When SpongeBob woke the next day, he knew by the way he felt that something was wrong. Then he remembered what had happened. Yesterday had not been another Best Day Ever. Wily was there. Wily had come to his safe haven in Bikini Bottom, had acted like they were friends—they had been once, he thought vaguely—and then he'd announced he was coming to stay for awhile. It was a recipe for disaster, and SpongeBob immediately felt himself pulling away, detaching himself from the pain and confusion that held him in bed. But he still had to go to work, so he slowly got up and went through his morning checklist, not a single drop of enthusiasm in him.

He didn't eat breakfast, but he did remember to feed Gary. Gary meowed at him, and SpongeBob stroked his shell. When he saw Squidward come out of his house, he trudged to the door and grabbed his hat. He took the time to lock his door, and he carefully slipped the key into his pocket before walking after Squidward. His footsteps were slow and heavy, and he didn't have the energy to catch up with his neighbor, so he didn't even try.

It took only a minute of silence before Squidward looked back to see where SpongeBob was. He stopped in his tracks when he caught sight of his usually excited neighbor. The yellow sponge looked deflated and tired, and there was something very wrong in his demeanor. Squidward didn't move until SpongeBob had slogged over.

"SpongeBob?" Squidward asked, his voice unusually gentle. "Is everything okay?"

SpongeBob didn't answer, just standing in front of Squidward, staring at the ground with slumped shoulders and tired eyes.

"Didn't sleep?" Squidward tried again.

SpongeBob shook his head after a few moments.

Squidward nodded. "I have those days. But hey, it can still be the Best Day Ever, right?"

"No. It can't."

Once again, that was like a punch in the gut, and Squidward didn't know what to do with the answer. Something had changed the day before, and whatever it was had bothered SpongeBob enough to not only interrupt his sleep, but to take away even the possibility of a day being the Best Day Ever.

"Are you okay to go to work?"

"I want to go to work please," SpongeBob said. Then, hoping that Squidward wouldn't ask why, he added, "Gary likes his alone time."

Squidward squinted at him but nodded. "Fine. Let's go. You know what Mr. Krabs would say."

SpongeBob only nodded in response and didn't quote their boss like he usually would have. Instead, he turned and began to trudge to work again. Squidward kept pace, unwilling to leave his neighbor behind. Though he found SpongeBob to be irritating, he'd discovered that there were people that were far worse. He did care about SpongeBob, but the yellow sponge had never given him anything like this to worry about before. Whatever it was, Squidward could tell it was serious, and as usual when SpongeBob was truly threatened, he became defensive and protective. Was all this really from dropping a tray? Or was there something bigger going on?

When they got to the Krusty Krab, Mr. Krabs was already behind the cash register, carefully counting money to fill the register with change.

"Mornin' boyos. Ready to make me more money?" he asked jovially.

There was a long pause before the old crab looked up, surprised that SpongeBob hadn't given a resounding, "Aye aye, sir!" as usual. What he saw concerned him. SpongeBob looked absolutely awful, like he'd barely slept. And there was something else about him, a wariness, a skittishness that wasn't usually there. He kept glancing around, especially at the doors. Mr. Krabs recognized the behavior from his time in the Navy. SpongeBob looked scared. But what was there to be scared of?

"Everything okay there, lad?" he asked slowly, lowering the money into the drawer.

SpongeBob cut his eyes over to look at his boss then quickly lowered them to the ground and shuffled his feet. He finally shrugged, which wasn't a no, but it wasn't a yes, either. Mr. Krabs looked at Squidward and they both could see the other was worried.

"He said he didn't sleep well last night," Squidward said into the quiet. "But Gary needs some alone time, so he came into work."

Mr. Krabs nodded slowly. "Okay then. Well, go back and start preppin', lad. I need to have a talk with Mr. Squidward."

"Yes, sir," SpongeBob said softly, and he turned and slouched into the kitchen.

After arranging the register, Mr. Krabs and Squidward went back into his office. Mr. Krabs plopped behind the desk and tapped a claw nervously against the wood.

"Alright, Mr. Squidward. What did you do?"

Squidward looked up, met Mr. Krabs's eyes and spoke forcefully. "I didn't do anything, Mr. Krabs. He's been acting like this since yesterday afternoon."

Mr. Krabs clicked his tongue. "He seemed normal enough yesterday mornin'. What changed?"

Squidward shrugged. "He dropped a tray full of food on the ground and went all weird after that."

Mr. Krabs made a face at the wasted profit, but he focused on the more pressing problem. "Weird, eh? Weird how?"

"He dropped the tray and then this old friend of his came up and said he was visiting Bikini Bottom for a while. But SpongeBob…" Squidward frowned as a realization dawned on him. "Maybe it wasn't the tray," he said slowly. "Maybe it was the sponge."

"Sponge?" Mr. Krabs was getting impatient. "What sponge?"

"Said his name was Wily. And SpongeBob…" Squidward thought back to the scene. "I don't think he was happy to see him." A thought crossed his mind. "Maybe he dropped the tray because Wily was there."

Mr. Krabs frowned. "Keep an eye out for this sponge. If he comes in here again, get me."

Squidward and Mr. Krabs looked at each other for a long moment before the octopus nodded and stood to go clock in. When he saw that SpongeBob hadn't clocked in, he did so for him without a word. Mr. Krabs sat at his desk, and he began to stack coins as he thought about his loyal fry cook.

SpongeBob was the friendliest person the old crab knew. And with that friendliness was a splash of naïveté that was endearing to most of the citizens of Bikini Bottom. But sometimes it attracted sharks that would be more than happy to tear him apart. Mr. Krabs had faced his share of bullheaded customers, but the ones who marked SpongeBob as an easy target boiled his cold blood. Sometimes a customer from out of town would start to yell and swear at the sponge for some false ineptitude. Mr. Krabs had given out refunds before just to get those barnacle heads out of his restaurant before he did something that would get him arrested.

SpongeBob was an amazing young man with a passion for food and friends. And if somebody wanted to mess with him, they'd have a heck of a time getting past him. He'd won his fair share of boxing matches and he could still hold his own when he went for a pint with his old naval buddies, so he was ready and willing to fight for his fry cook. But the thing that got to him was that sometimes, when those customers would yell, some of the things they said to SpongeBob seemed to cut him far deeper than they should have. That made Mr. Krabs think that there was something in SpongeBob's past that made him susceptible to the insults thrown at him.

The first time this had happened, a few weeks after he was hired, one fish snapped that SpongeBob was a mistake when he stammered out that he couldn't give him a refund, and SpongeBob's eyes went dead. Without a word, he'd reached for his own wallet to refund him, and the bland smile that had stretched his face had been utterly terrifying and completely empty of anything that made SpongeBob himself. Mr. Krabs, having no idea what had happened, took one look at that smile and barreled over to find out what was going on. He'd sent that customer away after spewing a stream of profanity at him, shoving the refund at him and demanding he never come back.

The regulars had been astonished at the display, and several muttered about not coming back. At least they did until they saw SpongeBob, his wallet in hand, a blank, dead look in his eyes as he stood there smiling, staring where the fish had been with a twenty held out in front of him. He didn't move until the crab touched him, guiding them money back into his wallet. They stopped grumbling then and watched as Mr. Krabs led the boy to his office before coming out to talk to Squidward in the kitchen.

That day was seared into Mr. Krabs's mind. SpongeBob had scared him with that smile because it was so fake. And nothing about SpongeBob was fake. From his loud laughter and exuberant energy to his exclamations and tears, SpongeBob was the most genuine person that Mr. Krabs had ever met. And to see him fake anything was disturbing. Mr. Krabs would do anything to make sure that SpongeBob never smiled like that again. The kid didn't deserve to be yelled at or beaten down. But there were always sharks eager for an easy meal…

Mr. Krabs stood up and made his way to the kitchen. He pushed open the door and peered in. SpongeBob was methodically cutting tomatoes into perfect slices, but there was no energy in his movements. Mr. Krabs walked in and saw that a lot of the prep work was already done. How was SpongeBob so good at this? It was incredible.

"Hey, lad?" Mr. Krabs asked. "Is somethin' botherin' you?"

Squidward turned to lean on the window, watching and listening carefully.

SpongeBob didn't answer for several minutes as he finished slicing the tomatoes. Mr. Krabs and Squidward waited as patiently as they could, knowing he'd heard the question. When the final tomato was neatly sliced and the ingredients were stacked together, SpongeBob put down the knife and stared at his work. He didn't seem pleased or happy about it, which was another worrying sign.

"Why would anything be bothering me, sir?" SpongeBob asked, and he sounded a bit off.

"You can't pull the kelp over me eyes, lad. You're not yourself today. Something's wrong."

SpongeBob began to play with his hands, not looking at him. "It's nothing."

"If you don't want to talk about it, that's one thing," Mr. Krabs said. "But don't you lie, boyo."

There was a pause, then SpongeBob gave a tiny nod. "Sorry, sir."

"If you do want to talk about it, come to me office. Okay, lad? Can't be losing me best employee, now can I?"

SpongeBob actually smiled a little. "Aw, Squidward's your best employee."

Squidward snorted, unable to help himself. "Uh-huh. Sure."

"He's a good employee," Mr. Krabs agreed. "But he ain't manager material. And I made a good choice when I promoted you. You do a good job here, lad."

SpongeBob hesitated. "I do?"

Mr. Krabs was surprised. "Of course you do! You're the best fry cook in all the seven seas! And you're a fine manager, too. You know that, right?"

There was another pause, and SpongeBob's shoulders slumped. "I… Sometimes I mess up. I dropped a tray of food yesterday. And you can take the loss out of my check if you need to."

Mr. Krabs frowned. "No need, me boy." He paused. "And everybody messes up every once in a while."

"But what if you did something really bad?" SpongeBob asked. "And what if you thought people were going to find out and hate you because of what you did?"

That was one direction neither Squidward nor Mr. Krabs had expected the conversation to take. Did Wily know something about SpongeBob that the yellow sponge didn't want them to find out? It was possible. Most of SpongeBob's childhood was unknown to them. He'd shown up in Bikini Bottom at just seventeen, moved into his pineapple home, and hadn't shown himself much until he'd gotten a job at the Krusty Krab. What could SpongeBob have done that he didn't want to tell them?

"Is this person sorry for what they did?" Mr. Krabs asked after a moment.

"Really, really sorry," SpongeBob said.

"Then I'd say this person, whoever it is, shouldn't worry about it."

SpongeBob peeked up to see Mr. Krabs and Squidward studying him. "But what if his friends leave him because of it?"

"Then they weren't friends," Squidward said blandly. "And I wouldn't worry about us leaving you, SpongeBob. We've put up with you this long, bubbles, snails, jellyfish and all."

"No matter what you hear, you'll still be my friends?"

SpongeBob's eyes were gleaming with unshed tears. Mr. Krabs and Squidward glanced at each other then looked at him and nodded.

"Of course, lad. Now get ready! I hear the customers a-comin'! And they're bringing empty stomachs and full wallets! Now let's switch that around!"

SpongeBob actually laughed, and he saluted. "Aye aye, sir," he said.

Though he wasn't back to his full energy, he did look a bit happier. Mr. Krabs walked out of the kitchen to turn over the sign on the door. He and Squidward glanced at each other, both curious and worried. What could SpongeBob, of all people, have done that was so bad? And how was this connected with that red sponge Wily? They didn't know, but they were going to find out. Neither of them liked to see SpongeBob so upset, so they were just going to have to make sure everything was alright.