Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
LEIJA
We were in some kind of bureaucratic building, waiting.
Windowless, dimly lit, reminiscent of a basement, even though we were on the second floor of a very tall structure.
The space felt intentionally drab, sterile in that government-issued sort of way.
And yet… it was one of the largest buildings I’d seen.
We’d taken a private hovercar to get to this part of town, what I would call a downtown section of a major metropolitan area, where towers stretched into the sky like stone trees.
I'd woken up after what seemed like an endless session of primal fuckery, limp, relaxed, and warm in Eun's arms. Only for him to feed me, set out a beautiful new shimmering yellow dress I'd never seen before, and then whisk me off into the city.
I didn't know where we were going, but Eun seemed downright nervous about it.
It was his first day out of the apartment in weeks, so I wouldn't have been surprised if he had given himself a mild case of agoraphobia.
That seemed even more likely since he relaxed once we were inside this drab example of how bureaucracy could have the same stale soul-sucking design even on an alien planet.
We'd gone up to a window, and he told the person there our names, and now we were waiting to be called.
I couldn't imagine anyone thinking that a color that couldn't decide whether it was grey or beige would be relaxing.
There were some decorations in this windowless building.
A poster hung on the far wall.
Two aliens stood hand-in-hand, gazing into each other’s eyes beneath a painted sunset, the more feminine-looking of them wearing a soft yellow dress, in a different style but the exact same color as the one I was wearing.
Eun had insisted I wear the outfit, and it had hung on my body strangely, draping over my curves.
I couldn't wait to get my hands on more fabric like this, flowing and soft.
I missed making my own clothing. I'd been so focused on learning that I had stepped away from my joy, but I knew I would get back to it, when my life settled down.
My heart thudded in my chest as I suddenly realized I knew exactly where we were.
I recognized the poster. I recognized the building.
I’d seen it in one of the shows.
This was where people got married.
The breath caught in my throat.
For a moment, I didn't feel anything at all, then joy slowly spread, a warmth filling my heart, radiating outward, butting up against the part of me that had expectations.
There was a way that this was supposed to go.
He hadn't gotten down on one knee and proposed properly in the form of my culture or taken a quiet moment and held both my hands in the standard of his...
except... there was that one moment when I was limp and gloriously exhausted, when he had held my hands like that and said something that I said yes?
That couldn't be it. Plus, in those dramas I watched, the couples usually got married before they went all the way.
That wasn't something I cared about, and just because the media would promote something didn't mean it held true for the culture as a whole.
But what if that was the reason Eun was rushing us?
It didn't matter.
It didn't matter that this was rushed. It didn't matter that I didn't have a ring, or in the case of his culture, rings.
It didn't matter because of the small sunbeam in my heart that exploded at the idea that he wanted to marry me so badly he wanted to do it right now.
I loved him. I needed him to know that the joy I felt in his presence was real.
This wasn't about dependence or survival.
This was about the fact that when I looked at him, I saw the kind of man I always wanted to be with, the kind of person who was hard working, generous, and would put his body on the line to protect me from danger.
I saw him for who he was beneath the alien exterior.
The hours he spent working, the way he focused on his work, even if it was menial, the way he listened, the way he never turned away.
He was dedicated, focused, and kind. He was powerful, aggressive, and self-contained.
He desired me so badly, but he had held back until I literally begged him because he wanted to keep me safe, even from himself.
The thought that he could hurt me the way that his culture claimed he would caused him to draw away from me, lock himself up, even though we both had the proof that he wouldn't.
He would fight and kill to protect me.
Even though he was an alien, he was everything I had searched for and never found.
And now he’d brought me here.
To this place.
The place where people choose each other.
The place where people said forever.
At least, the kinds of people who didn't have much money.
The people in the shows who were represented as wealthy didn't go to this building; the officials came to their weddings.
That didn't matter to me either. I knew what I was getting into.
Eun ran deliveries and washed dishes, but that job could afford a decent apartment.
The only reason lower-paid labor positions had any stigma against them was because they didn't pay a living wage.
There were plenty of people who would be content to spend their lives washing dishes or serving tables, fulfilling the roles that society needed to function, but to be happy doing that, they needed to be able to feed their kids and have a safe place to live.
It wasn't rocket science. To have a stable economy with a population that is able to support innovation and growth, the work-life balance and well-being of a dishwasher was just as important as that of a banker.
Our names were called, which distracted me from my internal sociological rant, and we walked up to a long counter, separated from the woman behind it by a thick pane of glass.
At least, I assumed she was a woman based on her delicate features and clothing that was associated with femininity in this culture, but I wasn't completely sure.
What I was sure about was that she had huge spiraling horns that curved up, reminding me of the dead body that had been hanging in the air in the warehouse.
I took a sharp breath in as fear from the memory rushed through me, and the woman's nostrils widened, sniffing the air.
She glanced up from the paperwork, giving me a suddenly sharp look that cut through her previous look of utter boredom.
Her ears jutted out to the sides, tipped with tufts of fur, and despite her slow, elegant movements, there was nothing soft about her gaze.
She pursed her lips and looked at me, really looked, head tilted slightly to the side.
"Do you want to be here with him?" she asked.
The tone said more than the words.
She looked at Eun like he was something unpleasant she’d stepped in. Disbelief curled at the corners of her lips, just under the twin craters of her nose.
Her eyes swept me up and down, judgment blatant, but I wasn't sure what she was judging me about.
I had my guess from the dramas I had watched.
Maybe because I smelled afraid, and I had all the soft features of a species more associated with being prey?
I couldn't be sure, but that was my best guess.
My pulse skipped. I didn’t know the exact words, but I understood the question.
And I understood what she thought the answer should be.
“I want to be with Eun,” I said, careful and deliberate, hoping my phrasing wasn’t completely wrong. "I am happy to be here."
Her gaze lingered one second longer, then she passed a clipboard under the glass, a key attached by a fraying loop of wire.
She paused.
Her hand stayed on the clipboard, fingers splayed like she was staking a claim.
Eun slid another envelope across the counter.
“For the trouble,” he said.
She took it silently, tucked it beneath her desk without looking at either of us.
“Thank you,” Eun added, offering a small bow, just a dip of his head, but she didn't respond.
Eun led me back out into the monochrome hallway bathed in a steady bright light. We went to an elevator, and he checked a sticker that was at the top of the paper. It had the number six on top of it, and below that, the number twelve.
He toggled a slider on the wall for the sixth floor.
When the doors opened, the toggle popped back to the side, and he led me down another hallway. We stopped in front of a room with the number twelve on it. He opened the door, and we went in.
The room had a massive bed in the center of it, covered in silhouette cutouts of different species embracing.
There was a pair of the eyeballs in the back of the head wrinkly elephants, a set of the antler people, and a pair that looked like the hyenas.
There were a bunch of others, but the one thing they had in common was that they were all the same species hugging the same species.
There weren’t any inter-alien couples. There weren't any species that looked like Eun.
I looked around the room, seeing that it had an ensuite bathroom. There was a panel next to the bed with several buttons, so I went over and pushed one.
The bed began vibrating.
I pushed it again to turn it off.
I pressed my lips into a line and looked over at Eun, my heart fluttering in my chest as I was absolutely certain now what was going on.
I'd seen scenes like this on television, with that same species that had handed over the key.
This was a formal, legal thing for this country.
This was the type of quick, cheap marriage that couples got if they were trying to avoid their families interfering or stopping the wedding.