A young man was waving wildly at the girl near his house’s exit door, her stance and grasp on the handle making it clear she was being held up by the man’s incessant goodbyes.
“Sagitta, please come by again! Big brother will be missing you!” Sagittarius exclaimed towards his younger sister from behind the counter meant to be his work table. Of course he would be there, his shift starts the moment Sagitta leaves the house, after all. Maybe that's why it seems like he's trying to hold her off.
Sagitta looked far less enthusiastic about the situation compared to her older brother, staring back at the enthusiastic man with a sheepish expression of wanting to erase all of her relations to him from the face of the celestial sphere. All that left her mouth was a simple “Um, okay…” before she shut the door completely, leaving UCORE Office Sagittarius in silence.
Now alone in the wake of impending endless forms and possible crazy black holes showing up amongst all the comets and asteroids, Sagittarius is suddenly faced with the reality that even with how much he cares about Sagitta, he's still an officer for the cosmic bureau that is UCORE, and he must do his job lest the so far faceless HR come knocking at his door.
“Time for work…” he thought, taking his seat at the front desk, mentally preparing himself for whatever disaster would strike that particular day.
He was so close to tuning out everything else when a comet actually showed up to his table.
“Hello, sir… Is this the Sagittarius office?” the comet greeted him. That snapped Sagittarius out of whatever daydream he was in and he immediately put on his professional face.
“Yes, you're in the right place!”
Hm.
“Please wait a second…”
Wait a minute.
“I'll get the forms you need to fill out!”
Why does he…?
“Wait here-”
Hold it! He looks familiar!
“Um…”
Sagittarius’ mind stopped right in its tracks. He unknowingly stared at the comet, analyzing his facial features and getting a sense of deja vu. Or perhaps, it wasn't deja vu and he really did know this guy. Who knows?
“Sir?” the comet’s voice broke through Sagittarius’ thoughts again. “I already brought my own pen. I’m ready to fill out any forms you need me to.” He held up a simple ballpoint pen in his hand, as if bringing his own tools could speed up bureaucratic hell.
“O-oh! Yes, of course, I’ll grab them real quick…!” Sagittarius suddenly said as he ducked under his desk, greeted with the sight of papers upon papers that's all too familiar. As he shuffled around, looking for the forms for usual comet traffic, he contemplated. “I wonder where I’ve seen that face before?”
And then he emerged again, putting a small pile of papers in front of his client. The comet clicked his pen, and as he wrote on the first paper of the stack, Sagittarius looked at him, perhaps less obviously this time.
“Hey, just as a curiosity… What's your name?” he finally spoke up, earning an admittedly neutral glance from the stoic comet in front of him. “Me? Atlas, sir.”
“Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, specifically. C/2023 A3, but my friends call me Atlas.”
That was all it took for Sagittarius’ mind to implode. No wonder he seemed so familiar! It was C/2023 A3! It was Tsuchinshan-ATLAS!!
But he knew that this was a formal situation, and he can't quite gush about having a once-in-a-blue-moon person show up at his doorstep just yet, but he felt the need to alert whoever is gonna be visited by Atlas next.
“Atlas, huh? Cool name!” Nailed it. “Where are you going next?”
Atlas looked up from his writing, looking like he was remembering something. “I'm supposed to go to Scorpius’ house after this, sir. It shouldn't be too far from here, right?”
Oh dear, shining, twinkling Kaus Australis.
“Oh! Atlas, I just remembered I have some important business I need to attend to in the back, would that be alright with you?” he lied. Well, half-lied, because it WAS business but its importance can be debated depending on one’s priorities. Atlas nodded, and simply went back to writing on the paper. The second paper in a pile of five forms.
Sagittarius took quick steps into his bedroom after he left the front desk, quickly grabbing his telephone and punching in the number of a certain toxicologist. He held the phone up to his ear as it rang, awaiting a response…
Meanwhile, in the Scorpius sector, the eponymous officer was simply lounging on his couch, reading a book and playing with a bottle of poison. He was prepared for a pretty peaceful day, until his phone started ringing. Scorpius sighed, leaving his book and poison on the couch as he made his way towards his table with the phone. Reluctantly picking up the phone, he greeted the other person on the line.
“Hello. Who is this, and what do you need?”
“Scorpius!”
Scorpius internally sighed, for the voice of Sagittarius is quite familiar at this point. “...Rius. What in Antares do you need from me?” He thought it was kind of dumb that Sagittarius called him of all people. Besides both being considered “zodiacs” or whatever Earthlings call them, they basically never interact. But it's not like Scorpius interacts with anyone…
“Okay, first, don't call me Rius when Sagitta isn’t nearby.”
“Is she not? Usually-”
“Whatever! Second, Scorpius, this is important so please bear with me!!”
“If it's another care package from Orion, tell him I don't want it and I'd rather him s-”
“It's not a care package, listen!” Sagittarius interjected. “Look, okay, so right now, Tsuchinshan-ATLAS is in my house!!”
That got Scorpius to finally perk up. “Excuse me?”
“Yes, yes!” Sagittarius nodded wildly with the phone against his ear, as if Scorpius could actually see him. “He's going to your house next, so you should prepare! I know you like preparing stuff, right?”
Scorpius grimaced. “Don't act like you know me, archer.” But he did like to prepare, so he secretly appreciated the heads-up. Sagittarius simply said in reply, “Alright, sorry!!”
Silence spanned across the line for a few seconds before Scorpius spoke up again. “...is that all, archer? No care packages from Orion…?” “Nope!” Sagittarius answered him with enthusiasm. “But if you want him to send more, I could always-” “Nope, bye.”
And so Scorpius ended the call.
He leaned against the table with an expression of acceptance, sighing. “Good grief…”
Meanwhile, Sagittarius was already running back to his front desk with a large smile plastered on his face.
When he finally came back to the desk, Atlas was down to one paper left. Record time! “Hi, Atlas, sorry about that.” Sagittarius took his seat and sighed. Atlas raised his head again and simply nodded. “It's fine, sir. I understand if you have any business you need to finish. UCORE seems very… punctual.” Despite his gentle expression, it's quite obvious that Atlas didn't enjoy the thought of bureaucratic hell.
Sagittarius grimaced. Maybe one day, he could find a cosmic object who would actually want to take his job for a bit…
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