“AHHHRHHRHRGGAHH”

An anguished cry split the room. It was the sound of a tortured soul brought to the very edge of breaking, a fool who had thought himself capable of conquering countless challenges. As this man’s head slammed into the metallic counter in front of him he tried to shut down all incoming sound. 

What had brought him to this wretched fate? Was it his hubris? Was this his grand tragedy? Is he discovering his fatal flaw?

He didn’t know, but in the silence that stretched all he heard was the foreboding sound of tapping fingers on a screen, the herald to the coming of his fresh doom.

“If you had a… lemon” The bringer of woe started talking again. “And that lemon is yellow…” A pause. The voice didn’t know how to continue. “What colour would the lemon be?” She finally said. Defeated.

Steve raised his head to glare at the woman in front of him. It was a mild glare as it held little flare. Any passion he could muster had been drained from him through tedium so maybe it was only a stare. But Steve felt like she deserved a glare.

Nuori grimaced and nodded indicating her own pain at the situation. Steve just kept on with his attempt at glaring, not willing to demean himself by answering such a question.

After ten or so seconds Nuori began to type on the screen near her left hand.

“Oh come on! I’m not even answering these!” Steve protested.

Nuori sighed. “No answer is technically an answer.” She looked at him with some sympathy. “Let’s just try to get through these so we can start on the language lessons.”

“Those are even worse!” he lowered his head back into the counter in despair.

It had been five days since Nuori brought Steve to her ‘house’, and in that time he had developed many complaints about his situation. 

First off the entrance in the plaza was past an illusionary wall. Which is really cool. That may not seem like a complaint… and it isn’t! Steve gave credit where credit is due, he’s an enlightened thinker.

What wasn’t cool was Nuori not expressly putting that in her directions on how to get here. Sure, if he had followed what was on the list exactly he might have gotten here without incident but who expects an illusionary wall? It’s cool cause it’s not common. He saw a door, he walked through. It’s logical. There were so many things that could’ve gone wrong from that lapse of judgement on her part.

Luckily for both of them he happened to be charismatic enough to pull off that speech in the arena, but just because it did not go wrong does not mean he should excuse the mistake. Accountability is important!

Secondly, her ‘house’ looked extremely similar in it’s setup to a bar or a club. There was one main serving counter and the rest was open, reminiscent of a dance floor. Besides the main room there were a few corridors that didn’t really go anywhere (They apparently lead to rooms Nuori doesn’t know how to get into), Nuori’s and Spark’s rooms, and Steve’s makeshift hallway setup.

It looked like someone just haphazardly tossed a bed into a hallway. 

He didn’t mind. That’s exactly what his room was, and it knew it. A self aware room for this new brand of self aware Steve.  

It also helped that the bed was luxuriously comfortable.

But besides his beautiful bed, Nuori didn’t really have furniture. Now, again, this is not where his complaint about her house comes into play. Steve himself never really had much furniture in his old life. He understood being economically efficient!

See, in his view, most ‘things’ came down to fluff. Looking successful. Most furniture functions in a home can be overcome with a small amount of creativity and an ample amount of scavenger behavioral practices. In fact, they work as direct inverses of each other. The more you scavenge, the less creativity you need, and vice versa. 

Now, Steve? He leaned much further in the scavenger direction nowadays. When Steve was eighteen though, fresh out of home and ready to take on the world, he’d have classified himself as a ‘creative man’.

By a creative man he meant a milkcrate man.

Only milk crates. They could be anything you needed in a house. Stools, table’s, laundry baskets, tv stands… a bed. 

That last one also requires some cardboard as well. Complicated stuff. See you need multiple boxes with big ones being prefered. It takes less tape and falls apart slower. You break down the boxes (Which should be self explanatory). Lay the cardboard on the crates and tape them on. Several hours later you should also take the cardboard off of the crates then fasten the crates together. Much less likely to fall apart! Repeat the laying down of cardboard with complimentary self beratement, and voila! You have a bed!

*Note: These steps are for the Steve experience and are not a heavily optimized route.

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Now, is it a good bed? 

Fuck no. What part of that sounds good.

The more important question, is it better than the floor? 

Also no. the floor is so much better.

Still, Steve had given his makeshift bed two weeks of solid use. He couldn’t let his effort go completely to waste.

“If you had to eat a banana flavored bandana or a bandana flavoured banana which would you choose?” A voice that sounded quite done with life interrupted Steve’s thoughts.

Maybe he should give the question some…

Nope!

The memories of his past and the horribleness of the question asked, forced the much annoyed Steve to stand up and head towards his ‘hallroom’.

“Where are you going” A mildly curious, but overwhelmingly despondent Nuori asked him.

“To go hug my bed.” That hero deserves it. “Then I’m going to go to sleep, I’m done with today.” He had only woken up a couple hours but he couldn’t handle this anymore.

“Okay.” Nuori acknowledged with no protest. Then she took a sip from a straw attached to her wheelchair thingy.

Steve suspected it was alcohol, in fact he was certain. Nuori had never not been intoxicated these five days.

This is his problem with her ‘house’. Not that it looked like a bar. Not that it was completely barren of furniture. No, it was that it could be a bar. The alcohol selection is downright absurd, especially considering one of the things he learned about the Empire. While getting any information out of Nuori about the Empire was exceedingly difficult, he had been able to glean a few basic things. 

There are these things called resource tubes, basically the cylinder Mr.Poo Cleaner attached to the wall when Steve had his ‘accident’. You can attach them anywhere in the station and piping will divert to connect the cylinder to the main network. Every person is supplied with a basic nutrition and water set, while other more rare cylinders are some of the most valuable things found in the Empire. 

So it was slightly concerning to Steve that Nuori had dozens of obscure alcohols which he imagined were worth quite a bit.

Yeah…

 She might have a problem.

Steve could understand self medication, it's a respectable goal to ignore the world's problems through internal oblivion. He had drunk the alcohols, done the marriage iguanas at times. Once he had even journeyed down the powdered path! He understood, he really did. 

Life sucked, sometimes. 

But if your solution is to drown your sorrows? Engage in the perilous pursuit of drunken oblivion? Well, Steve had a problem with the way Nuori is doing it.

All these types of valuable alcohols? They would be worth a lot of furniture. She could be rich as all hell. You only need to keep the strongest type for personal consumption, anything beyond that is alcoholism.

His personal go to? Vodka. It’s cheap and time efficient with the added benefit of not having much of a taste. He’d always hated the taste of booze, Steve drank it for the effect, not the taste.

As he got to his glorious abode he attempted to give his bed a hug, just because he said he would. It’s his personal law that you must commit to the bit, even if no one is there to see.

Steve then went to lay down on his bed, he wasn’t tired, but what else could he do?

Tomorrow. His old unwanted friend knocked on the door of his brain. Tomorrow Steve can get answers. Tomorrow Nuori would be more helpful. Tomorrow I can solve everything!

Tomorrow he will solve everything.

…

Tomorrow…

The thought wouldn’t leave him. It bothered him.

Just like the rest of his life, Steve found himself listening to the refrain of tomorrow. The idea he could solve his problems later. There would be time later, right?

And today would be another day he didn’t try. Another day off of his life wasted.

He couldn’t accept that.

Steve came to a decision and rose from his bed. He marched back to Nuori, filled with fire and brimstone from the frustrations of the past few days.

“Nuori!” He shouted from across the room. “We need to talk.” he said more quietly as he got closer.

She turned her head and Steve met her eyes. The hollow look of despair, the despair of one who had no good options, someone powerless to change their life. It stopped him in his tracks. He had seen that look before.

He had seen it in himself.

He continued more softly, as if talking a person down from an edge. “When we first met you said we could be a team. I want that, we can work together. I want your help, I need your help. I just can’t continue like this” He looked at her pleadingly. “Help me.”

Her voice was distant as she stared into space. “I love teaching. Helping people understand the world.” She stared into his eyes “I want to help you.” She shook her head sadly. “I just don’t know if I can.”

“Why wouldn’t you be able to--” Steve tried to interject.

“I can’t-- I’m trying to think of a way, okay?” Nuori took a long drink and closed her eyes for a moment. “It’s just so tough to figure out.” She opened her eyes again, looked at him, troubled and desperate for relief. “I’m sorry, I just can’t do this today. Tomorrow?”

That, Steve could accept.

He turned to walk back to his bed.

“Steve?” Nuori’s voice brought hope to his heart.

He turned to face her. “Take some kivi with you, it’ll help put you to sleep.”

He took her advice pouring, pouring himself multiple cups. Hoping for the nothingness of sleep to soon take hold. 

The refrain of tomorrow, the only thought in his head.