the Gift
Jinyoung is eleven when aliens invade Earth.
He is playing catch-ball with his classmates in the school yard and he laughs when Jackson stops in his tracks and gets hit with a ball in the head. Jinyoung laughs but goes to comfort his friend because he'll keep whining for days otherwise. The boy doesn't react to being hit or even comforted though, his face lifted upwards with a weird grimace on it. Jinyoung wants to joke that he'll get stuck like that but he follows Jackson's gaze and that's when he notices the enormous things overhead taking half the sky.
The ships (and they must be ships) are huge and they stretch forever and they just keep appearing one next to another, like in movies. They don't move at all, they just jump into existence and Jinyoung is too afraid to blink. They are weird and smooth, and the word alien springs to mind even before Jinyoung makes a connection.
Jinyoung feels his hand being squeezed and he squeezes back.
The school yard is quiet and still for forever and then someone screams and they all spring to school.
The good news is the aliens don't actually plan to invade. They freeze missiles from gun friendly countries mid air and disintegrate them into nothingness. They don't attack back.
"We mean no harm," they say.
"We are to establish a point of contact," they say.
"We don't attack, and we don't let you attack," they say.
The best news is that the aliens know most of human languages and that helps a lot to stop panic. They just want to make a first contact with humanity or so they broadcast on all TVs.
The screen in the cafeteria the whole school has gathered in is blank, and the body less, gender less, accent free voice talks to them through the school speaker system. The teachers can't turn it off.
Jinyoung hugs Jackson closer and looks around. Wonpil isn't far from them, he sits with Mark and Jaebum. Yugyeom is quietly crying one table over, and Jimin is obviously trying to calm him down. Most of the times Jinyoung is the reason for the boy's tears, and this time he isn't, and Jinyoung feels helpless for the first time ever. Bambam is watching blank TV screen on a wall like it's the most captivating movie in the world. Jinyoung wants to come join all of them, but teachers told them to remain seated.
The aliens speak with a weird lack of intonations.
"Please stay calm, we are sorry for the inconvenience," they say.
Their parents fetch them from the school when it gets dark, and when Jinyoung sees his mom hiding from the ships under an umbrella as she hurries to him he finally bursts into tears.
The whole family sleeps in one room, holding each other, with all the windows shut. No one sleeps well, and the next few days they all stay at home.
It's uneventful.
The TV is back on talking about aliens and the governments' communications with them and on Thursday morning Jinyoung's family watches a joint address from Korean government and the aliens.
"We are to enter peaceful communications," says the President.
"It's successful," says the voice transmitted from one of the ships.
"We hope it's going to be," the President smiles, and the voice says,
"It is."
"We know time," they add, in every language in the world. And everyone thinks it means the past.
They actually mean the future.
Jinyoung goes back to school on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday, and then it's just back to normal for him.
He drops by Jackson's house every day because he knows that Jackson won't go otherwise. And as he waits for him he watches the ships staying unnaturally motionless in the sky.
They don't play outside at first, but then the normal life wins.
The sky is still crowded with ships, but it's slowly becoming a familiar sight and in the hottest days they provide much appreciated shadow.
Time slowly goes by and Jinyoung turns twelve.
He still picks Jackson up every morning, more a part of his routine than Jackson still being scared of aliens. He still watches the ships as he waits, and as he watches on a warm October day they start blinking away. They don't go too far, they are still visible. But the sky is suddenly broader, and it feels like the whole Earth has taken a deep breath.
The aliens and the governments come to an agreement, Jinyoung hears it's being announced on TV. The ships retreat as a promise of good will, and when Jinyoung and Jackson get to their school there's an alien inside.
It's undescribeable.
"We bear the Gift," it says.
And a government appointed official says with a smile, "An ambassador speaks good Korean, but I'll be explaining the difficult parts."
"Yes," says the alien.
"The Aliens can see the future," says the lady.
"No," says the alien, "can't see. Know."
"Semantics," says the lady and smiles when Jimin raises her hand.
"Will you tell us the future then?" she asks, and the alien moves-turns-nodes.
"In a way," says the lady.
"We will deliver the Gift," says the alien.
The lady talks a lot.
Simply put, the Gift is a message from the future.
In a little bit more words, this alien has met all of Jinyoung's school in the future and they all gave him messages to themselves. The aliens come here to deliver those messages and to stay here and wait to receive these messages for them to be able to deliver the messages and to close the circle.
It's up to Jinyoung and others what they do with these messages and it's up to them what they send in those messages when the time comes. But starting from that day every child between seven and twelve will get a message from their future self and the aliens will stay on Earth to collect and deliver them, and that's the Agreement.
The aliens will watch, will talk to them, will deliver them messages, but they won't do anything else.
"Will I be able to send anything?" asks Youngjae's classmate.
"No," says the lady.
"Yes," says the alien.
"Semantics," says the lady. "You don't need to worry about that now, they will explain it to you when you meet in the future."
"You can send anything, the Gift has no limitations," says the alien.
"The Gift doesn't," the lady sounds like she's getting impatient, "but your ability to translate things does."
"Simply put," says the lady, and Jackson whines that he gets everything except simply put things.
"Simply put," says the lady, "the Aliens have a weird language, and they have different words compared to ours in their language. Like, we have hands, and they, well..."
It makes sense.
"When you give them your messages they are going to translate these messages into their language, and then when they are delivering these messages back to you they will translate them back into Korean, they will obviously miss something."
"Don't trust them too much," she says seriously.
"We don't lie," argues the alien.
"But you don't understand," says the lady.
Neither does Jinyoung.
"Please talk to your parents, if you need help with your Gift," says the lady. "Or teachers, or social workers."
She sounds very serious.
"Please seek help if needed," she looks at the youngest especially.
Receiving the Gift sounds complicated and too much trouble, if Jinyoung is being honest with himself. But as it turns out not receiving is sadly not even an option.
They get their Gifts in a classroom. Each and everyone is presented with a small envelope with a card inside.
Park Jinyoung, says the one before Jinyoung.
He is suddenly too worried to look.
He hears some people already opening their Gifts, he can see that Jackson is still looking at his. But the lady said it was a private moment and the alien agreed, so Jinyoung looks back at his envelope.
This card is all they get, no comments on when is this from, what were the reasons behind the words, the Gift comes as it is. You should be grateful either way.
Years later Jinyoung isn't sure if he was.