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Donghyuck flashes back to his first meeting with an actual, real angel, when he walks past a chicken restaurant at the corner of the street, and whiffs the thick and tangy smell of chicken wings. He lays a fist over his lips to hold back a laugh.
It's Friday, early in the evening. Donghyuck turns around a corner, entering a sloping neighborhood of red-bricked houses and apartments, hanging laundry and tangled electrical wires. He hears murmurs of life. Looking up, ephemeral clouds roll across the bleeding sky, birds fly. Looking down, he watches his worn-out sneakers as he trudges along the road, up and up and up.
It's Friday, which means he's going up to his apartment's rooftop later before midnight, to meet up with the said angel.
A reminder of their first meeting will always bring immediate giggles from the two of them. It was over a year ago. In the middle of the night, he went up to the rooftop and was greeted by a puffy cloud of wings, as tall as an average human being, with blood staining the tips. Under the only source of light on the rooftop, an orange light like fallen autumn leaves, the wings were like the sky during a sunset.
When they caught each other's startled eyes, and when the angel scrambled to get up from the wooden low table, Donghyuck instantly raised a hand and said, "It's okay, it's okay."
The angel was shirtless, barefooted. Only a loose, white pants on him. His hair, ash grey.
"I'll go get a first aid kit," said Donghyuck. "Do you know what a first aid kit is? Never mind. You'll understand later."
When Donghyuck was about to turn, he heard a rustling, and then he felt something warm graze against the side of his leg. He had forgotten about the plastic bag he was holding, bearing a box of chicken wings from the chicken restaurant at the corner of the street. He glanced down at it, and when he looked at the angel, the angel was staring at the plastic bag. Probably having an eye contact with a 2D art of a chicken wing.
Donghyuck lifted the bag, and awkwardly muttered, "Chicken wings?"
The angel, to Donghyuck's surprise, burst into laughter. He clapped his hands and stomped his feet, his feathers fluttered and flickered. Donghyuck laughed with him.
"Do you have a name?" Donghyuck asked later as he was pressing a clean cloth over the bleeding tip. They were on the low table. The box of chicken wings left in Donghyuck's apartment.
"Please call me Mark," the angel said over his shoulder.
"Okay, Mark ," Donghyuck exaggerated an imitation of Mark's pronunciation, which drew giggles and dancing feathers from Mark.
After Donghyuck wrapped the wound in gauze, they sat side by side, looking straight ahead at blinks of life, at a few scattered stars in the sky, at the artificial lights from distant buildings, from lampposts, from verandas.
"What happened to you?" Donghyuck asked.
"Um. I don't know. Life happened?"
Donghyuck huffed.
"No, actually, I don't really know. I didn't even notice. Like, it didn't hurt at all. I don't mind either."
Donghyuck couldn't recall how it had started, but since then, they had been meeting at the rooftop every Friday, before midnight. Mark would sit on the parapet wall, legs hanging freely over the sleeping neighborhood. And Donghyuck would stand beside him.
"If I were a human, I'd be afraid of heights," Mark said one time. "Feels kinda like, you're too far from life, you know? Even birds glide down."
"You're an angel. You literally have unlimited life. You are life."
"Dude, I'd rather call it unlimited existence."
Mark began asking about human life, and each night Donghyuck would tell him about different things: the school system, K-dramas, self-care routine, cooking, varying art forms, playing games, traditions; about mental exhaustion, about hunger.
Donghyuck brought him an ice cream on a cone once. "Eat it before it melts," he said.
Mark followed the way Donghyuck had licked the ice cream. "Whoa!" Mark exclaimed after his first two licks, legs swaying excitedly. "Man, I feel like everything tastes better if it's not permanent."
"The hell are you saying," Donghyuck said after taking a bite from the cone.
"If something's there forever, you'd take it for granted. But if you only have limited time with it, every moment feels more special, I mean like, you'd treasure it more. Everything would be worth it. I don't know. I can't even understand what I'm saying right now."
Donghyuck watched Mark's legs rock back and forth, too far away from the ground. The tips of his wings were droopy on the rooftop's floor. His feathers sailed with the breeze. Donghyuck only snapped out of it when the ice cream melted on his fingers, sticky and cold.
Then, one night, Mark asked, "What about kisses?"
"Kisses? Well, I love kisses! I'm a good kisser, just so you know."
"Would you show me?" Mark's hair moved with the flirting of his feathers. He blinked down at Donghyuck, waiting.
"Well. I can give you a quick kiss on the cheek. Only on the cheek."
Mark, still sitting on the parapet wall, leaned down to his side, and Donghyuck, on tiptoes, reached up to him, and planted a kiss on his cheek.
"That's just one of the many kinds of kisses," said Donghyuck immediately, to ignore the sudden erratic beating on his chest.
"Wow. That feels kinda nice," Mark said, a palm on his cheek. "You know, kisses are not permanent but like, the feeling's gonna stay with you forever."
Donghyuck scoffed. "Cheesy ass."
Now, the sun has completed its descent, and lampposts guide Donghyuck's way. Ahead of him is a flight of stairs leading further up the sloping street. He can see a view of his apartment, alive with lights from the inside. He imagines Mark gliding down from the night sky, and gently landing on the rooftop. A plane passes by overhead. Donghyuck climbs the stairs.
Upon reaching the top, Donghyuck greets the auntie who sells vegetables at the wet market. Then he waves at the kids running past him, eager to come home for dinner. He smiles at the high school girl who bows over her shoulder as she overtakes him.
Donghyuck brushes past a guy in a white tee standing still in front of the apartment building, but before Donghyuck can enter, he pauses upon hearing his name being called.
"Donghyuck?" the voice says.
Donghyuck turns around, and only finds the guy in a white tee looking at him with anticipation in his gaze. The guy wipes his palms against his blue jeans, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He's wearing a classic Converse.
"Donghyuck. It's me," the guy says, raking his fingers through his hair. Hair as black as the vastness of the sky. "Dude, do you recognize me? It's me, Mark."
Last week, Mark told him about making the "biggest decision ever." That he had wanted it for a long time. "What? You're gonna dye your wings hot pink?" Donghyuck joked, and Mark laughed and said, "Yo, that's not a bad idea." Mark never mentioned what it was. And Donghyuck did not ask.
Now Mark is staring at him, waiting, eyes filled with worry. Behind him, a bird plops on a power line, and the wire quivers from the force. Donghyuck steps backward, then forward, then says, "Where are the pink wings?"
Mark lets out something between a chuckle and a sigh of relief. "Dude, you scared me," he says, patting his heart. For a moment they just stare at each other, until Mark spreads his arms wide, flaps his fingers, inviting Donghyuck in. Without any hesitation, Donghyuck moves closer and closer and pulls Mark into a hug.
At an instant, Mark clutches onto Donghyuck's shirt right at the small of Donghyuck's back, and Donghyuck feels Mark's shoulder blades. So, so human, he thinks. He lets his palms stay there as they tighten their embrace.
"This is embarrassing, but I'm kinda hungry," Mark mumbles.
"Congratulations," says Donghyuck, pulling back. "Do you want chicken wings for dinner?"
"Dude—"