"it would be nice if we met in a spring ..." Mark blankly looked at the sparkling water of the river below.

"huh? all of sudden?" Haechan looked up, his hands still playing with the fish swimming against the current.

"you see! autumn was created in gloomy and blue ambiance"

Haechan just raised his eyebrow waiting for Mark to continue.

"we met in autumn, a season for wilting nature, isn’t that a bit sad?"

"What are you talking about?" Haechan left the drunken fish behind and flew to Mark's side.

"my brothers said that autumn is created for sorrow so that people can enjoy the calm in sadness, while spring is created for happiness so human can create the joy of their living life"

It was just the rustling sound of river water and dancing leaves for a second.

"you guys are romantics huh?" the scorn tone from the red-haired devil "then you skip the winter?"

"oh, winter is for frozen time, it’s for solitude and forbearance. It’s God’s season."

Haechan's laughter boomed, making some tropical birds flutter, the sounds was so unsuited to the calm tropical forests that embraced them.

"Now that sounds absurd, then what does all those metaphors have to do with our meeting? So will we be sad because we meet in the season of sorrow?"

Mark just blinked. Yes, more or less Mark believes that maybe if they meet in the spring, they will be more ... happy. He then nodded.

For the odd contrast of Haechan's uncontrollable laughter somehow seemed to unite with the sudden rain that began to fall at that time. With a strange ray of sunshine which only basking on Haechan's crunched face that almost died laughing.

It was very soothing.

The small raindrop taps clashed with the fluttering leaves, the breeze danced with twigs craved the pleasing sunlight patterns on the ground, the sound of the calm river, Haechan’s laughter the scene was the heavenliest view Mark’s ever seen even more than heaven itself.

"ugh"

Mark stomped, Haechan's fading laughter replaced by a loud zing in his ears. His head buzzed horribly. Mark racked his eyes, trying to dull the pain that suddenly hit him.

When he re-open his eyes laboriously, no more wet foliage nor river ripples or red-haired creatures hovering inches away from him. His crunched eyes could only see the infinite white expanse, there’s nothing. Nothing to hear, nothing to see, nothing.

Mark tried to lift his heavy head still lying on the surface.

It hit him hard that a second ago he was in heaven of memories and then he came back in painful reality.

Then he was again reminded when he saw Haechan who was so close to someone else. For a moment, something inside his chest drowned down his rational. Then all that happened like a series of accelerated movie scenes. His hands were burning, he was furious to destroy the subject that touches his Haechan. The arch angels who descended to forcibly fetched him. He who was cast in the purgatory cube. All the rashes on his body. All the too real realities.

The black growl that radiates from his chest then seeps through his body. All he wants was to get rid of whoever touches his Haechan. His skin started to burn. The spreading sore on every inch of his skin. It didn’t feel anything until Haechan's shout broke his ears.

Haechan defended the creature he was beating. He was not take Mark’s side.

Everything, everything he did hit him again in a go, almost blasted his buzzing head. All the stories about the evil devils that his brothers told him. About all the bad things that are attached to devils existence. He should have obeyed those warning words from his brothers.

Or he should have met Haechan in spring.

"Mark, Mark please, you just need to confess your sin, throw out it all, the sins you have done!. You will be released from this torment!"

Mark again hears Taeyong's frail voice, it sounded so far away as he couldn’t saw the angel himself.

What sins?

What kind of sin?

Who will give forgiveness even if he confessed?

For a moment he had the first sting, he understood that it was a warning. That something had gone wrong inside him.

"Don’t see the little devil ever again, Mark! You must have understood it was a mistake, right ?!" Onew reminded him in a protective tone days ago. He understands that what happened to him was a serious matter. He knows that Onew is right.

But he refuses to admit that Haechan is a mistake.

Something beautiful couldn’t be a mistake.

"you start loving! stop it! don’t love!" Taeyoung’s voice echoed in his ears again through all the jumbled buzzes inside his head.

It's so hypocritical. When God always boast about love but now Mark has to be punished for love? What's wrong with all this mess?.

His transparent skin began to darken. It started to peeled painfully. The edges of his burning pattern grew like the cooled lava crack on his skin.

The pain was painful at first. By the time, Mark then breathes in tune with the pain in his body. He doesn’t care anymore.

For the umpteenth time pain pushed his eyes to start weighted, consciousness starts to leave him again.

"is heaven beautiful?"

Haechan's voice faintly mingling with the night breeze. October night in Canada was not a good idea.

"I'm just curious" He continues, shrugged "it seems you guys angels are very tied to it”

His face was dreamy, his cheeks puffed up cutely.

"not really"

"huh?"

"after I think again, heaven is not that beautiful"

Haechan blinked bewildered.

"you are lying!"

Then Haechan began to rant about the multitudes of humans who plead for heaven for their last place, about the prayer that is destined for heaven, about God who has certainly chosen the love of the inhabitants of heaven and unfairly chooses those who destined for hell. "- heaven must be so beautiful, that God himself would dwell in it"

He complained.

But really, aurora danced in the sky as a setting and Haechan wriggling his lips like magic, better than all the heavenly sights he had ever had in heaven.

"really, maybe because you are not there, so heaven looks normal now" not the nature of Mark really, to be able to string what he thinks before the words out of his mouth "I mean, watching aurora with you is more interesting, really"

Mark wasn’t sure whether it is marked as a favorite or a special thing, the reddish shade that swept on Haechan's cheeks. Because it surely gives him a very pleasant feeling.

“they said angel love everything equally” Haechan then started again.

The reptile-like eyes was stared at Mark’s for the longest time.

“would I be a part of those everything that got those equal love too?” Haechan longed almost like a plead. “I want to be loved too ...” Mark could barely heard the faint voice.

The yellowish orange pupils were glowed like a pair of master-crafted topaz. Mark was hypnotized.

So beautiful.

“—ck! ! What’s this?!” a familiar voice. It’s more near than Taeyoung’s before but not his. It’s not from Mark’s head either.

Judging by the repetitive thuds that tripled excessively inside his tormented head, Mark knew that he’s back once again to the reality, leaving the beauty of those dream like memories.

“WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS DAMN INVISIBLE WALL?!”

Haechan?. Mark could recognize those voice even in his run out sanity. He longed for those voice he demanded it.

“m-mark?! MARK!!”

What is he doing in purgatory?

Does his flashback series start to unite with his consciousness now?

“! WHAT IS THIS ! YOU NASTY ES!” it’s loud and clear now. The voice whose he longed for like an eternity of his immortal life. Somehow his consciousness bragged in to his body, all the stings, the bleeding, the pain. Mark couldn't do anything but grunted in a pathetic curled ball.

“THE !! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOUR OWN KIND?!!”

It was really painful for Mark. No, not just everything that happens to his body, but more to what is presented to his blurry view.

Haechan swore. His left fang pressed on his lower lip, wounding it. His sharp black nails clawed at the unseen barrier, cursing it as if he could break through what god-hand made. Several times the sound of thuds echoed in the cubicles, as Haechan rammed his body onto it, of course, nothing’s affected.

"Mark ... Mark-" sounded very heartbreaking, his name from Haechan's blood flushed lips.

"I ... I'll help you! I-"

All the chaos that ensued around him, and Mark's sight fell on the tiny lips that were now moving incoherent voice. It's very alluring. The plumped lips were very appetizing, it was covered with ruby colored thick wine-blood.

Very embarrassing however, Mark crawled. The desire to touch the lips. His eyes increasingly blurred, but the temptation was too great to feel all the tortures that clung on his body.

But it was the burgundy glistened lips. Red, glass-like, wet, more tempting beyond his unbearable pain. He’s numb. The desire to have contact with those rouge pair was too overpowering.

“hey-h-hey ... Mark-“ even in his unrecognized vision, Mark knew that Haechan wasn’t in a good shape.

The little devil was trembling, hurt, somehow in pain.

“Mark, oh my-“

Maybe it was from everything but his sanity, Mark brought his rotten body on his feet and began to launched himself to whatever that imprisoned him for all this torment.

“MARK!” Haechan on the other side terrifiedly mimicking his action in the other side. “no! MARK! STOP! STOP!” Haechan frantically called him out, he heard them, the terrified pleads. But he can’t stop. His rage built up and leaked everywhere out of him.

The feel of despair when what he desire was right in front of him, but he can’t even touch it. It’s a define torture.

“please! Please! Mark stop ... stop!” It’s a faint muffled sobs. Mark could careless but he still heard them. His eyes burning. Mark was barely able to feel anything else in his body. All of his breath seemed to be pulled out each time he breath. The puckered wing continued to fall. He still can't give up with his possession. The orange reptile who looked at him sadly, glistened with tears? Why decorate them with tears?

"Mark please! Oh my—" a groan now.

The air that coming out of Mark's nose was boiling, it was torturous. Only an invisible piece separates him for the reason he survives. So close yet untouched. This is a terrible prop. Mark was anxious to hold the hand that was now his fingers through the flat surface that was blocking them, making him look like performing a sad mime. He fell on his knees, aligning his pleading eyes with Mark's. The creature was in all black contrasts with the background behind him, the infinite white. Mark who can no longer feel his legs feel very useless as to makes the one in front of him kneeling low.

"Don't cry! Don't- don't- cry ... don't-" Mark could heard his own voice. It sounded hoarse and unpleasantly raw.

When the red-haired devil fell low, Mark could catch a sad face wet with tears. The black kohl that framed his wet eyes spread on his honey cheeks. As if he was crying black tears. Although it looks like a poetic beauty, it still covers Mark with sadness and pain that does not come from all the torture on his body.

Mark's rotten hands tried to touch the sharp nailed hands that were still stuck in the invisible glass-like barrier. Can't reach it! Can't touch that! this!

The sight was awfully bloodcurdling. White feathers scattered, patched in dense red blood formed into traces trailing to where Mark was lying collapsed. Still curled up he clawed at the barrier leaving a stain of terrible wounds from his blighted hands. The cries was inhumanly appall. A second after his cries, another melancholic scream roared, echoing in his ear as the last feather peeled alltogether with the trunks of his wings tearing open his back.

The screeching he heard was not part of God's punishment. It was Haechan who cried his lungs out. Eyes wide in horror. Crying at Mark's Eyes before the eyes were wildly looking for something in the void.

"Please! I beg you! I beg you!" Haechan dragged his knees to a crawl, interlocking his fingers, folding his hands "I confessed! I was the one who seduced him! I-I’m the one who plunged him! I-"

It's wrong, all these scenes. A devil praying is a strange thing. An angel stripped off of his wings. It violates its nature.

"Please if there is really you, god, I pray to you to stop this! I'm the one who pulled him away from you! I seduced him! I-please stop it from him ... please ... please ... take it off, his suffering - " As if wanting to humiliate the helpless devil. It echoed ethereally, the whispered prayers from the devil. His head bowed deeply, his forehead touched his praying hand. Sobbing in a suffocating cry.

That made Mark even more bloated. His withered body was not left to actually move. His anger and pride are too full to surrender to the reality imposed on him.

"Haechan stand up! You are not wrong! God if you really exist! The hypocrite! Hey god! You praise humans who love many things and you punish me because I love one thing? You are so unfair so hypocritical! Liar-"

Mark no longer looks like one who once inhabited heaven. The last blow ripped his body. His sentence stopped with a loud thump.

One of his brothers once said that the last sense that functions for the soul before it disappear are vision and then hearing.

Mark forced his two torned eyes open. Only to see a shiny layer drop off around him and instead was rebuilt around Haechan.

That’s a bad thing.

Mark realized that what was holding him back was a purgatory. Haechan should not be in a purgatory.

He will disappear.

A loud gasp escaped Haechan’s mouth, breathless.

From the gap between his eyes which could no longer be opened correctly Mark in a blur saw the vague figure of Haechan crawled approaching him sagging.

It became increasingly blurry, the figure who was so close to him, his body. The last thing he saw was Haechan who looked increasingly translucent, some parts of his body blared away became fragments lost into the air. Just like the sins that are separated from the purified humans, but unlike humans who become holy, nothing is left of Haechan. Nothing left from the disappearing fragments.

Haechan's half face smiling sadly was the last sight Mark had seen.

"M-Mark ... let's just meet in the spring ... next time, ok-"

Is the last hearing that Mark heard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~~~~

The new environment is not something that is easily conquered. Forget conquering, to memorize the place to go, it's already very confusing. The school environment was quiet even though the day still at brunch time. It was very new for a transfer from a country where activities will begin just before lunch.

BRUKK

A lump of black cloth that was detected as a canvas backpack had just been thrown down in sight.

A loud thud followed thrown past the high wall on the quiet side of the building.

This time a roll of fur ball, no, a boy in the same uniform as him, stretched to his feet, shook his head made his brown hair flicker, bounce back and forth repeatedly trying to off the dirt after a spectacular landing.

Another boy was too shocked to move from his sculpting position.

"Oh? Are you late too?" the canon ball boy grinned.

"I-"

"Oh? Are you the rumored transfer student from abroad?" the boy who have a little more caramelize skin than the other boy, excitedly looked at a piece of paper held by the boy who was still frozen.

"hello? hey?" the caramel-skinned boy waved his hand in front of another boy's eyes.

"uh-"

"Okay, it's okay! I understand your situation! It must be hard huh? to be late on your first day? OK I'll take you! First, what's your name?" the voice and the smiles were too cheerful for a first interaction.

"uh-um-"

"I'm Donghyuck by the way, Lee Donghyuck!" Donghyuck swings his arm hanging it on the other boy's shoulder.

"I'm Minhyung, Lee Minhyung"

"Okay Minhyung, I can already feel this, we will become inseparable the bestest best friends! Just follow me!"

For a moment, Minhyung had time to enter the world that was only his, where all the scenes in front of him were slowed down, he thought he had seen an angel fall when Donghyuck's skin was exposed to sunlight after he rolled on the ground in front of him and his tiny lips smiled when he saw Minhyung, he swore he saw some heavenly lights shining on him.

Later that day. It turned out that what he thought was an angel, is a devil. Donghyuck cruelly made Minhyung as an alibi for their lateness. They both got a long detention in their first day knowing each other.

It was a too bright day for an early spring.