Red.

Blood.

Everywhere.  

Leeteuk gasped and his chest heaved. The ceiling shot up, and for a moment, everything was shrouded in black.

“Leeteuk-hyung?”

Leeteuk opened his eyes and attempted to sit up. “Kyuhyun…” The latter was standing about a meter away from him, covered in splotches of red from the top of his once-warm brown hair to the toes of his bare feet. He was holding something small and long in his hands. Next to him, several giant buckets of what appeared to be crimson liquid were placed on the floor. The walls were splattered with red.

Leeteuk leaned to the side and threw up.

“Leeteuk-hyung…” New bloody footsteps stained the floor’s few remaining clean spots as Kyuhyun walked over. He paused near Leeteuk. Leeteuk could barely lift his head to face him; instead, he trained his eyes on a clean spot near his kneecap. Kyuhyun’s cotton pajama pants had once been pure white.

“Hyung, what’s wrong? You look so sick.”

“K-Kyuhyun—” The waves of nausea were unceasing. His head was hurting; his world was spinning so fast. “Wh-what’s wrong with you?”

His serene tone was ironically unnerving. “I’m perfectly fine, hyung. Don’t you see? The world’s true colors are revealed at last.”

“The world’s true colors—”

“Who are we to say that the sky is blue and not red? Perhaps it had always been red, and we were just too blinded by our conventional beliefs to see it.”

“The sky—? Of course the sky is blue.” His voice cracked with doubt. As he spoke, Leeteuk had suddenly remembered—weren’t there some nights when the skies had been purplish-red? Seemingly noting his confusion, Kyuhyun smiled.

“The sky is blood-red, hyung. Just like me. We’re all red.”

“Even me?” He hadn’t meant for it to come out as a whisper.

Kyuhyun paused, reconsidering. “No, you’re not red. Not yet, hyung. You’re still—” He cast a glance at the parts of Leeteuk not contaminated by the liquids that lay pooled around him. “—gray. You’re confused, hyung, and therefore you are gray.”

 What had happened to the innocent little boy he once knew?

As if reading his thoughts, Kyuhyun spoke again, dipping his hand into one of the buckets and smearing his upper left chest in red. “He’s dying, hyung. Soon, he will be no more.”

“Why?” It was so hard to think. Leeteuk tried to remember the next part of his question, but somehow, he couldn’t form the rest.

Kyuhyun was idly twirling something in his fingers. “How can we be sure that what we see is real? How do we not know that everything is just a dream?”

It wasn’t blood, that metallic smell. It was—

Kyuhyun smiled. “‘Everything you can imagine is real.’ Do you know who said that? Pablo Picasso. He is truly a genius.”

Paint. All that red—it wasn’t real. It was paint. Surely it was paint.

Right?

“Do you know? In this war-filed reality, our imaginations are the only things we have left. Everything else has already been taken away.”

“That’s not true.” With a tremendous effort, Leeteuk stood up. Trying to steady his gaze, his eyes met Kyuhyun’s, and for a moment, he was struck with how blank they appeared. “I want to show you something, Kyuhyun.” His head throbbed with a searing pain, but he ignored it. Bring them out, please bring them out—“I have wings now, Kyu. Let me take you out of here. I’ll show you something we can still have.”

Freedom. For a moment, Hangeng’s face flashed through his eyes; finally, for the first time, Leeteuk understood why he had left.

Though he didn’t think he voiced his last thoughts out loud, Kyuhyun seemed to know them anyway. “What is freedom, but a vague notion chased by the delusional? It’s everything to those who pursue it, but for us who already possess it, it’s merely an illusion.”

“Come with me, Kyu. Let’s fly out of here.” Leeteuk tested his wings. They were still premature and weighed down by the blood, but surely they were strong enough to carry them? He had yet to expand them completely—somehow, a combination of situational and psychological factors had always prevented him from opening them to their full extent. From losing himself entirely in their existence.

Kyuhyun shook his head, smiling sadly. “You were never meant to have wings, Leeteuk-hyung. You were perfectly fine without them. You were an ‘angel without wings.’”

Leeteuk noted the past tense. But—

“‘Perfectly fine’? I wonder about that…” In his head, he saw Eunhyuk, standing ankle-deep in the water. His back was turned away; in silence, he stood still, doing nothing but staring at the clear waves that distorted his image and reflected something he was not. “I think it’s been a while since I last truly felt ‘fine.’”

Kyuhyun merely blinked and offered him another half-smile.

“Stop looking at me like that, Kyu. It’s unnerving. Let’s go. I’ll take you out of here—” As he said this, Leeteuk reached forward to grab him, but he resisted.

“No, hyung, let go. It’s hopeless.” Was the blood—paint—gluing his feet to the ground? He was like a dead weight, rooted to the floor.

“Kyu,” Leeteuk begged him. “Let’s go.” He’d promised. He had promised so many times, to so many people. Ever since that conversation with Eunhyuk, ever since he saw Henry’s face upon Hangeng’s disappearance, ever since—no. It dated even further back than that.

Eight year-old Kyuhyun stared at him with tear-stained eyes, his hands clasped with umma’s for support. That facial expression he wore, the one that tugged Leeteuk’s heartstrings and had remained permanently engrained in his memory ever since that moment—

It wasn’t confusion, Leeteuk suddenly realized. It was shock. Pure, undiluted shock in its truest form. He didn’t know what brought about the clarity now, six years later, but somewhere deep in his heart, he knew it to be true.

In response, Kyuhyun closed his eyes. “Do you promise?” His body swayed a bit and his head tilted to the side. But he had stopped resisting.

“Promise what, Kyu?”

“That we’ll be free.” Through Leeteuk’s grip on his elbow, Leeteuk sensed the tension in his arm fast disappearing. He smiled, encouraged by the peace that was spreading throughout his dongsaeng’s features.

“I promise. We’ll both be free, Kyu. I’ll see to it myself.” He gave Kyuhyun’s arm a little tug. “So let’s go, shall we?”

Kyuhyun smiled again and tilted his head in a nod, but never brought it back up. His whole body leaned forward as he fell into a surprised Leeteuk’s arms. Leeteuk stumbled backwards, sliding onto the floor with Kyuhyun in tow. There was a small clink! as the object Kyuhyun had been holding hit the ground next to them. Leeteuk barely had time to register that it was a paintbrush before the unexpected displacement of Kyuhyun’s feet kicked over a bucket that sat a few feet away. There was an instant domino effect; one by one, each knocked over more until not a single bucket remained upright.

As the newly spilled red liquid diffused all over the floor, blocking out the remnants of white, Leeteuk’s heart felt a pang. His whole body shuddered, and as his wings finally stretched to their complete wingspan, he glanced down at the still body of the boy who rested in his arms.

He truly didn’t understand why tears were now streaming down his cheeks.

Leeteuk stared at the abstract marks on the gray-white ceiling, following one scratch, smudge, or line to another. Was there really a pattern in the seemingly random distortions of the barrier that stood between him and the sky?

 He glanced over to the window almost automatically. After the heavy rainstorm from a few days ago, the sun was finally peeking out from behind the clouds again. But somehow, its light no longer brought the same comfort as it used to.

Leeteuk thought back to several days before. The flashes of lightening, the claps of thunder, Kyuhyun lying motionlessly in his arms, and the unexplainable tears that coursed down his face and into his dongsaeng’s hair—that was the scene umma and Teacher Zhou had returned to. The sea of red, sweat, and tears still hadn’t dried, nor had the smell ever cleared. Its stench had permeated the whole building, and as a result, everybody had been forced to relocate into the small adjacent edifice next to the orphanage.

He remembered the crash of her gasp—no, that was her dropping her bag, he corrected himself, and the sharp sound that had issued from Teacher Zhou’s mouth—it had been an unfamiliar phrase. But it had had anger, distress, pain, and horror all combined into what Leeteuk suspected to be a Chinese curse word.

He remembered being forcefully detangled from Kyuhyun, with him struggling and shouting words of reassurance to the latter. He would keep his promise. Just wait, Kyu. He wouldn’t abandon him for the world.

And then something sharp had made contact with his arm, and he had lost consciousness.

Now he lay in bed, unsure of why he still had to stay there, unsure of where his dongsaengs were. Kyuhyun aside, Leeteuk was fairly certain he hadn’t seen any of the others in a while, either. He vaguely wondered what had become of them.

There was some commotion in another room, but Leeteuk ignored it. Still staring out the window, he tilted his head and squinted. If he sat up—just a little—he would be able to see the entrance of the orphanage and the sign that adorned it. Its Chinese characters, though unreadable to him, nonetheless would bring comfort with their familiarity. He struggled to prop himself up on his elbows.

The door suddenly burst open and Henry came dashing in, looking disheveled. There was something slightly different about his anxiety this time, but before Leeteuk had time to further process this observation, Henry opened his mouth. He spoke quickly, words tumbling out from his lips as if he were trying to convey many things within no time at all.

“Hyung—please, just don’t say anything—they’ve come at last—to draft——I know you don’t really know what’s going on, but—please, hyung, I—”

Heavy footsteps were approaching, and despite his disorientation, Leeteuk frowned. No one at the orphanage walked like that.

Then his attention snapped back to Henry as the latter in desperation reached down and grasped his hands. “Please,” he begged, “please, think about us—I don’t want to lose any more—”

And then he froze and stopped. Leeteuk’s eyes traveled from his terrified expression to beyond his back, where two strangers wearing camouflage clothing and holding guns stood at the doorway.

Soldiers.

Then Leeteuk blinked and leaned forward. Could it be—? “Kangin,” he breathed. “Welcome back.”

There was a silence. The man in the front made eye contact with him, and he frowned. “What did you just call me?”

His companion was also peering at Leeteuk with interest. “Have you met him before, Youngwoon-sshi?”

“Never,” the man called Youngwoon said. “Boy, I don’t know who you are.”

A small voice that oddly sounded like Eunhyuk’s whispered in the back of Leeteuk’s mind, “He’s right, you know. He’s too old to be Kangin,”—but Leeteuk ignored him. The man in front of him was clearly Kangin; there could be no mistake.

“Kangin-ah,” he now said earnestly, “Don’t you remember me? I’m Leeteuk!”

“I just told you,” the man said slightly impatiently, “I don’t know who you are. We’ve never met before.”

Leeteuk fell silent, frustrated. Why was Kangin pretending to not recognize him? He noticed that umma and Teacher Zhou had quietly entered the room and now stood with Henry. Why weren’t they saying anything? Surely they could see something was wrong.

Now umma hesitantly spoke up. “You see?” she said quietly. “He’s not right in the head. He’s not fit to be a soldier.”

He’s not? Leeteuk’s eyes widened. Was that why Kangin came back? Because there was something wrong with him?

The other soldier laughed. “Miss, he seems fit to me.”

Leeteuk ignored Henry’s eyes and frantic but subtle movements. “Are you here to recruit me, then? Is that why you came back?”

“Sure, why not,” Kangin said breezily. “I’m here to recruit you to join our army. Are you interested?”

The question sparked a memory in Leeteuk. “Yes, I am!” he declared. “I do want to be a solder. I can’t wait to defend our country, too!”

Kangin grinned. “Glad to hear that, Leeteuk-ah.”

Leeteuk frowned at the informal language. But then again, Kangin did look older now…maybe being in the army had aged him, Leeteuk reasoned. The voice of Eunhyuk in his head remained silent.

“Are you blind?” burst out Henry. “Hyung, can’t you tell from their uniforms? They are—”

“Ya! Shut your kid up!” barked Kangin. Umma hurriedly hushed Henry, while Leeteuk raised his eyebrows. Kangin never talked to umma like that before.

Now Teacher Zhou spoke up. “As you can see,” he said evenly, “while he may appear to be physically normal, his mind is slightly delusional.”

“There’s nothing ‘slight’ about it,” Henry whispered in a horrified voice. Leeteuk watched Umma’s knuckles whiten as she tightened her grip on her only son.

Kangin’s delusional?

“This sort of thing has happened before, with other patients, too. He is not our first case—”

“Doctor, do we look like we care?” the other soldier drawled. He carelessly toyed with his gun. Leeteuk noticed that he glanced over at umma and Henry, both of whom noticeably stiffened at this display of power.

“Ya,” Leeteuk growled, not liking the way he was appraising them, “Put your gun away.”

Both soldiers turned to him again. “Say that to me again,” the other soldier said calmly. He cocked his gun.

Leeteuk grit his teeth. There it was again—that suffocating feeling of helplessness. Why did it seem like his life was perpetually shrouded in its shadows?

“Please,” umma pleaded, “please leave him alone. He doesn’t know what’s going on anymore. He’s in the last stages—”

She was crying again. Teacher Zhou silently hovered near her, hands respectfully clasped together in silent salutation. Together, both glanced over at the pond.

Why were they always so sad?

He wanted to escape, to spread his wings and fly. He imagined them opening, their majestic feathers filling the air as he made his ascent. Above the pain, the sadness, the constant haze of despair that always seemed to fill this place and stream from their souls—

“Lady, you’re too emotional to be a researcher, you know that? Crying with every death or departure of your subjects—”

“They’re not just subjects! They’re human beings!”

“Yeah, sure, just tell that to one of our POWs,” Kangin laughed. “What was his name, again?” He turned to his comrade. “He was also called Heechul, wasn’t he?” Umma stifled an audible gasp. “Yeah, right before he died, he mentioned this place. Said it contained backup supplies for the ROKN. Something about the fins of naval ships. Should’ve known he was crazy.”

The ROKN? The Republic of Korea Navy?

“This place contains no such weapons,” Teacher Zhou said stiffly. “We’re merely a medical and research institute.”

“Heechul-hyung’s dead?” Henry asked in a quavering voice. “Him, too?”

“He died raving mad,” the other soldier now mused. “At that time, I thought it was merely a ploy, some stupid tactic the ROK thought of in event of capture. But now that I think about it, he really was mad, wasn’t he?”

“Believed himself to be the center of the universe, that one,” Kangin laughed. “Big Space Star Kim Heechul, he called himself.”

Leeteuk’s head was swimming with the new knowledge. Heechul was dead, and Kangin was laughing about it? That was wrong, so wrong—

“That was my fear,” umma whispered. “Psychologically, he was never fit to be a soldier. But what could we have done? He was of age, and as such, we no longer had any control over him…”

Just like Leeteuk. Nineteen year-old Heechul and seventeen year-old Kangin had left merely months ago. What had been their departing words?

“I’ll come back a different man.” Kangin dropped his bag to the ground to give umma one last hug. “Wait for me, alright?”

She didn’t let go right away. “Kangin-ah, Heechul-ah, you two have to be careful. Being a soldier isn’t as glorious as you might imagine it to be.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m aware. But everybody has to wake up at some point, right?” Heechul adjusted his cap. “If I stay here any longer, I’m afraid I’ll just become crazier than I already am…”

Kangin was nodding. “The atmosphere here, it’s too suffocating. With that sign hanging above our heads every time we go out, it’s nothing but a constant reminder that we’re incurable. So during the moments while we’re still lucid, I’d like to do something worthwhile with my life.”

“Don’t worry, umma, Teukie,” Heechul added in a teasing voice. “I’ll watch out for him. Kangin will be safe with me.

“And together, we’ll come back before you know it.”

“Heechul-sshi,” Kangin now said in a bored voice, addressing the other soldier. “I don’t think there’s any point in wasting any more time here. This place has nothing but lunatics and failed doctors and scientists.”

“Don’t insult them like that!” Henry had broken free from umma’s grasp and now drew himself to his full height, glaring at the two soldiers. “They’ve been working so hard, studying this disease and trying to treat its victims! They’ve taken in patients even after their own parents had given up on them, and over the years have constantly had to endure deaths or disappearances of beloved ‘sons’—” His eyes were sparkling again. “They’re the most hard-working and noble people I know!”

“Then I’m sure they’ll be quite useful to us.” There was a glint in the other soldier’s eyes. “Youngwoon-sshi, let’s take them with us.”

The way Kangin was smiling at Henry somehow unnerved Leeteuk. “Yes, why not? The little boy could use some reprogramming.” Then he laughed. “What did you think of my word choice there? Clever, wasn’t it?”

What was he talking about? Something about the whole conversation wasn’t making sense. “I don’t get it. Where are the doctors and scientists?” Leeteuk frowned. “This is just an orphanage, isn’t it? There’s only umma and Teacher Zhou.”

Kangin laughed uproariously. “‘Teacher Zhou’? Well then, your ‘teacher’ sure didn’t do his job very well, didn’t he?” There was a contemptuous glint in his eyes. “Tell me, boy, what does that sign say?” He pointed to the window, from which Leeteuk could see the entrance of the orphanage.

Leeteuk flushed. It had been years since someone had last tried teaching him Hanja. “I don’t remember. I don’t know.”

There was only the slightest hint of pity in Kangin’s smile. “You know where you’re at, boy? ‘Institute for Psychologically Impaired Male Children.’ Where little boys with incurable delusions go to die.”

What…? No, that was crazy. He was crazy. Kangin, that is. “I-I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to. Delusional people with nothing left to look forward to in life only need illusions and lies to keep them alive.” He watched Leeteuk’s face crumple. “How interesting when the truth is revealed. It’s almost as if you’ve lost your only lifeline.”

His world was collapsing around him. Donghae, staring at him through glassy eyes as he floated in the water, Ryeowook, curled up in a ball as though traumatized with unspoken horrors, Kyuhyun, covered in blood from head to toe and lying in his arms as if dead—no, Leeteuk thought frantically, no, that couldn’t be real, none of that could be real—

“W-where’s Eunhyuk?”

“Huh?”

Leeteuk swung his legs off the bed and attempted to stand up on shaky knees. “I want to talk to Eunhyuk. I need to talk to him. Right now.”

“Leeteuk-ah…” Teacher—or was that Doctor—? Zhou said softly. “Leeteuk-ah, he’s dead.”

He couldn’t be. “I was just talking to him a few days ago! That—that can’t be—!”

“Hyung, it’s true; don’t you see?” Tears were streaming unchecked down Henry’s face. “Eunhyuk wasn’t there in that goldfish bowl. He never was.”

“Then—Donghae—”

“—is also dead,” Teacher Zhou concluded. He shook his head, and for a moment, Leeteuk thought his eyes were sparkling, too. But that must had been a trick of the light.

There was an interesting sensation of pain in his left chest, as if something were burning up inside. It was almost over. Leeteuk knew he couldn’t take much more. The craziness of this situation, the absurdity of these soldiers’ words, the open wretchedness of his family—

He had to escape. 

“Leeteuk-ah, where are you going?” umma cried, as Leeteuk attempted to push past her.

“To the pond,” he said through gritted teeth. Because that’s where everything seemed to begin, where everything seemed to end. That was where Donghae went, that was where Eunhyuk reappeared, and that was near the field where Kyuhyun had been attacked by those birds—

“No, Leeteuk, you can’t—” Now Teacher Zhou was trying to stop him, too. “There’s nothing down there! Don’t you see? Don’t you remember? You’ll only be walking to your death.”

Remember? What was there to remember? “More and more, I find myself unable to tell,” Leeteuk said, trying to keep calm, “what I do remember and what I don’t.”

“What’s at the pond?” Kangin asked, eyeing the scuffle with interest.

“Fins,” Leeteuk responded, remembering. Donghae with his pants rolled up as he stood knee-deep in the water, fishing with his hands; Eunhyuk kicking back and lying near the water’s edge as he observed his treasure.

“Nothing but death,” Henry said at the same time, wiping his eyes. “That place is nothing but a gravesite, where hyungs go to die.”

Leeteuk and the soldiers looked to umma for clarification, but her answer was just as arcane as he son’s. “Two boys drowned there last year,” she said in a subdued voice. “One thought he was part of the sea, and the other thought he was a fish.”

“No, you’re lying,” Leeteuk said, panicking; it couldn’t be true, it just couldn’t—“Let me go!” He pulled free from their grasp and ran headfirst into the soldiers.

“Hey—what are you—”

“How dare you touch me?!—”

Who was left? Who else could he turn to? Now, more than ever, he needed someone—anyone—to confirm that his world was true, that his experiences were real—“Shindong, where’s Shindong? And Nari?” Desperately, he thrashed against the soldiers’ arms as he waited for an answer.

There was a small pause.

“Oh, no,” umma whispered. “You still see Shindong?”

“He never existed,” Teacher Zhou said in a troubled voice. “Hallucinating the presence of one or more people—that was always one of the first signs.”

“Nari, then?” His agitation rose yet another notch.

“There are no girls here.” This time, it was Kangin who answered.

“Unfortunately,” his companion added, with a rough push. “Get off me, boy!” Leeteuk stumbled backwards for a moment, but then regained his balance and charged forward again.

“This—this can’t be happening—”

“Boy, if you don’t stop, I will shoot you—”

“My wings, are my wings real, then?” Leeteuk asked desperately. He clutched the front lapels of Kangin’s uniform, noting the name Kim Youngwoon emblazoned on it. “Kangin-ah…” His voice cracked.

For a moment, there was complete silence. Kangin stared into his eyes, and through his brown pupils, Leeteuk saw his distorted reflection. There was glistening white in them—surely, that was the presence of wings? His chest was hurting so much, as if there were a heavy burden that bore down on his shoulders and weighed heavily in his soul—

“Yes,” Kangin said finally. “Yes, your wings are real.”

Leeteuk let go and stumbled backwards with relief. “Oh, thank goodness,” he said, and once again he couldn’t fathom why tears were streaming down his face. “For a moment, I had thought—”

“Can someone please control this madman?” Vaguely he heard the other soldier—Heechul?—ask in exasperation, but he barely noted it. His wings were real. His wings were real. Leeteuk glanced backwards, and just like last time, his gaze fell upon Henry’s, umma’s, and Teacher Zhou’s eyes.

And just like last time, the complete devastation on their faces was completely unfathomable.

Only Kyuhyun would have understood. Kyuhyun, the one who first pointed out the possibility of their existence—

Because Leeteuk comprehended it now. Kyuhyun had called him an angel without wings because he had the power to see what the others could not. For at that time, they hadn’t developed yet. Their presence wasn’t something that could be trigged by any kind of stimulus—no, they only came out during the meaningful moments.

When it was time for him to embrace his freedom.

Leeteuk threw his head back and opened his wings to their fullest extent. They blew out behind him, expanding from one end of the room to the other. Stray feathers the color of innocence fluttered around him, and he smiled at their snowflake effect. Vaguely, he noted that he was holding something in his hands—it was ugly and black—that didn’t belong with him. He glanced over to the soldiers, one who was holding up the same item in his own hand—and made to throw it back to them.

There was a crack, followed by a gasp—but from whom?—as something hard struck his chest one last time. Leeteuk glanced down to view the flower of red that now blossomed across his chest. It was the first time his wings had drawn color, he noted, with faint interest, as he felt their manifestation leave a hole through his back. The metallic smell had returned. His wings, now fully erupted, glistened and sparkled in the light, as their bright red drops splattered and scattered along the white walls of the room.

There was a shout, a scream, a cry—but what did it matter? He was ascending, he was flying, he was finally free—

He was truly an angel now.