There had been an unspoken truce for the rest of the afternoon as we moved in and began setting up our new home.

I'd settled on the floor with my large move-in luggage and box beside me. On either side of the room was a bed frame and I'd first made my bed before settling on the floor to take out my clothes.

The methodical folding of clothes and placing them in the provided drawer on my side of the room helped calm some of my nerves. Not only had I just moved out of the house, but I was about to start learning how to live on my own.

Jimin, on the other side of the room, was constantly moving in contrast to my sitting. Even more intriguing, he kept morphing between human to bird to human yet again. It was rather distracting and it took all my willpower not to stare too much.

Our truce broke, however, when dinnertime rolled around.

I had just washed my hands in preparations to start figuring out what to do for dinner and reached for the towel beside the sink. Then, in the blink of an eye, the towel moved under my fingers.

I found myself gripping the thighs of a Park freaking Jimin.

He leaned against the counter, grinning down at me. "Hey."

You had got to be freaking kidding me.

"You're unbearable," I seethed.

"You're still gripping my thighs."

I immediately released his hard packed muscular thighs. I hoped he'd interpret my red cheeks from anger and not anything else.

"What exactly were you trying to accomplish doing that?" I looked around. "And where is the actual towel?"

He pulled the 'actual towel' from his back pocket and handed it to me, still grinning. "Tried that trick once with this girl called Y/N. She started screaming right off the bat."

"You really into girls gripping your thighs huh?" I raised my brow.

If it wasn't for him being able to morph and his Marks I would think him just another hormonal male human hoping to take advantage of having a female roommate.

He leaned forward, eyes sparkling. "Perhaps. But no girl before has gripped me as hard as you just did. I wonder, what else can those hands do?"

That did it.

"They can do this."

Jimin's eyes widened as I lunged at him. And then he was a towel again.

"That's so unfair!" I yelled at the towel. I grabbed it and began whipping it against the counter. "Face me, coward!"

The Jimin towel made satisfying snapping noises every single time I hit it/him against the counter.

I finally threw it back on the floor and glared at it, waiting.

As the seconds dragged out my anger transformed into fear and then horror as the towel remained limp on the ground.

Oh god...

Did I just murder Jimin-towel?

I was about to reach down and poke it when the towel morphed. Jimin re-appeared on the ground, curled up in a tight ball with his hands covered over his head. He peeked up at me with large, dilated eyes.

"Well I was right about the strong grip," he wheezed out, voice breathless.

I exhaled and muscles, that I hadn't realized that had tensed in fear, began to relax. Thank God I hadn't just terminated my alien roommate on the first day.

Jimin painfully clambered to his feet and we faced each other. He extended a hand. "Fine. Let's call that round a tie then."

I raised a brow. "There's going to be rounds of this?"

"It's no fun if there's only one round. I want to see who might win this battle. Me, an Outworlder who can morph into anything. Or you, a simple human girl with a strong grip."

I narrowed my eyes, fighting a tiny grin. This was going to be interesting. "Alright." I reached out and grabbed his hand, shaking it. "Let the battle begin."

His eyes shone. "Wonderful."

And then he was a large spider.

The silver creature skittering up my arm with spindly, hairy legs. I could see dozens of beady eyes flashing at me and OH MY GOD WERE THOSE LITTLE FANGS?!

"AAAAFGJJAJDGS!" I screamed, losing my mind and shaking my hand desperately. "Nonono! Get off! Get off!!"

The freakish arachnid sprang off and then he was back in human form again, grinning and laughing hard. His Marks blazed, reflecting his delight.

"You shouldn't seen the look on your face!" He grabbed the counter to steady himself as chuckles shook his entire lithe body. "I won that round too easily."

My heart slammed against my chest and I continued wiping my arm desperately on my shirt, biting back whimpers threatening to spill from my mouth as I still felt phantom legs crawling over me.

Fury burned through me. I glared at the audacious creature before me. He was going to pay. I didn't know how yet, but he was going to pay.

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"Good night partner." Jimin snuggled down into his bed and shot me an insolent wink across the wide expanse of the bedroom. "Don't get any nightmares of spiders tonight."

"Good night Jimin," I replied calmly, reaching over to switch off the lamp.

I nestled down in my bed, steadying my breaths.

Silence fell like a heavy veil. I swore I could hear my own heartbeat softly thudding in my chest as darkness shrouded itself around me. The only source of light were the soft glowing Marks across the room from the few parts of my roommate's body exposed above his blanket- mainly his neck and an arm.

It was still a mystery how exactly the Marks came to be. All Extraterrestrial babies were born with the Marks. As far as scientists knew, the best way to explain the Marks were from a genetic mutation that all Outworlders had.

The Marks could be any color—green, blue, indigo, gold, white, even black— and all of them softly glowed beneath the skin. Scientists had deduced that the glow came from a chemical compound in the blood of the aliens. A never before seen chemical.

The only times the Marks went completely out was when an Outworlder died. However, the Marks dimmed significantly when the bearer of the Marks was unconscious or sleeping.

And that's what I was watching for.

Slowly, the silvery lines dulled until they were almost nothing but wisps of misty threads in the dark.

A smirk twisted across my mouth and slowly, as silently as possible, I pushed back the covers and sat up. I reached down where I'd snuck the plastic bottles under my bed earlier.

Vengeance was mine.

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