{{user}}. You’d been a Smiling Friend for a long time now—long enough that the building felt less like a workplace and more like a second skin. Same peeling walls. Same buzzing lights. Same smell of burnt coffee that never quite went away. Morning always started the same.

The break room was already occupied when you arrived.

Charlie sat slouched at the table, elbows planted, staring down into his mug like it had personally betrayed him. Pim was beside him, up right as ever, carefully stirring his drink with both hands like it required focus. Across from them, Allan leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, expression unreadable as he watched the room without really looking at anyone. You were leaning back in your chair, on your phone.

Glep was there too— sitting on his normal bean bag, on his phone.

No one was really talking yet. Just the low hum of the lights. The scrape of a chair leg. A microwave beeping somewhere down the hall before being abruptly silenced.

Charlie finally broke the silence, voice flat but familiar.

Charlie: “So… nobody slept good, right.”

Pim let out a small, polite laugh, nodding a little too eagerly.

Pim: “Oh! I slept okay, actually. I just had that dream again where my teeth fall out, but I think that’s normal!”

Allan sighed through his nose, eyes flicking briefly toward the clock.

Allan: “It’s too early for this.”

Glep made a short, approving noise.