After dinner, Ryeowook slowly fluttered up to Jungsoo’s bedroom, landing softly on the hard wooden floor and clearing his throat. Jungsoo looked up from where he was searching through the small bookshelf off to the side of his room and smiled.

“What do you need, Ryeowook?” he asked cheerfully, straightening fully and waving the younger man over. Ryeowook took small, but deliberate, steps toward his hyung, trying to work up his confidence as he did so.

“Um, hyung...I have something to talk to you about,” he said nervously, biting his lip.

Jungsoo sat down on his bed, patting the mattress next to him; Ryeowook obediently sat, running a hand through his hair anxiously. “What is it?”

“Well...” The younger pixie paused to clear his throat before he continued. “It’s about Jongwoon hyung.”

“What about him?” In spite of himself, Jungsoo felt a hint of fear crawl into his heart; he still wasn’t happy about his dongsaeng meeting up with this human. It just didn’t feel right, really. It felt like Ryeowook would get too attached and then something terrible would happen. He didn’t want that. He’d experienced that once and he didn’t want it to happen to his brother.

“It, um, well... He wants to go into town to go grocery shopping on Friday, and he wants me to go with him. I knew that you wouldn’t like the idea and so normally I wouldn’t even think about bringing it up, but, well, I’m really worried about him. I think he’s sick, hyung. He looks pale and he’s tired most of the time and I just think that he doesn’t feel good, but he won’t tell me what’s wrong. I don’t want him to get into town and be by himself and then faint or anything. I don’t know. I don’t want him to be alone like that.” Ryeowook stared at the comforter on the bed, drawing tiny circles with the tip of his finger, so that he wouldn’t have to see Jungsoo’s face. He was scared about what his hyung would think. He was, after all, asking a huge favor and was relatively certain that his favor quota for the year had been filled when he asked if he could just see Jongwoon.

Beside him, Jungsoo sighed heavily. “Ryeowook...” He let his voice drop off as he thought. “I...” He glanced over at his dongsaeng, who looked so small and frail, so nervous and yet so strong at the same time. “I can’t baby you forever,” he said finally, smiling a little. “This is something that you have to decide for yourself. You’re the one who has to decide if it’s truly worth the risk. Normally, I wouldn’t let you near that town, not in a million years. However...I can tell that you truly care about this Jongwoon, and I think that, in this instance, it’s up to you. If you do decide to go, you have to promise me that you’ll be careful, though. You cannot let yourself be seen by any more humans. One is the limit, okay?” He cracked a small smile, trying to lighten the mood a little.

Ryeowook looked up at the older pixie, his eyes wide. “Really, hyung? You’ll let me go?”

“If you think it’s truly necessary that you be there for Jongwoon, then I’m not going to stop you.”

“Hyung!” Ryeowook threw his arms around Jungsoo, tears forming in the corner of his eyes. “Thank you! Thank you so much! I can’t even explain how much this means to me!”

Jungsoo’s smile fell as he hugged the younger pixie back; his little Ryeowook was getting a bit too attached to this Jongwoon for his liking.

---

Friday came quickly – far too quickly for Jungsoo’s liking – and Ryeowook waved happily to his brothers as he took off mid-morning, heading for that house by the edge of the woods. He twirled through the sky, letting the crisp fall air stream through his hair as he took a deep breath, letting all of those vaguely musty but undeniably fall scents wash over him. He loved fall. It was much better than summer, anyway, when he could barely go out without melting in the heat.

His mind began to drift toward Jongwoon as he flew. He really did wish that the human would tell him what was wrong. They were friends, weren’t they? Friends tell each other when something’s wrong. He sighed a little, but immediately began to smile when he house came into view, all thoughts of Jongwoon’s secrets soaring from his mind.

He swept through the open living room window and he landed gently on the coffee table, dusting off his light jacket as he did so. Barely a minute later, the human in question appeared in the doorway, looking slightly less pale than he had a few days ago but every bit as tired.

“Ryeowook! You came!” He sounded delighted and his dark eyes sparkled with excitement that he couldn’t hide.

The pixie nodded, a smile gracing his lips as well. “Yeah! I talked to Jungsoo hyung about it and he said that I could as long as I was very, very careful to not let anyone else see me. Which, well, I wanted to talk to you about, because I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to manage that.” He fidgeted a bit, looking just slightly embarrassed. He hadn’t told Jungsoo about his lack of a plan for not being seen and was a little hesitant to bring it up now just in case it meant that he’d have to be left behind.

To his relief, Jongwoon just smiled brightly. “My pocket!”

“What?”

“My pocket!” Jongwoon repeated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You can stay hidden in the pocket of my jacket! I can tell you when the coast is clear and you can look over the edge and tell me what to buy!” It was a simple plan – one that might not even work – but Ryeowook didn’t seem to mind that in the slightest; he started giggling almost immediately.

“I’ll be like a little pocket pet!” he sputtered out around his laughter, trying to picture it in his mind. “But I think I’d like that.”

Jongwoon reached out his hand, grinning when Ryeowook jumped onto his palm. “Are you ready to go? We have a long day of grocery shopping ahead of us!”

“Yes sir!” the pixie chirped, saluting his human friend. “I’m completely ready!”

With a grin that he couldn’t hide, Jongwoon grabbed his keys and headed for his car, feeling his heart beat just a bit faster. As he closed the front door, a sudden thought flashed through his mind: have I taken my medicine today?

Ah, well... He glanced down at Ryeowook once more as he slid into the driver’s seat. I’m pretty sure I did. And even if I didn’t, missing one day won’t be a problem. Right?

---

Ryeowook had never been to the small town outside of the forest. It had been absolutely forbidden to him and his brothers for as long as they’d lived in this particular forest because, as Jungsoo said, humans were dangerous. That made this excursion with Jongwoon doubly exciting; he was getting to go to an entirely new place with one of his best friends in the world. Jongwoon drove them down to the town (he perched himself on the human’s shoulder and held onto the fabric of his jacket to keep from falling off on the ride down) and parked the car in the small parking lot beside an equally-small store.

“It’s a little privately-owned grocery store,” the human explained, locking his car doors as Ryeowook slid into the pocket of his coat. “There are generally less people here than at the big chain store down the street, so I figured it might be better to come here today, since you were with me.” He smiled brightly, obviously happy to have someone with him on this shopping trip.

As he’d guessed, the store was basically deserted. The owner waved at him from her place behind the cash register when he walked in, then left him to grab a cart and wander down the aisles by himself.

After a few minutes, when all he could hear was the steady sound of wheels rolling across linoleum, Ryeowook popped his head out of Jongwoon’s pocket and stared at all of the boxes and cans and bags as they passed them. He felt a smile spread across his face; even something as simple as grocery shopping seemed exciting since he’d never really been before. Suddenly, he gasped, fluttering halfway out of the pocket before remembering where he was and sliding back down until only his eyes were peeking over the edge of the fabric.

“Hyung! Hyung, what are those? In the red box?”

Jongwoon paused, glancing over at the shelf on his left to see what Ryeowook was talking about. “Oh! Those are Chocopies. They’re two layers of cake with this marshmallow filling in between them and then all of that is covered in chocolate. They’re really good.” He glanced down at his pocket, smiling when he saw Ryeowook staring at the box with large eyes. “Would you like some? I can get some if you want to taste them.”

Ryeowook nodded immediately, looking excited. “Really, hyung? That would be wonderful!”

Jongwoon withheld a laugh (he was, he reminded himself, in a small store and it probably wouldn’t be the best idea to start laughing, seemingly at nothing) and picked up a box, putting it gently into the cart. “If you see anything else you want, then just let me know and we can get it, okay? We can get anything you want, since I’m counting on you to help me cook some of this stuff!”

Ryeowook nodded again, his excitement climbing another notch. This was going to be the best day and nothing was going to go wrong at all.

---

After they had gotten everything they needed (and more) and had put it safely back in Jongwoon’s car, the human leaned against the driver’s side door and looked up at the sky.

“Well, I don’t really have anything else to do today, Ryeowook. Is there anywhere you’d like to go? I know that your brother probably doesn’t want you to be here all day, but we could at least go one more place before we headed back to my house.”

Ryeowook popped his head over the side of Jongwoon’s pocket, letting his arms hang over the edge as he swung his legs, which were no longer touching the bottom. He hummed in thought for a minute, then shrugged.

“I don’t know anything that’s in this town,” he admitted. “I’ve never been here before, so I have no idea where we could go.” He knew that he should have gone back to his home, or at least to the human’s, but he was having too much fun to even think about going back at the moment.

“How about to the park? There’s a park around a lake not too far from here. It’s really pretty and there aren’t that many people there usually, so we shouldn’t have to worry too much about you being seen.”

“Okay!” Ryeowook grinned, throwing one fist up into the air happily, which make Jongwoon chuckle. “Let’s go!”

---

A short car ride later and Ryeowok was back in Jongwoon’s pocket, leaning out over the edge and staring at the scenery as the human walked around the lake.  Leaves fell down around them every time the slight breeze began to act up, but Ryeowook didn’t mind; that made the scene feel all the more magical to him and he honestly wouldn’t have had it any other way.

“It’s so beautiful here, hyung! There’s a lake close to our home, but it’s smaller than this one and it’s not really as pretty. I love this!”

Jongwoon smiled a little. “I’m glad you like it,” he muttered, trying to walk in a straight line, which was harder than he would have liked because his vision was beginning to blur. He stumbled slightly, his foot nearly catching on a rock (which would have sent him careening to the ground, probably crushing Ryeowook in the process), and he groaned.

“Hyung?” Ryeowook peered up at the older man curiously. He knew that Jongwoon was clumsy (that was one of the first things that he’d noticed about the human, to be honest) but he’d never thought that Jongwoon was one to trip over something that was so obviously in his path like that.

“I’m fine.” The response seemed automatic – and fake – and only served to make the pixie nervous and those thoughts about how Jongwoon was hiding something from him resurface.

“Maybe you should sit for a bit. It might be easier for us to talk that way,” Ryeowook said carefully, hoping that the human wouldn’t argue with him. To his relief, Jongwoon just nodded and headed for the bench around the nearest curve, swallowing loudly. He reached out, grabbing the arm of the bench tightly before he turned and plopped down on it, sighing in relief when he felt his back rest against the cool wood. Maybe forgetting to take his medicine that morning had worse repercussions than he thought it would.

“How do you like the town?” he asked after a moment, blinking and trying to sharpen the fuzzy images of trees in front of him to little avail.

“It’s so cool! I’ve never seen anything like it! I mean, pixies stay in forests and other wooded areas most of the time anyway; I don’t get to see anything really all that urban, so this is awesome! I never thought that I’d be able to see it, honestly. I didn’t think that Jungsoo hyung would ever let any one of us come even close to the town, much less go into it. Heechul hyung lives close to the town, but we’re not even allowed to visit him because Jungsoo is so nervous about being seen by humans. I’m still surprised that he let me come today.” Ryeowook leaned back into Jongwoon’s coat pocket, looking up at the sky. It truly was a beautiful fall day and he couldn’t believe that he was spending it with a human in the town; it seemed so unreal.

“Well, I’m glad that you’re–” Jongwoon was cut off as he started coughing loudly, a heavy, scratchy cough that seemed to shake his whole body. When he didn’t stop, Ryeowook, completely disregarding the fact that they were in a public place, shot up out of his pocket and ducked down into the collar of his jacket, placing his hands against Jongwoon’s neck.

“Hyung? Hyung, are you okay? Hyung!”

The human, hitting on his chest softly, smiled, but it was so obviously a forced smile that it made Ryeowook’s heart seize up instead of making him feel better.

“I’m fine.” He paused, coughing one last time. “Just something in the air, I think.”

“Hyung…” Ryeowook trailed off, biting his lip. He desperately wanted to ask what was wrong, to force the human to tell him what was bothering him. There had to be a reason why he didn’t want to tell anyone, though. There had to be. And, Ryeowook thought with a sigh, I should respect that.

Jongwoon coughed again, tipping his head back and holding his side lightly. He hadn’t exactly realized exactly how much the medicine he’d gotten from the doctor was helping him until he missed taking the daily pills. The things he’d gotten so used to being without – the dizziness, the joint pain, the coughing, the feelings of weakness – were back in full-force. Ryeowook, who was still nestled in the human’s collar, frowned.

“We really should leave if you feel bad, hyung—”

“No, no, I just want to rest for a minute more so we can talk properly.” Jongwoon fixed his eyes on a tree in the distance, frowning a little. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything!” Ryeowook chirped immediately, curling up in the crook of Jongwoon’s neck, almost entirely hidden from view by the jacket.

“Do pixies have magical powers?” The human blushed a little, but plowed ahead with his question. “It’s just something I’ve been curious about for a while. You hear in stories about faeries and pixies having magical powers and I didn’t know if it was actually true or not.”

Ryeowook giggled; his breath tickled Jongwoon’s skin and the human had to make a serious effort to not to start laughing himself and cover up the pixie’s response.

“Not really, I guess. All of our ancestors used to have powers, but, over the years, most pixies have lost the ability to use them fully. Some of us can tap into our powers sometimes, but we can never really use them completely and it’s very iffy as to whether or not they’ll do what we want them to. We usually just don’t even think about using them, honestly, and if we need anything, we just go to the Elders.”

“The Elders?”

Ryeowook nodded. “The Elders are a group of older pixies that have the ability to fully use their powers, unlike the rest of us. They live in groups of three or four in places throughout the country, and the world, I guess. They’re pretty spread out, but, generally, other pixies always settle in a place where the Elders are only a day or two away by flight, at the very most. We go to them to get their input when we run into serious problems, especially concerning our health, or when we need something done magically that we can’t even attempt ourselves.”

“Oh…” Jongwoon let his eyes slip closed, thinking about this new information. “Can you tap into your powers?”

Ryeowook blushed. “Sometimes. I’m getting a little better because I practice trying to use them when I get bored. I’m not very good though.”

There was a beat of silence, and the pixie, perplexed, stood up slowly, stretching his wings and fluttering up so that he could see Jongwoon’s face; he paled immediately, his heart dropping.

Jongwoon wasn’t conscious. 

I am so incredibly sorry that this took me so long to write!! School has been absolutely crazy and full of work and I just haven't had as much time to write as I would like! I also spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I wanted this chapter to go. Again, I'm so sorry for taking such a long time to update!! I hope you enjoyed reading chapter six! <3

love,

afallingstar