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The layers of corn husks were comforting on Mikitaka’s back as he stared up at the sky, warm from being baked all day by the sun he now stared directly into. It had been several months since he had landed just here in the same cornfield, under the same sun, searching for a new life.
He found it odd, the way everything would blend into itself. Centuries hopping between galaxies and solar systems, seeing so many things that would never make sense for a planet such as earth, and what had happened to his own planet didn’t seem so unbelievable.
Earth really was very friendly to him, considering his other options. It had an atmosphere he could breathe and inhabitants that he could blend in with relatively well, and none so far had tried to eat him or get him off the planet.
That was about as much as he could ask for, really, and that was why he had settled for a decent amount of time there, enjoying life on the telephone wires and the pleasant glow of the single sun the planet revolved.
But as time continued and he continued his space pilot duties, a strange feeling had overcome him, a slight ache in his chest that wouldn’t quite go away, no matter what he did or tried to think about. He supposed the overly emotional nature of humans was rubbing off on him and he couldn’t place how or why. Out of all of the information he had collected and attempted to log on human feelings, this one still felt like a half-empty data entry.
He kept remembering things that he didn’t have a reason to remember, things that were long gone and were useless to dwell on. For some reason, he felt the need to wish he had things back that he would never have again. It was something he had come to terms with a long time ago, so it didn’t need to resurface.
But here he was, lying in the field and staring up at the clear sky, wondering if a planet like his home one would ever drift by and he would be able to visit it. It was just a big pile of wishing for things and wishing he wasn’t wishing for them, but it hurt. There was a sting in his chest, a kind of sadness that wouldn’t go away even with the tactics he had already figured out for helping with sadness.
“Oh, Jesus fuck- Mikitaka, you scared the living daylights out of me–”
Mikitaka sat up, turning to see a familiar face peeking through the corn. Josuke stepped into the center of the crop circle, wiping sweat from his brow.
“Oh,” Mikitaka blinked, glancing between him and the sun overhead. “If you need more daylight, there’s plenty here. Would you like to sit with me?” he asked. “Perhaps you need to photosynthesize it back.”
Josuke laughed, lighthearted as he walked over to the alien. “Nah, that’s plant shit. I can still sit with you, though,” he added, sinking over to sit cross-legged on the corn and looking over to Mikitaka. “It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to like, have a full conversation with you, dude!”
Mikitaka had yet to figure out what counted as a full conversation, but he apparently hadn’t kept up very well on what he was meant to do. Perhaps he was being an insufficient friend… but it was difficult to always keep up when he lived on a telephone tower and had only been on earth for a few months. Besides, every species he had interacted with had different standards for communication. It was taking him some time to adjust.
“Yes. My apologies.”
Josuke waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, you don’t gotta apologize! I’ve just noticed you… seem a little down lately. You okay?”
Mikitaka looked over to Josuke, taking a moment to study the expression he wore. It always made it a little bit easier to figure out what he was supposed to reply with, and even if he said something wrong, if he matched their expression, it would give him a bit of leeway.
The expression was tight, brow pinched with concern and eyes patient as Mikitaka tried to pick out what to say.
“I have been thinking more than I usually do.”
Josuke shrugged. “Fair. What about?”
Mikitaka wondered for a moment if it would be reasonable to tell Josuke about what really had been crossing his mind. Again, he felt very in the dark about what was appropriate to tell or ask people about. Not only that, but Josuke might not understand some of the details about the information that pertained to other solar systems and planets, and Mikitaka didn’t want him to be too confused. One thing he did know, though, was that you were not supposed to lie to people who you considered friends.
“My home planet.”
“Yeah?” Josuke asked, resting his chin in his hand. “How are things going up there?”
“I’ve received many transmissions,” Mikitaka replied, wondering what the best way to talk about it would be. He would be the first to admit that he was lost on the subject. “Most from organisms I have not spoken to before.”
“Nice! Glad they’re still active.”
Mikitaka didn’t reply, but not out of wanting to be rude. He really just didn’t want to have to explain it more than that. He didn’t often elaborate on what he said, as it mostly just made people end up more confused when he began talking about wormholes, space travel, or the troubles his planet faced.
“Anything else that’s bothering you? Sometimes it’s hard to figure out,” Josuke continued, looking over at him. Mikitaka felt like lying down on the corn again, but he decided against it, figuring it might be rude to not be able to look at Josuke in the eye from where he was sitting.
“That is all I have been thinking about,” Mikitaka replied, shaking his head. And it was true. Very little of his mind had been dedicated to things outside the transmissions or memories of his home, no matter how unnecessary they were. He wondered what would happen if he were to try to fit more emotion into his mind while there was already so much gelling up around the singular idea of his home planet.
He had explored the universe for hundreds of years; he was surprised his home planet hadn’t lost all of its importance amongst the trillions he had visited over his warped years. He shouldn’t have minded too much if it was dying, as he had thousands of other very good options to stay, including Morioh. People did not often believe that he was an alien, but he guessed that was what to be expected. It was better than them believing him and being scared and angry at his existence.
“Oh damn, really?” he heard Josuke ask, the teen leaning over to peer at his face.
Mikitaka nodded, watching the clouds above drift by. He was sure if anyone else from his home planet had seen them, they would have thought them enormous swirling monsters looming above the earth. “It has become an issue. I have not been able to focus on my continued exploration of humans and Earth.”
Josuke’s expression sank for a moment, brow furrowed thoughtfully as he stared down at the flattened corn husks beneath them. Mikitaka could only wish to understand what he was thinking, but he waited patiently, focusing instead on the aching in his chest and echoes of transmissions sitting in the back of his mind.
“Mikitaka… Do you think it would help to talk about it?” he heard Josuke ask, voice low as if he did not want to disturb the corn around them. “Like- what exactly is going on with your planet.”
Mikitaka looked over at him, again trying to study the expression he received. The question confused him. Josuke knew that there had been issues with Mikitaka’s planet, hence the reason he was even here. But from what he had figured out, humans didn’t enjoy hearing about sad things. Maybe he had miscategorized the topic…?
“Y’know, I doubt it’s great but it can feel easier to have someone know.”
…Well. That made it different, then– it was something Josuke wanted for him. It was odd, and something he didn’t really understand yet, but Mikitaka decided to accept.
“...It turns out that in the centuries I’ve been exploring, the planet’s decay has grown exponentially. The illnesses that took my family have become rampant and water can no longer be sourced naturally. All of it is polluted and now highly toxic, but many have resorted to drinking it anyway out of desperation.
“Others, like me, have left to search for a better home, but resources have been mostly depleted, making the technology needed to escape impossible to find. Should I return to aid them, I would just be too late. We are 160,000 light-years away. I would be lucky to find a planet at all by the time I arrived.”
He stopped, wondering if he should explain more. Not only was he yet to know if it was appropriate to disclose so much, the aching in his chest had grown stronger, painful enough that he felt his brow furrow with confusion at the feeling. He had given plenty of time to understand what had happened to his own planet, could remember it pretty well, and had decided that it was time to move on. There wasn’t a reason to dwell on a dying planet.
“Oh, shit– really?”
Mikitaka turned to look at him, confused. “Do you not believe me?”
“No, I totally do, I just– didn’t know it was that bad,” Josuke replied, shock still covering his face. “I’m so sorry, dude, I didn’t realize. That must hurt like hell.”
“It’s only change. Life is about changing, I have discovered.” Mikitaka replied, picking up one of the corn husks sitting beside him and turning it over in his hand. It was drying up in the heat of late summer, a brown crust forming at its edges. “It is fascinating to see evolution from an intergalactic perspective, but changing means leaving things behind. I’m afraid it’s been 217 years and I am still not used to it.”
“I dunno…” he heard Josuke frown, staring up at the clouds. “I feel like having everything taken away from you all at once is the kinda shit you never get used to. I don’t think anybody is made to have to spend forever losing everything over and over again.” He looked over. “Do you wanna tell me about what it used to be like?”
Mikitaka slowly set down the corn husk he had been inspecting, nodding instead. Rarely had he heard someone show so much interest in where he had come from without sounding as if they were trying to catch him in a lie.
“It was a much smaller planet than yours, with more water. There were only a few large islands, but we were the most technologically advanced in our solar system, like you. I had four parents, and I lived there for seven earth years before I began to realize that things were going wrong.”
It was strange to put all of it into words after only being able to think about it, letting the memories drift through his mind as he sat in the cockpit of his ship. And it was even stranger to know somebody was listening, Josuke’s arms folded over his knees as Mikitaka continued to speak.
“One of my parents fell ill, and nobody told me why. I don’t believe anybody knew, but it was one of the first signs of something going wrong. It turned out the atmosphere had been shifting too much to support our kind anymore. My family realized it… I was the youngest at the time, so they turned to me. I know their intention was for them to stay on that planet until it collapsed in on itself, while I found a new life of my own.” Something had changed in his voice, suddenly sounding like it was trembling more than it was supposed to, and the ache in his chest had grown far past painful, enough for him to reach up and press his hand confusedly against it.
“But I can’t help feeling like I still failed them.”
There was a silence, feeling stunned in the way Mikitaka attempted to swallow back the pain that felt oddly nostalgic for something he had only just begun to feel now.
“Mikitaka, it’s fine if you cry.”
“I’m…?” Mikitaka didn’t understand what Josuke was saying, about to brush it off as something else he would just have to learn about human behavior when he felt something on his face, reaching up to touch it. There was something shiny on his fingers.
“Oh,” Mikitaka frowned, staring at how his hand glistened strangely in front of his face. “You are right.”
His face felt like it was burning, spilling like molten rock from his eyes and down his cheeks as he sat cross-legged in the grass. He could hear the sound of tears dripping onto the corn, trying to recognize the emotion that came with the strange outburst. He didn’t even have control over it.
A hand moved to rest against his back, something he had made a note of as a gesture of comfort for humans. He hadn’t quite understood why it was so at first, but now it seemed to have clicked. There was no other way he could describe it other than just feeling better, a quiet reminder that there was somebody else there.
He closed his eyes, and he could still feel it, a warm palm on his shoulder as more tears seeped down his face. And strangely enough, even the conglomeration of indecipherable emotions, the almost painful way his throat seemed to close up and his face stung with heat, it felt good. It seemed so contradictory, to be hurting so much yet being grateful.
“Josuke?” he asked, voice reduced to a shaky rasp.
“Mm?”
“I’m beginning to think I miss it. My- my home planet.”
The hand on his back moved to squeeze his shoulder, again so oddly comforting for such a simple gesture. “I bet. I’m- I’m so sorry dude, it just never clicked that you’ve been traveling without anybody for so long. No wonder you’re homesick.”
“Homesick?” Mikitaka paused, frowning as a tear dripped onto the ground beneath him. “But I am not home nor am I ill.”
“Nah, homesick is something else,” Josuke replied, shifting closer to him and moving to lie down in the corn, head sinking back onto the ground. Mikitaka followed, the tears still on his face running down the sides of his cheeks as he looked up at the sky.
“It’s like when you go somewhere new but then you really start missing where you were before. One time I went to visit New York with my mom and it was sick as hell until you started to remember how nice it was to be in a place where you could understand everyone and you had your own room and stuff like that,” Josuke explained, folding his arms across his chest. “And even then, I was on the same planet and knew I would be home in a week. I wasn’t completely on my own in the middle of space.”
Thinking back on it, Mikitaka suddenly felt understood. What a distant memory it was to be able to speak in his own language, a dialect he had almost forgotten by now. Where he didn’t have to refer to himself as an alien and he could think he would be able to stay where he was for the rest of the time.
It even felt wrong to call it home now, something so distant and in a place he would likely never reach again, full of people he would never see again. Another tear streamed down the side of his face as he took a deep breath.
“I wonder if there is a cure for it,” he responded quietly.
“I think that if you can’t go home, the next best thing to do is to try to find a new home where you are now. Can take a hell of a long time, even if you’ve been around for 217 years, but I think you just have to let yourself get used to it without forgetting about where you used to be. It could be totally different with aliens, but that’s my advice,” Josuke shrugged.
“Perhaps I will try it,” Mikitaka replied, wiping the tears from his eyes with his sleeve. It sounded like a lot of work, but maybe it would be worth it. Not only that, but it seemed very human to do– to miss something, but continue working to find something better. “Thank you for your advice, Josuke.”
“Yeah, ‘course!” Josuke replied, sitting up again. “Thanks for telling me and all that.” He paused, staring around at the crops above them, how the golden edges of the corn leaves framed the wide blue sky above, opening up into the vast beyond. “Want me to stay here a while?”
Mikitaka thought on it for a moment before nodding, deciding that the company was actually quite nice. “Yes please. Maybe you could explain to me how clouds work.”