Chapter 109: Field Trip
"Thank you," I said as I pulled all of my hair forward and let it hang down my front in two columns. If we couldn’t have a decent talk until he had studied my hair, I might as well get this over and done with fast. "But we call it hair."
"Do you have... hair... on any other part of your body?" he asked, curious. His gaze turned to my clothes as if he was trying to see where else I could possibly be hiding it.
"Careful, that is an incredibly personal question," I said sharply, trying to hide my blush.
"And you change color. Absolutely fascinating," he mused as he leaned forward in his captain’s chair.
"It’s called a blush," interjected Jun Li, and I could hear the smirk in his voice. I was going to find his cord and unplug him; I swear to God.
"Fascinating," repeated Midnight, and I could see the other officers on his bridge leaning forward to get a better look at me. There was nothing that I hated more than being made to feel like a freak, and Midnight and his crew were doing a fantastic job of it. However, if I wanted to be fair, I was probably the only human he had ever seen before.
"What does it mean?" he asked, his eyes never leaving me.
"It is a sign of embarrassment," said Jun Li, once again coming off as a smug bastard.
"What is there to be embarrassed about? I simply asked if she had any other fur... hair... on her body." I refused to let myself feel discomfort. After all, I studied him pretty hard the first time I had seen him. And earlier today, when he was in bed. I guess this could be considered tit for tat.
"Male humans have hair on their face that they call a beard, while both sexes have hair on their underarms, legs, and—"
"That’s enough, Jun Li," I snapped, no longer willing to see the brighter side of things. I had a plan to keep myself hidden from the other species. Humans now have too big of a target on their backs for me to want everyone to know that there was a lone one on the outskirts of the universe.
Not to mention I really didn’t want Midnight to know where all of my hair was located. There was a reason why women shaved all the time.
"Midnight, what do you want?" I demanded, taking control of the conversation again.
"I wanted to know where you wanted to meet up to do the exchange," said Midnight, pulling his attention off my hair and back onto my face. However, from the look on his, I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.
"You don’t have to buy the snakes from me, you know," I said. I understood that he was responsible for my client dying, but it didn’t really bother me. I could always sell it to someone else. That was one of the benefits of having a restricted item; there were always lots of people looking for them.
"I want them," replied Midnight with a shrug as he leaned back in his chair. He was no longer staring at me, but that didn’t mean that his officers weren’t.
"How about we have this conversation in private? If you keep making me feel like a circus freak, I am going to charge you double."
"I don’t understand—" he started before turning to look at his officers. Although their attention snapped back to their consoles fast, it was not fast enough for him not to notice where it was. "If there is any word floating around about how Merciless looks, I will take it as coming from your mouths specifically. And if you think what I did to the Dryadalis turned your stomach, it will be nothing compared to what I do to you, understood?"
His growl reverberated through the speakers, causing me to smile. Yes, he would prove to be a very beneficial friend to have in the future.
All of the officers looked at the floor in silence, and it was like time was frozen on his side. "Good. Dismissed. I’ll let you know when you can come back to your stations," continued Midnight in a low growl.
The men on the bridge quickly ran out of the room, leaving it empty except for him and his first officer. Well, at least the first officer was no longer looking at me. I would take what I could get.
"Thank you," I said.
"I am sorry about that," replied Midnight, and I knew that he was honestly sorry.
"Not your fault my ship decided it would be fun to answer your call before I gave him permission," I smiled with a shrug.
"Your ship?" he asked, and for the first time, I could see him studying the sections of my bridge that he could see. "You are alone?"
"I am always alone, but never by myself," I answered. "But to finally answer the reason for your call, you don’t have to buy the snakes if you don’t want to. However, if you do, I wanted to stop in at the nearest space station for some stuff so we can do the transaction there."
"What were you looking for on the space station?" asked Midnight as he cocked his head to the side. "Wait, is that a voragyvis?"
I followed his gaze to where Night was sitting in the upper corner of my bridge. I sighed at the fact that all of my secrets seemed to be unraveling at once. Oh well, I could always kill him if necessary.
"Yeah, he and his family have decided to come with me. I need to find them some food," I responded. I supposed that I would have to add researching about Night’s species to my list of things to do. Both Midnight and Jun Li seemed a bit wary of them; I wondered why.
"Do you know what they eat?" asked Midnight, his eyes wide with surprise.
"No idea," I answered. "But seeing as he was able to bring me a whole herd of very scared snakes, I would imagine that they aren’t vegetarians." Maybe instead of bringing the food to me, I would just release the Nightmares onto the space station, let them eat, and then come back when they were ready.
Kind of like a field trip. I was sure that they would like that.
