While Jongin ransacked the kitchen for something to offer his extraterrestrial guest, he glanced at Sehun. If he was telling the truth, he was stranded all alone on a strange planet. If it were him, he would be freaking out right now, but he was just sitting there, happily petting Monggu. He was probably just putting up a brave face.

“Don't worry. We'll get you home. I'll help you.” he joined him at the kitchen table. He was making a promise he had no idea how to keep. How was he going to help him? No matter where he was from, Earth, Exor, Heaven, or Hell, he had no clue how to help him get back home. But he had this unfamiliar feeling in his chest, urging him to do anything in his power to protect him.

He hadn't even decided if he was going to believe him yet or not. He was really curious about one thing. Or well, about a million things, but he had to start the interrogation somewhere.

“Okay, let's say you're an alien...” Jongin started, but his blonde squatter interrupted him.

“I am an alien.” Sehun retorted stubbornly.

“So how are you so good at Korean?” Jongin looked at him like he had already won the argument and proved he couldn't be an alien.

“I've got a universal translator, of course!” Sehun said matter-of-factly, like that was something everyone walked around with, like keys or a wallet. He showed him the fingerprint-shaped metal on the side of his neck.

“So how many languages can you understand?”.

“All of them.” he answered at once.

“How about animal languages?” Jongin smirked at his own farfetched joke. It would be cool though. He had always wanted to be able to have a conversation with Monggu.

“Yup! And plants too! Anything that's alive and communicates with some kind of sound!” Sehun confirmed with enthusiasm.

“For smell you need another implant in your nose, but that one isn't mandatory, so I didn't get that one.” he added as an afterthought.

Okay, Jongin did not see that coming.

“Buuut... does it speak the universal language of love?!” Jongin was grasping at straws, but he was determined to get him to slip up. To get some concrete evidence that he wasn't really an alien. There had to be some other explanation.

“Hmm, I don't know, try speaking to me in this language of love, it probably knows it!” he urged him.

Jongin snorted. Sehun had no idea that he was pretty much asking him to kiss him. For half a second Jongin considered just planting one on him, just for a laugh. Nahh, that was taking the joke too far. He decided not to, but was disappointed to give up such a good prank.

“Okay, say something in Russian!” he exclaimed to change the subject. “No wait, I don't know Russian so you could just make something up. Hmm. Ooh, say something in English!” Jongin grinned triumphantly.

“It doesn't work like that. It has to detect the language and uh.. does some calculate-y stuff.. I don't know, I didn't make it, I just use it. It's easy, you just press here.” he smiled.

“Okay, press it, I'm going to speak in English. Let's see if you're full of or if you'll magically be fluent in English.”.

“I don't think you want to see that. Instead of showing you, I can just tell you that my body still has space for more waste materials, it is not full yet.” he wrinkled his nose.

“What?! Just press the thing!” Jongin urged him, shaking his head in frustration.

Sehun pressed it.

“Umm.. yes.. I'm fine dank'you 'n you?... cola... ae-o-con... bowl pen.” he said proudly. “Beat that!” he playfully stuck his tongue out at him.

“It wasn't enough input, you've got to say something more.”.

“Ugh, okay... orenji...a-ice-u-cu-ream.. kiss-u!.. oh, oh! I go bus-u at su-chool.”. Wow, he was better at English than he had thought. He had been worried he wouldn't be able to think of anything to say, but he had clearly been worried for nothing.

“It just says 'Error: No grammatical input found. Try again.'” Sehun shrugged. “Maybe it's broken?” he offered in a supportive, upbeat tone.

“Okay, let me try it then. You can make me speak alien!” Jongin put his hand out, excited to test it out for himself.

“Nahh, it doesn't work like that. It's like buried in my neck, attached to my vocal chords, so when I speak my own language, it translates it and transforms it into the sounds of your language. Neat, huh?” he explained proudly.

“Wait. When you first talked to me, you were all like 'Hola, babola, ay caramba!', there's no way you heard that somewhere around here. It's a small town, people barely speak English, let alone some fancy European language!”. Once again he had poked a hole in Sehun's elaborate story.

“Oh, I don't know, I think it has some kind of database for the documented planets, so it just guesses if there's no input.” he shrugged. He had an answer for everything.

“Ahh, hey, is that why your voice is like that? Because of the apparatus in your vocal chords?” Jongin had an epiphany.

“Like what?” Sehun looked confused.

“Mm, like, all nasal and grainy, metallic almost.” he tried to describe it, but it was hard. He had never heard a voice quite like his.

“No!! That's just my voice!” he objected, pouting in protest.

“Oh... it's... really unique.” he chuckled awkwardly. He had accidentally insulted him. That had not been his intention. He had just been curious.

“I like it.” he added when there was no end to Sehun's disappointment, and surprisingly, he realized he wasn't lying.

“Really?!” Sehun's inner light turned bright again, beaming at him.

Monggu came back from patrolling the house, as he regularly did, thinking he was a professional guard dog, not knowing he was just about the cutest thing on the planet, and completely useless since he welcomed anyone who showed him attention.

He barked playfully at Sehun, and Sehun barked back and threw himself on the floor and they started playfully rolling around on the ground. It was hard to decide who was cuter.

“What did he say?” he asked Sehun, once again not able to contain his curiosity. Hang on, did that mean he was starting to believe him? That he could actually speak to animals??

“He asked me if I wanted to come play. And I did. Playing is fun.” Sehun giggled, teasing Monggu who was all riled up, barely able to contain his excitement to finally have a proper play buddy, his tail going nuts.

Jongin was dying to join them, they looked like they were having a blast, but he was too shy to actually do it. So he just watched them horsing around on the floor, giggling quietly to himself.