You Can Sleep Here

The familiar electric whir echoed through the Hub’s air as one of the mannequins lit up, its body flickering before erupting into a beam that reassembled ENA piece by piece. Limbs, hair, colors, expressions; glitching into place with slightly more stutter than usual.

Froggy stood near the mannequin, arms crossed, his perpetual frown already prepared.

"ENA!" he barked. "What have I told you about possessing mannequins in front of people like some bootleg possession trick?! It's unprofessional!”

ENA staggered forward. Her usual off-beat grace was missing. Her smile twitched too long in one direction, her dual-toned face sliding through expressions like a jammed record.

"Hellooooo Froggyyyyy~" she sang, her voice drenched in static. "D’you know that there’s like…four of you? Three and a half, maybe? Hic!"

Froggy blinked. "Wait a second…ENA?"

She giggled again, tripping over her own boot and nearly taking down a pillar with her. “ENA, Hey- ENA!” Froggy rushed to her, catching her just before her head hit the ground.

Her skin was flickering through color palettes. Her face hung frozen between joy and a kind of warped despair. Froggy felt her weight in his arms…off-kilter, heavy. She was drunk. But ENA didn’t get drunk. That wasn’t how she worked…that's not how she was.

"Coral! Coral, get over here!" Froggy shouted, voice lined with panic.

Footsteps clacked across the tiled floor, Coral Glasses appeared at a sprint, her suit and tie in disarray. She knelt beside them, already scanning ENA with her eyes, her brows furrowed.

"She shouldn’t be like this," she muttered, pressing two fingers to her temple and trying to make heads or tails about what she was seeing. Some papers printed out of her head, which she promptly plucked off of her scalp to read. "This could be intoxication from consumption. Whatever she took inside her system messed with her memory housing…or something injected code into her rendering stream."

“Injected?” Froggy’s eyes narrowed. “Like malware?”

“I don’t know yet,” Coral whispered, pressing a hand gently to ENA’s cheek. “ENA, wake up. It’s Coral. You’re back in the Hub. Can you hear me?”

She didn’t respond. Just lay there, a twitch of light flickering in her cheek, her red side looping a garbled laugh track while her light yellow side wept silently.

Froggy gritted his teeth and stood up, his fists clenched.

“Whoever did this,” he growled, “they're going to regret scrambling her like that.”

Coral nodded solemnly. “L-Let's take her to my office. We’ll fix her. We have to. She’s…she’s ENA.”

Together, they lifted her gently and carried her away from the Hub area, toward Coral Glasses's office, toward answers, and perhaps...toward a speedy recovery for the poor saleswoman.

...The office dimmed to a soft hum as Coral Glasses adjusted the privacy settings, locking the door behind Froggy with a subtle nod. He hesitated before leaving, casting one last glance at ENA slumped on the chair, half-phased between solid and static.

“Call me if she needs anything,” he said quietly.

“I will,” Coral replied.

The garage door was slid shut.

ENA let out a long, pitiful hiccup, her head buried in a cushion, one arm flopping to the side like a puppet with its strings cut. Her legs glitched periodically, feet stuck in a looped walking animation even though she wasn't moving.

“I ruined it…” she mumbled into the cushion. “All of it! The target! The job! Froggy’s patience! M-my own protocols!” Her voice warbled, broken between sobs and static. “I shouldn’t have g-gone to the Purge Event… It was illegal! And- hic! -and I partied!”

Coral gently stepped over, kneeling beside her.

"ENA..."

“I danced! With complete strangers!” she wailed. “I’m malfunctioning and morally compromised!"

Coral tilted her head, adjusting her glasses with one hand and gently placing the other on ENA’s trembling shoulder. Her lighter side was swollen with tears, the other half completely darkened. It's gotten to her so badly that even her salesperson façade had faltered.

“You’re not compromised,” Coral said softly. “You’re overwhelmed.”

“But I- hic! -I broke protocol... I was made to bring joy, not shame!”

Coral smiled gently. “ENA…joy isn’t always about rules. Sometimes...it's about letting yourself feel.”

She looked up slowly, her lighter side flickering with confusion and sadness.

"You think less of me now,” she whispered. “Don’t you? You and Froggy are gonna let me go, and I'll regret calling this job stupid…” 

“I don't.” Coral said, brushing some glitched hair away from her face. “I'm worried. We , are worried…for you.”

ENA stared at her, a wet sniffle escaping. “I don’t know how to fix this.”

“You don’t have to fix anything,” Coral assured her. “It's already fixed. You're just…r-reacting to it. That’s allowed.”

Silence settled for a moment, aside from the occasional flicker of ENA’s corrupted audio loops.

Then, “Do…do you think Froggy’s mad at me?”

Coral chuckled softly. “Froggy worries about you like an overcooked dumpling. He’s not mad. Just scared.”

“…I’m scared too,” ENA murmured.

“I know,” Coral whispered. “But you’re not alone.”

She stayed beside ENA, humming quietly as the girl’s crying began to taper off. There was still so much to mend…but for now, Coral simply let her rest, wrapping her in the soft safety of understanding.

The flickering static in ENA’s limbs began to settle, her sobs softening into hiccupped breaths. Coral stayed beside her, close but not overwhelming. ENA’s eyes, mismatched and glassy, blinked slowly, and her expression blurred between forms before settling on something unusually tender. Vulnerable.

“I’m sorry I’m such a corrupted mess,” ENA muttered, voice small and broken. “I wish I knew why I'm like this.”

"You’re not a mess,” Coral whispered, reaching out again, this time offering both arms. “Come here.”

ENA hesitated for a moment, then slowly crawled forward, practically melting into Coral’s embrace. Her angular frame fit awkwardly, but Coral adjusted without a word, wrapping her arms around ENA’s shoulders and resting her cheek against ENA’s head. The plastic feel of her hair, the faint static of her body…it didn’t bother Coral. 

“I feel like I’m always breaking something,” ENA said into her chest. “Rules. Expectations. Myself.”

Coral smiled, brushing a hand gently down her back. “You should stop worrying about breaking things…”

ENA closed her eyes, arms curling around Coral’s waist. “How do I do that… when I don’t even know what my purpose is?”

“You’ve got time,” Coral murmured. “And you’ve got me.”

That made ENA pause. Then, softly, like the thought had only just bloomed inside her chest: “Do I really?”

Coral pulled back just enough to look her in the eyes. “Yes, ENA. I’m here. I care about you. Not as a job or a glitchy wonder or some corrupted assistant. I care about you. Exactly as you are.”

ENA’s pupils spiraled softly in surprise, colors glitching a bit, but this time the flickering was warm, not frantic.

“You’re…very strange, Coral Glasses.”

“I could say the same about you.” She shrugged with a smile.

ENA gave a quiet laugh- just a breath, really -but it was enough to make Coral smile. She leaned back slightly, bringing ENA with her, letting them settle onto the chair together, tangled in a way that neither code nor logic could explain.

Coral reached up and gently brushed a thumb beneath ENA’s eye. “You can rest here. No expectations. No programs.”

ENA’s voice came in a whisper. “Not even to be happy?”

"Not even that.”

And so, ENA laid quietly in Coral’s arms, as for once, her code wasn’t screaming with demands. The world was still chaotic, yes…her emotions still unfamiliar.

But in this quiet, in Coral’s warmth…ENA felt safe. Held. Known.

The room was still…quiet, save for the dim hum of old circuitry embedded in the walls, and the soft, wavering breaths slipping from ENA’s mouth. She laid curled against Coral, arms loosely around her, face buried in the hollow of her chest like a child seeking shelter from the storm.

Coral’s fingers moved slowly through ENA’s hair. The strands flickered occasionally, shifting in texture, but under her touch they softened, glitching less and less. ENA’s sobs had dulled now, replaced with occasional shudders and small, trembling exhales.

Coral kept her chin atop ENA’s head, letting her own eyes slip shut.

"She’s so much softer than she pretends to be ,” she thought. “ So much need packed into those strange little code-glitches and sales pitches. A creature built to serve, aching when she cannot.”

Her hand trailed slowly down ENA’s back, feeling the tension beginning to dissolve under her palm, ENA’s body going pliant, like something uncoiled and surrendered.

Coral felt her heartbeat sync to ENA’s odd rhythms, offbeat and wavering, but present. There was a warmth in it she hadn’t expected. The feel of ENA clinging to her, of being trusted in this raw, messy state, brought a quiet ache to her chest. Not painful…just full.

She kissed the top of ENA’s head- barely a brush, more instinct than action -and whispered, “You’re safe, naekkeo. You’re allowed to just be.”

ENA didn’t answer, but her arms tightened slightly. Her cheek pressed closer, and a little digital hiccup left her lips.

Coral smiled gently and rubbed her thumb in slow circles over ENA’s shoulder. “ Maybe this isn’t what she's programmed for ,” she mused. “ But it feels right. And maybe that’s enough.”

Another pause. Another shared breath. ENA had started to hum faintly under her breath; glitchy, garbled, but almost like a lullaby someone half-remembered.

Coral closed her eyes and held her tighter.

“I could hold her like this forever.”

…but it seems like ENA had other plans.

The saleswoman stirred slightly, her cheek rubbing against Coral's chest as her voice hiccupped softly out of her.

"...I’m defective, aren’t I?"

The words weren’t loud. They wobbled out of her as if they were but a thought spoken by accident.

Coral blinked, her embrace instinctively tightening again.

"No," she replied, voice warm and low. "You're not. Even if you went out of your way…what you did is still a good job, and you carried it to the end despite the distraction."

"But hurting isn't productive," ENA murmured, as if quoting some outdated manual. “It slows down processing, impedes function, creates unnecessary pauses in output…”

She trailed off into a breathless little laugh, wet and glitched.

Coral moved a hand to ENA’s cheek, tilting her head up slightly. Their eyes met. Hers, for once, steady and kind; ENA’s, flickering and raw. It usually was the opposite.

“You’re not supposed to know everything all the time,” Coral whispered. “And you're allowed to feel things. Even when they don't make sense.”

ENA blinked, her eyes stuttering with static. “I was built to be useful,” she said. “And now I…I can’t even do that right. I’ll go out of my way to party and be stupid, getting…getting in this state.”

“You won’t get judged,” Coral said, brushing ENA’s cheek with her thumb. “Not from me.”

ENA went still in her arms. She didn’t glitch, didn’t babble, didn’t try to mask it with sales pitches or cheerful lies. She just…looked at her.

“…Then, what am I supposed to do?” she asked, her words trembling and honest.

Coral exhaled softly. “Maybe…let someone love you even when you're not perfect?” she proposed with a sweet smile.

ENA stared for a long moment. Then, quietly, she leaned forward and pressed her forehead to Coral’s.

“I think…I like that idea,” she said.

Coral smiled, cupping her chin, letting their closeness speak more than any words could. “Then let’s start there.”

ENA's voice was a whisper now, curling between them like the glow of a candle in the dark.

“…Will you stay with me?”

Coral brushed a kiss against her temple, holding her tight again. “Always.”

And this time, when ENA melted into her, it wasn’t out of guilt, or panic, or collapse.

But rather…out of trust.

“...You should sleep.” Coral put a hand to ENA’s forehead. “You’re burning up.” ENAs can get fever…? For some reason, that thought in Coral’s mind made her heart swell. But maybe it was just some code frying into ENA’s system from the intoxication …there was a logical explanation to it for sure, but Coral decided to set logic aside. She always had to set logic aside when she was around ENA anyway.

“...I don’t have anywhere I could sleep.” ENA looked up at Coral, an expression of confusion on her bi-colored face. “I don’t need to—”

“You can sleep right here.” Coral interrupted her. “In my arms.”

“...In your arms?” ENA repeated.

“Yes. I don’t mind.” 

ENA blinked slowly, as if trying to process the offer through a haze of heat and foggy thoughts. Her expression twitched; first confusion, then resistance, and finally…something else. Something softer. The flickering static in her eyes dimmed to show her irises.

“In your arms…” she murmured again, the words burnt in her throat like something unorthodox. “That’s…That’s not standard.”

“No, it's not,” Coral said, brushing some hair back from ENA’s face. “But it’s kind. And that should be standard too.”

ENA didn’t answer. Instead, she leaned in a little closer, unsure of what to do with her thoughts. She was all static, all fluttering noise under a body that barely felt like hers anymore. It never felt like hers really. But Coral’s arms were steady. A structure she could melt into without clipping into and having to break out of.

Gently, Coral guided her down, resting ENA’s head against her chest again, draping the other arm around her like a blanket. ENA’s limbs twitched and glitched every now and then, and she murmured nonsense in two tones, like she was dreaming even while awake.

But she stayed. And Coral held her, stroking her back slowly.

“You’re not broken, ENA,” she repeated her words quietly, “You’re just overwhelmed. And that's allowed.”

A pause.

“…And you don’t have to perform all the time. You don’t have to earn my care, or anyone else’s. It’s yours already. We're not clients, we're nothing like any client.”

ENA shifted just barely, her hand curling around the edge of Coral’s coat. Her voice, when it came, was almost imperceptible.

“…Warm.”

Coral smiled softly, her chest aching in the best way. “Yeah,” she said, resting her cheek against ENA’s hair. “You’re safe now.”

And for the first time in what felt like forever, ENA didn’t argue. She didn’t pitch a product, or ask about optimization, or question her utility.

She simply sighed.

The static ebbed. Her eyes closed shut.

…And in Coral’s arms, ENA slept.