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It was incredibly obvious when the aliens arrived. Their massive ships—Arks, as humanity later learned—landed in a dozen major capitals of the world without fanfare one day.
It was as if they were watching a movie: between one second and the next a single massive spaceship was descending into Earth’s atmosphere. The ship looked nothing like the smooth, white spaceships humanity has been making since the race to space began decades ago. Rather, it was like a black crystal with unrefined edges and wide planes, sharp enough to cut through the air.
Kim Dokja remembered standing on the bridge over the Han River, a half drunk can of coffee in one hand, and his other hand empty as a sudden wave of intense wind knocked his grocery bag to the ground.
Flinching, he tipped his head back to stare up to the sky that had gotten darker than the night. The shadows the alien ship cast stretched across the Han River, blocking out the sun.
If this was a novel, the aliens in the ship would have undoubtedly come down, demanding one thing or another. But as Kim Dokja squatted to the ground, hands over his ears, nothing happened. Seconds stretched into eternity, and the jagged, shining surface of the alien ship continued to light up and sparkle like a gemstone caught in the sun. With trembling hands Kim Dokja opened up Instagram and turned to the explore page.
Already the page was filled with dozens of videos, all of them from other Korean users taking shaky footage of the mysterious ship hanging between the clouds over the Han River.
Just as Kim Dokja began to scroll through the videos, something in the air shifted. The hairs on the back of his neck stood and he peered up at the sky. Nearby, a child began to cry, though it was muffled as if they were held against their parent’s chest. It felt as if his heart stopped beating for those few seconds. And then a hatch opened on the side of the ship. And then another, and then another, and another. Then there was a sonic boom as something shot through the sky and away from Seoul—and possibly Korea as a whole.
He felt his blood turn cold as more… things—he couldn’t tell what they were, whether they were alien weapons intent on destroying the world or some escape pod wouldn’t be known for a while longer—shot out of the ship one after the other.
With his heart beating in his throat Kim Dokja blindly grabbed his grocery bag and sprinted away from the Han River to the closest subway station.
Anywhere would be better than out in the open, right below the mysterious alien spaceship that had suddenly appeared in the sky. After all, Kim Dokja wasn’t important enough to the story of the Earth to be able to survive this sudden twist in genre.
Surprisingly, his usual train was still running by the time Kim Dokja got to the station. He surged into the train right before the doors closed, wheezing as he leaned against a pole. Sweat dripped down his face as he tipped his head back, staring at the buzzing lights. The ground continued to shake in the aftermath of the sonic booms, and the subway car creaked dangerously as it began to speed along the rails.
All around him Kim Dokja could hear the other passengers muttering to one another. The train Wi-Fi wasn’t working as usual, so anyone who had been in the subway when the alien ship appeared wouldn’t know what was happening on the surface. A few passengers eyed Kim Dokja curiously, having seen him rush into the train from the surface. And yet no one came to bother him, opting to whisper between themselves or anxiously tap on their phones instead. He stood by the door, watching his reflection in the window.
Kim Dokja wiped at the sweat gathering at the back of his neck. He lost his coffee at some point before the possibly-alien-weaponry shot out of the ship, and his groceries were now damaged. But he was still in one piece.
When he got off at his stop, he found the station eerily empty. Even on the surface, he saw a handful of people rushing into cars or stores. Kim Dokja gripped his grocery bag tightly in his hand, feeling his nails dig into the meat of his palms, as he forced himself to keep walking toward his apartment. Every so often he would glimpse up at the sky. Although he wasn’t near the Han River anymore he could still see the giant alien ship floating above Seoul.
Just as he entered the parking lot of his apartment complex, the ground shook as another sonic book pierced through the sky. But before Kim Dokja could even turn to look, something massive crashed at the other end of the street. A wave of air rushed past Kim Dokja and he covered his eyes with his arm.
Once the sudden rush died down, Kim Dokja carefully blinked the dust out of his eyes.
“What the fuck?” he muttered. Sitting in a smoking crater at the other end of the street was a much smaller spaceship. It was the size of a sedan and the smoke was thick enough that it looked like tar floating into the sky. Every atom in his body was vibrating, the beaten and bruised hindbrain of his childhood whispering for him to leave. Turn around.
But where could he go? His apartment was halfway between where he stood and where the spaceship crashed. And would he even be safe if he went back to the subway?
Before his brain could finally get his body to move, a panel of the ship violently exploded out. It sailed through the air before landing through the second floor of the building across the street. Kim Dokja sucked in his breath through his teeth. His heart was beating through his chest as he watched a dozen or so tentacles slither out from the opening. As the dust and smoke directly around the crashed ship settled the tentacles suddenly stopped moving.
Kim Dokja’s chest burned. The tentacles whipped back into the spaceship. As the seconds bled into minutes, Kim Dokja wondered if whatever was inside that ship had died.
Carefully, he stepped forward. The soles of his shoes crunched against the ground. His heart jumped to his throat when the spaceship groaned. He stepped back when a figure finally stumbled out onto the street.
It was too far away for Kim Dokja to really be able to see it. But the alien—because it had to be an alien since it came out of a spaceship—looked like a normal man. He had broad shoulders and a head of dark hair that shined in the sunlight. His skin looked tanned, though he was wearing a dak jumpsuit with heavy boots and gloves. Other than that, Kim Dokja couldn’t see much.
The direction of the wind changed, blowing the rising smoke down the street towards Kim Dokja, and he began coughing when he breathed in.
There was another gust of wind, and Kim Dokja felt something brush close to him. He flinched away, blinded by the tears threatening to drip down his face as he tried to blink away the sudden stinging. Wiping at his face with his arm, he wheezed.
A warm hand landed right above his collarbone and he shrieked. Whipping his head up, Kim Dokja felt any words he was about to say die on the tip of his tongue.
Were aliens supposed to be so attractive? Maybe, because this level of undeniable, artistic beauty couldn’t be human. It was simply unnatural. Not to mention it was utterly unfair to the rest of the human population if only one man was this handsome.
“You,” the alien growled. And his voice was low and smooth as it rushed past Kim Dokja’s ears like a river. He reached out and grabbed Kim Dokja’s hand. His touch was scalding hot and Kim Dokja flinched as if he were burned. But the alien kept a firm grasp around his wrist, carefully unfurling Kim Dokja’s fingers from around the handles of his grocery bag. As the alien did so dark red blood began to smear between their skin. Did Kim Dokja cut his palms with his nails?
“Wait wait—” Kim Dokja sputtered. His brain was finally catching up to what was happening in front of his eyes. When had this man gotten so close in the first place?
The alien paused in his motions and looked at Kim Dokja.
His eyes were deep and never ending, and Kim Dokja could see his reflection in them. Truly such a face couldn’t have been born on Earth. Even the statues and paintings of the old masters couldn’t compare to the beauty before him. The angles of his nose and chin were unmeasurable, his brows thick and even. Just by this alien standing on Earth the world's balance of beauty had tilted to one side.
Kim Dokja felt a sudden chill rush down his spine. This level of appeal was simply unnatural, and incredibly unnerving.
He let out a stuttering breath, unable to look away, simply watching as the alien frowned, his brows furrowing together into a deep crease. As his vision became blurry the alien’s face seemed to shift. Like a pool of water that suddenly began to ripple, his face simply morphed before Kim Dokja’s eyes.
Finally, when the tears threatened to spill over, Kim Dokja blinked the tears away. The man that stood before him was still just as handsome, but the animal instincts in the corner of his brain weren’t screeching anymore. He wasn’t sure what, but something about him had changed and it soothed the part of Kim Dokja’s brain that was still hissing in fear.
The alien pulled at his wrist, forcing Kim Dokja forward until he bumped against his chest.
“You’re coming with me,” the alien demanded.
Kim Dokja blinked.
“… what?”
“Captain what the fuck is that?”
The appeal of being in an alien spaceship was quickly wearing off as the aliens inside twisted and turned to stare at Kim Dokja. The days of his childhood were far behind him now, and yet there was no stopping that familiar chill that raced down Kim Dokja’s spine as the aliens shifted to get a good look at him.
It helped that the aliens didn’t look human. The ones in the hallway murmuring and crowding in close were discomforting, but they had their faces shadowed despite the bright lights in the hallway. What Kim Dokja could see looked like a writhing mass of tentacles.
Kim Dokja ducked behind his alien—Captain? Was he someone important? —and tucked his chin close to his chest.
There were footsteps as the alien who had spoken up curled around Captain. It leaned onto its toes and craned its neck even as Captain shifted to hide more of Kim Dokja behind his wide back. It grinned at Kim Dokja when he glanced at it. Almost like in a dream its face shifted and the face of a teenage girl emerged from the shadows that fell over her shoulder as a long ponytail.
“He looks really weird!” She stated, looking up at Captain. Captain’s expression darkened as he prodded her between her thin brows.
“He can understand you,” he grumbled. The sound rumbled down his spine and into Kim Dokja’s skin. Kim Dokja looked away when he realized that Captain was glancing at him as if he were worried. Really, the alien shipped looked like it belonged in a sci-fi movie.
“Where did you find him?” a voice asked. It was lower than the girl’s, more like that of an adult man, though it was soft spoken. Did he think of Kim Dokja like a frightened rabbit? Something in Kim Dokja’s chest twisted and he stared down at the floor. Captain was responding to the new speaker. The teenage girl had completely turned around now, and Kim Dokja had long since stopped listening.
Maybe if he had had someone to hide behind in his childhood, he wouldn’t jump at the sound of a camera shutter as an adult.
The lights in the hallway were starting to get a little blinding.
A strong arm wrapped around Kim Dokja’s front and he was quickly hauled forward. He immediately gripped the arm, his nails biting into the sleeve of Captain’s spacesuit as he was dragged down the hallway and into a small room.
Kim Dokja’s nose was immediately assaulted by a deep, earthy smell. And it was only then that he realized that the hallway of the alien ship didn’t smell like anything at all. In a way the absence of smell was a scent in and of itself. Kim Dokja sniffled as he was set down on something soft. Blinking hard he pulled his knees to his chest. When he looked up, he quickly glanced away. Captain was kneeling in front of him, a slight frown twisting the corner of his lips.
“Are you not happy?” Captain asked slowly. Kim Dokja snorted as he pinched at the sofa he was sitting on. What was there to even be happy about? He had been abducted by perhaps the universe’s most attractive alien on one of his rare days off and he didn’t even know where his grocery bag had gone.
Burying his face in his hands Kim Dokja groaned. Fuck. His groceries. And he had splurged on some cheap cuts of beef instead of skipping out on protein altogether.
“Are you… hungry?”
“No,” Kim Dokja replied, his voice muffled by his hands. How did Captain even know? “Can you read my mind or something?”
“You smell hungry.”
What the fuck could that even mean? Kim Dokja shifted his fingers so he could stare at Captain. But Captain’s face was just as impassive as it was a second before. Kim Dokja was tempted to kick him, but he found that his legs wouldn’t move.
Working his jaw, Kim Dokja asked, “What’s your name?”
He had been abducted by aliens only to be pulled into a small room and asked if he was hungry. The least this alien could do was give Kim Dokja the courtesy of knowing his name.
“Yoo Joonghyuk,” the alien replied easily. Kim Dokja could only stare.
That was a Korean name. Completely and totally Korean. And yet Yoo Joonghyuk was also completely and totally an alien from outer fucking space. Yoo Joonghyuk’s face made it incredibly easy to forget that his actual appearance was most likely a mass of tentacles, just like the teenage-girl-alien in the hallway.
Sighing, Kim Dokja lowered his hands and gripped his knees, curling his shoulders in as he continued to watch Yoo Joonghyuk.
The lights in the room were dim, and they cast ominous shadows over his face. His eyes almost looked like they were golden as they reflected light like a cat’s eyes would. Kim Dokja’s hand jerked as he waved it towards Yoo Joonghyuk’s face.
“And why do you look like… that?”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyebrows furrowed together as he cocked his head to the side. “Is it not to your liking?”
Kim Dokja could feel his face flush. He dug his nails into his pants, barely stopping himself from slapping Yoo Joonghyuk’s cheek. It was probably as hard as rock anyways.
“That’s—! That’s not important!” Kim Dokja sputtered. He could feel his heart thudding loudly in his chest and he shook his head wildly to will the feeling away. “Just answer the question! You and that other alien, why do you look like that when you’re not human?”
It felt like a joke that sentient alien life looked exactly like humans, at least in some form. Rather than becoming a sci-fi story, it’s as if the genre of the Earth became a shitty alien romcom or one of those video games set in space and the aliens all look humanoid because the studio already had the models for the human characters.
“We’re not.” Yoo Joonghyuk nodded. “But you are. We’re shapeshifters.”
“And you guys shifted to what? Match me?”
“To suit you,” Yoo Joonghyuk corrected. He shifted so he could gently hold Kim Dokja’s hand in his own, slowly rubbing his thumb across Kim Dokja’s knuckles. Kim Dokja looked away.
“To suit me.”
A hum. “Yes. We take after the dominant species of the planets we visit. I claimed you, so I’ve taken a form that would suit you.”
Yoo Joonghyuk sounded incredibly serious as he spoke, even though everything he was saying made little sense. A part of Kim Dokja was rearing back in preparation to suddenly waking up to his phone’s alarm ringing shrilly next to his lumpy pillow. But no, the sofa under him was real. His nails digging into his pants was real. Yoo Joonghyuk’s warm hand was real.
And yet everything Yoo Joonghyuk had just said sounded like a big cosmic joke. But there was one specific thing that Kim Dokja needed to confirm.
“What do you mean by ‘claiming me’?” he asked, squinting suspiciously at Yoo Joonghyuk. The soft expression on Yoo Joonghyuk’s face vanished like steam as he scowled at the wall just to the side of Kim Dokja. The shadows on his face were even sharper than before as dark tendrils shifted angrily along the floor. Kim Dokja shuffled further onto the sofa. His heart stuttered in his chest when one tendril lashed out along the ground. His hips were starting to twinge in pain from how long he had been sitting all curled up.
Still, he didn’t let go of Yoo Joonghyuk’s hand. And Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t let go of his. The two of them sat there in the dim room with their fingers intertwined until Yoo Joonghyuk finally looked at him again. As he moved his hair shifted and Kim Dokja could see the slight flush coloring the tips of Yoo Joonghyuk’s ears.
“It’s as I said: I am claiming you. You will be my one and only companion. You will be with me through life and death. And I will do the same for you.”
That better not fucking mean what Kim Dokja thought it meant.
“You mean you’re marrying me?”
The confused little blink Yoo Joonghyuk did shouldn’t have been charming, and yet here he was. “If that’s what you call it, then yes.”
Really, Kim Dokja was going to hit this stupid alien. Why hadn’t he yet? Too much had happened in the past two hours alone for him to not scream or yell or stomp angrily at the ground. But when had that ever helped him?
With a sigh Kim Dokja pulled his hand away. He watched as Yoo Joonghyuk surged forward, only to stop himself and flex his fingers.
“I don’t know you,” Kim Dokja said slowly. A part of him hoped his tone came off as gentle. “And I’m not particularly interested in getting married right now anyways, and especially not to a stranger. Besides, I’ll have to leave Earth if I went with you, right?”
Leaving Earth… Really, it didn’t sound so bad to him. There had been a point in his life where he would have done anything to leave this world behind, even if what he had to do was die. Though ultimately nothing had come from that other than a long hospital stay and some injuries that never quite healed right.
There wasn’t much for him on Earth, but what could there be beyond the atmosphere and in the never ending expanse of space?
Besides, if Yoo Joonghyuk was an alien from another galaxy, he would undoubtedly find someone much more interesting than Kim Dokja.
“It’s companionship,” Yoo Joonghyuk stated. He unclenched his fist and laid it on Kim Dokja’s leg, rubbing it up and down slowly. “I’d also like to get to know you first. Space is vast, but it isn’t as lonely as many think. I would like to experience it with you.”
“And if I go and don’t like it, I can come back?”
A sour expression settled on Yoo Joonghyuk’s face. “We will drop you off wherever you want to go. Earth or anywhere else.”
Kim Dokja stared at the tops of his knees. The stiffness of his hips was quickly traveling down his legs and up to his back. “Okay. But I want to know more before deciding anything.”
As it turned out, Yoo Joonghyuk was surprisingly bad at explaining things. Kim Dokja had thought him as somewhat eloquent, or at least he was when convincing him to stay and look around. But the moment they sat down properly face to face, the alien had turned out to be rather taciturn.
That wasn’t to say that he was stupid. No, Yoo Joonghyuk clearly knew what he was speaking about. He was simply so concise that it almost hurt.
Kim Dokja pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off a setting headache.
“Okay,” he said, “So to make sure I'm understanding you: the ship we’re on is the big one, which is a diplomatic vessel from your Galactic Union. You specifically are part of a protective detail, and you crashed onto my street because your little ship went haywire after being shuttled off to do inspections?”
“You speak too much,” Yoo Joonghyuk said. Which Kim Dokja took to mean that he was right.
“Why did you come down into the atmosphere?”
“The smaller shuttles would have burned in the descent into your atmosphere.”
“I’m almost certain that nearly every government on Earth is taking this as a hostile takeover.”
Yoo Joonghyuk raised a brow. “Why even have split governments on a planet so small?”
“What, your planet only has one government?” Kim Dokja scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Planets,” Yoo Joonghyuk corrected easily, “Every planet in our solar system has a dominant sentient species. We all work together under the Galactic Union, led by the Seven Kings.”
This was sounding more and more like some sort of joke fantasy plot. How had his life turned to this so quickly? Kim Dokja leaned his head back and took a deep breath. “Okay. A Galactic Union, led by the Seven Kings, each who is a ruler of their respective planet—”
“There can be multiple Kings on one planet. The Seven Kings are just the most powerful.” Yoo Joonghyuk tapped a finger against the table. “I’m one of the Seven Kings.”
Kim Dokja reared his head. “What the fuck do you mean—”
The door to the room opened and a tall man leaned inside. His hair was cropped short, and despite the incredible musculature of his body, his face was rather gentle.
“Captain,” he said, “Are you and your guest done?”
“We’re talking,” Yoo Joonghyuk responded. Kim Dokja huffed and crossed his legs. Clearly, Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t plan on saying anything else, even as the newcomer glanced between the two of them waiting for more.
“Hey,” Kim Dokja called out. The mystery man perked up, not unlike a dog that heard a whistle. “Is Yoo Joonghyuk a King?”
There was too much going on. Right now his brain was magically empty, but Kim Dokja knew that the second he was alone he would crumple into a little ball on the floor and chew on his thoughts until he reached bone.
The mystery man nodded, and his eyes were practically sparkling. “He’s the Supreme King, He defeated all of the other Kings on our planet!”
Kim Dokja scowled at Yoo Joonghyuk as his heart sank. There was no way Yoo Joonghyuk would be content with only Kim Dokja. If he really was the most powerful person on his planet, then there must be someone back home who would be better.
“Though, despite that, Captain has never been too interested in anyone outside of our party,” the mystery man continued. “You’re the first out of any other species we’ve interacted with, and we’ve been to quite a number of planets. Captain usually stays aboard the main ship to avoid interacting with anyone he doesn’t need to.”
“Lee Hyunsung,” Yoo Joonghyuk bit out. Yet another undeniably Korean name for someone who had to be an alien despite his human face. “Go find Lee Jihye. She was supposed to do rounds today.”
Lee Hyunsung quickly saluted them. “I’ll make sure she isn’t spreading any strange rumors, Captain.”
The door closed behind him with a mechanical hiss that just barely covered the sound of Yoo Joonghyuk’s deep sigh. The silence settled between them as Kim Dokja fiddled with the cuff of his shirt.
“So. I’m the first?”
This time he could clearly see the flush settle along Yoo Joonghyuk’s cheekbones. Kim Dokja snorted when Yoo Joonghyuk looked the other way, the faux cool expression on his face at odds with how pink he was getting.
“My species has the ability to… find a companion. Almost like a sixth sense. Most of us find them planetside, though others have found them throughout our own galaxy,” Yoo Joonghyuk said. “I never did. It’s considered strange not to have even an inkling on who it could be, but I had my party. Then we discovered Earth.”
He was staring straight at Kim Dokja now. His eyes were dark, and Kim Dokja could see how hard he was clenching his jaw.
Slowly, Kim Dokja slid his hand across the table. Yoo Joonghyuk’s gaze zeroed in on it. Once his hand got halfway across the table, Yoo Joonghyuk’s hand came to rest on top of it.
Maybe space was vast, and maybe Yoo Joonghyuk was important enough on his home planet to be called the “Supreme King”. And maybe that didn’t really matter in the end. The genre of the story of Earth had shifted to sci-fi and Kim Dokja felt his heart thud in his chest as he turned his hand so their fingers tangled together.
Soulmate stories have always been rather popular, after all.