2442/A day in the life of an office unicorn

A day in the life of an office unicorn
Date of Scene:	31 March 2025
Location:	Plot Room 1
Synopsis:	Hinoiri finds herself in an office job... For reasons that she can't begin to understand, or doubt. Something... is wrong. Something is so very, very wrong... And only Emi can fix it.
Cast of Characters:	Hinoiri Kirara, Emi Hoshino

---

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara forced a smile as she dropped her report into Sora's dropbox. Once again, the partner didn't have time to meet with her but... that was fine. This was fine. She was fine. Sora would read her report and, surely, this time, her hard work and determination would be noticed. She made her way towards her desk, then, before giving a soft sigh.

Cubicle. Again. She could hear some of them gossiping apart from her.

She didn't hear what the gossip was, she didn't care. Busybodies. Instead, she just... sat in her chair and let out an exhausted sigh. She glanced towards her little poster. A bunny hopping up, paws out, reaching towards the moon above. 'Leap towards the moon even if you fall short!'

She reached out and picked up a small little stressball shaped like a sun, before turning to look at the small little toy 3-mermaids-in-a-pool (yellow, blue and pink outfits) knicknack she had on the desk, next to her half-eaten korma from... lunch? Yeah. It was lunch. It had been lunch.

She then glanced to the other poster on her wall, an orange cat with a green eye and a yellow eye hanging from a tree. 'Hang in there'. A picture of her old classmate, Riventon, resting under it. Something from the Obsidian club.

She then glanced towards her computer screen, where a little red-head with a bazooka was running about and setting off explosions (the screensaver), before reaching out to grip her novelty pen, one of those silly ones with a big rose on the end. She lightly twirled it a few times before, finally, nudging the mouse again.

Time to get back to it...

Emi Hoshino has posed:
Tick.

The clock twitched forward.

Tick.

ANother reported submitted before long, another moment passing, unnoticed. The lifeless beige walls of her cucible pressed in close, closer, threatening to suffocate her in their maximal dullness. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Voices beyond, indistinct murmurs, laughter sharp like the paper cuts she can feel on her fingers. Are they gossiping about *her* now? It *feels* like it. There's a poster on her wall. Did she only just notice it? "LEAP TO THE MOON EVEN IF YOU FALL SHORT. " Another. "HANG IN THERE". Optimistic slogans abound, almost mocking in their bright, jarring intensity. Around her, she can hear the toil of the others, toiling away with an almost mechanical efficiency. The phones are ringing. More emails come in. The unread number seems like its skyrocketing faster than she can keep up. Faster. Faster. The second hand feels like its moving even slower. Tick.

A voice. Directed at her from her cubicle entryway. A supervisor. One of her's. One of them, anyway.

"Where is the report?" Didn't she just send it?

"Not that one. The other one. Are you really falling behind? Do I need to remind you how critical this period is? I thought you wanted this job." Tick. Tick. Tick.

Flourescent lights hum. Buzz. One winks out. No one notices. No one but her.

Do the walls seem closer than they were before?

More voices tighten all around her. Paper work to check out. Try to print. In queue. Tick. Tick. Tick. Slowing her down. Printers out of ink. She has to go to the supply room to request more. By the time she gets back, someone's already gotten to it, and her papers are nowhere to be found and she has to get back in line. Supervisor again. Asking for a different thing. A different supervisor? It's hard to tell them apart in the blur, there's no friends here, just work.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
"Sorry..." Hinoiri said, softly, each time.

There was no passion. No anger. No fury. No righteous indignation. There was just... contrite, obedient, broken apologies. "I'll do better."

Did her first report even get noticed? She'd gone the extra mile. Submitted... Added?

.... What did she add to it?

She'd been asked for one thing, and ended up giving so, so much more. Ended up giving all she could for it.

Was that why she was behind?

She got to her next report, and stopped.

... It was good. She could submit it, right? But... it wasn't perfect. It had to be perfect. SHE... had to be perfect. She had to make sure that all of her work was... perfect.

Hinoiri fixed it. Reprinted. Submitted. Paperclicks. Staples. Where was her stapler?

Busy bodies. Why did they have to talk? If they had time to lean, they had time to clean out their inbox.

... Hadn't she just... emptied hers? Why was it full again.

She glanced at the clock.

... How was it only a few minutes after lunch?

The korma container was now empty. When did she finish it? She didn't remember finishing it. She must have finished it.

She tossed it in the trash. Huh. There had been a menu under it... looked a lot like a book.

Work. Time to get to work.

She started typing again, tossing all of her passion, her drive into it. She... she could do this. Couldn't she?

... Wouldn't she?

... Another report.

... The partners had to see this, though. Sora had to see this. Her supervisors were seeing her work, right?

Her phone rang... and she picked it up. And was yelled at. She took a slow, deep breath, and tried to help... but she couldn't help. There was nothing she could do. All she could do was direct them... and then get yelled at for trying to 'help' them in the wrong way... sigh?

.... Ten minutes after lunch.

Emi Hoshino has posed:
Emails. More emails. Pouring in. Just constantly. DING! More emails. Tick goes the clock. Slack chat is erupting with questions for her. She can't answer them all, can she? Where is this? Where is that. Then she gets to the mails.

URGENT: Need Revisions ASAP -- Deadline Passed!

Re: Re: Re: Follow-Up on Missed Deliverables

Your Performance Review Has Been Moved Up

Action Required: Incomplete Reports Flagged

FWD: Client Complaints -- Immediate Response Needed

Overdue Tasks -- Why Haven't These Been Addressed?

Meeting Rescheduled to 7 AM -- Attendance Mandatory

Reminder: Unapproved Overtime is Not Allowed

Subject: Budget Cuts -- Reassessment of Roles

The thunderous tapping of keyboards melds with the relentless ticking of the clock, seconds on seconds. The cucible feels smaller. The pressure in the air seems to build. Her ears pop. And then another email.

**"Can We Talk?"** -- Management

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara tried to keep up. Tried to respond. Tried to answer. Tried to fix things. To make things better.

It was a testament to the dreamstate that she was failing. Because she threw her ALL into it. But even she was wearing down. She missed an email. Or two. Then a third. A fourth.

Then eventually that email.

'Can we talk.'

Oh, yes. That was... coming. She pushed out from the desk and... huh? All of her posters and trinkets were gone.

... Wait, did she have posters and trinkets? Why did she...

Ugh, she had to go. She pushed off...

... Yelling. More questions as to why she was failing. They'd taken a risk on her. Sora was watching. Disappointed. Why did they think they could trust her with so many important things if she kept failing?

Afterwards... she was in the bathroom. Tail between her legs (figuratively). She couldn't yell. Couldn't fight. So she'd run, just like always. Nodded, said she'd do better. And she stood in front of the mirror. Hands on the counter, supporting herself. Her legs on the verge of giving out. She wanted to kick down the door. To scream. To throw her computer.

To cry.

But she couldn't. She had to choke down all of her hurt and anger and fury...

And just get back to work. but she just needed a minute... Just... a minute...

Emi Hoshino has posed:
"Hinoiri."

It's perhaps the first time someone has said her name like that here. A sympathetic softness to it.

There's someone else here. Seeing her. Seeing this moment. How did she not notice them? Too in her own world? It doesn't matter. They're talking to her now.

"They're getting you down too, huh?" She asks. Who is she? Japanese girl. Just one of the vast number of faceless employees here. Too many to count. White shirt and tie and skirt. Black bows in her hair. Why is that familiar somehow?

"I saw in my calendar that it's your birthday," she begins, her head tilting. There's a cupcake held out to her, all soft cake and puffy laced with pink frosting in intricate weaved lines. On it sits an ornamentation. A single candle, shaped like a unicorn. She lights the candle.

"Happy birthday, Hinoiri. Blow out the candle."

The girl stares at her. Mismatched eyes. The only mismatched thing here.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara shook her head. "I'm fine," she said. She was not fine. She was the furthest thing from fine. She had black bags under her eyes. A sign of how tired, how beaten down she was. How... determined...

Why was she doing this?

"... My... birthday?" she asked.

"... I... don't... have a birthday..." Hinoiri mumbled softly, before looking at the cake. "Wait..." No, she had a birthday. Didn't she? Then... why didn't... she remember it being... she'd never had a birthday. Nobody cared?

... Sora was always busy.

... Wait, why would it matter if her boss was busy? Too busy to notice her not-birthday? Why was she...

... She stared at the unicorn.

... Why did she want to hurt them? Where was that boundless fury and rage come from? Why did she stare at the cake and it felt like... everything... was coming into focus?

Why did she want to inflict suffering... pain... hurt... on them. How DARE they think they could do this to her. HOW DARE THEY THINK THEY COULD TRAP HER! COULD CONTROL HER! she stared at the flame, her breathing in and out timed with the flickering of the candle.

How. Dare. They. She was Hinoiri Kirara. She would NOT be tamed by some... some... SUITS. She was...

... Just... an employee here. Wasn't... she?

She picked up the candle, holding it, the flame still lit... staring at it...

... The fire on the horn... was so... felt so... right.

Emi Hoshino has posed:
That soft smile on the other employee's face is all encouragment and kindness -- the sort of thing that's so often absent in this place. There's no praise... except when there's *just* enough to drive someone to eke out that last little bit of effort. An encouraging message from a supervisor on her phone, say, like the one that lights up Hinoiri's phone from time to time. Just enough.

The wick of the candle -- which is of course the horn --burns brightly in front of her. But it's fire. In a bathroom. Clearly, this other girl didn't think things through...

..because what does fire in a building like this do? Especially in a little place like the bathroom? It makes a little smoke. Smoke that sets off the fire alarm. That makes the sprinklers fire. It starts drenching them immediately and she hears cries of dismay from the office. She ruined everything, all their work. *all the papers* that were left on Hinoiri's desk.

All of it. It's /all her fault/.

"Hinoiri, take my hand," she says, urgently, reaching out towards her, strain visible in her expression, like she knows she's running out of time, now. Furtive glances towards the doorway into the bathroom.

Footsteps, supervisors at the doorway.

They're coming for both of them.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara 's eye twitched... and her hands shook. She crushed the unicorn in her fingers. Her rage nearly bubbling over. The fire, the water... Damn it.

She sighed. Burying it deep into her stomach, so deep it made her feel almost sick... She had work to do.

And the other girl told her to take her hand. SERIOUSLY?! She just tossed the unicorn in the trash and stormed off.

Stupid girl. It was sweet, but it was a waste of time and energy. A birthday? She didn't need that. She hadn't had one in years, why would she need one now?

Now she just needed to get back to work and focus on scrounging up what she could...

Damn it. STUPID. And her computer was probably bucked, at least they couldn't yell at her for not answering mail right now.

Emi Hoshino has posed:
"Hinoiri, no! Damn it!" A little bit of frustrated rasp to the girl's voice as the supervisors rush past Hinoiri into the bathroom. There's a lot of shouting from inside thereafter. As she makes her way towards her desk, one of the other suprvisors appears. So many supervisors, so many employees, so little time for all of them. A hand is firmly laid on her shoulder. She can't place his face. Like he has no face at all.

"Management has ordered a transfer. With the sprinklers going off, work is delayed here until clean up is done and they need those reports done by end of business today. You and a few others will be going to headquarters."

Headquarters! Could that promotion be within sight even DESPITE all the yelling?! That tap on the shoulder is heavy with the implication. Just enough hope, held out, for just a moment.

"Unless you've got something against working extra hours today."

The sounds of the argument in the bathroom seem to drop away, like everything else is. Hinoiri can feel eyes on her. All around.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
"Not at all," Hinoiri said, with just a hint of hope. Maybe.... maybe.... Just maybe... this was it. This was when she'd FINALLY get some recognition. Some respect. Some acknowledgement from her manager.

"I'll head on over, I'll just need to update my card," she said, a small smile on her face.

... Wait. did she had plans today?

... No. she didn't. Why would she have plans? Plans required... friends...

.... She... had friends... before... didn't she? But not now... nobody was here for her.

... She wasn't good enough, probably. She--

Wait, no, that seemed wrong. Something felt wrong.

... Something that she'd learned. Had engrained in her. Like a--

She was distracted by another alert. What? When did she get into the new office? What was she thinking about? It was important, wasn't it? Something that matter--

GAHHH! Too many messages! She needed to focus on them. The rest could wait. It could all wait. Work... work...

...

Work...

Work...

... What happened to the little knicknacks she had? Why weren't they at her office anymore? Ugh... She could worry about hat later. For now, work.

Emi Hoshino has posed:
"Yeah, some dreams have layers."

Some nightmares, too.

Ever since she had spoken to Mamoru, Amy, and that weird little girl, she'd been mulling it over in her head. Something was nagging at her. A sense of something wrong.

That night, she entered Hinoiri's dreamscape. Ever since her brush with the greater dreamscape, she'd been aiming to keep an eye on her. Everything had looked like it should.

And thinking back, that's what had bothered her most.

And when she peeled back the layers of Hinoiri's dreams, her worst fears were realized. She would have once chance at this. Just one.

"Happy Birthday, Hinoiri," she said, holding up the little cupcake made of dreamstuff with its unicorn candle. Wake up, Hinoiri. All you need to do is blow out the candle. Wake up. Wake up. But it was too late. She knew as soon as the smoke detectors went off that they'd caught her. Sensed her presence, stormed the bathroom and bundled Hinoiri away from her. while others advanced directly on her.

The lights above her flickered erratically, the buzzing growing louder in her ears and the checkerboard tile bathroom floor twisted and pulsed, the bathroom suddenly seeming to pulse with life, tightening like a coffing and then stretching out impossibly long the next. The ground shifted beneath her feet, or felt like it did.

The Salarymen moved in with their snake-like corporate synergy, white shirts and ties shifting as they rasied their hands to their featureless faces, fingesr pressed against unseen brows and then -- tick -- single, glaring unblinking eyes full of malevolence appearing in the center of each's palm

There could be no hesitation.

A beam of searing energy slashed towards her and Emi barely twisted away as it struck the mirror behind her, shattering. They surged toward her,.

Emi lept up onto the counter, kicking the first hard enough to send it flying back into the opened bathroom stall and crashing into the toilet. Pink strands of webbing fired from her fingertips, attachin themselves to the open door which she proceeded to slam shut with more webbing while she danced over the swinging fists and grabs of the others.

Flipping over them was a mistake, however, the shifting ground beneath her feet distorted her sense of balance, shifting her stumbling into the wall while they pounced, battering her with their fists and feet as she was forced into guarding and close quarters combat in turn.

Clenching her teeth as nausea, dizzyness, and pain threatened to briefly overwhelm her, she lashed out with a web, anchoring herself to the ceiling and floor as a means to control her orientation.

Wove again, a barrier betwween her and another of the Slaarmen, and she grabbed his arm, kicking him directly into the door of the stall she'd webbed shut earlier, just as the Salaryman had begun climbing over it.

Grabbing the head of a fourth, she webbed him to the sink by his face -- which she proceede to use to shatter the porcelain sink into shards before she barreled towards the exit. It seemed further away than ever.

"When you can't go out, go through!" she said to herself --

And ...burst through the wall.

... only she found not what she was expecting. She found ... nothing.

The dream was gone. Hinoiri was gone.

She woke with a start immediately thereafter, blood oozing down her face from where shardsa of glass or porcelain had caught her doing their frenetic melee. Her knuckles burned.

They had Hinoiri and they were going to grind her down. Grind her down into *nothing *or something even worse.

No choice, now, Emi. You know what you have to do. The very thing you're the actual worst at.

Asking for help.

She reached for her phone and texted Mamoru.

"Get everyone you can. They have Hinoiri."

She looked towards the space on the bed across from her room, where Hinoiri slept.

"I'm coming, Hinoiri."

No.

"We're coming."