#hazik

“You are asking me?” Hazik said, pointing a tentacle at their face.

“Well yeah, you live here dork, I don’t know if you had any plans,” Jace said, his dark eyes still darting about the room.

“Jace you are the only person I know on Earth, so no, I do not have plans.”

“…Fair point,” he said. He got out his phone, typing in a message for Kita, and then put it away. He paused for a moment, scrutinizing the room and everything in it. “We should clean.”

Hazik looked around the room. Jace was right, it wasn’t in the best of shapes. There were dishes and loose papers everywhere, most of them Hazik’s notes. There were also various DVDs from the library that Jace had been showing Hazik, most of them being Marvel movies. Hazik thought some of Earth’s perceptions of aliens were rather odd, though Jace assured them that there were a lot of different ideas about aliens, and that not everyone thought aliens would be “crazy bloodthirsty like the Chitauri”.

“Yes, cleaning would be best,” Hazik said, as they started picking up the various notes scattered about them. As they cleaned, Hazik noticed that Jace’s brow was getting more and more furrowed with each thing he picked up. Hazik remembered after the first few times Jace did this, Hazik finally asked him what he was doing and he called it ‘frowning’.

Hazik eventually figured out that when Jace did this, it usually meant something was wrong. Jace often frowned when he looked at the papers that came in a box outside their apartment building, whenever he did any sort of math, and often when Hazik did something they weren’t supposed to do, like when they try and ask questions during movies.

“You’re frowning,” Hazik said after about twenty minutes. Jace glanced up at them before chuckling under his breath.

“Heh, I guess I am. It’s just…” He looked at Hazik’s tentacles, hovering in the air as they clutched a few rolled up papers, and then into their eyes, which had just become slightly confused. “I’m worried about Kita knowing you’re… not from around here.”

“Oh. Yes…” Hazik trailed off, thinking. Should I try to hide it? I could just relax my tentacles, Jace did say they looked like dreadlocks when he first saw them. But what about my eyes? they thought, as yellow flooded their irises.

“What does yellow mean?” Jace asked suddenly.

“Hmm? Oh, I’m just a little worried. I mean, my tentacles are more easily concealable, but these?” They gestured to their gold-infused eyes. “I do not know how I could hide them.”

“Yellow means worried huh?” He thought for a moment, and Hazik swore that Jace frowned even more, which they hadn’t been sure was possible until now. But he relaxed suddenly, and continued. “I was just thinking the same thing,” Jace said, putting a few dishes in the sink. “But I mean, what if keeping it a secret is a bad idea? Secrets are always so stressful to keep, especially--”

Knock knock knock.

“Kita?” Hazik said.

“Crap,” Jace said. He quickly put down the dishes he was holding frantically glancing around at the now spotless room, looking for any imperfections. He almost walked into the hallway to the door, when he turned and motioned with his hand for Hazik to lie down their tentacles. They hadn’t even realized they were still holding a piece of paper with one of them. They stuffed it into their robes, and Jace disappeared around the corner to the entryway.

“Hey Jay!” a bubbly voice said as the door opened. Jay? Hazik thought.

“Kita!” Jace’s voice said. It sounded different somehow, but Hazik couldn’t put their tentacle on it.

Hazik watched Jace come back around the corner, followed by a woman a few inches shorter than him, the top of her head reaching his eyes. Kita.

Kita had brown skin like Hazik, though hers was a little lighter. She had a round face with dark freckles sprinkled about her button nose, and big lips spread in a toothy smile. She was wearing a white t-shirt under a black leather jacket, and grey jeans. She had sneakers a lot like Jace’s, though hers were bright blue instead of red. Her hair was also blue, and was in long braids that swayed about her hips. Some of the braids were darker or lighter than the others, and Hazik was suddenly reminded of the sculpture their sibling had gave them not too long ago. Maybe that’s why Jace liked it so much, they thought. It reminded him of Kita.

Hazik raised a tentacle, and waved at Kita, eyes green as the grass outside. “Hello!”

It took them a full three seconds to realize their mistake.

“Woah! How did you do that!?” Kita said, her light hazel eyes widening.

“Uhhhh,” Hazik said, their eyes shifting back to the gold from before.

“Oh my god your eyes just changed color!” She flew forward and gazed in awe at their eyes. “How the hell did you do that!?”

Hazik stared at Kita for a moment, then looked behind her at Jace.

He had his head in his hands. He was shaking.

“Jace?” Hazik said, the yellow glowing brighter, making their eyes look like headlights. Jace lifted his head out of his hands so Hazik could clearly see that he was… smiling?

He was laughing. Jace was silently, inexplicably, laughing.

“We-hee-hee-hee-- We couldn’t kee-hee-hee-- couldn’t keep it a secret for aha-ha-ha-- a minute! Not even thirty seconds! Oh my god!”

Jace fell into a chair by the counter, laughing loudly now. Hazik had never seen Jace laugh this much, or smile this wide. He’s gone insane, they concluded.

“A secret?” Kita said, looking from Hazik to Jace and back again.

“Hee-hee-hee, we would be the worst crime fighters! Oh man…” Jace trailed off, running a hand through his jet black hair. “Hazik, you explain it to her, I’m gonna order pizza.”

“Jay! Wait! What secret?” Kita called as he left to get his computer from his room. He dismissed her with a wave of his hand and she turned to Hazik. “What’s going on?”

Hazik stared at her for a moment, then got up, walked to the counter, and grabbed their stack of notes.

“You know, I am not really from around here…”

“Where did you get your transport device?” Hazik said, as the car bumped along the road.

“It’s a car, and her name is Serenity. It’s the name of the ship on a TV show called Firefly, which I guarantee you will be watching. As for how I got it, I--” Jace cut off suddenly, looking as though he was catching himself. “--that’s a bit of a long story for another time,” Jace finished. His shoulders were suddenly tense, and he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, tapping to the beat of a song in his head.

Hazik sat back, frustrated. They had told Jace about themself, why won’t he do the same?

“We're here!” Jace’s voice shook Hazik out of their thoughts. “Well, not quite, we have to walk a bit, but close enough.” They both strolled a few blocks, before arriving at their destination. They walked to a tall building, the late summer sun glinting on the glass doors. There were large scribbles on the doors like the ones on the bottle at the grocery store, but Hazik didn’t know what they said. What they did know on the other tentacle, was that a sweet smell was drifting through the air towards them, and causing Jace to grin in anticipation.

“You ever had ice cream, Hazik?” Jace asked, walking up to the doors.

“No, but I have heard of it!” Hazik said, eyes flashing with interest.

“Well, this place has the greatest ice cream. Amazing actually.” Jace said with a crooked grin. “What flavor do you want?”

Jace read out and described all the flavors to Hazik, though it took them awhile to choose due to the fact that they were determined to try them all. Eventually they chose a flavor called Bittersweet Mint, because the color reminded them of their home. Jace chose Death by Chocolate, which Hazik learned was his favorite. Hazik wasn’t sure why someone would like a food that threatened death, but assumed they wouldn’t serve it if it actually killed you. The two sat down outside in the only table left.

“How’s yours?” Jace asked, as he licked the ice cream off his spoon, and twiddled his pencil in his other hand.

“It is fantastic!” Hazik exclaimed as they licked a bit that was sliding off their cone, their eyes shifting to an excited green, matching their ice cream. Their tentacles swished slightly and Jace eyed them cautiously. “How did you find this place?” they said.

“Oh, my best friend Kita took me here once a long time ago. My family never really got to go out to places like this, so it was great coming here for the first time,” he answered.

“Who is Kita?” Hazik asked. Jace hesitated for a moment before going on. They watched as his face turned slightly pink and he looked down at his ice cream, grinning a little sheepishly.

“She’s, um, she’s… the best. Amazing actually. She’s been my best friend since middle school, I’ve had a crush on her since… ugh, forever. She’s so funny and kind and pretty and she always lets me stay at her house when--” Jace cut off abruptly and turned a deeper shade of red. Instead of a grin, he made that same face he made in the car earlier, as though he’d almost let something slip. His pencil began rolling between his fingers again, much more rapidly than before. The subject was changed after that, mainly filled with Hazik asking what random things around them were, and scribbling down Jace’s answers in their notebook. But Hazik could still feel tension radiating from Jace, despite his wide smiles.

When they finally drove home, Hazik spent the rest of the day in the living room, going over their notes, editing, adding, revising, while Jace went to his room. When the sky was completely black, and Hazik had worked so long their eyes were heavy and drooping, they went to their room. As they passed Jace’s room, they saw Jace lying face up with his eyes fixed on the ceiling above him, and his hands resting behind his head. Hazik hadn’t seen Jace from this angle before, but with Jace’s shirt pulled up slightly they could clearly see now that not only did he have a scar on his lip and nose, but he also had one just above his hip, a rather jagged one that was about two inches long. His face was wearing an odd expression, every feature etched with an emotion Hazik hadn’t come to recognize in humans yet. They were just about to go in, before Jace rolled onto his side, facing away from the door. Thinking he wanted to be left alone, Hazik instead walked down the hall to their room and stepped around the variously sized containment vessels holding all their belongings until they reached their bed. Completely forgetting to change into their night clothes, Hazik fell asleep instantly.

Jace Vaughn was a twenty-four year old, just out of college, living in the dead center of Pennsylvania. He was thin and tall, but didn’t look so due to the slight slouch he constantly wore. His face was kind, with high cheekbones. Jace’s eyes were a dark brown, almost black color that one could compare to the bitter drink many humans seem to enjoy. He also had a scar on the left side of his upper lip that reached almost up to his slightly crooked nose, which also had a scar on it. Jace wore a baggy red t-shirt with a big yellow star on it, probably some human pop culture reference as Jace often wore clothing like this, along with a pair of jeans that were torn and frayed near the heel. Jace’s sneakers were worn in badly at the heel and the laces were grey with time. Jace was fidgeting with a mechanical writing utensil, gently scraping his thumb along the sharp end.

“I have been trying to tell you that since I called your number on the poster,” Hazik, Jace’s new roommate, said. “Each time you assumed I was, as you say, ‘pulling your leg’. I did not realize humans have never had contact with other planetary life. I had to convince you somehow.”

Hazik was what humans would call an alien. Their skin was a dark brown, with black, dread-like tentacles falling from their head down their back and across their shoulders. The tentacles turned a slightly alarming shade of pink at the ends, but which Hazik didn’t find very alarming at all. They also wore robes of a light green color, and their shoes were white and looked somewhat like moccasins. But despite all the odd things about them, the oddest was their eyes.

Their eyes changed depending on their mood. It was often how people on their planet would communicate feelings to each other, rather than using words or facial expressions like on Earth. But the rest of Hazik looked just how a human would. They were tall like Jace, but they also looked tall, due to the absence of slouching, unlike Jace. They had a mouth and a nose, two eyes, two legs, two feet, ten toes, two arms, two hands, ten fingers-- as all normal humans ought to. And Hazik used these hands and fingers to pull the knife that was protruding from the wall nearest to Jace.

“Okay but why did you have to throw a knife with your… your tentacles? Of all the things to throw?! And now there’s a hole in our wall! I get home from work and I already have a near death experience.” Jace turned to the wall and frowned at the hole. “See, this is why we can’t have nice things, Hazik, you keep throwing knives at them,” Jace said. Hazik didn’t answer, they were looking out the window at the street below. Jace turned around. “It’s five in the evening and I’m dealing with a knife-throwing maniac! Hazik? Are you listening to me?”

“Yes,” they answered. “I had to get your attention. Knives are often things that grab a human’s attention, no?” Hazik said, looking back at Jace. Their eyes shifted to a confused pink. According to my research, humans find knives very attention grabbing. It makes sense, humans do have an odd obsession with shiny things, Hazik thought.

“Well yeah, but so does projectile vomiting, doesn’t mean you should do it,” Jace said, annoyed. He sat down on a creaky couch that faced an old chair. “Also, have your eyes always done that?”

“Yes, we have been in this living pod for a whole Earth day but you never noticed them apparently. Humans do not seem to notice much unless you put it right under their nose. You also did not seem to notice my ‘hair’ was actually tentacles, not until I threw a knife at you with them that is.” Hazik watched as Jace pulled a face, expressing an emotion Hazik hadn’t learned to recognize in humans yet, but he didn’t say anything. They looked around the room, taking notice of the rough carpeting, the light flickering above them, the smallness of the space, and scanning the little hallway that lead to two bedrooms. Hazik sat down in the old chair facing Jace. “You’re also taking this quite well for someone who has never even seen an off-world life form.”

“Yeah well I’ve mastered the art of losing my shit in silence. I’ve also watched a ton of sci-fi shows so I’m hoping that’ll pay off at some point,” Jace said. Hazik wasn’t sure how watching flickering pixels on a screen could possibly help, but they decided it must be some sort of human assistance program, while also serving the purpose of amusement.

“Ah yes, your pixel projector of entertainment.” Hazik said wisely.

“It’s just TV. And this ‘living pod’ is an apartment. And actually I watch it on my computer, we don’t have a TV.” Jace looked forlornly at the empty wall behind Hazik, before getting up.

“We need to go shopping. We have to get some housekeeping stuff. We got beds, and a bit of furniture, but I’m gonna take a wild guess and say we want food too.” Jace pulled his car keys out of his pocket and stood up. “C'mon loser, we’re going shopping.”

“What was that food?” Hazik asked, for the seventh time.

“It’s a peach, and if you don’t stop touching the produce then I’m leaving you home on the next shopping run,” Jace answered, steering the cart to another aisle. “Okay, see if you can find laundry detergent, it’ll be in a big blue jug in the aisle over there.” He pointed to an aisle two rows over.

“Okay! One question, what’s laundry detergent?” Hazik said, their eyes switching again to a puzzled look.

“The stuff you wash your clothes with,” Jace answered, frowning at the prices of the bread in front of him.

“I thought humans had machines to do that for them,” Hazik said.

“Well yeah,” Jace answered. “But it doesn’t work unless you put that stuff in it.”

“What does it do? Is it the fuel for the machine?” Hazik flipped open their notebook again.

“What? No, it just makes your clothes smell like friggin’ daisies-- look we don’t have time to explain every cleaning product in the store, so go grab it while I figure out why the hell bread costs so much.” Jace shooed Hazik to the aisle.

Hazik noticed Jace’s hands still fiddling with the mechanical writing utensil as they were being ushered away. Habit, they thought as they walked to the aisle Jace had pointed out. Hazik thought Jace was a rather odd one. In the two Earth days Hazik had known him, they had noticed so many things about Jace, while Jace hadn’t even noticed Hazik’s eyes changed color. Why doesn’t Jace just look properly? Hazik pondered this while looking for the blue container. Hazik returned and handed Jace the bottle, still thinking.

“Uh, Hazik, this is bleach, not laundry detergent,” Jace said.

“Is it? How do you know?”

“Because it says ‘bleach’ right here,” Jace said, pointing to a patch of squiggles on the jug.

“Does it?”

“…Hazik can you read this?”

“No.”

Jace stared at them. Hazik wished Jace’s eyes would change color, that way they could tell at least how he was feeling. His face changed, with his eyes wide and eyebrows raised, but Hazik didn’t know what any of these things meant.

“You came here, speaking perfect English, but you can’t read or write in English?” he said finally.

“We left early. We only had enough time to learn how to speak the language assigned.”

“What--Why didn’t you just learn how to speak and read at the same time?” Jace said incredulously, as he went and switched out the bleach for laundry soap.

“Why would we do that? It makes more sense to learn how to speak it perfectly, and then learn to read and write it perfectly. That is how we learn languages on Uswarvis.”

“Uswarvis?”

“My planet.”

“Riiiight. Tell me more about that. What’s it like there?”

“It is actually quite similar to Earth, except it is much smaller,” Hazik said as Jace continued about the store, pulling things off the shelves and frowning at the little squiggles on the shelves. “It is about half the size of Earth. But we both orbit the same type of star, and seem to have a similar landscape and climate. Our only large difference seems to be the organisms, but I was sent here to research mostly the differences in our people.” Hazik followed Jace to the checkout line and started to help unload.

“That’s interesting. What differences have you noticed so far?” Jace said.

“Well, the largest one so far is humans have genders. Uswarvis does not.”

“Wait, what? So, you don’t have boys, girls, or anything else?” Jace exclaimed as he unloaded a few cleaning supplies.

“Nope. You know how there are a few humans on Earth who do not identify with any gender? All Uswarvians are like that.”

“So, here, on earth, your pronouns would be they, them, right?”

“I suppose so, yes. But on Uswarvis, pronouns are not part of the language, not in the way it is here. We also do not assign facial expressions to emotions. Instead, it is eye color.”

“But, you make faces. Not a lot, but you do.”

“Yes, but there are too many variations of faces that it is hard to keep track of what means what, and then you can change your face in order to lie, and that brings in a whole new set of variables, and it all just gets very confusing. It is much easier to just look into someone’s eyes and see how they feel. Each color means a different feeling and you cannot hide it unless you close your eyes. No need to worry about variables.”

“Cool… Amazing, actually! Tell me about what it’s like there.” Jace said with a crooked grin on his face. From what Hazik knew, smiles were a positive response, so they went on.

“We used to be a peaceful civilization. There are two halves of our planet, Espeusil and Bashosil. We’d had battles in the past, but all of it lead up to peace and harmony with all individuals living happily. Of course there were disagreements, but just over little things, that only changed small parts of our lives.” Hazik paused and watched Jace swipe a plastic rectangle through a little slot. They made a mental note to ask Jace about that later.

“‘Used to be’? What happened?” Jace asked as they made their way to his car, the shopping cart rattling noisily.

“Well… my half of the globe, Bashosil, got a new leader. They called themself, I think in English it translates to, ‘The Bringer of a New World”, but everyone just calls them The Bringer.”

“The Bringer of a New World? That sounds rather dramatic,” Jace said, one eyebrow raised.

“Yes, they thought very highly of themselves,” Hazik’s eyes suddenly shifted to a sorrowful purple. “And at first it was normal. New leaders are normal. But then things started to… happen. And eventually people started to get angry, myself included. The Bringer was an angry person, angry at Espeusil.”

“Why?” asked Jace.

“Espeusil had technologies that we did not. Technology that could save lives. But they were unwilling to share this with us, for reasons I have not found out. An epidemic broke out on our half of the globe and Espeusil waited far too long before finally helping us. Long enough that The Bringer lost their partner and child. Bringer waited just long enough for doctors to cure most of our country and then declared war on Espeusil in revenge.

“I am part of an organization that is trying to stop the war, called Iktbok. It is a combination of the Espeusilish word “Itko” and the Bashosilish word “Bokan”, that translates to something similar to “ceasefire”. I am part of the Planet Exploration Division. I work in the Ethics, Laws, and Culture department. My job is to record the culture and laws of my assigned planet, and then bring that information back to Uswarvis, so as to learn ways to peacefully end the war.”

“Wow. So you have to explore this whole planet by yourself?” Jace said as he got into the rickety car.

“Oh no, I have a team to help with this planet. There are a total of ten Uswarvians here, five Bashosil, five Espeusil. We have been here almost eight Earth days,” Hazik explained. They thought for a moment, their eyes still filled with that violet sadness. “Uswarvis is in total war. There isn’t one person who isn’t involved now. It seems like it been going on for lifetimes. It feels like… like the world will crack in half before the war ends. I would not be surprised if it did, with all the damage our environment has taken.”

Hazik talked about their planets’ various battles the whole trip back to the apartment; talked of the death of their friends, and the horrors they’d seen in war. Images flashed in their head, awful screams echoing in their ears.

“I was young when the plague started. I left to fight as a soldier when the war started, and became a researcher for Iktbok a while later, and now I am here… Sometimes it is hard to see a way to fix everything.”

“That… that really sucks Hazik,” Jace said, bringing Hazik out of their thoughts. “I’m sorry you had to go through all that. That you’re still going through it. I…” He suddenly gripped Hazik’s shoulder and looked them in the eye. “I hope that somehow we can help your home.” And even though Jace’s eyes stayed that constant, dark brown, Hazik knew Jace felt some sort of caring feeling, which they felt comforted by.

“Now,” Hazik said, seeming to snap out of a trance as their eyes shifted to a curious gaze. “You have heard enough about me and my planet. Why don’t you tell me about you? What is your life like?” They looked at Jace expectantly, but Jace’s eyes suddenly widened, before darting away. The writing utensil was back in Jace’s hand, twitching as he rolled it between his fingers.

“Uh, um, well--uh, there’s plenty of time for my life later. You’ll be hearing about Earth all the time, now that you live here of course,” Jace said, his eyes darting to the side, purposefully not making eye contact. He quickly clambered out of the car and pulled open the trunk. Hazik made a small note in his book before climbing out to help Jace, their eyes still holding that inquisitive stare.