“I can’t sleep.” Byeol murmured to herself, after several minutes of thrashing around in her bed. It’s 3.30 a.m. and she’d only fallen asleep two hours ago. But for some reason, after waking up suddenly minutes ago her mind’s already fresh, all ready to start a new day.

                A glass of water in hand, she walked out into the yard, where the cold outside air pierces through her body and wakes her up further. It’s cold and she’s without a jacket. But she sat on the square bench without a care in the world.

                The darkness is so beautiful.

After blinking a few times, her eyes adjusted to the dark. She could see the silhouettes of the buildings of her town. There’s the church, of course, with the light-up cross. There’s Shijang’s convenience store, its proud neon lime lights screaming out ‘24 Hours’. She turned to her right a bit to see her school, with the tall stadium-style lights that had never been used.

                “Takes up so much energy”, the school technician had said. Nobody minded. A town this small didn’t need a stadium anyway. They never have night games either.

                Byeol laid down on the bench, taking in the faint smell of kimchi that never seemed to leave. Even after all those years after Grandma Jang’s passing.

                Byeol closed her eyes. She wasn’t feeling sleepy, and she’s certainly not sleeping.

                So how, and when, did night suddenly turn into day, darkness into light?

                Byeol opened her eyes and sat up abruptly.

                This isn’t day. I’d never seen a day so bright.

                And yet what could it be?

                It’s like somebody just put huge stadium lights all around the town. The light is superiorly bright, and it should’ve turned people blind. Yet the light was as soft as it was brilliant. It turned the whole town radiant, bathing everything in its mesmerizing intensity.

                Far at the other end of the town, somewhere around the abandoned residential complex, something was emitting the brilliance.

                The light’s dazzling beauty seems to be all that Byeol can see. It surrounded her, making her feel like an angel suddenly wrapped its wings around her. Its presence was calming and soft, like feathers. Byeol smiled and she feels like her whole body is smiling along.

And then darkness came back.

                Byeol snapped out of her daze and nothing fills her mind but confusion.

                “What could it be?”

                “What could it be?”

                “What could it be?”

                It was only until she realized that the sun’s almost rising that she went inside for a shower, her mind still asking that same question, over and over again.

“HYUNG! HYUNG! KRIS HYUUUNNGGG!”

“KAI! Stop screaming! What’s wrong?” Kris runs down the stairs, almost tumbling his way onto the ground floor.

“HYUNG! Do you know what ‘pay’ is?” Kai pants, his hand on his knees.

“Pay? What’s that? Is it dangerous to our health?” Kris asks, his eyes almost popping out of his skull. Upon thinking about the danger this ‘pay’ thing might bring, Kris even forgot to reprimand Kai for coming in screaming his head off. Chen and Suho had never mentioned ‘pay’. What if it’s life-threatening? We haven’t even gotten Sehun’s medicine yet.

“Did you guys get Sehun’s medicine? And where’s Lay?”

Kai lifts his head, still gasping for air like a fish taken out of water. “He’s still walking. We’re gonna have to wait for three days for Sehun’s thing. And ‘pay’”-Kai pauses to take a deep, stabilizing breath-“is a strange Earth concept. Apparently, you need it for stuff. So that means that before we can get food and Sehun’s thing, we need this ‘pay’ thing.”

“How does ‘pay’ look like?” Kris frowns, mentally going through every Life on Earth lesson, rewinding all his favorite Earth movies and dramas in his mind to see if the word ‘pay’ rings a bell.

“I don’t know how it looks like. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s a verb.”

“A verb, huh? What’s the noun related to it, then?” Kris asked, not even realizing how weird it is to ask about parts of speech at a critical moment like this.

“Money.” Lay says, striding in without a hair out of place and taking a seat on the stairs. “I think we pay money to people. And the storekeeper said something about getting a job. I think that people on Earth get paid using money if they do a job.”

Kai stares at Lay with an open mouth. “That sounds legit. So we just have to get jobs. That’s easy. Kris hyung, you can be a warrior again and Lay hyung can just work in a pharmacy.”

Kris nods slowly, seeming to digest what Kai had said. “That sounds easy enough. We already have the work experience.”

“Like what? Fighting off Cuvapeds and Manipedis? Hyung, we can’t tell them that. And if they ask me what special technique I use to help my patients heal, I can’t just tell them that I just put my hand up to the affected area, some sparkly stuff comes out and makes it better. They’ll either kick me out or lock me up!””

Kai laughs but stops immediately when Kris shoots him a sharp glance.

Clearing his throat, Kai says, “He’s saying the truth though, hyung.”

Kris heaves deeply, his eyebrows threatening to fuse into a unibrow. “I’m sure we’ll think of something.” He says, as calm as his late father. The sudden thought about his late father surprised him, as Kris feels anything but calm. Nevertheless, Kai and Lay seem to have faith in him and his newfound pseudo-calm leadership. They shrug and start preparing breakfast from the Astral food stock and say nothing else.

For about five seconds.

Lay’s the one who shatters the silence, shouting out of the blue. “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH EARTH ANYWAY?”

Kai and Kris freeze in their current positions, Kai opening a can and Kris slicing bread.

                When Lay doesn’t continue, Kris asks tentatively, “Lay... You okay?”

Lay sighs and sits on one of the Astral chairs. “I’m not even sure. Guys, think about it. How come we’ve never heard of pay before?”

                Kris and Kai looked at each other intuitively and frown. “I’m not sure, hyung.” Kai shakes his head.

               “It’s so weird, isn’t it? I mean, it’s only been, what? Twenty, maybe twenty-three years since our parents left Earth, and yet so much things have changed. Money for jobs? The humans here had gotten so greedy in so little time. I wonder what happened that caused them to turn into selfish beings like this.”

                With somewhat satiated hunger, Kris and Lay sit around the motherboard of the Astral. They just wrenched it out of the spaceship and now use it as a fireplace. They don’t actually light it up or anything, but its presence, like a fire, gives them a sense of comfort. And hope.

                Lay is still brooding, his face in an unnatural scowl. There’s no sign of his dimples since his outburst an hour ago. He’s just sitting there, staring at the motherboard, silent. Kris glances at Kai. The younger boy had fallen asleep right after their brunch. Kris finds himself missing Tao more severely everytime he looks at Kai.

                Tao’s probably living with Xiumin, or maybe Kyungsoo and Chen. Kris is sure that he’ll have no problems managing himself and their house. He can battle wild creatures, no problem with that. Tao’ll make him proud. And Luhan will be pleased with Tao’s competence as a Warrior. But at night, that little brother of him will probably curl himself up into a ball and cry his eyes out.

                That’s the way things have been since their parents died.

                “Kris.” Lay puts a hand gingerly on Kris’s elbow. “How long will the food last us?”

                Kris shrugs. “Three days, I think.”

                Lay inhales deeply. There seemed to be a lot of sighing going on since this morning. “We really need to get a job fast.”

                Kai jolts up suddenly and tousles his hair. “Yeah, but I don’t think that we’d have to worry about the food so much. We can just decrease our individual portions or something. I can stand being hungry, don’t worry. We’ll stretch it out so that we can use the remaining food to get home.” Kai turns to Lay with a determined expression on his face. “Lay hyung, we forgot to tell Kris about Sehun’s medicine. Here’s how it’s going down.” Not even pausing to take a breath, Kai turns to Kris. His face serious with resolve and ferocity, making him look older than his age again. “We’re gonna have to wait for three days for his meds. By that time, we can just fly back to EXOPlanet. Can we just forget about all the other missions? I REALLY loathe being here. It... It creeps me out.”

                Lay and Kris stare at each other, trying to communicate with the telepathic ability developed over years of close friendship. “He doesn’t know, Kris.”

                There was that deep breath again, a sure sign of hopelessness and wariness.

                “Kai, you need to know something.”

                Kai opens his mouth to say something but no sounds come out. As usual, Kai wants to bicker, to oppose. But not now. He could sense an important warning by the way Kris keeps glancing at Lay for assurance, and the way Lay keeps his head down. The air in the building, already humid and warm, seems to heat up even more. Kai feels like detaching his ears from his body, as if not listening can change whatever it is that Kris is trying to say.

                “Kai, we can’t go home after three days. We can’t go home after we get Sehun’s medicine.”

                “Yes we can.” It was a childish remark, a hyper-positive comment that Tao used to say when Kris told him “You’re too young to learn those moves” out of jealousy.

                Is this what being an adult means? We need to learn to be dismissive and pessimistic. We need to tell ourselves that we can’t have everything that we want on Earth, even if what we want is to be away from Earth.

Kris clears his throat unnecessarily before continuing. “Just hear me out, okay? Our rocket ship, the Astral, is not designed to last. A week, tops. By the end of this week it’ll fully disintegrate. We’re gonna be left with no ship. We’re gonna have to build our own to go back.” He pauses, letting his sentences sink in.

“We’re gonna have to start from scratch, and in the meantime, we need to acclimate ourselves to live here. We need those jobs, Kai. We can’t leave yet.”

“That’s crazy. How long do we need to be here for?”

“As long as it takes to get ready.” Lay speaks up.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Then wait for three, four more days. See what’ll happen to the Astral.”

“That’s stupid! Why would anyone make a rocket that will disintegrate like that? What kind of an idiot scientist makes a rocket that won’t last?”

Lay hides his face behind his hands and Kris clears his throat again. “Err... Kai. Your mom made it, actually.”

The very mention of the M word made Kai calmer, but he still looks like he’s going to punch every single pillar in the building down. “Why?” His word comes out feeble and unsure.

“She wanted us to live here, even if for a few days. She wanted us to come back to Earth.”

Kai’s steely gaze is met with Kris’s glassy eyes. “And nobody disagreed with her?”

“She knows better, Kai. And Chen, Suho, Luhan, even I agreed that this is for the best.”

“And I didn’t hear this in the meetings because...?”

Lay snorts. “You were too busy dancing around the planet to even come to meetings in the first place. And even when you’re there, you’re too busy sleeping. Or dancing.”

“BUT THIS IS IMPORTANT!” Kai stands up to his full height. His voice bounced off the walls, his anger reverberating through the whole building. “HOW CAN WE MAKE SEHUN WAIT THAT LONG, NO MATTER HOW LONG THE TIME IS? DOES NOBODY CARE THAT THIS IS A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH?”

Kris surprises himself with his composure. “Firstly, it’s NOT a matter of life and death. Sehun will survive. Come on, Kai, he’s your best friend outside your family, you should know that what he has isn’t lethal. He knows what we’ve planned, and he agreed to it as well. The whole thing will take less than a year, depending on how early we start. And we’ll start off by building a delivery rocket back to the Planet to send the medicine to him, first and foremost. To do that we need to-”

Kai cuts through the rest of Kris’s sentence with a lazy wave of his hand. Defeated and with no means to rebel, Kai clenches his fist. “Well I’m going to get started on it right now. I’m going out to get a job. Lay hyung, you coming with me?”

But he walks out of the door without waiting for an answer.

                “That Kang Shijang guy is such a pain in the .” Kai grumbles after getting shooed away from the shop. He has half a mind to go back into the shop to give Shijang a piece of his mind, but he gets distracted when he catches a sight of that paper thing- money.

                “What does that Shijang know? It’s really easy to make money!” Kai says happily, entering the alley in which he’d seen a man disappear into. He smiles at the other men who are doing their job. He finds the cleanest side of the street he can find; sits down and starts holding up his hand like the other men around him.

                People who walks past Kai either chuckle or frown at him. The girls point at him and wave at him from a far. They’re among the ones who laughed. But nobody gave him money. Nobody paid him. It must be because I’m new. I’ll soon become better at this job. The other men around there had been giving him nasty looks. Kai forces a smile. It’s understandable to be uncomfortable around new competition. But they’ll warm up to me. Don’t worry, Kai. Just Kaichensugo!

                A balding man, dressed in mismatched skulls pattern and a bright lime feathery boa comes up to Kai. “Hey. Hey you.”

                Kai gets up quickly and bows to the man. “Hello, senior!” Kai’s not usually a cheery type of person, but since these men are now going to be his colleagues, he might as well up to them, right?

                “What are you doing here?”

                Kai starts to answer but the man cuts him short. “I’ve never seen anyone around here dressed like you. This must be what they call ‘designer clothes’.” Kai had heard that word before, but this man’s tone is indicating that designer clothes are a bad thing.

                “You look rich and well-fed, yet you want to beg here? Are you trying to insult us? What is this, some kind of a psychology experiment or something? Huh? Just because we’re poor, homeless and jobless, you think you can make fun of us? Word of advice, kid. GET LOST.” The man’s face had gotten nearer to his while he was talking. Kai can see pieces of dirt in the man’s mouth, and the stink of him is way too strong to take in.

                “I’m s-sorry. I didn’t know.” Kai, the cool and confident Kai, is at loss for words. He’d thought that this ‘begging’ thing is something that only professionals with the proper attire can get into. These designer clothes that Kai is wearing must not be qualified for this kind of job. That’s what Kai thought when the man started to scold him.

But looking at the rest of the people here, it seems like in truth, only the ones who are unable to do anything else can do this job. Kai looks at the rest of the people in that alley, their angry faces hiding hurt and despair. The old people, with nobody to take care of them. The ones without a leg or an arm, unable to find a job. The ones who’d lost everything and tried everything; finally resorting to begging since desperateness and a will to live tramples over the human ego. Kai bows to the man and at the rest of the beggars before running away. He skidded after a few paces to turn back and slides the money he got from dancing into the man’s palm. “I knew nothing. I’m sorry, I really am.”

And before the man has a chance to scold him further or beat him up, Kai scampers out of the alley as fast as he can.

The town is smallish, Kai figured out after wandering around for about half an hour. It’s definitely no New York. The buildings are sparse and the tallest building is four stories high. There are not that many people either. It seemed to Kai that the people he saw earlier near the alley had already gone to work. People do not hang around the town like in the Earth TV shows he used to watch.

Maybe Lay hyung was right. Earth HAD changed a lot.

Kai has reached the edge of the main road, where it’s busier as there’s a market here. Right at the front of the market, a fruit store stood, crates stacked left and right. It’s hard to see where the actual entrance to the fruit store is. A tall guy with huge glasses was moving the crates, making the huge double doors accessible.

 Kai touches the mangoes, pineapples and guavas with glee, taking care not to press them. He’s fascinated with what he could identify as a rambutan and tried to comb the hairs into a more fashionable do. He had only seen pictures of these fruits. They didn’t exist on EXOPlanet.

“Can I help you with anything?” The tall guy asks, his deep voice surprising Kai.

Man, there are a lot of tall people here on Earth.

“I was just... looking.” Kai says nervously.

The tall guy smiles and goes back to his crate-moving. Kai wants to leave, but he thinks that it might seem shifty if he goes just like that. “Do you know where I can get a job around here?”

The tall guy wipes his sweat on his arm sleeve and shrugs. “I don’t know about the rest of the town, but the market’s not looking for anyone right now. Hey, maybe you should check out that convenience store over there. I heard Kang Shijang’s looking for another new victim. I mean, employee, hehe.” The tall guy finishes with a chuckle and heaves a crate loaded with thorny melons and makes his way into the store. “Sorry I can’t help you, dude.” He says over his shoulder.

Kai leaves the market, walking out past the school and housing area nearby. He stops at a hillside, looking down on the town. He wanted to stay and look around at the market. He wanted to try the exotic fruits. But he can’t do that now. Maybe next time. For now, he needs to get a job. Plus, the thought of not having any money to spend disheartens him.

He hates this unsure side of him that appeared since they arrived here. EXOPlanet was his turf. He knows almost everything that goes on there, though apparently the part about the rocket designed by his mother escaped his knowledge.

Earth, though... How is Kai supposed to believe that he came from here? This place is strange, unfamiliar, and as big as it is, it feels constricting. There are not as many people as there are on TV shows, but any number above ten is too many a number. And ‘pay’? Kai had tried to appear aloof when Lay was venting back in their makeshift residence, but the concept bothers him too. What if they can’t manage to get jobs? They will never get paid. What will happen then? Will the Earth people insist on receiving money and let them starve? Looking around him, Kai finds it hard to believe that the people here will take him in like his parents did.

Mom and Dad.

Their smiling faces come into view in Kai’s head, making him feel a bit dizzy. He walks down the road, finding a suitable place to sit. He could not afford getting hit by a car as he flashes back.

Way back then...

His dad is grinning widely, somewhat cockily into the camera, his arms around his mom. His mom is looking up at her husband with a delightful mix of annoyance and pride on her face. It’s always this scene that Kai conjures up when he thinks about them. After the couple picture was taken, Kyungsoo and Kai had fought over who gets to sit on Daddy’s lap for the family picture. Chen, the wise then-ten-year-old, took his seat quietly next to Mom. Kai lost the battle to Kyungsoo that time. He shamelessly clambered over Chen’s lap next, effectively blocking both Chen & their Mom’s faces when the picture was taken.

Those good old days.

Kai absent-mindedly holds his wrist, the part that Kyungsoo dug his nails into as they were saying their goodbyes. Twenty minutes onto the Astral and they received an error message: Unknown substance detected in the cabin. It was Kai’s blood. In that short time Kyungsoo had managed to cause Kai to bleed, right on the life line. It even left a scar.

Those small half-circles are fading.

Pretty soon it will be gone.

“Hyung, I’ll return soon. I promise.” Kai remembers the sorrow on his brother’s face as he whispered those words. Those scars on his wrist remind him of that promise. Since their parents passed, Kyungsoo was the one acting as mom and Kai knows that he caused Kyungsoo to worry a lot not so long ago.  He wasn’t about to make Kyungsoo cry because of him again. Besides, Kai’s sure that the mission to get Sehun’s cure will be easy, and they’d return in no time.

But those scars are vanishing...

And so is the likelihood of keeping that promise.

Feeling suffocated and alone in this vast, busy planet, Kai walks further up the small hill, distancing himself from the market and all its wonderful smells. He’s already hungry, and the thought of food makes him remember Kyungsoo more vividly, and that thought leads to Chen and the rest of the EXOPlanet. When Kai reaches the top of the hill, he’s already sick with homesickness, mingled with hunger.

“KYUNGSOO HYUNNNNNGGGGGGG!” Kai screams out at the town under his feet. A girl at the fruit store below looks up at him.

Wow, I didn’t know I can scream that loud.

And just like snow on TV, a piece of neon green paper falls down from the tree beside him. Kai picks it up and starts to look for a proper place to trash it, but gets distracted with the print on the paper. It’s a colorful picture with girls and drinks, and it says, “Gentlemen’s Club: Dancers Wanted”.

Kai’s mouth curves into a smile and he looks up at the sky.

“Kyungsoo hyung, you’re watching me, aren’t you? Thanks!”