"Welcome aboard, Kuromu*." The security maintenance said, giving the black-haired boy back his credentials. "Your designated ship should be arriving here in three hours."

"Understood." Izaya pocketed his credentials, turned, and walked away.

The raven looked around himself as he walked over to a remote side of the hanger bay. There was no one close to him.

"38, head to the outer rim of the planet." Izaya said to the intercom in his ear. "Await further instructions."

Izaya heard beeping in response. Then silence. He let out a small sigh.

"Hey, Newbie!"

Izaya looked over to the voice.

Three men looking to be a bit older than Izaya were walking over to him, thick grins plastered on their faces. The raven only spared them a glance then looked away.

"You must be the new recruit Akabayashi was sending over." One of them said.

"We'd been waiting on you."

"Took you long enough to get here."

"Where's your etiquette? Bow to your superiors, worm."

"And come help us out. We need—"

"Excuse me," Izaya interrupted. "But I was sent by Lord Malgus to board the harrower class ship that'll be docking here. You've got the wrong rookie."

"Eh? We didn't hear anything about this."

"Then apparently you're not important enough to know what Lord Malgus wants."

"Wha—"

"You—"

Izaya glared at them.

The three glared right back.

"U-um, excuse me."

The four planted their glaring eyes on the interrupter. A young boy, about eighteen or so, stood behind the three men. He looked ever-so-slightly sheepish.

"Um, I'm Raglak Erzo. I'm the new maintenance recruit."

The three only glared at the boy harder. Izaya merely looked away.

"Um—"

"Come on then! You've kept us waiting long enough!" One of the men yelled before grabbing the new recruits arm and pulling him away as they walked off.

Of course, not before casting Izaya one final glare and throwing words of insult and curses.

Izaya's only response was to roll his eyes.

'Sith are so aggressive and provocative. Annoyances, the lot of them.'

The raven decided to occupy himself on a game-based device he had in his pocket.

'They don't think things through. They're impulsive, crude, and don't listen to reasoning. Words fall on deaf ears. So annoying.'

The raven dragged his finger across the screen.

'Well, I guess they take action to physical responses. But that's about it. Still annoying, though. We can't come to peace treaties even if we wanted to.'

Izaya looked up from his device to the sound of something heavy clattering to the ground. The new recruit seemed to have dropped something of importance, causing him to get back-handed by one of the three men who heckled him.

The raven checked the time. Two hours and forty minutes to go.

'This is going to be a long wait.'

Shizuo, we're going to be boarding soon." Tom said.

"Already?" Shizuo checked the time before looking out one of the windows. The outpost was within sight. "Is everyone ready?"

"Yeah, they're all strapping down as we speak."

"Alright. You should strap in too, Tom-san."

"I will but Shizuo, are you...okay? You've been spacing off a lot."

"...I'm alright, Tom-san. I've just...had a lot on my mind."

"Wanna talk about it?"

Shizuo looked up at the tan-fleshed man. This man wasn't his mentor but he had always been there for Lord Malgus had left the blond significantly damaged after a sparing match, Tom was always the one who helped him up, took care of him and kept him from entering depression or unnecessary rages. The blond considered him a close friend and had always gone to him with his problems before.

But this was something Shizuo didn't feel like he could share. As much as he would like to tell someone and discuss what he should do, he couldn't possibly say aloud that Lord Malgus may want him to kill his little brother.

"No, I'm okay. Thank you, Tom-san."

Tom didn't look convinced but he nodded nonetheless and went over to his seat in order to buckle himself in for the landing.

Once Tom was gone, Shizuo sighed heavily. He then reached down and put his seat belt together.

Within ten minutes, their ship was landed in the hanger bay. However, everyone waited another five before unbuckling and heading to the loading ramp of the ship.

"Heiwajima Shizuo!" The blond was greeted by a short female red-head who held out a holovid clipboard. "You never fial to be punctual, do you?"

"Of course not." Shizuo took the board. "I'm assuming everything's in order?"

"Yes. Lord Malgus' shipment has been well met."

"And maintenance has been scheduled to look at our shield generator?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Good." Shizuo finally looked up at her. "Everything's looking good."

As the blond continued to discuss things with the red-head, the black-haired Izaya walked alongside the cargo being wheeled in and entered the ship without any of the original crew members noticing.

Koromu—Japanese pronunciation of Chrome.

KCK: Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike children before? I feel as if I haven't so I'm going to express myself really quick.

I finally found my Star Wars notebook and the toddler decided it'd be a good idea to step on it-while it was on a table, mind you-and tear out five pages of written work. Lovely. Superb.

And what does the mother do? Nothing. Didn't even yell at the kid, just *le shrugged*, grabbed him and went back up to the room.

Like, I understand that it's just a notebook. I understand to most people, something like that isn't significant if it gets tattered. But not to me. To me, my notebooks are very important and I cherish them because it is literally the last few hours of my time and effort torn up and ruined.

It's so fucking annoying.

Another annoying thing that happened was: I bought a new composition notebook for Crown's and Headphone's. Was getting ready to write in it. Turn to the first page and the aforementioned mother decided to write in pen "Don't forget to keep smiling" as big as she could write.

Yeah, I ended up giving the notebook to a friend. Because I physically cannot tear a page out of a composition notebook. It goes against my OCD and will end up with the same result of not using it.

I understand what she was trying to do. The message was obvious. But by writing in my notebook, she ended up giving me the complete opposite emotion of what she intended.

It's just so fucking annoying.

And I just needed to rant about this for a bit.

Thanks for reading.

Hope to see you in the next one.

KCK

MorningStar: No comment.

~MorningStar~