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Hizashi keeps his face impassive, inclining his head down slightly. Despite having to do so for the past four years, Hizashi still has to fight to keep his expressions down.
The shop keeper’s hand—paw?—trembles when they pick his credit coins, chittering nervously while they nudge the valve replacement toward Hizashi. He thanks the trader, ignoring their squeak and head outside. The bustling mass of shoppers parts around him, friends pulling each other out of his way and parents shielding their children from him.
It’s been a few years since Humans were added to the Commission’s Alliance, their Deathworlder classification lowered to a still-dangerous-but-less-so-than-before level 5, but numerous meetings between commission and human diplomats can’t erase century old tales of human Deathworlders.
He’s been told this trading center was human friendly. Hizashi discreetly eyes the frightened crowd from the corner of his eye. Even with his opaque glasses and the layers of clothes he put on, the aliens flinch away from him.
He’s tried to make himself look less threatening, but he still towers over everyone, rending his efforts for naught. There’s simply nothing to do with his already impressive height—Humans are just taller than most species. Hizashi tied his hair in a bun so it wouldn’t stand straight up from the lower gravity and add to his height, but pesky strands have managed to escape the elastic bands and now he just looks like someone with the weirdest hairdo.
Hizashi heads to an empty stall. He used to only go for the crowded ones, thinking traders would feel less threatened when surrounded by others, until he noticed how all the customers would drop whatever they would be holding and scutter away as quickly as they could, leaving behind their baskets. If he’s going to scare the soul out of aliens, he’s going to try to do it without making them lose all of their clientele.
As he browses through the selection of screws and replacement parts for his mechanical exoskeleton suit—the left leg is janky and fails to simulate Earth’s gravity sometimes—his hearing aids pick up on the whispering that grows behind. He turns around to look for the object of their staring, expecting a fight or something equally as exciting, only to find a small bipedal alien in a purple cloak, head swivelling around as they search for something.
Some people give them a wide berth, but most don’t notice them and they get bumped around by the odd limbs and tails. If Hizashi isn’t mistaken, they’re a Feelaïne, and a young one too. They’re usually solitary, but at this one’s age, their parent should still be sticking close.
Hizashi observes them from the corner of his eye, waiting for an adult to intervene or for their guardian to come out to soothe them. No matter the amount of times his moms lost him at the mall center because he wandered off, Hizashi—when he was still a snotty kid—always ended up in tears. He has to turn around to pay, which he does quickly, but by the time he looks back, the kid is gone.
Hizashi scans the crowd, looking for the kid, for an adult Feelaïne to be carrying them away to comfort them but he doesn’t see a hint of fur nor tail.
He’d usually dismiss the incident; it isn’t as if he isn’t unfamiliar with various aliens picking their child up and scampering away when they catch sight of him, but the back of his neck tingles uncomfortably. He’ll check, just in case.
He walks further down the road and his gut feeling proves itself to be true. A purple cloak lays on the ground, trampled and dirtied.
He picks it off the ground, wiping the worst of the mud stains. It's well loved, soft from use with the edges wrinkly from being chewed on. There are intricate designs embroidered in the inside—feline-like animals with serpent tongues amongst greenery and blooming flowers—and the fabric drapes perfectly even with all the stitches. The quick release clasp at the neck is untied. The kid can’t have left this here. Not willingly.
Hizashi throws the cloak over his shoulder and starts speedwalking down the path, standing up straight so he can look for the kid. Whoever has them can’t have gotten too far, and although there are many directions they could have taken, only one of them leads to the docking area.
The speedwalking slowly turns into jogging, and before he knows it, he’s sprinting down the path, turning the gravity feature of his mechanical exoskeleton off, allowing him huge strides that propel him forward.
He grits his teeth when up ahead, a Qeow’Fiu with an expensive cape made of feathers and fur carries the kid, their hold on the Feelaïne preventing them from crying out. Their apologetic chitters look like ones of a harried parent trying to soothe a crying child, and the way the kid trashes could easily be passed as them throwing a tantrum.
Hizashi runs past them and stops in front of the Qeow’Fiu, cutting them off. They jolt, an apology on the tip of their blue tongue, but their eyes suddenly go wide as black sputters out of the vents on the sides of their faces when they realize what he is.
They look around for help, but if there had been someone willing to help him out before, Hizashi’s presence warded them all off. The main road is empty but for them, a feat considering the foot traffic usually present.
Hizashi takes a step closer to them.
The feelaïne kid must sense a difference in the way the Qeow’Fiu holds themself because they start yelling and try to twist around to bite at the poacher’s face. The Qeow’Fiu tightens their grip around their head, pushing their face into their armoured shoulder. “Leave me and my child alone!”
“Oh, are they yours?” He lets his glasses slide down the bridge of his nose to expose his eyes, opening them wide while he produces one of his ‘scariest’ smiles. “The resemblance is uncanny.”
They flinch, more ink dripping down their vents and staining the kid’s fur. They drop their pretense as they go to take something out from their belt, hidden under their tentacles.
Hizashi jumps into action, grabbing their limbs and closing his other hand over their face. The stunner drops at their feet, and Hizashi doesn’t waste time to kick it out of reach, even if it won’t do much to him. His index and middle finger are wet, having landed on one of the alien’s vents, and when he lets them twitch, the Qeow’Fiu gasps in pain. He doesn’t like using his strength like this, not when it reflects badly on Humans, but Hizashi finds he holds no sympathy for the poacher. Not when he knows what aliens like them do to their victims.
“I think it’s time to let the kid go, hmm?”
The Qeow’Fiu breaths quicken, their tentacles desperately trying to hit Hizashi and choke him, but they hold almost no strength. Hizashi stares right into the eye peeking out from between his fingers.
“Now.”
They drop the feelaïne kid to free two more limbs and make a laughable attempt to poke his eyes out. Ink drips down his arms to make them slippery and give them a chance to escape. They even start making distressed noises, and honestly, Hizashi isn’t even squeezing that hard yet, hasn’t done anything near what scum like them have done to him. They’re being dramatic for nothing.
Hizashi gathers all their limbs, tying them together with their own manacles he finds in their belt to give the kid some peace of mind, reassurance they aren’t going to come back to get them.
(Hizashi knows a more permanent way to assure that.)
He leans down, until their faces almost touch. Their mouth open, and suddenly, recognition dances on their features, and pure unadulterated terror seizes their limbs. It seems poachers share information then.
He whispers, so only they can hear him. “Be grateful the kid is here, or I would have taken my time.” He digs his fingers in their vents, ignoring their choked pleads for mercy or the acrid smell slowly trickling down. “Don’t scream.”
Something gives out under his fingers and tinges of yellow blood mixes with their ink, swirling patterns down the side of their faces. Hizashi’ll give it to them, they don’t make a sound when their eyes roll to the back of their head. Only when they slump down does Hizashi release their head. He catches their body, lowering them to the ground, and discreetly wipes off any trace of blood. It wouldn’t do good for the kid to see that. He drags the soon-to-be corpse to the side of the path, where the wild grass is dense enough to hide them, at least until the smell makes someone investigate.
He takes a second to bury everything under a layer of calm he usually reserves for children and animals, before turning around.
The feelaïne kid stares at where he hid the Qeow’Fiu with wide eyes, fur standing straight until they look more ball than child. Their ears are pinned down, almost covering their eyes, and they’ve extended their claws out.
They look so soft, their fur fluffy and thin. Hizashi is careful to not stand too still, shifting his weight from side to side and tucking his hair behind his ears. His glasses are back to covering his eyes and his mouth is closed shut, not a hint of teeth.
“It’s alright, they’re only unconscious, fell from fright.” The kid doesn’t show any indication he’s understood any of what Hizashi said. When they don’t start running away screaming, Hizashi dares shuffle closer. “Come on, let's ditch this place.”
The kid doesn’t resist him when he wraps their purple cloak around them, even when he ties the clasp around their shoulders, although they shudder when he picks them up. He’d prefer to reassure them before approaching them this fast, but he doesn’t want any officers to come by and see them. It’s one thing to pay an officer to ignore circumstantial evidence, it’s another to make them look the other way when he’s standing right over the body, and Hizashi doesn’t have the connections nor the money to bridge that difference.
Once he brings them away from the Qeow’Fiu so they’re further up the road and the spot where he hid the body can’t be seen anymore, he lowers them back to the ground, rearranging their cloak before he gives them some distance. He goes to crouch, but thinks better of it and sits on the ground. Hizashi is almost certain he can catch them before they run away and get snatched again. “Are you okay, kiddo?”
Their ears twitch at the sound of his voice, but all they do is bring their right front paw to their mouth and suck on their toe beans, while their left holds their tail to their torso as they anxiously look around. Perhaps they’re younger than Hizashi first thought. If so, they most likely haven’t learned this region’s more common language yet.
“Do you know where your…” he hesitates before saying the word for ‘parent’ in the main feelaïne dialect. He’s fairly certain feelaïne children are usually taken care of by only one of the adults that conceived them. When they perk up, ears standing straight, Hizashi thanks his past self for choosing to learn Feelaïnish instead of Eer’ahseerish when he went on that language learning spree to keep his mind occupied.
The kid points back to the trading hub.
“We’ll go to the trading hub to find your parent, that alright with you?”
They acquiesce hesitantly, and to Hizashi’s surprise, they pad closer, until their inverted knees—or their ankles?—bump into his shins. Hizashi can’t resist cooing at them, not when they look so much like a cat, with their slitted pupils and long whiskers.
His heart melts when they plop down next to him, staring at him with those big eyes that reminds Hizashi of the way the school kids near his apartment would try to get passing dogs to come closer to them during recess so they can pet them. Kami, Hizashi misses Earth so much.
“What’s your name, kiddo?”
They tilt their head, before saying, quietly, “Hitoshi.”
Hizashi gasps. “What a great name! I bet you’re a clever little fella.” He’s pretty sure Feelaïnes are the ones who put smarts on a pedestal. Or was it Iodahcs...?
Hitoshi flinches at his enthusiasm, but before he can regret it, they let go of their tail and agree loudly that yes, they’re the cleverest, and their venom is the best.
Hizashi nods seriously, thankful they haven’t bit him when he was carrying them. He’s immune, or at the very least highly resistant to most venoms and poisons, but with his luck and his sole kidney, this would have been the time his Deathworlder status failed him. “I’m Hizashi. What do you think?” Hizashi poses, puffing his chest and holding his hands up to frame his face. He keeps his eyes on the empty space near their shoulder. “A good name?”
Hitoshi tilts their head, the gears in their head turning visibly at his question. Hizashi has to hold his laugh when they copy his previous serious nod, only to say, “It’s okay.”
“Thank you, Hitoshi.” They’re thankfully not frightened by his closed lipped smile, for which Hizashi is grateful. He lets his hands fall on his knees, projecting all of his gestures while he gets up. “Let’s go find your parent, okay?”
Hitoshi follows him, and Hizashi has to halve his steps so the kid can keep up, although they need small breaks to catch their breaths. It’s after their third stop, when Hitoshi is breathing hard and fast, that Hizashi asks them if they want to be carried.
They pout but agree way too easily when Hizashi’s basically a stranger. It’s convenient right now, but he’ll have some words with their guardian.
They’re lighter than they look—although Hizashi finds that everyone is lighter out in space—and they feel so fragile, their fur making them look bigger than they actually are. Hizashi ‘s careful to watch for any signs of them wanting to be let down. They hold themself stiffly, making themself unintentionally awkward to hold, but their ears are held open and their tail wags calmly.
Hizashi lifts them over his head, almost like he’s presenting them to a crowd, and plops them on his shoulders, steadying them with a hand on their leg—he’s very conscious not to pull or squeeze, even with the exoskeleton there to reduce his strength—and another on their side, not minding the little claws poking his scalp where they’re holding on.
“Is the temperature nice up there?”
Hitoshi leans on his head, resting a paw on his forehead. “It’s the same?”
Their tone conveys exactly what they think of Hizashi's attempt at a joke.
“How silly of me, of course it’s the same!” When Hizashi starts walking toward the trading center, they only momentarily pull his hair to right themself. “Do you think you can spot your parent from up there?”
“Yeah!” Once they get used to the height and the way they sway a little, they start babbling excitedly, their words running into each other the way young children’s speech often does, and from what Hizashi understands, they’re asking him to go faster. He barely picks up the pace, but they chirp in giddiness, tail swishing behind them in times with his steps.
Hizashi stops by one of the first stalls to buy some skewered meat, ignoring the looks he receives. He gives a skewer to Hitoshi, who thanks him with their mouth full. Hizashi winces when he feels sauce drips on his hair even after having wiped the meat off with a napkin before giving it to the kid, but he doesn’t say anything.
“Where did you last see your parent?”
Hitoshi guides him through the hub through their bites and between the high pitched yells Hizashi assumes to be Hitoshi calling for their parent.
They return to a place a few meters away from where Hitoshi got nabbed and sit on the side of the road. Hitoshi’s eyes follow the crowd intensely, and after a few probing questions, Hizashi knows to look for a black Feelaïne with yellow markings on their face.
It shouldn’t take too long, not with how loud Hitoshi is being. Hizashi lowers the sensitivity of his hearing aids.
It’s been over three hours, and no Feelaïne has come. A few officers passed by, but after a few credits, they wandered off without any more questions.
Hitoshi is pressed against his side, whiskers quivering as their high pitched calls taper off and wobble. Hizashi tries to distract them, but they’ve started sucking on their paw again.
He curses himself for never setting up a comm’s ID for himself. An alien slinks down the path, as far away from him as they can. They’ll do.
Hizashi scratches Hitoshi behind the ears, telling them to stay put, before he goes to intercept the poor soul that decided to take this road
“Do you mind lending your comm?”
He makes it a question to be polite, but the smile dispels any doubt that it’s anything but an order. They quickly give him their comm, trembling, and Hizashi thanks them with enough credits to buy a new one. He should have done this ages ago.
He comes back to Hitoshi, holding the comm out. “Can you call your parent?”
Hitoshi takes the comm—too big for their tiny paws—and slowly taps out their parent’s comm’s ID, tail flicking in aggravation when they keep misclicking the keys. The hope that made them sit straight immediately gets crushed when the call rings and doesn’t connect. Hitoshi quickly redials, shoulders hunkered down. No one answers.
“Hey, your parent’s probably occupied right now. I’m sure they’ll come back.”
Hitoshi stares at the comm, betrayal obvious on their features. They give the comm back to Hizashi and pull their hood up, their ears pinned back as they curl up around themself, nose buried in their paws, and refuse to come back out when Hizashi asks him if he can contact someone else.
Hizashi quickly sends a text to the number Hitoshi called, leaving their coords and this comm’s ID in case they try to call back. “Hitoshi,” he says, pocketing the comm and raking his mind to find a way to boost their mood, “are you hungry? We’ll come back here afterward, I left them a message so they’ll know to come find you.”
Hitoshi refuses to be picked up again, but Hizashi manages to convince them to hold his hand. They eat more skewers, Hizashi unsure if Hitoshi can consume anything other than meat. He’s already risking it with the sauce, but no one here sells plain cooked meat.
Hitoshi sullenly picks at their skewer. Hizashi tries to talk to them, but they keep silent until sundown comes. Still no sign of Hitoshi’s parent.
Hizashi manages to convince Hitoshi to come back to his skipper and wait there instead, where it’s warmer. They aren’t even close to half way when Hitoshi starts pulling at his clothes, silently asking to be picked up. He obliges their request and lifts them by the armpits, their whole body seemingly stretching out now that they let themself go limp. Their feet give out a few reflexive little kicks in the empty air until Hizashi gets the message and places an arm to support their lower body. He rubs their back, even turns off his exos’ gravity feature so he can jump higher, but nothing can break Hitoshi’s silence.
He hums a little, because the silent walk back to his craft is already depressing as is. He cheers internally when Hitoshi’s ears perk up in interest, as he slides into songs after songs, choruses half mumbled when he can’t remember the words quite right.
When they arrive to his skipper, Hizashi tries to place Hitoshi down on his bed, but their claws sink into his shoulder and they refuse to let go, so Hizashi resigns himself to go through his night routine with a little Feelaïne clinging to him.
“More?” they ask when Hizashi quiets down. Hizashi obliges to their request because at this point, he’d give anything to them.
Hizashi closes down his skipper to the tune of a catchy commercial jingle he heard over the radio ages ago, turns the security features on while pretending Hitoshi’s a guitar, and goes through every room—not that there are many—in case a stowaway decided to camp in here with occasional pauses to finger tap a small beat on Hitoshi’s back. He keeps an optimistic attitude, but in the privacy of his mind, he worries.
Hitoshi recounted how one moment, they were looking at some jewelry in a display case, and the next, their parent was gone.
He knows that kids are intentionally left out on random planets or moons, with no way back home. It happens more often than anyone is comfortable acknowledging, and Hizashi fears this might be the case for Hitoshi.
(Sometimes, money exchanges hands and the children aren’t left out for too long. Not if the parents respect the drop off spot.)
He looks down on Hitoshi, who, sometime when Hizashi was walking around the skipper, fell asleep in his arms despite his loudness. He pets their forehead, rocking them slightly. His heart clenches painfully when their claws scrap against his skin when they try to latch on, as if they’re scared he’ll leave them. He has to pause to wipe his eyes. It’s been so long since he’s held anyone.
He hopes they haven’t been abandoned. Hitoshi told him their parent was the one who made their cloak, and this much work, this much detail in the embroidery, Hizashi can’t imagine someone going through all that trouble only to leave Hitoshi.
He makes his way to the bathroom, mindful to keep the lights dimmed, where he brushes his teeth, careful for the foam he spits to not land on Hitoshi. He slides his hair tie around his wrist and decides to take the occasion of being in the bathroom to clean Hitoshi and himself.
Wetting a rag one handed isn’t the best, and he squeezes the water out more than he really wrings it, but it isn’t too wet when he cleans his face and neck. He takes out a smaller towel for Hitoshi, actually waits for the water to warm instead of settling for lukewarm, before bringing it to their head.
He rubs it around their ears, and it brings out the smallest purr he’s ever felt in his entire life. He can’t resist giving them a kiss on the top of their head.
(Hizashi wants to keep them so much. If no one comes back for Hitoshi, Hizashi doesn’t know how he could ever let them go. If he gets proper papers, a job, and settles down somewhere with a high density of Feelaïnes and other like-minded aliens, things could work out. The money he’s dubiously acquired is enough to pay Hitoshi’s entrance to the most prestigious schools he knows.
But it’s a selfish thought, best kept in dreams and wishful days for more. What he can offer Hitoshi pales in comparison to all the grief any affiliation to a Human will cause.
He’ll be okay if all Hitoshi can ever remember him by is from bland skewers and faraway lullabies. He’s never felt this alive, has a goal now, something to live for, even if temporary. If Hizashi manages to return Hitoshi to their family, being torn away from his life wouldn’t have been for nothing.)
They grumble in his shirt when he wipes their paws, cleaning their fur and their toe beans as best he can. The small poncho catches on a cabinet handle when he tries to twist them into a more comfortable position. He unhooks it slowly, rubbing the cloth between his fingers. He’ll ask Hitoshi about other adults in their life. They’ll go find them, Hizashi doesn’t mind flying around.
It’ll give him more time with the kid. Maybe they’ll call or text him, from time to time, when Hizashi will be alone again. He’ll have to buy himself a comm ID.
After wiping some of the discharge around Hitoshi’s tear ducts, Hitoshi immediately smushes their face right back on Hizashi’s shirt, giving out a less-than-threatening hiss at the ceiling light.
Hizashi crawls into his bed, maneuvering around Hitoshi and the padd he picked up from where he threw it haphazardly this morning.
Time to do some research on the kid in his care.
Hizashi opens his eyes to darkness.
He flails a little, and for a disorienting moment, he believes himself back in that blank room with its blank walls and its blank bed, surrounded by strange sights and sounds he can’t comprehend, and thinks, They’ve taken my eyes.
He’s thrown back to the present when his fingers ghost over his eyelids and he doesn’t find depressed pits, when the long neat scars on the side of his left knee and right below his ribcage only elicit phantom pains when he presses on them.
There is no lingering dread from a nightmare he can’t remember, and Hizashi wonders as to why he woke up. The bed creaks when he sits up, when suddenly, something clatters on the ground. His heart skips a few beats until he realizes it’s only his padd dropping to the ground. He picks it up with a self-deprecating laugh. Really, what’s the point of being on top of the food chain—metaphorically of course, Hizashi has absolutely no desire to eat any alien with sapience—if he gets scared of objects falling down.
He won’t be able to go back to sleep. Might as well start the day now, even if it’s far from dawn.
He’s swinging his legs off the bed when it hits him.
His skipper is an old model, all rusty charm, cluttered pipes and exposed wiring. On particularly lonely days, Hizashi closes his eyes to pretend the buzz from the overhead lights and the engine’s thrum under his fingertips comes from his old apartment, where the refrigerator kept a constant whir in the background and water dripped from somewhere he never figured out even when he looked through every corner of his home.
Right now, it’s deadly silent.
“Hitoshi?” he whispers, suddenly remembering the kid. When he realizes their absence, he asks, a little louder, a little panicked, “Hitoshi, where are you?”
Whoever cut his skipper’s power took Hitoshi. He doesn’t know how they managed to sneak inside without him noticing, but he suspects the pasty feeling in his mouth has something to do with it. Hizashi immediately heads out, his heart in his throat. He should have gone into orbit with Hitoshi. He should have left when he could.
The hatch almost rips away from its hinges from how fast he opens it. Hizashi jumps down before the ramp even comes down, barely registering the rocks digging in his bare feet. They can’t have gone far. Hizashi doesn’t know what he’ll do if he fails Hitoshi.
He squints into the distance, breaths coming in quick and shallow as he searches for any movement—
There. Two silhouettes, barely visible in the distance and the dawn fog. A flash of purple cloth makes the vice around his chest loosen up slightly. He isn’t too late.
Hizashi slinks behind ships, makes his way toward the two kidnappers—Are they working with the Qeow’Fiu poacher? What’s so special about Hitoshi?—with adrenaline pumping through his veins as each step brings him closer to getting Hitoshi back.
He’s about 10 meters away from them when he stops behind a cargo ship to think of a better plan than ‘run up to them and beat them up’, but doesn’t find a better one other than ‘sneak around, steal Hitoshi back, and go off planet’. In a moment of complete genius, he combines the two plans and ends up with ‘sneak up to them and beat them up’.
He looks around the ship to evaluate the situation, squinting to keep the light from reflecting in his eyes.
There’s only one alien there.
He whips around but it’s too late; jaws clamp on the forearm he threw out, canines sinking deep into his flesh, and fuck, that hurt more than he expected.
A low hiss bubbles around his bloodied arm when he tries to pry the jaws open, the tips of his fingers somehow already numb from blood loss.
Hizashi goes to smash his body against his attacker when metal slows his movements, the alien’s hand retrieving away from where they turned on his exos.
He curses at them, but Hizashi catches sight of their features in the path’s lights; a Feelaïne with his blood crusting over black fur and yellow markings on their face. Hitoshi’s parent. “What the hell? Why didn’t you answer your comm?” he blurts out through the pain.
They release him in surprise, immediately jumping away from his reach. Hizaahi covers his wound, putting pressure on it to stop the bleeding. It doesn’t hurt as bad as the amount of blood gushing out indicates now that they aren’t trying to bite him through the bone. The Feelaïne glares at him, and instead of answering his question, says, “Hitoshi is my child. You’re not leaving with them.”
Hizashi gapes, taken aback by their words. “What are you talking about? You’re the one who left them! If it weren’t for me, they’d be getting skinned.” He leans on the hull of the cargo ship, throwing his arms out, uncaring of the way they flinch back. He quickly brings them down when droplets of blood get flung out. “And what’s the deal with stealing Hitoshi away like that? I thought he was kidnapped again, couldn’t you have acted like a normal person and knocked?”
They pause, the aggression falling away. They still squint, suspicion marring their features. “Humans don’t let go of what they consider to be their children easily.”
Hizashi can only blink, his mind blanking at that statement. “What—I left you a message! I told you I’d be waiting for you to pick them up!”
“I was slightly occupied,” they hiss out, their hackles rising up impressively. He might be imagining it, but there’s a twinge of embarrassment under all of their posturing, which gives Hizashi some reassurance he won’t be attacked again. “I lost my comm during a fight.”
Now that they mention it, he can see that their parent is in less than stellar condition, soot sticking to their dirty fur. One of their ears is nicked, blood crusted over the injury, and ocre stains the fur around their mouth, but the most striking injury is the deep laceration that goes from their forehead, over their left eye and down their chin. They keep that eye closed, blood and humour seeping from under the lid.
Before he can ask about that, their eyes flicker behind Hizashi. “It’s fine, Nemuri. You can come out.”
‘Nemuri’ steps out from behind the cargo ship, where they were hidden. “Hitoshi is with Tensei. He’s been asking for you.” Hizashi stands up straight when the new alien’s eyes flick toward him, but they barely pay him any mind before turning their attention to Hitoshi's guardian. “And the Human.”
Warmth spreads in his chest and the tip of his fingers. Hitoshi asked for him, even if they only knew each other for barely a day. He wants to say goodbye, but the two other aliens are stretched tight like a wire, all nervous energy. He doesn’t want to impose any further and risk another fight.
“Sooo, you didn’t just leave Hitoshi here to be taken,” he asks, just to be sure.
“Poachers distracted me from my child,” they spit out. Their tail lashes out the same way Hitoshi’s did when they’ve been waiting for their parent. “They brought me back to their ship sedated. They must have come back for Hitoshi.”
“I guess that’s it then.” Hizashi hides his dejection behind a thin smile and exaggerated gestures. Not his best work, but everyone’s unfamiliar to human expressions anyway. He starts walking backwards toward his skipper while throwing a two finger salute. “I’ll go back to my ship, sleep, do my human things. It was great doing business with you.”
He turns his back to them, letting the plastic smile fall. Thinking of his empty skipper makes him suddenly so tired. He rubs his eyes to wipe off any tears threatening to fall. In the moment his eyes are closed, his toes catch on upturned dirt. If it were any other day, Hizashi would have caught himself, maybe done a little twirl to hide the fact he almost fell, but he’s exhausted and heartbroken, and so he doesn’t recover fast enough when his body pitches forward.
The impact steals his breath away. He pushes himself up, although the world tilts and sways around him, making it a harder task than necessary. Hizashi’s face burns in embarrassment, because he just ate dirt in front of two aliens, but it turns into slow panic when he realizes that it actually burns, his face and hands feel like they’re on fire. He looks at his arms, expecting them be burnt, but all he sees is the—
The bite mark. The bite mark that’s slowly turning inflamed red, the skin right around the puncture wounds white and puffy.
This isn’t good, he thinks hysterically. He only has a handheld med repair, and this doesn’t look handheld med repairairable. No, this isn’t good at all.
Hitoshi’s parent swims into his vision. They’re saying something Hizashi can’t hear over his heartbeat. Before he can tell them to speak louder, the ground comes up at his face.
Hizashi wakes up on a rug, in an unknown room, feeling like he’s been hit by a truck. Multiple trucks, actually. The only reason he doesn’t immediately freak out is because of Hitoshi’s presence.
They’re sitting on his left, fiddling with a small puzzle that rattles when they shake it. Hizashi huffs when they bite it in frustration, causing them to glance at him.
“Hizashi? You’re awake!” They start running on all four before standing fully up, calling out for their parent.
They don’t even finish their sentence when their parent comes in, single eye blazing while the other is hidden by a protective see-through shell. They ease up when they see he isn’t in any state to harm Hitoshi. “You’re on my ship. We gave you an antidote, but you should seek an actual medical professional for your species.” Hitoshi pulls on the adult Feelaïne’s fur. Their ears flick to the side. “I apologize for biting you.” Hitoshi makes a sound, almost like they’re clearing their throat. “It was… mean… of me.”
Hitoshi’s tail curls at the tip; they’re satisfied enough to skip to Hizashi’s side. He stays still when they pat his forehead, acutely aware of their guardian’s presence and their intense warning glare. They’re almost looming over him, keeping close to Hitoshi.
“I forgive you,” he says, because he doesn’t begrudge their protective nature, but also because it makes Hitoshi brighten up. “Even if it was a little bit mean.”
Hizashi chokes down on a laugh when they pout.
