Work Text:
You hunched over in your leathery office chair as you struggled to not blow up the entire room, your cubicle, and computer with it. Despite trying to have at least some courtesy, the intense itch in your lungs to cough has made you end up at the office’s new karaoke microphone. The loudness of your goosecough echoed across every single cubicle, like the acoustics of this room could hold an entire concert of your coughing.
Your lungs were no less different than a squeezed juice box, with spit and slime in your airways like stubborn juice bubbling in a straw.
You could never call off work sick. Even thinking about it sent a shiver down your spine over the pain of your skin being burnt. Being a slacker would probably mean a fate worse than death.
The harsh light of your monitor, no matter how dark you made the brightness stung your eyes and fried your cranium. The white and cool-toned boxes UI all looked like an interpretative painting of Honchos judging you. It wouldn’t be too bad, to just, close your eyes.. until the splitting headache went away. Because after all, the Honchos cannot look at you if you don’t look back.
Sleep came to you like the breeze of a turning fan. The creep of sickness was too unbearable to ignore, but sleep helped you escape from the burden of being awake.
You’d do anything to just fall asleep and forget about being sick. The thought of being able to crash or call in sick hugged you like a blanket. But this blanket was too light, like it was made of paper.
His paper paw was on you. Honcho, despite welding a scary branding iron all the time, his hands were quite soft. You wished he kept it on you longer, but once you started to stir and recognize his large figure casting a shadow over you like an archway. You winced, bracing for the scolding or scalding you’re about to receive.
“YOU TOO LOUD”
“HONCHO HEAR YOU COUGH HUNDREDS OF ROOMS AWAY”
“Sorry,” You croaked. Unfortunately for you, even a whisper invited your coughs to set off. You tried to cover your mouth, but you were coughing nonstop like a machine gun, all in front of your boss’s face.
“DON’T TALK. HONCHO ALREADY KNOW”
“YOU SO LOUD HONCHO COULDN’T FOCUS ON WORK”
“HONCHO MUST HUSTLE. SO HONCHO HUSTLE TO LOUD EMPLOYEE”
Honcho reached behind his back. You held out your arms in defense as if he was winding up to give you a big one-two combo right in your own cubicle. Quick, you had to think of something!
“A-are you sure you should be touching me, boss? I don’t want you to catch anything!!” You spoke quickly, maybe this would distract him enough to sway him from not punching you. But instead of a fist, he was gripping a hot mug of tea in front of you. Even with your stuffy nose, the steam of honey and herbs hitting your face felt incredible.
“DON’T WORRY ABOUT HONCHO”
“HONCHO STRONG, HE NO GET SICK”
“BUT EMPLOYEE NOT STRONG LIKE HONCHO. MUST TAKE CARE OF EMPLOYEES. IF EMPLOYEES NOT TAKEN CARE OF, THEY ALL BECOME SLACKERS, NO GOOD”
“YOU VERY GOOD EMPLOYEE” Honcho brushed your head with his paper arm, it felt like being petted by a large feather.
The ugly creases and folds crinkled his thin paper skin, parts of his hands were deckled like an antique book. Office paper was always something you were cautioned about, it was a common office accident to get cut to the point that having bandaids was just expected as needing paperclips or sticky notes in your cubby.
Be careful about your fingers with the printer paper, you might get a paper cut! All this paper is freshly cut. But no matter how large and scary he was, his edges were soft like sheep wool. All those years have made this old boy’s edges dull, as any old worn notepad would eventually turn into.
Honcho was so huge compared to everyone in the office, even talking back to him might mean he could just stomp on you until you were a brown stain on the floor. He could assign a million drones to work, and none of them would speak a word back. Only a nod, and then the sounds of thousands of feet pattering away to their warrens to work.
There is a pit in your stomach. You wanted to question why he was so nice to you, or if this was office appropriate at all, but that might offend him.
“You’re.. A really kind boss, Honcho”
Honcho’s censored face was motionless, it was almost hard to tell how he felt. No one even dared to head to his office. But when he heard what you said, he started drumming his fingers on your desk.
“HMPH. HONCHO ALREADY KNOW THAT!” He crossed his arms and puffed out his chest as if it could give his paper body a 12-pack.
“HONCHO NOT DUMB. IF HONCHO PUNISHED THE SICK EMPLOYEES, HOW WILL THEY NOT SICK? PUNCH THE GERM AWAY? HOW SILLY”
“HONCHO ONLY PUNISH EMPLOYEES WHO CHOOSE TO SLACK. HE KNOW WHEN EMPLOYEE FAKE BEING SICK. THEY ARE NOT GOOD ACTORS. 0/10”
Honcho let out a garish paper shredder laugh, he seemed amused by his own joke. If you could you’d probably laugh too, if it weren’t for the cough in your throat.
“HONCHO WILL LET YOU REST FOR AS LONG AS YOU NEED TO. HONCHO TRUST YOU, SINCE HONCHO KNOW YOU ARE HARDWORKING.” Honcho starts crossing his hands on where his heart would be.
It felt weird being allowed to sleep at the office, like going to the bathroom in somebody’s house. But since you were a diligent worker, you hung your head on your desk pretending to sleep to make Honcho happy. Even trying to drift off to sleep next to Honcho felt like trying to fall asleep next to a bear sniffing your leg. You felt your eyelids twitch and wiggle on your eyes. But in the silhouette for your closed eyes, you didn’t see Honcho walk away.
You watched as he knelt down to his knees and petted you down your back. Is this what cats must feel like? Like sitting on Honcho’s lap in his office and being stroked. All while he talked to people with shaking legs peeping out of his office door. Everything felt so quieter, the office lights became dimmer, your throat felt less itchy, and soon you couldn’t even tell if Honcho was still petting you or if he put a nice blanket on you to have a nice sleep.