Thought: Hongo going on a scientific rant on something he finds interesting and Hayato listening to him info dump :)
The fire crackles, filling the stale air of the night in Africa’s desert. Hongo Takeshi watches the sticks he had gathered burn to grey and blacken ashes. Some of these ashes flew down, gathering in the pits of the heat, while some were carried to the air. If it weren’t for Hongo’s cybernetic enhancements, any human being would mistake these flying ashes for dragonflies. Many don’t know why these ashes still glow, nor why it flies up. However, Hongo does. Even before he turned into a cyborg, Hongo’s mind had always answered these questions rather quickly.
When something burns, the fire heats up nearby solid particles and creates hot gases. The hot gases rise because they are less dense than cooler air, and they carry tiny ash particles upwards. Some of those ash particles can still be hot enough to emit visible light, especially red or orange light, which is why they look like they are glowing. In layman’s terms, if the bits are still very hot, those ashes can glow for a bit before cooling down.
Although ashes aren’t large enough to be mistaken for dragonflies. The buzzing and pressure of the wind from their wings aren’t felt from these char materials; no one but children can mistake them for dragonflies. Hongo was no different when he was a child. However, due to Hongo’s obsession with animals, he was able to quickly identify what a dragonfly is and is not. He can tell the difference between a lamp fly and a dragonfly from the wind pressure they give. In all honesty, Hongo couldn’t help but reminisce about how his mother often scolded young Takeshi for going out on an adventure to just collect bugs and let them fly over his face to familiarise them with the sounds of buzzing and wind pressure alone.
“Here,” came a familiar warm voice, accompanied by a metal mug that suddenly obscured Hongo’s view.
Looking at who’s holding the metal mug, Takeshi lets go of his nostalgia and yearning for his childhood away to give Ichimonji Hayato a smile of gratitude before accepting the metal mug.
“Thank you,” Takeshi let human instinct take over and blew over the steaming curry. After a few blows, Takeshi deemed the curry to be cool enough to eat.
When Hongo was alone in Europe, he generally didn’t eat. Even with others' insistence, there was no reason for a cyborg to eat, nor was there time for luxury for him to pretend to be human when Shocker was still running around. After Shocker and Gel-Shocker, Takeshi let himself enjoy life again, only to be suddenly confronted by the sudden emergence of Destron. Hongo revert back that anything human convenience is too luxurious. However, with Hayato with him, Takeshi was quickly scolded for such a mentality, and was now forced to eat and sleep like any proper human being should. Because “Hongo Takeshi. You’re a modified human being not a modified robot.” are Hayato’s wise words.
“What were you thinking about?” Hayato casually questioned, making Takeshi pause eating for a bit.
Was it obvious that Takeshi was reminiscing about something, or did Hayato know something from their telepathic bond? Either way, Hayato always seem to know what’s up with him, considering Takeshi sees the man to be a strange but welcoming fellow that he can easily get along with.
“Dragonflies,” Takeshi answered after a minute of silence.
Hayato tilted his head curiously, “What about them?”
“Well…” Takeshi’s eyes flickered at the flying glowing ashes before looking back at Hayato’s curious black eyes, eyes that Takeshi sometimes swears are blue, “Just how often they are mistaken with char.”
“Ah,” Hayato’s lips twitched to a beautiful curve, “With how they still glow for a bit, I suppose they can be seen as dragonflies.”
Takeshi smiled at Hayato’s words.
The two men fell into comfortable silence; not even the crackling fire could break their comradeship.
“… Can you tell me about them?” Hayato asked, as Takeshi took his and his own empty metal mugs to pack them way to wash them tomorrow.
“Well... Dragonflies are a suborder of Anisoptera. Anisoptera are a group of insects which comprises the dragonflies. But here’s the thing, Anisoptera is a suborder within the order Odonata. The order of Odonata is comprised with two different suborders. Anisoptera and Zygoptera. I’ll get to the suborder of Zygoptera later; we’ll focus on Anisoptera first.” Takeshi clarified which Hayato hummed in responses.
“So, the dragonfly is an aerial predatory insect. It should be noted that any of a group of roughly 3,000 species of aerial predatory insects are most commonly found near freshwater habitats throughout most of the world. The dragonfly’s characteristics are rather distinguishable and beautiful. The same can be said for damselflies, the suborder of Zygoptera. But I’ll get on to them later as well,” Takeshi gushed.
“Adult dragonflies have long bodies with two narrow pairs of intricately veined, membranous wings that, while generally transparent, and have coloured markings. Their wings spread horizontally, although the exception to this would be a very small family being the Epiophlebiidae, where their wings are held vertically against each other rather than horizontally spread.”
“Back to general speaking, adult dragonfly wings are diversely coloured in a variety of shades, ranging from metallic to pastel colours tones. When you compare their wings to other insects, they’re quite large. Some even have a wingspan of up to sixteen centimetres, and their smallest wingspan is twenty millimetres. Fascinatingly enough, a dragonfly’s wing muscle must be warm to function optimally, which is the fascinating part. When it’s cold, it engages in wing-whirring and or basking in the sun to generate heat before taking flight. They also have huge bulging eyes that occupy most of their heads, giving some a field of vision approaching 360 degrees.”
“Generally speaking, have quite a powerful build for being a strong flier. Its speed and agility contribute to its being one of the most effective aerial predators.”
If Takeshi had human lungs, he would’ve taken multiple breaths to talk about any general knowledge of an insect and animal lover. However, a perk of being a cyborg at this time, Takeshi can talk about anything without stopping. Speaking without any stops and finally stopping talking, Takeshi noticed Hayato was listening attentively to his rant. The younger man’s attentive stare was rather flustering since Takeshi can rarely rant something random to anybody without losing their attention.
It seems Hayato caught on Takeshi’s fluster, as he gave a knowing smile but didn’t mention anything, “What about their life? Any other interesting facts?”
Takeshi brightens at the question.
The fire crackles; the stale night of the African desert is filled with chatter about scientific facts about dragonflies with an attentive audience. The fire isn’t the only thing that keeps these love bugs warm.
I honestly struggled with this ask because I had no idea how to draw this. Hence, I decided the solution would be fanfiction. Fanfiction is always the solution. The information on dragonflies is taken from Britannica. Ngl, writing this made me realise about V3's powers a lot.
