I told her I would check my upcoming schedule and get back to her.

I caught up on messages and tidied up. A package and a message had arrived from the two elders, respectively. I didn't remember giving either of them my address or contact details.

Of course, asking how they'd found out would be pointless.

Eric Earhart had sent a box of cigars, just as he'd promised. One whiff told me they were expensive. Naturally.

There was also a note in elegant handwriting.

[I look forward to working with you, Prometheus.]

I set the note aside and checked the message from Yekaterina. It had come from a blocked number, but I knew at once it was her.

[Come to think of it, my thanks for training my man so well are long overdue.]

She meant Lee Seunghyeon.

I sighed and closed the message. I would have to speak to him privately someday. I'd taught him alongside his colleagues, rather than individually, so we hadn't been particularly close. But with things as they were, we would have to talk at some point.

I had plenty of questions, too.

With another sigh, I checked my other messages. There was a short one from Riccardo.

[Mission scheduled for late November]

That was a longer gap than I'd expected.

I was surprised to have a definite time frame. So far, this job had mostly felt like waiting for trouble to give us work. Was something scheduled to go wrong in late November, or were we waiting until then to solve an existing problem?

Either way, I'd find out when the time came.

After arranging lunch in the group chat with Tom and Heshy, I paced around the cabin. With everything taken care of, the heavy realities I'd been trying not to think about came flooding in. I wandered aimlessly around the room, trying to quell the emotions threatening to burst out, until I finally gave up.

I burrowed into bed and began to cry.

Ray.

Ray, I'm sorry.

* * *

Yun said nothing in particular when I turned up for our morning workout with swollen eyes. That was one good thing about my training officer. His emotional reserve made him easy to be around in an odd sort of way.

Regardless of my ravaged heart, life returned to its routine: staying in the dorms on weekdays and training at set hours.

I practiced shooting. Unlike swordsmanship, those lessons proceeded by the book.

Yun wasn't kind, but he wasn't emotional either, which made him a far better training officer than I'd expected. He quickly noticed the change in me.

"More sensitive now?"

Suffering from the gunshots coming through my ear protection, I looked at him and nodded.

"My senses have opened up since Jaeyeon injected me."

"I'm planning to open you up sometime. When works for you?"

"Please don't ask so seriously. It makes you sound like you mean it."

Of course, my training officer probably always meant it...

I did my best to ignore reality.

Fortunately, it seemed Yun wouldn't be splitting me in two for a while. He said he'd recently found another subject of research that interested him besides me. I didn't bother asking what it was, since I doubted I'd understand the answer.

I ate lunch and dinner with Tom and Heshy all week. Apparently, they'd returned from quite an experience of their own.

They said they'd turned what used to be Area C into Area D, together with Angela, Karl, and some other seniors. From what they'd heard, somewhere around there was the site Yehyeon had chosen for the next territorial expansion.

I remembered the conversation at Choi Jeseok's mansion about territorial expansion taking longer than usual.

"It would've been nice if all three of us could've gone."

"Yeah. Looks like we'll all be split up for the next mission, too."

"Apparently, new recruits rarely go on the same mission." Tom answered my remark as I took a bite of my sandwich. His distinctive red curls and freckles were unchanged.

"During the year you're assigned a training officer, you're busy going out with different seniors under their supervision."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah, but they say you won't get another chance like that one-year probationary period to get close to people."

Heshy joined in after swallowing a mouthful of his sandwich, which was stuffed with nothing but ham. Apparently this was advice Angela and Karl had given them. He took a long pull of his cola and raised his pinky.

"So let's make the most of days like this, when all three of us have training but no missions. Basketball after dinner?"

"Hmm... Sure. But tomorrow I'm playing guitar."

"Oh, you play? Let me hear you tomorrow."

Tom nodded at my question, looking a little shy.

Unless we had a mission or other plans, we always ate lunch and dinner together. Except on weekends. Heshy and Tom usually went to see their families then.

I would hole up alone in the dorms or the cabin and play games. When my eyes grew tired, I'd put the console down and turn over my memories, sinking into grief all over again. Whenever I could escape the crushing self-loathing and sense of loss, I browsed the internet to learn about the world.

That was how I passed the time until late October. The week of my outing with Shu, and possibly Walker.

We were meeting on the last day of October.

* * *

The sky was high and clear.

On the day of our outing, we planned to visit the game store in the slums before evening. I was to meet Shu in the reception room at headquarters just before lunchtime.

Since it was October 31, I saw people in costume on the streets. Not many, since it was still broad daylight. Even those few disappeared once I entered headquarters. After wandering through the quiet building, I reached the reception room ahead of time.

And found Ska making coffee inside.

What was he doing here?

He turned to see me frozen halfway through the doorway and grinned.

"You look all right."

"Ah, yes." I bowed my head. "Thanks to you."

I closed the door and slowly walked inside. Ska watched me approach in silence, one hand tucked in his pocket. He was impeccably suited as always. Fine fabric pressed free of creases, and a watch that matched as though it had come with the suit.

No tie, though. Was he about to head home?

"What brings you here on a weekend?" the aide asked, picking up a paper cup.

He'd beaten me to my question. I slipped my phone into my baseball jacket pocket and answered readily.

"I'm here to meet Shu Diamond."

"Shu?" Ska echoed, a faint smile on his lips. "She's buying you lunch, I take it?"

"Yes. She offered to treat me since she's my immediate senior. Today was the first time our schedules lined up."

I didn't bother mentioning that Walker might join us in the evening. Surely he wasn't that interested in the details.

Ska nodded, the faint smile still in place.

"Good. It's worth getting to know plenty of other Badgers. Sooner or later, you'll end up on a mission together. On that note, how about having a meal with me, too?"

"Sorry?" I blurted stupidly at the sudden offer. "A meal?"

"Yes. Before your mission with Riccardo, if possible. If I remember right... that's in late November?"

"Yes, that's right. Late November... Before late November?"

"Next Friday evening works for me."

What had brought this on?

Of course, I didn't have the courage to ask. Looking a little pale, I replied that next Friday evening would be fine, of course.

If my returning memories hadn't left me so subdued, I would have said, "Even if I didn't have time for a meal with you, sir, I'd make it."

Just like that, I had plans with my superior.

Ska chuckled softly as he watched me enter the appointment into my phone, looking haggard.

"No need to be so uncomfortable. Technically, you're older than me."

Well, damn.

Such an economical way to reassure me and say he'd heard my story at the same time.

I blinked several times, then pulled up the corners of my mouth.

"I'm still getting used to that fact."

"Well, you only need to get used to it around the three of us in senior leadership and Yun."

Another elegant way to tell me that only those four should know.

I nodded obediently.

Then I tried to ask what he was doing here on a weekend himself, but the sound of the reception room door opening cut off my question.

Was that Shu?

"Shu..."

No, it wasn't?

The person who entered was a little taller than Shu. Exactly Ami's height, in fact.

An enormous pumpkin sat on their shoulders.

"A pumpkin?"

An oversized orange pumpkin, its eyes and mouth carved into a familiar shape.

"A pumpkin head?"

"It's a jack-o'-lantern."

Ami's voice came through the holes in the pumpkin.

I gave a small laugh at the motionless pumpkin. Ska chuckled too, pulling his hand from his pocket. The aide was the first to offer his appraisal.

"Cute."

Well, look at him.

"Come to think of it, it's Halloween already. Come here and I'll give you some candy."

This man was bound to be popular with men and women alike.

But before Pumpkin-Head Ami could move, the reception room door flew open.

At last, Shu came in. She wasn't alone, though. Ro entered ahead of her, wearing another comfortable striped T-shirt and faded jeans.

The curly-haired man was striding into the room when he saw Ami and stopped dead.

"What the hell?"

He arched his thick eyebrows and stared at the pumpkin head.

The pumpkin neither moved nor answered. Ro stood equally still and silent for a moment, then raised a fist and tapped it.

"Peanut? Is that you, Peanut?"

"Ah." Ami's voice leaked out. "Don't."

Ro kept at it. Each time, Ami told him to stop, but he didn't seem inclined to listen.

TAP!

He gave the pumpkin head another light knock, teasing, "Hello? Hello?"

Ami grew irritated. But her warnings did no good. The curly-haired man tapped the pumpkin again.

"What are you doing wearing something as big as you are?"

"Don't."

"Does putting on a pumpkin make a peanut a peanut?"

"Don't."

"Don't wanna."

TAP!

Should I intervene?

While I was debating it, Ami exploded.

"STOOOOP!"

Fucking hilarious.

I watched in delight as Ami snapped and started pummeling Ro.

THUD! THUD! THWACK! THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!

A tremendous racket filled the reception room. Ro hastily leaned back and went on the defensive.

"Ah, shit, that hurts! I said it hurts!" he shouted, blocking Ami's fists with his forearms.

But Ami didn't stop. The jack-o'-lantern-headed Badger pummeled Ro with both fists.

THUD! THWACK! THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!

The rhythmic sound of punches.

A few minutes later, it was Ro who snapped. With a shout of "Oh, for fuck's sake!" he reached out, yanked off the pumpkin, and hurled it into a corner.

"Aah! My pumpkin!"

Fortunately, Ska caught it safely.

But now Ami and Ro were trading punches in earnest. A fight between Badgers made an incredible racket in the reception room.

Clear sounds echoing through the bright, airy space.

No one looked surprised.

They must do this often.

Shu took a curving path around them toward me, while Ska went to break them up at a leisurely pace.

I looked down at my senior as she stopped before me and gave her a faint smile.

"Ma'am."

"Just call me Shu."

Shu Diamond, my immediate senior, had dyed the lower half of her natural blond hair pink and was wearing a pale-purple satin souvenir jacket.

"There probably isn't much of an age gap between us anyway."

That wasn't likely.

Still, I nodded readily. Shu stared up at me as I agreed, then turned her head without a word. I'd noticed it from our first meeting: she wasn't very expressive either. But it felt different from Yun's dryness.

She just seemed incredibly calm. Introverted, but not shy.

"Let's take the bus. I don't really like driving."

"Oh, sure. Anything works for me."

"You don't mind stopping by my place first, do you?"

Hmm?

Both Ska and I were taken aback by the unexpected suggestion, but Shu simply walked toward the door with her usual sleepy expression. She was making steady progress when she noticed I wasn't following and glanced back.

"I left something there."

Well, in that case.

I said goodbye to the other seniors and left the reception room, following my two-tone-haired senior to the bus stop.

* * *

Shu's home was in the very busiest part of Center Core's downtown.

It was a small studio on the second floor, at the top of a metal staircase that looked capable of breaking even a Badger's neck in a fatal fall. No matter how I looked at it, the building didn't seem to have been designed for housing.

The moment the door opened, pastels and neon colors filled my vision.

Posters covering the walls. Decorations perched on top of three monitors. Five or six hoverboards beside the cramped entryway. Inline skates. Shoes in every color. Plush toys on a sky-blue comforter.

In the corner was a game machine.

The instant I saw it glowing there, I nearly fell to my knees.

"That's..."

I could barely get my voice out.

"Ma'am, that's..."

"Oh."

Shu made a casual sound when she saw what I was pointing at. She watched the game machine shining brightly in the small room for a moment, then nodded.

"Yeah. I like retro games."

Retro games?

That was a game I used to love playing with Ray.