Monday is the worst day of the week. Everyone hates Mondays.

Everyone... except Jongdae. Because, on Mondays, the office windows get cleaned.

Interstellar Customs has the prettiest building that can be seen from space: a huge oval dome divided longitudinally; half made of white concrete, half made of glass panes. It really looks pretty from the outside (and, particularly, from space), but the architects didn't take into account how much effort would be needed to keep it immaculate, especially on the surface of New Mars (its discoverers weren't too original when they named the planet, to be honest), where sandstorms constantly try to cover it in rusty red.

Like every Monday at early hours, the lobby is almost in complete darkness as Jongdae clocks in and gets to his desk behind the counter. The idea behind the dome was smart: with so much natural sunlight, they wouldn't need artificial lighting. No one thought about installing lights just in case. Just like they didn't think about sandstorms, but whatever. Their section supervisor was the only one that did some actual thinking about potential lawsuits from employees tripping in the darkness and getting hurt, so at least they each have a personal flashlight courtesy of the taxpayers' pockets. Very happy taxpayers, to be fair, because legal issues at interstellar facilities are always a bureaucratic hell that no one wants to pay for.

But first thing in the morning, right after all the computers start automatically at the exact second the clock marks 8:00 (Interstellar Time), the window cleaners get to work too. And that's Jongdae's favorite moment of the week, because he gets to spend those few minutes before beings start arriving to his desk looking up at a very particular window cleaner with a very distinct feature. It doesn't have anything to do with the fact that he's from some kind of octopus-human hybrid species with six pinkish purple tentacles – genetic combining technologies are getting a bit too good, lately. That's actually pretty normal for what Jongdae sees daily at work. What catches Jongdae's attention is his face: his round cheeks, his cute little nose, and, particularly, his huge almond eyes.

The lobby starts to light up as the cleaners above his head remove the thick layer of desert sand. In a planet like this, where there's no clouds, that means direct and bright sunlight. The frequent cleaning of the building lets the two suns' light pierce through the glass panes and reflect on the white walls. And the white floor. And the white counters. And the white absolutely everything in that lobby, because even the giant wall clock is spotless white with light gray numbers (and their attached symbols in other galactic numeric systems). It makes the place look like one of those asylums in ancient movies from the technological awakening era on Earth and, seriously, what the hell were the decorators thinking when they designed this place?

But Jongdae's train of thoughts gets derailed fast because there he is, appearing through one of the first patches of clear glass panes, with the ers of his tentacles holding him strongly against the window and his unmistakable plaid skirt not covering his underwear at all. It's weird how Jongdae is used to seeing the window cleaner's strange briefs with six holes for each of his six tentacles (they really manufacture anything these days) while he's never managed to see his face properly, always kind of blurry through the glass, covered in rusty sand and too far up in the sky. But he still manages to catch his smile as the guy jokes with (probably) another cleaner, and it's the cutest smile Jongdae's ever seen. And he's seen a lot, but none like this one. And certainly not like the one he sees when the octopus hybrid looks down and catches Jongdae staring up at him, locking eyes for a–

“Morning.”

A raspy voice brings him back to floor level, literally. At the other side of the counter stands a Shekshian, one of those weird reptile-looking beings that everyone takes as dangerous and vicious because of their appearance but are actually the calmest herbivores in the system.

He (or she? Jongdae still has problems with this species) hands him a piece of paper over his desk with a code from the delivery system. A code to the heavy packages section, to be exact. ing great. What he wanted the most right now was to start the week fighting his coworkers for the scant wheeled carts that they have available to move heavy weights around the building.

Definitely, Monday is the worst day of the week.

Okay, Tuesday is the worst day of the week – no room for debate. There are still four days left until the weekend and everyone's already tired and grumpy from the day before, so they look and behave like . Not the best case scenario when you deal with people for six hours straight. Why did he choose this job?

Oh, right.

Ever since he can remember, Jongdae always wanted to explore the universe. As a kid, he used to lose hours of sleep just looking out his window and watching the stars, the pink and violet colored nebulae, the quick glints of light reflected on spaceships and satellites just passing through the sky, the endless possibilities in all the vastness of space. So he tried his best to make his dream come true – oh, he tried. He got top marks at school so he could choose any pilot academy he wanted. He did his best at sports, getting ready for the strict physical demands of space travel – swimming, gymnastics, but also soccer and volleyball, because team activities always looked good on school applications. He joined summer camp for teenage future pilots in high school. He discovered that he suffered from vertigo.

And so his journey ended. Getting a job in a spaceship was not an option anymore – not even as cabin crew. His whole childhood dream shattered into a million pieces and left him wondering what he was supposed to do from that point on. His marks dropped, he left his sports clubs, he stopped looking up at the stars every night before going to bed.

Somewhere along the way, a teacher convinced him that Customs would be fun. He was probably just trying to cheer him up and get him back on track, but sixteen-year-old Jongdae took it to heart and started looking into it. The Interstellar Union website looked really good, with all those cool graphics, persuasive messages to join and interesting promises of fun and adventure and thrilling experiences in distant planets. Getting to know so many different species. Dealing with interesting cargo from across the universe. Learning alien languages. Helping the authorities stop illegal trafficking.

Seventeen-year-old Jongdae passed the entrance exam for the Public Service Academy with flying marks and became a bit of a legend as the youngest student in the entire history of the school. Not that big of an accomplishment, to be honest – most seventeen-year-olds didn't bother with government jobs and went after college degrees or chose more exciting careers.

Anyway, being used to long study sessions since he was a little kid proved useful. Besides the more practical stuff (multicultural manners across species, handling databases and data protection), the basic courses in ethics and the (awfully long) history of the Interstellar Union, he was also required to learn at least 5 of the 20 recognized official languages. And as the youngest in his year, he was always the last to choose classes (Jongdae never understood this policy but "older people need to graduate faster", they would reason, and he didn't really have a say on it) and got stuck with the hardest languages ever known to any sentient being. So he basically devoted five years of his sweet youth to perfect his pronunciation of guttural consonants in the ancient tongue of K'lödc-kt, the so-important movement of his eyeballs that Lynctians made to accompany certain sounds, the ribbon twirls in the almost dance-like language of Ethrireo (thanks, high school gymnastics) and the beautiful (but hard as ) colored ink traces that Mfsei's inhabitants used to communicate and there was literally no other way to learn than keep drawing until your hand could replicate the "words" out of muscle memory. At least English (or Common Earthling, according to the Union) made the 5th language on that list.

Jongdae pulled through all of it stoically, knowing that at the end of the line he would get, at least, a permanent job. And all those exciting adventures that the Union advertised! But reality usually hits the hardest when you're not expecting a second blow, and his little, humble, down-to-earth second dream job turned out to be the most tedious thing he's ever done in his entire life. Yes, worse than drawing the same colored curved line for ing weeks. Because okay, it pays well and his schedule leaves him with a lot of free time, but does that really make up for the absolute tedium that is a monotonous office job sitting for 6 hours straight in front of a computer and smiling to dozens of ill-mannered beings? He doesn't even get to experience the "fun" part about detecting illegal items – that is done by other employees that actually made the effort of getting a Science Degree before looking for a job. The only thing he can do is fantasize, look at the pictures of exotic animals that his coworkers send to the group chat and listen to their descriptions of that forbidden fruit they had the chance to taste before the special units arrived to confiscate the package. He just stays behind the counter, types ID info from random beings into his computer and then looks for their packages and gives them out with the proper fee.

Clock out time finally arrives without a warning and his computer locks down automatically, leaving him mid-transaction with a customer that certainly does not look like they'll enjoy this piece of information. Great. Now he needs to find his supervisor to override the system and finish the delivery process before he can finally go home.

Interstellar Customs. It will be fun, they said. You'll meet a lot of people, they said. ing great.

Wednesday is definitely the second worst day of the week. You're still in the middle of the week but you're already tired as , and the weekend looks so far away you want to purposely smash your head against the wall so you get a trip to the hospital and a sick leave.

But Jongdae is kind of scared of brain contusions (why would that be) and also kind of scared of getting a permanent leave for inappropriate behavior at the workplace, so he just plops down on his chair and lets out the longest sigh, getting weird (but knowing) looks from the other workers at the delivery counter. It's a good thing that today looks like a slow day.

Jongdae's desk is the only one with a potted plant. For some reason he can't come to understand, the Interstellar Union always chose barren planets for their main installations in each system. And, when you have to live on them all year round, it's ing depressing. That tiny aloe vera plant he imported from Earth is the only non-sentient being in, probably, the whole planet. Exoplanetary fauna and flora isn't generally allowed in public buildings but, okay, working at Customs does havesome perks.

Also, maybe that offhanded comment about how the poor plant was dying at home for lack of sunlight and how he used it to heal scars had something to do with it. His supervisor had, for a while now, this weird tendency to drop by his desk and make small talk while not-so-covertly examining his hands and face – the only body parts allowed to be uncovered by the Union's dress code. The way he always asks how the plant is doing now that it has plenty of sunlight is a bit strange too. Anyway, Wednesdays are watering days, and