Tao's POV

“What do you think Suho meant by fairies?” I asked Luhan as we got dressed in our weird space suits in our shared bedroom. I knew we'd have to wear these things again, just knew it.

“I don't know. Maybe it's just a bad translation or something.” he said distractedly. “Hey, what do you think their food is like? I'm starving.”

“I'm a little afraid to know, but it can't be that bad, right? I mean, they ate Earth food without any problems.”

“But Minnie had no idea how to cook anything. He learns everything else no problem, but with cooking...”

“That is kind of strange, now that I think about it...” I admitted, examining my suit from every angle after it was on. At least it wasn't ridiculously thin like the first time I'd seen the substance and mistook it for a bag. This cloth-like suit felt just as soft though. And... waxy, rubbery? It was hard to describe, but it wasn't uncomfortable- just foreign.

“Hey, look away,” said Luhan suddenly, though it's not like I'd been looking in the first place. “I'm putting my piercing in.”

I chuckled, though that had more to do with the ridiculously good mood I was in. His piercing was slowly becoming old news, even though I was still curious why I couldn't see it.  “Exactly where is it going that I have to look away?”

“Why are you so curious, Tao Tao? It's unhealthy to think about someone else's boyfriend so much.” he taunted, punching my shoulder when he deemed it okay to look.

Realizing something, I asked, “Why are you wearing that thing anyway? It'll just get left behind with anything else inorganic.”

The plan was for a small group of people to go out and rescue both Taemin and Minho and if they were successful, a second group would go out to secure the runaway shipment (What was shipped that could run away?). In the meantime, all humans would be given a rundown of survival basics and made to wear their suits at all times in the event of an emergency. It seemed like the aliens were only now starting to take the invasions and attacks to their building seriously.

So if there was an emergency and they had to escape in a pod, Luhan's little metal stud was sure to get left behind.

But Luhan just shook his head. “Minnie said that if the inorganic object was covered in organic matter, then it would be carried with, so Kris still has that plate in his head. I can just take it out and stick in my mouth-”

“Ew,” He would stick it in his mouth but not show me where it went? “And that doesn't make sense. Does the object also become golden liquid? Also, Luhan, you're an idiot. Your suit is organic; you don't have to put that thing in your mouth.”

“Oh, that's right... I should put on underwear then. Tao Tao, look away again.”

***

Kai's POV

Almost all of the EXO division and the remaining SHINee division gathered in a small lab with two bunks, pushing and shoving for arm room. I could tell this roughhousing was making Kyungsoo nervous, but I wasn't about to comfort him like usual; I was still mad at him for feeding me false information. Suho, who shared this room with Kyungsoo, just looked worn out. He continually ran his hands through and tugged at his hair, leaving it a mess of locks going every which way.

“Move it,”

“Me? You move it,”

“Hello, you're squishing me! I have enough bruises as is-”

“You are stepping on my foot!”

“Get your elbow out of my face,”

“Get your face out of my elbow-”

“ENOUGH!” I shouted above the ruckus, using Chanyeol's back to speak over everyone's heads. He wasn't very happy to have me jump on him, but the idea had worked and now everyone stilled. Baekhyun glared daggers at me for touching his boyfriend. He needed to learn to stop being so jealous all the time. I obviously wasn't trying anything.

“Now, we need to discuss what happened outside before our Earth visitors start wondering where we all are.” I reminded them, giving a good kick to our leader's shoulder. “Xiumin can only keep them distracted for so long, Suho. So buck up! We need you.”

He sighed and asked that the SHINee division report back exactly what had happened out in the wild. Chanyeol threw me off his back and all I could see past him was a lone figure getting ready to speak.

Onew, the leader of said division, stepped up with a slight bounce to his step that contrasted his worried frown. He had once been an older man with quickly deepening wrinkles. Now, he was still older than everyone in the room, but twelve years away from his face made him shine with a little more that wonder that had never really left him in all his years. To me, it seemed that his outer appearance fit his inner personality even better than before.

But his news wasn't good.

“We were attacked by the Anonymous.” he said, wasting no time to get to the point. A small snort was heard from somewhere in the crowd. “This is no laughing matter,” he shot out, glaring at the offender. “They have new weapons now; they've been upgrading just as we have. We believe they were waiting for us out there-”

“An ambush?” came a frightened whisper.

“During the attack, our comrade had the Earth visitor some ways away to show him the sights more during our break. We do not know what happened to those two. We barely got away in the emergency pods-”

“Which explains all the injuries.” said Suho, nodding. “And those pods haven't been updated in a few years?” he asked Baekhyun, who nodded by my right. “It's just as well. We don't want them to get ahold of our best technology if we can help it. I trust they were well hidden?”

“As always.” said a disgruntled Kibum, nursing an arm wrapped in gel patches.

“Hey, if those fairies weren't there defending them, we'd all be dead.” came Jonghyun's voice from somewhere I couldn't see. “We can't let the Anonymous use them to get in the building. The SNSD division is still with us here and they can't leave until the atmosphere is properly fixed.”

Suho hummed in thought. “Right, Chanyeol, how are we doing on that?”

The man in front of me scratched at his neck sheepishly. “I haven't found the right combination of genes in our test subjects just yet-”

“Baekhyun, you are moved to the main room- no excuses,” Suho ordered, watching the couple near me shrink and bow in apology. “We can't have any distractions and both Chen and Sehun need a break. As soon as the atmosphere can be taken care of naturally and without SNSD's help, we will spread out to our neighboring buildings to ask for help. EXO to VIXX, SHINee to- will you all stop talking over me?”

But it was already too late. The EXO division was quickly murmuring excitedly about meeting with our neighbors. I was among them, unable to keep myself from smiling at the thought of seeing our old friends. We hadn't seen them since before we left for Earth the first time. There was so much I had to tell them!

There was a rush of air as the door to Suho and Kyungsoo's lab/bedroom opened and a member of the SNSD division stood there, looking annoyed. She cleared and the room instantly quieted. “You know we all made a lot of changes over the years to accommodate these little Earth creatures,” she began, counting off on her fingers as she listed a few. “We all got Earth names, we learned their languages, we installed weird furnishings, and we had to learn weird habits-”

“Sooyoung,” sighed Suho, abusing his hair through his fingers again. “You don't understand how creepy they find it when we don't blink-”

“That doesn't stop Kyungsoo!”

“Don't bring me into this.”

She put a hand to her hip and pursed her lips. “It's still too much to change the whole system to Korean without telling us first-”

Baekhyun cocked his head to the side. “It's like that in the other divisions too?”

***

Tao's POV

Kris and Lay came to our room soon after we were dressed, wearing their own green suits and acting very strange. They kept trying to stay a good distance away from each other and often looked at the floor as they talked. Xiumin walked in on us all as Lay asked to switch roommates.

“Why are you all in here?” he asked in surprise.

Luhan tugged on his boyfriend's sleeve and looked at him with wide eyes. Gross. “Minnie, would you want me to switch rooms so I'm not with Tao?”

“It's... up to you.” he shrugged, but it obvious he was enjoying the thought.

“Okay!” Luhan started stuffing things back in his bag. “See ya, panda.”

“Wait, Luhan,” said Xiumin. “First, everyone come with me; I'm going to show you some of the creatures on this planet.”

Really? The small glimpse I had from Kyungsoo's old lab of the outside world had been really cool and a little frightening in the intensity of sounds. I felt the scientist side of me that had grown over the course of college light up at the thought of seeing them up close.

I felt the excitement build as he led us down the hall and I almost didn't notice the female figure who very nearly shoved Lay in her furious stride past us.

“There's girls on this planet?” asked Luhan, and I admit that the same thought went through my head.

Xiumin turned Luhan around from the sight of the woman as she walked away. “Yes. The whole SNSD division is female and so is the f(x) division, but they evacuated-”

“Then why do you guys have us?” interrupted Lay. “Why is everyone in your division with a male if there are plenty of girls around?”

This was an interesting question, and I could tell the others agreed as they all turned to Xiumin for the answer.

“Things are just different on our planet.” he said with another shrug. “Because of overpopulation, introducing new beings to the planet is strictly controlled with fetuses born in labs. Since we don't need to reproduce using , there are a lot fewer mixed-gender couples here than on Earth. Homouality isn't made to be an issue here; more than three quarters of the population don't care about gender at all. During our visit, the pods being opened by all males and us falling for you four was merely coincidental.”

“Or fate.” said Luhan.

“Or fate.” agreed Xiumin with a smile.

From the corner of my eye, I could see Kris look up and away, as if blinking back tears.

Suho was a big believer in fated love.

Me, Luhan, and Lay were all cleared of our crimes, but Kris...

***

Kai's POV

We were all still crowded in that tiny room, but everyone was chattering again. In an effort to get everyone on track, I ignored Chanyeol shaking his head as he realized my plan and quickly turned him around to jump on his back again.

This meeting was started for a reason.

“Everyone shush!” I yelled out. “We still haven't figured out who's going out there again-”

“And everyone understands our real plan, right?” asked Onew over the crowd of glowing heads with a sad tone. This made them quiet down fast. No one wanted to believe it, but the real plan was obvious to all of us. “This shipment means more than a couple lives. Even if it's one of our own and one of our visitors, the shipment comes first. Our whole planet depends on us. In the event that we manage to get the shipment back, only then can we actively go out looking for the missing men. Of course, if they come to us first, that works just as well.”

“With that in mind,” Suho called out, rubbing his temples with a weary look. “I'm going. Can't wait to get out of here, really. We can't let any humans go, not after losing one... The SHINee division is definitely going... Kai, would you be willing to go out again? Without Chanyeol, we're going to need your help.”

“Of course.” I replied.

Anything to save our planet.

***

Author Note:

With this chapter and a number of other projects both completed and not,

I have officially written my goal of 50k words for this month.

holy mother of pearl