Excellent part, FH. I, too, am hooked on this story.
First, I am now happy to admit that Kal is now officially smitten. Even though he has no concept of what that means. Yet.
Like all of us, I was struck by the utter alienness of Kal's experience. I'm going to disagree with Pendendang on one point, though: human babies don't learn to smile from their parents. It's an inborn human reaction. Of course we can't ask the babies how they learned to smile, but facial expressions, unlike other bodily signs like waving, pointing, or even nodding, are absolutely universal. That's what leads scientists to conclude that they are hard-wired.
So, as I was reading about this world in which Kal has never seen a smile and doesn't automatically smile back at Lois, my thought was that he is truly not human. All humans smile and laugh and cry, and they don't need to be taught how. So, either the fandom theories about Kryptonians being a form of human are wrong, or his society is so harsh that every bit of emotion has been suppressed. I'm not sure which would be a more difficult cross-cultural obstacle to overcome.
