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" How the air raged, desperate, streaming the earth with flames… Fire sought even the rain. " - Agha Shahid Ali, Call Me Ishamael Tonight
The rain comes, in the end. The rain always comes in the end, for that is how things are wont to end -- with the rain.
But even the rain starts somewhere, oh yes, and this, this is where the rain began.
At first, there was only earth and sky and sea -- and fire too, but it was agreed upon by the earth and sky and sea that the fires must be controlled. For they would become too strong if united, and so they were hidden. Only to be found in hearts and mouths and behind searching eyes.
And when the first humans were born, they were given great powers (they were modeled after their angels after all), so inside each human was hidden a spark of fire, for otherwise, the flames might find one another and set the whole world ablaze. As such, each angel had a person to look after, to make sure that they were safe, to make sure that their sparks were safe as well.
No one was ever supposed to know their angel, or see their angel, but sometimes, accidents happen, and our story starts with one such accident.
One day, an angel tripped and fell out of the sky, right into the waiting arms of his person.
"Oh --"
"You're--"
"Oops."
Jimin giggles, wiggling out of Jungkook's arms.
Jungkook only blinks, catching Jimin's light in his eyes, because all light ever wants to do is be caught by someone who will keep them. And Jungkook does, oh he does want to keep this light.
"You fell out of the sky," Jungkook says, voice soft and already full of smoke. Jimin should have smelled it then, but he didn't, because he was too busy smiling at Jungkook, too busy studying him up close after watching over him for so long.
"It was an accident," Jimin explains, dusting himself off (someone's been neglecting cloud-upkeep, but that's a conversation to be had much later, back up in the sky).
"An accident?"
"But it's no big deal, I've always wanted to visit." Jimin takes his time looking Jungkook up and down, leaning close and pulling back (strong bones, wide shoulders, dark hair, bright eyes, lips made for smiling and speaking -- yes, all good).
"Visit? From..." Jungkook holds as still as possible, knowing (because back then humans were allowed to know of these things) who Jimin was, and thus, how incredibly special he is. You see, without an angel, a person would have no purpose, and would be doomed to wander the earth in search of something they'd never find. It was the angels who gave each person a purpose, something to live for, the light to follow.
"The sky," Jimin parrots Jungkook's words back at him, grinning as he makes his third full circle of Jungkook (as everyone knows, all the best things come in threes).
"Oh." Jungkook flushes, feeling the silence stretch thick between them. What does one say to an angel, and not just any angel, but their angel? Nothing, surely, would suffice, but he'd already said so much -- ah, so much wasted breath! What his angel must think of him now.
"You're beautiful," Jimin says, and Jungkook feels his chest tighten, feels something in it jump, a heat he'd never known before crawl up his skin, making his skin go hot and itchy. He raises a hand to rub at his cheeks, as if that might make it all better, but Jimin reaches it before him, one finger pressing into the soft of his skin.
"You're turning red," he says, laughing.
Jungkook flushes impossibly deeper and pouts with those lips of his.
"Y-you said --"
"Hm?"
"You said I'm beautiful but..."
"But?" Jimin quirks his head, but doesn't frown, because angels never do -- they have no reason to.
"But," Jungkook continues, spurred on by the warmth spreading through his entire body now, tingling in his fingers and toes -- he looks up, looks straight into Jimin's eyes, catches the glimmer of light there, light like a bit of the sky, and says, "you're even more beautiful."
And that, was how it began.
To say they became fast friends would be like saying the ocean and the shore were mere acquaintances. No, they became who they were always meant to be -- creatures created by each other, for each other. Each giving the other a purpose, and thus giving each other everything.
They grew into the spaces the other had always been missing like a puzzle realizing for the first time that it mightn't have been whole to begin with.
But there had been a rhyme and a reason to why the angels weren't supposed to meet their humans -- you see, angels have never been the strongest of creatures, and in the face of such tenderness, such warmth, they become helpless, and from their lips tumble the secrets of heaven, one by one, kissed from them like stolen breaths.
And the humans never mean to do it -- no, it is never the humans who hunger, but the sparks within them. It was the fires, separated and kept at bay, that taught humans the meanings of greed and desire.
It was the third time they met (for all the most terrible things also seem to come in threes), that Jimin first notices the heat of Jungkook's skin, the way their skins burned when they touched each other. He turns to Jungkook, yet unfazed, and grins at the smile on Jungkook's lips (lips that he now realized were made for kissing too, and to be kissed -- yes, all good, all perfect), and says, "You're always so warm."
Jungkook shifts to nose into Jimin's cheek, feeling the place where their skins touched simmer, that heat crawling up his throat. He doesn't deny it's hunger, pressing his lips to the edge of Jimin's lips before he speaks.
"You make me feel like... like I've swallowed the Sun."
Jimin giggles, pecking Jungkook's nose, "Silly -- you can't do that -- you'd catch --" but even before the word leaves his lips, his heart thuds to a stop. He stares at Jungkook, who only blinks, still breathless, cheeks still pink. Wordlessly, Jimin draws him in, kisses him with his mouth open and the warmth in Jungkook's chest explodes.
Suddenly, he is itching to get out of his skin, fingers digging into Jimin's tender flesh, Jimin can no longer be close enough, and just as Jungkook takes in a breath, sighing into Jimin's touch, the way Jimin kisses him like tasting warmth for the first time, Jimin pulls away, licking his lips.
He tastes the smoke. He tastes the embers.
"Oh no..." Jimin murmurs, frowning (because even angels must learn when the time is right) and shaking his head, pressing his fingers to his lips, "oh no, oh -- what have I done?"
And Jungkook, who has never felt a fire burn so hot inside his chest before, is still breathless, head woozy with the smoke, frowning now too, taking Jimin by the shoulders.
"What's wrong?" he asks, "what's wrong, Jimin?"
And so Jimin had no choice but to tell him, about the earth and sky and sea -- and about the fires, and where they were hidden.
By the end, Jungkook was breathless, his body riddled with heat.
"I'm sorry -- I didn't know --" Jimin leans forward, kisses Jungkook's forehead if only to siphon the frown away.
"But why -- why did you give us the fires?" Jungkook wants to push Jimin away, wants to yell and scream at the sky and the earth and the sea, but he hasn't the strength. If there is one thing the fire in his chest has taught him about desire, it's that desire is as single-minded as it is boundless, and once it decides on what it wants, it will want, and want, and want.
And all Jungkook has ever wanted was Jimin.
"Because," Jimin says, with his fingers pressed to Jungkook's cheeks, caressing them as sunbeams might, "humans are strong -- stronger than us angels, stronger than the earth and the sky and the sea. We thought you could tame the fires."
Jungkook sighs and shakes his head and gives into the soothing cool of Jimin's presence, "We are, but you --" he leans his forehead against Jimin's, "you make me fall in love with the feeling of burning, even though I can't breathe. When I'm with you, I forget that I have to."
But they both knew that it was too late, the damage had already been done, and so that night, when Jimin left for his place in the sky, leaving Jungkook all alone down below, Jungkook curls up with his arms around himself as if he could contain the spreading of the flames.
And, he understands.
For that heat he'd felt the first day they met, that must have been the spark catching fire -- because that is what sparks do when they get too close to their lights -- they catch, and catch, and catch. Until all that's left to do is burn.
Jungkook feels the fire flaring up till it curls around his lungs, claws up his throat, and threatens to burst forth into the world. All because he had loved so much, so hard. He tries to swallow down the fire but it was too strong, his love too bright and when finally, he opens his mouth to let the fire leap out, the earth began to burn, for fires do not like being hidden for long.
All the way up in the sky, Jimin watches as the earth flares up in light and he knows there's only one way to put out the flames. He feels his own chest grow tight, his back grow heavy with the weight of the mourning sky, and for the first time, an angel cried. But it was not his tears that put out the fires, no. Because everyone knows the only way to properly put out a fire is to kiss it till it forgets its own name and nature, to kiss it till it forgets how to burn.
So he lets himself fall again, like the first time, and Jungkook is there, just like before, arms outstretched, and they kiss, like the world is breaking apart because it is. Jimin kisses Jungkook like he can lick the fire right out of him, like he's not afraid of being burned (even though he is, but Jungkook was right -- like this, he doesn't mind being burned. With Jungkook, he is learning to fall in love with fire). And when they break apart, they find the world drenched with water, no fires in sight.
"What happened?" Jungkook asks, just as breathless as Jimin always leaves him.
Jimin shakes his head, "I don't know."
But they can't help the laughter, no, or the giddiness that bubbles from them, like tiny shards of light caught in their throats. They kiss again, and again, and look up to the skies where there are still cracks from where it had shattered, but the sky had seen their love, tasted its smoke, and it too had felt the heat, longed for the fire.
So as they had kissed and kissed and kissed, the fires had forgotten how to burn, but the sky had remembered that it once too had loved -- that once upon a time, the sky and the sea were like this too, fierce and tumbling, and oh so in love. It was in this loud and reckless love were storms and hurricanes created, but the sky and the sea had been too afraid when they'd seen the havoc their storms could wreak, so they made a solemn vow never to reach for each other again.
They shied away from their love without thinking, too blinded by the destruction to wonder about what could have been.
So, some say that the rain began when the sky remembered what it was like to love the sea, wholly, and properly. And other say that the rain is how they speak to each other, each raindrop a secret or a kiss, from one to the other.
But we will always know the truth, that it was an angel and a human who reminded the sky of what falling into love meant, and that whenever it rains, all it might mean, is that somewhere in the world, a human kissed an angel, and without the rain, their love just might set the world ablaze.