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The first UFO, or the Unidentified flying objects that has ever been sighted was in the 1600s, the first one ever recorded being on first of march, 1639. John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in Massachusetts, United states wrote in his diary recounting the most unusual event that had caused a stir among the English immigrants. His records on the instances with such eloquent detailed shows that there’s indeed been a little more than flying witches spotted in the northern American skies back in their time. According to him, James Everell and two other men who had been rowing a boat in the muddy river of Charles have witnessed a greenish blue flame travelling across the night-time, distinctly taking the shape of a swine. Over the course of two to three hours, the boatmen said that the mysterious light ran as swift as an arrow, darting back and forth between them and the village of Charlestown, a distance of approximately two miles. Although the account detailed in Winthrop’s diary didn’t give enough proof to conclude that these sightings of UFOs were undoubtedly real, those which do have actual physical evidences and eye witnesses may prove otherwise, drawing attention to the prospects of earth, as an inhabitant planet, having company. That, as beings, in this universe, we weren’t alone.

Regardless, a week and three days after the first UFO sighting that had ever happened to Kim Sung Gyu, a primatologist who never believed in unworldly beings, hence, as if in retaliation to his disbelief faced with an uncountable number of unfortunate events that followed, sits outside of his house on the steps that led to his front door, still in disbelief. As true as they may be, all of these tales on alien invasions found in various books and journals, Sung Gyu is certain, no invaded alien has ever travelled in a human’s immaculate, four doored, expensive (it cost him quite a fortune) Mercedes Benz across the busy streets of Busan. It has to be the first ever occasion in the history of human civilization, and he would be pretty mad if he never makes it into history text books in the future. More than that, he would be twice as mad if the alien ends up making even a slightest dent on his precious car.

He has already loaded all their baggage into the trunk under Eunji’s supervision (orders, more likely) and as of now he has looked through the fastest, easiest way to Seoul so that they could make it there as soon as possible and get rid of the alien kid for once and for all. During the few days he’s lived with two of them, Woohyun has managed to cause a considerable amount of damage which cost him as nearly as twice as he used to earn. They’ve replaced quite a few house hold items, certain were still under repair and some damages were beyond irreversible. Sung Gyu is still mad that he accidentally burnt a dozen of years old dissertations and thrown his phone down the patio (it was ringing on the beach desk, the alien freaked out; apparently his ears were rather sensitive) and no matter how many times Eunji tried to make him forgive the kid, Sung Gyu held onto his grudges as long as he could, and it was when he had lost his patience on both of them (it was him who couldn’t go to work for ten ing days) that Sung gyu decided that yes, they were really going to see the president and see an end to it. He is tired of seeing his house, and also his life, being scrambled into unamendable bits by a careless alien kid.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Eunji’s voice comes through the endless howling of the ocean behind them, the sound of the closing door follows, and he gives her a small smile. She is holding a duffel bag packed with all the emergency essentials necessary for a road trip, her hair loosely done, long strands dancing gently in the wind. She approaches him in careful strides and sits on the steps beside him.

“Please tell him not to destroy the car, Eunji” he tells her in a voice thick with worry, which earns him a cheery laughter. “Is that what you were worrying about the whole time?”

“The whole morning” he admits with a nod. “not only that, but my extended research vacation could probably cause the loss of my job”

Eunji’s long, slender fingers start slowly rearranging his hair. “Howon-Ssi wouldn’t say anything, now, would he? Besides this is the first time you extended it”

“Well, I don’t know” He sighs, closing his eyes and leaning into her gentle ministrations. “I haven’t spoken to him since…” He groans lowly upon recalling the incident which drove his assistant away. “Anyway, I did talk to the administration and they have fortunately arranged the visiting lecturer to take the classes for another two weeks…but the students keep asking me…”

“You’re thinking too much, Gyu” Eunji tells him, the softness in her voice evidently calming him. “Just think of this as your much needed ‘non-research’ vacation. You deserve some time for yourself”

Sung Gyu lifts his head and meets her eyes. “And for you too…” he tells her, and though Eunji only shrugs in response, Sung Gyu knows that this means to her so much more than she visibly admits. It is further insinuated when she sighs heavily, closes her eyes and leans against him. When her warmth encircles him, and rushes right into his heart, he finds himself in the very same element as her. He kisses her on the top of her head softly, and her hand grasps onto his, hard, and he smiles.

“It’s exciting, isn’t it?” She asks him.

“The bit where we’re taking a dangerous alien or…?”

Eunji rolls her eyes and hits him softly on his arm, making him chuckle in response.

“All of it” She says, and finally raises her head. Its only then that he sees that hopeful gleam in her eyes, something so beautiful and alive, something he has failed to see for a long, long time. “We’re going to be together for longer than six hours, Sung Gyu”

Her words sends a painful spear through his heart, and he takes in a long, sharp breath. “Eunji-,”

“I know it’s going to cost us a lot of things. But like you say all the time, isn’t it the end result which is more important?”

The end result. At that moment, he is uncertain of what the end result of this entire road is going to be. He doesn’t know where it would take them, what would come out of it, but for a moment, as he gazes into her eyes, as he sees hopes and endless wishes glimmering inside them, as he feels the warmth of her hand as she holds tightly onto him, a promise to never let go, for the first time since they planned this, all of Sung Gyu’s doubts wash away. For the first time, he is anticipating everything that would come after this point, after the moment they get into the car and the journey began. For the first time, he finds himself actually looking forward to it. He figures, as long as it will bring them together, rebuild the bridge that has shattered between them, everything’s going to be fine.

Even if it means that they will be carrying a reckless alien child with them.

The front door opens with a crash, then, followed by the unmistakable static sound, something he makes when he is surprised or distressed, and the two of them finally pull away, Sung Gyu preparing himself for the worst that he can expect. He turns around, and while Eunji evidently doubles over in laughter, Sung Gyu slaps a hand onto his head. “Woohyun! You can’t possibly camouflage into a suitcase and go! Turn back right now!”

 

In the end, they manage to convince Woohyun that he would not be caught by the authorities as a fugitive on their way as long as he kept his mouth shut and that it was okay to be in his human form during the trip and stuffed him into the rear seat. The ride down the suburban beach-side road is silent as Woohyun stares at the ocean in pure fascination. In odd occasions, he suddenly makes that static sound or an excited squeak, or mutter under his breath as he snaps what Sung Gyu imagines are photographs with his device. Eunji turns up the radio just to drown the silence inside the car. Although not deafening, she despises quietness, she hates moments of contemplation, but Sung Gyu himself is unable to bring up good topics of conversation. It takes them less than thirty minutes to finally arrive in the city, and it’s only then that Woohyun finally awakens his childish curiosity as he delightfully stares at the high-rising buildings in the Busan capital and mingling crowds in the street.

“Hyung, those constructions, are they residents?” Woohyun asks him, quite literally sticking his entire head out the shutter Sung Gyu opened for him. It’s taken him a while to make sense out of the strange way Woohyun always addressed even the most mundane things. He always sticks to the books, calling everything the terms that he’s located in the humonictionary or during his anomalous studies of Humonology. As peculiar as he finds this habit of his, admittedly so, Sung Gyu’s begun to find it quite endearing that he too might start talking in his strange way.

While focusing on the road ahead, Sung Gyu manages to keep one hand on the steering wheel as he reaches out with the other and pulls Woohyun’s head back in with a tug. It’s Eunji who answers his still-hanging-in-the-air question. “Not all of them, Woohyunnie” She says gently as if she’s speaking to a child. “Some of them are offices of big companies. Some of them are hotels, and some have more than one company inside...and that one-,” She points up at the large, angular structure with its glass panels reflecting blindingly white light, “-is a hospital. That’s where people go when they’re sick…” she adds then, with a small, satisfied smile, “that’s also where I work”

“Sick…people” Woohyun mutters to himself distractedly as he stares at the building with a greatest sense of fascination; reflected in his eyes is the childish innocence of someone who is witnessing something ever so captivating for the first time in his life, even though it’s something as mundane as a hospital. Involuntarily, Sung Gyu feels warmth seeping into his heart. “You mean…” He quickly moves and wedges himself between the two front seats. “Is there where healers are?”

“H-healers?” Sung Gyu echoes, stifling a laughter, and exchanges glances with Eunji, in Woohyun’s sense, yet another healer, and Eunji throws at him a warning look.

“Yea” Woohyun nods animatedly, the silver in his eyes swim vigorously in his shining irises. “Healers in Terrania have a special ability to identify sicknesses, like Envoys can camouflage. We don’t have a place for healers though, because Terrania is so small. But the inter galactic federation has a healing facility to all beings”

“That’s…fascinating” Eunji replies, staring at Woohyun with the same enthralled look, somewhat similar to the alien’s, glimmering in her eyes. “So, this healing facility treats not only your kind but every kind of alien beings?”

“Yea, because there are beings from many planets working for the federation, and sometimes they get sick or hurt during missions…”

“Oh…” Eunji nods, slowly as if she’s allowing the new pieces of information sink in. Sung Gyu looks at Woohyun through the rear-view mirror. “Eunji-Ssi is a doctor. That’s what we call healers here” He tell him with a knowing gaze. “Aren’t you, ji?”

“Really?” Woohyun’s voice is so loud in the small confines of his car, and for someone who’s already been told the same bit of information before, Sung Gyu wonders if the alien is also a bit short in perceiving things. “So Eunji-Ssi heals people? Do humans have a power to identify sicknesses?”

At this, Eunji’s face changes the slightest, an expression so unreadable that Sung Gyu wonders if the fact that she doesn’t have a super power has somehow offended her. “No, not really” She says in a firm voice, and Sung Gyu almost smiles. She is indeed upset that she hasn’t any ingenuous healing powers; Eunji can be as petty as that, sometimes. So, he says, in hopes that it would lift her spirits; “She does have an ability to heal people, Woohyun. We don’t call it a power, per se. We call it a skill”

Eunji turns to gaze up at him then, and he meets her eyes, only to give her a reassuring smile. The conversation, however, is forgotten as soon as a loud growl erupts from Woohyun’s general direction, and Woohyun exclaims that he needs to consume something, so Sung Gyu searches for a decent breakfast place and asks the others; “Coffee and toast?”

Woohyun, of course, has no idea what coffee or toast is, since all he’s ever had are cartons and cartons of flavoured milk, but he doesn’t argue or ask anything in return since he’s too hungry to even respond.

 

Sung Gyu pulls into a Starbucks, the only decent enough place to grab a quick breakfast from on a busy weekday morning, and Eunji locates them a table up on the patio, overlooking the city outside as Sung Gyu stands in the line. Woohyun and Eunji begin their cheery conversations as soon as they settle down. A tinge of jealousy ignites inside him at how easily Woohyun can maintain a conversation with her while Sung Gyu, as of late, has been struggling. It’s as if he’s threading through dangerous waters; anything he says or does, she will take it personally and take offence in it, often leading to extended periods of cold shoulder and if he’s really unlucky, her taking off in a haste and he being left alone with his own heap of regrets and confusion as to what he’s done wrong. Perhaps it’s because Woohyun is rather foolish and not exactly sound in his mind that she finds it easy to talk to him, perhaps it’s a lot easier for her when it’s not her husband who’s keeping her in company, her husband who is a constant reminder of all the struggles she is pulling through. He turns away from her, bearing in mind not to let his irritation show in their presence.

The line is rather long and the wait is infuriating. However, after a fifteen-minute-long wait, Sung Gyu finally approaches their table, a tray laden with an assortment of pastries and sandwiches, two mugs of warm coffee and a tall glass of milkshake for the alien child. Woohyun halts the conversation and looks up, his eyes taking up that same look of enthrallment at the sight of the strange concoctions of food and beverages. It makes Sung Gyu’s heavy heart feel lighter; knowing that Woohyun is more or less a child despite his appearance, always came as a comfort to him.

“What…are these strange items hyung?” Woohyun fingers through the variety of pastries on the plate with a great interest. “Are they consumable? Because I’m rather…hungry”

Eunji looks up at Sung Gyu with gleaming eyes as if she’s having the time of her life, and it makes him happy just to see her like that.

“They have strange shapes” Woohyun continues, lifting a butter croissant with two fingers as if it physically offends him.

Eunji breaks out laughing heartily as she reaches over the table, takes the pastry and snaps it in two. Though not entirely a part of their conversation, Sung Gyu finds himself smiling at their gleeful exchange. “It’s a croissant, Woohyun. You can eat it”

“Kwassant?” Woohyun reiterates, his eyes widened in response and looks at the pastry as if he’s seeing it for the first time. “Why do all the food on earth have names?”

“To tell them apart” Eunji explains as Sung Gyu wordlessly removes all the bits of tomato from his sandwich.

“But why? They all look very different?”

“So do people” Sung Gyu points out, raising his brows and still disbelieving that he’s having this sort of conversations with a silly extra-terrestrial. “They also have names to tell them apart”

“That’s because you need to communicate with them” Woohyun reasons gravely, his piece of croissant long forgotten and sadly abandoned on the plate. “But you don’t communicate with food. Besides, when I show you different cows you still call them cow. They’re different but they don’t have names, they’re all cows. That’s because you don’t communicate with them, right?”

To be perfectly honest, Sung Gyu has had enough of Woohyun’s philosophical findings for the past few days. He’d find a problem even in the simplest things, like why pizza, which is a circle, comes in a squared box or why they have many variations of devices which serve the same purpose while they could have just one. Eunji has the patience needed to deal with his endless blabbering and explanations; but Sung Gyu doesn’t. He only wants to have his goddamn sandwich without wondering why they call them that.

“We call cows beef when we eat them” Sung Gyu responds nonchalantly and bites into his bun, feeling pleased of himself at Woohyun’s horror stricken expression. In fact, he looks like he’s been told that Sung Gyu would eat his child. Eunji throws an irritated look at him, slapping him on his arm with a frown. “Don’t tell him things like that, you’re scaring him!”

“What?” Sung Gyu pouts in response. “That’s the truth!”

Eunji merely rolls her eyes at him and turns to Woohyun with a bright, apologetic smile. “Don’t mind him, Woohyunnie, why don’t you have a bite?”

 

Woohyun ends up eating more than half of the food he’s bought and Eunji gives most of her share to him as well, and later on, after Eunji’s gone to use the washroom before the impending long journey, Sung Gyu sat there, basically drowned in regrets and having second thoughts on actually abandoning Woohyun in Seoul or just about anywhere on the road. As of now he has finished all of the sweet pastries, Eunji’s mug of coffee and was now devouring his glass of milkshake, holding it with both his hands as if someone would snatch it away. His eyes are wide, watching those who passed by with a curious gaze, the straw between his pouted lips, and crouched like a baby monkey. Sung gyu has to keep throwing apologetic smiles and glances at the people who looked at a grown man behaving a retard; he could physically feel his reputation getting slaughtered and shed off him. Being a professor at a well-known university has its own perks, and one is that there’s always an increasingly high chance that at least one of the strangers he runs into in the town is, or has been one of his students. He doesn’t want them to think that he’s been raising a man slightly unsound in his mind.

Eunji seems to be taking her sweet time in the ladies’, he doesn’t want to blame her but Sung Gyu’s patience, as of now, is on the very edge. A few seconds ago, a child around six years old and a lone mother occupied the table next to theirs. The mother’s left the child on his own and joined the queue, and as it happens the child seems to have grown an uncanny interest on the strange man in the table beside him. Sung Gyu tried to make Woohyun behave like a normal person, but he’s not one to follow. In a matter of seconds, Woohyun has taken note of the new specimen of a human, a smaller variety which he has only witnessed in books and TV.

“Oh! A tiny human male!” Woohyun exclaims loudly, and it takes so much of his patience to not bash across his head. Woohyun leans towards the child who doesn’t seem to mind, not even a bit; Sung Gyu can see, even from that distance, how the silver specs in his eyes begin to flicker in excitement. Woohyun doesn’t say anything. He stares. He stares like a creep, eyes widened and still drinking from the mostly empty glass of milkshake, and Sung Gyu realizes with a pang that, exactly as one could expect from an alien on a mission, Woohyun is observing him.

“Woohyun” Sung Gyu mutters under his breath and surreptitiously attempts to tug him back before the mother comes back. “Woohyun, stop. It’s not nice to stare”

But to no avail, Woohyun continues to stare and continues to feign ignorance to his caretakers please as he continues to slurp noisily from his glass, the child stares back at him and Sung Gyu contemplates the benefits of leaving Woohyun to his bearings and escape while he can, all until the mother comes, see Woohyun basically being a creep and a possible e in her eyes, throws a chilling glare at Woohyun as well as Sung Gyu, picks up her things and stalks away. After a while, Eunji emerges from the general direction of the bathrooms, her make-up freshly renewed, all bright smiles and gives the two of them a inquisitive look. Woohyun is still drinking from a now-empty glass.

“Is everything alright?” She asks them, Woohyun looks up but he still slurps, making a rude, hollow noise which earns disgusted looks from fellow patrons.

“Yea” Sung Gyu climbs up on his feet. “I just need another coffee” he grabs his card and stalks away, in hopes that an additional amount of caffeine would somehow fix his increasingly souring mood.

 

It doesn’t, still, because the rest of the way through the town, Woohyun is loud and wide awake, asking question after question without stopping for a breath about anything and everything which they happen to pass by. It’s not helping that they’re stuck in the usual morning traffic, the loud honking and the general morning rush which he naturally feels in his guts making his head pound.

“Hyung why is that human stuck in a large rectangular object?”

“Hyung why do your locomotion vessels move on the ground, why don’t they travel in air?”

“Hyung what does that small green human on that box-, Oh! The human turned red!”

Hyung this, hyung that; it’s Eunji who answers all his questions with so much of patience that Sung Gyu cannot imagine himself containing. Still, the fact that he keeps addressing him irritates him incessantly. Sung Gyu’s pretty sure that Woohyun has now convinced himself that it’s okay to call Eunji with that particular honorific. To be perfectly honest, however, Sung Gyu doesn’t think he cares anymore. All he needs is some peace in his mind.

After driving for about forty-five minutes through the endless morning traffic, they finally make it to the expressway. The Gyeongbu expressway was by far the easiest, fastest way to Seoul, and if they do manage to keep to the speed limit, despite the usual delays, they will be able to reach their desired destination within less than five hours. Sung Gyu’s plan is to keep to the speed limit the best he can, avoid stopping at service stations as much as the circumstances allow them to and make it to Seoul soon enough so that they could be done and over with homing an alien for good. Although the idea to abandon Woohyun in Seoul continuously resurfaced in his mind, he doesn’t want to get into yet another petty argument with his wife about it so he decides it’s better to confide in her about what happens once they get there.

“So we’ll be in Seoul in about five hours max, any idea what we will do next?” Sung gyu asks Eunji as he drives through to the gate as soon as Woohyun takes a break from asking questions and now concentrates on the endless line of vehicles ahead.

“Mmm…I haven’t thought of it, actually. But first things first, we can book a hotel”

“Sounds like a plan” Sung Gyu nods, though he’s not entirely convinced. The truth of the matter is that, from the moment he drove into the gate of the expressway, he feels a strange, heavy feeling settle in the pit of his stomach, a feeling which seems to imply that they might not be able to stick to their initial plans. That’s the thing about road trips. When they’re travelling on their own, they’re always open to thousands of possible scenarios; anything is bound to happen. He tries to shake it off, bearing in mind that he’s a fairly skilled driver with lots of patience at expense when it comes to driving. And keeping to a goal always helps. It keeps them out of the way of running into trouble.

The speed limit to the Gyeongbu expressway is one hundred limits, so though he desires to drive in a speed beyond a measly hundred, he holds back for the sake of his car and the license and pulls through. The road stretches on and on, vehicles whizzing past them in a regular pace. The sun is warm despite the autumn season, shining incessantly on the asphalt, forming mirages on the road ahead. Sung Gyu’s hands are leisurely as he drives along, contemplating the forthcoming freedom they’d benefit from getting rid of the alien once they dump him somewhere by the Blue house. An image of Woohyun in his silver clothes and silver haired glory being restrained by the blue-house guards is vivid in his mind when he hears a soft whimpering from behind him. It takes a moment to register that it’s Woohyun, with a blue face and panicked eyes, clutching his neck and saying unconceivable things.

“Sung Gyu” Eunji says, the same panicked expression seeping into her usually calm face. “Sung Gyu, I think he’s getting sick”

As if he hasn’t had enough trouble with homing a troublesome alien. “Do something, Eunji, I’m driving!”

“Hold on, Woohyun, hold on, okay?” Eunji says to Woohyun, but Sung Gyu can see from the rear-view mirror that he will burst in any moment now. “Eunji he will soil the car!”

“I think we got to stop”

“Are you kidding me?” Sung Gyu exclaims incredulously, ignoring the fact that Eunji had basically thrown herself through the narrow space between the seats, helping Woohyun to breath. “We can’t stop just anywhere!”

“Hold on, Woohyunnie, just breath…okay?” Eunji instructs to Woohyun who doesn’t exactly seem like he’s following. In fact, he’s more or less struggling to keep still.

“He’s going to ruin the seats, do something!” Sung Gyu exclaimed, stepping a paddle so that he could at least make it to the next service station which is still miles away.

“Okay, wait” Eunji mutters, pulls back into her seat and roots through her emergency needs. Woohyun’s whimpers in the back heighten, and Sung Gyu can only pray Eunji finds whatever which she thinks will help before Woohyun pukes all over his seats.

“Hurry up, what are you even looking for?”

“A bag” Eunji answers, her head still in her duffel bag.

“Well hurry up then!”

“I can if you stop whining!”

“I’m whining because he will ruin my car!”

“Shut up I’ll deal with this”

“He’s not going to-,”

“Found it!” Eunji final exclaims as if she’s dug out the holy grail, but all before she could extract the bag from all the clutter inside it, a loud moan erupts from the back seat, followed by wet, repulsive sploshing sounds. Woohyun basically heaves his insides all over the carpets, the stench takes over the rich scent inside and Sung Gyu can only hope that he will be able to hold it in for the next few miles ahead. The entire car falls quiet, except for the slow rumbling coming from the car, and then, in a small, almost inaudible voice, Woohyun says; “Vessels shouldn’t move on ground”

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