"Hello, Xeno." She said, curt and to the point. It was clear that the prank had irritated her, despite its seemingly harmless nature.
"Anything to tell me about the sabotages?" He asked.
She went quiet for a second, before looking away. "To be honest, I've been trying to keep out of any sort of discussion."
"I hope this hasn't been too hard for you." He paused- perhaps he could glean a clue from her. "Has it brought back any bad memories?"
"Well, no it hasn't. Not at all. Why, what have you been told? Why would you think that?" She asked, her demeanour suddenly changing.
"I was just asking you." Replied Xeno, slightly taken aback by her sudden caginess.
Aruda relaxed slightly. "You're right, I'm sorry. To be honest, it hasn't been that bad for me. Everyone I made enemies with in my youth has either left or retired. Except for Mr. Crossley in palaeontology, there's no reason for anyone to come after me."
"What's his problem?" Xeno asked.
"Nothing. We just.. didn't get off on the right foot, that's all."
Doctor Aruda was a terrible liar.
"You can tell me, you know?" He coaxed.
"I'd really rather not." She said, stonily, and Xeno knew it would be useless to press the matter further.
They began to walk back to his office, as Aruda began to rattle off all of the department's gossip from the day prior, from before any sabotages had really happened. It was clear that she'd stayed out of the way for the whole day.
As it turns out, Xeno had missed a lot. It turned out that the quiet, powerful, ever- encroaching stress of a department getting cut and a sabotage war brewing was a catalyst for every drama that had been waiting to happen.
When they got back to his office, he asked why Aruda had followed him there, given that her office was in the botany section of the museum.
"I don't really have anything else to do." was her honest reply. "I can't go back to my office. If you'd believe it, the botanists are all.. They're like mosquitoes. They're desperate to know what's going on with Astronomy, especially because I was the one that got framed last time. They're wondering if it's me this time, as some kind of ridiculous little revenge."
"Did you want to come into my office? I've got two chairs, and my laptop isn't blocked on the museum wi-fi, so we could play something?"
"Are you suggesting.. video games?" she said it like it was an alien concept, which for her it probably was.
"Not in the traditional sense; we could play.. virtual board games?" He was grasping at straws. Aruda had never been one for technology.
"Can you play chess? Do they have chess online?"
"Definitely." He grinned, he was the best at chess when he was in university, and he was looking forward to showing off his skills.
After losing to Doctor Aruda thrice, It was time for Xeno to go home. He said his goodbyes, and got in his car to drive home. He slid a "Pierce the veil" CD into his car's player and listened to it in the background while he thought over everything. Becoming a detective was harder than he thought, he was already suspicious of everyone. Why was Doctor Aruda acting so weird earlier? Who was Mr. Crossley? And why did Aruda hate him so much?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The next day, Xeno was fully prepared to get to the cafe a full half an hour before one o'clock. He got up at 9am, like he usually did on a Saturday, and ran all of his daily errands prior to meeting Haiden. He didn't want to think about anything else as he talked to him about their game plan for the next few weeks- playing detective for a while.
However, as he was leaving his flat, he hit a snag when his car wouldn't start. He cursed under his breath as he kept pressing the key for it to start. His car was decently old, and it did stuff like this sometimes, but he couldn't bring himself to get rid of it. He hoped it wasn't anything too major, and made a mental note to call a mechanic in the future. It helped that most of the places he would need to get to for the next few weeks were easily accessible on foot, but it would still be majorly irritating.
His mind went back to when he still lived with his parents, and his dad would show him how to fix things in the family car, as well as around the bakery. His father had completely thought that Xeno would take over the bakery when he turned eighteen, and took it harder than he expected when he went to work at the museum.
He put the thoughts out of his mind- they wouldn't do him any good now. All he could do was keep moving forward to prove to them that he was a success. Along the way, he checked his watch. Eleven in the morning; he still had plenty of time to get to Octavia's cafe for half-past twelve. His watch was a nice one; a sweet sixteen gift from his parents that he had kept since. It made him look more professional when he was giving talks,Xeno thought. And he couldn't deny that it spiced up his outfits, which were "almost characteristically boring", as Jess liked to say. He wondered if Haiden would be dressed similarly to how he usually was at work, always with some kind of dinosaur paraphernalia.
Engrossed in his thoughts - as he often was - Xeno ambled to Octavia's cafe. He couldn't remember why it was his default place to go; perhaps it was that the people there knew his family, and he wanted some way to tie him back to his home, even if they only lived a couple of miles away.
At least the walk itself was a nice one. For the most part, there were pavements and little high-streets with shop windows that caught the golden, early-afternoon sunlight pleasantly.
When he finally reached the building, he took a moment to take it in. It wasn't unlike his father's bakery- it had a large, slightly smudged glass window on its front, so that passers-by could look in at the food that patrons were eating. The cafe did pastries and drinks, all "homemade" apparently, but Xeno was sure that they didn't mean they made them themselves. More than likely, they got them from other local bakeries.
