The Little Alien who came to Earth to Find It

Ivan yawned, resting his elbows on the railing of his apartment’s balcony. It was late; he should have been heading for bed, but the night was so perfect: clear, some what dark. He could almost see the stars in the sky.

“Hu?” He blinked. It looked like one of the stars was moving, but not in the fashion of a helicopter or plane with their small blinking lights and constant speed. This star was a falling-star, streaming across the sky with a tail aglow in bright colors.

“If you see a shooting-star, you should make a wish on it quickly,” Ivan’s older sister had told him.

But what to wish for? He wasn’t failing any of his classes, most of the people there were nice—or fun enemies. Yes, his school life was going splendidly. Ivan glanced back at his lonely apartment. It was against the rules to keep pets, and no one wanted to room with him.

It was a very pitiful and lonely existence.

So, yes, wishing for that would be a grand idea!

“Wishing-star, wishing-star,” Ivan clasped his hands together, only to feel a little sacrilegious about “praying” to the star and drop them to the railing, “I wish I wasn’t so lonely here, that someone would come live with me—someone who is not my sisters or a dumbass, like Alfred.”

Ivan spun around, poked his head inside the apartment, and glanced at the door, half expecting someone to throw it open. Of course, that is not what happened. The door didn’t fly open: Ivan was still alone.

“Ivan, you’re not a child anymore,” Ivan scolded himself, looking up at the sky, at the falling, not-really-a-wishing, star. “You haven’t time for silly…”

The star, it seemed, was changing course, and drastically. It zigged then zagged, turning left then turn sharply right. Ivan watched, shocked. He’d never seen a star of any kind, wishing or not, do that!

The star then seemed to be heading straight towards him, leaving the man frozen in place. When the star was just meters from him, surely to smash into his stomach, adrenaline rushed through his veins.

He dove aside and the star, though he was beginning to suspect it was not a real star, (unless this normally happens when one makes a wish upon a falling star), shot past and into his apartment.

It ricocheted around the living room, rattled the pans hanging on the wall in the kitchen, nearly landing in the toilet in the bathroom. Ivan chased the ball from place to place, until at last, it broke through the door of Ivan’s bed room.

In reckless ignorance of the possible danger presented when a star from space flies through one’s glass door and lands in one’s bedroom, Ivan threw open his door, and rushed inside

…only to tripped over something.

He landed on his bed, hitting his knee on the metal bed frame and his head on something hard. Ivan lifted himself up with one hand and rubbed his forehead with the other. He looked back to see what he tripped over. A round something. It looked mechanical with pieces missing and smoking sputtering from it.

“Ow…”

Ivan jolted and looked down.

Under him was another person, or something person-like. It appeared to be a woman with shoulder-length brown hair, but Ivan had never seen a woman with glowing marks on her skin or two antennas poking out of her head. The marks were interconnected with straight lines tipped with circles that glowed an eerie greenish and the green antennas twitched.

The woman whimpered slightly, and adding to Ivan’s already sizeable shock, her body began to shrink, becoming smaller and smaller until she her body was only one and a half size of her head, which was now round and chubby. The marks faded until they were no longer there, though the antennas remained.

To be honest, Ivan found her rather cute, like a kitten or toy rabbit.

She slowly opened her eyes.  “Where am I?”

“You’re in my apartment.” Ivan said. She blinked quickly and looked up. The color drained from her face, so Ivan quickly added, “D-don’t be scared, little friend! I-I won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt—”

The pint-sized women jumped to her feet and round-house kicked him in the face.  

Ivan stared at the wall for a moment before turning back and smiling at the woman. When he was a child, his older sister had dubbed that smile his ‘sadistic’ smile and told him not to do it. Whenever he smiled like that, it never ended well for him or the person being smiled at.

It scared his sister, just as it was scaring the little woman now.

Ivan reached out and grabbed the woman around the middle. “You had better apologize for that, miss, before I squeeze the life out of you.” He gripped his hands together. The woman gasped, trying fruitlessly to break-free. Finally, she stopped, panting.

“Close enough.” Ivan chirped, sitting cross-legged on the bed. He set the little woman in his lap, hands still on her. “Now, you and I have to talk.”

*******

Ivan shouldered open his door, groceries in his arms. Once through, he shut it with his hip. He walked over to the table and plopped the brown paper bags onto the counter then pulled out a chair and sat. It took all of two seconds for a certain little someone to jump from the back of the couch across the room to the table and begin rummaging through the bags, in search of sweets.

It had been two and a half weeks since Yao (for, as Ivan found, the little creature was both male and named Yao) had crashed in Ivan’s apartment.

It seemed that Yao was an alien who lived on a migrating space vessel with the rest of his family. The creatures from Yao’s galaxy, or at least his planet, came to planets like Earth all the time, and usually went relatively unnoticed by the general populace.

Because of the somewhat unique structure of Earth’s atmosphere and the energy given off by the flora and fauna, it was the perfect place to cultivate it. Yao refused to tell what something was, leaving Ivan somewhat uneasy.

Seeing as the little alien had no where else to go, though, Ivan allowed him to stay on the condition he watched over the apartment while Ivan was at school.

Also, Yao claimed, gravity on Earth effected his body in such a way that it began shrinking as soon as he entered the first layer of it’s atmosphere. He was very much taller at home, a head or more taller than Ivan even, who, among humans, was a very tall person himself.

Ivan watched with amusement as Yao struggled to open the plastic on the package of glass cookies he’d dragged out from the bags. He pulled and tugged, but was unable to penetrate the wrapper. Finally, once the little alien resorted to using his teeth, Ivan couldn’t help himself and burst out laughing.

Yao frowned and looked at him. Ivan shook his head then opened the cookies; he took one out and set it in front of the alien, who promptly began to gnaw on it.

Ivan took a bite of one. “I am beginning to wonder if you didn’t come here for sugar.”

“What did you tell me it was, ‘sweet?’ Sweet is not a flavor you find much were my family goes aru.” Yao stated. Ivan smiled to himself. He found that little verbal-tic Yao added to the ends of his sentences cute, though he reminded him of a Japanese stereotype.

“We have to stay within the borders set up in the treaty, and most of the hospitable, civilized worlds where the palatable ’sweet’ food is were closed off to my people.” He sighed, taking another bite. “Try to start one intergalactic war and suddenly nobody wants you on their planets anymore.”

Ivan had already heard how, a generation ago, Yao’s people tried to concur another planet and how the members of the royal family—of which Yao was apart—were exiled for three generations in an attempt to drive a message of peace and benevolence into them. Yao was of the second generation, so it would be his children who could return to their home planet.

“Hmm, I understand that.” Ivan muttered. “Excuse me, Yao.”

“Ye—ayaih!” He looked up from his cookie to see the human leaning down and looking closely at him.

Ivan smiled. “Do you know you’re really cute?”

The alien looked down at himself and winced. “Not to me.”

“Oh?”

“For me, a cuteness is something with a round face and big eyes, but tall. For my people a tall person is considered beautiful!” The alien announced, finishing off his cookie.

“Then,” Ivan giggled, “I must look very cute to you, right?”

Yao flushed, fishing out two more cookies before jumping off the table and heading towards the couch. Ivan laughed, standing then walking after him.

“I am, aren’t I?” Ivan flopped onto the couch, arms over the back, and turned his head to where the alien sat, also on the couch back, licking the glass candy in the center of his cookie. Yao ignored his gaze, turning to the TV.

A cheesy, subtitled, kung-fu movie was playing. For a reason Ivan had yet to fully grasp, this alien, who claimed to be from a civilization much more advance than that of homo sapiens, could be so fascinated with such a thing.

But if it kept him from going through Ivan’s dresser and forcing Ivan to explain human reproductive systems after the discovery of a certain magazine hidden there, then Ivan would gladly sit through them, even if they were boring.

Ivan turned his attention to the alien again. If it hadn’t been for his size and the antennas, Ivan won’t mind taking him to sit in on some of his classes—to help him cultivate that unknown it, not to show off that he had such a cute person living with him.

“Hey, Ivan.” Yao frowned. “Explain to me again why you humans place your lips together like that. You breath through them, correct aru? Are you attempting to kill yourselves then stopping half-way?”

Ivan chuckled. “We call it ‘kissing,’ and no. You do it with someone you really like, it’s a sign of affection between two people. Though, it can mean different things depending on who it is between.”

“Oh?” Yao said, though he had since lost interest in whatever it was Ivan was talking about.

“Like a kiss between a brother and sister is deferent than between friends. Do you understand?”

“Sure, why not aru?”

“You’re not listening, are you?”

“That is correct.”

Ivan rolled his eyes then laid down. This movie was too boring to sit through.

******

Once the movie ended, a boring show Ivan called ‘the news’ came on. Yao didn’t understand why he wasted his time with it: the plot was always ‘so-and-so died,’ ‘it’s going to be rainy/sunny/windy,’ ‘this or that person claimed he could help by doing xyz.’

How drab!

Yao jumped down off the back of couch and walked over to Ivan’s face. He placed his hands on his hips, antennas twitching.

Ivan was sleeping—finally realized how boring ‘the news’ was, clearly!

The human began to mutter and toss about, almost knocking Yao off. The alien jumped into the air, using his abilities to hover there as he observed. Ivan winced and looked very much distressed, as if someone was harming him, but as far as Yao could tell, no one was.

“Maybe…these primitive beings…” Yao took a breath and flew closer. Though he was a little scared Ivan would lash out and hit him, the alien landed by the human’s head. He placed his hands on Ivan’s forehead and shut his eyes, concentrating.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

He opened his eyes, his suspension confirmed.

“They can dream.” Yao filed this information for later assessment before looking around. The tall grass swayed around a group of people near a tree.  

They spoke in a language Yao didn’t understand (a great frustration to Yao who took the time to learn the two most common languages spoken on Earth). One quickly touched another before darting off. Soon a strange ritual occurred where the other humans would run from a certain one, but when that certain one touched someone else, the roles reversed

This went on for a while before the humans fell back into the flatten grass, laughing. Now Yao could see Ivan was among them; he was younger than the one dreaming this, but that soon changed. Slowly, all the children grew, and one by one, they disappeared. Most stood and ran over the horizon until only two remained: both female and bearing a resemblance to Ivan.

A masked male appeared and the bigger of the females stood. Ivan sat up, as did the other girl.

She took the masked man’s hand, laughing, before they both phased away. The remaining girl hugged Ivan about the shoulders, but she too slowly disappeared. The color, the sun, the blue sky, the grass, all faded into mute hues. Ivan pulled his knees to his chest, looking crestfallen.

Suddenly, Yao felt something grip his stomach like a hand and turn. What was this…this feeling? Where was it coming from? Ivan? How…what—

Knock! Knock!

Ivan jolted up. Yao stumbled backwards to the floor, holding his head. That feeling still clung to him.

Yawning, Ivan headed to the door. The alien shuddered, hearing the person on the other side say something about Ivan leaving with her.

Of Yao’s three hearts, two skipped in their rhythms. He jumped and slammed into the door.

Elizabeta jumped. “What was that?”

“Oh, nothing. But, I think I better stay here tonight. Thank you very much for inviting me.”

“It’s no problem. You’ve been…not as creepy lately, all nice smiles and happily talkative, so I thought—” Elizabeta blushed suddenly, realizing her mistake, and hurried off without a farewell.

Ivan shut the door quickly and looked down at Yao, who was clinging to his ankle. He pursed his lips. Ivan pick up the alien and take him to the table instead.

“Are you ok?”

“I…I’m not sure aru. I feel strange.” Yao clenched tight to Ivan’s hand, shaking. “Like you can’t leave me here by myself, like I’m scared.”

“Sounds like your afraid of being lonely.” Ivan leaned down.

“‘Lonely’?” Yao echoed.

“It means that you don’t want to be without the people around, usually people you really care about. It’s a sad feeling, and it hurts too.” A memory clouded Ivan’s purple eyes. “I’ve been alone a lot, the people around me always seem to leave and never come back, no matter how much I miss them. But there‘s nothing I can do.”

Yao slowly walked up to Ivan’s face and rested his head on the human’s. The memory cloud cleared and Ivan began to pet the alien’s head, careful of the antennas, smiling. As long as Yao was still trying to find it he had to stay, so, Ivan selfishly hoped that he never found it.

Yao forced a smile back at Ivan.

He’d just found it.

*******

Later that night, a light shone over Ivan’s balcony. It went unnoticed by the general populace though, that a small ship floated overhead. A beam shot down and teleported three beings into Ivan’s living room, where Yao waited.

The transport’s effect Yao’s body was reverse of Earth’s gravity, his limbs growing longer and more proportional to a human’s—though he was still not nearly as tall as Ivan. Yao twirled his ponytail around his fingers, antennas twitching as other beings attempted to contact him telepathically.

“I’m fine, Xiao Mei, and it is good to see you too, Leon, aru…I‘d prefer to speak aloud, Kiku.” He turned his gaze to the alien in the middle.

Kiku shrugged. “If that’s what you wish. So you’ve found it?” Yao looked down at his knees, nodding. The marks on Leon and Xiao Mei’s bodies glowed in delight.

“You can come home now!” Xiao Mei cheered.

“Like, awesome.” Leon grinned.

Kiku met Yao’s eyes. Kiku, as well as their younger brother, Yong Soo, had left to cultivate it before Yao sometime ago, which was why the marks on his body no longer existed, much like Yao’s. They were a sign of ignorance, which the younger aliens indulged.

“Like Yong Soo, then?” Kiku asked.

“What?” Leon frowned. “Y-Yong Soo didn’t want to return.”

Xiao Mei giggled nervously. “Yao’s not like that, right?”

Yao took a breath. “I…I am not leaving someone with it, especially someone who has suffered against it for so long. I can’t leave Ivan lonely like that.”

“‘Lonely’?” Leon echoed. “What’s…is that it?”

Yao just smiled. “I’m sorry, you two. Good bye.” Before the other two could so much as utter a word, Kiku transported them away.

Kiku looked at Yao. “You’re sure about this? That you’d rather stay here?”

“Yes aru. I’m growing to quiet like it, and maybe I’ll run into Yong Soo sometime, he and the woman he‘s in love with are both here.” He laughed.  Kiku reached into his pocket and pulled out a small vile, which he tossed. Yao snatched it out of the air.

“If you do see him,” Kiku’s eyes flashed with sadness, “slap him for me.”

“I shall aru.” Yao nodded as Kiku left. After popping the top off of the vile, he put the cool glass to his lips and swallowed liquid within. A shudder ran through him. Leaving his species behind tasted disgusting.

He tuned and padded towards Ivan’s room, pausing only to glance at himself in the mirror. His face might have been ‘cute’ but he was forever so short.

Oh, well.

He continued to Ivan’s room, leaned down against the side of the bed and laughed to himself.

At least Ivan was sort of ‘cute.’