#hayaaaaa

Ant Tenna/Reader

Summary: You’re hired to be Tenna’s emotional liaison—a corporate stress ball for a TV star known for explosive tantrums. Despite his fierce resistance and fear of losing fame, you patiently absorb his outbursts and fears, slowly earning his reluctant trust. Your job isn’t to fix him, but to keep him afloat—and somehow, that makes all the difference.

AO3 link

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“ WHAT!? I DON’T NEED AN EMOTIONAL SUPPORT LIGHTNER! WHAT WOULD THE AUDIENCE THINK?! ”

The figure with the TV-shaped head practically shrieked , his screen flickering wildly between harsh static and a burning red glow. His fists slammed onto the glossy conference room table with enough force to rattle the papers scattered across it. The higher-ups remained unmoved, their faces trained in professional calm — clearly, this wasn’t their first time weathering one of Tenna’s infamous tantrums. One of them even exchanged a knowing glance with another, their patience worn but not broken.

“Mr. Tenna,” a tired voice finally cut through the tension, a middle-aged woman adjusting her glasses with deliberate slowness. On her blouse rested a nametag labeled ‘Kairos.’”Her tone was firm but not unkind, the kind of voice used when dealing with someone prone to theatrics. “You had a breakdown on-air last week because your intro jingle was played in mono. What do you think the audience thinks of that?”

Tenna’s screen dimmed slightly, like a flickering heartbeat. He threw his head back with a dramatic sigh, crossing his arms tightly over his chest, as if protecting himself from the words. “It wasn’t a breakdown! It was a performance piece ! ART, I tell you!” His voice cracked somewhere between indignation and desperation. He pivoted to glance sideways at the conference room windows as if searching for some invisible applause or sympathy from the empty hallway outside.

The woman’s lips twitched into a small, unconvinced smile, but her tone hardened as she pressed on. “You almost stepped on a spectator during one of your... outbursts.” Her voice had an edge now, the kind that cuts through denial like a knife.

“We were lucky that… Mike, was it? … was quick to switch to the standby screen. There are still people who attended the live show and thought the whole thing was part of the act,” she said, her voice lowering. “But it wasn’t. It was chaos, and it could’ve ended badly.”

Tenna’s flickering face shifted into something almost like regret, but it was swallowed quickly by a flare of defensiveness. “They didn’t understand the nuance of the moment,” he said, voice dropping to a low growl, “the audience loved it. Or at least, they should have.”

You sat silently in the corner, clutching your clipboard like a shield against the storm of static and emotion filling the room. You studied him— him , the man called Mr. Tenna—livewire in a cheap suit, a walking television set full of ego, noise, and drama wrapped in flickering static. At least, that was what the audience saw. What they didn’t see were the cracks beneath that flashing exterior, the meltdowns nobody talked about. You wouldn’t be here if he were fine, of course.

Clearing your throat, you stepped forward, voice small but steady. “Hi. I’m—”

Suddenly, he whipped around with a jolt, screen flashing erratically like an angry broadcast signal losing control. “ You’re the therapy human?” His voice dripped with revulsion and disbelief, and for a being without eyes, you could’ve sworn his gaze was burning right through you.

You forced a slight smile, trying your best to seem friendly and approachable despite the electric tension crackling between you. “I prefer emotional liaison, actually,” you said, hoping that a little humor might ease the edge. You had about… one day until you’d be working together, and starting on good terms seemed like the smartest move.

He recoiled as if you’d slapped him, the static on his screen suddenly buzzing louder. “ You prefer being a corporate babysitter ?!” His tone was scandalized, almost theatrical in its outrage. “Do I look like I need coddling?! I am the FACE of this network!” His fists clenched so tightly you thought the cables behind him might snap.

A voice muttered from the back of the room, barely audible over the static crackle but impossible to ignore: “And that face almost squashed a person to death last Thursday.” A dry chuckle rippled through the others, but Tenna’s flickering screen turned cold, as if stung by the reminder.

He growled lowly, almost threateningly, but something in his body language softened — a tiny, imperceptible shift in his posture. Did he shrink a bit or are your eyes playing tricks on your mind? The glare flickered for a split second into something unreadable, before the storm of static roared back louder than ever.

The room fell quiet after the comment, a heavy kind of silence that made your skin feel tight. You gripped your clipboard tighter, your fingers digging into the edges without realizing it.

Tenna’s screen flickered with static, and though he didn’t have eyes, you felt the weight of his glare like heat pressed against your skin. The higher-ups exchanged tired looks but said nothing—this wasn’t the first time they’d had to deal with one of his outbursts, and it probably wouldn’t be the last.

The tension in the room was thick, like everyone was waiting for him to explode again or collapse entirely, but he just sat there, fists clenched on the table, his screen pulsing red with every shallow breath you could almost hear.

Finally, Kairos cleared her throat, her voice low and even as she broke the silence. “Tenna, nobody’s denying you’re the star. The ratings speak for themselves. But the breakdowns, the outbursts—they’re starting to take a toll on the show and on you. You can’t keep going like this and expect everything to hold together.” Her eyes met his flickering screen with a steady calm, like she was trying to get through to him without triggering another meltdown.

Tenna wheezed in response, a short burst of static crackling across the room. “Breakdowns? Those were.. performances . If I toned it down, the audience would lose interest. They’d stop watching. Th - They can’t stop watching…” The faint white glow pulsed beneath his skin, quicker now—like a warning light struggling to stay steady.

Your fingers tightened on the clipboard.

You’d read the reports. Watched the clips. Heard the stories. You knew the warning signs. The shift in his tone, the flickering of his screen, the flickering red bleeding into violent static. The pitch of his voice was climbing now—desperate, not loud.

……

“They’d stop watching…”

That was it. That was the trigger.

You could see it happening like slow-motion—his shoulders rising with tension, screen pulsing erratically, hands twitching like they were trying to grasp onto something real before his mind unraveled. You could practically hear the wires buzzing behind his eyes.

This was it. Your cue.

You stood up slowly.

Tenna didn’t notice you at first. His fingers dug into the table, his voice sputtering out through waves of static like he was buffering his own panic.

“Th-The screen goes black, the audience stops caring, and then what? Will i just be forgotten forever?!”

His screen flashed violently now, looping between half-rendered animations—laugh tracks, applause, then sharp cuts of color bars and a black void with a lonely “NO SIGNAL” bouncing like a screensaver. It wasn’t just theatrics. It was fear.

Real, raw fear.

You set the clipboard down and took a careful step forward. “Hey…”

No response. His hands trembled, static warping the air around him like heat off a broken screen.

Another step.

“ hey ... big guy,” you said again, voice a little louder, but still soft. Not confrontational. Not challenging. “Take a breath.”

His head snapped toward you like a spotlight locking onto a performer mid-show. His screen froze on harsh red again. “What do you know about it? You don’t get it—people used to wait their whole week to see me! Prime time! I was the moment. Now people skip through me. Speed me up. Mute me. Forget me.”

He was spiraling. You could see it in the way his screen blinked so fast it was strobing. Another step. You were close now.

You raised your hands gently—like you were approaching a scared animal. “ Mr Tenna…”

“Don’t,” he snapped, but there was no fire in it. Only static. “Don’t say it’s okay. Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not.”

You were right in front of him now. Up close, he was still a tad taller than you, and when he wasn’t yelling, he looked… small. Like something burnt out behind the glass.

“Listen,” you said, “TV isn’t dead.”

His screen flickered into confusion.

You kept going. “Yeah, it’s changed. Sure, people scroll and tap and speed things up. But there’s always going to be people that love the screen. Who wait for a broadcast. Who feel something when a jingle plays just right. Hell…”

You gave a small, sheepish shrug, voice quieter now. “Even I still watch TV.”

His screen glitched.

“…You do?”

“Yeah,” you said. “Call me old-fashioned. But sometimes I just want to sit down and get lost in something. No skipping. No rewinding. Just letting a story carry me.”

His shoulders loosened, just slightly. The screen faded from red to a low, pulsing blue.

“I don’t want to replace you,” you added. “I just want to help you stay on the air.”

For a moment, there was silence.

Then he let out a sound—not quite a laugh, but something close. A wheezy, half-scrambled chuckle, like an old VCR trying to play a warped tape.

His head tilted to the side, and his screen flickered again. A soft glow. A little animation—a TV with legs sitting on a couch, popcorn in hand.

“…You’re weird.”

You smiled. “Maybe a little.”

He slumped back into his chair with a mechanical sigh, one hand running down the side of his screen like he was physically powering himself down. The static fizzled out, leaving only a dim, flickering white glow.

“Fine,” he muttered. "This didn’t happen. I wasn’t about to short-circuit or whatever you think you saw. If anyone asks, I was just... adjusting my contrast settings.”

“No promises,” you teased, tapping your clipboard gently. “But hey… thanks for not melting down.” Looks like your first paycheck will be an earned one.

He gave a soft static hum in response, barely audible.

Then, just before the silence could stretch too long, his screen lit up with one final message, typed in clunky, retro font:

THANKS FOR WATCHING.

And this time, it wasn’t sad.

…

The static fizzled out.

Silence hung in the air, but this time, it didn’t crackle with tension. It was something softer. Tentative. Like the room was afraid to break whatever fragile truce had just been formed between chaos and calm.

Then a chair scraped quietly. Papers rustled. The higher-ups began shifting in their seats, murmuring among themselves in low voices, their once-stern faces now marked with something that might have been relief.

Kairos tapped the end of her pen against her clipboard, eyebrows raised in something close to approval. “Well,” she said, standing slowly. “That went… better than expected.”

“I thought he was going to overload again,” someone muttered.

“Or throw the table through the glass,” another added, half-joking, half-serious.

Kairos didn’t smile, but her expression softened as she looked at you. “Not bad, liaison. You might actually survive this gig.”

Another higher-up leaned toward her, murmuring just loud enough for you to hear: “Good call on this one. We might’ve found the right match for him.”

You didn’t say anything. You just nodded, still standing beside Tenna, whose glow had dimmed to a low white hum like a set left on in a dark room. He didn’t speak again—not really. But his screen flickered faintly. And that was enough.

The suits filed out slowly, muttering updates and schedules to one another, the crisis seemingly defused for now. You picked up your clipboard, still warm where your hands had gripped it earlier, and cast one last glance at Tenna before turning to follow them out.

As you reached the door, you heard the softest burst of static behind you—almost like a whisper.

“...Don’t be late tomorrow.”

You smiled without turning around.

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

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