He feels like he's missing something.
He doesn't know what.
They never know what.

-

Silence. Silence hangs everywhere around him as he takes light, fleeting steps forwards, as though escaping. The wind howls around his ears as he runs, footprints barely there in the thickly falling snow. He chokes back a sob, but it's not like anyone can hear him anyway, or even see him, and he lets the hot tears fall freely down his cheeks.

The wind blows up into a tornado, volatile and angry as he is.

-

Kris jolted awake in his bed, eyes wild and hair sticking up everywhere as he scrambled for purchase at the edge- then promptly fell off.

Goddamit, marble floors were cold!

Cursing to himself, he clambered back up into his bed, eyes calming as he tucked himself back in safely under warm covers.

Was he dreaming? He couldn't remember the dream.

There was a brief moment as he struggled to remember, face blank as equally empty images flashed through his head.

He could remember wind, though. Wind. So much of it.

Wind.

-

Kris smoothed his hair down and put on his hat, grabbing and pulling on his coat as he left the house. It was a windy day today, he noted as he tugged on his scarf, winding it easily around his neck. A strange sense of anticipation flooded him, and it was equally strangely sated as the wind breezed around the ends of his scarf and coat, pushing him forward. He let the wind lead him along the empty street, high-cut sneakers hitting the pavement as he moved towards the bus stop. When he reached the end of the quaint street where it opened out into the main road, the wind died down with a soft sigh- a regretful Wind, Kris thought suddenly, the thought entering his mind as quickly as it left it.

Shaking his head, he left the street and stepped into the busy, bustling world.

-

He wants to throw himself down and cry, throw a tantrum, scream his pain away. His lips tremble, and he bites back the tears with gritted teeth. He reminds himself that nobody can see him, and he drops himself down into the side of the street, closing his eyes. 

He will wait. He will wait for him, because he has forever.

-

Kris dreamt that he was flying. The clouds whistled around his wings and his body, but he could see everything perfectly, even as he tucked his wings in and spiraled downwards. The wind was whispering in his ear, and he felt a grin spread across his face. He could do anything, go anywhere, as long as the wind was by his side.

Hurtling towards the ground, he woke up right before he hit it.

And then Kris was falling out of bed for the second night in a row, with the disconcerting sensation of missing body parts - a pair of wings, from his shoulder blades, he remembered. Then the back of his head hit the floor, and the world spun.

The floor was as cold as he remembered from last night.

He crawled back into bed, a dizzying sense of vertigo tilting his world on its axis before his eyes met the interesting white expanse of his ceiling, and the world righted itself again. Returning to sleep, his mind was filled with blurry images of sad black eyes staring into his.

He couldn't remember any of this when he woke up much later to the sound of his alarm clock.

-

He smiles weakly as he watches the male crawl back into his beds, and when Kris falls back into sleep, he rests a hand on Kris' forehead, and closes his eyes. A single tear escapes, runs a path down his cheek, and he exhales shakily.

He promised he would wait. He will wait. He will definitely wait.

-

Kris began to count the days where he fell out of his bed. In the first week, four. The next week, six. After that, it became a daily occurrence. He could never remember the dreams, just vague sensations, of falling, of phantom body parts, but one memory he clung on to like the least leaf in Autumn was one of dark brown-black eyes, looking into his sadly. He distinctly remembered them, but nothing else. It helped when he opened the window, so he opened the window every night.

He tried to remember, and then he tried to remember more.

-

He knows nobody can hear him, much less Kris, but he tries anyway. It's futile, a futile hope. But he tries. He has to try.

"Kris, Kris, it's Sehun." He shakes Kris lightly, like how he shakes Kris every night, and as Kris rolls off the bed, he catches Kris' face, cradling it in his hands.

-

"Kris, Kris, it's Sehun." The owner of the eyes spoke. Kris jolted, then the familiar sensation of him rolling off the bed returned, and he let it overtake him, let it return him to the actual world.

A warm sigh echoed in the room, and Kris sat up quickly. Sehun, his name was Sehun.

He was breathing hard when he clawed his way back into his bed, and he shut his eyes, letting the name roll over and over, in his head, off his lips.

"Sehun."

-

Kris woke up to sunlight filtering through his windows and curtains. The open window cast the lines of morning sun across his floorboards, hie bed, but today was a still day. No wind. He chewed on his lip anxiously, contemplative, as he stared out the window. The street was still, falling leaves drifting and spinning noiselessly, but there was no wind. The restless feeling was taking over him, pounding loudly in his veins and crashing in his ears, but he didn't understand the problem till he was out of the street.

Where was the wind? His wind?

-

It is getting harder to keep himself in one place, he notices, recalling the way Kris says his names in what seems to be a half-delirious state. He has to leave soon, but he can't. He can't, because Kris will never be able to leave either, and it will break him like the shattering point of night.

-

The dreams came faster, more frequently. Black eyes, growing limbs, and familiar features that lifted his heart and tugged at the chains binding him to the ground before dissolving into wind. Wind, Kris remembered. Wind, Sehun, his Wind.

It came together faster. Fast, fast, everything was so fast. But still too slow. He could remember Sehun's face one night, soft touch and muscles moving like velvet under pale skin. Then he would forget his face, and remember it two days after. It was like losing puzzle pieces to a long-completed puzzle - a chip here, a chip there. It drove him crazy. He couldn't wait to sleep at night, every night. He stopped rolling off the bed, but he remembered the sensation of flying, soaring, Sehun whispering in his ear, wrapping him in a comfortable, warm embrace even when he glided above the clouds, with icy cold stars. He remembered wanting to visit the Galaxy, and he did, until-

Kris woke with a start. 

Until, until he flew too high, and he fell, he fell too far. Sehun was screaming in his ears, he remembered, crying, begging, silhouette dark against the blinding white swallowing him. The chains wrapped around his arms and legs, anchored him to the world, among the roots of the tree, in the Earth, until he had enough energy to return. The locks and chains had rusted, and as he lifted lead-weighted arms, the clink of metal echoed in the cold, empty room.

Desperation seized him as he tugged at his arms and legs, two nubs on his back aching as he strained against his bonds.

"Sehun!"

-

He opens his eyes, and he feels like he is moving in water. He can barely breathe, short puffs of breath escaping panting lips as the pressure on his chest increases.

What is this? He looks down, and the tips of his fingers are bleaching, bleaching white. His heart stops for a second. Kai and Luhan are calling him back - the Wind is not to be tied down, to be trapped in one tiny corner of the world, they insist, and he can barely resist the urge to let go, to return to them.

Then he hears the call, Kris calling.

"Sehun!"

-

He finally came, and Kris had barely managed to shake off one heavy chain off his right arm. 

"Hyung, Kris hyung, Kai and Luhan are calling me back." Lashes thick with tears, hot, frightened tears that run down his cheeks and dripping off his chin, Sehun lifts his hands blankly. Color was slowly draining from it, pale fingers turning paper white and colours running like watercolour from the tips.

Kris kicked off the chain on his right leg, hands shaking. One wing grew, a huge white wing, skin stretched taut across bone and feathers regenerating in seconds, ready for flight. He knew they had to go back together, or he would never go back at all. The colour dripping from Sehun's fingers seeped into his chains, darkening and brightening Kris's pale skin, and he raises his head, meeting Sehun's terrified gaze.

"How long have you waited?" he whispered, pulling off the cuff on his left wrist with a rough yank, and the metal cut a line down his hands, blood red beads blossoming from the crack. The colour was dripping away from Sehun's forearm, past his elbows, faster and faster.

"Hurry, hurry, hyung." Sehun couldn't do anything except stand and watch as Kris struggled with his last chain.

"Just a bit more," Kris whispered, blinking away the liquid pooling at his eyes.

Then the last shackle is kicked off, and Kris lunges for Sehun, desperation lighting up his face.

-

Kris dreams that he is flying. The pair of wings from behind his shoulder blades are ivory white, skin and muscle stretched tight over bone and covered in smooth white feathers.

"Sehun?" he calls out softly, but there is no response, only the gentle flapping of his wings in the cold dark cavern.

"Here." The reply is short, but Kris grins, relaxing slightly as the Wind, his Wind, glides under his wings, letting him soar with it. Below them, the Galaxy maps out in a carpet of glowing stones and gleaming moons.

"Thank you for waiting, Sehun."

-

They say that the Wind is older than millennia, that it listens to no one, is trapped by no one and goes anywhere it wants. But the Wind loves its Dragon like no other, and it will wait millennia for his Dragon, just so that they can see the galaxies together.

-