Our story begins in a part of the world that lay in total darkness, our focus resting on South Korea. The night had come over its cities and inhabitants, silence marking the usually busy streets of bigger towns like Seoul and the people were adjourned to their homes and cosy warm beds. The starry night sky was cloudless, the air clear and icy as one snow flake after another slowly danced down onto the earth.

Far away from the quiet and sleeping cities we find ourselves in a place as wondrous as anyone can imagine. It was far from being quiet -but peaceful nevertheless- as you find December to be one of its high times. Everyone was buzzing around like diligent bees in a bee hive. But seeing as snow was the most difficult to produce, one can surely understand why everyone was in a hurry in our cloud manufactory. Of course, thunderbolts had to be electrified first and it was very tricky to get the little fleecy clouds as fluffy as they should be, but the most difficult of all was to design and build the little snow crystals one after another until a cloud could be filled with them. So, naturally, winter (and especially Christmas time, since they had a collaboration with Santa Claus as well) was so busy.

The big hall that belonged to the snow section of the manufactory, in charge of South Korea, was filled with many angels dressed in white, the busy inhabitants of heaven always careful of the packed hall and not to tip over the interior with their wings. The last snow crystal had just been put into a now fluffy snow cloud before it was led into an open area where it was checked for errors and properly tried out first. Several little snow flakes glided down when an angel slightly shook it, the white glittering crystals falling onto little snub noses and dark hair from two cherubs that were supposed to help and not play around.

“Stop fooling around! We don't have much time,” the coordinator of the snow section remarked. The two young angels were buzzing away immediately while their coordinator was wandering from one corner to another. Short auburn hair was framing his features, the back short while the sides were graduated and fringe slightly falling in strands into the young male's forehead. His face was marked with stress and weariness. But who could hold it against him when they were so far behind their actual schedule?

“Calm down, JaeJoong. We are not that far behind, we just have to speed things a little bit up,” another angel with short black hair remarked when the coordinator came by the tables that were occupied by the very important snow crystal designers. JaeJoong faced the black haired whose fringe was falling sideways into his forehead with slightly furrowed eyebrows.

“I know, YooChun. It's just,” he sighed when he sat down next to his friend and flatmate and let his gaze wander around the many bustling angels that were trying their hardest to produce as many snow clouds as they could.

“But we're behindhand with our snow clouds. We need more snow crystals, more clouds, just- We need more time,” JaeJoong shrieked, his fingers raking through his auburn locks and pulling on them in his panic attack. The angels around were not really bothered by JaeJoong's outburst since it happened often around the time of Christmas (even when they were on schedule). With a heavy sigh JaeJoong let his head drop onto the table, YooChun patting his shoulders for encouragement which earned him a slight hiss form his friend before he continued with the snow crystal he was just working on. Apparently JaeJoong's wings were still strained from the race the two had held yesterday. JaeJoong's chin was resting on his folded arms when he watched YooChun, the latter's fingers working fluently with the equipment that was necessary for the production of snow crystals. Every crystal was unique, differed in shape, size and appearance. The snow crystal designers were the true masters of the snow. Every single snow flake that fell onto the earth was made with their hands, every edge formed with utter love and care. It fascinated JaeJoong every time again when he watched YooChun drowning in his task. The snow crystals made by YooChun were one of the finest one could find. He was the best in the South Korean manufactory, and could easily be compared to the best from all around the world.

”Aw, I wish I could do that,” JaeJoong cooed, commenting on YooChun's work while examining a twinkling snow flake resting between his thumb and forefinger. Maybe that sounded a bit odd, but snow flakes were never as tiny in their process of making as when they fell down to earth. The crystals YooChun and his co-workers made were about ten centimetres in standard, for better visibility, of course. Afterwards they were diminished with the Diminisher, a huge machine made of the same metal as the gates of heaven, working all day long to transform the big snow flakes into tiny ones, barely two or tree percent of their original size.

“So you want to take my job from me, Mister Department-manager?” YooChun chuckled, while holding his latest creation into the light to examine it. A hit on the head let him almost lose his grip on the flake and he heard JaeJoong chunter some curse words at his friend.

“By the way, when you are done here, you want to grab some lunch with me? I'm already starving.”

JaeJoong glanced at the clock hanging across from him at the wall and answered, “Alright, we could take a walk outside and I could have a look at the snow clouds already stacked outside for cloud dispensation.”

*

It was midday in heaven and the sun shone brightly and illuminated the white clouds with its rays. Two angels set food outside of a tall and snow white building. Both of them pulled a pair of sunglasses out of their pockets and put them on to guard their eyes from the beaming sun. Their first goal was a huge cloudy mountain and one of the men held a red clipboard in his hands and eyed it, approving. He went down his checklist and murmured under his breath, “Fluffiness – check, minimum size – check, shape, colour, amount of flakes... check, check and check.”

When he turned away from the snow clouds ready to be dispensed he saw YooChun already munching on his grilled sandwich with ham and eggs and an extra amount of salad cream. “You could have waited for me to finish my work, you know!” JaeJoong said with a raised brow and his arms akimbo. YooChun swallowed, “It's not my fault that you work at your lunch break. I for one was hungry,” and he took a last big bite out of his meal.

They strolled along a very white and fluffy cloud leading them to their usual hang-out spot. The way was lined with white houses on both sides, people outside were hurrying along and children played in the clouds. When JaeJoong and YooChun were past the row of houses they came to a clearing and wanted to sit down. Just when they were about to do just that, JaeJoong spotted something odd. He went to a -for human eyes- ordinary cloud and suddenly began cursing loudly. “What the heck! YooChun! Look at this,” he pointed at the cloud, a very angry expression written over his face. The black haired angel looked in the direction JaeJoong's finger pointed at and was surprised as well. “What's that foreign cloud doing here?” he asked with a look of confusion. “I don't know, but there's no way it can stay here.”

You see, every country had their own Cloud Producing Bureau (short CPB), responsible for production and supervision. And whenever a cloud went missing or out of their area of responsibility they had to retrieve it as soon as possible. Such an incident could easily delay a manufactory's schedule for days.

JaeJoong went to further examine the cloud, noticing its bad workmanship. “I wonder who made this cloud. It's clearly a snow cloud, but too dark and the shape is horrible. I wonder-,” JaeJoong yelped, the grip on his lunch box loosened, while he was trying to get a handful of YooChun's shirt. “YooChun!” Said angel himself tried to take a hold of his friend who had lost his footing in the foreign cloud, which was obviously worked in such a bad manner and much too thin for anyone to be carried on. With his eyes wide, back downwards, limbs upwards, his (from their last race) sore wings were pressed to the sides of his arms and a last piercing shriek he fell through the cloud and out off YooChun's sight. The man fell onto his hands and knees, sobbing, and peering through the hole, his friend just vanished through. But his eyes couldn't find anything but thin air. JaeJoong was gone... Still with tears pooling in his eyes he gathered the foreign cloud into his arms and ran back to work. There had to be something they could do.

*

Everything went like slow-motion for JaeJoong. One minute he was hovering over the cloud and the next he was falling through it. He saw the gap in the clouds getting smaller and smaller by the second, and a scream freed itself out off his throat. He tried to get his wings to carry him but the pressure on his already exhausted limbs was too high – he just had to try harder. But as soon as one feathery appendage was outstretched and was able to slow him down, it folded in again. 'I need to try harder, at least to slow down more. Hopefully I'll make it through this,' his thoughts wandered to his family and friends, 'I hope I'll be able to meet them again.' He reached his arm out towards the sky as to grab something and with a determined look on his features and a sudden lurch he turned around in the air and tried to unfold his wings again. It was difficult to do so, he had to squint his eyes with the speed he fell down and the ground drew nearer and nearer. It wouldn't take long to reach earth. He could see a city growing beneath him and as seconds passed tiny moving dots appeared between high buildings. As he felt the impact would come soon when he fell past the highest skyscrapers, he closed his eyes in prayer, tears pooling out off his eyes and proceeding across his temples. When he opened them again, his eyes widened in shock and with a loud crack he landed in a dark side street, going welcoming unnoticed by the people hurrying along the main streets.

How come he wasn't dead he didn't know, but maybe it had something to do with being an angel, and so far he never had heard about any other angel falling from the skies. He let out a shaky breath, raising his arms to lift himself off the ground. He groaned and the muscles in his body hurt to the extent that they almost didn't obey him. The angel pushed his upper body upwards, turning around so he could sit against the stonewall next to him. He laid his hand onto his thumping heart trying to calm it down, but after a while of just sitting in the dark side street he scrambled to his feet, always supporting his weight with his hands on the grey house wall. He made some steps forward and just now he noticed the coldness surrounding him: How could that go unnoticed? After all it was winter, and his job was to make snow clouds!

When he stepped out of the alley onto the open street, his first move was to look left and right, and left and right. The buildings were so tall as if they would reach the clouds (which he knew was not possible, they really would have noticed that!), and the people looked so different from the always in white dressed angels. Everything was just so colourful! And the people looked so different. He made to turn right and stumbled a few feet ahead, still awed by the foreign vicinity. After a few minutes of walking aimlessly around he was shivering from the cold, and all of a sudden a bundle of white crystals hit his nose, soon being followed by more and more of them. He caught a flake in his palm, which immediately melted away from the heat emanated by his skin. Never before had he seen what the snow they produced in heaven looked like on earth. Sure, they tried the clouds before they were released, but this was something very different – and it was cold! He knew about that, of course, but being able to see it from this angle and feel it, was so much better.

JaeJoong just stood there on the side walk, staring into the grey sky, watching the snow falling down and muffling the noises around him. Several people bumped into him, when he was just standing there. But when they attempted to shoot an unnerved glare at him, they first looked as if he was crazy due to his few clothes and then they would close their eyes to snuffle the air. Anyone who went past the young man, thought the air suddenly smelled of vanilla sugar and cinnamon,... curiously. When JaeJoong moved again his stare was still directed upwards and he felt the sudden urge to raise his hands and swirl around, just like the snow flakes did. Being in his own little world and dancing together with the snow crystals, he didn't pay attention where he was going and so he also didn't notice the young man hastily exiting a shop to the angel's right hand side... until they bumped into each other.