Disclaimer: Star Trek is not mine.
It truly is too inconvenient, he decides.
But it is illogical to blame his environment; his father's heritage is that of lines and don't-look-backs. Adaptability is one of many traits that lost its evolutionary merit centuries before. (Although it is not too far off to lay the blame at the threshold of his partly human DNA. He hugs this hypothesis in that corner of his mind, where even logic cannot reach. It's growing faster than he would like.)
No. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then he must show considerable contempt for these flat-eared sentients—measured on their predetermined spectrum, that is. He had no place. His was his own, a comet in its own oblong orbit around shifting suns.
If only his mother had warned him. He couldn't know he had a heart to lose until he had lost it.
That first day, it was the way her eyes refused to draw back in fear from his stoic gaze. Then it was the way her head twisted in delightful human puzzlement. It was the light on her hair, it was the questions and witty repartees, it was how she rode her emotions like a rider and her horse, and it was too much.
He is not equipped to deal with disruption. He knows familiar and scientific discoveries that had been hypothesized about long ago. He knows puzzles that always had a calm answer. He needs familiar.
At least, that had been his hypothesis.
He doesn't know now. He doesn't know. And that trepidation is all that's needed to feed that corner.
It's threatened to become a balanced half.
But it's a secret thrill too. (It's what differentiates that trepidation from fear.) For the first time in his life, he just doesn't know. His analysis wants to spell it a new experiment, but this can't be explained by logarithms. (The probable involvement of pheromones offers cold comfort.) And he begins to wonder if perhaps he could ride a horse instead of leading it.
There is no logical reason for his sympathetic nerves to signal an acceleration in his heart rate, but it happens anyway. His class begins to file in. He's uncomfortable, and he's never before had to make a decision about whether he likes it or not.
It's the smile in her eyes that prompts him to begin.