"What?" I briefly wondered if he was being flirtatious or dropping innuendos again. But for once there weren't any signs of the cheeky smirk or mischievous glimmer in his eyes.

Jimin shrugged nonchalantly but I could see his body was stiff, tense. His question, what he was offering me, definitely held a deeper meaning for him.

"Is touching your Marks like a sacred thing?" I asked uncertainly.

I didn't want to violate any personal or cultural values of the Outworlders. Nevertheless I couldn't help but gaze longingly at the mesmerizing lines weaving and crisscrossing each other.

He pointedly offered his arm. After a moment's hesitation I carefully took it into my lap, my eyes spellbound as they followed the intricacies of the Marks.

"It's not exactly sacred. I mean, people are always brushing up against your skin and that's like whatever. But the Marks are... very sensitive. To let someone actually touch them you're expressing a more vulnerable side to that person. Showing that you trust them."

I looked up. "I practically molested you at a rave, superglued you to the bed, and made you fall flat on your back with vegetable oil. How on earth do you trust me?"

"You don't judge me just because of what I am."

I paused at that.

He took a deep breath. "From the very beginning, you've never been afraid or expressed any prejudice against me. At first I thought it was all an act. Or maybe worse, you pitied Outworlders like me."

Something inside me ached at his words. It was because of the way humans had treated him and his friends and family that caused these suspicions and insecurities, no matter how well hidden he buried them.

"You see, the whole act on the counter on the first day we met as well as the towel joke I pulled was a test," he continued. A tiny smile pricked at the corner his lips as he recalled the memories. "I wanted to catch you off guard. I wanted to see if you would reveal your true colors and scream. Maybe threaten me and yell at me to step back in line as the alien invader freak I was."

I shook my head, incredulous. A test. It had all been a test. Under what had seemed like provocative teasing had really been sharp wary eyes watching my reaction, searching for disgust and judgement.

He exhaled. "But you didn't do that," he murmured. "You never faltered once. I never saw you slip and let that familiar, resentful look in your eyes. And for the first time, I started allowing myself to believe that you really did accept me as who I was."

I ducked my head, opting to once again study the patterns across his skin, always glowing like eternal starlight.

"Does that mean all the pranks pulling on each other were really just tests to see what my true motives and opinions were?" I asked quietly.

"Not after the superglue," replied Jimin. "I thought you'd intentionally hurt me with that prank. I thought I'd finally seen a glimpse of your true nature. But I saw the look on your face when you realized what the glue had done. I saw your expression when you apologized. You were genuinely shocked and sorry."

"Of course," I mumbled, shifting uncomfortably as I recalled the blood oozing out of his beautiful Marks. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Why?" Jimin gazed at me, eyes wide and for once stripped free of all facade of flirtatiousness and devilry. "Why do you not reserve any judgement against Outworlders? Did you perhaps have a close Outworlder friend? Or perhaps an Outworlder saved your life and ever since you just accept them?"

I slowly shook my head. "I did have a few Outworlder friends when I was little. But... I don't know. I grew up in a world of Outworlders. I've gone to class with some of them, played with them in the past. Other than the Marks and morphing, they're just like me. Mind, feelings, heart all underneath the skin, just like me."

I tilted my head as I recalled all the times my parents had argued in front of me, to me, about the extraterrestrials. "I suppose another part of the reason is the way my parents talk about your kind. My parents are usually good people, they raised me like any other warm, loving parent would. But they're like entirely different people when it comes to Outworlders. It's frustrating and almost scary to see their angry prejudice blind them to the truth."

"They remember the world as it was before," said Jimin. "That's got to be a huge changer in having to adjust their lives to accommodate us and they can't really be blamed."

"It's easy to understand their motives. But that doesn't make it any more excusable." Disgust roiled in me as I recalled the horrid things Mom and Dad had thrown right in Jimin's face. Another thought drifted in my mind. "Jimin, you're eighteen right? Does that mean you were born on earth?"

He nodded. "We're both in the Cardinal Generation: the first generation of humans having been born among aliens, and Outworlders being born on Earth."

"So you've never known the planet the Outworlders originally came from?"

He shook his head. "Only stories," he murmured.

"Do you wish that you could visit the home planet? See the place your race came from?" I finally reached up began to drag my fingertips across his skin, not quite touching his Marks yet.

"I want to see our planet as it once was," Jimin murmured. "My father remembered tasting ash and blood in the air as he boarded the airship that would leave the planet. Leave the solar system. Leave home." He paused and took a deep, shuddering breath. "There was nothing left but slow, miserable deaths for any who wanted to stay on the planet."

The Outworlders were forced to leave. They had nowhere else to go.

I finally slid my thumb over a Mark. The skin of the Mark was a thin membrane, but it was a surprisingly rough under my thumb. And it lacked heat. While his skin was body temperature warm, the Marks were cold. Icy trails of stars etched upon his skin.

A shiver ran down his body. My face heated and gut tightened. Right. The Marks were hyper-sensitive.

"Do you feel like Earth is your home?" I ran my finger down his arm to his wrist, following the spiraling lines.

"Earth is where I live whether I want to or not." Jimin rested his head against the back of the couch, eyes lidded as he watched me touch and trace his Marks. His intense gaze sent shivers down my spine. "More like, I'm waiting for someone to make me feel home."

I paused at a certain intersection of Marks directly above the base of his wrist.

The lines here twisted in a different way than the main pattern of his Marks. They danced around each other on his skin: two threads twisting, tangling, unraveling, and connecting again. Like two strings of fate interwoven together.

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Cover by sugainfires10