The silence was deafening.
We were still sitting on the floor, facing each other. My back was damp, and I could feel sweat trickling down my temple. I didn't even dare move—like one wrong twitch might trigger something.
What was I even supposed to say in a situation like this?!
"Oh, you're an alien? Cool, cool. Glad you didn't decide to kill me. By the way, are you planning to conquer the world or keep me as a pet?"
I've watched way too many alien movies. Every single one of them ends with Earth getting invaded, buildings exploding, and humanity crying for mercy.
So yeah... hard to stay calm when I was sitting face-to-face with a real, actual alien.
C'mon, Mayumi.
Say something.
This awkward silence was going to kill me before she ever could.
"S-so…" I finally said.
Elena's body stiffened slightly the moment I spoke, like she'd been waiting for it.
"You're not… an evil alien, right?"
…
Wow.
I really just said that out loud.
I had to ask. I needed to know before she suddenly decided Earth looked conquerable today.
Elena blinked.
Then, to my surprise... she tilted her head, visibly confused. After a second, a small smile tugged at her lips.
"I think I understand what you mean," she said gently.
"I've watched your movies. The ones about aliens."
Oh.
Great.
An alien who knows modern sci-fi tropes. That somehow made this worse.
She continued, her voice calm.
"No. If that's what you're worried about, don't be. I don't have any plans to conquer Earth."
I stared at her.
"…You're sure?"
"Yes," she nodded. "Very sure."
"…Like. Not even a little?"
She paused, thinking seriously—too seriously.
"No," she said again. "I wouldn't even know where to start."
That answer… weirdly helped.
My shoulders loosened just a bit. I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding.
"O-okay," I muttered. "Good. That's… good."
Another silence followed, but this one felt different. Less sharp. Less suffocating.
She hugged her knees slightly.
"I didn't want to frighten you," she said.
"I just didn't know how else to make you believe me."
I swallowed.
"Well," I said carefully, "next time… maybe just start with the talking part."
She looked up at me, surprised.
"…Next time?"
The fact that I even assumed there would be a next time is crazy.
"I mean," I added quickly, waving my hands, "if you're going to tell someone something that insane, maybe don't—uh—turn into a nightmare creature halfway through."
Her brows knitted together.
"Noted," she said seriously.
Another stretch of silence followed, heavy and awkward, like neither of us knew what words were to say..
"So…" I said quietly, breaking the stillness.
"What made you… reveal yourself to me?"
Elena was still hugging her knees, her chin resting against them. She didn't answer right away. For a moment, I thought maybe I'd asked something I shouldn't have.
Then she shifted slightly.
Without lifting her head, she looked up at me—just her eyes meeting mine.
"…It's because of romance," she said.
Shyly.
…Wait.
Why was she shy?
Can aliens even be shy?
I blinked, caught completely off guard.
"Romance…?" I repeated, unsure if I'd heard her right.
"Yes, Just like what I said earlier." she said.
I didn't know what to say to that. If romance was the thing that sparked her curiosity, then why me? Why reveal something like that to someone she barely knew?
"You… want to experience romance?" I asked carefully.
She nodded.
That answer unsettled me more than the transformation earlier.
I always thought beings like her... aliens, higher lifeforms, would be above things like longing or love. That they wouldn't need it.
"…Don't you have others like you?" I asked.
"Your own kind, I mean."
I wasn't sure why I asked that. Curiosity, maybe. Or fear. The idea that there might be more like her out there made my chest feel weirdly tight.
Elena's gaze drifted downward.
Her voice, when she spoke, was softer than before.
"I've never met my own kind."
"…You're alone?" I whispered.
"Yes," she said. "As long as I can remember."
She spoke slowly, like she was reaching for memories buried too deep to fully grasp.
"I drifted through space for a very long time, for millions of years."
"I fed on energy. On stardust. On light."
Her eyes unfocused, staring at something far away, something I couldn't see.
"I don't know if I was conscious back then," she continued.
"I couldn't hear. Or see. Or feel anything the way you do."
I stayed silent.
"I just… existed."
The words settled heavily in the room.
I'd never thought of Elena as lonely.
But now.... Imagining what it meant to be unsure if anyone like you even exists—to drift endlessly, not knowing if you were the only one of your kind…
That thought felt deeper than anything I'd ever considered before.
And suddenly, the idea that she came to Earth for something as simple as romance didn't sound foolish at all.
It almost sounded… human.
Then Elena spoke again.
"When I came here," she said slowly, "I had already run out of energy. I fell in the mountains… and then I felt something enter my system."
I stiffened.
"It was enough to wake me up."
A faint memory came to me.
"Oh," I said carefully. "I think I'm starting to remember now. I'm pretty sure I gave you water—"
"I believe it was alcohol," she said calmly.
"…Alcohol?"
My brain short-circuited.
Wait. No.
There's no way.
"It wasn't water…?" I whispered.
Was I that drunk?
Did I really grab the wrong bottle?!
Oh my god. What if it hadn't been her? What if it was an actual animal? I would've straight-up poisoned it.
I pressed a hand to my forehead, mortified.
"I heard a voice after that," Elena continued, unfazed by my internal meltdown.
"Crying. Words I couldn't understand at first."
She glanced at me.
"Yours."
…Great.
"At the time, I couldn't see anything," she went on. "But I tried to adapt. To understand. Anything."
Her gaze shifted slightly, toward the book that fell between us.
"And that's when I saw the book you left behind that night."
"It was the only thing I had," she said. "The only thing that helped me learn."
The room suddenly felt very small.
I stared at the book for a moment longer.
Just one.
One book.
"…You learned all that," I said slowly, my voice quieter now, "from just this?"
Elena nodded. "At first."
At first.
My fingers curled against the floor.
"So I looked for more," she added. "Books that felt similar. Stories. Dialogues. Emotions."
More books.
I swallowed.
That's when it hit me. She wasn't just reading.
She was absorbing everything.
Language. Sentence flow. Social cues. How people speak, how they pause, how they react. Manners. Tone. Even… feelings.
I felt a chill crawl up my spine.
In just a few weeks after that night in the mountains—
She had learned how to speak perfectly.
How to move like a person.
How to smile at the right moments.
How to blend in so well that everyone in town just… accepted her.
She didn't just copy humans.
She became one.
And that scared me.... because I know what she was underneath.
What kind of alien adapts that fast?
My gaze drifted back to her face. The same calm expression. The same soft eyes. The same gentle posture that made her look like any normal girl my age.
But I knew better.
The tension in the room had eased, sure.
But my body hadn't forgotten. My hands still trembled slightly. Because even now, even like this—
She was still scary.
No matter how human she looked—
No matter how naturally she spoke—
Elena was still an alien.
And I wasn't sure if that feeling would ever fully go away.