To say the diversity training had gone well would be like saying Michael was a calm, measured person with no odd hobbies: not just false, but false in a way that would make an otherwise sane person question their entire view of the world around them.

Maybe that was what he needed, Jim reflected. A total upheaval of his worldview. A new way of conceiving the eternal frustration that stretched out around him on all sides. Maybe that was what would pull him out of the pit of quiet desperation he’d dug for himself with his obsession with an engaged woman. Maybe that would free him from the constant irritation of Dwight’s miraculous combination of utter obtuseness and sudden savvy—the kind that you had to respect, but still ate at you, like when he was such a dick about everything during the diversity training and yet managed to scoop Jim’s biggest client.

Actually, maybe he didn’t need a new worldview. Maybe he needed some fucking revenge.

He was sitting at Poor Richard’s, nursing a beer—a far cry from the champagne he’d hoped to be drinking when he closed the Decker deal, but what could you do—when the thought of how to do it entered his head. Or perhaps more accurately, when the person who could do it walked into the bar. He’d called Mark to come out and help him drown his sorrows, and apparently Mark had been hanging out with Steve playing Madden, and so the two of them together had come to “drag Halpert out of his little pity party” as Mark unsparingly put it when they sat down. But Jim was beyond caring about the little put-down, because a much bigger idea had sprouted in his mind the moment he saw Steve walk into the bar.

“Steve, you’re an actor, right?” He was pretty sure he got the words out in the right order and everything, but then again he’d been at Poor Richard’s for a little while before they’d shown up, so he couldn’t be quite sure.

“That’s right, Jim, I’m an actor. Although I expect Mr. Richardson would disagree.” Mr. Richardson was the lawyer Steve worked for as a paralegal in his day job. It paid the bills, he said, and Jim couldn’t argue with anything that did that, gave his friend all the time he needed to pursue his acting on the side, and didn’t involve interactions with Michael Scott or Dwight Schrute. “Why?”

Jim didn’t bother to answer the why question yet. If he did he’d probably lose his train of thought. “And you’re Asian.” He wasn’t so drunk he wasn’t aware he needed to contextualize that statement, and he raised his hand before Steve could answer. “I know, Korean-American, your parents came over two years before you were born, but we did this stupid diversity thing in the office today…basically, Michael…you remember Michael?”

“Say no more.” Steve shook his head and took a pull from his own beer. “You know, I had been counting down.”

“Counting down?”

“Did you realize we hadn’t talked about Michael since that first night? It’s been exactly two years, seven months, and six days since we became friends, and this is the first time you’ve mentioned him to me since then.”

“Oh.” Jim blinked. Mark chortled into his own drink, but then, he was always quiet when he was drinking. It was a lot of why they got along, because Jim got talkative, and that made them a good pair.

“Yeah.” Steve took another drink. “So, you’re my friend, you’re drunk, I’ve met Michael, let’s just take it as read that something super racist happened and you won’t try to explain it to me and make things worse.”

“Deal.” Jim nodded. That was a good idea—he wasn’t sure he was up to explaining Diversity Day to Steve, especially Dwight’s ‘Asian’ card. “But I do have a favor to ask. A big one.”

“How big are we talking?”

“‘I’ll owe you one’ big.” Mark and Steve raised eyebrows at each other. That was big.

“OK. Lay it on me.”

“I need you to pretend to be me.”