Chapter Text
The spacecraft enters Earth’s atmosphere while Hajime is sleeping. It touches down in the forest behind his house in the early hours of the morning.
He wakes up at 2:17AM.
Everything is quiet except for the buzzing of his phone on the edge of his bed.
“Do you know what it is?” he says. He puts it on speakerphone so he can get dressed. “Is everyone else up?”
“Suga and I are on our way to the ship right now,” Daichi says, sounding just as disgruntled as Hajime. “I’m going to call the others after you. Can you meet us there in ten minutes?”
“Yeah. See you soon.”
“Be careful.”
“You too.”
Hajime pulls his shoes on and goes down the stairs as quickly as he can without making so much noise that he’ll wake up his family. He’s out of the house and running down the street, taking a route so familiar that he could do it with his eyes closed.
This isn’t the first time he’s been awoken by his ‘spidey senses’ in the middle of the night, and it certainly won’t be the last. Five years ago, he found the black ninja power star and he’s been a Power Ranger since then. It was ridiculous at first, dressing up as a ninja and fighting aliens, but he’s gotten so used to it by now that it doesn’t really bother him.
The rest of the town is still asleep so it doesn’t take long for him to get to the forest. It’s dark and wet from condensation and he winces when his foot falls into a puddle of mud, soaking his sock.
He’s about half a mile into the forest when he starts to see damaged trees consistent with a crash landing. He tries not to think about the squelching noise his right foot makes every time he takes a step as he follows the tracks, and they take him to the crash site. The spacecraft is the size of a small car and is shaped like the kind of computer mouse that gamers use.
A man, very human looking, is standing beside the spacecraft. He’s wearing tight, white clothing and he’s holding a handful of plants that he must have just collected from the area.
Hajime is slowly reaching into his pocket to grab his power star when the alien’s eyes snap up and meet his.
They stare at each other silently for a very long time, neither of them wanting to be the first to move.
Hajime’s heart is racing. He’s fought aliens before, but they were always comically abstract creatures, none of them had ever been this beautiful.
“Do you not bow to your gods on this planet?” the alien asks finally.
Hajime narrows his eyes. “You’re no god.”
The alien’s face lights up with amusement. “I’m not?”
“Not to me,” Hajime says. The alien makes a sound that’s like a laugh. “Why are you here?”
“To conquer your planet,” the alien says.
“I don’t think that’s gonna happen,” Hajime says roughly. He pulls out his power star from the back pocket of his jeans. “I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”
“I’m going to have to politely decline your request,” the alien says. “Your planet will be conquered whether or not you surrender, but I sincerely hope you do. I don’t like to commit genocide and this ecosystem is so lovely.”
“This planet is useless,” Hajime says. “We have nothing to offer you. There’s no reason to conquer us.”
“I can think of a few reasons.” The alien drops the plants he’s holding and walks toward Hajime, until they’re only inches apart.
“Name one,” Hajime challenges.
“Tell me your name and I will,” the alien replies. It’s so fucking stupid, and cheesy as hell, but Hajime can’t stop the blush that heats up his face. The alien’s smile widens and he reaches over as if to touch Hajime’s face but stops himself. “You must know how exquisite you are.”
Hajime can’t breathe. There’s something unexplainably enticing about this alien that is keeping him from thinking straight. The only thing going through his mind is how soft his skin looks.
“Who the fuck says ‘exquisite’?” he blurts.
The alien puffs out a laugh. “Me, apparently.”
“Why do you want to take this planet?” Hajime asks.
“Shall I explain the concept of imperialism to you?” the alien says. “My empire is expanding our power and influence throughout the universe.”
Hajime frowns. “Your empire?”
“Oh, yes.” The alien takes another step closer and Hajime has to will himself to not back away. “Would you like me to show you?”
“No, thanks,” Hajime says. “I’d like you to leave.”
“I can’t do that,” the alien says. “Please. What can I call you?”
Hajime holds his power star in front of his chest, causing the alien to back up a couple steps. “You can call me the black ranger.”
The alien frowns before his face falls and he looks almost sad. “You have got to be joking. You? You’re a Power Ranger?”
“Yeah,” Hajime says, suddenly less confident. He didn’t know that the Power Rangers were known intergalactically. “What do you know about the Power Rangers?”
“It had been so easy up until now,” the alien says, turning away. “Of course you’d make this hard. I should have expected this.”
“Look, man, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Hajime spins the power star and transforms into his ranger suit. “But I’m only going to ask you to leave one more time.”
“Fine,” the alien says. He throws his hands up in exasperation. “Fine, I’ll leave, but I’m coming back. You’re going to regret not joining me.”
Hajime narrows his eyes as the alien carefully steps back into his spacecraft. “I don’t think I will.”
“What’s their next move?” Daichi asks. “What are we up against?”
“I don’t know, he never told me,” Hajime says.
Hanamaki raises his eyebrows. “So, what, you just flirted with him instead of getting useful information?”
“He was flirting with me,” Hajime snaps.
“Oh, yeah, that’s a lot better,” Hanamaki says.
“Come on, he must have told you something,” Daichi says. “Implicitly, at the very least.”
“He literally only brought up intergalactic domination, there were no other details,” Hajime says. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“You can apologize for being useless,” Hanamaki says.
“And you can have my foot up your ass, but that’s not happening either, is it?” Hajime says.
“Yahaba and I put together a composite drawing using the description that Iwaizumi gave us and we’re comparing it to a list of known humanoid alien species to see if there’s a match so we can have a clue about what they’re up to,” Suga says, sitting down next to Hajime. “You’re welcome.”
“I am amazed by the things that you do,” Hanamaki says.
Suga shrugs. “It’s mostly the high tech alien spaceship gifted to us by Zordon, the first power ranger, but I will gladly take the credit.”
“Since there’s nothing to do but wait, I think I’m gonna go home,” Hajime says, standing up. “I have things to do.”
“Sit your ass down, no one is going anywhere,” Daichi says. “Right now, this is the safest place any of us can be.”
“That is false, Kyoutani just farted,” Hanamaki says, raising his hand. “We are in very dangerous territory.”
“I did not fart!” Kyoutani exclaims. “Daichi, I didn’t fart!”
“Well, someone farted, because it smells like shit,” Yahaba says from behind two laptops.
“That’s probably just the toxic bitch odor that your pores secrete,” Kyoutani says.
“My sweat actually smells like lavender.”
“Man, shut the fuck up.”
“I have things to do,” Hajime repeats a little louder.
Daichi points at Hajime. “Sit down or I’m handcuffing you to the table.”
Suga suddenly makes an excited sound and accidentally bangs his knee against the bottom of the table. Daichi comes up behind him to put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.
“We got a match,” Suga says, his voice strained. “The Seijou species, they’re from an entirely different dimension. There’s no information on them other than the royal family.”
He slides a laptop across the table to Hajime, who sits down to look. There’s a huge family tree that dates back centuries. The current king is pictured in a box with extravagant borders, and he has many children. At the very end is his youngest, Tooru. He’s the alien that Hajime met.
“That’s him,” he says. “That’s the guy I saw.”
“Jesus christ, he’s a prince?” Hanamaki says incredulously, leaning over Hajime’s shoulder.
“He did say it was his empire,” Hajime says.
“So? What do we do?” Kyoutani asks.
Daichi furrows his brow and crosses his arms, looking like a disappointed dad. “I don’t know. We have no idea where they are, so there’s nothing we can do until they do something.”
“I’m not waiting for them to attack,” Hanamaki says. “I’m not waiting for people to die before going after them, we need to do something now.”
“What do you propose?” Daichi says, whirling on him. “Are you going to blindly run out there and shoot at everything you see?”
“I’m gonna find them!” Hanamaki says.
“How?” Daichi asks. “We have no way to do that.”
“I’ll figure it out!” Hanamaki says.
“Somehow, I don’t have confidence in that,” Daichi says.
“Guys,” Hajime interrupts before the fight can get physical. “He doesn’t want to fight. They’ll try to conquer the planet no matter what, but he doesn’t want to commit genocide. He told me that. Maybe we can work out a compromise.”
“We don’t negotiate with alien colonizers,” Yahaba says.
Hajime gives Yahaba a look to shut him up. “I’m just saying, if there’s even a small chance that we can avoid war, we should take it. I mean, we have to try.”
“He’s right,” Suga says.
“But that still doesn’t answer the question of what the hell we’re supposed to do now,” Kyoutani says. “It could be days, or weeks, even, before something else happens.”
“I don’t think he’ll start out by killing a bunch of people,” Hajime says. Hanamaki looks like he wants to argue, so he continues. “I don’t get that vibe from him. All we need is a little time to figure things out.”
“I don’t think we’re going to have enough time.” Yahaba scrambles to turn on the wall of screens that Daichi is standing in front of.
The screens flicker alive to show coverage of a warship entering Earth’s atmosphere. It’s huge and industrial, it looks like something out of a Star Wars movie. Each news channel is zooming in on different things - the material that looks like steel, the cannon-looking thing at the top, the hundreds of tiny windows, the open canals that have smaller ships flying in and out. No one has ever seen anything like this before and it’s about as terrifying as any sci-fi movie has prepared them for.
“Holy shit!” Kyoutani exclaims. “Is that real?”
“Do you think the government will attack?” Suga asks. “What is the policy on alien warships?”
“There is none, believe it or not.” Yahaba’s eyes are moving quickly as he scans his laptops. “The American, Russian, and Chinese governments are all deliberating on how to attack, my guess is they’ll go with missiles first, just to see what happens. In Independence Day, no attacks were able to hit until they took down the protective shield.”
“Hey, idiot, this is real life, not a goddamn science fiction movie,” Kyoutani says.
“I’m sorry, but I’m the one with a wealth of knowledge in front of me and you are standing there with nothing but your biceps,” Yahaba says.
“What do we do?” Suga asks.
Daichi leans forward, putting his hands on the table. “We won’t get there in time to be able to do anything.”
“We might be the only thing that can stop it, I don’t want to wait until thousands of people have died to try something,” Hanamaki argues. “For all we know, it could just be another one of Galvanax’s stupid tricks.”
“There is a giant floating egg descending into California, I don’t think this is a trick,” Yahaba says roughly. “The Americans are preparing ballistic missiles and deploying a portable unit to the area, they haven’t opened international communications yet.”
“When are they projected to land?” Daichi asks.
“At the rate they’re going, they’ll land somewhere near Yosemite National Park in about forty minutes,” Yahaba says. “Assuming they do land at all. We still don’t know their plan.”
“Are we still sure that’s the only ship?” Suga asks.
“I’m not sure about anything, but it’s the only one we can see right now,” Yahaba tells him.
“If we can get this ship up and running, we can get there in minutes,” Hanamaki states.
“The last time we tried to fly this ship, we burned out the engine so bad it disintegrated,” Daichi says.
“Then we fix it,” Hanamaki says.
Hajime rubs his face with his hands and sinks down in his seat.
After watching the warship stall over Yosemite for five hours, Daichi finally let them go home. It didn’t seem like it was doing anything except floating there and there weren’t any responses to the communication attempts that the governments were making. On top of that, they all have school and families to pay attention to. They’re the sole defenders of the Earth but they’re also just a bunch of kids.
Hajime doesn’t sleep well that night. It’s hard when you know that there is a warship waiting to demolish everything you’ve ever known. When he does manage to catch a blink of rest, all he sees is Tooru - Prince Tooru.
Hajime has never been good with words. He can’t come up with anything to describe Tooru other than beautiful. His skin was so pale, almost blue in the moonlight, and his hair had that intentionally messy look that Hajime has seen on models. The fact that he had called Hajime ‘exquisite’ when he looked like that makes Hajime feel bubbly inside.
Nothing happens for days. Yahaba and Suga work hard on fixing the ship enough for it to actually transport them places and they make good progress, but Hajime doesn’t have much to do because he’s never really been a mechanical sort of guy. He’s more of the brawns than the brains of the team.
Hajime works at an ice cream shop to help pay for school. It’s busy enough that he isn’t bored but it’s not terrible.
He recognizes Tooru as soon as he approaches the counter. He’s wearing regular clothes, instead of the clean white ensemble he’d been wearing the first time they met, and even has a pair of glasses on.
“How did you find me?” Hajime asks.
“Small town,” Tooru says. “It wasn’t very hard.”
“What do you want?” Hajime asks.
“You,” Tooru says plainly. Hajime can’t believe how candid he’s being. No one ever says exactly what they feel. “I wanted to see you.”
“Well, here I am,” Hajime says. “I’m working, so you have to order something or leave.”
Tooru smiles. “I would like some ice cream, please.”
“What kind?” Hajime says.
“Ice cream,” Tooru repeats.
“Yeah,” Hajime says. “Look, we’ve got all different kinds of ice cream, you gotta choose one.”
“The best one,” Tooru replies slowly.
Hajime frowns. “Have you never had ice cream before?”
“I’m from another dimension,” Tooru says. “There are a lot of things in this world I’ve never had before.”
“Okay.” Hajime pulls his gloves on and moves to the display case. “This is ice cream. These are all of the flavors. I can give you a little bit to try before you decide which one you want.”
Tooru’s eyes light up and the innocence in his excitement is a little contagious because Hajime starts to feel a little light.
“Can I try the pink one?” he asks.
Hajime slides the case open and reaches in. “That’s strawberry. Do you know what strawberry is?”
“Nope!” Tooru accepts the small plastic spoon delicately with both hands. “I eat it?”
“Yes, you eat it,” Hajime says.
Tooru carefully eats the spoonful of ice cream and laughter starts bubbling out of him. “Oh, wow. Wow.”
“Yeah?” Hajime can’t help but smile.
“I’d like more, please,” Tooru says, handing the spoon back to Hajime.
“You wanna try any other flavors?” Hajime asks, discreetly tossing the spoon into the trash.
“Oh, yes, all of them,” Tooru says.
Hajime has seen plenty of children come through the shop, always brightened by getting their ice cream, but there’s something different about witnessing someone try ice cream for the very first time. Tooru seems so happy that he’s almost glowing, and Hajime thinks that he wouldn’t mind seeing him that happy all the time. He wouldn’t mind being the person to make him that happy.
Tooru eventually decides to get a scoop of vanilla ice cream, which is surprising at first but makes sense. He pays with cash and Hajime doesn’t bother asking how he got it.
“Very thank you, Iwaizumi-san,” Tooru says.
“That’s not how you say it - I didn’t tell you my name,” Hajime says.
“No, but you’re wearing a name tag and I know how to read.” Tooru gestures at the tag pinned on Hajime’s chest. “My name is Tooru, so now we’re even.”
They stand in silence for a while as Tooru eats his ice cream, managing to look beautiful while fucking eating ice cream. Hajime stares at him and he tactfully doesn’t say anything about it. That being said, Hajime thinks that anyone would stare at an alien.
“You don’t have to do this,” Hajime says finally. Tooru slowly looks up to meet his eyes. “Talk to the governments, I’m sure you can come up with a compromise that won’t end with people dying.”
Tooru laughs humorlessly. “Oh, I don’t think your governments are capable of negotiating with each other, let alone with me.”
“I don’t want to fight you,” Hajime says, and he means it. “But I have a duty to protect this planet and its people.”
“And I have a duty to my family,” Tooru says. “It doesn’t matter whether or not I want this, it’s not up to me.”
“Just please - please don’t hurt anyone,” Hajime says.
Tooru finishes the last spoonful of his ice cream and tosses the cup into the trash can. “I won’t unless I have to.”
“Tooru,” Hajime says.
“This was nice,” Tooru says. “Really, I enjoyed it. Thank you, Iwa-chan.”
The nickname completely blindsides Hajime. Of all the things he was expecting to hear from Tooru, that wasn’t it.
“Don’t call me that,” he says.
Tooru smiles, bright and heartbreaking, and leaves.
The next time Hajime sees Tooru is in San Francisco. Something must have gone wrong when Tooru communicated with the United States government because about a hundred little ships, the size of military tanks, barrel into Daly City and start taking out anyone that gets in their way. No one knows where they’re trying to go so they’re impossible to avoid.
It takes them a while to get the ship working and it’s a little rickety because they’re not done fixing it but it only takes two hours to get from Miyagi to San Francisco, when it would have taken them ten hours by plane.
“Yahaba and Kyoutani, go to work helping the civilians,” Daichi says when they land in the trees just outside the city, and the two of them take off. “Suga and I are going to start from the east, Hanamaki and Iwaizumi take the west. Let’s shut this down.”
Fighting the aliens isn’t exactly hard but it’s tiring, and, while there are six Power Rangers, the supply of aliens seems to be endless.
“Hey, man,” Hanamaki says, grabbing an alien by the collar and throwing it at a wall. “Are you good?”
“I’m fine,” Hajime says. He grapples with an alien to get its gun and smacks it in the face to knock it out. “Why?”
“You seem off,” Hanamaki says. “Kinda sad. Just making sure you’re okay. You are okay, right?”
“The best that I can be, considering we’re the only thing that can stop this alien invasion,” Hajime replies roughly.
“Alright, spill. What’s going on?” Hanamaki asks. “Is the alien prince getting to you?”
“No,” Hajime snaps, and Hanamaki just looks at him. “Maybe? He came to my work the other day.”
“No shit.” Hanamaki ducks to avoid a blast from a tank. “He showed up at the ice cream shop? What for?”
“Ice cream, apparently,” Hajime says.
“Tell me you at least got some information out of him this time,” Hanamaki says. Hajime grunts. “Jesus, man, you have seen him twice now, you’re probably the only person who’s actually spoken to him in person, and you’ve spent all of your time flirting with him?”
“I’m not flirting with him,” Hajime says.
“You so are,” Hanamaki says. “I saw his picture, he is definitely your type.”
“What? I don’t have a type,” Hajime says.
Hanamaki snorts. “Yes you do. Tall, pretty, probably kind of bitchy.”
“Can we not talk about this right now?” Hajime hisses.
“Just tell me what he said, maybe there’s a way for you to get through to him,” Hanamaki says.
“I taught him about ice cream and he loved it,” Hajime says. “I asked him not to take over the planet and he said it wasn’t his choice.”
“Well, there you go,” Hanamaki says. “He doesn’t want to do it.”
“He didn’t say that,” Hajime says.
“Read between the lines, dumbass,” Hanamaki says. “It’s obvious that he doesn’t want to, he just doesn’t have a choice.”
“Fine, let’s say you’re right,” Hajime says. “What the hell am I supposed to do about it?”
“It’s pretty simple,” Hanamaki says.
“I doubt that,” Hajime says.
“You seduce him, make him fall in love with you, and then convince him to turn on his family,” Hanamaki explains. “You know, Macbeth his ass.”
“I’m not sure you know what actually happens in that story,” Hajime says. “And I’m not doing that!”
“Why not?” Hanamaki asks.
“It’s morally reprehensible, for one,” Hajime says.
“Come on, it’s not like you don’t want to,” Hanamaki says. “He’s hot, he’s into you. You get an intergalactic royal piece of ass, and just reap some of the benefits.”
“Would you just shut up about it? I’m not going to sleep with him,” Hajime says.
“That’s what you’re saying now, but what happens the next time he decides to show up and flirt with you?” Hanamaki says. “You’re just going to say no?”
“Believe it or not, yeah, Hanamaki,” Hajime says. “I’m not a whore that gives away sex for favors.”
Hanamaki hums. “Could have fooled me.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Hajime says.
“Look, I’m just say- fuck!”
“You good, man?” Hajime calls.
“Iwa-chan.” The clear voice immediately gets Hajime’s attention and he turns to see Tooru standing over Hanamaki, who is cradling his face. “I thought you’d be here.”
“You just slapped my friend,” Hajime says.
Tooru tilts his head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know he was your friend.”
“You broke my fucking nose, you bitch,” Hanamaki mumbles.
“It’ll heal,” Tooru assures him. He steps over the rubble to get closer to Hajime, and the rest of the alien army seems to get the memo, moving around them like they’re inside of a bubble. He looks a little messy for the first time, with a streak of dirt on his cheek and ruffled clothing. “How are you?”
“Not great, Tooru,” Hajime snaps. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m taking over the planet,” Tooru says. “I thought you knew.”
“I specifically asked you to not hurt anyone,” Hajime says, feeling ridiculous for even asking in the first place. “You said you wouldn’t!”
Tooru looks down at his hands for a bit, fiddling with his fingers. “I had no choice. It’s obvious that your governments won’t respond to threat alone. I had to demonstrate the consequences.”
“And terrorizing innocent people was the way to do that?” Hajime says. “These people have done nothing wrong, they don’t deserve this!”
“I had no choice!” Tooru exclaims.
“You always have a choice,” Hajime says.
“You don’t understand,” Tooru says. “You could never understand.”
“Then explain it to me,” Hajime says.
Tooru looks at Hajime with huge, sad eyes and turns away, yelling something at one of his soldiers in a language Hajime doesn’t understand.
“Tooru,” Hajime tries again and Tooru clenches his fist, doesn’t turn back. “Please.”
“I’m sorry,” Tooru says.
Everything is static as Tooru walks away, sounds coming through as though he’s underwater and nothing coming into focus, until he’s struck in the back and yanked back into battle. He turns, grabs the weapon he was struck with, and thrusts it back at the alien, stabbing it through the chest.
“That was very dramatic,” Hanamaki says.
“Shut the fuck up,” Hajime says.
“That’s not a conversation you have with someone you’ve only seen twice,” Hanamaki continues.
Hajime takes down an alien. “I said shut up, Hanamaki.”