Nero sat down in the familiar chair. The muted pink walls around him were just as uncomfortable as they ever had been. The floral print on the filing cabinets did very little to put him at ease. Across the desk was someone he had seen dozens of times now, every Saturday. She was short, unusually so, exactly like a middle-schooler, but dressed in a maroon suit. Nero couldn't help but think that she looked out of place every time he sat in this chair. She even had crimson lipstick to match her shoulder-length hair.

"So how was your week Nero?" she asked, trying to soften her naturally shrill voice.

"It was fine."

"You should try to give me more to work with than that."

"It was mostly fine."

"You really don't want to be here do you?"

"No, that's not..." Nero paused. "I just don't know if I can really talk about the problems that sprang up this week."

"Sprang up?"

Nero stared down at the stacks of papers on the desk, silent.

"Ignatius talked to me about your results in his class."

"Mr. Virzi?"

"Yes. He says you aren't participating nearly as much as he wants you to. You keep sitting out the practical training."

Nero averted his gaze again, wracking his mind for a reason. "I'm not very physically oriented, and I'm kind of forced to be in that class."

"I think you should try it anyways," she continued. "It can't hurt you to get in good physical shape, and it might even relieve some stress."

Nero let out a sigh, looking up. "Thank you Miss Virzi."

Her smile vanished for a moment as she started spinning the ring around her finger. "Doctor Virzi, please," she said. Then she muttered under her breath, "Or at least missus."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ignore your title, it was-"

"It's fine, as long as you listen to what I was actually saying."

"Yeah."

"So you'll actually do the training?"

Nero paused. "Yeah. Yes, I'll try it." He nodded along with himself.

Dr. Virzi stood up, barely getting any taller. "Wonderful."

Nero let out a laugh, dry and forced. "Anyways, there was something I actually wanted to talk to you about."

"Oh?" She sat back down and wheeled the chair forward, sliding back up to the desk.

"My financial situation isn't looking too good. Are there any additional scholarships or stipends I could apply for?"

"Nero, scholarships are only available prior to the start of the year. I told you you should have applied for more scholarships over the summer."

"Well, I would have had enough, except for the thing that happened. Anyways, that doesn't matter anymore. I just need to find a way to get more money."

"Unfortunately your grades are too low to qualify for student work opportunities. There isn't much else I can do for you. You might have to look for a part time job out in the city if you don't want to take out a loan. The career festival is in a week, if you want to start looking there. Hold on, I have a flyer somewhere."

She dug into the drawer of her desk, pulling out a yellow paper, folded over twice. After opening it up and nodding at the contents, she folded it back down and held it over the desk to Nero. He hesitantly took it.

"Thank you again. Is that enough for our meeting this week?"

"Yeah. If there's nothing else you want to talk about. Remember, I'm here to help you."

"Alright then. See you next week." Nero stood up and gave an awkward half-bow to her before nearly stumbling out of the room.

As soon as he was outside of the office, he slumped forward, shutting his eyes tightly as he crumpled the paper in his fist.

After a few heavy breaths, he put it in his pocket and walked out to the bustling campus, right as people were flooding back into the buildings. He walked out of the field, to a shuttle station a few rows of buildings out. There were four other ones of these in the campus, set up so they were just out of view from the central field.

He walked up the staircase, two flights of them, to the open-air platform at the top. Dull orange rails threaded their ways around the buildings in the distance, snaking their way over to the spot right in front of him. It was an automated system, set to arrive at exactly the same time every hour, precisely at a quarter-till and a quarter-past.

***

Nero was back at his own staircase, looking up the daunting steps towards the people waiting for him inside. After standing there for almost a minute, he managed to take his first few steps up because another person was walking down the stairs past him. Once up the stairs, Nero opened his door as he tried to let go of the tight feeling in his chest.

"Welcome home Nero!" Don said, turning towards him from the sink. He held Nero's only pan in his hand, covered in soapy suds.

"Hey Don. Where's Fetter?"

"He left earlier. He said something about looking for a job."

"What? You didn't stop him?"

"I can't stop him once he puts his mind to something."

"Goddammit." Nero threw himself onto his bed. He rolled over and pulled the crumpled paper from his pocket. "What's for dinner?"

"Hashbrowns and eggs, I didn't want to touch any of your meat since I know that's expensive right now." Don turned on the water, rinsing off the pan.

"Breakfast? I have some bacon in the fridge."

"I saw that, but isn't bacon expensive?"

Nero rolled around, looking at Don from across the room. He was similar to what Nero remembered, around the same height, with the same face. He had the same taste in clothes too, a billowing white button-up and skinny jeans. Nero hadn't really paid attention to how different he was now, but it was drawing his eyes over.

"You can go ahead and use it, it's only synthetic meat anyways. As long as it gets used, you know?"

His two leathery wings were hanging out from the back of his shirt, having a large circle cut out right under the collar. They were glistening with their golden scales along the bony parts of it, coming together right at his shoulder blades. Nero watched, examining the movements under his skin. Don bent over, reaching into the fridge. Nero tried to look away, before deciding to just get up and walk over to him.

Don turned around to see Nero standing over the stove. "You don't have to help, you look like you had a bad day."

Nero stepped away, letting Don get to the pan on the burner, slowly sizzling off the water left on it. "Do you like cooking?" he asked, watching Don's face closely.

"Yeah. It's nice."

The corner's of Don's mouth were raised up more than usual, and folded back fangs slightly popped into view as he talked. His now silver hair broke Nero's sight as he turned to the side. He started picking out strips of bacon with the half-inch claws on the end of his fingers. His palm was fleshy and normal, but scales went from the back of his hand up his wrist, disappearing underneath his sleeve.

"Do you like your new body?" Nero blurted out.

Don stopped and turned his head towards him, the smile gone from his face. He stood there silently for a moment, furrowing his brow. Nero's heart started to race.

"I think it's too soon for me to really know. I don't really want to talk about it right now, if you'll excuse me."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, I-"

"Nero. Just stop. It's okay."

Don's golden eyes were looking at him again, as he carefully placed the first strip into the pan to crackling applause. Nero went and sat back down on the bed, staring intently at the carpet floor. He quickly settled into his own thoughts, berating himself for blurting out his question.

"How much bacon can I use?"

Nero nearly jumped off the couch, already startled. "Oh. How about two pieces each?"

"Alright, I've got three pieces in here, and the next three will go in after."

***

Fetter looked one last time at the nameplate on the side of the building, 'Nguyen'. He knocked on the rusted door. There was no answer, so Fetter banged on the door until he heard scuttling about on the other side.

"Open the door or I'm breaking it down. I know you're in there," Fetter yelled.

The sound of several mechanisms softly clunked on the other side of the door, until it creaked open with an eye barely peeking through.

"We're not open for business, come back tomorrow," a meek voice answered from inside.

"I'm not here for ramen today, but I'm sure you knew that."

"I can't help you Fetter. Go away, you attract bad energies."

"Sure you can."

"Do you have any idea who is after you? Do you realize how much shit you are getting me into right now? Fuck off."

"I wouldn't be here if it wasn't an emergency."

Fetter leaned back against the railing of the stairs. The faint scent of stale noodles wafted up from the shop below, mixing with the salty air.

"Ugh! Fine. What's the emergency?"

Fetter jumped up the little distance to sit on the railing, bringing his feet clanging against it. "Can I come in?"

"No."

"Alright. Fine. I'll just tell you here. I need a job."

"I don't have one for you."

"You gotta have at least one damn job lined up. That's what you do."

"I don't. Now please leave."

Fetter sprung off the railing, and in a swift motion, stuck his hand into the crack of the door, pushing his way inside.

"What are you- Stop it!" The man on the inside tried to pry Fetter's fingers off, and just after a moment of touching them, gave up.

"Fine. Come in. I see."

"Thank you," said Fetter, gently pushing open the door.

The man was a little shorter than Fetter, with leathery tan skin and short black hair. His room was full of paper, blank paper, stacked all around. Most of it was in an assortment of colored folders, some of it was put into binders, and some of it was actually put away into a few sets of filing cabinets in the corner.

"Don't touch anything," the man said, pointing at a folding chair in the corner of the room.

Fetter took a seat. "So how's the family?"

"I don't know, she doesn't let me talk to them. They are four and six now." The man grabbed a piece of blank paper out of a plastic bin, and closed his eyes for a moment. "Fetter Young. I never thought I'd see you here again, not after what happened the other day." He threw the paper onto a pile of others on his desk.

"So can you help me out?"

"No."

"How much?"

"There is no how much. There is just no." The man tapped his finger against several of the folders strewn about his desk. After about a dozen, he stopped and pulled a pen out from his drawer. He pulled a blank piece of paper from inside the folder, and wrote an address and a time on it. "Tonight," he said, handing it over.

"What's this?"

"It's for you to get out of my hair. Now scram, take your sad story with you, and don't come back until you don't have people after you. Tell your brother I wish him well." The man buried his nose into blank papers, pulling out a few from a drawer and placing them into folders.

"Any odds its a trap?"

"About twenty percent."

"That's not that bad."

"Other way around."

"Oh." Fetter stood up. "Well. Thank you. I hope I don't have to see you again for a while, and that you can reopen the shop."

Fetter left, leaving the man still shuffling papers.