“We are...”

That was one of those moments in Seolhyun’s life that she didn’t know if she should laugh, cry, or run away as fast as possible.

“... oh, .” Hyejeong let out a deep breath. “I can tell what you’re thinking. Not that I can read your mind, though, but it’s written all over your face. You think I’m dangerous.”

And a jerk... and hot, but Seolhyun wasn’t admitting that. And an alien life form? She shook her head. “This is crazy, but I’m not scared of you.”

“You’re not?”

“No.” She laughed, but it sounded a bit crazed, totally unconvincing. “You don’t look like an alien!”

Hyejeong raised two eyebrows. “And what do aliens look like?”

“Not... not like you,” Seolhyun stuttered. “They aren’t gorgeous–”

“You think I’m gorgeous?” Hyejeong smiled.

Seolhyun shot her a dark look. “Shut up. Like you don’t know that everyone on this planet thinks you’re good-looking.” She grimaced, shocked to even be having that conversation. “Aliens, if they exist, are green dude with big eyes and spindly arms or... or giant insects or something like a lumpy little creature.”

Hyejeong busted out laugh. “E.T.?”

“Yes! Like E.T., wow. I’m so glad you find this funny. That you want to screw with my head more than you guys have already screwed with it. Maybe I hit my head or something.” Seolhyun started to climb to her feet.

“Sit down, Seolhyun.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!”

Hyejeong stood fluidly, arms out to her sides. That creepy glow filled her eyes, like two orbits of pure light. “Sit, down.”

Seolhyun sat down.

With a one- wave from Hyejeong, of course.

She might be all about sharing her alien-ness with Seolhyun now, but Seolhyun instinctively knew Hyejeong wouldn’t hurt her.

“Will you show me you what you really look like? You don’t sparkle, do you? And please tell me I didn’t almost kiss a giant brain-eating insect, because seriously, I’m gonna–”

“Seolhyun...”

“Sorry,” She muttered.

Hyejeong closed her eyes and inhaled. Light appeared over the center of her chest, and like back at the road, she started to vibrate and then fade out until nothing but this brilliant reddish-yellow light surrounded her. Then the light took form. Two legs, hips, arms, and a head made of nothing but light. A light so intense it lit up everything around them, turning night into day.

Seolhyun shielded her eyes with a trembling hand. “Holy .”

And when Hyejeong spoke, it wasn’t out loud. It was in Seolhyun’s head.

“This is what we look like. We are beings of light. Even in human form, we can bend light to our will.” There was a pause. “As you can see, I don’t look like a giant insect.”

Even in Seolhyun’s head she could hear the disgust on that last one. “No,” she whispered. “Out of all the paranormal books I had read, no one glowed like this. Some glittered in the light, or others had wings. No one was a freaking giant sun.”

“Or a lumpy little creature, which I find offensive, by the way”. One arm made of light stretched out toward Seolhyun. A hand and fingers formed, opening palm up. “You can touch me. It won’t hurt. I imagine that it’s pleasant for humans.”

For humans? What, the, hell? Swallowing nervously, Seolhyun raised one hand. Part of her didn’t want to touch Hyejeong, but to see this, to be next to something so... so, well, out of this world, she had to. Her fingers brushed over hers, and a jolt of electricity, totally safe, transferred from Hyejeong’s hand to hers. Whitish-red light danced up her arm.

Hyejeong smiled as Seolhyun’s eyes widened. Truth was, she liked it, too. In her true form, she was hypersensitive to, well, everything. She liked her touch. Probably a little too much.

Seolhyun in a sharp breath. Hyejeong had been right. It didn’t hurt. Her touch was warm. It was like touching the surface of the sun without being burned. Seolhyun curled her fingers around Hyejeong’s, watching as the light grew until she could no longer see her hand.

“Figured you’d like it.” Hyejeong pulled her hand free and stepped back. Her light slowly faded, and then she was standing in front of Seolhyun, the human Hyejeong. Seolhyun felt the loss of her warmth immediately. “Hey,” she said, this time out loud.

All Seolhyun could do was stare at her. She had wanted the truth, but actually hearing it, seeing it, was totally different.

And Hyejeong seemed to read her expression, because she slowly sat back down. She looked relaxed. “Seolhyun?”

“You’re an alien. Shin Min Joon.” Her voice was weak.

“Yep, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“So where are you from? Mars? Or Joseon dynasty?”

“Not even close.” Hyejeong laughed. “I’m going to tell you a story. Okay?”

“You’re going to tell me a story?”

Nodding, Hyejeong dragged her fingers through her messy hair. “All of this is going to sound insane to you, but try to remember what you saw. What you know. You saw me do things that are impossible. Now, to you, nothing is impossible.” She paused, seemed to gather herself. “Where we’re from is beyond the Atthar.”

“The Atthar?”

“It’s the farthest galaxy from yours, about twelve billion light years from here. And we’re about another ten billion or so. There is no telescope or space shuttle powerful enough to travel to our home. There never will be.” Hyejeong glanced down at her open hands, her brows lowered. “Our home no longer exists. It was destroyed when we were children. That’s why we had to leave, find a place that is comparable to our planet in terms of food and atmosphere. Not that we need to breathe oxygen, though. We do it out of habit now more than anything else.”

“So you don’t need to breathe?”

“No, not really. We do out of habit, but there are times we forget. Like when we’re swimming.”

Well, that explained how Hyejeong turned into Aquagirl. “Go on.”

She watched Seolhyun for a few moments, then nodded. “We were too young to know what the name of our galaxy was. Or even if our kind felt the need to name such things, but I do remember the name of our planet. It was called Flux. And we are called Felix.”

“Felix,” Seolhyun whispered, “Are you guys like Felix the Cat or what?”

“As much as I worship AOA, our kind is irrelevant with any Catty-ish.”

“Speaking of which, I was rooting on Cathy in Produce 101 but sadly she didn’t make it. Do you also watch that show? Who’s your favorite? Sohye? Somi? Or–”

“Kim Seolhyun, shall we get back to the story?”

“Ah. Sorry.”

She continued. “We came here in a meteorite shower forteen years ago, with others like us. But many came before us, probably for the last thousand years. Not all of our kind came to this planet. Some went farther out in the galaxy. Others must’ve gone to planets they couldn’t survive on, but when it was realized that Earth was sort of perfect for us, more came here. Are you following me?”

Seolhyun stared blankly. “Uhm. You’re saying there’re more like you. The Jungs, they’re like you?”

Hyejeong nodded. “We’ve all been together since then.”

That explained Chaeyeon’s territorial nature, Seolhyun guessed. “How many of you are here?”

“Right here? At least a couple hundred.”

“... a couple hundred,” Seolhyun repeated. Then she remembered the strange looks in town, the people at the diner and the way they had looked at her... because she was with Mina, an alien. “Why here?”

“We stay in large groups.”

“You said you came during a meteorite shower? Where’s your spaceship?” Seolhyun felt stupid for even saying that.

Hyejeong raised an eyebrow at her, looking like the normal Jerky Hyejeong she knew. “We don’t need things such as ships to travel. We are light, we can travel with light, like hitching a ride.”

“But if you’re from a planet millions of light years away and you travel at the speed of light... It took you millions of years to get here?” Seolhyun’s old physics teacher would be proud.

“No. The same way I saved you from that truck, we’re able to bend space and time. I’m not a scientist, so I don’t know how it works, just that we can.”

What Hyejeong said didn’t sound sane at all, but Seolhyun didn’t stop her.

“We can age like a human, which allows us to blend in normally. When we got here, we picked our... skin.” Hyejeong noticed Seolhyun’s wince with another shrug. “I don’t know how else to explain that without creeping you out, but not all of us can change our appearances. What we picked when we got here is what we’re stuck with.”

“Well, you picked good then.”

The corners of Hyejeong’s lips twitched up as she ran her fingers over grass in front of her. “We copied what we saw. That only seems to work once for most of us. And how we grew up to look alike, well, our DNA must’ve taken care of the rest. There are always three of us born at the same time, in case you’re wondering. It’s always been that way.” She paused, lifting her gaze. “For the most part, we’re like humans.”

“With the exception of being a ball of light I can touch?” Seolhyun let out a low breath.

“Yeah, that, and we’re a lot more advanced than humans.”

“How advanced is a lot?” Seolhyun asked quietly.

Hyejeong smiled a little then, running her hands over the grass again. “Let’s say if we ever went to war with humans, you wouldn’t win. Not in a billion years.”

Seolhyun’s heart turned over heavily and she rocked back again, not even realizing she’d been leaning forward, toward Hyejeong. “What is some of the stuff you can do?”

Hyejeong’s eyes flicked up to Seolhyun’s. “The less you know is probably for the best.”

She shook her head. “No. You can’t tell me something like this and not tell me everything. You owe that to me.”

“The way I see it, you owe me. Like three times over,” Hyejeong replied.

“How three times?”

“The night you were attacked, just now, and when you decided Chaeyeon needed to wear spaghetti.” Hyejeong ticked them off on her fingers. “There better not be a fourth.”

“You saved my life with Chaeyeon?”

“Oh yeah, when she said she could end you, she meant it.” Hyejeong sighed, tipping her head back and closing her eyes. “Dammit. Why not? It’s not like you don’t already know. All of us can control light. We can manipulate it so that we’re not seen if we don’t want to be. We can dispel shadows, whatever. And trust me when I say you don’t ever want to be hit with something like that. I doubt a human could survive.”

“Okay...” Seolhyun barely breathed. “Wait. When we saw the bear, I saw a flash of light.”

“That was me, and before you ask, I didn’t kill the bear. I scared it off. I’m not sure why you passed out. You were close to my light. I think it had an effect on you. Anyway, all of us have some sort of healing properties, but not all of us are good at it,” Hyejeong continued, lowering her chin. “I’m okay at it, but Minhyuk, one of the Jung boys, can practically heal anything as long as it’s still somewhat alive. And we’re pretty much indestructible. Our only weakness is if you catch us in our true form. Or maybe cut our heads off in human form. I guess that would do the trick.”

“Yeah, cutting off heads usually does.” Seolhyun’s mind was going completely blank, only capable of processing what Hyejeong was telling her and about one line of coherent thought every minute or so. “What else can you do?”

Hyejeong watched her closely as she spoke. “Promise not to take off running again.”

“Yes,” Seolhyun agreed, thinking what the hell. Not like she could get more freaked out.

“We can manipulate objects. Any object can be moved, animated or not. But we can do more than that.” Hyejeong picked up a fallen leaf and held it between them. “Watch.”

Smoke immediately started wafting from it. Bright, orange flames erupted from the tips of her fingers, curling over the leaf. Within seconds it was gone, but her flames still crackled over her fingers.

Seolhyun leaned forward, placing her fingers near the fire. Heat blew off Hyejeong’s fingers. She pulled her hand back, looking at Hyejeong. “The fire doesn’t hurt you?”

“How can something that’s a part of me hurt?”

“Oh, God,” Seolhyun groaned. “No wonder Mom calls you a ‘Hottie’.”

“Well, that’s sort of true,” Hyejeong smirked. “I can’t believe you agree with your mom and think I’m hot.”

“Shut up.”