A bench full with two aching souls under a grey sky.

The wind made float the brown-dyed-haired's bangs but he didn't dare to move from his position. Sitting on the tough green-painted wooden planks he raised his head to the endless amount of clouds which crowned that silly and heartless city. The bleeding inside him didn't seem to stop and his ears couldn't hear anything more than his own lazy breath. How much he wished it to stop. 

Anyway, he wasn't alone.

There was, again, his dear stranger. Like every evening. A young black-haired boy sitting at the other end of the bench was looking with the same hopeless eyes in front of himself, until his gaze just got lost into nothing. Not truly looking and not wanting to feel.

Both boys didn't know each other and, in some way, that situation put them at ease. They could comfort each other and feel secure when they sat there, wordlessly, feeling someone else's breathing and encouraging each other to keep living in their silent but meaningful way. As if a calm sea started flowing across their insides, as if the sun itself could shine and warm into their chests, expanding his magnificence to their ripped hearts and devasted souls, sewing wounds in its wake. He needed. He too. Both did. Otherwise they felt lonely, incomplete. Missing an important piece from themselves when they weren't on that worn-out bench.

But Sehun will never know that his beautiful stranger is called Tao, and so happened to Tao, who never knew Sehun's name. Because they didn't talk, not even once. The black-haired never found out he was wrong and, despite what he thought, the other was a year younger. No one will never tell the brunette he was right and, as he suspected, his stranger was older. But both were able to feel the sorrow from each other, always. Because they were always in pain.

That cold and rainy day the younger cried on their bench. He couldn't take it anymore. He kept his mouth closed though, trying to hold back his whines, which were covered by the noisy drops crashing against the cement ground. Covered for everyone but for his stranger, who was sitting only a few centimetres away. But the elder didn't cut that distance, ever. And the younger wished he had done so. But at the end of the day, he had him there. They had each other. The black-haired swallowed his curiosity and never asked his stranger the reason for his tears; if he did so, something would have broken between them, a thing they both couldn't bear. And like this, the elder never knew the bad news and never heard the word 'cancer' in the diagnosis of the younger's father. He never knew how darker the world turned for the brown-haired and how hurt he was at the thought of losing his only family. Because if the elder would have known, he would wished to be him instead of himself. 

That awful day the rain didn't stop and let the brunette completely soaked. When he raised his head he found himself alone. That time, his stranger left first; next to him, however, a closed black umbrella was left behind on the planks. Almost everything his stranger wore seemed to be dark. Even his hair. The younger took it and went back home. He didn't return it ever to his owner. 

***

Spring made his arrival with a warmer weather and kids running around the park. The wavy branches of a tree behind the bench were so grown and leafy that worked as a sunshade. However, some of the sweet sunbeams seeped through the leafs, giving the two grateful strangers warm waves across their bodies. 

One day a group of kids were playing carefree with insects and pebbles, questioning each other about names of trees and little animals they came across. They looked so happy. It was the first and last time the younger saw his stranger's smile. A slight subtle smile full of nostalgia, because he was like those children long time ago, something the dark-haired never confessed to him. That smile left a bittersweet feeling in the other's heart, but the brown-haired smiled too. Indeed. Because those unarrange dates had that magic. That spring evening, the evening they noticed silently how deeply in love they were with each other, the unknown younger lost his father forever. Darkness filled again his tired eyes, but fate continued being cruel and let the weather get nicer, the children laugh and the flowers blossom. Eventually the world kept its course. 

***

Sometimes the younger still wonders what would he have done if he had known that day was going to be the last one they met. But he didn't know. He never knew anything. They were so fool.

Summer hit the city announcing his power with the first short-sleeved shirts and the weight of Star King's light above their heads. The brown-haired never told his stranger how good he looked with his new blonde-dyed hair, but he thought that. Everything was never black in him anymore. Despite the elder's hopeless and anxious expression that day, the brown-haired still saw a blonde angel. He peeked his bench partner a couple of times more than usual, carefully, afraid of staring too much. If he did, the spell would have broken and the angel would have disappeared. However he was able to notice some purplish marks in his skin that the new light clothes exposed, as an intimate secret sees the light of the world instead of remaining covered in its bosom. As always, he never knew what those bruises meant but, eaten by curiosity, he decided too late to greet his stranger.

Because the next day, Tao didn't show up.

The younger wished his stranger was alright and that he wasn't there because, finally, he got lucky. Those things happen sometimes to people, because, as the brown-haired thought, maybe the now blonde-haired managed to overcome his phantoms. Because, maybe he was giving that precious smile he only saw once to someone who knew his name. That is what the younger thought must have happened, because if something painful came across his angel's life, he would have been there. Why am I crying? A naughty tear escaped from his eye just to die short after in his chin. Sehun never knew such a fool he was.

Because he never figured out what really happened and he never knew how unlucky his angel was for feeling stronger than ever that day, how unlucky he was for daring that time to protect his mother, how unlucky he was for just standing right in that spot. Sehun never knew that the ambulance came too late and never knew about the bloodstain that gave a twisted and grim image to the before fancy peach-coloured carpet. He won't ever know how hard his father hit the blonde-haired that time, neither that Sehun's face was the last memory Tao had.

The lonely younger never learned that an angel with no wings can't fly.

***

When autumn tinged the atmosphere with its characteristic orange-brown colour, Sehun understood that summer day was the last one and he won't ever see him again. He looked around himself, to the known flowers which were starting to dry already, to the known dust under his soles, the known kids running and playing, the known stray dog drinking from the known fountain. Finally he stared the known faded-green planks, the known tree behind him, the known changing sky. 

He stared the empty space of the bench and it amazed him how he missed the only things that were unkwon. His name, his likes, his feelings. All from that stranger. Sehun stood up and walked away, leaving behind, on the planks, a black closed umbrella. Goodbye, beautiful.

Under a soft orange-coloured sky, a bench will remain empty with no souls. One of them will never come back, while the other has gone, too soon, for good.