#tumblr u r one of a kind...
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me going through any social media platform looking through the acotar tag as a pro nesta pro tamlin pro lucien girly:
#very dark place#the amount of times i had to refresh instagram reels#i domt even go through the acotar tag#IT GETS RECOMMENDED TO ME#AND IM TIRED OF THESE TAKES#TIRED#pro tamlin#pro nesta#and when they do the video when they say yes or no to fantasy books#and say super yes to acotar#OH so you want me to not trust you#tumblr u r one of a kind...
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i need to become one of those cracked out DE painters right now bro
#i only tried to paint in the style once like 2 years ago and then gave up#time was kind to me this look 50000 times better#but id NEVER be able to do s full piece of my own character from scratch#id love to one day tho like r u kidding#de#disco elysium fanart#de fanart#harry dubois#harry dubois fanart#harry de#de harry#painting#artists on tumblr#art#fyp#fypage#rickrackpaddywack
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"stolas got what? how? .....he can get hurt?" immediately followed by THAT instrumental playing over stolas scrolling thru their texts in the hospital was like honestly top five biggest punches in the face that this show has pulled. my fucking god.
#helluva boss spoilers#helluva boss#the mortifying ideal of posting in the hb tag on tumblr dot com#anyway. walking into the ocean#also this isnt rly related but i dont plan on posting frequently about hb so while im on the topic: rly wish they would stop making +#r-slur jokes lol. i was kinda hoping that the one in the pilot was a one-time “trying to be 'edgier' than we actually are” kind of thing#and like at least they didnt SAY it this time and the joke was sort of condemning its use in a way? but more in a “thats not a pc word” and#not in a “this word is harmful and bad” kind if way. and also it just isnt funny. Unless u look at it thru the lens of blitzø being autisti#then its kind of funny#but not really lmfao#n e wayz
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hi tumblr 😓
#sabs posts!#had a really busy day today :<#and i'll probably have one tmrw too#thank u for all the asks 🤍#i'll get to them when i feel up to it#my stomach hurts and i'm in kind of a shitty mood so i don't think rn is the best time for me to reply#but i read them all !! 🤞 u guys r very sweet#anyways i'm gonna go back to wallowing in misery /hj#bye bye tumblr 🤍
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not the prayer type but currently praying to anything that can hear that those images in the pre-order preview are just placeholders ❤️
#and i know people r like don't be naive it'll definitely be in the album singles always are#but unlike time-out and wolfgang and whichever else. this one alr got a physical release?#granted it flopped by skz standards but surely that should be indication enough that u shouldn't try again???#im gonna have hope until the tracklist releases like maybe they're just the newest individual concept pics they have and they#had to use them to show it's member covers for that version and it means nothing more :D#anw. if u support that song and r somehow still here pls see urself out i thought the tumblr part of the fandom kind of had it together#but i saw someone tag my gifs with lyrics from it so u can never be sure#tbd
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night
#if i don’t go to bed now i’m going to end up venting and feeling bad LOL#this is why i’m the annoying side character skjsjsjs#gonna be cringing so hard at this phase of angsting on tumblr till everyone gets tired of me haha#good night :)))))))#i love u all. btw#like /gen#everyone one of u r so kind and sweet and amazing and deserve the world (*^o^*)#mwah#shut up esme
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homemade apple crumble (<- with fresh apples from my mums garden that she gave me to take back w me) + a smidge of pistachio ice cream (not homemade. sorry) yall wish u were me rn
#and yes..... it has cinnamon in it.....#i actually made it yesterday im just reheating the leftovers bc im sad but its ok apple crumble fixes everything 😌#just aaaargh. feeling rl stupid abt smth i dont even wanna talk abt bc 😐 but ive dealt w it before and its not as bad this time but still#i haaaate having good gut instincts it doesnt pair well w being paranoid and insecure bc being right just reinforces it!!#but its ok. apple crumble baby. and im going to watch some more adventure time and then lie in bed thinking abt werewolves#ik im midway thru my cycle at the moment bc i had a Moment yesterday when i got so sad werewolves dont exist i cried real tears#and then i cried again bc someone was posting kitten pics and i want one to cuddle but we cant have cats here 😭😭😭😭#i keep finding things hysterically funny to the point of tears and im extra sweaty and sooooo tired#and also not to be tmi but im STUPIDLY horny. what ovulation does to a mf. not complaining tho i can handle that one easy 🥴#sometimes its kind of a relief to be so strongly influenced by my own hormones like at least theres usually an explanation#anyway. love using tumblr like a journal slash period tracker u guys r welcome lmao im gonna go EAT#.diaries
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speaking of soft blocking idk i dont think its worth it like if u hate me so much just block me
#this is such a internet problem like only ppl who are online all the time worry about this this is so stupid 😭 but i consider#my mutuals my friends so its almost like ur breaking our friendship up 💔 like its ok u can curate ur space idm#and i know im VERY annoying i post all the time and my personal stuff can get very annoying so i do wonder if any of my mutuals#r gonna get tired of me. like im not over one my friends that i made on here kind of... breaking our friendship up over#posts i made on tumblr abt my crush. we don't even really talk anymore#idk what im saying anymore its not that deep like u don't have to follow me but idk i do get sad sometimes its like im sorry i annoyed u#i didnt mean to 😭#the worst one was one i was compared to ppl who do modern day blackface like naur that was going too far#over a fucking photograph and a not very original thought..... like u can just block me
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#not to complain about things that absolutely do not need to be complained about but here i am 🤣#basically in my intial years of tumblr i was 1. scared of drama and 2. wanted to keep note of shitty things ppl did#whether thats other blogs or celebs etc#and so now i just have so much shit in my drafts#this eventually evolved into my 'r*ceipts' tag#where i stopped being so scared to talk about ppl being fucking racist and just started calling it out#anyways. its hashtag annoying because i wanna post all of it so i can keep it in my tag instead#because obvs my drafts with Hundreds of posts is a bit hard to navigate#but im ngl. a lot of it is obvs old news. like probably doesnt matter#but i would legit just want it as a history kind of thing#but last time i tried to clear it out by posting#one blog that i rbd from was like can you please fucking Not rb that dhsbdjdhhd#and it was SO embarrassing. because they were an ex mutual (they unfollowed me 😭) and they were like i do not want shit for any of that#it was basically a bunch of stuff h*lsey has said/did. i think it was to do with racism but u actually cant remember#anyways like I said. not a big deal. and ive just ended up having to be happy with at least still Having the r*ceipts in my drafts at least#but yeah it is so annoying and i just wanna pooooosttttt themmmm#so that i cam actually find shit on people when i need it#instead of just having a vague idea of not liking someone for a reason but not being about to remember why or have proof of my claims#anyways! dhsvbdhsvjs#le text post
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the stereotype of rwingers becoming trans and then trying to become leftists shouldnt be a "ewww you're morally impure and havent been a perfect progressive since you were a fetus like I have" type of thing, if anything it should open up a broader conversation on how a lot of people amab are basically from day one being indoctrinated into the right thus making it harder for people to accept themselves and thats very concerning and we need to do something to stop this.
#and no amount of shouting 'men bad' will fix this btw. not that some of you care. you just want to shout....#and then ur like 'im just venting !!!!' on a post that's clearly made to get attention and reblogs.............#if ur just venting why are u providing links and wanting to spread this information#i just hate when ppl have a lot of shit to say but never any solutions. its like. great thanks i already know that. now what.#now what do we do to make things better? and if it required you to change in any way would you be willing to do so?#and some ppl dont wanna answer those questions bc they just want to rant but for some reason cant do that w/o trying to make it#a political post to get reblogs on tumblr..? if its a vent post turn off reblogs. like.???????#bc you providing links n shit and making it seem like you want the info spread but no one can critique you on how you provide#0 solutions or ideas in any capacity on how to fix things and just only ever demonize men- is giving heavy propaganda vibes#like i dont think ur doing it intentionally as propaganda i think ur just defensive but thats how its coming off#you're basically saying 'men bad' and thats it. like thats the only substance to what you're saying. theres never a solution.#theres never a light at the end of the tunnel. just. men bad. forever and ever. and that feels propaganda-y to me.#like as if you're a rwinger trying to convince me black ppl are all violent by only ever showing me stuff of black ppl being violent#and not even ever providing solutions to a fake problem so the natural conclusion i the viewer am to come to is 'black people violent.#always violent. should avoid' bc thats how racist propaganda works...... and... well.... *eyes your blog up and down*... yeah...#and thats not me saying 'men r oppressed like black people' thats me making an analogy that's similar. idk why acting that way#would suddenly be okay behavior if its about men instead........ like........... tf. doing this about anything is weird and sus as fuck lik#what possible reason would you have to antagonize and demonize something that much#its like. that subreddit of people who hate dogs. like they cant ever see dogs in a positive light ever and its just like weirdly cruel#for no real reason...? idk... and even if they have valid trauma about dogs like... maybe this level of vitriol to where you are quite#literally foaming at the mouth isnt good for you and you need to like look into why that's your reaction and why you think its ok to act#like that#and i dont mean that in a 'lol ur foaming at the mouth' i mean it in a 'im genuinely concerned about how upset you are' kind of way
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Even if Dead plate wasn’t queerbaiting, it was DEFINITELY shipbaiting. The dialogue option about whether Rody is jealous of Vince’s possible gf, the hair drying scene, the way he stops correcting Rody about not calling him Vince… u guys r tumblr girlies, you knew damn well what you were doing LMAO. There’s nothing wrong w that lol - it makes for a fun dynamic - but don’t claim that queerbaiting never came into it pffft
My co-developer and composer who worked on the game are both men, calling us "tumblr girlies" is a bit condescending and disrespectful.
To queerbait or shipbait, it means we were taking advantage of possible queer characters and relationships as a means to appeal to queer audiences while maintaining ambiguity about the characters' sexualities. We don't believe the game was baiting anyone since again not only the sexualities of the characters aren't ambiguous as it was fully stated they were written as queer the moment they were designed way before the game was even developed, we've expressed multiple times that while the game does have themes of queerness and cannibalism the main plot and intention behind the source game was always intended to heavily focus on exploring the horror that comes from toxic and unhealthy obsessions and mindsets and how far one is willing to go for them (Rody's self-sacrificial and desperate love for Manon, Vince's selfish obsession for perfection, Rody and taste, etc). The game is about a waiter seeking out and realizing what happened to his ex-girlfriend, that's always been the main plot, Dead Plate is a game in the thriller/horror genre and there was not a single mention of the game having any possible romance in it nor the queer identities and interactions of the characters were used to promote the game in any of the official game pages or promotional material to draw in more audiences, so hearing that you're watering the game down just as some kind of shallow bait is a bit disheartening.
Sometimes characters just happen to be queer, and not all media with queer characters are strictly about romance. Their relationship is still up for audience interpretation and people can take them as whatever they like if they want to enjoy them like that as long as they aren't hurting anyone but we never meant to intentionally bait anyone into trying out the game using their queerness, and that as queer writers ourselves we've expressed time and time again how we wished people to check out the game for the overall narrative and message it has rather than for people to only focus and view the game as shipping material since we believe the game offers a lot more than that.
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Movie Night - Daisuke x fem!reader
Summary: You and Daisuke have a scary movie night, but it turns out he's too scared to sleep alone + after care
Pairing: smut and fluff
T/w: smut, mentions of Anya, protected sex, full consensual sex, loss of virginity, whinny soft dom Daisuke
Wc: 3,3K
A/n: This is an AU where the shitty compan- I mean, Pony Express doesn't exist, so our boy Daisuki is on college living his best life as the lover I know he is.
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━━ ❝ It has been some time since you started crushing on Daisuke. You met him when you first arrived at this school. Being the new student is taught, and he knew it, that's why he made so much effort just so you could have friends and feel welcome. After that you guys became best friends.
Obviously, you always thought he was handsome, and kind, and funny, but something about him kept bringing you closer, leaving you in the situation you're right now: friend zone.
The worst part is that, no matter how much you try to show him that you like him, he's just too danm naive to get a hint! Urgh, this feeling is consuming you from the inside.
Little did you know that he thought of you in the exact same way you did of him. Well, not exactly "exact same way." He had his own little way.
It took him a while to realize his feelings. At first, he just thought of you as his prettiest friend. He would stare at you and be lost in your looks without knowing why. He would always try and be useful for you, being it by carrying something for you or paying you something to eat at the cafeteria. He wanted to be around you all the time, he would get bored and blue without you.
It is actually impressive how he didn't realize his feelings until very recently, when he saw you talking very closely with another boy. How to describe his feelings? It wasn't jealousy, it was more a sense of loss. He finally realized that being friends didn't mean that you would always be by his side. For that, he needed to be more than friends. THAT'S when he realized his feelings.
But then, he panicked. "What does it mean??? Do I... l-like her?" Silly little thoughts like this were frequently on his mind. Oh, if only he knew that you thought of him too...
You and Daisuke were chilling on your sofa, waiting for the other friend of yours, Anya, to show up. You had decided to make a little movie section in your house since you and Daisuke haven't been able to talk much with Anya. She's just really focused on getting her degree.
You were both on your phones. Daisuke is playing some silly mobile game, and you are just scrolling down your tumblr timeline, looking for something fun to pass the time. It was already 8 pm, and Anya hasn't given any news yet.
"Dude, she must be really busy. She didn't even send a message or something!" Daisuke says, his lips almost pouting like a disappointed kid. "Don't worry, she has a lot of work to do, we can hang out another time." You confort him.
"Yeah..." he answers. "Is just that I was so excited, I was like 'Let's watch a movie, yay, bom bom clap!!!' But now I'm just 'yeah, movies'" He emotes.
"What?"
He sights. "Nothing. Do you still want to watch a movie? Just the two of us?" He asks.
"Yes, it'll be fun! Let's watch something scary!" You give the idea. Daisuke instantly smiled at your words, thrilled to watch a super super horror movie with you.
You let him choose a movie, and after a while, deciding which one, you finally settled on a psychological horror movie. You sat by his side on the couch, eventually laying your head on his shoulders.
Daisuke didn't even notice, but he would probably have blushed if he wasn't so absorbed in the screen. If you didn't know him, you would say he was scared.
After about 2 hours later, the movie ended, and Daisuke was just too pale. "Daisuke U good? Are you scared?"
"Me? Scared? Pfff, c'mom y/n!!! I'm the thoughtest guy you know!" He said, playing it off. "U sure? I don't want you coming at my room at midnight"
"Don't worry, you'll get your well-deserved beauty sleep, and I won't bother you," he said. "Whatever you say gorgeous" you played.
You guys watched some other movies, one scarier than the previous one. I mean, scaring for him. You were just cool, but Daisuke was biting his nails and playing with his fingers the whole time. You didn't pay much attention at the beginning, but as time passed, you could literally see his nervousness.
Worried for your friend psychological state, you decide that you should both take a bath and go to sleep, even though Daisuke kept swearing he wasn't dirty enough for a bath and that he could sleep that way just fine.
Both of you cleaned up you decide is time to sleep, the clock already hitting 2am. "S-so, am I going to sleep here? In the couch? A-alone?" He asks.
"Why? Are you scared?" You tease him, resulting in him making an angry face to prove it to you that he wasn't scared. "What? Naah, I'm, like, totally fine." He says. Oh, how he regretted that later that night.
You were almost falling asleep when you heard a light knock on your room door. You got up and checked just to see Daisuke, with the puppiest eyes you had even seen on a man, standing in front of your door eith a pillow under his arm. "Daisuke," you called. "What are you doing?
"You were right, I'm scared. Can we sit and talk just so I can fall asleep?" Daisuke said, silently begging for you to let him in already. You invite him to sit on your bed, and you both stay there for a while, just chilling. You were almost falling asleep again when he started a conversation.
"So.." he said. "Are u seeing someone?"
"Why are you asking this so randomly?"
"I-i don't know, I'm just trying to break the ice ans start a conversation" he eyes you. Even though the only light comes from the moon past your windows, you can notice the little blush forming on his cheeks and top of his ears. You also blush at the sight.
"Sooo, are you seeing someone or not?" He asked again "no I'm not. What about you?" You look back at him. "No"
At that moment, being right there on your bed sitting and talking in the middle of the night. That was so good to Daisuke. He didn't know why, but just to know that you weren't seeing anyone got him full of happiness, his sleepless far gone now.
You eye him, his lips hard pressed together. This feeling is new to him. He doesn't know how to describe it. He just wants to kiss you, hug you, and be close to you. So close that your bodies become one. In a fearless act, he leans closer to you, his eyes asking for permission as your lips grow closer and closer.
When your lips touch is like heaven to him. You were coight off guard, but you followed his actions without thinking twice. The kiss is slow and passionate, and the chemistry is just right. In a slow move, he drags his hands along your arms and place them behind your neck, pulling you even closer. He couldn't believe in his own actions. He was actually kissing you!
While one of his hands is still behind your neck, caressing the hair and pulling you more and more to him, his other hand travels to your tight. He's so scared he moves in slow motion. What if you feel uncomfortable? What if you pull away from him? He's so scared, but he needs to touch you, or he'll drive himself crazy.
Your body grew hotter as you felt the warmth of his hand gently caressing your tight. A low sound scales his lips when you pull the kiss apart, leaving him with a red face and pouty lips. "Is this real?" You asked. Daisuke didn't reply, he was too embarrassed of himself to do so. It all happened so fast he didn't have the time to think straight about his actions.
The kiss was something you wished for a long time, and now that it was actually happening, you needed time to cope. To be honest, you have always imagined you and Daisuke together. You have always wished for him, craving for him silently. You wouldn't let this chance go to waste.
He stares at you with doe eyes, melting your heart. He looks so cute and so sexy at the same time that you actually feel dirty for having this kind of thought about him. Not knowing how to proceed, you both just stare at each other. For a moment, it feels like time has paused. For a moment, everything is about him and you, sitting on your bed with clumsy feelings and red lips.
"H-hey, so.. c-can we do more? Like... I want to kiss you more." Daisuke breaks the silence. You look at him, but it feels like you're looking straight to heaven. All you want to do is kiss him more. Not just that, you want him in a way you never wanted anyone before.
"S-soo... are you going to accept or... it's okay if you don't wanna, really!! A-actually, I don't even know why I'm asking, haha!" He fake laughs. His face became more redish and fluttered. He was about to pull completely away from you when you throw yourself on top of him.
You kiss him again, this time in a more needy and desperate way. You caught him off guard, but it didn't take long for him to respond to your kiss. Very gently you start to move, now sitting on his lap, never breaking the kiss as you do it.
He's overwhelmed. He can't say he never thought of you on his lap, but to actually have you there is a totally different level. He can feel himself getting harder as you get closer to him, pressing your body onto his.
Your hands go around his neck, hugging him while you press yourself on his chest. His arms hug you from your waist, caressing your back and sending you chills. He slowly lowers his hands until he reaches your butt, gently grabring it.
"Ahh, so hot" he says between kisses, making you shiver and readjust yourself on top of his laps. You start to grind on his lap, moving in a painfully slow rhythm. With his hands still on your butt you trail your kisses dawn his jawline.
He's lost in the feeling of your mouth in his neck, and just the thought of you leaving hickeys on him makes him even harder down there. How lucky was him for having a girl like you on top of him? He didn't know. He just knew he was lucky as hell.
"I-i need to tell you something.." Daisuke says. You make a signal for him to continue talking but never leaving his neck, your mouth glued to him like you need him to survive. "I'm- ah, I never... uhm, I-m a v-virgin" he finally says.
You stop the kisses, and he panics for a moment. You move back to look at him, his lips red and glimpse from the earlier kiss. You take your hand and put on his left cheek, caressing a little to bring comfort to him. "I-i'm a virgin too. Hehe" you say.
"So, like, do you want to stop here?"
"No- I mean... we c-could make it work. O-only if you want to, or course!!" You say, now being the shy one. Everything is new to you both, the feelings, the sensations, the craving, the desires: everything.
After a while, just admiring you, Daisuke comes back to kissing, not lasting long and going straight to your neck. Now, it was his turn to leave marks on you. The little noises tha scape your mouth almost making him cum right there.
The make-out is way out of control now, both of you kissing and praising each other as the clothes disappear one by one. At one point, you were only in your bra and panties sitting in front of him.
With his hand, he reaches to your arm, slowly making his way to your back. Your faces so close to each other you could count the moles in his face. "Can I take your bra off?" He asks. You nod, and he proceeds to do so.
He helps you take it out and throws it where the other clothes were thrown previously. He trails kisses down your bodies, starting from your neck and going all the way down to your clavicle. He worships you like you're the last drop of water in a desert, kissing and leaving hickeys everywhere he passes.
When he finally reaches for your boobs he can't help but stare. "Ahh, you're just so pretty~ I want you all for me," he says, looking at you.
In a bold movement, you push him down, forcing him to lay on his back while you crawl on him until you reach his lap again. For a moment, you stop what you are doing. "Wait, what about protection?"
"There in my pants, in the wallet, there is one we can use." he says. You get up quickly and gind the condom exactly where he said it was. "Do you always have this thing with you all the time? Why?" You ask coming back to him. You sit at the same position you were before.
"For moments like this." he answers, making you blush and smile a little. He smiles, too.
You look down at him, the volume in his boxes being extremely visible. "This looks painfull" you say as you help him take his boxes, leaving him full naked under you. "Oh, it is, c-can you help me?" He asks, his voice clearly more desperate than before.
You take of your last piece of clothing and open the condom. Stroking him a little before, you put it on his dick. "A-ah, that's... so tight.." he hisses. "I think you underestimated you size baby"
He blushes. "Hey, don't you think it would be less painfully if I was the one on top?" He asks
"Well, maybe... I'm not actually sure."
"Let's try then." He gets you on his arms and switches the position, now being on top. This view of you makes him feel like on cloud nine. The prettiest girl he'd ever seen all open and needy for him? Danm, he could cum just by the view of you like this.
Not being able to watch any longer, he positions himself and moves forward, his dick filling you inch by inch. The pain makes itself present, but it's not something you can't handle.
"Ah- ahh, you're so tight... shit" Daisuke says as he finally puts everything in. "Oh yes, ahh~ you're so hot, so tight, hmmm.. so fucking good"
He lay his body down, letting his weigh on top of you. You can hear his little moans in your ears as you try to get used to his length. "Danm Dai, I didn't know you were s-so big"
"S-stop it, if you talk like this I might already cum." He smiles. "A-ah, I can't believe I'm finally in you"
"I-i think.. you can move now.." You say, the pain now transformed into pleasure, making you crave for more and more of him.
He starts to push into you, the feeling consuming your senses. The extase is just too much. You actually feel like you could come right there already. "O-oh my god, ahh~"
"D-do you like it? Am I, ahh- am I doing g-good?" He asks. His voice filled with luxury, whispering right at your ear. "Y-yes, yes"
He slowly picks his pace, savoring and discovering your body. He wants to know every place you're sensible at, every move that makes you moan louder, he wants to kiss every corner of your body and make you feel so special that your would come just for him. Gosh, that's his greatest wish.
You were getting overstimulated, your clímax approaching so fast your moans started to go silent. Then, he suddenly stops. You look at him with a sad eye, a moan of protest leaving your mouth as you roll your eyes at the back of your skull.
"W-why'd you stop?"
"C-can we switch positions? Uhm, there's this one position I've always wanted to try.." he asks, his lips pouty like a little kid and his dick twitching inside you like a rock. You were in so much pleasure that you would accept anything this man asked you, so you instantly agreed.
He guides you how he wants, and you end up on all fours, with your chest glued on the bed and your ass up like a cat. He stands behind you, his eyes betraying him as he worships you. "Shit, you're so hot, you know that? Perfect, just perfect, ahh"
He positioned himself again, not sparing time for you to get used to him, going as fast as he can the moment he's inside you. He's crazy. So lost in the souce he can't make a proper sentence, he just yaps nonsense and moans desperately, seeking his hight just as he seeks your pleasure.
Your moans are like music to his ears. The more you moan, the more he knows he's good for you. "Aahhh, I don't think I'll- hmm, last any, uh longer" he moans.
He's now totally on top of you, his chest glues to your back while he leaves kisses, hickeys, and bites at your neck, making your pleasure ten times bigger. He's pushing as fast as he can, trying to make you feel as special as him.
"Ah, I-I'm gonna, ahh!" He screams. His movements become more erratic as he reaches his high. The condom becoming even more tight in his cock, now full of his liquids. You can feel his cock throb inside you, the feeling pushing you over the edge, making you both come at the same time.
The movements stop, and you just stay there trying to catch your breaths. After a while, he comes out of you and removes his condom. He lays down at your bed on his back, right by your side. You lay on your tummy and you look at each other.
"Did I do well? Was I good enough?" He asks.
"You were perfect, Dai" you reply. His eyes light, and he finally relaxes. You go closer and kiss his forehead, then his cheeks, then his nose, then you finally leave a peck at his lips. He looks at you with heart on his eyes. He's confident he's the happiest man in the world.
"So, are you seeing someone?" He asks. "Yes," you reply, "you."
After taking a bath, you both finally lay down to rest from your tiring movie night. He's hugging you from behind, leaving sugary kisses on your neck where the bruises start to appear. "Sorry I marked you, I went a little wild, hehe"
You turn to face him. "It's okay, Dai," you smile. He looks at you and throws a sad smile. You know him too danm well to recognize when something is off with him, and since he's just naturally honest, it's usually not hard to find out what it is that is bothering him.
"What happened?"
"Can I ask you a serious question?"
"Sure, go on," you reply.
"What's your favorite Pokémon?"
"Are you serious??" You ask. The sound of his laugher travellings straight to your heart.
"No, seriously now. Do you... happen to like me? Or something?" He plays with his fingers while looking down, just occasionally looking up to see your reaction. You don't even need to think before you answer him. "Yes, I do." You say.
When he was about to say something, you heard a ringtone, someone was calling you.
"It's Anya!"
"God, FINALLY!"
You accept the call. "Girl, you could have sent a message!" You sight. "It's okay, we understand. What I did all night? Ah, you know, casual things... cupcakes." Daisuke smiles by your side. "Okay, rest well, se ya!" You hang the call.
"Is my new nickname 'cupcake'?" He plays.
"Shut up."
F/n: Sorry if it looked like I was babying him, I just had this thought of him being a really sweet young guy. Also, sorry if it looked rushed, I am DEFINATLY NOT a professional, both in writing and in English. (Please tell me if I made a spelling mistake)
#daisuke#daisuke mouthwashing#mouthwashing#fanfic#daisuke x reader#thoughts#imagines#one shots#smut#my art#writting#anya#curly#jimmy#swansea#writers on tumblr#deadpool and wolverine#boku no hero academia#cats#captain curly#anya mouthwashing#cats of tumblr#bnha#the owl house#viral#trending#masterlist#navigation#pinterest#instagram
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☆ HEAD OVER HEELS
“something happens and i'm head over heels” - tears for fears (smau)
contains: luke castellan x ares! reader. best friends to lovers? (again) secret relationship but everyone knows. alt universe everyones happy. woc friendly as always
kashaf’s note: free palestine! (for reference, connor is percabeth's age, while travis is yns age so um imagine)
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yn summer days drifting away!
tagged travistole, connorstole
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clarisse why would you give them guns
yn im not stupid theyre fake obviously connorstole im hurt wtf travistole yn do u not trust us yn um. ur funny. travistole 💔
lukecastellan i see you’re poaching my siblings again
yn im just more fun what can i say lukecastellan liar liar pants on fire yn acting like ur 12 years old annabethhh finally someone said it lukecastellan annie ur my sister ur supposed to take my side wtf annabethhh 🤷♀️
silenabeauregard so where’s the summer loving?
yn u caught the grease reference!
liked by annabethhh, lukecastellan, and 207 others
yn best girlfriends
tagged clarisse, silenabeauregard
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lukecastellan pic creds??
yn pic creds to this whiny baby lukecastellan u cried over good will hunting i aint forget yn how did u Not cry. it was so sad lukecastellan i look over and u were crying not once not twice but 4 times. yn im never watching anything w u ever again lukecastellan u cant ever replace me im one of a kind yn 💀
silenabeauregard I LOVE YOU GORGEOUS GIRL
yn MWAH MWAH 👩❤️💋👩👩❤️💋👩
clarisse YURRR
travistole soft launching me i like it 😍
connorstole ik u lying rn yn 😭 silenabeauregard WHAT clarisse oh that's not... annabethhh yn ?????
liked by yn, clarisse, and 205 others
travistole best duos
tagged yn, connorstole, cbeckendorf
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connorstole why did yn get the priority tag
travistole bc we're the better duo yn so true (clarisse solos u) travistole oh im well aware clarisse 😁
yn people r gonna think im ur gf
annabethhh u arent??? yn i burst into tears how could u. travistole hey now. i'm not that bad. yn im going to kms silenabeauregard annabeth 💀 clarisse 💀 connorstole 💀 percyjackson 💀 cbeckendorf 💀 chrisrodriguez 💀 annabethhh what do you all know that i don't???
cbeckendorf love you too man
travistole 💋 clarisse silena yo mans acting up again
view percyjackson's story.
view clarisse's story.
view chrisrodriguez's story.
view silenabeauregard's story.
liked by yn, g_man, and 210 others
lukecastellan 🚷
tagged yn, percyjackson, chrisrodriguez
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yn im w silena tho
lukecastellan shes cheating on u w charlie yn ig ur my last option silenabeauregard nooo yn come back bbg
chrisrodriguez bro stood up
percyjackson finally
liked by lukecastellan, travistole, and 213 others
yn last man on earth
tagged lukecastellan
lukecastellan thanks
yn i like donating to the poor! lukecastellan come donate in my cabin connorstole we sleep there nasty mf
annabethhh YOU'RE DATING LUKE?
g_man cmon now... percyjackson wise girl... yn sister-in-laws?
clarisse wow really.
travistole wouldve never guessed. chrisrodriguez had us fooled. connorstole impossible. cbeckendorf really confounded us silenabeauregard almost like they didn't act like they were about to kiss all the time yn kys.
© sayoneee on tumblr. do not repost, translate, plagiarize or claim any of my works as your own.
#luke castellan x reader#percy jackson x reader#percy jackson#luke castellan fluff#luke castellan imagines#luke castellan x yn#luke castellan x y/n#luke castellan x you#luke castellan x fem! reader#hermes cabin#ares cabin#chris rodriguez#charles beckendorf#silena beauregard#clarisse la rue#annabeth chase#travis stoll#connor stoll#grover underwood#percy jackson imagines#luke castellan smau#luke castellan one shot#luke castellan one-shot#luke castellan oneshot#luke x reader#percy jackson fluff#pjo x reader#percy jackson and the olympians#woc friendly#kashaf ki likhai
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hey i finally entered void after 4.5 months!! i can’t believe my life is so so fun now!!!
what i used :
• tumblr for resources; i learnt a lot from bloggers post which introduced me to void.
• subliminals on youtube: i just listened to it twice daily but i think u can skip this step
it was such a struggle at first but i let all the tension go away for me to embody it…
what i manifested✨
height and face; i was 5’11 before but i wanted to be shorter cause i didn’t like being tallest amongst all girls and even guys. i changed it to 5’3. now i think i look like cute. for face - foxy or siren eyes, positive canthral tilt, fuller lips, no eye bags, sharper nose. i think i might play around my facial features a bit more until i am satisfied with it haha.
avatar editor irl: i used to play sims 4 a lot a lot !! since 5 years i’ve been playing it. if you play it too you know there’s a CREATE A SIM page. it’s somewhat like that but for me in my phone as an app. i can choose clothes or facial features and it changes my face or clothes or accessories irl!! if ur a shifter its like a “LIFA APP” as you’ve heard.
gaming; i am a gamer and i can enter any gaming world at anytime instead of playing it on screen and let me tell u girl!! life has been so fun since!! but dw i don’t “die” in it i just respawn and also pain setting is 0 i dont feel pain when i enter games. sorry but i also play shooter games haha, dw they’re NPC AS THEYRE IN GAME THEY DONT FEEL HURT.
be a good student; i didn’t cancel school cause i just love the drama that’s going on loll, and i love outshining people. so i just manifested that i become a good student. whatever i read once i can remember without any revision required. also be more logical to solve math. cause girl i used to FLUNKKK!!
Boyfriend!!: holy i should have put it in number one!! THIS ONE OF THE BESTEST!! he’s literally in the kitchen making me dumplings cause yk- i made him a chef!! btw i made him from scratch from CREATE A SIM lol!! i revised that he has always been going to my school and one year older than me. he’s so handsome istg!! kind of a combination of jacob elordi and jungkook? i can’t explain!! u get it tho!;) and he’s also so respectful to women ! oml! almost opposite of those red pilled men (yuck!!!)
friend group: theyre so kind and diverse!! it’s vast !! (17 people incl me) and everyone is so amazing kind talented and everyone’s from a diff countries!!
language : i can speak korean now, fluently!
there is so many other minor things but these r my faveee!!! ty ty ty for reading and all the bloggers who have helped us.
and if u haven’t entered, what r u even thinking! u have and you’ll change ur life in a split second like me!! don’t worry about taking too much time luvzzz!!
seee u!!!!
So happy for you love 💕 congrats, and thank you for the tips. Also you’re real for making your bf from scratch 😭😭
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these r pretty common here but i love transmasc mike and vyvyan (i think mike would be more like stealth binary trans), transfemme genderfluid rick (tho transmasc rick is also fun), neil being like. plantgender/otherkin nonbinary and the secret fifth roommate being a complete agender enigma with no discernible agab are fun.
i tend to enjoy depictions that r more period + character/voice accurate though so i don't think they would use that exact terminology for it. but basically none of these bozos r cis
i love the idea of Vyv doing diyhrt and possibly his own top surgery (and maybe bottom surgery but he'd probably put like. dynamite in his penis or some shit so maybe he shouldn't be trusted w that kind of power lmao)
i feel like these r all pretty typical stuff other ppl have already said tho, so there's more original (and unhinged) stuff under the read more im so sorry lmao
uhmmmm ok more original stuff uhh i think rick has a brat taming kink/thing where he acts super annoying bc he subconsciously wants to get smacked around bc of some psychological shit about being a pampered upper middle class only child who nobody likes lol. maybe its actually a deep seated self loathing. he thought once he got to university ppl would like him and he'd become super popular, but it turns out he really is just annoying. its not that his peers from childhood were ignorant to his super deep intellectual ideas or whatever lol. i dunno im not a psychologist.
also i think he is both intimidated by and attracted to vyv (not projecting At All)
vyvyan grew up poor without a father figure (that we know of) and with a spiteful alcoholic mother so seeing rick take his parents + other privileges for granted makes him want to kick his ass. i love the idea that vyv and mike r childhood friends also, and mike sort of Was like a father in some ways despite being (presumably?) the same age as vyv. it explains why he’s the only flatmate vyv doesn’t physically hurt and makes it kinda cute when he calls him michael. 2 me
also i think vyv and rick have autism but their specific brands of autism clash with each other (one needs quiet, the other needs constant noise,, that sort of thing) and it drives them both crazy
and i think all 4 of them have some form of ADHD or other disorder that effects executive function bc that's the only way i can see them letting the house get that dirty 💀💀💀
also i think vyv absolutely gets off on humiliating rick but i don’t think he even realizes he’s getting off on it if u know what i mean (he'd never admit it to himself, bc that's 'girly' and gay!!!). like with the virgin sign (and presumably making him wear a t-shirt later too), its meant as typical vyv torment but also um. that whole incident was just gay sex. what do you mean you two shook the bed so hard it fell thru the ceiling um hello???
also i think all four flatmates of some flavor of gay/bi but have comphet/pretend to like girls way more than they rlly do. their masculinity (and by extension heterosexuality) is a performance. especially mike’s. tho tbf everything about mike is a performance. the cool person persona is fake as hell. obvs some of it is related to the implication that he’s somewhat involved in shady dealings (where tf did he get that gun, why was he the one to suggest robbing the bank, he literally tried to sell a nuke, paying off the dean of the college etc). And you know what? I'm starting to suspect Michael “Mike” The Cool Person isn't even his real name.
(also i think the fakeness of his cool guy persona is super interesting from a trans perspective)
neil is treated as the overworked unappreciated housewife/mother, while mikes the father everyone seeks the approval of, with vyv being the violent brother and rick being the socially conscious sister whose pigtails he tugs on (the bart and lisa of the flat lol) they’re basically the Nuclear Family in the form of 4 university students which i guess isn’t even headcanons anymore im just stating the actual intent of the show but im in too deep now and the gender politics of the young ones is interesting 2 me. despite featuring very few women characters i think lise mayer gave the scripts some Sauce.
neil consistently is forced into the traditional/stereotypical role of a woman in a lot of ways (including vyv oggling him in ricks dress) and as a result of this treatment (as well as probably an actual case of major depressive disorder imo) he repeatedly attempts suicide and/or threatens to do so as a cry for help. some of his attempts are so poorly executed it rlly does seem more like an ignored cry for help.
he's passive aggressive as hell, believes ridiculous stuff causes cancer and absolutely would fall for a pyramid scheme. just like a real mum! (feels so weird to type mum when you're american 😭 i feel like those ppl in 2012 who were like weebs for britain. teaboos💀)
neil to me is that one thing moms/mums sometimes do where they r all "omg I'm the only person who does anything in this house" while doing dishes and when u ask if they want help they say no but r like. sighing and sad about it. like perhaps they would like help but don't want to admit it or realize they could have asked this whole time but didn't and now feel embarrassed or ashamed by not realizing this sooner (not that the other guys would ever willingly help with cleaning). honestly i think neil likes wallowing in misery a little. idk
the line where he says he might as well be their mums and they reply that they at least *like* their mums, i don't buy that shit. Vyv has a strained relationship w his at best and you cannot convince me rick doesn't yell at his mum constantly. and mike for all we know could've been created in a government lab for all we know about his family+upbringing. i think they likely all love their mothers but i don't think they 'like' or respect them, and for this, neil really is the mum of the group no matter what the other 3 say >:3
there's probably more gender role stuff a way smarter and more qualified person could go into but that's all i have on that lol
ok back to regularly scheduled horny rivyan psychoanalysis
i think vyvyan's desire to become a doctor is partially rooted in his enjoyment of torturing small rodents (ie. SPG), and to him people are like. Big Rodents. and part of why he targets rick so often is because he reminds him of one (he is my precious rat boy). I've said this before somewhere but rick is like a prey animal to me.
uhmmm also i think if vyv came out as trans to rick he'd be super ignorant but outwardly go “oh yea transsexuality is so anarchic, right on! I dabble in a bit of transvesticism myself…” but he just really really really wants 2 know whats in vyvs pants 😭
and just wait until he does some reading and finds out about tdick and bottom surgery options. he'd probably keep avoiding eye contact but doing his gay little coquette shimmy every time they r in the same room and try to """subtly""" bring it up to him when he thinks mike and neil aren't listening lol
like “gulps is that your p-p-p-p-pussy vyvyan….” behavior.
i think some of vyv's aggression towards rick is just like. why dont i have a penis right now. i need 2 jackhammer this obnoxious twink somehow (oh no i'm projecting onto vyvyan i need to stop before this gets out of hand)
uh ok ok this isn't a headcanon but I'm obsessed with that one scene in Flood where they r all holding down neil to kill and eat him and he asks for a last cigarette and mike gets one for himself and rick instinctively lights it for him. Also in Cash when Mike and Vyv use Rick as a sofa um anyways um uhhh vyv phalloplasty/penis star tattoos/piercings goodnight everypony
what’re your favourite the young ones headcanons ? i need moreeeee
#sorry this is unhinged and also i got distracted by gender politics for a minute there#also i think i worded some things in a pretentious way while stating the most obvious shit ever im sorry its just tumblr brain poisoning..#the narrative this the narrative that..#can u tell i also ship tom and jerry. like. from cartoons.#i love rivyan bc its proof that live-action looney tunes violence can also be a kind of gay sex.#i just love t4t violence#especially when its silly style#also sorry if my character analysis is . not great. i am not confident in my media literacy skillz#i originally was gonna put this all in tags but i reached 30 tags. stopped typing on my ipad. saved to drafts and got out my laptop#& copied everything into stimuwrite to continue from my neil/gender roles rant#then edited the fuck out of it for like an hour 😭 sorry if there r any typos i tried so hard#i started editing this post 2 hours ago AAAAAAAa#turns out i had a few more headcanons/thoughts about tyo than i originally assumed lol#shut up miiiwu/#the young ones#rivyan#headcanons
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⇢ word count: 37.8k total (22.7k & 15.1k) ⇢ genre & warnings: sci-fi/science fantasy au, soulmate au, alien!jungwoo, human!reader, slow burn, fluff and angst; blood/injury mentions (but like, alien blood, if that makes a difference?), a couple needle/injection mentions, if u get secondhand embarrassment this one might hurt in places, a couple crude jokes about alien stuff iykwim (reader’s friends r kind of the worst), this fic is just a rlly sweet soulmate au i swear idk why these tags look horrendous 😭 ⇢ extra info: released in two parts bc of tumblr’s 1000-block limit that was put in place to hurt me personally :)) BUT both parts are out RIGHT NOW ⇢ author’s note: rahhh this one has ALSO been a wip for like over a year and is finally finished!!! this is technically my first sci-fi piece bc i started it before frankenstein complex, but i finished fc wayyy before this one. anyway i loveee my alien!woo and i hope y’all do too ⇢ part two
“What? Did you imprint on me like a baby duck or something?” You joked, stretching and yawning.
“I don’t know what ducks are nor the imprinting habits of their young, but yes.”
“You don’t really need to know what ducks are, but baby ducks—Wait, what?!” Your brain finally processed the rest of Jungwoo’s words, and you stared at him wide-eyed.
“Here, Y/N,” Johnny grinned at you as he pushed another seltzer into your hand. “You’re a bit too sober, kid.”
“Thanks, dude,” you beamed back, popping open the tab one-handed and taking your first swig.
All of your friends were gathered around a firepit on the beach, relaxing and celebrating another friend’s birthday—Taeyong. Said birthday boy, a notorious lightweight, was already pink-cheeked and giggly as he chatted with some of the others. Someone had apparently given Doyoung access to the Spotify playlist for the night, as a ballad suddenly came over the Bluetooth speakers that had previously been playing upbeat tunes. A chorus of groans and jeers rose up around the fire from the other eight of you, while Doyoung loudly and passionately tried to defend himself.
“Give me the phone,” Johnny waved for Doyoung to hand over Jaehyun’s phone—the one connected to the speaker.
Doyoung clutched it protectively to his chest. “No! You guys haven’t let me play any of my songs tonight!”
“Because they either make us cry or put us to sleep,” Yuta scoffed, lunging for the device, but the other man jerked it out of his reach.
“If you two break my fucking phone, you’re buying me a new one and splitting the cost,” Jaehyun warned from where he was sat on the sand next to your feet, lazily leaning his head against your knee.
“Seriously, Doyoung, give him the phone,” Mark insisted.
Doyoung reluctantly handed the phone to Yuta, who passed it along to you, who firmly planted it in Johnny’s waiting palm. “None of you have any taste—”
“I thought it was nice, D—” Taeyong was cut off by a hiccup as he went to pat your friend’s head reassuringly. “It was a nice song, Doyoung…”
“Thanks, Yonggie,” Doyoung rolled his eyes, but didn’t shove him off as Taeyong drunkenly wrapped his limbs around him in what you were sure was supposed to be a comforting hug.
As Johnny went to put on more party-appropriate music and you took another sip of your seltzer, you looked up to the sky over the water. There weren’t as many stars as you would’ve liked, and it was a new moon, so there was no silvery light to come from there either. But it was still a nice night, the air was cool, the fire warm, you were the only ones on this stretch of beach this late at night and had enough alcohol to feed a medium-sized frat.
Then, one star started glowing even brighter than the others, and you realized it was moving across the sky. “Look, guys! A shooting star.”
“Ooh, everybody make a wish!” Donghyuck chirped.
Feeling a bit silly, you closed your eyes and made your wish in your mind, then opened them again to see the shooting star getting bigger, as if it was heading towards you all.
“Hey, are shooting stars supposed to do that?” You asked no one in particular.
“I… don’t think so,” Yuta squinted at it suspiciously.
“Should we like… move?” Mark suggested hesitantly.
“They’re just meteors being burned up in the atmosphere,” Jaehyun shrugged. “Most don’t ever reach Earth.”
Except it was very much getting closer and closer, hurtling even faster through the air than before.
“But some do!” Jaehyun added, rushing to his feet. “I think we should go.”
As everybody started scrambling to pack their things, the meteor was making its final approach, and you could hear the sound of it splitting the air as it took a sudden nosedive towards shore. It finally struck with a cacophony of snapping palm trees and thunderous boom of its impact with the ground. It had thankfully missed all of you, but you could see smoke start rising out of the thick foliage where it did land. You all looked around at each other, mirrored faces of shock.
“We survived,” Donghyuck breathed out, patting his front as if he didn’t believe it. His blanket was sloppily thrown over one of his shoulders as he had one hand on the cooler.
“Dude, you thought we were all going to die, and your first instinct was to save the drinks?” Mark pointed out in disbelief.
“I’m sorry, Mr. ‘Where’s my phone?’” Your other friend retorted back. “Going to lecture me on the sanctity of human life when you were about to lose it all for your iPhone?”
As they kept squabbling, you tentatively stepped over the back of your log, towards the trees.
“Y/N?” Johnny said your name questioningly.
“Don’t you guys want to go see it?” You knocked back the rest of your seltzer. “A real-life meteor. Come on, we can all get a piece. It’ll be like, the coolest birthday party souvenir ever.”
Doyoung and Taeyong exchanged uneasy glances. Doyoung spoke up, “I don’t know, that thing was huge…”
“What? You think it was a spaceship or something?” You snickered at the idea, pulling out your phone to turn the flashlight on. “Come on, anybody who’s not a wimp. We’ll bring back enough pieces for the wimps.”
Yuta, Johnny, Jaehyun, and Donghyuck turned out to be the only ones who agreed to come with you. You led the way into the trees, following the slowly thinning smoke trail and path of destroyed palms. The impact site wasn’t very far, and when you first caught a glimpse of the hulking size of its silhouette, you were so glad it had missed. A hundred meters or so over, and all of you would have been crushed by a giant space rock, which is certainly one thing to put on your headstone. Except, as all of your individual flashlight beams shone over it, and you got to see it piece by piece, you realized it was not a meteor. It was all smooth metal, matte chrome in varying colors. A vessel of some kind. From space. A spaceship.
“Holy shit…” You breathed out.
“Oh, we should get the fuck out of here,” Jaehyun said lowly.
“Yeah, no way should first contact be made with our stupid, drunk asses,” Yuta agreed, starting to back up.
“Y/N,” Johnny grabbed your arm to try to pull you back as well, but you stood rooted to the ground. “Y/N, seriously, this is not the rabbit hole to jump down.”
“Maybe she’s figured we’ve gotten plenty of practice with aliens with Mark,” Donghyuck snickered.
You kept staring at the ship, listening to the metal creak and groan. Except those groans weren’t all metallic.
“I think someone’s in there!” You exclaimed, taking off towards it.
Johnny swore as your arm slipped from his grip, and you heard two pairs of footfalls chasing after you. You’d just managed to get a hand and a foot on the ship before a strong pair of arms grabbed you by the waist and pulled you off of it.
“Yuta, grab her hands before she claws me!” Johnny yelled from behind you.
As Yuta went to do that, you haphazardly threw out your feet that were now fully off the ground as Johnny lifted you up. You impacted with something on Yuta, who let out a long line of expletives, his hands dropping to grab something low on his own body. You blindly reached back for Johnny, grabbing a fistful of his hair with one hand and yanking hard, while the other reached under his arm to pinch a pressure point.
“Fuck!” He dropped you. “Yuta! You were supposed to—”
“She kicked me in the balls, man!” Yuta groaned back.
Knowing that you didn’t have long, you raced up the side of the ship. Banging on every panel that you passed by, you yelled out, “Hello? Somebody in there? Are you okay? Hello?”
You finally got to the top-ish of the ship, and one of the panels there felt different than the others. Almost like glass. Pounding your fist against the side of that, hoping it was the cockpit or something, you shouted into it, “Are you okay in there?”
There was another groan that echoed from inside, and it definitely sounded like a person this time. Searching for some kind of emergency release from the outside, you felt around the edge of the whole glass panel. There was no release, but you found a part of the panel that it connected to on the outer hull that had a sizeable dent, big enough for you to get your hand under. Biting your phone in between your teeth to point the flashlight at the dent, you saw that it had exposed an inner latch of some kind.
The sounds of another body climbing up the ship came to your ears, and you whipped around to look at Johnny, already holding your hands up in a defensive fighting position. You took your phone from your mouth just to threaten, “I will bite.”
“I know. Let’s just get this over with before this thing explodes or something, okay?” He held his own hands up in surrender. When you’d relaxed from your fighting stance, he came over to squat down next to you. “So, what are you thinking, kid? We need to bust that?”
“I think?”
“Alright, give me a second.” He hopped back down.
There was another low sound of pain from inside, and you bent closer to the gap as you addressed them, “Just hang in there! My friends and I are going to get you out, okay? Really soon!”
Johnny clambered back up, a large rock now in his hand. You moved out of the way for him to swing the more angled edge of the rock against the latching mechanism. After several swings, you heard a crack of metal, then he was tossing the stone aside. “Jae!” Johnny called out, your other friend joining you two a few seconds later. They each grabbed a side of the glass panel, pushing and pulling it away from the hull.
“Guys?” Donghyuck’s voice suddenly floated up to you, but from the rear of the ship. “I think you should hurry up!”
“No fucking shit!” Jaehyun yelled back, straining as him and Johnny continued battling with the ship.
“I mean, I’m not a spaceship engineer or anything, but I don’t think any of this should be on fire!”
“God dammit!” Johnny groaned. “Yuta!”
“Yep! Recovered! Coming up!” Yuta joined the fray as well, and finally, you heard the last bit of metal holding the panel down snap and give way.
They all fell down as the glass dome now rose on its own, along with a hiss of air pressure. There were dozens of lights and screens inside, all flashing red, lighting up the figure of a man on one of the two seats there. His head was lolled back, arms hanging by his sides.
“Christ, there is someone in there,” Johnny exhaled in shock.
“A fuckin’ alien,” Yuta mimicked the sign of the cross over himself.
“Wrong way, dumbass,” you scoffed, moving along the rim to get closer to the man inside. “You’re not supposed to start on your shoulders.”
“Oh, excuse me, didn’t realize I was in the presence of the Pope herself.”
You shot him another glare as you kneeled down to hook your elbows under the stranger’s arms. “Anybody going to help me?”
“The fire’s getting bigger!” Donghyuck yelled, fear pitching up his voice.
The other guys grabbed the man’s arms as well, helping you yank him up and out. He was all long, lanky limbs and dead weight, which your friends complained about to varying degrees of intensity. With a final tug, you pulled him out to the hull with you, his body flopping back onto you.
“Seriously! I can’t read alien, but I think it’s spreading to the fuel tank or something!” Your friend on the ground shouted in a panic, running around to the side where you were. “Get off there!”
Just then, the spaceman’s eyes fluttered open, and he looked at you with concern, his lips parting for a moment.
“Sorry, introductions later, your ship’s about to explode!” You said, jerking him over the side with you.
Donghyuck half-caught the two of you as you slid down the smooth exterior. Really, he just broke your landing a bit, the two of you still crashing into him at far too high of a speed to be painless, all your limbs smacking each other. The man from the ship made another groan of pain, as you and Donghyuck swore up a storm at your bitten tongues, clocked elbows, and cracked heads. The other three jumped down after you, Johnny and Jaehyun taking the stranger from your arms like they were carrying their drunk friend home from the bar. His feet dragged on the ground between them as the six of you hurried away from the ship. As you came crashing through the foliage again back to your campsite, your other friends all got to their feet to greet you.
“Took long enough!” Mark complained. “Alright, where’s our—Holy shit!”
“You found some guy?” Doyoung asked, pointing to the stranger. “Why does nothing ever go normal and fine when we let Yuta, Y/N, and Donghyuck go off together?”
Before any of you could explain, there was a loud boom from behind you, and you whipped around to see bright, glowing, molten sludge being shot into the air where you just had been. Fire lit up the trees, the night no longer feeling so cold suddenly.
“What was that?!” Taeyong rushed to your side, clinging onto you tightly.
“Spaceship,” Yuta pointed at the fireball. He then pointed at the stranger, “Alien.”
“Seriously?!” Mark’s eyes were bugging out of his head. “Like, a real UFO? What did it look like?”
“I was too busy fearing for our lives to take pictures, sorry, Mark.” Donghyuck leaned his hands on his knees as he caught his breath.
Doyoung spoke up then, concerned look focused on the man from the ship. “Uh, I think your alien’s dead.”
The spaceman was entirely slack in Johnny and Jaehyun’s grip, head hanging forward as dark droplets fell from his mouth onto the sand. You rushed over, instinctually putting two fingers to the side of his neck, where you guessed a jugular would be if he had one. Please, please, please let him have a heart, and let it be beating. He felt warm, at least, and while you couldn’t find a pulse, you didn’t know if that really meant anything. Instead, you held your fingers under his nose, relieved when you could feel a slight, repetitive exhale of breath.
“He’s breathing!” You announced with relief. A drop of his blood fell onto your hand then, and as you jerked the limb back, not entirely sure what alien blood would do to you. The fleck caught the light of the bonfire and shone blue. A dark navy blue, so dark it almost appeared black at first.
“Definitely an alien…” Yuta crossed himself again.
“Stop that!” You hissed, grabbing a half-drank bottle of water to pour the contents over your hand, washing off the alien blood. “You’d burn up if you stepped foot in a church.”
“Should we take him to a hospital?” Doyoung asked.
“No!” You cried out immediately. “They’d dissect him or something.”
“Y/N, you’re not suggesting we keep him!” Johnny regarded with you wide, incredulous eyes.
“Like a pet alien?” Donghyuck added very helpfully.
“You’re a doctor!” You argued with Johnny.
“A vet! An animal doctor! I’m not even licensed to practice medicine on humans, I wouldn’t know where to start on an alien!”
“Exactly, you don’t need a license to practice on him, he’s not human!”
“Johnny, we all know you’re going to say yes,” Jaehyun grunted, readjusting his hold on the passed-out spaceman. “Come on man, he’s getting heavy.”
“Fine! Fine! I have my kit in my car,” Johnny relented with a big sigh.
“We can take him to my place,” you immediately offered.
The distant sounds of sirens caught your attention, and you all immediately rushed to shut down the campsite. Someone doused the firepit while the speaker was shut off, and the drinks, towels, and blankets were hastily packed up. You all made a run for the cars parked up on the side of the road, as the sirens got even louder. You climbed into Johnny’s backseat before he and Jaehyun pushed the stranger back there with you, then got into the front. The others loaded up into Doyoung’s van, and the two vehicles took off with roars of engines and squeals of tires. You pulled the man’s head up into your lap, wincing as you appraised the damage. His blue blood dripped from his mouth and a significant rip in his jacket on his side. He groaned in pain but didn’t stir otherwise. Aside from the blue blood, he looked human… hopefully Johnny would be able to do something.
At your building, Johnny and Jaehyun helped you drag the spaceman up to your apartment on the third floor, and you had them deposit him on your bed. Johnny brought his travel vet kit up from the car, and together, you managed to get the shiny silver jacket off of him. Underneath, he had a fairly plain white top, which was also torn and blood-soaked. Johnny snapped on a pair of gloves before he pushed the hem up to appraise the stranger’s side, where there was a huge gash in his flesh.
“Oh, Christ, okay,” Johnny sighed, inspecting the wound. “I guess I’ll disinfect and suture it up?”
“Just do it,” you mumbled, pressing a towel to the man’s sweat-sheened forehead.
“Jaehyun, mind assisting?”
“You do know the ‘Dr.’ I put in front of my name is just decorative, right? It’s in Poetry—”
“And now you can brag to all your colleagues that you’ve done real medicine like a real doctor,” Johnny snapped back. “Disinfectant, get it.”
With Jaehyun assisting him, Johnny made quick work of patching him up. Pressing the bandages down over the site so the adhesive would stick, Johnny then disposed of his navy-splattered gloves. He grabbed a stethoscope, putting the end up against the spaceman’s chest.
“I think he’s alive?” Johnny announced. “I don’t know. If he is, he doesn’t have a heart because I’m not getting anything.”
He shifted the placement, presumably to listen to his breathing, and an even more bewildered look overtook his features. Sliding the stethoscope over to the right side of the man’s chest, he sat there for a moment, just listening.
“It’s on the other side,” he breathed out. “His heart’s on the right side.”
“But he has a heartbeat?” You clarified.
“Yeah, he does. Faint, but it’s there. He’s breathing, too. A bit shallow, but otherwise normal. I think.”
You let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God.”
“I don’t think there’s anything else I can do until he wakes up. If he wakes up.”
“Right, thank you Johnny,” you smiled wearily your friend. “I’ll call you when he wakes.”
Jaehyun and Johnny looked at each other skeptically. Jaehyun spoke up, “You’re going to stay here alone with some rando we literally pulled out of a burning hunk of metal?”
“My couch only fits one person. So unless you two are offering to sleep on the floor to protect me or whatever?”
“Call us if anything happens,” Johnny sighed, packing up all of his supplies.
“Of course,” you nodded. “Thanks, guys.”
You heard the sound of your front door clicking shut as you stayed sitting on the edge of your mattress, wiping the spaceman’s face. He really did look human, two eyes that were now shut, lashes resting on his cheeks, a nose practically just like yours, with an elegant slope to the bridge, and a pair of plush, pouty lips. He let out a soft sigh, his head rolling over towards you. But then he went silent and still again. You finished cleaning up his face as best you could, then pulled the covers up over him. Readjusting his bangs that had been stuck together by the damp washcloth you’d used, you gave a final determined nod to nobody in particular before standing up. Grabbing a change of pajamas from your dresser, you got everything you’d need from in here for the night, then went to leave.
“Alright…” You stopped at the threshold of your bedroom, looking over the spaceman’s sleeping figure one last time. “Goodnight, I suppose.”
And with that, you turned the lights out, and quietly closed the door behind you. You were sure to leave it slightly ajar, though, just in case. After taking a much-needed shower and getting ready for bed in your bathroom, you headed out to the living room. You set up a few pillows and blankets into a comfy-enough makeshift bed, then tucked yourself in. Despite the exhaustion in your muscles, the excitement of the night hadn’t worn off yet, and you laid awake for another hour just staring at your bedroom door.
Waking up in the morning to sunlight streaming in through your living room windows, you covered your eyes with a groan and rolled over to bury your face in the back cushions. The sound of your phone buzzing incessantly from the coffee table came, however, and with a guttural groan, you flopped back over to pick it up.
“Yeah?” You mumbled, not even checking the caller ID.
“Y/N?” It was Yuta on the other end.
“Who the fuck else would it be? You called me at whenever-the-fuck-in-the-morning.”
“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
“Couch,” you corrected him, swinging your feet over as you sat up properly. “I slept on the couch.”
“Gave E.T. your bed? Such a kind hostess.”
The mention of your guest woke you up more. You got to your feet, shuffling towards the bedroom with a yawn. “Yeah, you know me, I’m a fuckin’ peach.”
“So how’s the…” Yuta dropped his voice to whisper into the phone, “Alien?”
The door hadn’t moved since last night, and you cautiously pushed it open to peer inside. You could see the stranger exactly where you had left him, laying on his back under your blankets, chest shallowly rising up and down. Pushing further into the room, you hesitated on whether to try to find a pulse again. You settled for trying once around his wrist, and if it didn’t work, then you’d just have to assume he was fine. Surprisingly, you found his pulse in one go, and it felt steady.
“Fine, I think,” you answered Yuta quietly, walking back over towards your door. “He’s breathing, he has a heartbeat. He’s just not… ambulatory.”
“Still passed out cold?”
“Yeah.”
“Imagine if he was in one of those comas that you don’t wake up from, and we just had to deal with this comatose alien.”
“Stop, you’re going to manifest that or something!” You hissed.
“Not manifesting, just joking.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“Anyway, some of us went back to the beach this morning, because Mark really wanted to see the UFO—”
“Don’t touch anything!”
“We couldn’t. The whole place is locked down. Couldn’t even park on the shoulder, it was swarming with cops. They were still putting out the fire.”
“Do you think any of the ship survived?”
“I have no clue. Doyoung said he’d ask his dad about it.” Doyoung’s dad was the fire chief, making your participation in the conflagration last night even more dicey.
“Tell him to call me as soon as he finds out anything.”
“I think he was already planning on that, but I’ll make sure he knows.”
“Good. Also, I’m sorry for kicking you in…” You trailed off as you turned around to see two big brown eyes staring at you from your bed. “I’ve got to go, Yuta. I’ll call you back.”
“What’s hap—” You hung up.
The spaceman was looking around the room warily, regarding you with clear suspicion.
“Hey…” You offered him a smile as you kept your tone of voice soothing and calm. “You’re alright. I’m not going to do anything to you. My name’s Y/N.”
He kept staring blankly at you, and you were starting to fear that he wouldn’t be able to understand you at all.
“You got injured, last night. On your side.”
He pulled up the hem of his shirt, looking at it himself. He tentatively touched the bandages, but didn’t rip them off. There was a small dot of dark blue that had soaked through.
“I’m going to call my friend, to look at it, okay?”
He nodded.
Quickly dialing Johnny’s number, you chewed on your thumbnail anxiously at how long it was taking him to pick up. Finally, the ringing stopped, and a confused groan came from the other end.
“Hey, Johnny,” you greeted him, relieved. Johnny made another inquisitive sound. “Yeah, he’s awake.”
You could heard Johnny make a few more noises of exertion, presumably sitting up in bed. After a yawn, sniffle, and cough (which he thankfully pointed his mic away from), he said real words. “Has he… said anything?” Your friend questioned. “Can you even understand each other?”
“No, he’s not exactly talking… Just sort of nodding. So I think he can understand me at least.”
“Alright—good Lord—I’ll be over in like, thirty.”
“That long?!”
“You woke me up! I need to brush my teeth and shit. Make that forty-five, I still reek of alcohol.”
“Fine. Hey, can you bring some clothes for him, too?”
“What?!”
“I don’t have anything that’ll fit him. You guys are about the same size. Or steal some of Jae’s, I don’t care.”
“Yeah, I’m taking Jaehyun’s. I think they’re a bit closer in size.”
“You don’t want an alien to wear your clothes.”
“Excuse me for feeling weird about that! What if he bleeds on them? I’d have to burn them!”
“So you’re volunteering your roommate’s clothes instead.”
“Well—”
“Just get over here, John.”
“Will do. See you, kid.”
“See you.” You hung up. Turning back to the alien, you announced, “My friend will be here soon. He’s just going to look you over. Are you okay? Like, does anything hurt?”
He stared at you.
“Right, those were two different questions.” You shook your head at yourself. “Do you feel any pain? Anywhere?”
He indicated to the wound on his side.
“Makes sense, you got sliced open by something there. Anything else?”
He held his hands out, and you saw that his left wrist was slightly puffier and swollen than the other.
“Oh, looks like you… sprained your wrist?” You said tentatively. You had no clue how his joints worked or if they could even get sprained like yours, but that’s definitely what it looked like.
He nodded.
“Johnny should have something for that,” you assured him. After a few beats of silence, you tried introductions again. “I’m Y/N. I know I already said that, but uh, it’d be nice to know your name, too? I’m pretty sure you can understand me, since you’ve been answering my questions, mostly. So—”
“Did you capture me, then?” He finally spoke, his voice clear but uncertain.
“What? No,” you laughed, completely caught off-guard by the question. “You’re free to go anytime you want. Your ship crashed, and my friends and I found you. I just want to help, but if you want to go right now, I won’t stop you.”
“This is… not a human hospital?”
“No, it’s not,” you chuckled again. “It’s my bedroom. We uh, we weren’t sure if we should take you to a hospital or not. Didn’t want them taking x-rays of you and finding out you had two hearts or something.”
“Just the one.”
“Yes, and it’s on the right side of your chest, right?”
He stared at you with mild alarm.
“Johnny was listening to your heart last night. Had a difficult time finding it.” You tapped the left side of your chest, right above your own heart. “Ours is usually over here.”
He licked his lips, eyes flitting around before they landed on you again, and he finally said, “My name’s Jungwoo.”
“Jungwoo?” You echoed slowly, making sure you were pronouncing it correctly.
“Yes.”
“If you’re from space, why is your name… Korean?”
“It’s not. It can’t be pronounced by humans. You’re missing a flap.” He gestured to his throat. “I suppose that’s the closest approximation that it could get.”
“It?”
“My transcoder.” He picked up the pendant hanging around his neck, a simple rhombus of flat gold metal. “It’s a translation device. That’s why we can understand each other right now. Thankfully, it didn’t get busted in the crash. I don’t speak human.”
“We don’t all speak one language, you know? We have thousands.”
“Wait, really?”
“Does your whole planet speak one language? Speaking of, where are you from?”
“I’m from far outside this galaxy. I’m not sure telling you the name of my planet would be any help.”
“It’d be interesting.”
“Galaria.”
“So you’re… Galarian?”
“Galarii.”
“Ah, I was close. Never was good at conjugation in grammar class.”
“All Galarii speak the same language, to answer your question. We have some regional dialects, but all of us can understand each other. How does your planet hold conversations, come to agreements about policy or run the government at all?”
“We don’t have one government system for the whole planet, so usually we don’t need to. Everybody who lives near each other tend to speak the same language.”
His brow furrowed and his lips pulled down into a slight frown. “Then you must all be so… separated.”
You sat down on the corner of your bed in front of him, hoping this was still a polite, conversational distance for Galarii. “I don’t think it’s so bad. People can always learn more than one language if they want, learn about other cultures.”
“How do people from those different cultures even understand each other, though? You seemed confused about my transcoder, I’m guessing you don’t have anything similar here.”
“Translators. People who learn more than one language and interpret between people who don’t speak the same language. Not to mention computer programs will usually get you the gist of something if you’re in a hurry or don’t have access to a more authentic source.”
“How many governments do you have, then? Two? Three?”
You burst into laughter at the idea. “Sorry, sorry, I’m not laughing at you. It’s just… well, to spare you from any degree of human politics, let’s say there’s a debate about how many countries we even have, but people usually say about 200.”
“Two hundred?! How do you get anything done?”
“Very slowly,” you snickered, hiking a leg up onto the side of the bed to get comfier. “So, how does your transcoder work, exactly? Like, how is it getting in my brain? Because watching you talk, it looks like you’re saying the words I’m hearing, but you can’t be.”
“Low-level, short-range telepathic wave.”
“Telepathic?!”
“I’m not sure what word it’s picking to translate, but you seem very shocked.”
“For us, telepathy is magic. It’s a superpower, it’s not real.”
“I can assure you, this all has very sound science behind it. Though I’m more of a pilot than a neuroscientist, so I can’t really explain it...”
“Really good pilot, too. Spectacular landing,” you joked, crossing your fingers that Galarii understood sarcasm.
He seemed to, as he let out a cynical chuckle. “Not my finest work.”
“So what happened that made you crash in the first place?”
“Political assassination.”
“Excuse me?!”
“Attempted murder?” Jungwoo tried another phrase, looking down at his transcoder as if inspecting it for damage.
“Am I harboring a space fugitive right now?”
“No, I’m not on the run from anywhere. I was taking a joyride when suddenly the engines began failing. I presume it was meant to look like an accident. I’ll know more after I can inspect my ship.”
“Ooh, about that,” you winced.
“What?”
“Well, it exploded, for one.”
“Yes, that’s what I figured when you told me ‘your ship is about to explode’ and then I heard an explosion.”
“So you remember some of last night!” You pointed victoriously.
“Some,” he agreed mildly. “In a couple brief bouts of consciousness I had.”
“So, yeah, it exploded, and the explosion and resulting fire drew in a lot of attention. A couple of my friends drove by this morning and the whole place is swarmed with firemen and cops still.”
“I’ll just tell them it’s my ship.”
“No.”
“They should release it to the proper owner, what would the problem be?”
“You crashed here from space in a certifiable UFO. If you walked up and say that it’s yours, if they believe you, they’d probably ship you off for dissection, shoot you on the spot, or kill you then ship you off for dissection.”
“That’s not very polite.”
“Sorry, we don’t really get a lot of alien visitors. Or any, that I’m aware of.”
“Very well,” Jungwoo sighed, looking down at his lap dejectedly.
“So we’ll have to sneak in at night.”
“What?”
“If you want to inspect your ship, we’ll have to sneak in after everybody leaves for the night. And, after they’ve put out the fires.”
“You’re suggesting breaking the law?”
“Do you have a problem with that? It’s just light trespassing, and onto a ship that’s yours anyway.”
“No, I don’t have a problem with that.” Jungwoo’s face finally cracked into a smile. “Just clarifying.”
“So… who are you?”
“I’ve told you my name and species.”
“I meant, who are you on your planet? To have somebody trying to assassinate you. Here, usually people that get assassinated are like, politicians, rulers, activists, sometimes celebrities. Ooh, I’ve got it! You’re a pop star or something!”
“No, I’m not a… musician.” The way he said the word made you think the transcoder must have had a hard time finding an equivalent word in his language.
“Actor?”
“I’m not a celebrity. Well, not how you’re suggesting, I believe.”
“Okay, because you’ve got the look.”
“Look? How am I looking at you?”
“No, I mean you’re really pretty.” You gestured vaguely to his face. “You’d fit right in on a red carpet here.”
“I think I will interpret that as a compliment.”
���Maybe,” you grinned and shrugged. “So? What are you? If you’re not a celebrity, why did someone try to kill you?”
“They weren’t trying to kill me.”
“Who were they trying to kill?”
“My brother, presumably,” he said as if this were the most obvious, natural thing in the world.
You raised an eyebrow. “You sound unperturbed by this.”
“Really, this is what I get for stealing his ship.”
“So you are a thief.”
“With permission.”
“Then it’s not stealing.”
“Just like you didn’t want to bore me with Earth politics, I won’t bore you with mine, but let’s say my brother’s very powerful and very controversial,” Jungwoo explained. “He asked that I take his ship and publicly leave the planet on it.”
“So everybody would think he left.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“So he could get some paperwork done.”
“What exactly makes him so controversial?”
“None of his policies, really. But people don’t like some choices he’s made in his personal life.”
“Sounds familiar,” you mused, thinking of a few figures on Earth like that as well. “How long was your joyride supposed to take?”
“A few days.”
“Are Galaria days similar to Earth days?”
“I… am not sure.”
“Cool. So what’s going to happen if you don’t come back on time?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve run away,” he admitted. “Though he will be pissed that I diverted from the plan.”
“Well, hopefully we can get you back without getting in too much trouble with him,” you offered him a reassuring smile.
“We?”
“I’m not an engineer or anything, but I’ll help you however I can. Even if it’s just holding the flashlight.”
Jungwoo regarded you not with suspicion, but more-so fascination, like he wanted to put you under a microscope. “I take it not all humans are this helpful.”
“I like to think we all want to do good, but it might look different for different people. And some of us haven’t practiced doing good since we were taught to share as kids.”
“Well, thank you, Y/N. I suppose if we’re going to be sneaking in at night, I will need somebody to hold the flashlight.”
“I’m your girl,” you beamed, right as your doorbell rang, accompanied by a solid knock. “That’ll be Johnny. Wait here.”
“Johnny!” You opened your door, head tilting curiously at the extra figures that accompanied him. “And Mark and Donghyuck. What are you guys doing here?”
“Well—” Mark started.
“We want to see the alien, duh,” Donghyuck pushed past you.
You crossed your arms over your chest. “He’s not a freakshow here for your entertainment.”
“Alright, Ms. High-and-Mighty, excuse us for having natural human curiosity,” Donghyuck scoffed, looked around your living room as if you were hiding him somewhere.
“Let Johnny look him over first, then I will ask Jungwoo if he wants to meet you.”
“Sweet!” “Yes!” They high-fived each other.
“Jungwoo?” Johnny repeated with a suspicious eyebrow raised. “His name’s not like ‘Gorgluk’ or something?”
“It could be, for all I know,” you admitted with a shrug. “According to him, we—humans—don’t have the right… throat flaps to say his actual name. That’s the closest approximation his translating device could make, apparently.”
“Right. Cool. Alien named Jungwoo. We going to meet his brother Steve next?”
“You’re not funny.”
“I’m coping.”
Leading Johnny back down the hall, you gently knocked on your bedroom door as you pushed it open. “Hey, Jungwoo, I’m back.”
Jungwoo was right where you’d left him, sitting up in your bed, hands folded over his lap patiently. You saw him stiffen slightly when his eyes moved from you to Johnny as the taller man followed you into the room.
“Jungwoo, this is my friend Johnny. Johnny, this is Jungwoo,” you quietly introduced them.
“Hey,” Johnny nodded to him casually.
“I told you Johnny was going to check you out, remember?”
Jungwoo nodded.
“Does he talk?” Your friend looked at you with a skeptical eyebrow raised.
“Yeah, he’s just shy, or something,” you muttered, walking over to the bedside with Johnny.
Johnny pulled out his stethoscope first, awkwardly listening to the right side of Jungwoo’s chest, then motioned for him to lean forward to listen to his lungs from the back. Once he’d taken the stethoscope out of his ears, Jungwoo spoke.
“You’re a doctor?” The spaceman asked, watching as Johnny opened his kit again to put the tool away.
“Vet.” Johnny answered bluntly, pulling on a pair of latex gloves.
“Vet?”
“Veterinarian. I am a doctor, but my patients are usually on four legs.”
Jungwoo looked up at you in bewilderment. “There are four-legged humans?”
“Animals. I treat animals.”
“Johnny’s really good,” you assured him. “He’s the one that stitched you up.”
“Speaking of—” Johnny gestured to his side. “You mind?”
Jungwoo wordlessly pulled his shirt up to allow Johnny to inspect the wound.
“I’m going to change the dressings,” the vet declared, beginning to peel the bandage off.
To your disbelief, the wound was half the size as before, and looked almost healed up. The amount of blood on the gauze indicated much more damage than you were seeing.
“What the shit?” Johnny swore under his breath.
“Jungwoo, how’s your wrist?” You asked with wide eyes.
He lifted his left hand up, bending and flexing it with no visible reaction. It was a typical size again. “From your reactions, I take it humans heal at much slower rates?”
“Uh, yeah,” you gulped, still staring at the wound on his side in awe. “It would take us days to heal as much as you have.”
“I-I don’t think I need to change the dressing,” Johnny said, his face completely betraying how weirded out he was by what he was looking at. “There’s no blood or any other… fluids coming out of it. It’s entirely scabbed over, nothing should be getting in there. I can put a band-aid on it so the scab doesn’t catch on any clothes, I guess?”
“Do you have any morphine?” Jungwoo requested.
“It can’t hurt that much, it just looks like you bumped a countertop too hard.”
“I think my rib is broken.”
“What?!”
You looked at him incredulously. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”
“My skin heals quicker than internal parts. It should be fine in a few days, but it does hurt quite a bit now.”
Johnny looked to you for any sort of cue, at the same time that you looked at him for the same. He presumably thought you knew more about aliens than him, and you were seeking his medical opinion.
“Can you have morphine?” Johnny asked him slowly. “Like, is it compatible with your biology, or whatever?”
“Very much. My body naturally produces some, but I’m afraid the concentration of hydrogen in your atmosphere is inadequate for this level of injury.” Jungwoo looked the two of you over with confusion. “Why are you so hesitant to give me it?”
“Well, it’s sort of… addictive,” you tried to explain. “Doctors tend to try other stuff before jumping for the opioids.”
“My body must process it differently. We’ve never seen opioid addiction on my planet.”
You and Johnny met eyes again before Johnny reached back into his kit. He pulled out a small bottle and syringe. As soon as he took the cap off the needle, Jungwoo’s eyes went wide. “And what are you going to do with that?”
“Inject you?” Johnny replied, bewildered. “Unless you were planning on drinking it?”
“You don’t?”
“No! And I’m not going to let you!” Johnny was clearly at his wits end. “Either I stick you, or you don’t get any.”
“Okay, guys,” you jumped in, uncomfortable with the rising tension. Able to realize when Johnny was at his limit, you turned to Jungwoo. “Will it harm you if you get injected with it instead of drinking it?”
“No, but I would prefer not to,” Jungwoo admitted.
“Alien with trypanophobia?” Johnny scoffed.
At the returned stiffness in Jungwoo’s muscles, you looked at him sympathetically. “Is that it, Jungwoo? You’re afraid of needles?”
“I’m not afraid of them, he has one and I’m not running from the room—”
“But you don’t like them being used on you.”
“Y/N, I have a job,” Johnny sighed, checking his watch. “I can’t do this song and dance with him all day.”
“Jungwoo, are you going to let him inject you? Like I said, doctors avoid giving opiates out, we’re not going to be able to get you any from anywhere else.”
“Y/N will hold your hand, will that help?” Your human friend offered tersely.
“Johnny, don’t patronize him.”
“Very well,” Jungwoo cut Johnny off right as he had opened his mouth to respond to you. “That… is an agreeable compromise.”
Johnny gestured at him while staring you down very pointedly. Not having the energy in you to go back and forth with either of them anymore, you sat down at the head of the bed by Jungwoo and offered your hand out to him. His skin was surprisingly warm as he laid his hand atop yours, and you curled your hand around it, then put your other one on top, giving him a gentle pat and small smile that you hoped looked reassuring.
Jungwoo didn’t look at Johnny as he went back to preparing the injection, instead keeping his eyes trained on you. “I… didn’t realize that humans are so cold.”
“Just me,” you told him, squeezing his hand. “Cold hands. You’re about as warm as other humans I’ve met. My friend Jae is like a human space heater. Hates when I put my cold toes on him during movie night.”
Jungwoo opened his mouth to reply, but his face suddenly scrunched up. Johnny must have put the needle in. The alien squinted one eye open as he continued whatever he had been going to say in the first place. “I don’t mind how cold you are.”
“Done,” Johnny declared, quite literally slapping a band-aid over where he had just injected. “And I’m going to work.”
“Taking the other two with you?” You asked hopefully.
“You promised them an alien.”
“I promised I would ask. They’re not entitled to see him.”
“Whatever, I’ve got to go.” Johnny packed everything up quickly. He gave your hair a quick ruffle. “Bye, kid.”
“Bye, Johnny.” You watched him head for the bedroom door.
“Thank you,” Jungwoo called out to him.
The vet gave a final nod to both of you before slipping back out. You heard a sudden swell of noise as the two younger boys accosted him.
“Who else is here?” Jungwoo asked you.
You bit your lip ruefully as you heard the front door open and close, but the voices of Mark and Donghyuck were still very much audible. “Two more of our friends, Donghyuck and Mark. They were at the beach last night, too, when we found you. They want to meet you, if that’s okay with you. I totally get it if you say no. I’ll be more than happy to kick them out.”
“No, that’s alright. I would like to meet them. They’re your friends, right?”
“I guess I did say that,” you sighed, letting go of his hand and standing up. “Okay, be back.”
Out in your living room, the two younger boys practically assaulted you in their excited states, clinging onto your arms desperately.
“Don’t throw us out! We’ll be so good!” Donghyuck pleaded.
“Johnny told us he talks and stuff?!” Mark was buzzing.
“Cool it,” you chastised them. “He said he wants to meet you. Don’t make me regret this.”
“Fuck yeah!” They fistbumped.
“You two are so lame. Come on.” You stalked back over to your room. Jungwoo perked up when you came back in, regarding the two newcomers studiously.
“Jungwoo, this is Mark and Donghyuck,” you gestured to each in turn. “Guys, this is Jungwoo.”
“It’s nice to meet—” Mark’s polite greeting was cut off by Donghyuck.
“So are you from Mars? Jupiter?”
You slapped a hand over your face with a low groan. Jungwoo almost looked amused, thankfully. “No, I’m not from this Solar System. Or galaxy, for that matter.”
“How can you breathe our air?” Mark asked curiously.
“We have a similar composition on my home planet. Though there’s not as much free hydrogen here…”
“Oh!” You suddenly had an epiphany. “The hydrogen. Will water work? Uhm, dihydrogen monoxide?”
“Yes, that will be an apt replacement.”
“I’ll go get you a glass,” you patted his shoulder before hurrying from the room. The others were still talking as you filled up a cup of water, then walked back in with it. You held it out to Jungwoo. “Here.”
“Thank you, Y/N.”
“So what do you eat?” Donghyuck questioned. “Can you eat our food?”
“I quite like uhm, confections. Desserts.”
“Alien with a sweet tooth…”
“You all keep calling me that. You do realize that to me, you are the aliens?”
“Woah…” Mark breathed out. “You’re right.”
Jungwoo quickly chugged down the glass of water, and you took it back. “I’ll get you another,” you smiled down at him.
Donghyuck perked up, “Oh, Y/N, can I have a—”
“You know where the kitchen is,” you snorted, heading for the door. “I’m not your mom.”
When you returned and handed the cup to Jungwoo again, Mark eyed you with a pout and arms crossed over his chest. “You’re never this nice to us when we get hurt.”
“Yeah, you laughed in Yuta’s face when he broke his leg last year,” Donghyuck narrowed his eyes.
“Because he broke his leg trying to grind an ollie at the skate park at his big age,” you scoffed. “And then had to go into his grown-up job the next day. Tell me how that isn’t funny.”
They exchanged a glance before breaking out into snickers.
“Okay, that is pretty funny,” Donghyuck admitted.
“Exactly.” You glanced at the time on your phone. “Alright, I’m tired of human interaction, you two need to go.”
“But—” Mark gestured wildly to Jungwoo, who was calmly sipping his water.
“My apartment, my rules,” you clicked your tongue, shooing them towards the front door.
“Johnny brought us here, how are we going to get home?” Donghyuck tried to plead with you as you shoved them through your apartment.
“You have bus passes, don’t you?”
“Well yeah—”
“Then, bye!” You opened your door and pushed them out, slamming the door shut behind them. Turning back around, you noticed a stack of clothes on the arm of your couch, and recognized them as some of Jaehyun’s. You grabbed them and took them back with you into your bedroom.
“Ugh, finally,” you sighed, rolling out your neck. “Sorry about them.”
“They were… funny,” Jungwoo settled on an adjective.
You offered out the clothes to your guest. “Here, Johnny brought these for you. My shower is through there, too.” You gestured to your bathroom door. “And I can make something to eat while you freshen up. If you’re hungry. What do you eat? Other than sweet stuff? I don’t have any meat, but I can go get some if you need it—”
“We don’t eat meat, either,” he smiled up at you. “Galarii don’t.”
“Vegetarians?”
“Yes.”
“Well, easy for me, then.” You watched him as he swung his legs around. “You got it? You need any help?”
Jungwoo slowly got to his feet, and you winced as you watched him clutch at his side. Nevertheless, he stayed upright, and took a couple steps forward. “I’ll be alright.”
“Great. Uhm, let me just show you how the shower works and stuff, then I’ll leave you be.” You walked him into the bathroom, pushed back the shower curtain, pointing out the knobs and bottles to Jungwoo. “This one’s for cold water, this one’s for hot water. You have to turn them left to turn them on. Pull this thing up to turn the shower part on instead of the bath. This blue bottle is for shampoo, you do that one first, just on the roots of your hair. Purple one is conditioner, on your ends. Face wash, body wash. Yeah, I think that’s it.”
As you turned back to look at Jungwoo, you realized how close he was as he had leaned in to listen intently to you point out everything. Squinting, you looked closer at a faint smattering of freckles across his cheeks and nose that you hadn’t noticed before. “Hey, I never realized you have freckles,” you commented, blinking a couple times to make sure you were seeing this right. “Or that they were… rainbow? No, just pink? And purple?”
“They’re not freckles.” He touched them as if he were wiping them away, but they didn’t budge. “They’re iridophores, patches of cells that reflect light differently. I believe the fluorescents in here are making them more visible than the dim lighting in the other room.”
“They’re so pretty!” You exclaimed, shifting in another direction so that they were even flashier at this angle, revealing some blue and green as well.
Jungwoo’s hand hovered uncertainly over his face. “You think so?”
“Yeah, of course! What? You don’t?”
“They’re… I don’t know, they’re nothing special on Galaria,” he admitted, dropping his hand to give you a full view of the iridophores. He pulled the collar of his shirt to the side to show some of the top of his shoulder, where there were even more, then let it go. “I have them here too. Everyone does.”
“Well, we don’t have stuff like that here,” you informed him with an awestruck grin. “Anyway, I’ll let you shower, sorry. You’re not some specimen for me to gawk at.”
“No, it’s alright. I don’t mind you being curious about me.”
You weren’t sure what to say to that, so you gave him a nod and another smile before leaving the bathroom and heading into the kitchen.
By the time Jungwoo was done with his shower, you had made a couple hefty stacks of pancakes, cut up some fruit, and grabbed a jar of Nutella for good measure, remembering his comment about preferring sweets. You filled up two tall glasses of ice water before also making a cup of tea for yourself. You briefly contemplated running to the boba place around the corner, but it was exactly then that you heard the shower turn off, and thought better of it. Jungwoo emerged in a pair of Jaehyun’s jeans and a slouchy, grey crewneck sweater, looking startlingly human, except for the occasional glint of iridophores on his cheeks and nose. His hair was still a bit damp as he came over to curiously inspect the two plates you had placed on your kitchen counter.
“Pancakes and fruit. Grab a plate and sit wherever, I don’t have a table. I usually eat at the couch.” You gestured. Jungwoo followed your lead and sat in the corner of your couch as you plopped down in your armchair. You cracked open your jar of Nutella, offering it out to him.
“What is that?” He questioned, sniffing the air tentatively.
“Chocolate hazelnut spread,” you stuck a spoon in it. “It’s sweet. You’ll probably like it. Most people do.”
He put some on a small part of a pancake, and tried a bite, then immediately dove back in to slather the rest of his pancakes in it.
“Alien with a sweet tooth,” you chuckled to yourself, digging into your own breakfast.
“You don’t have to… stay with me,” Jungwoo told you between bites. “I remember you telling your friends that you were tired of human interaction. I believe that it’s a common human social nicety to entertain house guests, but you won’t offend me if you wish to be alone.”
“That’s… considerate,” you chuckled. “But the operative word there is human. You’re an alien, so I’m not tired of you yet, Jungwoo.”
“Really?”
“Yep,” you grinned at him, popping a piece of fruit in your mouth.
“May I ask… Why am I staying with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“From what Mark and Donghyuck were saying, it sounds like there were many of your friends there last night when my ship crashed. How did it happen that I ended up here with you?”
“Finders keepers, I guess,” you laughed. Jungwoo gave you a funny sort of look at that, which prompted you to further explain. “I’m the one who found your ship in the first place and wanted to look inside at all. I don’t know how much you remember, but I’m kind of the one who pulled you out. Some of the other guys helped me, don’t get me wrong, but if they had their way, you would’ve been left in there. So, I found you, you’re my responsibility. Finders keepers.”
“Ah, I see.”
Your phone buzzed then, and you saw that it was Doyoung calling. “Oh, that’s Doyoung, I’ve got to take this. Sorry, hold on.” Standing up, you didn’t go very far as you walked over to the living room window to look out over the city as you answered. “Hi, Doie, what’s up?”
“Y/N, hey. How’s your alien?” Your friend asked.
“Fine, all things considering.”
“He alive?”
“Alive, awake, eating, talking, the whole shebang.”
“Shit, really?!”
“Uh-huh,” you confirmed, holding your phone mic-out towards Jungwoo, “Jungwoo, say hi to Doyoung?”
Jungwoo covered his mouth as he quickly chewed and swallowed, then called out, “Hello, Doyoung!”
You brought your phone back up to your ear just in time to hear your friend react. “Holy shit!”
“So what’d you find out from your dad? How much of the ship survived?”
“A lot,” he told you. “They’re calling it a hoax, and they’re not letting news reporters get footage. Apparently they don’t want to encourage any copycats. After putting out the fire, they haven’t let anybody on board. They’re just keeping it cordoned off until the police chief and my dad decide what to do with it. Right now it’s a crime scene while they investigate it as an arson case.”
“But the fire’s been put out, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know anything about how it’s being watched?”
“A couple cops at night, I think.” Doyoung’s voice was guarded. “You’re going to sneak the alien back there, aren’t you?”
“He has to get home somehow, Doyoung,” you insisted. “Unless you think we should steal a spaceship from somewhere else that’s fit for intergalactic travel?”
“Hey, I’m not disagreeing with the whole ‘get the alien back home’ idea,” he said defensively. “Just don’t get arrested while you’re at it, alright? Johnny would have a stroke.”
“Yeah, I know, he nearly had one last night and this morning playing alien doctor,” you sighed. “I don’t think he’d bail me and Jungwoo out of jail if it came to it.”
“Call Yuta for your one phone call if you need. He’s good for it.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Or Taeyong, he probably wouldn’t hold it over my head.”
“Good point. Or, even better—don’t get arrested in the first place.”
“Plan A: Don’t get arrested. Plan B: Taeyong. Plan C: Yuta. Plan D: You. Plan E: Jaehyun, who would definitely bring Johnny with him.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out,” Doyoung chuckled. “I’ll leave you and Spock to it then.”
“He has a name, you know.”
“Yeah, but I don’t have all the right flaps, right?”
“Who told you? Donghyuck? Mark?”
“Johnny. He called on the way to work to ask if I knew anything about the ship.”
“Huh…”
“Anyway, I’ll leave you and Stitch be. Holler if you need something.”
“You’re hilarious. You’re fucking hilarious,” you rolled your eyes, hanging up. Plopping back down in your armchair, you relayed the pertinent parts of your conversation to Jungwoo. “According to Doyoung, a lot of your ship survived the explosion. They’ve put the fire out, but there will probably be a couple cops patrolling it at night, so we’ll have to be careful when we go check it out tonight. Until then, I guess we’ll just hang out. Sound good? How are you feeling? How’s your side? Do you need more bandages after showering? I can call Johnny up, probably swing by his office and get some more or see if he can come by on his lunch and take a look at you? Maybe bring some more morphine?”
“I don’t need any more bandages,” Jungwoo shook his hand, lifting the sweatshirt to allow you to see how he’s healed so far. There was still a considerable amount of bruising, but the skin had entirely mended itself, no evidence of a scab, only a dark, puffy scar.
“Does it still hurt?” You asked with a sympathetic grimace. “I know you said you take longer to heal internally than on the outside. I can probably convince him to bring some more morphine for you. I don’t know what your metabolism is like compared to ours, or even how much he gave you last time. I mean, are you in pain?”
“It is painful,” he admitted, dropping his shirt again. “But I don’t—I’ll be fine.”
“Jungwoo, if it hurts—”
“Not that bad.”
You felt a bit mean for this, but you reached out to poke his side, and he immediately let out a yelp, covering his wound and ducking away from you.
“What did you do that for?” He asked you, jaw dropped.
“You liar,” you scoffed, bringing your phone out. “I’m texting Johnny.”
“He will administer it the same way as last time, won’t he?” Jungwoo questioned quietly, stopping your typing.
You put your phone down. “Probably, yeah. He’s not… used to letting people drink that stuff.”
“Then I will be fine without it.”
“Even if I hold your hand again? You can’t do another one?” You asked. “I’ll talk to you, you can squeeze my hand like a stress ball—or we’ll get you a real stress ball, whatever you want.”
He was silent, and you let out a sigh.
“Jungwoo, I don’t like seeing you hurt, you know,” you shook your head, cutting off a piece of your pancakes with the side of your fork, lifting it to your mouth. “But it’s up to you, I’m not going to hold you down and make him stick you or anything.”
With a flash of iridophores, Jungwoo’s head turned, and his eyes were focused back on you, his hands wringing together. “I’ll do it.”
Your jaw stopped mid-bite. “Wait, seriously?”
“Yes. If Johnny agrees. I get the impression he doesn’t like me very much…”
“No, no, he likes you just fine, I promise!” You reassured him, reaching forward to pat his knee. “I just stress him out, that’s all. I’ll text him right now, okay? We’ll get you feeling better in no time!”
“Can’t believe he’s making us come to him,” you grumbled, pushing your way through the sidewalks with Jungwoo’s arm around your shoulders. “You literally have bruised ribs and fell from the fucking sky last night.”
“I don’t mind,” Jungwoo tried to be diplomatic, even as he held his side with his free hand. “He’s doing me a favor.”
“He’s being an asshole.” You tried to match Jungwoo’s slow, hobbling pace. “Making you come all the way across the city in pain. Risking you being out in public. Goddamn asshole.”
“I don’t mind,” your companion repeated, looking up past the visor of the baseball cap you’d put on him to conceal his glinting iridophore flecks as best as possible. “I haven’t seen much of Earth. Your sky is beautiful. Is it always blue?”
“During the day, yeah, usually. What color is Galaria’s?”
“A bright violet.” He was leaning more of his weight on you, and you stepped into the alcove of a shop door to rest for a moment. The crowd continued hurrying by you as you leaned against the wall and Jungwoo leaned against you.
“Purple sky?” You repeated, staring up at the crystalline blue expanse above you and trying to picture it.
“Yes, most of the time.”
“That sounds really gorgeous.”
“I suppose it is.”
You looked over at him curiously. “You don’t think so?”
“Well, I suppose I’m just so used to it… I don’t know,” he shrugged, looking back to the clear aqua sky above you. “I quite like your blue sky.”
“I think I’d like to see your purple sky someday,” you hummed thoughtfully.
“Really?”
“Yeah, as long as you could bring me back,” you shrugged. “Always wanted to travel.”
Jungwoo blinked down at you, and you shook your head with a chuckle.
“Sorry, that probably sounded like I was asking to run away with you or something. And you’re like, in a bunch of pain,” you laughed at yourself. “I should stop blabbing and get you to the man with the morphine. You ready to keep going?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
At Johnny’s animal clinic, you had to stay in the waiting room while he finished up with a patient. After he handed the dog back to its owner, and dismissed the front desk attendee for their lunch break, he finally gestured the two of you back. You helped Jungwoo up from his seat, wrapping his arm back around you so you could slowly follow your friend into the back. Johnny held the door open for you all as he led the way into the exam room. You could tell the morphine had been wearing off faster and faster, even though Jungwoo hadn’t said anything. He had been favoring his side more and more, and vocalizing noises of pain more frequently as the day wore on.
“How is it?” Johnny was nice enough to ask as you helped Jungwoo half-sit and half-lean on the exam table. You’d seen some pretty big animals on this thing, you were pretty sure it could handle him.
“Fine,” Jungwoo hissed.
“He’s not bleeding on the outside anymore, but everything’s still pretty banged up internally,” you answered honestly, shooting Jungwoo a pointed look. “Do you think you could like x-ray him while we’re here? See if anything’s broken?”
Johnny stopped where he had been getting supplies from some drawers. “Would x-rays kill him?”
“I mean, you traveled through space, right? Isn’t there a bunch of radiation there?” You asked Jungwoo hopefully. “Johnny can take some pictures of you with x-rays, right?”
“Yes, that will be fine,” Jungwoo nodded minutely.
And so Johnny moved around his portable x-ray machine to take a few images of Jungwoo’s side where the pain was most concentrated. You had to stand outside the room while it was being done, but as soon as Johnny gave you the thumbs-up, you rushed back in, helping Jungwoo sit back up. Johnny took the lead vest back off, leaving him in his white coat again as he went back over to the imaging machine.
“Okay, here we go,” Johnny muttered, clicking a few things on the computer to pull up the images. “Remember, I’m not a human doctor, and definitely not an alien doctor.”
“We know, Johnny,” you retorted.
The first image came up, and you yourself weren’t any kind of doctor, but that definitely didn’t look right. A dark line going right down what you assumed to be a rib, splitting it all the way through. “Yep, your rib’s broken,” Johnny declared, pointing to the severance.
Jungwoo’s brow furrowed with concern. “It shouldn’t—”
“Yeah, no shit. Remember, dude, you fell out of the sky twelve hours ago, I’m surprised you’re alive.”
“No, I should be more healed than that.”
“You said that the lack of hydrogen in the atmosphere was making it so your body couldn’t produce as much natural painkillers, remember? Maybe something is making you heal a bit slower, too,” you suggested reassuringly. “I’m sure you’ll be fine, it’ll just be a little longer.”
“That’s probably it,” Johnny agreed. “Are you eating enough? I know Y/N only has that vegan crap at her house, you probably need a real meal—”
“His whole planet is vegetarian, you dick.” You flipped him off. “You’d probably kill him if you gave him a steak.”
“Alright, damn,” he held his hands up with a laugh. “Let me just shoot him up with morphine and you two can get out of here, huh? I’ll do a double dose from last time.”
“I need to be able to get him home, John,” you said frankly.
“I’ll drive you.”
“Alright,” you nodded, then looked to the alien. “Sound good Jungwoo? Twice as much as last time? So hopefully it’ll last a bit longer?”
He nodded, his eyes fixated on Johnny as the human had gone back to getting the supplies for the injection. You grabbed his hand without prompting, flashing him a bright smile as you tried to come up with something to talk about to distract him. “So, how else are Earth and Galaria different?” You asked him. “The skies are different colors, we know that. What about the oceans? Do you guys have oceans?”
“Yes, we do.”
“Ours are blue, for the most part. Or, a blue-green.”
“We have—oh,” he wrinkled his nose, but didn’t look away from you. “Pink seas.”
“I think we have a pink sea too, somewhere!” You perked up. “I’d have to look it up, but I’m pretty sure somewhere has pink water. It might be a lake, actually, not a proper sea. Don’t quote me on it…”
Jungwoo smiled at that. “I won’t hold you to it, then.”
“What about like, glaciers? Do you have those? Really big floating chunks of ice in the ocean?”
“Galaria is mostly frozen tundra…”
“Damn, really?! How cold is it there? Wait, there’s like, no way we use anywhere near the same units of measurement for temperature. Your transcoder probably couldn’t help with that, huh?”
“No, we presumably don’t use the temperature scale.”
“All done,” Johnny announced, scooting his chair back and disposing of his needle and gloves. “I’ll take you two home now.”
“Thanks, Johnny.” You smiled up at him, helping Jungwoo up. “How are you feeling, Jungwoo?”
The Galarii took a couple slow blinks. “Mm… starting to feel better…”
“You said morphine doesn’t make you high, does it make you tired?” You questioned, following Johnny out towards the back where his car was parked in the alley.
“Not usually… but my body hasn’t been doing what it’s supposed to be doing the whole time I’ve been here…” he said slowly, narrowly missing hitting his head on the roof as you helped him into the backseat. You scooted in after him, encouraging him to lean against you after you’d buckled him up.
Johnny took off quickly through the streets, occasionally watching the two of you in the rearview mirror. Outside your apartment building, he helped you unload a half-awake Jungwoo, the alien rousing himself just enough to climb the stairs. Giving your friend a final thank-you and goodbye at the entrance to your apartment, you tugged Jungwoo back into your home, guiding him once again back to your bed.
“Come on, time for a nap,” you sighed, encouraging him to lay down. “You need to rest up, dude.”
“Y/N?” He murmured, grabbing your forearm as you went to walk away to leave him in peace.
“Yes?” You stopped, looking down at him attentively. “Do you need something, Jungwoo? Water? Food?”
“Will you just… sit with me? And talk to me? Until I go to sleep?” He requested. “I… find your company soothing.”
“Oh.” You shifted your weight uncertainly between your feet, but acquiesced nevertheless, scooting onto the corner of the mattress near his head. “Sure, Jungwoo. Here, I’ll look up those pink oceans I was talking about, see if I was right.”
And so you read some Wikipedia articles to Jungwoo about various pink lakes and beaches until his eyes fluttered shut, his breathing evened out, and you were more than certain that he was asleep. But even after you were sure he was fast asleep, and you stopped reading the article aloud, you stayed right there, silently scrolling on your phone and occasionally looking from your screen over to his face. Because for some reason that you couldn’t put your finger on, you sort of found his presence calming, too.
When it seemed as though Jungwoo was stirring, you quickly got up from your spot and scurried from the room, feeling a bit weird about sitting and watching him sleep the whole time. You had a feeling that he wouldn’t have minded, but you didn’t want it to be a fact known to anybody but you that you had done that. Truly, you didn’t even want to really admit it to yourself, either. And so, when Jungwoo finally wandered out of your bedroom some hours later, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he found you tucked into the corner of your couch, in the middle of an episode of a TV show, as if you had been doing that the whole time.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” you greeted him nonchalantly, pausing the episode. “How’d you sleep?”
“Mm, well,” his reply was punctuated by a yawn.
“And how are you feeling?”
“I’m still feeling the painkiller effect, but I am no longer tired.”
“So, do you think you’ll be up for checking out your ship tonight?” You checked the time on your phone. “We can probably eat dinner then head out after.”
“Yes, I would very much like to see it.”
“Cool, let’s do it.”
After eating another modest meal prepared by you, you and Jungwoo headed out. The streets weren’t as busy at night, and with Jungwoo moving fully of his own power again, the two of you were able to make your way through them much quicker. The intel you got from Doyoung was good, the entire expanse of beach was roped off with police tape, and one officer was stationed on either side of the shoreline. Because of how far the fire had spread through the trees, the officers were pretty far from where you remembered the ship being. Getting in and out would be the tricky part, but once you were in, you were certain they would be none the wiser that somebody was there.
Jungwoo followed you silently, and you finally found what you were looking for. The old public access to the beach. When you were little, everyone used to have to take a steep staircase that started right off the highway. After a particular heavy rainy season that brought rockslides from the mountain up above, it was deemed entirely unusable by the city, all markers for it taken away, left in disrepair, and a new, much safer one was made further down the road. There was a ‘CAUTION: ROCKSLIDES’ sign nearby, which is how you knew you were in the right place. The best part was that it was right in the middle of the thicket of trees, meaning that as long as you were quick, you should be able to drop right in undetected.
All boardwalks and rope that had been spared by rockslides and Mother Nature over the years were left untouched by the city government, and you were able to start the steep descent like normal. It was about a third of the way down that things started getting dicey, broken pieces of wood, large gaps that you had to step over, and several areas where you had to test the steadiness of rocks before putting your weight on it because there was no manmade material for you to step on at all. When you and Jungwoo got to the place where the path would’ve diverted to the beach instead of dropping you right into the trees, you bit your bottom lip and resisted cursing aloud. It was a steep drop from where you were. It was too dark for you to see where the ground was, but instinct and memory told you it was too steep for you to just jump down. Looking around desperately, you realized there was a much shallower incline further down the trail, but it was close to where one of the officers was patrolling. You were already too near him for your liking.
A distant voice humming got closer and closer, and you held your breath and held your position, keeping your eyes peeled in the direction of the noise for any sign of movement through the trees. You never did see the police officer, but eventually the humming got further away again, until you stopped hearing it, and you made a break for the shallow area, sliding down the mostly sandy, occasionally rocky hill on your butt. You heard the sounds of Jungwoo hurrying after you, but didn’t look behind you until you were sure you two were well concealed in the trees again. Glancing up at him, you saw his chest heaving, and motioned for him to keep quiet as you listened to the officer run back over towards the road end of his side.
The crackle of a walkie-talkie, then a distant voice. “Hey, I think I heard something. You hear anything?”
After a second, his buddy responded, his voice slightly garbled through the walkie-talkie speaker. “Yeah, you heard a rock fall down the mountain. Rockslide area. Been hearing them all night.”
“Damn, you’re right. Thanks.” And he was gone again.
You took off through the brush at a brisk pace, knowing that Jungwoo would be right behind you. The ship was easy to find, with the concentration of charred and blackened foliage getting greater and greater the closer you got to it. When you finally found it, the spaceship was mostly intact, which the size of the explosion from last night did not lead you to believe. Jungwoo let out a sigh of relief, and did a quick walk-around first. It was when you got to the tail that you saw why there had been such a huge fireball. Four huge canisters that must have housed something flammable were nothing more than metallic flowers now, the material burst open and curling over on itself from the force of the explosion.
“The reactors…” Jungwoo breathed out.
You chewed on your bottom lip, asking quietly, “Is it fixable?”
“I don’t want to say anything until I see the inside.”
You followed him around to the side, where he pressed a button that you had missed last night on account of it being entirely smooth and looking like nothing more than a random dot. A set of hand and foot rails emerged seamlessly from the surface of the hull for you to climb up with. Once the two of you were up at the cockpit, Jungwoo pressed another button up there, and the ladder seemed to melt back into the metal of the ship once again. The glass was still propped open, making it very easy for you to hop down into the ship. Whatever red flashing warning lights that were going off before had deactivated, leaving it in pitch black, and you immediately brought out your phone to turn the flashlight on.
“Ah, thank you,” Jungwoo said as you pointed it at wherever he looked.
“I told you, I’m your flashlight girl,” you grinned.
As he looked over many different panels and controls in the cockpit, you drank in every detail with fascination. While the button on the outside of the ship had functioned seemingly almost like a touchscreen, the ones in here looked analog at least, though you couldn’t figure out for the life of you what a single one was for. You kept your hands to yourself. Jungwoo finally pressed a button, and a screen lit up, one that quaintly reminded you of computers from the nineties in its size and resolution. As he navigated through the program, you watched with interest. He sat down in one of the two chairs, and indicated to the other one for you. You eagerly sat. It was remarkably comfy.
“You seem to be very close to Johnny,” he commented abruptly, spamming one button in particular with a bit of frustration.
“We’re all really close.” You nodded, and the program finally loaded the next screen. “But yeah, I guess John and I are a bit different. Our parents are all friends, so we’ve been friends since we were little. He’s had to deal with my bullshit for our whole lives. We even call each other’s parents Aunt and Uncle, that kind of thing.”
“He is… similar to your cousin?”
“Sort of? I don’t know, he was kind of like a built-in older brother.” A sheepish smile tugged at the corner of your mouth as you reminisced in childhood memories. “People in our neighborhood and at school did actually think we were cousins. He’s a few years older than me, and I was a bit of a troublemaker. I remember he’d pull me away from getting into fights with kids way bigger than me, or when I’d talk back to teachers, the head teacher always brought the both of us in for a scolding. Something about how he should be keeping his younger cousin in check, too. Poor guy. He took it like a champ. We came to an agreement that he wouldn’t tell my parents if I stopped getting in trouble so much.”
“You’re not so unruly anymore.”
“Oh, I’ve still got a bit of a rebellious streak,” you chuckled. “Johnny always says I’m going to make him go grey. I mean, you and I are literally on a crime scene right now. And I pulled an alien out of a spaceship that was about to explode last night.”
“I suppose that’s true…” Jungwoo trailed off, brow furrowing as what looked like a schematic of some sort came up on the screen. “Hm.”
“Something wrong?”
“Mixed results.”
“What?”
“There are some bad things and some good things.”
“Tell me the bad stuff first.”
“What?”
“When somebody says ‘I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news,’ they’re supposed to let you pick if you want to hear the good news or the bad news first,” you explained the small colloquialism. “I want the bad news first, so we can end on the good stuff.”
“I see…” he hummed, clicking a few more things. “The bad news is… I will need to reconstruct the reactors and make other minor repairs.”
“And how long will that take?”
“I do not know Earth measurements of time.”
“You’ve been on Earth for one day now. How many of those do you think it’ll take?”
He took a moment to think about this, then eventually answered, “Twenty to thirty? Maybe more, maybe less, I’m unsure, I was asleep for much of the ‘day’ that I experienced.”
You nodded. “Okay. And the good news?”
“There was no serious structural damage to the hull or critical systems of the ship. Once I reconstruct the reactors and make those repairs, I will be able to leave.”
“That’s great news, Jungwoo!” You beamed, holding up a hand for him. He uncertainly put his palm against yours and laced your fingers together, eyes flicking around the ship nervously. You burst into laughter. “I wasn’t trying to hold your hand again, sorry. It’s a high-five. It’s celebratory, friendly.”
“Ah. My apologies. How do you do that, then?” He took his hand back from yours.
“I put my hand up for you, and you hit your palm to mine pretty hard. You’re trying to make a—” you clapped your own two hands together “—sound.”
“I think I understand.”
“Okay, take two.” You held your hand up, and he gingerly tapped his hand to yours. Once again, you couldn’t help but giggle fondly. “Yeah, pretty much. A for effort,” you declared. “So, anything else you need to do right now? Or is that it for tonight?”
“I wish I could begin working right now, however I will need lots of materials for the reactors.”
“Let’s get out of here, we can talk about what kind of stuff you need and where to get it on the way home.”
“So is your brother older or younger?” You asked as you and Jungwoo took a more leisurely pace back to your apartment.
“I’m sorry?” Jungwoo tilted his head, as if he hadn’t heard you, which was weird, considering he was already looking at you when you turned to ask him that.
“Your brother whose ship you took. Is he older than you or younger?”
“I… don’t know.” He frowned thoughtfully.
You balked. “You don’t know?”
“No. It’s not something we’re told on Galaria.”
“But—” You laughed out of habit as your brain tried to process this information. “What? Why?”
“It’s not important.”
“I mean, I guess not. But like, it is!”
“Why?”
“I mean, some cultures here have entire systems of honorifics that you call people based on your age relative to theirs. But just—” You were still staring at him. “Don’t you know how old your brother is?”
“I know his birthday.”
“But not how old he is?”
“I… suppose not.” He shrugged. “That’s all kept somewhere.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just difficult for me to wrap my head around. You’re not allowed to know your brother’s age—”
“I’m allowed to know,” he corrected you. “If we were to learn somehow now, it would be fine. There’s no punishment for it. But it’s just not something that we grow up knowing. Nobody is referred to as the older or younger.”
“Do you remember your brother being born?”
“No.”
“Was he in a higher grade than you in school?”
“School is based on ability, not age.” It was his turn to look at you with bewilderment. “You move up in levels as your learning progresses, not your physical body. Is that how it works here?”
“We keep kids who are the same age together, yeah.”
“Fascinating.”
“What about siblings that have big age gaps? Where you can totally tell who’s older and who’s younger?” You asked. “Or step-siblings? Like, you already knew their age and then your parents got together?”
“Again, it’s not forbidden to know a sibling’s age,” Jungwoo reiterated. “It’s just not… important.”
“So if your brother is a controversial politician… What are you?” It felt like you could ask him questions forever and never run out. “You never did tell me that earlier.”
“My profession?”
“Yeah. What do you for work?”
“Specialized cargo transport.”
“Uh…” You blinked up at him. “You know that sounds really shady, right?”
“When people need things transported across galaxies, typically under time constraints, or with specific instructions, they come to me.” He tried to explain it further.
“What kind of stuff have you transported, then?”
“Anything from fuel, to an engagement comb, to produce from someone’s home planet that they were missing after moving elsewhere,” he shrugged.
“So you’re like an intergalactic DHL driver,” you laughed. “Sounds fun, I guess. You’ve been to a lot of places, then?”
“Yes, many different planets and cities and galaxies.”
“And this is your first time on Earth?”
“I haven’t had a reason to come to this solar system before. Your planet isn’t exactly involved in intergalactic trade. So, I might not have another chance to visit.”
“Nobody’s requesting any black market Earth commodities?”
“I guess… we don’t really know what’s here. Nobody’s ever put in the effort to find out, I suppose.”
You couldn’t help but laugh again. “We’re just not interesting enough, huh? Can’t even make it on the niche alien knickknack market.”
Jungwoo smiled a little. “That tends to be a good thing, in my experience.”
The two of you were walking through a night market at that point, and you perked up as you saw a particular stall. Your dinner earlier hadn’t included a dessert for Jungwoo. You stopped him, pointing to the ice cream stand. “Ooh, hey, you want something sweet?”
“Sweet…?” He peered over the crowd to try to see what they were serving.
“Yeah, dessert. Ice cream. Want some? They’ve got toppings too.” You pulled him into the line as you talked. “You can get sprinkles and candy, or even entire brownies as toppings. And they’ve got some really good flavors.”
“Which flavor do you like?”
“Peanut butter cup and green tea are my two favorites. But you can only get one flavor at a time here,” you sighed wistfully, getting on your tiptoes to look at their options again. “I think I’m going to do green tea today…”
With your own green tea cone and Jungwoo’s peanut butter cup selection in hand, the two of you started back down the streets together. You watched with interest as Jungwoo took his first tentative lick off the scoop, his face lighting up with delight.
“It’s good!” He declared happily. “We have something similar... on Galaria.”
“If your planet is mostly frozen tundra...” you paused to eat some of your own ice cream. “Is most of your food hot or cold?”
He seemed to contemplate this for a moment. “I don’t know...”
“It’s okay, Jungwoo,” you laughed at how hard he seemed to be thinking about it. “I wouldn’t be able to answer that about Earth food. It wasn’t a very fair question, I think.”
“Still, I feel bad that I can’t answer your question.”
“It’s fine, really,” you promised, squeezing his arm. “It’s not going to keep me up at night.”
The next day, after another injection from Johnny on the vet’s way into work, you took Jungwoo to Yuta’s garage. There was no way you would be of any serious help when it came to furnishing him with parts for his ship, nor did you really want him just walking into your local hardware store asking for alien spaceship parts. Today seemed to be a slow day, as only one of Yuta’s coworkers was there, firmly wedged under a car on the other side of the garage, loudly playing music from a speaker, so you weren’t worried about him eavesdropping on your conversation so long as you kept your voices low. Jungwoo and Yuta had a slightly rocky start, obviously using different terminology, but eventually got on the same page, leaving you in the dust as they started going over various specifications and parts. You zoned out, taking over Yuta's chair and kicking up your feet on his workbench as you let their words go in one ear and out the other.
“Hey,” Yuta’s hand came down on your head, catching your attention again.
You craned your neck back to look up at him. “Yeah?”
“I’ve given him everything I had in stock, there’s a few things you guys will have to pick up at a shop,” he explained, and you turned around to see Jungwoo loaded up with a duffel bag that he hadn’t walked in with. “I wrote everything out so you know how to ask for it in human.”
“Thanks, Yuta.” You stood up and got out your wallet. “How much do I owe you for the parts?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“What? But—”
“Hey, we all want to help him get home.” He held his hands up, backing away from your money. “Just doing my part.”
You narrowed your eyes at him knowingly. “Uh-huh... very charitable... What’s the catch?”
“Well, I’m going on this date tomorrow, and—”
“Pass.”
“You didn’t even hear me out!”
“I’m assuming the girl wants to bring a friend, you’re trying to turn it into a double date,” you snorted. “The last time I went on a double date with you—”
“No, not you,” Yuta waved you off. “Jungwoo!”
“Excuse me?”
Your friend had already sidled up to the alien, throwing an arm around his shoulders. “What do you think? Date with an Earth girl? You’re only going to be here for so long...”
You rubbed your face in exasperation. “Yuta, you do remember that we don’t want people to find out that we have an alien here, right?”
“We can say he’s from out of town.”
“What is wrong with you?” You stared at him incredulously. “Just bring Johnny, or Jae, or any of your other ten million single human loser friends.”
“You’re not Jungwoo’s mom,” Yuta snorted.
“Well, no—”
“There we go, Jungwoo, do you want to go?” Yuta focused his question on Jungwoo instead.
Jungwoo’s eyes shifted nervously between you and Yuta. “Uhm, well...”
“Okay, I hate to be crude here, but keeping in mind how your successful dates usually look, Yuta,” you cut in again pointedly, “We can’t risk exposing what Jungwoo is. Doesn’t matter if we say he’s from out of town.”
Yuta raised an eyebrow at you. “Wow, Y/N, didn’t think you’d bring up the alien dick angle first.”
You groaned as your face burned. “You’re the worst. Why’d you have to say it?”
“Pretty sure you said it—”
“Will you drop it?!”
“I don’t want to go!” Jungwoo interjected loudly, stopping yours and Yuta’s bickering. “I don’t want to go. Uhm, thank you for the invitation, Yuta, really. But I’d rather not...”
Yuta shrugged. “Alright. I’m pretty sure Doyoung’s free.”
Your skin was still on fire as you left Yuta’s garage. He didn’t end up making you pay, despite neither of you fulfilling his need for a double-date partner. You were pretty sure the embarrassment of that conversation was payment enough in his mind. As you and Jungwoo headed for the nearest hardware store, you swallowed down some of your discomfort, unable to imagine how Jungwoo was feeling in that moment.
“I’m sorry about him, Jungwoo,” you sighed. “He shouldn’t have dragged you into all that.”
He looked down at you curiously. “Do you frequently feel the need to apologize for others’ behavior?”
You blinked at him, caught off-guard. “Uhm... What?”
“You apologized for Donghyuck and Mark being excited and a bit overzealous—in your opinion—when they met me. Now you’re apologizing for Yuta asking for a favor that was inappropriate—again, in your opinion. Do you do that a lot? Feel responsible for what your friends do or say to other people?”
“Well... I mean, no,” you stared down at the shopping list in your hand hard as you thought. “I guess... I’m embarrassed that they’re not behaving better around you.”
“You’re embarrassed of your friends?”
“No, I like them. I like my friends, or I wouldn’t be their friend.” You bit the inside of your cheek. “I mean... they’re not treating you like someone they just met. They’re treating you like they’ve known you for as long as they’ve known the rest of us. You’re supposed to ease into that stuff so you don’t scare people off.”
“That makes me happy,” Jungwoo declared, a soft smile on his face as he looked down at you.
“What? Why?”
“Both that your friends would want to be familiar with me and not treat me like an outsider, and that you’re afraid of their behavior making me uncomfortable,” he explained. “You don’t want me to leave. Of course that makes me happy.”
You felt your eyes widen as you looked up at him. “Well, I mean, I do want you to leave, eventually. Obviously, I want you to go home. But I mean, yeah, I want your time here to be nice, you know? I don’t want you to be back home on Galaria thinking about your time on Earth being bad.”
A strange look flickered across the spaceman’s face then, you could’ve almost sworn it was pained, before the same serene smile came back. “I think I’ll remember my time on Earth very fondly. Really.”
You looped your arm with his, trying to shake the memory of the odd look on his face from your mind, playfully bumping your shoulder into him. “Well then let’s get you off Earth so you can start looking back on it, hm?”
After getting your last few things at the hardware store, you had to wait for the sun to go down before heading back to the beach. The path down to the ship was even more treacherous now that the two of you were loaded up with supplies, but you finally made it there in one piece. Jungwoo didn’t stop in the cockpit this time, leading the way towards the back of the ship, through the narrow hallway. He pressed a button outside a doorway, then when nothing happened, pressed it again. Nothing. He banged his fist against it a couple of times, cursing under his breath.
“What’s in there?” You asked.
“It’s the crew quarters,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair. “There’s a desk in there. We’ll be a lot more cramped working in the cockpit, but apparently this circuitry got affected too.”
“But we can still do it, right?”
He nodded. “Yeah, yeah.”
You turned around to head back to the front of the ship. “Then let’s get started.”
Jungwoo seemed to be able to do much of the repairs on his own. You shone the flashlight on the work area, handed him tools and parts when requested, or held small pieces so they didn’t roll away from him. It was a bit cramped sitting on the floor of the cockpit behind the seats, it obviously wasn’t designed with this purpose in mind, and Jungwoo’s long limbs only made the space feel even smaller.
“Can you move the light here?” He requested, pointing to the side of the device that was facing him.
You scooted closer, trying to maneuver your phone around without blocking his vision with it. “How’s that?”
He shook his head. “I still can’t—”
“Hold on.” You scooted around behind him instead, pointing the flashlight from over his shoulder. “What about this?”
Jungwoo was quiet for a beat, and you peered around to try to look him in the eye.
“Jungwoo?”
“That’s perfect,” he answered, eyes focused down at object in his hands. “Is your arm getting tired?”
That was the first time you really noticed the ache in your limb from holding up your phone for so long. “Yeah, a little, I guess.”
“You can rest it on my shoulder, if you want.”
“Oh, thanks.” You lowered your arm until it was propped up by his shoulder, making sure you adjusted your grip on your phone to keep your light on the same place. “Light still good?”
“Yes, thank you.”
As he kept working, you quietly watched his deft fingers move over the pieces. “So how do you know how to do all this?”
“I fly a lot,” he answered, his attention held by the parts in his hands as he was trying to precisely line up two of them.
“Yeah, but I mean, I have a driver’s license and I couldn’t change a flat tire, gun to my head, much less fix up the whole car if I crashed it off the side of a mountain,” you scoffed.
“You’re allowed to pilot a vehicle that you’re unable to repair yourself?”
“We have mechanics and stuff for that. Are you saying you’re not allowed to get your spaceship pilot’s license or whatever on Galaria without knowing how to build one from scratch?”
“You’re required to have a certain engineering proficiency to get your solo pilot’s license, yes.”
“Ah, you have a specialty license, then.”
“Yes, I do. It’s a requirement in case you ever find yourself in circumstances like this.”
“Crash landed on an alien planet and stranded with a busted ship?”
“Yes.”
You noticed that he had paused his machinations as you were talking. “Sorry, am I distracting you?”
“No, this is all I can do tonight. The adhesive needs to cure for some time before I can continue working.” He carefully set the part down. “I should be able to resume tomorrow night, I believe.”
“Sounds good to me.” You yawned and stretched your arms over your head. “I’ve got work tomorrow anyway.”
“And what job do you do?” Jungwoo asked with intrigue as the two of you stood up.
“Reception at a law firm.” You could feel your nose habitually wrinkle with disdain.
“You don’t like it?” He immediately surmised.
Thankfully, the two of you were climbing out of the ship then, and had to stay silent through your trek up from the beach. You had time to think about how to answer his question as you climbed back up to the main roadway.
Finally, as the two of you started the walk down the shoulder of the highway, you let out a huff and said, “The work is fine, I guess. Except I hate being talked down to and belittled by people on the phone who think I’m stupid just because they’re attorneys and I’m not, or because I’m a woman, or I’m young, or because I’m just a receptionist or whatever. And I hate when they start yelling at me for no fucking reason, and I hate when people are in the office and start being fucking rude to me and I’m supposed to just sit there and take it. And I hate that in between all of that, it’s fucking boring. It constantly fluctuates between being so stressful and so goddamn boring I want to bang my head against a wall either way.”
“So... you don’t like it?” he asked again, head tilted with clear confusion on his features.
“It’s a job,” you replied flatly. “I need to eat. Do you like your job?”
“Yes, quite,” he replied quietly. After a pause, he questioned, “What sort of work do you want to do, then?”
“I wish I didn’t have to.” You let out a cynical chuckle, looking up at the sparse dotting of stars above you as the hum of the city streets started up around you again. “I mean, I’ve always wanted to see more of the world, just do more, learn more. And now that I know that aliens are real—” You looked over at Jungwoo wistfully. “I don’t think I’ll ever be happy behind a desk again. You know?”
Jungwoo met your eyes, his lips parted as he couldn’t seem to respond for a moment.
You shook your head at yourself, looking back down at your feet and the concrete below them. Forcing humor back into your tone, you apologized, “Sorry, sorry. Of course you don’t know, you’re criss-crossing galaxies all the time, huh? You’ve got enough problems of your own right now anyway, you don’t need mine too.”
A large hand grabbed yours, cool to the touch and surprisingly firm as it squeezed yours. You could feel the callouses on Jungwoo’s hand where his skin pressed against yours. Shifting your gaze from your shoes back up to the alien, you furrowed your brow curiously, but made no move to pull away.
“Please, give them to me,” he said. “And when I leave, you can imagine that I’m taking all your problems with me, to somewhere very far away from here.”
It was your turn to be speechless for a moment, and the only thing that kept you from skidding to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk was the sea of other pedestrians keeping your momentum moving forward. Your skin got hotter, and you wondered if Jungwoo could feel it where he was holding your hand.
In an instinctive bid to diffuse the tension that was currently squeezing all the air from your lungs, you gave his shoulder a friendly bump as you teased, “Alright, well here’s a new problem: That’s quite possibly the most romantic thing anybody’s ever said to me, and I’m 100% sure you didn’t even do that on purpose.”
“I—”
“And our next problem—” You plowed right past whatever Jungwoo was about to say, still fighting the prickle along your skin where you knew his eyes were. “Unfortunately, it’s not Bring Your Alien to Work Day tomorrow, so do you think you’ll be okay at my apartment by yourself all day? Or do you want me to see if some of the guys can keep you company?”
“While I don’t want to inconvenience anybody, if somebody has time, I wouldn’t mind seeing more of the city.”
“Sure, I’ll find someone.” You immediately took your phone out to text your top choice.
[you: are you busy tomorrow? i need someone to hang out with jungwoo while im at work]
[yonggie: i have a few errands to run and a few of us were talking abt seeing a movie in the afternoon. he’s welcome to tag along!]
[yonggie: unless the grocery store and stuff is going too be too boring?? i can do it another day and we can do something else!]
[you: i just feel bad keeping him cooped up in my apartment by himself all day. im sure he’ll have plenty of fun going grocery shopping with you. he’s never seen a human grocery store, after all]
[yonggie: sounds like a plan! let him know i’ll be by around 10ish!]
[you: thanks yonggie, i owe you]
“Taeyong is free tomorrow,” you announced to Jungwoo. “You haven’t really met him yet, but he was there when we found you. You don’t mind tagging along with him while he runs a few errands, do you? He’ll be going all around the city, I’m sure. Oh, and it sounded like some of the guys might be doing a movie later, too.”
“Thank you, Y/N,” Jungwoo smiled down at you. “For everything.”
You smiled and lightly elbowed him again. “Like I said, I want you to have good memories of Earth.”
A few more days passed by like that, with you finding various friends to leave Jungwoo with during the day while you went to your dreadfully boring job, then the two of you would eat dinner together before heading off to the beach to work on his spaceship until late. Tonight in particular, you didn’t have much to help with, as he was able to prop up a spare flashlight you’d gotten from the hardware store for illumination as he worked.
“When do you think we’ll be done tonight?” You asked, spinning the cockpit seat around as you unfocused your eyes, letting the colorful lights become hazy blurs and streaks in your vision.
“Soon,” he answered shortly as he usually did when he was focused. “Do you have something you need to do?”
“The guys are going out.” You read the texts on your phone as they streamed in. “They invited me and you, by the way.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, Jaehyun just got promoted to assistant professor, so we’re celebrating.” You stopped your spinning to watch him work again, but found that he had stalled his ministrations. “It’ll be at least two or three nightclubs; if you’re not up for that, that’s fine.”
“They invited me?” He repeated, brow furrowed as he had clearly not been expecting that.
You couldn’t help but laugh and pat the back of his head fondly. “Yeah, Jungwoo, they like you. It’s also definitely a bit of novelty, you know—‘Hey let’s see if we can get the alien shitfaced’—but I won’t let them mess with you.”
“Yes, I’d like to go with you.” He smiled, looking back down at the contraption in his hands. “It won’t be much longer.”
Knocking on the front door of a very familiar apartment, you bounced on your toes as you waited for one of the occupants to answer. It was Johnny who opened the door, eyes lingering on Jungwoo behind you before he went to give you a hug. “Hey, kid. How are you?”
“Good, good. How are you, John?” You patted his back them dropped back down onto flat feet.
“Same old, you know?” He grinned and shrugged, then finally addressed Jungwoo. “Hey, man. How’s your side?”
“Fine, good. Thank you,” Jungwoo answered hastily, offering a polite nod.
“Jae!” You called into the apartment, latching onto Jungwoo’s wrist and dragging him over to Jaehyun’s closed bedroom door. You banged on the door. “Jaehyun! Come on, it’s me, your favorite!”
The door opened a second later, Jaehyun looking at you stone-faced as he buttoned up his shirt. “You claim you’re everyone’s favorite.”
“I am! Aren’t I?” You grinned.
“Can’t a guy get dressed in his own apartment in peace? Bother Johnny.” He was about to close the door in your face when you stuck your foot in the way.
“Can Jungwoo borrow some clothes?” You requested sweetly, batting your eyelashes at him.
Jaehyun looked the alien up and down skeptically. “He’s already wearing my clothes.”
“He can’t go to the club in a sweatshirt and jeans!”
Your friend sighed and opened the door wider, jerking his head in a gesture for you two to come in.
“Thank you!” You squealed, pulling Jungwoo in with you.
Jaehyun sat on his bed as you started rifling through his closet for something for Jungwoo to wear. Pulling a couple shirts down first, you held them up to the spaceman, humming to yourself as you compared how they looked on them. You clicked your tongue and shook your head, putting one back and looking for another. With two new shirts, you held them up again, nodding in satisfaction. “Yeah, I like that a lot better.”
“He’s not a doll, Y/N,” Jaehyun snorted. “Go ahead, Jungwoo, you can tell her not to play dress-up with you.”
Jungwoo rubbed the back of his neck, the iridophores on his cheeks flashing as he shifted awkwardly in place. “I don’t mind it, really…”
“And that’s how I ended up as the first and only victim of Y/N’s Barber Shop when I was eight.” Johnny had joined the three of you, leaning in the bedroom doorway with his arms crossed over his chest.
“You say that like your hair didn’t grow back,” you scoffed. “I didn’t take your ear off or anything.”
“Just my dignity.”
“And who gave me the scissors?”
Johnny held his hands up in surrender, making his roommate laugh.
“Johnny’s always been a pushover when it comes to Y/N,” Jaehyun explained to Jungwoo, still chuckling. “Ever since they were kids.”
“Alright guys, listen up!” You called for their focus loudly. “This is going to be one of the most important questions I ask you in our entire lives.”
Johnny and Jaehyun gave you two very similar amused but attentive looks, while Jungwoo beheld you with absolutely rapt attention.
You held up the two shirts that you had narrowed your selection to for Jungwoo. “White lace or black silk?”
“He’s not wearing those jeans, is he?” Johnny cocked his head.
“God no,” you shook your head. “Or the sneakers. I’m thinking simple black pants and boots. His necklace will go good with both, right?” You pointed to the gold transcoder that rested below his collarbones.
“White.” Jaehyun pointed.
“Black.” Johnny shrugged.
“Helpful.” You glared at them. Turning to Jungwoo, you held up the tops. “What do you think? Do you even like them at all? These are just my favorites, you can pick something else if you want.”
“I like them,” Jungwoo reassured you, fingertips gently running over the front of one shirt, then the other. “Which is your favorite?”
“I think the black silk?” You appraised it again. “Yeah, I like the neckline, and I think the material will move really nice for a night out, you know?”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
You handed him that hanger and put the other back in the closet where you found it. Looking at the owner of the room, you prompted, “Jae, you’ll get him the right pants and stuff, right?”
“Sure,” he nodded and stood up, teasing glint in his eye. “It’s not like we’re meant to be celebrating my accomplishments tonight or anything. I’m just a butler, really.”
“Great, thanks!” You grinned back, traipsing out of the room with Johnny.
A few minutes later, Jaehyun joined the two of you in the living room, sitting down on the couch and pulling his shoes on. “So, anything new, Y/N?” He asked innocently.
“You mean, other than the alien living in my apartment?” You raised an eyebrow at him. “Not really, work’s the same.”
“You’re still at that shit place?” Johnny didn’t hide his distaste of your workplace.
“Yup.” You replied flatly.
“I thought you said you were looking for new jobs.”
“One, you said that. I didn’t agree to anything. Two, I am, the job market sucks right now, John.”
“Have you even interviewed anywhere? Submitted your résumé?”
“God, not this again…” Jaehyun groaned from his spot between you two on the couch.
“Not everybody can inherit a veterinary practice once their mentor retires and have their life made,” you snapped, turning to glare at Johnny pointedly.
“My life’s made? I’m still paying off my student loans, you know that, right?” He scoffed. “Not to mention how much free morphine I’ve been giving your buddy in there just the past few days.”
“I told you I’ll pay you back once he’s better, you said not to worry about it, and now you’re holding it over my head!” You said in disbelief. “God, this is just like you!”
“‘Just like me?’”
“Yes, you always nag me about shit like you think I can’t do anything, and insist on handling things for me instead of letting me do it, then just turn right around to use that as further proof that I can’t do anything on my own!” You were about to launch to your feet when Jaehyun caught your arm and urged you back into your seat.
“Woah, woah,” Jaehyun looked back and forth between you two. “Time out. You’re both right and you’re both wrong. Johnny, we get that you’re coming from a good place, but obviously Y/N feels patronized with the way you treat her. Y/N, Johnny has a lot going on too that you’re ignoring on purpose to make him seem like the bad guy, which also isn’t fair.”
Johnny pushed some of his hair out of his face as he stared ahead at the TV across the room, obviously refusing to meet your eyes now. You crossed your arms over your chest and flopped back against the cushions, not looking at either of them. You’ve never been great at apologizing first.
“You two aren’t making up before we go out, are you?” Jaehyun rubbed his face.
“No.” “Nope.”
Jaehyun’s bedroom door opened then, Jungwoo hesitantly stepping out, still fussing with the shirt. When he looked up, the searching look fell from his face as he obviously could sense the tension in the room, turning cautious instead.
“Is everything alright?” While his question was general, his eyes were focused on you when he asked.
“Yeah, Jungwoo!” You forced a cheery smile again, jumping to your feet as you appraised his outfit. “I love being right. It looks so handsome on you!”
“Ah, well…” He rubbed the back of his neck again as you walked around him, brushing off a spare piece of fluff from his back. “Thank you.”
“What do you guys think?” You asked the other two proudly, looping your arm with Jungwoo’s.
“Yeah, he looks—”
“Fine. Can we go now?” Johnny cut his roommate off, grabbing his keys and walking over to the door.
“Rude,” you muttered under your breath, but followed the other two with a roll of your eyes nevertheless.
“Congrats!” Everybody cheered in unison, clinking their glasses together.
“Thanks, guys,” Jaehyun beamed at you all, bringing his drink to his lips.
“So are you like tenure track now, or what?” Doyoung prompted him eagerly.
“Yes, I am,” he announced proudly. “I’m no longer instructional, I’m academic.”
All your friends let out a chorus of jesting but supportive ‘ooh’s at that, and you squeezed his arm from beside him. “Look at you, a real academic now. Knew that big head was good for something.”
“You little—” He went to tousle your hair. You let out an ‘eep!’ and jerked away from his hand, back into Jungwoo on your other side.
“Sorry!” You laughed through your apology to the alien, patting his arm as he hadn’t been knocked very far back at least. “You alright, Jungwoo?”
“Yes, I’m okay,” he reassured you with a fond smile.
“Now, are you absolutely sure you can have that?” You pointed to the drink that you had helped him order. After realizing that for some reason he immediately knew what morphine was, but his transcoder was failing on what alcohol was, you’d explained the drink—with some assistance from your friends and Google—to him to make sure it wasn’t going to kill him, but you noticed that he hadn’t yet actually taken a sip yet.
“Yes, yes.” He lifted the glass again.
“If morphine doesn’t get you high, I wonder if alcohol is even going to do anything to do you,” Johnny mused, slowly nursing his liquor.
“Take it slow, drink water, and even though we ate before we came, keep eating while we’re here, okay?” You told Jungwoo, shooting Johnny a glare over the spaceman’s shoulder.
He nodded, and with that, you grabbed your own drink, clinked it to his one more time, and drained half of it in one go. You watched his face carefully, both for any sign that he was in imminent danger, and in the vent that he was fine, if he liked the drink you’d picked. You’d chosen a cocktail on the sweeter side for him, a fruity, bubbly, unnaturally bright colored one that a couple of the guys had snickered at, which he either didn’t notice or didn’t care about. Jungwoo didn’t immediately go into anaphylactic shock, which you pocketed as a win. Just like when he tried Nutella for the first time, his eyes widened with delight before he went back in for more.
You couldn’t help but laugh and pat his head fondly. “Pace yourself,” you reminded him.
He set it down and smiled sheepishly. “Right. Thanks.”
Hyuck and Yuta had disappeared at some point, as they were now returning to your table with a round of shots for everybody. You shook your head, but picked yours up and knocked it back with everyone else. Jungwoo watched you, taking your lead. While the rest of you had various hisses and negative reactions to the tequila you were now realizing they had gotten you, Jungwoo seemed unaffected by the burn as he calmly set the shot glass down.
“Ugh, did you guys get motor oil or something?” Johnny pushed his glass away from him with distaste.
“Cheapest shit they had,” Yuta informed him smugly. “Afraid real motor oil tastes better than that.”
“I’m going to get us some waters,” you told Jungwoo before slipping off into the crowd.
You watched the bartender quickly fill up your two glasses with ice, then water. Right as he had pushed them over to you, you became aware of someone sidling up to you at the bar and grabbing your hip. You whipped around and jerked away to put distance between yourself and the newcomer, a complete stranger to you.
He chuckled at how he had startled you, stepping closer to you once again. “Woah, sorry, baby.”
“It’s fine,” you replied flatly, reaching for your waters to turn to leave.
“Hey, I did want to talk to you.”
“No thanks.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“I don’t want to.” You didn’t like that he had started shifting in front of you, putting himself between you and the rest of the club, blocking you against the bar.
“Y/N!” A familiar voice called your name as a taller figure pushed past the stranger, securing your arm in his hand. Johnny fixed the man with a hard stare before looking at you again, “There you are. Come on, we’re toasting Jaehyun again.”
“Right,” you smiled up at your friend, letting him half-pull you away from the bar. The other man didn’t say a word, letting you go as he disappeared into the crowd as well.
Halfway back to your table, you reluctantly mumbled a sharp ‘thanks’ to Johnny’s back. He must’ve heard you somehow over the thumping music, as he looked back over his shoulder at you, his eyes softening for just a moment as he nodded once, before continuing to clear a path for the two of you back to your other friends.
You wormed your way back into your spot between Jungwoo and Jaehyun, pushing Jungwoo’s glass against his arm. “Here.”
“Thank you.” His eyes didn’t leave you, seemingly scanning you over with worry. “Are you alright?”
“Huh? Yeah, fine.” You shook your head to clear away the memory.
“I’m sorry, I realized that man was making you uncomfortable, but I wasn't sure what to do. Johnny told me to stay here while he went over.”
“Oh, that’s okay, Jungwoo.” You assured him. “We can't have you getting punched defending me and bleed blue all over the place. Thanks for keeping an eye on me and telling Johnny, though.”
“But—”
“Hey, you know what?” You flashed him a smile, already starting to feel warm and airy from the alcohol. “I want to dance. How about you come with? Creepy guys should stay away if I’m already with someone.”
“Sure,” he nodded for you to lead the way.
You grabbed his hand and pulled him away from the table and into the outer edge of the dance floor. Putting your hands on his shoulders, you tilted your head, “Is this okay?”
“Yeah, should I…?”
You took his hands that were uncertainly hovering in the air and put them on your hips before returning your own to his shoulders. “There. Also, sorry.”
“For what?”
As soon as his question was out of his mouth, you inadvertently stepped on his foot, a sheepish smile flashing across your face. “I’m not a very good dancer,” you admitted. “Sorry.”
He chuckled. “That’s okay.”
“Hey, you’re pretty good,” you laughed as he kept up with the rhythm and also kept you from being a general hazard.
“Thank you.”
“Do you have places like this where you’re from?” You were careful not to say anything out of the ordinary to hint that ‘where he was from’ was actually outer space.
“Residents from elsewhere have brought similar nightclubs to our larger cities,” he informed you. “I’ve visited a few.”
“You a party boy?” You grinned.
“I’m not sure about that,” he was smiling as well. “But I’m enjoying myself with you, Y/N. Thank you.”
“I’m having fun too, Jungwoo,” you replied sincerely. Your toe caught on his shoe then, and you squeaked as you stumbled forward towards him, wrapping your arms around his neck to catch yourself from completely face-planting into his collarbone. His hands on your waist steadied you, and you smiled up at him sheepishly. “Sorry. Thanks.”
“You’re not usually this clumsy.”
“I’m a bit tipsy,” you whispered loudly. “Alcohol and motor function… not good.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Can I stay right here?” You requested sweetly, watching his patches of iridescent freckles flash and sparkle in the lights that pulsed across the dance floor. “You’re surprisingly sturdy, and your irido-irido—you know—are so pretty…”
“Of course,” Jungwoo readjusted to hold you more securely. “Do you want to sit down?”
“No.” You shook your head, starting to sway in his arms to the music. “I like this song.”
A warm puff of air washed over your ear as he chuckled. “I like it too.”
Sometime later in the night, you were sat in a booth at a different nightclub, slowly draining a water that Doyoung had pushed in front of you. Your other friends were somewhere in the club, only Jungwoo next to you. His cheeks were a little pink, but that could easily be from the body heat, as you were pretty sure you hadn’t seen him drink anything but water since your first stop of the night.
“Hey, Jungwoo?” You looked over at him with your cheek in your palm, supported by your elbow on the table.
“Yes?” He met your gaze without hesitation.
“Do—” You were cut off by a hiccup. “Do you think you’ll remember me? After you leave, once it’s been a while?”
“What?” He blinked at you, face turning oddly stern as he placed his hand over yours on the table. “Yes, Y/N. I don’t think I could ever forget you.”
“Oh. Do Galarii have photographic memory or something?”
“No.”
“But…” Another hiccup. “Don’t you go to all these places and meet so many people and do all sorts of stuff all the time? Like, of course I’m gonna remember the one alien I ever met, but why would you—”
Jungwoo turned to hold your hand with both of his. “Do you really think that you’re so insignificant? Or that I’m so… indifferent?”
“No, Jungwoo, I just—” You took your hand back to brush your fingertips over his iridophores under one eye. “I guess it’s kinda like how you don’t think these are anything special.”
“Y/N, if you remember only one thing from meeting me, please…” He shifted forward slightly, nothing but sincerity on his features. “No matter where I’ve gone, I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t special. Including you.”
You felt your bottom lip quiver, and regretted that last shot you let Yuta and Donghyuck talk you into. As soon as you blinked, the tears fell, rolling quickly down your cheeks. You buried your face in Jungwoo’s shoulder, grabbing a fistful of the silk material of his shirt.
“I’m… sorry?” He said quietly, gingerly patting your back.
“She crying?” Johnny’s voice came from behind you.
“Yes, I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine, she’s an emotional drunk after she’s partied herself out,” Johnny reassured the alien. A gentle hand landed on your head. “Hey, Y/N, time to go home.”
“That’s my shirt!” Jaehyun said indignantly, having also returned to your booth.
“I’ll clean it before I return it,” Jungwoo promised.
“Y/N,” Johnny called for you again in a sing-songy tone. “Come on, let’s go home.”
You lifted your head enough to sloppily wipe at your face, Jungwoo helping to push some hair back. Squinting at Johnny, you asked, “You’re taking me home?”
“Yeah, I’m taking you home,” he confirmed.
“But I thought you were mad at me?”
“I’m never that mad, kid, promise.”
“Do you need help, Johnny?” Jaehyun offered, then looked at Jungwoo. “Or are you going now too?”
“I’m going back with her,” Jungwoo immediately replied.
Johnny helped you scoot out of the booth, and on uneasy feet, you threw your arms around Jaehyun to give him one final congrats. Johnny took you back from your professor friend to half-guide, half-carry you out of the nightclub, Jungwoo following behind. Out front, Johnny cursed under his breath as he looked around.
“Jungwoo.” He waved the alien over. “Stay with her while I bring the car around, will you?”
“Of course.” Jungwoo immediately took your arm from Johnny’s grasp, steadying you as you swayed in place. Johnny gave the two of you one last uncertain look before taking off around the corner. You stepped closer to Jungwoo, leaning your weight against him as you let out a heavy sigh.
“I’m sorry about him…” You said. “He should be nicer to you.”
“It’s okay,” Jungwoo responded, shifting to support you with an arm around your waist as your knees buckled for a moment. “He’s concerned for you, which I’m glad for.”
“I wish he’d stop treating me like a kid, though,” you huffed. “He literally calls me ‘kid.’”
“Is this why you were so curious that I didn’t know if my brother was older or younger?”
“Does he treat you like a grown-up?”
“He had some concerns with my career path at first,” he informed you, some amusement in his tone. “But I also worry for his safety.”
“I worry about Johnny,” you insisted. “I just… don’t make him feel stupid for it when I do.”
Johnny’s car stopped in front of you two then, and Jungwoo helped you into the backseat. He gently brushed your hands away so he could do your seatbelt for you—which took a few attempts, admittedly—and let you rest your head on his shoulder for the entire ride back to your apartment.
After a lot of insisting, you finally got Johnny to leave your home. You were tucked into bed in your pajamas with a glass of water, and heard Jungwoo eventually close the front door behind Johnny.
“Jungwoo!” You called for the alien loudly, not really caring about the time or your neighbors.
“Yes?” His head immediately poked into your room, eyes focused on you attentively.
“C’mere.” You patted the empty space next to you. He walked over to sit down, but as soon as he had, you shooed him away, “Wait, no! You should get into your pajamas too.”
“Alright. One moment.” He nodded and smiled softly. A few minutes later, Jungwoo emerged from the bathroom no longer in Jaehyun’s nice clothes but in Jaehyun’s sweatpants and t-shirt. He sat down cross-legged on top of the covers. “Better?”
“I’m tired,” you rolled over onto your side towards him.
“I’ll let you rest, then.” He moved to get off the bed, but you grabbed his arm and stopped him.
“Wait.” You yawned. “Can you stay for a bit?”
“As long as you wish.” He acquiesced easily.
“Can you…” Another yawn. “Can you tell me some more about Galaria?”
He shifted the arm that you had grasped to hold your hand instead. “Sure. If you’ll close your eyes.”
“You’re trying to make me go to sleep.”
“Hmm, maybe,” he hummed.
You snickered, but let your eyelids flutter shut anyway. “Hey, Jungwoo?”
“Yes?”
“I’m really gonna miss you once you go.” You squeezed his hand as you shifted around to get comfortable under your covers.
There was a stretch of silence so long that you were almost tempted to open your eyes again, but before you could, he squeezed your hand back and spoke again, voice sounding slightly strained, “I’ll miss you too, Y/N. A lot.” He cleared his throat, then continued, “So, Galaria…”
In the morning, you groaned before you even had a single human thought. You instinctually rolled away from your window, where the faintest halo of light was coming in from around your curtains, burying your face into your pillow. And then your stomach lurched. Heaving yourself to your feet with some speed, you hurried into your bathroom, not even bothering with the light before kneeling at the toilet. Thankfully, nothing came back up, and after a few minutes, you got back to steady-ish feet. Looking back at your dim bedroom, you saw it devoid of anybody else, which you were mildly surprised about. You faintly remembered going to sleep with Jungwoo sitting next to you. He had no clue about human customs, for all you knew, Galarii wouldn’t have thought it strange to share a bed. You knocked back something for your stomach and the pounding in your head before treading out towards the living room. You were going to feel a little uneasy until you put eyes on your alien houseguest.
He was sitting upright on the couch, and stood up as soon as he saw you walking out, a relieved smile on his features. “Ah, you’re awake. How are you feeling? Johnny said I should make you breakfast—”
“That’s alright, Jungwoo, I’m not very hungry right now,” you admitted. “Maybe later. How are you? Anything from the alcohol?”
“I’m fine.” He frowned. “Are you okay?”
“Honestly, I’m not feeling well, Jungwoo.” You touched your forehead, giving him an apologetic smile. “I think I’m going to lay down for a bit. Will you be good out here?”
He looked at you anxiously. “What’s wrong?”
“Just a headache. I’ll be fine,” you reassured him. “Do you need anything before I—”
“Can I go with you?”
“…Into my room? That’s right down the hall? While I nap off a hangover?” You arched an eyebrow, pointing at your bedroom next to the living room.
He nodded.
“What? Did you imprint on me like a baby duck or something?” You joked, stretching and yawning.
“I don’t know what ducks are nor the imprinting habits of their young, but yes.”
“You don’t really need to know what ducks are, but baby ducks—Wait, what?!” Your brain finally processed the rest of his words, and you stared at him wide-eyed.
“I’m not sure if the term is used the same, but I imagine it’s a similar concept.”
“You think I’m your mom?!”
It was his turn to look at you with bewilderment. “No, of course not.”
You put a hand over your chest, relieved. “Okay, God, I had a heart attack.”
“You’re my mate,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Excuse me?!” And your blood pressure was back through the roof.
“Lover? I’m not sure the term…” Jungwoo scratched the back of his neck.
You held your hands out defensively, trying to calm yourself down more than anyone else. “Jungwoo, look, we just met like a few days ago.”
“Yes, I’m aware.”
“That’s not nearly enough time to say we’re soulmates or anything.”
His face lit up. “Ahh, soulmates? Is that the word?”
“No!” You immediately shot that down. “Don’t start calling me that.”
“Y/N—”
“What even is this imprinting? Like how do you know it’s happened? Do you do it on purpose? Because if you did, you’ve got to ask people’s permission before doing that kind of thing, dude.”
“It’s not something we have control over. So no, I did not do it intentionally.”
“Oh. Okay.” That only calmed you down marginally.
“It’s…” Jungwoo sank his teeth into his bottom lip as he tried to figure out his words. “I didn’t realize it at first. When you dragged me out of my ship and I first saw you, everything was different. I thought it was the new atmosphere, new gravity, that my body was just adjusting.”
“What do you mean, ‘different’? Different how?”
“Colors are brighter around you—”
“That’s just some cheesy pickup line. It was pitch black when I found you.”
“No, really. Our species’ senses are sharpened around our—”
“Don’t.”
“—when we’ve imprinted, around whoever we’ve imprinted on. To better protect them,” he explained cautiously. “Again, I thought I was just getting used to your planet, but I always know where you are—”
“I tell you where I’m going when I leave.”
“I don’t mean like that. It’s stronger the closer you are, but I just always have this feeling, of where you are. I know you left work yesterday afternoon to go down the street, then went back.”
“I went to the convenience store on my lunch break,” you confirmed with a huff. “Assuming you’re telling the truth and aren’t actively stalking me, I’m guessing that would be another… mechanism to protect that person? That you’re… you know.”
“Yes.”
“What’s even the point of imprinting on me? Or anybody that’s not another Galarii?” You crossed your arms. “My eyes work just fine when you’re not around, and the only way I’d know exactly where you were if I couldn’t see you would be chipping you like a dog.”
“I don’t know.”
You shook your head. “So… you all are just, what? Celibate? Until you eventually find someone to imprint on?”
“Casual relationships aren’t unusual, though many don’t see a point in having such a relationship before imprinting.” He immediately became even more serious. “I’m not inexperienced sexually, if that’s a concern.”
“Oh, God, no!” You covered your face with two hands and groaned. “I was just wondering like… How do you know this imprinting thing is for real? Like, you’re actually ending up with someone good for you, if you don’t have any sort of reference to draw from on what sort of person you like, what you want and don’t want in a relationship?”
“We don’t have to know before, because we’re not picking our… lifelong companion, like I understand you humans do.”
You blinked at him. “Marriage. You’re talking about marriage.”
“Yes. You have to have this set of parameters before you prepare for… marriage. We’re not choosing, so we don’t need such standards. We find.”
“Yeah, but why me? What is it about me that activated your imprinting or whatever the hell?” You couldn’t help the shiver that went up your spine when you said it. “Shouldn’t that be something that only other members of your species can do? Like, evolution-wise?”
“That’s something that my species is still investigating.”
“God, okay…” You rubbed your temples. “Well, my head fucking hurts. I’m going to lay down—alone.”
“Of course.” Jungwoo nodded and stepped back, sitting down on the far side of the couch from you.
Your bed smelled like Jungwoo. You couldn’t nap like this, or even rest your eyes. But you didn’t want to go back out there yet, needing time to let your brain turn over what you’d just been told. So you laid in your bed that smelled like Jungwoo and scrolled on your phone, absentmindedly chewing on the skin around your thumbnail.
⇢ part two
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#jungwoo x reader#nct x reader#jungwoo#bjnet#jungwoo imagine#nct imagine#nct#kim jungwoo#jungwoo imagines#nct imagines#f: finders keepers#writing#text#mine#wooloved#bias tag#i: jungwoo#*100
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