I thought about it as the ship traveled back to Meex. Building houses, huh… Maybe I should try building a house for a family when I’m free… Thanks, Crystal… of all people… with that throwaway line to begin with… Perhaps she comes up with ideas on the fly? Either way… We arrived back at Stellar Site, I stretched slightly and got up. Afterwards, I approached Natalie.

“Hey Nats, do you mind coming over to my house tonight? I would like to talk with you about something. As friends.” Natalie looked to her side for a bit, then back at me. “Alright, sure. I’ll be there at six.” “Alright, let’s just continue working until then. Thanks.” We took a bus back to Silver T. Big to resume our working duties for the rest of the day.

I went on to inspect the building carefully looking for any issues as my Monday maintenance requires. Fortunately, the only problems were some visible worn marks on some of the walls, so it was easy to fix with some painting, cleaning and such.

The day continued with nothing much else of importance. I tried to not think of that Raymond guy, or the Emptiness, so I went home to relax.

And when it was about to be six, I heard my house’s bell. I walked to the door and opened it, to see Natalie. “Hey, Natalie. Welcome! You’re early…”

Natalie shrugged.  “Well it’s better to arrive early than late. I don’t want another Crystal incident…”

I chuckled a bit. “Alright then, walk in, I have no pets or anyone else so this is gonna be a chill night. Just us.”

Natalie walked in and looked around. “Really? Do you live alone? Why?” “Well, I like solitude. It’s relaxing and quiet, now that I’m independent I wanted my life to be just about me. Anyway, sit down alright? I’ll get us some coffee if you want.”. “Coffee at night? Hmm… Well, sure.” Smiling, I walked to the kitchen to prepare some coffee, fortunately my kitchen was extremely close to the living room due to how small my house was which allowed me to keep track of Natalie,  and after leaving the kettle boiling I returned to her.

“I want to talk about not only Raymond and The Emptiness, but I want to talk about… us.” I looked to my side a bit. It was hard to keep eye contact on her.

“Ah. I get it. Well, how about we talk about ourselves first? We’re at your house, I think that’d be better for the both of us.” “Alright…” I inhaled deeply, trying to gain courage for, well… I was nervous, it had been a whole year since I spent time casually with her. “Well, I’ve noticed that you seem less emotional ever since you started working. Why is that?”

Natalie just stared at me. I wasn’t sure what to think or say. After a few seconds, she answered bluntly. “It’s family problems.”

“Oh… Can I listen?”

Natalie gave me the look. “Alright, Matt. I don’t like to talk about my problems much, but we’ve known each other for a long time, and you seem genuinely interested, so I’ll make the attempt just this time. You owe me.”

She then looked to her side shortly, then redirected her eyes at me. “It’s my parents. They’re really strict and insistent. Ever since we studied together, they always threatened to hit me or take away something from me. Since last year I moved to my apartment and I’ve been living alone just like you. But I talk to Arthur regularly, or hang out with him.”

“Ah. I see. I’ve heard plenty of stories of parents being too strict, sometimes more than necessary. I never knew you were in that group though, you seemed so cheerful and emotional during the time we studied together. Why the sudden change?”

“Let’s just say they became a lot more drastic in my late university years.”. “Geez.” The fact that my closest friend was going through so much when I had no idea… I felt powerless and… sad.

“Hey, Natalie. You like to play chess, right?” Natalie blinked. “Yeah, pretty sure Arthur and I told you. Why?”... “Well why do you like to play it?” 

“Well, because it encourages the players to focus on it and not think of anything else. I can put my mind into the game and forget about my issues.”

“Ah, that’s good. The same thing happens to me except I just watch TV. I think I like the idea of doing so alone, you play chess because you want to think with someone, right?”

“Yeah…” Natalie chuckled heartily. “You just seem to like way too much to be alone. I prefer to be with people. I know I can be cold often at work, but when I’m free I just want to spend time with friends.”

“Hah, alright. How about we watch something while the coffee is being made? then we can play chess if you want. I’m not good at it, but I want to make my best attempt to help you have fun.”

Natalie looked at me silently, just as I looked at her back. No words. No movement. Just us in silence…

“Thanks.” Natalie broke the silence and smiled. It was hard to see her smile nowadays unless she laughed, so I couldn’t help but smile back.

“Alright, you got any favorite genres? I like police dramas. But anything that’s remotely interesting is fine by me.”

“Hmm… Let’s watch an animal documentary.”

“What? Of all things? You sure?”

“Yeah, I want to see something relaxing and informative. And I like animals.”  “Alright then. I’ll make the attempt.” Reaching for the remote control, I turned on the TV, I searched around for something oddly cute yet threatening… A weird one called ‘Swamp Cat’ caught my attention. After shrugging, I played it. We watched it for almost eight minutes while the coffee was being made.

It was kinda boring but I appreciated the information, Natalie seemed to like it though, but that’s to be expected from a Terran. I got up and got us a cup of coffee each. “Do you like it dark, or should I add some milk?”

“Milk, please.” Nodding, I added some milk to her coffee. I preferred my coffee dark, but it was nice to know her preference. After having the coffee ready, we spent about two hours drinking the coffee slowly and playing some chess. Needless to say, I lost all matches but one. She’s pretty good.

“Aw, I think we could’ve gotten a Taxi, Dennis. We’ve been walking for a while now.”

Dennis panted in exhaustion.  “You think?! I’m starting to wonder why you didn’t fly! You’re a dragon!”. He’s kinda sweaty, the poor pup…

“I like walking. Especially at night, it’s fresh and the lights are nice!”

“What do you mean?!” [Pant] “Wouldn’t flying be the same thing but better? I’m pretty sure you’re strong enough to carry me anyway! That would have been a lot easier for the both of us!”

“Yikes, relax wimp. We’re here.” Dennis, the silly guy, stared at me. We then entered the building.

A tall, strong bull guard looked at us. “Welcome, what’s your business over here?... Oh.”

The moment he looked at our badges, I couldn’t help but laugh… With the guard now embarrassed, we went through the building and searched for the chief. And there it was, the chief’s office, I looked at Dennis. “So, you’ve been awfully quiet. Anything on your mind Dennis?”

“I… No, I’m just wondering why you brought me here. You seem to be doing everything by yourself.” I laughed and patted his head to his awkwardness. “Well, let’s just say I wanted someone’s company! Especially from a cute tiny puppy!”

He didn’t say a word. But that is to be expected. Let’s just get to the point, I reached towards the door… [Knock Knock] “Come in.”

I gently opened the door. Dennis and I walked in to meet a Plasmatic man, with funky pink colors! Wooie! “Uhh… Yeah, dragon?” What a funny chief!

“Well, I was wondering if you knew anything about a so-called Raymond. A human guy. He worked here, right?”

He got the blues quite instantly… I tilted my head in confusion. “Hey hey hey! Come on! What’re you looking so shocked for? I’m asking a question!”

“S-sorry… It’s just… Raymond Mars, right?” I nodded quickly. “Ah, he’s one of the detectives here. To tell you the truth, our scientist department found out about a weird thing in space… I don’t know the full details, but the thing is that the detectives that went to investigate never returned. It’s been two weeks. I’m pretty sure they aren’t alive anymore… Which really pisses me off, they were my best men.”

After putting my hand on my chin to think, looking quite stupid (but fun to myself) in the process, I answered him. “Alright, but do you have any idea where they went?”

“No… I don’t. They kept their investigation private. So I have no idea what happened.”

What a relief, so the people alive don’t know! This will definitely cheer up Natalie! Yay!

“Thanks, sir! That’s all I wanted to know. Here, have a donut.” I passed him a tiny box with a single donut.

“Oh, uhh… Thanks?” We then left his office to my satisfaction, Dennis was weirded out though.

“So… What do you think of this?” Dennis looked at me, as if wanting to know what I thought of the situation, desperate for gossip, imo. “It means that we only have corpses to worry about! I feel like they all went to… You know…”

“Ah…” Dennis looked disgusted. “So that planet is full of corpses, great…”

After nodding, we left the building and I poked Dennis. “So, you wanted me to fly, right?”

Dennis blinked. “Well I thought it would be nice, but we could get a ta-”. I quickly held him by his torso and took flight! Dennis started shaking and instantly got scared. “AAAHHHHHH! MY LORD, C-CRYSTAL! YOU COULD’VE WARNED ME!!”.

After laughing uncontrollably, I simply flew to Dennis’ house to leave him there myself. He was complaining a lot though, and I got some stares… But it was fun! 

Anyway, I need to talk to Matt and Natalie about this tomorrow... Let’s hope all goes well!