I wasn’t sure of what I heard, so I just frowned, waiting for him to explain himself.

“I am the one who knows where Yaelle is,” he said it once again, sounding a little unsure.

“Yeah, I heard you saying it the first time,” I mumbled, turning towards the table. “Oh, I think I need to sit, I think  I need to sit,” I held tightly on the table making it creek under my grasp as I pulled a chair closer to me.

“Are you alright?” Sunggyu approached me with real concern writing in his eyes.

“You little bastard!” I grabbed him by his collar, pulling him closer. “All this time, all this freaking time you knew and you were right under my nose! How did you come across such precious information, Kim Sunggyu?”

“I didn’t come across it,” he shrugged a little flushed. “I was born with it in my head. And after I heard your story I just… knew, I guess?”

“Where is she? Tell me!” I demanded feeling like I was running out of time.

“She’s in an old house outside a town,” he frowned as if he was trying to see through fog. “Not in this country anyway. Wait, where are you going?”

“To Yaelle, where else? Oh, wait, you’re coming as well!” I grabbed him by his arm and pulled him towards the door.

“Are you insane?! On this snow storm?!” He yelled terrified when he laid eyes on the weather outside.

“Oh, for sake, I’m an angel, man!” I rolled my eyes while putting my hand around his shoulder. “And Sunggyu?”

“Y-Yeah?”

I smirked. My world was pink! “Even if this will turn into a Superman scene, please refrain from turning into Louise, ok? I’m definitely not gay!”

“Yah!”

“Think of my happy place now, please,” I smiled whole heartily.

* * *

For a second, the whiteness around blinded me. The snowflakes were like thrown in my eyes, flying all around in a wild dance of frozen butterflies above an old city.

“Why are we on a roof?” Sunggyu choked with some snowflakes, his fingers clenching tighter around my arms.

“Because that was the last image in your head, smart-,” I used my powers to materialize ourselves on steady ground, which happened to be covered with a meter tall pilled snow. “So? Where is she?”

The man looked around and I followed a suit with hungry eyes. He waiting was killing me on the inside. It was like waiting to receive a present you know  the other person knew you wanted it so much that you couldn’t stop talking about it, like waiting for a phone call when you’re too afraid to dial up the number yourself. And it was saddening at the same time – even though she was meters away, I could not sense her. There I was, closer to her than ever and yet blind as a freaking bat!

“There,” Sunggyu pointed towards an ugly, gray building with a multitude of turrets that seemed to grow from the building like the mushrooms on a tree. “Are you excited?” He asked as we headed towards it.

“Scared the out of me,” I confessed, gulping with nervousness. “Sunggyu,” I stopped as he pushed open the heavy door, “what if she’s not here? What if you’re wrong?”

“But I’m never wrong,” he smiled, slipping inside the darkness of the house.

Dum-dum was my heart beating like a drum.

Dum-dum-dum. And taking a deep breath in, I stepped inside as well.

“Welcome… brother.”

* * *

“Suho, what an honor for you to visit us so soon after we decided to move,” I resorted calmly, my eyes searching for the priest that was nowhere to be found. “Oh, don’t tell me, don’t tell me! You wanted to rejoin your partner in crime, your lover, Kim Sunggyu. Well, how nice of you to try and take me by surprise, brother,” I adventured inside the house, under the eyes of a raging archangel. “But you know, I’ve earned my name over these past few… actually many centuries, with hard work. It’s not like a mere human can mislead me, dear brother.”

“Lucifer, you will die on my sword tonight!” His now spread white wings seemed to fill all the empty space of the wide hall. And light was like flowing down from his perfect, still feathers.

“Well, brother, sorry to disappoint you, but I have an appointment tonight. So I’m afraid you’ll have to wait. But just for a while,” I chuckled evilly, my wings pulling me into the air with no real effort. “This of this as a bad commercial during your favourite movie – makes it worth the wait, doesn’t it?”

But either was my brother too eager to get to the fight, or I was too slow, overwhelmed by all the emotions I believed to be dead all that time. Either way, it wasn’t that good for me!

“Sorry, Michael, but I’m really in a hurry,” I sent globes of light towards him, making him deal with dodging while I used my powers to find her. For I needed her like the fish needs his water… “! She’s still hidden from me!” I clenched my fingers into tight fists, finally understanding the tragedy I was living. “Bro-” But Michael was nowhere to be found.

“Looking for something, brother?” His voice came from somewhere above, from the large mezzanine adorned with slender and carved in columns that was surrounding the grand hall from above. “I think you’re forgetting something, brother,” his smile was defying, meant to make my blood boil, to make me want to rip off his head. Not that I was a bad idea or anything like that. “That I was given the power to lift your curse.”

And he victoriously yanked his hand forward, forcing a dark silhouette to step into the weak light that was illuminating the whole place.

I wished I could have ripped my heart out right then and there, drop dead on the floor and never raise. I wished I would turn blind and that my overly developed senses leave me on spot. I wished – being eaten by all demons would have been a sweet death compared to seeing the petite and frail being being treated like a rag by Michael. It didn’t really break my heart. It smacked it, stepped on it, beat it with a stick until it broke in million of shards and stitched them all back together with a rusty needle; all that in a matter of ten seconds or less.

“Please, I know nothing of angels,” the poor being used her other arm to cover her face and head at the same time. “I know… nothing.”

Blood probably rushed out through the holes my nails left in my palms, but it didn’t matter. For I had set my target and it was going to be a bloody ending for him.

“Let her go, Kim Joon Myun,” I spoke on the same calm tone, my wings moving without rest. “She has nothing to do with us.”

“You’re right,” he agreed. “I should probably spare her poor soul. But then again… Oops!” He covered his mouth innocently as the figure rushed in a free falling towards the floor of the hall.

I never tested my speed before. Nor did I ever wished to be somewhere in an instant. But it was her falling that called my spread arms, her lost expression that made my wings wrap all around her and protect her from the sight of an angel who was thinking of murder.

“Yaelle,” I murmured, landing swiftly on the floor, carrying her weight as if it was a straw.

“Who are you? Who is speaking?” Her trembling hands pulled on the hems of her pullover while white, blind eyes stared into nothingness.

“Oh, have I forgot to tell you?” Michael was like a vulture circling a dying man. “When Father cast her into her punishment, He locked away her memories so that she would never have to recall a monster like you.”

If that was the punishment I would have to bear for an eternity, then I was more than glad to accept it as long as I could hold her hand and feel her near. It didn’t matter that she was but skin and bones, her wrinkles burying her beautiful features, the corners of turned downwards in a bitter expression. None of those mattered. For I was older on the inside, rotting like a corpse. We were strong enough to support each other. We were. And even if she wasn’t, I was strong enough for two!

“That was your last mistake, dear brother,” I said while placing her on the solely chair I spotted around, a throne nonetheless for the queen of my heart. “And now, you die.”

Imagine, I said it with a smile on my lips!

* * *

That who never witnessed the battle between two angels will never know that there’s the place where the thin lines between the angelic nature and the demonic ones are most visible. For in a fight, compared to the sly demons that look for ways out with every move they make, angels are prepared and stubbornly fixated on the idea of dying into the battle.

“For one who was cast into darkness for such a long time, your light doesn’t seem weaker,” Suho was breathing heavily while wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. He didn’t seem to bother the blood that was gushing out or a cut on his neck. But then away, it wasn’t me that one who was looking like a fountain… “Tell me, Lucifer, how was it to know that Father did all that to you? That your own Father was the one to cast you away once you proved yourself unable to follow his commands?”

It was a dance – the dance of death he was dancing in front of me. But he didn’t knew that. Poor archangel!

“How did it fell when he sealed away your liberty, imprisoning you from the inside, sealing your consciousness into a little, tiny box made of your own spirit?” I replied with a mocking smile lingering in the corners of my lips. “C’mon, admit it, Kim Joon Myun! You know you’re incomplete, that there’s a piece missing. You started having doubts lately, boy.”

“Shut up!”

“Why? Because I’m right?”

His celestial sword swung in the air and almost hit me with it’s holy ray when I swiftly slipped out of it’s rage. But as my body moved carried by my back and white pair of wings, my mind noticed the ray’s trajectory through the stiff air. And no matter how fast I moved, no matter how I threw my body in that direction, the light hit Yaelle right in her chest, engulfing her into an explosions of dying stars.

But strangely, she wasn’t charred.

Still breathing, she sustain her posture straight, like that of the queen she was once. And white hair turned black, white eyes opened full of life, her skin pulled backwards till it was perfectly stretched over her cheekbones.

Then, the smile of recognition bloomed on her lips.

“I knew you’d come,” she fell into my arms, barely breathing, her eyes still looking for mine. “I knew you’d find me sooner or later,” she confessed, stretching her fingers while I leaned in, allowing her to touch my bruised cheek covered in blood and sweat. “I knew you’d come.”

“I promised, didn’t I?” I whispered back, holding her body tightly next to mine. “I promised I’d cure you. I’ll cure you! I will –”

“Lucifer, watch out!” Sunggyu’s voice traveled to me and I turned around only to see my staff piercing through Suho’s body from behind.

“No!” My voice echoed the pain of my heart inside the cold and empty throne hall. “No one messes with my brother but me!” I growled with rage.

It was a breaking point for me: holding my half dead lover in my arms, seeing the blood gushing out of my brother’s body and a shocked and trembling priest still holding on the weapon that hit him deathly in his vital point. It was… enough.

“I will save you,” I whispered to Yaelle who was slowly turning cold to me, a barely murmur being heard in her chest.

And carrying her across the hall, my black feathers falling one my one, I laid her down in the pool of blood that was forming from underneath the corpse of Michael. I knew what there was to be done and I didn’t hesitate. Wrapping myself with my wings, I dug into my body with my own nails and plucked out the life machine. The light that escaped with it would have illuminated the whole Universe if it weren’t to be trapped inside the stony hall.

And nine beats echoed into the air. And silence. Nine beats turned into twice four and a half as I used my teeth to severe it into two equal parts.

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you both,” I whispered, smiling as my light disappeared into them.

I don’t know what was louder: the heavy silence hanging above our heads, or the thud of my body collapsing on the cold floor, in between the two I tried to save? Or perhaps my wings fluttering softly until they lain still against my back, white feathers bathing into crimson blood?

I don’t remember.

“Sunggyu,” I called, wasting a breath of air.

“Don’t try to speak,” he appeared on the other side of our strange trio. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I never left your side during this whole time,” the kindness in his eyes turned into pure warmth that engulfed my body, raising it up from the floor.

From up there I could see the truth: my Father had never left my side indeed.

“Yaelle…”

“Shush, my son. You’re going home now. You’re finally returning to my side,” a familiar hand squeezed mine strong enough to feel its warmth as I continued my strange flight.

Warm snow like a shower of cherry flowers petals during midsummer.

And the light up there was pure white…