Rhinoceros Inc.
Have you ever wanted to get out of a work or school obligation, but didn’t have a genuine excuse? Have you ever wanted to get revenge on someone who did you wrong - but not too much revenge? We here at Rhinoceros Inc. have the perfect solution: a cold.
Yes, that’s right - with just a few clicks of the mouse, you can purchase your very own cold, to infect yourself, or another person of your choosing.
We offer mild, medium, and severe packages, with customizable symptoms and duration. Click here to place your order!
Chrysanthemum Wu, Cold Psychic, has a really annoying roommate named Giselle who won’t stop throwing herself elaborate birthday parties in their tiny apartment. In a fit of annoyance, she orders up some revenge from Rhinoceros Inc., a mysterious online retailer that promises to give a cold to a chosen target. To her surprise, it actually works - but who or what is Rhinoceros Inc.? Could Chrysanthemum have finally found other people with cold-based powers?
Author’s Note: A long time ago, I saw a post that mentioned the possibility of buying colds on the Internet. I thought that idea was amazing and decided to run with it…and apply it to my OCs. There’s definitely a lot of snz here, but it’s also fairly plot heavy.
This is part one - part two will come if and when I feel like it, which depends both on my schedule and how interested people are in part one. It’s about 5k.
ko-fi | commissions
~`~`~.
For the past week, Chrysanthemum’s apartment has been exploding with people.
Her roommate Giselle had a birthday this week, and according to Giselle, birthdays are to be celebrated for at least a solid week. One day, she had her six siblings and thirteen cousins over to drink Midori sours and watch Project Runway, the next she had twenty high school friends over for a dance party, and the day after that it was her college buddies watching American Horror Story and smoking weed.
When Chrysanthemum decides she’s had enough of this shit, Giselle’s adult kickball league is watching videos of their previous games and screaming at them. They are planning on having a pillow fight soon. Chrysanthemum has been invited to participate, but given that it’s 2 AM and she has an opening shift at the tutoring center tomorrow, she isn’t into it. What she wants is for Giselle and her friends to shut up and go home.
There’s another party scheduled for tomorrow - this one involving a croquet course that Giselle is planning to set up in the living room. Likely, the parties won’t end until two or three days from now. Giselle never once asked if Chrysanthemum was cool with this, and she’d completely ignored her suggestions that perhaps some of these parties take place outside of their tiny apartment.
“It’s cold out!” she’d complained, crossing her arms and pouting. “I don’t want to be dragging a bunch of people around in the middle of the night when it’s less than ten degrees outside - we’ll get sick!”
Chrysanthemum had wished that they would - or at least, that Giselle would. That would put a halt to the never-ending parties pretty quick, and even if it didn’t, it would at least feel good to see her be inconvenienced in some way after all the noise and distraction she’d forced Chrysanthemum to endure.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t happening any time soon. In fact, Giselle would not be getting any illness until late September, a full five months from now. Chrysanthemum herself was going to be catching two colds between now and then, and a third one when she’ll Giselle’s cold thanks entirely to the latter’s failure to clean up her dirty tissues, so that pisses her off too.
She can’t sleep while listening to the thwacks of pillows and the shrieks of Giselle’s friends, so she ends up laying in bed scrolling aimlessly on her phone. A strange link catches her eye, and she clicks on it - Colds For Sale. It’s probably something about winter clothing, but the word ‘cold’ gets her attention. When you're a psychic who predicts when other people are going to get sick, you can’t help having that word on your radar.
Have you ever wanted to get out of a work or school obligation, but didn’t have a genuine excuse? Have you ever wanted to get revenge on someone who did you wrong - but not too much revenge? We here at Rhinoceros Inc. have the perfect solution: a cold.
Yes, that’s right - with just a few clicks of the mouse, you can purchase your very own cold, to infect yourself, or another person of your choosing.
We offer mild, medium, and severe packages, with customizable symptoms and duration. Click here to place your order!
Chrysanthemum blinks. She had to have misread that. You can’t buy colds online…can you? She clicks the link.
There’s a list of cold symptoms with boxes that you can tick off next to each one, a box that asks for how long you want the cold to last, a box for the intended victim’s name, a box for the date the cold should start, an option for an immediate or gradual start, and a box asking for any extra information.
Hovering over the mild, medium, and severe options reveals that the mild package creates superficial symptoms that don’t leave you feeling too bad - perfect, it claims, for getting out of obligations. The medium package creates a genuine feeling of unwellness and requires rest to get over, while the severe package will knock you out completely, and should only be used with the utmost caution.
Beneath all that is a disclaimer stating that the colds are not contagious, and that the company cannot be held responsible for the stunning range of consequences and complications that could arise. It also includes an advisory not to use this on children, the elderly, or those with health issues. Beneath that are payment options.
This seems like…a real thing. What the actual fuck.
Against her better judgement, she finds herself checking off the boxes next to sneezing, congestion, runny nose, blocked ears, sore throat, coughing, and fever. She considers choosing the severe package, but opts against it - she doesn’t hate Giselle that much, and she doesn’t want to end up killing her by mistake. Medium it is, with eight days worth of symptoms, for Giselle Leblanc, starting tomorrow morning with all symptoms beginning as soon as possible. In the “additional information” box she writes: make it the worst kind of medium possible. This is harsh, but if there's any chance of any of the upcoming parties not happening, she’s taking it.
She takes her credit card out of her phone wallet, pays, and gets a cheerful confirmation that her order has been processed, and her product will be activated this morning at 6 AM. There is a high possibility that she’s just been scammed out of $29.99 - after all, if it was going to work she’d be able to predict it, right? If nothing else, the spite she felt while making the order makes her feel better about the shouting coming from the living room.
~`~`~
The next morning around 7:30 AM, Chrysanthemum wanders into the kitchen, and sees Giselle sitting at the kitchen table by herself. The friends who didn’t bail last night are still asleep on the couch or on the living room floor, but Giselle is wide awake, clutching a tissue and sniffling.
Her late-night purchase couldn’t have possibly worked, could it?
Giselle’s breath hitches for nearly five full seconds before she sneezes - “hhph-phchuu!” into the waiting tissue.
“Bless you,” says Chrysanthemum, too embarrassed to look Giselle in the eye. She starts brewing coffee and pops a slice of bread into the toaster.
Giselle mumbles a congested thank you, then blows her nose so hard it squeaks.
“You sound…not great.” Chrysanthemum tries her best to look deeply absorbed in the process of spreading nutella onto on her toast and slicing up strawberries to go on top.
“I thidk I have a cold. Snff. I was fide yesterday, but I woke up around 6 super stuffy. Snff. This is such bad timing too - I’b having my coworkers over for croquet add finger sandwiches today, but I’m so not up for doing the prep work—hhnngh-shiew!” She pulls another tissue from the box beside her and blows. “Do you thidk you’d be able to help mbe out?”
“Don’t think so, no - I have work in the morning and I’m meeting up with Marti afterward.”
“Oh, come on Chrys, it’s for a party! Snff. Cad’t you take the day off and help me?” Giselle bats her eyelashes, then dissolves into a coughing fit that leaves her rubbing her throat and grimacing. It’s likely exaggerated for sympathy points, but she does genuinely look pitiful.
Chrysanthemum almost gives in - after all, it’s entirely her fault that Giselle is sick - but then shakes the notion from her head when she realizes how genuinely absurd the request is. Take an entire day off of work to set up a croquet set for a party that she doesn’t even want Giselle to throw? Hell no!
She refuses again, earning herself a protruding lower lip and crossed arms. “Well, if you cad’t call off of work, cad’t you at least skip meeting Marti and come help mbe afterward? Everyone’s coming at around four, so we’ll still have a good four hours — hyahhhSHIHH! Eckh’sh!” She snuffles into another issue and massages the bridge of her increasingly pink nose. “I feel awful - don’t you care about helping me?”
“If you’re that sick, shouldn’t you do a raincheck on the party anyway? You won’t have much fun, and you’ll get all your coworkers sick.”
This is technically not true, but like hell is Chrysanthemum going to tell Giselle that she bought her cold from Rhinoceros Inc.
“You dod’t understand, I’ve beed hyping up the party at work for the past month! I’b dressing up like Alice from Alice In Wonderland! My boss is supposed to be the red queen. Snff. Also, Cody’s going to be there! I can’t…pass up…snff…chadce to…spend time with…HGHHSHIEW!”
Giselle flops face first onto the table and groans, while Chrysanthemum takes a bite of her toast and pats her on the head. “I don’t think that Cody is going to like you more if you sneeze all over the place and give him your cold,” she says.
“I guess you’re right. Snff. I’b just so disappointed. I put so mbuch effort into making sure that everything would be perfect for my birthday and ndow it’s ruined.” Tears well up in her eyes.
Chrysanthemum doesn’t feel sorry for her, but for a brief moment she feels like she probably should. That feeling completely disappears when Giselle leans over and sneezes all over Chrysanthemum, spraying her with mucus and spit.
Giselle apologizes, but chases it with these words as she’s dabbing her nose: “I guess if you end up catching mby cold you kind of deserve it, since you refused to help mbe.”
“Um, okay, I guess I should start looking for a new roommate if that’s how you’re gonna be…” This is said more out of obligation than genuine feeling - while she’s irritated with Giselle for doing something so gross, she hardly has the right to complain when she engineered the whole situation.
“I’m going to change into something not covered in snot, then finish getting ready for work,” Chrysanthemum says. Which I have to go to so I can pay my half of the rent on our apartment. You just sit here and blow your nose or whatever.”
~`~`~
Work is a mixed blessing. Chrysanthemum knew she would be able to leave early because she’d predicted that her last student of the day, a college junior who had been pulling all-nighters to finish a 20-page research paper, would be out with a cold.
She had not predicted that one of her other students, a sophomore who had been trying to get her number for the past six weeks, would have no idea how to put together a basic five-paragraph essay, and would end up crying in her arms about how stupid he was…and then asking for her number again when she pat him on the shoulder and said something vaguely reassuring.
Dealing with other humans has completely drained her, but hanging out with Marti doesn't count as dealing with other humans. She has to tell somebody about Rhinoceros Inc. - Marti is the only person she knows who won’t judge her. She probably won't believe her - she used to be skeptical as fuck about Chrysanthemum’s powers until she proved them - but she’ll at least listen and try to offer something resembling a solution.
They meet up at Argo Tea and get lattes and cookies, then scout out a seat with outlets so that they’’ll be able to charge their phones. Marti is wearing a lime green bomber jacket covered in black lightning bolts, motorcycle boots, and a mini skirt. Her green lipstick smears off onto the chocolate when she takes her first bite of cookie.
“You look cute,” says Chrysanthemum. “Coming from someplace important?”
“Tazhane,” sighs Marti, as if that’s a place, not a person. “We had a date. I wanted to make sure I looked good.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt your date.”
“She had class, so it’s no interruption - and anyway you know I can always make time for my girl.” She flashes a smiles, then wipes the crumbs from her mouth. “So what’s up? You just need to vent about the never-ending birthday or is there something else going on? Did you manage to talk to Stella?”
“I did not manage to talk to Stella.” Great, that’s another thing she has to be upset about. Why, exactly, would that sweetheart want to spend time with some asshole who spends $29.99 to make her roommate miserable? “It’s about the never-ending birthday. I think I might have put a stop to it, but it’s kind of…insane. And magical. You probably aren’t going to believe me, but just hear me out, okay? I’ll buy your next latte.”
“You don’t have to bribe me to listen to your weirdo shit, but if you want to buy me a latte out of friendship, I’ll take it.” Marti leans over, hands curled under her chin. “Is it the psychic thing? Did you predict I’m gonna catch another cold?”
“It’s…cold-related, but it’s not a prediction. Not a new one anyhow - I already told you you’re going to get one around mid-June.”
“Right, right, that’s why I decided not to go to that Cake concert. See, I’m actually taking you seriously now - see what a good friend I am? You should buy me two lattes.”
Chrysanthemum pushes Marti on the shoulder, then says, “I’m being serious, Mar. Have you ever heard of Rhinoceros Inc.?”
"I have not. I guess since you said this has something to do with colds it’s rhino as in nose, not rhino as in a friendly horned jungle buddy?”
“I’m pretty sure rhinos don’t live in the jungle. Anyway it’s a website where you can buy colds and give them to people. I bought one for Giselle because her birthday extravaganza was driving me up the wall, and it actually worked. Like she woke up this morning sneezing all over the place.”
Marti nearly spits out her drink, then starts coughing lightly. “Um…nani the fuck, Chrys? You purchased a cold? Do you mean you like…bought viruses off the Internet? Because I’m pretty sure that’s extremely illegal and you could go to jail if someone found out.”
“No, they didn’t send me anything - the site doesn’t explain how it happens. I just paid $29.99 and it happened magically. I was pretty sure it was a scam, but it was super late and I was tired and pissed off so I decided to do it anyway. Here, look at the site.”
She pulls it up on her phone, which she hands over to Marti. Marti scrolls through the site, brows furrowed. “This sounds like some really detailed bullshit,” she says, biting her bottom lip. “But you believe it?”
“It’s not any weirder than me being able to predict people catching colds. If I exist, why couldn’t this? Maybe there's someone out there who can psychically give people colds.”
“If there is, you want to meet them, right?”
“Of course I do! I’ve always wanted to meet somebody else like me. Having powers nobody else believes or understands is one of the most isolating things in the world.” Chrysanthemum tries to keep the hurt out of her voice, but it doesn’t work.
Marti sighs. “Okay fine. Look, I’ve felt bad about not believing you in the past, so I’ll help you out - but you’re buying my next five lattes. The first thing we have to do is prove it. Giselle could have easily gone on your laptop while you were sleeping and saw what you tried to do, then faked a cold to try and mess with you. I think we should order colds for ourselves. That’s the only way to know for certain if this is real or if it’s a hoax.”
“I don’t exactly have another $29.99 to spare, let alone twice that…”
“Whatever, we’ll just put it on my credit card and you’ll pay me back later. We have to get to the bottom of this, don’t we? Anyway I’d say we should each pick different symptoms, that way we can see whether we both get the symptoms we choose. I’m going to have to pick medium because it’s not going to be distinguishable from my allergies otherwise - you can pick mild if you want, though.”
“No, it’s only fair that I suffer with you.”
“That’s my girl!” Marti leans over and rubs Chrysanthemum’s shoulder, wrinkling her pale pink sweatshirt. “Alright, I’ll take sore throat and cough - I’m already kind of sniffly from the pollen count, so I don’t want to mix up the results. You can take all the nasal stuff. Let’s choose delivery within one hour with one day of symptoms, sound good? That way we can get back to my place and be sick in peace.”
The two of them place their orders, then start packing up their things and heading to Marti's apartment.
~`~`~
The two of them lay in Marti’s loft bed, Marti wearing her Sword Art Online t-shirt and her black pajama pants, Chrysanthemum wearing Marti’s Sailor Moon t-shirt and Marti’s pink pajama pants, her hair in Sailor Moon buns because if she’s going to be sick she may as well be cute. On the bed beside them is a fresh box of tissues and a bag of cough drops, just in case.
It is deeply bizarre not to know whether or not a cold is coming. Chrysanthemum has been able to predict every illness she’s experienced since childhood, and every illness Marti has had since they first met in high school. Whatever these people are doing defies her ability to predict it.
They stare at the timer on Marti’s phone, which is counting down from the moment they placed their orders.
Ten seconds left. They count down each of them, hearts pounding in their chests. When they reach zero, it seems at first like nothing will happen. Chrysanthemum feels fine, and Marti says that she feels fine too. Maybe the whole thing was a coincidence - Giselle just happened to come down with a cold. Or maybe Giselle had seen the order and was putting on a show, and Chrysanthemum was going to catch hell for it later.
Just as she’s about to write it off completely, a wild itch zigzags through her sinuses. Her breath hitches, her eyes slam shut and then she bolts upright in an explosive “heshhooo!”
She plucks a tissue from the box and blows her nose. After taking a few experimental sniffs, she realizes that her nose is now quite congested. One nostril is completely blocked, and the other is flooded with mucus. She blows her nose again, dislodging some of the snot. After a few moments of snuffling and sniffling, her nose starts itching again, and she lets out an itchy quartet of sneezes.
Once her own explosions have stopped thundering in her ears, she notices that Marti is coughing into the crook of her elbow. It sounds phlegmy, crackly, and painful.
“I thidk it worked,” says Chrysanthemum, sniffing into a fresh tissue.
Still coughing, Marti offers a thumbs up.
“So…what ndow? HyeshhhIEW!!” That sneeze gets muffled by the crook of her elbow. “Should we try add get id contact with the company? I’b sure they won't be willidg to explain how they do it, but maybe they’ll be a little mbore willdg to answer questions if they know I’m a cold psychic.”
“Are you sure you want to just put that out there?” rasps Marti, unwrapping a cough drop and popping it into her mouth. “What if they’re some kind of shady government organization who will kidnap you as soon as they find out? Actually, what if it’s some kind of sting to capture people engaging in bio-terrorism and we’re going to jail because we bought the product? Shit, I really should have thought this through.”
“Come on, this isn’t ad anime. Snff. It’ll be fide. Snff. Oh my god I’b so stuffy.”
Though she says this, Chrysanthemum’s heart still pounds as she pulls up the Contact Us link on her phone. She grabs Marti’s and and presses her cheek against her shoulder. “There’s a chat option. Snff. That’s probably a good idea. Snff.”
They’re informed that a Rhinoceros Inc. representative will be with them shortly. After a few minutes - most of which Chrysanthemum spends blowing increasingly thick gunk out of her nose - someone named Hannah connects.
Kingston: Hi, this is Kingston. :) How can I help you today?
“Pick a fake name!” hisses Marti. “Kingston’s probably a fake name too.”
“They already have my name and yours because we’ve placed orders with the…ehhh….ehht-CHIEW! Ugh. Snff. If we were going to be anonymous we should have tried to do it sooner. Snff.”
Chrysanthemum: Hi! I’m a recent customer and I’m blown away by your product. It’s truly incredible. I was wondering if you could answer some questions about how it works?
Kingston: I’m not authorized to answer questions about our process, but I can refer you to someone who is. May I ask what your question is so that I can get you to the right person?
Chrysanthemum: I just want to know how it works. I can predict when people are going to catch colds, so if there’s anyone out there who can do something in the same ballpark, I want to know about it.
Kingston: Just one moment please.
Kingston has disconnected from the chat. Hannah has connected to the chat.
Hannah: Hi, this is Hannah. I’m authorized to answer questions about our process. Before we proceed any further, I’d like to inform you that our conversation encrypted, and that you will not be able to save the information shared here.
Chrysanthemum is pretty sure that she can bypass any encryption by taking a screenshot, but she isn’t going to say anything. Actually, for all she knows about technology an attempt would just set her phone on fire. She keeps reading after scratching her tingling, itching nose.
Kingston informed me that you can predict when other people are going to catch colds - were you able to determine whether or not our product would work before using it?
Chrysanthemum: No, I couldn’t. This is the first time I’ve ever been unsure about anything cold related, so it was a strange experience.
Hannah: I see. What would you like to know?
“Shit, what should I ask? Snff. Cad I just come out add ask how they do it?” She grabs a fresh tissue and dabs at her nose. After Marti finishes dealing with a coughing fit that sounds harsh enough to blast a hole through her ribcage, she tells Chrysanthemum to get on with it already.
Chrysanthemum: I want to know how you’re able to give people colds. I’ve waited my whole life to meet other people who were anything like me, so if there’s anything that you can tell me, please do.
Hannah: We will tell you - if you sign a nondisclosure agreement. I’ll forward it to you momentarily. Please initial in the marked boxes and send it back to me.
It takes Chrysanthemum longer than it should to handle the signing, because her nose is so itchy and drippy and swollen that it’s difficult to focus on anything else. She snuffles into a handful of wet tissues, then unleashes a volley of sneezes into a fresh one. “Goddabbit,” she mumbles through her unshakable congestion. “We shouldn’t have bought bediums. Snff. I’b afraid of what the severe versiod is like—hyekkCHIEW! ASHIHH! EH’SHuHH! Ugh!! Okay, I have it signed. Snff.”
Hannah: Alright. Here’s the information you requested. We have a small staff of employees who are able to remotely generate cold symptoms in a person, as long as they have their name. The exact mechanism of this ability is unknown - only that it appears to be an inborn psychic ability. Our founder provides rigorous training for employees to ensure consistency and quality of service.
Chrysanthemum: Are you able to do this?
Hannah: Yes - most of our employees can.
Chrysanthemum: How did you find out that you had this power?
Hannah: As a little girl, I got angry with my younger brother for pulling my hair, and I wished for him to catch a terrible cold, and he did. I assumed it was a coincidence, but I kept wishing colds on people who annoyed me and getting the same result.
Hannah: You said that you have cold prediction abilities - how did you discover this ability?
“Damn, this bitch is petty,” rasps Marti. “Then again she’s not the one spending $29.99 for the same effect, so.”
“I’b the queen of pettiness. Snff.”
Chrysanthemum: I’ve always known. It took a long time to realize that other people couldn’t predict when they were going to catch a cold, and even more time to get anyone to believe me - but I've always known. It’s useful to an extent, but it’s also really hard. I don’t just learn about people’s colds, I learn about all the circumstances surrounding them. So I have all these little windows into the lives of people I barely know. Sometimes I learn some really sad things and I want to help but I can’t.
Also, sometimes I find out that someone is going to get really messed up because of the cold they’re going to catch, and I know exactly to help them avoid it….but I can’t, because they’re not going to believe me.
“Awww…” Marti reaches over and squeezes Chrysanthemum’s shoulder. “You need to tell me stuff like this, okay? I’m your best friend. I know I’m not always cool about it but all you gotta do is yell at me and I’ll get it right eventually.”
Chrysanthemum nods, and returns Marti’s shoulder squeeze.
Hannah: I sympathize. I don’t have your predictive abilities, but being able to make people sick on command is hard. You feel guilty, especially when there are consequences that you can’t predict. I’ve landed people in the hospital before without meaning to. Working Rhinoceros Inc. has been a great way to get my powers under control and use them constructively.
Chrysanthemum: Is this business really constructive? Don’t most people use it for revenge or getting out of things?
Hannah: Yes - but that’s not the only reason. People have used it to stop others from making terrible life choices, for enhancing their sex life…all kinds of reasons, really.”
“HEHKCHH! Snff.” Chrysanthemum nearly drops the tablet with the force of her sneeze. Hard to ibagide this kind of thidg enhancing anyone’s sex life. Snff.”
“You’d be surprised Chrys, people like all kinds of wack shit.” Marti grimaces, rubs a throat that’s probably painfully raw inside.
Chrysanthemum: Yeah….sorry, I didn’t mean to insult your business - I just spent like $90 on it so I have no right to talk. Look, would it be possible for me to come by sometime? I don’t know where you guys are located but I’m fascinated by this. I want to meet you all in person. Maybe there’s even something I could do to help out.
Hannah: Yes - but you’ll have to pay for travel expenses yourself. We’re located in Brooklyn, NY, would you be able to travel there?
Chrysanthemum: Yeah, I live in Bensonhurst. Just give me an address and I’ll be there.
“Oh mby god Marti - I’m actually going to meet these people! Snff. You have to come with me. I’m too scared to do this myself.” Chrysanthemum clings to her friends’ arm. “Please please please you’re my best friend you have to help me.”
“Mmm…okay. But maybe we should get Giovanni and Augustin to come with us?” Her voice peters out, and she gulps down half a bottle of water to get it back. “We should probably take some intimidating white dudes with us in case things get hairy.”
“Augustin is the least intimidating white dude I’ve ever met —wait hang on…” Her sinuses spark with itchiness, and she sneezes into her Sailor Moon t-shirt — “HiiehCHIEH! Ugh, I’b glad we only have these symptoms for adother day, this sucks. Snff.”
“Chrys, focus up - we need Augustin. He might look like a flimsy little homo but when he pulls out his professor act he’s terrifying! Who do you think is going to talk to the cops and get us out of trouble if it comes to that? Not my Mexican ass and not your Chinese ass that’s for damn sure.”
“There aren't going to be cops, Marti. Snff.”
“You do not know that. I’m not taking any chances. We’re inviting them.” Marti trails off into a fit of hacking coughs, then reaches for another cough drop.
“Okay, fide. I'll text them once we hash out the details.” She sighs, pressing her face into Marti’s shoulder. “I’b just so happy to have finally found other people who are like me.”
“Yeah yeah you big sap, I know. Let’s get this all worked out, okay? And then lets order in some ramen or something - I need soup or my throat is going on strike. You’re staying here tonight, right?”
After heaving another sneeze into a rapidly grabbed handful of tissues, Chrysanthemum says that she is.
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