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[A confessional taking place outside in a supply closet. GREEN stands on the left side of the screen at a slight angle, anxiously wringing their hands.]
GREEN: —sorry, I just. Is this—really necessary? I mean, I don't, I—It was an accident! It was—
ORANGE, behind the camera: (A sweet giggle before their tone turns sinister.) Answer the damn question.
GREEN: Gulp.
ORANGE: Did you just audibly gulp?
GREEN: Uh… yes?
ORANGE: Hm.
GREEN: Okay, uh, I guess I'll just… start. Yeah. Yeah, okay, um. So I uh, I was approached by HR to review my statement for yesterday's… incident—which I'd hardly call an incident! For, for documentation purposes. Barely fire-worthy, though, I'd say. Fire-worthy as in, n-nobody deserves to get fired for what happened! Haha! But what do I know? Pff.
ORANGE: Get to the point, intern.
GREEN: Right, right, right. So it all started at the office Christmas party. Actually, maybe not all of it started then—I guess that was the culmination of things? Things which have been weird all month. Being in the same room as Red and Purple is like… watching a clash of the titans.
[A confessional taking place outside the Security Office. PURPLE, hunched and eyebagged, holds an energy drink in one hand and a coffee in the other.]
PURPLE: Red is a dumbass. Statement over.
ORANGE: Er, I was hoping you'd go into a little more detail?
PURPLE, considering: Red is a huge dumbass. Statement over.
ORANGE, frustrated: Just tell us what happened yesterday.
PURPLE: My head hurts and I really don't want to.
ORANGE: Oh, come on. Just a little bit more! Give me something to work with here.
PURPLE: Why do you wanna know so bad, anyway? Weren't you there?
ORANGE: That's not the question.
[A confessional taking place outside of the Boss' office. Red appears agitated, their herring-patterned tie done improperly as well as there being a manic twitch in their visor.]
RED: You wanna know what happened? I'll tell you what happened. In fact, I'll TELL you what happened, from the very beginning!
ORANGE: That won't be necessary, I just need yesterday's incident.
RED: Okay, whatever, I'll just—tell you what you need to know. And what you need to know is that Green is a dirty little traitor! Damn that smooth-talking, two-faced, godawful little—
GREEN: I just don't want anyone to get in trouble, you know? Some of us, you know, might've been drunk—a-a-and there may be some behind the scenes stuff going on that should be, uh, private. Private stuff that accidentally became—public. Yesterday.
ORANGE: I'm sure everyone would feel more comfortable if you just kept the information related to the altercation, then.
GREEN: God I hope so.
RED: —so really, technically, I got Purple their job here, and they're just like, I don't wanna say ungrateful, but like, they're acting like they don't care in the way that kinda tells me they care, so I'm like, hey maybe there's still some hope for me and Purple, I should try reaching out more—
ORANGE: (A sigh.)
GREEN: Red's been trying to get caught under the mistletoe with Purple for essentially the whole month. It's like—they've been acting like they're not, but… it's really… obvious. You know Red. They can be really, um… really obvious.
ORANGE: I believe I can imagine.
[An average day at the office.]
RED: H-Hey, Purple!
[Red approaches Purple and leans on the filing cabinet by them.]
RED: Working hard or hardly w—
[The filing cabinet collapses from Red's weight.]
[Purple walks away.]
GREEN: With that in mind, Red was eyeing Purple for the whole party. Even while talking to other people, which can get awkward fast.
[The Christmas party, in full swing.]
WHITE, holding a glass of alcohol way too expensive to have originated from here: And that's why I think EVERYONE should have a chia pet! Imagine those cuties on everyone's desks. Mandatorily! Our employees would LOVE it!
RED, absently: Sure. Uh huh. Yup.
WHITE: Uh… (glances back to see what Red's gaze is caught on, before turning to face them again) Everything okay up there?
[Cyan approaches Purple, who had been leaning against the wall the whole party. They try to cheer Purple up, and it seems to be working. Red can read Purple's soft chuckle from anywhere.]
RED: Just PEACHY!
WHITE: Great! So that's a yes for mandatory chia pets?
RED: So I see Cyan, macking on Purple, getting all up in their face, and I'm like—that's gotta be an HR violation, probably!
ORANGE: Well actually—
RED: Someone's gotta do something about that! That's when I go up to Black. Now, I'm not proud of this, but I panicked from seeing my friend in such a dire situation. SOME people might say I was drunk, but I just don't think that's true. I wasn't drunk, YET.
ORANGE: Uh huh. What did you do?
RED: I said to Black, pay raise if you get Cyan away from here.
ORANGE: And that… worked?
RED: Surprisingly, yes!
ORANGE, muttering: Lord if I know how...
RED: What was that?
ORANGE: Nothing. So did you go through with the raise?
RED: …No.
ORANGE: I guess I should've been easier on those two considering their boss pressured them into their situation. Which is… unprecedented? It's certainly strange. They still agreed to fill out the workplace relationship form, though, so—
RED: What?!
ORANGE: Wins for HR! Yay!
GREEN: Red was… basically going on and rambling about Purple to anyone who would listen, going up to anyone and terrorizing them with the fact that they hooked up once or that Purple used to scratch their head when they got home together or something. It was really weird. They were obviously drunk, though, so I don't think we should hold it against them.
ORANGE: Sounds positively horrifying! What was Purple doing throughout all of this?
GREEN: In the bathroom, I think.
ORANGE: Ah.
GREEN: That's when I realized that Purple was going to walk into the room from that direction, a direction that had mistletoe hanging from the ceiling. And if someone else happened to be there at the same time, Red was going to go ballistic. I had to do something! They were already denouncing Blue as the hot one. People were getting mad!
ORANGE: I understand your actions completely.
RED: I was trying to explain to people, no, Purple and I aren't fighting, we're just having a little disagreement. But nobody seemed to believe me, so I tried to explain our rich and complicated history together that ultimately ends up with us trusting and caring for each other and quite possibly marriage—
ORANGE: Please get to the point.
RED: Okay. Purple walks into the room, which I notice immediately, because I notice and care about Purple. But what I don't notice in time is Green, setting up a ladder by that entrance for whatever godforsaken reason!
GREEN: Luckily, I had a ladder in my pick-up truck. I went to go get it, then came back just in time. I thought I had enough time to set up the ladder and take the mistletoe down before anyone noticed, but…
RED: Green was standing under the mistletoe, fumbling around with their stupid ladder. Then Purple. Walks. In.
GREEN: I-I hadn't even noticed anyone was standing there, because I was so focused on getting the ladder stable—
RED: It happened in slow motion, like a horror movie. If this was a horror movie—which it is—then it'd have those scary scraping horror sounds too.
GREEN: By the time I realized the whole room was looking at us, it was too late. I turned around, and Purple was standing there in an unfortunately very attractive way. They had their hand in their pocket and a cool sort of casualness in the way their body leaned—not to mention the intelligent sharpness in their gaze.
ORANGE: Ooh, do go on.
GREEN, nodding with a wide visor: Yeah. It was some serious stuff! I started stuttering, because I wasn't sure what else to say—because by this time the whole room was expecting us to kiss! And I wanted, I was trying to say, I wouldn't mind kissing you at all, but we really probably shouldn't, and you don't have to kiss me if you don't want to, and I've only ever kissed a worm before, and I would totally understand if you don't want to kiss me, and woah is it hot in here, aaaand—wait can you cut out the part about the worms—?
ORANGE: Did you do it or not?
GREEN: (A squeak.)
RED: Again. Horror movie. Everyone was cheering when it happened. But not. Me.
ORANGE: Where were you located when this happened?
RED: By the nachos.
ORANGE: But of course.
RED: You know what happens? Purple glances up, and shrugs. Shrugs! Then they lean over to—to, I can't even say it. But Purple moves first. And Green, that malicious fucker, JUST LET IT HAPPEN.
ORANGE: And that's when you…?
RED: It was not my proudest moment. But I don't regret it. Not now, not ever. I stand by my actions.
GREEN: Golly, I swear I was blushing from head to toe! My head was buzzing, I was totally frozen in place, and the eruption of cheers was echoing in my head!
ORANGE: And that's when Red threw the guac.
GREEN: Yeah…
ORANGE: And everyone just started fighting.
GREEN: Yeaaaah…
RED: But don't get me wrong. Purple KNOWS what they did.
GREEN: Yellow and Brown weren't happy about that. But I don't think it was one person's fault. We all had some—responsibilities, there.
ORANGE: Green, you can lie to yourself, but you can't lie to me.
GREEN: Hey, I did most of the cleaning!
PURPLE: Oh. How was it? (A wry half-grin.) Cute. A bit wormy, but cute.
RED: Basically, I'm lowering Green's pay grade.
ORANGE: You can't do that.
RED: I don't care.
ORANGE: No, I mean, you literally can't do that. We don't pay Green.
RED: …Oh.