Jinki was exhausted. Drained to the very bones as if someone had grabbed him and wringed him around until all the energy in his immortal body had been scattered into empty space. Of course, this was only emotionally since… well, because angels are not supposed to get tired, are they? And the reason for his emotional exhaustion was on the bed now, head turned away from him and buried into the plush fortress of his pillows. Said human was too busy wallowing in his sadness that he couldn’t even bring himself to get up and get ready for school. Jinki did not think that forcing the other into anything right now would do him any good, so Jinki simply allowed him to remain that way even as the sun rose higher and higher up into the sky, indicating the passing time.

Minho’s mother came up to check on him once. The woman seemed to have regained her composure and was in full control of her emotions again. She saw that Minho was sleeping and must have thought the same thing as him, for she left him to it without saying a thing. Little did she know that Minho was far from asleep, as he had his face covered for the sole reason of hiding the tears, the very tears that Jinki could not make go away even with his powers.

With that man gone from the house (for now, at least), peace had finally settled around the house. Jinki could not enjoy the peace, though, because it was replaced by Minho’s choked sobs. The noises that were released involuntarily every once in a while was hard to bear. Jinki didn’t like thinking that the eyes that saw right through him was shedding saline tears of sorrow, the same lips that had kissed him was quivering with held back snivels.

Jinki wanted to make it all go away. His sane side told him that this will pass. Minho will have to work through the pain to become a better person and it will be worth it when he has climbed that mountain and seen that peak of fulfillment. As much as it hurts Jinki, this was necessary. This was his human growing up.

However, there was a small insane part in Jinki, a part that he had only discovered recently with the madness that his life has been lately, that wanted Minho to hurt. Jinki realized something even before he was given the opportunity to feel. And what he realized was that of all the emotions humans feel, pain is one that remains in a person forever; as a scar, a reminder, a lesson. Jinki wanted Minho to remember the feeling he had when he had once again taken advantage of another person. Jinki wanted the guilt Minho felt when he had kissed Gwiboon to be a reminder of why he should never, ever touch her like that again.

No, Jinki was not jealous. Nor was he possessive. These were not the reasons for his assertions. He did not think that he was the only person allowed to see the weakness in Minho and he certainly did not believe that Minho’s lips should only ever find refuge against his.

I have become one of the damned now, haven’t I?

“Minho, I have to go away for a while now…” Jinki said, wanting to excuse himself properly before he left to meet Jonghyun. His best friend had wanted him up there an hour or so earlier and Jinki had stalled until now because even if he hadn’t said a word the whole time he has been here, he knew that Minho found comfort in his presence. It was one of those instinctual abilities all angels were blessed with, to connect with their humans this way in the duration of their assignment.

Jinki bets God didn’t think this bond would be pushed to a limit (crossed it even, perhaps) like what Minho and he had done.

“Minho, I have to-“ Jinki stopped himself when he realized that Minho was not going to respond no matter what he said.

“I’ll be back soon. Sooner, if you needed me for any reason…”

Still, the mound under the comforter wouldn’t move even an inch. Jinki sighed heavily, a habit he seemed to have picked up out of nowhere.

“Minho, I lo-“

Jinki held back just in time before he had said too much, shocked by what he almost did. What was he thinking, almost saying those words like he had the rights to?! It was even scarier that the words had come so naturally and he hadn’t even thought of it before it almost slipped pass his lips.

“Goodbye, Minho…” Jinki rushed to say, turning to leave. He heard the bed rustle behind him and knew that Minho must have lifted his head to see him leave. Without even chancing a glance back to his human, Jinki left through the window to somewhere he knew with a solid ground to hold his feet down from the insanity that he keeps being attracted to.

“You called for me, Jonghyun…” Jinki stated as his feet touched the ethereal grounds of his home, his wings folding into his back. He approached the two angels hunched over the giant book that sat on their laps between them. Jonghyun and Changmin looked up when they heard him and went back to reading just as quickly, ignoring his presence.

Jinki waited for one of them to speak up, peeking over into the page they were reading to see what was so interesting that they were so drawn to it.

“Changmin? Jonghyun?” Jinki called, receiving no answers. Why was everyone ignoring him today?

“Jinki, lift your foot,” Jonghyun said suddenly, looking up at him.

Jinki looked at him with confusion before giving in to that intense gaze and lifting up his right foot. Changmin looked up too.

“See! I told you that was a myth!” Jonghyun stated to a frowning Changmin, who went back to examining whatever it was on the page before him. Jinki put his foot down and waited for their explanation.

“But you do believe that the rest could be the truth, right?” Changmin said after a while, the duration of which Jonghyun spent studying Jinki’s face like it was the most interesting thing in Heaven at the moment.

“Will one of you care to explain to me what exactly you two keep going on about?” Jinki asked finally, unable to take the curiosity. They call him here, just to stand and listen to their meaningless conversation? How much more childish could they get?

“Alright! Here’s the issue, Jinki. We found something very interesting and we think that it might be helpful in explaining your situation now. The only problem is that it sounds so far-fetched that it is hard to tell the fact apart from the exaggerations…” Changmin began, slamming the book shut with a loud ‘thud’. He stood up and approached Jinki warily.

“Go on. Tell me what it is…” Jinki coaxed the other angel. Jonghyun came to stand beside Changmin now as well. Jinki was eager to know what it is that the other two have discovered.

“There are hundreds of peculiar cases recorded in this book, the events retold by angels that were either involved or had witnessed the events. We found a similar story to yours in here, something that happened a thousand years ago....” Jonghyun picked up from where Changmin left off.

“This story speaks of almost the same things you have been going through. The only reason I remembered that I have read it before at all was because it was marked as the only unsolved mystery of all time. As soon as I remembered it, I came back here to look it up with Changmin…”

Jinki nodded, urging Jonghyun to explain more.

“Jonghyun here still doesn’t believe all of it, but I think this story does have more to it than how it appears. An angel that existed a thousand years ago apparently found himself in a predicament with an assignment when his powers seemed to stop working as he spent more and more time with his subject. It was baffling even to the Council members at that time and they began to look up the roots of that human to see if he was a demon child because that was the only way to explain the angel’s problems. He not only lost his powers slowly around the human, but he also seemed to gain human emotions and slowly began to pull away from the heavens. He went to his human even when he knew of the results of him spending too much time with him…” Changmin told a very attentive Jinki.

“Yes, that’s all true but this is where the story grows suspicious and this is why I still doubt the creditability of it. The Council found nothing special about the human at all. He was just that, a mere human with human emotions and human capabilities. Yet, the angel seemed like there had been a spell cast over him, cursed, obsessed even. They were so confused that they were thinking of taking it up to the Elders and you know all too well that the angels don’t go to them unless there are important matters, like your case with the use of the Kiss…”

Jinki frowned at the reminder of his issues with the Elders.

“Yes I am aware of that, Jonghyun. Will you please get to the point? What happened to the angel?”

“No one knows. Before the matter was taken up to the Elders, the angel had disappeared completely. Some say that he simply ceased to exist after that, some say that he was trapped in Hell now. As for the human, he lived for a couple more years before he died in a battle that happened between the men of different races in that country. That’s as far as the story tells us…” Jonghyun finishes.

“A thousand years ago? We didn’t exist then, did we? So there is no chance of us knowing him. Maybe if we asked the older angels they’d know what happened to the angel before he disappeared…” Jinki mused out loud, trying to find ways of discovering more about this mystery.

Changmin cleared his throat loudly. Jinki turned to him and found Jonghyun giving him a warning look. This action picked at Jinki’s curiosity and he raised an eyebrow as he spoke next.

“What is it, Jonghyun?”

Jonghyun seemed to hesitate, giving Changmin disapproving stares and avoiding Jinki’s eyes.

“Jonghyun wants to hide from you the fact that the angel was seen to be very happy before his disappearance. Extremely happy. Bordering on euphoria, like what the humans usually felt when they are overjoyed about discovering love or maybe receiving something they have been craving…” Changmin said in Jonghyun’s stead, looking particularly satisfied with Jonghyun’s exasperated sigh.

“Why would you want to hide that from me?”

“Because you might find it perfectly fine to go about doing what you are doing now. I’ve seen you smiling when you look at him, Jinki. That is not the smile you use to reassure your subjects usually, that is a smile full of earthly pleasures, something you shouldn’t even know in the first place…”

Jinki shook his head in amusement, smiling darkly to himself. It was already too late for that now.

“Why did you ask to see my foot then?” Jinki asked, changing the topic.

“To see if there was dirt there. There’s something about it described in the book, where the angel became subject to elements as time went by. But I don’t think that is true since your shoes are still clean…”

“Would you care to explain some of these ‘symptoms’ you speak of?”

“There’s nothing much really… Only a few big ones. Becoming subjected to the elements and to human emotions. Besides that, the human was able to touch the angel despite his powerful state. Your subject wasn’t able to touch you when you received your powers back so I don’t think these are true…” Jonghyun said, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly. Changmin immediately opened his mouth to say something, but Jonghyun silence