Upon entering the lab room, I was overcome by the smell of… food?

“What do you think you’re doing?” I said sternly towards Diana, who was casually eating a burger at the lab bench. “You know better than to bring food in here. Just because you’re non-human doesn’t mean you get to pull this kind of stunt. If anything, you need to be more cautious about this stuff.”

“Don’t complain” She muttered through a mouthful of food. “You’re the one who’s late. Besides, I took care of your stupid pigeon, didn’t I?”

“It’s a horseshoe crab.” I retorted.

“Same difference.” She said before continuing her meal.

“Diana get back to work!” I demanded.

“Ah.” It was apparent she didn’t want to work, but the sooner her tasks were completed the sooner she could leave. “I… couldn’t… possibly… Unless. You’d give me your soul?” She stated almost sarcastically lifting her hand to her head in a dramatic pose.

“H-his soul? No no no,” Shiro locked his arm around my neck once more. “that simply won’t do. You can’t have it!”

“You’re gullible aren’t ya?” Diana curled her tail, amused, obviously.

“What?” Shiro relaxed his grip slightly. I wasn’t sure which was worse, the fact that he’s doing this again despite just talking about it, or that he was somehow falling for Diana’s poor acting. Based on the genuine fear in his voice it seemed like there was a lot more to all this then I was seeing.

“You know, I think you may have killed him…” Diana said in feigned concern. Shiro went still for a moment. “What’s with the look?”

Shiro relaxed suddenly then picked me up by the collar as if handing me off to Diana. “Hide the body.” He said having decided to play along for whatever reason.

“Ew gross, no.” Diana looked at me with a mildly disgusted expression.

Shiro let me drop to the floor, probably assuming I would land on my feet, but I didn’t.

“That’s it I’m going home.” I sighed. Hopefully, what ever is bugging Diana would dissipate by tomorrow, so we can get some actual work done. There was no point in working if no one’s going to cooperate.

“What about my paycheck!” Diana growled.

“I know darn well it’s Tuesday, I’m not falling for that again.” I replied stressing my discontent. I’m not sure why she is so persistent in trying to trick me like this. You can only fall for this sort of thing a couple of times. I don’t even manage the finances anymore, not that she’s aware. I tend to get overwhelmed and make mistakes if I have too many responsibilities. I need absolutely everything to be managed without me in the case of outbreaks. The entire microbiology department has to be the one’s to handle it. We are the only microbiology facility. At least for now.