Galaxies Apart

Part Two-Mars

I watch as Venus scrambles to explain his point. He's wrong, of course, but it's fun to watch him get so worked up over such a little thing. For being known for peace, it's surprisingly easy to get him angry at you, or is that just me?

One of the main reasons I don't care for Venus isn't because he is annoying, he is but, I dislike him because when I'm around him I get calmer. I guess he changes me the same way I change him, I get calm and he gets angry.

The silence between us is boring, the only noise is the occasional sigh as Venus "fixes" my work or the clacking of the keys on his keyboard.

Click, clack, click, click.

It's so annoying, I have to break the silence or I will explode.

"What time is it?" I ask.

"There's a clock in the corner of your screen and one on the wall, Mars," Venus spits.

"But why don't you tell me?" I whine, "I'm too lazy."

Venus sighs and says, "Fine, it's 12:14."

"So, lunch time?" I smile.

"Not until we finish this," Venus says.

"Why do we have to?" I ask.

"Because our clients are more likely to buy from us again if we treat them well," Venus says, unamused.

Our job here is to handle making designs. Occasionally we have to make designs ourselves but most of the time it's tweaking designs our team comes up with or telling them to scrap it. I prefer it when we get to tell them their design sucks. Venus can never do that so he always gets stuck with a lot of work tweaking designs.

We finally finish and can take our lunch break. For some reason, I feel the need to follow Venus and bug him during his lunch. I can just eat wherever he eats.

"Oh Venus!" I call.

"What is it?" He asks, already annoyed.

"I will be following you to lunch," I say, stepping onto the elevator with him.

"Well, I can't stop you, can I?" He asks, pushing the lobby button.

"Nope," I beam, "you're stuck with me for the next 20 minutes."

Venus just sighs.

"So where are we going to go eat?" I ask.

Venus pauses before saying, "You'll see."

Out of the corner of my eye I see him smile slightly, he's definitely planning something, something I won't like.

The elevator dings and we step off. I walk behind Venus, stepping on his shoe's heel every once in a while. We walk past all the best places for lunch and end up going into a small cafe. There is nobody inside except us and the cashier.

I have nobody to make fight. I could pick a fight myself but with Venus here, all I could do is make the cashier feel neutral because Venus only has to make sure one person stays calm. If there was a crowd, he wouldn't know who I was targeting.

We walk up to the counter and I try to enrage the cashier. Venus must already be targeting them because nothing happens.

"We'll have two iced teas and two A9s," Venus orders for me.

I check what A9 is and it's a sandwich on whole wheat bread with provolone, mustard and turkey.

"Oh and one of those with pickles please," Venus says last second.

He must remember I only eat sandwiches with pickles. His ability to make sure everyone is comfortable amazes me, in a bad way. I can only remember how I like things, I don't understand how he remembers how other people like things as well as how he likes things.

We take a seat by a window, the light shining everywhere. It's almost blinding.

"Is this the kind of place you like to eat?" Venus smiles at me, as if he didn't plan this whole thing out.

"As a matter of fact, no," I respond.

Venus doesn't seem too shocked. Somehow at the same time he is trying to make me uncomfortable, with the setting and lack of people, he is also trying to make me comfortable, with the pickles.

"Did you have to get me an iced tea?" I ask.

"They're really good, so I figured I'd have you try one," He says, "Sorry, did you not want one?"

Normally I'd be yelling right now but, as I said earlier, Venus calms me down so I just spit, "Not really."

"Well, since I paid for it, you may as well try it," He says, sweetly.

The cashier beacons Venus over to grab the food and he does. He puts the food down in the center, grabbing one of the sandwiches for himself and a tea. I grab my sandwich and a tea too. For tea, it's surprisingly light and filled with ice.

"Well?" Venus asks, between sips of his drink. "Are you going to try it?"

"Fine," I mutter.

"Thank you!" He says, happily.

I take a sip of the tea and it isn't horrible, would I prefer a soda? Yes. But am I willing to finish this drink? Also yes.

"How is it?" He asks.

"It's alright," I respond, putting the cup down. I take a bite of my sandwich, just to see how this part of my lunch tastes. It's also not horrible but not my first choice either. Venus seems to be enjoying his sandwich, how is someone so calming yet infuriating at the same time? I may never know the answer to that.

                                                                                          ***

We finish up just in time to walk back to our office and get back to work before Sun gets mad at us. He's already mad at me for causing a fight yesterday, thank god he doesn't know about this morning's, so I don't think being late is my best choice right now.

We step into the building just as I finish my tea and throw away the cup.

"Did you like the café?" Venus asks as we enter the elevator.

I think he did want me to like where he took me but wanted somewhere nobody was around at the same time. That seems like the thing he'd do to be honest.

"It was okay, not many people there," I respond.

"Well, how did you like it other than the lack of people?" Venus asks.

"It was nice, the food was good but the light was horrendous," I say.

I look over and see Venus looking pleased with himself. Even if I'm not his favorite person I don't think he'd have it in him to annoy me on purpose.

I just want to go home and not do anything the rest of the day but I still have to get through four hours of work to do that.