Author's Note: Some suggestive double entendres/themes might be present in this chapter, so reader discretion is advised.
Third Person P.O.V.
It was a typical Wednesday afternoon, and the colleagues of the genetics and fossil labs were having one of their usual lunches together. Just discussing the usual topics including research, personal lives, world events and other topics.
"So yeah, my week has been pretty routine so far, what about you Edwin? I hear that you are staying over at Jasiri's place for the week, how is that going so far?" Makuu asked.
"Oh yeah, it's going fine so far." Edwin replied.
"Wait, I forgot, why are you guys living and staying with each other again?" Makini asked.
"Well Makini, over the weekend I asked Jasiri if she wanted us to move in and start living together…..in particular with me moving into her apartment….we agreed and now we are doing a week-long trial run to make sure and determine if we are ready for the next step or if we need to just keep things the way they are." Edwin replied.
"Okay that's smart. My wife and I also did one of those trial periods before we moved in together." Pete replied.
"You guys are lucky, when we first became hybrids and entered human society, there was no trial period to see if our human guides were compatible with us or not, the shaman just randomly assigned groups to individuals willing to take us in. fortunately Chausiku, Jasiri and I were compatible, but it was still a pretty awkward transition process and a trial period really could have saved us some trouble, plus I heard some people had a much more difficult transition process and relationships with their human guides." Makuu said.
"So how is your trial run going so far?" Vuruga asked.
"So far, it's going well, we are adjusting to each other well, and we are preparing for anything that might occur that could potentially cause possible tension or annoyance when any of those occur. I'm even letting Edwin bring his bass over and occasionally play it. But that's not a major problem since I have noise-canceling headphones if it starts to bother me." Jasiri said.
"Throughout our experiences, we also got a chance to know flaws and habits we both have and try to talk through any argument to potentially come up with a compromise. Like two days ago, I started to notice that Jasiri constantly hums whenever some kind of music is playing, even a few times when there was just a commercial on TV." Edwin said.
"I also found out that Edwin taps his fingers on any flat surface like he is some kind of tabletop Timberlake." Jasiri said with slight irritation hinted at in her tone.
"Or how she constantly clicks a pen up and down everytime she writes something down. Why are you still writing things down for nonwork stuff? We have smartphones and tablets now, there's a need for that. Nor a need for all that clicking." Edwin replied with also a hint of irritation.
"Or how I love it when you leave the toilet seat up after every time you use the bathroom." Jasiri said with slightly more irritation to her voice.
"Or playing my favorite game ….whose hair is in the shower and soap? Most of the time it's Jasiri's?" Edwin said.
"Oh yeah, well I have seen some light brown strands among that pile.." Jasiri retorted, before Makini intervened to change the subject.
"Okay….no need to get agitated by the small stuff. Let's just change the subject. For example, I'm not that into it but I heard something about Alicia Keys hosting the Grammys this Sunday?" Makini said.
"I did hear something about that. To be honest, I kinda had a crush on her when I was in elementary and middle school. She was kinda my first childhood crush in the human world. But that was a long time ago." Beshte said.
"Yeah, I remember that, you played 'Fallin' so many times on the CD player at our old place. And that your first iPod only had songs from her album The Diary of Alicia Keys." Makini replied.
"Hey, don't judge me, that was a good album. Plus most of us had celebrity crushes at one point or another. I remembered that you were Jake Gyllenhaal for a little bit in middle school." Beshte said.
"Oh, conversation topic, let's state our first celebrity crushes when entering the human world. Mine was Roger Federer." Vuruga said.
"Wait what?" Jasiri exclaimed.
"You mean the tennis player? I didn't know you were into tennis." Edwin said.
"Not necessarily because of the game itself though. If you saw him move the way I did, your eyes would be glued to the screen too." Vuruga said.
"Mine was Leona Lewis." Pete replied.
"Diane Lane," Bupu replied.
"Anne Hathaway." Edwin said.
"Really? I never thought that Anne Hathaway would have been your celebrity crush." Jasiri said with a slight chuckle in her voice.
"Yeah, I'm not sure why but there was just something about her when I was in late elementary school and early middle school. How about you? Who was your celebrity crush?" Edwin asked.
"Well…..my first celebrity crush in the human world was…..Ryan Gosling…" Jasiri said awkwardly.
"Really? Ryan Gosling? I never would have thought that." Edwin said while slightly chuckling.
"It's true. She had a poster of him on her wall when she was younger. I remember when she bought that poster and it was on her wall for a few years. I remembered this one time when she was twelve, it was my turn to do laundry that day so I went to Jasiri's to ask her for her laundry and I walked into her kissing the poster and-" Makuu started to call before Jasiri interrupted him.
"Dad- I mean Makuu! Please don't tell that story! It's so embarrassing!" Jasiri said.
"Okay Jasiri, but you have nothing to worry about. We all have our fair share of stories of embarrassing stuff we have done in our own lives." Makuu said.
"It's true. As you know, I have my own share of embarrassing stories of stuff I did when I was younger." Edwin said.
"Okay, and Makuu, let's not forget those times I caught you staring at Halle Berry on the TV and movie screens for long periods of time." Jasiri said with a hint of mischief in her voice.
"Hey, she is fine and talented, and that is a great combination. Don't judge me." Makuu said.
"Hello, how are you all today?" A voice called. The group turned around to find Ma Tembo near their table.
"Hi Ma Tembo, we are doing fine, how about yourself?" Pete replied.
"I am doing well, and also I came to ask my co-researchers of how to do the mini-preps of our set of peptide samples?" Ma Tembo said.
"I can do it, and I think the others are planning to start FPLC of their protein cultures anyway." Vuruga replied.
"Sounds good, thank you Vuruga. Plus, I can't help but hear you guys being so invested in this conversation of yours, and I was wondering what you guys were talking about?" Ma Tembo said.
"Well….sorry if this seems unprofessional but we were talking about celebrity crushes we had either in our childhoods or in one's first years in the human world." Edwin replied.
"Ah no worries, this is your guys' break, I won't judge you for what you talk about during those times. And also, for the record, my celebrity crush in my early years of the human world was mister Blair Underwood. I could not take my eyes off him when I saw him in something." Ma Tembo said before walking in the direction from which she initially came from.
"Okay…why do I feel weird about Ma Tembo's answer?" Makuu asked. The rest of the group gave him individual gestures that are typically nonverbal ways of saying 'I don't know'.
Soon the end of the work day and week comes with Friday at 5:00 PM. There was no meeting of the Human and Hybrid Alliance that week so Edwin and the others in his lab were preparing to go home. After he left his lab for the day, he started to walk towards the entrance of the fossil preparation lab. He looked at the weather app on his phone to find that there will be light snow outside tonight. He also looked at a window near the roof, seeing that it was already dark outside.
He waited a few minutes until Jasiri came out in her anthro hyena form with a scarf loosely wrapped around her face as she would usually do on winter nights. They walked down the stairs and eventually outside of the museum and headed to the Red Line to catch a train back to Jasiri's apartment. There was no meeting of the Human-Hybrid Alliance that night so they decided to relax for that night.
Saturday soon came and it was an uneventful day outside of Edwin helping Jasiri with the groceries. After they put the groceries away, Edwin started to pass by time by playing his double bass for a while. He was playing Divertimento in C Major by Michael Haydn to pass the time. All of the sudden Jasiri came out of the bedroom, in her human form and an irritated expression was visible on her face.
She then walked in front of Edwin with her arms crossed, Edwin soon stopped playing the instrument.
"Edwin…uhhhh honey….like, this the THIRD time I have to tell you today to please keep it down with that bass, so can you please keep it down for once, I have a stressful week at work coming up and I really need to mentally prepare myself for what is coming up!" Jasiri said in a noticeably annoyed tone.
This caused Edwin to place his bow on the instrument case with an equally irritated expression on his face.
"Well, so do I! Playing the bass is a way that I cope with stress sometimes! Plus I tried to keep it down but you never seem to be satisfied whenever I try. I even suggested playing my bass in the hallway, but Nooooo…..you said you didn't want to bother the neighbors. You never seem to be satisfied with any option I propose. It's not my fault that you couldn't find your noise canceling headphones." Edwin replied, raising his voice in the same irritated tone.
"Then find another way to de-stress!" Jasiri yelled.
"Fine! I have some dirty laundry to do anyway, so I'm going down to the basement to put these through the washer. It at least gives me something to do!" Edwin said as he was putting away the double bass back in its case.
"Fine! Go ahead, at least it will give me some peace and quiet." Jasiri said.
"Fine!" Edwin said.
"Fine!" Jasiri said.
"Fine!" Edwin said.
"Fine!" Jasiri replied.
"FINE!" Both yelled at each other.
Edwin soon placed his bass case against the wall for later use. He then grabbed a laundry bag before heading out to the basement, slamming the front door on his way out. Jasiri then went back to the bedroom to go through some emails on her laptop.
An hour or two after Edwin went to do his laundry, he and Jasiri, in her anthro hyena form, sat down to have dinner. The two of them ate in silence for the most part…..with the exception of Edwin repetitively tapping three fingers on the table in a repetitive motion as he was eating.
This made Jasiri increasingly annoyed and started to throw an angry glare at him.
"Hey….mister Timberlake…..can you please stop tapping your fingers on the fucking the table! Compared to last week, you are sure not bringing sexy back tonight." Jasiri said.
"Fine, as long as you promise that you stop randomly humming like you were five minutes ago." Edwin replied.
More silence ensued after that, and after that Edwin was helping wash the dishes and Jasiri was heading into the bathroom.
A few minutes passed, and the silence broke.
"EDWIN!" Jasiri said, raising her voice. Edwin stopped washing the dishes to head towards Jasiri, where she stood with an annoyed expression on her face.
"Edwin, how many times do I have to tell you to put the toilet seat back down after you are done using it? This has to be the sixth time I told you in a week!" Jasiri said, not bothering to even hide her frustration.
"Oh yeah?! Well I've told you about the same number of times, if not more to stop your incessant pen-clicking when writing stuff down, but YOU still do it! Oh and…YOU NEVER CLEAN YOUR HAIR FROM THE FRIGGING SHOWER DRAIN! HOW THE HELL DOES ONE HAVE SO MUCH HAIR!?" Edwin retorted, eventually yelling the later half of the sentence.
"I'm literally a hyena on two feet from night to early mornings, which are also known as the hours when it is typically dark outside, and the times I usually take showers…YOU THINK I CAN HELP IT?! I SHED HAIR AND FUR EVERY DAY, so I'm sorry my everyday transformations cause you an inconvenience..But don't act like you are all fresh and innocent on THIS issue. I've seen YOUR fair share of contribution to stray hairs in the shower drain, the walls and even the curtain sometimes! HOW CAN A PRODUCE SO MUCH STRAY HAIRS!?" Jasiri yelled.
"Well sometimes that happens when one has long hair, you have long hair too! And-" Edwin said before he started to just stare into blank space.
"Oh my goodness, what am I fucking doing with myself?" Edwin said in a calmer tone, before he started to lift his hands up, walked to the nearby couch, sat down and put his hands in his face.
"What the fuck am I doing?" Edwin said to himself in a melancholic tone.
"Wha….wha..what's happening? What's wrong? Why did you stop?" Jasiri said in a calmer tone. Though still a little irritation is present, it is a more dissipated form of irritation compared to that from minutes earlier.
Soon it can be heard that Edwin is starting to cry.
"OH FUCK NO! I CAN'T REPEAT THIS CYCLE! WHY AM I DOING THIS?!" Edwin yelled through his hands, and his breathing started to get heavy.
Jasiri started to look concerned and started to walk towards Edwin and sit next to him on the couch.
"Wait what's wrong? You can always talk to me about it. And what do you mean by 'repeat this cycle'?" Jasiri said in a more empathetic tone.
Edwin soon took his hands off his face; his eyes looked bloodshot and there were tears starting to run on his face.
"I'm sorry Jasiri…I'm sorry for all the stuff I caused to inconvenience you over the last day or two. The hair in the bathroom, the finger tapping and playing my bass at inappropriate times. It was inconsiderate of me, and I should have been more conscious of those things. I also apologize if I caused any escalation of our recent arguments, it was uncalled for." Edwin said, sniffling between parts of his response.
"It's okay Edwin…and I should apologize for any habits I have done, along with potentially escalating any of the arguments we have recently had." Jasiri said.
"No no, I should be the one apologizing. You said you had a stressful week at work later and I shouldn't have made it inconvenient for you. Plus, I promised myself to never even think about escalating arguments over small stuff. I am not contributing to repeating that awful cycle." Edwin said.
"Wait…what do you mean by cycle?" Jasiri said.
"Well….you know how I told you that my parents verbally fought with each other all the time when they were still married?" Edwin asked.
"Yeah why?" Jasiri asked.
"Well, many of these fights actually started with small stuff such as my dad leaving his shoes in the middle of the floor, my mom icing pots loudly when she uses them for dinner, my dad almost never picking up after himself when he used the living room or kitchen and my mother cracking her knuckle. It was these small things that started the arguments that escalated to the major stuff like money, raising children and such. That atmosphere made my sister and I miserable during most days when both of our parents were home at the same time. We had to essentially walk on metaphorical eggshells a lot of the time. Though thankfully none of my parents' fights ever got physical, they were still verbally intense and it…it still created a tense atmosphere before, during and after these fights occurred. I remembered when my sister and I were younger….like when the fights got really bad, we used to hide in one of our closets, or sometimes build blanket forts in one of our rooms. We used to do stuff like play board games, have little spelling bees with a dictionary we own and other stuff. Occasionally we even called our grandmother to try hearing a comforting voice sometimes. Though we stopped having those when we got older, occasionally my sister and I still talked to each other when things got rough." Edwin said before getting up to look out the window.
"Though my parents both contributed to the tense atmosphere, my mother actually tried to calm things down most of the time and actually was being a decent parent and has since further improved our relationship. My father on the other hand…..seemed to only care about being right in their arguments….he could never take or accept criticism. In his mind he always had to be right….it drove all of us crazy. That's one of the many reasons why I've never had a close relationship with my father. We disagreed on countless things throughout my life. For example, we had little if any shared interests. We also argued about politics a lot, because he is politically conservative, while I am politically liberal. He wanted me to enter a career in business to follow in his footsteps, while I followed my passion in the sciences. He frequently said things of poor taste and stuff that is offensive and politically incorrect for many groups of people. He wanted to portray himself as some kind of 'all knowing being', when all his stubbornness basically burned bridges with almost everyone he knew. But that's the past, he moved to Florida, he remarried and the two of us don't really have any relationship anymore outside of the occasional birthday or 'Happy Holidays' text. And as I grew up and grew older, I promised myself to never EVER under any circumstances…be anything like that man. But as we argued over the course of today….I realized that I have failed and….became my jackass of a father….I can't believe I let myself do this to you and..and" Edwin said before he started to cry out, put his hands on his face and got on his knees still facing the window.
With a more sympathetic expression on her face, Jasiri began to approach him and put her arms around him, turned him around to face her, and placed him in a tight hug. She started to stroke his hair gently in an attempt to comfort him.
"Oh Edwin….honey…..that is nowhere near true…..Edwin….look at me…Edwin….." Jasiri said in a comforting tone while trying to get Edwin to look at her.
"Edwin….look at me…..you are nothing like your father…like you said, he never admitted he was wrong or held himself accountable for anything…..but you did…..in fact a few minutes ago you apologized and told me that you were wrong….and to be fair, I wasn't exactly helping the situation either…" Jasiri said calmly.
"I guess you have a point, but still….I should do a better job respecting your boundaries…I guess that my mind has been so occupied with work lately I guess I keep forgetting to respect boundaries….But that's not an excuse, we should really work on better communication…I don't want us to end up like your relationship with the guy in LA….or even worse….what you had between you and Kion." Edwin said as his tears started to stop coming out.
"True…that will never happen with us…..the both of us just need to do a better job at communicating because I love you and I want us to last….plus I get it….I've been stressed with work too, with this grant proposal presentation Makuu and I have on Thursday….I guess the stress of that has gotten to me because I have heard that some departments in the museum have been experiencing budget cuts and that will not be ideal for our lab…." Jasiri said.
"Really? My lab has a grant presentation the following week and we have the same fears of our lab getting cuts….I guess this has just been a bad two weeks recently at work ..." Edwin said as he got up to his feet.
"Yeah…and look at us, we typically communicate well with the small stuff and all the sudden we're letting miniscule and mediocre things get to us…like the toilet seat thing, hair in the shower, humming…" Jasiri said as a calmer and light-hearted tone started to develop, with even a light chuckle coming out of her mouth afterwards.
"Yeah, and about finger-tapping, pen-clicking, bass music and all that." Edwin said before he and Jasiri started to laugh.
"Your bass playing actually wasn't bad, I guess there were sometimes I just needed to focus on certain stuff, and I admit, those arguments probably could have been avoided if I didn't misplace my noise-canceling headphones." Jasiri said.
"Yeah, and with all that has been going on this week and such, I can understand if you are not ready for us to move in together." Edwin said.
"Actually….I think that it would actually be great if you move in with me next month and such….so yeah….I think that I am ready for us to live with each other…..like in the long term." Jasiri calmly said as she began to smile.
Edwin developed a surprised but cheerful expression on his face.
'Wait….you mean it? You think we are ready to live with each other?" Edwin asked.
"Yes, I think we are. Though this week was a little rough in regard to work and getting to know some of the annoying habits we have. But if you exclude those factors, the trial run actually went pretty smoothly and the rough patches we encounter are stuff that can be easily resolved with some communication. But also, we've had our good days and our bad days and there will be both good and bad days in the future….we will persevere through the bad days….and I am really looking forward for the good days….so how about it….Edwin, do you still want to live with me?"
"Yeah, of course I do! I'll move my stuff here in a couple weeks. Any stuff that is non-essential to me, I can place in either a storage unit or sell the things that I don't have any sentimental attachment to, but we can figure that part out later." Edwin said as the two began to embrace each other.
"Great, how about we celebrate our future of living together with some nice relaxation to recover from the stress both of us have experienced?" Jasiri asked.
"That sounds like a great idea." Edwin replied.
Soon enough, the two of them decided to rest up on the couch and started to watch television. But neither of them was really paying attention to the program that was on, the couple was now enjoying time together as they usually did, placing their arms around each other's shoulders, occasionally separating to take pretzels out of the shared bowl on the coffee table.
"Well, we had a rough patch, we resolved it, we're probably going to encounter more in the future, but knowing us, I am positive we'll get through it all." Jasiri said.
"Yep, we are going to go through it all. I am also glad that we got that over with. We just need to make sure that we can take any opportunity we can get so that we can optimize our communication with each other so that we can make our relationship even stronger." Edwin replied.
"Well, I can agree to that." Jasiri said.
"You know, my father said a ton of stuff that is misinformed, offensive, inconsiderate and just plain wrong. But….there was one thing I remembered he said…and ONLY ONE thing….that actually made sense." Edwin said.
"Oh yeah…..what was it?" Jasiri asked.
"One time I remembered he told me 'never go to bed angry, or it will just spill into the next day'. I'm glad that we were able to resolve our earlier conflict early because I did not want any anger or negative emotions from today or even yesterday spill on to tomorrow or any future day that we might risk damaging our relationship." Edwin said.
"Yeah….I totally get it. It's like when people hold on to grudges or anger about other stuff, it will just do more damage in the future. Two of my exes used to hold things in all the time and refused to talk about them, it resulted in frequent arguments and unhealthy ways of taking out that anger." Jasiri said.
"Yeah, let's just do our best to communicate honestly between each other as much as possible." Edwin said.
"Agreed!" Jasiri said before she and Edwin continued to embrace each other on the couch, even kissing as the television was still on.
The next morning Jasiri transformed into her human form in the bathroom after she woke up
She walked into the living room and kitchen area to find Edwin already awake and starting to make a pot of coffee. He then turned around to face Jasiri when he noticed her walking in the area.
"Good morning, Jas! I am really sorry if I woke you up. I am making some coffee. Would you like some?...Wait…..aw man….I'm sorry….I shouldn't have used your coffee maker without asking you…that wasn't cool of me." Edwin said.
"Oh no no Ed…it's actually fine. I was actually heading here to make some coffee, so yes, I would love some. And besides…. this is going to be your coffee maker too after you move out of your current apartment." Jasiri said in a calm tone.
"Okay, then the coffee will be ready in seven or eight minutes." Edwin said as Jasiri started to help out Edwin preparing breakfast.
"So how did you sleep last night?" Edwin asked.
"I slept well, though the argument we had earlier last evening was not particularly fun, but I am glad that we were able to talk through and get past it…..And I especially liked when we did that additional 'making up' if you know what I mean?" Jasiri said with a sly expression and tone, even managing to give him a noticeable wink.
"Yeah, it was…. last night was amazing. You were amazing." Edwin replied.
"I wouldn't say it was all me, you were making all the right moves." Jasiri said in a seductive tone.
They soon made our breakfast and coffee, ate together while having casual conversation, and eventually Edwin started to pack his things to head back to his apartment before he moves in with Jasiri. He was placing his clothes in his suitcase and as he was checking for any potentially forgotten clothes, he came across something under the blankets on the bed.
"Hey Jasiri! Come here, look what I found!" Edwin said loudly.
Jasiri soon walked in the room a minute later.
"What is it?" Jasiri asked.
Edwin soon pulled out a pair of black headphones out of the blanket.
"Look, it's your noise-canceling headphones, the ones that you were looking for during the latter half of this week." Edwin said before letting out a light chuckle.
Jasiri followed, letting out a small laugh from her.
"So that's where those were. I've been looking for them for two or three days, I wonder how they got there?" Jasiri replied as she grabbed the headphones from Edwin.
"It probably would have saved us from that argument yesterday?" Edwin said.
"Yeah, it probably would have. So did you contact Kendall and Jamal about being our guests or this Friday's meeting?" Jasiri asked.
"Oh yeah, they said that they will be able to come and meet up at the museum entrance by the parking lot at 5:00 or 5:30 PM ." Edwin replied.
"Sounds great. I find it interesting that Rafiki decided to organize a 'Hybrids Bring Human Guest' week. It would help broaden the range of humans that will hear our stories, listen to our experiences and perspectives, along with trying to increase the number of humans who are more interested in the individuals we are in character rather than judge us mostly on what we look like during the night." Jasiri said.
"Yeah, it would be interesting to see and hear more about both our colleague's lives outside work and the different experiences of human-hybrid interactions." Edwin said.
"Yes, Friday's meeting should be an interesting one." Jasiri said.
Soon Edwin finished packing his items and the couple started to head out to get in Jasiri's car for her to drop Edwin back to his apartment
They got in the car and turned up the volume of the car radio. After a song played and finished, the DJs on the station they were listening to were conversing with each other.
Well, that was Roddy Rich with his new hit "The Box" that is currently sitting at number one on the Billboard chart! Man, this guy is going viral with this song.
And breaking news item, Kobe Bryant, former Los Angeles Laker player and NBA All Star has tragically died today in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California.
He was in a helicopter with eight other people, including the pilot when the helicopter crashed onto a hill, and one of the other passengers was his thirteen-year-old daughter Gianna. There were unfortunately no survivors.
Both Edwin and Jasiri developed surprised expressions on their faces when they heard the recent news on the radio.
"Wow, this is so sad." Jasiri said.
"Yeah, I remembered that Kobe Bryant was a big deal when I was in middle school and high school. I am not nor was I ever really into basketball, but he was a big deal. Even people who I knew that were die-hard Bulls fans still respected Kobe despite him being a Laker. I remembered some of the athletes or sports enthusiasts at my school obsessed over the time that he scored over 80 points in a game once." Edwin said.
"Trust me Edwin, when I lived in Los Angeles, Kobe Bryant was a big deal to people who lived in and just outside of LA. Even people who weren't avid sports fans knew about him." Jasiri said.
"Yeah, and did they say his thirteen-year-old daughter was also killed. That is extremely tragic, I cannot imagine what their family is going through." Edwin said.
"Yeah, and those of the other passengers on that helicopter." Jasiri said in a saddened tone.
"I cannot imagine." Edwin said.
"It just shows, make sure you let your loved ones know that you love them because you don't know when that time will come when you can no longer say it to them." Jasiri said.
"Yeah, it really makes you think." Edwin replied.
They soon stopped the car at a red light and started to look at each other.
"I'm so glad we were able to resolve our argument yesterday. I cannot imagine what I would feel if you died after that and my last words to you were negative ones." Jasiri said.
"Me neither, I would never forgive myself if something happened to you and our last interaction with each other being mad at each other." Edwin replied.
"I love you, Edwin." Jasiri said.
"I love you, Jasiri." Edwin said.