“Alright, talk. What do you want?” asked the youngster. He didn’t bother to get up from the ground.
“I want to go to your house and eat fish balls.”
The way Wheeze made it sound like it was the only logical course of action made him felt like stuffing it into the nearby garbage bin.
“I’m sorry, but my family’s poor. You’re going to have to pay if you really want those fish balls,” said the youngster.
Wheeze’s ears twitched the moment it heard that it had to pay. “How much?”
“That depends on your appetite, but I can give you a small discount. How does one MB coin per fish ball sound?”
Wheeze calculated the difference between the price of the fish balls and all the fish biscuits it ever ate. It came to the conclusion that it was a reasonable price.
“Okay! Someone will come over and pay the bill later.”
The youngster shook his head after seeing how sure the gray cat looked. Lemme guess, you’re going to call your master over and make them pay for you. Left with no choice, he finally rose to his feet and asked, “What is your name, by the way?”
If no one showed up, he was going to issue a notice.
“My name is Whe...” Wheeze was going to declare its real name, but it suddenly recalled Cillin saying that it was now a famous figure, and that it should keep a low profile. So, it amended after a pause, “My nickname is Wheeze. What about you?”
The youngster shot a glance at the fatty again. To think that a cat would have a nickname…
“My name is Tesoro.”
Tesoro grabbed his bag and started walking toward the direction of his house after giving his name. Wheeze happily followed behind his back.
Meanwhile, Cillin and Moon just finished collecting some data and performing a rough scan on the whole planet. They managed to detect a very small amount of residual substance from the black box on the planet, and confirmed that it was somewhere around the town area. But that was all.
It took a lot of effort to collect the residues from their location, but they were so old that Cillin only managed to find out a limited amount of information. The only thing he could confirm was that the black box was not on this planet. That being said, Cillin had a feeling that this planet hid a critical clue regarding the black box. For now, he was still in the process of searching for that clue.
“The residual substances had left the black box at different times. Some of them dated as far back as seven or eight hundred years ago, and some dated only a century or less. The amount of residue left behind each time is also different. We have more residue from over seven hundred years ago, but it still wasn’t enough to tell what happened exactly. Oh, I also detected some very weak signals that needs further analyzing and characterizing,” said Moon while sending Cillin the relevant data.
Cillin rubbed his chin as he watched the results on the screen. They couldn’t understand why the results had turned out this way, but finding the black box’ residue was still a good thing. At the least, it was a clue pointing them toward what might possibly be the right direction.
They could save a lot of time if they found the black box. At the very least, they wouldn’t need to rely completely on the experts they picked up. He very much preferred returning to GAL as a young man than otherwise.
Cillin was deep in thought when he received a message from Wheeze.
“Cillin, someone invited me to a fish ball meal, so I’ll be away for a while!”
Knowing Wheeze, there was a high chance that there was a story behind this so-called “invitation”. He didn’t trust the gray cat right away.
His suspicion was proven true Wheeze sent him another message some time later.
“Pay for me when you come over, okay? It’s one MB coin per fish ball!”
I knew it, Cillin thought to himself as he stared at his communicator’s display. I wonder who’s the unfortunate fellow who got caught by it.
Cillin decided to ignore Wheeze for the moment and continue his data processing after confirming its current location. As Moon had mentioned earlier, they would need to analyze the residue further if they wished to get some conclusive results. So, he and Moon brought a couple of harvesters with him and left with Moon to the site where the residue was detected for a deeper probe.
Back to Wheeze. The youngster and the cat arrived at an old residential area with a building layout that reminded Wheeze of Old Chang’s place. The only difference was that the houses here were slightly bigger and had more space.
Tesoro’s home was at the third floor of an rundown apartment. In fact, it kind of looked like three rundown houses stacked atop of each other.
Tesoro put the key into the keyhole of his front door and pulled. It didn’t move. He pulled again. It still didn’t budge an inch.
Bang!
He gave them door a loud kick before pulling it again. This time, the door wobbled twice before finally giving way.
Wheeze looked at the door and sighed inside its head: Well this is one high class door. I haven’t seen one that’s opened by kicking until now.
But before Wheeze could voice its thoughts, a most putrid smell suddenly invaded its nose and drilled right into its brain. The stench was so terrible that it almost fainted on the spot.
“Aiyo, did you lose control of your bowels or something, old man!?” Tesoro shouted while covering his own nose.
“Cut the bullshit. I’m making pickled vegetables right now!” A rough voice came from inside the kitchen. It sounded muffled as if the speaker was covering his mouth with something.
“No one eats that kind of stuff these days!” replied Tesoro in a disdainful tone.
A torn shoe flew toward him. “Go clean the clothes already!”
Tesoro calmly dodged the torn shoe. “You said you’ll fix the washing machine if you have time!”
“Well I don’t have time! Now stop bothering me and my pickled vegetables! Also, don’t forget to treat your bruises! If it gets infected, it’ll cost a lot of money to go to the hospital!”
It was strange. The speaker was nowhere to be seen, and yet somehow he knew that Tesoro had gotten into a fight and hurt himself.
“I know already. Go make your damned pickled vegetables!” Tesoro replied impatiently while walking upstairs.
Creak—The kitchen door opened, and a middle-aged man wearing an apron with suspicious yellow stains walked out. He looked extremely unkempt with his messy hair and unshaved stubble. His speech wasn’t clear because he was biting a cigarette.
Tesoro was walking up the stairs when the middle-aged man complained with a frown on his face, “Why are you skipping school again? I didn’t pay all that money and send you to school for you to skip… hmm? Where did this fat cat come from? It sure has a lot of meat to sell.”
“I told you to get back to your pickled vegetables! I need to use the kitchen later!” replied Tesoro without even looking back.
The middle-aged man examined Wheeze for a moment. In the end, he clicked his tongue once before going back into the kitchen.
Wheeze followed Tesoro into his room. It wasn’t big, but it was surprisingly clean and tidy. He wasn’t as disorderly as he looked.
Tesoro immediately started treating his wounds like he had done this many times after entering his room. He didn’t look worried because all of his wounds were superficial.
Tesoro lay on his bed and blanked out after he was done treating himself. Wheeze couldn’t help but ask, “How much longer do we have to wait?”
“We wait until that smelly old man is done pickling his vegetables, unless you want your fish balls to smell like that?”
Wheeze shook its head rapidly.
“Then we wait. Don’t worry, it won’t take too long. He should be done in about a nap’s time.” Tesoro closed his eyes and started napping as he said he would.
He didn’t want to go to school because those people couldn’t for the life of them just leave him alone. They kept finding all sorts of excuse to fight him, and worse they kept verbally abusing him. He didn’t mind fighting, but hearing words such as “bastard”, “scumborn” or worse just pissed him off to no end.
Moreover, it wasn’t like a commoner like him needed any culture at all. Only those who would slave themselves away to the nobles would do that. Literally no one except his dad was dumb enough to waste all that money and time to send their kids to school.
Tesoro’s mood soured the second the thought invaded his mind, so he put his head on his arm, tried to forget his troubles and catch a good nap.
Wheeze was crouching atop a cabinet and feeling very much awake because it had almost too much sleep on the spaceplane. Unable to fall asleep and bored out of its mind, it started looking for stuff to play with and pass the time.
Groggy with sleep, Tesoro suddenly felt someone or something poking at his cheek. Normally he wouldn’t let guard down so much that someone could prey on him, but he was at his own home right now. Therefore, instead of reflexively lashing out at whatever was touching him, he opened his eyes and saw the fat cat patting his face with its meaty paws.
“What?”
Tesoro let out a yawn before noticing something amiss. He looked at Wheeze again and noticed a rectangular box about a meter long behind it. It was opened.
Tesoro immediately sat up and checked the contents of the box. After confirming that nothing was missing or damaged, he let out a sigh of relief.
“This one you’re not allowed to play with,” said Tesoro while trying to close the box.
“Wait, I want to ask you a question.” Wheeze stopped his movement before pointing at the knife inside the box. “Is this yours?”
There were a couple of mini-sized weapons in the box such as knives, spears, clubs, sticks and more. However, something wasn’t quite right about them.
“They just a bunch of toy models. Why do you want to know?” Tesoro sounded confused.
Wheeze pointed at the brownish yellow folding knife again. “Is this a gift from someone, or something you bought?”
“It has nothing to do with you!” Tesoro barked harshly, but it sounded weak for some reason.
Not wanting to indulge Wheeze and its questions any longer, Tesoro closed the box and got ready to put it away. However, he paused for a moment before looking at Wheeze. “Why are you interested in it? I can make you a model if you want. It’ll cost you extra though.”
“Why on earth would I want a model? It’s not as good as the real thing, is it?” Wheeze thought for a moment before adding, “There’s a mark on your knife.”
“A mark?” Tesoro opened the box again. “Where?”
Wheeze pointed at a spot on the blade. “Over here.”
“Oh, nah. This one’s here since the beginning.” Tesoro relaxed when he saw the mark Wheeze was pointing at.
Ignoring Tesoro’s growing annoyance, Wheeze asked a couple more questions until the youngster finally relented and told it that his dad was the one who made him the toy models. There was a time he lied and told his dad that he threw it all away, and his dad got so angry that he gave him a huge beating. In reality, he still had them till this day.
Tesoro hid the box properly before threatening Wheeze to keep it a secret with fish balls. Wheeze simply looked down and shook its curled tail left and right slowly.
If Cillin was here, he would be able to tell immediately that Wheeze was plotting something again.
When Tesoro’s sloppy dad finally finished his pickled vegetables, Tesoro took out all the fish balls he made two days ago and started cooking. A while later, he passed it to Wheeze who was already sitting on the table and waiting for its meal to be presented.
It was almost dinner time anyway, so Tesoro also cooked a simple dinner. His dad was already waiting at the table with his legs crossed.
The unlikely trio started chowing down the dinner. Wheeze was on its third plate of fish balls when it shot a glance at Tesoro’s sloppy dad for the n-th time. The man was still smelling even though it had been a while since he finished preparing his pickled vegetables. That was not what Wheeze was focusing on, however.
While Wheeze was glancing at Tesoro’s sloppy dad, the man in question and Tesoro were also glancing at Wheeze. The cat was unbelievably fat, but it was still a tiny cat all things considered. That was why they found it incredible that it was devouring everything like a black hole.
“What are you looking at, you little fatty? Look at me again and I’ll sell you as cat meat!” Tesoro’s sloppy dad threatened while picking his teeth with a toothpick.
Wheeze finished the last fish ball in its plate, licked its paws and wiped its mouth. Then, it looked at Tesoro’s sloppy dad and asked, “Were you in the army in the past?”
All carelessness departed the man’s body in an instant as he narrowed his eyes once. He was still smiling, but Tesoro knew that his dad was one trigger away from unleashing his claws. Literally.
Wheeze ignored the warning looks from Tesoro and continued, “Do you know Tu Ba?”
Shink—
Five white claws pressed against Wheeze’s head. More accurately, they were specialized bones that had extended out of the man’s fingers. As it turned out, Tesoro’s dad was a half-alien.
Tesoro only had one-quarter of alien blood in him, but many people still thought him “dirty” and treated him with extreme discrimination. In this world, anyone who was in any way involved with an alien would be pushed aside and treated with hostility.
The fact that it took Tesoro’s dad only an instant to press his claws against Wheeze’s head proved that he wasn’t nearly as sloppy and good-for-nothing as he seemed. Right now, the murderous intent in his eyes was saying that he would kill Wheeze if it said one wrong word.
If the man looked like a sloppy good-for-nothing a moment ago, now he looked like a lion on the hunt.
He still smelled like pickles, but anyone standing in front of him could only sense a cyclone of bloodthirst and murder so real it was almost tangible.
Wheeze didn’t react to it, however. It continued licking its paws almost as if the claws weren’t right before its eyes. Wheeze had seen Tu Ba’s folding knife before, and there was a mark on his knife that looked very similar to the one in Tesoro’s room. According to Tu Ba, the mark was his individual symbol. Obviously, Wheeze wouldn’t have made the connection if it hadn’t met Tu Ba before.
The man named Shusag watched Wheeze for a moment. He didn’t know if the fat cat was calm or just slow, but it was still licking its paws like it wasn’t a milimeter away from death. Still, it could wait, but Shusag couldn’t.
“How did you know Tu Ba?” Still pressing his claws against Wheeze’s head, Shusag signaled with his other hand for Tesoro to leave using a hand signal only the father and son knew.
Tesoro was assaulted by a mix of complex emotions when he saw the hand signal from his dad. In the end, he obeyed the command and withdrew from the kitchen, leaving his dad and the cat alone. He had no idea that the random glutton he brought home would be so much trouble.