“Is there a hole in the bag?”

Taemin was referring to the crude, yet effective, ziplock bag that kept the cube from being touched enough to open accidentally. There was an incident last year where a pod had opened and expanded so much that we lost a number of petri dish samples to the floor and a lot of expensive equipment was broken.

But no, there wasn't a hole in the bag, which was quickly becoming to small for the cube. I took it out of the plastic and searched my pockets for my cellphone, telling Taemin to open the window before the pod opened in my bedroom.

On the fourth ring, Luhan picked up. “-in the bathroom, quick! Ugh-” I heard in the background before he spoke a clear greeting.

“Luhan, Kai's pod is opening-” I stopped to clamber out the window, annoyed at how stiff my joints had gotten since high school. Isn't thirty too young to have these kind of problems? Am I old now? Would Kai even recognize me if he saw me? I shook the thought away; it's not important right now. I went on,  “We didn't touch it or anything. It's opening on it's own. You should come outside, I brought it to my house.”

“I'll be right- hold on.” he cut off and suddenly I heard a yelling coming from his house and couple thuds. “I'll be right there!” he said quickly, hanging up.

“Are you sure there weren't any holes in the bag, Tao? Maybe some mold spores or moisture got in.” asked Taemin, bending over to inspect the metal cube, now the size of a laundry basket.

“Do you want to check it back at the lab?”

“No way! I want to see what happens.”

“Then just wait for the expert to get here. Luhan might know what's happening.” In our group, everyone had a wide general knowledge of all the subjects we worked on, but we also had our own specialties. I was in charge of the alien species with Lay (since it was a gift given to me), and Kris worked with Luhan on the pods. Taemin simply went back and forth as needed.

In Luhan's porch light, three figures stumbled out of the house, one holding up another and the last walking alone.

“You remembered to sterilize it before you bagged it, right?” asked the lone figure and I could tell that was Luhan. Then who were the others?

Oh no.

“Don't give me that look.” ordered Luhan. “You're the one who hurt Lay's feelings so much that he took a taxi to my house. Kris just followed.”

“I'm not that drunk.” Kris assured us, hiccuping.

“Right.” Luhan pat him on the back like he would a child who insisted Santa was on the roof. “So, let's get down to business. You got a flashlight?”

Taemin plucked one from my desk through the window and tossed it to him.

“Oh, it stopped.” said Luhan, puzzled. The cube stopped growing and buzzing before it even got to the right size. He pressed his fingertips to the side and a seam appeared where a panel with blinking lights opened. “That's weird. The readings are all within normal parameters...”

Static could suddenly be heard as the top layers of metal crumpled and folded away. “-han... Ta-”

“That's Minnie!” shouted Luhan, scratching at the layers to make them move faster, the flashlight dropping to the ground. I grabbed him and held him back before he could break something.

“-uhan, Tao! Can y-”

“Minnie! Are you in there?” yelled Luhan.

“He can't be in there.” said Kris, dropping Lay to the ground. “We've had the cube with us all these years.”

“Who's Minnie?” Taemin asked me.

“Alien number two.” I supplied quickly, more interested in the pod than answering questions.

“There are two aliens?”

“There's eight that have been here. Now shush!” I let Luhan go, judging him to be a little calmer.

“-ao, Luhan, can you hear me?” rang Xiumin's voice. The last layer peeled back to reveal a black partition inside, and a second side of the cube began to fold away. With the second side gone, we could now see that the partition was really a screen that suddenly lit up to reveal Xiumin's face and a room with blue walls and bright lights.

“We have both visual and audio-” said Kris as Luhan screamed, “Yes, Baozi!”

Xiumin was smiling really wide and I could see how time had sharpened and elongated his features. “I-I have audio,” he sniffed, eyes watering up quick. “but I don't have visual. There should be a small lever in the right-hand panel on the inside-”

Luhan lunged to find it and Xiumin let out a sob as the image came up for him.

“Luhan, you look amazing.” the alien cried. “You are aging so nicely, and you still have that cute button nose.”

I whispered to our stunned assistant to grab some tissues and he nearly tripped twice in the journey to the window.

“H-how did you get through? I thought this pod was for transport only.” asked Kris in too loud a voice.

“Are you drunk?” laughed Xiumin.

“I'm not drunk. Why do you-why would you think I'm drunk? I'm not drunk-”

“We rigged our old pods with a communications system and sent the information for change to your pod on Earth.” answered Xiumin, ignoring Kris' speech. “Your pod has been using the information we sent to alter it's internal systems and mechanisms. All pods have this capacity for change; we thought it would prove useful if anyone were ever stranded or sent to the wrong planet- Luhan, I love your new hair! Red looks so great on you,”

Luhan thanked him and asked, “Baozi, where's everyone else?” I wanted to know this too. Where was Kai? And Sehun, and Suho? Why was it only Xiumin on the screen?

“There's good news and bad news, Xiaolu.”

“Bad news first.” I in. Was Kai okay? Did something happen?

“Everyone is alive and healthy first off. Keep that in mind, okay? There's a bit of a situation here. Citizens of our planet are trying to break in the building. We have everything under control for now, but the good news is really, really great.” He wiped his face clean of tears. “Xiaolu, we've managed to create the hybrid species, which is kind of why these citizens are fighting to get in; they want to leave this planet, even though we've done a lot to fix the balance- Chen! Thank goodness you're here,”

An alien I remembered from the day of departure went on screen. “We can't get to the other pods; they're blocked off too securely.”

“That's not good. That is very not good... Uhm-”

“Xiumin, Chen,” I called. If they knew how to create the animal... “We have a lab on our side. We've been working to replicate the pod and the animal skin.”

“Oh my god, that is great news!” Xiumin sighed in relief. “We found new signals on Earth and didn't know how to break it to you that there might be rogue aliens on your planet-”

Chen pulled up a screen and began typing on it faster than I would have thought possible. “More importantly, we can hack into their systems and convert them to match our pods. Once converted, we can send a probe over to stock them with fuel and then send them here to get us. How many do you have? We found at least nine other signals.”

“We have twelve. The other three must must be non-functional.” said Kris, much more alert than before. “What will you do once you have those pods?”

“We'll go back to Earth to regroup and then... we really do have to get back to save our planet.”

“So it'll be just another visit?” I asked.

“Yes,” Xiumin smiled brightly. “But this time, you may come with us if you wish it. You are plenty old enough to leave your parents behind, yes? I take it Suho's accumulated funds are enough to take care of them in their old age. Do you accept our invitation to our world?”

“Would I go too?” asked Taemin hopefully. I jumped, having forgotten he was there.

“Who's this cutie?” asked Chen, pausing in his typing to get a good look.

“Chen, you're taken.” Xiumin reminded him. “Get back to work. Treat it like a state of emergency.”

Chen pulled a face and typed again, hands complete blurs. “They'll never make it past the traps I set. And Kyungsoo's been moody lately. He even asked me to call him D.O again.”

“Ooh, not the nickname again-”

“But would I go?” our assistant asked again, hair tips glowing in the dark.

Barely even thinking about it, Xiumin said, “Yes.”

Taemin shot a fist in the air and hugged Luhan and then me and then Kris, skipping Lay who was looking a bit sick. “I have been waiting for this all my life... When can we go? Are we going today?”

Laughing, Chen took a long drink of something purple in a glass before working again. “Hold your horses. It'll take another twenty minutes to complete the information transfer and a full day until the pods on your side are ready to pick us up. Meanwhile, how's it been you guys? I didn't even get to greet Tao before we left. Talk to me. I hate typing in silence. Suho says you can write really well. Did you enjoy his books?”

“Suho?” asked Kris in a small voice as replied with a yes.

“How did he ever find the time to read so many books? And in so many languages too?” I asked, the curiosity burning ever since I first saw his enormous collection.

“We can read faster than you guys. And once we get a base language down, it's fairly simple to connect the base language to another with a simple language dictionary. Learning just comes naturally to us. You'll find it becoming easier for you too.”

“What? What does that mean?”

My question was ignored as Chen took another sip of the purple drink.

“Hey Minseok, answer me this: why did you say you were Korean?” I asked.

“Actually, Luhan said that, though I suppose it isn't wrong." he explained with a shrug. "My pod landed in South Korea and that's where he found me."

“And I just wanted to mess with you.” admitted Luhan, slinging an arm about my shoulders happily like the neighbor I knew years ago.  "Though Kris found Suho in Canada before they moved here. Does that make him Canadian?”

Kris shook his head dizzily. "Joonmyun's pod was opened in South Korea too-"

Different colored lights started to flash on Xiumin's end.

“Oh, great. Just what I need.” said Chen sarcastically. “You know how annoying it is to type with those distorting my vision?" he sighed. "We'll have to get back to you guys later. One of the citizens got through our first layer of defense.”

Luhan panicked. “Wait, how many layers do you have?”

“Enough." Xiumin assured him. "Don't worry Xiaolu. We'll see each other tomorrow, I prom-” the video cut out and the night engulfed us all in the dark again, save for a lone flashlight beam in the grass.

If Lay hadn't already been drunk enough to lose his dinner in Luhan's bushes, then we might have gone out to celebrate. Instead we all went to our homes to pack up and meet at Suho's.

My hands were shaking as I tried to figure out what I would need on an alien planet. Shoes? Toothbrush? Oxygen tank? Gas mask?

It didn't matter. I would go with nothing if I had to.

I was going to see Kai again!

***

“No, mom, you won't be able to contact me. We'll be way out in the mountains. We won't have any service out there.”

“Did you speak with your father about this?” came my mother's voice through the speakers of my cellphone. “Because he went traveling in the mountains as a young man and nearly lopped off his own fingers in one of his stupid animal traps. I'm sure he'd have a good story to stop you.”

“Mom, I already talked to dad and I'm going no matter what. I just want to let you know that I'm going out of cellphone range, and I want to wire you some money before I leave just in case. I don't know how long we'll be gone, so make it last, okay?”

“This isn't about you getting some strange loan now, is it? Because I won't accept dirty money-”

“No,” I chuckled. “I assure you, we earned this money fair and square with a lot of hard work. You know how many discoveries we made in our lab. Can't you just be proud of me and wish me luck?”

She sighed into the receiver. “I am proud of you. I just don't want you going out and getting hurt. You may be out of your twenties already, but you are still my baby boy, Zitao. What's so important about this trip that you have to drop everything and go without visiting me first?”

“I'm going out to see something incredible." I said, grinning into the phone. "Don't worry so much; I'm not going alone. All four of us are going, plus our assistant.”

“Now, I'm glad you have these nice friends and all, and I'm sure they have great heads on their shoulders, but I don't feel so good about you going into some strange remote area with that Luhan kid-”

“He's not a kid.” I fought the urge to burst out laughing and continued. “Luhan is a grown man now. He's not the same prankster from high school.”

“Still, that baby-face gives me the creeps. Keep one eye open, okay? I love you!”

“I will. Love you too, Ma.” I said, hanging up.

“Mama's boy.” called Luhan from the couch of Suho's living room.

I collapsed into an armchair. “I'm not the one who cried.”

“Hey, my dad's dog died." he said defensively. "He thought I was abandoning him like that mutt did.”

I missed this Luhan. This Luhan wasn't the same one who stole a guilty kiss in a moment of sorrow. No, this Luhan was the one who once snuck me out of class, only to show off photos of a drunken Xiumin in a dress and full makeup. This was the one who liked to play, and play dirty. It was annoying in high school, but now it was refreshing after all the depressed expressions he's tried to hide these past twelve years.

“My mom said you give her the creeps because of your baby face.” I gibed, awaiting the comeback eagerly.

“If anyone's face is creepy, it's hers." he scoffed, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table. "You let her spend too much on plastic surgeries, Tao Tao.”

“Well, the money I give her is hers to spend however she wants...” Though it was very true that she had gone overboard. This wasn't the comeback I was expecting. Now I was wondering whether I should call my mom again to make sure her financial plans were stable. Should I wire more money to her account?

Taemin walked into the room, saying that he called his friend, Moonkyu, and he can take care of the lab for us while we're gone. This friend of his had come in many times before to help when we were short-handed, so we trusted him with this. He already had the pass-code to the house and a contract just like Taemin's to keep him from spreading secrets. Not that it really mattered if our lab secrets got out; we already got what we wanted out of our work.

Now all that was left was to wait.

***

“Do you think they're okay?” asked Luhan for the third time that night, pacing outside the lab. It had been exactly twenty-seven hours since we made contact and the cubes hadn't started growing or buzzing yet. We must have missed it when the probe was sent with the fuel because Kris had found them all fully stocked when we got there. Now, we watched them like hawks from the hallway, eyes glued to the glass wall that separated us. “The citizens wouldn't kill them, would they? Do you think they would?”

I was considering throwing a book at his face to get him to stop fidgeting. Knowing Luhan, he would probably just throw seven more books back. “Xiumin said they had defenses. You know him better than all of us. Do you think he lied?”

“N-no.” he admitted begrudgingly.

“Well, there you have it.”

“Kris, do you think they have ways to charge devices from Earth?” asked Taemin, pulling down a pair of large headphones.

“They're super smart,” he grunted, still experiencing headaches from last night's drinking. “They can probably figure out how to charge your music player if you asked.”

Next to Kris with his head in his hands sat Lay, who shushed the leader, saying his voice was grating against his eardrums. “It's like you're sticking a dentist's drill in each of my ears.” he whined.

I could hear it too, the dentist's drill sound, but it wasn't Kris' voice that made it. My eyes flicked up to the cubes to see them traveling across the table tops with the vibrations. “The pods are growing!”

Oh .

“We didn't clear the tables.” I realized and we all scrambled to fix this. “Why didn't we move these outside or something?” I grunted pulling a particularly heavy cube to the ground before it crushed the petri dishes and setting to work moving all the glowing lab rats.

One of the pods stopped growing and stood there for second on the floor before disappearing in a whirl of smoky shadows.

“Woah,”

One after another, the cubes simply vanished without a trace.

“Honestly, I expected them to fly out the roof or something.” admitted Taemin. We didn't find any methods of propulsion on Kai's pod, but somehow I expected them to fly out too.

Lay set down the box he'd been carrying. “Now that they have the pods, how long do you think it will take for them to settle things and get here?”

“Hopefully long enough for us to make room for them.” said Kris, stretching his back. “There's still too many tables and breakable things in here for comfort.”

The cubes came back while we were still clearing everything away, Lay nearly dropping one of the breeding rat cages in his excitement. “Isn't my urn pretty?” he shot at me and I ignored it, watching the small cubes appear again in swirling dark vapors, side by side in a half-circle. All nine of them were there, plus another three and they began expanding immediately, creating tremors through the glass wall between us. We all quickly went back inside, staring at the scene.

There was a hand at the back of my neck and I looked over to see Kris, smiling at me bleary-eyed. “You were right.” he said, wiping away at his cheeks with his free hand. “We shouldn't have given up...”

“It's one of the perks of being a stubborn .” I joked, too happy to put any venom behind it. Lay grabbed the stack of robes we left out, though he needn't have bothered, because this time, the aliens came out of their golden forms wearing a strange clothing that didn't appear to be made of anything we'd recognize.

And there was an older version of Kai, still flawless as ever, stepping out of his pod closer and closer and- why weren't my legs moving? I was stuck in place while everyone else moved to greet their friends, their partners. I tried to force myself forward and only made it one step before my knees buckled to the floor.

His hair was dark now, his jaw more defined, his body more solid and strong. He was so different, but the way he moved was exactly the same. No number of years could take away the inhuman grace.

“Taozi,” he whispered, kneeling in front of me and cupping my face in his hands. His thumbs were under my eyes, trying to wipe away tears that were quickly replaced with new ones. I couldn't breathe; I couldn't speak. All these years, this was all I'd ever wanted and wished so desperately for.

I took in a deep shuddering breath, wanting to say something meaningful. Words deserted me and I took him in my arms instead, crying out twelve years worth of loss and uncertainty.

All the pain, all the anguish; everything came out at once. Here in my arms was the same man who stumbled into my life with broken Mandarin and stupid grins that lit up his whole face when it wasn't already shining from his hair. This was the same person who had somehow broken through my teenage loner self and made me believe in the power of contact with other beings, human or otherwise.

I loved this man more than anything in this universe, more than anything outside this universe.

Tears fell silently now, lessening in frequency as they fell one after another, but I kept him close still. I missed this heartbeat. I missed this warm, rising chest.

“Taozi,” he called again, a curious tone to his voice. “How do you know Taeminnie?”

“Hmm?” We pulled apart and I found my voice again. “You know our assistant?”

“Ah!” Taemin suddenly shouted. “I knew I've seen that face before!”

“We don't have time for this.” said Chen, loud enough for everyone to hear. “We need to get back-”

“Oh, give them some time to calm down and talk.” prompted a very tall alien with short black hair that I've never seen before. He had been watching the scene with a kind of mild interest.

Chen groaned at him impatiently. “D.O's waiting for me back there-”

“He's using that nickname again? Dude, you better get back quick.”

“That's what I'm saying! So everyone pick a partner to bunk with, throw all your stuff in the pod on the left end, and-”

“I pick him.” said the tall alien, bowing his head to the young assistant and helping him with our luggage. “Hey. You can call me Minho. That should be easier to remember than my real name.” Taemin nodded, awestruck. The poor kid was seeing more aliens than he ever thought possible after only a day's notice.

“Like I was saying,” continued Chen, irritated at being interrupted. “Hurry it up, you guys.”

“Are you ready to see my planet?” Kai asked me and I tore my eyes away from the assistant as he asked about charging human-made electronics to shake my head no.

I wasn't ready. I could prepare my whole life and never be ready. This was insane and impossible and I wanted it so much that I felt like I was dreaming the whole thing, for nothing in this world could ever come up with so perfect a scenario.

He called my name softly. “Come away with me. To visit, to stay; you can decide later.”

That's right. Nothing in this world could ever come up with so perfect a scenario, which is why I was leaving for another one.

I took Kai's hand and together we walked to a waiting pod. I surprised him by knowing which buttons to press to begin the process and gave him a quick kiss before pressing the last one. By my side, Kai glowed with a happy golden starlight. “You're beautiful.” I told him while I could still speak, my view of his smile fading as my vision left me.

Turning into this golden form was very strange. It took away your senses one by one. The first to leave was sight and I found it wasn't all that important after all. Next to go was smell and then taste. I didn't need those anyway. My sense of touch went away and I panicked when I couldn't feel Kai's warmth anymore before a calming sense of closeness filled me that had nothing to do with touch. I could no longer hear the others as they filed into their pods, but I wasn't worried.

All I felt was a thought, a wish, a hope: to grow old with the alien who visited my home.

* * ***** * *

THE END

* * ***** * *

Author Note:

Here it is: the ending!

I left a few things out when I tied up my loose ends because I'm considering writing a sequel. I don't want to start it now because I have other projects to finish, but it's an idea for the future~

Hope you like weird things, because this was... well, just weird.

YaY for alien goo-people!

***

Edit: the sequel has been started because I have no self control ---> LINK~