The six hour long train ride to the city of their new home, from noon to dusk, made Frisk feel stiff and sore. Chara looked like they were on the verge of death. Their head was slumped over, their eyes were only half open, and their mouth was curled in an expression that could only be described as a very repulsed frown.
Earlier that day, they had packed everything that they needed – mostly their clothes, their laptops, and Asriel – and said goodbye to Toriel as they prepared to leave. Toriel had a tearful expression on her face as they were about to go, and Chara ended up giving her a very long hug, which Frisk joined in. They thanked Toriel for everything that she had done for them, and wished her the best in her future endeavours as a teacher. In return, Toriel told Chara to always be on their best behaviour, and to Frisk, to never lose their passion for learning.
Now that they had arrived, Frisk looked out the window and saw enormous crowds of people streaming through the train station. It would no doubt be like this outside the station as well, and they began to feel worried for Chara.
"Do you want to hold my hand again?" Frisk asked as they stood up and grabbed their luggage.
Chara seemed curiously ambivalent. "...Yes," they replied after some deliberation.
"All right."
"But, Frisk, I don't want you to think that I'll always be scared of being around other humans," Chara said. "I'm starting to get used to seeing them. Sometimes, I still feel nervous when I'm in a crowd, but it's getting better."
Frisk smiled in response. "That's good. But, I'll still hold your hand if you need me to!"
"Okay."
It occurred to Frisk as they left the train and entered the station that they and Chara probably looked like siblings when they walked, holding hands together. No one would suspect that they were actually dating each other – not that they cared at all what other people thought. A normal human being would probably think that they were just two children who loved each other enough that they didn't mind showing themselves holding hands in public. To a curious onlooker, it might even appear cute.
They were growing old enough to start having these thoughts, it seemed.
The station was a cacophony of noise, from the speaker announcements of the arriving and departing trains to the myriad of conversations all around them, to the sound of hundreds of boots and heels walking past. There were dozens of different exits out into the city, so they were wary of becoming lost. According to Alphys' instructions, they had to take the stairs to the second floor and then leave via exit 4B, which would take them to the bus terminal. Then, they would take bus 38 to New Home Street (was Asgore responsible for naming these places?), the heart of the city's monster community, and then walk east for three blocks to arrive at the laboratory.
Chara had asked if they could just be given a ride instead, but neither Alphys nor Undyne had their drivers' licenses yet. Out of all of Frisk's old friends, only Papyrus and Sans had their licenses, and neither of them were available on that day. They were still doing ambassador work alongside Asgore, according to Alphys.
This struck Frisk as strange. They couldn't imagine Sans doing any work at all.
Outside the station at the bus terminal, it was cold and windy, and the next bus 38 still had twelve minutes before it arrived. While they waited, they heard a tapping come from within one of their luggage bags, and Frisk opened it.
"Hey! Are we there yet?" Asriel's voice came from inside.
Frisk stared at the flower pot, all snuggled up nicely inside the bag, which was now covered in dirt. They glanced quickly around, making sure that nobody was looking at them. Monsters was one thing, but a talking flower would be even more difficult to explain.
"Shhh," Frisk replied, though they were smiling. "Almost. We're out of the train station, but we're still waiting for the bus. We'll get there in about half an hour."
"Asriel?" Chara said as they peered over the edge of the bag. "How are you feeling?"
There was still a bit of nervousness in Asriel's voice when he spoke to Chara due to the argument that they had a couple of weeks ago, but Chara's renewed friendliness towards him seemed to make him feel reassured.
"I'm fine," Asriel answered. "It's warm and snug in here. Just a bit...claustrophobic. Oh, and when you start walking again, can you not sway this bag around so much?"
Chara reached down into the bag and patted one of Asriel's petals. "Okay. I'll keep that in mind."
"Also!" Asriel said, his face becoming brighter. "When you get there, introduce me, too!"
"It might be a bit awkward to, uh, introduce you to Undyne," Frisk said. "But Alphys will understand. She's the one that's been doing research to try and help you."
"Oh..."
A cold wind blew at them, and Asriel visibly shivered.
"Eh, close the bag, please!" Asriel said. "It's so cold outside."
"You're telling us," Chara said. Frisk zipped up the bag again.
When the bus arrived, they got onto it, along with about a hundred other people. Nearly half of them were monsters, since the bus went directly to New Home Street. Frisk and Chara sat on the second floor. Once again, Chara had the window seat.
The sights of the city zoomed past them. This was one of the cities that the humans called a metropolis. It was the largest in the country, and also one of the most diverse.
They were actually quite fortunate.
Before monsters returned to the surface, the humans were already in the middle of a large diversification reform, in which immigration policies were relaxed and new laws were introduced to promote both racial and sexual diversity. The monsters had initially laughed at the fact that humans still categorized each other with the idea of race. To monsters, all humans looked almost exactly the same. The differences in looks between monsters was much greater, and so monster culture treated diversity as granted.
But, because of this reform, humans had been much more open to accepting monsters when they returned to the world. The transition of monsters in creating monster communities within the various cities in the world (that accepted them) was much like how, in the past, humans from different cultures created their own communities when they immigrated into different countries. It was done to preserve culture, not to promote segregation. In most of these large cities, monsters were accepted immediately into the community as well as the workplace.
From reading the news, Frisk knew that this was not always the case, and – unfortunately – tragic incidents of violence and discrimination had indeed occurred repeatedly between humans and monsters, sometimes resulting in death. It was due to these cases that Asgore had to take over Papyrus' role as ambassador, and he pushed to add new laws to make monsters equal under the law as humans. These laws were quickly accepted.
They saw, as they looked outside the window, first the city's business district, full of towering skyscrapers and sterile cement roads. Then, the bus passed by a park, and also a university, before turning into a section of the city that was remarkably more interesting. It looked like a marketplace, as it was full of shops and restaurants. Many of the stores here displayed languages that were not English, and these languages had always fascinated Frisk before when they went on their journeys across the world. Unlike English, some of these languages were made entirely of elegant symbols, almost like runes, while other languages had alphabets whose characters were long and curly. Then there were the languages that looked very much like English, but they couldn't recognize a single word being spelled.
The traffic in this marketplace grew to become tedious. What was originally supposed to be a twenty minute bus ride turned into one that was over forty.
When it finally arrived onto New Home Street, they got off and spent a bit of time looking around.
It was the first true 'Monster Community' that they had seen within a city (other than the monster-only market that they had visited last month). There were many stores here that reminded Frisk of the towns that they had visited underground. Grillby's seemed to have turned into a franchise, as they were several spinoffs around. There was a ship with a familiar looking old turtle's head posted in its front, selling both junk and antiques. Several spider parlours were around, along with nice cream stalls, and even a Mettaton-branded dance club.
Alphys' laboratory was a huge gated building that looked like it was half an apartment. When they arrived inside, they realized that it actually was.
"Hey, kid! How long's it been?"
Frisk turned to see Alphys and Undyne walking towards them. They almost couldn't help themselves but run up to them and give both of them a hug.
"Still as wimpy as always, huh?" Undyne said, grinning. "You call that a hug? THIS is a hug!"
Undyne lifted Frisk up into her arms and squeezed them hard enough to make them feel like this was another battle with her. Then, she put Frisk down, and they turned to face Alphys, who was looking at Chara nervously. A smile was slowly spreading across her lips.
"H-hi, Frisk!" Alphys said, clearly trying her hardest to sound confident. "I-I haven't s-seen you since w-we left the underground! H-how's life been for you?"
"It's been great," Frisk replied, which seemed to surprise both her and Undyne.
"You can talk now?!" Undyne exclaimed.
"Yeah," Frisk said. "Uh, I mean, I could always talk, but now, I've gotten used to talking more."
"T-that's good," Alphys said, before tilting her head to the side to look at Chara, who was standing in a corner of the room with their arms folded. There was an indifferent expression on Chara's face, as if they didn't care about this reunion.
"S-so, u-uh, th-that's Chara, I guess," Alphys continued. She walked towards them. "Ah, Chara? Uh..."
Chara gave Alphys a mildly contemptuous look.
"S-sorry about that argument we had the other day," Alphys said, turning her head down. "I was, uh...I-I'm sorry, uh, for getting mad at you b-because you thought Mew Mew Kissy 3 was better than the original."
This seemed to soften up Chara's expression. They looked at Alphys more kindly, and tried to muster up a smile.
"Ah, yeah, I guess I got carried away in that argument," Chara said. "So, uh, sorry for telling you that your taste was garbage, and, uh, for saying that you should..."
Chara appeared suddenly very uncomfortable.
"I f-forgive you for that!" Alphys said. "B-but uh, you have quite the colourful language! Eh-heh-heh..."
"At least we both agree that Mew Mew Kissy 2 was trash for ruining her entire character arc, right?" Chara said, finally giving a full smile.
"Yeah!"
"Hey, Frisk," Undyne spoke up, "Is Chara really going to be moving in with us?"
"Of course!" Frisk answered.
Undyne appeared surprised by the force of Frisk's response.
"Th-that's perfectly fine!" Alphys said, shuffling back to stand beside Undyne. "We have lots of rooms in our laboratory. I-I'm sure the two of you will really like it. H-here, let's help you move all your luggage!"
Alphys went to pick up one of Frisk's bags, while Undyne put on a grin, jumped towards the other bags, and picked all of them up with one arm. Then, she picked up all of Chara's bags with her other arm.
There was a voice that went "OW! Ah, oww! Hey, watch it!" from inside one of those bags.
"Uh, what?" Undyne said.
Frisk tried to stifle a giggle. They reached towards the bag and pulled it down from Undyne's arm.
"Let me carry that one," they replied.
Alphys hadn't been kidding. They were given a room like one in a condo, with a large window that looked out over the city streets below. It was on the sixth floor of the laboratory, out of a total of twelve. There was a kitchen, a living room with couches and a TV with several gaming consoles beside it, a large bathroom, and a bedroom with two beds. (They were probably still going to sleep together, but Alphys didn't need to know that...yet)
When Frisk unpacked Asriel, both Undyne and Alphys turned to stare at the flower in shock.
"Howdy!" Asriel said in greeting. "I'm, uh, Asriel. Nice to meet you two!"
"This is...Asriel," Frisk said, pointing to the flower with an awkward smile on their face. "He's been living with us ever since we left the underground."
"Don't worry, I'm not much trouble," Asriel said, mainly to Undyne.
"A TALKING FLOWER?"
"Oh, y-yeah, heh-heh," Alphys said, turning towards Undyne. "This is...Asriel. He, uh, needs to have a s-soul again, s-so I've been trying to d-do research to help him with that."
Undyne stared at the flower suspiciously, causing Asriel to lean away in fright.
"Don't scare him!" Chara shouted, which even made Undyne back off. "We're going to take care of him until he can get his soul back."
"I-I'll explain everything l-later, okay?" Alphys said to Undyne.
"...Isn't Asriel the name of the king's former son?"
"A l-lot of explaining, I guess." Alphys cringed.
After they had unpacked everything, Alphys went to give them a tour of the laboratory.
The whole place was full of scientists, both monster and human. Each floor had a central laboratory, and on every third floor, there was a cafeteria that was open from dawn to midnight. On the eleventh floor, there was a bar and a gym, and on the twelfth floor, there was a swimming pool.
"T-the government owns this laboratory, but they transferred control of it o-over to m-me when I became h-head of the science faculty at the university," Alphys said, blushing a little.
"Wait. So you're also a professor?" Frisk asked, startled.
"Y-yeah. The university r-really liked my research into 'determination', and they agreed to g-give me this whole b-building to me so that I can further my r-research."
"Isn't she amazing?" Undyne said, rubbing Alphys' spiky head.
"A-actually, I-I've started to do research on s-something else, too," Alphys said quietly. "B-but, I-I'm sure that can wait until later f-for me to tell you!"
They were inside the elevator. Alphys pressed the button to return to the sixth floor. Upon studying the panel, Frisk noticed that there was also a basement floor.
"So, what's in the basement?" they asked.
"Oh, uh, that's j-just a storage room," Alphys replied. Her eyes darted away from Frisk's. "But, d-don't go down there! It's d-dark, and dirty, and I w-wouldn't want y-you to, uh, to – to get l-lost, or anything!"
Frisk raised their eyes curiously.
"Yeah, don't go there!" Undyne chimed. "I went there once. It was dark, it was cramped, and it was full of dirt! IT SUCKED!"
"Uh, dirt?" Alphys said suddenly.
"DON'T GO THERE!" Undyne repeated.
Conveniently, Undyne and Alphys' room was located right beside Frisk and Chara's. They went into their room first to check it out.
It was the most contrasting mix of atmosphere that they had ever seen. One side of the living was full of glittery posters and bookshelves containing games, books, and anime. The other side was saturated with workout equipment and 'motivational' posters that looked like they came from a medieval torture chamber.
"S-so, this is w-where Undyne and I live!" Alphys said. "D-do you two like it?"
"I love it!" Chara responded. "Hey, Alphys. Do you want to play games together tonight?"
Alphys giggled. "Oh, y-yeah, sure! But, f-first, let me cook dinner."
Frisk watched as Alphys opened up their cupboards. To their surprise, it was full of bags of rice, seaweed packets, soy sauce bottles, sesame oil, curry sauce, and ramen noodles. The fridge was saturated with green onions.
"Why all the-"
"Oh my god," Alphys said, turning around. Her eyes looked like they were almost sparkling. "Did I tell you about my trip to this country called Japan? IT WAS-"
"Yeah, you told me," Chara said. "You learned how to cook a whole bunch of Japanese dishes, right? And now you literally can't eat anything else so you went to the local Asian supermarket and you bought all the ingredients that you need to make your favourite Japanese food for the rest of your life?"
"Uh, yeah, r-right!"
"So, what are we having for dinner?" Chara asked.
"I'll m-make Katsudon for you!" Alphys said, before turning to face Undyne. "A-and th-this time, I w-won't end up burning everything!"
Undyne made a snarky expression. "You s-sure about that, Alphys?"
"W-well, u-uh, maybe you don't need to help me with it this time," Alphys said, cringing again.