just_displaced | Open Post

Maybe. Probably. Or it could be excessively logical. I mean, are you hungry?

[He's not waiting for a response before he continues. Radu's a teenaged boy, of course he's hungry.]

Do you want to know what kind of pizza's best? Of course you do. How else are you going to do that except try all of them? Can you really trust the word of a bystander like me to tell you which kinds are best? I might have some kind of pizza-related agenda, and would try to sell you on the kind I liked, which you might actually hate.

[You make a reasonable argument, Ginsberg.]

There's not, like, a huge rush with anything, though. It's not like I have a whole lot else to do here.

[He's wiping his hands off on a napkin before his gloves go back on. He gets a little nervous without them, okay.]

No, there's not a huge rush. But me, I'm gonna have another slice of pizza, one of the ones I haven't tried yet, because what if they retire that flavor without me ever having gotten to try it, and then I never know what it was like, and I spend the rest of my life wondering what I was missing?

Do you spend a lot of your time wondering about pizza flavours?

Yeah. Of course. Don't you? I mean, it's natural: we all spend time wondering about the things we don't know, until we find out about them and satisfy our curiosity.

Do you not have pizza where you're from, too?

No, we have pizza, but my dad always wanted to order the exact same kind of pizza, every time. I've got to make up for lost time, you know?

Do you live with your dad? At home?

Yeah. And yeah, I know that's absolutely the opposite of cool and that I'm way too old to live with my dad and believe me, I feel that way too, it's just...

It's complicated.

I really don't know anything about it being, y'know, cool or anything but I uh...

I think it sounds kind of nice, actually.

Believe me, if you knew my dad, you wouldn't think it was...

[A pause to take a bite of pizza and reconsider what he's saying. Because he's just realized...]

Oh. I mean, you came from a spaceship, right? So your parents probably weren't there.

Well, uh.

[God he hates sounding like a weird alien freak, but he already learned his lessen about lying when it comes to families...]

I never really had then, actually. Andromedans do it kinda differently.

Differently how?

[He sounds interested, not judgmental. Maybe a little too interested, actually, since he's always been convinced he's an alien, and maybe what Radu says applies to him, too.]

I mean, you had to come from somewhere.

Yeah. It's from, uh... eggs.

[Yes, he is flushing bright red right now. He knows it's weird, okay.]

We're raised in the hatcheries until we're 6 or so, and then, you know, school until you're an adult. Families are kinda a foreign concept.

Okay, so doesn't that kind of mean that your family is everyone you were raised with in the hatchery?

[He doesn't seem to think it's that weird. There're weirder things out there.]

I mean, yeah, it's not family like humans think of it, but that's kind of overrated, anyway.

They sent me to the Starcademy when I was young so I, uh, never really spent much time with the other kids from my cycle.

The crew of The Christa, they're kind of my family now.

Well, there you go. You have family. Just no parents. And that's probably okay, because otherwise, you might end up living with them when you're my age, and you don't want that.

[Assuming they ever get out of the City, that is.]

[Radu still thinks living with your dad sounds kind of cool, sorry Ginzo.]

I know it's hard, for everyone else on the ship. Not getting to see their families. Kinda easier for me in a way.

[You would not think that if you knew his father, Radu. Or maybe you would. People seem to like him...]

Sure, I get that. But don't you sometimes feel a little out of place? You know, if everyone's talking about their families, and how much they miss them, and you can't compare yourself to everyone else? I mean, I feel that way sometimes. About the things people say, and how I can't relate to any of it.

Well, yeah. All the time. I even lied about having a birthday once.

[It didn't end well.]

Why would you feel that way?

I don't have a mom. Most humans do. I mean, I came from somewhere, I must have had one at some point, but nobody can tell me anything about her.

[He shrugs.]

It's like you and not having parents, except it's just the one.

Sounds kinda worse though. I mean, I've always known I didn't have parents, no one in my species does.

Maybe. I don't know. You don't spend time with people from your species much, though. Sometimes I think I don't either. I'm still pretty convinced I'm not actually from Earth. Maybe I was hatched from an egg, too. How would I know?

I didn't really fit it that well at home. They thought I might do better at the academy.

[That does get a little laugh out of Radu.]

Well, you don't look Andromedan, but there are lot of other galaxies out there.

I'd have to have nicer hair to be Andromedan, right?

[Yeah, he likes your hair, Radu. Deal with it.]

I think I was born somewhere else. I think they brought me to Earth and told me I was human. I just know it.

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