Archive of Our Own ^beta

In Yangyang’s defence, he was, like, pretty damn drunk.

So drunk that no one believes him when he says that he saw a shooting star fall out of the sky. Which, for the record, he did ‒ a dazzling streak of white light followed by a muted boom somewhere beyond the clearing where Renjun’s friends are hosting their not-exactly-legal bonfire.

“Bro,” Yangyang says. “How could you not have seen that?”

“How could you?” Renjun wants to know. “We were all busy unloading the fireworks. Or at least, almost all of us.”

Yangyang ignores the implication that he had slacked off ‒ his noodle-y arms can only do so much. “What about that noise, then?”

“Jeno was chopping firewood, wasn’t he,” Renjun says, exasperated, then squints at Yangyang. “How much have you had to drink, exactly?”

Not as much as when he finally turned eighteen and maxed out his credit card ordering jagerbombs at the fanciest club in town. Yangyang tells Renjun as much ‒ badly, because of the whole alcohol numbing his tongue thing ‒ who simply scoffs.

“If that’s your bar, then it’s on the floor,” Renjun sniffs. “Go drink some water before I dunk your head in the cooler to sober you up.”

He’s quickly distracted by his friends jeering when Jeno swings his axe, and misses, the log for the third time. Yangyang briefly considers saying something about how maybe sharp objects, amateur pyrotechnics and free-flowing alcohol aren’t the safest combination, but then realises that this is the perfect opportunity to sneak away and prove his theory re: the unidentified falling object right.

So, leaving Renjun to ogle Jeno and his bunched-up muscles, Yangyang tiptoes away and disappears into the forest.

And, okay ‒ who would let their drunk friend just wander off on their own? Yangyang wasn’t even invited to this gathering. He doesn’t know them like that. Renjun had just dragged him along as a back-up plan in the event he couldn’t find anyone to take home that night. Which was kind of hurtful ‒ maybe not as hurtful as the branches that are somehow all shin-height and keep scratching Yangyang bloody as he makes his way deeper into the forest ‒ because, like. What if Yangyang wanted to bring someone home? Not that he has, recently, but. Whatever! At least this way, Yangyang won’t have to suffer the indignity of riding in the back as Renjun pretends to know how to drive to impress that night’s hook-up.

So, yeah. Actually? On hindsight, it’s all Renjun’s fault.

Anyway. One thing leads to another, and now Yangyang’s found himself in another clearing, this one a lot smaller and circled by towering conifers, housing what he can only describe as a flying saucer that appears to have crash-landed into the ground.

And an unconscious man lying next to it, slathered head to toe in gelatinous goo.

Yangyang screeches to a stop. “Oh my god?”

The guy on the ground doesn’t stir. Yangyang edges closer, and prods him with the toe of his shoe. The goo squishes unpleasantly against his Converse.

“Er ‒ hi. Hi? Can you hear me?”

Yangyang’s not a creep, or anything, but the dude is handsome. In a prince-like, otherworldly sort of way, the light from the full moon filtering between the tree leaves and scattering across his face in pretty patterns. He’s even got a nice black suit on. Or, well, it would’ve been nice, if that weird slime weren’t splattered all over it.

Yangyang prods Goo Guy again, then accidentally kicks him when he slips in some of the slime. Goo Guy’s eyes remain shut. His skin is deathly pale. His lips are turning blue ‒

Blue? Blue?!

That. Is not a good sign.

“Oh my god,” Yangyang says, starting to hyperventilate. “Oh my god ‒ shit, dude. Dude, hey, can you, like, wake up and breathe?”

Unsurprisingly, Goo Guy doesn’t respond. His lips are an unsettling shade of violet now. And Yangyang may have dropped biology as soon as he could, but even he knows that he’s running out of time.

“Okay ‒ ” Yangyang crouches down, slipping a little, and does his best to wipe off the slime slathered on Goo Guy’s face. His skin is cold to the touch, which is, like, even more worrying, right? “Um, sorry in advance, but I gotta just, like ‒ ”

Hoping that he still remembers those health and safety classes in school, Yangyang bends down, tips Goo Guy’s head back, and presses their lips together.

Goo Guy’s mouth parts beneath Yangyang’s, and then it’s like. The whole world stops. It doesn’t even slow, it just ‒ stops. Everything freezes. The air stills. Yangyang can hear his heartbeat in his ears, an unending, singular pulse. The moment hangs, suspended, in the space between Yangyang and the guy, a heavy, unknowable weight, and Yangyang feels himself move the tiniest bit forwards, feels a shock of static, something sparking, something starting ‒

‒ and then everything speeds back up to normal when Goo Guy shoves him away, coughing loudly.

Yangyang unceremoniously falls back onto his butt. Goo Guy sits up gingerly, scowling at his suit and shaking the gunk from his hands. The moment he notices Yangyang, Yangyang’s skin prickles all over. Goo Guy is a lot more good-looking awake than asleep, with wide, piercing eyes that gleam attractively in the moonlight. Yangyang straightens unconsciously, trying to make himself look as cool and unbothered as possible, and smiles, because Renjun had told him that was his best feature. Hey, you never know ‒ maybe Goo Guy will, like, thank him for saving his life. Then Yangyang will not only prove that he wasn’t seeing things, but also score a dinner date. Ha! Take that, Renjun!

Instead of expressing his fervent thanks, though, the first words out of Goo Guy’s mouth are, “Your breath smells like beer.”

Yangyang’s smile slides off his face.

“Um. Sorry?”

“You should be,” the guy says. “Alcohol is poison to your body.”

Maybe Goo Guy should’ve stayed unconscious, because he’s becoming less and less likeable the more he speaks. “No offence, but you’re covered in, like ‒ ” Yangyang gestures jerkily “ ‒ stuff, so I don’t think you get to judge.”

“Why can I smell your breath anyway? Did you just ‒ ” Goo Guy’s eyes widen, and he looks up at the moon, then back down at Yangyang, before asking urgently, “Did you ‒ did you kiss me?”

“What?” Yangyang cries, colouring. “No, man! I ‒ I gave you CPR!”

“CP ‒ what is that?”

Yangyang, suddenly, can’t for the life of him remember what it stands for. He crosses his arms, embarrassed. “Y’know,” he grumbles. “Cardio resusci… something. I don’t know. Whatever, the important thing is, I saved your life!”

Goo Guy laughs at that, long and hard, with his head thrown back and everything. Yangyang wouldn’t feel half as irritated if he didn’t look so good doing it.

“My life did not need saving. I was merely temporarily torpid.”

“Excuse me?” Yangyang says, starting to get kind of mad at the use of obscure words he doesn’t understand. “Your lips were turning blue.”

“A natural function of my body when I am deep in my consciousness,” Goo Guy explains. “Besides, my internal body clock wakes me every seven standard galaxy hours.”

“Seven standard gala-what?”

Goo Guy ignores Yangyang. He stands, wiping his hands on his suit, which only serves to smear the slime there, and peers at the spaceship.

“Tell me, earthling. Did you happen to see anything else in this field?”

“Like what?” Yangyang asks nervously.

“Like…” Goo Guy pauses, considering. “Like eight foot tall ‒ ah, no, these coordinates use the metric system ‒ two point four-three-eight-four metres tall creatures that would be best described as cephalopodic in appearance, each of them holding between four to eight reverberating carbonisers in their retractable tentacle arms?”

Yangyang feels his eyes bug out of his head. The fuck?

“N-no,” he stutters. “Just you. And the slime. And… that.”

They both glance at the spaceship. On closer inspection, Yangyang sees that one of the panels appears to have been pried open, and is hanging on its hinges. There are long scratch marks on either side of the panel. Like something had clawed its way in.

Or out.

“Excellent,” Goo Guy says, interrupting the shiver that runs down Yangyang’s spine. “It seems that Dejun’s latest invention is effective in wide-scale vaporisation. Another job well done for super Secret Agent Hendery Wong!”

He gives himself a literal pat on the back for that. Yangyang blinks.

“Sorry,” he says. “Did you say ‒ secret agent? And ‒ was that your full name?”

Hendery looks impressed. “You have excellent hearing.”

“That’s not very spy-ey of you, is it?”

“Oh! It doesn't matter.” Hendery shrugs, unruffled, then says rather ominously, “You won’t remember any of this anyway.”

Wait. What?

“Wait,” Yangyang says, vocalising his very eloquent thoughts. “What?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Hendery says. “It’s just… protocol.”

He reaches into his breast pocket. The object he pulls out is shiny, long and thin, rounded at each end. It sort of looks like the cases Renjun uses to store his toothbrush when travelling.

“All the answers,” Hendery says, in the same soothing, non-threatening-but-actually-pretty-threatening tone that kidnappers use to lure kids to their vans with sweets, “are found right here.”

Hendery presses a button, and the top of the toothbrush case slides down. Unlike Renjun’s fancy storage solutions, this one contains a sinister-looking blinking red light.

“You just have to…” Hendery licks his lips, which is not helping the whole creepy, kidnap-y vibe. “...look here.”

Yangyang is, like, ninety-nine percent sure he’s about to die if he doesn’t do something. Renjun’s always saying that he’s got no self-preservation. Thank god he isn’t here. Yangyang doesn’t think he could stand a lecture right before he’s, like, detonated, or whatever the fuck that silver toothbrush case in Hendery’s hand is going to do to him.

So it’s out of pure spite and a desire to prove that one of his alleged fatal flaws is wrong when Yangyang bravely says, “Uh, nah, bro, I’m good. You seem to be totally fine now, so I’m just gonna ‒ ”

Yangyang jerks a thumb over his shoulder.

Then, taking advantage of Hendery’s confused look, he books it the hell out of there.

He hears Hendery’s cry of “Wait!”, but Yangyang obviously does not wait. He sprints away, throwing himself into the thicket of trees surrounding the clearing. He doesn’t care where he’s going, as long as it’s away from Hendery, and the spaceship, and madness.

He makes it only a few metres when, suddenly, he comes to a stop. Not because his brain told him to. No, his feet have simply ‒ ceased working.

Yangyang gets all of one second to think wait, what when there’s a sharp, powerful tug somewhere behind his navel. The next thing he knows, he’s being yanked backwards and dragged kicking and screaming through the trees, leaves and bark and branches whipping against him, scraping across his face and arms and legs ‒

‒ until he collides right into Hendery, goo and all, with a dreadful squelch.

There’s a prolonged, stunned silence.

“What,” they say in unison, “the fuck?”

🛸

“ ‒ and he said he didn’t kiss me,” Hendery finishes, “but he totally did.”

Tonight has been nothing short of confusing. Following their encounter in the woods, Yangyang’s been dragged by Hendery (against his will, because every time he tries to get away, he’s inexplicably pulled back to his side like a rubber band snapping back) to a building for the Department of Immigration, down what seemed like a bajillion levels in an elevator, and then spat out onto a floor which looks straight out of Star Wars, or something, all sleek steel and arctic white cubicles with tons of people in black suits looking very busy.

They’re seated before one such person now. His suit looks the tiniest bit nicer than the others, and his office is higher up, overlooking the bullpen, so he must be, like, pretty important. Yangyang squirms in his egg-shaped chair nervously, still coated in slime, and cringes when he accidentally gets some on the seat. He feels like he’s in the principal’s office, or something.

And Hendery feels like the kid he got into a fight with on the playground, ratting him out.

“For the millionth time, I didn’t kiss you!” Yangyang says. “I was administering CPR!”

“That,” the new man in the suit says, “is technically a kiss.”

Yangyang squints at him. “Sorry ‒ and not to be rude ‒ but who are you again?”

“You may call me Agent K,” the man in the suit says.

“That’s Kun,” Hendery says at the same time.

Kun lets out a sigh so deep and audible that the people downstairs in the bullpen look up.

“Um,” Yangyang says. “Was I not supposed to know that?”

Kun shrugs. “I guess it doesn’t matter. He’ll neuralyze you eventually.”

“Neura-what?”

“Agent H will explain later,” Kun says. “You’re going to be stuck with him for a while, anyway.”

“Yeah, about that,” Yangyang says, still trying to work out what’s going on. “Agents? You guys with the government, or something?”

“No,” Kun says.

“No?”

“No,” Hendery says.

Yangyang blinks. “Then…?”

“We,” Kun says, then pauses for dramatic effect. “Are the Men in Black.”

Yangyang waits for him to elaborate. Kun does not. Yangyang’s eyes slide from Kun’s nice black suit to Hendery’s slime-coated one.

“Wow,” he coughs. “Very, uh. Imaginative.”

“We monitor alien activity,” Hendery clarifies helpfully.

Yangyang thinks back to the sign over the building. “Like the immigration people?” he asks, and Kun looks about two seconds away from rolling his eyes so hard they fall out of his head.

“No,” he says with obvious forced patience. “The Men in Black are a secret organisation tasked with protecting Earth from the scum of the universe.”

“And by ‘scum of the universe’, you mean ‒ ”

“Rogue aliens,” Hendery says. “Duh.”

And Renjun thinks Yangyang’s drinking is bad? Wait till he gets a load of these delusional weirdos.

“Right,” Yangyang says, nodding and hoping his face doesn’t scream get me out of here. “Cool. Now that that’s cleared up, can we, like ‒ you know. Do something about this?”

He gestures at the space between himself and Hendery. Kun frowns.

“You kissed a Xyon in the presence of a full moon,” he says. “Don’t you know what that means?”

Yangyang doesn’t even know what a Xyon is. “No.”

“It’s like Kun said earlier,” Hendery says. “You’re stuck with me. Literally.”

For someone cosmically leashed to another person, Hendery doesn’t seem too concerned about it. In fact, he’s almost the opposite. He’d recounted the entire story to Kun with a lightheartedness that Yangyang didn’t share, and had snuck Yangyang several glances that ranged from bemused to inquisitive, his wide, round eyes zoning in on Yangyang in like a particularly interesting lab specimen.

In an alternative universe, Yangyang would’ve loved a handsome guy’s attention, but now it just makes him feel exposed.

“Okay, but, like, for how long?” he asks, a little desperately.

Hendery clears his throat. “Well, the kiss ‒ ”

“Not a kiss.”

“ ‒ under the full moon activated my personal gravitational field ‒ and you, as the kisser, were caught up in it. It’s as good as a physical bond, which cannot be broken unless in specified circumstances.”

“Circumstances?” Now that the alcohol is wearing off, the dull edge of Yangyang’s panic is beginning to sharpen. “What circumstances? Don’t you ‒ don’t you people have medicine or something to just stop it?”

“No,” Kun says again. Yangyang is starting to get the feeling that that’s his favourite word. “But there is a way to defy the gravitational field.”

Yangyang waits. Kun says nothing.

God, it’s like pulling teeth with these Men in Black.

“How?”

“You just have to attain what your heart truly desires by the next full moon,” Kun says. “Otherwise…”

He hesitates. Yangyang is not liking where this is going.

“Otherwise, what?” he demands.

“Otherwise,” Hendery says blithely, “you’ll be reduced to nothing but dust as a result of all your wasted, unrealised potential when the first light of the moon touches your skin.”

Yeah. Yangyang is not liking this at all.

He stands so abruptly that his egg chair wobbles. Hendery and Kun look up at him, shocked.

“No,” Yangyang says vehemently. He’s reclaiming that word, okay? “No, no, nope. Thanks a lot ‒ not ‒ for this. I don’t know who the hell you guys are, or what you did to me, but it isn’t funny. At all. And, aliens? Seriously? Yeah, this is clearly a Scientology-inspired cult, and I’m not about to let you guys brainwash me for my money.”

“Excuse me,” Hendery says, offended. “Scientology is the leading religion on my planet, and the most valuable currency isn’t money. It’s mental and emotional clarity.”

“Okay, man, whatever you say,” Yangyang says. “I’m out of here.”

He stalks past Kun and Hendery. He flings open the door, and, stepping over the threshold, throws up a middle finger.

Which, in hindsight, was really tempting fate.

There’s a familiar tightening behind his belly button, and then Yangyang is catapulted backwards, knocking into Hendery as he goes. They crash into the glass window making up the length of Kun’s office, which shatters beneath their weight, and then they’re falling, falling, falling. Yangyang has just enough time for his life to flash before his eyes ‒ why the fuck had he spent so much time playing video games ‒ when he’s caught by a pair of strong arms.

Wait. Make that two pairs of strong arms.

Yangyang lifts his head, and nearly passes out. Because the person who caught him isn’t a person at all ‒ unless there’s a person out there who’s got four arms, blue scales for skin and eyelids that close the wrong way, in which case, Yangyang is really drawing a blank right now.

“Oh dear,” the alien says. “Are you okay?”

🛸

So. Aliens are real.

“Don’t call Winwin that,” Hendery admonishes from where he’s perched on the countertop. “He’s probably been on Earth longer than you have.”

They’re in the office pantry now, out of the way of a cleaning crew consisting of more aliens ‒ these ones are shrimp-like, who barely come up to Yangyang’s knees ‒ who had turned up with surprising swiftness to sweep up the mess. They squabble in a language Yangyang doesn’t understand, chucking glass at each other instead of into the black plastic bags they brought with them.

Meanwhile, Winwin is keeping busy. Two arms are rooting through cabinets, another is flicking on the kettle to boil, and the last one is getting down a mug from a shelf. They pinwheel about, a blur of blue with the occasional rainbow flashing as Winwin’s scales catch the ugly fluorescent lights just right.

“Shh,” Winwin shushes Hendery. “Don’t be so reproachful. The kid’s just had a shock.”

“Him?” Hendery cries. “What about me? You caught him and let me, your favourite co-worker, fall straight through Kai’s desk. And you know he collects Lego. It hurt like a bitch.”

“When did I say you were my favourite co-worker?” Winwin asks mildly. “And aren’t Xyons virtually indestructible, and tough, and don’t cry, or did I mishear you bragging about it to that girl at the bar last week?”

“It’s not bragging if it’s true!”

Winwin ignores Hendery and busies himself with the kettle. A few seconds later, he sits across from Yangyang, resting all four of his arms on the table. Yangyang is torn between passing out at the sight, and reaching out and touching them.

“Here, you poor, fragile thing,” Winwin coos. “Are you alright?”

He slides the mug over. It has a tiny alien in a tiny spaceship on it. The words I NEED SPACE are stencilled along the bottom.

After everything he’s seen and heard tonight, Yangyang doesn’t just need space. He needs a whole ass lobotomy.

“Um,” he says faintly. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Winwin asks, concerned.

“You don’t look it,” Hendery observes. “You look pale. Sickly.”

“I said I’m fine,” Yangyang snaps, nerves grating with Hendery’s blaséness, and snatches up the mug. He’s about to down it when he sees that it’s filled with a glittery sludge. “Uh ‒ what is this?”

“Distilled black hole,” Hendery chirps. “Suck it down before it sucks you up.”

Yangyang delicately sets the mug down.

“Or,” Winwin says worriedly, “I have some peppermint tea at my desk?”

Yangyang’s throat clicks as he swallows. “Um. Sure?”

“I’ll go get it,” Hendery volunteers, jumping up, and is immediately stopped by Winwin.

“Not unless you want to catapult him across the pantry,” he scolds. “I’ll get it. You stay here and keep this earthling… occupied.”

With one last doubtful look in Yangyang’s direction, Winwin steps out. Leaving Hendery and Yangyang to sit in uncomfortable silence.

When Yangyang looks out of the corner of his eye, Hendery is looking at him with undisguised curiosity. Yangyang flushes and turns away, pretending to study the motivational posters on the walls. Even with his back to him, though, he’s keenly aware of Hendery’s gazed fixed on him, unblinking and unrelenting.

Yangyang makes it through the very basic, and very cringy, reach for the moon, and you’ll fall amongst the stars before he cracks.

“What?” he asks, whirling around.

Hendery jerks. “Huh?”

“You’re, like ‒ staring.”

“No, I’m not,” Hendery says, staring.

“Dude ‒ ” Yangyang thrusts a hand at him “ ‒ yes, you are!”

They make eye contact. A beat passes, and Hendery seems to realise that Yangyang has a point. He turns a delicate shade of pink and promptly slaps a hand over his eyes. After a moment, though, he peeks out between his fingers. Yangyang sighs, exasperated.

“You’re doing it again!”

Hendery lowers his hand, giving up the facade. “Well, sorry! I can’t help it!”

“You can’t help staring?”

“I’ve never been in such close proximity to an earthling before,” Hendery confesses, and Yangyang frowns.

“What about Kun?”

“Oh, no.” Hendery shakes his head vigorously. “He’s my boss. He doesn’t count.”

It’s amazing, Hendery’s ability to make the truth sound offensive.

“Well, you don’t have to, like, look at me all the time,” Yangyang grumbles.

“Technically, I don’t have a choice. We’re stuck together, you and I.”

Again, there’s that ‒ Renjun would use a fancy word, like laissez-faire, or something. Yangyang just thinks that Hendery is far too chilled out for something so serious. Maybe he’s on drugs, or something. He wouldn’t put it past these nutcases.

“You don’t seem very upset by it,” Yangyang observes.

“’Tis but a minor inconvenience,” Hendery says matter-of-factly. “I’m the one who’s creating the gravitational field ‒ it is you, the metaphorical satellite, caught in my orbit, cursed to follow wherever I go.”

“How lucky for you,” Yangyang says sarcastically.

“It is, isn’t it,” Hendery says serenely.

Yeah. There’s no way this dude isn’t, like, on something.

Maybe ‒ just maybe ‒ this is just a bad reaction from the shitty keg Renjun’s friends bought. Yangyang closes his eyes and counts to ten. When he opens them, though, Hendery is still sitting on the countertop, swinging his legs back and forth. He’s also still staring at Yangyang.

Yangyang deflates. So this is really real, then.

“So,” he says. “How do we get rid of this?”

Hendery tilts his head. “This?”

“This,” Yangyang emphasises, gesturing at the space between them, and Hendery shrugs nonchalantly.

“You heard Kun. You must achieve your heart’s desires by the next full moon.”

“He was not being serious.”

“I assure you he was.”

“Heart ‒ ” Yangyang sputters. “What the fuck even is a heart’s desire?”

Hendery shrugs again. “It varies from person to person. It can be as idealistic as achieving a world record, or as mundane as falling in love. I wouldn’t know. Only you would.”

“What if I don’t have a heart’s desire?”

“Nonsense,” Hendery says dismissively. “Everyone has one.”

Yangyang is cripplingly shy, working part-time in the neighbourhood coffeeshop to supplement his dwindling trust fund, and is currently in the throes of a quarter-life crisis. None of which are exactly a solid foundation for achieving a heart’s desire, let alone forming one. Like, the reason why Yangyang is even a barista is because he’d gone and picked linguistics for his degree. Why hadn’t he listened to his mom, and studied something useful instead? No one on this side of the hemisphere speaks German.

Unwilling to accept that he may be stuck with Hendery for, like, ever, Yangyang asks, “And how do you know it’s me? What if it’s you who’s causing this?”

“Impossible.” Hendery straightens, looking down his perfectly sharp nose at Yangyang. He probably doesn’t mean to, but it comes off as kind of condescending. “I have achieved all of my heart’s desires and reached my full potential as a living being. In fact, my mother tells me I reached self-actualisation at the tender age of five. Which is rare, even for my species.”

Well. Humble, Hendery is not.

“Okay,” Yangyang says, accepting defeat and slumping in his seat. “So it’s me. How the fuck am I supposed to find out what my heart’s desire is?”

Before Hendery can reply. Winwin returns with another mug in his hand. “Here,” he says, pushing it towards Yangyang. “Your peppermint tea.”

Yangyang takes a sip. The teabag hasn’t been left in for long enough, and the water is lukewarm. Winwin and Hendery hover over him, watching him for any reaction to what is objectively a mid cup of tea. Yangyang lowers his mug, and tries to smile. Judging by the concerned looks on their faces, he doesn’t do a very good job.

Yangyang grimaces, and puts down the mug. “So… What now?”

“Well.” Winwin thinks. “You could stay here. Hendery lives in the dorms provided for agents, and I’m sure Dejun wouldn’t mind giving up his bunk bed while Hendery and you figure out how to break the gravitational field ‒ ”

Yangyang is lowkey appalled. A bunk bed? What is this, boarding school? Even the one Yangyang’s parents had sent him to had a double bed, minimum.

As Winwin and Hendery discuss how best to bribe Hendery’s roommate to move out for the month, Yangyang remembers a piece of vital information that could help him out. “I have a cat,” he says loudly, and Hendery and Winwin’s heads swivel towards him. “I can’t leave him alone.”

Hendery looks intrigued. “A cat?”

“Yeah.” Coco is a ragdoll cat, as pretty as they come, and particularly vicious with Yangyang’s shoes and furniture whenever Yangyang does something he deems unforgivable. Like slipping vitamins into his food, or waking up two minutes past his alarm. “He’s, um. Kind of uptight, though. He’ll freak out if I’m not home when he wakes up so I should probably, like, get going.”

With that, Yangyang stands and edges around the table towards the door. Hendery doesn’t get the memo, though, and Yangyang barely makes two strides out into the bullpen before there’s a tug behind his navel and he’s slingshot backwards into Hendery’s open arms.

“Whoa, there.” Hendery smiles sunnily down at him, and Yangyang is slightly disgruntled ‒ and distracted ‒ by the fact that he’s slightly taller than he is. “So I guess I’m coming too, huh?”

As if Yangyang could say no.

🛸

The thing is, if Yangyang had a heart’s desire, he’d have thought he’d already gotten it when he adopted Coco.

Adopted is maybe the wrong word. Yangyang had been in the alley behind his workplace, shielding himself against the pouring rain as he took out the garbage, when he had heard a tiny little meow. That meow had belonged to an even tinier cat, barely bigger than the palm of Yangyang’s hand. He was cowering behind the bins, his fur matted by the rain and dirt and god knows what else. He also had the saddest, bluest eyes Yangyang had ever seen, just like the one on his emoji keyboard, and when their eyes locked, Yangyang’s heart was lost. Like, immediately.

He hadn’t tried very hard looking for Coco’s owners ‒ and surely he had owners, because a quick Google search let Yangyang know that he was a ragdoll, and ragdoll kittens were expensive and rare. So when no one had come looking for him after a few days, or responded to the half-assed CAT FOUND poster Yangyang had made and stuck to the register, he made the executive decision to keep Coco for himself.

Which turned out, actually, to be a good thing. A great thing. Up until that point, Yangyang’s life had kind of lacked purpose, but now he had one. Being Coco’s big brother! (No matter what Renjun said, he wasn’t a dad. He was too young for that shit.)

And, yeah, okay, maybe it was kind of expensive when Yangyang had to use that month’s pay to buy cat toys, and a bed, and that fancy drinking water fountain which he probably could’ve done without but looked really cool. Maybe it was difficult, when Coco turned up his cute little nose at all the food Jaemin said he fed his cats and Yangyang had to scour the city for the really premium stuff. Maybe it was even nightmarish, when Coco tore up Yangyang’s beloved sneakers for no apparent reason.

But then one early morning, a couple of weeks after Yangyang had brought Coco home, he’d been awoken by Coco jumping onto his bed. This was unusual ‒ Coco barely even let Yangyang touch him, most times, often shying away. Yangyang had panicked for like a split second, thinking that maybe an intruder had broken into his apartment and was about to kill him, and Coco was using him as a human shield.

Instead, Coco had pillowed himself into Yangyang’s side and, honest to god, started purring. Purring! Yangyang’s insides turned gooey, and it almost brought a tear to his eye. So, yeah. Raising Coco was a lot of work, and came with a lot of sacrifices, but having him finally trust him (and maybe even love him) was worth it. Aside from Renjun, Coco is kind of like the first person ‒ thing? Living being? ‒ that Yangyang’s, like, fully let into his life.

So it’s a little nerve-wracking when Yangyang lets a visibly curious Hendery inside his apartment, and gestures around vaguely.

“So, um, this is me.”

His apartment is, objectively, a disaster. His sofa cushions have all been shoved onto the floor from his afternoon nap yesterday. His dirty dishes from two meals ago are still in the sink, and there are about fifty takeaway coffee cups, still half-filled, dotted around the living area. Yangyang really should’ve cleaned up, but in his defence, he wasn’t expecting any company.

Hendery doesn’t seem to mind the mess. “Oooooh,” he says, and before Yangyang can stop him, begins to wander around the apartment, poking and prodding at Yangyang’s stuff.

Yangyang sighs. “Make yourself at home, I guess,” he mutters, just as Hendery pulls out a zipped case from the bookshelf.

“Wow! What’s this?”

“That’s my electric violin,” Yangyang says.

“And what’s this?” Hendery asks, leaving fingerprints all over Yangyang’s empty fish tank.

“Er, an aquarium.”

“And what’s this?”

“That’s Coco’s water dispenser. Coco is my ‒ ”

“Cat!” Hendery screeches, and Yangyang jumps.

Hendery barrels towards the puff of fur that’s standing, frozen, in the middle of Yangyang’s kitchen. He slides across the tiles so fast that Yangyang’s afraid he’ll crash into Coco. Luckily, Hendery catches himself just in time, and, with an unusual grace, sticks a hand out for Coco to sniff. Yangyang’s kinda impressed that he knows cat etiquette.

“Hi, there. It’s so nice to ‒ hang on a sec.” Hendery squints, and then his eyes widen. “Oh my god! Frank, is that you?”

“Frank?” Yangyang frowns. “His name is Coco ‒ ”

“How are you, buddy!” Hendery says enthusiastically, edging closer, and Yangyang takes a worried step forward.

“Um, he doesn’t like to be touched by strangers.”

“Oh, don’t worry. Frank and I go way back. Come here, you little ‒ ”

There’s a yowl, and then a flash of something sharp, and then Hendery’s shrill screams fill the apartment.

“Ow! Ow, Yangyang, he scratched me!”

“Oh my god,” Yangyang cries. He darts forwards, trying to shield Coco from Hendery’s flailing. “I told you he doesn’t like strangers!”

“Oh my stars,” Hendery groans. “It’s so painful. I’m going to pass out.”

He’s cradling his hand close to his chest, so Yangyang can’t see anything. “Dude, you are not. Relax. It’s probably just a scratch.”

“Just a scratch? It hurts!”

“I thought Winwin said that you said Xyons were indestructible and tough,” Yangyang says, and Hendery huffs.

“Of course not, I only said that to impress that girl!” Hendery scoots right into Yangyang’s personal space, ignoring his noise of protest. “Here, just look. How bad is it?”

He thrusts his hand into Yangyang’s face. And maybe Yangyang should’ve protested harder. Because there, right across Hendery’s knuckles, is a giant gash, already oozing with some viscous pink glittery substance that Yangyang thinks is Xyon blood.

“Oh, damn,” Yangyang says before he can stop himself.

Hendery snatches his hand back, and instantly pales at the sight of the injury.

“Oh, fuck,” he wails. “Oh, fuck. I’m going to bleed out. I’m going to die.”

“Dude,” Yangyang says, trying to remember where his first aid kit is. “Let me ‒ ”

“Tell my father I love him. Tell my mother thank you for my good looks. Tell Cecilia I bequeath my One Piece DVD box sets to her little one when she grows up ‒ ”

“You still watch DVDs?” Yangyang asks, appalled.

“ ‒ and tell Crystal and Cathy,” Hendery continues, ignoring Yangyang, “that it was me who broke ma’s vase when we were kids, and that I’m sorry I let them get caned in my place.”

As Hendery monologues, Yangyang roots through his cupboards. He sighs with relief when he manages to find his dusty first aid kid, and pulls out a roll of bandages.

“Is that all?”

“Yes,” Hendery says dramatically, flopping against the countertops like a dying fish. “And with that, goodbye, dearest Yangyang. Goodbye cruel world. Thanks a lot, you dumb cat ‒ ”

“Jesus Christ, man,” Coco says in a deep and gravelly voice, “get a grip.”

Yangyang promptly drops the roll of bandages.

Because. His ragdoll cat. Just. Talked.

“What,” Yangyang says, “the fuck?”

“Ah, shit,” Coco says. “Uh. Meow?”

“Aha!” Hendery leaps up, pointing triumphantly at Coco. Suddenly, he doesn’t seem so close to death’s door. “I knew it was you, Frank!”

“Shut up, dude,” Coco whines, and Yangyang, like, really needs to sit down.

So he does, sliding down against the cabinets like overcooked spaghetti until his butt hits the floor. Meanwhile, Coco’s come over from where he’d been cowering in the corner, wearing an expression so contrite that it almost looks human.

“My cat,” he says faintly, “can talk?”

“Not a cat,” Hendery corrects. “Frank’s another alien, too, but his form closely resembles the domestic cats here on earth. It’s his M.O. ‒ find some pathetic human to take care of him, then jump on their chests when they’re sleeping and suck the breath out of their bodies before moving on to their next victim.”

Which. What the fuck.

Coco ‒ Frank ‒ whatever ‒ groans. “That was one time, man!”

“One time was enough to put you on the MIB’s radar,” Henderys says primly.

Coco lets out another frustrated groan, then turns to Yangyang, immediately hitting him with the full force of his baby blue boba eyes. Ordinarily, Yangyang would be cooing over his cuteness. Now, Yangyang finds himself unconsciously leaning away, his arm hairs standing on end.

“I don’t do that anymore,” Coco reassures, in his not-super-reassuring voice ‒ how can his cute little baby sound like a chain-smoking man of fifty? “Besides, you’re the nicest human who’s taken care of me. And you buy me the good stuff, none of that dry kibble shit. I wouldn’t suck your breath out even if I wanted to.”

Yangyang eyes him warily. “...Thanks?”

“Do not thank him,” Hendery says.

“It was a compliment!” Coco says defensively.

“It sure didn’t sound like one to me.” Hendery lowers himself until he’s at Coco’s level, staring him down with narrowed eyes. “I’m watching you, you hear? Honestly, it’s a good thing I’m here.”

“And why are you here, exactly?” Coco wants to know. “How do you two know each other? I thought Yangyang was striking out on Grindr.”

Yangyang sputters ‒ he should’ve never let Coco follow him into the bathroom, which is a prime swiping zone. Meanwhile, Hendery shuffles on the spot sheepishly.

“We, er… Got caught in a bit of a situation.”

Coco’s eyes narrow. “What situation?”

“Er,” Hendery says, “the situation where our lips may or may not have made contact under the light of a full moon,” and Coco’s head whips towards Yangyang.

“Oh my god.” His eyes, which were pleading, are now sad. “You’re toast, aren’t you?”

“What?” Yangyang cries. Why does everyone think that? “No, I’m not!”

“I’m gonna have to find someone else to take me in within the month, huh,” Coco laments. He heaves a sigh that sounds far too big for his petite frame. “Maybe I should’ve sucked the life force outta you when I had the chance.”

Yangyang is not at all impressed by his pet’s lack of loyalty.

“Don’t be such a wet blanket,” Hendery scolds. He’s somehow managed to unroll the entire length of bandages, and is struggling to dress his wound. “Make yourself useful and help us out?”

“I don’t have the opposable thumbs required for such a complex task,” Coco says, seemingly content to watch Hendery get tangled up in the fabric.

Yangyang sighs inwardly and gets to his feet. “Let me,” he says, because even though he’s suffered significant psychological damage in the past twenty-four hours, clearly he’s the only one who can do anything around here.

A couple of minutes later, Hendery’s wound is all bandaged up, if not perfectly, then adequately. Hendery shoots Yangyang a grateful look, then turns to Coco.

“No, I meant: can you help us figure out Yangyang’s heart’s desire?”

Coco scrunches his face. “I mean, I can try. But I live with this dude, and trust me, he’s a bum if I ever saw one.”

“Hey!”

“A lovable bum,” Coco amends, which is not really the point, in Yangyang’s opinion. “But, yeah. That’s a tall ask, Agent H.”

Deep down, Yangyang thinks so, too. But then Hendery says, with a surprising amount of charm (and fluttering lashes), “Back when he was arresting you, Kun says you were one of the smartest aliens around. Surely if anyone can help us, it’s you.”

And, okay, Yangyang sees right through the flattery. Coco, on the other hand, doesn’t. But then he’s always been kind of a little narcissistic shit, purring and playing it up for Yangyang’s phone camera, loving being the centre of attention. It’s no different now ‒ Coco looks distinctly pleased, and licks his paw before using it to wash his face, which, gross. Also, with behaviour like that, how the hell was Yangyang supposed to know he wasn’t a cat?

“Alright,” Coco says. “What do y’all wanna know?”

🛸

What Coco tells them, and what Yangyang learns, is this:

1. He needs to figure out his heart’s desire, like, stat. Coco confirms that the next full moon deadline is a real thing, and while Yangyang can avoid going outside at night for the rest of his life, that’s obviously not practical. Also, there’s the whole being tethered to Hendery for the rest of his life, which is so ideal. Not.
2. A heart’s desire isn’t usually something material, or trivial. It has to mean something. Yangyang has to truly want it, and has to truly achieve it.
   

   (“I recommend you make a list. And no,” Coco says with a roll of his eyes before Yangyang can ask, “beating your own high score on a video game does not qualify as a heart’s desire.”

   “But it could!”

   “Trust me.” Coco flicks his tail snootily, and Yangyang gets a faceful of fur. “It doesn’t.”)

3. Also, the gravitational field is finicky as fuck.

“Wh‒ argh!”

Yangyang grabs his shower curtain, desperate for something to hold onto. He gets about one second of respite before there’s the telltale rip of plastic, and the next thing he knows, he’s hurtling down the hall and somersaulting over the back of his sofa where Hendery is sitting, hitting his knee in the process.

“Oh.” He looks nonplussed, like people fly through the air and crumple into a little ball at his feet all the time. “I thought you were getting ready for bed?”

Yangyang lets out a pained whimper. His knee hurts like a bitch.

Hendery, apparently, either doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care. “Are you finished? Because I really have to pee ‒ ”

Yangyang scrambles upright. His toothbrush is still in his mouth, and he yanks it out, sending toothpaste flying.

“What,” he demands through a mouthful of foam, “was that?”

“Pardon?”

“That! I went to the bathroom, like, fifteen minutes ago and it was fine!”

“That’s an awfully long time to get ready for bed,” Hendery observes. “Were you doing ‒ what do you earthlings call it ‒ a number two?”

“Excuse ‒ no.” This dude is weird. Who can poop in just fifteen minutes? “Did you move?”

“I did not,” Hendery says.

Yangyang doesn’t believe him.

“You moved, didn’t you?”

“I did not,” Hendery insists. “I was sitting here the whole time. If anyone moved out of the acceptable radius of my gravitational field, it was probably you.”

“I told you, I was in the bathroom the whole time! So unless your radius is, like, super sensitive, so that I’ll be yanked back like a human yo-yo the second I move a hair’s width too far, or the distance I can go changes ‒ ”

“Oh, yeah,” Coco pipes up, “that might happen sometimes.”

Yangyang and Hendery pause their bickering turn to him, stunned.

“Gravitational force is a tricky thing,” Coco continues. “Planets and their moons are pretty much the only places where they’re constant.”

Yangyang stares. “And you didn’t think to mention this earlier?”

“Eh.” Coco shrugs. If cats could shrug, that is. “I figured it would come up.”

Yangyang turns to Hendery. Now it’s his turn to receive the stink eye.

“You didn’t know all of this?” Yangyang asks icily.

“I didn’t pay much attention in school,” Hendery admits.

And this guy is supposed to be saving them from the scum of the universe? The jokes write themselves.

Coco glances over at them, and his face splits open into a smile so wide it reminds Yangyang of the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland. “Well, now that you know… Unless you want to be doing somersaults in your sleep, I suggest you guys stick close together tonight. Real close.”

Which is how Yangyang and Hendery find themselves lying stiffly under the covers, side-by-side with a healthy gap in between them, on Yangyang’s bed.

Hendery’s voice sounds even louder in the quiet of the room. “I’ve never slept on a bed this big before.”

“You don’t have queens on your planet?”

“Like on Drag Race?”

Yangyang restrains himself from asking how on earth Hendery doesn’t know what an aquarium is, but somehow knows about RuPaul.

“No, I ‒ never mind. Let’s just go to sleep.”

“Okay. Good night!”

Yangyang rolls onto his side, facing away from Hendery. He’s just getting comfortable when something ice cold hits his shin, and he jerks and yelps.

“Watch it!”

“Sorry.” Hendery quickly retracts his foot. “Just getting settled in.”

His voice is a lot closer than before. Yangyang cranes his neck, and nearly has a heart attack when he comes nose-to-nose with Hendery.

“Wh‒ do you mind?”

Hendery tilts his head innocently. “Huh?”

God, this guy.

“Go ‒ ” Yangyang shoves at Hendery’s shoulder, then again “ ‒ back ‒ ”

“But it’s cold,” Hendery whines, “and you’re warm ‒ ”

“What the hell are you talking about, this is a down blanket ‒ ”

Ignoring Hendery’s pleas, Yangyang bodily rolls him until he’s well over the invisible line demarcating their respective halves of the bed. With a sharp look Yangyang isn’t sure lands (or Hendery sees), he scoots over to the opposite edge of the bed and tucks himself back in with a firm, “And stay there.”

Hendery’s disgruntled grumbles eventually peter off, and the bedroom is enveloped by silence once again. Yangyang internally breathes a sigh of relief. Finally! It’s quiet.

Maybe too quiet.

Yangyang looks over his shoulder and squints through the dark. He can just make out Hendery’s figure, a misshapen lump keeping suspiciously still.

“No cuddling,” Yangyang says sternly. “I mean it.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Hendery does what looks like a dorky salute, and snuggles deeper into the covers. “Whatever you say, earthling.”

🛸

Joke’s on Yangyang, because he wakes up the next morning caught in the tight embrace of Hendery’s long limbs, as if there isn’t already a gravitational field keeping him there. But Yangyang doesn’t give into it. Doesn’t let himself sink into Hendery’s arms at all. Doesn’t let his eyes flutter shut. Doesn’t put his nose to Hendery’s neck and breathe really, really deep because, damn, Yangyang’s body soap smells amazing on him.

He doesn’t. He swears.

🛸

Yangyang is losing his damn mind.

“No way,” he says.

“Yes way,” Hendery says.

“No way.”

“Yes way,” Hendery insists. He frowns, confusing Yangyang’s freak out for disappointment. “This was on your list, right?”

Yangyang had taken Coco’s advice, in the end, and come up with one. Coco never said it had to be realistic, so Yangyang had written down every silly, far-fetched wish he’d ever had, and given that list to Hendery, who said he'd ‘deal with it’. He’d expected Hendery to throw out half of his supposed heart’s desires, because some of that shit was plain fantasy.

So not for one second in his wildest dreams did Yangyang think he would be able to drive a fully kitted-out professional rally car.

“Yes,” Yangyang says, trying not to wet his pants at the sight of the dusty Subaru ‒ an Impreza WRX, super old-school. “It was on my list. But how did you…?”

“The MIB has its ways,” Hendery says mysteriously. He waves at a figure lurking in the distance, and shouts something in Spanish. The figure waves back enthusiastically. Yangyang squints, then feels his eyes bug out. Hang on, is that ‒ ?

“So,” Hendery prompts, drawing Yangyang’s attention back to him. “You like it?”

Yangyang’s been dreaming of being a race car driver since he was a kid. He doesn’t just like it. He freaking loves it.

He chooses to play it cool, though. Yangyang shrugs and tries to shove his hands into his pockets until he remembers he’s wearing racing overalls. “Uh, yeah. It’s alright, I guess.”

“Oh.” Hendery blinks, mollified. His large eyes make the action all the more pronounced. “That’s… good?”

Good? It’s more than good, but Yangyang can’t let Hendery know that. He’s used to Renjun lording over him about stuff he’d been right about (saying eating malatang before the night of a big soccer game was a bad idea, for example). Not that Hendery seems to be the lording over someone type, but.

Yangyang clears his throat. “Yeah, man,” he says, and slips into the front seat.

No matter how nonchalant he sounds, though, his dumbass body ultimately betrays him. Yangyang’s hands tremble as he pulls on his helmet, and he’s vibrating with so much excitement that he’s positive Hendery, who clambers into the seat next to him, must feel it.

It’s a testament to either Hendery’s obliviousness, or good manners, that he says nothing at all. For several minutes, he lets Yangyang twist and turn in his seat to investigate each nook and cranny of the car, and fiddle with the seat and mirrors like an overexcited kid. It’s only when Yangyang starts to aggressively twist the steering wheel, muttering car noises under his breath, that Hendery clears his throat.

“Ready?”

“Ready?” Yangyang snorts. It comes out a lot less derisive than he’d like. “I was born ready, bro.”

“Great. Oh,” Hendery says suddenly, turning towards Yangyang, “one thing before we get started ‒ ”

For one absurd moment, Yangyang thinks Hendery’s leaning in to kiss him. Objectively, it’s a stupid thought. Nothing about the moment is romantic ‒ the rally car is a cramped, tight space, and both of them are sweating in their overalls. But the thought pops into Yangyang’s head, unbidden, anyway. He doesn’t know why he thinks that, he just does. Just like he doesn’t know why his heartbeat goes wild, or why his body sways forward, or why his eyes begin to flutter shut when Hendery reaches two hands up ‒

‒ to fasten the chin strap of Yangyang’s helmet.

Hendery pulls back and flashes him a winning smile. “Safety first!”

Yangyang graphically visualises himself crashing the car into the nearest wall.

“Right,” he says weakly.

There’s a pause. As Yangyang tries, and fails, to get over his abject mortification, Hendery’s eyes dart to the steering wheel, then back to Yangyang’s face.

“So, er. Are you going to…?”

Yangyang flusters. “Er, right. I’ll just…”

It’s been a while since he’s driven a manual car. His hand, clammy with sweat, slips when he goes to shift gears, and he mistimes dropping the clutch. As a result, the car lurches forwards, then stalls. Yangyang flushes, embarrassed, and he glances at Hendery, fully expecting him to be laughing at his mistake.

Instead, Hendery just grins and shrugs. “Try again?”

Yangyang tries again. His fingers still slip on the stick, and he almost misses the clutch. But then the engine roars to life, Hendery letting out a high-pitched giggle as he claps his hands together, and all of Yangyang’s nervousness falls away.

“Alright, let’s go!” Hendery yells, and buoyed by his enthusiasm, Yangyang puts the pedal to the metal.

It’s, like, kind of amazing, actually. The speed of the car is incredible, and with the long, empty stretch of track ahead of them, Yangyang can go flat out. He locks up when he tries to drift through a couple of corners and downshifts too slowly, almost grazing the wall, but Hendery doesn’t flinch or anything like that. Instead, he hoots and hollers like Yangyang’s done something amazing, egging him on to go just a little bit faster each lap. Yangyang can pretend that he’s driving an actual race, and Hendery’s the crowd cheering him on, or something. It’s seriously so much fun. Yangyang, like, actually kind of tears up a little bit.

He does a couple more laps before slowing down, letting the engine cool off. Hendery turns in his seat, beaming. A lock of hair has somehow escaped the confines of his helmet, and dangles over his forehead.

“How was it?”

Yangyang is so in awe he forgets he’s supposed to be chill. “Fucking amazing. Did you see the way I cornered? And that straight-line speed ‒ ”

Yangyang yammers on and on, describing the circuit and the way the car handled, hands gesticulating wildly as he talks. He doesn’t realise Hendery’s not said a word until a decent five minutes later, and he flushes again, clamming up. Shit. Why’s he such a yapper? Hendery must be, like, super bored by now.

“Sorry,” Yangyang mumbles. “Got carried away.”

Hendery, who’s been listening attentively all this while, blinks. “It’s okay. It was a lot of fun. I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.”

His face opens into a smile, wide and genuine, and he leans sideways to bump their shoulders together. Maybe it’s the alien gravitational field, but Yangyang feels the contact shock through him all the way through the thick layer of his racing overalls. He shivers. Not wanting to examine the reason behind that too closely, he casts his mind about for something else, and latches onto the way Hendery’s looking wistfully at the steering wheel.

“Hey, um. Do you want to try?”

“Me?” Hendery looks uncertain for a moment, but then his whole face lights up. “Sure! Why not?”

Yangyang parks the car right before the start line, and they switch seats. “Cool, right?” he says, buckling himself in. “It’s, like, a super souped-up car.”

“Yeah,” Hendery agrees. “Hey, the right pedal is the accelerator, right?”

“Um. Yes?”

“And the middle ‒ ” Hendery peers down at the footwell, forehead scrunched “ ‒ is the clutch?”

“Yes,” Yangyang says slowly. “Do you… not know how to drive?”

“Well…” Hendery clears his throat, and Yangyang, like, does not like where this is going. “Not exactly.”

“What do you mean ‘not exactly’?”

“Er, I don’t exactly have my licence on this planet yet. But!” Hendery brightens. “I’ve clocked in over a hundred hours piloting the MIB’s single-seater flying saucer.”

“Um,” Yangyang says. “That. Is so not the same thing.”

“Well,” Hendery says, unfazed, his hand already drifting towards the stick shift, “I guess we’ll find out if that’s true.”

And before Yangyang can make any more of his displeasure known, Hendery drops the clutch, and fucking floors it.

The car gently rolls to a stop, in complete contrast with the rest of the ride. And Yangyang had thought himself a speed demon, isn’t squeamish at all, but ‒

“I’m gonna throw up,” he announces.

“I was going way below hyperspeed,” Hendery argues. “You are not going to throw up.” He hesitates, throwing a furtive glance at Yangyang’s green face. “But, hypothetically, if you were, could you do it outside?”

Yangyang doesn’t need to be told twice. Stomach churning, he throws the car door open and staggers outside. The fresh air that fills his lungs helps to stave off the nausea, but Yangyang makes his way to a cluster of bushes along the side of the track just in case.

“Uh,” he hears Hendery call, “earthling? Remember what Frank said? Maybe don’t go that ‒ ”

Too late. Yangyang clocks the exact second he’s gone a millimetre too far out of Hendery’s fickle radius, and then he’s being propelled backwards, his back slamming into the closed car door with enough force to shake the whole vehicle.

“... far,” Hendery finishes lamely, like a deflating balloon, and Yangyang promptly heaves the whole of his lunch down the front of his overalls.

🛸

Yangyang’s (possible) heart’s desires

Drive a racing car

🛸

“I don’t ‒ ” Yangyang fidgets with the hem of his sweater. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

He sees Hendery’s mouth move through the glass, but no sound comes through. Yangyang rolls his eyes, tapping his ear, and he sees Hendery quickly fumble for the button before his voice fills the studio.

“Why not?”

“It’s just… a lot.”

“It is?”

“I mean, yeah?”

Yangyang makes a half-hearted gesture at the room he’s currently trapped in. The soundproofed walls are decorated with posters of famous singers and rappers, most of them autographed, and there’s a big, scary-looking mic hanging down right in front of his face. Yangyang’s already toppled over the music stand, like, twice. He’s not made for this place, that much he’s certain.

In fact, the longer he stands there, the more certain he is. “Look,” he says, “this was a lame dream anyway. Let’s just go ‒ ”

“What? No!” Hendery cries, and Yangyang winces at the volume. “Where’s your fighting spirit?”

“Um, I don’t have any?”

“Of course you do. You stood up to me in the woods the first time we met, didn’t you?”

Yes, but only because Yangyang was annoyed that Hendery was acting so offended at the thought of him trying to save his life. Also, he ran away right after that, which is literally the opposite of fighting.

“Hey,” Hendery’s voice filters through the speakers again, pulling Yangyang back. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“I’m not afraid,” Yangyang snaps reflexively, then cringes at how childish and defensive he sounds.

“The microphone is not going to eat you. In fact, you are going to ‒ ” Hendery pauses. “What’s the phrase? Eat CDs?”

“Ew, no. No. Don’t say that ever again.”

“You know what,” Hendery says suddenly. “I’ll do it with you!”

“You ‒ what?”

Yangyang watches, baffled, as Hendery muscles his way into the recording studio. It’s not that big, so the tiny space becomes even more cramped, one of Yangyang’s shoulders jammed into the spongey walls, the other brushing Hendery’s bicep.

“I’m the best singer in my family,” Hendery says. “Let me show you how it’s done.”

He clears his throat, adjusting the lyric sheets on the music stand. He grins down at Yangyang sunnily, and for a moment, Yangyang is dazzled by the gleam of his teeth, and the rogue sparkle in his eyes. He could totally pass off for one of the singers on the posters.

But then Hendery opens his mouth, and Yangyang hears what comes out of it.

That’s not singing. Not the singing that earthlings are used to, anyway. It’s wailing. Caterwauling. Yodelling for some notes, maybe. Whatever it is, it’s bad enough that it’s making Yangyang’s eyes water, but he has no choice but to stand there, stuck, as Hendery utterly massacres one of Yangyang’s most beloved drama theme songs.

He politely waits until Hendery has warbled his last, lingering note. “Um,” Yangyang says. “Did you say you were the best singer in your family?”

“Yes,” Hendery says smugly, taking a swig of Yangyang’s water, which, rude.

“And it’s been… corroborated?”

“Not to toot my own horn, but people say I’m the perfect son slash eligible bachelor. My only flaw is this scar, from when my sister threw one of her toys at me and struck me in the face.”

Hendery points to his face. Yangyang has to lean in close and squint to see the scar on his cheek, barely bigger than the fingernail on his pinky. Even this guy’s flaws are flawless.

“Did you fight a lot when you were kids?” Yangyang asks, just to be polite.

“Kids? Oh, no, this happened last year.” Hendery nudges him, nodding at the lyrics sheet, and Yangyang remembers what they’re here for. “Now, are we going to do this, or what?”

Maybe it’s the absurdity of the situation, or the fact that Hendery is just so confident in his singing abilities without having any right to be. Either way, Yangyang finds the mettle in himself to take a deep breath, and, when the backtrack starts playing, to sing along to the lyrics, Hendery harmonising (or trying to, at least), ticking one more thing off his bucket list in the hopes that it’s his heart’s desire.

Once they’re done, they head back outside to play back their recording. Hendery turns to him, smiling widely. “What do you think?”

The song is, objectively, awful. They’re off-beat half the time. Neither of them had bothered to warm up their voices, so the high notes are all out of tune or lack power.

But when the recording plays Hendery’s high note, in all its pitchy, grating glory, Yangyang feels a smile, unbidden, tug on his lips. “It’s great,” he says and, somehow, it doesn’t feel like a lie.

“Shall we?” Hendery asks, cocking his head towards the door.

“Yep.” Yangyang trails after him, then remembers ‒ “Wait, I left my bottle in the studio, let me go grab it real quick.”

“Um, okay,” Hendery calls as Yangyang hurries back into the studio, “just be careful that you don’t ‒ ”

The second Yangyang’s fingers close around his bottle, there’s a swoopy, tightening sensation behind his belly button. He only has enough time to think fuck me, man before he’s being hurtled backwards with enough force to launch a cannonball. Hendery, the coward, squeaks and dodges, and when Yangyang sees what’s behind him, he can only squeeze his eyes shut and hope for the very best.

The drumkit is definitely not the most comfortable thing he’s crashed into, but it’s by far the noisiest. Dazed from the impact, Yangyang lies on top of the ruined instrument, Hendery’s worried face swimming in and out of view.

“Yangyang? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Yangyang wheezes.

Only to have a cymbal dislodge, then land, right on his face.

“Motherfuck!”

🛸

Yangyang’s (possible) heart’s desires

Drive a racing car

Recording a song

🛸

The next item on Yangyang’s list takes them to the shopping district, where he and Hendery get into an argument over what exactly constitutes a heart’s desire.

“When you put Chanel on your list,” Hendery gripes, “this was not what I had in mind.”

“Well,” Yangyang says indignantly, “who said a purse can’t be my heart’s desire?”

“It’s not.”

“It might be!”

They’re busy squabbling between themselves when they stumble onto a small crowd blocking their path. Yangyang scowls, still annoyed at being dragged out of the boutique before he had a chance to scam Hendery into swiping the MIB’s credit card for him, and crosses his arms. “What’s the hold up?”

“I’m not sure.” Hendery takes advantage of his extra five centimetres on Yangyang and peers over the heads of the people gathered in front of them. “They appear to be queuing up for something.”

The auntie in Yangyang perks up, and he drags Hendery to stand with him in line. As they inch closer to the front, Yangyang sees a booth stocked with letter-writing equipment and a signboard tacked up next to it announcing what the event’s for.

He turns to Hendery. “You ever leave a time capsule?”

“A what?”

“You’re telling me you’ve figured out intergalactic travel, but you don’t know what a time capsule is?”

“We’ve figured out time travel, too. Is that the same thing?”

Kind of, but not really. Making a mental note to revisit the topic of time travel later, Yangyang launches into a long-winded, and probably inaccurate, spiel of what exactly a time capsule is. Hendery listens carefully, and it’s only when Yangyang finishes that he hums, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

“The concept of leaving items for future generations to find,” Hendery muses. “Interesting. Primitive, but interesting.”

“Not just future generations,” Yangyang says, pointing at the sign. “This one lets you, like, write a letter to your future self. See? It says it’ll be delivered in a year.”

“Fascinating,” Hendery says, peering at the booth. “How do we get started?”

When they get to the front of the line, the girl hands them each paper, pen, and an envelope. They shuffle off to the side, where there are some high tables set up. Yangyang puts the tip of his pen to the paper, but nothing comes to him immediately. All around them, people are scribbling down their letters, and he can’t help but catch snippets of their conversations.

“I’m gonna address mine to doctor, since it’ll be delivered after I get my PhD ‒ ”

“Shit, what should I put as the address? We’re planning to upgrade our place, but still haven’t decided where we’re going to live.”

“Sorry, can I get another sheet of paper? I have so much to say ‒ ”

Suddenly, Yangyang feels stupid. Everyone around him seems to have their life together. Meanwhile, what about him? Like, what's he actually supposed to say to his future self? Yo, did you ever find your heart’s desire? Sure hope you’re not still stuck to that dorky alien in the suit.

Sure hope you made something of yourself, if you haven’t been vaporised into nothingness already.

“Hey.”

Yangyang looks up. Hendery is looking at him, a tiny crease by the side of his downturned mouth. His gaze flicks down to the blot of ink slowly spreading across the paper from where Yangyang’s pen is pressed to the page, then back up, searching Yangyang’s face carefully.

Yangyang feels his face grow hot. “What?”

“I was thinking… How about we write each other something instead?”

Yangyang’s grip around his pen loosens. “Uh ‒ what?”

“You,” Hendery gestures, “write something for future me. And I’ll write something for future you.”

“I don’t ‒ ” Yangyang pulls the inside of his cheek between his teeth. “That's not what this is for, though.”

“Well,” Hendery says, shrugging, “what are rules if they aren't meant to be broken?”

Before Yangyang can protest, Hendery takes his sheet of paper, where a measly Dear Yangyang is scrawled across the top, and swaps it with his own. Hendery’s one’s already got some weird flowy script across the top that Yangyang can’t read.

“That says ‘hey, handsome’ in my native language,” Hendery explains brightly. “But feel free to edit ‒ I also accept adjectives like ‘genius’ or ‘gorgeous’.”

He turns back to his letter, pen flying across the page, just as Yangyang feels a bubble of something well up inside of him. Hendery’s so weird, but that ‒ that had been an incredibly nice thing to do, getting him out of his own head and the impending downward spiral. Don’t get Yangyang wrong ‒ Hendery still annoys him. The whole situation of being tethered together still annoys him.

But Yangyang can’t lie that, in that moment, he’s the tiniest bit grateful.

At least, until Hendery narrates, so loudly that the people around turn around, “Dear Yangyang, I hope that by now you’ve learned to behave and listen to your elders, aka moi,” and the bubble promptly pops.

“Dude, shut up!”

Yangyang writes his letter with his left hand cupped around the contents, making sure that Hendery can’t see what he’s written. He finishes first, sealing his envelope. It’s not until he drops it into the little red postbox the staff have provided that he realises that he’s forgotten to write Hendery’s address of the Department of Immigration on the front.

He’s debating whether the slot is wide enough for him to stick his hand into and retrieve his letter when Hendery bounds up behind him, letter crinkling in his hands, and shoves it into the postbox. Yangyang is dismayed to note that unlike him, Hendery had the presence of mind to include his address. Honestly, he didn’t even know that Hendery knew his postcode.

“So?” Hendery asks as they make their way back home. “What did you write?”

He slings an arm around Yangyang’s shoulders. Yangyang’s noticed that Hendery’s a touchy guy, but he isn’t sure if it’s something to do with the gravitational field, if it’s a Xyon thing, or if it’s just a Hendery thing. Regardless, the contact makes Yangyang flush, his shoulders rising up to his ears, and he has to look away from Hendery’s grinning face, so close that he can see the tiny scar on his cheek.

“Nothing much,” Yangyang lies. Maybe it’s for the better that Hendery will never know what he wrote. “You’ll find out in a year, anyway.”

🛸

It’s strange, how time flies when you’re having fun.

What’s weirder is that Yangyang knows he’s technically not supposed to be having fun. Like, the whole point of doing all these activities is so that he doesn’t go up in a puff of smoke during the next full moon. It’s literally a life-or-death situation.

But when he’s with Hendery, somehow, Yangyang kind of forgets about all of that.

So sue him ‒ it’s hard to focus on what might be his heart’s desire, when they’re doing tandem bungee jumping and Yangyang’s literally crotch-to-crotch with Hendery, concentrating his utmost not to pop a boner. It’s hard to think about his impending mortality when they’re trying, and failing, to make an omelet, ruining Kun’s borrowed non-stick frying pan which is most definitely not non-stick anymore. It’s hard to dwell on anything but Hendery’s full-bodied, creaky laugh when Yangyang makes a joke, slapping his knee like an old Chinese uncle until Yangyang has to turn away, scared that his blush would look like a sunburn from the force of Hendery’s beaming smile.

“What?” Hendery says while they’re volunteering at the animal shelter, and Yangyang realises he’s been caught staring.

He can feel the tips of his ears grow hot. “What?”

“You’re staring,” Hendery says, ignoring the little beagle pawing for his attention.

“Am not,” Yangyang says.

“Are too,” Hendery says.

“Am not,” Yangyang insists, and, realising that this isn’t exactly a productive argument, turns away to busy himself with the kitten he’s been bottle-feeding.

He can feel Hendery’s eyes on the back of his head.

“You’re acting weird,” Hendery says at last.

“You’re acting weird,” Yangyang says, and, just to be a brat, hip-checks Hendery.

Hendery hip-checks him back, which leads to Yangyang hip-checking him back, which leads to a chain reaction where they’re just knocking into each other over and over again until their giggles get so loud that the animals start getting overexcited.

“Well,” Hendery says after the shelter supervisor kicks them out, and they’re brushing cat and dog hair off themselves, “that may not have been your heart’s desire, but it was fun, right?”

He playfully hip-checks Yangyang again. But when Yangyang goes to return it, he grabs him around the waist and swings him sideways to avoid him, so that Yangyang is left breathless and off-balance. Hendery’s hand slides across his side to keep him steady, a warm, constant presence that almost has Yangyang leaning into it. Almost.

“Yeah,” he says, snark momentarily forgotten. “Yeah, it really was.”

🛸

Yangyang’s (possible) heart’s desires

Drive a racing car

Recording a song

Chanel

Bungee-jumping

Indoor skydiving

Learn how to cook without burning anything

Get a helix piercing

Volunteer at an animal shelter

Breaking a world record

Surfing

???

🛸

Yangyang’s not, like, panicking or anything, but there’s a growing sense of urgency with each day that passes that he doesn’t find his heart’s desire.

He lies in bed after yet another day of striking out, watching the shadows dance across the ceiling. His body is super sore from being battered around by the waves, and he feels kind of drained. Normally, Yangyang would have been asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, but it’s like his mind can’t shut up.

The next full moon is creeping closer and closer, and Yangyang’s list of possible heart’s desires is growing shorter and shorter. Coco had asked earlier that night if there was anything else he could think of, and, humiliatingly, worryingly, Yangyang hadn’t been able to come up with anything. He’d half-heartedly written down a couple of stuff after some prompting, but he doesn’t have to try them out to know that they won’t be his heart’s desire. What else could he possibly want? Like, what if that’s it?

What if he really doesn’t have a heart’s desire that can save him?

“You’re breathing really loudly.”

Yangyang jumps. He’d thought Hendery was asleep.

“Sorry,” he says, embarrassed, and tries to breathe less.

Silence.

“Um,” Hendery says, sounding mildly concerned. “Are you holding your breath?”

Heat rises up in Yangyang’s face, and he immediately inhales. “No.”

Silence again. Then, Yangyang feels the mattress dip and the blanket shift as Hendery rolls over to face him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. What’s wrong with you?”

“You’re deflecting,” Hendery says, undeterred by Yangyang’s spikiness.

“Am not.”

“See? You just did it again. Also, you’re breathing loud and fast. It’s a sign of stress and anxiety in earthlings. I read it in a book.”

Yangyang squirms, tucking his chin beneath the blanket. “Maybe I’m just a mouth-breather.”

“I’m well-acquainted with Dejun, so I know you’re not.” Hendery pauses, and his voice grows gentle. “If you’d rather not talk about it, that’s fine, too. I can always get earplugs. But do you have any extra-large ones? I have abnormally large ear canals, and they tend to fall in. I don’t want to have another pair rattling around my head again.”

A laugh catches, then dies, in Yangyang’s throat. “I don’t have earplugs.”

“Alright, then,” Hendery says, and they lapse into silence.

That’s the good thing ‒ or the bad thing, depending on the situation ‒ about Hendery, Yangyang’s come to learn. He just, like, knows what Yangyang needs. Like, when to liven things up, or when he needs to give Yangyang space. Right now, Yangyang wishes he would say something, but also realises that he’s not going to. And that’s… maybe that’s what he needs.

The words unstick themselves from Yangyang’s throat. “I just…”

He pulls the inside of his cheek between his teeth. Scared, almost childishly, that once he says it out loud, it’ll, like, manifest. That it’ll become true.

“What if….” Yangyang swallows, staring up at the dark ceiling. “What if I really don’t have a heart’s desire? What if I’m gonna die an ambitionless, good-for-nothing loser?”

There. He said it. Yangyang’s throat tightens, and he swallows again. God. It’s a good thing it’s dark.

“You’re not a loser,” Hendery says softly.

“How do you know that?”

“Because,” Hendery says. “I’ve been around you twenty-four for almost three weeks, and in that time, you haven’t complained. Not once.”

“Just because I don’t complain doesn’t mean ‒ ”

“You try,” Hendery says simply, and those two words send a pang in Yangyang’s chest so visceral that it’s like a physical hit. “You really, really try. Since I met you, you haven’t stopped trying.”

“What if ‒ ” Yangyang’s voice cracks. Discreetly, he swipes the edge of his blanket across his eyes. “What if it’s not enough?”

“It might not be,” Hendery says. “But you can say that you gave it your all, right? And for that, I’m really proud of you.”

Yangyang turns onto his side. Somewhere in the course of their conversation, Hendery’s shuffled closer. Yangyang can’t see much of his expression, being backlit against the light that streams in from the bedroom window, but he can see the glint of his eyes, looking at him with a gaze so intense that ‒ that he ‒

Suddenly, for all of his nagging that Hendery needs to keep to his side of the bed, Yangyang can’t find it in himself to care.

Hendery’s cheek is cold beneath his fingers. His lips, too. Just like that time Yangyang had found him, unconscious, in the field, and set off this entire chain of events leading them here. It all seems so far away now. Renjun would probably, like, call this a full circle moment, or some obscure literary device Yangyang’s never heard of.

The difference is, Yangyang hadn’t been thinking of kissing Hendery then.

“Yangyang,” Hendery breathes.

Not earthling. Yangyang. Is it the first time Hendery’s called him by his name? Yangyang thinks so.

His heart squeezes. It aches.

“Please,” Yangyang says, and he ‒ his voice, it doesn’t sound like that normally, does it? “I, just ‒ please,” he says, and Hendery doesn’t move away when he leans in.

The first kiss is hesitant. The second is bolder, but still gentle. By the third, something hot is rapidly blossoming in Yangyang’s chest, down to his fingers and toes, across his face, and it takes him about a minute to realise that he’s crying.

“I ‒ ” he pushes off Hendery, embarrassment coursing through him, screwing his hands into fists to rub his eyes. “Sorry, I ‒ ”

Hendery doesn’t say anything. He takes Yangyang into his arms and lets him snuffle snot and tears into the shoulder of his borrowed shirt, rubbing soothing circles across Yangyang’s back. At one point, he starts singing, some old Xyon lullaby that is both haunting and calming at the same time.

“Sorry,” Yangyang mumbles, once the tears have stopped long enough for him to say something. “Sorry, I do actually want ‒ ”

“It’s okay,” Hendery says. He runs a hand, far too gentle, through Yangyang’s hair, brushing it back from his face. “Let’s just get some rest.”

Yangyang’s actually a really good kisser, he swears. He’ll just have to make it up to Hendery another time.

🛸

They’re running out of time.

“It’s not ‒ ” Hendery makes a frustrated noise, the pencil scraping sharply across the paper. “It’s not that one, either.”

As he works his way down the list, Yangyang sits quietly on the sofa. He glances out the window. His apartment’s got a beautiful view, unobstructed by skyscrapers or expressways, southern-facing so that he always gets enough light. Tonight, it’s from the moon, hanging heavy in the sky and shining silvery bright. It’s far too fat to be a half-moon, too uneven to be a full one. Thanks to the calendar on his phone, Yangyang knows there are just a handful of nights left.

He’s got about a handful of nights left.

There’s another noise, of paper ripping, and Yangyang whips his head around. Hendery’s breathing comes shallowly, his knuckles white from where he’s gripping the pencil. The tip’s gone through the paper.

“That’s all,” Hendery says, voice strange and empty. “Yangyang, that’s ‒ that’s all.”

Yangyang feels as if he’s been straitjacketed. He can feel his heartbeat drumming in his ears, as rapid as his body is still. He searches for Hendery’s usual optimism, and finds none. Instead, Hendery is looking at him, eyes wide and searching ‒ well, they’re always wide and searching. But this time, there’s something else in them. Something a lot like desperation.

No. Yangyang will not allow himself to think about it. He swallows. He smiles; bravely, he hopes.

“Thank god,” he says, and is grateful at how steady he sounds. “Now come here and kiss me.”

It’s false bravado, all of it. Yangyang can tell that Hendery knows ‒ when he smiles, it’s not his usual happy-go-lucky one, and the way he approaches feels more like a funeral march than anything. Still, Hendery doesn’t say anything, just comes when Yangyang asks, and that’s exactly what Yangyang needs right now.

They’re running out of time. Instead of catastrophising over his impending end, though, all Yangyang can think about is the soft, familiar press of Hendery’s lips against his, and how he can make him laugh again.

🛸

So, much like whenever he’s faced with life challenges, Yangyang adopts an attitude of fuck it, we ball.

It’s mostly to get his mind off things. Things being ‒ not to sound morbid, but also, kind of ‒ his impending death. At least, if Kun and Frank are meant to be believed, and Yangyang kind of does.

They had reconvened in the living room the following morning to tackle the problem. “I think we should try ‒ ” Hendery had begun, when Yangyang cut him off.

“Nah. I wanna spend whatever time I have left with you. Not ‒ not doing random shit, in the hopes it’ll stick.”

“But…” Hendery had frowned, Yangyang’s list hanging limply in his hand. “But if we just ‒ ”

“Hendery,” Yangyang had said. “Please?”

He had done his best not to sound too pathetic. But Hendery had screwed up his face into this really tragic expression like he was trying not to cry, and nodded stiffly before darting out of the room. Seconds later, Yangyang heard the bathroom door slam shut, and politely didn’t mention anything when Hendery emerged ten minutes later, eyes red-rimmed and with a bit of toilet paper stuck to his nose.

So, just like that, they stop doing the list. Because what’s the point, really?

And then ‒ well, Yangyang starts doing whatever the hell he wants.

Well, not ‒ not whatever he wants. Yangyang goes back to cover his shifts at the cafe, letting Hendery sit at the table in the back and sneaking him stale muffins from the display whenever he can. He feeds and grooms and bathes Coco, with the added bonus of being able to converse with him. He and Hendery also hang out at the MIB headquarters, seeing how many paper balls they can throw at Hendery’s roommate Dejun before he gets irritated as Kun and Sicheng shoot them worried looks.

But yeah, okay, maybe Yangyang drinks and parties a little more. Maybe he even manages to coax Hendery to drink and party with him, alcohol being poison to his body be damned. And maybe, just maybe, he decides to get a little frisky on what might be his last night on earth in the backseat of his car at the very classy, and very aptly-named, Hookup Hill.

(“I just ‒ ” Yangyang’s face is hot from all the drinking and embarrassment. “I just don’t wanna, like, die a virgin.”

Hendery laughs so hard he hits his head against the window. “You’re not ‒ you’re not a virgin. Frank told me you’re not.”

“I mean, I might as well be one, it’s been so long since I got laid!”

“Wait.” Hendery’s grin grows wider, his eyebrows waggling. “Are you asking me to ‒ ?”

“Shut ‒ ” Yangyang grabs Hendery’s hand before he can cop a feel. Drunk Hendery isn’t so different from sober Hendery, it seems. “ ‒ up.”

“I think you mean open up,” Hendery says, and slithers down into the footwell.

And. That visual. Of Hendery looking up at him, eyes dark and heady as he fumbles with Yangyang’s belt. Yangyang’s head spins a little. Yeah, okay. Okay, maybe this is an ideal way to spend his final night on earth after all.

“Oh, god, whatever,” he groans, and pushes Hendery’s head down.)

The only flaw in that plan is that he and Hendery apparently get, like, super sleepy after they both orgasm, which is how Yangyang wakes up to cum drying on his stomach, Hendery snoring on his shoulder and a pitch-black sky.

“Oh my god,” Yangyang says, bolting upright. “Oh my god, what time is it?”

The movement sends Hendery careening into the window again with a thunk. “Ow! What? It’s ‒ oh, shit.”

They both jostle around in the tight space of the backseat, peering outside. It’s overcast tonight, as forecasted. The moon’s not out yet.

But it’s only a matter of time before it is.

“Hendery,” Yangyang says, all of his drowsiness evaporating. “What do we do?”

“We have to get you inside. Let’s go ‒ now.”

They struggle back into the front seats, pulling up their pants and fastening buckles and buttons as they go. Yangyang fishes his keys out of his back pocket and cranks the engine. But instead of the usual deep purr of his car starting up, it makes a horrible, harsh sputtering noise.

“Is it supposed to sound like that?” Hendery asks.

“No,” Yangyang says, his voice jumping an octave, and they leap out of the car.

There’s smoke streaming out from beneath the hood. Thick, grey, noxious-smelling smoke. Yangyang doesn’t need to be a mechanic to know that his car is done for. Just like he’s going to be, now that their only mode of transportation out of here has just died.

“Yangyang.” Hendery tugs on his sleeve. “Yangyang, we need to go. Now.”

“Where?”

They’re on a hill overlooking the city, and although this is what Yangyang considers the great outdoors, there aren’t exactly any places for them to hide. Trees line the dirt path they’d taken, but they’re planted sparsely, and all the shrubbery they’d passed by are pretty much dead. There’s no shelter around here for Yangyang to take cover from the full moon.

“There are woods down there,” Hendery says. “Come on ‒ ”

He’s grabbing Yangyang’s hand and pulling him along before he can even finish his sentence. Yangyang follows haplessly, stumbling several times over potholes and his own two left feet. He would complain, but Hendery’s not speaking, for once, and he’s got ‒ he’s got this really pinched, tense look on his face. He’s scared, Yangyang realises. Shit ‒ Hendery is scared.

They make their way down the hill, and despite their ragged breathing and the fact that they’re literally going as fast as they can, the woods still aren’t in sight. Yangyang remembers passing them earlier, but that had been miles away. There’s no way they’re going to make it there on foot.

There’s no way, Yangyang realises with a sinking heart, that they’re going to make it, period.

Hendery glances back sharply as Yangyang’s footsteps falter. “What ‒ ”

“Hendery,” Yangyang says, coming to a stop. “There’s no time.”

“What are you ‒ of course there is.”

Hendery tugs at Yangyang’s hand insistently. Yangyang holds his ground, refusing to budge.

“There isn’t,” he says softly. “Hendery, I ‒ ”

“There is,” Hendery says, loud and fierce, and Yangyang jumps. “There is, we just ‒ we have to find shelter ‒ ”

His fingers are trembling around Yangyang’s wrist. Yangyang slides them off, and takes both of Hendery’s hands in his. He’s feeling ‒ not great, not amazing, but. Weirdly calm about this. Eerily calm. But maybe that’s what a month of doomsdaying, while also living life to the absolute fullest, can do to someone.

“Hendery," Yangyang says. His voice is surprisingly steady. "Listen to me. There is ‒ there is no time.”

“You don’t know that,” Hendery says, and this time, his voice trembles, too. “You don’t know that ‒ ”

“My parents,” Yangyang says quietly, and Hendery stops with a wet gasp. “You’ll know where to find them, right? Or the MIB will. Tell them ‒ tell them I love them, and I’m sorry for being such a fuck-up. And Renjun, my best friend ‒ let him know that he was right, okay? He was always right and I ‒ I probably should have listened to him. Or not, because ‒ because I got to meet you.”

Hendery blinks at him, confused, and Yangyang lets himself look. Really look. Not that he hasn’t been looking at Hendery all this while, when he was unconscious, or riding shotgun, or always by his side when he tackled his list, but that was all ‒ Hendery wasn’t always looking back, is the thing. Yangyang doesn’t really like eye contact, finds it as awkward as the average person, but now ‒ now might be the last time he gets to look at Hendery.

And Yangyang ‒ well, he kind of wants Hendery to be the last thing he sees.

“You’ve, um.” He takes a deep breath, and forces himself to look Hendery in the eye. “You’ve literally changed my life. Not always in a good way, but, like, I think ‒ in a way that mattered. And I didn’t think ‒ I didn’t think I really mattered, before. But you made me feel like I did. You know?”

“I ‒ ” Hendery swallows thickly. “I think so.”

“And, like, I don’t ‒ I don’t know how much time ‒ ah, fuck it.”

Yangyang squares his shoulders. If Hendery doesn’t feel the same way, well ‒ who gives a fuck, right? He’ll die either way, whether or not it’s from mortification or the fucking moon.

“Hendery,” Yangyang says. He can feel his heartbeat thudding in his ears. The whisper of a stirring breeze. Time is passing, water slipping steadily through his cupped hands. The finiteness of everything weighs heavily on him; propels him forwards. “Hendery, I think. I think I’m in ‒ ”

Above, the clouds shift. A sliver of moon peeks out from behind them, pearlescent and brilliant.

Time’s up.

Yangyang squeezes his eyes shut, unwilling to watch his own demise or the horror on Hendery’s face when it happens. He steels himself, hoping it’s quick and painless, and then ‒

And then ‒

“Uh,” comes Hendery’s voice, sounding confused, and Yangyang’s eyes fly open.

Hendery’s bathed in moonlight. They both are. Their skin glows almost silvery, every inch of them exposed to the first light of the moon. And yet Yangyang’s still standing. Still hasn’t been reduced to dust.

“What?” Yangyang says, equally confused. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know.” Hendery shakes his head, his features stark with relief. He grabs Yangyang by the arms, his hold a little too tight, as if to make sure he’s really there. “I thought ‒ everyone said that if you didn’t achieve your heart’s desire, you would ‒ ”

The wheels of Yangyang’s brain begin to turn. He’s still standing here, existing. No weird tingly, alien-y stuff is happening to him. Moonlight floods the area where they’re standing, and nothing ‒ nothing is happening. So, working backwards, and assuming what Kun and Coco said were true, it must mean that ‒

Yangyang inhales sharply.

That ‒ that can’t be.

“Hendery,” Yangyang says. His voice sounds strange to his own ears. “Stay here. I’m gonna try something, okay?”

“Uh, okay?” Hendery says uncertainly, and Yangyang takes a step back.

Then another. And another. Hendery stays put, eyebrows knitted together before his expression clears up when he realises what Yangyang’s doing. He watches intently as Yangyang keeps walking backwards, keeps extending the distance between them. Watches as Yangyang waits for that familiar pull behind his navel, for the moment he’s wandered too far out of Hendery’s gravitational field and is sent springing like a human yo-yo back to where Hendery’s standing.

Except ‒ it never comes.

Yangyang stops when he’s standing as far away from Hendery as he’s ever been able to. He’s breathing harder than usual. His mind is going a million miles an hour. He’s gaping, he knows; Hendery is, too. Because he really ‒ he really did it. He found his heart’s desire. He ‒ he like, freaking achieved it.

“Wait,” Hendery calls, oblivious, from across the grass. “So what was it?”

The thing is, Yangyang isn't sure. It could be anything from breaking a world record, Hendery had said. Or ‒

It hits Yangyang like a ton of bricks.

Or as something as mundane as falling in love.

What had happened, that night he had met Hendery? He’d hung out with a group of friends that weren’t really his. Renjun had told him he had imagined the blaze of light in the sky. Yangyang had seen the way Renjun was clinging to Jeno, sure that he was going to end up as a third wheel ‒ again ‒ and, deciding he couldn’t deal with it, and wanting to prove that he was right, left everybody behind and stumbled through the woods, very tipsy, and very ‒

Alone.

That’s right, Yangyang realises. He had been lonely. He had been so fucking lonely.

And so he’d thought ‒ fleetingly, fiercely ‒

If only I had someone.

A hope. A wish.

A heart’s desire.

“You,” Yangyang whispers.

“What?” Hendery yells.

Way to spoil a moment.

Yangyang marches back over to him, and pokes him in the chest. “I said, you. You are my…”

Face to face with his heart's desire, with the enormity of what this means, all of Yangyang's brash confidence fizzles out. He coughs, abashed, and drops his hand. Hendery stares. He doesn’t get it until he does, a couple of seconds later, and his eyes grow comically big.

“Me?”

“Don’t make a big deal out of it or anything,” Yangyang grumbles, scrubbing the back of his neck, because ‒ ew, c’mon, man. Who knew he was such an emotional sap? “Anyway, let’s just ‒ let’s just go home already, ’kay? We can tell Kun in the morning ‒ ”

“About that.” Something in Hendery’s voice makes Yangyang stop. When he glances at him, he looks ‒ pained. “What were you trying to say earlier?”

Yangyang cringes. “You know.”

“I think I’d like to hear it,” Hendery says. He reaches out to graze the inside of Yangyang's wrist, unusually gentle. “If you’re okay to say it.”

Yangyang had only decided to say it because he was, like, convinced he was going to die. Carpe diem, or whatever Renjun's version of fuck it is. It wasn’t that Yangyang didn’t mean it, it’s just ‒ he’s never been good with vulnerability. There’s something downright mortifying about confessing your love for some weird alien boy, without an escape route planned.

“Please,” Hendery says softly, and Yangyang cracks.

“I said ‒ ” he says ‒ bites out, more like it, haltingly, his cheeks growing red. “That I think... I’m in love with you. In fact…” Yangyang takes a deep breath. He's come this far. He might as well go all in, right? “I’m pretty sure I am.”

He wasn’t expecting Hendery to be, like, over the moon or anything, but his face is all pale, mouth downturned like he just got kicked, or something. Hendery looks ‒ sad. Really, really sad.

“That’s what I thought,” Hendery says, and Yangyang’s about to ask him why he looks and sounds so upset when he reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out the scary silver toothbrush case again.

Oh. Oh.

“Protocol,” Hendery whispers. “Kun said I had to, if…”

If Yangyang survived. No need for erasing memories about the existence of aliens if he ceased to exist. Either way, he was never going to be allowed to keep Hendery, was he?

Yangyang watches, as if from very far away, as Hendery flicks on the neuralyzer. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I already put you in mortal peril once,” Hendery says. His demeanour is calm, but his voice has gone all wobbly, like he’s on the verge of crying. “I’m not ‒ I’m not going to do that again. Not to you.”

“But I just ‒ I just found you,” Yangyang says, petulant and pathetic and pleading, and a wry smile crosses Hendery's face.

“What’s that earthling saying? It’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all?”

“You don’t ‒ ” Yangyang's throat feels awfully tight. “You don’t get to become all philosophical and shit on me when you’re about to erase my memory.”

“It’s for the best,” Hendery says. Yangyang would be a lot more on board if Hendery didn’t sound like he was convincing himself. “You get that, right?”

“No,” Yangyang says brattily, and he’s allowed to, he’s going to have his fucking memories erased. “You haven’t even told me if you…”

He trails off, unable to speak past the lump in his throat. Hendery watches him, eyes all soft around the edges.

“You know, right? You know.”

“Do I?” Yangyang says, voice cracking, and Hendery closes the gap between them.

This kiss is slow. It’s lingering. It unfurls between them like a flower, soft and tentative and tender, everything pouring out into the open where words simply aren’t enough. Hendery’s hands come up to cradle Yangyang’s face, holding him like something delicate. Like something that matters. And somehow, there’s a quiet fierceness to the way Hendery touches him, to the way he coaxes Yangyang’s lips apart to press inside, like he’s memorising and mapping this moment. Yangyang’s heart rises up in his throat, a red, swollen thing. He’s never been kissed this way before ‒ has never kissed anyone this way, either.

Because this ‒ this is a kiss goodbye.

They pull apart after what might be seconds, or years. Yangyang’s eyes roam over Hendery’s face, doing his own memorising, his own mapping, as futile as it may be. He sweeps a thumb at the skin just under Hendery’s eye, where something glistening has gathered.

“I thought Winwin said Xyons didn’t cry.”

Hendery smiles, lopsided and watery. “We don’t,” he says, and steps back.

Yangyang lets him go. He watches as Hendery fumbles around his other pocket, pulling out a pair of dark sunglasses and setting them on his face. He raises the neuralyzer. The red light blinks, ready and waiting, pointing straight at Yangyang.

“Hey.” Yangyang smiles, trying to be brave. “I’ll see you around, okay?”

A tear slips out from behind Hendery’s sunglasses, cascading down the planes of his face.

“That’s the thing,” he says, and Yangyang watches as his finger presses down on the trigger. “You won’t.”

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Flash.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

🛸

The rib-crushing hug Yangyang gets from Renjun when they meet up is weird. The poorly-aimed punch to his arm is even weirder.

“Hey!” Yangyang protests. He rubs at his arm, but just for the optics; Renjun couldn’t hurt a fly even if he put his whole weight into it. “What was that for?”

“For making me worried sick! I haven’t heard from you in a month.”

“A month?” Yangyang frowns. “Are you sure?”

Renjun frowns back. “Yes, I’m sure. I texted you, and you didn’t reply. At all.”

Yangyang fumbles for his phone. True enough, his ongoing text thread with Renjun has completely dried up. The last couple of messages were all sent from Renjun, consisting entirely of slowly increasing question marks which he apparently left on read.

“Is that why you called?”

“I called to make sure you were alive, dumbass,” Renjun says, but there’s no real heat behind it.

“Sorry,” Yangyang says. “I don’t know what happened. I guess I was just busy with work.”

“Huh?” Renjun squints at him. “What work? You told me you told the cafe you needed some time off. Here, see?”

He pulls up their texts on his own phone, scrolling back a couple of weeks. Just like Renjun had said, there’s a text, apparently from him, saying that he was taking some time off work, and telling Renjun not to bother swinging by the cafe for free pastries and coffee.

Yangyang is extremely confused. “I don’t… I sent that?”

“Yes. What’s wrong with you?”

“I…” Yangyang chews his lip, trying to remember when he’d sent that message. “I’m not sure.”

“You’re not sure?” Renjun squints at him harder. “Should I be worried?”

He already looks like he’s worried. Looking to get him off his back, Yangyang laughs airily and waves it off. “Dude, shut up. You’ve seen me, and I’m fine, right? You don’t have to act all interested in me, anyway ‒ I can tell you’re dying to tell me all about your latest hookup.”

“Jeno isn’t a hookup,” Renjun squeals, then proceeds to launch into a long-winded story that leaves Yangyang privately concluding that Jeno is a hookup.

“Seriously,” Renjun says right before they part ways, bellies full of tomato soup and the cheapest sliced meat on the menu, “you sure you’re okay? You don’t have amnesia, or something?”

“I’m fine,” Yangyang insists, and scoots off in the direction of home before Renjun can grill him any further.

The thing is ‒ the more Yangyang thinks about it, the more he realises that he doesn’t remember what he was up to in the last month or so. It’s not like his life is particularly eventful, but it’s weird that he can’t recall anything specific from that time. When he closes his eyes and digs deep, it’s mostly all one giant blur. Mostly, because if he focuses, really focuses, his mind throws up a few things that he isn’t quite sure are memories, or just his imagination working overtime.

A full moon. Black suits. And, oddly, a dull, gaping emptiness in his chest that, if he had to put a name to it, feels a lot like longing.

So. Yeah. It’s not amnesia, but it’s definitely something.

🛸

He goes back to college.

Community college, but college nonetheless. Yangyang’s parents are thrilled. At least, until they find out what course he’s taking.

Yangyang’s not sure why he went back to school. He’s even less sure why he signed up for The Search for Extraterrestrial Life ‒ he slept all throughout E.T., and never finished the Alien series because Renjun, the absolute scaredy-cat, kept stopping the movies halfway.

But there’s something about the subject matter that draws him in. Holds his attention. The thought that there are other living beings somewhere out there, is, as unlikely as it sounds, strangely compelling, if a little terrifying.

Yangyang has the same feeling about the guy subbing in for the course today.

“Yangyang, right?” he hears just as he’s leaving class.

Yangyang slowly turns on his heel. The sub is packing up his things, sorting them away into an old-timey leather briefcase. A briefcase, damn. Entirely unnecessary in today’s digital age, but Yangyang appreciates the dude’s commitment to his personal style. He’s got on a full three-piece suit in the middle of a heat wave, for crying out loud.

“Um,” Yangyang says warily. “Yes?”

The sub continues to stuff papers into his briefcase, not looking up. “Great discussion today on the moral and ethics surrounding the publication of the existence of extraterrestrial life.”

“Oh.” Yangyang blinks. To be honest, he thought he’d rambled on for, like, way too long, and gone off on a tangent a couple of times. “Er… Thank you?”

“Sounds like something you’re passionate about.”

“Um,” Yangyang says as the sub tries to wedge a giant Stanley cup into his briefcase, “well, yeah. Hypothetically-speaking, though, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“Cause, you know, aliens aren’t real.”

The sub looks up sharply at that. Yangyang gulps as the sub’s eyes narrow, regarding him for a beat too long to be considered normal.

“Of course,” the sub says. “Of course aliens aren’t real.”

With that, he goes back to wrestling with his cup and briefcase. Yangyang realises that he’s been holding his breath all this while, and exhales as slowly as he can.

“I ‒ uh,” he stammers. “Well. I have to get going, but thanks for that, Professor, um ‒ ”

There’s a triumphant cry, and the briefcase snaps shut. The sub looks up at Yangyang, fixing his intense gaze on him once more, and Yangyang is hit with a distant, but distinct, feeling of deja vu.

“Kun. You can call me Kun.”

🛸

Dear Yangyang, I’m not really sure what I should say. I have never written a letter before. In my culture, we send encrypted codes that contain only essential information. There is not much room for sentimentality.

I know you are afraid. It would be useless to tell you not to be ‒ fear, I am learning, is an intrinsic part of the human experience. The more time we spend together, the more I think I understand what it must feel like. At the same time, the more time we spend together, the more I am in awe of you. You are extremely brave, and unfailingly cheerful. This might be a difficult time for you, but you are handling it remarkably. You are, actually, pretty remarkable.

I hope you are well.

🛸

Coco is getting out of hand.

Yangyang’s woken up for the millionth time that month by the sound of something crashing to the floor. He muffles his groan into the pillow. Forget losing sleep ‒ he doesn’t have to open his bleary eyes to know that Coco’s knocked his phone off of his nightstand again, unlocked it, and placed a call to some random number that’s going to rack up his phone bill.

“Alright,” he decides, rolling out of bed and picking Coco up. “That’s it. No more bed privileges for you. You get to sleep outside, in the living room, just like Jaemin’s cats.”

Coco yowls and scratches at him the whole way, but Yangyang is undeterred. He deposits Coco outside and shuts his bedroom door before he can sneak his way back inside, then goes to retrieve his phone where it’s lying face-up on the floor. Coco’s dialled a number, and from the looks of it, there’s a call running.

Fuck. Yangyang lifts the phone to his ear, fully prepared to apologise to what’s probably a super annoyed person on the other end of the line, but is instead met with silence. Yangyang scrunches his nose in confusion ‒ surely they’d have hung up by now. He waits a few more seconds, and when the call drags on, he clears his throat.

“Hello?”

There’s the sound of breathing, rustling, and then the line abruptly goes dead.

🛸

Future Hendery, this is stupid. You’re stupid. What am I supposed to say to you? I don’t know anything about you. Everything about you that I do know, is because we’re stuck together. The fact that you clean the bathroom each time after you use it (thanks for that, though). Your bubble tea order (milk tea, pearls, 25% sugar). How you look like when you’re asleep (handsome).

You’re annoying. Annoyingly put together. I think I might like you.

After all of this is over, would you still want to hang out?

🛸

Yangyang gets a distinction in his class.

He also, surprisingly, gets a job offer.

“Do you want it?” Kun, who’s been subbing in ever since ‒ Yangyang wonders what happened to the original lecturer ‒ asks bluntly.

“I mean ‒ yeah,” Yangyang says, because he does not want to do mediocre latte art for the rest of his life. “But don’t you, like, have to look at my resume? My prior work experience?”

“No prior work experience is necessary for the job.”

“Really? I mean ‒ ” Yangyang quickly shuts up, because he isn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Great! Great.”

He smiles. Kun quirks a corner of his lip back. They stare at each other, and when it’s clear that no further explanation is forthcoming, Yangyang coughs awkwardly.

“Um, but ‒ what is the job? Exactly?”

The job, apparently, is at the Department of Immigration.

“You work for the government?” Yangyang asks, staring up at the building.

“Something like that,” Kun says. “Follow me.”

Yangyang dutifully follows Kun into the building, past a security guard engrossed with a game on his phone, and then into a lift. The lift goes down.

Way down.

When the doors eventually ding open, there’s a man waiting for them on the other side. It’d be corny to say that when their eyes meet, Yangyang’s breath gets taken away, or the world stops and everything narrows to just the two of them, or something out of the movies. It’s nothing like that. It’s nothing like that at all.

But when their eyes meet, Yangyang feels a tiny, almost imperceptible pull around his midriff, and knows ‒ just knows ‒ that his life is never going to be the same again.

“Hi,” the man says. “I’m Agent H.” He smiles. It’s a nice smile. “It’s nice to see you again, Yangyang.”