There were clouds illuminated by the beams of the sun, the air clear and fresh when little children played in the clouds. Everyone was flying in the sky or walking along the clouds. There was this one cloud, he remembered, that didn't belong into their area. He remembered that he had lost his footing and fell. The last thing he had seen was the panic-filled expression of YooChun and his teary eyes following his downfall.

The air was slapping against his skin when he fell, his limbs pressed together and he had difficulties to fly. He tried, but it ended with an impact in a world he had seen from above but never witnessed before.

The angel was tossing and turning inside of the bed when he dreamed of the happenings from the earlier day. JaeJoong slowly pried his eyes open when he awoke and coughed softly. He turned to the side and faced a night stand. It was then that he noticed that he was lying in a fluffy bed, covered by a warm blanket and a flannel resting next to him on the pillow. It was lukewarm but his forehead felt quite chilly despite the hotness earlier. He assumed that YunHo must have put a damp flannel onto his forehead to lessen the fever.

With a soft groan and aching muscles he sat up, leaning back against the headboard when he saw little black spots in front of his eyes due to his headache. The door softly creaked open when he sneezed and coughed, footsteps audible when someone walked over the wooden floor.

“You're awake,” YunHo exclaimed with a relieved voice, walking over to JaeJoong who eyed him and nodded. “Would you like some tea?” he asked when he sat down onto the mattress and picked the flannel up before he put it back into the bowl filled with now cold water.

“Yes, with honey, please,” JaeJoong replied, voice low and hoarse as he got hold of a tissue and blew his nose afterwards. He stiffened when YunHo reached out his hand, his eyes wide and lips parted to draw in some air when he felt the latter's hand touch his forehead.

“Hm, seems like the fever went down a bit,” YunHo mumbled when he checked on JaeJoong's temperature, not noticing the way JaeJoong stared at him. “I made soup for you if you want to eat something,” he said when he retrieved his hand and earned a soft nod from his patient.

He stood up and got hold of the bowl before he made his way for the door. A mumbled “Thanks” from JaeJoong made him stop in the doorway. “No problem,” he responded with a soft smile while turning towards the sick male sitting on his bed.

JaeJoong sighed when YunHo had left the bedroom, leaning back against the headboard whilst being careful not to strain his wings too much. The way YunHo cared for him reminded him of how YooChun and his family always cared for him whenever he was sick. Would he be able to see them again? He hoped so. Clattering was ripping him out of his reverie, his head turned towards the door where the noise had been coming from. YunHo stepped inside while carrying a serving table on which a little ceramic bowl and cup were standing. JaeJoong straightened his legs and made it easier for YunHo to put the little wooden table onto the bed so that JaeJoong was able to eat his soup properly.

“Thanks,” JaeJoong voiced out with a soft smile before he grasped the handle of the white cup. The tea inside was still hot, vapour radiating which JaeJoong blew away before he made an attempt to sip on it. The scent of herbals mixed with honey entered his nostrils and he closed his eyes while taking a sip. Warmth was radiating into his sore throat when he swallowed, the honey like a soothing layer for his abused vocal cords.

He put the cup back onto the service table and got hold of the silver-shining spoon to eat something from the soup. The ceramic bowl was filled with noodles and pieces of chicken, the smell filling his nostrils. He his dry lips when he dove his spoon into the warm treat, his stomach growling a bit which was only audible for him. JaeJoong slurped on the first spoon when YunHo's voice suddenly cut through the silence, “Hey JaeJoong, I was wondering about something.”

JaeJoong looked up and faced YunHo with puzzled eyes. “What is it?” he asked and put his spoon down. YunHo seemed nervous, rubbing the back of his neck when he tried to find the right words.

“Well, I was wondering about yesterday, you know? The thing with the doctor,” he said while eyeing JaeJoong. The latter retrieved his gaze and looked down into the bowl filled with soup while circling the spoon around in it.

“What about it?” he asked rather absent-minded. He could only assume what YunHo's next question would be.

“The doctor said something about your heart. Can you tell me what was so odd about it?” It made JaeJoong look up at YunHo once more. The latter looked nervous, shifting a bit from side to side under JaeJoong's contemplating gaze.

“No,” JaeJoong finally voiced out while retrieving his eyes, continuing to circle his spoon around in the soup that slowly turned cold. YunHo was dumbstruck but had no choice to respond as JaeJoong's next words were cutting his attempt, “You wouldn't believe me anyway.” The sorrow that lay in JaeJoong's voice and was marring his face let YunHo swallow his words.

An awkward silence filled the bedroom, JaeJoong slurping quietly on his lukewarm soup whilst YunHo was just standing there trying to comprehend JaeJoong's words. If only YunHo could believe him, it would make everything easier. But for that he had to find a way first and needed some assistance, at best from someone who already did believe in him. Hopefully YunHo's little brother, JunSu, was available for that job...

*

A dusty room. He was sitting between piles and piles of books and documents. His eyes flew over line after line and page after page, trying to find... something. From where he was sitting he could hear rustling between one of the lines of bookshelves. He wasn't alone searching. His folded in wings had grey and dusty tips from being dragged over the floor one too many times and his black hair was dishevelled and messy. At that moment footsteps sounded through the room becoming louder and louder. “I think I found something relevant,” his companion waved an old looking, yellowish scroll over his head. “It says that there once had been an angel who fell from the skies. He wandered the earth trying to find a way back home. His family up here was searching for a solution as well. After five days they found him but didn't know how to speak to him... wait, it says here, that somehow they got their hands on a mysterious gadget enabling them to contact the angel...,” the director explained, scanning down the scroll. YooChun got up to look him over the shoulder. “Does it describe what the gadget looks like?” “No, there's nothing in here about the looks, not even a picture. But the rest of the tale tells, that they contacted the fallen angel on the 24th day of his absence, but he looked at them as strangers, and his wings had vanished.”

Both angels looked at each other trying to process the meanings of the story in their heads. “So... does that mean, if this tale is indeed true, that...,” YooChun began, the convolutions of his brain still whirling. “Yeah, it could imply that JaeJoong has only twenty something days left to return into heaven. The incident was on December first, wasn't it?” YooChun just nodded absent-minded, pacing to and fro between two bookshelves. If it was true, then they had to reach his friend as soon as possible, at least to know if he was all right down there. A sigh escaped his lips as he looked up seeing the other one already neck-deep in a book again. They were already searching for hours and hours, but his guess was there were still hours to come filled with searching and reading and almost becoming desperate. He wandered through the aisles of books. Maybe he would find a special book, that looked like it could contain something like fallen angels and how to get them back. He didn't know what to expect exactly, but no brightly coloured or sparkling book came in sight. They were all just very, very... old, and brown and dusty,... yuck! The dust slowly wiggled its way through his nostrils and tickled the insides of his nose. He sneezed loudly and with such a force that he bumped into one of the bookshelves. When the angel looked up it was shaking and jiggling dangerously. He tried to steady it with his hands on each side of the wood but it was much too heavy. With a sudden hurler it tipped over and with a loud bang it came to a halt, falling fortunately against the wall, because it had been the last one in the long long row of shelves. The lower backs had fallen out off their compartments.

YooChun slid with his back against said wall down to the floor, breathing a sigh of relief -when all of a sudden, something small but heavy bounced with a dull sound off of his head just to land in his lap. YooChun, startled, was rubbing his aching head with one hand. That would leave a big bump, he winced. Only after some minutes did he remember the thing that was innocently lying in his lap. He gazed at it, gliding with his fingers over the surface, before taking it into his palm. It was round and about ten centimetre in extent, and about one centimetre high – kind of like a big medal. It was made of metal, and golden – or maybe even gold. It had some kind of illustration or relief on the upper side, but YooChun couldn't quite detect what was pictured. Curious he turned the thing around. First he couldn't see anything but smooth surface but when he held it into the light of sun shining through the window he noticed shallow artistic engravings. But he couldn't read any of it. It seemed as if his find was made in ancient times – for he had seen these foreign letters several times already, in the books they were searching through here in the storage facilities.

He stood up, already on his way to the director to show him his find, when he lost footing. He fell forward, the thing spilling out of his hand and landing with a clank on the dirty floor. It snapped open.

First YooChun thought is was just a mirror, for he saw the reflection of his own eyes being thrown back at him, but when he got up and made his way towards it the picture suddenly changed into someone else's. YooChun fell back down onto the floor, looking at the picture displayed, when the thing began glowing and shining and radiating golden rays. He was awe-struck, reaching his hand out for it and called for the person he had been missing for the past few days - “JaeJoong, JaeJoong!”