Despite all the finery draped over Rick’s hat, Kohei wasn't wearing anything other than the simple hats that thechildren had taken to wearing around the ship, so Max was surprised when Kohei announced, “We must leave to attend the celebration of Rick Father.”
“Are you dressed appropriately for that?” Max asked.
Kohei slowly twirled. “Max Father attends as husband. Rick Father attends as one honored. I attend to ensure no careless Hidden one breaks bones of my family. And if bones are broken, I intend to remove offending tentacles.” That did not sound like a joke. Hidden one jokes tended to be more bubbly. Humor and judgmental assholery were both bubbly in Hidden one language. Then again, Max figured that wasn’t all that different from human humor.
Max looked at Rick, waiting for him to explain the utter inappropriateness of this. Instead, Rick shrank down two or three inches as his walking tentacle went all squiggly. Then he turned his largest eye in the opposite direction. Coward.
Taking a deep breath, Max said, “I do not need my kid defending me. I am fine attending a party with your Rick Father.”
“Two tentacles of tool use are not appropriate match for many tentacles of tool use,” Kohei said. “Boned tentacles of tool use are not equivalent to muscled tentacles of tool use.”
Max was fairly offended by that comparison. “I have muscles too, you know.”
“Max Father has muscles attached to bones creating weak spots. Hidden ones contain unattached muscles of strength. I will ensure Max Father is not injured by ignorant muscled ones.”
“Would you like to tell our son that I don't need a babysitter?” Max demanded of Rick.
Rick's tentacles curled miserably. “I will not limit opportunities of genetic offspring. Genetic offspring choose path of choice.”
Max sighed. The desire to give the kids the freedom to choose their own path was admirable, but sometimes Max was frustrated at how firmly Rick held onto that tenant of parenting. It was a little obsessive.
He turned to Kohei. “By guarding me, you imply my inability to care for myself.”
Instead of curling his tentacles in misery and shame the way Max intended, Kohei’s tentacles stiffened and he stood taller. “I defend Max Father who could not defend his own leg bone without a maintenance hook and lethal action which would be inadvisable on Hidden one planet. I attend ball and I damage tentacles of anyone who breaks Max Father.”
Sadly, that was logical. It didn’t make Max happy, but it was logical. “I won’t win this fight will I?”
“No,” both Rick and Kohei answered. The refusal to look at each other with their largest eyes suggested they were still angry with each other over the whole medallions of honor thing, but apparently they weren't so angry they failed to gang up on him.
Max slumped. “Fine,” he said in his crankiest tone. Instead of acknowledging the sacrifices Max made to keep his family happy, Rick caught him around the waist and pulled him toward the exit.
“Much with hurrying! We’re late, we’re late, for very important not-date,” he said in a sing-song that did not match the actual music that went with those lyrics. Max was half pulled down the corridor, Kohei following as Max’s bare feet slapped the cool metal floors.
Chapter Ten
Max hopped on one foot as a tangled mass of tentacles nearly tripped him. Rick’s people didn’t understand the concept of personal space, and Max was getting a little cranky about it. Another Hidden one with an almost yellowish tint pressed close, and Rick used the loop of tentacle around Max's waist to tuck him closer. Max considered complaining, but the two enormous doors of the ballroom were feet away, so hopefully the crowd would spread out once they were inside.
Right now he felt like he was seventeen and stuck in a mosh pit. An alien mosh pit. And here he thought Hidden ones had some common sense, or at least more than he’d had at seventeen.
“Stupid symmetrical offspring of jellyfish,” Kohei bellowed as a Hidden one with burgundy tentacles careened into Rick and Max.
“You are supposed to be my nice child,” Max objected.
Rick blew raspberries with glee. “No child of ours is nice.”
Rick might have a point with that. “Considering how nice you are, it is surprising how mean all three children have turned out,” Max agreed.
“Not mean. Honest,” Kohei objected and he used the athletic strength that had made Max name him after the greatest gymnast of all time to shove another hapless Hidden one to the side. Rick ushered them six inches closer to the doors.
“My lack of meanness does not prevent children from being as mean as children choose.” Rick was always quick to defend hischildren's right to be whatever they wanted, even if they wanted to be assholes. Then they were at the ballroom doors.
Enormous lighted pillars rose thirty feet into the air, figures moving slowly along the surface. It took a second for Max to realize they were multicolored alien jellyfish glowing in tall aquariums. They were beautiful... all except for the one pillar with a sparkly, pink alien jellyfish tearing chunks off a teal jellyfish. The prey was dulling and the waters around them growing murky with blood and ick.
Max was grateful that Hidden ones considered balls and dinners as separate events because jellyfish cannibalism did not do much for his appetite.
Max shoved a stranger’s tentacle out of his way so he had room to put his second foot on the floor. Max tried to push forward into a gap, but Rick had him too firmly by the waist and they didn't move fast enough. A Hidden one with mint green skin that almost matched Rick’s pressed into the hole, and Kohei's tentacles curled at the ends. Max could relate to his child's frustration.
“Rick. Light of my life. Husband of my soul. Either push forward or let's turn around and go back to our rooms.”
