Krist doesn't know what to do. He really doesn't want to follow Tay's orders but he wasn't given a choice. According to the campaign, Singto agreed to ten candidates and Tay will not let Singto off the hook. Anna was number six so there's still four more to go.

This would be a lot easier if Krist hadn't caught feelings for Singto. He would even go as far as admitting to being an asshole that enjoyed hearing about Singto's miserable dates. Seeing the calm and perfect Charming Singto all ruffled up and irritated was the best. But damn it. This has got to be some crazy karma.

Krist opens his emails to 173 unread messages from only one day, over eighty percent of these emails are candidates for Singto's Soul Search. Where do people get all this confidence, Krist asks himself. But truth be told, most of the applying candidates are quite attractive. That's probably why they're confident enough to apply.

Not that Singto is the shallow type that chooses someone just for their looks of course. Krist looks across the hall to where Singto is sitting in front of his own monitor with a serious and sexy look on his face. At this moment Krist doesn't even mind the lack of privacy that their glass partitioned offices offered.

Then all of a sudden, Singto looks up from his monitor to reach for a file. Krist immediately looks away with his heart pounding. He almost got caught staring.

Krist quickly went back to his emails. He seriously doesn't want to go through with this campaign. The way Krist sees it, it's a lose-lose situation. No matter what he does it's going to suck for him. If he intentionally picks bad candidates, Singto will hate him. If he picks good candidates, then Singto might fall in love with one of them. And either way, Singto will never even remotely notice Krist's feelings if he continues to pick candidates for him. Ugh.

He can't confess to Singto either. It's too risky. As confident as Krist appears, it's mostly a front. Being young, alone, and independent in the city can be scary and brutal. So you have to be smart and confident, or at least make others believe you are. Otherwise, you could be eaten alive. Like people say, "fake it till you make it." Krist applies this to love too. He doesn't like being vulnerable and sappy. And right now, even though he's positive that he has fallen for Singto, he's not confident enough to say that Singto feels the same.

So what should he do? He clicked open email after email of potential candidates. After going through a third of them, he decides that he simply can't allow the possibility of Singto falling in love with anyone he chose. It would be like shooting himself in the foot and he also didn't want to be responsible for actually choosing any weirdos. He really doesn't want Singto to hate him. So he passed the ball to Fiat and let fate take over. After all, the show must go on.

~~~~~~

Candidate #7
Name: Victoria
Age: 25
Occupation: Antique Seller/Appraiser

Singto takes in the appearance of the quaint little antique shop in front of him. Fiat told him that he had personally picked this candidate for him, and he promised this person is very cultured. At this point, Singto really has no expectations. All he wants to do is get it over with. Four dates can't be that difficult, Singto told himself. Tay wasn't taking no for an answer anyway. But what surprised Singto was that Krist had actually let Fiat do the picking on his own.

See, this proves that his cousin Kat's theory is wrong after all. Kat said Krist picked those horrible dates for him to ensure that he wouldn't fall in love with anyone else but now he doesn't even bother to pick them. So, Kat must be wrong. Singto sighs.

Shaking his pointless thoughts away, Singto proceeds to enter the antique shop. Upon opening the door, a bell chime above to let the people inside know there's a visitor. The shop is filled to the brim with all sorts of things. There's a beautiful giant crystal chandelier hanging whether low for the ceiling of the shop with a price tag of ฿90,000. Sitting right beneath that crystal chandelier is a big empty stone fountain with a carved face in the center.

Along the walls, there are paintings, portraits, candle holders, oil lamps, and other odd decors. Old antique furniture pieces are placed all over the shop. Singto finds the place interesting to look around but there's this strange stale musty smell in the air. But everything looks clean to the naked eyes with no dust at all.

"Hello?" Singto calls out. There's no sign of anyone around.

"I'll be right with you." A voice coming from the other side of a wooden door at the back of the shop.

Singto can't help but find it very odd for someone to leave their business unattended with their expensive merchandise sitting out in the open like this. The owner is apparently very trusting.

"Hi! Singto, right? I'm Victoria." A woman dressed in a blue vintage floral dress comes through the door. It's probably her work uniform to go along with the antique theme.

"Yes, I'm Singto. Nice to meet you, Victoria." Singto extends his hand for a handshake.

"Oh, just a second." Victoria takes off her pair of white gloves before shaking Singto's hand.

"I'm sorry. I know I'm a bit early but the traffic was unusually light this evening. I can wait for you outside if you want."

"Well, my grandma stepped out so I can't leave yet. You can wait inside and enjoy some tea. It won't be too long since we close in thirty minutes. She will definitely return before then." Victoria smiles brightly and gestures her hand inviting Singto to the other side of the door where she just came out of.

"Sure, as long as it's not a bother." Singto feels like he's imposing.

"It's no bother at all. They'll be so excited to have a guest." Victoria mumbles softly and follows behind Singto.

Singto has a strange feeling as he steps through the door and passes a short hallway. He can feel the hair on the back of his neck stand and goosebumps form as he enters a room filled with porcelain dolls along the walls and even on the floor. There has got to be more than a hundred of them with their shiny eyeballs staring at him.

"You can sit here and join Daisy and Pearl for tea. You're welcome to have some cookies too. They're Daisy's favorite. I baked them for her this morning. Pearl is a little sad but I promised to make her lemon bars tomorrow." Victoria says in a strange voice and strokes the doll's hair with the utmost adoration.

Singto looks at the woman and realizes that she's dressed exactly the same as the doll she's holding. Every single cell in his body is telling him to run for the hills.

"Uhm, Victoria, I'm actually not feeling so well. Maybe we can reschedule. I'm sorry."

Singto turned and walked out so fast he didn't even catch Victoria's response. He really didn't mean to be rude but that was just too creepy for him. That's one down, and three more to go.

~~~~~~

Candidate #8
Name: Mak
Age: 23
Occupation: Musician

Okay, there's not much to say about this date. Other than, Singto had the quickest dinner of his life at KFC. Mak is a young aspiring rap artist. For the entire duration of their meal, Mak tried to rap every single word that came out of his mouth. And since Singto can't rap for the life of him, the conversation was pretty much one-sided. And if that's not awkward enough, Mak got up and stood on top of his chair to give a free show. Some people cheered and some people looked clearly irritated. Luckily, no one came over to ask him to sit down or leave. That would have been way too embarrassing.

At the end of the date, Mak gave Singto a copy of his music demo and asked if he could play it on the radio to which Singto said he would ask management for permission.

Two more to go. Fighting!

~~~~~~

Candidate #9
Name: Knot
Age: 29
Occupation: Psychologist

Thirty minutes into the date. Singto is out of tissues and Knot hands him a fresh pack. They're sitting on a park bench in front of the river where they were planning to take a stroll before dinner.

"So how did that make you feel, Singto?"

"Embarrassed, of course. How can my mom just say that in front of all my friends? I tell you, they're not normal."

"Do you feel like she did it intentionally?" Knot makes a mental note of Singto's response.

"No. And that's why I can't hate her. That's just the way she is. In a matter of fact, that's how my whole damn family is. They have no filters. They think talking about their son's morning wood in front of people is normal when it shouldn't even be a topic at all. One time, she wished my girlfriend at the time good luck because my dad passed on the big penis gene to me. Like, what the fuck is wrong with her! Get this! My dad actually nodded his head too. I wanted to die right then and there." Singto nearly shouts. There are so many more incidents that he wants to tell Knot. This is so cathartic. He's finally able to get all this off his chest. Singto is usually way too embarrassed to share all this with anyone outside of his family and everyone within his family is just as shameless. He feels like no one understands what he had to go through growing up.

"It must have been tough to go through puberty this way. How do you feel it has shaped the way you are today?"
.
.
.
.
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"I'm sorry for talking so much. We even missed our reservation." Singto blows his nose in the last tissue.

"It's okay. What matters most is your emotional and mental health. We can just grab a bowl of noodles at the stall we passed by earlier." Knot says as he gets up.

"Thank you. Can I see you again?" Singto asks softly. He hopes he didn't overwhelm his date.

"Sure, but in order for me to give you proper sessions, we can't go on any more dates because it's illegal and I can lose my license."

"Would it be okay with you if I just became a patient? I really enjoy talking to you."

"That's fine. I didn't feel anything between us. Let's go. I'm getting hungry."

Singto is happy that he has gotten at least one good thing out of this stupid soul search campaign. At least there's now someone he can rant to about his family and his everyday life struggles dealing with them. Don't get him wrong, he loves his family but they drive him crazy sometimes.

~~~~~~

Krist has been holding his breath for the past two weeks while Singto has been going on his dates. And thank God, Fiat didn't do any better in picking candidates for Singto.

Singto had porcelain doll nightmares just from meeting that Antique Appraiser. Singto swears one of those dolls was possessed like Annabelle from "The Conjuring." Krist thought Singto was so adorable looking all scared.

Then there was the rapper, Mak. Krist couldn't believe Singto actually asked management for permission to play that demo on the air. As DJs, they have plenty of requests from people to play their music but it's not always worth the hassle to go through the process of getting management's approval. So unless the DJ really likes the music or the artist, he or she won't stick their neck out just for anyone. That made Krist think Singto actually likes the young rapper, but it turns out Singto really believes Mak is a good rapper that deserves a chance. Phew.

Krist kept his fingers crossed that all four candidates would fail and the campaign would officially be over. And then maybe he can try to get Singto to hang out more. And then maybe he can ask Singto out on a date if the timing and feelings are right. Maybe.

But this maybe was shot down the moment Singto came back from a date with that psychologist. What the heck! Singto came to work the next day almost skipping. He looked so happy greeting everyone in the office with his bright smile. And when Fiat asked if Singto plans to see the guy again, Krist froze on the spot and dropped his pink milk when he heard the answer, yes.

Krist really regrets even being in the control room when Fiat asked that question. Because just less than a minute ago he was happily sipping on ice-cold pink milk that Singto had specially got for him. The only cafe that sells pink milk in the nearby vicinity had closed for a month-long vacation and Singto had voluntarily taken it upon himself to buy Krist pink milk every morning for the past two weeks to avoid seeing his grumpy face. Krist was really touched by Singto's gesture and he really thought it might have, could have, probably, quite possibly meant something. But maybe it was all just wishful thinking on his part.

Krist was bummed all week. Going to work every morning seeing Singto so happy because of someone else. But then oddly, Singto asked Fiat to pick the last candidate for him. Singto said he was ready to get it over with. Krist tried to look for signs of a breakup but nothing was apparent. Singto didn't even seem irritated like he was before with the other candidates. Then on the air during "Singto's Soul Search" update, Singto said the date didn't work out between him and the psychologist, but he's glad he met that person. Singto had such a nice smile on his face too. What the heck is going on?

Krist can't take this anymore. He needs to put an end to this torture. He needs to end "Singto's Soul Search" right now. Tay be damned!

~~~~~~
AN: Sweets, we're getting close to the end. Seriously, I'm so bad at keeping my stories short. 😅

I hope you enjoyed this update. Thank you @BiologicalStorm for the weirdo suggestion.

Curtsy,
Lana ❤️