THE SPACE BETWEEN US || vld

𝗼𝗻𝗲: the meeting of flirts

EARTH WASN'T AT ALL WHAT TRENT EXPECTED.

It was a lot....bluer.

Duh, obviously it wasn't called the blue planet for nothing, but having lived all his life looking up at the foggy reddish sky of Mars, watching the brightness of the sun rise over the dusty horizon and mute the red, upon touching down on Earth, the first thing he was forced to take note of while squinting up was the bright sunlight illuminating the clear blue sky. He'd never seen the color blue in an environmental scenario before; he thought it looked too bright, too eye-catching, compared to the subtle yet sharp red he was used to.

Normally Trent was a-okay with eye-catching, but this was ridiculously so. It was as though Earth was purposefully flaunting its features to draw him in.

That didn't mean he disliked it. Blue was just too...bright for his tastes. Especially now, setting foot on the squishy dirt ground after a week-long trip through space where he was immediately swarmed by fancy-looking officials without a second to breathe, and Garrison cadets with their orange uniforms peering out of the building at him. Trent had to blink hard twice to focus―once to dispel the overwhelmingness, the second time to rid the afterimage of the blue sky that seemed to be permanently plastered behind his eyelids when he finally gathered his bearings enough to scan what was happening at ground-level.

He missed Mars already. At least there he could look up without feeling like his eyeballs were searing. Man, he should have brought a pair of sunglasses. Had he packed a pair in his bags? He hoped so!

Mentally, he gave his cheeks twin slaps, one after the other. You're on your first ambassador meeting, he scolded himself. Get it together! Everyone's banking on you!

Okay, maybe not everyone, but everyone who mattered.

The crowd parted, allowing an imposing Galaxy Garrison commander to move through. When he stopped in front of Trent, he had the insane urge to click his scruffy shoes and salute the guy.

The commander waited as though hoping he would do just that.

Quickly, Trent jerked his hand up in a salute. The commander's eyes narrowed.

"Ambassador...Trent Tucker-Reís, it is?"

"Yes sir," Trent replied.

"Eighteen years old?"

"Yes sir."

"Hmph!" The commander clasped his hands behind his back and studied him. "They couldn't have picked someone older and more mature, could they?"

"Oh, I am. Mature, that is," Trent said earnestly, ignoring the jab. He'd been expecting something like this after hearing all the stories about how uptight Earth could be. "My uncle personally vouched for me, and he's the most unbiased man I've ever met. Actually, my recent detention was because I was fixing up the satellite when no one else would."

(He didn't say that no one else would because of the dangerous sandstorm. That'd be a surefire way to lose the perfect image he was trying to maintain here.)

The Galaxy Garrison commander's mouth twisted. He had a hard face with several scars and an eyepatch on his left eye; he would've looked more like a pirate if not for the uniform. "Kids," was all he muttered, before turning away.

Trent frowned. Maybe he shouldn't have mentioned the satellite in general. Did that make him seem too rebellious? Not that he wasn't rebellious, but he was trying to concoct a nice image here! This guy looked like he would be hard to get in the good books of.