“Sungmin-ah…” Kyuhyun shook the other lightly but urgently. “Sungmin-ah… Min-ah, wake up… YAH! SUNGMIN! GET UP NOW!”

He tried shaking, pushing, pulling, taking away the blanket he had just covered Sungmin with – nothing seemed to work, the sleeping angel was still as good as dead for the world at the moment. Kyuhyun ruffled his hair in frustration. They needed to get out of there.

“Get uppp!” whined the boy, frantically shaking the other. He couldn’t get rid of the feeling that whatever was going to happen now, was not going to be pretty.

Sungmin cracked an eye open and yawned. “Eh? Kyu…?” The angel rubbed his eyes confusedly. Seeing Kyuhyun so alert, he sat up, alarmed as well. “Did something happen?”

Kyuhyun quickly slid off the coach, grabbed his backpack and started throwing random things inside, all the while glancing at the black cat-clock (courtesy of Donghae) hanging on the opposite wall.

“It’s… Eee… No.” It probably wasn’t too clever of him to hide the fact, that someone was looking for Sungmin, from Sungmin, but the moment Kyuhyun saw Sungmin’s cute, confused face, he found himself unable to share his knowledge just then. “We just… Eee… We need to go. Hae hyung called and he… Eee… I mean, he wants to… meet… u-us?” he stuttered uncertainly at the end.

Sungmin watched him incredulously.

“Then what do we need a hammer for?”

The younger glanced at what happened to be in his hand, and blinked. “Oh. Well, he broke something and he wants me to help him, you know how Donghae is. He can’t fix things for the life of his.”

The angel boy raised an eyebrow skeptically, still eyeing Kyuhyun without a single movement. “What did he break?”

Kyuhyun groaned with frustration. “A table,” he said the first thing that came to his mind. “His favorite table that he treasures too much to just throw it away; and trust me, we don’t want a sad Donghae around here,” he stated firmly. “Now can you please move? We gotta hurry!”

A blink of the large eyes, was all his exasperated stare was met with. Sungmin looked like he didn’t believe a word from what Kyuhyun had said. Finally, he shrugged.

“Okay, let’s go then,” and Sungmin slid off the coach as well, all composed and ready to go.

It took them less than ten minutes to rearrange whatever Kyuhyun had thoughtlessly packed into his backpack and finally step out of the house, locking the doors carefully behind themselves.

“Where to now?”

Kyuhyun looked right, then left. “This way,” he decided, pointing at the small alley on their left.

Making his way in the said direction, he didn’t notice Sungmin throwing a worried glance at a square brown envelope stuck under the doormat so neatly, one would have to know it was there to really notice it. They left the household.

“Kyu? I thought we were going to Donghae’s?“

“Mhm,” hummed Kyuhyun absentmindedly in response.

“Yeah,” Sungmin fixed himself on the uncomfortable tall chair. “Then what are we doing… Here?”

The younger glanced at every dark corner of the place nervously. Aish, why was Sungmin asking so many questions? They just had to disappear for a little while, didn’t he get it? …Oh yeah, he didn’t, cause Kyuhyun didn’t tell him. “Hiding,” he mumbled finally.

Sungmin’s eyes went round. “What? Why?” When Kyuhyun didn’t make even the tiniest attempt to answer him, Sungmin shrugged and gave up trying to get a response from his ward, in favor of looking around curiously.

He knew what it was, the place Kyuhyun had led him to. Dimmed lights, loud music, clouds of suffocating cigarette smoke – the epitome of a club, without a doubt. He sighed and shook his head, when a certain couple caught his eyes.

In the corner across from their seats, sat two scary looking guys, just the kind that you’d rather avoid meeting in a dark alley had you been given a choice. For Sungmin though, it was ridiculously easy to see through their weak and fragile façades. The way the bigger one kept fiddling with his fingernails under the table, and the way the smaller, but more vicious looking one kept throwing nervous glanced here and there, as if to make sure no one was observing their little encounter – it was more than obvious for Sungmin that both of them were in fact far more scared than they were letting out.

When the smaller boy’s restless eyes found the angel’s, he glared dangerously in his direction, and nudged his friend, who in response stared a little dumbly at Sungmin, and then his eyes widened to twice the original size. The big guy stood up quickly, and, tripping over his own legs in his hurry to get out, rushed to the door, leaving his partner cussing at the empty place with a disappointment painting his features.

Sungmin giggled lightly at their behavior. There was always hope for most people, only sometimes they needed a small push in the right direction. He was sure the boy wouldn’t try any shady business anymore, and maybe, if things went good, he’d convince his friend to stop it as well.

Nonetheless, he hoped no one had seen the small incident, especially not someone who’d understand what happened. He could get himself into some serious trouble for ‘helping’ the boy out.

“Excuse me,” suddenly he heard an unfamiliar voice calling for his attention. Sungmin threw a questioning look at Kyuhyun, then shook his head. The younger didn’t seem to be in a right state to ask him anything at the moment.

“Yes?”

The bartender glanced at Kyuhyun as well, and cleared his throat loudly. “Are you ordering something? Because the queue got quite long…”

Sungmin looked around and sure enough, there was a line of frustrated, mostly tipsy people behind them. He nudged Kyuhyun in the ribs. “Kyuhyun-ah,” one more jab. “Money.”

Kyuhyun blinked. “Yeah, yeah,” he replied absentmindedly. “Give us two beers or whatever.”

Seeing him so distracted, Sungmin frowned. He hated not being able to tell what the other was thinking about. Oh well, he thought, eyeing the two huge glasses left in front of them by the annoyed bartender, who kept murmuring something about ‘those ards who can’t ing understand the meaning of a word business’. Might as well try out this alcohol thingy, since he’s stuck here anyway. He couldn’t say he hadn’t heard about it, but maybe the devil’s not so black as he’s painted… Though Sungmin shouldn’t really use that particular saying, honestly. He reached for the glass, trying to convince himself it was not a sin to use the devil’s name when he’s on Earth. He was kind of on vacation, after all…

And while Sungmin battled his conscience over all kinds of moral problems, Kyuhyun was immersed in his own, kind of chaotic right now, mind.

Who might this someone looking for Sungmin be? His real friend? Like, real-real friend? No, scratch that, Kyuhyun still had troubles believing Sungmin was for real. He was not going to dig himself into being forced to believe in the existence of another person of his kind. That would be just that little bit too much for his poor sanity.

So he kept thinking. Hard.

Except when he glanced at Sungmin, all possibly useful thoughts left his mind…

“Yah! Sungmin! What do you think you’re doing?!”

The angel blinked at him innocently. “Nothing.”

“How is taking your shirt off on top of a bar counter nothing?!”

Sungmin blinked once more, and looked around. “But I’m hot, Kyuhyunnie!” He said with a pout, and a horrible thought entered Kyuhyun’s brain.

One look at the number of empty glasses in front of the other, while he was fairly sure he had only ordered two of them, at the shiny irises glancing at him with a confused indignation, at the nasty grin on the bartender’s face, and his suspicion was confirmed.

“YAH! HAVE YOU GOTTEN YOURSELF DRUNK?!”

“Honestly, what kind of an angel are you,” panted Kyuhyun heavily, while fixing Sungmin’s position on his back.

“A pretty one,” Sungmin giggled, not exactly helping the other with getting at least a bit comfortable.

“Obviously. That must be the only reason you got the job! I mean, have you ever heard of an angel who gets drunk with a beer? I would understand if it was a Sacramental Wine, but a beer?!”

The angel sighed and mumbled something under his nose. Kyuhyun paused for a second to get a breath. Together with his steps, he resumed his talking as well.

“And now I have to carry your big sorry —“

“I’m not fat!”

“—all the way to Hangeng’s. Perfect, just perfect. And we can’t even take a taxi, cause I spent all my money on that back there,” he kept complaining.

The boy on his back mumbled something again, and nuzzled his cold nose into Kyuhyun’s neck. “What was that? Come on, if you’re saying something, say it properly!”

“…Sorry,” a small cloud of alcohol-scented air blew around his ear as the angel whispered his apology, and a shiver ran through Kyuhyun’s spine. He was pretty sure it had nothing to do with the cold.

“It’s okay,” he found himself murmuring.

They were silent for a few minutes, until something seemed to register in Sungmin’s intoxicated mind.

“Kyu?”

“Mhm.”

“Are you going to hand me over to the psychiatrist again?” He asked, almost fearfully, and Kyuhyun stopped walking.

“Why would you think that?” He frowned.

Sungmin chewed on his lower lip. “Didn’t you say we were going to help Donghae? And now you’re taking me to Hangeng…”

Kyuhyun almost slapped himself. He had totally forgotten about the lie. Forcing himself to be calm, he Sungmin’s leg (it was the only place he could reach in their current position). “Hae hyung texted me earlier that he called Minho to help him and it’s okay already. The chair is all fixed. …I mean, the table. Yeah. And now we’re going to Hangeng’s, to…”

He hesitated. He knew the reason, but should he tell Sungmin? He had figured earlier in the bar, that if there was one safe place for the angel in the world right now, it had to be his hyung’s house. It was the haven for all of those who searched for a shelter and support, it was the exact opposite of the word ‘danger’. It was perfect.

“…to pay him a visit. We didn’t exactly thank him for everything the last time we went there, right?”

Sungmin’s features brightened. “Right!”

Kyuhyun swallowed the bitter gall of guilt forming in his throat and smiled as well. He should probably thank Sungmin for getting too drunk to tell he was lying, after all.

After a long and exhausting, on Kyuhyun’s side, journey filled with tripping, staggering, a lot of swearing and even more giggles (that’s on Sungmin’s side, obviously), the duo ended up in front of the Chinese’s doors, and just as Kyuhyun was about to knock (the doorbell is too high for his dying from exhaustion arm), the door flew open by itself, revealing a suspiciously enthusiastic looking Hangeng.

“…Hyung?”

“Oh, hi,” the older said, with a happy grin on his face, and Kyuhyun wondered briefly who this person was and what they did to his hyung. “I was just having a meeting with my new patient right now.”

Suddenly Kyuhyun felt his angel stiffen on his back, the hands around his neck tightening their embrace painfully, making him choke a little and look back at the boy with an angry frown. What he saw however, stopped him from saying anything, as Sungmin’s large eyes seemed to have completely sobered up when he stared with something akin to a fearful curiosity at the person appearing behind the psychiatrist.

“Hi there, Lee Sungmin,” the person said, tilting his head and blinking  with fake innocence. “I have been looking for you.”

Kyuhyun more heard than saw the angel gulping thickly, before stuttering out a raspy:

“H-Heechul hyung?”

hello my loyal readers! huge thanks for all of you who didn't give up on me updating this story ^^ I know three and a half months is a long time, definitely too long, and I'm not going to excuse myself too much, I just hope you liked the update :) It's shorter than usual, because it fitted with the ending (and if I didn't end it here, it would be those next 1,5k words more, so yeah) ^^''

no Minho here, no Donghae here.. I miss theeem ;; they'll hopefully appear in the next chap, and meanwhile - yes, Kim Heechul's made his appearance! kkk

read, enjoy, comment, and you'll have my eternal love... yes, I'm that easy :p

~lots of love, puppysauruss ^-^v