I’d met with Aubyn and Sang not long after and they joined Milan, Coen and me for lunch. We separated briefly so Aubyn could take me to the bank, and then we all met up again to shop for my dorm. It was similar to what I imagined shopping for a new apartment would be.

Never did I think the day would come when I’d be buying myself a vacuum. We only stopped buying things when we came upon items that would need to be delivered. I was warned about the completely bare dorm room I’d have. Aside from a bed, bathroom and stove, there wasn’t much else I’d be given.

It was nice having people around me for something as simple as being advised on the best bedside lamp to buy. It was nice having friends, or dare I say, a family of sorts. I was reminded of Rikki, the only real friend I’d had back on Earth, and I started to miss her. She’d wanted to remain a part of my past and though I had agreed, I still missed her.

Her absence was felt more deeply when Aubyn took me to an administration building to get registered as someone officially living in Sahir, Karys. I got a registration number and Aubyn’s guardianship of me was validated. We even signed up for that human healthcare thing Siele mentioned. It was still strange to think Aubyn would be responsible for me. If I got into any trouble, he’d be the one blamed, not that I planned on causing any trouble. Karys was my chance at a different life and I wasn’t going to waste it.

As my trips outside with Milan and Coen became more frequent, the more my things strewn about Aubyn’s floor kept growing. They were taking up valuable walking space in the already tiny dorm room. Once I was called for my key, Aubyn, Milan, and even Coen helped me move my things two floors up to my new room.

“Why does this feel so far away?” Aubyn had asked as he helped me unpack my clothes.

Every journey I’d made from his room to mine felt like forever and not because I was carrying boxes and bags of my things. We hadn’t really been separated since getting to know each other and I knew I’d miss sharing a bed with him.

I finished packing away my jeans and wrapped my arms around his middle in a tight hug. “I miss you already.”

Milan, who had been sitting on the bed listening, scowled. “Don’t be so mushy in front of me.”

I’d wanted to ask if he was jealous, but Milan had someone like Sang for a husband who was just as sexy as Aubyn was.

After moving came setting up my phone and drawing pad that had finally arrived. Milan showed me how to customize everything to my liking and Sang advised that I keep my phone language settings in Alunai if I was serious about learning the language. I told him I’d keep it in mind for when I learned more since I was nowhere near ready for that.

“Don’t I get to learn your language too?” I asked Aubyn after one of my language lessons in his room. I knew I had to learn Alunai for work, but I was more interested in learning Aubyn’s language. I’d only learned some phrases, mostly from hearing him speak.

“You want to learn both at the same time?” Aubyn asked. I gave a determined nod. “They are similar to speak despite the accents, but there are more troublesome differences that may trip you up a bit. Do you want me to show you?”

I flipped my notebook to the back and pushed it and a pen over to him.

Aubyn took some time writing something down. “There are twenty-five letters in the Alunai alphabet which is called Adul.” He pointed to the list of characters he’d written on the left of the page that I’d recognized from my lessons. “There are thirty-one letters in the basic Arrean alphabet, Hanji. Hanji and Adul are made up of the same sounds. What makes Hanji different, aside from the character style, is that sounds like zh, ch, sh, ang, eng, ing, ong, and ung have their own separate characters which we call Kangul characters. They are more complicated to write, so you can tell them apart from the others easily. In Adul, those sounds are written with a combination of already existing characters. Are you following?”

I nodded slowly. “So, in Hanji, you have one character for ing, but in Adul, that sound is made up of whatever characters are used for I, N, and G separately? Is Kangul like a subset of Hanji?”

Aubyn smiled and kissed my temple. “Exactly. Another major difference is that the R sound and L sound are reversed for most words. This may not sound so complicated, but it can be. Have you learned numbers in Alunai?”

“Yep.”

“What is zero?”

“Nir.”

“What do you think it is in Arrean?”

“Uh… Nil?” I guessed.

“Good.”

“That’s not so hard.”

“So it may seem at first but that switch will cause some sentences to not make sense, can change the meaning of a sentence or the Alunai word may not even exist in Arrean.”

“Uh…” I rubbed the back of my neck. This was getting complicated. “Can I have an example?”

“The word for ‘zero’ is also the word for ‘none’ or used to represent ‘nothing’ in both languages. If Sang were to tell me, ‘There is ‘none’ or ‘no marinba at home’, he would say, ‘Nir marinba tonto aes ule yidal’,” Aubyn said slowly as he wrote the sentence down. “To understand that he means ‘There is no marinba at home’, I’d have to know he was speaking Alunai because that sentence in Arrean could be interpreted as ‘Your marinba is at home’.”

I frowned, eyebrows drawn together. “So, nir in Alunai means ‘zero’. But in Arrean it means… ‘your’? Does that mean nil means ‘your’ in Alunai and ‘zero’ in Arrean?”

“Yes.”

I grimaced as I tried to imagine thinking I was being told there was a sticky and sweet treat waiting for me at home, only to find nothing due to misinterpretation. “Ugh, that’s just a recipe for miscommunication. How come you two don’t get confused?”

“Context mostly. At work though, I speak only Alunai to make things clearer between me and my coworkers. Outside of work, Sang and I switch up the way we speak more often than you might notice but we have spent many years together, so we are used to it.”

I wondered how long it would take before I could easily switch between languages. It would no doubt take years, but this was my life now. I’d just need to study my ass off. Because of the different characters, the same sentence in both languages would be written differently with only a slight difference in the way they were spoken. I wanted to learn.

“Could you…” I felt a bit timid under his serious blue-eyed gaze. “Could you still teach me?”

Aubyn smiled. “Of course.”

With language lessons underway and my uniform ready, I thought that I’d be good to start working already. It had already been a month since moving to Karys and while being ill had delayed the onboarding process, it took a while for me to prepare to start working. I thought I was ready, that I had checked everything off my list of prerequisites. However, Sang stopped by my dorm one morning to let me know otherwise.

I’d seen Sang the least since moving to Karys. I hung out with Milan and Coen during the day and Aubyn and Coen in the evening. I’d see Sang now and then, but we’d had no reason to exchange more than pleasantries, which was why his presence at my door early in the morning surprised me. I was groggy as I opened the door.

“Good morning. Why do you look like you’ve just woken up?” Sang asked.

“Because I just did.” I yawned and stepped aside so he could enter. “Good morning.”

Sang hesitated for a moment before entering my dorm and taking off his shoes by the door. He paused for a moment to look around the plain room. “You should fix that soon. You start work in three days.”

I immediately perked up, closing the door. “Really?”

“Yes. But there is one more thing left to do.”

“What?”

“A doctor’s visit.”

“But I’m not sick anymore.”

“Considering the blows on your psyche that Dr Stanley and I are aware of, one of the things you have no choice in is to receive mental health treatment if you want to keep your job. And just in case you’ve forgotten, keeping your job is the only way you can stay in Karys with the freedom and independence you desire.”

I scowled. “Fine. When do I have to go?”

“Today. Now, in fact. Get ready. I’ll be accompanying you.”

Thankfully, I’d showered before bed so I just needed to get changed into something appropriate for going out. It may have been because we were in a big city or because Karysians wore completely different styles of clothing, but I got the feeling they put a lot into their appearance. It wasn’t like in New Malta where people would go out to run quick errands in their pyjamas. Everyone here appeared dressed up all the time.

Once I found an outfit, I began to change, having forgotten about my one-man audience in my very open loft-esque dorm room. Something cold touched my lower back, eliciting a surprised yelp. “What the fuck…?” I muttered as I turned around to find Sang closer to me than he had been a minute ago.

“Sorry, I should have asked before acting on interest. Your birthmark is interesting.”

“So you’ve said. My high school classmates used to tease me thinking that I got a tramp stamp when I can’t even stand needles.” I turned so my back was to my mirror and looked over my shoulder at it. It looked like a jumble of weird lines as if someone had written in terrible cursive on my skin. “It’s kind of weird. I almost thought to have it removed at one point.”

“Don’t. And don’t let just anyone see it either.”

“Why?” I asked, changing my shirt.

“Please be obedient.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled, putting on socks and grabbing my bag.

“You’ve kept this room quite tidy.”

“Must have been all the cleaning I had to do while living with you guys in that hotel, but it’s become second nature to clean all the time. It’s better this way though. If I let such a small room get away from me, I’d be in deep shit.”

“Good habits are always nice to have, but not always fun to create. Zedikai…”

“Hmm?” I answered absentmindedly, grabbing my necessary belongings.

“Has your period returned since you’ve been here?”