The sound of a several-foot-high stack of half-written articles and novels crashing to the floor in his library rudely drew Seunghyun from the deepest, most peaceful sleep he’d managed to have in the last few months. He groaned as he reluctantly rolled out of bed and grabbed the baseball bat from beside his end table. Best to check; just on the off chance it was a burglar and not simply an imbalance in the stacks.

Yeah, because I’m fully prepared to take on a criminal, he thought, glancing down at his bare chest and flannel sleep pants. Another noise coming from the library ‒this time a low buzzing sound, followed by several high-pitched squeaks‒ had him crouching low with the bat cocked over his shoulder. If he was going down, he was going down swinging.

“Hello?” he called out, creeping down the hallway. “Is someone there?”

The buzzing sound stopped. Seunghyun tiptoed into the library and flipped the light switch to find… nothing. A large stack of papers had fallen, just as he’d thought. Heaving a sigh of relief that there wasn’t an armed man rifling through his personal belongings at 3 am, Seunghyun set the bat against the nearest wall, then bent down to right the pile of unfinished scribblings.

And froze.

There, under the papers, was a… a thing. A winged thing, staring up at him in horror. Suddenly, the wings (which resembled nothing so much as dragonfly wings) began to beat rapidly, and Seunghyun realized where the buzzing sound had come from. It took him a moment of stupidly staring at the struggling creature before it dawned on him just what the thing looked like. It looked like a very small, winged man (or possibly woman; he couldn’t be sure). His three year old niece would probably call it a fairy. A bubble of hysterical laughter burst from him, and Seunghyun startled himself so badly he fell backward onto to his . The tiny creature… person…fairy… squeaked out what sounded very much like curses as it tried, and failed, to free itself from the fallen books.

Seunghyun reached for the bat unthinkingly, and held it out toward the little creature on his floor. When he realized what he was doing, he tossed the weapon aside with a sigh, and sat forward. For a good, solid minute, he simply watched the thing. From this distance it was clear: whatever it was, it definitely was shaped like a person. Its hair was short, and a wild array of pinks and blues. It had arms, though its legs were clearly pinned beneath a mound of debris. Its wings were diaphanous; translucent and having the coloration of particularly bright cellophane. It stopped struggling long enough to glance up at him, and Seunghyun saw that the little man ‒he was reasonably sure the thing was male, anyway‒ had brilliant, crystal-blue eyes.

“Are you going to sit there staring, or will you help get this stuff off my back?” The creature called out to him. His voice wasn’t quite the squeak he’d heard before; it was soft. More like the tinkling of bells. It was actually quite pleasant. Seunghyun smiled down at the tiny thing. “Oh, stop acting like an idiot!” the small pink-and-blue-haired man groaned. “Haven’t you ever seen a fairy before?”

So it was a fairy.

“Uhhh… no, I haven’t. S-sorry,” Seunghyun stammered. He felt himself blushing, which was stupid, and he quickly scrambled forward to move the heavy pile of books off of the fairy. But before he got further than halfway, he noticed a folded piece of paper sticking out of the waistband of the fairy’s… well, he wasn’t quite sure, but he thought it was probably a skirt of some sort. That was odd. Without thinking, Seunghyun reached out and slipped the paper from underneath the woven grass skirt and unfolded it, amidst shrieks of protestation from the fairy.

It was the first page of an epic poem he’d begun a few nights ago. A piece of work he finally, finally felt was worthy of publication. It had been so long since he’d published anything for profit that his bank account was dwindling dangerously. This poem had come to him in a dream last week, after nearly a month without sleep, staring at his typewriter; it was the answer to his most fervent and fevered prayers. And the fairy had been about to steal it right from under his nose, apparently.

“This is my poem,” he said, dumbly, looking at the little fairy. The fairy rolled his cerulean eyes and flapped his wings in another vain attempt to free himself.

“No, it isn’t,” he huffed. “It’s mine! I found it.”

“I wrote it,” Seunghyun countered, glaring. “And you were just going to take it from me. You little thief!”

The fairy beat his fist against the wooden floor and matched him glare-for-glare. “I am not a thief! Finders keepers! If you wanted it you shouldn’t have just left it lying around for enterprising fairies to find! Besides, it wasn’t that great.”

Seunghyun laughed as he folded the paper back into a neat square and slipped it into his pocket. “Then why’d you take it, huh?”

The fairy turned a most brilliant shade of scarlet, but stuck his nose in the air all the same. “I like to read. We fairies aren’t known for our written works. I just wanted to… to show someone from my world what all the fuss is about,” he finished, head propped on folded arms.

“Well, you’re welcome to take anything but this. This,” he said, patting his pocket, “is the only copy I’ve got at the moment, and I need to finish this poem so I don’t lose my house.”

“You… you’d let me take things?” the fairy asked, expression and voice displaying what Seunghyun could only call incredulity. He grinned.

“Sure. You’re not a thief, after all. Right?”

“No,” the little man pouted, puffing out his cheeks cutely and blowing his bubblegum-colored hair out from in front of his eyes. Seunghyun smiled at the action, and then continued removing the books and papers from the fairy’s legs until he was free.

He stood, scratched his hands across his little, bare chest, and smoothed down his woven skirt (which was way shorter than Seunghyun had imagined it’d be) before flicking his wings and hovering just in front of the sleepy writer’s face.

“Thanks for helping me,” he said, twisting his arms behind his back shyly. “I’m sorry for intruding. Usually you don’t wake up when I, um, visit. I’ll be more careful in the future.”

“You’ve been here before?” Seunghyun asked, standing and brushing off his own, flannel-covered bottom.

“Oh yes!” the fairy nodded eagerly, shyness forgotten. He gestured around the cluttered room at all the books and loose sheets of half-forgotten story ideas. “I told you I love to read, and you have so many things for me to investigate. Are they all yours?”

“Most of it. Some of the books aren’t, but everything else… yeah, they’re mine. I have a hard time finishing what I start,” he grumbled. He hoped that habit would change with the poem in his pants pocket. The fairy didn’t seem to mind his inability to complete stories, however. He flitted over to a piece of paper lying on top of a Dostoyevsky novel Seunghyun had never even cracked open and picked it up. It was as long as he was tall. Seunghyun snorted as he watched the little man fold the paper into a square small enough to be stuffed into his definitely too-short skirt.

“You don’t mind if I take that, do you?” he asked, breathless, as he shot back over to where Seunghyun was standing. “It’s just that it’s a poem about flowers, and I think it will go over well with the community.”

Seunghyun had to stop himself from asking a million questions about ‘the community’, and why he would be sharing his poetry with it, but he nodded his head in acquiescence. “Sure. Take anything you’d like. How’d you get in, anyway?”

The fairy pointed to the window above his typewriter, which was slightly ajar.

“Oh. I guess I should close that.” The fairy gasped, and Seunghyun quickly tried to correct himself. “I mean, I don’t want burglars coming in! I thought you were a burglar! I almost hit you with the bat!” he babbled, pointing to the discarded piece of wood and cork. “Just knock on my bedroom window next time you want to come in. I’m sure you know which one it is if you’ve been here so often,” he teased, hoping he hadn’t offended the creature. Of course, said creature had broken into his home to steal his property, but the prospect of becoming acquainted with a fairy made that detail hardly significant.

When the fairy blushed again, and twisted his little fingers together, Seunghyun just raised an eyebrow.

“I know which one it is,” he sighed. “I’ll do as you ask. It is your home.”

He gave Seunghyun one last, shy glance before darting off to the window, wings flashing every color on the visible light spectrum under the glare of the overhead. Seunghyun called out to him just before he slipped outside.

“Hey!” The fairy gripped the window frame and turned his bright blue eyes back to Seunghyun. His little face was still red. Seunghyun found it completely endearing. Even if he was a thief. “What’s your name?”

“Jiyong,” he answered, lips splitting into a toothy grin. “What’s yours?”

“Seunghyun.”

“Pleasure to meet you. Thank you again for helping me, and… and for letting me take this home,” he blushed, patting the square of paper under his skirt. “I really adore the things you write.”

Jiyong turned an even more brilliant shade of red. Seunghyun had the distinct feeling the little fairy had a crush on him, which was as cute as it was weird. He felt oddly flattered.

“I’m glad to hear it. Stop by any time, Jiyong.”

The fairy beamed at him and nodded. “I’ll be back tomorrow!” And then he was gone into the night.

Seunghyun picked up the papers that had fallen onto Jiyong in a daze. He had met a fairy. A fairy. If this encounter didn’t provide his brain with fodder for publishable material, he knew something must be very, very wrong with him. And Jiyong was coming back tomorrow, which meant he had a chance to pick a fairy’s brain! He chuckled all the way back to his bedroom, even as he slid under the sheets and closed his eyes.

A fairy! A fairy who was apparently infatuated with him!

Suddenly, his luck, and his prospects of keeping his home from the clutches of the bank, seemed infinitely better. Seunghyun giggled to himself one last time before falling into a pleasant slumber. His dreams were full of tiny, winged men with bubblegum-colored hair and cerulean eyes.

Tomorrow was going to be a great day.