Chapter Text
Alicia woke up, opening her eyes to her currently dimly sunlit room.
Turning to the right, she saw the sunrise amongst the tall skyscrapers of Cyberaya, the faint sunlight creeping into her room as she smiled, ready to start the day.
She got up while yawning and stretching, then walking towards a certain room in the house, but to her surprise, the one inside it was already awake.
"Alyssa?" she asked her seven year old. "What are you doing awake?"
"I wanted to wake up earlier than you!" She giggled with a childlike enthusiasm. "Did I win?"
"Win what?" Alicia asked.
"The competition!"
"The..." She scratched her head.
"The competition of waking up!"
"Oh!" she said. "Yeah! I knew that. And you did win!" she proclaimed as she picked her up and brought her to the kitchen and sat her down on a chair, the child still laughing. Alicia would never get sick of that laughter. As Alyssa read a children's book she left on the table the other night, Alicia got a phone call and saw it was Moon.
"Hello?" she greeted as she answered it.
"Girl, you won't believe what just happened."
"Oh no, you didn't blow up a café again, did you?"
"That was two years ago, let's just forget about that! Besides, no one was in it," Moon reasoned. "It had to be done. For our mission."
"We could have easily stopped him without that explosion, Moon..."
"Whatever," Moon continued to blabber, "anyways, guess what happened."
"It's another boy again, isn't it?" she guessed, unamused.
"You got it! Remember that cute boy from that one time we partnered up with that Thai agency."
Alicia flipped over an egg, the sizzle and the scent of the food making her feel good. "Yeah, and?"
"We kinda exchanged numbers and now I'm gonna go on a date with him in Bangkok!" she screamed with excitement. Alicia didn't exactly return the same excitement back though.
"Moon," Alicia said as the toast was finished toasting, "this is your fifth guy this month..."
"But I can just feel it, Alicia! He's the one!" she proclaimed. "The one!!!"
Alicia put the breakfast on the table. "That's what you said the last time," she remarked. "And the time before that." She started counting on her fingers. "And the time before that. And the time before—"
"Yeah, yeah, I get it! But for real though, I really do think he's the one."
"Whatever you want to tell yourself, Moon," she joked as she sipped some tea.
"Since we're talking about 'the one,'" Moon continued. "Have you found yours?"
"Nope," she said plainly.
"So straight to the point!" Moon screamed. "Not to mention boring!"
"I just don't have enough time to even consider finding one, with the agency on one hand and my beautiful child"—Alyssa giggled—"in the other, my hands are too full."
"Do you think Alyssa wants to have a father?" Moon asked. The phone wasn't on speaker, but Alyssa was skilled in many different aspects, such as hearing.
"Whatever Mommy wants," Alyssa answered for Alicia. "I don't care. Mommy's smart—she'll know what to do."
"See?" Alicia told Moon with pride. "My daughter's okay with anything, and so am I. Maybe I'll find one eventually, I don't know."
"Just make sure he doesn't stink," the child said. "A lot of boys in my class stink. Choose a not stinky person."
Alicia laughed loudly. "Haha! Sure, I promise," she said as she caressed her hair. "No stinky guys allowed in this house."
The child shook her head. "Nuh-uh."
"Have you seen Ali recently?" Moon asked.
"No, I don't think so," answered Alicia. "Wasn't he in that mission in that other city? What was the name... I forgot."
"Oh, that! I thought he came back yesterday. Didn't he message you?"
Alicia finished her food and put her dishes in the sink. "I didn't see any messages from him recently."
"Well, he messaged me. I wonder why he wouldn't message you?"
"Maybe he only messaged you because he's into you, hmm...?"
Moon cast a knowing smirk at the comment. "No, I don't think so..."
Sunlight shone into Ali's room while the alarm went off.
As he woke up and stretched in bed, turning off his alarm, he smiled as he looked out his window at the beauty of the city he wasn't in for about week for some far away mission in the country, but now he was back and ready to take anything head on.
Before getting out of bed and into the kitchen to make breakfast, he looked back at his father's empty room, untouched and exactly the same from the last time he ever saw him...
...because Dr. Ghazali went on a trip to France for business! What a busy man! thought Ali as he walked past it to the kitchen. His father had been invited to places all around the world to be a speaker for certain events.
He sat down and put his head on the table.
Maybe I could get a few more minutes of naptime, thought Ali, dozing off into sleep but then abruptly waking up. No! MATA needs me! I can't just ditch work! he thought as he quickly made a bowl of cereal and eat it all in less than half a minute.
Running to the bathroom to brush his teeth and combing his hair, he looked in the mirror.
Heh, is this really me?
He didn't imagine all of the years would fly by so fast, yet here he was now, 32 years old. He still looked mostly the same from when he was a child agent, but now he was a bit taller—five-foot-eleven to be exact. Decades of fighting gave him quite a bit of muscle. Not that he was out here looking like the strongest, muscled man alive, but just enough that it was noticeable.
He gave an awkward smile with teeth to the mirror after brushing his teeth and got out to change into something more suitable for work.
Then, fully ready for the day, he walked out and greeted the Cyberaya morning.
His phone started to ring in his pocket. He got it and saw a call from Khai.
"Hello?" he greeted.
"Remember when I asked if I could borrow Comot for that non-harmful experiment?"
"Yeah? What happened?" Ali laughed, remembering what it was. Making Comot talk? Impossible! he thought.
"I did it," Khai told him. "It worked."