"Why did you want to call me sir?" The assistant's voice echoed in the call for a couple of second.

It waited for another echo of a response from the man, but that never came.

Not a single sound was made.

This caused Nathalie to become confused about the reason that her boss was calling for, and why he wasn't speaking back to her

"Mr Agreste?" She asked. "Are you still there?"

"Y-yes!" He exclaimed. "N-Nath I am sorry b-but-"

"Is something wrong?" She interrupted his slow words. "Pardon me sir, but you sound...odd."

"Well..." the man awkwardly chuckled. "I suppose this is rather strange, all I wanted to asked was if you were alright?"

"Oh." Nathalie tensed up for a moment.

It took her by surprise that her usually cold, strict and ignorant boss would wonder about such a thing.

Did he really care about her?

Or did she look so bad that morning that even Gabriel noticed?

The second question turned the assistant's hopeful smile into a frown which only disappeared with a strong shake of her head.

"Nath?" His voice brought her back as it echoed through the phone.

"Yes!" She cleared her throat. "I-I am f-fine!"

"Are you sure? I was worried that maybe I gave you too many tasks and that's what got you so sick."

"Sir." The dark haired woman forced a strange laugh. "I-I am perfectly okay. I-I mean perfectly okay with the workload!" She corrected herself before getting too lost in the idea of her boss being caring and her giving in.
"The tasks were basically nothing!" Nathalie lied. "I'm sure they aren't the reason for this little sickness."

"Alright." Gabriel sighed feeling hopeless.

Now he didn't know what to say.

If his assistant was fine then there was basically no point in continuing this conversation anymore.

Except, both of them secretly wanted to.

"Nathalie?" The man's voice unexpectedly began to speak again, to which his employee without hesitation replied:

"Yes sir?"

"If I would accidentally get carried away with giving you tasks or just in any way overwhelming you, you would tell me, right?"

"I-..." for a second the dark haired woman became speechless.

Never, or at least not in a long while had her boss asked such a thing.

Maybe something similar to this question came up when she began working for him, but right now that felt like centuries away, and hearing it again shocked her.

"Nathalie?" His voice repeated. "Are you there?"

"Yes sir!" The assistant blurted out.

She had not collected herself and she didn't know what she'd reply.

Of course, it should be simple to slip in a little lie and say that she'd tell him whenever he'd put too much pressure on her, but truth was that as of right now, for some unknown reason Nathalie couldn't get herself to say that.

For many years she's struggled with communicating anything to her boss, and now, at last she could have an opportunity.

"Sir." Nathalie's voice trembled slightly as she took a deep breath. "I actually have been wanting to tell you something about that."

"Please do." He encouraged her.

"This isn't exactly because of the workload, but I...I would like to take..."

"Take what?"

"A break." Her breath trembled as she awaited an answer back, hoping that her superior wouldn't be mad.

"Like a holiday?" He wasn't the slightest bit angry, just rather surprised by the request for which his assistant never had asked for previously.

Nathalie too was shocked by herself and her requests, but after getting an agreement from her boss, she felt somewhat relieved.

"Y-yes." The assistant's voice became more audible, though still a little hesitant. "Is that okay with you, sir? Am I allowed?"

"Of course Nathalie, you're allowed much more than just a simple break."

"I-I know." She mumbled. "but this wouldn't be such a simple break."

"Why?" The grey haired man chuckled, not being able to take his employee's childishly frightened voice seriously. "What is this? Maternity leave?"

"Gosh no!" She blurted out instantly. "That would be a nightmare."

"Well then, what is this? A big dream?"

"N-No...I-It would be a big break."

"How big?"

"I don't know." Once more Nathalie's voice faded back to its worried state.

Gabriel could sense it too.

"What do you mean? Like three weeks? A month? Two?"

"I'm sorry, I don't know sir." Her voice began to break and for reasons so unknown to both her and her boss that she began to cry.

"What's wrong Nath?" The grey haired man felt guilty, as if he would've clearly done something wrong.

He didn't know if his tone, choice of words, or something completely different was what had caused so much anxiety upon his employee.

Gabriel became self conscious to the point that even his voice began to doubt itself as it spoke into the silence of their conversation;

"I-I didn't mean to pressure you on deciding an amount of time, Nath." The tall man had whispered, practicing comforting. "You can take off as much as you need, don't worry."

However, as hard as the grey haired man tried, it never earned back an answer.

The dark haired woman's voice stayed quiet, only an occasional sniff or whimper could be heard.

"Nathalie?" Gabriel felt hopeless at this point. "What happened? Are you still here? I think you forgot to hang up."

"I-..." she mumbled. "I'm sorry, sir."

With that being said, barely auditable, the dark haired woman had ended the call,
leaving behind her boss who was more than confused.

"What the hell was that Nooroo?" The man questioned, staring at his butterfly friend.

"I think Miss Nathalie is under some serious stress and she should be check upon!" Nooroo shrugged.

Though he was supposed to have a decent amount of education on the topic of negative feelings, as of right now the kwami was flabbergasted just as much as his owner.

"Don't you think she wants to be alone?" Gabriel suggested, lifting one of his eyebrows curiously.

"I'm not sure sir, I'm not a human." Nooroo sighed. "What I do know is that if I saw a kwmai acting like that, I'd keep a close eye on them!"

"Right."

"Master." The small creature interrupted. "Sometimes being alone only means being looked after, but while not being bothered."

"So?"

"So, potentially you should look after Miss Nathalie." The butterfly suggested. "Just simply don't bother while doing that!"

"Well that does sound pretty decent." The tall man had to agree with a nod.

After all, it was the best idea him and his friend could come up with.

"There's just one small...huge issue!" The designer lowered his eyes to the ground in some shame. "I don't know where she lives." He admitted.

"Does Miss Nathalie not state that information in her work portfolio?"

"No." Gabriel looked defeated. "The very day she started working for me she asked if she could keep that information private." He explained. "I didn't want to seem like some pervert who wants to know the exact location of his workers, so I allowed her to keep it private."

"Pardon me Master." Nooroo cleared his throat. "You never drove that woman home? Or even walked her home?"

"Why would I?" He exclaimed in defense of himself. "That would make me look even worse! As if I'm following her!"

"No not like that!" The purple creature rolled his eyes. "I am asking if Miss Nathalie never asked you to do those things because she was scared to go home alone! The streets of Paris can be scary at night."

"Because you would know." The designer scoffed, offending his friend very quickly.

"What is that supposed to mean?!" The butterfly demanded an answer.

Nooroo usually couldn't and wouldn't get worked up over a small joke of his Master, but this time for some reason his mind had been racing, and before he knew it they had gotten into a heated argument.

"You can't leave my side because of a spell I made! How on earth would you know anything about the streets of Paris then?! Because I sure don't go out there at night." Gabriel laughed.

"Master I've been around for thousands of years and before you I was blessed enough to be put into the hands of a normal human being who doesn't have a frosted corpse in their basement and isn't in love with a blue woman while he is still stuck on his dead frozen popsicle wife!"

The eyes of the designer widened in shock to those words.

Those images he imagined because of how Nooroo had described everything traumatized Gabriel a little too much.

"Well..." the man breathed. "Forget it."

He was speechless.

The grey haired man was now too lost in what guilty feelings his kwami's words brought up and too confused in what to do about his assistant's sickly behavior.

To be continued-