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It starts, as many things do, with a very, very stupid idea.
Sanghyeok wins Worlds with his team in a flurry of flashing lights, silver confetti, and far too many feathers.
There’s no reason for them to stay in America much longer, not after the photos and the interviews and the one awkward meeting with a group of fascinated ornithologists, so they fly home.
In a plane. None of them are dumb enough to attempt a transpacific flight when they could barely stand.
They wrangle their wings through the airport, much to the confusion of the TSA agents, and into their first-class seats because none of them fit in economy anymore, and by the time their plane touches back down, Sanghyeok’s about three seconds from physically binding his idiotic wings to his back, stop opening and hitting the sides of the plane.
The one thing that makes him feel a little better is that the others don’t seem to be faring much better than him. Byounghoon’s soft gray and Jeonghyeon’s pale brown feathers are rumpled from sleep; Jeonggyun, Eonyoung, and Gwangjin stick out like sore thumbs with their vibrant colors; and Seongwoong is awkwardly wrapping his wings around himself as he stumbles out of the plane.
Outside, the cold and biting winter air ruffles through Sanghyeok’s hair and feathers, and he shoves his hands into his pockets.
They bundle into cars the best they can, and they really should have thought it through better because the wings, even folded, are just about as tall as they are.
It’s Gwangjin who voices their thoughts when they finally reach the team house, scowling at his bright cardinal feathers. “So, do these things actually do anything or are they just annoying?”
Jeonghyeon shakes himself and his comically puffed up wings flatten down. “What, besides meaning we won Worlds?”
Gwangjin rolls his eyes. “Obviously.”
Eonyoung pokes at Seongwoong’s wings. “I mean, the bird scientists—”
“The ornithologists.”
Eonyoung waves a hand in Sanghyeok’s direction. “Yeah, those guys. Didn’t they say we could fly?” A glint enters his eyes. He turns to Byounghoon. “Wait, Coach, do you know how tall—”
“No,” he replies quickly, combing a hand through his own fluffed out feathers, shooting them all a warning look. It doesn’t work though, judging by the way Sanghyeok can feel himself light up and the half feral grin that splits Gwangjin’s face. “We’re not jumping off the top of the team house.”
“Get up, we’re jumping off the top of the team house.”
Seongwoong makes a sleepy noise of confusion, but lets himself get dragged out of bed by Gwangjin, wings flapping once when he stumbles and nearly hitting Jeonghyeon in the face.
Ignoring Jeonghyeon’s squawk of protest, Gwangjin drags Seongwoong out, and Sanghyeok can’t help but giggle at the bleary look on his face. Seongwoong adjusts his glasses, hastily shoved onto his face by Eonyoung, and squints. “We’re what?”
“We’re going to fly,” Sanghyeok says with that wide grin that hasn't left his face since Eonyoung had shaken him awake a few mere minutes earlier, grabbing his sleeve.
Seongwoong yelps when the biting October wind hits him and Sanghyeok has to flatten some of his feathers down in order to see when Seongwoong instinctively wraps his massive owl wings around the both of them to shield them. Gwangjin has already climbed up onto the concrete ledge, the city lights twinkling behind him. “Are you guys sure this is this safe?”
Eonyoung laughs. “Absolutely not.” He tugs them closer to the edge.
“I can’t believe you convinced me to wake up and jump off the fucking building.” Jeonghyeon grumbles. He’s sitting, legs dangling over the edge, wings folded close to his body and it turns out to be a good idea when a particularly strong gust howls by, nearly shoving Gwangjin off the roof. Jeonghyeon sighs, hand shooting out to drag Gwangjin back to safety. “We’re all going to die,” he deadpans.
“Come on, it’s not that bad,” Gwangjin retorts, hopping back on the ledge. He spreads his wings, angling his dark red feathers until they’re roughly parallel with the wind.
Sanghyeok pushes free of the cocoon of warmth, pulling himself onto the ledge too and copying Gwangjin’s pose.
Immediately, he can feel something in his wing, a tendon or muscle—or several—he hadn’t had a week ago, lock. Gwangjin ducks out of Sanghyeok’s range with a noise—almost a chirp—of irritation when he’s nearly knocked off again.
“Sorry,” Sanghyeok says, focused entirely on the way he can feel the way the air moves change, forced to flow up or down when he angles his wings. Not nearly enough to lift him off the ground, but enough that he can feel the pressure of the air pooling beneath his wings, pressing against his bones.
Seongwoong hops up next to him, sitting so as to not hit his head on Sanghyeok’s outstretched wings. He reaches up, hand stopping just before he touches Sanghyeok’s feathers. “Woah,” he says. “They’re really big.”
Sanghyeok shrugs. “Albatrosses,” he says. “Did you know we can fly for over six years without touching the ground?”
Jeonghyeon flicks his knee. “What do you mean, we?”
“It’s true,” Sanghyeok protests. One of the first things he’d done upon being told exactly what kind of bird he’d gotten was to search it up. “We’ve also got the largest wingspan.”
“But you also have the dumbest way of taking off and landing,” Eonyoung says with a grin, now sitting beside Gwangjin, blue jay feathers brushing the ground behind him. He mimes face-planting and Sanghyeok rolls his eyes, folding his wings in, tendon unlocking.
He mirrors the rest of his team, sitting down, wings drooping down freely, letting the wind rustle his hair and feathers.
“So,” Seongwoong says, peeking over the edge of the building. “What do we do now?”
“Don’t look at me,” Jeonghyeon says immediately. “This wasn’t my idea.”
“I mean, we could always literally just…” Gwangjin makes a diving motion off the edge, before leaning back.
Sanghyeok looks out at the city, blinking lights of a plane passing above, stars mostly hidden by the smog and neon glow. The moon is a thin crescent in the sky, veiled by a few wisps of clouds and he finds the urge to fly up there warring with the sinking feeling in his stomach when he glances down at the ground, suddenly dizzyingly far away.
The occasional nocturnal stranger wanders past on the streets below Sanghyeok’s feet, and he wonders what they might think if they bothered to look up. Five silhouettes, almost like angels with their wings, sitting on the edge of the building while wondering whether to really test the flight-or-fall principle.
“If you want to swan dive off the edge, feel free,” Jeonghyeon says and Gwangjin shrugs.
“Hey, I wasn’t the one who proposed this.”
Eonyoung stands. “Well, we might as well try,” he says, wings snapping out and Jeonghyeon bolts upright.
“Wait, Eonyoung, don’t—”
He jumps.
Sanghyeok finds himself yanked backward immediately, crashing to the ground in a pile of feathers and limbs, but he scrambles upright, pushing past Jeonghyeon’s arm and bracing himself against the concrete ledge, blood cold as the wind howling in his ears.
“Fuck, fuck, shit, I thought that was a joke,” Jeonghyeon hisses, phone out. “Stay here,” he says, other hand clamped firmly around Gwangjin’s wrist.
A loud whoop cuts him off before he can call anyway though and Sanghyeok turns his gaze from the alley below—void of Eonyoung’s crumpled body—to the sky above in time to see Eonyoung laugh. “Holy shit!” He does a flip in midair before diving down close enough that Sanghyeok has to bring his arms up to shield him from the gust of wind that follows in his wake. “You guys have to try this!”
Seongwoong’s mouth is open and Jeonghyeon stares, eyes wide enough that Sanghyeok can practically see his own reflection in them, but Gwangjin is the first to recover, cupping his hands around his mouth. “How did you do that?”
“Just jump and flap!” He weaves through the air with a grace Sanghyeok honestly didn’t expect, given how unwieldy the wings had been so far.
Jeonghyeon shakes himself, whirling toward Gwangjin when Gwangjin tears his arm free from Jeonghyeon’s grip, but he’s already taking a running leap off the edge, propelling himself off the roof.
His wings catch the wind and when he flaps once, he shoots up into the sky. Eonyoung darts after him, still laughing, and Jeonghyeon drags his hands down his face. “Oh, my God,” he says. “I’m on a team of fucking maniacs.”
“It’s not that bad, hyung,” Seongwoong says, although he’s already standing on the edge too, teetering, arms out to balance, wings flapping slowly as if testing the movements out. The air swirls around Sanghyeok from his movement, ruffling his feathers.
“Come on,” Gwangjin yells down at them, now circling slowly above them. “Try it! Jump!”
Seongwoong hesitates and Jeonghyeon sighs, evidently giving up as he clambers onto the ledge as well. “Fine, whatever.” He glances over his shoulder at Sanghyeok. “If I die,” he says, “tell everyone it was their fault.”
Eonyoung laughs again. “I’m never coming back down,” he shouts gleefully. He wobbles a little as a particularly strong gust of wind forces him to do a barrel roll. “Okay, I might come back down sometime.”
Jeonghyeon rolls his eyes, but after a moment of hesitation, pushes off. He glides, wings fully extended, until he nearly crashes into the nearest building, but he quickly climbs up and over it with three flaps.
Seongwoong watches as Jeonghyeon gets used to maneuvering in the air, keeping close to the buildings for a minute before he starts to ascend, joining Eonyoung and Gwangjin. Eonyoung must say something, a smirk visible on his face even to Sanghyeok from his position on the roof, because Jeonghyeon starts to chase him while Gwangjin laughs so hard he nearly falls out of the sky.
“Ready?” Sanghyeok turns away to see Seongwoong still standing on the edge, head craned up.
There are a few stars, barely visible but still there, and Sanghyeok can see them glinting now, eyes adjusted to the 2am darkness.
He pulls himself up onto the ledge beside Seongwoong, spreading his wings and the wind immediately greets him, winding around and over his feathers.
Seongwoong’s eyes spark with the city lights and he grins, all traces of sleep banished from his face as he jumps too, wings snapping out soundlessly.
Sanghyeok stays on the roof, watching him climb up and nearly disappear into a cloud before diving down to Gwangjin's level. Then he looks at his own wings, locked open again by that tendon he knows the others don’t have.
He eyes the short distance between the dorm building and the roof of the neighboring shop, then the long length of the ledge, just wide enough that he could probably sprint along it.
From above, Gwangjin shouts, “What are you waiting for, Sanghyeok? Jump!”
Sanghyeok ignores him, turning and carefully backing up until he can feel the edge of the roof beneath his heel. Someone lets out a yell from below and he risks a glance back in time to see a stranger point up at him, phone already out.
And strangely, that’s what pulls a laugh from him.
There's no need to worry. He’s not here to fall.
“Come on!” Eonyoung’s circling above him now, slow lazy circles as the wind currents above keep him aloft. “Jump!”
Sanghyeok breathes in once to steady himself, and he breaks into a run.
The wind howls in his ears, neon city lights blurring as he nears the end of his makeshift runway.
He braces a foot against the edge, and he pushes.
The concrete disappears beneath him.
His stomach drops, but before he can fall, the wind catches him.
Another laugh bursts from his chest as he flies, a single long flap of his wings enough to propel him high up and he instinctively finds himself angling his wings as he rides the current he finds himself in.
Albatrosses are soaring birds, he knows, capable of riding ocean winds for hours without needing to unlock their wings, and he does just that, slowly zig-zagging through the air.
Gwangjin darts up to his left in a dark red blur, hair blown away from his face. “Holy shit,” he shouts over the sound of the wind. “This is amazing!”
Sanghyeok grins at him and tilts, swooping at him and forcing him to tuck his wings in and dive down to escape with a yelp. “Hey!”
“I told you,” Eonyoung says, speeding ahead of Sanghyeok with a few flaps of his wings, sounding incredibly smug. “I told you it was going to be worth it.”
“Fine, whatever” Jeonghyeon says, unable to keep his own smile off his face, gliding slightly behind Sanghyeok. “You were right.”
Eonyoung lets out a cheer. “Hah! Can you imagine our coaches’ faces when they find out we did this?”
Eonyoung’s still laughing in the morning, even as Byounghoon and Jeonggyun scold them but Sanghyeok and the others, still high off of the feeling of flying, can’t help but join him.