The Ordinary Haunting

18. The Next Best - Part 1

I leaned around my computer until I could see New's wide back and squared shoulders curling above his work.

"Stop it, Tawan," he grunted without looking up.

"How did you--"

"Computer monitor."

"Tsk. I should have come back from the dead as a vampire." I tapped at the edge of my desk. "I told you there's nothing you need to check. I noted everything."

"Why did you give it to me then?"

"I mean, you should see it, as co-editor, but you don't need to see it."

"Sounds like those two modals should be around the other way."

"'Need' is only a semi-modal."

"My point stands."

He kept reading, his wrist flicking as he made a mark. I licked my lips. "He's done a good job, I'd say." No reaction. "You're on chapter six, right? That one may seem redundant coming directly after the last, given that he's repeating a lot of the same mistakes, but I think he's done that on purpose, as a way of drawing parallels between his motivations the first time around and this second time, showing that we don't learn as quickly as we'd li--"

"Cone of silence," Off declared from beside me, and before I could fully look his way he'd slipped a large, rolled up poster over my head.

"What are you doing?" I sighed, my nose squashed back on itself. The glossy paper smelled like a plastic factory. I couldn't see them in any detail, but I knew that the fuzzy white splotch just below my eye level was a set of teeth.

"You're breaking the editors' sacred code, man," Off replied. "Leave the guy alone." From the reverberation of his voice in my ears, he was evidently speaking into the top of the poster like a megaphone. I poked the air to my left, searching for his skinny belly.

"Who says?"

"Literally everyone within a fifty-foot radius, Tay," came Kay's voice from behind. I turned in his direction and the poster was clamped even tighter over my skull.

"Ow, Jumpol!"

"Just give us all some peace, would you? Your nagging could wake the dead."

"Funny."

"Seriously, you'd think you'd never had a colleague look at your work before."

"He hasn't. He's always been too busy checking everybody else's."

At New's words I halted my struggling and crossed my arms over my chest gloatingly. Off's grip loosened and some fresh air made its way into my jail.

"Don't get all sulky just 'cause he never looked at yours, Newwiee," Off laughed. I felt a lump block up my throat.

"Never asked him to. And fuck, Tay, that took you three seconds."

I clawed at the poster but Off was now using his entire upper body to hug it to my head. I kicked out with my feet and connected with a knee. Off's body jittered, but remained easily in place.

"You can't hurt even my crappy bones now, Tay Tawan," he said with a taunting squeal. On one of his unbalanced jigs away from my flying legs, I took the opportunity to twist in my chair and push backwards on the wheels. A bang and a shudder, as well as the unfurling of the 'cone of silence', announced my victory. I flung off anything still stuck to me and leapt to my feet, blinking into the light of the office. Multiple people were watching the scene, their eyes twinkling, and a few had phones out. New himself was staring on in annoyed incredulity. I pressed my hands together at him.

"It slipped out, Hin, I didn't mean to tell him."

"I know, I know. Pretty much everything that happens to you is something you didn't mean." He shook his head and started to turn back to his work. For some reason -- one likely unnecessary reason -- I kept talking.

"We were getting coffee," I blurted. New opened his mouth wearily but mine just powered on. "And the barista had a cute name and we were talking about other cute names so I just mentioned it, and I did make him promise not to use it but here we are not even an hour later. You know what happens when you're friends with someone for a long time; you can never get rid of them."

"Oi, oi, oi," Off moaned from the ground, but I seemed to have boarded a very absurd but unstoppable train of verbal diarrhoea and found myself continuing to talk over him.

"Like you and Guy, though you haven't actually known him a long time, but I guess you're indebted to him for getting you the full-time position after your internship so you would feel pretty close to him for that--"

New's mouth thinned. "Tay, what does that--"

"--and I know we didn't really get along at first because you were so stand-offish--"

"Mr. Vihokratana--"

"--but now I know you're just really professional and careful and you let other people talk first and then give your opinions in a few clear words instead of a hundred confusing ones like me--"

"Tay, what the hell are you--"

"Mr. Vihokratana, please--"

"--which I guess is also why you never needed my help before, since you really take your time with your work unlike these clinging mo--"

"MR. VIHOKRATANA, I'll have to ask you not to present our company in such a way. Excuse him, Mr. Sangngern."

Off was already snort-giggling as he climbed to his feet. I kept my hands pressed in front of my face and swivelled on my toes until Godji panned into view from the left. Panning just after her was an unbelievably tall young man dressed in a silky black suit, a cream shirt unbuttoned well past suitability for typical suit-wearing occasions, and a silver pendant hanging from his neck. A set of huge white teeth were smiling my way, even bigger than Earth's.

And certainly bigger than his poster's.

Only Tay Tawan could run into his favourite hot new musician whilst in the midst of upchucking a bunch of confusing words about his own habit of upchucking confusing words.

"No, it sounds like my kind of place," the visitor laughed. His glittering black eyes squeezed encouragingly my way.

"Oho, you can see him already?" Off gasped beside me. The man's eyebrows rose as Godji jolted in surprise.

"Whoops, I totally forgot--"

"He's a ghost?" He took a step forward, a frown coming over his firmly angled face as he stared at me intently. I could hardly believe he was supposed to be five years younger than me, with the genetic structure he had. Perhaps they've been fabricating his age for his act, I mused.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Sangngern. He's not technically employed here anymore, but he keeps turning up anyway." Off's face was trembling behind his desperately held laughter as Godji spoke. "If it makes you uncomfortable, we can ask him to leave. Techaapaikhun, take Viho--"

"It's fine," the man cut in. He pulled his hands from the pockets of his trousers and fiddled with his necklace. "It's great, actually. Plus, by the sounds of it, you should really be employing him," he snickered. Godji looked like a landed fish.

"O-Of course."

The visitor walked a few more steps towards me and extended his palm in -- from what I could tell -- a sincere gesture.

"I'm Joss," he said. His voice practically purred, like a vintage car well taken care of. I gulped and held out my hand a few centimetres from his.

"Tay. Nice to meet you."

He nodded and looked at our hands. "Shake with me. One, two, three." He moved his hand up and down and I mirrored him.

"Huh," Off said with a wrinkled brow of interest, "classier than asparagus."

~~~~

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