THIS IS AN OFFICIAL UPDATE!!! :)

Just to say a gigant-enormous THANK YOU to the lovely people who donated all that Karma to help this fic out. I’m happy to tell you all that we now have a Whopping 3478 karma raised and in total we have 5873 karma placed on the bid for the desired date. I’m honestly blessed to have such caring and generous subbies who are always willing to help out their author. I have no doubt that we’ll get the spot, thanks to all of you. My heart will always swell at the thought of all your efforts to help this silly author. Thank you :”)

WARNING: ANGST BOMB UP AHEAD!

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Chapter 6  

Weeks ago

He sat staring at the midnight sky on the roof of his house, watching as that boy made his way back as he’d been doing for the past week or so. He’d wondered why the boy came to the park so late at night but had never truly been inquisitive enough to go down and ask. His head was buzzing from too many thoughts coming too often for him to really care much for anyone else’s comings and goings. He hated his family, his school, his uality, his friends, his life. He hated the world for putting him in a life where despite being surrounded by many people who wanted nothing more than to dwell in his presence, he felt lonely.

Somehow there had always been a piece of him missing and he’d felt it from as far back as when he was first able to discern his feelings from his thoughts. A void; a deep black void consumed his existence and he had no idea how to fill it. He had been blamed once, by his mother, for creating a similar void within her. She’d told him that he’d killed his brother, that even at birth he was a murderer and that was why he was so rotten and empty; like a hollow apple. That had been the day his parents found out he was gay. It was one of his most recent pains that led him to flee from his family as often as one could. He had been sneaking onto the roof of his house to smoke and meditate for who knows how long and in all that time and all those nights up there, he had never experienced such peace and soundness of mind and heart as he had the first time he had seen that boy come loitering about.

He had recognised him from somewhere but at the time he couldn’t quite pin it down to where. It was only the next morning when he was entering the school gate and he saw him that he realised that the fella was Donghwa’s little brother. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time; he and Donghwa were never really close enough for him to be reporting his younger brother’s doings to him so Eunhyuk found it to be none of his concern that the brat was sneaking out every night. He wanted nothing to do with anybody’s issues and so he kept the kids escapades to himself. He lay sprawled on the roof of his home one cold night, looking at the stars and thinking of nothing in particular, when suddenly he felt his entire being drop like a heavy bag of cement through the roof of his house.

His landing was swift and soft- though rather alarming- and after hastily examining his body for any damage that may have been caused by his fall he found himself thankful when he found no scratches on him to show evidence of the fall. He looked up at the roof, flawless as if nothing had ever happened, but it did, he knew this because his heart was still beating out of his chest from the adrenaline left behind after the unexpected fall. He had been laying on the rooftop and now he found himself laying on his bed, back flat and facing up; that in itself was indication enough of the reality of the situation.

“What the hell…” he found himself muttering as he moved to sit up on the edge of his bed; he held his head to stop it from spinning off his shoulders, the situation having triggered some dizziness within him. Trying to figure out what had just happened seemed to make him even dizzier, not to mention the voice that suddenly played like a shrieking violin in his head. The sound was loud and stinging and painful, he wanted to be rid of it as soon as he could possibly put his mind straight but with its high pitched note he could barely even hear himself think let alone hear the words that accompanied the sound. He could feel a presence in the room. Somehow, he knew he wasn’t alone. He had felt the presence before, while lying on the rooftop, but never as strong and concentrated as he did now.

The intensity with which it hit him was overwhelming; it came it with an awful lot of speed and just as much noise to accompany it. He grunted in pain and clutched to his ears to try blocking the invasive noise in his head but nothing seemed to help. It was only when he began shouting “STOP!” that the noise slowly began to diminish. It was a relief for Eunhyuk only for a brief moment before he began gathering his thoughts again. “What the hell is happening” the though rang in his mind. He was confused by his disorientation and found he was quite scared; more so than he’d ever been in his life.

“You’re in the presence of an Angel of your creator.” The voice spoke, leaving Eunhyuk to swallow nothing but air and choke on the dryness in his throat. “This wasn’t happening,” he thought to himself,

“Angels aren’t real.”

“Oh, but they are. And one is standing before you right now.” Eunhyuk looked up to find he was staring at a figure clad in cloth that shown so bright it blinded him. The man was angelic in his stature, his brightness spoke on immense power. Eunhyuk couldn’t believe his eyes, he rubbed at them and tried to clear them of all haziness only to find the figure still there when he looked again. It had no eyes, no mouth, no nose, and no face. It was just a silhouette clad in white that overpowered the eye. The light that resonated from the form left him incapable of seeing, it was blinding, and so he shaded his eyes in attempts to protect them from it.

“My apologies” the voice of a man said to him before slowly dimming down into nothingness that left Eunhyuk's room in complete darkness. Eunhyuk took a moment to adjust to the darkened room and found it empty the moment his vision was granted to him once again. The figure that was standing in front of him had vanished and had left him in his dimly lit room that he could now clearly see. A calm passed that led him to release a relieved sigh but just as he thought the worst was over, his head began to drown in images that spun around him in a whirlwind of past memories, causing him to clutch to his head even tighter than before, closing his eyes as he did so.

“Calm down and let things settle” the voice he’d heard from the vanished figure echoed through the whirlwind in his head. It was a difficult task discerning the instructing voice from the noise that flowed rapidly from the passing images in his head as they replayed rewound conversations in squeaky voices. Eunhyuk tried nonetheless. He pushed himself to centre his thoughts into one lane so as not to have them crowed his mind as they did. Once, when he was younger and still cared for what others used to say about his anger issues that no longer bothered him, he was instructed on the art of meditation by someone who’d cared greatly for him at the time. He was taught to focus all his energy at his core, ridding his mind of all thoughts and finding peace within himself. He had found it a bother at the time, having to sit in a classroom with his loony teacher, in utter silence trying to block out the world.

His teacher had made it seem like an assignment back then, grading him accordingly and all, but Eunhyuk had known that it’d only been to help him out of his self-inflicted torments. That’s why, despite having never truly thanked the man, he had learned the art well; how to focus many thoughts into one. And now it would be that training that would help him to calm his mind and centre his thoughts. Eunhyuk sat on his bed and corrected his posture, having never really liked the crossed legged stance, he opted to sit with limbs in acute angles and steady his breathing. In an out, in and out, in and out he breathed until at last he was able to tolerate the noise that played like the song of screeching cicadas in his head.

He listened to the words that became clearer with each breath he took. The images that slowed with his intense concentration were those he had seen before, the word that accompanied them those he had already heard. Images of his troubled childhood began to flash visibly behind closed eyes; the time he got caught selling weed at school and ended up getting a two week suspension from school, along with the nights he’d spent behind a jail cell as a result of his father’s strict discipline and negotiation with his principle not to report him; the time he’d fought with his mom about what she’d walked in on the night before- him in the midst of a heated make out session with some boy named Kibum from his school.

That could have led to so much more trouble had it continued on to greater heights- and the look on his parents faces when he finally told them about his uality. Those were all recent memories, painful memories. Then the images took him back ten years- he was just a kid, able to think for himself but unable to realise the gravity of his actions. These were memories too old for him to remember consciously. He was a few years into his school career and there was this really annoying boy in his class who cried for everything because he was so immature and needy.

Eunhyuk saw how he used to push him whenever he’d walk past him, sneer in his direction, pass rude comments about his childish behaviour and cuss him secretly when the teacher wasn’t watching. This brought shame to his present self, causing reluctance in him to continue but it seemed he had no choice in the matter. Another memory was prominent amongst the others; he was just a baby, barely three, the nursery school his mother used to take him to was closing down so she’d made plans for him to stay with one of her friends who had a child his age while she was at work and until she could make other plans. Eunhyuk could hear through his memories that the other child’s mother had called her son by a name he somehow recognised but couldn’t possibly have remembered at such a tender age. “Donghae”, she’d called the toddler, that was the name of Donghwa’s little brother. He saw another kid in that memory, that kid was older than the two toddlers, but Eunhyuk was sure he knew him in his present life.

Before he had time to ponder on such a coincidence his mind was flooded with the images of his later life. Eunhyuk zoomed in on one where he’d been forced to sit next to the boy who used to cry for his mother a lot. He instantly recognised him to be the same toddler that he used to play with for months on end until his mother finally found him a suitable nursery school, the kid was Donghae. In that particular memory he saw himself struggling to answer a question that was apparently easy and the teacher grinding into him about not caring about his school work and being bound to fail the year. He saw how everybody laughed at him except Donghae, who sat next to him. He saw how the boy held his hand under the table and squeezed it in reassurance that everything was alright. He even saw how the boy had wiped his tears when he’d found him crying during lunch time. The memory made his heart clench in what Eunhyuk recognised to be regret. He realised that it was after that memory that all of his memories became filled with the self-loathing that had consumed him for most of his teenage life.He had received a helping hand from the very boy he had shown no mercy or care since their early days in school.

“This is your past…” the voice of the Angel sounded in his head, leaving him to think on what all these images were supposed to tell him; was it all to remind him that he was a bad person? If so, then this supposed Angel was wasting his time because Eunhyuk already knew that he was the worst person alive.

“That’s not true.” The voice said sternly, but Eunhyuk wasn’t convinced. While stuck in a state of self-reflection, Eunhyuk found that the concentration with which he had been holding together all the images that played in his head snapped. They began to whirl in his head again and this time he found it difficult to recapture them and force them into one lane. He tried to force them into submission but all that that did was move them all the faster into his past. Round and round they went in his head until they came to a sudden halt; on the day he was born into the world.

“Watch carefully” the Angel whispered in his ear. The screams of a woman could be heard but seemed muffled from where he sat. His hands were tiny- hell, his entire body was tiny- but he could still feel with them regardless of their size. Suddenly, the memories turned lucid and he found himself inside that baby’s body. While in there, remembered the feeling of warmth wrapped around his hands that was distinct; it was the warmth one felt from the touch of another’s hands.

Eunhyuk could feel it as if it were there as he sat down on his bed; the warmth that wrapped itself around his hands and refused to let in the cold. He felt it squeezing him tighter as his mother tried to push him out of her stomach. He didn’t want to let go of the hands that held him, but after hours of holding on, he felt the grip of the hands that held his slip. They were getting weaker, no longer able to hold on to the escaping being that was soon hurled crying into the world by the hands of a doctor. Eunhyuk could hear his cries as he took his first breath on . He was still connected to his mother by umbilical cord and it was through that connection that he was still able to feel the receding heartbeat of his twin brother. It was fading, and baby Eunhyuk cried all the more to try alert those who handled his fragile body that the brother who’d passed all his strength to him inside their mother’s womb was slowly fading to his death. The umbilical cord still uncut connected them just as their grasped hands had when they’d shared the space that was their mother’s womb. New born as he was, he could still remember how weak he’d been when first his soul had been hu