Whoom! The curtains flung back and light poured into the conapt. The wallscreen flipped on and announced "6:45 in the morning; it's a beautiful day in Cornerian City, a gorgeous 25 degrees celsius and it looks like traffic is at an all-time LOW!"
Fox sat on the edge of his bed, hands folded on one knee, his eyes on the small telephone console next to his bed frame. He had been sitting there for the last twenty minutes.
Good God, he thought; this is not a good way to start the day.
"Phone," he said.
The little console beeped.
"Call Falco Lombardi, would you?"
He stood up and the bedframe sucked the bed back into the wall. The wallscreen chirped merrily and said, "Would you like Mr. Lombardi onscreen?"
"No, just audio."
"Fox?"
"Falco. Hi. Quick question for you. No. Wait. Scratch that."
His eyes unfocused for a moment and his head hurt. How does Peppy sleep so well these days? he thought; every time I close my eyes I just see an Arwing console and meteors flashing by.
"Is everything okay?" Falco said.
"Maybe. Maybe. Never mind, sorry to bother you."
Before Falco could reply, he switched the phone console off.
"Got my itinerary?" he asked.
The wallscreen chirped and displayed it, but Fox barely glanced at it.
Finally, a voice in his head said, she walked all over you and now you've got her right where you want her -- she wants your help!
I'll ignore her message, he thought; it was inappropriate anyways. You don't call up an ex like that. That's just-
Inappropriate?
Uncourteous, that's what it was. They shouldn't have any obligations to each other anymore.
Who broke up with who?
She broke up with me. That absolves me of responsibility in these sort of cases.
What responsibility? It's Fara and she needs my help -- this isn't a major stretch for me to want to help her. It's just-- rather--
Don't want to see her?
You broke up with her.
Did I? But she said-
"Phone call," the screen said. "Falco Lombardi."
"Oh," Fox said. "Put him on, I guess."
The screen flipped images and Falco appeared. "Hey, buddy," he said. "Now how about you tell me what's going on?"
"It was-" He gestured at the console. "God, I don't know. Fara called. Sounded like she was-- just like she was in trouble or something. Troubled, rather."
"Didn't you break up with her?"
"Did I? Then why do I remember it being her doing the breaking up?"
"So why don't you just call her?"
"Yeah." He looked out the window, stared at the glow coming into the conapt. "Yeah, I could, couldn't I?"
"You're such a dumbass," Falco said, shaking his head and hanging up the phone, the screen going back to Fox's itinerary.
There was no answer at Fara's, which brought a wave of relief to Fox, who decided it wasn't his fault he couldn't get a hold of her, and went into the side room to bathe.
Lunch time swept Fox out into the streets, up a few flights of stairs and into a restaurant where the colours were dark, the food was spicy, and what little light that got in made Krystal's fur glow with a blue bloom.
Krystal smiled. "- and then Perry said he wanted me to do a few novelizations, which means he was impressed."
To the left of her wine glass sat the book Cerinia -- A Memory by Krystal Kurisutaru.
Fox grimaced. "Perry's full of crap."
"Well, I was flattered. You never know though, do you? Maybe writing is good for me -- Dr. Fathal said writing was a good, you know, outlet for any latent aggressive feelings I might have pent up in me."
Fox smiled as best he could. If she's going to start talking about her psychoanalyst again, he thought, I'm leaving. "Really," he said. "I figured active military service would do that for you."
The edges of her lips darted up. "Sarcasm again," she said. She picked up the book. "This was a project, nothing else. Share in some of my success once in a while -- we all share in yours."
He picked up the book and stared at it. No, he thought; this is sensationalism. This is cathartic vomit of yours poured out onto the bookshelves.
Catch yourself there, Fox, he thought. "Sorry," he said quietly, putting the book back down. "You're right." He stood up. "Listen, I need to make a phone call."
She scrutinized him with those perceptive eyes of hers and said, "Go on."
He made it out to the back, found a public phone and stabbed it with his thumb. When it recognized his print, he tried calling Fara again.
This is bad for you, Fox, he thought; you should be out in space again.
But no, she wasn't home, so he hung up again.
God, Fara, he thought; I hope you're okay.
The food had arrived by the time he returned to the table. Krystal poured them both another two glasses of wine, all the while eyeing him. "Mhm," she said.
"Mhm what?" he said, looking down at his food and picking up a fork. Synthetic meat again -- no herd animal harmed in the making of this plate; great, he thought.
"Just-" she said, watching him. "Do we-- do we have trust issues?"
"Beg pardon?"
"Something's bothering you."
"How so?"
"Fox," she said, picking up her glass of wine and inspecting it. "What's in your left jacket pocket?"
Fox reached back, found his jacket pocket; his fingers touched plastic. "Cell phone," he said.
"You only use the pay phone when you're agitated. So-"
"I don't know. It could just be nothing."
"What could be?"
"My ex-girlfriend called me last night and left me a message. Fara. Sounds like-- shit,I don't know; she sounded-- Maybe I'm just being an idiot."
"What'd she say?"
"Not much. Just the tone of her voice."
"And you didn't want to mention this to me?"
"Telling significant others about late night unsolicited phone calls from ex-girlfriends usually doesn't go over very well."
Krystal said nothing; she continued to inspect the wine. "I see," she said.
"I don't get it. She broke up with me. She shouldn't be calling."
"Mhm."
"At least. I think."
Krystal's eyes swung like a slow-moving pendulum up from the wine to look at him. "Who broke up with who?"
"Technically, I did."
"How can someone technically break up with someone?"
"Well, she wanted me to break up with her, so I did."
"I'm sorry?"
"Well, like, it was weird." He rubbed his head, feeling uncomfortable. I didn't want to have this conversation, he thought. "She just started acting depressed around me all the time, and hardly talked to me. For weeks. And then, when I didn't break up with her for that, she started talking about her inadequacies, how the relationship wasn't healthy, and when I didn't break up with her for that, she kept talking about how she thought she was holding me back (from what, I don't know), and kept asking me if I wanted to break up with her."
Krystal nodded slightly, almost imperceptibly.
Fox took a sip from his wine glass, swallowed, felt the wine spread its fingers over his body. "So one day I asked her if she wanted to break up with me, and she replied by asking me if I wanted to break up with her. So, to hell with it, I gave her what she wanted. She shouldn't be calling me for help."
Krystal sat there, unmoving, watching him, as the light dimmed outside from the clouds, and the candlelight from the table touched her fur with a dancing glow. Finally she said, "Why did you never tell me this?"
Fox shrugged. "Guess it never came up."
"Since when would something like that come up in conversation?"
"Exactly."
She looked at him reproachfully, but he didn't care; he was uncomfortable enough with this conversation.
---
The phone rang next to Falco's hand and the wallscreen next the landscape painting chirped and spat and went dead.
Impossible, he thought; there's no one in Cornerian City with a jammer, could there be?
It'd make for an interesting call, certainly. He snatched up the phone and took the console over to the wallscreen on the other side of his condo.
"Falco?" the voice said.
Falco paused for a moment, nearly stumbled, and continued his trek towards the other wallscreen. "Leon," he said.
"How are you, Lombardi?"
He plugged the phone console directly into the second wallscreen, and stared at his new wood finishing in his kitchen. He wasn't used to the new wealth, didn't know what to spend it on, so he spent it on this condo.
The wallscreen sputtered and died.
"Fine, Leon," Falco said. "Where are you calling from?"
"Did you know that our mutual friend Fox has his cell phone turned off at the moment? Why would someone own one of those things if one was not to use it?"
"Keep talking," Falco said. "I'm tracking this call as we speak."
He didn't know why he lied, but it made him feel better. He strained his ears, trying to hear something beyond Leon's voice, anything to give him a clue--
"Oh yes, I bet you are," Leon said. "You just pass on a message to Fox from me to him, won't you, sweetie? Tell him that I'll have his precious Fara soon, and it'll be wonderful to see his expression after what I'm going to do to her."
"Why would Fox care? They broke up a year ago." Falco was impressed he kept his voice steady -- he tried to remember exactly what Fox had said about that message Fara had sent.
"Because he's Fox, Lombardi. You know him better than that. Ta ta."
The phone went dead.
"Uh huh," he said, hanging the phone back up on the console. Immediately both wallscreens flipped back on, revealing the temperature, the time, and the number of messages in Falco's inbox.
"Right," he said.
He told the wallscreen to call Slippy.