Bohkat wasn’t sure if he liked sushi. He’d had it one time, and had little recollection of it. That meant, at least, that it probably wasn’t horrible.

He gazed longingly at the bar on one side of the dim restaurant, where they might have all sat side-by-side and watched the chefs work instead of talking to each other. Unfortunately, he was at a (too small) round table instead. For the moment, Sandhya’s and Burakgazi’s faces were still focused on the menus.

When the waiter appeared with a bottle of sake and three cups, Burakgazi tossed her menu on the table and caught Sandhya’s eye. “Forget the menu, omakase.”

Sandhya smiled, and nodded at the waiter as she handed him her menu. Bohkat did the same despite being absolutely clueless.

Burakgazi seemed to notice. “It means the chef picks for us. It’s smaller portions, so you don’t have to worry about getting stuck with a lot of something you don’t like.”

Bohkat nodded. Logical. Efficient. “That sounds like a good idea.”

Sandhya took the bottle of sake and began pouring for the three of them.

Burakgazi took her cup and gestured towards Bohkat with it. “So, Bohkat! Tell us about yourself!”

Bohkat froze as his brain functions stuttered to a halt. There was no part of him that wanted to answer that question. Neither was there a part of him that knew how to sidestep it with any amount of social grace. Damn it, why couldn’t he just deflect? He’d seen Anand do it enough times. And now Bohkat had been silent entirely too long. Awkwardness was settling in. He considered downing his alcohol in one gulp and refilling the cup.

“That might be too open-ended for him,” Sandhya said to Burakgazi, though her eyes were on Bohkat. “Let’s try something more straightforward: how long have you been in Starfleet?”

Part of Bohkat thought that perhaps he should feel insulted, but all he could feel in that moment was gratitude for a simple question that required only basic math. “Twenty-three years, if you include the academy.”

“Did you join up right out of school?” asked Burakgazi.

Also an easy one, though skirting on some unpleasant memories. “No,” he said.

“Did you work on a freighter first?” Sandhya asked. She glanced at Burakgazi. “Seems like every Rigelian I meet in Starfleet started out on a freighter.”

“Every Rigelian you meet?” Burakgazi asked, incredulous. “There’s so few to begin with! Oh, sorry Bohkat. I just cut you off.” She turned her attention back to him.

“It’s alright… No. I never worked on a freighter.”

“Did you ever consider it?” asked Sandhya.

Now he was no longer just skirting unpleasant memories, he was diving into them headfirst. “Not the most pleasant of working conditions,” he said.

Horror dawned on him as he realized that he’d just opened himself up for further questioning with that statement. Panic clouded his brain in a way it never had in even the most chaotic moments of combat. ‘Deflect! Redirect!’

“How long have YOU been in Starfleet??”

The question came out sounding downright accusatory, he realized too late. Bohkat signed, and subtly readjusted his body in an attempt to appear more casual: hand folded over one another, head tilted just slightly to the side.

Fortunately, his dining companions took it in stride.

“Twenty-five years,” said Burakgazi, with a bit of a smirk.

“Twenty-nine years,” said Sandhya, a tinge of amazement in her voice. “Oh gosh, almost thirty!”

“Cheers to almost thirty!” said Burakgazi, and she clinked her sake cup against Sandhya’s.

Bohkat took a moment to realize that he had a sake cup as well, but by the time he raised his, the women were already sipping from theirs. He awkwardly followed suit, sniffed the alcohol, and took one more sip, trying to decide whether he liked the drink or not.

Sandhya leaned forward to top off his cup. “So, I think I need to clarify something, Commander,” she said in the quietest voice he’d heard her use so far. “Nothing you say here is getting back to Sanjiv.”

‘Sanjiv? Who in the world is Sanj– oh, right.’ “That is a good thing to have clarified,” he admitted.

She smiled again, and this time it felt like he might actually be in on the private joke that seemed to have her grinning all the time. “It’s my personal policy not to interfere in the relationship between a captain and their first officer. He can conduct his own interviews.”

There was just a subtle shift in her tone of voice, but he could detect the Commanding Officer underneath. It was enough to make him believe her, and he nodded.

“Great!” Her smile widened, and she leaned back in her chair and clapped her hands in satisfaction the same way he’d seen Anand do dozens of times before. It was jarring, but not enough to spoil the new, more comfortable mood. “This isn’t an interrogation, either! This is a conversation! You keep those questions coming!”

Oh, shoot. More questions? More questions… He could do this. All he had to do was think back to all the prying his crewmates had done over the past fifteen months.

The gentle strumming of Dr. Ang’s guitar was not exactly unpleasant, but it was far from the sort of ambient noise he’d come to expect in sickbay. While Dr. Dvinak took a moment to recalibrate her tricorder, he asked, “Aren’t you on duty?”

“I’m always on duty,” said Dr. Ang philosophically.

“I actually get a lot more usable readings when he plays during physicals,” Dr. Dvinak admitted, and she held the tricorder up to his cranium again. “I just wish he took requests.”

“I do take requests,” he insisted. “It just takes me a while to get to them. I have to learn the tablature first.”

More strumming. “Do you play any instruments, Commander?”

He recalled flute lessons in his childhood. They were always a struggle, and he hadn’t touched the instrument in a long time. He shook his head.

“Hold still, please,” said Dvinak.

“Do either of you play any musical instruments?” he asked, as the first course reached their table. Some kind of fish liver in sauce. He was surprised he was able to get it down at all, even more surprised that he’d enjoyed it.

“Sanjiv and I are tassa drummers! Pretty great ones, too, if you ask me!” said Sandhya.

Burakgazi laughed. “My uncle is a professor of historical musicology, so you would not believe some of the instruments he taught me to play.”

Bohkat leaned back, and found himself genuinely fascinated.

It was not unusual to see Lieutenant Ixabi hesitating outside a doorway, steeling herself to go in. It was somewhat more unusual that it was the door to the holodeck. He nodded to her. “Lieutenant.”

“Commander!” She lit up, as she so often did in his presence. It was a reaction he was still not accustomed to provoking in people. “I’m trying to decide which program to run. Do you have any favorite stories?”

“Favorite holodeck programs, you mean?”

“Any kind of story, really! It might inspire me on which holonovel to choose.”

Bohkat considered, tapping his chin as he wracked his brain. Then he leaned towards the control panel. “Computer: Rigelian Tree City, chapter one.”

He looked at Ixabi. “It’s based on an old folktale. A sort of action… romance… adventure, I suppose.”

Ixabi seemed delighted. “Perfect! I can’t wait!” And she rushed into the now shady and green holodeck.

“Favorite story? Or… holodeck program?” The waiter brought the next course, and it was as delicious as the first. Bohkat found that he wasn’t sure if he was more looking forward to the next course, or to Sandhya’s and Burakgazi’s answers.

Three more courses arrived as they spoke excitedly about adventure films and horror novels.

Bohkat’s fondest dream was to one day get through the weekly review of personnel reports without any off-topic chatter. He’d learned long ago that he was expecting the impossible, so instead he settled for keeping a tally of the topic derailments. Any week with less than five was a good week.

“Bohkat, why did you take this position?”

This week was not a good week.

“To advance my career,” he muttered, not looking up from his report. The sharpness of Anand’s laugh startled him.

“Unless you’re an astronomer, there is no way that could possibly be true,” he said.

Fair enough. Perhaps he at least owed the man a more convincing lie, but failing to produce one, he opted for the truth. “My previous superiors were deeply unpleasant people. I suppose you could call them… jerks.”

“Hey, mine were, too!” said Anand brightly, as if he’d just confirmed they had the same favorite dessert. “Hopefully, I’m an improvement. I’m many things, but I’m not a jerk, right? No, you don’t have to answer that. I know I’m not a jerk.”

Bohkat snorted. “Positive self-image.”

“I know, I’m setting a very high bar for myself with that one. ‘Not a jerk.’ But you’re not a jerk, either, and I’d go so far as to say so in your personnel report.”

Anand’s words sparked some emotion Bohkat couldn’t quite identify. It might have been relief, knowing that as gruff and unpersonable as he was, Anand still did not find him unpleasant.

“Good,” he huffed. “Then I don’t feel bad about asking you to finish these reports quietly.”

Anand laughed. “Fair enough!”

“Why did you–” Bohkat began, but his brain got caught on the incompleteness of the question. It wasn’t what he really wanted to know. He changed tack. “Why did you join Starfleet?”

Burakgazi and Sandhya both grinned and buzzed with an energy that suggested they had stories to share.

“To spite my parents,” said Sandhya.

“To prove a point,” said Burakgazi.

“And you?” asked Sandhya.

Bohkat still wasn’t sure how much to reveal. Perhaps if he kept asking more questions, he could be the one to prompt his dining partners to elaborate on their pasts. But he would concede some information. Just a little.

“Both those reasons, I think,” he admitted. To his surprise and relief, neither Sandhya nor Burakgazi pressed him for more. They spoke in overlapping turns about their own childhood ambitions as Bohkat sipped his sake and listened, content.