Home Sweet Home (4)

***

After he left she asked Thomas, "What do you think?"

"About?", Thomas asked in surprise. He seemed confused about what Mrs Austin was talking about, but Mrs Austin was too familiar with him to believe it.

"You can leave.", She waved him off.

Thomas chuckled, before replying, "As you wish"

And he closed the door on his way out.

'Why are they so similar?', she sighed.

A little while later, her phone rang and she quickly picked it up.

***

Xavier got to his room and directly laid on his bed, he was tired but not tired enough to sleep off.

His mind drifted off to Ean, and he recalled how many things she was involved in.

With a small chuckle, he thought, she must be worst off than me.

He got out of his bed, picked up his laptop and started to work.

A little while later, someone knocked on his door, it was Thomas who invited him to come downstairs for dinner.

Xavier glanced at the time, 5:47 pm.

"Don't worry about me. Tell her that I won't be coming downstairs to eat", Xavier said to Thomas.

"Should I bring the food upstairs?", The old butler asked with concern in his voice.

But Xavier told him not to bother, he'd come downstairs if he was hungry.

Then the dutiful butler excused himself.

Xavier turned his attention back to his laptop and continued to work.

He worked out a business proposal for the bridge project. They still had no idea of what they would be doing thus it wasn't necessary. But he still wrote it because it did not belong to him, it was for Alexander.

Now, unlike the rest of the companies participating in this project, Alexander did not bid for it. Xavier could directly bring him in, yes, but doing so would mean Alexander came under the Austin Family, and would therefore defeat the purpose of joining the project.

Hence, Alexander had to present a business proposal, but not just any kind, an outstanding proposal and a plan, one that would make them accept the Anderson group despite their differences and the distance between them.

This was Alexander's job but Alexander was hopeless in this aspect, hence Xavier was doing it for him. And he spent a couple of hours doing so.

Right after that, he dealt with his issues abroad, via video calls, messages, secret codes or online meetings.

The video calls and meets were usually more time consuming than the messaging and decoding the codes. But today, everyone was off. Some stared for too long, others stuttered and most of them could not concentrate.

Xavier did not care about that, but they were wasting his time and he still had other things he planned to do.

It was only at the end of it all, that one of his direct subordinates messaged him and asked why he was wearing a uniform so late at night.

Then Xavier realized he had not removed his uniform. Whatever he did not care.

He chatted a bit with his subordinate, and asked them to come back to Arin island because of his limited mobility.

After a few messages, he went offline.

Xavier stretched then let out a deep breath.

He bent over and took a laptop which was strapped to the bottom of the bed.

The laptop was much smaller and delicate in appearance than his previous one. Xavier opened it up and met a password.

"Weird when did I put in a password?", he mumbled out as he tried in different combinations.

They didn't work, just as he was about to give up, he decided to try in the password he had given Alexander.

And it surprisingly worked.

"I should change this, or at least remove the password…"

He clicked on an application and waited for it to load. A minute later it was still loading then he typed in a password, without the presence of the password box.

The loading screen paused, then it turned green then white and showed, verified.

After the verification notice, a messaging interface took over the screen.

Then he clicked a chat titled "North Star". But he stopped, and raised an eyebrow in surprise, this guy rarely sent him messages.

Wasn't he always afraid I'll usurp his "nebula" ? So why did he reach out first?

Xavier chuckled and clicked on the chat box.

The messages read;

_Where are you? We're leaving Aerorua. And going to Draruth._

"How unfortunate, leaving Aerorua all because of the Anderson family and going all the way to Draruth.", Xavier grinned then added.

"They might have a better chance at Moreche, but they went to Draruth so he must be confident. I wonder why…", he stared at the message as he spoke thoughtfully, then moved his gaze to the next one.

_That old man won't give up, he's even threatening me. Unfortunately for us, we still haven't been granted access to Draruth. Is there anything you can do?_

"That's not how you ask for help", Xavier said to himself.

He swept his gaze over the message then closed his eyes. He wasn't planning on helping the Dark nebula, doing so would reveal his identity.

And even if he did want to help, his access to Draruth was restricted plus he's under his mum's guardianship, hence the difficulty in accepting North Star's request.

If it was earlier on when their cooperation just begun, he could have had a base on Arin island already. But for some reason, North Star refused to come over to Arin island, therefore his hands were tied.

Xavier did not respond to the message and left the chat, he wanted to think about it and see if anything could be done. He still wanted to be on good terms with North Star, rather than the Dark nebula as a whole, but if he couldn't do anything, then he wouldn't do anything. Why force it and take unnecessary risks…

He moved his focus to other things and finally dropped the laptop. He was tired, worn out and used up a lot of effort in returning the secret laptop back to it's position and picked up his phone to check the time.

10:38 pm.

He glanced at the covered tray on his work table, and then his closet.

'I'll change them later. Let me just rest for a few minutes', he yawned and set a thirty minutes timer on his phone, he watched the timer count down then he dropped the phone.

And laid in bed then drifted off to sleep almost immediately.

***

Xavier shivered as he stood up from the bed, he had another dream but couldn't remember it.

He picked up his phone and realized that over an hour had passed.

"Disloyal alarm. Why reassure me if you weren't going to work out?"

Xavier yawned then picked his laptop from his bed again. He opened it up, went through the same procedures as last time, then clicked on North Star's chat.

He typed in.

_My hands are tied, I can't do anything for you in Draruth_

Then he closed the chat.

And went online on the nebula's site.

He accepted a few requests and made some himself, which included the investigation of bridge project.

The bridge project was something that could not be easily traced to him, plus he was using an alternate account to make things easier.

He decided against investigating Ean, it was too risky and he never asked the dark nebula for things that directly linked to him. If he did have something he wanted to know, he'd ask North Star directly.

He was also tempted to investigate the Arcane High and it's two branches history, activities and movements in the last ten years, but he decided against that as well.

He'd personally investigate them himself, and that was only if worst came to worst.

Xavier closed the laptop and did a few stretches, then he began to remove his uniform, and wore his pyjamas.

He glanced at the bathroom, then decided against taking a bath. He was too tired.

He picked up his phone and checked the time. 12:25 am

'Just like that the day is over', he thought in amusement.

And retired into his bed to have some proper sleep, after all he going to repeat yesterday today.

The only difference was, he had an idea of what to expect, and he might be more tired than yesterday.

End of volume 1: Day One.