Needless to say when he pulled into his parking spot and Chief Seong met him, a winged alien was not what the poor man had been expecting. He stumbled, fumbled with words, and tried to desperately do something other than exaggeratedly point at the creature in the back seat. 

For about a good solid two minutes, Haneul accepted this behavior. He himself needed a good up-and-down pacing before he could process. But he could not have his car door open for anybody to see while his security chief floundered. It was time to pull out his ultimate get-out-of-jail card: a pay raise. Chief Seong regarded him with an incredulous gaze before finally conceding. Together, the two of them slowly and haphazardly pulled the creature out. Haneul cradled it by the knees, while the chief hooked his arms underneath its armpits. They wobbled as if carrying a ladder or a couch to the doors that connected the garage to the main apartment building. 

When they entered, there was no one—not even other guards. Only the sounds of their dress shoes on tiles echoed eerily in Haneul’s ears. But he ignored that and slammed his shoulder against the “up” button to the lift.

Chief Seong winced when the machine gave a pleasant ding and they had to figure out how the heck were they going to fit the creature inside the small cubit. Because no way in hell were they walking up forty-eight flights of stairs to reach the top. After a while, they settled with standing the creature on its feet, them both supporting it with an arm slung over each of their shoulders. Haneul had worried that something so large might actually upset the weight limit of the elevator, but surprisingly there wasn’t a problem—he wasn’t quite sure why he was shocked, afterall he had managed to carry the thing into his car by himself. 

They were able to awkwardly side shuffle themselves into the penthouse, half dragging, half supporting, half walking their odd guest. Once they laid it across the long living room couch, the pair loosened their collars and staggered a bit. 

That had been perhaps a bit too much excitement for one night. 

Promising once again that he would not speak a word of the odd visitor, Chief Seong excused himself and slipped back into the hall. Close enough to hear anything should anything unfortunate happen but far away enough to pretend that the past fifteen minutes were all some fever dream. Fine, Haneul didn’t have time to complain much about that. A familiar “boof” barked from the back of the penthouse before he was eagerly greeted by his dog, Charles. The german shepherd happily greeted him before skittering back at the sight, and probably scent, of the creature currently sprawled out on the sofa.

Pulling the cell from his back pocket, Haneul gently restrained Charles’ collar with his free hand while speed-dialing the only vet he knew with the other. It took a few rings but luckily there was an answer.

“Do you know what time it is, man?”

“It’s an emergency.” Well that wasn’t a lie. 

There was a pause and then rustling. “Is Charles okay?”

Clearing his throat, Haneul wondered if there was an easy way to say “a six-winged-humanoid crash-landed on my car, is extremely busted up, and is in need of immediate care”. “Actually I think it’s more of a bird problem.”

“Bird problem? You didn’t have birds.”

“I do now,” he huffed. “Please Ha-Rin, this can’t wait until tomorrow morning. It’s that important.”

“I’m hopping into my car now, you owe me,” the disgruntled admittance came, before Ha-Rin's voice pitched a bit followed by a car beep. “Is there anything about this bird’s condition that you can tell me about?” 

“Among other things, there is a tear in its right wing.” Again, not another lie. “It looks as if someone tried to break the elbow.”

“Jeez, where did you find this thing, it’s not a crow is it?”

He stared dully at the long ebony wings stretched out over the top of the couch while the other halves draped onto the floor. The wings glittered darkly in the night and they held a murky sheen as if they were made of greens, blues, and purples. Mildly he wondered if this creature was somehow part crow. Wouldn’t that be interesting, Ha-Rin guessing the species off the top of her head? Still, he sat down on his end-table, despite Charles’ whining, and put up an ignorant front.

“What, do I look like the vet?” he hissed, before running a tired hand through his hair. He caught a dried leaf that must have found its way into his locks when he was blasted from the roof of his car. 

She yawned. “None of that sass. I’m here being a good person unlike you interrupting my sleep. See you in ten.”

The phone blipped and reluctantly he pulled the device away from his ears. Guess it was going to be a long night. He messaged Secretary Yun to let her know that he’d be absent from the office tomorrow. He’d need her to cancel his meetings for that day.  

With the night this shaped up to be, it was going to be unpleasant and probably impossible to go into work tomorrow.

He walked Charles back to his bedroom and closed the door before wandering to the bathroom for towels. He wet a few and kept the others dry, making his way back to the injured creature. Slowly but surely he tackled the task of undressing the sloppily bandaged wound. The gash still looked horrible and definitely infected at this point. Perhaps his emergency care hadn't been the best approach to the situation. The haphazard jostling from transport didn’t help, he supposed. Hissing, he wiped at the cut again with one of the wet towels—trying his best to be careful about the whole process. Now that he had the chance to observe the gash better, he realized that the alien’s blood was a warm and heady amber—like the color of meade. For the third time that night he wanted to laugh. 

There really wasn’t going to be a way to explain this at all to Ha-Rin once she got here. Although she was smarter than most people combined, so he probably shouldn’t bank on the fact that she wouldn’t notice the minute she saw the creature on the couch. But hey, a man could dream.

The front door unlocked and Chief Seong asked someone to enter. Standing up abruptly, heart pounding in his chest, Haneul only relaxed once Ha-Rin entered. She wore knee high boots over her jeans, and her pajama tee had been skillfully and gracefully covered with her favorite leather jacket. 

She stared at him before trailing her gaze to his guest. And then back to him. “What the hell is this Haneul?”

He laughed nervously and gestured to the splayed wings. “Bird?”

“Of all the damn idiots messing with my time,” she said, hoisting her medical kit in hand and making her way immediately to the injured wing. “I don’t think I brought enough thread for suturing...this.”

She unpacked quickly and laid out the materials on the sofa’s armrest before gently taking the wounded limb in hand. “What are we going to use as a splint? I would just bandage it normally, and even though I’ve brought a few small popsicle sticks—I didn’t bring anything nearly the right size.”

“I’ve got some board left over from a DIY whiskey shelf, do you think that would help?”

“Of course you do,” she groaned. “Fine, fine, bring it over here.”

He hurried to the back of the penthouse where the scrap pieces awaited. Picking through the pile, he found one of the smoother and less roughed-up chunks. Briefly, he wished he had better materials on hand but he ignored it—shooing the thought away as he ran down the hall. Ha-Rin was absorbed in properly cleaning the open wound along the elbow of the wing, her face scrunched up in a mix of disgust and concern. 

“I have no idea if it’s going to even have a reaction—good or bad—to the antiseptic and meds,” she said.

“It’s all animal tested though, right?”

“You’re...god sometimes you baffle me. I don’t know if this thing is closer to a human or an animal. We have no way of knowing if what’s healing for us is poisonous for it!”

Oh. She did have a point there. “So…what are you going to do?”

“Help it as best as I can,” she said . “Which you are making it difficult to do. Go hide in a corner somewhere until I’m done, sheesh.”

It was late, and he knew he owed her one. He probably owed her a million for this. 

Three o’clock in the morning. 

Strange-alien-cryptid-creature-thingy. 

Their risk at best was that they’d get caught. That alone was enough for him to feel incredibly grateful to her. She’d always come through for him, way since their uni days. Both her and Chief Seong. If there were any  true friends left in this world for him, it was them. Back in the day, when he’d first met Ha-Rin, she knew nothing about his family or his position, she knew nothing about the job waiting for him post graduation—she constantly made fun of him for majoring in anthropology. “What could you do with that?” she would croon. It was an inside joke between them that he would end up a bum without a job or a home. Or worse, a primary school history teacher. He always appreciated the jest because at times he often did wish that was what awaited him. None of the pompous business politics that he found himself now dabbling in. Now her question was always how did you major in anthropology? Since it seemed pretty obvious that something like business or economics would be more appropriate for his trade. The answer was a simple one—it was his one final grasp for freedom. Because once he left, his grandmother and father swept him up into the family conglomerate. Learning the ins-and-outs of offering middlemen dealers to internationally expanding companies was all that was left for his future. It wasn’t a bad future, he would be well-off. But he didn’t really  want any of it. He found that his best reprieve was the few years he had to do his military service. And even then, he enlisted kicking and screaming since his family tried to bribe him out of it. 

Haneul was extremely lucky. 

Sitting down against the door to his bedroom, Haneul took a few deep breaths and closed his eyes. He wondered what the creature would look like at full strength. It almost made him wish he’d gotten a veterinarian degree as well just so he could help. He’d been pretty useless with the whole debacle so far. 

Well, in general, he was pretty useless.

A kick to the side of his leg shook him and stared up at the narrowed glare of Ha-Rin. She rolled her eyes and sat down next to him and rested her head on his shoulder. Sighing, he leaned his head back against the door, muttering his thanks. There was a moment before she waved him off, closing her eyes.

“I’ll stay here until the thing wakes up—just in case it decides to attack you,” she mumbled.

“Aw, are you going to protect me?” He asked.

Snorting, she curled her legs up and relaxed completely. “No, I just want to record it so I can make it big with a viral video.”

He laughed.

Sleep ebbed and flowed throughout the duration of the night. Sometimes he woke up and other times he felt Ha-Rin stir against him. Their guest did not wake, not once.