"It takes a lot more than screaming to scare someone." Joven says, spinning around in his chair. Somehow, he, Lasercorn, and Sohinki got on the subject of when he scared Mari for YouTube.
"So what, you think we couldn't do it?" Sohinki asks.
"Hey leave me out of this." Lasercorn says. "I'm confident in my abilities to scare people." Joven nods.
"Oh, so you two just think I'm not manly enough to scare her." Sohinki crosses his arms, then grabs Joven's chair. "Stop spinning around, you idiot."
"It's not just them." Ian says as he walks in with Anthony. "You're not exactly, well, the most masculine guy."
"I'm manly!" Sohinki snaps, but his voice breaks and pitches up, causing the other guys to laugh. "Shut up!" They continue laughing. "I have just as much testostron as you guys!" Lasercorn chokes with laughter at his mispronunciation of testosterone. "What?!"
"It's testosterone, Sohinki." Ian says.
"What?" He asks. "You know what!? Bet time!" Everyone stops laughing because they know Lasercorn takes bets seriously.
"What's your bet, Maddie?" Anthony says, making Sohinki even more furious.
"Saturday night, we go for pizza and drinks, just us guys." He says. "If I can't make Mari pee her pants before then, then I have to buy all your drinks. If I can, though, then all of you have to pitch in, and buy me a pizza once a week for a month. All for myself."
"You mean from that place that makes the giant ones for fifteen dollars?" Lasercorn asks. Sohinki nods.
"That's forty five dollars!" Ian says. Anthony and Joven look at him. "That's right, I know how to multiply."
"Relax Ian." Anthony says. "It's the end of Wednesday, so he's only got a few days to come up with something good. Besides, he's too nice to scare anyone."
"He's...a 'gentleman'." Joven and Lasercorn burst out laughing at the reference to the Grand Theft Smosh last week.
"I'll show you sons of bitches!" Sohinki snaps. He storms out of the room to go plan.
Lasercorn finds Sohinki in a hall closet, writing in a notebook.
"What do you want, Mr. Confidence?" Sohinki says.
"I want to help you." He says. He hands Sohinki a goblin mask, a knife, and a small container of fake blood. "Use as you wish, my young apprentice."
"Thanks...?" Sohinki says. "Why?"
"Well, it's a long story, but there's a reason I jumpscared my viewers in my first video. It all started with Joven playing Super Smash Bros..." Lasercorn gazes off into the corner of the messy closet. Sohinki waits a minute for him to return. "But anyway, I know how it feels to not be scary. Have fun." He slaps Sohinki across the face before shutting the door and leaving. Sohinki rubs his face, then gets back to work.
"Good morning, everyone." Sohinki says as he walks in on Thursday.
"Um, what's with the tall metal cabinet?" Mari asks, as he is pushing one in on a hand truck.
"Decided to replace this with my metal one, because it has doors." Sohinki replies, patting the white shelf near her desk. Joven and Lasercorn look at each other, knowing this has to do with scaring.
"Well, okay." Mari says. Sohinki starts moving the stuff on the white shelves into a box so he can move the new cabinet in. He switches the shelves, and walks the white one out of the room on the hand truck. He adjusts the new cabinet so it's perfect, then walks out again. He returns with a box full of metal shelves.
"Time to put these babies in." He says. He opens the doors of the cabinet, picks up a shelf, then frowns. "Dang it, I think I ordered the wrong size shelf." He starts trying to shove it in, banging it on the sides of the cabinet, being loud to the point where Mari stops working, and Wes walks in.
"What the hell is going on!?" He says. "It sound like you're building a warehouse in here."
"Sohinki ordered the wrong size shelves for his new cabinet." Lasercorn says, although he knows it's just a ploy to set up for the prank.
"Oh, is this about...the thing?" Wes asks Joven.
"Yeah." Joven says.
"What thing?" Mari asks. Sohinki glares at Joven for telling Wes, as Joven and Lasercorn try to come up with an excuse.
"Uhm, Sohinki has a secret fear of white shelves." Wes blurts out. Mari looks at Sohinki.
"Um, yeah, when I was s-seven," He stutters. "When I was seven a giant one fell on me, and I was stuck there for three- six, hours. Six hours."
"Oh..." Mari doesn't exactly believe it, but doesn't investigate further.
"Well, I guess I'll order new shelves, but they won't be here until Saturday night." Sohinki says.
"Oh well, we have the box to hold the stuff." Mari says.
"Yep. We have the box."
Sohinki tries to keep from tapping his foot in boredom. He doesn't know how long he's been waiting for Mari inside the cabinet, and thinks maybe everyone went home already. His knife is already dipped in fake blood, and the goblin mask is on. He hears a sneeze and the door opening. He'd recognize Mari's sneeze in a crowd, it's just so cute.
What the H, Matt!?
He raises his knife and is just about to jump out when Mari gets a phone call. He relaxes, and postpones the jumping until the call is over. Unfortunately, the call doesn't sound good.
"Hey Peter, I just got back to the office from lunch." Mari says. Sohinki silently curses in his head. When she talks with her boyfriend, she talks for a long time. And he's already been waiting since the beginning of lunch. Knowing it's inevitable, he eavesdrops. "If we need to talk so seriously, do you think it should wait until we're home?...What do you mean you're not coming home? Did something bad-...Why will your friend come pick your stuff up?" Sohinki's chest hurts at the sound of denial in her voice. "Peter, if there's something I'm doing...Don't pull the 'it's not you, it's me' act!...Peter, you can't just up and-...We need to talk in person!...What other girl loves you more than I do?...Oh because it's not about love, it's about her body, isn't it...don't deny it!...Peter, I-...hello?...H-hello?" Sohinki's tight grip on the knife lessens at her soft crying, and he takes the goblin mask off. He knows he can't do it to her now. His heart pounds faster, and he suddenly wants to beat Peter bloody for making Mari cry. He won't stand to let her be hurt!
What the f are you thinking!? He thinks at himself. His head is right. Mari would never like him. But I don't like her! Do I?
He waits ten minutes for her to stop crying, then another two hours waiting for her to leave.
"Hey Mari, have you seen Sohinki?" He hears Ian ask.
"No." Mari says with a sniffle.
"Mari, have you been crying?" Ian says.
"Yeah, I just watched a real depressing video about puppy mills."
"Dang it, Mari. You know you- and I, not to mention -can't watch stuff like that." Ian sighs. "At least Sohinki didn't see it. He would have bawled like a baby." Sohinki resists jumping out and scaring the pee out of both of them, knowing that if he did, Mari would realize he heard. Thinking about the phone call again, he could swear his blood starts heating up in his veins. He tries to keep his breathing low so Mari doesn't hear, but it's hard when he wants to rip Peter's head off.
Why am I getting so angry about this? He tries to convince himself that any of the other guys would feel the same, that she's just his friend and he would never want anything more. But he starts to consider that he never let himself consider it since Mari was committed. She probably still is, but...Peter isn't. In fact, the more he thinks about it, the more he realizes how much he's always liked her.
"I know I shouldn't." Mari replies to Ian.
"Well c'mon, I know a couple guys who need a gal to do Grand Theft Smosh with." He says.
"What about Sohinki?" Mari asks.
"We'll wait for a few minutes, otherwise we should just record without him."
Once he's sure they're gone, Sohinki stumbles out of the cabinet, knife and goblin mask in hand. He hurries to his spot where he hides the items, and pauses. He tells himself he has to remain calm and pretend he knows nothing about the phone call, and it takes a couple minutes to calm his fury.
"About time you got here, where you been?" Lasercorn says. "We're already mid-recording." Sohinki slides into his chair and logs on.
"Sorry, I uh-" Sohinki fumbles for an excuse.
"DIE HELICOPTER!" Joven shouts, laughing. "I got it!"
Sohinki sighs. "Yeah..."
"Bye guys!" Anthony waves to Sohinki and Mari, the last two people in at the office.
"Bye Anthony." Mari says. Sohinki doesn't say anything before Anthony is gone. Mari grabs her bag. "Okay, well bye Soh-"
"Mari tell me what's wrong." Sohinki snaps. Even though he knows, he wants her to say it, to trust him. Mari sighs, and takes a step closer to him.
"Peter..." She takes a deep breath. "Peter left me. Just, all of a sudden, after lunch today. With no warning, and he just said he's leaving me for some floozy."
"I'm so sorry." Sohinki says, thankful he didn't have to reveal he was hiding. He offers his arms for comfort, but she takes him by surprise when she gently pushes his arms back down, puts her face right next to his, and kisses him. He doesn't kiss her back, although he doesn't break. She does.
"Oh my gosh, Sohinki, I'm sorry, I don't know why I-" He cuts her apology off, grabbing her by the shoulders and kissing her hard. He breaks after several seconds.
"Don't say sorry." He whispers.
"Sohinki, I just kissed you in the moment, I don't know if I...I..." She fumbles for her feelings, and Sohinki feels his heart drop into his stomach.
"Alright, then let's just pretend this didn't happen." He forces himself to laugh. "Doesn't really change anything." He grabs his bag and walks out. Mari sighs. If only he knew.
This changes everything.