Prologue

“Taeyang, no!”

Yooncheol’s voice could be heard above the scratchy noise of the truck’s wheels on the pavement.

The angels’ voices could be heard perfectly at that moment, reaching a frequency that could leave a person in cloud nine, if not deaf.

Taeyang turned his head to the side, and his eyes widened in realization.

But it was too late.

And that’s when the screams filled the scene.

The vehicle, out of control, had hit Taeyang’s body and sent him flying three meters away, collapsing onto the ground with a horrible bone breaking noise before his head started bleeding, a puddle of his blood forming immediately around it.

No.

Yooncheol couldn’t believe it was happening.

It was really happening.

Running as fast as his legs allowed him, he reached his boyfriend’s injured body before kneeling by his side, tears already running down his cheeks. Tears that in his tongue tasted like salt, anger, desperation, and pain. Pain, above all.

“No, no, no, no!” His voice was full of unbelief. This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening, he repeated in his mind all over again.

“Taeyang! Taeyang!” Yooncheol cupped the other’s face with his hands, trying to wake him up.

The people around them had gone completely mad. Some of them were calling an ambulance, others were so shocked to do anything, and the rest had captured the truck’s driver and didn’t stop yelling at him all sorts of things.

But Yooncheol wasn’t paying attention to any of these things.

The most important thing for him was the boy whose life was coming out of him at a quick pace. The same pace as Yooncheol’ heart beats.

“Tae, wake up! Talk to me! TAEYANG!” He screamed as if he was waiting for a miracle.

And, yes, it happened.

Taeyang opened his eyes slowly, very slowly.

Yooncheol could still hear the voices around him.

They were so beautiful, so high, so perfectly settled with one another, singing verses of unknown melodies that sounded so familiar at the same time.

He didn’t know how could he didn’t notice it until that moment.

It was so out of place.

“Tae… Taeyang…” He said in between his heavy breathing, his hands still cupping his lover’s cheeks. “Tae, look at me, please. Don’t go away…”

Even though the pain that clutched onto his body was the greatest of all, Taeyang paid attention to Yooncheol’s voice before his gaze averted onto him. His mouth was bleeding too, but nevertheless he managed to speak a couple of words to him.

“I guess… the fortune… told us right… Yoonie…”

“No, Taeyang, no!” Yooncheol couldn’t stop screaming and his voice was already fading out. He leaned in to rest his forehead against Taeyang’s before closing his eyes and crying another river of salty tears.

Taeyang forced a weak smile.

“It w-was going t… to happen… Yoon… S-sooner or… later…”

“No, no…” Yooncheol wanted to say something else, but his lips didn’t let him.

And when he felt Taeyang’s hand against his own, he took it into his’, not letting it go. The same he wanted to do with Taeyang’s soul.

Oh, how he wished this was just a nightmare, a horrible game of his imagination, from which he was going to wake up in any moment!

But he was already in a dream.

And from the Paradise he was dreaming, he needed to wake up.

Sooner or later.