“Kayen, you in?”
Kayen’s eyes snapped open, the knocking on the door giving him quite a fright.
“Kayen?”
The voice belonged to Phovos, one of Kayen’s few friends. After pausing to wipe the drool off his face, Kayen glanced around the room looking for a clock. The one on the television screen flashed “9:15am” and… it was Monday. Didn’t Kayen have work?
“Kayen? Are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m… uh… give me a second!”
Not only was it Monday and Kayen was really late for work, but he’d also fallen asleep on the sofa rather than in bed and wasn’t wearing a stomach wrap. Phovos was a good friend and a nice enough Ksithan but she didn’t really need to see Kayen’s naked parts.
A quick trip to the bedroom fixed the lack of a stomach wrap, and a short stop in the en-suite bathroom allowed Kayen to wash off the dried drool. He rushed back to the front door and opened it.
“Sorry, Phovos. I… uh…”
“Are you okay?” Phovos asked. “It’s unlike you to sleep in this late and not tell me that you won’t be coming in.”
Kayen shook his head. “I’m really sorry. I just… I don’t know… I had a nice time with Arkay last night and ended up…” Kayen stopped mid-sentence, his mouth hanging open. He rushed back inside, leaving the front door open.
“Kayen?” Phovos repeated herself, before giving up and heading inside, closing the door behind her. “Kayen, you sure you’re okay?”
“He… he must have left… and tidied the whole apartment up too!” Kayen panicked. “We made a ton of mess cooking and all that but… he did the dishes and put everything away! But he didn’t say goodbye…”
After a little more running around, Kayen hurried over to the television and checked what had last played on it. A Ksithan movie about a weird superhero. One that Kayen vaguely remembered enjoying.
He was about to rush back into the kitchen when Phovos put a calming hand on his shoulder.
“I don’t know if Arkay enjoyed himself or not…” Kayen finally caved. “He left without saying goodbye, that makes me think he didn’t like being here…”
Phovos glanced around the apartment. “If he hadn’t enjoyed himself, I doubt he would have cleaned everything up…” There was something on Kayen’s dining table. A massive black and gold sword. “That blade looks fucking badass.”
Kayen stared at the sword. “Oh. That’s the Gram Prime that Arkad- Arkay gave me for my birthday.”
“It’s your birthday?” Phovos gasped.
“It was yesterday.”
“You should have said!”
“I didn’t want to celebrate though…” Kayen shrugged. “Arkay said that too.”
Phovos shrugged as well, then came up with another question. “Why do you keep on calling him Arkay? That’s the… Ksithan name for the Thantophor.”
“He asked me too…” Kayen tried to explain. “He likes the name because it sounds Skyan. I invited him over for dinner last night and…”
Kayen paused and flicked his tongue. His mouth felt really dry. With a sigh, he wandered over to the fridge to get himself some cold water.
Inside the fridge though was a piece of plastic tupperware with a note stuck to the top. Kayen glanced at Phovos, then read the note.
“Thank you for a wonderful evening, Kayen. Sorry I had to leave, something important came up. But we really must do that again soon. Lots of love, Arkay.”