Hyukjae's nose twitched beneath the facemask he wore. The handsome brunet talking to him, about hiring him to hunt aliens, of all things, paused on his spiel as he noticed Hyukjae's nose-twitching again.

"Something wrong?" said handsome brunet finally asked. Lee Donghae, was it?

"Nothing's wrong," Hyukjae answered from beneath his mask. In fact, everything's just alright, as he pulled down his facemask and anchored it beneath his chin. He took a deep breath, savoring the delicious scent wafting from his potential business partner. "Do go on? You were saying something about the proposed compensation?"

Donghae still wasn't saying anything, Hyukjae thought handsome brunet was starting to get disinterested about offering Hyukjae potential employment. He decided to placate Donghae by dropping hints that Hyukjae just might be ideal for the job. He missed the way handsome brunet's eyes were glued to the plump lips Hyukjae had bared.

"As I was saying," Donghae decided to continue, "I want to hire you to help me hunt down these aliens. I hear humans have the necessary skills to detect these creatures even when cloaked, and I hear you're the best in these parts."

Ah yes, Hyukjae mentally preened, that's me, Alien Hunter for hire. He didn't bother explaining his skills weren't just because of him being human, though he wondered why handsome brunet still needed to hire a "human" when he is one himself.

Hyukjae had gotten the call from Park Jungsoo, Head Ranger down at Bandido Falls where the military was in the process of shutting down an alien creche ship that crashed in the area last week. The ship was shot down from space, courtesy of Choi "Hotshot" Siwon before the crazy Ranger used his own expensive spaceship on a kamikaze route to the mothership, yodeling "Bye Bye Rocket Baby" over the comms before the yodeling abruptly stopped and static replaced the sound coming out from comms.

It wasn't a wasted effort, as the dearly departed Ranger stopped the mothership from sending down more than three smaller ships, one of which was apparently the creche ship Jungsoo found. And another one which handsome brunet planned to find.

Hyukjae's meeting with the brunet, of course, is confidential. He went by the name Eunhyuk and changed his appearance every now and then on the off chance that the aliens had a hankering to hunt themselves an Alien Hunter. So he's blonde now, keeping the hair out of his face with a bandanna headband, wearing tattered sleeveless fatigues that should give people pause about figuring him out to be an Alien Hunter considering he's so pale.

"Well, standard fee's $10,000 per week - additional $1,000 per dead alien, $3,000 per if you want one captured alive. I mean, it's only fair to pay more if you want to interrogate one of those nasty little buggers."

Hyukjae wasn't queasy about how these aliens (dubbed "Predator" by these unimaginative humans) looked, with their overall slimy look from their dreadlocks to booted feet or their crab-like faces whenever the masks come off, nor their penchant to skin and flay their victims alive. Really, Hyukjae had seen worse, recalling the sound of crunching bones and high-pitched screaming - but Hyukjae is digressing.

It's the way these Predators smell that Hyukjae can't stand. He doesn't need the human eyes' ability to see the pattern disruption of their cloaking devices because he could ing smell them even before he could see them. Hyukjae wonders what kind of diet the buggers have to make them smell that way - it was way more offensive in every human-imaginable way.

"Done. Deal."

Hyukjae blinked as Donghae handed him a thin film displaying the initial $20,000 amount to an encrypted Swiss bank account. It only needed Hyukjae accepting the film and his thumbprint marking it to complete the contract and transaction.

"See you tomorrow then, Eunhyuk. Happy hunting." Then Donghae was closing shut the briefcase he brought with him before striding to the red topdown sportscar he drove out of the abandoned garage Eunhyuk had given as a meeting place.

#####

Tomorrow had Hyukjae parachuting down a helo, aiming for a patch of jungle between the borders of China and North Korea. Whatever strings Donghae pulled to get clearance from both countries to parachute into their territory, well, Hyukjae needn't need to know about that. All Hyukjae needed right now was take a whiff of that delicious smell as Donghae also dived a few meters away from him.

At a designated height, Hyukjae pulled his chute open and expertly maneuvered his way to the tiny patch of land marked as the target. He landed on his feet running, letting the chute stream behind him while detaching the harnesses. He only stopped once he was sure he wasn't anywhere Donghae would possibly land, rapidly stowing away his chute. He watched Donghae's perfect landing on the same spot while assessing the area they were in. It was already late morning in summer in these woods.

Donghae had just reached him when his eyes widened at Hyukjae swinging his disruptor rifle around and aiming it at the intruder slinking up behind him.

"Whoa, whoa," the slightly pudgy guy said to Hyukjae, palms up. "We're working for the same boss." He pointed to Donghae. Two more men appeared behind him.

"I didn't hear anything about working with a team?" Hyukjae said as he pointed his rifle down. It bothered him that Donghae's smell overwhelmed everything else he should be smelling in the jungle, including the new guys. He only managed to hear pudgy guy's step at the last minute.

"You'll find out why in a bit," Donghae replied, greeting the other three with a curious handshake Hyukjae's grandmother called a hi-five. "This here is Shindong, weapons specialist. Ryeowook, ballistics specialist. Kyuhyun, systems specialist."

"Eunhyuk," Hyukjae introduced himself. "Ranger."

Donghae's team didn't waste time giving their reports.

"I've managed to narrow down the direction of a crashed ship on an E-N-E heading," the one called Kyuhyun started.

"Crashed? Not landed?" Hyukjae asked.

"Siwon's last report indicated ship engines were disabled. Jungsoo confirmed it with the creche ship they found." Donghae replied.

"Huh? But wasn't he singing when he crashed his ship?" Hyukjae asked, confused.

"Bye Bye Rocket Baby was the code for disabled engines," Ryeowook answered.

"Huh," was all Hyukjae's reply.

"Unfortunately he didn't have time to send us trajectory readings for the three ships, so we've been using satellite readings since from last week, as well as trace radio interference to extrapolate the crashes. We got lucky with the creche. This one was harder to find as this world's satellites are specifically programmed to blur readings of China and North Korea," Kyuhyun continued.

"This is where you come in Eunhyuk," Donghae said. "Enough time has passed to assume the aliens will start heading to populated centers if they fail to contact another ship. What we've learned of them, each creche ship has two companion ships called guardians and they crew about twenty each. I've already warned Jungsoo about broadcasting the creche ship's location as the guardians will try to recover it."

"You need me to track where they could have headed once we find their ship... are we sure they aren't out cold in the ship?"

"Their ships are designed for crash landings on atmospheric reentry. Even with disabled engines, I doubt the soft earth will give much resistance. Their home planet is made up of denser material," Ryeowook said, the geek speak hurting Hyukjae's brain he didn't pickup on how they got the info.

"Lead the way then," Hyukjae said to Kyuhyun.

__________________

© higashinoumi (http://www.asianfanfics.com/profile/view/1108258), 2017-2019. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to higashinoumi (http://www.asianfanfics.com/profile/view/1108258) with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.