Ch 4: Friend
A/N: The chapter you all have been waiting for. Let's hope it doesn't disappoint and ignore my grammar mistakes and weird attempts to try to make it funny. Here it is!
Han POV
I heard a voice, and I visibly froze. Crud. It's a human. The guy had his hand on my shoulder and he had a very intimidating face. He stared at me, but then I remembered his questions. Thankfully, Geo heard what he said and telepathically translated it for him. Now all he had to do was reply back.
No one's POV
Han slowly turned to Changbin. Changbin was feeling pretty awkward waiting for the guy to reply back. Damn I just asked a question, he thought.
He removed his hand from the guy's shoulder and rested his hand against the back of his neck nervously. "Look, it's totally okay, if you don't want to tell me, but from my experience, it's better to say what's bothering you out loud. It might surprise you, how much the world is willing to listen." Changbin advised with a small smile, he thought about his secret place while telling the guy that... the same place he was now sharing with him.
Han's shoulder tensed, but he realized that staying quiet wasn't an option anymore. The guy's words were truly kind and though Han wasn't letting his guard down, seeing such an intimidating guy be so nice to him, cleared his head a little about the evilness of the species.
Han tightened his grip on the bench and opened his mouth, expecting the words to come out of his mouth in English. "It's really nothing too bad. I'm just tired, since I'm pretty far away from home," Han said longingly.
Changbin observed the little guy, wondering if he was homeless. The guy didn't look like he fit the part, but there was no harm in giving him one just in case. "You know, I could always find you a place to stay. Not to brag, but I know a lot of people around here, most who are living alone anyway. Anyplace can become a home if you put enough effort into it."
Han frowned, he didn't necessarily believe the words of the stranger but decided to thank him anyway. "Thanks for that, but I'm good. This place seems to feel warm enough." And for the first time, since Changbin has seen him, Han looked up at the streetlight, his face glowing, alight with an emotion Changbin couldn't pin.
Changbin smirked at the streetlight as well, So you were getting bored of me, huh? He playfully thought. Despite feeling the place slip from his fingers, Changbin all of a sudden didn't feel too bad about sharing the place with the stranger.
He didn't know why, but he really wanted to help the guy. "This place is very special to me. I come here to fix it as much as I can." Changbin paused to see the curiousness in Han's eye.
"That's what I owe it, though I'll never be able to pay back the debt. I come to this place when everything else about life just sucks. You see that right there? That lamp is one of closest friends. It gets lonely a lot, so it's really happy to have me, and I couldn't be happier to have it." Changbin talked, gesturing to the streetlight.
Han looked at the streetlight in the vision that Changbin saw it as Changbin continued, "Streetlights like this are everywhere, you know, but no one pays attention to them, they only use them. I didn't really realize it before, and I hate that I didn't. Taking this for granted and not repaying back favors. I couldn't believe all my life, this stupid pole was always there for me and I just didn't give a... uh... anything about it," Changbin dragged, not wanting to cuss in front of a stranger since he didn't want to give a bad impression of himself.
He then continued, "You never really notice how much things help you until, they decide to show you themselves. Me and this streetlight go way back, but I guess it looks like it found someone else as well." Changbin looked at Han with a smile while raising one of his eyebrows.
Han looked down embarrassed, then he realized what the guy was telling him, and his shoulders sunk. I can't believe you believed in him Han, he thought to himself. Then he spoke up, "This is a... great place and all, but you don't have to worry. I'm just a passerby, me and that streetlight will only be friends for a little while. After all, this place is all yours, I'd never have the idea to repay it back."
Changbin looked surprised that Han had figured out his previous motive, but he had already convinced himself that he was completely okay with the dude being there, and he was going to make sure he knew it.
He turned to face Han completely and became serious, "This isn't my place, I don't own it. Also, this place can have as many friends as it wants. I don't control it. You don't have to be a visitor and... if you stick around, just know that any friend of this streetlight's..." he got up and delicately put his hand around the pole, "is a friend of mine."
Han felt emotions well up inside him, he could tell this guy was sincere. Maybe this place wasn't as bad as he thought, He smiled and got up along with the other guy, realizing how much taller he was than the dude, but he ignored it for now.
He smiled at the guy and stretched his hand out in front of him. Changbin's eyebrows arched in surprise as he smiled and shook Han's hand. That's a different way to thank someone, Changbin thought, but he liked it. He made a mental note to do that to his friends more, it seemed much more professional and firm.
Then as if the boy were struck by lightning, he frantically asked Changbin, "Wait. You said you came to this place to feel better right? Then things must've been going pretty bad for you."
He facepalmed, and the edges of Changbin's mouth perked up, seeing the boy's sudden frustration with himself, knowing what was coming, "And I just came and ruined it, didn't I? Aww Man, well, since you made me feel a lot better, you could talk about what's bothering you and I can try to help, You know, to be even."
Changbin gave a heartfelt smile, chuckled a little bit, and replied, "Hey, calm down dude, it's no problem. Actually you calmed me down a lot more than I thought I would've when I came here. Guess this place knows just what I need, even when I don't."
He paused for a bit, but then went to speak again, this time softer. "To be honest, it's probably not bigger than your problem and I already do feel a lot better, but I'll tell you anyway. You see, me and my friend Chan are overworking ourselves a lot for our job, but even with all the work we're doing there's just something we're missing. And the worst part is, that we don't even know what it could be. We tried getting opinions from so many people, but nobody could put their finger on it. We're both running as hard as we can, but we're staying in one place. Things would be a lot better, if we had our friends to make us feel better, but these days it seems like every body's life is fricked up and being around each other's problems isn't helping. We can all barely help each other too because we're too busy sulking in our own problems. It's such a big mess." Changbin was slowly rubbing his hair in frustration but stopped rambling and calmed down. Him and Han stood there in silence.
"Really, I thought my problem would definitely be bigger than yours, but even I'm questioning that now. My problem, well it's just about me. In my situation, I'm the only one affected, but seeing how there's so many people who are affected by your problems, definitely makes your situation much harder to solve than I thought. But I guess right now, you can't expect to solve it right away whenever you want, you can try. But know this, that life has its own plan and that you'll get to that place you want somehow. You and your friends, you suffer together, but there will be a day, where smiles will be more contagious than the negativity around you guys. It's not my place to tell you what to do, but look up would ya? The stars look pretty cool today don't they? You don't know which ones will still be there tomorrow, but if you live your whole life trying to find the specific one you've been looking at, you might miss out on the other beautiful stars in the galaxy. You might only be waiting for a specific good thing to happen and that's probably causing you to not see the other good things. Look at the other stars sometimes too, they're there for a reason you know. If I were them, I wouldn't like being ignored," Han advised Changbin, a little more playfully towards the end of his speech to lighten up the mood.
Changbin smiled, "Just so you know, I'm going to use that." I'm learning a lot from this guy, but I'll never admit it though.
"Sure just make sure to credit me," Han retorted. They both sat back down on the bench and leaned into the silence around them. Han had his arms pointed at the back of his neck. He felt really happy to have had this chat with the human next to him. Then he remembered, I need to find some way to progress away from my problems.
Changbin was in deep thought. Thinking about how much he had hit it off with a stranger. Changbin was a fairly social person, but he didn't share things like that so easily. This is all your fault isn't it? He thought jokingly towards the streetlight. He knew there was more to this kid than what met the eye. A deep breath brought him out from his thoughts. He looked at the boy.
"So umm...you mentioned before, how you knew a lot of people and...I-I'm trying to find a special electric part for umm something, but I'm not sure where to find it. So do you like know somebody who could like help me...or" Han trailed off, finding it really hard to not directly explain his situation and ask the human for help.
Changbin could tell that Han was covering up some of his story, though he was curious, he decided not to pry. Thankfully in Changbin's large group of friends, there was someone that might be able to help the kid, "One of my friends is actually an electrical engineer. I'm sure he'd be able to help you. Just find me when you're ready and I can take you to where he works one day. Though fair warning, he's not the most helpful person, but I'll tell him to do it for me and maybe that'll convince him enough," Changbin told Han.
The younger's face lit up immediately. An actual chance, surprisingly, everything was falling right into place for Han.
Changbin felt a feeling well up in his chest when he saw that he helped Han. This was the brightest he's seen the stranger since the short time they spoke to each other. It felt good to be useful to other people. The older looked at the time and sighed.
"It's getting pretty late, so I should probably head out. You've got somewhere to stay right?" Changbin asked.
Han nodded, not wanting to ask too much of the boy. So Changbin continued, "Well that's good. See you around then... Oh right! Didn't catch your name? I'm Changbin. Seo Changbin."
"I'm... Jisung, Han Jisung. You can call me whatever you like out of my last and first name," Han answered back a little hesitantly.
"Well then Hannie, assuming Chan lets me live, I'll see you around and maybe we can get the electrical part thingy you were looking for then," Changbin told Han hopefully and walked away from him, his hand in the air for a while as he walked away.
Han put his hand against his chest, sighed, and then smiled like a monkey.
Hannie, huh he mused over the nickname. Considering where he was a while ago, Han realized he was making significant progress. It's only been a day and I already have a way to get what I need. Hopefully at least, Han thought proudly. This friend of Changbin's, was Han's only chance at fixing his ship and getting home. He owed everything to this guy, whoever he was.
After meeting Changbin today, Han had put aside his negative impressions of Earth, realizing that maybe humans weren't as bad as they seemed, this planet could never beat home, but Han couldn't lie, he was getting used to the warmth and attraction of the streetlight next to him.
A/N: So tell what you guys thought about it. Tips would be appreciated since this is my first REAL chapter with dialogue and everything else important.
Random Oddly Specific Confession: I'm hoping one day while I'm still alive, the world has a global blackout for an hour during the night at a time where I'm not asleep yet, so I can go outside and really be able to see the stars without some of them being hidden by ANY lights. That was my TED talk. United Nations I hope u acknowledge me. :p
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