Sometimes, at times like these, I was thankful that my neighborhood never had a raccoon problem that I was aware of. Throwing out the trash is a lot easier when you don't have to worry about an angry raccoon suddenly jumping out at you from the trash-can and possibly biting your face off. It was a cold spring evening, and I was taking out the trash because my mom asked me to. My headphones were in and I was playing some music on my phone while I carried the bag. This easily could've ended with me throwing the bag away and proceeding to walk back into the warmth of my house when I swore I heard a click-click-click from around the corner.

'Oh shit, what the fuck was that? Are my headphones finally breaking?' I thought to myself. I paused for a while, not really sure what to do. I could go back inside, or I could calm my nerves by seeing what made the sound. I slowly walked, fists up, when I saw a robot.

A robot, right in my yard. And not even a Roomba or something like that, it was like a bug. A kinda cute bug, but also a very big bug.

"Hi, buddy." I walked towards it slowly. Looking back now, that was probably where this whole thing starts. Before I knew it, the robot had gotten up on its hind legs and I was trying to claw my way up a tree faster than a marshmallow dissolves in water. Heck, Sonic would be jealous of how fast I tried to climb that tree. The question then was what the heck to do cause I didn't know if this bug could actually climb trees or not, but soon turned to the fact that someone was yelling and surprisingly, it wasn't me.

The robot was soon sliced in half, oil spurting out in a way that almost made me feel nauseous. I looked around for a little, partially to see if the robot had friends and to see how the heck the robot had fell apart when I locked eyes with a man.

He was probably taller than me, as most people are, and seemed to be wearing a yukata of some sort. The answer as to how the robot had been sliced was found in the sword he was holding. We stared at each other for a little.

It was probably really awkward now, considering that we've been staring at each other for at least a minute.

"Uh. So... That was cool." Was all that came out of my mouth at that point. The cold air continued to touch my arms like a hand made of ice cubes as the silence rethickened. "...You from around here?"

"No." Oh, so he did speak. Somehow, this was getting weirder and weirder by the second. "Were you hurt?"

"Nah, only freaked out. Hey, could you move real quick? I gotta get down." After deciding that jumping wasn't an option, I scooted down the tree. "Thanks for gettin' that...thing, whatever it was. What's your name?" I was on the ground at this point, feeling the sand and dead grass against my bare feet.

"They call me Jack." He said before giving a proper bow. "And you are?"

"Marco, nice to meet you." I nearly went for a handshake but stopped because I had no idea if that was his thing or not. We both sorta stood there in the dark before it hit me that I was supposed to take the trash out and it really shouldn't take this long. "Hey, you got a place to stay, right?" Jack's eyebrows raised and for a few seconds I could feel myself wish for the sweet embrace of death by embarrassment. "Just curious cause, you know, it's getting cold out and it's the least I can do for you doing what you did back there and-"

"I do not actually. I'm grateful for your offer."

"Oh, cool! I just gotta ask my mooooooo, you know what, on second thought I don't know if I should ask my mom." Somehow, I could already see her freaking out at the idea of bringing in some stranger I had just met.

"I think you should. You would only get in more trouble if she found out and you didn't tell her." Jack stated his view.

"True, true. Guess I'll have to ask, worst she can do is say no." Now, I needed a cover story as to how I was indebted to this guy, cause 'hey mom, there was a giant robot bug outside' was not gonna cut it.