Kris lets himself wonder for a moment more before shrugging nonchalantly. “I dunno,” he finally replies, taking in a long drag of smoke before discarding on the soggy mess of a cigarette in his hand. “You tell me.”

The other boy lets out a longsuffering sigh and runs his hand through his seemingly dry hair. The rain stops as suddenly as it had started. “Look, Kris. Do you remember or not?”

“Remember what?,” Kris retorts, unwilling to fall for whatever mind game this is becoming.

“Me? Home?,” the boy exclaims, a slight tone of desperation creeping into his voice.

Kris shakes his head dumbly.

“I’m Suho. And I’m from Paradise.” Suho points up to the sky. “And you, you’re Kris. And you’re also from Paradise.”

Kris scoffs. “So you’re saying we’re angels?” He glances at his scars, thinks back on his life so far. No, he’s definitely no angel.

Suho falters. “Not angels, per se… Just…” He pauses. “Beings. Beings from Paradise” he finishes lamely.

“But if I’m from this so-called Paradise, why am I stuck on Earth?,” Kris challenges. Dammit. He’s totally buying into this Paradise crap. He remembers spending his entire life in this stupid small town; there’s no way he could’ve lived anywhere else beforehand. Not to mention the idea of a land in the clouds is completely insane.

“You were born in Paradise.”

Kris waits for the other to continue, but after a moment, it seems like this is his entire explanation. “So?,” he prompts.

“You were born in Paradise.” Suho runs a hand through his hair again, clearly agitated.

This is bull, Kris thinks to himself. He’s about to stand up and get the hell away, but suddenly Suho’s sitting next to him on the curb and letting his mouth run like it’s water, and Kris is rooted to his spot.

“I thought I could get you to remember on your own, but they did a good job banishing you, wiping your memory for all it’s worth. It took me all these seventeen years to find you, you know that?” He laughs bitterly. “Basically, no one dies in Paradise, but no one’s born either. We gotta keep the balance somehow, right? We did our best to hide you, and we were successful for a good couple centuries. They were furious when they found out, of course. Threw you down to Earth without a second thought. You and me, though, we were, erm, really close. And I’d promised you that I’d protect you for eons, but I was wrong. Human lives are limited and I don’t even know what’ll happen to you once your time is up. And to top it all off, I found you here about ready to throw your already short-as- life away, and I don’t even know what to do at all.” Suho’s close to tears as he runs his fingers through his hair again and again.

Kris is at an absolute loss. He finds himself wrapping an arm around Suho despite the fact that he hates physical contact, and the fact that this boy is basically a stranger to him. But he barely flinches as the other grabs his free hand and pushes his sleeve back. “What happened to you…,” Suho breathes, fingers ghosting over the burn marks. “What has this place done…”