Chapter 45: The Tantrum
The lobby of Serenity Waters was a study in subdued luxury, all polished stone and whispering fountains. Bell, now dressed in soft, casual jeans and a simple grey t-shirt that somehow still looked unfairly good on him, beamed at Keng and Boom by the entrance. He waved with both hands, a full-armed, enthusiastic gesture.
“Thanks again! It was amazing!” he called out, his voice bouncing off the marble.
The two senior staff members bowed slightly, their professional smiles unable to hide a profound, almost reverent satisfaction. Their master was leaving, refreshed. Their mission was complete.
David held the passenger door of his aging sedan open. Bell slid in, still buzzing with residual spa energy. Mike got in the back, the leather seat creaking under his weight. The car door shut, sealing them in the quiet, familiar space of David’s car. The engine coughed to life.
They’d just pulled out of the driveway and into the slow crawl of evening traffic when the phones erupted.
It wasn’t a ping. It was a digital avalanche. A simultaneous, frantic bombardment from the team’s encrypted LINE group. David’s phone, mounted on the dash, lit up like a police strobe. Mike’s buzzed violently in his lap.
“What the hell?” David muttered, tapping the screen while waiting at a red light.
Maya’s messages were clinical but underscored with palpable desperation.
Maya: SOS. The office has regressed to the Pleistocene era.
Maya: [Image attached]
Maya: They have forged weapons from stationary.
Anne’s were more emotive.
Anne: DAVID. MIKE. THEY’VE GONE FERAL.
Anne: [Video attached]
Anne: THE CHANTING. IT DOESN’T STOP.
David tapped the image. It was a slightly blurry photo taken from Maya’s office doorway. The fourth-floor bullpen was transformed. Desk lamps were angled to create dramatic, cave-like shadows. Printouts of dense foliage were taped to monitor screens. And in the center of it all, the five juniors.
Just as described. Leo, Ben, and Mark wearing only leopard-print loincloths, strips of faux fur that did little to obscure the fact that they were essentially half-naked in the office. Priya and Sara in matching leopard-print sheath dresses, spinning barefoot on the corporate carpet.
They held stone spears. Mark had a network cable coiled over his shoulder like a vine.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” David breathed.
Mike leaned forward, his head between the seats. “Play the video.”
David did. The sound that poured from the speaker was a rhythmic, pounding chant. “BAS-IC! BAS-IC! OOH-AH-AH!” The video panned shakily, showing Leo beating a trash can lid, Ben hopping from chair to chair, and Sara attempting to lead Priya in a conga line around the printed fire camp image taped to the floor. In the background, Maya’s voice, tight with strained patience, could be heard: “Mark, the fire extinguisher is not a ritual totem. Put it down.”
Bell, who had been peering curiously at David’s phone, let out a delighted gasp. “Whoa! Look at that! They really got into the theme!” His whole face lit up with unrestrained joy. “Back to the Basic! They made it a whole thing! That’s so creative! I love it!”
He clapped his hands together, bouncing slightly in his seat. “David, turn the car around! We have to go join them! I want a loincloth! Do you think they have an extra one? I could be the… the tribal elder! Or maybe the hunter!”
“No,” Mike said, the word flat and absolute as a slamming door.
“But Mike—” Bell whined, his lower lip jutting out in a genuine, heart-wrenching pout. He twisted in his seat to look at Mike, his eyes wide and pleading. “They’re having a jungle party! It’s for the project! Team bonding! I’m the team leader, I should be there!”
“Bell,” David said, keeping his eyes on the road, his knuckles white on the wheel. “Look at the photo again. Really look.”
Bell peered at the screen. “Yeah? They’re really committed. The leopard print is cohesive!”
“They are wearing, essentially, underwear and napkins in a professionally zoned office building,” David said slowly, as if explaining gravity to a puppy. “HR would have a series of simultaneous aneurysms. Legal would write a new textbook. Non would use it as a reason to disband the entire team and have Bell, his face crumpled in confusion, hauled out by security. He wouldn’t see fun. He’d see ammunition.”
“Non doesn’t appreciate thematic cohesion,” Mike added, his voice low. “He appreciates dress codes and violations thereof.”
Bell’s face fell. The excitement drained, replaced by a confused disappointment. “But… it’s just for fun. It’s about the theme.”
“We know,” David said, his voice softening despite the panic coiling in his gut. “We know that. But the world isn’t you, Bell.”
The words hung in the air, heavier than intended. The world isn’t you. A world that couldn’t understand a mastermind who didn’t know he was one, a champion who wore a plastic crown without irony, a leader who saw a tribal office dance as pure celebration.
Bell slumped back against the seat, arms crossed. He let out a long, dramatic sigh that fogged a tiny circle on the passenger window. “I really, really wanted to go,” he mumbled, his voice thick with childlike sorrow. “I never get to do the fun stuff. It’s always meetings and budgets and Non being… Non.”
He kicked his feet lightly against the footwell. “I’m a good manager. I just want to dance with my team in leopard print.”
The plaintive, utterly sincere statement was a dagger to David’s heart. He glanced at Mike in the rearview mirror. Mike gave a single, almost imperceptible nod.
“Tell you what,” David said, signaling to change lanes toward Bell’s condo, not the office. “This weekend. We’ll organize it. A real team outing. A real campfire. In the actual woods. No HR. No fire code prints on the floor.”
Mike leaned forward again. “And you,” he said, pointing a finger at Bell’s pouting reflection in the rearview, “can wear a leopard print loincloth until you chafe. You can lead the chants. You can spear marshmallows. Whatever you want.”
Bell’s head turned slowly. The disappointment in his eyes was being cautiously replaced by a flicker of new, sanctioned hope. “A real campfire?”
“Real wood. Real smoke. Real burnt weenies,” David confirmed.
“And I can wear the loincloth? With the… the thing?” Bell made a vague motion around his hips.
“We will source the most authentic, most ridiculous loincloth the internet can provide,” Mike vowed.
A slow, dazzling smile spread across Bell’s face, wiping away all the petulance. It was like the sun coming out. “Okay,” he said, his voice bright again. “That’s a good plan. A weekend jungle. I like it.”
He settled back, the fight gone out of him. The adrenaline from the spa, the emotional whiplash from the arcade revelation to the office chaos, and the deep, buried stress from months of navigating Non’s subtle toxins finally hit him all at once. The rhythmic motion of the car, the low hum of the engine, the promise of a future jungle party… his eyelids grew heavy.
Within three blocks, his breathing evened out. His head lolled gently against the window, his lips slightly parted. Asleep.
David drove in silence for a minute, the only sound the swish of tires on wet pavement and Bell’s soft, rhythmic breaths.
“The sixth kid is finally down,” Mike murmured from the back, his voice a mix of exhaustion and deep affection.
David let out a long, slow breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He dragged a hand down his face, wiping away the phantom sweat. “What do we do about the five still loose in the office?”
Mike was already typing on his phone, his screen illuminating his placid, determined face in the dark car. “Damage control. Tell Maya to offer pizza. Tell Anne to ‘accidentally’ set off the fire alarm for a drill in ten minutes. The shock of the sound will break the spell. They’ll scatter, get cold, put their real clothes back on.”
David nodded. It was a good plan. Simple. Effective. A subtle nudge to restore order, the kind Bell would approve of but never think to execute himself. The kind they were now tacitly committed to executing for him, always.
He drove on through the glittering city night, heading for the quiet sanctuary of Bell’s condo. In the passenger seat, their king, their genius, their master of all games, slept peacefully, dreaming of leopard print and open flames, completely unaware of the loyal soldiers quietly managing his kingdom in the rearview.
In the passenger seat, their king, their genius, their master of all games, slept peacefully, dreaming of leopard print and open flames, completely unaware of the loyal soldiers quietly managing his kingdom in the rearview. David drove the rest of the way in a silence that felt both exhausted and sacred, the gentle click of the turn signal the only sound competing with Bell’s soft breaths. Mike stared out his window, the city lights streaking across his glasses, his phone dark and still in his hand.
He had sent the damage control texts. The planned fire alarm felt too violent now, an assault on the weird, earnest joy the kids had built. He’d simply written: ‘Pizza’s here in 20. Costumes optional but clothes mandatory for pepperoni.’ It was a gentler nudge. A bell, not an alarm. He wondered if this was how Bell’s mind worked—offering the irresistible carrot instead of wielding the stick.
Back at the fourth-floor office, the jungle drums were reaching a fever pitch. Mark was now attempting to ‘hunt’ the photocopier, his spear prodding at the ‘Start’ button. The chant had evolved into a harmonized, polyrhythmic “BAS-IC-FLOW! OOH-AH-AH!” Priya and Sara had tied vine-like strips of green crepe paper to their wrists and were performing a complex, skipping dance around Leo and Ben, who provided the stomping beat.
Maya massaged her temples, the numbers on the budget spreadsheet blurring into leopard spots. “The pizza bribe isn’t working,” she said, her voice dry. “They’re too deep in the ecosystem.”
“We need a predator,” Anne sighed, scrolling hopelessly through her contacts. “A louder, scarier animal to scatter the herd.”
The metallic scrape of the main office door opening was that predator.
Heels clicked sharply on the linoleum, a swift, authoritative staccato that cut through the tribal chanting. The dancing faltered. The drumming on the monitor stands ceased. All five juniors turned, their faces flushed with exertion, toward the source of the sound.
Anya Sharma stood frozen in the doorway, her sleek black laptop bag dangling from her shoulder. Her sharp eyes, magnified slightly by her stylish glasses, scanned the scene: the foliage printouts, the campfire image, the spears. They traveled over Leo’s and Ben’s and Mark’s bare, sweat-sheened chests and legs, clad in nothing but the ridiculous strips of faux fur. Her mouth opened, then closed. A vein in her temple throbbed once.
“WHAT IN THE HOLY HELL IS THIS?”
Her scream wasn’t loud. It was cold, sharp, and furious, a scalpel of sound that dissected the room’s joy and left it twitching on the floor. The kids didn’t just freeze. They petrified, eyes wide with primal terror. Mark’s spear clattered to the ground.
A unified, gasping sob hitched in five throats. Then they broke, scattering like antelope. They didn’t run for the exits. They ran for the only shelter they knew: the glass-walled office where Maya and Anne sat. “MOMMY!” The cry was a desperate chorus as they tumbled through the door, seeking refuge behind the two women’s chairs, clutching at their blouses.
Maya and Anne did not open protective arms. They stood up. Their expressions were not sheltering; they were storms of profound disappointment. As each kid tried to burrow against them, they received a quick, sharp knock on the head from an adult knuckle.
Thock. Thock. Thock. Thock. Thock.
“Ow!”
“I’m so sorry, Anya,” Maya said, her voice crisp and clear, ignoring the whimpers. “This is entirely unacceptable.”
“A complete mess,” Anne added, fixing the cowering juniors with a look that could wither steel. “You will apologize to Anya. Now.”
The kids, tears now streaming down their faces, saw the unified front: Maya, Anne, and the furious, silent Anya staring them down. Survival instincts kicked in. They scrambled away from the ‘mommies’ and began frantically ripping down the printed foliage, yanking the campfire from the floor, uncoiling the network cable vines. The spears were gathered like contraband.
Within three minutes, the bullpen was bare, sterile, and quiet except for sniffles. The five of them, still in their leopard prints, formed a ragged line. They knelt on the cool floor, heads bowed.
“We apologize,” Leo mumbled, his voice thick.
“We enjoyed the new phase and the theme too much,” Sara whispered, a tear dropping onto the grey carpet.
“We got carried away,” Mark finished, unable to lift his gaze from his knees.
Anya’s fury was a quiet, vibrating thing now. Maya and Anne began speaking in tandem, a well-practiced duet of maternal scolding.
“This is a place of business, not a themed resort!”
“What if a client had walked in? What if Ken had?”
“You represent Bell’s team. You think this makes him look good?”
“This is pure, unprofessional silliness!”
The words, logical and inescapable, landed like blows. Priya began crying in earnest, then Ben, then all of them, their shoulders shaking in their minimal costumes. The jungle was gone, replaced by the harsh fluorescence of consequence.
Anne’s phone buzzed on the desk. She glanced at it, reading Mike’s update about the promise made to Bell, the weekend campfire bribe that was their only tool to prevent a royal meltdown. She looked at the five weeping, nearly-naked young adults, then at Maya, then at the stony-faced Anya.
A new tactic emerged.
“If,” Anne said, her voice cutting through the sobs. All five wet faces turned up to her. “If you can behave perfectly—perfectly—like proper, professional adults for the rest of this week… we will all go to a real campfire this Saturday.”
The crying hiccupped to a stop.
“A real one?” Ben whispered.
“With real wood and everything,” Maya confirmed, crossing her arms. “And you can wear your leopard clothes there. All of you. All night. To your heart’s content.”
Anya’s eyebrow twitched, but she remained silent.
“And,” Anne added, the final carrot, “Bell will be there. And he will be wearing a loincloth, too. He wants to join your jungle.”
The transformation was instant and absolute. Tears evaporated. Sniffles became sharp, excited intakes of breath. Their postures straightened from penitent to electric. “Really?” Leo breathed.
“He really wants to?” Sara asked, her eyes shining.
“Yes,” Anne said, firm. “So. Can you be good? Can you be quiet, productive, and utterly normal until Friday?”
The chorus was immediate, loud, and unified. “YES! WE PROMISE! WE’LL BE SO GOOD!” They erupted from their knees, cheering, forgetting their scolding, already high-fiving each other in a rustle of faux fur. The promised future jungle had already replaced the punished past one.
“Clothes,” Maya said, pointing to the locker room. “Now. Normal ones.”
They scattered, not in fear this time, but in giddy glee, chattering about sleeping bags and marshmallow spears. The glass door sighed shut behind them.
Maya and Anne collapsed back into their chairs, simultaneously letting out a long, world-weary sigh. The air felt still and spent.
Anya, who had not moved, finally unclenched her jaw. She adjusted the strap of her laptop bag. “Your team is… uniquely motivated,” she said, her voice devoid of its earlier ice.
“They’re Bell’s team,” Anne corrected softly, rubbing her eyes. “That’s the only explanation we have.”
Anya nodded once, a short, sharp motion. She turned and walked back towards the main doors, her heels clicking a slower, more thoughtful rhythm on the linoleum. The elevator doors swallowed her.
As she descended, she leaned against the mirrored wall. Her stern reflection stared back. Then, the corner of her own mouth, entirely without her permission, quirked upwards. A real campfire. Leopard prints. Bell in a loincloth. The sheer, absurd commitment of it all. It was the most unprofessional, ridiculous, and utterly fascinating thing she’d witnessed in her fifteen-year career.
Deep inside, buried under layers of protocol and sharp observation, Anya ‘The Shadow’ Sharma felt a spark of genuine interest. It was fun.