Chapter 11 – Escaping Death

Baekhyun stares intently at the two wooden sticks in his hands, inspecting it like it’s a menace of society.

“So, this is what you humans call chopsticks?”

“Yeah, you um, hold it like this with your right hand,”

“Sehun, she said your right hand,”

“Don’t bother, Chanyeol. He probably doesn’t even know what a hand is.”

Han Seul heaves a defeated sigh as she serves the instant noodles into their bowls, ignoring Sehun and Baekhyun’s bicker. She hands the first bowl to an expectant Chanyeol, probably the only one focusing.

“Tell me why I should keep you a secret again…” she mutters, handing over Baekhyun’s bowl over to the said male.

Listening to her wail, Baekhyun clears his throat as he musters a confident look. “For starters, there’s a short man that keeps walking past your house, right? That creep with black hair and wide eyes?” Baekhyun clicks his tongue as he probes the noodles with his chopsticks, frowning a bit at its texture.

Han Seul nods while trying to keep Sehun from spilling hot soup all over the table, the taller unable to get a good grip of the noodles with his chopsticks skills. He’s used to gnawing carrots, you see.

“Well, he’s been searching for us,”

“For you? Fine, then I’ll just—“

“Don’t hand us over to them!” Chanyeol cuts her in panic.

“And why shouldn’t I give you over to him?” she scowls at him.

“If you hand us over to him, he’ll bring you with him too for hiding us, and to keep you from telling people about our existence,” Baekhyun points at her with his chopsticks.

“Or dead,” Sehun suddenly blurts.

“He meant that they’ll kill you if they’re too lazy to take you captive instead,” Baekhyun shrugs.

“WHAT?”

“And that is why it’s important that you cooperate with us, because it concerns you too!” Baekhyun ends it with a triumphant smile before slurping the hot noodles.

“Wow, human food are interesting,” Chanyeol comments, narrowing his eyes at the glass of water. “It has solid cubes of what was liquid, floating inside of liquid! And its temperature is low too,”

“Magic,” Sehun whispers, shakes his head in awe.

“Yeah, we never get the good stuff when we were animals,” Baekhyun throws her a sleazy glare. “What’s with the discrimination? Why didn’t you give us all of these tasty stuffs and forced us to eat pungent, hard pebbles?”

“Those food pellets were pet food, they’re meant to be hard and smell,” she mutters, massaging her forehead. “Pets can’t eat normal food, I’m not even sure you should be eating this—but anyway, what on earth led you all to this?”

“We’re rebels,” Chanyeol replies rather casually. “We didn’t bow down to Exonian authorities, so we had to run,”

“Corrupt,” Sehun comments bitterly, probably implying on the said authorities. “Cheat,”

“The only way for us to run away was to go to Earth, since disobedience is not an option from our planet,” Baekhyun taps the wooden table, murmuring with a slight solemn note. “We need oxygen, just like humans, so Earth was suitable for us. The only way to get to Earth safely was to use a spaceship that the government kept, but we had to be invincible to get into those in one piece, so we stole that invincible potion from the government lab,”

Han Seul widen her eyes to the size of saucers. “You what?”

“We tried to steal the invincible potion from the government, they had one for experiments,” Chanyeol repeats.

“We’d know, since we were the ones who made it,” Baekhyun mutters a bit, though he did remark his words with a slight hint of pride. “But anyway, instead of taking the invincible potion, this idiot—“ he throws a pointed look at a stoic Sehun, “—took the wrong potion, and it turned us into earthly animals instead!”

“Not my fault,” Sehun lightly slams his hand on top of the dining table, shaking his head in disagreement. He points accusingly at Chanyeol, expression stern.

“It wasn’t my fault,” Chanyeol casually shakes his head.

“It’s always your fault.” Sehun mutters.

“But we followed our plan and made it out anyway. We landed on Earth via escape pods, were found by the owner of the pet pound, got adopted by you, and here we are.” Baekhyun nods when he finishes. “By the way, I like this long, wavy, soft, yellow delicacy. Can I have some more?”

Han Seul stares at the three males sitting across her, just staring blankly, almost despicably. They stare back, mimicking her in attempt to find out what’s going on.

“W-What about your escape pods? Don’t we have people monitoring unknown objects getting into Earth’s atmosphere? And why didn’t the pet pound owner took you in even with your suspicious looking, possible sci-fi designed escape pods?”

Immediately, the three shrink a bit in their seats, looking away uncomfortably from her. “Well, the human authorities might have or might not have been looking for us all this time…”

“What?! What if they all come here? I can’t have SWAT or secret services come over! What should I say to my land lord?!”

“It’s alright! I’m pretty sure Exonian authorities took care of yours. They wouldn’t want anybody knowing about it. They must’ve done something to clear it out, since they had to come here too,” Baekhyun quickly attempts to calm her down. “Also, that pound owner that nearly killed Sehun, he found us after we ventured away from the pods, so they were far from us by the time we were caught,”

A pregnant pause.

“… Oh God, what did I do to deserve this…” she buries her face in her hands, the color fading from her skin. This is like some weird dream, but it isn’t.

Thinking about it, though, this isn’t all that weird. The neon green stain on her wall is starting to make sense, at the very least.

“It’s not the end of the world,” Baekhyun tells her in a assuring, yet arrogant manner. “All you need to do is just hide us, and we’ll be alright,”

“For how long should I do that?” Han Seul takes her hands off her face, almost in complain.

The three immediately widen their eyes when they hear her. “You want to kick us out?” Chanyeol’s expression shifts into pained shock.

Sehun has a similar look on his face. “Out?”

“Well, I can’t—“

“But where would we sleep?” Chanyeol turns to Baekhyun in panic. “What should we eat? How would we ever survive?”

“The authorities are probably going to find us if we go outside,” Baekhyun tells him, before shifting uncomfortably in his se