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The second that you step back onto your front porch, the scents of fresh grapefruit and pink watermelon invade your senses. After walking down the steps of the porch, you turn around to admire the vibrant sight of your new home, illuminated by the morning sun, and you lean on a nearby pole, taking in the environment; after weeks and weeks of moving brown cardboard boxes, the sheer explosion of colour in this neighbourhood feels like a pleasant shock to your nervous system.
Welcome to Meep County, you think to yourself. Looking back on your decision to move here, it wasn’t a difficult one in the slightest—the research you did beforehand showed that Meep County was one of the liveliest neighbourhoods in the United States, with an unparalleled population diversity and an exceptional variety of recreational attractions. Considering you were keen on pursuing a bachelor of arts, the fact that there was a large university nearby that automatically accepted transfer applicants ultimately confirmed that you were ready to make the move.
Again, you analyze your surroundings—children playing and birds chirping fill your ears. Excited to start anew, you pull your phone out to look for some events that might be nearby. The first thing the Nextdoor app greets you with is your new address: 8503 West Tyson Street. You smile to yourself as you thumb across the screen, sure that you’ll find your people here in no time.
“HELLO, darling!” a shrill voice yells, disrupting your train of thought. You glance up, and across the fence, you see a frail old lady with wrinkled, pale skin peeking up at you. “Are you the new neighbour I’ve been hearing so much about?”
“Yeah, that’s me,” you reply back with a smile, walking towards the fence as you pocket your phone. “I’m (Y/N). Nice to meet you!”
“Oh, what a lovely name! Well, I’m Motifa, and it’s ALWAYS nice to have a new person to talk to! I get kind of lonely sometimes… see, I live with my son Desmond, and we don’t do very much very often. But I’m very glad that you’ve moved in! You’re a pretty young person, you’ll have to teach me what all the young’uns are into these days!”
You both laugh. Seeing as you’ve already made an acquaintance just 30 seconds after leaving your house, you decide to ask her what to do next. “Hey, Motifa, I was wondering if there’s anything happening later that I could join? I’d love to meet some more people in the community.”
Her curly, rough hair slightly perks up as you talk to her. “Oh! Well, I know that later there’s a community picnic happening at the park! Over there’s a good hotspot for making new friends! I might join the party, if you don’t mind.”
You wave your hand. “Oh, it’s not a problem at all! I’d be happy if you’d come along.”
“That’s excellent, dearest!” she shouts, vibrating with excitement. “I’ll just ask Desmond if he wants to come as well.”
Motifa then turns and walks leisurely to the door of her house. When she arrives, she simply stops there, waits for a moment, then inhales deeply.
“DESMOND!!!” she shrieks inhumanely, pounding on the door aggressively. “I’M GOING OUT TO THE PARK! DO YOU WANT TO COME?!”
In the five seconds that follow, there’s no response from inside the house, the windows wide open. Motifa pants heavily from her shouting before turning back to face you. “Oh, he’s probably just sleeping!” she says, her voice back to a calm cadence. “I won’t disturb him. I’ll see you at the picnic, then!”
As she walks away to the other side of her front yard, you squint a little, confused by her mood swings, yet soon enough you ignore it by assuming that it comes with her age. “I’ll see you later, too!” you yell back, waving politely.
Later on, around 2 P.M., you leave your humble abode behind and step onto the sidewalk, meeting Motifa for the saunter to the parm. You look down and smile in surprise, noticing that the asphalt isn’t even a bland gray, as it would be anywhere else; instead, it’s a warm, terracotta brick path that winds down towards the town centre. All the buildings you observe—whether a house, an apartment complex, a store, or an office—are brightly decorated with pastel colours. Everyone that you pass—whether human (like yourself), critter, alien, or goblin—is genuine and friendly, offering a little salutation to the neighbourhood, or a rather exaggerated apology for skimming your shoulder. Though it’s still daytime, the vibrancy of this place reminds you of those nocturnal long-exposure photos of cities, where all of the lights blur together and coalesce into one bright trail of hues—and though your stride is slow to accommodate for Motifa’s ambling, you feel giddy, almost shaking with anticipation to jumpstart your life here now that you’ve fully moved in here.
As she and you finally near downtown, you can easily tell where the picnic is; a charming plaza with benches and trees rests in the town’s core, with a courthouse and clock house peacefully towering over the little park like a relic. An array of happy, engaged voices start to resonate from the large crowd spaced out across the park. Passing the crosswalk, you can’t help but take in the glee that these residents are giving off, getting better looks at their engaged expressions.
“Isn’t it nice?” Motifa says quite loudly, pulling you away from the atmosphere. “It’s so lovely to see that this quarter of town is just as busy and lively as it was when I was young!”
You see the opportunity to strike up a conversation. “Oh, really? How long have you lived here?”
“For all my life! I could travel around the town with my eyes closed, how I remember everything here. All these kids today think they’re SO smart”—her hair strands somehow stick straight up to emphasis this—"with their ‘Wikipedias’ and their ‘YouTubes.’ In my day, you had to ask people about how to go places and learn things, and when you were old enough, people asked you. Say, did you know that there used to be these Shmaloogles who lived here? They were these little blue people who knew all about how to WRANGLE the banks and the stores, they were who you asked if you needed something fixed. They were really quite helpful runts. Well, they had to evacuate because they kept getting attacked, and so they built their own village just outside of the county. I miss them, but if I were them, I would’ve left too, because of that group they’re related to. I mean, I don’t have to say who they are—you must know who I’m talking about!”
Though you’re laughing, you nervously dart your eyes back and forth, not fully comprehending what she’s meaning to say. Again, you pass it off as part of her age, and you roll your eyes lovingly at the story you presume she is telling. “You know, it’s just on the tip of my tongue, but that’s really fascinating!” you reply.
In your peripheral, you keep spotting a yellow critter with a big nose, who seems massive among the other, smaller creatures here, and so far the only one comparable to your height. He’s talking to a group of his own, farther back, but when he briefly glances over at your direction, he lights up and starts walking over. Now that he’s beside Motifa, you can clearly see his features; his two eyes are minimalistic, black dots, and he sports an orange hoodie with dark grey sweatpants.
“Yooo, Motifa!” he says cheerfully in a nasally voice, smiling wide as he puts his arm around her shoulders. “How’ve you been, dude? What’s goin’ on?”
“Oh, Charlie!” she reacts. “So nice to see you! I’ve been great, and it was SUCH a lovely day today that I thought I’d join the party.”
Charlie looks to you, with a friendly and welcoming gaze. “So who’s your friend you’ve got here?” he asks Motifa, gesturing to you while turning to face her again.
“Oh, this is (Y/N)! They’re my new neighbour who’ve just moved in earlier today!”
“Hi!” you chime in. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Oh, man—hey, bring it in, man!” Charlie says as he throws his hand back, ready for a dap. You recognize this and go in; you both clap palms, then he brings his free arm around you for a quick half-hug before lightly pulling away. “Welcome to Meep County, dude! I’m Charlie, and lemme tell you, you won’t regret moving here at all. This is, like, the best place to live… ever. Like, genuinely, it’s lots of fun here, and it’s always great to meet new people. And I’ll just say, I know you’re probably a little tired after travelling so far; if you ever wanna just chill out and hang, just knock on my door. I don’t wanna brag, but I do know how to cheer people up, so don’t hesitate, man! Come over whenever you want.”
“That’s awesome to hear, thanks!” you say, your attention focusing back on the social life you wish to create here. “So Charlie, how do you know Motifa?”
“Oh, man! Okay, so I work for this company called Smiling Friends, and we make people smile, right? And this girl, right here? She basically put us on the map! So her son Desmond was feeling pretty sad, and she asked us if we could make him happy. And me and Pim—oh shit, I gotta introduce Pim to you—Pim and I walk in and we see Desmond literally holding a gun to his face. And he said he’d kill himself if we didn’t make him smile. And you know, that puts a lotta pressure on us, and so we had to build up all this courage to help him out. Anyways, we take him out to the theme park the whole day and he still isn’t smiling by the end of it. So we take him to the offices to sign some paperwork and what do we see when we walk in? The entire place is run over with these little Bliblies, and they’ve hung Allan up on this freakin’ cross in the waiting room. They charge at us, and then Desmond gets his gun and shoots all of them to death. Like, point-blank, boom. And that’s what makes him smile. So he started a company where he exterminates Bliblies, and he kept mentioning us in his commercials, and that’s how Smiling Friends became the go-to business here!”
“Isn’t that lovely?!” Motifa yells, patting Charlie on the shoulder, who is now panting from the breathless description.
You blink. You’re not sure on how to react to this concerning story. Many potential explanations for his story and hers run through your head: does Meep County have a high crime rate? Are there gangs here? Are there tensions between races, or breeds, or what it is they call them collectively?
Quickly, you shake off the thought—with any population, there’s sure to be some deviants—and you smile in response. “Wow! That’s… cool! It’s a lot to process, but, hey, a smile is a smile, right?”
Charlie laughs loudly, a deep and hearty sound, and soon enough he wipes tears of mirth from his eyes. “Oh, dude, you’re funny! That was funny, that was, like, perfectly timed and everything! Dude, you kinda remind me of Mr. Boss, ‘cause that would be something he’d say right about now. Hey! I should introduce you to the rest of the guys who work at Smiling Friends. They’re all crazy characters, but I guarantee you, you’ll love being around them as much as I do.”
“Well, sure—that would be great!” you say.
“Awesome! ‘Kay, I’ll show you to them. Motifa, I’ll see you around, girl!” Charlie then grabs your hand and leads you on a path. Shortly afterwards, he pulls you forward so that you two are walking side by side, and again rests an arm around your shoulders, pulling you in close.
You decide to get a word in about the story he just told. “So, uh, who were those guys you were talking about? The ‘bleebees,’ or something?”
Charlie rolls his eyes playfully. “Aw, yeah—the Bliblies? Dude, they are such a nuisance. They just go around and destroy things for fun, and it’s not even funny. But y’know, I really think Desmond showed them up. Everybody thinks they’re so tough these days, someone’s gotta humble them. Know what I’m sayin’?”
“…I think I do,” you choose on replying.
“Oh! There they are! GUYS! GUYS!”
You look up and see who he’s shouting to. Four men turn around to face the both of you in the crowd: one is a pink, short critter with large pupils, wearing a white button-up shirt and purple trousers with a belt; to his right is another critter who’s red and taller than you, with nothing but a blue, wrinkled tie on; next to him stands a tiny, green creature sporting a purple wizard hat; and finally, an older human with a large forehead and a poorly-attached toupee, wearing a dark tuxedo with a yellow bowtie.
You notice all of these features gradually, as right now you’re snapped out of it by Charlie’s tight yet amiable grip on your upper half, combined with his booming voice. “Okay, guys, you gotta meet this dude I just met. They just moved into town! Their name is (Y/N), and I’m telling you, they’re so awesome.” He turns his attention to you and sets you free from his embrace. “(Y/N), this is everybody: Pim, Allan, Glep, and Mr. Boss!”
“Hey, guys!” you say, waving and smiling sheepishly. Despite this awkwardness on your behalf, the other four immediately greet you with a warm smile.
“Helloooo, (Y/N)!” the pink critter shouts joyously in a high Australian accent, grabbing your hand and jerking it forcefully. “I’m Pim! It’s so wonderful to see you, and I’m sure you’ll make a great addition to the town!” You cheese despite yourself, absorbing all of his cheeriness.
After Pim is through with his aggressive handshake, the red one reaches out for a more formal one. “Greetings,” he says, in a geeky voice; you’re not sure if he’s foreign or not. “My name is Allan. It’s a play-sure to meet you. If you need any help figuring out where things are, I can point you in the corr-ect direction-uh.”
The tiny green creature then runs up your leg and dances maniacally on your shoulder. He spits out a rapid-fire sequence of gibberish that you somehow get the gist of, though you don’t understand the exact words. He simply says that his name is Glep and that he thinks you have an amazing smile. “Aw, that was awful nice of you to say, Glep!” Pim shares.
“Howdy there!” the human says chipperly. “Great to have you in the neighbourhood! I’m Marc, Marc Boss—but everyone just calls me Mr. Boss! Hey, you know what I like about you?”
“What?” you ask.
“NOTHING! I DON’T KNOW YOU!!!” Mr. Boss yells, suddenly in a Southern twang, right before slapping his knee and guffawing. The others find it funny as well—you flinch at the abruptness, but eventually you laugh along with them.
“Ha!” he hollers, speaking normally; “got you! Now bring it in, you son of a gun!” Just when you think you’ve had enough whiplash, he suddenly latches onto you in a bear hug, his feet bouncing up and down on the grass like an excited teenage girl. Again, it takes a while for you to come to and reciprocate.
Once out of the embrace, you look around at the five men who’ve accepted you as acquaintances, just like that. Could these be the friends that you’ve always hoped to maintain? They are friendly, they are lively, they are vibrant; they’re basically everything you could ask for in a good, long-lasting friendship. You hadn’t packed up your entire existence just to look for the same old ordinary; you wanted a fresh start, and these guys seem the perfect fit.
You loosen up a little, your smile becoming more genuine and your shoulders relaxing. “Thank you guys,” you say softly. “I’m really glad I came here! You’ve all been really kind to me.”
“Well, of course, silly!” Pim retorts jokingly. “We’re called the Smiling Friends, not the Frowning Friends!”
Charlie, upon hearing this, performs a rushed, solemn sign of the cross. “R.I.P., man,” he whispers, hands pressed together.
You look inquisitive. “What exactly do you guys do at the company?” you say, ignoring Charlie’s prayer.
Mr. Boss waves his hand, seemingly flattered. “Oh, nothing much—just the most important thing that someone can do: making people smile! You see, I hire all of these silly characters here to spread their joy onto others who may not be feeling as happy. There’s so many tough punks nowadays who’ll try to knock people down while they’re up, and it’s our job to help them out! All of us know exactly how it is to feel sad. Charlie’s got a drunkie for an uncle, Pim’s family hates him, Glep’s just been through so much, Allan has autism, and I’m fucking insane!” He sticks his large hands out at you and shakes them about, as if to demonstrate.
“Oh…” you respond, simultaneously sympathetic and puzzled.
Suddenly, he reaches out towards his four employees and pulls them into a tight semicircle, with little Glep hopping onto his shoulder. “But at the end of the day, we all find a little bit of happiness working here, and our relationships grow even stronger because of it. I guess I’d say the real treasure was the smiling friends we’ve all become along the way! Let’s hug, boys!”
They all murmur in agreement before closing the circle, happily embracing, their eyes closing in satisfaction. You just stand there, looking at them.
“Guys, we can’t leave (Y/N) out!” Pim’s voice rings out from the mass’ centre. “Get in here, dude!” Charlie’s yells, as their respective arms shoot out to grab your wrists. Before you can protest, you’re pulled flush against the huddle. You’re assaulted with the smells of their bodies, the textures of their skin, the colours still as vivid in the shadows as they are out. It’s another sensory overload, but you feel a laugh bubbling up from your chest. Goodbye old life, you think, letting yourself sink into their warmth.
As the group finally breaks off, Allan peers down at you with his slanted eyes, grinning slyly. “I think we could use someone like you in the office,” he says; “you seem like a very posit-eeve person, there’s not many peo-pell like that in this town. You could help me in ad-mini-stration and sort through all the paperclips.”
“Yeah, or you could always come with Charlie and me to deal with the clients that need their frowns turned upside down!” Pim exclaims.
“And there’s always the option of working with me in the office—y’know, assigning people clients and managing the assets,” Mr. Boss counterpoints. “Or you could hang with Glep and do whatever the heck he does!” Glep promptly turns around, angered, and spits on his shoe, but the man pays no mind to it.
“So, whaddya say?” he continues. “We could always use more employees in the office! We’d love to expand the Smiling Family!”
Your energy in the moment overrides any other thinking. “Sure! I’d love to!” you exclaim, forgetting the story about Desmond you heard mere minutes ago. Despite that, you have some good reason to accept the offer: they’ve been incredibly benevolent toward you, and you feel like you’ve already found your people—in less than a day of living here.
“Hell yeah, man, that’s awesome!” Charlie yells ecstatically, pumping his fist in the air. “Welcome to the party, dude! You’re one of us now.”
You clap your hands together in excitement. “Okay! Is there… anything else I need to do? Like, some applications or something?”
“Application, schmapplication!” Mr. Boss dismisses; “that is to say, nope! None at all! Just one important question… do you love making people smile?”
“…Yeah? I mean, who doesn’t?”
“Awesome! You’re officially hired, (Y/N)!” The five of them hoot and holler.
Behind uneasy eyes, you try to justify your decision. Sure, you think it’s concerning that there’s no recruitment process for the company—and even more so that there’s only five employees, because you’d think that most people would want to exploit this lack thereof—but again, you examine their faces, and how genuinely happy they are that you’ve joined, and your mind goes relaxed again.
Mr. Boss pipes up: “and to answer your question—sadly, no! We’ve met so many fellas that think they’re so tough that they can ruin other people’s days. Ain’t that right, boys?”
“So true, Mr. Boss, so true,” Charlie says, pointing rapidly at him. “Like, Pim, I heard you mention the Frowning Friends earlier, and that just, like, brought all those memories back from… what, four years ago?”
“January of 2022,” Allan calculates.
You frown slightly, reluctant to hear another story. “Who were they? Were they… a rival company or something?” you ask timidly.
“Oh, they were just awful!” Pim huffs exasperatedly. “Frowning Friends was this business that opened just across the street from us, ran by these two nasty people named Grim and Gnarly who wanted to make people feel miserable about themselves! They’d ruined our reputation for a day because everyone kept thinking we were them, and I felt horrible that they thought we were going to make them frown!”
“Yeah, man,” Charlie says, walking over and nudging Pim; “everyone kept pulling guns out at us and shit: they thought we were gaslighting them, it was embarrassing. Then when we went back, Grim and Gnarly were doing this whole speech, and everyone was watching and everything, and they had this whole plan and everything to, like, get rid of smiling and commit genocide against everyone who was smiling…? Yeah, I don’t exactly remember all of what they said, but it was pretty brutal. They were riling everyone up to get started, then—oh man—Mr. Boss came in and saved our asses, isn’t that right, Mr. Boss?”
“Yup!” the boss beams, stepping forward. “Frowning Friends was taking all of my stocks away from me, and the company was plunging into bankruptcy, so after I had a little ginger talk with my other self in the mirror, I decided really there was just one option for me to go with. While they were outlining their little plan to destroy us, I got my assault rifle all loaded up, and I snuck up their office and burst out right behind them! That little Grim fella—his ass started crying and begging for mercy! What a silly little boy. If you’re going to try and kill everyone, you have to expect someone to come after you; that’s just common sense! Anyways, everyone left afterwards, and I tried to make them smile, just when”—his voice switches to that unsettling Southern accent, his hands motioning slowly as he speaks—“these peculiar goobers dressed in all these medieval getups came gallopin’ in, and shot the two buggers to death!”
With your eyes wide in terror, you breathe heavily, baffled and solicitous. “Who were they?” you manage to sputter out, a smile plastered over your face like cement.
“Oh, me and Pim kept hearing about these guys all throughout the day,” Charlie replies. “They were the Renaissance Men. But honestly, I think that’s a stupid name. ‘Cause, like, they weren’t even dressed like they were from the Renaissance. Like, right after that happened, that was the first thing Pim pointed out to me, and immediately I was like, ‘oh you’re right, man.’ Eh, what the hell, though.”
You nervously laugh. “Right, yeah… totally,” you justify, your voice jumping an octave. “I mean… what was the point of that? Heh… that’s for sure the weirdest thing about it.”
“Exactly, dude!” Charlie exclaims, missing your irony; “I mean, if you’re gonna call yourselves the Renaissance Men, at least put on a ruff or something! That’s like the bare minimum, don’t just show up in a knight outfit, man, it’s lazy.”
Pim sighs dreamily, fiddling with his small, stubby fingers: “oh, that was a dreadful choice, wasn’t it, Charlie? You know, I think that’s where the problem lies with most of our clients! They think that they’re high and mighty, above being happy, when they don’t even put the effort in to at least try to smile for a second!”
“I think I know what you are trying to say, Pim,” Allan says, his finger raised. “I’ve dealt with someone just like this-uh. One day, I’d just woken up at the break of doon when my landlord came to my door and asked if I wanted to play this stupid fahking game-uh with him while we smoked and drank so-dah. I said no, and I left. When I got to work, Mr. Boss sent me to fetch him some paperclips. So I went to the supply store, and the employee started hay-rassing me for some reason because they ran out of paperclips, so I had to vent-oor into Crimeville. I got a package with paperclips from this dilapidat-eed little shop, but then this homeless guy came and stole them from me. The crackhead got into a helicopter and flew off, but I jumped up in time to grab onto the landing gear. Then after a while, the air force sent jets out behind us because we were in re-streec-ted airspace-uh, and they shot us down. Me was feeling pretty pestered by now.
“I fell onto the ground, and I had the paperclips with me, but then fooking Bigfoot jumped out and stole them. So then”—he rolls his eyes forcefully—“I had to trav-elle to his cave and steal them back. But I dropped them, and Bigfoot was just about to digest me when this pirate appeared out of nowhere and killed Bigfoot and took the paperclips for himself. I ran back to this man’s pirate ship, but it was too far away, so I had to get a rowboat. They saw me and they started throwing grenades and arrows at me, but then a gi-ant sea monster saved me by eating all of us whole. Everyone else died, so I took the pirate’s sword and stabbed my way out of there-uh. On the shore, finally, I took back the paperclips, but then inside, there were no fahking paperclips! There was a note that told me to go somewhere, and the address was where I lived. Then it turned out, that stupid landlord planned the whole thing just for me to play his foolish game! He forced me to play it because if I did not, he’d de-ton-ate the bomb vest he was wearing. So Pim, yes, that statement is applicab-ull. All that garbage and he didn’t even try to smill once.”
Throughout the course of that story, your brows had furrowed into repugnance, and your hand is now covering your large, gaping mouth, horrified yet also sympathetic. Is he okay?! you scream at yourself in your head. You exhale, relieving tension so that you don’t look nearly as harried as you think you do. “Wow…” you mutter. “That was really… crazy! Are you good?”
“Eh, it was just really annoying, that’s all,” Allan monotones. “I told Mr. Boss about it, and he bought out the apartment complex so that I would not have to deal with him ever again.”
“That’s right!” Mr. Boss glows, in his normal voice again, giving a slight noogie to Allan’s crown—the latter shows his appreciation through a slight purr. The human then oddly stretches out the length of his arm to place a hand on your shoulder.
“One thing you should know about me, (Y/N), is that I will not tolerate any one of my boys—or girls, or enbies, for that matter!—being mistreated by any rowdy clients. I will get involved if that’s the case! So under Smiling Friends, you’re safe with all of us!”
You highly doubt this statement. Anyhow, you put on a smile, easier to do so this time due to his genuine, good-natured attitude. “Thanks!”
You theorize that maybe all of these insane happenstances come with the job, and normal life must be more lenient. “So, what do you guys do in your free time?” you ask, hoping that the conversation can veer towards a lighter tone.
“Oh, oh!” Pim shouts while holding his hand up and jumping excitedly. “I’m part of this awesome UFO-watching group! We all get together on the weekends in the cornfields to chat about aliens and where they all might come from. We even use some super cool technology to spot UFOs! You’re welcome to join it anytime you’d like!”
“Aw, that sounds nice!” you say happily. “Who’s all in the group?”
Pim counts with his fingers, but not before fluttering them around in preparation. “Let’s see here! There’s me, Charlie, Fillmore, Duncan, and… Bill…” All of a sudden, he looks incredibly distraught; Charlie notices this and brings the pink critter in for a little comforting squeeze.
Your heart drops. “Wait, what? Are you two okay?” you reply; “can I ask what happened, or…?”
Charlie speaks for Pim: “okay, so it’s a pretty long story—”
Oh no…, you think, preparing yourself.
“—and this was when Pim took me out there for the first time. But anyways, I met the others, and we were starwatching, but there wasn’t anything we could see, so Bill took out his thing he uses to spot UFOs. I look right at it, and I’m like, ‘oh that’s a theremin, that’s cool, dude,’ ‘cause I know how to play it, right? So I mess around with it a little, and then this huge-ass spaceship shows up right out of nowhere, and me, Pim, and Bill start slowly floating up, and that’s when we’re like, ‘oh shit, we’re being abducted.’ The other two ran away in time, thank God.” He does another sloppy sign of the cross. “Then I wake up on this, like, hospital bed, and I’m in my underwear, and I see Pim and Bill are sleeping on each side of me on different beds, and I look over to Bill and I saw that—oh God—oh God, I’m gonna puke. Yeah, I can’t go into too much detail—” He gags.
Pim then takes over as the storyteller: “(Y/N), all of his organs were harvested! It was a horrible sight! I woke up as soon as I heard Charlie scream bloody murder! Then we saw these two aliens come in, and they were eating his organs! Poor ol’ Charlie—he was sick for a week straight after this. At any rate, we heard a really loud noise; the aliens ran off, so that gave us the chance to get our clothes on and get out of there! But when we left, we saw we were on a different ship leaving the Milky Way! So that meant aliens had abducted the aliens that had abducted us! Quite a mouthful, isn’t it? Then we ran into all the aliens who abducted us, and they were partying! We asked them how we could leave, and then they accused us of being squares! So we tried to act all cool and everything, and basically we were coaxed into getting drunk with them!”
Charlie’s recuperated enough to speak up again. “That was a wild rager we went on, wasn’t it?” he prompts.
“Yeah, it was pretty crazy, Charlie,” Pim says quietly, smiling. “Do you even remember anything that happened?”
“I gotta admit, Pim, my memory’s still pretty foggy about the whole thing, but I’m pretty sure you were, like, boogying on down the whole time. Hey, you were getting pretty into it, though, I’m not gonna lie, I dug it a little bit!”
“Aw, Charlie, thanks!”
“So, (Y/N), we wake up, hungover as fuck, and we’re just trying to leave when the douchebag aliens we were talking to earlier, they force us into blowing up this planet to prove that we’re not squares! Like, it was an entirely civilized planet and everything, and they said that if we didn’t then they’d damn us to eternity in this void or something. And we’re so desperate, y’know, to get home that we actually do it, and we find out that it was just a prank ‘cause there wasn’t anyone on the planet in the first place! Now I’m understandably pretty pissed off at this point.”
Pim nudges Charlie softly. “But you really let them have it, didn’t you, Charlie?”
“Yeah, yeah, I did, Pim. For sure. I was so mad that I was screaming in their faces, like, the angriest I’ve ever been—now normally I’m not the guy to get all confrontational and crap, but I just could not take it anymore. I just hate those kinds of people who think they’re sooo tough that they can just do whatever they want to people like us.”
“But luckily, the space police arrived just in time to bust the ship! And then Charlie, you were so courageous back there! You stole the keys to that escape pad, and that allowed us to escape and return back to Earth!”
Charlie blushes and tries to be humble with a wave of his hand. “Ah, it’s nothin’, man. I would’ve done the same for you, dude.”
“No, that means everything to me, Charlie! You saved both of our lives! I’m so grateful that we’re friends. I love you, Charlie.”
“Aww, dude! I love you too, Pim.” The yellow critter then pulls Pim in tighter, kissing him on his bald head.
At this point, you’re not even bothering to put a façade up; your hands are smacked onto your cheeks, your eyes rounded with the most alarm you’ve felt yet, and your fingertips dig into your skin as you stand paralyzed. What did you expect them to say? You then cover your mouth with one hand, the other resting on your hip, as you try to say anything in response—anything! They don’t seem to be bothered by anything, so anything will do, you reason.
“…are you two dating?” you finalize irrationally, the kiss being the least worrying thing you noticed.
“Well, we’re actually friends with benefits!” Pim shouts excitedly. “We figured that since we’re already friends who’ve known each other a long time, a little extra care couldn’t hurt! It helps us deal with the world around us; whenever something happens, we just share a bed with each other and then we feel better afterwards! Like… hm… oh! Remember when we all went on that company forest retreat? After we killed Mother Nature together?”
“Yeah, of course, dude!” Charlie says, nodding ecstatically. “Man, she was huge.”
You dare not ask them to go into more detail. If you ask, they will tell you, and you are convinced that it will involve things you cannot unhear.
Charlie continues: “I mean, how else was I supposed to show my appreciation for what you did, Pim? You literally saved me from being eaten by the Mother friggin’ Nature—I don’t think many people can earnestly say they did that. Like I said, you’d do anything for me, but I’d be lying if I said you didn’t step up there, man!”
You second-guess yourself: these stories sound even scarier when described vaguely.
“I had to do something, Charlie!” Pim says; “my instincts just came over me! When we got back to the cabin, we were both pretty wound up, so what we did is we just fooled around a little to ease the tension. It’s a great form of relief after something like that, ‘cause we’re not thinking about anything else in the moment… it’s just us. Isn’t that lovely?”
Charlie smiles. “It really is, Pim. It really is. Like, sometimes you just need to disconnect from reality and, y'know, just mess around with your bro for a bit. It’s healthy.” They both smirk at each other lovingly, while you smile lopsidedly, albeit not out of admiration or affection, but utter disbelief and confusion—you’re not homophobic at all, but getting hit with these revelations over and over again isn’t helping your brain right now.
“You know, I think that’s really sweet that you boys have that kind of friendship,” Mr. Boss gawks. “And it’s a little ironic that you guys were doing it that same night…”
Allan gasps, and uncharacteristically (from what you’ve seen of him) jumps behind him, seemingly embarrassed. “Mr. Boss,” he whispers; “we have not told anyone of our situationship yet. Should we wait until the right mo-ment-uh?”
“Oh, Al, there’s no need to hide what we have at all! What do I always say every day? At Smiling Friends, we’re a family! The synergy here is built on trust, reliance, and satisfaction. If a boss and his loyal employee can’t share the littlest arrangement to blow off some steam, then what the heck are we fighting for?! And besides, if anyone appreciates a fresh perspective on intimacy, it’s this fresh face right here!”
Mr. Boss suddenly smacks you harshly on the back, knocking the wind out of you. You wince now, even more uncomfortable than ever.
It takes Allan a beat before his worried moue slowly shifts to a satisfied grin. “You do make me con-tent-ed,” he replies, nodding in approval.
Mr. Boss’ eyes light up, and he turns to face the others. “Pim, Charlie, Glep… Allan and I are also fooling around!”
“Wow!” Pim cheers. “Congratulations to you both!”
Charlie chuckles in spite of himself. “That’s awesome! But Mr. Boss, I didn’t know you swung that way, though, no disrespect. I thought you were strictly into, like, demon princesses or whatever that was.”
“Well, Charlie, it’s not like Mama Boss or Grandma Boss are still alive to dictate every move that I take in my life! I can swing whichever way I want, and this casual swing happened to be towards Allan! It’s funny because we started going wild in that forest cabin as well! Tell ‘em what we did, Allan!”
“Erm, okay. Well… I licked cookie crumbs off his chest.”
Only now do you notice the little nerve sticking out of Pim’s scalp, because it extends and retracts for a brief moment as he reacts with shock. “Allan! That’s really risqué for the workplace!” he teases.
“Eh. He makes me happy.” Allan looks over at Mr. Boss endearingly.
“Well, you make me happy too, buddy, and that’s all that matters!” Mr. Boss does some weird vocal stim after—a sort of “ooh-wee-ooh-wah”—to emphasize his point, his hands curling downwards.
Allan’s face drops as he realizes something, then he fixes his gaze on you. “Wait a second, Mr. Boss. If we’re too-gether, and Pim and Charlie are too-gether, then that leaves (Y/N) with no one.”
You stand there, horrified, as everyone stares at you, interested as to what you’ll say. “Me?” you confirm, your voice a squeak.
“Oh, goodness me!” Pim gasps, his face blushing as his hands fly to grasp his head. “Allan, you are completely right! Here we are, boasting about all of the crazy adventures we’ve been on and the outlets we’ve created along the way, while poor (Y/N) has just moved here and has no one to vent with! We’ve been so incredibly selfish!”
“Yeah, that was a major oversight on our part, dude,” Charlie says, “and I apologize for that, man. Like, genuinely, we want you to feel included in the workplace; we don’t want you sitting alone in the break room all stressed out. I would not wish that on my worst enemy, like, at all, ‘cause I’ve been there, man.”
“Exactly, my boy!” Mr. Boss bellows. “I will not have a single employee of mine suffering from a deficit like this! There’s enough people out there who’ve been treated badly—we don’t want you ending up like them! So you’ve got a big decision to make to balance everything out!”
You peer down towards Glep, the little green man who you actually forgot was here due to his small size and the fact that the others have been talking so much. This is an easy decision in your mind. “Well, Glep’s free, isn’t he?” you offer, half-jokingly. “I could always just go with him!”
Glep looks you up and down, a suspicious glint in his large eyes becoming gradually more prominent, before he suddenly goes on an angry rant, spit and phlegm flying everywhere. His speech is so fast-paced and outraged that, this time, you don’t pick up a word he says.
Pim gently kneels down and lets Glep hop up on his arm. “Aw, lighten up there a little, Glep! (Y/N) wouldn’t have known you have a wife already.” Pim then leans in towards you, putting a hand against his mouth. “He’s really protective of Marge,” he whispers. “I understand him completely, though; if you’d lived for 1,500 years, you’d want to keep whoever stays in your life for forever too.”
Before you can bring Glep’s age into question, Mr. Boss cuts you off, placing a hushing finger in front of you. “Uhp-uhp-uhp! You know what that means! You have two choices. Either join our circle, or join theirs! I’m a more-than-generous boss, so Pim and Charlie, you two bargain first.”
“Oh, of course!” Pim pipes up. “(Y/N), we’d absolutely love to welcome you into our polyamorous friendship circle! I’ve set up a strict Google Calendar schedule to make sure that everyone gets an equal amount of care!”
“Yeah, man, it’s super chill,” Charlie agrees; “like I said earlier, dude, whenever you wanna just come by, order some Chinese food, and just decompress, Pim and I are totally down for that! We can even do a rotation system if that’s what you prefer.”
Mr. Boss gleefully taunts the duo by pointing and laughing in a piercing manner, despite the fact that he’s only standing two feet away from them. “Ha-ha! We already have a rotation system! Take that, losers!” He then adjusts his collar. “Anywho, Allan and I offer a highly efficient partnership. If you join, we can provide an even stricter MWF rotation.”
Allan cheekily simpers: “Mr. Boss even gives me spe-shall perks in the office, like fifteen percent off all the vending machine i-tems. I am for certain that he will provide you with the same.”
“Whatcha think, man?” Charlie says, his eyebrows raised up in excitement. “No pressure whatsoever, dude, we want you to be happy with your decision in the end.”
You find yourself staring again at the four proposers, your mouth opening and closing like a fish as you can’t decide on what to say. You tremble now with unadulterated bewilderment; you look around the park, ironically hoping that in this silence, someone will start talking about another insane adventure that they went on just to create a distraction for you. Your mind races, thinking about all of the stories they’ve told casually, as if no deaths nor trauma were ever involved. In any other city, with any other residents, these would be nightmarish incidents that would have been reported on the news ad nauseum, but here, it’s just a part of life.
These five men, though—as you look at them, you know that they aren’t trying to make you uncomfortable with their nonchalance; they ultimately want you to be happy working with them. In their own, severely damaged ways, they make up the welcoming committee. And like Pim said, they’re not called the Smiling Friends for nothing; since you met them, you can't remember a single time they went more than five seconds without a smile (or some variation of one) on their face. It seems now the only way to fully ingratiate yourself into the neighbourhood is to throw away any kind of sanity that you previously have known.
What the fuck did I get myself into? you think to yourself.