Thirty minutes.

 Only thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes of the monotonous rumbling of the stout man at the front of the room and I was taken beyond boredom. His rotund appearance lost its novelty after five minutes and the ticking of the clock seemed to mock me with each passing second. Minseok, who usually focused throughout the entire lecture another one of his ‘superpowers’ in my opinion was, slumped over his desk struggling to keep his eyes open. Which was understandable he’s never been able to sleep well- even before I met, well, was assigned to him I guess. It had been 4 human years ago… it seems less. Images of the past transported me to my memories, I tried to comb them for a happy one.

He was sitting under a tree in the park reading books for his course; he was so engrossed in them that he hadn’t shifted for at least two and a half hours- not even to change position! Horrified that his legs may have to be amputated (don’t judge I had two hours to worry about it, hence the exaggeration) I began running around looking for something to catch his attention with- then came face to face with the tree. It was an accident, a very painful accident and the tree shuddered on impact. Our kind can’t be seen in the human world, but we can effect it sometimes. Anyway, autumn dyed leaves twirled through the air and danced with the wind, twirling around the unsuspecting human. My forehead throbbed with pain and I squinted to look at Minseok to see if the leaves had gotten him to finally move, I didn’t expect the scene that I was presented with. The pain was worth it.

He was surprised at first, jumping a little when he felt something rest on his shoulder. Looking up he reached for one of the falling leaves- eyes wide with what I assume was delight because in the next moment his lips tucked up lifting his full cheeks and spilling across his face. I had never seen this smile before it was real, genuine. The smile itself was crooked one cheek more pulled than the other but that just made it better, authentic. Both teeth and gum were displayed for my viewing-

And I enjoyed the view. If I had known back then that in the coming years that phenomenon would not occur again I wouldn’t have only enjoyed it but also savoured it.

‘Yo.’ I whipped my head around- though I really should not be surprised.

‘What do you want?’ I grumbled slightly annoyed that he had yanked me out of my reverie. Luhan seemed unaffected, probably used to my weird moods.

‘Just wanted to see how my wonderful Minseok was doing’ He answered a little too happily.

I rolled my eyes ‘He’s fine Luhan. He always is.’ With his gaze on Minseok he choked out a bitter chuckle.

‘If this is your definition of fine you have some serious problems my friend.’ He said without looking at me. I didn’t retort knowing that for once he was right instead I decided to change the subject.

‘How’s rainbow boy doing?’ I smirked at the nickname I had given to Luhan’s human. The boy he was assigned to seemed to have superhuman hair- his hair colour would change at least once a week the most interesting thing was it was always unconventional colours; bright red, purple, pink. In the beginning I had resisted the urge to question Luhan about it for the longest time but then he did it – rainbow coloured hair. Apparently the boy had gotten hold of different kinds of hair chalk but couldn’t pick which one he wanted to use so he used them all at once. The strangest part was it actually suited him! When I first saw it I laughed aloud for a full 5 minutes. Luhan tried to be offended by my jab but ended up smiling himself.

‘He’s fine… got into the school he wanted then dyed his hair in celebration’ His smile got wider. ‘You’ll never guess what colour…brown! He dyed his hair brown!’ I couldn’t believe it but the look in his eye distracted me form the shocking fact. There was an emotion stirring in them that I never associated with Luhan: tenderness, it was slight but yes, it was there. I wasn’t stupid (though some people may disagree) I knew what that look meant. I wondered if he was aware of it as well; probably not. It was forbidden. I shoved my speculation to one side and Luhan seemed to be back to reality. I never understood why he liked to visit my human unlike his who had friends, parties; bizarre hair mine was pretty ‘boring’ by social standards. Until he met someone new but I wold never wish that on him, I’d take boredom a thousand times over. Over time I started to enjoy the small things but Luhan on the other hand had no reason to take interest in him, so why does he? The question lingered in my mind a longer than I had anticipated. I didn’t ask Luhan directly since I’m pretty sure the answer I would receive was ‘cause I want to.’ I sighed and decided to re-visit the topic of all things Luhan later. Looking up I realised that while I was thinking Luhan was quiet… that was never a good sign.

‘What makes us so different?’ His voice echoed back to him off the university walls. There was an answer and yet it didn’t seem to answer his question- I said it anyway.

‘We don’t have a soul.’ Luhan, as I expected was unsatisfied with the answer.

‘Yes but why?’ The crease between his brows deepened.

‘Why don’t we? What makes us the condemned’ His voice dropped to a shaky breath. ‘Why don’t we deserve redemption?’ I didn’t know. No one knew. Some say it was our ancestors fault that they ‘upset the gods’ or some nonsense like that – that their actions got us trapped in a ‘paradoxical time space’ that runs along the timeline of earth. Others say that our reality collided with earths and that’s how we ended up like this. Truthfully I believed the theory that somewhere there was a God who favoured humans and offered them sanctuary in his heaven and decided to create us to take care of them before they go to the big party that was eternal life. We aren’t angels- I doubt those things even exist…then again to humans neither do we. Luhan like me believed the ‘big party’ theory but he took it personally and became obsessed with finding the reason we were condemned to this fate. Though I had a feeling that the tenderness I had seen in his eyes earlier had to do with his upstart on the topic.

‘What makes us so different?’ I studied his face and realised that he wasn’t talking about us and humans, he was talking about himself… his feelings for his human must be deeper than I initially thought, I shook my head; the issue was going to have to be addressed sooner than I had planned to.  I’ll wait ‘til he figures it out himself then confront him. I looked to my own human while Luhan murmured to himself, he had fallen asleep a little bit of drool beginning to trickle out of his mouth. I forgot my train of thought, even forgot about Luhan’s problem. A warm smile unfurled on my lips.

‘Good.’ Luhan’s head snapped towards me but I was transfixed on the drooling boy.

‘He needs a good sleep.’

Author Note:

Hello- hope your enjoying it. Sorry for any spelling or grammar mistakes :) I 'll try to update regularly.