At exactly 9:31 A.M. on the eve of Heaven's birthday, a paper airplane fluttered and settled down onto her windowsill.

The pair had perfected the art of measuring the distance and the speed it would take to have a paper airplane fly and land exactly in each other's bedroom at the precise and desired location. It had taken years in the making, you might argue, but all Taemin and Heaven would say is that they managed to do it after three short years.

Three years isn't exactly short, you may reply. But, Heaven and Taemin would no longer be listening to you and would rather absorb themselves in their delivering of messages than listen to another silly argument. No, Heaven didn't think about the worries of the world or less important arguments as she opened up a more important letter hidden within the creased folds of the paper. The girl's inability to speak has led her to something much more incredible - the discovery of paper airplanes.

Heaven let an inward laugh escape from as she read the short and brief letter.

"Don't worry - I'll send a gift tomorrow!"

Of course, the girl never needed to worry about such petty things as gifts. Heaven already had the best gift of all not even two hundred feet away from her; the gift that had a smile plastered on its face and waving to her, saying, "Hello, birthday girl!"

The recipient of the gift waved back, not being able to say anything back to the precious present.

Heaven took a piece of paper from her already large stack laying on the right side of her desk - her father said she wasted money talking to that silly boy - and started to write on the paper, writing another message that will add to the extensive collection of messages that lay at the bottom of her bed and in her memories. A soft smile formed on her lips as she read the message.

"You don't need to get me anything."

Folding extra precise creases, Heaven took the now perfect paper airplane and threw it, watching as the paper flew away from the safety of her bedroom, letting its wings fly towards the danger and another safe house. Watching it flutter and land on Taemin's windowsill, Heaven sighed and wished ever so much that she could one day fly away from the hell she lived in and, like a paper airplane, let her wings flutter higher and higher towards the sun, where she would permanently stay.

Then again, Father always said Heaven had a wasteful imagination.

While waiting for her reply, Heaven took Taemin's paper airplane and held it in her hand with a silk touch, walking over towards the brown cardboard box that lay underneath her bed and took it out, removing the lid and inhaled the scent of a seventeen year friendship. She didn't have to sift through the endless amount of paper airplanes to know that her very first reply from Taemin lay at the very bottom; a small, yellowed piece of paper that had unreadable writing and said, "Hello!"

Smiling, Heaven took the current piece of paper and placed it on top of seventeen years of them being together.

At exactly 9:34 A.M. on the eve of Heaven's birthday, another paper airplane fluttered and settled down on her windowsill.

Heaven walked over, sat by her desk and opened the paper airplane, reading its message.

"Well, maybe I want to get you something."

As she read the message, she envisioned in her mind Taemin's delicate and bony fingers gripping the blue gel pen Heaven had given him for Christmas, its sparkly ink gliding across the crisp paper leaving a trail of flowing blue font. She remembered that day as if it had happened only two minutes ago. It was the only time Father had gone out of town on a business trip and it was the only time Heaven had managed to sneak out without Father's knowledge. She bought the only thing she could afford and wrapped it in leftovers of tissue paper and given it to Taemin, feeling her present was nothing compared to the neatly wrapped presents surrounding her every which way.

When he opened her gift, Heaven was sure she had never seen Taemin smile brighter.

Just as she plucked a green gel pen out of her rainbow of pens - another gift she had gotten at Christmas - Heaven heard a loud bang, the stumble of footsteps, and an even louder bang of flesh against stone. All color drained out of her face. Father was home.

Quickly, she inserted the airplane into the hidden compartment of her drawer Taemin and Heaven had fashioned when he came over for the first time a few years ago. She looked at Taemin who was leaning on the windowsill waiting for a response. Heaven tugged her earlobe, the pair's signal of danger. Eyes widened, Taemin nodded and quickly shut his curtains. Whenever Father had come home to be a threat, the boy had always volunteered to go to her house to protect her, but all Heaven would do was reply with a silent shake of her head. She would take her piece of paper and write that she was fine; that she was a bird. One day, she would fly to the skies, far away from her father. 

It was only a matter of time, Heaven told herself as Father kicked open her door.

Heaven tried her hardest not to grimace when she saw the drunken man stumble into her bedroom. She sighed inwardly and watched as her father took another swig from the half empty beer bottle and stared at his daughter with glassy eyes; glazed over, emotionless spheres. Father was no longer the warm, loving man she knew fourteen years ago. Father was a stranger; a whisper of himself.

Ever since Heaven's mother died, Father had turned into someone else and corrupted his entire being. He had quit his job and came home late at night. This time, it was not due to business trips like Heaven had thought as a young child. Instead, he spent nights drinking and having fun with the local es. Heaven looked at this stranger with pleading eyes, wishing she would be jettisoned back to the times where Father did come home late from business trips and give her yet another paper airplane he made himself while on Flight 212. He ruined that on another drunken rampage, however.

Father ruined himself on every drunken rampage.

Tripping over his shoes, Heaven's father poked a finger into her chest and slurred, "What have.. you been doing.. y-young lady..?"

Heaven said nothing.

"Eh? W-What did you say?"

Heaven stayed silent.

"Speak up, c-cripple!"

Heaven looked down.

"Aish.. y-you! Disrespectful piece of t-trash!"

A heavy hand smacked Heaven across the face.

Like many times before, Heaven did not cry out or let tears stream down her face in little rivers. She had dealt with enough pain over the course of seventeen years. She had enough of the constant yells that drowned out the lullaby of music coming from the music store two blocks away. She had enough of the shattering of her silence caused by her father. She wished that things would be better. That her mother had never died; had never left her alone. She wished for her father to love her just like he loved her mother and a happy family would replace all memories of a depressed, broken, and fragile girl.

Heaven wished for many things that didn't come true.

With every drunken hit to her face, Heaven closed her eyes and imagined herself on one of the paper airplanes that flew every day back and forth between Taemin and her. Over and under, making loops in the air until she rested on Taemin's windowsill and she would reside there until all her worries vanished like the whiskey in her father's bottle. When she was kicked to the floor and heard the one bad memory's footsteps disappear down the hallway, she smiled softly, imagining at Taemin's face and his bright smile whenever he got a new paper airplane from her.

As she wiped away the blood trickling down her lip, Heaven smiled brighter than she ever did in the past week.

Taemin was absent from the window today.

Heaven stared at the blank piece of paper in front of her. Her pen tapped in a slow rhythm against the white and puffed her cheeks in boredom. He told her nothing about his absence yesterday. He would've told her already, yes. Maybe he went with Mrs. Lee to get groceries; they were always low on food. Heaven glanced at the closed window panes once more. People forget all the time, right? He'll come back tomorrow and everything will be alright. They'll send paper airplanes just like every other day they've shared together for the past seventeen years.

Heaven kept this thought to herself as she tiptoed down the stairs of her apartment, grabbed her notepad, and went outside.

Of course, Father would be out in another bar and wouldn't be home until midnight. This gave Heaven plenty of time to explore.

While little kids liked to play with dolls and their hair, Heaven always took to the town and loved to walk around the sidewalks in town. Her small feet padded around the streets and gaped at the flashing neon lights, the blurs of cars whizzing past, the lovely heartbeat of polished shoes banging on the sidewalk. A small girl alone on the street did bring plenty of eyes that looked down on her, but Heaven didn't care. With her trusty notepad and the tight grip on her mini Hello Kitty pen, Heaven could go anywhere.

Heaven felt like a kid again as she stared at the neon lights and kept her pen in her tight grip as she carelessly wandered around her small town, closing her eyes, listening to the rhythmic beats of shoes against stone. Apart from the comfort of her window and the brush of silk curtains against her skin, Heaven had never felt so happy in one place before. She felt imaginary paper wings lengthen from her shoulder blades and take her to new heights that she had never before gone to. Heaven had never felt so alive.

Her daydream went to a permanent halt as she tripped over a miniscule pebble and fell.

For five pure seconds, she saw the sidewalk coming closer and closer.

Then it stopped.

The grip of strong hands grabbing Heaven's arms knocked the wind out of her. Her paper wings shredded itself to pieces, leaving only one Heaven to fend for herself. She was lifted up, up, up until she met the gaze of another. Heaven's heart stopped as she stared into the man's brown eyes. She gasped inwardly. A human. 

It has been seventeen years since she looked into the eyes of another one of her kind.

The stranger looked at her with curiosity, brown circles darting back and forth over her face with the utmost delicacy. Defined cheekbones, soft brown eyes decorated the man's face. White blond hair fell over his eyes that reminded her of the cobwebs hanging from the crooks and crannies of her father's office. The soft ends landed in just the right places and, like the cobwebs, had a beautifully haunting feel to it. The stranger's face was one that came out of a book; unreal and one just might fantasize about. But, no, this man was really here. This man was holding her.

A laugh that sounded like tinkling bells escaped from his mouth; a laugh that Heaven envied. The brown pupils that darted back and forth finally came to a halt and looked into Heaven's eyes. Tilting his head, he looked at her with a coy smile and with a voice that sounded like the feel of her silk curtains, he asked, "Are you alright?"

Heaven never wanted to talk so badly in her life. She nodded; a lame attempt at a response.

Though, the stranger didn't seem to mind. He patted her shoulder with a touch that felt like butterfly wings. "I'm sorry to have bumped into you. What's your name?"

At the speed of light, Heaven whipped out her notepad and scribbled furiously onto the paper, then held it up in between the two people. "I'm Heaven," stated the paper.

The man tilted his head once more, gently took the pen out of her hand and wrote on the paper as well. The way his strong yet soft fingers danced with the pen left Heaven awestruck.

It reminded her so much of Taemin's.

She shook the thought of her friend out of her head as she read what the stranger said.

Underneath Heaven's flowing handwriting was a string of beautifully crafted words, controlled yet written with passion. "I'm Jonghyun," it replied.

He really did come out of a book.

The stranger - Jonghyun - stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels, never taking his eyes off of Heaven's. "Can you not speak?" he asked.

Heaven shook her head and flipped to a new sheet of white paper, writing. "I don't even know what my voice sounds like."

Jonghyun nodded, reading. "I bet your voice would've sounded pretty."

"I highly doubt that."

"Why not? You look capable of a pretty voice."

"Like I said, highly doubt that."

Jonghyun laughed, that beautiful laugh. "A beautiful girl I just met is going to argue with me about her pretty voice."

Heaven willed the blush not to bloom on her cheeks. "First, I'm definitely not beautiful. Second, how would you know about my supposed voice?" With her pen poised on her lip, she added, "I only speak with paper."

"That makes it all the more beautiful."

"You're crazy,"

"You're beautiful."

"You're drunk."

"How did you know?"

"I have keen senses."

"Another amazing trait to this interesting girl."

"Still drunk."

The pair spent an infinite amount of minutes talking back and forth. A swarm of people veered around them, leaving a clearing in the dense forest. While Heaven argued with Jonghyun about his supposed drunkenness and how many deliciously amazing traits weren't in such a bland girl like Heaven, the girl smiled mentally and with every word written in flowing font by the hands of the pair, Heaven was confident that she had never met anyone so full of freedom like the paper airplanes that fly out her window every morning.

"I met someone today."

It had been a few hours since the meeting of Jonghyun and Heaven and when the girl finally sneaked back to her house and tiptoed into her silent bedroom once more, her insides were tingling and her heart beat faster than it normally did. The last words that left Jonghyun's tilted coy smile sent a shiver through Heaven every time she envisioned Jonghyun in her memory and she savored each time she thought about it.

She asked if he would meet her in her bedroom tomorrow.

The word was yes.

A lovely paper airplane landed on Heaven's windowsill. Her small fingers opened up the small creases and read the message.

"You naughty girl. You snuck out again, didn't you?"

A cough was heard two hundred feet away. Heaven looked up from the red pen poised over the next sheet of paper and glanced at Taemin. He looked paler than usual and was coughing more than he should. Usually he would be coughing to get her attention and show her something funny like a funny face or a picture he took off of the Internet that was sure to make Heaven laugh, but this time it was the heavy kind of coughing; the kind that sounded like it wouldn't end too well. And when he did stop coughing and gave Heaven a smile, Taemin's smile was tinted with a gray sadness, gray dotting the warmth that used to linger there. Worried, Heaven wrote her reply quicker than usual.

"Is everything okay? You don't look so well."

As she waited for a reply, Heaven watched Taemin write his reply. His delicate fingers looked thinner and instead of dancing, the pen abruptly stopped and kept walking with short, staccato steps. It was nothing like his fluid , the dance that used to glide across the paper. While waiting for a reply, Taemin's eyes widened in a flash and soon he was coughing, holding his chest, clutching his heart. It was at this moment that Heaven knew he wasn't okay. It was the next moment when Heaven saw the trickle of red making a route down his lip that the girl flew down the stairwell, watching the sky's colors dissipate like the color disappearing from Taemin's face.