Chapter 115: M'Baku's tale

"What?" The ones who saw M'Baku raising his hand were surprised.

"Why do you look so surprised? I remember telling you about my daughter and stuff." M'Baku pointed towards Taro, reminding about that one rainy day.

"Umm, yea. You did that. But I thought you meant it metaphorically or something." Taro replied.

"What do you mean metaphorically?" The canino looked confused upon hearing Taro's reply.

"Well, something like if you had a daughter, she'll be like Shivani or something." Taro gave out the answer.

"What the—why would you think something like that?" M'Baku asked.

"Hmm, you see, I heard that you are the oldest resident of the Holy Land. So, I thought you were a hermit without a family and stuff. I mean, a man will go insane if he didn't meet up with his wife and kids for a long time, right?" Taro asked back.

"I guess I can't give back a counter argument to that. But if I gotta, well, I know MIB isn't gonna let me go back to my planet, so rather than going crazy about it, I've learned to live with it." M'Baku replied, while glaring darts at John, the one from the MIB HQ.

"I'm going to sleep then, if all that you're gonna do is badmouth MIB. We're doing this to protect you guys. You won't understand." John groaned as he walked back to his room.

"As if!" Gibli mumbled. He was once again reminded of the fact that Glomerans had the Earth under control, just like his home planet.

"So, why'd you never try to escape and stuff? You know, you could've gone to the headquarters and stole your ship back." Taro spoke.

"Hey! Don't say something like that so loudly!" Thankappan, who knew their radical behavior from a while back, scolded them.

"Ah, yea. Sure, we'll keep our voices down." Taro replied, almost in the form of a whisper. "So, why didn't you try that?" He asked.

"You think I didn't want to do that? Unlike you lot, I don't have a humanoid form! Even plankton has his exoskeleton. For me, they didn't provide something like that, because I already look like a creature from Earth—a freaking dog! You think a dog can make transit from here to the headquarters without getting a suspicious look like you guys? No!" M'Baku whispered back. However, his whisper had a bit of fury in it.

"Hmm, I guess that makes sense. So, anyway. You got someone back on your planet waiting for you, huh? Unlike our sorry asses." Taro sighed.

"It's been years since I left that planet. I wonder if she even remembers me." M'Baku looked down as he reminisced about the good times.

"Don't be like that. Like, what do people say—true love never dies, right?" Taro tried cheering him up.

"Oh, no! Maybe she thinks that I'm dead by now and might've married someone else." The word 'die' triggered M'Baku's hidden insecurities.

"Dude, just don't go into the drain like that and cheer up! She might be waiting for you patiently, you know?" Taro spoke, patting M'Baku's head.

"I sure hope so." M'Baku replied with a gloomy face.

"So, are you gonna sulk around like this or are you gonna tell your story?" Taro asked.

"Well, I'll tell the story then. Better than sulking around by all means." M'Baku took a deep breath before he began. "It all happened almost fifteen year ago."

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Fifteen years ago; Planet of the Caninos.

The graduation ceremony of the final year students of the prestigious Canino college of education. M'Baku was one among those who graduated that year. He wasn't that good at anything, but he survived all those years and that was basically his major achievement.

However compared to him, E'Lulu was much better. She was in the top of her class and basically perfect and what she did. M'Baku couldn't even hold a candle to her. That's why it was surprising when E'Lulu came up to him during the ceremony and said that she wanted to talk to him.

Without making much fuzz, he decided to follow her to see what she wanted from him. However, yet again, he was surprised when she took him to the rooftop of the college. It was scenic that day. The evening sky with a slight orange hue was a beauty to watch. And the wind that made E'Lulu's hair flutter—M'Baku was having the time of his life.

Anyway, he didn't expect her to utter those words next. She said that she was interested in M'Baku and wanted to date him. He was surprised. The honor student was asking him out for no proper reason. When asked about the reason, she talked about how M'Baku made the class fun with his antics which made her get attracted to him.

M'Baku had a hard time believing it. He thought that it was a prank, since everyone called him the class clown for his antics and here's someone who admired him for it. However since he thought that there's no harm in dating her, he accepted it.

Fast forward to a year, they got married with nine kids. Initially people were confused as to why E'Lulu chose M'Baku when she had it all, however they didn't think of questioning it as it was her choice and caninos weren't nosy people.

So, they lived their life happily with their fourteen kids—five born a year or two later. E'Lulu started working in the government sector as a highly paid officer, while M'Baku followed his dream of being a space explorer. Both were really busy, but always made time for their kids.

It was a loving family. M'Baku and E'Lulu loved each other deeply and loved their kids deeply as well, which made their life pretty easy and fun. Ten years later, it was their daughter's graduation ceremony from the college they passed out and both the parents were eager to make time for it. So, M'Baku thought of undertaking his space exploration job a bit too early so that he could make time. Little did he imagine that he would end up finding a black hole that let him strand in a planet called Earth for five long years.

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