“Here,” Hoseok handed Hyeju a warm cup of tea, which she gratefully took. She took a whiff of the steam rising from the liquid and held it against her hands, enjoying the warmth for now rather than drinking it. Her outfit was a little thin for the current weather. She pulled the blanket Kihyun had offered her earlier a little tighter around herself. Kihyun had offered Kira a blanket as well but the stubborn girl rejected it, standing next to the seated Hyeju defensively.

 

For her part, Hyeju looked remotely distraught and maybe a little guilty. After their friend Hyungwon had vanished, there was plenty to discuss. Thankfully, despite initial panic and distrust from both parties, Hoseok finally convinced them that they needed to discuss this somewhere warmer. Which in this case happened to be Kihyun and Hoseok’s shared apartment.

 

“Okay,” Kihyun spoke as he sat across from her. They'd all gathered around their small dining table. “What just happened?”

 

“We already told you. Your boy grabbed my...come to think of it, what are these even called?” Kira pointed at the watch on Hyeju’s wrist.

 

“Jae said they were transporters through the space and time continuums able to transcend and traverse the-”

 

“Too many words,” Hyeju couldn’t stop the slight pout at Kira stopping her speech, “Your boy grabbed this watch and went somewhere else. Where? No idea.”

 

“That makes NO SENSE,” Kihyun reiterated. The conversation was already going the same way it went back on the street. 

 

“Makes no sense?” Hyeju tilted her head slightly, humming curiously. “The spatial shifter, yes Kira, that’s the working name, basically...” Another pause as Hoseok and Kihyun stared at her in anticipation. “...attune to the spaces between dimensions and timelines. It’s a very abstract concept for a culture not used to the mechanics of magic and how it relates to travel, but to put it simply it opens portals to other worlds.”

 

“Still makes no sense-!”

 

“Neither does Hyeju falling on top of me or Hyungwon vanishing,” Hoseok interrupted Kihyun gently.

 

“That’s as simple as I can make it I’m afraid. Our world is...very different from yours. You have regular looking humans on the streets. We have a mix of all sorts of humanoids, like Kira. We use magic and you don’t. We’re quite literally from a different world.”

 

“Believe it or not...” Kira huffed, “...doesn’t change anything.”

 

“Your friend is somewhere else in time or space. Thankfully!” Hyeju showed them the watch on her wrist. She tapped its face and what looked like a heartbeat appeared. “These are a pair. They are meant to keep track of each other in the event you’re separated. Your friend is still alive and the heart rate is calm and steady. No distress. He’s okay. I promise we’ll help you find him. But...right now I’m not entirely sure how…” Hyeju’s tone kept even although Kira noticed the slight hitch as she spoke the last part. “I...I promise I’ll figure it out! I just...just don’t know right now how-”

 

“It’s okay,” Hoseok reached out and placed a hand over Hyeju’s that had started to clench tightly. Kira would normally have thrown someone off and across the room for touching Hyeju, but Hoseok seemed genuine in his concern, and his reassuring smile did seem to calm Hyeju down before she went into an overthinking tirade. Having known the other girl for so long, she knew she was already backtracking in her head on how they ran off and inadvertently caused this. The spiral of guilt and anxiety that normally only herself, the prince, or maybe Jae could stop...was stopped by this stranger. How curious.

 

“In any event, I’m going to call Hyunwoo-hyung,” Kihyun sighed, “If only for my sanity and to prove that we’re not seeing things or something. Jooheonie and Changkyunie are NOT going to believe this. Hey, maybe I can make a bet with them about her ears! They won’t believe it!!”

 

“Try to bet on my appearance and I’ll ensure you will be missing a valuable appendage in the morning.” Kira smirked when the smile left Kihyun’s face and was replaced by a little bit of horror.

 

At that, the tension broke and Hyeju smiled before smacking Kira lightly on the shoulder. Hoseok also laughed before leaving to call their friends. 

 

~

 

“So...you’re telling me these two are aliens that teleported and fell from the sky onto you guys and then Hyungwon accidentally got teleported away because he touched one of their watches?” Hyunwoo repeated back in summary after the two boys explained the situation to the other four boys that just arrived.

 

“Yup!” Hoseok answered back with a bright smile, glad that their oldest understood everything so well. He was really worried they were going to say they were crazy and lost their minds.

 

Silence.

 

The other three boys burst out in laughter while Hyunwoo quietly cocked his head a bit to show his uncertainty about the whole situation.

 

“Yah, Hyung, did you hit your head or something?” Minhyuk finally spoke up after their laughing fest slowly died down. Slowly. Ever so slowly. Hoseok pouted, clearly upset they weren’t taking him seriously.

 

“Minhyuk-ah, we’re serious!” Kihyun exclaimed. “Look, she even has cat ears!”

 

With that claim, Kihyun grabbed Kira’s hood and pulled it off her head. His eyes widened at the sight before him.

 

Nothing.

 

No cat ears.

 

His mouth opened and closed, completely speechless at the fact that there were no cat ears on top of her head. They all saw it! He turned to Hoseok, who looked just as confused. He looked down from the top of her head to find a smug look on Kira’s face. The smug look turned innocent with a shrug as if mocking him.

 

“You-”

 

Once more laughter ensued.

 

“Right! Cat ears!”

 

“Kira…” Hyeju scolded softly with a half-hearted sigh.

 

“What?” she asked back, ever so innocently.

 

Suddenly, Minhyuk stopped laughing and started gawking at Kira. As Kihyun circled the girl, trying to solve the mystery of the disappearing cat ears, all the other boys ceased all activities and proceeded to follow Minhyuk in his ogling, including Hyunwoo. They weren’t able to get a good look at Kira before due to the hood she had on. If it was any indication by all the gaping mouths of the males in the room, Kira was enchanting. Her short hair framed the soft features of her face. The black strands of her hair seemed to glimmer a hue of red complementing her dark almond-shaped eyes. Despite looking bored, the slight purse of her lips emphasized her apple cheeks. The rest of her body was covered with her long navy robe. She was probably five centimeters or so shorter than Kihyun, but from the looks of her face, she had a slender build.

 

Minhyuk was the first to react.

 

He smoothly pushed Kihyun out of the way and smiled charmingly at Kira, who looked shocked at the flying disappearance of Kihyun and the sudden appearance of another pretty boy. She did enjoy seeing the livid expression on Kihyun’s face from being tossed away.

 

“I’m so sorry about Kihyun. He can get so focused on one thing and just completely forget everything else.”

 

“...uh huh…” Kira responded non-committedly, just observing Minhyuk at the moment.

 

“So where did you say you’re from?”

 

“...Nelia…”

 

“Are you sure it’s not heaven? Because you look like an angel to me.”

 

Kira blinked a few times, trying to process what was happening in front of her. She looked back at Hyeju while pointing at Minhyuk with an extremely puzzled look on her face. Hyeju was trying her very best to stifle the chortle that wanted to burst out of . She nodded at Kira as if saying, yes it is exactly what you think is going on.

 

When she turned back to Minhyuk with a confused tilt of her head, he reached his hand forward with a concerned look on his face. “Did you get hurt over here?”

 

“Oh, I wouldn’t-”

 

Hoseok wasn’t able to finish his warning to Minhyuk as Kira had already proceeded to snatch his wrist with inhuman speed. Before Minhyuk could blink, he was on his back, groaning in pain from being slammed into the ground. If he wasn’t so dizzy from his impromptu ride, he would have seen the pleased smile on her face.

 

Kihyun was laughing a little too loud for Minhyuk’s liking.

 

“Okay, okay. I think you’ve had your fun, Kira,” were the words that came out of Hyeju’s mouth once she was finally able to speak, winded from laughing too hard. With a slight pout, Kira sighed and moved back away from Minhyuk, who was still writhing on the floor. As if she was performing a magic trick, she bowed ever so slightly to show the top of her head with her arms spread out.

 

Once more, all the boys were gawking at Kira, but this time for a completely different reason.

 

There they were: the infamous cat ears Hoseok and Kihyun had been raving about.

 

Out of thin air, a pair of pointed cat-like ears with red fur and black tips adorned her head. And if the boys weren’t so busy staring at the top of her head, they would have noticed the bushy red and black tail with a white tip, waving around on the other end.

 

“WHAT DID WE TELL YOU?!” Kihyun roared victoriously, high fiving Hoseok for being right. The sudden loud noise caused Kira to flinch, pinning her ears against her head.

 

“They moved!” Jooheon pointed out with wide eyes.

 

“You guys were right…” Changkyun admitted, feeling a bit apologetic towards his hyungs now.

 

“Then...you guys...really ARE aliens?” Hyunwoo asked, gesturing to the two girls.

 

“Mmm, I guess we are,” Hyeju answered calmly.

 

“So then, Hyungwon is really missing,” Hyunwoo realized with a concerned look on his face.

 

“And unfortunately, we’re really not sure where he is,” Hyeju disclosed with regret. During Hyeju and Hyunwoo’s conversation, Changkyun was busy inching closer to Kira to get a closer look at her ears.

 

“Can I touch them?” Changkyun asked very tentatively. Kira raised her eyebrow at the request. With that one look from Kira, he shrunk away and bowed apologetically.

 

“Alright, enough staring at Kira. We promise we’ll do everything that we can to help find your friend considering it’s our fault he disappeared. But it’s been a long day for us…” Hyeju bit her lip and turned to Hoseok. “I know we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot but we don’t have anywhere to go.”

 

Hoseok smiled warmly at her, “You can stay with us for the night. It’s not safe at this hour out there. Although I don’t think you’d have to worry about that with her around.”

 

“She’s my good girl,” Hyeju joked affectionately, rubbing Kira on the head, flattening her ears against her head with the action. That earned her a sneer and a light smack on the arm.

“I don’t mean to sound rude, but how can we trust you won’t just disappear when we wake up in the morning?” Kihyun questioned. “If you guys run off, we’d never be able to find Hyungwon.”

 

Hyeju tapped her lips in thought. His concern was fair. There was really only one way to prove they wouldn't leave these boys to find their friend by themselves. She unstrapped the watch off her own wrist and handed it to Kihyun. 

 

“Just don’t touch the face of the watch.”

 

Kihyun stared at the watch for a moment before taking it cautiously from Hyeju with two fingers, holding it out as if it was going to bite him. He offered her a small smile of appreciation at her gesture of good faith. 

 

“If that’s good enough, where is Hyeju sleeping?” Kira inquired impatiently. 

 

“You can sleep in my room,” Hoseok offered. “I’ll sleep in Kihyun’s room. Let me set up some sheets for you.”

 

While Hoseok went to set up his room for the unexpected guests, Kihyun continued to stare at the watch in his hand. 

 

“You promise we’ll find him?”

 

“Promise.”