“Are you hungry?” Jongin asked him as they got back home, only now realizing that he hadn't given him anything to eat since he got here. This morning he had grabbed a triangle kimbap for himself as he quickly fed Monggu, and told Sehun that he was free to eat anything in the fridge while he was at school, but it didn't look like he had eaten anything.

“We only require refueling about once every 10 days, and I did it before I left home so I'm still good.” Sehun shook his head.

“Aren't you even curious about our food, you've never had Earth food, have you?” Jongin tried to get him interested. He couldn't but worry about him, he was so skinny. It wasn't surprising, if he only ate once every two weeks. That was insane. How did that even work? Were they like lions, hunting down a huge alien mammoth twice a month and eating it whole until their bellies stuck out and they couldn't move? What a scary visual, Jongin shivered, hoping he wasn't on the menu when the time came.

“Oh, I know! Let's have ramen for dinner. Dad doesn't want me eating ramen, so I sometimes have that for dinner when he's not home.” Jongin chuckled, feeling like a naughty five year old. It was kind of fun.

“Here, try it!” Jongin pushed the pot towards Sehun, handing him a pair of chopsticks, but Sehun had no idea what to do with them. Jongin made an honest attempt at teaching him how to use them, but Sehun was beyond clumsy. His hand-eye coordination was all out of whack. It was too cute, Jongin couldn't help but chuckle.

“These foodsticks are lame! I'm not hungry anyway.” Sehun complained, annoyed, and threw them on the table in frustration.

“I'll do it for you.” Jongin sighed, skillfully fishing a few noodle strands out of the pot, softly blowing on them two or three times to make sure it wasn't too hot, before trying to feed them to Sehun. But Sehun clenched his lips so forcefully together that they almost turned white. He shook his head like he would never ever allow that thing to enter his mouth.

Jongin snorted, taking it as a personal challenge to get him to taste it. He turned the chopsticks into a dramatic airplane that was about to crash, making Sehun laugh. He used the chance and stuck the noodles in his mouth. Ha ha! He won.

“Eww!!” Sehun spat them out at once. “It's like eating sewer snakes!” he squealed with disgust.

“Sewer snakes?! There are snakes in your sewers??” Jongin asked, horrified.

“I've never seen one, but they're supposed to be huge! They say they are all long gone, and some say they were never there and were just made up so the kids wouldn't go play in the sewers, but I heard about a boy who went down there and never came back. He's probably still in the snake's tummy.” Sehun told him with a theatrically dim voice.

“Okaaay, maybe not the best conversation for the dinner table.” Jongin got goose bumps. Huge alien worms that ate people, great. He quickly lost his appetite for noodles.

“Here, have some of this then. There's no way you could not like it, it's delicious!” he grabbed a piece of leftover barbecued meat that was in the fridge and held it up in front of his mouth.

“This smells awful, what is it?” Sehun scrunched his nose.

“Meat. Everybody loves meat!” Jongin convinced him.

“You eat the corpses of animals?!?!?! Ewwww!! Why would you do that?!?! They were right, you really are barbarians!” Sehun gaped in disbelief.

“But if you don't eat animals, what do you eat? I mean, you have to survive somehow, right?” Jongin shrugged.

“We synthesize an energy drink with all the sufficient nutrients, and no corpses.” Sehun said condescendingly.

“But that can't taste good, can it?” Jongin frowned, not excited to try that.

“It tastes like nothing, why should it taste like anything? The taste buds are just to warn you not to eat poison and damaged food. The energy drink is good for you, so that's why it doesn't have a taste.” Sehun explained like he was explaining something as natural as breathing.

“Wait, you've never tasted anything that's good? Like... ever?” Jongin gasped. He jumped up and went straight for his secret stash. He picked out a fancy piece of chocolate. It was from Belgium. His dad had brought it home one time. He had been saving it, but Sehun needed it more than him.

“Try this. Trust me.” he unwrapped it and handed it to Sehun.

Sehun sniffed it, his eyes doubling in size. He popped it in his mouth and instantly started glowing with joy.

“Waaaaahhhhh!!” he exclaimed, overjoyed. “This is amazing! What is this feeling? My tongue is so happy and I feel all tingly and energized.” he giggled.

“It almost gives me the same feeling as I get when you hug me.” he added happily, flashing his crooked grin.

Uh oh. What was that supposed to mean?