Considering the fact that they lived in the same building, Tex shouldn't have been surprised to see Junji outside his apartment complex at eleven thirty in the morning.

Junji was standing next to a flower bed, checking something on his phone. Tex didn't see any reason not to say hello.

"Howdy." Tex greeted.

After taking one last look at his phone, Junji slid it into his pocket and looked up.

"Hello." he replied.

"Where you headed?"

"To the meeting you called. At noon."

"Great. I'll walk you there."

Junji looked like he was about to say something else but cut himself off as Tex took off in the direction of work. After a moment, Junji caught up.

"You are very friendly." said Junji.

"I could push you into the street, if you want."

Junji made a face that Tex couldn't read as they waited for the walk light. When it came, Junji took off right away.

"Would you like to run?" Junji asked as they crossed.

"To work?" Tex replied. "Why?"

"Why not?"

"But--why?"

"It is faster than walking, but more economical than driving."

"Oh."

"It also allows me to both exercise and transport myself at the same time, which I consider to be in my best interest."

"I get y--"

"And the less time I spend clogging up the streets, the better."

Before Tex could even think of anything else to say, Junji took off into a quick jog. Not wanting to be left behind, Tex urged himself to pick up the pace.

"Ever consider biking?" Tex asked after he'd caught up.

"Ah, no."

"Why not?"

"Self-respect."

The office was only a few blocks away. Even though his shoes were starting to pinch his feet, Tex was sure he could make it fine.

Although he did feel a bit self-conscious. Luckily, there weren't too many people on the road for once.

"You mind if I ask you something?" Tex pushed.

"I do not." Junji replied.

"What'd you think of the job?"

"I thought it was different than what I did before."

"...Kinda vague answer."

"It was a vague question."

Tex took a while to come up with his response. As he thought, he did his best to pretend he was less winded than he was.

"Most people find the job pretty absurd." said Tex.

Junji didn't reply. Wanting to listen to something other than the sound of himself panting, Tex opened his mouth back up.

"Got any thoughts on that?" he followed.

"I did not find it more absurd than any other aspect of life."

They came in range of a cross street. Tex watched with mild irritation as a silver Honda slowed to a stop before them while they were still a good ten seconds away.

"If you had continued at your previous speed, you would have been out of our ways by the time we'd arrived." Junji called to the driver as they jogged in front of the car. "Please consider this the next time you decide to make a bad decision."

"My thoughts exactly." Tex said once they'd finished crossing.

"Exactly?"

"Yours had a couple more words."

As they neared in on the building, the amount of people on the sidewalk increased. The two of them were forced to stop running as a group of passerbys left a shop in front of them and slowed to a stop on the pavement outside the door.

For lack of a way around, Tex followed Junji onto the street.

"Your decisions to stand in clumps on the sidewalk have a negative impact on the whole of society." Junji said as they walked past the group. "Please reconsider."

"Go fuck yourself, dude." one of them replied.

"I most certainly will."

A question popped into Tex's head once they were out of earshot.

"That work in Japan?" he asked.

"No."

Tex was perplexed and almost out of breath when they reached the building. To his horror, Junji made his way over to the staircase upon entering rather than the elevator.

The office was on floor eight.

"I'll, uh, I'll see you up there." Tex stumbled as Junji opened the door to the stairs.

"Very well."

The door closed behind Junji with a little clunk. Tex could see through the little window on the door that Junji was still running.

Tex couldn't help but feel a bit bad about himself as the elevator took him up. He knew he was in pretty good shape, but it stung a bit to get showed up by the only other man in the office.

Junji was already in the office by the time Tex arrived, as were Tala and Barton. Tex wasn't sure why everyone had decided to show up five minutes early, but he supposed it at least gave him some time to talk to Barton.

Barton was reading a physical copy of the newspaper with her feet up on the table. She didn't look up as Tex made his way over.

"How'd he do yesterday?" Tex asked.

With a tiny groan, Barton put the paper down.

"Who?" she replied.

"Junji, you dumb moron."

Although Junji was on the other side of the room and wearing ear buds, Tex did his best to keep his voice down.

"You wiped my memory, remember?" Tex followed. "How'd he do?"

"Oh. He did fine." Barton replied with a scowl.

"You don't look like he did fine."

"He did fine. It's just..."

"Just what?"

"He's a weirdo."

"Nothing wrong with being a little weird."

"He's more than a little weird."

Tex snuck a look over at Junji, who was arranging the frozen dinners in alphabetical order.

"Maybe the Japanese are just like that." Tex shrugged.

"How did he even get here? Where'd he come from?"

Tex frowned.

"Since when do you care about stuff?" he asked.

"Do me a favor." Barton stated.

"What?"

"Find out why he's so weird."

"Hell am I supposed to do that?"

"I don't know. Take him out to lunch."

"Why don't you do--"

Tex cut himself off as Barton widened her eyes at him and made a brief cutting gesture across her neck. Tex turned around in his chair to see Junji standing behind him.

"It is noon." said Junji.

"What about it?" Tex asked.

"The meeting starts at noon."

Tex looked at the clock on the wall to see that it was one minute past twelve.

"You're right." he replied. "Let's get started. Tala, give me the file."

As Junji sat down at the table, Tala walked over and slapped a thin folder into Tex's hands. Tex gave it a short read just to make sure he knew what was going on.

"Looks like we're going to Korea tomorrow." Tex said once he'd finished. "That alright with everyone?"

"Which Korea?" asked Barton.

"North."

"...Really?"

"No."

Barton frowned and crossed her arms over her chest.

"This is our target." Tex continued as he held up the file.

The man's name was Hwan Young. He was a thirty-five year old man from Itaewon who lived alone. All Tex knew about him was that he'd once scarfed down thirty hot dogs in ten minutes for an eating contest, as was evident with the picture that Tala had chosen to use of him.

"I like that in a man." Tala swooned.

"Anyone got any questions?" asked Tex.

"What is the time frame?" Junji replied.

"About three or four hours. We'll meet at ten."

"Should I bring anything?"

"Nah, we'll have everything you need."

The meeting wrapped up quickly. Tex felt a little bad about calling a meeting that only ended up being around fifteen minutes long, but he wasn't about to suggest they use Skype to talk about their murder plans.

As Junji made his way out of the room, Tex felt Barton's eyes on him. Barton gestured to the door with her head when he looked over.

Tex sighed. After power walking out the door, he caught up with Junji in the patch of hall right outside the stairwell.

"Hey, uh, how's it going?" Tex managed.

"It goes fine." Junji replied.

"You doing anything right now?"

"There are things I have to do, although they do not have to be done at this moment."

"You wanna go somewhere with me?"

Junji's eyes narrowed in mild suspicion.

"Why?" he asked.

"You ain't from here." Tex answered. "Seems rude not to give you a tour."

"...How long would it take?"

"Long as you want."

"I suppose I can think of no reason not to."

"Good enough for me."

Junji didn't reply. The silence that followed was long enough for Tex to start to feel uncomfortable.

"Anything new with you?" asked Tex.

"My urine has been unusually cloudy."

"Good to know. Let's go."

Tex opened the door to the stairs. Junji nodded and took off in a jog. Thankfully, Tex managed the way down without sweating through his work clothes.

He welcomed the cold air on his face as they left the building.

"Let's go somewhere." he suggested.

"Mhm."

They passed through the parking lot. Tex usually left his car at work, as even though it was a bit away, parking was so hard to come by that he likely couldn't have done much better.

"Why don't we drive?" Tex asked.

Junji looked like he didn't want to drive but couldn't think of an excuse as to why they shouldn't. With no expression on his face, he followed Tex down to the parking lot.

"This is my car." Tex followed as he pointed. "The one in number twenty-five."

"The one with the flags?"

Tex had a small flag pole stuck on his dashboard. He didn't understand how or why everyone noticed it so quickly and insisted on commenting.

"Yeah." he replied.

Junji beat Tex to the car and settled up next to the driver's side door.

"Did you wanna drive?" asked Tex.

Junji shot another look through the window to the steering wheel.

"No." he answered as he switched to the passenger side.

After he'd unlocked the driver's side door, Tex unlocked the passenger's side so that Junji could get in.

"What is this flag?" Junji asked as he pointed to the tiny flag pole. "The one with only a single star."

"That's the flag of Texas."

"Is there a reason it's hung over the American flag?"

"It's where it belongs."

Junji replied with a tiny hum. Tex wasn't sure what to make of it.

"You been to the states before?" asked Tex.

"No." Junji answered.

"What do you wanna see?"

"I'm not sure what there is to choose from."

"What kinda places you like?"

"Places without people I don't know."

"Don't know how much I can do for you there on a tour of the city."

"Places where I am not required to speak to people I don't know."

"Guess we'll go uptown then."

The ride didn't take long, although finding a spot to park did. Every lot was private. Tex finally settled on parking in the aquarium lot, as they'd never noticed before that his parking pass was fake.

Tex turned off the car and unlocked the door so that Junji could get out.

The air outside the car was almost frigid. Wanting to get out of the cold as quickly as possible, Tex scanned his surroundings. After darting his eyes between a luxury hotel coated in gilded tiling and a gaggle of people shooting heroin, his gaze finally settled on the art museum.

"Art museum usually ain't too crowded." Tex told Junji. "And you don't gotta talk to nobody but the coat guy."

"Very well."

As they walked up to the museum, Junji grabbed a water bottle from his small bag and took a long sip from it.

"Oh, I forgot about the bag check." Tex muttered. "You got any weapons in that thing?"

"Not in my bag, no."

"Huh."

"Will they check the rest of my person?"

"Nah. Just don't kill anybody."

Junji slung his bag back over his shoulder as they passed through the doors. Wanting to be polite, Tex paid for Junji.

"Can I take your coat?" asked the coat guy.

"No." Junji replied.

The inside of the museum was classy enough to make Tex feel under-dressed. The architecture seemed to consist mostly of twisted granite pillars and high ceilings.

It wasn't too crowded.

"Got a favorite kind of art?" Tex asked Junji in a quieter voice.

"Erotic."

Tex managed not to choke on his own saliva, but it took a substantial amount of dedication. Junji grabbed a pamphlet that outlined the exhibits.

"Softcore or hardcore?" Tex pushed.

"Realistic."

"So softcore."

"Usually. Although the more realistic of erotic art has a higher tendency to fall under softcore when examining raw statistics, I don't believe that necessarily needs to be the case."

Tex supposed Junji had a point.

"What art do you enjoy?" asked Junji.

Tex had to think to himself for a while before coming up with a response. He didn't usually think much about art.

"I like weird stuff." Tex answered. "Specially if it's kinda surreal."

"How do you feel about depictions of purgatory?"

"Strongly in favor."

"According to this guide, there is a nearby exhibit dedicated to depictions of purgatory."

"Let's go, then."

Junji led the way. Had Tex known prior that the art museum had a depictions of purgatory exhibit, he would have gone much sooner. He examined Junji's pamphlet to see that the purgatory exhibit was up first if they took a left, followed by an art show, a children's learning room, an abstract exhibit, and an exhibit called Internet Art of the Young.

Upon entering the first room, Tex settled up to the first painting he saw. Junji stuck close by his side.

"What do you think?" Tex asked.

The painting was a simple one, of about half a dozen bored-looking people engulfed in flames.

"Too tame." Junji replied. "It might as well be a textbook diagram."

"How bout this one?"

"That one is better."

The new painting was much bigger than the last. Tex's eyes were drawn to the upper right hand corner, where a giant egg of a man sat with his mouth wide open. All of his featured were stuck to his rounded chest, and a plethora of naked humans poured from his teeth. Atop his head sat a crude circus tent of more people, all of who had taken to participating in bizarre shenanigans of their own.

"Although I suspect that it likely means I've missed the point," Junji followed, "art of this nature always makes me long for context."

Tex hummed in amusement. But as a few more moments went by, he felt his amusement fall away to a sense of mild nausea.

"Well, this is getting weird." Tex announced. "Spite what I said, I reckon I might be purgatoried out for the day."

"Reminded of your job?"

"...Yeah."

Tentatively, Tex began to walk towards the entrance into the next exhibit. He sped up his pace once Junji began to follow.

The next room over was a large one, filled with about forty or fifty people. Maybe a dozen of the people were standing next to little tables that displayed paintings that Tex assumed they'd made. Everyone else was wandering around the room to examine the art or engage in conversation with the artists.

The paintings all had price tags stuck to them.

There were a few empty tables and easels, so Tex assumed it was an open mic sort of deal. He would have liked to talk to some of the artists, but Junji didn't look particularly comfortable.

"Next room it is." Tex said as he led the two of them forward.

The next exhibit turned out to be less of an exhibit and more of what appeared to be an arts and crafts station. A large group of small children scrambled around the room.

The children were all coated in a thin layer of paint and glitter. They each had a black canvas. Some of them were smushing their paint-covered hands into the canvas, while others were drawing crude designs with their fingers. The few that had finished were sealing the paintings in varnish.

One boy had taken to licking the canvas.

"It's...very good!" a parent told the boy once he'd finished with his spit painting.

"Uhg." Junji muttered to Tex. "It is not good."

"Don't like supportive parenting?" asked Tex.

"I think it best you know now that if we ever raise a child together, I would not tolerate you celebrating such mediocrities."

"How--how likely do you think us raising a child together is gonna be?"

"Minuscule."

Tex gave Junji a long stare of confusion.

"It is not just about likelihood." Junji followed. "For example, I suspect getting tear-gassed to be significantly less likely than tripping on the sidewalk and scraping my hand. But which one am I prepped for?"

Junji quickly opened his bag to show Tex the gas mask he'd packed.

"You're a wacko." Tex replied as they made their way to the next exhibit.

The next exhibit was for abstract art. It was large enough to be populated by half a dozen people. As he took another swig from his water bottle, Junji made a break for the corner that was the least populated and settled before a painting.

Tex followed and examined the painting once he was in proper range. It was composed completely of several rectangles, all of them solid color. The rectangles were separated by a thick black line.

Tex looked over to the left to see that it had been named Game of Life.

"I hate it." Junji announced.

"Uhuh."

"I hate this whole collection. What is this?"

Junji gestured to the wall perpendicular to them. Tex followed his finger to see a painting that was nothing more than a red canvas with some white slashes through the color.

"All a painting this abstract can be is subjective interpretation." Junji said as they looked at the slashed red canvas. "My subjective interpretation of this painting is that it is bad and I hate it."

"So, um, you're an objective kinda guy then, huh?" Tex asked, wanting to show of his vocabulary skills.

Junji let out a tiny scoff.

"Not at all." he replied. "If I had money, I would bet that you could not form an objective statement."

The corner of Tex's mouth twisted in thought.

"Ain't got no faith." said Tex. "I'll take your bet."

"Give me one, then."

Tex thought to himself for a moment. Junji watched with eyes filled with expectation.

"Killing people is bad." Tex stated.

After a brief moment of disbelief, Junji let out a mocking laugh.

"Is that truly the best you could think of?" he asked. "We killed a man yesterday."

"How bout this. Killing people is usually bad."

"According to who. God?"

"No, according to me. And most other people."

"Then it is subjective."

Junji had a point. Tex decided that it was best he try something more literal.

"The ground is flat." Tex said as he pointed at the floor.

Tex knew that his statement was probably going to get ripped to shreds, but he was interested in seeing how exactly Junji was going to do it.

"I can assure you that if you viewed it microscopically, you would see that it's covered in bumps." Junji replied.

"Alright, then. The ground is covered in bumps."

"Have you considered it from the perspective of a higher dimensional being?"

Tex's eyes squinted half shut.

"Or perhaps you are delusional and only hallucinating a floor which is not there at all." Junji continued. "Can you truly rule that out?"

"How bout this. The floor looks flat to me."

Junji set his jaw with confusion and put a hand under his chin. Tex waited patiently for his response.

Half a minute later, Junji was still silent.

Tex sucked in a breath. Junji snapped out of his trance and shot a look in his direction.

"There an end to this?" asked Tex.

Junji set his jaw with confusion once again and put a hand under his chin. After another twenty seconds passed, Tex gave Junji a tiny nudge.

"That statement is the most subjective, and yet it is objective." Junji muttered. "I'm so confused."

"Why do you hate abstract art?"

Immediately, Junji's bewildered expression ditched itself for one of irritation and resentment.

"Abstract art." he groaned. "A horrid, beatnik creation. As a young man, I once managed to bribe lawmakers into rendering the buying and selling of such art illegal."

"How'd that play out?" Tex asked.

"It became a black market delicacy. No one was happy."

"Could've warned you of that."

"Yes. If only my associates had shared my impassion. We could have purged it from society."

"You--you're kidding, right?"

"About what?"

While Tex made himself busy feeling confused and a bit scared, Junji went back to staring at the art with disapproval.

"I've an idea." said Junji.

"Idea for what?"

"A statement. You may come with me if you like."

The confusion and fear that Tex had been feeling at first doubled, and then tripled as Junji took off and out of the room the way they'd came. Still, Tex's curiosity and the new threat of boredom quickly won over him. So without too much more thought, Tex took off towards where Junji had left just in time to see him quickly grab a blank black canvas and slip it under his coat before any of the occupied children or parents could notice.

"Oh, you came." Junji said as Tex caught up to him, just next to the other door.

"Yeah, though I got a feeling I'm gonna regret it."

"Would you do me a favor?"

"What can I do you for?"

"Get me some varnish."

Tex took a long glance over his shoulder at the room behind him. By the time he'd returned his gaze, Junji was gone.

With a tiny sigh, Tex wandered back into the children-infested room. The atmosphere was chaotic enough that still no one noticed as he grabbed a spare paintbrush and a cup of varnish.

Junji appeared back at the door a moment later and urged for Tex to follow. The two of them settled in a small grove beside the bathrooms that provided a little privacy from passerbys. With a little noise of accomplishment, Junji removed the small canvas from his coat.

Tex could see that it was now covered in a few chalky streaks of white.

"May I have the varnish?" Junji asked as he took out a ballpoint pen and signed his work with a squiggle.

Tex handed Junji the varnish and paintbrush. Junji balanced the canvas on his knee while he applied a thin coat of varnish.

"Thank you." Junji followed.

"What'd you do?"

"I'd thought you would have figured it out."

"Hell's that supposed to mean?"

Junji said nothing. Tex looked around one last time to realize that they were right next to the bathrooms.

"Oh no." said Tex. "You--you didn't."

"I did tell you my urine was unusually cloudy, did I not?"

"That's icky."

"I even kept my eyes closed to assure that the pattern of urine on the canvas was created in a truly arbitrary manner."

Junji finished with the varnish and handed the cup and brush back to Tex. Tex could barely keep up as Junji took off for the next room.

Tex followed to see they were back at the art show. Both Tex's anxiety and curiosity peaked as Junji quickly grabbed one of the unused canvas stands and plopped down at an empty booth. Seeing nothing better to do, Tex examined the painting.

After joining Junji at his little booth, Tex watched as Junji grabbed a paper tag and scribbled in the name Valid Contribution to Society.

"I can't believe you're doing this." Tex muttered with wide eyes as a lone older woman walked forward.

"Hello!" the woman greeted.

"Hello." Junji replied.

"I haven't seen you before. What's your name?"

"Michiko Sakurai. I'm from a few cities over."

"Tell me about your work."

The woman seemed good-natured enough to make Tex pray that whatever Junji had planned wasn't too mean.

"I tried white water color on an impasto acrylic background for the effect." Junji explained. "I've been experimenting with--mixing paint types for a while now."

"Innovative." she happily replied. "What's it about?"

"Whatever you wish it to be."

"Oooh."

Although it was subtle, Junji's face fell with further irritation.

Tex felt a sudden urge to humor the woman. He wasn't sure if it was out of kindness or the fear of looking like a jackass with nowhere to be, but he opened his mouth before Junji could reply.

"I think it's about wealth distribution." he offered.

Both Junji and the woman gave Tex a little glance.

"The whole thing is in the shape of our country." Tex continued. "This line here is coming up from DC, where the money's getting printed cause we're in a spending deficit. But it all--"

Tex pointed to the leftmost spiral.

"--ends up in California anyway." he finished.

"Oh, I see it." the woman replied as she turned back to Junji. "You're a genius."

"What?" asked Junji. "I am no--"

Tex kicked Junji in the foot.

"Don't be rude." Tex whispered as the woman waved a few of her friends over.

"See, it's about inflation." the woman told her friends. "The line up there represents all the money that the government prints--or something."

"Oh, that's why it's called Valid Contribution to Society!" one of them replied. "Cause it's a clever eff-you to the establishment."

Junji's eyes widened into saucers.

"I don't know what an establishment is or why anyone would question its importance." he said to deaf ears. "But--"

Tex kicked Junji in the foot again, harder this time.

"I wish I'd drowned myself in the toilet while I'd had the chance." Junji muttered to Tex.

"How much?" the woman asked.

Junji stared. After a moment, Tex caught him glancing over at the price tags on the other paintings.

"Two hundred and twenty dollars." answered Junji.

"I'll take it." she replied.

"I'd take it for two thirty." Tex offered.

Junji shot Tex a quick look. Tex shrugged.

They ended up settling on three hundred after a few of the woman's friends also started bidding. Tex felt a massive rush of accomplishment as she opened her wallet.

"Sorry, I don't see your card reader." she said to Junji after she'd removed her card.

Tex took a glance around to room to see that all the other artists had card readers.

"Uh--" Junji started.

"It's right here." Tex said as he opened his bag and shuffled for his card reader. "Forgot to set it up for him earlier."

Junji looked only a little confused as Tex fished out the card reader. He handed Tex his phone, although Tex swapped it out with his own when no one was looking as he was doubtful Junji's had the proper set up to receive money.

The card reader accepted the woman's card without issue. She left the room with a smile and a painting that Tex legitimately hoped made her happy.

"How's it going, sell out?" Tex asked as Junji took off back the way they'd come.

"It would have been rude to deny her." Junji replied. "Don't you think?"

Tex still had a few more words about the events that had transpired, but he thought it best to wait until they had finished up. There was still one exhibit that they had left to explore.

When they found it, Tex's eyes were assaulted by a flash of colors.

"Internet art of the young." Tex remembered. "Gen V art."

"What is Gen V?"

"Fifteen to twenty-seven year olds, I think. Don't quote me."

The first thing Tex saw upon entering the exhibit was a two panel comic that looked like it had gone through the visual equivalent of being bit crushed. In the first panel, Lightning McQueen was being asked not to use his phone at the dinner table. On the second panel, he was standing silently by for another year as Chelsea Manning continued to serve prison time for exposing the blood-tainted crimes of the military industrial complex under his presidency.

"I support this art style." Junji stated.

"You do?"

"Yes. It makes me feel very stupid."

"...Alright."

Tex took a look at the Gen V section on Junji's pamphlet. To his surprise, he recognized one of the names.

"Hey, Tala's name is in here." Tex said fondly. "Guess she got something up in this place."

"Oh."

"Good for her! I'm real proud."

Tex found Tala's painting off to the side. To his momentary confusion, it was nothing but a completely blank canvas.

The painting was titled Society.

Junji made a small choked sound. When Tex looked over, he saw that Junji was holding back a laugh.

"I wish I'd thought of this before urinating on a canvas." said Junji.

Tex broke a smile.

"Yeah?" he replied.

"I feel I am missing significant cultural context. Still, I am certain this is high satire."

Junji's smile was a bit infectious. Tex found a grin on his own face as Junji scoffed out a short chuckle.

Compared to the other exhibits, they spent the most amount of time in the Gen V exhibit and only left once they'd both started to get headaches. Tex had thought Junji was done with the museum once they'd started to head back to the entrance, but to his surprise, he found that Junji's pace slowed as they made their way back through the abstract art exhibit.

Junji's attention seemed to be on a specific painting, one that Tex hadn't noticed his first time through. Tex halted his own feet so that he could get a look.

The painting was larger than the others. Against a pattern of clever, ombre squares, a tree grew. At the top of its trunk, the wood split into three branches that grew further up into the sky. As Tex's eyes continued to raise, he saw that each of the new three branches also split into two or more even smaller branches. The pattern of inverted triangles continued until it was cut off by the top of the painting. The wood of the tree was painted with a thicker, more buttery paint, which gave it a nice effect.

The title of the painting, which had been placed right below the base of the tree, was Output. For just a short moment, Tex felt like he understood basic programming.

"I feel bad." Junji stated.

"Why do you feel bad?"

"Perhaps I've done nothing more than conflate the laziness of a few paintings with an entire genre."

Tex looked over to see that Junji's face was tense with concentration.

"Now that I think of it," Junji continued, "abstract art may have a high potential for communication. Stripping down a component to its most basic nature is an excellent way of communicating an idea."

Tex nodded and said nothing. Junji opened his mouth again.

"I will say this." said Junji. "I am alright with an art piece if it's a true representation of the components of a concept. But I would find it much less respectable if it was simply a collection of random components. Why would I be interested in a work that the artist had no interest in?"

"Look, I hear you.” Tex replied. “But what if, hypothetically—”

“Of course.”

“—you take an arbitrary piss of components on a canvas, but it actually ends up being an alright explanation of inflation...or something. Do it really matter?"

"Perhaps not to society. But it matters to me."

"I reckon people kinda like coming up with their own little idea about what something means. It's part of the fun."

"And I would be supportive of them doing that, so long as their ideas refrained from being poor."

Junji's tone was so judgmental that Tex couldn't help but chuckle.

"I think it looks nice." said Tex.

"Uhuh."

"You think too much."

"That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

Tex chuckled to himself again, louder this time.

"You wanna go get your money?" he asked.

"Absolutely."

Tex was content as he let Junji led them towards the exit. He would have been alright spending more time looking at art, but he thought it best to go to the bank before he forgot.

"Well, this has been almost completely non-applicable to our daily lives." Junji said as they walked down the front steps. "Which I suppose means it was an utter waste of time."

"Yeah, I had fun too."

They found an ATM at the McDonald's across the street. Tex was forced by the manager to purchase a sauce cup before he was able to print Junji the money.

"I cannot take all of this." Junji said as Tex tried to hand him all three hundred dollars.

"It's yours."

"You helped me get it. You deserve half."

"If you don't take it, I'm gonna spend it on scratch offs."

Junji took the money.

The ride back was less quiet than the ride there had been. Junji seemed more content to answer Tex's questions about how he was doing in his new place, and if he was getting enough to eat.

"You meddle." Junji stated.

"Yeah, a little."

Junji replied with a little hum of amusement. Suddenly, Tex remembered why he'd asked Junji to go to the museum with him in the first place.

"Mind if I meddle a little more?" asked Tex.

"Not terribly."

"You gonna be alright?"

"Why would I not be alright?"

"You left your country. And your family."

Junji said nothing.

"You sure you want to do this?" Tex pushed. "You don't gotta work here."

"I want to work here."

"...Why?"

"I consider the work you do to be of an extremely high priority."

"Yeah, I do too."

Tex exited the freeway. The quality of the road began to drop as they got closer to the junction.

"I usually park at work." Tex said. "But I can drop you off back at the complex if you want."

"Would it be a disservice?"

"Nah, it's on the way."

"Then I would be fine with that."

Junji sat with his hands in his lap as Tex turned off the main road. Expertly, Tex navigated around the potholes, sidewalk cracks, and lanes blocked off for the city's eternal construction projects.

"Your city's infrastructure is poor." Junji remarked.

"Uhuh." Tex replied.

"We are in a wealthy part of town. Why are the roads in this state?"

"Depends on who you ask."

"I'm asking you."

"Government."

"What about it?"

"Too much of it."

"...I wish I'd asked someone else."

Tex slowed to a stop in front of the loading bay of their complex. Junji unfastened his seat belt.

"Thank you for the ride." said Junji.

"Yeah, course."

"Your company was pleasant. I would like to do this again next week."

Tex felt a sudden wave of accomplishment. Although he was still a little worried about Junji killing him, being a thirty-eight year old man in an unfamiliar city and a culture he wasn't used to had left him a little desperate for friendships.

"Oh, uh, sure." Tex replied.

With a final nod, Junji left the car and jogged up to the building. Tex looked at his phone with a little groan to see that Barton had texted him.

From Grand Jackass

how'd it go?

Tex didn't think for very long before giving his response.

To Grand Jackass

it went alright. i like him. we're hanging out again

From Grand Jackass

i'm so happy for you

From Grand Jackass

as a tip, i've heard that if you lie in opposite directions you can suck each other's dicks at the same time

From Grand Jackass

did you learn anything about him or not?

To Grand Jackass

not really. he's just kinda

To Grand Jackass

agnostic

From Grand Jackass

agnostic?

To Grand Jackass

militantly

It took Barton a long time to reply. By the time Tex's phone buzzed again, he'd long since put it back in his pocket.

From Grand Jackass

that's the stupidest thing i've ever heard