Chanyeol got out of the cave and collected as many leaves as he could. He ran towards the cave again. It was cold and it was raining now too, furthermore, it was getting pretty dark. Just in front of the cave, Chanyeol speeded up his pace even more. As he sprinted towards the entrance, barely seeing a thing because he was narrowing his eyes to protect them from the rain, he bumped into someone and fell to the ground, hard. So did the someone that was roaming around, lightning erupted above them. Lightning. Suddenly it was everywhere. Was this who Chanyeol thought it was? He walked over to the person lying on the ground and offered him his hand to help him to get up again.

‘Eh… Thank you…’ a voice mumbled.

A voice Chanyeol recognised as Chen’s.

‘Chen, what are you doing here? Weren’t you going back home? Have you come to offer your apologies?’

‘Yes, I think I did. And... I just don’t want you to wander in the dark on your own, I don’t want you to get lost.’

‘Me? Getting lost? You must be kidding, I’m surprised you actually found the way to the cave and didn’t get lost yourself.’

‘Listen, I’m sorry about what I said to you, it’s just that… What are you hiding?’

Chen suddenly noticed that Chanyeol was hiding his hands behind his back.

‘Nothing, and it’s okay, you’re right. I need to gain control over my power, but I just don’t dare to anymore,’ Chanyeol tried to overshadow Chen’s question.

‘Don’t deduce me, what’s behind your back?’

Hesitatingly, Chanyeol showed him the leaves.

‘Where is this for? What are you doing? You were just searching for Tao’s favourite fruits, not for leaves.’

‘I… I wanted to make Momo a bed, he seems ill,’ Chanyeol stammered.

‘Okay, then I’m in! I’ll help making the bed too, that’s the least I can do after being so mean to you. Tomorrow we can get Lay to heal Momo.’ 

‘No no no! I mean… No, that’s not such a good idea, Momo vomits and only trusts me when he is ill. Together with that, it's probably just a fever, it will be gone by tomorrow. No need to get Lay.’

‘Not true, we’ve taken care of him before! You know that fevers can be deadly when vulupules catch them!’ Chen replied.

Damn, he wasn’t buying this, why was it so hard for Chanyeol to get rid of Chen?

‘Listen Chen, I’ll do it alone, go home.’

‘You’ve been acting so strange lately, I’m sure you’re hiding something. It’s in your practise-cave, isn’t it?’ asked Chen as he demonstratively walked into the cave, pushing Chanyeol aside. Chanyeol lost his balance and fell to the ground again.

‘No, don’t go,’ Chanyeol screamed as loud as he could, hoping that Cara heard him and would hide in the cave. 
He got up as quickly as he could. It wouldn’t be of any use, Cara was probably way too weak to find the energy to hide. Chen started running and Chanyeol ran after him. They both ran at top speed, but Chen was slightly faster. Chanyeol heard a high-pitched cry.

Oh no, Cara would be scared to death right now, or for her death rather.

Chanyeol knew that Chen wouldn’t do anything to Cara, though. Chen would not hurt someone quickly, he was always sympathetic towards weaker organisms. He didn’t like to hurt things at all, in fact, he would not even smash their variant of mosquitoes. Nevertheless, Chanyeol didn’t want to take any risks and ran towards Chen, Cara and Momo as fast as he could. He saw that the light of the fire he left at Cara, came nearer and he could see some silhouettes. Chen was standing in front of Cara, Momo was between them, facing Chen, probably trying to protect Cara. Chanyeol was in the range of the firelight as well now, and tried to get his breathing under control. He looked at Chen, who turned slowly and looked him right in the eyes. His lower jaw almost fell from his face, that’s how much he gawked at Chanyeol.

Slowly, he asked Chanyeol, ‘Chanyeol, what the hell is this?’

I looked at Chanyeol, I was scared . I felt tears stinging in my eyes. But I was a big girl, I would not cry. I would not show my fear.

She looked at Chanyeol, with big, frightened eyes. He could see the sparkle of tears in her eyes. Strangely, seeing her like this, made Chanyeol melt from the inside. Once again, he decided that he should protect her. No matter what, nothing could happen to her and he would make sure it wouldn’t.

Chanyeol looked at Chen in a threatening way and told him, ‘this is Cara, and she’s my responsibility. I’ll take care of her.’

Chen looked confused, ‘why did you take a girl with you?’

I was surprised, how could this boy know about girls, while Chanyeol didn’t?

‘How do you know she’s a girl?’ was Chanyeol’s response.

‘Isn’t it obvious? You know what girls are, right?’

Chanyeol nodded, ‘now I do, but how do you know what they look like? We have never saved one from the crashing spaceships before, or did we?’

‘Spaceship…? You mean to say that she’s an…’

‘Alien, yes, duh! You just told me what kind of specie she was!’

Chen brought both his hands towards his face, ‘oh my freaking god,’ he mumbled. ‘Chanyeol, are you aware of what you’ve gotten yourself into? Do you want to die or something? You imbecile, you’re doomed! Kris will definitely find out about this!’

‘Well, maybe he won’t if you don’t tell him anything…’

‘You want me to join your little conspiracy?’

Chanyeol nodded.

Chen sighed, ‘Oh yes, such a good idea! I’ve always loved the idea of becoming a villain of the state and get executed. Such a lovely idea, it gives me shivers of excitement all over. No, of course I don’t want to help you and your lies and endanger my life, you moron.’

Okay, that was a logical reaction. Chanyeol needed to try something different.

‘So you say that I should’ve just left her in the spaceship, where she would definitely get killed?’

Chen’s face softened, ‘no, of course not. But this is going to get you into so much trouble.’

'What if you just act like you have never seen this?'

Chanyeol could only beg and hope for Chen’s co-operation.

Chen sighed and looked at Chanyeol, 'okay, I'll spare you. But if Kris finds out, I have absolutely nothing to do with this and I’m surely not going to save you.'

Chanyeol was relieved, the only thing that he had to do now, was trusting Chen. Luckily he knew that Chen would never betray him.

Phew, I thought, a relieved sigh escaped from my lips. Whoever this boy was, he would not tell on me. I would be safe, or, safe for now at least.

Chanyeol looked at Cara, she looked relieved and happy. Chanyeol gave her a smile and then looked at Chen again, who was deeply in thoughts.

Suddenly he spoke up, 'how are you going to do this?'

Chanyeol thought for a bit and then answered, 'well, I'll maybe have to take care of her for the rest of her life.'

'Chanyeol, use your brains, man! That's never going to work! You should take care of her till she's strong enough to live on her own. Then she needs to go.'

'But we can't leave her alone like that! Even if she's strong enough, she will get found out!'

'Maybe, but it's not so dangerous to leave her alone outside the district.'

'What? Are you out of your mind? Look at her! She doesn't look like one of us at all! Even a little kid will be able see that's she's a bloody alien!'

I felt like they discussed about me as if I was an animal and almost felt offended. But, in fact I am some sort of animal, or, to them I am. I’m different, a different kind of human. Adding up to that, I was actually not even sure whether they were humans. If they weren’t, I was certainly an animal to them.

'Chanyeol... You do know what girls look right, right?'

'You mean there are more?'

'Many more outside the district. How do you think children are made?'

'I don't know...'

'I know it's a long time ago, but don't you remember your mother?'

Chanyeol shook his head.

Chen seemed very startled, ‘me or the hyungs have never told you about girls before? Oh god, I’m sorry Chanyeol. It’s because we can’t have girlfriends, it’s against the law for Exo-members to have girlfriends or wives, since they will distract Exo-members from their jobs. That’s why we never mention them at home, it hurts to not be able to have a girlfriend and feel loved for who you are.’

‘Why would they distract us from our jobs?’

‘Ehm... It’s because, well… We might fall in love with them and then we have a problem because you need to give them attention and spend a lot of time on them.’

‘What do they need our time for?’

‘Well, ehm, I can’t believe no one ever told you. It’s because… Ehm…’ Chen started to stammer, while Cara did a bad job trying not to burst into laughter.

‘Eh… I’ll tell you when the alien is not here, so on our way home, okay, Chanyeol?’

Chanyeol nodded.

The alien. Yes, to them I was an alien, but it still hurt. I started to feel as one of those monsters you saw in those old science-fiction movies. Chanyeol and I locked eyes for a moment, then he looked back at the other boy.

‘I think we need to let her rest now,’ Chanyeol said.

‘Indeed,’ said the boy.

He walked over to me and squatted down, ‘it was nice meet you, ehm…?’

‘Cara,’ I said, while I hold out my hand.

Just like Chanyeol, the boy was a little confused about my gesture, so I decided to grab his hand instead and shook it.

‘I’m Cara, nice to meet you,’ I said.

‘Hello Cara, I’m Chen, one of the Exo-members. And I can’t say it was nice to meet you too, it would have been much nicer if you weren’t endangering my life right now.’

I looked down, that was harsh. It wasn't my fault that I crashed into this place. Although he didn't really seem to like me, which was logical since I could get him into incredibly much trouble, he was super handsome. His hair was light brown and just like Chanyeol, he seemed to be an authentic Asian as well. I wondered if all boys were as handsome as them, if so, this place wouldn't be that bad after all.

'Well then.'

Chen's voice pulled me out of my thoughts.

Chanyeol looked at me, 'we've got to go now, but I'll certainly be back tomorrow.'

He gave me a sweet smile and something in that smile told me he that everything was fine. I nodded and looked at Chen.

'I might come back sometime, maybe when I get curious about galaxies, planets and astrology or your planet.' Shamelessly he added, 'which might as well be never, don't get your hopes up.'

He gave me a sarcastically sweet smile. I almost glared at him, shouted at him and I would maybe have punched him in his face if I wasn’t so tired, but I held it all back. I needed to make sure he didn’t change his mind and tell on me, so I just nodded. Even Chanyeol looked confused.

Chanyeol couldn’t figure out what was wrong with Chen. Why was he so mean towards her? Normally, Chen was very friendly. He probably just doesn’t trust her. Chanyeol knew he could trust her, he was sure it wouldn’t take long for Chen to trust her too. He would tell Chen more about her on their way back home.

Chanyeol waved and I waved back at him. I taught him that yesterday, he’s very interested in my world. Chen seemed a bit puzzled but slowly imitated me and Chanyeol, probably questioning what we were actually doing.

‘Bye, you’ll be okay, right? I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Chanyeol said.

I gave him a huge smile and nodded. Momo would stay with me tonight too, fortunately.

 

I walked out of the cave with Chen. Although the moon was full, it was still quite dark and hard to distinguish facial expressions. Chanyeol wanted to tell him so much about Cara, how he found her and saved her and how he had taken care of her for so long. But he didn’t want to start the conversation. Chen was probably very angry at him, so he decided to wait for Chen to say something first.

‘Damn,’ Chen suddenly whispered.

Chanyeol let out a relieved sigh, he looked at Chen’s silhouette, waiting for him to speak again.

‘Where did you find her?’ Chen sighed.

Chanyeol enthusiastically started his story, ‘well, I was walking through the forest with Momo and… Why are you laughing?’

‘It was a rhetorical question, silly. I wish that we were allowed to get girlfriends, because I know who I would choose.’

‘Who would you choose…?’

Chen slowed down his pace for a second and then laughed at him again, ‘Cara, of course!’

Chanyeol didn’t understand this at all, ‘Why were you so mean to her, then?’

‘Because I don’t want her to fall in love with me, I can’t take any risks. She’s an alien though, maybe they don’t like guys on her planet, but you can never be too sure.’

Chanyeol nodded, although he still didn’t understand this all.

 ‘Why do you like her so much then?’

Chen stopped walking, the silhouette turned towards him.

‘Haven’t you seen her? Didn’t you see how pretty she is?’

‘No…?’ Chanyeol replied, hesitatingly.

The shocked voice of Chen turned into one that seemed to understand Chanyeol, ‘of course, you’ve never seen the girls in our world yet, so you don’t know about them. Well, they don't even possess half of her exquisiteness. She’s truly beautiful.’

'Well, if you say so.'

Chanyeol had never heard Chen talking like this about someone before. While Chanyeol quietly listened to Chen’s fantasies about him and Cara and, at his turn, finally got to tell what exactly had happened when he found her, they walked the long way back to their house, in the dark.

 

Did I hear footsteps? It woke me up and I was so scared that I was wide awake, but I pretended to be asleep. Would Chanyeol be here already? Or, even though he said he wouldn’t return, maybe Chen? Was it actually daytime or was the night not over yet? Were it actually footsteps or was I just imagining things? Carefully, I opened one eye and looked around. Momo was still sleeping, and while he often woke up earlier than me, I bet it wasn’t daytime yet. I looked around the cave, the little campfire Chanyeol left behind was almost out. So it wasn't that much later. I stopped breathing as I saw a shadow in the corner of my eye. The shadow was standing on two legs, was it a human, perhaps? I waited for it to turn around so I could roll over to take a better look at what it was. Turn around, turn around, turn around. It felt as if my mind was trying to get this thought into the shadow. And it finally seemed to listen. I rolled over as fast as I could, but then I started laughing, I laughed my fear away. There was no need to fear. It was just some kind of mouse, probably the equivalent of them in this world. So, no one was here except for Momo, the odd looking mouse and me. What a relief.

 

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Hi everyone!

 

So... This update took very long, I know, I'm sorry. It's because school suddenly got hectic and I had to work on another story too (which is actually going to be featured in a real book), and all of this caused me to have not been able to work a lot on Estranged. But I won't forget about Estranged though, finishing it has become my goal! ^^

 

So please anticipate the next chapter of the story! ^^ I'll try to do my best to upload it every week, but sometimes I really don't have enough time, I'm sorry... >.<

 

Love, 

CNBlueBird

 

(PS, I might publish the story that's going to be in the book on Kang Minhyuk's birthday :) )