And at fate’s hand they both arise into the world in between. As midnight strikes and bells ring through the towns and the forests and the lakes, there comes a large crack on the ground and a beam of light between the clouds.

A figure of a man rises from that crack, particles of rocks breaking and rolling off his body as he pushes through. He is unconscious, body limp and head hung back, pure black wings hanging from his back. Smoke lifts from his lips as he takes his first breath of air, eyes red when they flutter open. He kneels on the ground, bones aching and heavy, lungs intoxicated with fire. He draws gray strings of smoke from the very creases of his palms, naturally lifting from his shoulders, his hair, his eyelashes. A turn of his head and his neck cracks, the sound piercing through the air, loud and clear and sharp like a blade. He spreads his wings, black like the night, moonlight glinting off smooth feathers.

Just as he stands, there comes a tiny explosion nearby, a gush of air blowing the grass by his knees. The trees sway, there’s a hurricane of fallen leaves and flowers and—feathers?

But these feathers are unlike Jongin’s. They are pure, blinding white. Little particles of the moon and the stars and the sun, flowing in the wind around Jongin’s dark figure. One grazes his cheek, tickles his very core, but burns his skin and leaves it bleeding. He is reminded of his curse. The burn of a single touch.

He holds the feather in his hand, paying its scorching heat against his skin no mind. There, on the tip of the large feather, is a drop of his own blood, dark and scathing. The impure tainting the pure. He bites his cheek and lets the wind blow it away, except it doesn’t. It falls to the ground, by his toe. When he looks up, he sees wings, pure white and much, much larger than his. They shine much like the moon and the stars and the sun, the very symbol of purity and glory. The wings of an angel.

“Kyungsoo. It’s been awhile,” Jongin greets, bowing his head. His lips tug in a smile of sorts.

Kyungsoo, with his heavenly glow and all, approaches Jongin with a stride too easy to be one toward a devil. He pats his raven hair down and makes sure it’s not sticking to different directions, hands clean and pristine, nails cut short and neat. That’s what Kyungsoo is, Jongin thinks as he looks into the other’s wide eyes of pure silver, clean and pristine.

“It surely has,” Kyungsoo agrees, voice loud and pleasant. He moves close enough to see the smoke rising from the pores on Jongin’s skin, but not close enough to touch. He, too, is reminded to the curse. The burn of a single touch. But, all the same, he smiles that gracious smile of his and adds, “Next time, when you come back, will you please request for some clothes on?”

Jongin smiles wide, and he looks menacing because of his red irises, white pupil, but Kyungsoo knows better. He knows much better because they hadn’t always been like this. They hadn’t always been the Devil Jongin and the Angel Kyungsoo. They were once human, too.

Just teenagers when they’d both been taken. At the same time, too. Ran over by the very same truck. It had been a moving truck, full of furniture to be moved into the Byun residence. They’d talked about their new neighbour then, Kyungsoo insisting that the boy Baekhyun should’ve been nice because Chanyeol said so, but Jongin promptly disagreeing because they didn’t need anyone else in their friendship. It could only have been Kyungsoo and Jongin. And, if Chanyeol wanted Baekhyun, then he could have him all to himself. Kyungsoo had laughed as they crossed that road together, and, inevitably, bled and died together.

They’ve always been together, those two, Kyungsoo’s mother had cried at the wake. Wherever they are now, I’m sure they’re there together, was what Jongin’s sister always said when she cried. But how wrong she was. Because where they died, they separated. Where Kyungsoo had been taken up, Jongin had been taken down. But, at fate’s hand or whatever, Jongin would rise from the ground and Kyungsoo would fall from the sky. And, they’d be together. Like how they always were.

They’ve been together since childhood. Jongin was that loud, dark-skinned child next door to Kyungsoo who always just sat on the porch, wide eyed and hair slick back. He used to watch Jongin across the fence, yelling at this and that and shouting at his mother whenever he’d been called inside to help with chores. It was Kyungsoo who’d been fascinated first.

One day, Jongin peered over the fence, clinging desperately so that he could look at Kyungsoo. Until he stood up, Kyungsoo could only see a tuft of black hair and ten tiny fingers with dirty nails.

“Hey! Hey, you!” Jongin had called back then. There was a spot in his mouth that was missing a tooth. Kyungsoo vaguely recalled hearing screaming from next door before he slept the previous night, and supposed that might have been the reason.

“Did you get a visit from the tooth fairy?” Kyungsoo had asked shyly. He’d lost a bunch of teeth already, and he always got a quarter under his pillow every time.

“What?” Jongin had yelled, eyeing Kyungsoo like he was crazy which gave no help to the boy’s self-esteem.

“N-nothing,” Kyungsoo had stuttered, stepping back, wringing the hem of his sweater in his trembling hands. He’d only ever imagined talking with this kid, but he never thought he’d be so difficult to approach. Jongin had this strong aura around him that wasn’t quite pleasing to a child like Kyungsoo.

Except Jongin let out a disgusting snort, “You’re funny.”

“B-but I didn’t even tell a joke,” Kyungsoo had replied quietly, looking down.

“Psh, doesn’t matter. C’mere and play with me! I’m bored.” There was something about Jongin’s voice that was extremely loud and undeniably irritating. A piercing ring into Kyungsoo’s ear that had him flinching. Except when he looked back up into the other’s hopeful eyes, he couldn’t help but walk over to Jongin’s front yard. How he even got bruises on his face and another lost tooth by the end of that day, he would never remember. But when his mother had yelled and stomped outside to complain about Jongin’s behaviour, Kyungsoo had stopped her and told her instead about how much fun he’d had.

It was middle school when their personalities switched quite drastically. Jongin was getting his growth spurt earlier than Kyungsoo and was getting tons of cramps from it. Kyungsoo had laughed at him but soothed those talented dancing legs all the while, claiming the cramps weren’t just from puberty, but from all the dancing as well. Jongin had lost his noisiness when he’d found interest in dancing, and when Kyungsoo first found out about it, he’d claimed quite poetically how Jongin had found a different way of communicating. Where he used to emanate too much noise as a child, he began to just absorb sounds and turn them into dance.

Which was perfect, because while Kyungsoo had been extremely silent as a child, ever since the Music Club at school, he’d began singing and dancing to his voice was Jongin’s favourite.  

Sometimes, early morning when the sun had just come up, Jongin would come out and lay on his front yard and stretch. Sometimes he’d turn up the radio and dance to whatever was going on. And each time, Kyungsoo would call him over from across the fence, and until he stood up, all Jongin could see was a tuft of black hair and ten fingers holding on, nails cut short and neat.

Kyungsoo would sing early in the morning, voice loud and perfect and Jongin would dance to his voice. This became their weekend hobbies and slowly, weekdays, too. This also became the reason for untidiness, somewhat.

Second year of high school. Jongin’s mother had left with not even a single note. Jongin had held his sister in his arms, hands over her ears as he listened to his parents fight the previous night. It was the first night there was ever a large crash and shards of glass on the ground in the morning. Much to his dismay, Jongin was pretty sure the sound had seeped through the spaces between his fingers and into his sister’s ears.

Jongin had walked into Kyungsoo’s house the next morning, greeted Kyungsoo’s mother as she prepared breakfast, went upstairs, into Kyungsoo’s room and into Kyungsoo’s arms. The shorter boy had embraced him even as they sunk to the floor, Jongin crying into Kyungsoo’s shoulder even though he’d never admit it. Either way, he wouldn’t have been able to deny because Kyungsoo had felt warm tears on his shoulder.

“I’ll protect you,” he’d told Jongin then, just words of comfort with not much depth. “I’ll always save you. Promise.”

And while Kyungsoo had first been fascinated by Jongin, Jongin had first fallen in love with Kyungsoo’s embrace.

Kyungsoo always did, by the way, save Jongin. Either way, it was also the other’s habit to need to be saved. Somewhat. He never had the heart to tell Kyungsoo but the fights he always got into were with the punks who dared talked bad about his wide-eyed best friend. ‘Shorty’ they said because apparently puberty didn’t do enough to Kyungsoo’s height for him to escape the bully radar. ‘’ they said because perhaps his voice had been to beautiful, or skin had been to smooth, or appearance had been too tidy.

Jongin was the one who sat silently in class and listened to the douchebags laugh in the back of the room. At the end of the day, he’d make it out a fight against six and sometimes more with just a busted lip and a bruised knuckle, a limp on days when he was out of it. At the beginning of the night, Kyungsoo was the one yelling at him to stop picking fights because he was sick and tired of dabbing wet cotton against Jongin’s face and wrapping bandages around his arms.

“Look, I know I said I’d always save you and everything,” he had rambled, while he wrapped a roll of bandage around Jongin’s hand, eyes too focused to notice how close Jongin was leaning, or the amused smile upon his lips. “But I’d really appreciate it if you just try to not get your needing to be saved all the time.”

Jongin laughed, a rare sighting compared to many years before. There’d been a tinge of nostalgia in the corners of Kyungsoo’s heart when he looked up, remembering how Jongin’s laugh had been so loud and huge. Years have gone and it’d become merely just a tiny chuckle.

“Right. No more getting my saved. Got it.”

Kyungsoo gave him a look, sensing he’d missed a joke somewhere, but choosing to just roll his eyes and walk away instead. Jongin hopped off the sink in Kyungsoo’s bathroom and got home not before bidding Kyungsoo’s mother goodnight and winking at the flushed Kyungsoo.

A few days after that, Park Chanyeol, that tall, seemingly deranged boy had joined them at lunch. Kyungsoo had welcomed him and moved over, even though there was much space at the table which only Kyungsoo and Jongin occupied. Jongin liked to keep it that way, and he made it clear with the look he shot towards Chanyeol, who, in turn, decided to ignore it.

“You guys live across the town playground, right?” For Chanyeol’s really handsome, baby face, he had a very deep voice that in no way reflected. Both Jongin and Kyungsoo had nodded. “Wah, lucky!”

“Well, yeah but no one ever plays there. It’s gotten all dirty and rusty and dangerous,” Kyungsoo mumbled gravely, thinking about the rather large cut he got that day he and Jongin tried to play there. The slide had begun to rust and the edges had become too sharp to be enjoyable.

Chanyeol had snorted though, “I don’t care about the freaking playground. It’s the house just across the street.”

“Why, what about it?” Jongin had grunted, placing his head face-down onto the table.

“The Byun family’s moving in there this week. The son, Baekhyun, he’s my friend. We met last summer through some family frie-“

“Yeah, yeah, we don’t really care, Chanyeol. Right, Soo?”

“Is he nice?” came Kyungsoo’s reply, quietly ignoring Jongin’s unpleasant grumbles.

Chanyeol had nodded so hard his hair bounced, curly locks framing his face. “After he moves in, can I use you guys as an excuse to visit that area?”

“Sure,” Kyungsoo had mumbled cheerily as Jongin grunted out a, “No.”

“Oh, come on, maybe he’s a good guy,” Kyungsoo insisted, elbowing Jongin in the ribs as they turned the corner from school. Home was just one sidewalk down, a pedestrian across, and a longer sidewalk journey. One they always took together, even when Kyungsoo had to come out late from club activities or Jongin from dance practice. One of them never left without the other.

“It doesn’t matter if he’s a good guy or a bad guy. If be butts in, I won’t like him,” huffed Jongin, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Kyungsoo snorted. “Are you anti-social or something?”

“If I were anti-social, I suppose I wouldn’t even talk to you.” Jongin rolled his eyes.

“So, what, are you shy?” Kyungsoo laughed, at which Jongin had sputtered, stomped his foot rather childishly and insisted that he was not shy.

“Look, I just don’t think we need another friend, okay? I mean, you’re all I need and hopefully I’m all you need. Besides, if Byun Baekhyun wants a friend, he can get Chanyeol for all I care,” Jongin had yelled as they approached the pedestrian.

It was Jongin’s habit to just walk across without even checking the traffic light, and Kyungsoo stopping him during the red lights. Except today, at fate or destiny’s hand or whatever, Kyungsoo had been laughing too hard to notice, and there wasn’t anyone else there to stop them at the green light.

Jongin reacted at the honk first, moving to embrace Kyungsoo.

There wasn’t any dramatic wind or slow motion effects. There wasn’t even enough time to scream, or to look into each other’s eyes. There was just one long honk, a piercing screech of tires against asphalt, and two teenagers a few meters away, holding into each other despite broken limbs.

It wasn’t immediate death, too. There wasn’t time to scream but there was time to feel the pain in their bones and their flesh. The pain was there but, neither of them chose to feel the fear.

“Hey.”

“Yeah?” Kyungsoo looked up and saw the tears in Jongin’s eyes. He couldn’t move to wipe them away and he didn’t know why.

“I’ll save you.  From this,” Jongin said, feeling that gigantic throb somewhere on his back, his hip. His legs feel broken and oh God his legs. He realizes he can’t dance without his legs.

Kyungsoo laughed, despite himself. Despite everything. “I thought I was supposed to be the one doing the saving.”

Jongin smiled and, holding Kyungsoo’s hand (or thinking so), he told Kyungsoo to, “Let me save you this time,” before he closed his eyes, questioned how and briskly let go.

Apparently this is how, Jongin thinks as he gazes at Kyungsoo the Angel, lying on the ground next to him. It’s a clearing in the middle of a forest, where the moonlight vaguely outlined the crowns of the trees that towered over them like a curtain, shielding them from everything to hide the love that began as innocent in their first lives, and forbidden in the next. At least he gets to be the angel.

He remembers that moment all too well. Remembers the sound of Kyungsoo’s voice, loud in his ear, the vivid red down the side of Kyungsoo’s face. Vaguely, he regrets not holding on long enough to see what might’ve been Kyungsoo’s reaction, but he supposes it doesn’t quite matter now. Besides, Kyungsoo probably doesn’t even remember anymore. Jongin assumes it’s the whole purifying thing, taking out all the pain and therefore including the memories. Whereas Jongin’s have all been intensified, burned, grilled into his brain so well that when he closes his eyes, he feels like he’s right there.

It’s Jongin’s responsibility now, to hold all the memories Kyungsoo was cleaned up of. (He wonders if they were worth cleaning up, but then re realizes it doesn’t really matter because Kyungsoo still remembers him.)

He feels a sting on the tips of his fingers and looks down to see Kyungsoo lacing them together, something they’d failed to do when they were younger. Or, Kyungsoo supposes they are still young.

“Hey, do we age?” he asks Jongin idly, speaking like how they used to.

“I suppose not.”

“Oh. Okay.”

There’s smoke coming from where their hands touch, but neither of them pays it any mind. Suddenly, Jongin remembers something, something he failed to remember the last time they met. He flips over and onto Kyungsoo, skin burning where they touch. Kyungsoo blinks up at him, white irises and black pupils and all. It doesn’t quite disturb Jongin anymore, not as much as it used to.

Jongin flaps his wings over both of them, another gush of wind swaying the trees and Kyungsoo’s hair. Jongin’s heart throbs. It’s a picture now. In the clearing of long, soft grass between trees. A moonlit scene of a devil who’s fallen for an angel. Or, really more of a picture of an angel who’s fallen for a devil, and a devil who’s risen for an angel. It’s Jongin’s scathing black against Kyungsoo’s pure white. They’ve always contrasted but the line sort of fizzles away when their lips touch and there is literally quite a spark. One they both ignore. The kiss is short and chaste and when Jongin pulls away, he’s glowing and Kyungsoo’s glowing, too, just—brighter.

“Our first kiss,” Jongin whispers and flops back down next to Kyungsoo, revelling in the feeling, the pounding of his heart.

Kyungsoo smiles up at the moon, the only thing that’s ever truly witnessed their forbidden love but accepted it all the same.  It’s the fascination toward Jongin that the heavens missed to purify him of, but perhaps because it’s tucked secretly in the corners of his heart.

In some other corner of the world, Park Chanyeol and Byun Baekhyun slowly move towards two gravestones mounted on the ground, wrinkled faces solemn. There are already flowers by both stones, most probably from Jongin’s sister who’s in her late sixties. Chanyeol bends over and places flowers as well as Baekhyun squints to read the letters engraved on both stones.

“They were always together. It wouldn’t have been right to separate them any way possible,” Chanyeol sighs as he struggles to get back up. Those long legs aren’t as strong as they used to be. “I’m sure they’re together now anyway, wherever they may be.”

“Hey Jongin?”

“Hmm?” Jongin turns to Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo’s hair is black, has always been raven black and his skin has always been remarkably pale, a contrast to Jongin’s tanned complexion. Kyungsoo’s wearing that perfectly pressed white uniform, Jongin’s own wrinkled and not even buttoned properly. The sun is bright. It kind of gives Kyungsoo’s skin this angelic kind of glow, and Jongin’s a golden one. It’s hot today.

“Happy Death Anniversary,” Kyungsoo laughs that charming laugh of his, the one that has his eyes turning into half-moons and his cheeks pushed up and gums showing. The one Jongin fell for somewhere between childhood years, or maybe when Kyungsoo’d laughed at him while he whined about his cramps.

Jongin laughs as well and it’s the laugh that’s loud and gigantic and tugging on Kyungsoo’s heartstrings quite nicely. They’re two lone souls who don’t quite need anyone but each other, trapped in a front yard of a house across the playground with the rusty slides. One of them sings, and the other feels  so much like dancing.