The anticipation of a looming day off gave me a much-needed second wind. I swept a critical eye over the living area and, for a change of pace, emptied the dishwasher. A quick raid of the refrigeration unit convinced me that Earth seafood was the absolute play for dinner tonight. After a lightning-fast shower and a change of clothes, I got to cooking while simultaneously hunting down scattered clutter. It never ceased to amaze me how men could manifest a hurricane of mess out of thin air. They walk into a room, change their clothes, and instantly the space requires a deep clean. Take my brother, Roma, for example. He works for the planetary security force. The man has a total humor bypass, is obsessively meticulous about minor protocols, yet closing a tube of toothpaste is apparently beyond his cognitive abilities. Go figure! Zargo was cut from the exact same cloth. It honestly felt like he didn't just change in his own quarters, but treated the entire house as his personal dressing room. How else could a uniform tunic, a jacket bearing a prominent coffee stain, a dress shirt, and the trousers from that riveted, cutout suit all end up strewn across the common room floors? On a side note, I had absolutely no idea how one was even supposed to launder something with that many metal rivets. Once dinner was ready, I sealed it beneath the thermal dome. Standing over the stove and taste-testing bits and pieces had killed my own appetite. Steeping a fresh mug of tea, I migrated to the sofa and booted up the holographic display. A massive backlog of media releases had dropped over the last six months, and I was dying to catch up. The sheer variety was overwhelming. Settling on a romantic comedy about a trio of runaway brides, I pressed play and curled my legs up under me on the cushions. I was halfway through the film, my tea long since finished, when Zargo finally breached the front door. He froze on the threshold, leveling a long stare at me. He literally stepped back outside, checked the front door frame, and walked back in. “What, no HTML-style sprawling on the floor tonight?” I caught the thick thread of irony in his voice and let out a sharp, defensive huff. The sharp, hyper-focused Senior Tan had clearly been left at the orbital station; the spoiled brat had returned home. Personally, I preferred the Senior Tan by a landslide. “Dinner is served,” I announced flatly. He snorted, snapping open the rivets on his jacket as he marched straight toward the kitchen counter. Peering beneath the thermal dome, he let out a deeply satisfied sigh. He shed his jacket right there, and a heavy cuff bracelet made of polished mineral plates clattered onto the floorboards. I suppose I should just be profoundly grateful he made it into the house before shedding his pants. So much for my deep clean—the hurricane was right back where it started. The cuff looked expensive, crafted from some high-end polished stone. Sighing, I got up, retrieved it from the floor, and set it safely on the counter. While I was at it, I gathered the discarded jacket and tossed the dress shirt into the laundry hamper. The entire sequence gave me a deeply unsettling flash of feeling like a weary housewife. Seriously, this was a full-on domestic routine: cooking, cleaning, and tomorrow’s bleak forecast undoubtedly included laundry and ironing. Retreating to the couch, I unpaused the movie. Zargo vanished into his room to change and emerged a moment later. He tracked me with a brief stare before diving into a storage cabinet, surfacing with a bottle of wine. I did my absolute best to look thoroughly indifferent. Fine, the man wanted a drink, whatever. Honestly, the bottle itself was far more intriguing; it was styled to look like an ancient clay amphora, bearing an inscription in a language I couldn't decipher. “White wine is the traditional pairing for seafood, but I’m a red guy,” Zargo remarked. With that casual declaration, he filled my empty tea mug right to the brim. I stared at him, utterly scandalized. Sure, the tea had been filtered so there were no stray leaves, but who does that? The Sibian, however, didn't waste a single breath worrying about proper glassware, unceremoniously dumping a good half of the amphora's contents into his own massive cup. “Oh, please don’t tell me you’re one of those people,” Zargo scoffed, rolling his eyes. “The types who insist wine must be white, perfectly chilled, and from a specific vintage.” The visible souring of his expression made it crystal clear that he had dealt with his fair share of high-maintenance dates in the past. It probably explained his defensive prickliness. When both parties in a relationship have a hair-trigger temper and a total aversion to compromise, things are pretty much doomed from the jump. Of course, it also meant he had automatically categorized me as some gold-digging opportunist. “No,” I replied dryly. “It’s just... you poured it into a dirty tea mug.” “Well, perfect. Wine this good can survive a little leftover tea.” Zargo dropped onto the sofa with a heavy thud, holding his plate and mug, and instantly splashed red wine across himself, me, and a decent patch of the fabric cushions. I bolted upright, scrambling for a pack of wet wipes and a towel. Salvaging the sofa took absolute priority; if that deep red stain set into the material, the only remedy would be a radical and expensive upholstery replacement. “You know, I finally understand why you're bunking here,” I muttered, scrubbing furiously. “Your estate isn't just having its foundation slats replaced. You’re doing a full-blown gut renovation because you're a walking natural disaster.” “Not a bad theory,” he chuckled, entirely unbothered. He set his plate on the coffee table and took a long swill from his cup, entirely oblivious to the wine actively dripping from the base onto his trousers. Shaking my head in disbelief, I snatched a wipe and cleaned the bottom of his mug for him. Zargo set it down and promptly tried to confiscate the entire pack of wipes from my hands. I had to yank a handful back. I needed to clean myself up before sprinting upstairs to change; wine stains were notoriously stubborn, and I was genuinely fond of this lounge set. The Sibian, naturally, didn't show a shred of urgency about his clothes. The man was an absolute disaster of a roommate. “Take your pants off!” I commanded, tossing the words over my shoulder as I hurried past. Zargo feigned utter theatrical horror, throwing his arms across his chest. “Why? I don't think our relationship has progressed to that stage yet.” I caught the joke instantly, but elected to play it completely straight. “Oh, I never doubted for a second that you and a washing machine are fundamentally incompatible. Strip them off. I’ll throw them in a quick cycle.” I highly doubted Zargo had been the one to stock the laundry closet, but luckily, I found a container of heavy-duty stain-remover pods. All that was left was to grab his clothes. Unsurprisingly, he hadn't lined his tracks to bring them to the laundry nook himself, so I had to march back out. Zargo had actually followed my instructions to the letter: he had stripped down and was now lounging in nothing but a pair of gray boxer briefs. I averted my eyes so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash. “Senior Tan, would you mind putting some clothes on?” “Why? I literally just took them off. Besides, you were the one demanding I strip.” I let out a slow, controlled exhale. It didn't take a genius to see he was thoroughly amused by my flustered reaction. For a Sibian, he was clearly very young, and men—regardless of species—remain eternal children. “I meant for you to change into something else.” “And what exactly is making you so uncomfortable? I thought we agreed this morning that we weren't going to be shy around each other.” His voice resonated right by my ear. I froze, realizing he had crept up right behind my back. There was no guessing required—he was going to push my buttons. My reactions were free entertainment to him. Steeling my nerves, I spun around, smoothly brushed past him, and snatched up the pile of stained clothes. “This morning, you breached the perimeter of my private bedroom. Right now, you are standing in a communal living room.” With that parting shot, I ducked into the laundry nook and jammed the garments into the machine. The sofa, unfortunately, still required a massive amount of elbow grease. Armed with a fresh towel and a stiff brush, I marched back out to wage war on the stains. Thank god, Zargo had at least pulled on a pair of sweatpants before returning to the lounge. I did my absolute best to maintain a facade of total indifference regarding his bare torso. The smug jerk sprawled across the cushions, propped his bare feet up on the table, and settled his plate right on his lap. I knelt on the floor right beside him, scrubbing the fabric and silently fuming. “Would it kill you to eat at the actual table?” I suggested through gritted teeth. The last thing I needed was for him to spill another round of grease, forcing me to spend my entire weekend crawling across the floorboards with a scrub brush. “Bor-ing. I despise eating alone.” Zargo took a massive swig of wine, peering down at me from his elevated perch on the cushions with a thoroughly satisfied grin. I was literally on my knees before him. Absolute tyrant! Huffing in pure irritation, I stood up, abandoned the brush, and took a couple of long gulps from my own mug. The wine was dangerously smooth and deceptively potent. A sudden, overwhelming urge hit me to hurl the cleaning supplies into a corner and just clock out for the night. Besides, judging by his little confession, he had no intention of leaving me in peace. It made me wonder: how did someone who so thoroughly loathed solitude wind up stationed on a high-security, restricted colony world—let alone running the entire department as Senior Tan? Suddenly, his relentless badgering from the moment I arrived made perfect sense. The guy had gone stir-crazy from the isolation! Putting the brushes away and laying a dry towel over the damp patch on the sofa, I piled a plate high with seafood and sat down to finish my movie. I did my absolute best to tune Zargo out completely. I couldn't tell if the guy was just cursed with legendary bad luck today, if he was always this clumsy, or if he was intentionally trying to drive me insane—but I elected to ignore the third option for the sake of my own sanity. First, Zargo dropped a rogue prawn right onto his stomach, followed by another mini-avalanche of wine. I had a fierce urge to tie a baby bib around his neck, but I kept my eyes anchored to the hologram. The comedy was genuinely funny, but when the credits finally rolled, the overwhelming emotion I felt was sweet relief. “That movie made zero logical sense,” Zargo announced, rising to set his plate on the table. “Why did they spend twenty minutes sprinting across an open field when they clearly had functioning comlinks? Just summon a taxi-flier and wrap up the plot.” “You have to actually watch a movie from the beginning for it to make sense,” I muttered under my breath. I assumed he was finally heading to his quarters, but instead, Zargo grabbed the amphora and divided the remaining wine equally between our mugs. I stared gloomily at the staircase slats. That vertical nightmare inspired a flash of pure vertigo even when I was stone-cold sober. If I polished off a second mug of this vintage, I’d be forced to camp out on the sofa again, and one night of that misery had been more than enough. “No thanks, I’m good. Besides, you don't want to watch it from the start anyway. Aren't you off tomorrow?” Zargo extended the mug toward me. I eyed the liquid with heavy skepticism. The buzz I was currently rocking was already pushing my usual limits. I rarely drank even half this much, and I had absolutely no desire to find out what kind of reckless stunt my brain might pull under the influence. “Drink up,” he insisted. “There’s something I need to ask you.” “So you have to get me drunk to ask a question?” I countered, though my hand moved to accept the drink anyway. The immediate side effect of the wine was a total liquidation of my usual inhibitions. For the first time, I didn't bother to avert my eyes. The Sibian wasn't just thin; he was remarkably lean, with sharply defined, athletic musculature. With his catastrophic diet of pure protein and grease, any normal human would have developed a prominent beer gut by now, yet his torso looked like he’d been surviving on a strict low-molecular fitness regimen his entire life. “Like what you see?” he asked, his voice dripping with arrogance. It took my hazy brain a beat to process the question. Then the reality clicked: I was shamelessly checking him out. “Not particularly,” I lied, offering a casual shrug. His eyes narrowed. He clearly didn't appreciate the denial, or he simply didn't buy it. Frankly, I didn't buy it either. The visual standing right in front of me was highly appealing, a fact that the wine was making increasingly difficult to ignore. Time to execute an emergency exit. “So, what did you want to ask me?” I took a large gulp of wine, instantly pivoting toward the counter space. I needed to clear the dishes before the alcohol completely compromised my motor skills. The smart play was to grab the cup and retreat to the safety of my second-floor sanctuary. That was the plan, anyway. Except Zargo reached out, caught my wrist, and firmly guided me back down onto the sofa. “I need your help with an internal matter.” “What kind of matter?” “I’m trying to catch a rat,” he said, his expression hardening. “Someone is actively leaking proprietary data out of my laboratory. I intend to bust them and flag their security file so aggressively that they won't be able to land a job cleaning a cargo bay in any sector of the galaxy.” Suddenly, a lot of pieces fell into place. The tension, the isolation, the mood shifts. Still, becoming an accomplice in a corporate espionage sting was not on my career roadmap. “Wouldn't it be smarter to just hand the case over to planetary security?” “No. For starters, they haven't compromised anything vital yet. It’s just low-level updates on our trial phases. It’s technically restricted data, but it’s not classified. Which tells me the mole is either actively fishing for a corporate buyer...” “...or they don't possess the security clearance to access the high-level genetic code Clarified,” I finished the thought for him. “Exactly,” Zargo agreed, nodding. I let out a soft huff. On one hand, I totally validated his frustration. It’s deeply unnerving knowing you have a mole in your house, never knowing when the other shoe might drop. On the other hand, the rat hadn't chewed through anything mission-critical yet, meaning calling in the planetary exterminators was premature. “What's the play?” “The Zelgalo saplings arrived right on schedule. They are going to be the primary target for curiosity on the deck. You saw the crowd yourself. I’ve got a handful of 'tabs'—microscopic, cloaked surveillance cameras. Since you're going to be constantly micromanaging those containment pots anyway...” “Wait, who is monitoring the telemetry tomorrow while I'm off?” I interrupted, a sudden spike of professional jealousy hitting me. “You are,” Zargo said, throwing me a mildly bewildered look. “You have the master datapad, don't you?” I realized I needed to course-correct before I sounded lazy. “Right. Which means, ideally, absolutely no one else should be entering the cleanroom enclosure.” “In a perfect world, yes,” he concurred. “Fine. On my first shift back, I’ll plant the tabs so you can track the cleanroom perimeter. But right now, I am officially off the clock and going to bed.” I stared up at the ladder slats. Those short, narrow metallic pegs jutting out a full meter apart did absolutely nothing to reassure me that I could successfully navigate the vertical climb while balancing a full mug of wine in my hand. “And you are going to assist me with an immediate matter.” Reaching out, I grabbed Zargo by the hand, hauled him over to the base of the wall, and jammed my cup into his grip. Completely ignoring the silent, arched brow of sheer question he threw my way, I scaled the first few slats, reached down to reclaim my drink, set it safely onto the second-floor landing, and scrambled the rest of the way up.