Right when he came back from the kitchen, probably to try and get me to sleep again, a knock on the door startled both of us. I quickly lay down and pulled the blanket over me, pretending to sleep. Tryox let out a short chuckle before heading to the door. We both knew those were the people who wanted to talk to me about his behaviour. I could feel their eyes on me as soon as he opened the door. “What happened?” one of them asked sternly.

Tryox seemed to hesitate for a moment, trying to come up with a good excuse for why I wouldn’t talk to them. “She relapsed,” he stated. I had to hide the small smile that threatened to appear on my face when I noticed he trusted me enough to use the excuse I had told him to use. It worked perfectly because I heard the people at the door write something down instead of insisting on talking to me.

“Make sure she’s never alone. We already had another case of relapsing today and had to take the human into professional care. If this happens more often, they’ll start thinking about leaving the town,” they said more quietly but still loud enough for me to hear. They really thought I was asleep.

After a few more general questions about food and daytime activities, they left to bother our neighbours. Tryox closed the door gently and came back to the couch while I sat up. “Slowly, little human,” he said again.

“I have a name and I know you know it,” I stated, sounding playfully annoyed.

He smiled a bit before sitting down next to me again. “What do they think you relapsed into?” he asked, still smiling. However, the immediate frown on my face made his smile disappear just as quickly. I tried to shake off the thoughts and change the topic but my attempt was disappointing.

“Why are you suddenly green?”

“It’s my skin colour.”

“But you were blue yesterday,” I mentioned, earning a small smile from him again.

“I turn green whenever both suns are shining and I need some energy.”

“Like a plant? To substitute actual food?” He nodded. “So, you’re hungry?” He nodded again which made me stand up - slowly, as instructed - and head to the kitchen. Opening the fridge, I saw one of the “apples”. “Didn’t you say they’re poisonous?”

“Only if you eat them raw. What are you doing?”

“Making your dinner,” I stated as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world. I felt better, the tea had helped and my limbs were alright again. I got the eggs that I knew were the same as on Earth and, therefore, safe to eat.

Tryox stood next to me and grabbed the fruit from the fridge, “Let me help you before you poison both of us.” His tone was more playful and I didn’t reject his offer. After all, I had asked him to show me his favourite meals. It turned out he was a quite talented cook and we ended up with a table full of different dishes. The fruit tasted like chicken. When I realised that, it made Tryox laugh because that was exactly what the plant was used for. Apparently, they had replaced chicken meat with those fruits and hoped that humans would accept it as well. We decided on getting more fruits that came from this planet originally to cook traditional meals and Tryox’s favourites.

***

“How did you end up here?” the blue guy - he had changed colours during dinner - asked while we finished doing the dishes.

I hesitated for a moment but then took a deep breath to get the words out quickly, “I didn’t exactly plan to end up anywhere after being sent to unconsciousness.” He stared at me when he realised what I meant. I decided to let him process the whole meaning on his own, “I’ll be in my room. Good night.”

Quickly running up the stairs, I had almost reached the top when Tryox made me stop, “It’s ‘Good dusk’ here if you’re interested in our language.” I turned to him, seeing him standing at the bottom of the stairs with his red eyes focused on me. They had their own language.

“Good dusk,” I said, giving him a shy smile. He smiled back and followed me up the stairs to our rooms.

“Good night,” he replied before closing his door. I closed the door to my room and let myself fall on my bed.

We had found a way to understand each other - truly understand each other.