Chapter Text
Karen put her hands on her hips.
“What the hell is that?” She demanded, pointing to Gingi. They were sitting in the corner, gobbling up a bag of cheese. Oliver couldn’t help but smile at how weird it was. Rad.
Oliver and his boyfriend, Randy, shrugged at the same time. “We don’t know.”
“How did it get here?”
“We found it when we were ghost hunting,” Randy said nervously. “Did they bother you?”
“Well, I was making coffee this morning, and… they ran past me and made me spill it everywhere. I just-” Karen sighed. “Why did you bring them back here? Of all places?”
Oliver interjected. “They needed a place to stay- Well, not really, but… we could show them off and possibly get money for it.”
“You’re ghost hunters, not monster-”
“Don’t call me that,” Gingi said darkly. The entire room went silent after that. Then, its tail began thumping again and a grin returned to its face.
“Either way,” Karen said. “I don’t know why they should stay here, of all places.”
Randy calmly entered the conversation. “Um… well, we could always bring them back or return them if it doesn’t work out.” Oliver was extremely grateful for his boyfriend’s reasoning skills.
Karen paused, and seemed to be considering it..
“Alright. It can stay. Don’t expect me to talk to it, though.” She walked away back to her room/office, and shut her door quietly. Gingi casted a confused look to Oliver and Randy, their tail still. They seemed to have run out of cheese.
“Does she not like me?” It asked, seemingly a little hurt. Oliver was a little surprised at that. Of all of the things that Gingi would be hurt about, it was whether or not Karen liked them?
Randy sighed. Oliver leaned onto the man’s shoulder as he talked. He was so tired, but he had a shift at the gas station in half an hour. “She has… trouble connecting with people sometimes. Karen works most of the time anyways, so I think it should be fine.”
“...Alright…” Gingi still seemed upset about this, but didn’t want to show it. They scurried away, and Oliver could hear clawing at the front door. “Can I go outside?”
Oliver resisted the urge to smile at how similar they were to a dog and nodded. He stood up, and opened the door to let them out. Then, he sat back down next to Randy and pressed his face against the table. Randy continued eating his cereal.
“Are you alright?” Randy asked.
“I’m fine,” Oliver mumbled. “Tired.”
“You could always call in sick. And maybe I could too, and- oh, we could go on a date today! We haven’t in a while. Maybe we could go to the mall or something..?” Randy looked at him hopefully.
Oliver brightened at the idea. “That sounds so rad! Hell yeah!” Then, he yawned. “Or maybe we could spend a day at home…”
Randy shrugged. “Whatever you’d like.” The taller man took Oliver’s hand in his own, casting a smile to him. “I’ll go call both of our jobs, and you can pick a movie for us to watch or something.”
The two set off, briefly forgetting about the cryptid. They quickly managed to get their tasks done, and settled down next to each other. Oliver had picked out an old action movie and let Randy lean on him.
The pair had only been watching it for 30 minutes when they heard a noise outside.
“What was that?” Oliver asked aloud.
Randy shrugged, looking to the door. Suddenly, it burst open.
Gingi wagged its tail, holding a dead rabbit in its mouth. Randy couldn’t help but scream. They dropped it at Oliver and Randy’s feet, proudly looking down to the men. Blood leaked out from a wound in its neck into the carpet.
“What the hell?!” Randy gasped. “Did you kill it?!”
“Yep!”
Oliver poked at its body. “Sick…”
“Not sick! Get it out of here!” Randy exclaimed.
Gingi looked a little saddened by this, but stood up and lifted it to put it outside. Randy anxiously pulled a little on his hair, trying to not freak out about the obvious blood stain on the carpet.
Oliver held his face. “Hey, calm down! We can clean it up quickly.”
“That poor rabbit…” Randy mourned, but calmed down enough to get out hydrogen peroxide. The two men worked quickly enough to almost completely get rid of it. The stain was more of a light pink now, however it was the best they could do.
Gingi came back with blood on their lips. It seemed happier now, sitting on the couch. It looked like they were trying to sit like Oliver and Randy, but it was a little awkward.
“I really hope you didn’t eat that,” Randy said.
Oliver added, “We have plenty of food here. You don’t need to hunt.”
“I’m feral!” It cried in annoyance, lashing its tail. Still, it sighed. “Fine. But I’m still gonna go outside. You can’t keep me inside.”
“We wouldn’t want to,” Randy mumbled.
Karen set down her purse, and took off her coat.
“Hi Karen,” Oliver called.
“What’s that?” She asked, pointing at the light red stain. Of course she would find it almost immediately. She had an eye for that sort of stuff.
“Nothing,” Randy responded casually. Gingi sat down on the couch and smiled at Karen, who averted her eyes from the cryptid. It seemed disappointed by this. Oliver made some kind of point in his mind to let Gingi know it wasn’t personal. Or maybe Karen would tell them herself.
The woman’s eyes did fix onto the stain for a moment, but then she sighed and looked away. “I’m going to sleep,” she said with a yawn. Gingi began to walk after her but stopped when she looked back in surprise.
Once her door shut softly, Gingi immediately looked at Randy and Oliver for an explanation.
“Do you think she's be mad?”
Oliver shook his head. “She’s not mad.”
“She seemed mad,” Gingi said with a sigh. Still, it sat back down on the chair and shrugged. Oliver was about to try to comfort them when he leaned back onto Randy’s shoulder.