being ENA, simply tipped her hat in affirmation.

"AWESUM!!! i will be the bestest worker evah...better than the lady on the phone, and better than her super boring ENA friend!!!!! >:DD" Taski took in a very deep breath before she dove once again into the junk pile. Probably not the direction she should take to reach the casino, but Taski seemed full of surprises. If things go well, that can be another thing off of her coworker's hands.

If things go well...

No matter. ENA's job still wasn't done yet, and being knee deep in mathematical instruments wasn't an equivalent to taking a break...but now she had a new problem: ENA's shovel was also lost amidst the avalanche, so now she had to dig through the trash so she could find it again.

Rolling up nonexistent sleeves, ENA trudged through these objects and tried to feel around for her shovel with little success. Everything felt the same to her, like all these objects were morphing into each other until they couldn't be identified on their own. She grew increasingly frustrated, resorting to kicking the calculators and rulers around even at the risk of "injuring" her foot. She doubted Taski was still around to dive in and help, and thinking about her only worsened ENA's mood even more. She had no patience for these sorts of things, and she debated going up to those stupid kids to ask for another stupid shovel because these stupid rulers ate her only one, but her train of thought was interrupted by some violent coughing sounds behind her.

ENA cautiously turned around to find her red cup hanging from the sky, the rim bending and twisting into a frown as if it were a mouth. It seemed to be nearly choking to death, sputtering and hacking like something was lodged in the throat it didn't have. Maybe ENA would've tried performing CPR if the cup wasn't...you know, a cup, but since it was, ENA just opted to stare expectantly at it in the hope that it could recover before she'd be blamed as a bystander.

Thankfully, the phone managed to spit out a thin sheet of paper, which ended up slightly crumpled from the prior choking experience, but it was overall undamaged. The cup gave one last angry wheeze before it went back the way it came.

The paper fell a few feet away from where ENA was standing, so she had to make a small trek over to where it was. She felt like she was stomping through mud due to how much trash there was, but she reached the paper anyway. What an odd item for her to receive through a telephone, though. It's supposed to be used for calls, not as a mail service.

When ENA picked up the paper, she was suddenly hit with a feeling akin to déjà vu. It was all too nostalgic of a feeling for her, and she remembered the similar shenanigans she imposed on a certain someone she took a liking to. No, scratch that. "Liking" was too generous. Or maybe not generous enough? Doesn't matter. Those should be days that she already put past. The other party surely must have done so already. ENA will keep trying to convince herself that this was for the benefit of both of them, even though her stomach churned and felt ill at the thought.

But as for what happened next, she didn't think she could place the blame on a God or deity for this one.

Because the paper she picked up had an owner, labeled clear as day on the front page.

And that owner was the reason why she felt so awful today.

And the reason why she felt so great on others.

[ ENA

Good morning.

Good luck at work today.

Sorry it took so long for me to say.

— The one you call "Coral Glasses"]

Maybe if ENA didn't hesitate so much when she woke up this morning, or go into the hallway with the vending machine, or let herself get fished out by Taski, or lose her shovel, or simply just had a normal day, then maybe, maybe, she could've been more composed and made an actually tactful decision. Really, the right course of action was to leave that letter with the rest of the junk around her, adding it to the mess gathered around her knees.

But besides that woman, emotions were also her biggest weakness.

ENA held that paper with both of her hands, tightening her grip so much that she feared she would rip the damn thing. She gritted her teeth, eyes squinting with fury, the most expressive she's been since she left that office for what she thought would be the last time. Her red side probably fell off. She didn't care. She also paid no mind to the spiders that were now staring at her, their hushed whispers drowned out by her static. To ENA, the note was all that existed right now.

"Coral Glasses is going to be dead meat."