ㅡ Prologue: The  beginningㅡ 

The brown-haired, slender womanly figure sauntered back and forth in the living room with a certain despondency. She approached the window and drew back a small part of the curtain with her fingertips, eyeing the children and young people at play outside, throwing snowballs at each other and building snowmen under the fairy lights that embellished rooftops and doorways. She sighed.

“I hate this time of the year,” she whispered under her breath.

Christmas had never been a very happy date for her. In fact, the 25th of December made her rather depressed.

Tiffany wished she could at least celebrate it for one day.

Maybe it’s all the decoration and the presents, she would think, trying to find an explanation as to why everyone was so keen about celebrating Christmas and rubbing the happiness they got from it on everyone’s faces.

“I wish I wouldn’t spend it alone again at least for once,” Tiffany whispered again, letting the curtain fall back into its place and heading towards a small couch in front of a demure fireplace which she didn’t bother to light, even though it was freezing outside.

She sat quietly for a while, sipping on a cup of tea she had the habit to prepare every nightㅡit helped her sleep betterㅡand reading a book she had bought months ago. “I think I should become a bit smarter,” she had told herself five months prior to that night, when she decided to spend one-hundred and fifty dollars on books because she thought both her life and her mind had been becoming quite bland and empty for a while. Thus far, she hadn’t read a single one. She wasn’t even halfway through the one she currently tried to read.

Well, let’s see: it all happened too fast. A harsh rustle was heard from the rooftop, and was followed by multiple thuds continually coming down the chimney. The mug Tiffany had in hands flew across the room as she yelled in shock, and crashed against the wall, spilling the tea all over the place. The book was hurled somewhere, too, though where it is uncertain. The bulky object falling down within the dirty inner walls of the chimney made a heavy dark smoke ascend through the airㅡbut, wait, did that smoke have tiny sparkles swirling in it? No, it surely did not. Tiffany must have imagined it.

When the smoke finally dwindled, a thin, pale, golden-haired lady, clad in a vivid and sparkly red gown, could be seen sitting by the fireplace, rubbing her dirty arms and tidying her dress as her face wrung its features in disgust. She ran a hand through her disheveled hair and looked up inside the chimney, and then yelled, with a surprising mellifluous voice, “THAT WAS COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY!”

There was muffled laughter, but only the blonde stranger could hear it.

Tiffany stood a few feet away from the fireplace, paralyzed from shock. She had open in an ‘O,’ and observed the other woman with a mixture of curiosity and panic.

Had she really fallen from the godforsaken chimney?!

“Oh!” the blonde figure uttered, noticing Tiffany’s presence in the room. She got up graciously, once again tidying herself up, and smiled gently. “Hello, Tiffany.”

A long shriek was Tiffany’s response.

“Oh, please, no!” the blonde said, covering her ears with her palms, wincing. “Stop screaming! STOP SCREAMING!” she shouted, hoping her voice would be louder than Tiffany’s piercing one.

Tiffany went silent, for the woman’s relief.

“Phew. Thank you. Well--”

“WHO ARE YOU, HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME, AND WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE?” Tiffany exclaimed nervously, picking up her cell phone and wielding it as though it were a weapon, in a pathetic attempt at threatening her visitor.

The blonde quirked an eyebrow. “What are you going to do with a cell phone?”

“Throw it at you, if I must. You have thirty seconds to explain yourself and then leave my house, or else I am calling the cops. Answer me!”

The woman rolled her eyes. Tiffany watched her swing her hand to the side, and in the very same second, her cellphone followed the movement, leaving her hand and landing on the rug. Her eyes and mouth widened in shock yet again. “H-how… How--”

“Oh, we’ll get there. You don’t have to be so rude,” the blonde said simply, interrupting Tiffany. “Let’s try again: Hello, Tiffany!”

Tiffany stared at her dumbfoundedly and suspiciously for a few seconds, and watched as the other woman gestured at her for her to respond. “H-hello,” she finally answered.

“It’s nice to finally meet you.” The blonde smiled. “I’ve heard many things about you.”

“You have?!” Tiffany raised her voice again. “From whom? Who are you? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

The blonde took a few cautious steps towards Tiffany and beamed a friendly smile, reaching out her hand for Tiffany to take and shake. “My name is Taeyeon. I’m a fairy.”

Tiffany eyed the woman, then her hand, then the woman again, and took two steps back. “You’re crazy.”

Taeyeon was unfazed, and simply raised both her eyebrows, withdrawing her hand.  “Well, at least I didn’t try to threaten anyone with a modern speaking device.”

Tiffany just frowned. “You come into my house, God knows how--”

“I fell down the chimney,” Taeyeon justified, pointing towards said object.

“I’m talking! You come into my house, down the chimney, God knows how, toss my phone away, God knows how, and say to my face you are a fairy. What would you expect me to think? What are you really? Some sort of cheap magician? Is this a practical joke?”

“I can prove to you that I’m a fairy.”

“Then please do,” Tiffany encouraged, rather mockingly, growing impatient.

The blonde shrugged and, with another swing of her hand and fingers, this time a bit more elaborated, she had the scattered broken pieces of Tiffany’s mug, as well as the spilled tea, fly gracefully through the room towards the small coffee table beside the couch and gather into a whole thing again. Tiffany eyed the process and the result in utmost shock. It seemed like the cup of tea had never been tossed away, or broken.

“Oh, strawberry!” the fairy said, sniffing the air and taking in the sweet scent the tea emanated. “My favorite.”

Tiffany just kept staring at her, but her panic and shock began to make space for some sort of wonder.

“That’s just a trick. Any of us can do it,” Taeyeon said, indifferent. “Anyhow, let’s get down to business. Tiffany, I’m here to help you out. And you are going to help me back.”

“Enlighten me,” Tiffany muttered. “And your arguments had better be convincing. I still do not believe in this… fairy thing,” she completed, waving her hand.

Taeyeon’s face turned into an offended expression. “Why! I just showed you I can do magic. Don’t you believe me still?”

“You could be an illusionist of some sort. That smoke that emerged from the fireplace with you could have had some kind of psychoactive substance that made me hallucinate and imagine you really did what you have just done to that cup of tea. And furthermore: if you are a fairy, why are you my size? And where are your wings?”

“Aha!” Taeyeon snapped her fingers and smiled. “I am glad you mentioned wings. This is exactly what all of this is about. My wings.”

Tiffany cocked a brow and crossed her arms. “So?”

“You see, I…” the fairy stopped for a bit, pursing her lips, and then smiled bashfully. “I have done something that displeased my fairy superiors greatly. As a punishment, because they thought I was unworthy of the job they designed me, they took my wings from me. I am here to prove the fairies in charge that I can do good, and get my wings back.”

Tiffany was secretly amused, but still finding all of that extremely hard to believe. Hell, fairies didn't really exist.

Or do they?

“What have you done?”

Taeyeon looked away, muttering “I made Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt break up.”

Tiffany was infuriated. “Oh, for God’s sake. You are kidding me. Either that, or you’re completely nuts!”

“I mean it! They weren’t fit for each other, anyway. The only reason why my superiors got angry was because they had been one of my group’s more successful worksㅡbut the fairy to blame for that used a love potion on them, just because she wanted to create a powerhouse, famous couple. We can’t use love potions and get away with it! But unfortunately, no one ever found out about her devious ways… and nobody believed me when I told them!” Taeyeon said, finishing her speech with a frustrated sigh. “You see, we fairies are usually divided in groups, each one of fairies endowed with the same power. Of course that there are some standard abilities that we all have, like making things fluctuate, repairing broken things, playing with lights, flying through walls, and some divination to a certain degree, for instance… but still, we are divided in groups, because there are many kinds of fairies, each with special abilities: there’s the winter fairies, for example, that secure winter and make it snow. As you can see,” the fairy pointed towards the window, “they are doing an excellent job this year. Anyway, there’s also the spring fairies, the light fairies, the night fairies… and we’re all scattered all around the world. And also--”

“And what kind of fairy are you?” Tiffany asked, eyeing Taeyeon from head to toe.

“Oh, of course,” she said, and giggled. “How silly of me. I’m a fairy of love.”

“A fairy of love,” Tiffany repeated, incredulous.

“That’s right. Hence the red garment,” Taeyeon continued, pointing down to her gown. “We are also color-coded.”

“And why in the world would I need a fairy of love in my house?”

“Well, as you might have assumed by now, we, the fairies of love, are in charge of people’s love lives, and--”

“I thought that was Cupid’s job,” Tiffany said, mockingly.

“Cupid is a phony!” Taeyeon fired back, rather offended. Tiffany brought her hands up in defense and held in a chuckle. “Anyway, as I was saying, we are in charge of people’s love lives,” Taeyeon began again, this time roaming around the living room, exploring the place with her eyes. “I told you I have heard a lot about you, didn’t I? That’s because one of my closest friends, a fellow fairy of love, had been attempting to find you your true love for many years now, but for some reason, you have never let her succeed.” She threw a rebuking look at Tiffany.

“Me?!”

“Yes. No matter how many times she tried to find you a good partner, it never worked out. You always backed away… which means none of them were your true love, but still. You have never even been with a boyfriend long enough for him to possibly eventually become your true love.”

“... I haven’t had that many boyfriends,” Tiffany tried to defend herself.

“Twelve, Tiffany. Twelve,” Taeyeon stated, nonchalantly. “Naturally, the fairies of their respective groups discuss anent their deeds and what we call ‘missions.’ Sooyoung has spoken of you millions of times, precisely because you were a task she could never fulfill. Every local fairy of love knows about your existence. You are seen among us as a lost case, an impossible mission to complete. That’s why the fairy superiors have sent me to you.” The fairy turned around and faced Tiffany again.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I follow it.”

“Well, it’s simple: if I manage to successfully find you your true love, I get my wings back. I cannot be without my wings for, you see, as a fairy, I can only live up to a month without them. They are nearly as important a part of my body as it is my heart,” the fairy said earnestly. “I have a week to help you find love. If I can do that in such a short amount of time, even though a colleague has tried to do so for years and failed, it will mean I’m worthy of my job as a fairy of love, and that I will get my wings back and live.”

Tiffany slowly sat down on the couch, eyeing the blonde woman with compassion.

“Will you let me help you?” the fairy asked, her eyes twinkling expectantly.

“You’ll… die if I don’t?”

Taeyeon nodded faintly.

Tiffany sighed. She’s crazy. You’re not really believing this, are you? she thought to herself. She looked up and eyed the fairy across the room, standing prettily by the fireplace. She does look harmless, though. What could go wrong, anyway? I have nothing to lose.

“Fine. You can help me.”

“Oh, great, great!” Taeyeon exclaimed excitedly and clapped her hands. “That’s terrific. May we start?”

“What? No,” Tiffany answered and shook her head. “It’s late, and I still need to digest all of this. I’ll go to bed. Be back here tomorrow morning.” Maybe I’m dreaming. If I go to bed, tomorrow morning it will all be back to normal, she thought, and turned away ready to head toward the staircase and to her bedroom.

“Back?” the fairy asked innocently.

Tiffany stopped in her tracks, midway through the staircase, and looked down at Taeyeon, inquiring silently.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Tiffany rolled her eyes, and emitted yet another sigh. “Well then, can’t you just make yourself tiny and sleep wherever you think it’s comfortable around here?”

“I can’t make myself tiny without wings.”

“Right,” Tiffany said, annoyedly. “Then just make yourself comfortable however you think it’s best for you.”

“Good! Thank you,” the fairy said, smiling. Tiffany offered her a small smile and a nod of the head, and resumed heading up the stairs and toward the bedroom, but stopped when she noticed someone trailing behind her.

“What are you doing?” she turned around, questioning Taeyeon, who was just two steps below her.

“Going to sleep.”

“With me?!” Tiffany exclaimed.

“Wherever you go,” the fairy responded ingenuously.

“I’m going to my room.”

“Then, so am I!” Taeyeon smiled again.

“The hell you are. You are a stranger. You are not sleeping with me.”

“Well, fairies don’t sleep alone. We’re used to having many of our kind around each other. We live in groups, I told you.”

“But I am not one of you,” Tiffany said coldly, and once again turned away from Taeyeon, climbing up the remaining steps.

The blonde fairy was left despondent and lonely halfway through the staircase, where she quietly sat down. Tiffany, who was about to climb up the final step, upon noticing the fairy’s quietude, inconspicuously turned around to face her. Yet another sigh escaped Tiffany’s nostrilsㅡthis time, a compassionate one, and she descended the stairs back to where she had left Taeyeon, offering the latter her hand. “All right, come on. It seems like both you and I have had exhaustive days. I don’t want a sad fairy roaming my house tonight,” she said.

Taeyeon looked up at Tiffany and smiled brightly. “Thank you,” she said, and took her hand in hers. When their skins touched, Taeyeon heard a tiny bell ring sweetly and softly in her headㅡa sound very familiar to fairies of her kind, but unbecoming of the situation. She shook the thought away, deciding that it was but a figment of her imagination ensued by both the determination and the tiredness of her mind. Tiffany led her upstairs and soon enough they were in her bedroom.

“I have to find you some pajamas,” Tiffany said, heading towards her closet. “You can’t sleep in that dirty gown.”

“Are pajamas that specific, kind of funny garment you humans unreasonably change into when you go to bed?”

“Uh… yes?” Tiffany responded. “Don’t you wear pajamas?”

Taeyeon chuckled, amused. “No. We always wear the same clothes.”

“Why not?”

“Well, why do you?”

Tiffany opened to speak, but didn’t find an answer. “Well, it doesn’t matter. You’ll have to wear a pair of pajamas today, or else you’ll get my bed dirty. Here, take these,” she said, tossing a pair of baby pink pajamas to the blonde. “You can get changed in the bathroom. It’s right there,” she pointed.

“Hm?” Taeyeon hummed, looking toward the indicated direction. “Oh, it’s okay. I can change here,” she said, leaving the pair of pajamas on the bed, and turning around before undoing the straps of her dress and the ribbon laced around her waist to finally let the dirty gown fall down. Tiffany was about to protestㅡafter all, there was a half- strange woman in her bedroom, but she halted herself upon noticing two tiny, pink scars on Taeyeon’s back.

“What are those?” she asked quietly.

Taeyeon turned her face around and eyed Tiffany.

“Those scars on your back. Did you hurt yourself?”

“Oh,” Taeyeon said sadly. “My wings used to be there,” she completed.

“They ripped them off?!”

“In a way,” Taeyeon muttered. She put on the pajamas Tiffany had given her, and turned her body around to face her host. “The fairies enchanted them so that I wouldn’t feel pain, then manually ripped them off of my body. Indeed, I didn’t suffer, but sometimes it stings a bit. That was just now,” the fairy said, disheartened.

“I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay. I’ll get them back.” Taeyeon smiled faintly. “Thank you for… these,” she said, looking down at the pajamas.

“No problem.”

It didn’t take long, and both were comfortably lying in Tiffany’s bedㅡwith a significant space between their bodies, of course. The blonde fairy shyly ran her eyes through the bedroom, while Tiffany stared pensively at the ceiling.

“May I ask you something?” Tiffany uttered, eyeing the fairy.

“Of course,” Taeyeon responded, and looked back at the brown-haired woman.

“How do you do it?”

“How do I do what?”

“How do you make two people fall in love? And how do you know the two are right for each other?”

The fairy shook her head. “I don’t make anyone fall in love. They fall in love by themselves. I merely secure their love and make sure the odds are in their favor. Sometimes people need a little push. I’m the one who gives that push.”

“But how do you know it?”

“Well…” Taeyeon began, and sat up on the bed. “To fairies, there are seven factors that indicate true love between two people: one, sincere kindness and compassion; two, caring and worrying for each other; three, mutual comprehension and understanding; four, friendship and companionship; five, utter respect for each other’s time, space, and nature; six, fondness; and finally, physical attraction.”

Tiffany frowned. “Just that?”

“Why, Tiffany. Combine all of those things, and you have the purest form of unconditional love. And what is true love if not unlimited and unrestricted affection?”

“Oh… Yes, I suppose,” Tiffany muttered.

“But the thing is, it is very rare that people have all that when they fall in love. Usually, they only have up to 3 or 5 of those factors working on and between them, which is enough for us, fairies of love, to invest in their relationship, for the remaining factors may appear gradually, as their relationship blooms and develops. But all of those must be sincere and above all mutual, and they cannot be feigned or forced; so, if after a certain time the couple does not present all seven factors, or if any of them is untrue, we turn the odds of love against the two people, and that’s when break ups happen.”

“Gee,” Tiffany said, under her breath. “That’s crazy.”

Taeyeon grinned. “It’s a beautiful job.”

“And how do you know if their love sincere?”

“Ah, that. With efforts, we can see inside people’s hearts and minds. You know, that idea that love is all about the heart is pure nonsense. The mind and heart work together. When we do that, and we see anything that taints what is supposed to be a pure feeling, we know that it isn’t meant to be.”

“Hm. But how do you intent to make me find someone?”

Taeyeon thought for a moment before responding, “Well, just the way people generally meet people. I’ll get you out there. We’ll go to parks, clubs, shopping malls, whatever. There must be someone out there for you. There is a pair for everyone.”

Tiffany fell silent, observring the fairy for a while. Taeyeon looked back at the other woman, and their eyes locked in a comfortable, gentle stare. The brown-haired woman was the first to break the silence.

“I guess so.”

Taeyeon smiled tiredly. “Good night, Tiffany. Thank you for not throwing me out. I won’t disappoint you.”

Tiffany nodded. “Good night, Taeyeon.”