Chapter Sixteen

Once again instead of taking the bus Nasia teleported them straight to his front door. After his brain stopped swishing around his skull he says,
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.”
But Nasia wasn’t paying any attention to him as she stares up at the sky. Coming to stand next to her he looks up too but doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “Do you see something?” He asks.
Looking away she smiles at him that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “No.” Was all she says as she turns back to the door.
Finding her straightforward answer to be a bit odd he opens the door and calls out to his mom who was home. “Mom, I’m home and brought a friend over. We’re heading to my room!”
“Okay sweetie, your father is bringing home dinner tonight.” She calls back as the sounds of the television in the living room could be heard.
“It’s over this way.” Leading them down the hallway he opens a door to the left and walks through.
After stepping through she looks around and was amazed at all the objects carefully displayed on shelves. There were posters and other objects hanging on the walls. Large statues of characters she’s never seen before displayed on stands and in glass cases. His room was clean with a wide queen size bed, a large dresser on one side of the room and an entire gaming setup in the corner of the other.
He watches her look at everything he owned. Clearing his throat he comments, “Yeah I happen to be a huge anime, movie nerd. I collect things”
Heading to the other wall where a large tv screen was mounted with a tv stand just below it he grabs a device and pushes a button that starts it right up. Blinking she watches as it comes alive making noises and lights as the black screen begins showing images.
“Okay, so the first movie we’re going to watch is one of my favorites and I’m only telling you this because I know for a fact you won’t make fun of me or go to a bunch of people bragging how lame I am.”
Slipping a sliver shining disk in the device with colors she watches as he selects the word play on a movie called, Some Kind of Wonderful.
For the next two hours she sat there on his bed completely transfixed of the humans telling a story of two best friends and another girl who was popular. She listened intently, watched with precision to everything they said and displayed. Her focus was so set on the movie that she didn’t notice how Ry kept looking at her, watching the way her features changed every so often at certain scenes of the movie.
She didn’t even look away when she asked mounds of questions about why the characters acted they way they did, or why the main characters didn’t realize their own feelings for each other when it was so obvious to the watcher.
All in all, he was having fun teaching her the human capacity to feel. At one point his mom came to his door letting him know that his father was home. He quickly introduced the two of them and while Nasia was her typical self of oddity, his mother accepted her as she was. Once she turned back to the movie considering the introduction done his mom gave him a thumbs up with a huge smile on her face.
He waved his hand at her to leave them be and was confused on why she was acting like that in the first place. Next they watched another eighties movie, Better Off Dead.
“Why does he keep trying to kill himself? Doesn’t he want to live? I thought you humans considered life more important than death?” She asks him after the third attempt that the character tries to end his life.
“We do. He’s just being overly dramatic because he believes his ex-girlfriend is the only girl he would ever love. He’s young and has yet to discover what love even is.”
She frowns at his explanation but doesn’t ask anything more as she continues to watch. Halfway through the movie he goes to retrieve their food and explains to his parents that she was over to watch movies she’s never seen before and that their relationship was nothing like what they were thinking. After a bit of ribbing from his dad he comes to sit on the ground next to her where she had moved too.
Handing her a plate of Chinese food she stares down at it like it was something foreign to her. Which it probably was.
“Do you not eat food?” He asks watching her poke at every little thing that was on the plate.
“I’ve never ate human food before. My human form doesn’t require it since I took that function away. Besides, you humans eat other species which is…strange.”
“You took the function of hunger away? How is that possible?”
“I simply replenish the blood flow in my body with the energy I produce from the sun. Light is my food source its what charges me on a daily basis.”
“I see.” He doesn’t see at all, but he wasn’t about to get all intellectual with her on the subject. “I can take it back if you want.” He goes to grab it, but she stops him.
“If I want to understand humans, I feel I must act like one.” She spears a piece of meat with the fork he had given her, a fork that she stared and studied for quite some time.
“You really don’t have too, you know.”
He watches as she takes the meat and sniffs it. Wrinkling her cute nose she slowly opens her mouth and carefully places the meat on her tongue. Her eyes widen as she chews slowly.
“What is this strange thing that’s happening on my tongue?” She looks to him as he couldn’t help laughing.
“It’s called tastebuds. It’s the flavor of the meat that you’re tasting.”
Eating his own food he continues to watch her as she begins to devour the entire plate. He hands her the iced tea his mom had made earlier. When she took a sip her eyes widened again and nearly gulped the whole thing down in one setting.
“Whoa there, superbeing. A little at a time, you’re going to make yourself choke if you keep doing that.”
After swallowing she watches him as he ate his own food putting his attention back on the screen. Mimicking his movements she slowly ate and drank the provisions given to her. A moment later she groans, rubbing her bloated tummy.
“Why is it hurting so much?”
Chuckling he takes her plate and glass away from her. “You ate too much. You overfilled that stomach of yours. We only eat as much as our guts allow us, so sometimes we’re not able to eat everything that’s on our plates. It’s called self-control and you definitely don’t have that.”
“I like human food, but I don’t like this.”
“No human likes that.” He tells her.
As the credits of the movie plays he gets up and goes to his computer that he had turned on earlier. She wasn’t sure what that device did but everything so far was a bit overwhelming so she figured she would ask him about it later. Earlier he had changed into more comfortable clothes. Soft sweatpants with a black t-shirt and white socks.
“I downloaded some songs for you and burnt them on a cd. You can have my cd player for now, it’s pretty old but still works. These are songs I think might help you understand our emotions a bit better. You can take it with you when you’re ready to leave.”
He hands her a circular device with a pair of circular paddings that held a long rope from the ends. He shows her how to put the cd in and then connects the long rope to the side of the device. Then he places the paddings over her head and onto her ears. Her face was a mask of curiosity mixed with uncertainty.
“Hit this button right here.” He instructs her.
When she hits it she instantly jumps as music suddenly plays from the paddings. She looks from the device to him in quick session completely amazed by it. She watches as he hits another button that caused it to instantly stop altogether.
“That’s to stop the music and this is to power it off. It runs on batteries, so you’ll have to replace them once it dies. But you can just come to me when that happens, and I’ll get you new ones.”
Taking the paddings off her head carefully she smiles at him. “Thank…you. Did I say that right?” She frowns.
Smiling back at her he nods. “Yeah, you said that right.”
Getting up he takes the movie out and grabs another one. “Okay, so you’ve watched two love movies. How about we switch it up with a little action. Now remember most of these are make believe, they never really happened and just an imagination of some humans minds.”
“Like dreams?”
He slowly looks at her and tilts his head. “What do you know about dreams?”
“That it’s the subconscious of the mind while in a sleep state. It’s uncontrolled and is from a deep inner conscious of what a human may have experienced in their life while awake.”
“Where did you learn that?” He was curious.
“I read books about the human body. The brain of a human was especially interesting, yet very complex and hard to understand most times.”
“Well dreams are pretty much what you said they are. It’s a bit more than that though. Sometimes we dream on things we stress about or even hope we can become or have. Sometimes it also brings out our fears.”
“Dreams brings imagination.” She finishes as she rubs the carpet that was soft against her fingers.
“Exactly. So view these movies as if they are dreams of those who created them.”
Smiling she nods. “Okay.”