A young man entered the Sorting Room. He was handsome of countenance, and his expression was serene. His eyes were as guileless as a child's, and yet seemed to hold the wisdom of the ages
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"You're right! Sexually harass is a wrongness!" Finally, someone to share Yuuri's indignation without the weird moralistic homophobia that usually accompanied such objections!
Yuuri was sixteen years old, had an adopted daughter not yet ten, and was saddled with a male fiance. He was not one to denounce alternative family structures.
Mike nodded sagely, even though the Martian concept of marriage was... distinctly not Earth-like. "Growing closer is a great goodness between water brothers," he acknowledged.
Wait, what? "Water brothers?" Yuuri took a step back. "No, no, I don't want to do anything like that with my brother! He's really overprotective and kind of, um ..." Creepy would've been a good word for Shouri's attitude toward Yuuri, sometimes. But Yuuri would never conceptualize it that way. That'd be an unthinkable betrayal. Instead, he chose to think his brother was just a weird guy, who happened to be good at heart. Never mind the time they bodyswitched and Shouri insisted on pretending to be Yuuri, instead of telling anyone what was going on! And then made Wolfram rub his shoulders!
"Um, my brother likes dating simulation games a lot," he volunteered. "He likes girls, he's just shy. And I definitely don't want to do anything 'growing closer' with him!"
Mike was completely lost by this point. "I do not think we grok each other," he said after a long pause in which he extended his time senses that he might contemplate this stranger's words and try to grok their meaning. "There are other ways to grow closer," he said finally. "I do not wish to quicken the eggs of my brother Jubal. My brother Jill, though, is another matter."
Two people speaking literally at each other definitely complicated things. "No... Jill is a woman," Mike answered. "According to the Encyclopedia Britanica's section on reproduction, human offspring are quickened in the mother's womb." Because, clearly this was a concept yuuri, having largely been raised by humans, would be unfamilliar with.
"Yes," Mike admitted after another lengthy pause to gather his thoughts. "But more. Water brothers are... like family, but closer. To make someone a water brother implies trust that you would not speak or do wrongly to them." Again, this was an easy concept in Martian, and his English was proving limited and not helpful.
"It is the Martian way," Mike said. "But people sometimes do and speak more rightly than at other times. In any case, I am in no danger of discorporation. I have much to grok still."
"Martian?" Could Yuuri be hearing that correctly? He shook his head like a dog trying to clear its ears of water. "You're from Mars? I never thought a Martian would look the same as a human! There isn't air there to breathe, right?"
Yuuri was sixteen years old, had an adopted daughter not yet ten, and was saddled with a male fiance. He was not one to denounce alternative family structures.
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"There are better ways to grow closer," he agreed. "Always, it should happen when all parties desire it."
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"Um, my brother likes dating simulation games a lot," he volunteered. "He likes girls, he's just shy. And I definitely don't want to do anything 'growing closer' with him!"
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"Your brother is named Jill? And he lays eggs?"
Curiouser and curiouser.
"Like a bearbee egg?"
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Some concepts made Yuuri more than a little uncomfortable.
"If a water brother did do wrongly to his other water brother, what would happen then?"
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