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He'd finally gotten his, "flying saucer," back, as his two wonderful friends had described it. Looking up what a flying saucer was, a few days after hearing about it, he was afraid to tell his friends that his vehicle of transportation looked nothing like what they'd thought it to be, but more of a flying triangle.
Seeing the state his, "triangle," was in, he was surprised it had even been able to make its way to earth from where he'd left it. All of his belongings were safe, in one way or another, but all intact.
Fidgeting through his inventory, he recounted everything he'd been able to bring with him, any little thing he'd managed to save.
Shuffling through, he felt a small object roll onto his palms. Lifting it out, it presented itself as an extraordinarily plain utensil they'd used to write on his planet. It was a bit weathered down, but still in pristine working condition. An object he typically wouldn’t glance at aside from whenever he’d need to work with it.
Rolling the pen in one hand, he continues to look through his cases. Gazing over everything, he lets little trickles of nostalgia pass through him. The memories isn’t something that humans would call “good,” though he didn’t view them as bad either.
Dark colours and long conversations flood his mind, planetary rubble roll about, names of renowned people, and cool winds sweep by him. He deeply misses his home, the work, the blue accents that seemed to naturally mend throughout the space. When he was still young, he never would’ve thought about leaving the planet, nonetheless travelling to such a place as earth.
The days on earth were much shorter, the weather a bit warmer, streets more crowded, and so little to work with, he’d wondered how humans were able to get anything done, any individual accomplishments.
His own planet cherished individuality and success, but probably not in the way people on earth would think it. Here on earth, they saw individuality as a unique trait to be given upon societal approval, and success on the amount of currency you held. Mikitaka himself didn’t see it as a bad way to view things, but it was still such a new concept to him, he always seemed to forget.
At this point he’d already finished going over the two cases he was able to bring with him. Carefully, he began to pack everything away neatly, arranging all the little gadgets and components into their own separate spaces provided by the casings. Placing the cases back into the, “flying triangle,” something tumbles out of the side compartment.
It’s a tiny blue and metallic cube. There’s cracks running all over the minimal space of it, a light glow seeping through them. He immediately recognizes it, bending to pick it up.
It’s a digital diagram. When you open it up, you can see a hologram of a place you took an image of with it. It was much like a human’s camera, but this was more for storing information of rooms or inanimate objects. There weren't many images he’d captured with it, maybe four or less.
Not wanting to look through the diagrams in a dingy garage, he heads out of the house, telling his mother he was going on a walk. There wasn’t much point in enlightening her on his whereabouts, seeing as he only made it so she would act motherly towards him in her presence.
Wonder around, he tries to think of places he could possibly view the images in peace. By the time he finds a place, the sun is already setting and the sky is a mix of pinks and purples.
The place he’d found was a bit of forestry on the edges of the little town. He strolls through the foliage empty minded, wanting to enjoy the scenery before settling down for the evening.
Coming short of a clearing, he sees Josuke sitting all alone in the middle of the space, laid down amongst a swath of blankets. Earbuds in, he didn’t hear Mikitaka approaching, seemingly dazed out of the world.
Tapping Josuke’s shoulder, he jolts up, narrowly missing the other’s face.
“What the hell man!” Retracting his startled stand, he takes his earbuds out, turning to face him, “don’t do that shit, you scared the fuck outta me,” leaning back on his hands, Josuke scoots over atop his blankets. After a blank stare and a few seconds of silence, Josuke grabs his arm and pulls him down onto the blankets.
“I moved over so you could sit down man,” Josuke huffs out, taking his hands back.
“Oh,” is all he has to say, mentally reminding himself not to apologize. Apparently he didn’t need to apologize for every mistake he makes or it would become annoying, Josuke had informed him before.
Fiddling with his walkman, presumably to turn it off, getting comfortable once more.
“So what are you doing out here so late?” The other questions him, full attention on him.
“I wanted to view my digital diagram in a more open area than my living space,” he answered, pulling the ravaged cube out of a pocket, “what about you?”
“Just chillin’ before headin’ home,” he shrugs, now looking at the cube in curiosity. Holding his hand out, he mumbles a quiet ‘lemme see it,’ making grabbing motions with his hand. Handing it over, the other examines it sluggishly, turning it tiredly about in his palms. Giving it one last look over, he gives it back, a little ‘looks cool,’ tumbling out.
Taking it back, he realizes he’s never seen Josuke so quiet, nonetheless wanting to “chill” by himself. He wonders if anything’s wrong, but decides against asking him, not wanting to disrupt his easy state more than he already had. Laying down beside him, he holds the cube above him, watching the light glow pulse against the ever darkening sky.
“What’s it do?” Mikitaka turns his head to look at him, lowering his arms toward his chest.
“It’s like a camera, but for locations and inanimate objects. It displays a hologram of the places you took images of, I only took images of places that were important to me, though it’s typically used for information storing,” he explains.
“What’d you take pictures of?” The other inquiries, leaning into him. Instead of replying, he opens the cube, the first place being his “home.”
“This your house?”
“Yes, though it’s not quite what you humans define it as,” he supplies, gazing over the minimal furnishing.
“What do your species define it as?”
“It’s basically a storage, we don’t spend much time here, other than when we need to store or get something. It was a human kind of home for me,” he sets the digital displayer on the ground, shuffling into a sitting position once more, pointing at various things, “that’s the lounge, we didn’t have as many chairs as you humans do, we typically had lounges to sprawl on, though even those are rarely used compared to you guys,” pointing at a structure similar to a kitchen, “that’s where we held our sustenance, everything was already premade, so we didn’t have to cook anything on our planet.” then at a bookcase, “that’s still just a bookcase like it is here, but there was no such thing as fictional books there,” going on like that for a while, they slowly made their way through his little “scrapbook.”
It was only four images, like he suspected, but they'd spent a good three hours talking about his home. The sky was black by now, the only light coming from the hologram in front of them.
Josuke was huddled into a blanket by now, tiredly asking him more questions, a light small playing on his features. Mikitaka hadn’t pegged him for the type to be interested in others' culture and background, but he’d seemed completely focused on him since he’d open the cube. It was nice being listened to, he decided. He himself wasn’t the type to talk about himself much, but he was more than happy to talk about his planet.
By the end of it Josuke was leaning on his shoulder, eyes drooping. Moving to grab the displayer, he moves Josuke to his lap. Upon being moved, Josuke shifts into a more comfortable position on his lap, probably not noticing where he was laying.
“That reminds me,” Josuke croaks, his voice a little hoarse from talking too long, “do you guys have siblings there?”
Mikitaka quietly stores the cube in his pocket, sitting back on his haunches.
“We do,” he says softly, not necessarily wanting to wake him more, “a couple of our species usually has around 3 children at least, maybe more,” Josuke makes a disquieted noise, “That mean you got siblings out there?”
“Maybe, I wouldn’t know,” he looks around the quaint clearing once more, “when we have children, they’re usually dropped off to a schooling where they grow up and learn from mentors, it’s not common that parents take their children with them, since we stake our lives on advancements and the achievements we make. It was by luck that my parents took me in, it wasn’t anything like picking a favourite,” he muses, thinking about the guardians he barely knew.
“That’s kinda fucked; yer sayin’ your siblings were just kinda abandoned while they shotgunned you around?”
“I guess you could put it that way, but it’s not like I wasn’t abandoned myself, though that could just be me having the privilege to say that,” Josuke suddenly sits up, turning to face him.
“What makes you say you’re privileged? You just said they abandonded your siblings, picked you up on a whim, only to fuck off to do whatever the fuck they wanted, and left you in a damn storage closet,” Josuke exclaims looking at him increduously.
“They didn’t, “fuck off,” they came back whenever they had the time to teach me academics and how to live,” he defended, his guardians weren’t cruel at all to him, only expecting.
“Yeah, they made time to make you do shit they wanted you to do, not to take care of or check up on you,” he says angrily.
He doesn’t respond, not wanting to anger him further. It’s understandable he doesn’t agree with the way things are on his planet, they were two different places with different rules and expectations. Standing up, he extends a hand toward Josuke.
Taking it, he grabs his blankets and stands beside him.
“You’re not obligated to do anything grand here, you know that right?” Josuke nudges him, bundle of blankets dripping from under his other arm. He gives a small nod, a somewhat tight smile on his face. Josuke gives him a hard look and squeezes his shoulder before making his way out of the clearing.
“If I stay out any longer my mom might come out and drag me home herself,” he jokes, the seriousness from earlier leaving his voice, “let’s turn in for the night yeah?” he motions for Mikitaka to catch up with him.
This action puts a real smile on his face.