Well.

If you follow my work, you're obviously a bit confused. I didn't announce this to anyone.

Well, the next chapter's taking a little while. Why? You'll be happy when it's out, that is all I'm saying on the matter. There might be a chapter before the one I'm thinking, but there's a reason that this isn't another chapter.

This is another little side story. It's about time there was another one, wasn't there? If you follow my stories, this is the one people have asked about the most, probably, next to a continuation of Freshman Mission. At this point, you probably know what this is about.

I'll try my best to update this quickly, but I have over a dozen assignments due before December 3rd. No one ever said an English degree was easy :)

I'll quit talking and let you read now.

-J Lucy

Part I

Romama stared through the thick glass and at the uniform. It was all too surreal for him, seeing his old Major's uniform in a museum display, like some sort of artifact….

…But it was one, he reminded himself just as quickly…

There was so much more from that era… Things that seemed so mundane to him at the time, but enthralled the Keronians and other aliens that had come to see the exhibit. "The Lost Mission: Back Home at Last".

They were half-right, at least, he thought to himself as he continued down the line of the costumes. That's all they were, costumes, now. Back then, though, they had meant something. They were set up on mannequins, posed same as their old group photo—This photo was in a box on a corner, sepia-colored and worn. It was in bad shape... No one would know that one of the people in the photo was him.

Mahihi's uniform, longer than the others', required his mannequin to be set on a brick. One of Rokiki's, which had been donated by Mora, was on a female Keronian mannequin that had been converted to a male; Romama never realized how short he was compared to the others until now.

He was nervous being here... None of the footage was good, he was dressed completely differently, but there was still that panic that he could be recognized. Part of the deal with the government had been that they would be kept in peace... And in return, one of the stipulations would be that they would help out in this exhibit.

He felt more compelled to come than anything. He had to see it for himself.

He was too fixated upon these displays to notice when he bumped into another visitor, but quickly shot his head over to offer an apology, "S-Sorry—Fujuju?"

"Oh! Romama Shosa!" Fujuju blinked in surprise, and looked up from his program. He wore a pair of small glasses, but removed these and set the program aside. His face was a bit reddened, embarrassed at having been caught in attendance, "I suppose, then, I'm not the only one who came to see the exhibit, hehe…"

"I thought you'd be too busy to come right now…."

"True, true! Between the wedding, and helping the children, it was a bit of a squeeze, but I managed it!"

"…You snuck out…" Romama concluded. Fujuju flinched.

"It appears as though you're more perceptive than ever…"

"What's this?" Romama wandered over to another glass case, this one with several more black masks hanging on the wall, and beside them, on another mannequin, a white coat with triangular patterns lining the hems.

"That'd be what I wore beneath that dreadful thing," Fujuju answered.

"…We always did wonder what you wore under that…" Romama muttered. He had recalled the adults in the group making some more rude assumptions as to what it could have indeed been, and struggled to hide a snicker.

"Well, I wanted to tell them to keep the blasted thing, along with that other bulky nightmare…. The children and Rita want me to keep it, though, for one reason or another… I do hate having it in the house, though…" Fujuju mumbled, looking at the old scientists' uniform with an unusually cold glare.

"YOU WITCH, YOU FOLLOWED ME HERE!" both Fujuju and Romama's eyes flew open, and both wandered over to the source of the noise, and where a crowd was starting to form in a circle.

"Okay, now, girls, let's play nice," the cool voice of Mahihi suggested, holding his hands out in order to appease the fighting Lupapa and Chunini. Lupapa looked ready for attack, while Chunini only smiled and folded her arms.

They noticed the eyes upon them now. Chunini's smug smile fell. Lupapa lowered her fists.

"…Makes you feel kind of old looking around here, doesn't it, Lupa-chan?" Chunini sighed mournfully.

"Mm," Lupapa nodded, and looked about, feeling the eyes upon her. "I feel like a walking museum exhibit… Like everyone's staring at us..."

"T-That's because of the fighting!" Mahihi replied.

"At least you have a nice boyfriend to keep you feeling young, Lupa-chan… I don't even have that," Chunini sighed sadly.

"Would you even know what to do with a boyfriend?" Lupapa grumbled, her hands on her hips now.

"...Play checkers?" Chunini replied quickly, blinking.

"…My head's killing me…." Mahihi grumbled, rubbing his temples.

"Romama? Fujuju?" Lupapa blinked and straightened herself.

"Heyyyyy, half-pint and Akamai-kun!" Mahihi shouted to the two happily, relieved at there now being more company, and embraced both in an unsuspecting hug. Both Fujuju and Romama coughed, feeling the air leave their lungs.

"Oh! There went that crick in my back!" Fujuju coughed.

The five were gathered around a restaurant table now, in a small, Japanese-style eatery. The private room allowed them all some well-needed breathing room, and an escape from the eyes of the museum goers.

"I didn't think it would be so hard to play dead!" Mahihi said with a laugh. "I wanted to shout so many times walking through that place that I was alive, but the reporters that would follow..."

"At least that isn't a worry," Romama said, a bit relieved. "According to the government, it was just our ship that was recovered."

"All of my old music was recovered according to that, too!~ It's being repackaged to make a best-of compilation!" Chunini said cheerfully. "Lee showed me all the pre-orders already. I'll be the first to admit those tracks are bad, but there's so many people willing to pay good money for them! At least the good news is they're old enough to where it sounds like someone completely different. And since all of the old footage of us is so bad, who's to know that it's me?!"

"…You're the devil," Lupapa grumbled, and sipped her tea quietly. "….We have Rokiki to thank for all of this... He gave up his only chance at getting back his family's land to keep us safe and secret from everybody. He's the one who we owe the most to, and he's note even here..."

"Maybe we should just write one book or something, just so I won't feel like I have to shout my brains out when I hear someone getting something completely wrong," Mahihi suggested. "Use a fake name, you know? Something like that."

"I vote Fujuju writes it," Lupapa quickly added.

Chunini and Romama nodded.

"W-What?! I… I'm quite honored, but I simply don't have the time for things like that!" Fujuju sputtered.

"We'll know to not include a few things, right?" Chunini added, a nervous chuckle in her voice.

"I… I simply don't have the time for something like this. I'm very sorry, I couldn't possibly!" Fujuju answered. "Plus I know there are things none of us want to admit to…. It's simply nobody's business."

"No one's going to ask how many macaroni art projects you made while you were looked away in the nuthouse, Juu-kun," Chunini said with a giggle. Fujuju rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"What about your daughter?" Romama looked to Fujuju.

"Rita? She's not much of a writer…. Doesn't really enjoy it at all, she says."

"She does movies, though," Romama continued.

"Oh! I like getting filmed!" Chunini exclaimed, clasping her hands together.

"Of course, it means attention on you," Lupapa sighed.

"We could use that to make a book later, when you get time. Just use it for now while we can remember it all and while we're all in the same room together," Mahihi continued.

"I'm sure she would do it… But could we do it without Rokiki or Kodada-chan?" Fujuju wondered. "And where would we start it? I'm certain people would like to know about our upbringings. There's a lot of curiosity about that, from what I understand."

"That means our Captain wouldn't be in until halfway through, practically!" Mahihi laughed.

"I'd be all right with that," Romama answered, using chopsticks to poke at the vegetarian stir fry.

"Well…. I guess since Roki and I lived together, I could tell both of our stories… Besides, we told one another everything, up until that mission! I think I could do him justice."

"And I could fill in Koda-chan's! Or maybe we could get her to contribute a little! I don't think she'd mind it," Chunini said thoughtfully.

"Heh… You know, I still remember the first time I saw him? I thought he was just a scowling girl, he was so short… Andddd in a skirt," Mahihi laughed. "…It was probably good for me to meet him when I did; my one friend had just moved."

"Really now," Fujuju continued. "What was the chap's name?"

"Well, it was—" Mahihi stopped short. His mouth opened a little bit. He stopped and examined Fujuju for a moment, trying to imagine him younger. "Hey, dude… Just asking, but was your name common back then?"

"Not at all," Fujuju flushed. "Even back then it was the equivalent of being named Hezekiah, Malachi, or—"

"Or Elijah?" asked Chunini. Fujuju only muttered at answer.

"….Really….?" Mahihi muttered in disbelief. "….Really?! O-Okay, dude. We've definitely gotta record this, even if it's for ourselves."

"I brought a video camera with me," Chunini shrugged and reached into her purse. She propped it on the head of a bottle on the table, and sat back down.

"That should do it," Mahihi nodded, and all glanced to Lupapa, who had gone red.

"I… I'm not really good with cameras…." Lupapa admitted quietly, her eyes on the table.

"All right…. I guess I can start," Mahihi shrugged. "Where to start…. Eh, I got it… How about when my Pop decided to surprise my Ma for her anniversary?"

"This is going to be reallyyyyyy boring, but bear with us, everyone!" Chunini said into the camera.

"Hey, hey, don't go knocking it yet!" Mahihi sighed, and motioned for Chunini to move out of the way. "Anyway, I was still an egg… My Pop decided to surprise my Ma…."

"What'd he surprise her with?" asked Romama.

"Jewelry, I'm guessing," Lupapa ventured.

"Eh, no… Something a little bigger than jewelry…."

"Can I open my eyes now?" Enzizi asked excitedly. Gohaha only laughed , and led her along to the back yard by the hand, still covering her eyes with the other hand.

"Not yet… Almost…"

"Am I going to like it?"

"Oh, you're going to love it! I promise!" Gohaha replied. He stopped, and removed his hands. "Okay, you can look!"

Enzizi opened her eyes quickly, and the excited gasp she had be prepared to make was just as quickly stifled, "It's…. The old field in the back of our house…."

"Wrong—It's our old field!" Gohaha replied happily. "Isn't this great?! Now we can expand! All I had to do was dip into our savings and get the guy next door to go half and half with us!"

"The… The one who's always blowing up his house?"

"Yeah, well, I talked to him, and he's a pretty good guy, actually!"

"I… I'm speechless…." Enzizi answered, sniffling. Then the tears started.

"Aw, honey, you don't have to cry! I'm excited, too!" Gohaha kissed her on the cheek, and her crying continued.

"….I would've murdered him…" said Chunini, stunned. Lupapa nodded in solemn agreement.

"Y-Yeah… " Mahihi scratched the back of his head. "My Dad was a romantic guy… In his own way."

"There was an old field where my parents lived!" Fujuju said thoughtfully. "It was wonderful… And that baker who lived next door and his—" Fujuju stopped, mid-thought, and his eyes fell onto Mahihi. "….That was you!?"

"Eh? What's going on?" Romama looked between Fujuju and Mahihi.

"Oh, please tell me it's something horrifying," Chunini giggled.

Mahihi tilted his head to one side, and rested it in his hand, "There was this old scientist who lived next door to us. He had a wife and a son, but the kid got taken away when he was young. Before then—"

"...We were playmates," Fujuju finished, stunned.

"I always wondered what happened to you!" Mahihi laughed and slapped Fujuju on the back. "Looks like you did pretty good for yourself!"

"…I've been imprisoned four separate times," Fujuju reminded him darkly.

"…Okay, so it took you a little while to get there!"

"Well, I suppose I could continue with the story from here… My, this is a lot to take in suddenly," Fujuju sighed. "Well? Where were we? Ah, I remember. I remember my father describing this to me…"

"Hey, there he is now!" Gohaha spun Enzizi around; from the field they could see the man who lived next door to them, in the domed-shaped home with the dead garden. He was old enough to be either of their parents, quiet and a bit mousy, but well-meaning.

"HEY! PROFESSOR!" Gohaha shouted at the top of his lungs. Oriri, whose hands had been full of papers, slipped off of his front stoop and onto the concrete ground. "Oh….Oh my God! I killed him!" he rushed to Oriri's side, but found him still alive, just hurrying to collect his paperwork. As he stood, his back made a loud popping noise.

"I am so, so sorry. Please don't sue us!" Gohaha begged as he struggled to also collect the paperwork.

"No, no, I'm fine…" Oriri answered, and adjusted his glasses. As he stood, his back cracked-His face showed his obvious discomfort. "Just a little surprised, I suppose…. I take it you showed your wife the new land," he nodded towards Enzizi, who remained in the middle of the field. She gave a loud bawl that chilled Oriri's blood.

"Yeah! She's in tears she's so thrilled! I can't thank you enough again! I mean, banks and loans… What do they know, huh? What I needed was a business partner!"

"What did you say your credit was at again?"

"I dunno. There's a three somewhere. Banks don't like creativity. This business will be the one, though! A bakery! Home-baked goods, right from the home! And soon a café out back! Can't you imagine it?!"

"..Eh? O-Oh… Sorry, I guess my mind was wandering…" Oriri answered, shaking his head and clearing his throat.

Gohaha picked up a stray paper that had blown against his leg; this one wasn't like the school papers, though. It was crumpled up, and written hurriedly in pen. "What's this…. Poems? Jeeze, these… These are pretty bad… They don't pay you enough to teach writing, huh?!"

"I… I'm a chemistry teacher…." Oriri's face went bright red. About this time, Gohaha's eyes trailed down to the signature at the bottom of the page. It was Oriri's. Gohaha quickly handed it back, nodding an apology. Oriri, embarrassed, rushed away without another word, his normally chartreuse face a deep red.

And then on the way to university. He got there and found it packed with bored and half-dead looking students.

"All right! Who's excited for the finals!?" he exclaimed, pumping his hands in the air. This was met with a snore . The only one who looked mildly excited was a slightly older student, a tiny yellow Keronian, one who sat in the front row. This wasn't a student of Oriri's at all—It was his student assistant and lab aide, Fijiji.

"Fijiji… You… You didn't have to come today, you know…" Oriri said quietly, walking over to her. "…I know that you have finals of your own, and a dissertation…."

"Oh! I finished that for fun over the break! And my professors let me take my finals early! They said they were more than happy to have me out of their offices!" she exclaimed cheerfully, her hands remaining folded on the desk. "So I thought I could stay here and help you! If… If that's all right…."

"…Oh. Oh! Yes, that's no problem. You can help pass out tests," Oriri answered, handing her the papers. She took hold of these, her hand falling on top of his for a moment. Oriri immediately retracted his own hand, and rushed to the comfort of his desk.

The test couldn't finish quickly enough. Oriri did everything he could think to make himself look busy, and not make eye contact with Fijiji. When the last test was turned in, he stood, the tests now all in hand.

"Well! Only one more day of exams!" he proclaimed cheerfully to Fijiji.

"That's great! I'll come back tomorrow, too, then!" she replied, bouncy as ever. Her smile fell for a moment, and she tilted her head. She reached out, and placed a hand on Oriri's cheek, and then her forehead against his. "Oh! You have a fever! I thought you looked warm! Get some rest, Professor! Feel better tomorrow!"

He hurried out the room, and she called out to him once more. He didn't turn back.

And a little while later after the sun had set, Gohaha started to map out the back field, and the plans for the café, he noticed someone atop of Oriri's roof. He went to his bakery silently, found a rolling pin, and began to scale his neighbor's roof, via the ladder that had been set up on the side of the old dome.

He was just about to attack the "burglar", the rolling pin raised above his head, when Oriri screamed and rolled away just in time. Gohaha sent the pin flying down with such force it left a crack in the roof.

"O-Oh, wow! Oriri! Sorry, I thought someone was… Trying to break in… I… I'm really sorry! Hey, are you all right?" Gohaha panted. Oriri rolled back over to his original spot, and looked downward. "Hey, what's the matter….? You can tell me, I owe you money…."

"You just tried to kill me!" Oriri shouted.

"On accident!" Gohaha snapped in return.

Oriri was only quiet and snapped his head away. He was silent for a few moments, and then sat up and sighed, "I suppose I could use someone to talk to…. Even if you tried to kill me…."

"It was out of concern of a neighbor," Gohaha answered.

Oriri shook his head, "I can't believe I'm telling someone this… All right… There's…. Someone…."

"Are you in trouble? 'Cause, yeah, I know I just look like a baker, but I've got a cousin, he's into some things—I can get it taken care of for you, no problem."

"No! Nothing like that! Just… No…. It's my lab assistant…."

"Oh, really now? What's he doing? He need to get taken care of?"

"There's no one I want you to get "taken care of" for me! She's—"

"Ohhhhh! This is about a girl!"

Oriri gulped and averted his eyes. Gohaha laughed.

"You're older than me, shouldn't you be used to this sort of thing!? ...Well, just tell her that she's going to go out with you, and name the time and place and when she would be ready."

"That seems a little pushy…."

"Yeah… Honestly the one time I tried it I got punched…. Another girl on the street saw it all, felt bad, took me to the hospital… And that's how I met my wife!" Gohaha said proudly, perhaps a little too proudly.

"Well, I don't think I'd like to be punched…." Oriri mumbled. "I just want to tell her that…. I never really have told someone something like this before. You saw my poetry… A writer, I'm not."

"You'll figure it out," Gohaha patted him on the back. "I know we don't know one another all that well, but… I still think of you as an older, distant cousin I owe money to. And I don't just mean the one that's into things. Just have confidence. You're a great guy! Who wouldn't want to date you!?"

"…Plenty of people. People tend to think I'm sort of…. Boring," Oriri replied, looking down at the ground.

"What could make them think something like that? You seem like a great guy!"

Oriri looked up to Gohaha. "The closest thing I have to a hobby is proving theorems in my spare time."

"….I don't know what that means, but there's someone out there who does, and if this girl you're crazy about is just as into you, then she'll love you for it!"

"…Do you really think so?"

"Yeah, I do," Gohaha nodded. "…Now can we get down from here? It's a gorgeous moonlit night, and I don't want my wife getting the wrong idea from this."

"…Yeah…That'd probably be a good idea," Oriri agreed.

The next morning, Oriri walked with a new purpose. It was a much more confident stride. And it all vanished as soon as he got into the classroom and saw Fijiji sitting in the same spot as before. He this time hid in front of the chalkboard, writing out information that the students could fill out on their tests.

"Professor?" Oriri heard Fijiji call out to him. He flinched; he hadn't wanted to deal with this, not this soon. He turned around, slowly, his hand still holding the chalk against the board.

"Yes, Fijiji?"

"I'm sorry to disrupt everyone before the test, but…. It's the last day of classes for the semester, and I'm going to be graduating soon. I wanted to know if after I did, if you'd like to marry me. I've liked you for a long time now, and I think it'd be great if you said yes!"

The chalk scraped against the green board—Hard. All of the students and Fijiji flinched. Oriri turned around and smiled, widely.

"Yes… I… I'd like that very much…." Oriri answered, not minding the sound that much at all.

"That…. That's so CUTE!" Chunini exclaimed. Fujuju turned a shade of crimson. Chunini looked to Lupapa, "Don't you wish someone would be that adorable with you!?"

"Who says they haven't!?" Lupapa snapped and just as quickly covered her mouth. Chunini leaned inward and smiled.

"You're full of secrets, it seems!" she giggled, and nudged Lupapa.
"Your daughter can edit that out, right, Fujuju?" Lupapa sighed.

"Certainly," Fujuju nodded.

"Haha, I remember your mom, now that I think about it! She'd come in and help my mom in the bakery all the time… Really sweet lady-Never was allowed to work an oven, though, I remember that," Mahihi said to himself, and then his eyes went back to Fujuju, "…Oh."

"Yes, my, well… Curse…. Was an unfortunate gift from my mother…" Fujuju said quietly, his eyes on the table. "…My mother and father were married that very afternoon… She came to live with my father the next week. And they were very, very happy for a time."

"So was the war going on then?" asked Romama.

"Not until we were a little bit older…" Mahihi replied, "But things started up when we were babies. I think my first memory that something was up was actually my dad running out with a shotgun…."