Tao's POV

The giggling fit I had died down and a face swam into my vision.

Suho?

He looked haggard, but fully focused. Letting my head fall to the side, I could see Kyungsoo lying on the floor not far away. Why did Suho come to me first? I thought there were people hurt out there. With a groan, I pushed away his arms the best I could in the fallen alien's direction. Kyungsoo could help the others. Kyungsoo was useful and important.

He was needed.

I wasn't.

I watched Suho give up on trying to revive me further and run over to Kyungsoo instead, checking vitals with strange tools and injecting him with something black. With a gasp and an onrush of golden light flowing through his body, Kyungsoo awoke. I would have celebrated, but my vision was fading again.

Luhan, how did you get here?

Don't cry, buddy.

I'm just going to sleep for a while...

Good night...

Ah!

Why'd you shake me?

My brain felt rattled in it's skull, a pounding headache replacing that woozy, floaty feeling.

“Luhan, you .” I'm certain I said this aloud, for my horrid friend broke out in a smile and began gripping my shoulder fondly, calling out for help. With Kyungsoo getting up to his knees, Suho left after someone yelling at him to hurry to the main room.

Was I going to be injected with black stuff? I didn't want to be injected with black stuff, not by Kyungsoo. Couldn't Suho come back for just a second?

Kyungsoo smiled wide at me, a single eyebrow lifted as if he thought my dizzy panicking was something entertaining to watch.

Directly following the sting of the needle was a feeling hard to describe. It made my blood rush all over, loudly past my eardrums and hot in my extremities. It was uncomfortable and I couldn't stop myself from squirming and pushing against the ground as wave after wave of this feeling hit. Someone brushed my hair back from my face and I looked up to see Xiumin there, right beside my old friend.

Liquid gold was racing through my veins. It shone bright as starlight, losing just a little more power after each wave.

What was in that shot? Why does every ailment on this planet have to be solved with needles?

The heat left my fingers and toes and I found myself shivering with it gone. My teeth chattered as I asked exactly where Kyungsoo had gone. He was tending to the emergency going on, of course. Of course... What was that emergency again? There was something... Something about a shipment and the wild and-

Kai.

“Where's Kai?” I asked pulling myself up to a sitting position.

“Uhm, well-”

“Luhan, where is he?” I asked again, losing patience. Still, he avoided answering and I surprised the both of us when my hand suddenly shot out to his neck, literally choking the answer out of him.

He was in the main room, among those attacked.

I knew it.

I was out of there, running down the halls, often colliding into the sides. I felt cold and clammy all over as I stumbled and pushed my way forward. I needed to see him. My movements felt jerky to me and I was sure I could hear Luhan and Xiumin shouting after me, but I continued on. I needed to see him, I needed to see him.

Here it was, the main room, with computers and buttons surrounding us on all sides. It looked very different from the first time I was here. One, there were four pods taking up the space in the middle, a couple being opened as I stood there. Two, an alien couple I remembered from twelve years ago lay on the floor, wracked with pain and holding on to torn and bloodied arms, legs, torsos – anywhere where whatever had attacked them managed to scratch into. And there were wounds that looked like cigarette burns and big round, uniform bruises pock-marked in their skin. They looked awful. One other alien I didn't recognize at all was just as torn up while two more aliens took care of him, only lightly injured themselves.

And Kai...

Where was he?

I found Suho helping this someone I didn't recognize up, pulling him into a pod and setting him down on the metal floor gently and messing with the controls to close it up. Kyungsoo struggled to do the same, weakly tugging at a comrade's arm before Chen abandoned his station at the computers to help.

And Kai?

Where was Kai?

Where-

“Breathe, Panda.”

“But Kai-”

“He's in a pod.” said Xiumin, pulling me up to the nearest one that thrummed lowly in the chaos.

“Why?” I breathed out. “What-What's wrong? Is he...?”

The pod was opening. Layers of metal folded away neatly before me and I was scared. I was scared out of my mind. What was I going to find? It wouldn't..

It wouldn't be a dead body, would it?

I couldn't look. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't-

“Tao, stop being dramatic. Just look.” came Luhan's voice loud and directly in my ear.

I hesitated and in that moment, something grabbed me. Shocked, my eyes flew open.

This... this was real, right? Was I hallucinating?

Kai was here, having stumbled into chest, barely supporting himself. And he was soft and less angular, shorter, he had bright white-blonde hair again, and he-

He smelled weird.

Odd. I didn't normally think about it, but this time... he just smelled weird to me.

But Kai, he was younger and clumsy.

He lost his muscle memory.

This was perfect for me, because I lost my mind.

Kai looked up at me with happy recognition and a trace of something that had been missing before. It was something pure and beautiful in the golden brown of his eyes. I couldn't stop myself from taking advantage of this moment to steal a kiss that held none of the practice he'd shown before. It was so very simple. A brief, yet tender kiss.

It awoke every single memory, every single feeling I ever had for him. Beautiful and golden. Full of wonder and amazement.

This was the sweet, snuggly little alien pet I'd fallen in love with.

Smiling at his stupid grin that I loved so much, I leaned in again, only to be stopped with a finger on my forehead. Kai looked at me, determined, and blinked. Once, twice.

***

Kai's POV

I couldn't find my vocal chords yet. I never did like this part of changing. It was uncomfortable and I felt totally useless. I need the spoken word. How else would Tao know I loved him?

My voice was gone when I recognized him, when I fell forward into him, when I looked up and begged that he know my heart.

Because it hurt when I saw him leave me. I'd just met him again after thinking he could have died or suffered a serious side-effect of the change. I worried so much for him, but just as I found him again, he left like our meeting meant nothing.

That hurt, Taozi. Don't do that again.

And don't hold hands with Luhan. I don't trust him. I couldn't see it twelve years ago, but Luhan was shifty and far too touchy.

It bugged me to see Luhan directly behind Tao, but I forgot soon enough. Tao kissed me! He initiated it himself. Had I done something bad before to make him avoid me? Was I forgiven now?

I couldn't even kiss him properly, but Tao didn't seem to mind. He smiled at me like it was exactly what he wanted. I wanted to let him know. I really wanted him to know. Why was it taking so long for me to speak?

In desperation, I lifted a finger, annoyed that the rest of my body was regaining focus just fine, and greeted him as I had so long ago.

I love you. Tao, I love you. Can you hear me? Do you understand? I love you, so please don't avoid me.

Tao looked at me for a moment before chuckling and copying me.

No, no.

I let my finger slide down slowly, over the curve of his nose until it grazed his lips.

I love you. Don't you remember this? The moment where I sat at the window of your bedroom after having left you to write for your school project. Since then, Suho told me what it was about. He told me it was about us and it was beautiful, and I'd only realized why you cried that day when it was too late. You loved me even back then. So then... what about now?

I sighed inwardly as Tao raised a finger again, sliding it down my nose to my lips. Only, his finger stayed there. Curious, I looked up to silently question this action.

Tao blinked at me once, twice, and leaned in. He placed a kiss right over his fingernail before moving his hand to the side of my face and smiling. “You too.”

His nose bumped mine and I dared to hope-

“I love you too.”

There it is! Finally...

I eagerly responded to his kiss, remembering at last what my lips knew. I wanted to put to use everything I had learned and make him really happy with this. Wouldn't he proud to know I worked so hard for him?

Only he was pulling away from me again, like I'd done something wrong again. What was it? I didn't get it. Didn't he just say that he loved me?

Kyungsoo told me this would work. I had to ask him. Did he teach me something wrong so I'd end up making a fool of myself? That wasn't very nice... Getting angry, I yelled out his name tried to wave him over. The guys on the ground could wait. They'd be fine soon anyways.

***

Tao's POV

“Kyung...soo!”

I gasped as I heard the name, letting Kai walk right out of my arms and head shakily over to the crazy alien doctor. The first words out of his mouth are calling out to Kyungsoo? Was I just being an idiot when I thought he was trying to communicate with me using our memories together?

Maybe those gestures meant something in some kind of alien sign language. Like “ off” or “go away” and “I don't like you anymore”.

My mouth was open, parted to make way for questions. Where are you going? What changed between us? Why Kyungsoo? It seemed like my heart was retreating into the depths of my stomach as he continued to walk further away from me.

He had sounded angry. Was he annoyed that I kissed him? Annoyed that I wanted to be with him even after all these years?

I had to ask my friend. What did he think? I might have seen it wrong. I hoped I saw it wrong. “Luhan?”

“I don't know, Tao. Just-” he shrugged. “Follow him?”

Xiumin agreed with this. “Go find out what they're talking about. He looks pretty angry at him.”

At him?

I turned around, and yes, Kai was shouting at Kyungsoo over the sounds of pained moans, pods opening, and the collective chatter of typing and clicking switches. What was going on?

Getting closer, It was easy to hear what they said.

“-didn't even ask... and you o-... o-offered!” he yelled, stumbling over the words and sometimes forcing them out of his throat in screams.

He was pissed.

But what exactly did Kyungsoo offer? The other alien wasn't saying anything, only blinking at him in surprise.

“You said it w-would w-work!”

What would work?

“You... said I n-needed to know this t-to... keep T-Tao!”

Know what? He wasn't talking about practicing, was he?

“Wh-What did you teach- me? Why-” Kai took a big breath of air in a gulp, eyebrows sharply furrowed. “Why doesn't Tao love me?”

Kyungsoo nodded to himself and suddenly grabbed me on each side of my ribcage and put an ear to my chest. I was really confused now. For one, where do I put my arms? For two, what the heck was he doing?

“Hasn't changed.” reported Kyungsoo, as if this explained everything. I watched in amazement as he sauntered off, back to work.

“Hasn't changed? Kyungsoo!” Kai yelled again. “Get back here! I'm not done-”

“I'm sorry if my advice didn't work, Kai, but there's nothing I can-”

Advice...

Not caring for the rest of the statement, I stepped forward and took this idiot in my arms again. Why didn't I think of this possibility? Kyungsoo had simply told Kai what to do and Kai, being alien with a super computer brain, understood how to use what he learned by hearing in his body.

Idiot. Why'd he make me worry like that? He could have said something instead of springing this whole thing on me without a word. Did he not know how that looked? Kai could never cheat on me.

“You still love me?” I asked him, though in retrospect, he really hadn't ever said it to me aloud. I'd always assumed, but it felt like a given after all we'd been through.

“Yes,” he said over my shoulder as we hugged, adorably confused. “I love you, Tao.”

We pulled away and I could see him accepting the situation, lips going tight in a broad smile that really couldn't fit his face. He laughed and drew in, keeping close without actually kissing me. When his lips just barely touched mine again, a guilty feeling came over me, because now I was the one who had cheated. I pushed him away, unable to keep it from him anymore.

“I kissed Luhan!” I admitted right to his face.

“ert.” called an alien being towed away to an open pod by Suho, who stopped to stare incredulously at my confession. “Are all humans like this?”

“You what?”

Guilt stabbed at me horribly at the sound of Xiumin's voice and I couldn't keep my head up anymore. I was the one in the wrong. I betrayed Kai. I'm a horrible boyfriend. How could Kai possibly love someone like me? He waited twelve years for me and this was how i repaid him?

“Luhan!” Xiumin jumped on his boyfriend and for a split-second, I worried that he was going in for the kill, but he just hugged him with all his might. “I was so worried! I mean- not that it would have changed anything, but Luhan! Xiaolu, my Xiaolu!”

“Minnie,” Luhan was just as startled as I was. “What's going on? Aren't you mad at me?”

“Mad? I thought you two were obviously-” he stopped for a second. “close.”

“Obviously?” How could he think that about us? Luhan was a creep. And a jerk. And an .

This creep fought to find his words before they came out in a rush, “Baozi, what do you take me for? Just because we're comfortable with , very comfortable with ,”

“Eww, Lu. Gross.”

As if he hadn't heard me, Luhan continued rushing on, “Doesn't mean that I'm willing to do that with anyone else. You're special to me, Baozi.”

“I am?”

“Come on, you know me. You really think I'd go all the way with that panda?” he said in disgust.

“Hey, you started it!” I shot out before I could stop it. Was I trying to dig my friend an early grave?

But again, Xiumin responded weirdly. “Of course he did.” he said, completely unfazed. “You wouldn't hurt Kai-”

“What makes you think I'd hurt you?” asked Luhan, offended.

Suho came over to me, passing off his patient to Kyungsoo. “Tao, is this all true?”

At least my old teacher was responding normally. He looked more hurt than Kai, who looked like he was working something out. Poor Suho. I probably crushed his faith in love all over again. I nodded, looking at the ground because I was so ashamed to be like this in front of him. In the end, I'm still a big disappointment.

Suho signaled to Kyungsoo who came by and slapped a small beeping thing wrapped in something sticky to my neck. “You feel really bad about this.”

“Yeah,” I answered to my shoes, though that hadn't been a question. Getting used to the idea that they'd keep on doing these weird things to us during our whole stay, I ignored the thing on my neck. At least it wasn't another needle.

“Ch-Cheer up,” I jumped as a pair of arms encircled me without warning.

“Chanyeol, get your hands off that ert! When I get out of-” the alien who spoke no longer had the use of his vocal chords as they melted into a gold fluid. He used the last of his time as a solid being to make a very rude gesture.

This Chanyeol waved at the alien until the pod closed on him. “Why a-are... you sad?” he asked me in a deep voice.

No one seemed to be helping me with this guy and Kai stilled hadn't looked up at me. “Uhm... I'm disappointed that I was so weak.” I kept my arms close and nervously rubbed my sleeves. When did this become such a big audience? There was Xiumin, Luhan, Chen and Sehun at the computers, Kyungsoo and Suho who now only had to wait for the pods to open again, and this newly changed alien who was intruding on something that didn't concern him at all. “And that I thought my mistake wasn't a big deal because I wrongly held the idea that Kai had done worse. That was really stupid. I shouldn't have assumed the worst.”

“Tao, why did you do it?” asked Suho, edging in closer with a pained look on his face. This was all wrong and weird. Suho was acting like Kai should have been, Xiumin was completely off target here, Luhan was off the hook even though he started it, and Chanyeol... Who was this guy? Also, the other two lightly injured aliens were walking towards us now that their older friend was sitting on the floor, enjoying watching his fingers move separately.

“He didn't. Luhan did it.” laughed Xiumin.

“But I agreed with it.” It was the truth. I wasn't about to lie about what I did. The guilt would eat me alive. “Kai, I'm sorry.” I sniffled.

“Already?” came Kyungsoo's voice, shoving past Chanyeol to inspect me with more weird tools that pulled at my nostrils, pinched at my cheeks, and poked at my teeth (my teeth, really?). I swiped away his arms in annoyance and let the tears fall. “Fascinating. Suho, you got the read on this?”

“No. Shh...” Suho shushed him. “I'm trying to listen.”

Kai wasn't looking up still. His head tilted ever so slightly left and then right.

“Kai?”

“I can't picture it.” he spoke at last. “You and Luhan... I don't understand. In all the dramas, those who kiss fall in love. Do you love Luhan too?”

“No, Kai.” I used my sleeves to soak up the wetness on my cheeks and began to explain. “Luhan... is kind of like family. I have no choice but to appreciate his existence because he's not going anywhere anytime soon. Like, seriously Lu, you could have moved out of your parents house in any one of those twelve years.”

“You didn't.” Luhan pointed out. “And I had five years with Minnie in that house. I wasn't about to let it go.”

“Aw.” His boyfriend planted a kiss on his cheek and I was getting more put out that I couldn't do the same to mine. I didn't deserve that kind of happiness anyway.

“Then what's the problem?” Kai asked me and I had to remember that just because he watched plenty of romance dramas, it didn't mean he fully understood all of Earth's social expectations. He hadn't spent much time there at all compared to everyone else.

“It's a problem, Kai. I love you so much, but I was selfish and betrayed your trust and-” I had to take a deep breath to calm down. I didn't want to cry so hard in front of so many people. “I did a bad thing, Kai. Something unfair to you.”

“How long ago was this kiss?” asked Suho.

“Wasn't it like three or four years ago?” Luhan in “Ah, three because that was when we melted Taemin into the golden form and went out to celebrate. No-yes, yes that's right.”

“Tao, it's in the past. Just kiss the man.” Suho prodded me forward and I was stuck in front of that puppy-eyed stare again.

“Kai-”

“You heard him.” he smirked, waiting. His eyes never left me as I leaned in for the kiss.

Was this really okay? I still felt a bit guilty. Maybe that feeling will never go away.

I was about three thousand percent sure that it was Suho I heard clapping when we kissed before I heard a second pair of hands clapping just as excitedly in the direction where Chanyeol had been standing. Who was that guy?

“Uhm...” said the voice of an older male, probably one of the two I didn't recognize at all. I didn't really want to spare the time to look at them though. “This might be a bad time, but Minho and Taemin are still out there.”

“Yeah,” said the other. “We lost them during the attack. Personally, I think Minho knows how to defend himself well enough that they got away safely, but-”

“There is a very high chance that they were killed.” The first finished off. “Even higher for the human.”

Well, that's one way to kill the mood. Me and Kai broke it off and waited to hear more. He already knew all this, but I needed to hear it too.

“That was completely unnecessary, Jonghyun.” chided the taller one with black hair. His friend had bright blonde hair like Kai's. I should be older than them. They were only in their twenties or so.

“Hey, I told you and everyone here that bringing a human outside was a bad idea, but did you listen?” Jonghyun paused for an answer, before realizing he wasn't going to get one. “No.”

“Our assistant might be dead?” asked Luhan.

“Or just lost.” The black-haired one reminded him.

“So let's find them.” Suho decided. “The emergency pod out there is overrun by fairies. They'll have a hard time getting to it.” He started off for the hall, yelling out behind him for everyone to suit up and follow emergency procedure- Well, honestly, I'm not quite sure what he said. It sounded like a cross between a screeching door and owl hooting. Was that their native language? They didn't translate their emergency codes yet?

But wait, was he joking? Did I hear him wrong?

Fairies?

You have got to be kidding me.

***

Author Note:

Baekhyun once called Tao a ert for wearing a cat-ear headband

And for some reason, I felt the need to include that little comment

Idek, I just had to