Welcome to Gaia! ::

Tianyi--Xiulan, because he'd decided to let go of his powered form because apparently it could be dangerous to wander around giving off an aura--still felt unsure of what to make of this new world. He did know that he was cold, that the things he'd stolen and bundled himself in running away (which he'd powered down to find himself still, improbably, wearing after what must have been a long,. long time, but then...he had been Tianyi that whole time, so perhaps their improbable preservation wasn't so strange) weren't providing much in the way of protection against the weather. But they were a mishmosh of ill-fitting things anyway, with anything good abandoned in the palace, so...

Anyway, it seemed silly to bother anyone just because he was a little cold. The type of entitled behavior befitting a silly, stupid, pampered little princeling. And they hadn't had to walk that far to find the place Fang seemed to think might be somewhere Xiulan could go.

"Are you sure your friend won't mind?" He asked, hovering back from the door. The architecture was so very different form home--but then, different world. Different time, he had gathered, though he wasn't sure what to make of that, really. Tianyi had been cut off from the wider universe when he was born. Everyone he loved was dead anyway. What did it matter what year it was, if he'd slept for ten years or a thousand?

Unfortunately for Todd and Xiulan, the answer did not come immediately. It didn’t take terribly long to arrive either, but they had enough of a pause between knocking and Something Happening that it might have started to feel awkward.

For his own part, Kiyoshi hadn’t expected anybody to come his way tonight. Ever since That Whole Incident last month, what with Heliodor getting kidnapped and Faustite briefly stealing Murikabushi’s starseed and ******** everything, Kiyoshi had been……scheduling nights off on his own, without prompting. If he didn’t, then he felt pretty certain that Yuki would renegotiate on the weekly Senshi Time allotment and make good on the promise to confiscate Kiyoshi’s henshin pen. He’d already done it more than once before That Whole Incident, without needing the extra impetus of Kiyoshi getting himself into some shenanigans that had, regardless of the context, involved Faustite’s talons yanking out his starseed.

The argument “But he gave it back, though!” had only made Yuki sigh, pinch the bridge of his nose, and refuse to listen. After a few failed attempts, Kiyoshi had stopped making it. Better, he thought, to be proactive and to at least go through the motions of taking time off for himself.…… Doing so still made Kiyoshi’s nerves itch from how much he wanted to be out there on the town, up to his elbows in the mess and the grit of senshi business. But it was better than trying to argue a point that nobody wanted to let Kiyoshi just have the W about.

Since tonight was officially set aside for Literally Anything But Senshi Business, Kiyoshi had run out again after getting back from work and cleaning up. Instead of the sound of the tumblers turning and the door opening, Todd and Xiulan would hear the sound of cute boots with chunky heels clomping on the sidewalk, loosely in time with a song neither of them could properly hear.

“One, here comes the two, to the three, to the four,” Kiyoshi brightly sang along with his current Spotify shuffle, playing on his earbuds. He could have looked ahead to see that Todd and Xiulan were standing on the front porch. Instead, as he bounced closer to home, Kiyoshi remained obviously more concerned with balancing a large paper bag of groceries in one of his arms while the other hand dug around in his coat pocket for his keys. “Tell ‘em ‘Bring another round,’ we need plenty more. Two-steppin’ on the table, she don’t need a dancefloor. Oh my, good Lord.”

Still blissfully unaware that one of his friends was waiting for him with someone who needed help, Kiyoshi made his way up the path to the porch with a string of bubbly twirls that weren’t exactly *NOT*-dancing. “Someone, pour me up a double shot of whiskey,” he went on, heels thunk!-ing into the pavement as the layers on his pleated skirt swished around his thighs and thermal tights. “They know me and Jack Daniels got a history. There’s a party downtown near Fifth Street. Everybody at the bar gettin’ tipsy……”

As he finally hit the porch steps, Kiyoshi noticed that he was not alone.

For a moment, he blinked first at Todd (perpetually familiar, a warm presence), and then down at the petite, extremely pastel guy who’d come with him. Very cute……and with curly horns and delicate looking, sheeplike ears that almost blended in with his hair-loopies.

………Oh.

“Oh my god, I am so sorry,” Kiyoshi blurted out, gingerly maneuvering between Todd and his new friend. “Yuki should’ve—he needed me to grab some things for dinner—” Before he started unlocking the door, Kiyoshi tugged out one of his earbuds. Better to actually hear Todd and New Friend. “Eugh, I bet he’s working on one of the Veilguard saves he’s doing without me. Having his headset on would explain why he didn’t hear you knocking. Please, come on inside where it’s warm—and safe.”

Once he’d let himself in and backed up a bit so the others would have some room, Kiyoshi turned to smile at Todd and, more importantly, the (probably very new) space-friend he’d brought with him. “Hi, I’m Kiyoshi,” he said, “and whatever Todd’s told you is probably ten times nicer than I deserve. You are……?”

Todd had to struggle not to laugh a little when Kiyoshi rocked up to his home, singing along to one of his fun little songs. Even as tense he was standing on the porch with a fellow alien, one not in disguise, being around Kiyoshi always made him feel good. It was one of the reasons he'd brought Xiulan straight here—Kiyoshi was one of the safest people he could think of, other than Zac, but their home was quite full as it was already...

He waited to say anything until they were inside, and the moment the door swung shut behind them all, he took his special earring off and shook himself vigorously to feel normal again as his ears and tail sprang back into existence. He'd have to ask about the game Yuki was playing later, though.

"No," he said to Xiulan's question, tail wagging slightly. "Most people, short. Kiyoshi and Todd... not normal. Not average?"

He tilted his head a little, nose crinkling as he tried to decide if he felt those words were enough. "We very tall. Todd scare people, sometimes. Kiyoshi smiles more than Todd. Nobody scared of Kiyoshi for him big. No worry. He is very kind. You stay, no problem, Todd knows. No matter what."

Xiu nodded along. He had more questions, obviously--but it didn't seem worth asking them, when surely it would just be annoying. He would figure things out, slowly. He didn't need to make people explain this world to him, when he'd already had to be taught the truth about his own.

"I see," he said, instead, even if it all still felt very confusing. "Still, I'd rather do something to help than not." He looked around, taking in the strange place, the strange items strewn around, the strange people--this wasn't home. Not at all.

But maybe it was as close as he could get. That villa in the forest certainly wasn't home, either. And who knew what was left of the place that was.

"Food sounds nice," Xiu said. "And I'm happy to take whatever room is available."

He would just...have to make this as easy as possible. For everyone.