Onew stretched his wings wide. They were sore from the awkward position he’d been sleeping in. He flew up a couple of stories and put the books he had been reading back in their original spot, then he turned around and jumped off the ledge gliding down to the bottom floor, ten stories down. He looked at the student librarian Minho and nodded goodbye as he left to go sleep in his own bedroom.

He wrapped his wings around himself like a blanket, the hallways were always too cold. On his way out the door he bumped into Taemin, or rather Taemin bumped into him, he was always bumping into people because he never looked away from the book in his hand. He didn’t want to waste the time that he could be reading.

Onew smiled at the familiar sight and continued his way down the hall. Jonghyun came flying past sending a breeze his way. Onew sighed, it was against the rules to fly in the hallways, but he knew why Jonghyun was in a hurry. His boyfriend Key had just returned from a week long field trip and Jonghyun normally never went a day without a makeout session.

Onew pulled his winds tighter around himself. The hallway was especially cold tonight. He finally reached his warm room and collapsed onto his bed. This time he made sure to fold his wings the way fairies were taught from the beginning of their existence to do. If he slept on them wrong too many time they might get a wrinkle in them. The last time that had happened he couldn’t fly for a week.

He waved his hand to turn off the soft green light that had been filling the room and gently closed his eyes. He dreamed a lot that night, of his friends, of the books he had read that day, of fried chicken, but he never dreamed of what he would wake up to the next day.

. . .

Screaming woke Onew from his dreams. He rushed out the door about to wrap himself is his wings when he noticed that the hallway was disconcertingly warm. The fairies before him were in a panicked frenzy. They were calling all the water fairies to come to the library. Onew wasn’t a water fairy, he was a knowledge fairy, and the library was like his second home. He raced down the hallway.

When he reached the library he saw flames some even reaching to the top floor fifteen stories up. The sight shocked Onew, there was so much fire. He heard the scream again, it was coming from inside the library. He rushed forward but found himself blocked by a sobbing mess that was Minho. He was crying to hard to speak but his face said it for him.

Onew didn’t care. He wasn’t going to let someone die just because of fear. Onew push Minho away and unfurled his wings. Fairies were quick healers but that didn’t make them invincible. At most Onew could last five minutes in the fire without suffering serious burns. He launched himself into the library heading for where the scream had been coming from, the top floor.

The second his feet touched the ground he felt someone crash into him. It was Taemin. He was coughing from the smoke and one of his wings looked bent. There were a few firecrackers on one of the tables that had yet to be enveloped by the fire. Onew sighed, it was just like Taemin to play with fire when surrounded by paper.

Onew lifted Taemin into his arms and jumped hearing the loud popping of fireworks as the fire finally reached them. Onew didn’t open his wings until the last second, so that the had as little exposure as possible to the blaze. He reached the door just as the water fairies arrived, consequently getting drenched. He brought Taemin to the cure fairies to be checked over and then, once he knew Taemin would be alright, he made his way back to his room.

He hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep.