•☽────✧˖°˖ TAKE SOME TIME ˖°˖✧────☾•

•☽────✧˖°˖ TAKE SOME TIME ˖°˖✧────☾•

(COMMISSION)

★ Summary: You Confined In ENA After Being Trapped In Her Reality For A Long While

★ Commissioner: @namosaga

★ Character(s): Salesperson ENA (ENA: Dream BBQ)

★ Reader pronouns: Not Specified

★ Genre: Short Story, SFW

★ Word Count: 1265

★ Warning(s): None - Completely Safe!

★ Image Credits: @JoelG

You don’t remember when ENA first took your hand. It probably wasn’t a momentous gesture, not even a gesture at all—just something that happened mid-monologue, mid-run, mid-deal gone haywire. One moment you were flinching at the yelling sky and the stairs that ran sideways, and the next you were being tugged forward by a mitten hand and a clawed one, ENA in her stripy suspenders skipping confidently into nonsense.

“THE BATHROOM IS THAT WAY,” she’d declared, pointing at a blinking neon orb hanging in a tree. You’d learned not to ask questions by then. Or at least not ones with answers.

Now you were in some place called the Marketplace of Ephemeral Trades, which ENA explained was either:

A) a bazaar where you could exchange your current mood for another,

B) a job fair for imaginary careers,

C) a scam,

or D) “YES.”

You cradled your overpriced juice (it tasted like memories of kindergarten) and tried not to wince every time someone’s head turned into fruit or a phone began sobbing behind a stall.

“I’ve been considering investing in… wrist confidence,” Salesperson ENA said thoughtfully, adjusting her cap. “Strong wrists? Very persuasive. Not for strangulation, of course—unless I’m pitching a mob boss.”

“Or resisting an existential collapse,” you mumbled.

“Exactly! Cross-marketability!”

She was always like this. Half-interested, half-deep, half-jumping-through-sentient-hula-hoops just to get from point A to point Q. Even Meanie ENA (the one that barked into megaphones and cursed at sand) didn’t entirely know what they were doing. You were pretty sure no one in this world did.

But ENA made it survivable.

Even now, walking through this marketplace of wiggling perspectives and twitchy signs, she kept one eye on you. Not always the same eye. Sometimes it was a triangle, sometimes it blinked wrong. But she noticed when you stumbled, or when you flinched at a too-loud bell someone mistook for a baby.

“Would you like to scream into a pillow-sized coupon?” she offered helpfully. “It’s scented like meh.”

“I’m okay,” you said, lying like a badge pinned to your chest.

You weren’t okay.

You hadn’t been for a long time.

You’d been in this world—her world—for… you weren’t sure. Time made pancake flips here, randomly deciding to burn one side. It might’ve been days, or it might’ve been a second you couldn’t stop dreaming about. You didn’t exactly arrive so much as leak into the place, like a coffee spill no one cleaned up.

You remembered routine.

Waking up, brushing teeth, emails, masking smiles, fluorescent lights at the grocery store that made your spine crawl, being praised for doing things “normally” and then wondering if anyone actually knew what normal meant.

Now you lived in ENA’s pockets.

Sometimes literally. The striped ones were deceptively deep.

That night—if you could call it night, when the moon rotated between cartoon faces and equations—was the first time ENA invited you somewhere quiet.

Not funny quiet, not wrong quiet, not “we’re inside a living teacup that gurgles when we speak” quiet. Just quiet.

The “room” was a slow, dark hill that unfolded like a crumpled napkin. There were no walls. Just fog that politely minded its business. The stars above you flickered like old VCR static.

“THIS is the Department of Melancholy,” ENA whispered.

“…Is that real?”

Meanie ENA’s voice rumbled in the air beside you. “Of course it’s not real, YOU SUBURBAN SOCK MONKEY. It’s a name, not a tax form.”

But she didn’t sound angry. Not like usual.

“Why bring me here?” you asked, curling your knees to your chest. You didn’t want to be difficult. You just… always felt like a weird puzzle piece from the wrong box. In the real world. In this one too. Always.

“Because the other rooms were laughing at me,” said ENA flatly. “I required a setting that wouldn’t say snide things about my mental architecture.”

You couldn’t help it. You laughed. Loudly.

She turned to you, red side grinning like a birthday card.

“There it is,” she said, and leaned in, whispering like a market secret: “My favorite sound.”

The moment stretched. Not heavy. Just slow. You watched the mist blink around you, yawning in fractals. Somewhere in the distance, a vending machine wept coins.

“…Hey,” you said.

“HEY!” ENA echoed, then blinked. “Sorry. Habit.”

“No, it’s okay. Just… Can I be serious for a second?”

“Oh,” she said. “Are you dying?”

“What? No!”

“Oh. Good. Then yes, absolutely. Be serious. I’ll just… mm.” She dramatically zipped her mouth with a finger and tossed the invisible key into a puddle that squeaked.

You sighed. Looked up at the static stars. And let the words come out without shame. Without mask.

“This world,” you said slowly. “Still doesn’t make sense to me. Even after everything.”

ENA didn’t interrupt.

You swallowed, letting yourself feel the weight.

“And back home… the real world, I mean. That didn’t make sense either. It felt like I was wrong all the time. Too slow. Too fast. Too weird. Too—much. I had routines, I had ways to cope. But I never really fit.”

You didn’t cry. You weren’t going to cry. It wasn’t like that.

It wasn’t sadness. It was just…Truth.

“Not even in a sad way. Just… like I was never built for any of it. There, here, anywhere.”

You waited for her to make a joke. To pivot. To change the subject.

Instead, you felt her sit closer.

“…We are not in business with the universe,” ENA said softly. “The contract was written in invisible ink, and our manager keeps changing shape.”

“…What?”

“I’m saying,” she said, voice gentler than usual, “That what you’re feeling? That’s a reasonable response to unreasonable worlds.”

You laughed once, quietly. “You always say weird stuff like that.”

“Yes. But I always mean it.”

You turned your head.

She was looking at you with both sides now. Meanie and Salesperson. Stern and soft.

“You’re an anomaly,” she said. “But anomalies are just patterns nobody has seen enough to understand.”

“…Yeah,” you said. “But I’m tired of being an exception.”

Silence, thick as syrup.

“Then don’t be.”

“Huh?”

Her voice dropped low. Honest.

“Be a constant.”

“What, like a math problem?”

“No. Like a home.”

You blinked. “What do you mean?”

“People think of ‘home’ as a place. A static object. A hearth, a hallway. But I’ve seen those. I’ve been inside castles made of teeth and apartments that bleed. And none of them felt like anything.” She tapped your shoulder with her claw-hand. “You? You feel like something.”

Your voice came out, wobbly and stunned. “So do you.”

She tilted her head.

“ENA,” you said quietly, “You’re the only thing in this whole twisted reality that feels like home. Not in a… weird way. Not in a way where I need you to survive or whatever. But…”

You looked down at your hands.

“When I’m with you, I don’t feel like I have to pretend. I can exist. And that’s enough.”

She was quiet.

Too quiet.

You glanced up—and for once, saw both sides frozen.

Not yelling. Not selling. Not emoting.

Just… stunned.

You panicked. “Oh god. Was that too much? I wasn’t trying to—”

“No no no—SHUT UP, YOU EMOTIONAL CAVIAR,” Meanie ENA snapped.

Salesperson ENA broke in immediately: “Wha—what she means is—give us a second. Buffering.”

“Buffering?!”

“YES, buffering! You can’t just drop the ‘home’ word in a dreamland! That’s practically marriage!!”

Your eyes widened. “Wait, what?! That’s not what I meant—”

“I KNOW,” they both said in unison. Then paused.

And then, softer, ENA added:

“But I’m glad you meant what you did.”