For as long as he could recall, Zhou Mi had wished he had wings.

He just wanted to fly. It didn’t matter what type of wings or how they looked or how fluffy and bright they were under the dazzling sun, he just wanted to get his off the perpetual ground around him and explore. Then again, as an added bonus, he wouldn’t have to beg and plead his parents to drive him somewhere farther than three miles away from the house.

There were times when he would sneak out of his room past curfew and sit just outside the back door of his grandiose mansion, admiring the sunset and the way the horizon would slice the raging ball of fire perfectly in half, every single day. He wanted nothing more than to have freedom as far and wide as the sky and the land.

Slowly, though, as he grew older and wiser and a little bit wearier, he began to lose hope. Besides, grafting wings onto a human body? What kind of abnormality was that?

And then there was the day he met this one guy (who really wasn’t human but no one needed to know that). Kyuhyun was his name, magic was his game. And then some.

It was a rainy, gloomy day in his neighborhood. Zhou Mi could never stomach much rain, but that day he had this sensation in his gut that today, something big, bold, and probably life-changing was going to happen. So he followed the sensation to the beach near his house and found it deserted. He suddenly felt rather stupid, standing there in nothing but sweats and a t-shirt, getting soaked to the bone and not far from a human popsicle. Apparently nothing was going to happen, and he may have just caught a gut infection. In addition to hypothermia and frostbite.

Though it couldn’t hurt to search a bit more, right? Zhou Mi took a deep breath and defied all the remaining sense in his brain, inching closer and closer to the shore. He stood about five feet away from the lapping waves, shivering and hugging himself, telling himself to turn his frozen feet around and shuffle on to the warm confines of his opulent room, turn on the TV, and help himself to a couple thousand mugs of hot cocoa.

He was crazy enough without being judged. In fact, he was probably seeing things by now as he tiptoed even closer to the shore and squinted at the once deep-indigo, now dreary-gray ocean. He thought he saw some sort of fish, but then reprimanded himself for being so illogical, as fish obviously don’t live so close to shore, or humans for that matter.

Then the rain stopped almost magically, the sun shot out from behind its cloudy hideout, and the lump Zhou Mi had pinpointed about a second ago began dragging itself towards him.

Oh, did he say “dragging”? He actually meant “launched its filthy slimy body towards his face”.

“Eww eww eww get off me! What are you?!” Zhou Mi knew he was talking to himself and whatever little critters were hidden underneath the soggy sand, but sometimes vocalizing sounds of disgust are necessary.

The next thing he knew, he was blind. Well okay, not necessarily blind blind, but unfortunately for him he had reopened his eyes just as a flash or something akin to it was going off, and then suddenly he couldn’t see again.

“Hello, Zhou Mi! I am here because you have summoned me! I am the great magician Cho Kyuhyun, but you can call me Cho Kyuhyun. Or Kyuhyun. Or Mr.Cho. Or Mr.Kyuhyun. Or Mr.Cho Kyu—”

Zhou Mi rubbed his eyes while screaming, “I did no such thing!” He must have been seeing things after that bout of hypo-frostbit-imia. Yup, that was it.

When Zhou Mi regained his sense of sight, he risked a glance at Kyuhyun’s confused expression. Which was not the best idea, considering Zhou Mi was about to die from lack of warmth and brain cells, and Kyuhyun was just. so. pretty.

“Who the hell are you?”

Kyuhyun huffed and crossed his arms. “Did I not just explain to you, or is your head screwed on sideways?” He accentuated each word with a jab to Zhou Mi’s temple. The latter was too powerless to fight back and allowed his poor temple to be jabbed by a complete stranger by the name of Cho Kyuhyun who was really pretty and…

Zhou Mi thinks he must have died in some form or another, because the next time he regained consciousness was in his own warm bed. He shifted his head an inch to the right and was greeted by a not-so-pleasant surprise.

Kyuhyun the so-called magician was perched in one of Zhou Mi’s favorite poofy chairs studying his nails. What kind of man gives himself a manicure? was Zhou Mi’s first thought. His second was, he’s still just as pretty as before…

And last but not least, his third, in which he may or may not have vocalized in a rather shell-shocked tone as well: What the is this stranger doing in my room while I’m sleeping?

“Stop worrying. You were only unconscious for like five minutes, and if you hadn’t noticed, I am not gay,” the figure on the chair intoned monotonously.

Thoroughly offended, Zhou Mi replied in a voice nearing hysteria, “I never said you were! And how did you get here so fast anyway? It usually takes me half an hour to walk to the beach!”

“I, uh… I walked. Really quickly. Cause I mean, I didn’t want to be responsible for you getting sick and all…” Kyuhyun stopped fiddling with his nails and made small conversation with Zhou Mi’s Persian rug.

Zhou Mi was a walking paradox. He had loved to be alone since the first day of school started for him, but he was also born with an uncanny ability to sense people’s emotions and understand (most of the time, anyway) what others were thinking. And he was quite certain that Kyuhyun was lying. How to go about interrogating him, though?

“Really Kyuhyun.” Zhou Mi mentally facepalmed. His intentionally “sly” response couldn’t have been more different, off, or ridiculous.

“What do you mean by that?!”Kyuhyun snapped. This time, Zhou Mi was convinced that Kyuhyun was not the type of person who snapped very much, seeing as his body position was twisted inhumanly and his voice wavered and cracked.

Zhou Mi sighed. Should I tell him about my ability that’s actually more like a curse? No he would laugh at me. Or maybe… he must have heard about it somewhere before. He’s a magician, for god’s sake! And it couldn’t hurt anything, could it?

“Kyuhyun, I’ve always had the ability to sense the thoughts of people around me. Is that too weird? I really hope it isn’t… I don’t want to make an enemy out of a ‘powerful magician like you’.” Zhou Mi tried to lighten the mood, but the atmosphere of the room grew substantially reserved, and if his gut was correct, even menacing.

Almost as if the room was mirroring Kyuhyun’s feelings.

“W-what’s wrong? Did I say something?” Zhou Mi was afraid now. I knew I shouldn’t have told him! I can’t trust anyone these days!

This time, when Kyuhyun began to speak, the voice that came out of those pretty rosy lips was not his own. It got even deeper, if that was possible, and filled every square inch of the room. The owner of the booming voice, whom Zhou Mi had decided it was most definitely not Kyuhyun, was obviously used to authority.

“WHO GOES HERE? STATE YOUR NAME AND BUSINESS.”

“U-um, I’m Zhou Mi, and uh… I have no business…” Zhou Mi had to admit, he’d always thought he had the lowest and loudest voice (see, when one has lived most of his life alone, he comes up with some interesting ways to stay entertained). Boy, was he off by a long shot.

“THEN HOW COME YOU HAVE SUMMONED ME? TOO BAD, I AM HERE NOW AND I CANNOT RETURN UNTIL I HAVE FULFILLED MY DUTY. WHAT IS YOUR WISH THEN, FELLOW HUMAN?”

Zhou Mi swore that the extreme shaking emitting from his body was the result of the voice, not his fright. Still, his brain was still not functioning very well and he blurted the very first thought that came to mind.

“I want wings!”

The next thing he knew (seriously, Zhou Mi thought, if this happens one more time today…), he was lying facedown on an assortment of spiky rocks.

Maybe it was a wild guess of sorts, but Zhou Mi had never thought that obtaining wings would result in him lying down on painful things, body bent into multiple unnatural positionings.

“Hey, Zhou Mi! There you are! I had hoped he wouldn’t send you too far!” It seemed to Zhou Mi that Kyuhyun’s voice had returned to normal, though it sounded farther away and rather muted.

Zhou Mi pushed himself up into a sitting position, groaning at the noise of his bones grinding. Kyuhyun rushed over to help him up, only to be stopped by the sight of Zhou Mi sprouting… fins?

“Umm… Zhou Mi? Didn’t you ask for wings?”

“Of course I did!”

“Then uh… what the hell are those?”

Zhou Mi craned his neck and was met with a facefull of fin. He heard the voice dimly intone with a cackle, “You never specified what kind of wings, human!”

Well, . Wasn’t life about to get dandy.

“So uh… whatcha gonna do about it?” Kyuhyun was still staring at him like he had suddenly sprouted fins. Oh, the irony was not lost on him, alright.

“I don’t know, maybe I should try them out. At the very worst they have to be better than being human, right? I mean, no offense and all!” Zhou Mi quickly added. Even though he had no idea what Kyuhyun was, if he really was human, Zhou Mi did not like offending people. Or creatures.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“But you don’t have fins or gills!” Zhou Mi was busy checking out his new gills to notice what Kyuhyun had just done.

“No, but I have these. And they are quite versatile.” Zhou Mi’s head whooshed around just in time to catch Kyuhyun with his shirt off… and great fluffy white wings (a stark contrast to the black and navy Kyuhyun always wore) protruding from his back.

“Wait, did you have those before or did you just get them?” Zhou Mi was confused. He hadn’t heard Kyuhyun ask for anything.

“I believe I have always had them. Remember when I brought you home in approximately five minutes? That was with the help of these. They’re nice and easy; I can see why you’ve always wanted these.” Kyuhyun gave his majestic wings a little fluff, igniting a small fire of jealousy in Zhou Mi.

The latter’s expression changed from confused, to flabbergasted, to incredulous, and finally stopped at sheer anger.

“H-hey, hey, calm down, it’s not my fault okay! I didn’t even ask for it I just—”

“Those. Were. Meant. To. Be. Mine. And you took them! How could you?” Blinded by rage, those were the only words Zhou Mi could force out from behind clenched teeth. Listening and comprehending were beyond him now.

“Calm the down! I said, I never meant to have them! Geez, bite the hands that feed you, why don’t you. You know I’d give them to you if I could!”

“That’s a lie. And even if you could you wouldn’t! You even said so yourself!” Zhou Mi proceeded to gesticulate wildly as he imitated (in a voice that was shrill and squeaky and altogether nothing like Kyuhyun’s) Kyuhyun’s words from before.

Zhou Mi was so engrossed in his spiel that he missed the (insignificant) fact that Kyuhyun had been inching closer and closer with his every word. He only noticed their proximity when his hand nearly punched the latter’s head off, immediately beginning to spew out apologies as visions of a beheaded Kyuhyun flooded his mind.

In which Kyuhyun promptly interrupted with a faint “shut up” and pulled him in for a kiss.

The gruesome images in Zhou Mi’s head faded into mere thoughts about pink and fluffy and candy and pink fluffy candy. He could’ve sworn this was heaven, but it ended as abruptly as it had started (and much too soon, in Zhou Mi’s opinion), and he couldn’t even react for an indeterminable amount of time.

“W-what was that for?” Zhou Mi spluttered.

Kyuhyun, ever so nonchalant, shrugged. “I figured you needed something to shut you up, so I helped.”

“But I thought you weren’t gay!” Great time to bring that up, Zhou Mi. Just be happy, why don’t you.

“Look, if you didn’t like it, or you don’t like me, then just say so okay? I won’t do it again if you don’t want me to; you don’t have to bring up all my faults.” Exasperated, Kyuhyun strolled to the edge of the ocean and stared. His fluffy wings folded in on themselves and disappeared, leaving Kyuhyun somewhat vulnerable in Zhou Mi’s intelligent eyes.

Zhou Mi, on the other hand, just stood there immobile. He had no idea what to do or say after such a thing just happened. Should I go talk to him? Should I give him some space? I’m so confused and I don’t know what to do!

And then he remembered a certain conversation with his mother, one of the very few they’ve shared in his years.

~~~~~

“Umma, there’s a girl I like at my school. She’s really pretty and really smart, but she’s also really popular. What should I do?”

“Tell her how you really feel. It’s what I’ve always said, son. Just follow your heart.”

~~~~~

Thinking back now, Zhou Mi realized that he could see the soft smile that had been on the girl’s face mirrored in Kyuhyun’s. He now knew what he had to do.

Zhou Mi traced Kyuhyun’s steps to the shore, kicking up little puffs of dust along the way (and suppressing his urge to cough, because that wouldn’t be romantic at all). When he reached Kyuhyun, he wound his long arms around the latter’s torso and nestled his face into the crook of Kyuhyun’s neck, breathing in his scent. It was indescribable.

Kyuhyun jolted a bit but relaxed when he noticed it was Zhou Mi and not some serial killer, and the soft smile crept up on his face.

“I’m sorry,” Zhou Mi began in a small, hesitant voice. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. I guess I just got so mad that you were the one with what I had always wanted, and all I could think about was what I had lost because of you, instead of won.”

Kyuhyun’s smile only got wider and he wriggled out of Zhou Mi’s grip. “Well then, let’s see exactly what you gained now, shall we? Race you to that island over there!”

“Hey! Cheater!”

Maybe they would encounter all sorts of problems along the way, but both knew that no matter what happened, they would be there for each other.

And Zhou Mi didn’t need wings anymore, because now he had Kyuhyun. 

Word Count: too lazy to count

A/N: too tired to write one, lols. sorry... read the foreword for the A/N :P Also, why cannot I tag Super Junior anymore! ._.