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Taeyong had never heard a man scream that loud.
The noise was like knives trying to pass through a metal drain, and it sent shivers down his body so that he almost hesitated for one crucial moment. But then gears in his head started working again, and the years of training imprinted into his skull urged for his arm to pull back the blade, and step back when he saw the familiar crimson pour out like cries. The body on the ground gasped and shook, fighting with all its last strength to keep oxygen trickling into its lungs, but Taeyong kicked it silently, and it finally stilled.
“ That was quite cruel ,” came a deep voice in his ear, and he scoffed, wiping his blade against the inside of his blazer.
“Fucking hypocrite,” he told him, and there was silence at the end of the line.
Taeyong watched the blood trickle for a few minutes, the vibrant hues of burnt cherries and poisoned wine slithering across the gritty concrete like sour paint on a soggy canvas. The blonde bent down, resting his body on his heels as he reached out to glide his finger in the scarlet stream. He brought his digit up, gazing at the way the drops hurried down his hand and onto his wrist like it was trying to hide from the moon’s smile. The claret glow tainted his white cuff, and it eventually dripped off the end of Taeyong's elbow, pleased it could meet with its stony canvas again.
“ Good job with the mission ,” said the voice in his ear, as Taeyong stood up again.
“Yeah.”
The man reached into his suit pocket, and pulled out a small brown packet of his heaven sprinkled with a bit of others’ hell. Long, slender fingers effortlessly slid the cover open, and brought out a long,white paper tube, stuffed to the brim with the guarantee of bliss. He patted his pocket, in search of the trigger for his paradise, but was unable to find the small box. The blonde sighed in irritation and pressed the bridge of his nose, exhaling sharply.
“You hid my matches again, didn’t you?” He hissed accusingly, stuffing his packet back into his blazer.
“ Of course I did ,” the voice replied immediately, “ You’re literally killing yourself man! They aren’t good for you, and you know it.”
“But they feel good,” Taeyong said, and he immediately zoned out when the usual lecture erupted in his ear. He was tempted to pull out his earpiece and crunch it under his foot, making Johnny shriek from the horrid crackling, but he pushed the thought away. He didn’t want another grilling when he came back to the Centre.
He started walking, biting his lip in misery. His fingers were aching to wrap around the white paper, his lungs were begging to be filled with the mix of tobacco and death, his mouth burned to taste the ashy fire sing. He knew that all that nirvana had a price on it, greedily wanting something in exchange of the happiness it filled his chest with. But if the price was Taeyong's life, he guessed he could afford it.
Every drag was killing him slowly, but Taeyong was just glad it was doing it with no complaints.
The excited chattering up ahead made Taeyong pause, and he watched the queue of people gradually being admitted into a large, decorated auditorium, sprinkled with multi-coloured lights and posters wherever there was a hint of brick. He tsked under his breath, irked by the large gathering of humans, when he preferred solitude and melodious quiet. Slender fingers slipped a black hood over his wispy blonde hair, almost giving him another sense of false protection, where he was safe from whatever the puppeteer he called life would throw at him.
He walked around the crowd, ignoring the eager murmurs and laughter poisoning the air around him. A little child bumped into him, and turned around to stare up at him with large, innocent eyeballs.
“Sorry Mister,” she said with a gap-toothed grin, and turned back to cheer excitedly with whatever the rest of her family were giggling at. Taeyong was surprised she didn’t recoil at the obvious metallic scent dripping off him like sweat from a boxer’s brow, but he figured she didn’t care. None of the oblivious people around him paid any heed to the hooded boy walking in their midst, like a poisoned grape in the middle of a fresh basket. Like Lucifer mingling with the humans, looking left and right and wondering why on earth they were smiling like everything’s ok. Everything wasn’t Ok, and Taeyong would always wonder why he was the only one who seemed to realise that.
The noisy chatter faded away as he continued to walk along the street, the neon lights of the auditorium no longer illuminating the cracks on the gritty pavement. Now Taeyong was alone, except he wasn’t lonely. Anxiety walked alongside him, telling him stories of how naive victims were strangled by the uncertainty of the future, and Misery clung onto his back, pointing with sick desire to the darkest alleyways lining the streets . Hope watched him from the shadow of a street lamp, mouth clamped shut and feet stuck, whilst Security lounged on the rooftops overhead, barely giving him a glance. All around Taeyong were the feelings that were either killed in the past or manipulating him in the present. He couldn’t run away from it all, because after all, the only real perpetrator was himself and that’s why he smoked those sticks every day.
They say to be a hero, you have to defeat the villain, and that’s all Taeyong was doing, really.
A sudden breeze blew his way, ruffling his jacket and hair. A paper flew in front of him, having hitched a ride on the wind, and landed in a puddle before him. He stopped, staring down at the paper now soaking in the murky water. Taeyong crouched down, resting an elbow on his knee, and picked the soggy sheet up, holding it in the translucent gleam of the streetlamp to see it better.
It was a poster, with the name of the auditorium he had just passed scrawled on top of it in block capitals. The exclamatory announcements and the colourful capitals hurt his eyes more than the sun could ever, and he grimaced at the ludicrousy of it all. His pale fingers turned the page over, and that’s when it happened.
Misery shrieked and almost fell off his back, covering its pitiless black orbs. Anxiety gasped and fell silent, unable to look at the image in Taeyong ’s hand that made his heart give a single, painful thump. He could feel Hope step an inch out of the shadows, the corners of its lips curved, and Security peer down at him. Because in his hands, was the picture of an angel .
A young man, possibly the same age as him, filled the centre of the page, poised in a graceful leap that seemed effortless yet painful at the same time. A white leotard of some sort clothed his lithe body like an angel’s halo. It seemed almost transparent, as if it was made of the morning dew and the silver linings of the clouds up above. His head was thrown back, so that his black strands tumbled off his forehead and tickled his pale neck. His jaw was sharp yet delicate, too precious to be touched by mortal hands. His lips were the shade of candy red, and his nose was small and flawless. His eyes were shut, but even from the low quality, Taeyong could make out the curtain of long eyelashes framing his smooth cheekbones. Taeyong longed to see those eyes opened, to read the story of the man who seemed to weep in agony amidst the single jump that was on the page. He longed to hear his murmurs and gaze at the ghostly dancer whose full beauty wasn’t able to be captured on the soaked piece of paper disintegrating in Taeyong’s hands.
He didn’t know what this sudden desire was, but he did know that it nearly made Misery cower fearfully and Loneliness howl indignantly. And there was this other feeling inside of him, as if a new arrival was coming, one that would scare the Misery and Anguish and Loneliness away, and would convince Hope and Security and , dare he say it, Happiness , to hold his hand and lead him somewhere brighter-
“What bullshit,” Taeyong murmured under his breath, and he heard Misery cheer happily and Loneliness give him a shark-toothed smile. He ignored them, even though they were the ones pulling him in all twisted directions, and stood up, exhaling deeply. He gave one more glance down at the now completely wet poster in his hands, and he dropped it back into the black water, looking away as the beautiful angel drowned in the ripples of his reflection.
***********************************
“ So that was the last of that clan ,” Johnny told him, as Taeyong shut the warehouse door behind him.
“How many more do we have to get rid of?” He asked, and a thoughtful hum filled his ear as Johnny ruffled through his documents.
“ We got rid of the big one, so by the law of illicit organisations, the branches will succumb to unauthorised chaos and will eventually collapse in on themselves.”
“And if that doesn’t happen?” Taeyong questioned, pulling out a glass vial from his blazer pocket. He delicately removed the cork, and tapped the stark yellow powder into his hand.
“Oh, it will , ” Johnny snorted in his ear, as he plastered the powder onto the warehouse door, slathering the rotting wood until it was stained bright yellow.
“You’ll look pretty stupid if it doesn’t,” Taeyong reminded him. He took out his match box, opened it, and pulled out a single match.
“Why are you so pessimistic ? ” Johnny grumbled, and Taeyong could imagine his lips forming into a sad pout, “ We should hope that everything works out, not for it to all go horribly wrong!”
Taeyong smiled, as he struck the match against the box in one quick flick. A single flame bloomed, its oranges and reds illuminating the palm of his hand.
“ Sometimes , Johnny,” Taeyong said, as he pulled out one of his tobacco sticks to hold against the small, ostensible spark, “ Sometimes I wonder if you made it into the wrong profession.”
Johnny didn’t say anything. Taeyong inhaled his nirvana deeply, and continued with a smile:
“We can’t afford to sit back and hope for the best,” He said. He chucked the little match at the door, and he watched as it sizzled and hissed and screamed in agony, the yellow powder being engulfed by the flames as it crawled up the sour wood, “ We’d be dead before we could throttle the fucker who told us everything would be fine if we smile and pray.” The flames reached the top of the door now, and Taeyong turned, walking forward as he heard the warning signs of the inevitable destruction, “ So that’s why, instead of letting those tattooed bastards kill each other,” Even as he walked away, the noise got louder, the building wailing and the infernos cackling as it caressed every part of it, “ I’ll kill them first.”
And as Taeyong turned the corner, he heard the sound of exploding wood and burning flesh and the little match giggling as it reduced the brick to nothing.
“ If you say so, ” Johnny murmured in his ear, and that was the cue for Taeyong to turn off his ear piece and let the other do whatever happy people do these days.
He walked along the dark streets again, staring at the debris and cracks on the pavement as his feet led him to wherever. He was feeling sticky, his suit clung onto him uncomfortably and his hands reeked of blood. He longed to step into his bathtub, just melting under the warmth of the water and counting the droplets that dripped off his numb fingers. Call it cliche, but Taeyong loved the way the colourless clear was able to make him sigh in contentment and drip into that ache in his chest that would normally be clogged with ash and tobacco and emptiness.
Temporarily.
Just until he opened his eyes again.
Taeyong took another drag of the stick, sucking in the death and poison like it was oxygen. He would rather have that, because oxygen cursed him with the punishment to live and breathe, but the small paper tube in his hand gave him the gift of killing his insides before eating him whole.
His feet suddenly stopped, and Taeyong turned his head to stare up at the sign of the auditorium that was glistening with colourful lights only a few weeks ago. It seemed closed, its ticket box closed up, and no humans in its midst. So that’s why Taeyong walked closer, towards the door that was hickeyed with posters and announcements and job offers. And he saw that poster again, the same one he thought he killed three weeks ago, the one with the phantasmal dancer that bled all over the page.
He lifted up his hand, his fingers trailing over the slim figure and the pale face and the silvery clothes that hugged him like a tearful mother. And he felt that feeling again, except it was closer this time, and Loneliness took a cowering step back, eyes wide as if it knew something Taeyong didn’t.
He pushed on the door slightly, and to his surprise, it opened.
“What kind of stupid manager leaves their building door open?” He muttered under his breath, pushing the door open all the way. But then he paused.
What was he doing? Only a moment ago, he was craving to close his eyes as the water cleaned his wounds, but now he was entering an empty auditorium because for some reason, Misery refused to hold onto him like he was rotting. (He was, but Taeyong knew that that was only why Misery stuck around.)
His dark eyes travelled to the poster again, and he noticed the block capitals at the bottom that solved one of his mysteries and told him the angel’s name.
“ The boy who was born to bleed, ” he whispered under his breath. And then he laughed, he laughed because everything was so ironic and that was all it took for him to put out his paradise with his boot, and enter the darkness, Agony and Despair refusing to step a foot inside.
********************************
The first thing Taeyong noticed when he stopped outside the theatre door, was the music.
It seeped out of the red doors, circling the frozen blonde and then trickling right into his decaying heart, where it grimaced at the rubble and tutted at the rot. The tempo was slow, the rhythm was soft, and it seemed to be telling him a story.
The story of a wedding gone wrong, the story of a rainy funeral, the story of a miscarried birth, the story of an early death.
The story of a boy who was born to bleed.
Taeyong pushed open the door, and he saw the boy bleed.
The angel raised his arms and danced gracefully, allowing the music to use him like a puppet and take him where it wanted him to. Every note was illustrated with the way his hands flew around him, and the way his legs jumped and spun around. He seemed almost drunk, high on the peace and the softness that pricked him and giggled as he bled. His black strands clung to his shining forehead, and his silky leotard shimmered under the single spotlight setting him on fire. As the piano wailed louder and harsher, the strangled notes seemed to grab the boy and pull him this way and that, and he moved like he was a doll, to please the music dominating him.
His eyes were still shut, even though the symphonious storm around him twisted him and made him fall and rise like the moon tides. And all through that, even though no blood came out, Taeyong could see him bleed and bleed, the rusty crimson blanketing the stage like a dead bride’s veil. He seemed to ache and wail and cry and laugh at the same time, a whirlwind of emotions that spun Taeyong’s mind round and round like the boy and only stopped when the music ceased and the notes halted and the boy fell to the floor, panting and gasping for air. His pale arms and milky legs soaked up the damning red from all around him, seeping back into his body where it could pour out all over again.
Taeyong watched silently as the boy regained his breath, not trusting himself to move. Finally, the angel lifted his head, and turned to look at Taeyong with the most intricate blue eyes the blonde had ever seen. Even from this distance, they were shimmering and twinkling like stained glass under Heaven’s glow. It was almost blinding, and Taeyong wanted to laugh at the way Distress tugged at his sleeve, begging to turn around and leave from the presence of this creature and its sea-shore orbs. But even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. Not when his boots were frozen to the velvet carpet, and his hooded eyes were trapped in the cerulean gaze. Taeyong was almost scared to go closer, in case the angel grew more and more phantasmal as you drew nearer and would eventually disappear into another failed dream.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” the angel said, his voice like sweet grapes on the brink of going sour.
“The door was open,” Taeyong replied, after he was able to swallow down the awe and intrigue and something else that stuck to his throat like ash. He walked closer, his steps sound but hesitant, towards the stage, where he could view the slender cheekbones and the cherry lips of the young man. He stopped at the very front row, and sat slowly in the cushiony red chairs, where countless other spectators and mesmerised audience members did before him. The angel glanced at him from under his long eyelashes, and smiled slightly, pearly white teeth and the curve of vermillion lips making Taeyong’s dormant heart thump another painful, single thump.
“Yeah, they do that a lot,” the angel said, his blue eyes creasing into a small smile, “ But I think you’re the first person I saw take advantage of that.”
“Is that a good thing?” Taeyong asked, and he didn’t regret it when the angel smiled a little wider.
“For me or for you?”
“For you.”
“No,” The angel shook his head, raven strands tumbling over his azure eyes, “ No, I suppose it isn’t.”
“Then for me?”
The angel smiled again, and gave a small laugh that sounded like a guitar gently weeping.
“ No , “ he grinned, lifting his head up to gaze at the spotlight, which coloured him like stardust, l “ It definitely isn’t.”
“Who are you?” Taeyong asked, because Fear finally unclenched his neck and allowed him to speak the questions that came from the very centre of the carcass that once was his heart.
The angel brought his glassy gaze back onto the blonde man in front of him, and he looked so pained, like a child realising why his mother no longer wakes him up and his dad drowns himself in beer everyday.
“Doesn't it say outside?” He asked, his voice soft and sad like the waves on a grey day, “ I’m the boy who was born to bleed.”
“That’s what they say,” Taeyong said quietly, possibly the most fragile he had ever been, “ Who do you say you are?”
The angel stared at him, for maybe a minute too long, because Taeyong felt most of his hostilities clutching him, scream and run away, leaving Hope and Warmth and something else peer at him from behind the velvety curtains, watching him intently with eyes that gave him no thought for the last 22 years.
And finally, the angel rose up, eyes bright and smile slight like it hurt to stretch his lips further. And when he finally spoke, Taeyong swore he saw Hope step out of the shadows, a hand stretched out towards him.
“I’m Ten.”
*************************************************
Visiting the auditorium each night just to watch the boy bleed gave a breath to Taeyong that somehow didn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt to sit and watch as the dancer created art with his body and the tears of the piano. It didn’t hurt to be utterly transfixed on every movement, and to hear the wails of Misery drowned out by the high of the melody. It didn’t hurt to be met with those lustrous eyes when the music stopped and silence filled the hall, and the corners of the angel’s mouth lifted to make Taeyong’s chest clench tightly.
Ten was as good as a warm bath, maybe even better . He was able to make Taeyong’s demons cower in fear and his fiends turn their faces away from the delicate beauty that was him. It didn’t make sense to Taeyong, how one person could fill him with more bliss with one glance than a whole packet of his cancer-sticks could do. But unlike the cancer sticks, which picked away at his rotting organs with sick glee, Taeyong could feel Ten assembling his heart back together slowly with his soft fingertips, unconscious patience and care making Taeyong’s head hurt if he thought about it for too long.
Nevertheless, he came back to the auditorium each night, sometimes after a mission, after his usual bickering with Johnny, and his craving for a warm bath was being slowly replaced with the craving to see Ten. To see him dance, to see him smile. And sometimes, just to hear him whisper to Taeyong about things that he would normally never give a fuck about. He would talk to him about the world, the stars, the sea. The people, the laughter, the tears. He would speak to him about things that had torn Taeyong apart at some point in his life, and things that haunted him while he was curled up, wide awake in his bed. And Taeyong would listen, because each word out of Ten's mouth sounded like his shattered dreams and his biggest fears weeping together, and he would stare at the way his beautiful eyes shimmered when he talked about the stars, and the way they dimmed when they talked about the worst thing God could ever give: life.
“You come here too often,” Ten pointed out with a laugh one day. He and Taeyong were seated on the stage, cross legged and regarding each other under the amber glow of the single spotlight above them.
“I have nowhere else to go,” Taeyong said honestly. He had nowhere else to go, and no one waiting for him. Except Ten, because Ten looked at Taeyong from under his eyelashes in a way that said everything but nothing at all.
“You and me both ,” Ten murmured, resting his dainty chin in the palm of his milky hand, “ But who are you? What do you do, when you’re not cooped up in here with me?”
Taeyong wanted to tell Ten that he didn’t mind being cooped up in the auditorium with him, but then the dancer would ask why and Taeyong would have no answer to that. So he chose to gaze at the red doors instead, Ten’s question swirling in his mind.
“Clandestine activities that sit too close to the line between good and evil,” Taeyong said, and he glanced at Ten to see his eyes sparkle, “ The work I do doesn’t give me time to let me sit and think about who I am, what I’ve become. And I suppose that’s a blessing in some twisted way, for if I was allowed to take a peep into my soul, the first thing I’d do was run.”
Ten didn’t say anything, and Taeyong realised that was because this was the first time he had ever talked about himself. This was the first time the blonde revealed his thoughts and feelings and the angel next to him was ready to listen, ready to soak up Taeyong’s demons like bitter wine. And even though the crumbling Misery croaked in his ear to stay silent, and the weak Anguish begged him to get up and walk away, Taeyong’s dark eyes were fixed on Hope, that was sitting in front of him, smiling at him and looking so proud of him that Taeyong wanted to cry.
“But I do know I’m rotting away,” he continued, tucking his legs up to his chest, whilst cerulean eyes trailed over him, “ 17 years of despair and destruction chipping away at my decaying heart like it was putrid meat, until nothing is left for to destroy,” He shut his eyes, and then immediately opened them again, scared that if this was all a dream it would be all gone, “ But instead of letting that information pass over my head like so many of my kind have done, I do something about it,” he reached into his blazer pocket, and pulled out a long,paper cigar, holding it in between his slender fingers out in front of the unreadable Ten, “ Cancer-sticks, “ Taeyong whispered, feeling the smooth material rub against his coarse fingertips, “It may not be right, but I feel good, knowing that I’m solving a problem others are top morally scared to do. If I’m not being any good living in this world, then by killing myself-”
“You’re getting rid of the problem,” Ten finished for him, his soft voice in a low whisper. Taeyong nodded, and he watched as the other extended his pale fingers to take the stick from him. He turned it in his palm, and brought it up to his face, the lapis of his irises boring down onto the paper roll like arrows. He turned to the silent blonde again, and smiled, shaking his head slightly.
“You’re being selfish,” he said softly, his eyes glassy and grey, “ You may think you’re getting rid of the problem, but have you ever considered what problems that would cause? Look me in the eyes, Taeyong, and tell me with all your heart, that no one would miss you if you’re gone, just for a day.”
Taeyong kept his gaze on the door, until he heard a soft exhale, and velvet fingers touched his chin, tilting his head until he met the eyes of a man that seemed to fade more with each breath he took.
“ Tell me ,” Ten murmured, his touch stinging in the best ways possible.
“I-” Taeyong started, his crackly whisper melting into the hot air around them. He gulped quietly, and tried again, “ No one will miss…me…”
But then he paused, because the look in Ten’s porcelain eyes told him that he was a fool. Johnny would miss him. Johnny, the happy-go-lucky idiot who stuck to Taeyong like a zit, even though the blonde nearly always put him down. He was a man Taeyong had failed to realise was one of the only people who tolerated him, even though he’d been such an ass to him.
And he guessed a few colleagues back at the Centre had varying degrees of respect for him, even if they would only be sorry if he was to go.
And Taeyong wanted to believe- he wanted to believe so badly that the angel gently holding his face like he was something beautiful and precious, would miss him.
“Would you ?” He asked, because he was never one to stay silent and shrivel in his own curiosity, “ Would you… miss me ?”
Ten stared at him, a hazy, transparent gaze, his blueberry orbs searching for something in Taeyong’s eyes. And maybe he found it, because he smiled his beautiful, gut-wrenching smile, and it made Taeyong hold his breath and realise that Hope was curling its fingers around his hand, for the first time in a long time. Taeyong had almost forgotten the feeling, the feeling of something good inching its way past the dirt and the grime and standing in the centre of his heart, looking around and figuring out how to settle in.
“I suppose I will,” Ten murmured, eyes glancing down at Taeyong’s cold lips, and then coming back up to shine almost sadly, “ When I am gone, I shall miss you.”
Taeyong’s blessed ears barely caught on to the last murmur, too quiet so it was lost in the wind before it could reside in his tired mind. But he still understood, he understood that this man in front of him looked at him in a way people have stopped looking at him. In a way that considered all of his rights and wrongs and poured them together into a bubbling cauldron that sizzled and burned, and when you looked at it, you’ll see the reflection of a man staring back at you, a man who the whole world thought it lost many years ago.
Ten looked at Taeyong like he was a human, and Taeyong loved it.
“Good,” he murmured, lifting his hands so that they cupped the delicate fingers resting on his chin, “ I am glad to hear that.”
And if Taeyong was in the right state of mind, he would have noticed something break inside Ten a little, and the way his lips tilted downwards and the halo above his head seemed to dim. But Taeyong couldn’t think straight right now. Not when he rose to slowly sit on his knees and lean forward, ghostly fingers still holding his chin. His palms rested on either side of Ten, as he stopped, just before his nose could skim the other’s.
“I’m scared to break you,” he said honestly. He felt that just one touch could shatter the angel in front of him like porcelain, and he would be left to prick his hand against the broken pieces.
“That’s ok…” Ten whispered, hands crawling up to cup his flushed cheeks, “There’s nothing left to break anyway.”
Ten smelt of misty lavender, and tasted like pure gold. He felt like all the seasons giggling under Taeyong’s fingertips, and he smiled under Taeyong’s mouth like he had just seen the sun. He pulled the blonde closer, hands tugging at golden strands like he was holding onto the sunrays and hitching a ride all the way up to heaven, where he could name all the stars in the sky, because they danced in his eyes every day.
“ I’ve never felt so happy ,” Taeyong whispered against Ten’s lips, like it was a secret.
*******************************
It felt exhilarating to see Misery and Agony weeping on the cold concrete as Taeyong made his way to the auditorium each night. It felt so breathless to feel Hope and Warmth hold his hand tightly as he entered the hall, to see his angel smiling at him from the stage. And it felt so, so fucking good to melt in Ten’s arms, where the rest of the world seemed to fade away like ripples on an inky lake.
But overtime, as Taeyong was wrapped in those loving arms, he felt the bones growing weaker, and the skin growing a sickly pale. Ten seemed more ghost-like, almost translucent. His smile was more tired and his eyes grew dimmer, yet they still shone solicitously whenever Taeyong tucked a charcoal strand behind his ear. Ten’s form seemed more weak, as if one breath could make the frail man shatter into a hundred tiny pieces, too enervated to be put back together.
And soon, Taeyong could feel Worry crawling back onto his back, and Suspicion whispered in his ear, strings of aching theories that threatened to split his head into two. He was careful now, with the way he held Ten’s hand delicately, and the way he made sure not to press too hard when his lips were on his. And through it all, he heard the incessant whispering in his ear, and his heart thumping loudly, suddenly bursting with frantic energy that Taeyong wasn’t used to containing.
And it nearly killed him when he came across Ten at the back of the stage, coughing out blood on the floor with tears streaming down his vapid face.
Taeyong just stood behind the curtain, body frozen and eyes wide in horror as he watched his angel bleed and bleed and cry and cry and the feathers fall off his wings and burn in the pools of red staining below.
The image refused to leave Taeyong’s head, being the source of bitterness and anxiety pumping around his body for the next few days. He couldn’t forget it, no matter how much he wanted to. No matter how much incinerating oxygen he would inhale, and no matter how much it would burn his lungs, the image stuck to him like a chick to its mother. No matter how hard he screamed for an answer, and no matter how fast the steaming tears would run down his face, he still couldn’t shake Misery off, that was clinging onto the end of sleeve hopefully.
No matter how many sticks he smoked, and no matter how hard he sucked in all the destruction and relieving acid, the smell of the pain and blood and the stench of Ten’s disentagrating heart was all Taeyong could taste on his weak tongue.
And he could taste it so beautifully now, as he held Ten close, stroking his inky strands gently and resting his chin on top of his head. The latter smiled softly, snuggling his face into Taeyong’s neck, and exhaling a cool breath that stung like Christmas and miracles all the way deep into his heart.
There was a light silence for a few minutes, before Taeyong heard the muffled voice in his nape:
“You smell like ash,” Ten’s tone was observant and quiet, “ Like your cancer-sticks.”
When Taeyong didn’t respond, Ten lifted his face up, to look at the blonde with disapproving cerulean orbs.
“You’ve been smoking again, haven’t you?” He accused, his voice still quiet yet pained. He lifted himself off Taeyong, and sat on his knees to face him, “ Why? Why have you started again?”
Taeyong pursed his lips that were starting to tremble. He tried to keep his heart steady, but it was getting louder and louder, until he was breathing shakily under his breath. Ten’s eyebrows furrowed, and he cupped Taeyong's cold face gently, brushing a thumb below his eyelid.
“Shh, it’s alright,” he murmured, “ Just breathe , my love.”
Taeyong squeezed his eyes shut, the oxygen stinging now. And Ten’s touch wasn’t soft anymore. It was bitter and cold, and it felt like the sharp thorns of a red rose were stinging him, now that the flower was dying.
Ten was dying.
Ten was dying Ten was dying Ten was dying Ten was-
Taeyong clenched his teeth, feeling hot tears stream down his cheeks. He brought two shaky hands up, and roughly threw off the fingers holding his face. He heard a soft gasp, and he opened his aching eyes, to see his angel looking at him in shock, and fear.
“Taeyong …” Ten whispered, eyes wide. He tried to reach out again, to dry the saltiness bleeding from Taeyong’s eyelids, but the blonde stood up abruptly, a coarse harshly wiping the tears off his face.
“ Don’t .” He hissed, voice chalky and threatening to break, “ Don’t touch me.”
Something in Ten’s glassy eyes shattered, and he gulped shakily, lowering his trembling hands onto his lap.
“What happened?” He asked, trying to keep his voice calm. For his sake, or maybe Taeyong’s.
“Don’t touch me,” Taeyong said again, his teeth chattering and his ears ringing, “ You can’t- you can’t t-touch me.”
“I won’t,” Ten promised, “ Just tell me what’s wrong, my love-”
“ Why ?” Taeyong yelled, not able to keep it in anymore. The syllable boomed throughout the vast hall and bounced off the silent walls, circling and trapping the raven-head, who seemed to shrink even smaller.
“ Why should I tell you?” Taeyong continued, his voice not loud but still overflowing with emotion, “ Why should I tell you anything , when you don’t say a single word to me?”
And then he paused, whimpering, because the look in Ten’s eyes said he understood. He knew exactly what Taeyong was talking about, exactly why this man in front of him was sobbing and begging for relief.
“I…” but Ten trailed off, and the tears started running down his porcelain face too.
“You can’t say a Single. Fucking. Word,” Taeyong sneered through grit teeth, “ You fucking liar .” Ten flinched, and bowed his head. He wrapped his arms around himself, as if he was trying to gather those pieces that Taeyong had shattered. The blonde clenched his fists, and he could hear Pain and Sorrow cheering him in.
Come on , they were saying, Break him. Break him even more. Break him until he finally lets go of that fraying rope he’s been hanging onto ever since you walked through those doors
Break him like how we broke you .
“ Why ?” Taeyong whispered, his voice cracked and bitter, “ Why didn’t you tell me? I would have- I could have-”
He melted into sobs, falling onto his knees. He buried his face into his hands, his weeping muffled yet too loud in the agonising quiet around them.
“ I wouldn’t have given my whole self away, ” he whispered painfully, and that’s when he felt soft arms around him, and his face was held close to the chest of his angel. He sobbed into him, staining him with his selfishness and misery and pain and agony and all his demons and yet Ten didn’t even flinch. He soaked up everything like it was honey and not vinegar, like it was spring water and not gut-wrenching poison. Like it was something sweet, and not Taeyong.
“ I-I’m sorry,” Taeyong sobbed, his hands clenching Ten desperately, “ I don’t want you to go.”
“I don’t want to either,” he heard Ten whisper, “But I have to.”
There was silence, just the sounds of Taeyong's sniffles and Ten’s quiet assuring.
“Don’t forget about me,” Taeyong whispered, and he could feel Ten smile into his skin.
“You didn’t really give me a choice.”
The blonde lifted his head when he heard that tearful laugh again, a noise he thought he had forced into silence forever.
“You’re my angel, do you know that?” He said, tucking the black strands behind his ear, “ You looked at me when I was a naked sinner, and you still held me like I was a piece of gold,” he breathed him in, his scent of everything divine in the world, and he knew this might be the last time, “ You didn’t have to do that, yet you did. Why?”
Ten laughed again, and he brought his forehead down, to rest gently Taeyong's . He closed his eyes, and he breathed out the phrase that Taeyong thought he would never hear again.
“Because I love you.”
He didn’t respond, and just burrowed his face back into Ten’s chest and he stayed there, until he was sure that all of him was sitting right in the middle of his angel’s heart.
****************************************************
The sky was grey and tantalisingly close to letting it rain. The wind nipped harshly at the small girl, and she shivered in her puffy coat, her teeth chattering incessantly.
“It’s always so cold nowadays…” she muttered under her breath, her numb hand clutching the basket of flowers tightly. She peeked at it every now and then, to make sure none of her plants were stolen from her by the merciless wind.
Half an hour passed by, until she finally got another customer. She looked up, to see a young man approaching her, his hands tucked in his trenchcoat. His fading blonde strands flew everywhere, but he didn’t bother brushing them back. He stopped in front of her, his dim brown eyes scanning the basket in her hand.
“Hello Mister,” she said, when she finally found her voice again, “ What would you like?”
“The white tulip, please.”
His voice is like the wind itself , she thought, as she reached into her basket for the requested flower, except it sounds as if it's blowing through a broken wind chime
“Here you are, Mister,” she said, holding out the flower towards him, “ that would be half a shekel.”
He brought a hand out of his pocket, and she nearly dropped the flower she was holding.
His hand was all red and blood-stained, and his palm was bruised and calloused, where a single silver coin lay in the middle.
“Why Mister- you’re bleeding !” She cried, her eyebrows furrowed in her hazel bangs.
“Oh?” He glanced down at his hand, as if he was just registering the crimson painted on it, “ That’s alright. It’s not mine anyway.”
The girl opened and closed her mouth, and the man waited for some sort of reply, but none came. Then he reached forward and gently took the tulip, breaking her out of her shocked daze. She blinked rapidly, and then gave a wide, nervous smile, quickly taking the coin from his hand and placing it into her pouch while whispering apologies under her breath.
She searched for some change in her pouch, and finally her fingers grabbed hold of the right coin, but when she looked up to give it to the man, he was gone.
“Where did he…?” She looked around, her mousy hair flicking everywhere over her flushed face, and she finally caught sight of a blonde head going through the nearby giant, rustic gate, his black trenchcoat trailing behind him like an inky veil.
The girl bit her lip, debating whether or not to chase after him, and eventually decided to. She didn’t feel right about that man, about the way he walked around as if weightless and apparational, about his prickly hands and his dazed smile. Yet she crossed the road and followed him through the gate, for she had always been taught by her mother to be fair in life and not keep any extra money for herself unless asked to.
Mother also taught me not to follow strangers , she thought with a wry smile, as she spotted the head taking a turn at the small trail.
She followed him around that turn, and then she stopped. Her eyes trailed over the different gravestones and overgrown grey blocks, all inscribed with the name of a person who had once lived and breathed like how she was doing now. She looked at her feet, her boots sunken into the wet grass and mud, and she shivered at the thought of someone being underneath her and she swore she could hear them laughing and laughing as she walked over them towards the blonde.
The man had stopped in front of a graphite gravestone, both of his blood-stained hands clenching the small, white tulip like a promise.
She approached him, standing by his right-side. He didn’t acknowledge her; whether on purpose or by accident, she could not tell, for his ivory eyes seemed so hazy and out-of-focus that she doubted whether he knew where he was at the moment.
“Mister,” she started, after fighting with herself whether to speak up or not. He turned to look at her, but what scared her was that his eyes were just as unfocused as before, and she wondered whether this was just their normal look; cloudy and phantasmal, “ Y-you forgot your change.”
She stretched out a trembling hand with a pathetic smile, the copper coin seeming to cling to her skin, not wanting to be touched by the serene man who looked at it with such an unreadable gaze. It was like handing a candle to the devil, like giving an angel a book on how to fly.
She was only snapped out of her gaze again when she felt his coarse fingertips graze her soft palm and pick up the coin, sleek fingers tucking it into his trench coat pocket.
“How do I do this?” He asked her, and she raised her eyebrows in confusion.
“Do what?”
He turned back to the grave, and he held the pearly flower up, the chilly sunlight catching on the drooping petals and tumbling off like dew.
“How do I put this -” he gestured to the flower, and then pointed to the grave, “-on that ?”
“Oh,” she blinked, and then pointed to the bottom of the tombstone, “ People normally put it on the bottom, where it won’t get carried away by the wind. Or they tuck it in near the edges, in an attempt to somewhat make it look pleasant, especially when there are a lot of flowers. But you can do whatever you want, Mister.”
He was silent for a moment, before nodding.
“I see,” he stepped forward, and kneeled down, so that his trench coat surrounded him like a pool of coal and his rusty fingers were gripping the cool dirt. He leaned forward, and he placed the flower delicately in front of the stone, as if it was capable of making the whole grave crumble. He leaned back, and the girl waited for him to stand back up again, but he didn’t.
She wanted to leave. She wanted to turn around and walk away, leaving this man to sit in front of this stone that he looked at it so intently like it held the most dazzling stories one could ever imagine.
But she couldn’t. She couldn’t because she felt like if she left, she would be the last one to see him ever again, that him not having witnesses would give him that final push to join the bodies that slept beneath their feet.
So she asked, “ Who were they, Mister?”, because she wanted to know what could make a human so lifeless like that. She saw a sad smile grow on the blonde’s chiselled face as he kept his eyes fixed on the stone.
“He was a lot of things,” he said, and she was so surprised to hear his usually hollow voice take on such a soft and filling tone that for a moment, she wondered if this was the same, brooding person in front of her, “ He was a dancer, a dreamer, a laugher, a crier. He was a bitter-sweet tale, a story about a tragic hero. He was the last good drag of a cigarette, that final taste of sugar on the tip of my tongue.
He was my past, my present, yet too delicate to be my future. And all these things were snatched away like he was nothing at all, as if he wasn’t the reason my lungs started working and my heart was reborn.”
He talked like he was telling a fairy-tale to a child, his whispers hoarse but almost lost on the wind, as if his story was too precious to be heard by too many people.
“Do you…miss him?” The girl asked, her eyes now on the gravestone as well. For the first time, she noticed the slab was blank, and nothing but a single pair of wings carved onto it.
The man looked up, the smile on his face not reaching the cloudiness in his eyes.
“Heaven missed him more,” he murmured, his golden strands tumbling down onto his slender neck, “ Heaven missed its brightest angel too much, so it called for him to come back. And he did,” he brought his head back down, and he turned to look at her, and she only noticed because she suddenly felt a spectral hand squeezing her young heart tightly, “ I do not miss him, because I know I am going to join him soon.”
Her mouth parted slightly at the revelation, and he stood up from the ground, the soil hickeying to him.
“In heaven?” She asked, because the look in his eyes told her she didn’t need to feel sorry for him.
He chuckled under his breath, a tired, beautiful sound.
“You’ve seen my hands,” he smiled, and he didn’t say more than that.
She watched him look at the grave one last time, and he lead forward to brush his bleeding lips against the cold stone, and he looked so safe doing it her heart leapt in unexpected emotion. When he stood back up, hands tucked away in pockets, he gave her one last glance.
“Don’t do what I do, child,” he said, “ Don’t make the same mistake that I did. Don’t believe that your heart is so incapable of blossoming, that you ignore the breathing sun and water in front of you. I only knew what I had, until it was snatched from me, and all I could do was cry and scream because I-....I loved him so,” he inhaled deeply, and exhaled quietly, his breath stinging more than the harsh wind, “ You won’t survive it, child, if you do what I did. Only because I was crafted to nudge warmth out of me like an uninvited guest, am I able to barely breathe at the moment. You won’t be able to; no human would be able to. So promise me,” he stretched out a hand, his last finger curled, “ Promise me you won’t behave like me. Promise me you'll look with your heart, not your head. Promise me you’ll be the wings to your angel, not the tears.”
She stared into his sincere eyes with wonder, that were filled with overflowing emotion for the first time she had seen him. Mesmerisation and sorrow incited her to hold out her pinky too, and she gulped slightly, before slowly folding her small finger around his bruised one
An unusual promise was made that day, between a girl who had barely lived yet and a man who had lived too long to go on. A promise to not chase away the warmth trying to help them, and to open their arms for the safety and comfort that would hold them dearly.
“I promise,” she whispered, in firm assurance that chilled her to the bone, and for the first time, his smile reached his eyes.
He drew back, slipping his hand back into his coat, and turned around, walking away from the small, young girl holding a flower basket in her hand, and a promise in the other.