"A little more to the left- no, wait! Right!"

The grumpy secretary in typical OL suit and high heels heaved a sigh and relaxed her shoulders after sticking the orange balloon on the wall with double-sided tape.

"Wait, what are you doing?!" Her boss screeched, her pink hair frazzled despite being suffocated into an odango atop her head.

"You said right already mah!"

The pinkette cupped her forehead and hissed, "Nooo. I mean right! Yau bin, not correct!"

The bespectacled lady shot her a withering stare.

"Aiyah it's just a balloon, Fifi," a gravelly female voice came from the inside office. A bronze girl sauntered her way out into the main office, her colourful Hawaiian flip-flops slapping the back of her heels. "He won't notice one, okay?"

"Noon, I just want him to feel a bit more welcomed. You should have seen the look on his face when I told him we hunt ghosts. His eyes were so big Powerpuff Girls pun give up, yanno?" The pinkette shrugged and her oversized pinstripe sweater slipped off her shoulder precariously. With a huff, she pulled it back up and rolled up the long sleeves. "And do not call me that when the new guy is here. I'm MURPHY, capische?"

"Giiirl, don't do that! You behave rougher than the ladyboys in a tiger show back in Krabi," the Thai girl tsked, "Tell her she acts like your gender, Rhys dear!"

Rhys' eyes twitched at the mention of his name. He had been hoping that the ladies would have left him out of whatever insane task they were doing, but evidently that was not so. However, that didn't mean that he had to deign them with a proper reply, the current reddit thread he was reading was far too interesting for him to bother with that. "Yeah, yeah, whatever you say." He said rather dismissively, not taking his eyes off his laptop. He reached for an open bag of chips to his right, grabbed a handful and popped them into his mouth one by one. He sneaked a glance at the time at the lower right corner of the screen. The new guy should be arriving soon.

He had to admit, he had not expected anyone to respond to Murphy's advert, and he was very much surprised when the aforementioned new guy still chose to work for her after she told him the nature of their work. Rhys had been quite sure that they would have to had at least gone through ten candidates before finding one who could accept 'ghost hunting' as a proper job description. The fact that this new person had accepted that without much resistance - or so he had heard - actually made him feel rather uneasy. Just what kind of unhinged person would do so?

Still, he was happy that there would be new addition to the team. He meant no offense to the others, but he was glad to have someone share the eccentricity filling the office. The other three certainly made the place lively, of which Rhys was grateful for, but he liked to have his quiet time sometimes, especially when he was browsing reddit. Shitposting was an art that needed a good environment to flourish.

---

There appeared to be a rather large commotion going on behind the door.

Fletcher stood in front of it, a million thoughts running through his mind despite him knowing that there was really only one thing he could do at this point. If he had wanted to back out of the deal, he would have done so when he had met up with his future employer, and when she had told him that her company hunted ghosts. Fletcher had been too dumbstruck by her job description, delivered in the same manner someone might use to describe the weather, to have done anything but nod. Ghosts? Perhaps she had meant something else by that, Fletcher was no stranger to slang, but he would have appreciated it if she had elaborated on it before the brief meeting had ended.

Regardless, that was all in the past, and now Fletcher found himself in Malaysia. The time for deciding was long gone, and now Fletcher just had to continue on his chosen path and deal with whatever consequences it brought. He straightened his clothes - he had decided to wear a proper, collared button-up shirt and a clean pair of jeans that day - and knocked thrice on the door before turning the knob and pushing it open. He almost gave his rank, name and IC number, but then quickly remembered that it had been months since he left the army.

"Good-" Fletcher began, but then saw the decorated office. He looked at the walls, decorated with balloons, then the floor, then the people inside. "Am I...Am I interrupting?"

"Ooh! He's Chinese! I love Chinese food," Noon squealed with her wrists outwards, excitement threatening to boil over.

Rainbow raised her trimmed eyebrows just a tad; Murphy already mentioned every possible detail your typical CV would hold. Heck, she's uncomfortably aware that the new guy is a Cancer. She offered what she hoped to be a friendly looking smile.

Murphy cringed at the secretary's defo-cringeworthy simper and put up a hand, barking out a half-shout, half-question, "You're on time!" as if employee punctuality was a luxury for bosses.

"Alright ladies and gent! Round up and meet our new hotshot, Fletcher. Why don't you come in, close the door, and have a seat?"

With a stray few office chairs and a single recliner in the middle of the outside office, the open cubicles left little for imagination. If the office was a lady, she looked as dressed as a pinup model at most.

Rhys spun his wheelchair around at the sound of the door opening, and immediately he fought the urge to scowl. Murphy had placed a recruitment advert for a bodyguard, or at least someone to act as the muscle of the group, if he wasn't wrong, and the man who stood in the doorway absolutely did not look the part. A string bean of a person, Rhys could not see him protecting anyone from anything, let alone the supernatural. He was well aware that as a Singaporean, this new person had served in the army, but then again, the Singaporean Armed Forces took in almost everyone who wasn't dying or crippled.

For a moment, Rhys wondered if he should give a few words of welcome, or derision, but then decided to hold his tongue. He wanted to see how this new person would react to his new colleagues. In his experience, Rhys knew that that alone could tell him plenty about a person, or it could very well chase them away. He rolled himself towards away from his laptop and reclined in his seat, eager to see the scene unfold in front of him.

---

Fletcher didn't know what to think. The office looked sparse, far sparser than he had expected. A few chairs here, a recliner there and a cluster of cubicles, that was all there was. He supposed that the commotion earlier had been them trying to pretty up the office, but he honestly didn't think that they achieved much. In fact, it served to only accentuate the bareness of the office, with the bright balloons contrasting heavily with the plain walls and drab furniture.

Well, he had seen a lot worse.

As always, Fletcher did a quick scan over the people in the room. It was a habit that he had gained during his time in the army, and one which would probably be very difficult to kick. The Caucasian in the wheelchair caught his attention for a moment longer than Fletcher would have liked, but he quickly shifted his attention to the wall behind him before it became noticeable. It was another skill he had acquired in the army, the art of looking, but not looking. To observe a person while appearing completely distracted by something else.

Two of the ladies looked rather normal, as far as Fletcher was concerned, and it was the last one that really stuck out to him. With her pink hair and oversized sweater, she certainly had a unique look to her. She seemed quite surprised that Fletcher was on time, and honestly speaking, so was he. Perhaps it was a relic of the 'punctual is late, early is punctual' mindset his sergeant had drilled into his brain during basic training, but Fletcher never felt as if he was running on time.

He stepped into the office, shutting the door behind him and offering everyone a small smile and wave. "Morning," He said, completing the earlier greeting which he had cut short. Looking around, he took one of the chairs and sat down. He cleared his throat, then introduced himself, even though he was pretty sure that they knew who he was already. "I'm Fletcher," He said, then realized that he had no idea how to continue. Perhaps he should have just kept quiet.

Murphy never did had an eye to sift out the dumb ones, even if she insisted plenty that she did. Rainbow rolled her brown eyes, framed by oldschool horn-rimmed spectacles, and with the softest voice she could that intertwined with a bold authoritative tone, hissed at the pinkette, "Yau mou gau cho?"

Said boss flounced her way to the male and slapped a hand on his shoulder, and chortled, "Good speech. I'm Murphy but you know that already. I'm responsible for spitting out your paychecks. And the stone cold woman with her arms folded there is Rainbow."

"Rain," the secretary corrected while unfolding her arms, and opted to prop a hand on her hip. "If you make a comment about my name or glasses, I'll introduce my Staccato heel to your flowerbud."

If such speech was frowned upon in companies, clearly this boss missed the memo.

This was not a good start.

Rhys had not been hoping for a chatty fellow or a smartass - the team had enough of those - but he had hoped that this Fletcher would have been at the very least, not a completely socially inept person. Surely, there had to be something for him to comment on, be it how empty the office was, or Murphy's choice of hair colour or even Noon's excited declaration of love for Chinese food. Rhys sighed inwardly. He had given them his name, at least he could do that much.

Perhaps he was being too harsh in his judgement, Rhys decided. After all, they had only met for a minute at most. They were going to be working together for the foreseeable future, and Rhys honestly could do without making things awkward between them from the start. "G'day to you, buddy." He said with a smile on his face. "Name's Rhys. I'm the brains of this place. I'll be the one giving you whatever information you need, and fixing whatever shit you fellas break."

---

"Nice to meet you," Fletcher said in response to the Caucasian's introduction. It was nice to put a name to a face, and this Rhys person looked, and sounded, friendly enough. He didn't really need to explain his role, though, as Fletcher had already deduced it simply from his disability. Apart from working in the background as in the role of a handler, Fletcher could think of little else for Rhys to do. You could hardly ask him to clean up the place, now could you?

Fletcher looked to the lady introduced to him as Rainbow, and immediately decided that she was a person he should take seriously. She certainly did have a no-nonsense aura about her, as if she would cut him in half if he made as much as a quip about her name. "I won't," He said and managed to wrangle a friendly smile onto his face. He had dealt with the serious sort before, such as visiting officers or base personnel who took themselves too seriously, and Fletcher knew that he would just have to polite, friendly, and hope for the best. "I know about being given an unwanted nickname, ma'am."

That left only one person whose name was still unknown to him. Bolstered by the confidence at having said a total of two complete sentences, he looked to the tanned woman. "Ah, may I know your name, ma'am?" He asked. The honorifics slipped out of his mouth without his notice, the result of having to address everyone as either 'ma'am' or 'sir' for over a year.

Rainbow resorted to keeping her Resting Bitch Face on and took out her phone to entertain herself. Her iPhone 6 was already buzzing like an angry bee with all the flux of messages she received shortly after Fletcher made his appearance.

Noon, on the other hand, couldn't wipe the winning smile off her face even if she tried. Since her mother was a Chinese, and her father a Thai, she always found Chinese guys attractive - call it a side effect from too much feel good dopamine during her stay with her maternal family.

"You look like someone I know," the bronze girl smiled with a morose tightness at one corner of her lip.

Murphy shied away towards the pale guy in his wheelchair and, uncaring Show And Tell was ongoing, began to discuss with Rhys her plans.

"Okay, I think I mostly have all the equipment we may need," -- Electromagnetic Frequency detectors, charms from traditional temple monks, and, oddly enough, a Proton Pack that Murphy pulled strings to get -- "but I think we need night vision goggles. Good ones. I'm not sure what brands are go-to and what are no-gos, and I tried scouring Lowyat for them but my sources tell me they sell mainland products 'sometimes', so..."

Unperturbed that her boss' attention panned elsewhere, the Thai (well, half) leaned in with a cheeky grin, "You look like my next date."

Finally, something for him to do!

Rhys could barely keep himself from grinning as he rolled away from the group and back to his laptop. He opened another browser window and leaned back. "NVGs are going to be tough," He said and let out a frustrated sigh, even though on the inside he was secretly pleased to have a challenging task. "I mean, it all depends on how good you want them. The military stuff? Nah, we're only going to get those from the black market or deep web. They're illegal for reselling, last I checked. We could get some surplus stock, though. The old ones, and I do mean old. I'm talking about First Gulf War or even Vietnam War."

If he had to be honest, he wasn't too sure about brands when it came to such a specific item, but he felt pretty sure that you could hardly call up the manufacturer to place an order. "In any case, mind telling me why we're going to need NVGs?" He asked and cocked a brow. "I thought we'd want thermal imagers to capture heat signatures."

---

Fletcher didn't know whether if it was because he hadn't had a proper conversation with a lady for a little over two years, or if the lady's smile was really just that alluring, but Fletcher could feel the blood rush to his cheeks when he saw her smiling at him. He was inclined to believe that it was the latter case - it happened often enough with social recluses who became even worse recluses after enlisting - but he wasn't about to say that out loud. "Have we?" He asked in response to her suggestion that they had crossed paths before. "I think I would have remembered, ma'am."

His mind only registered the last sentence after it had left his lips, and it only served to make Fletcher feel even more flustered. His section would have described it as being smooth, but to Fletcher, it was another failure of the filter between his brain and mouth. The next words out of the lady's mouth didn't help in the least, and Fletcher looked down, hoping to hide the blush which he knew was quickly filling his cheeks. "Ah, I-" He began, then cleared his throat and looked at her. "I don't think I have your name yet, ma'am."

Lilac cons lit up as Murphy's mouth made a slack O.

"Awester," she placed a both hands on the handles of the wheelchair and, in the best imitation she could of Morgan Freeman, mused, "You may look like sour cream, but you are a genius sour cream. Yes, yes, we'll get that too." Flippantly, she shrugged with a smile, "I just thought having night vision is cool. If you can get them both shipped to the office during weekdays by May, I'll buy you guys dinner!"

◇◆◇

Oh, she was having so much fun. There was something different, fresh, to flirt with guys like Fletcher who obviously don't come by propositions often. The only blushing on a man she was used to were results from alcohol.

"My name is Noon, like lunch time," she giggled upon recalling the offhanded comment Murphy made when she first introduced herself. Tucking a stray lock of black hair behind her left ear, she dipped her head before gazing at Fletcher, "Also, you eat already?"

◇◆◇

Rainbow fired up a furious series of messages on her phone and when no replies came after a minute, she excused herself to leave the office, into the interiors of TNE Complex instead, where she punched a well-memorised number before dialing.

"This is why we'll go broke," Rhys muttered beneath his breath and shook his head. Well, if that was what Murphy wanted, that was what she was getting. He wasn't the one footing the bill, after all. "I'll poke around and see what we can get." He said with a shrug, even though he was already quite sure about what he was going to order for the team. The really old stuff were out of the question. Those Korean War or even Vietnam War era machines were good as collectors' items, but for practical use? No, Rhys knew that he could do better. Even if Murphy wanted nigh-vision goggles simply because they were cool, Rhys wanted them to be usable should they come across a situation calling for such equipment.

It would take time for him to set-up the deal for the night-vision goggles, since they wanted far too little to be able to contact the manufacturer and too many for him to be able to snag off Ebay. He would have to use other means, such as the deep web or from obscure, legal military surplus sellers. Nothing a little hard searching couldn't handle. That left the thermal imagers, and that was no problem whatsoever. Rhys had already done the research; a few months back, he had toyed with the idea of attaching small thermal imagers to a commercial quadcopter to create a surveillance drone of sorts, but the plan fell through when he realized that the current imagers available were all far too big to fit onto a drone.

A smile crept onto his lips. Now he was in his environment.

---

"P-Pleasure to meet you, Noon." Fletcher said, then mentally lambasted himself for the stutter. He shouldn't be letting this lady get to him this much, but he just couldn't help it. He had never been that social of a person to begin with, having gone through his school years without even a single fling. For someone he found attractive to talk to him in such a manner, it was almost scary to him, and Fletcher just wanted the conversation to end, but he couldn't find any good or polite reason to excuse himself. "No," That was what he wanted to say in response to her question, but his rumbling stomach betrayed him.

He looked at her with a sheepish look on his face, and said, "Evidently not. Have you?"

"I also haven't! How about we-" Noon yelped as the door smack-dabbed her back, the knob hitting right onto her elbow. She may have sixth sense, but she was no prophet to foresee that.

Pouting, she growled at the perpetrator who was walking back in, oblivious.

"What is wrong with you, woi? Very pain ah!"

Blink, blink. Rainbow was processing what she did wrong when the pinkette rushed out to gauge the incident.

"What happened? Did we have a customer?" The hopeful voice was imminent.

"No, just a very blur Bowbow bruising me up," the half-Thai sneered, rubbing the spot where it tingled uncomfortably.

"Rain?"

"Sorry," the secretary froze up and poked her index fingers together, gaze steered to the side, "Um, I was distracted, okay. Uh, I'll just go do my work now."

Puzzled, but unsure if she wanted to open the can of worms here in the office, Murphy only nodded mechanically and mumbled a 'sure'.

"Alright, you should start looking for suspicious cases in the area while kiwi over there digs up some neat stuff for us. Also, Noon, go get us some stationery and notebooks."

"Whaaat? Very far lah! At Times Square 7th floor, woi ..." Even though the shopping mall was just across the complex, separated by a monorail station, the lift for any levels above the 3rd floor were slow. Escalators were all over the place, so it would place quite the test on her legs to go to the only bookstore in there.

And that was why, boys and girls, monopolising trades are a nuisance to commoners like us.

"If you don't want to, I can do it myself," her boss smiled sweetly - too sweetly.

With a hasty laugh, the psychic was out the door.

"Fletcher, I'm going to debrief you about ghosts now, so wash yout ears and get ready for some education," was her giddy intro before she plopped into the recliner snagged off lelong.my and began iterating what ghosts usually look like, how they actually leave behind ectoplasm, and how Murphy's Security strives to smite poltergeists that disturb the zen of poor ol' citizens.

Snapping her fingers and aiming at the Asian guy, she prodded, "Have you really used a gun before?"

It only took a couple of seconds for Fletcher to realize that Murphy had not been joking when she said that her company hunted ghosts. There was no way the terms poltergeist or ectoplasm were being used as euphemisms, they were far too specific for that. Fletcher nodded in silence as Murphy carried on, even as a myriad of thoughts went through his head. Ghosts weren't real, that was what he believed, and ghostbusting was either a fictional career, or one chosen by budding scam artists. Part of him wanted to just up and leave, but another part of him compelled him to stay, for no reason other than that he was already in too deep by this point.

Still, even though he held on to his skepticism of the paranormal, he had to admit that he had experienced some rather eerie phenomena during his time in the army. Be it lockers making noises in the dead of night, or just a general feeling of unease when conducting night patrols, there were times when he found himself having to tell himself, over and over again, that ghosts did not exist, and he had no reason to feel afraid. It was all in the mind, he had told himself, or were natural phenomena that were being misinterpreted by his sleep-deprived mind.

He was brought out of his own world by Murphy's question. "Yes," He replied and cocked his head slightly. He thought that it was common knowledge that all Singaporeans went through the army and thus, by default, most would have at least fired a rifle once. "The SAR-21 and GPMG. I didn't get a chance to use the SAW or grenade launcher. I fired the P226 on my own time at the Sembawang Gun Club. Why?"

Murphy nodded with a feline smirk of approval. "I knew a person who said he's fired a gun before, but apparently he fired a wobbly shot and smashed up his collarbone with the M-16 butt."

Scratching her cheek sheepishly, she fluttered her eyes at him before dully breaking the news, "I can't cover a broken collarbone everytime I take you ghosthunting, yanno. Doctors in Malaysia aren't cheap if you aren't local."

◇◆◇

"Hey, Rhys. How do you find work so far here? We haven't had a single case yet," Rainbow peeked at the New Zealander with a nervous shift of her eyes before pretending to focus at her iMac Air, just in case he didn't hear her.

She rarely sweated, which was one of the reasons why she managed to work part time as a croupier in Genting a while back. Right now though her hands feel like clams; swiping on the touchpad was getting difficult to move the cursor around.

"That's...Practically impossible." Fletcher said, his brow furrowing in confusion. He had fired the M16 before, an old one from the 1970s at that, and while the recoil was indeed strong and the spring weakened by years of storage, Fletcher doubted that it would have had the punch to actually break a bone. Perhaps if the firer had the stock in an awkward position, or there was a major defect with the weapon itself, it would have been possible, but even that seemed unlikely to him. Fletcher had even fired the GPMG, firing a larger round and at a faster pace, and the only complain he had was that his shoulder felt sore after a few dozen rounds of automatic fire.

He shook his head slightly. That was not his concern, at least not unless Murphy expected him to handle some high-calibre, tank-killing weapon, which he doubted was to be the case. "You don't need to worry about that." He said. "You just need to let me get some practice with whatever weapon you want me to use." He paused for a moment, realizing that the advert had said nothing of whether he would need to provide his own weapons or not. He had assumed that that was not the case, seeing as how owning guns were very illegal in both Malaysia and Singapore. "Arms will be provided, right?"

---

Rhys stifled a yawn as he shut another tab. Sourcing for the NVGs was not as challenging as he had expected, but he just hoped that Murphy was fine with some black market kit. He had managed to get his hands on a few Gulf War era night vision goggles, for less than a thousand a piece, and that was already a steal. The thermal imagers had been an even simpler affair, just a matter of sending an email to the supplier and asking for a quote, with the explanation that he was a drone enthusiast wanting to experiment with different types of cameras.

"Huh? Oh, it's you." He said upon hearing Rainbow address him. "Well, I don't know what you guys mean by a case, but as far as I'm concerned, right now I'm just doing logistics work." He said. When he had first arrived, he was somewhat like Fletcher. Surprised by the nonchalant admission that this group hunted ghosts and largely skeptical of the whole thing. As time went on, however, Rhys learned to just ignore the weirder stuff and just do as he was told. After all, as long as Murphy gave him his paycheck at the end of each month, he didn't really have much to complain about.

"Just get ready for a nasty surprise, Rain." Rhys said and gestured to his laptop with his thumb. "Murphy just roped me into getting us some night vision kit and thermal imagers. Your accounts are going to explode, that's for sure."

"Hmm," Rainbow sighed, and inconspicuously clicked Add To Cart instead of Check Out her All-in-One HadaLabo facial set. Guess that's one month of recycling her less stellar products.

In a moment outside her character, the bespectacled girl asked loud enough for both of them to hear, glad there was a thin, chipboard wall separating them from prying eyes and ears. "Do you have any siblings, or ... girlfriends?"

◇◆◇

"Yeah, we do!" Murphy perked up at the mention of weapons and rocked on the balls of her feet, very pleased. "We have connections. Ghosthunting is a very serious job, you know, and there are others out there who take it serious business-ly."

Her redundancy flew by her own head.

"I was thinking, if you're free after work today, we could go grab a bite and spend some time in the arcade at Times Square. Watch a movie, if you prefer. The Conjuring 2 was premiered since last week, and my sister isn't a fan of horror."

In contrast to Noon, the pinkette was devil-may-care about her invitation, seemingly unaware that she was, in essence, asking the guy out on what others would call a date.

Rhys glanced sideways at Rainbow for a moment before looking back at his laptop. What was with her, asking these sort of questions, and didn't she already know the answers? Rhys felt quite certain that he had, at the very least, spoken of his small family at some point in the past. However, he couldn't really say that he felt annoyed by her questions. Rainbow seemed the be the quiet sort, and Rhys felt rather pleased that she was trying to strike up a conversation. At least she was trying, unlike some of the other people of a similar disposition that Rhys knew.

Still, he couldn't exactly resist teasing her slightly. "Whoah there, Rain." He said, the smirk evident in his voice. "Keep asking questions like that and I might think that you were expressing interest." He chuckled, then continued, "Nah, no siblings, no girlfriends. Ex-girlfriends, yeah, but that's a long, long time ago."

---

Did Murphy just ask him out on a date?

Fletcher could feel his trains of thought screeching to a halt as he registered her invitation. Just what exactly was going on? First Noon, then now her. With Noon, Fletcher could at least respond with whatever was on his mind without much worry. At worst, things would just become awkward, nothing time and a little pleasant conversation couldn't fix. Murphy, however, was his boss, and common sense dictated that one should never get involved with one's superior. It made for a messy work environment. However, Fletcher didn't know if he was in a position to say no either.

He gulped, and decided to agree. Perhaps it wasn't what he thought it was, and he was just thinking too much into things. Besides, it would be a good chance for him to get acquainted with the surrounding area, something he had failed to do when he first arrived. "Y-Yeah, sure. I wouldn't mind." He said.

"El perfecto!" She grinned and clapped, "It's a date." The words came out of her mouth like second nature, having picked up the generic response from too many hours in front of American TV shows.

"No! No perfecto!" Noon stormed in with both hands, each grabbing a plastic bag, with the red label 'typo.' on the otherwise white sheets. Dropping the stationery on the flimsy carpeted floor, she smiled dangerously at the Chinese duo.

"You two plan to go paktor eh?"

"What, are you jealous?" Murphy glared at the Thai girl, folding her arms.

"Ofcos! I was about to ask if he wanted to lunch with me or not! You want to keep himself to yourself?"

"You could come if you want to. It'll be a menage a trois at most," smirking, the boss shrugged. "I'll send you home after, no big deal."

The psychic's face scrunched in confusion. "Mena-wha?"

◇◆◇

"W-What? Chya!" The girl jerked up to stare down at the Caucasian, face beet red. "I-I-I don't ... I ..."

Blushing, Rainbow cleared her throat and lowered down her volume. "I already have a boyfriend ... um, a bit ... something like that. Uhh ... a-anywaysss ... if, let's say, you died and you have a girlfriend, would you come back to see her?"

Fletcher felt his face flush as Noon seemed to be honestly confused by Murphy's use of the French term. Of course, Fletcher knew what it meant, but he wasn't quite sure if he should explain it. Call him old-fashioned, but he still felt uncomfortable discussing perverse matters in front of unfamiliar people. "It's, ah, nothing," He said, rather lamely in his own opinion. He was still feeling rather disoriented by the whole thing, what with him going from someone who was practically a social recluse to receiving two invitations from two different women. In fact, just invitations from other people, that on its own was a new enough experience.

He cleared his throat, and hoping to defuse the situation, he said, "It's still a long way till dinner time, and I haven't eaten dinner yet, so..." He trailed off and looked at Noon. "I guess I could go with you if you still want to?" Towards the end of his sentence, his confidence suddenly decided to make itself scarce, making him end it as a question rather than the statement he had intended. He sighed inwardly. Perhaps he should have kept his mouth shut.

---

"Easy there, Rain. I was only teasing." Rhys said, grateful for the fact that she could not see his smirking face. She would have probably given him one tight slap for it, he thought. However, his smirk turned to a look of confusion and horror as Rainbow mentioned having someone that was 'something like a boyfriend'. In his mind, there was only one possibility, and it wasn't one that he was going to say aloud. If Rainbow would have slapped him for the smirk, she would have probably knocked him out cold if he voiced what he was thinking.

"If I died?" Rhys asked, amused by the question. "Well, if I could, I would, though I don't think I should. That'd probably scare the shit outta her, don't you think so?"

"I know right?" She found herself clenching the edge of the table with her fingers and let go before her nails broke. With a thump, she sat down again, a sigh dragged out as undramatically as she could. "But if say she, uh, ahem, c-cheated on you before you die leh?" Her voice, barely a whisper, melded into the air, "Then how?"

This time, she dared a straight look at the researcher, eyes wide.

◇◆◇

"That would be very nice. I know this really nice place that got serve black squid rice ..." The Thai girl felt coy around Fletcher, his innocence infecting her. Or maybe she was too thrilled to be exposed to such a strange specimen. She couldn't tell yet.

"Okay, so we three do the least job compared to m-Rain and Awester," the pinkette bobbed her head slowly in understanding as she looked inside the array of pens - red, blue, black, and a lonely green - and a simple, practical stack of lined A4's.

"You have shit taste," she mumbled, but decided to pay the rounded sum as printed on the receipt. Forking over the twenty ringgit orange bill to a grateful Noon, Murphy started to make her way out with an aloof, "I'll be out with Fletcher."

Her voice left a ringing finality between the three. Even with her back towards the two flirting youngsters (Murphy liked to consider herself part of the older generstion regardless of age, a chagrin to the older staffs), her stature imposed a sense of "I'm looking at you" directed at the new hire.

Rhys let out a huff and turned around to face Rainbow. "Well, if she did cheat on me, then I'd like to think that I'd haunt the bastard she cheated on me with, and all her subsequent dates." He said, a sliver of his exasperation showing through. If Rainbow wanted to say something, then he would have appreciated it if she just said it straight instead of talking in circles and in the most obtuse of manners. It was frustrating, having to guess the meaning behind her words. "Come on Rain, what's on your mind? You don't normally talk this much." He said and folded his arms across his chest.

---

Fletcher took that as his cue to leave with Murphy, and so he followed obediently behind her as she left. From the way she had spoken and her general stature, Fletcher guessed that he may have made a mistake somewhere along the line. It was not exactly how he had hoped for his first day to go, but mistakes were to be expected. He had known that it was going to be tough going from a military to a civilian environment, and it would take time before he got accustomed to working without rigid chains of commands and ranks.

"I was only trying to be nice, I meant no offence." He said as he followed behind Murphy. She had said that they were going out, but he still wasn't sure where. It was still hours to dinner, and honestly, he just wanted to get something to eat.