Chapter Text
Vinegar Doppio loved his job. He would wake up every day and made his way to work without a complaint - although sometimes late because Doppio would somehow always get into accidents - and work the long hours of the call center until it was time to go home, where he would rest up for the next day. His life was the same routine, which anyone else would call boring, but not Doppio. In his boring life he found solace, peace, and safety, which was particularly important to him given how unlucky he had always been.
It was needless to say that Vinegar Doppio was incredibly good at his job. He had a kind, young voice (although he had recently turned thirty) and he seemed to soothe even the most anxious and angry customers. Therefore, it became custom of the call center to always forward the most troublesome customers to Doppio. He didn’t mind; he always enjoyed a challenge, and to him, it was was like a little excitement he could experience within the safety of the call center where nothing, ever seemed to go wrong.
It became such a staple of the company that, although he was incredibly skilled, he was never promoted and always kept as the man who dealt with the difficult clients, and he eventually stopped using the standard introductory phrase used by his co-workers: “Hello, my name is Vinegar, how can I assist you this afternoon?” His co-workers would introduce him to the customer, and soon his phrase became:
“Yes, this is Doppio. How can I help?”
Today the customer seemed to growl through the speaker in a rough, masculine baritone. “My internet doesn’t work, and you idiots cannot seem to tell me how to fix it.”
“I see,” Doppio replied, calmly, “would you please repeat to me exactly what the issue is so that I can be of assistance?”
“I set up the apparatus that was sent in the mail, and at my computer it says there are No Networks Available,” he said angrily, “and the moron on the other line kept telling me to go to my browser to troubleshoot, after I have said multiple times that there is no internet.”
“Of course,” Doppio replied, “so let’s take this step by step. First, can you explain to me how you setup your router - that is the name of the apparatus you were sent in the mail - I am saying this so that we are both on the same page, sir.”
“I plugged it into the wall,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“I see,” he said. “Is there a green light on your router, sir?”
“Is there supposed to be a light?” He asked, the anger in his voice dissipating as he recognized his own confusion.
“Have you plugged it into the modem? It is the box that should be plugged into the wall. You should have two apparatuses. One is a box plugged into the wall, the other is a box with an antenna. Can you see these two apparatuses, sir?”
“Yes, I can see them clearly ,” he said, his voice roughening. He clearly did not want to be treated like an idiot. Doppio sighed in his head. He would have to use one of his many “the-customer-is-always-right” tactics if he didn’t want this to blow over. The man on the other end of the line sounded incredibly on edge.
“Alright,” Doppio said, “I apologize for the questions, I just wanted to make sure that you had in fact been given all of the adequate equipment to set up your internet without any trouble.”
“Thank you,” the man on the other end of the line said. His voice had surprisingly gone from incredibly intimidating to warm in the matter of seconds. In fact, when this man wasn’t angry or frustrated, his voice was quite a beautiful sound.
“So what I need you to do now, if you already haven’t done so, to connect your modem and your router,” Doppio said. “To do that, first, turn off your modem - there should be a button for that - and then plug one side of your network cable - that’s the one that is a bit square-ish - to the modem and the other one to the router. When you plug that into the router make sure you plug it into the port that says WLAN or Internet.”
He heard some shuffling on the other side of the phone. It wasn’t long before the man was back on the phone.
“I see the green light now,” he said. “Thank you for the help, good-”
“Sir, you do not have internet connection just yet,” Doppio said.
“What?” The roughness in his voice returned.
“There’s more,” he said. “You now need to plug your router into your laptop.”
“What do you mean plug it in?” He said angrily. “Does wireless not mean with no wires? You’re all garbage! How dare you cheat me like this! Filthy worms!”
“Sir, if you would allow me to explain…” Doppio said.
“Do you really want to make me angry?” The man on the other end said.
Doppio felt the air grow cold. He’d been called worse things before. He had been yelled at by louder voices and been sworn at by multiple people per day and he could take it, but never had he been so terrified of a voice at the other end of a receiver. He swallowed. It was the first time he had ever been so nervous at his job in such a long time, and somehow, for some reason, today, Vinegar Doppio snapped.
“Damn you’re annoying,” he said, the sweetness in his voice gone completely sour. “Didn’t I tell you to plug in your router to your computer? What use is complaining if you’re not going to listen? Plug in the router to the laptop. Get the disk from inside the box where all of the equipment came and put it into your laptop and follow the steps. For a more secure connection select WPA. Thank you for your call. Goodbye.”
He hung up the call with a loud crack. He felt the eyes of his co-workers burn in his direction. He felt as though wasps buzzed around his ears and worms writhed in his stomach. He needed to leave. He needed to get away from prying eyes that watched and gossiped behind his back. All he wanted was to lay low, to be unseen, to live his life without being bothered, and one snotty customer had taken that away from him in the only place he felt safe, the only place he had any power.
“My head hurts… my head hurts…” he rambled, clutching his head. A couple coworkers tried to approach him, but he continued rambling. “My head hurts… don’t touch me… please don’t touch me… my head hurts.”
Eventually, he was left alone to sit in his small cubicle of an office. He took in a deep breath. He may have been agitated, he may have been stressed and he may have been incredibly unlucky, but Vinegar Doppio never cries. It took him ten solid minutes to get himself back together again, and in no time he was back at it, the one job he was good at. His one sole purpose in life.
Ring, ring. Ring, ring.
“Hello? Yes, this is Doppio.”