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It’s a memory from long ago; ancient and near-forgotten. Shelved in the back of Park Jihoon’s brain, only resurfacing at random times such as now. The memory paints a pretty scene; a humble bedroom of a child illuminated by moonlight. Translucent curtain hangs from a half-opened window, swaying in rhythm to the night breeze. 

A mother sits by the bedside, flipping a page of a storybook. The pages are tattered, the ends are curled. That particular book has been read countless times over the years since it’s her favorite. Mother recounts the same story, the same adventure to lull little Jihoon to sleep. But what is it about? Here’s where the memory is incomplete, like assembling a fractured mosaic yet half the pieces are still lost. 

No, revise that. 

The rest are hidden, possible to salvage. If only Jihoon could link the dots of the small details he faintly recalls; a girl in a blue dress being swept off her feet by a boy who can fly. They surged above the clouds, ‘second star to the right and straight on till’ morning’, the boy said, and off they went into a faraway land.

Aside from the tidbit of the story, Jihoon also remembers how animated his mother was whenever she retold the grand tale night after night. And it’s been a while, it truly is, of seeing Mother so full of life, assuring Jihoon that adventure is right around the corner, that growing up is exciting and everything will be alright. 

But it’s not. Everything is not alright. This is just a memory; ancient and near-forgotten and deluded, giving false hope to the desperate. Soon, the memory crumbles to dust; a megaquake rattles inside Jihoon’s restless mind, burying the incomplete mosaic and its hidden pieces six feet under. 

-

“Jihoon-ah.”

Someone’s shaking his shoulders. 

“Jihoon-ah!”

Jihoon growls annoyed, shaking away the sleepy haze clouding his mind. An image of a woman in a dimmed bedroom fades into gray. He blinks slowly, squinting at the barrage of light surrounding where he napped.

“Ya, you’re alive, Jihoonie?”

“Shut up,” Jihoon snaps back, lifting his heavy head from the cold desk just in time to hear the teasing laughter from the bastards he called friends. Junkyu and Jaehyuk have taken vacant seats around his own.

The clock hanging above the whiteboard shows half past twelve. Oh, it’s lunch break already, Jihoon yawns, massaging his sore neck under tousled wine-colored hair while not giving an ounce of shit about the last two classes he missed. The classroom is understandably empty, leaving only a handful of girls chatting in the corner and eating their homemade lunch boxes. Jihoon gets a sniff of the delicious scent—steamed rice topped with a fried egg and spam—and suddenly, his stomach rumbles. 

“Fuck, let’s eat,” Jihoon stands up, not bothering to straighten the wrinkle of his white uniform and makes his way to exit Class B. Junkyu and Jaehyuk’s amused snickering follows behind until Jihoon opens the door to the hallway and is face to face with a thick crowd blocking the path. “What the hell,” murmurs Jihoon, scanning the crowd confusedly. The hallway is buzzed with gossip, their eyes are wide and curious, all staring in the same direction toward one end of the hallway. When Jihoon follows the line of sight, he’s met with an infamous student. 

Back slouched, hands in his pockets. Wavy black hair frames a sharp jaw, mouth pulled at a scowl with eyes glaring at the nosy students swarming like vultures to a dead animal. But even under all the attention, Choi Hyunsuk from Class A still manages to maintain an air of stoic arrogance. The nonchalant attitude never fails to irritate Jihoon and today is no different. 

“I see the Hyunsuk has finally graced us with his presence,” Junkyu’s chirpy voice chimes in from Jihoon’s right. “And fashionably late, too. You think the teachers ever give him hell for skipping classes like us?”

“Doubt that,” Jaehyuk shakes his head, leaning against the wall on Jihoon’s left. “Rich kids like him can do anything and still get a pass. I mean, look at him. It seems he just fought another gang again. He’s black and blue all over.”

It’s true, as Jihoon observes the man of the hour in detail, cataloging bruises across Hyunsuk’s face; a swelling under his right cheekbone spread in purple, a small one at the corner of his mouth, and another one around the collarbone, peeking from the tees under his white shirt. Some may find the bruises intimidating, some in awe, but Jihoon finds them absolutely pretentious, what a show-off.

“Do you think he won?” wonders Junkyu out loud. 

“Well, he’s here, isn’t he? I don’t think whoever the opponent is would let him go easily if he lost,” Jaehyuk says, Junkyu nods in agreement. Jihoon throws both of them a stink eye, definitely not impressed how his own friends think so highly of the privileged delinquent.

“So that means he won! Wonder how many guys he beat this time,” Junkyu flashes Jihoon a shit-eating grin, clearly taunting the teen and what do you know, it works. Fuck this, Jihoon clicks on his tongue and breaks through the crowd. After shoving several protesting weak-ass students out of the way, he’s finally at the eye of the storm, head to head with Hyunsuk. Their eyes are first in contact. Tension spikes between the two, whispers around them quickly die down. Immediately, deafening silence engulfs the hallway, the air is tight and soon, it’ll explode, like an overinflated balloon waiting for someone to pop the needle. The crowd is all watching in anticipation. Who’s going to strike first?

Of course, it’ll be me, Jihoon raises his chin and smirks, looking down at the shorter student. He’s never more thankful for the height difference. “Lost another fight, midget?”

Hyunsuk raises an eyebrow, scanning him head to toe. “As if you would know. Have you ever been in one, asshole?”

The audience goes ‘oohhh' and Jihoon almost hurls whoever is closest to him to a nearby window. The corner of Hyunsuk’s bruised mouth tugs upward in amusement like this is a fucking entertainment, and oh boy, how it boils Jihoon’s blood like he’s sizzling in hellfire. 

“The only fucking reason I ain’t bruised like you ‘cause no punch ever gets past me!”

“Or maybe you’re just a chicken and run before it even begins.”

That’s fucking it, Jihoon cracks a knuckle, seizing the other up with his bigger figure. But to Jihoon’s annoyance, Hyunsuk doesn’t seem one bit intimidated. The latter even goes as far as to yawn, paying not a mind to the angry teen in front of him and looking elsewhere, as if Jihoon is not even worth his attention.

What a pompous piece of shit, Jihoon barks back, “What, got bored already?! Got somewhere to go? Got daddy picking you up for lunch?”

Suddenly, Hyunsuk’s eyes darken—a split-second change from the cool facade, like noticing a crack in the wall. Small, but it’s there, tempting to break further until broken in half. Whatever the reason for it, Jihoon revels in it. A nasty smirk stretches over his face, “Yeah, go ahead, run to your daddy, midget. He’s gonna patch you up after I’m fucking done with you.”

“Don’t cry later, chicken,” Hyunsuk snarls before throwing himself at the taller student. The first punch goes straight to his nose but Jihoon shifts his weight to his left foot and replies with a left hook aimed at Hyunsuk’s ribs. It connects to Jihoon’s delight, the sound of the impact booms in sync with the crowd's cheers. Hyunsuk staggers a few steps back, gasping pained breaths but still stubbornly straight on his feet. 

Watching the pathetic state his opponent is in makes Jihoon cackle like a madman. The teen is drunk with adrenaline, drunk for having the upper control he has over the fight, over his life—fucking finally, something goes right for once— before pairs of arms grab his torso, his biceps, his neck from behind. Jihoon yelps in surprise when he finds himself put down like a stray dog by a group of teachers; on his knees, head low, both arms locked to his back. There’s loud commotion all around him that Jihoon can’t see. The hand that grips his head is unrelenting, forcing him to face the tiles. But he hears shuffles of footsteps as the crowd is being dismissed, shutters of cameras before girls squealing and running, Junkyu and Jaehyuk’s voices overlapping with the scolding of their homeroom teacher. 

When the teacher finally lets him on his feet, Jihoon notices the spot across him is already empty. No trace of Hyunsuk. The same he learns at the Faculty Office Room after he gets dragged by the ear by his homeroom teacher. In the end, the only delinquent who gets reprimanded and detention is just Jihoon.

Fuck this school.

-

The sun has set when Jihoon is finally done with today’s detention. Emphasize on today because there are still two more sessions he has to clock in tomorrow and the day after. “Shit, shit, shit!” cusses the said teen, kicking the innocent pebble under his feet just because he can, totally not because he imagines it’s a certain deep-pockets, short-ass, ugly motherfucker delinquent. And today’s only the first day of the week! 

Jihoon huffs loudly, calming himself down before storming through the front gate of the school. Then he stops, makes sure no one’s around, before flashing his middle finger in the direction of the main building. Eat shit, fuckers, before the culprit sprints out of the scene.

Orange sky hovers above, framing the beautiful scenery of a suburb. The stillness of the neighborhood is only disturbed by the chatting sound of students and workers walking home. The buzzing of the city becomes a distant noise in the background, a garnish to the peace and quiet. In rare times such as this where the delinquent Park Jihoon sheds his skin, revealing only a teen who’s trying to get by. Jihoon’s potty mouth is sewn shut, his shoulders relax, his pace is slower, quieter, as if matching the flow of the river running through the neighborhood. A mother and a child are sitting by the riverside. The mother watches her child stone skipping with the occasional victory poses, so elated whenever the stone bounces further than the last. It brings out happy laughter from the mother, clapping every time the child grins her way. 

Watching them, though, is equivalent to taking a hard punch in the guts. Jihoon swallows down the sickening feeling crawling out of his throat—cutting air and pumping out what’s left of his lunch—and runs straight ahead. A couple of meters pass, the scenery starts to change, replacing the serene riverside with rows of shoddy buildings and rundown apartments, with a few small businesses and family restaurants squeezed between them. Telephone lines are spread from building to building, tangling with signages, street lights, and antennae in a messy web of chaos. And just around the corner is where Jihoon lives; a dingy basement apartment with barely sunlight filtering through the window. 

Jihoon gives a quick bow at the owner—an elder who’s busy watering his plants to notices a student walking past him—and walks down the front door. He fishes out his keys and opens the door to his family flat. Silence and darkness are what greets him. The other resident of the flat doesn’t bother to turn on the light when the sun’s out. Jihoon gropes at the wall and flicks the light switch, illuminating the narrow corridor connected to the small living room and kitchen. The teen continues his evening routine; park his shoes, shrug off his blazer, wash his hands, and check the refrigerator for dinner. The inside is sparse—Jihoon makes a mental note to call his uncle tonight—spotting only four eggs, carrots, garlic, two cans of tuna, and a plastic box filled with kimchi. Jihoon mulls it over for a moment before deciding to make kimchi fried rice.

Ten minutes later, a spicy and savory scent wafts through the living room. By habit, Jihoon takes out two plates, dividing the same amount of portion into each. He lets his own plate sit on the kitchen bar while he serves the other plate with a glass of water on a tray. The teen brings it in front of a room and waits. Still as a statue, he stands, staring hard at the wooden door like a puzzle to solve. His hands begin to tremble, white knuckles grip each side of the tray. Breathe in, breathe out, Jihoon heaves slowly and counts to ten before finally pushing the door open.

It’s a sight Jihoon has witnessed a thousand times over; his mother leaning against the window by the bed, peering through the glass and beyond the rail outside. Her smooth black hair is loose, falling over her shoulders, framing an outline of her thin, fragile body. She hasn’t taken Jihoon's advice to shower either, judging from the blue pajamas he helped her wear three days ago. The teen sighs quietly and moves closer to the bed, eyeing the opened sleeping pills and antidepressants scattered on the nightstand. 

“Eat,” Jihoon says firmly, pushing the tray toward his mother. Yet there’s no movement, no change of expression, no recognition that her own child has come home and cooked dinner. The woman’s eyes are dull, blank, as if no soul is residing in there, only meat and bones hanging by a thin line like a puppet. 

The same old dread looms over Jihoon’s mind. Abandoned. Useless. Alone. “Mom,” he croaks out, desperation strains his throat dry. But just as earlier—-and a million times before—there’s no response. Her attention is somewhere else outside the window, out of the world, just as her heart, her sanity, her love for her child; they’re all gone.

Jihoon can’t take it anymore, he always thought he’d get used to seeing her mother like this eventually but no, the day never comes. It still fucking hurts. His vision starts to blur, so Jihoon hurriedly lays the tray down by the foot of the bed and crosses the room to leave.

“Has he come back yet?”

A weak voice pulls Jihoon back, freezing the teen by the door. He almost doesn’t recognize it. She sounds so different from years ago, from those nights she read him a bedtime story. Then, she was soothing and spirited. Now, she sounds—broken. 

Jihoon faces the woman who still hasn’t moved an inch from her spot, eyes glued to the window, rain trickling down the glass. “No, he hasn’t,” he answers her earlier question, “And he won’t. So, stop waiting—”

“He will, Jihoon-ah,” the woman finally turns her head, blank eyes in contrast with her gentle smile, “He’ll fly us out of here and we can be happy together again.”

The door slams closed. Jihoon runs outside into the streets and screams, challenging the thunder.

-

The rain soaks Jihoon to the bone. His red hair flops and sticky, disheveled across his forehead, dripping water down his grim face. The wind is unforgiving too, chilling every inch of his body, making his legs walk a bit faster, past faceless pedestrians and speeding cars. But even under such harsh weather, Jihoon still prefers being drenched from head to toe than going back home. Just recalling the cold abyss inside her mother’s eyes as she stared at Jihoon, spouting lies after lies after lies, as if he’s still a child clinging to fairy tales and powers beyond this world that will magically fix his mother and bring home father.

In an instant, all energy leaves Jihoon’s body. He kneels at where he stood—wherever the fuck his legs took him, no real destination came to his mind—burying his head into his arms. Breathe in, breathe out, Jihoon heaves slowly and counts to ten. When it doesn’t calm his nerves, he counts to thirty. Fifty. A hundred. All the while the rain keeps on pouring. The thunder may come and go—streaks of light piercing through gray clouds—but the rain is consistent, coming down without mercy.

Until it stops. Suddenly, there’s no more pouring needles against his freezing skin. The drumming sound is still there, a foot away, but not the feeling. Jihoon slowly raises his head and is met with a familiar teen. It’s already night time and there's only one street light near where he is. But even with little light shedding half of his bruised face, Jihoon can still recognize the pair of sharp eyes, wavy black hair, and a permanent scowl. 

“Hey, asshole,” Hyunsuk greets him, holding an umbrella between the soaked boy and himself. “You make a habit of sitting in the fucking rain?”

Jihoon blinks dumbly, thinking the other is an illusion from him dying of hypothermia before Hyunsuk loses his patience and kicks him in his right leg, making the redhead shifts out of balance and falls on his butt. “Ya!” Jihoon calls out, glaring at the retreating back of Hyunsuk, walking away uncared. The shorter teen abruptly stops after a couple of meters, throwing one last lazy look at Jihoon, before heading inside a building. 

“Fucker,” as Jihoon stands up, unknowingly recovering from the earlier meltdown in exchange for stalking Hyunsuk down the street in petty curiosity. Turns out, the teen has entered a convenience store; its white neon lights burn bright lighting up the dark, deserted street of the district. Jihoon immediately catches Hyunsuk’s blurry figure past the frosted window glasses, taking a seat on the vacant stool facing outside. The drenched redhead walks in without hesitation, ignoring the cheery greeting from the staff behind the cashier, and stomps over toward the petite teen who apparently is having ‘dinner’.

“Since when do rich kids eat a fucking instant cup noodle?”

Hyunsuk doesn’t budge at Jihoon’s goading, only rolling his eyes while checking the steamy cup in front of him if it’s ready. The minimal response kind of wants Jihoon to throw the cup outside just in spite but a jolting shiver running through his spine represses the idea promptly. He’s reminded of drenched clothes and how biting the indoor AC is to his freezing body.

“Gonna fucking stand there all night?” Hyunsuk quips, slurping his first bite while throwing the most unimpressed, dead-fish look at Jihoon, the latter is tempted to test his earlier idea of sabotaging the cup. But Jihoon is physically tired and emotionally drained so he settles with a, “Fuck you,” before slumping two stools apart from the other.

There is peace at first, believe it or not, between the troublemakers. Only the sound of the steady tapping of rain outside exchanges along with the soft tune of the store’s jingle playing on loop in the background. The cashier staff is glued to his phone, uncared of the two teens a few feet away. One of them though is gradually sick of the absence of loud noise that does nothing to mute the voices and hours-old memories inside his head. So Jihoon does what he does best; be an asshole.

“Is the cheap-ass noodle to your liking, Your Majesty?”

Hyunsuk groans tiredly, glaring at Jihoon between his slurps.

“What? We all know your family is loaded enough to buy this fucking store so why bother coming here in this shit weather? Waiting for daddy to pick you up?”

“Do you ever shut the fuck up, asshole?” Hyunsuk finally snarls back. “You’re producing noise pollution at this point.”

Jihoon smirks, “Eh, part of my charm, girls love it—”

“And let me guess, guys hate it.”

“Objection Your Honor, not all guys are straight.”

“Overruled, even the gays at school think you’re fucking annoying.”

“How the fuck would you know?”

“‘Cause I’m one of them? Duh.”

The revelation raises Jihoon’s eyebrows. Not that the teen personally cares about someone’s sexuality; he’s an asshole, not a homophobic. But it’ll be a lie if the knowledge doesn’t throw the redhead out of the loop, making him pause in his banter to assess the weird curl in his stomach and his own preference. He always assumes he’s straight, not that he ever dated girls or anything, it’s just a universal fact that society makes boys like him believe. So is he?

Unknown to Jihoon, from Hyunsuk’s perspective, the abrupt silence coming from the school’s number one jackass who’s known for his inability to stop yapping is very horrifying, especially knowing the possibility that he’ll spread the information to the whole town. After mentally cursing his idiotic self, Hyunsuk tries to finish the cup in one big gulp though he quickly finds himself failing and choking on the soup.

Catching the petite teen choking in his misery pulls Jihoon out of his mullings and back to his sadistic streak. Like any dickhead, he offers no help but cackles at the other’s face. “What the fuck you’re tryin’ to do, stupid!” Jihoon’s laughter puts a crack in the tension hanging in the air, he even tries to pat Hyunsuk’s back when the latter doesn’t show any sign of stopping though the hand is quickly swatted like a fly. 

Seconds later, Hyunsuk finally calms down, gasping out of breath like he just ran a marathon. The giggles inside Jihoon too die, leaving once again a hollow inside the chest, an emptiness pang heavy and hurt, reminding him once again of what’s waiting at home.

“What about you?”

Hyunsuk’s question catches him by surprise. Jihoon levels a solemn look at the other teen through their reflection on the frosted glass. 

“What are you doing here?” Hyunsuk asks.

“Your eyes ain’t working anymore, midget?”

“Maybe it’s your brain that isn't working, jackass. Only a moron would sit in the fucking rain.”

Jihoon sneers, “Maybe. Still ain’t your business.”

“You’re homeless or something?”

Jihoon bursts out laughing so loud, so tickling, he folds forward trying to hold himself together or he’ll pass out. Even the unbothered staff behind the cashier abandons his phone for a minute to sneak a glance at the loud troublemaker. Hyunsuk, on the other hand, looks strangely concerned.

“Damn, midget,” Jihoon says, after getting enough breath to form a full sentence, “I know you’re a fucking menace but cut us poor people some slack, would you? Just because we don't got a four-story mansion like you doesn’t mean we’re sleeping next to the garbage cans.”

“That’s not what I—”

“Yeah, yeah, I got a home, don’t you worry your little head—”

“Who the fuck says I’m worried—”

“But home sucks, though,” Jihoon says without any bite, more dejected, watching the sadness in his own face through reflection. Next to him, Hyunsuk becomes silent too. The redhead notices how Hyunsuk’s signature scowl loosens, thinning into a somber look. Eyes gazing outside and upward, a gleam of hope reflected on them, as if waiting for the rain to lift and bring out the sun. And for a moment, Jihoon can’t help but wish the same.

Foolish children, they are, since it is night and no sun can help them escape the reality they’re in.

A flicker of light catches Jihoon’s attention. The teen peers through the glass to see a black sedan driving through the downpour before parking right outside the convenience store. A tall man in a black suit walks out from the passenger’s seat, holding an umbrella with the same bleak color as the rest of him. Jihoon hears a sharp inhale of breath coming from the teen next to him and that’s when he notices the change in Hyunsuk’s demeanor; his face loses its color, leaving the purple and blue of the bruises. His eyes widen in terror as if the fucking slenderman itself is the one picking him up. There's a slight tremor in his hands too, cleaning up the remaining of his noodle cup before standing up, ready to leave.

Later Jihoon would blame it on his instinct when he snatches Hyunsuk’s surprisingly thin wrist as the teen walks past him in a hurry. “Hey!” Jihoon manages to bring Hyunsuk out of his strange daze, unfocused eyes meet Jihoon’s sharp ones. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Hyunsuk’s mouth trembles, either for cold or any other reason, Jihoon doesn’t know, but he takes a glance at the man outside again and finds how he’s watching both teens with hawk-like eyes. Not fucking creepy at all.

“That’s—that’s your bodyguard, right? Not, like, a fucking kidnapper or some shit,” Jihoon mutters under his breath, already feeling paranoid that maybe the creepy man can hear through concrete walls too. 

A quiet giggle breaks the tension building in Jihoon’s body. Hyunsuk shoves Jihoon away lightly, taking back his arm and putting a distance between them. “Idiot.” Jihoon hears, being uttered out of Hyunsuk’s mouth faintly, but he can’t be sure since he’s distracted by what looks like a smile forming across Hyunsuk’s face. The smile is small, tight, like it physically hurts him to do it—maybe the wound inside his mouth is still bleeding—but it’s a smile nonetheless coming from the so-called cool, hard-headed punk from Class A. Receiving it simultaneously warms Jihoon’s chest and freezes his legs on the spot; too shocked to do anything but watch the petite teen turn around and run out into the rain. 

Through the glass, Jihoon sees a blurry silhouette of Hyunsuk being ushered into the backseat of the car by the man in a black suit. The sedan soon drives away, leaving Jihoon sitting alone, pondering about the things Hyunsuk left behind; a tinge of warmth inside his cold body and an umbrella for Jihoon to go home.

-

It’s minutes before midnight when Jihoon returns to the dark, depressing corridor of his flat. He doesn’t bother to turn on the light this time, walking in pitch-black by memory alone toward the bathroom. After a shower, he changes into fresh clothes and eats his cold dinner in the living room. When the rest of the chores are done, Jihoon goes straight to his room to dive head-first into dreamland where no one can disturb him.

Of course, this is where Jihoon’s wrong. The void that's waiting for him after he steps into slumber isn’t empty, there is something sinister inside. He dreams of treading through a curtain of fog until the air gets clearer and he’s greeted by another suppressed memory.

It shows an eight-year-old Jihoon in the middle of their living room, dragging line after line with crayons across an opened notebook. Little Jihoon hummed a happy tune, probably too deep in his imagination of drawing flying boys and pirates with the flick of his chubby fingers to notice the voices of his parents spilling into the living room. Gradually, not even walls could muffle the wrath of a father. The bedroom door slammed open, snapping little Jihoon’s head toward the loud sound to find a heartbroken scene of his crying mother, begging her husband by his legs to not go. Her brittle hands clawed on his cotton pants, leaving streaks of white lines, and yet her husband was unmoved, both heart and body. 

Jihoon’s father was a firm man, ever sure in his decisions including the part where he decided to abandon familyhood for freedom; free from all the shackles of marriage, free to explore the world as a man once more. He had things to do, people to meet, plans to fulfill, a busy man indeed with no room for little Jihoon who only wanted crayons and parental love. 

As the father pushed the mother aside and made way for the front door, little Jihoon broke the crayon in half from clenching it too tight. How fitting, the older Jihoon thought, nothing ever remains whole in his life; neither his family nor his beloved crayon.

The next time Jihoon opens his eyes, he finds his cheeks wet and everything hurts.

-

Tuesday rolls in like any other. Aside from the awful walks through memory lane Jihoon experienced in his sleep, the morning comes no different than yesterday. 

Jihoon cooks a breakfast for his mother and none for himself considering the sparsity of the ingredients. He leaves it on her night stand, swapping the remaining last night’s fried rice with warm kimchi pancakes. He completes the set with a bottle of water before taking a good look at his sleeping mother. She’s bundled up in a cocoon of blankets, her back facing the teen. He wonders what her dreams are. Are they episodes of happy memories, or haunting of the horrible ones? There’s a string of apologies sitting at the tip of Jihoon’s tongue, excusing himself for yesterday’s outburst, but not now. She’s deep in her dreams, whatever they are. Later in the evening, then. Jihoon closes the door quietly and leaves for school.

Jihoon manages to survive until lunch break before he remembers the class after it is math. He cringes just imagining the boring ass lesson he has to fake interest in so he drags Junkyu and Jaehyuk behind the gym building to skip the class. On the way there, Jihoon catches Hyunsuk’s petite figure in the distance. On his tail are two other students from Class A whom Jihoon doesn’t bother to remember the names of. But by how they walk in the opposite direction of the main building, Jihoon safely guesses they aren’t enthusiastic about their next class either.

“Anyone find out which gang Hyunsuk beat up yesterday?” Junkyu suddenly brings up the topic, eyes following the other three students taking a turn and disappearing from their line of sight.

“Only heard rumors here and there,” Jaehyuk shrugs. “Said it was Junghwan’s.” 

“No way, for real?!” Junkyu’s eyes bulge comically big, it's a wonder they don’t fall out.

Jihoon nudges Jaehyuk’s shoulders, giving him a questioning look. “Who the hell is Junghwan?” 

“Only the strongest freshman in town, you don’t know?”

Jihoon shakes his head. 

Junkyu snickers amused. “Come on, Jihoonie! His school is only, like, 10 minutes away from us. Has this big tennis field, too! Said they only open for students with outstanding athletics records, though.”

Jaehyuk nods. “Junghwan is definitely one of them. Rumors said he’s a captain of the tennis team in middle school and led the team to the national championship.”

“Wait, if he’s a rising athlete, isn’t the school gonna punish him for getting into fights?”

“Nah, the school doesn't care as long as the students win their games.”

“That’s fucked up,” Jihoon scoffs, already picturing this Junghwan as a tall, gorilla-sized student on steroids. How the hell did one short-ass, thin-as-rake Choi Hyunsuk manage to beat him to submission, now that’s the billion-won question.

“But rumors also said Junghwan is not one to pick a fight,” Jaehyuk adds. “The girls in our class are all over him, y’know? Said he was kind and calm in person. Some even called him shy.”

“You’re shitting me!” Junkyu laughs out loud, joined by his other two friends. The afternoon breeze passes by, Jihoon feels a sudden chill reminiscent of last night, after being soaked in the rain. The muscles around his shoulders and back feel a bit tense too, like the aftermath of sitting straight for hours. 

“Jihoon-ah?”

“You’re okay, man?”

Jihoon stretches his whole body upward then left to right, trying to loosen the tight muscles. He groans under his breath when his body immediately feels a bit lighter. “Nothing, it’s just my back. Fucking cramp.”

Junkyu snickers, “What, you turned into a geezer now?”

Safe to say the teachers locate the three troublemakers in no time, thanks to Junkyu’s ear-splitting screech.

-

Jihoon calls his uncle the second he gets back home. It’s thanks to the generosity of his uncle that the teen and the sickly mother are fed. He transfers enough money to last a few weeks—sometimes even sends a package of fresh groceries—and Jihoon has promised him a million times to pay him back after he graduates high school and lands a job. And every time, the kind-hearted uncle only replies with a hearty laugh and a reminder to take good care of his mother.

I will, Jihoon replies in his heart, I promise, as he serves another warm dinner for the woman inside the bedroom. Tonight it’s bibimpap; piping hot white rice over vegetables and egg. There’s no meat in the fridge so he compensates for the lack of beef with a bigger portion of sauteed vegetables; cucumbers, soybeans, mushrooms, and such. He’s confident about the taste, he tried it earlier and it’s good. So good, maybe it’ll make his mother come out of her sorrow and praise him this time.

Standing in front of her room, Jihoon practices saying the apology that’s been poking at the back of his mind since morning. He straightens his posture, inhales, and counts to ten.

“Mom, about yesterday—” Jihoon stops in his tracks, back pushing the door open. He studies the cocoon of blankets identical to the one he saw in the morning. Too much alike in fact as if there weren’t any movement to disrupt the fold of the fabric, the wrinkles of the sheet, the change in her sleeping pose, her back is still facing the teen. 

A chilling realization dawns on Jihoon, widening his eyes in absolute horror. His fingers go numb, dropping the tray filled with a warm bowl and cup of water, shattered on the floor. There’s ringing inside his ears, a hammering heart inside his ribs. It’s a miracle Jihoon manages to cross over the room when the teen doesn’t know how to move his legs. It seems the body goes auto-pilot, a shaking hand reaching for the blanket and peeling it off his mother.

Or what’s left of her, to be precise.

Jihoon has never seen that bluish color on anyone’s skin. It doesn’t belong to the living, it certainly doesn’t belong to his mother. Mother's skin was supposed to be fair, blushing pink across her cheeks and nose. But now she isn’t. The pink is replaced by the tint of blue. Jihoon finds his mother lying on her side pale, silent, lifeless.

Jihoon is one apology too late to regret for the rest of his pathetic, miserable life.

-

The tears aren’t stopping. 

Throughout the three-day funeral, Jihoon is constantly stuffing his face with a hand towel or tissues or any piece of cloth his uncle brings him because his tears aren’t stopping. It pours, like the rain the night when he slammed the door on his mother, the tears keep pouring, a trickling drizzle into a heavy downpour. He cries when the coroner reports the death caused by an overdose of pills. He cries at every guest giving condolences to him. He cries when the procession is over and it’s time for the cremation.

Jihoon cries as his uncle hands him the ceramic jar filled with his mother’s ashes. The remaining guests shoot him with pitiful looks; the poor orphan teen who’s ditched by his father and left by his mother, clinging desperately to the last proof of a family he once had even if it is in the form of ashes. Scattered, fleeting, and never solid.

“He’ll fly us out of here and we can be happy together again.”

Jihoon ignores the tears, the snot, all the eyes and whispers at his back, he hugs the jar tight and tunes out, spirited away to somewhere peaceful and quiet in the corner of his mind so he can listen to the calming echo of his mother’s voice, even if it’s a lie.

-

A light bulb flickers above Jihoon’s head, on and off, on and off. The dazed teen has been standing in the dark corridor of his flat for ten minutes unmoving. A jar is held tight in one hand, a bag stuffed with packaged food and envelopes in another. Earlier, his uncle offered a home to stay for a few days after the funeral but Jihoon rejected it. He isn’t scared or superstitious. He doesn’t believe any ghost will reside in his mother’s bedroom or any dusted corner of this rundown flat. Because it’s not the house that is haunted, it’s Jihoon’s own head.

Even on the way home, being driven back by Uncle and his family, Jihoon feels a heavy weight on his back, as if something is there, perched by his shoulders, clawing at the skin under the funeral suit. The weight follows until the teen arrives home and now, standing alone under dim quivering lights. 

Jihoon shakes the ominous feeling away to think logically. This week so far has been filled with rain and tragedy, maybe it explains the tension and pressure on his back. After a quick stretch, Jihoon places the ceramic jar next to the living room window. The moon is out, cascading light over the smooth surface. Jihoon gives it a caress and one last longing look, before stepping back and starting to tidy up the mess around the apartment. 

-

Sleep, afterward, doesn’t come easy. 

Jihoon is restless, tossing and turning in his bed with a pinched expression, beads of sweat running down his face, his neck, his whole body, drenching his cloth and sheet underneath. He gasps awake, jolted into a sitting position. The world around him instantly spins, everything is seen as a blur, Jihoon tries to shake the drowsiness away but begins to notice the throbbing around his sweat-drenched back. 

He feels the muscles are strained, like a rope in a tug of war, they’re being pulled from two different directions, close to being snapped in two. Jihoon gropes under his tees to massage the stressed back, only to feel two bumps near his spine. The teen freezes in shock, wondering if he’s hallucinating at the crack of dawn or if his bones are truly poking out of his skin. In the next second, Jihoon leaps out of the bed, takes off his top, and slams open the bathroom. When he turns on the light, what lies in front of his eyes is enough for him to question reality.

There is a pair of bones growing out of the surface of his skin—clean, without any blood or bleeding wounds—branching from what he speculates is a scapula or shoulder blade, the bone that connects the upper arm bone and the collar bone. The newly formed bones follow the movement when Jihoon tries to roll his shoulders, noting the ache and stiffness around the pair. “What the fuck,” the teen gapes in both eerie and awe, examining how the pair of bones has the diameter of his wrist but short in length. Around 10-12 centimeters, he deduces. But the bones aren’t the only thing that piques his curiosity. 

Squinting closer, his eyes spot rows of feathers; its solid spine in the middle is attached to the bigger bone. The feathers are dangling along the surface, swaying along as Jihoon shifts and turns. The baffled teen wants to laugh and cry at the same time, “What the fuck is happening.” Is he being pranked by the universe itself? Is the devastating loss of the only family he had not enough to warrant peace for at least the rest of the week? He doesn’t expect a justified explanation about how shitty his life is but fucking hell, not a radio silence either!

In the end, Jihoon doesn’t get a wink of sleep after the abrupt awakening. It’s Friday, still a school day. He was absent for a total of three days because of the funeral, his uncle was the responsible adult who called Class B’s homeroom teacher for it. The sleep-deprived teen considers skipping the day altogether but staying inside all day, alone, surrounded by the doom and gloom and unanswered questions seems miserable, as if Jihoon hasn't felt enough of that in the past few days.

So when his alarm rings, the redhead dismisses it and prepares to go to school. His uniform stretches a bit tight, thanks to the newly formed pair of bones, but he ignores it and layers it with the biggest hoodie he has, hoping it hides the bump from bulging out too much. 

-

To quote a certain petite delinquent, if ‘the school’s number one jackass who’s known for his inability to stop yapping’ one day does stop yapping, then maybe it’s a sign it’s going to be raining pigs, chocolates, and fifty thousand won.

But not today. It seems Class B students have enough empathy for even a seasoned troublemaker like Park Jihoon. When the teen walks into class without the usual loud mouth and petty curses—puffy eyes, tight lips, head hanging low—the rest of the class doesn't comment on it. They don’t turn it into gossip or topics in chat rooms. Their eyes may linger a moment on the red-haired student sitting in the back row but after, they just return to whatever they’re doing before. The only classmates who can approach Jihoon are Junkyu and Jaehyuk, so the others shall mind their own business, giving space and time for the grieving.

After all, they understand; how do you even recover after losing a mother?

-

“Jihoon-ah—”

“I’m going first,” Jihoon cuts Junkyu off, standing up from his seat the second the school bell rings. He pretends he doesn’t see Jaehyuk’s concerned look from one desk away, and is out of the class before any students.

It’s not like Jihoon actively avoids his friends, but the ache across his back is multiplying as minutes go by. The slow stretch of the muscle is starting to get unbearable, the teen has to lean against a wall to steady himself or he’s going to find himself collapsing on the ground. Sweats start forming across his forehead. On wobbling legs, Jihoon goes down the stairs to the first floor. And just his luck, to bumps into Hyunsuk as soon as he arrives. 

Hyunsuk gives him a once over, an expectant frown appearing in the next second. 

A sharp spike of pain shoots a pained groan out of Jihoon. His wobbling legs give out, sinking the teen to his knees. “Fuck,” he hears Hyunsuk cursing above him. There might be smaller hands shaking his shoulders, trying to get his attention, but Jihoon can’t be sure. The throbbing ache numbs his senses. In the center of it are a pair of bones. This time, he can feel it growing longer. The growth is akin to the slither of a snake; a lagging slide of a cylinder bursting out through the same gap of skin. But the process seems to fuck up the connecting muscles resulting in every inch of his back screaming in pain.

Jihoon needs to get away, as soon as possible, or he’ll be a circus freak for the whole school to look at.

“—Can you hear me, asshole?! What’s wrong—”

“I need to go to the bathroom,” Jihoon pants, out of breath.

Hyunsuk blinks owlishly. “You… need to shit?”

An exasperated growl slips out of Jihoon, stupid fucking midget, the redhead pushes the shorter delinquent out of the way and tries to crawl through the hallway. He doesn’t get very far before his arm is snatched and slung over someone’s shoulders. Hyunsuk drags a limping Jihoon to the men’s bathroom and locks the door. Thankfully, there’s no one inside. Though even if there is, Jihoon doesn’t give a single shit about it as he takes off both his hoodie and shirt to free the growing bones.

A gasp of breath coming from behind him reminds Jihoon of Hyunsuk’s presence in the room. But who cares, as the redhead steadies himself at the sink, shutting his lids and gritting his teeth to hold down the pain. 

It’s a slow torture, time passes too leisurely to Jihoon’s agony. But gradually, the burning ache dies down. Bit by bit, the tension between the muscles eases up. He feels a little lighter around the shoulders and back, inhaling a big breath of air to expand the constricted lungs. 

“Is that…”

Hyunsuk’s wavering voice shifts Jihoon’s attention; the petite student looks rattled, pointing a finger at Jihoon.

“—Is that fucking wings?”

What , Jihoon’s thought process is cut short because the second he opens his eyes, there’s truly a pair of wings growing out of his back. The sink mirror may be cracked and dusted but the reflection doesn’t lie; the bones and feathers have indeed revealed its true form. As felt before, the spine of the wings has grown, showing off layers of shimmering white feathers. Each tip of the spine, if spread out, is three inches wider from Jihoon’s shoulders. In terms of body proportion, the wings themselves are small. The bottom row of feathers barely aligns with his elbows. Jihoon can’t help to draw similarities to a chicken, having useless flaps of feathers only for decoration. 

Maybe Hyunsuk is right all along, he is a fucking chicken. Hell, maybe tomorrow he’ll start clucking for real.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The banging of a door is followed by an angry yell from outside, “Open up! Someone needs to pee here!”

“Search for a tree then, you fucking dogs!” Jihoon snaps back which doesn’t help his situation at all since the banging becomes more insistent and louder than before. 

“We need to go.”

Jihoon realizes that Hyunsuk has moved to the window next to the last stall. He slides open the shutter and effortlessly wiggles his petite figure through it. “Hurry, jackass!” He barks when he’s outside and the redhead is still glued to the spot, mesmerized by how lean the other student is. Can probably circle that waist with my own two hands, Jihoon’s dumb mind helpfully supplies as if the hypothesis can help their cornered situation at the moment.

After much awkward squirming and bumping his head a few times on the window, Jihoon too managed to leap out of the bathroom and into the backyard of the main building. 

Now the wings are out in the open, Jihoon really needs to be off the school grounds. Drawing attention is the last thing he wants. So he quickly stuffs his clothes into the bag and looks for a gate among the towering school walls. Hyunsuk spots it first, running toward it with the other teen close behind. The gate is locked but the guard is nowhere to be seen, so the delinquents climb and jump over it. But as soon as their shoes touch the asphalt ground, passing pedestrians already have eyes on Jihoon. Specifically, his chicken wings.

“Wow, what’s that on his back?”

“Cosplay?”

“Is there an anime convention nearby?”

Whispers upon whispers stack up, as more and more pedestrians stop and stare at the half-naked winged teen like some kind of street magician. Cornered like a rabid dog, Jihoon is ready to claw at their fucking faces when he feels a tug of a wrist.

“I know a place,” Hyunsuk utters under his breath, wary eyes sweeping the growing crowd, “Less people there. Come on,” before he drags Jihoon by the arm, sidestepping a few pedestrians and running toward one direction of the street. 

Why Jihoon doesn’t just run back to his apartment, is something that didn’t cross his mind right then. What does though is the small back of a student leading at the front; one arm reaches back and holds a steady grip around his bigger wrist. Through the touch, Jihoon notes how Hyunsuk’s hand is warm and smooth, free of calluses and blemishes. 

He can’t help but wonder how such soft hands win gang fights.

-

Hyunsuk brings Jihoon to a deserted park in the upper part of the suburb. It takes a few minutes of an uphill climb, past rows of two-story houses, before trailing along the outskirts of an urban forest to get here. The thick bushes open up to a clearing located on the edge of a hill. The panoramic view of the suburb and distant city lies in front basked by the sunset light. The sight manages to steal Jihoon’s breath away, utterly in disbelief at how he didn’t even know this spot existed before. The redhead rests against the railing, content with the beauty and calm after the storm.

A creak of a swing perks his ear. Out of the corner of his eyes, Jihoon sees Hyunsuk sitting on an old swing around, dangled on a tree branch. It’s a lone oak tree, standing tall and proud in the middle of the park. Its branches span long and wide, giving webs of shades against the sun. Someone in the past must’ve had an eureka moment under the tree, utilizing one of the thicker branches to make a swing fit for children or teens, such as Hyunsuk.

A flap of wings startles Jihoon, averting his focus from the other teen to this alien shit growing on his back. Do the wings flap whenever Jihoon’s muscles twitch? He’s so clueless when it comes to the biology of wings but he guesses, who doesn’t?

“Does it hurt?” Hyunsuk asks.

“What? When I fell from heaven?”

It takes a few seconds for Hyunsuk to process Jihoon’s answer before pouting. “This is the last time I’m being nice to you,” he mumbles, glaring at the snickering asshole. “Are those things even real?”

“Judge it on your own,” Jihoon shrugs, before turning around, giving Hyunsuk a full view of the wings. The white feathers glimmer prettily under the light as the spine continuously flaps in a sluggish manner. Jihoon snorts the way Hyunsuk gawks at it. “Don’t ask how I got ‘em since I have no fucking clue either.”

“So what, they just grow out your back? Since when?”

“Since last night, after—” The pale face of his mother flashes before Jihoon’s eyes. All at once, everything comes crashing down like waves against the rocks, eroding the fragile calm in the quiet evening, inch by inch, until it leaves nothing but pure, untethered grief, causing the sudden shortage of oxygen in his lungs, a pang of guilt in his chest because how dare him, how can he breathe and eat and jokes around when the last thing he gave to his mother was a slamming of a door.

“Fuck,” Jihoon cusses, head hanging low over the railing as he tries to calm down, tries to push down the shame, the regret, it’ll haunt him for the rest of his life, sure, but not now, let me have peace for one fucking second, please—

“I’m sorry.”

A droplet of tears spills without Jihoon even knowing. 

“...For your loss,” Hyunsuk murmurs, gazing at the shadow beneath his feet, giving as much privacy as he can to the weeping student. Jihoon refuses to sob pathetically like a little bitch so he bites down his lips until it draws blood and rubs his leaking eyes until the skin around is raw and red.

“I heard it from the students in my class,” Hyunsuk adds as if the knowledge is important for Jihoon right now. He concludes in much frustration that the short-ass student really needs to learn to shut the fuck up and let him wallow alone in misery.

The silence that follows stretches uncomfortably long, opposite to the short tranquility before. Both teens withdraw to their own heads, their own mulling and problems weigh two-ton on their brittle shoulders. What shatters the thick silence, however, is a ringtone, vibrating from Hyunsuk’s pocket. 

For a moment, the ringing manages to ground Jihoon back out of spiraling despair. He turns just in time to see the change in Hyunsuk’s expression after checking the caller ID. He’s scared , there’s no doubt about it. His jaw tenses, eyes shake and unfocused, lips press into a thin line, and the most obvious tell is how he doesn’t pick up the call.

When the ring finally stops, Hyunsuk sneakily lets out a quiet breath of relief. The action doesn’t escape Jihoon’s observation, of course, but the relief is short-lived. Another call comes through, and by the agitated look Hyunsuk wears, the caller is the same as before. He sits on it for a couple of rings before finally answering.

“Yeah.” Hyunsuk pauses, letting the other end of the line speak before shaking his head. “No. No, I’m not—uh.” He sounds hesitant, another new emotion from the supposedly stoic delinquent Jihoon saves in the back of his mind. Hyunsuk then goes quiet for a minute, caving into other speakers. “Sure, I’ll wait in the usual place,” he says before hanging up.

“‘Wait in the usual place’? You have a fight date or something?” It’s probably ingrained in Jihoon’s DNA to be a nosy piece of shit when it comes to Hyunsuk. Can’t help it, though, so far the teen has proven to be more of what the rumors described him to be. More interesting? More empathetic? More warm to touch and possibly, leaner to hold? But Hyunsuk brushes off Jihoon’s question and has stepped down from the swing, ever so ready to leave. 

Suddenly, Jihoon can’t have that. He can’t have Hyunsuk leave for reasons unknown to himself. All he knows is that there’s a burst of air rushing from behind, pushing his body forward and making his steps feathery-light when he crosses the distance between him and Hyunsuk at record speed. The redhead doesn’t realize what the heck just happened until he finds himself face-to-face with a startled Hyunsuk. 

“Jihoon-ah?” Still shaken up, Hyunsuk blurts out his name for the first time ever, and it’s soft and delicate to the ears and suddenly, it’s Jihoon’s turn to be rendered speechless. Is this really the punk that beats people out of boredom? 

“Y’know, I’m sure Junghwan and his posse can wait until next week,” says Jihoon before realizing how close he is to the shorter teen. So close in fact, he can tell how Hyunsuk’s eyes shine brown under the setting sun, how pouty his bottom lips, how his bruises from early this week are on their way to fully healed. The swelling under his cheekbones has deflated, leaving the skin around in faded purple. Surely there is no urgent reason to add more. 

Hyunsuk frowns, looking up at Jihoon. “I don’t understand—”

“Come on, midget, don’t play dumb. The hospital bills are getting pricier, y’know? I mean, I know you’re loaded and shit, but you really should’ve considered postponing your fight date more often.”

Hyunsuk doesn’t say anything in response, simply watches the taller teen with a pensive expression. Jihoon can’t make anything out of it. Hyunsuk then takes a step back and flashes Jihoon the same damn smile he once gave under a bright convenience store light, the smile that melts ice and warms heart.

“You’re so weird, you know that?” Hyunsuk smiles a little wider, a little chirpier than that fated Monday night before finally turns around and walks away.

On the grassy mound where he stands, Jihoon catches a glimpse of the deformed shape of his shadow; the shape of a familiar body merges with foreign wings, fluttering along the ebb and flow of the evening wind before stopping altogether the second Hyunsuk is out of sight.

-

Weekend gives Jihoon much to do, much more to think. 

After sending morning prayers in front of Mother's jar, Jihoon does the one thing smart people do after the first symptom of sickness; ask Google. Surely someone out in some corner of the Earth has experienced the bizarre case of growing a goddamn wing, right? The answer is, unfortunately, no. After the teen has wasted three hours to find no similar case in every forum he can access with a poor internet signal, Jihoon locks his phone, punches a pillow, and makes lunch. 

He ends up preparing a simple soybean sprout soup with a warm bowl of rice and a side of kimchi. The teen hasn’t had a chance to do his grocery. Maybe later this afternoon, Jihoon makes a mental note that hopefully, this time, he would remember. As he eats his lunch in the living room surrounded by walls and furnitures holding wistful scenes of the past—a TV they used to watch, a sofa they used to sit on, a kitchen she used to cook—Jihoon can’t help but brood over the never-ending series of unfortunate events in his life. When is the happy ending, he wonders. Just like every bedtime story, when will this sad chapter end and introduce a new, happier one?

“Ah, what was it about again,” Jihoon murmurs absent-mindedly, gazing beyond the half-eaten bowl on the table to recollect a grand adventure his mother often retold. The cast is one boy, one girl, a group of children, and an army of pirates. Their names are still lost to him, but as Jihoon finishes up his lunch, washes his laundry, cleans the flat, the nameless characters fade into the back of his mind once more.

-

Jihoon has found—after an hour of posing like The Thinker in the toilet—that there will be no better cover-up lie about his wings than cosplay. 

In his defense, the teen has no choice. Now the wings are too big for any piece of cloth to hide them. So he resorts to cutting holes in his tees just to fit the damn thing and let the wings hang loose. It’s either sacrificing his tees or strolling down the street half-naked again. He just wants to get some groceries, honestly. So when a starry-eyed girl—seemingly mesmerized by the white, shimmering feathers on his back—approaches the red-haired teen in front of the supermarket, he’s ready with the best answer ever for nosy people; “Angemon.”

The girl, understandably, is confused. “Uh, what?”

“I’m cosplaying as Angemon.”

“You mean the Digimon who has six wings?” 

“Yup.”

“But you have only two.”

“My chickens are out of feathers for the other four,” before stalking away, smirking smugly at the horrified expression of the girl. Better scram before she calls animal protection on me, Jihoon snorts to himself as he turns around the corner and into an alley. 

It leads him into another busy district that brings him a sense of deja vu. He’s been here before, and quite recently. When he decides to chase that familiar feeling by walking along the pavement, the answer finally dawns on him. This is the same road that led him to the deserted park where the big oak tree stands rooted, where the city view is breathtaking, where Hyunsuk might be; sitting in that old swing with a melancholic expression, pearl-skinned face glowing under evening sun.

The imagery pumps Jihoon’s heart a beat quicker, pinching the inside of his stomach, rushing blood from neck to cheeks to brain and suddenly, the temperature spikes a degree. Is it summer already? While the poor, oblivious teen is having an internal investigation into why his body is acting very strangely, he doesn’t realize for the past fifteen minutes or so he’s been following the exact route Hyunsuk took him yesterday. The realization only dawns on him when Jihoon has passed the only urban forest in the upper part of the suburb. 

Should he proceed or should he turn back, is the crux of the argument in the mental battle he has with, well, his own stubborn self. The battle is cut short, though, by the more dominant part of Jihoon that just want to sit his ass down after all the walking, after fighting housewives over some good fucking cabbages, then more walking while holding a bag of heavy groceries in one hand. How dare he forget the real reason he’s out in the first place. He’s even willing to have one-on-one hand combat with Hyunsuk for the seat of the swing at this point. So, with a newly found confidence, Jihoon marches on through the bushes and trees until he arrives at a familiar clearing only to find the pretty imagery his mind has conjured is realized before his own eyes.

There Hyunsuk is, with his back facing Jihoon, wind between his hair, gazing upon the scenic view under warm shades of swaying tree. Its leaves dance and twirl down toward the grassy ground, though one of them gets tangled in his black wavy hair. There’s a sudden urge to pluck the wild leaf off but Jihoon represses it as quick as it comes and saves it later to analyze along with the quickened heartbeat and other weird-as-shit behavior he’s starting to have. Am I sick, the teen naively ponders, maybe the damn wings transmitted some kind of disease.

With a head full of thoughts, Jihoon shuffles across toward the oak tree, stepping over tiny branches buried under the sea of falling leaves. The crunchy sound alerts Hyunsuk of another presence in the secluded area, and when he turns around, Jihoon stops dead on his feet.

Tears are rolling down the ruined face of Hyunsuk, proving how inaccurate Jihoon’s imagery was earlier.

The smooth, pearl skin is ravaged by blooming red and purple, fresh bruises that weren't even there yesterday. Mirroring the redhead, Hyunsuk also freezes on the spot, one eye-widening in shock because the other one has been rendered useless, squeezed closed under massive swelling. “Jihoon-ah?” Hyunsuk murmurs his name like a call for help with dried blood on his split bottom lip and right then, Jihoon feels anger; red, hot, volcanic, bubbling from the pit of his stomach, turning air into steam, constricting lungs so he can’t breathe, and next thing he knows, he’s down on the ground, choking and clawing at dirt to hold down the burning pain of his wings growing once more.

There’s a familiar sensation of bones bursting out of the gaping skin; branching in length, expanding its spine further, wider, to accommodate a thicker blanket of white feathers. By now, Jihoon is fully aware that the growth is accompanied by pain, yet this time, the pain is smoldering. Every inch of Jihoon’s skin feels fried in hot oil. His mouth hangs open, saliva trickling down his chin, panting heavily for air for he can’t even scream. He can only try to breathe, in fear of losing consciousness. His vision starts to narrow, fuzzy, he sees Hyunsuk’s blurred figure, kneeling in front of him, yelling. But Jihoon can’t hear anything, the sound is dampened, like falling into the sea; a hand reaches but they’re too late as Jihoon sinks down, down, down the deep blue.

-

Deep in Jihoon’s subconsciousness, there’s a teenage girl in a pale blue dress standing in front of a white wooden door. Her back is facing Jihoon so her face is still a mystery.

For a long while, the girl does nothing but be still. Minutes or weeks can pass by but Jihoon isn’t quite sure, time doesn’t exist in the center of the abyss. Until finally, she raises a hand, turning the knob and pushing the door open. The action shines a light on the dark space where it reveals the outdoors; sun shining, birds chirping. The door leads the girl into a second-floor balcony of a house. The girl leans against the white railing, her long flowing hair sways when she jumps excitedly hearing someone’s calling from below.

Ever curious, Jihoon inches closer to the opened door. Peering through, he catches a glimpse of a group of boys around his age playing basketball in a yard next to the house. One boy in particular brings a strange kind of familiarity. He’s downed a green jersey and loose sweats, hiding windswept hair under a cap. The boy beams brightly at the girl, waving at her before his friend passes him the ball. He sends her a playful wink before going back to the game. 

In front of Jihoon, the girl lets out a dreamy sigh, charmed by the teen below who manages to sweep her off her feet with his boyish smile. Jihoon, on the other hand, is reasonably puzzled, about why he’s even present at the moment; an apparition in someone else’s memory. Whose, he asks, is quickly answered as the young girl turns around and meets him in the eye.

Mother.

-

Jihoon blinks awake. Sunlight blinds his eyes for a short moment, grounding the dazed teen back to reality; cold grass under his fingertips, warm body under his head.

“Jihoon-ah?”

The redhead lifts his chin in response, squinting his eyes to focus until his vision sharpens and reveals Hyunsuk, looking down at him with concern. 

“You’re up?”

“Kinda.”

Hyunsuk pouts and Jihoon hates that the dried blood of his split bottom lip is still there. 

“What the hell was that, man? You just blacked out on me. Almost called the ambulance, y’know?”

Jihoon chuckles, “Should’ve called one for yourself, midget.” 

Immediately, the body under his head tenses, catching the underlying message that yes, I notice your face is a wreck, Choi Hyunsuk, anyone with eyes would. It also dawns on Jihoon that he's currently lying on Hyunsuk’s lap. The teen would’ve freaked out more if only he doesn’t feel like shit. There’s a pounding headache against his skull, he’s thirsty as hell, his arms and legs are practically useless, not an inch of energy left inside, and his back—fuck, his back, honestly.

The target of his annoyance seems to sense his thoughts when the next second, there’s a pull of muscle around his shoulders before a loud sound of wings flapping.

“Whoa!” 

Hyunsuk sounds so amazed while Jihoon is close to ripping the damn thing off. The pain that clump of chicken feathers inflicted on him will probably give the teen some PTSD. After grumbling more under his breath about shitty wings, the redhead gathers the last ounce of energy left to sit up, parting ways with Hyunsuk's surprisingly comfy lap. And while he’s one second away from passing out again, his wings, on the other hand, seem to be running on fucking Redbull. It thrashes around in high spirits, equivalent to a kid bouncing on their feet after getting candy. A couple of feathers are shed from the wings being so damn hyperactive, mingling with scattered leaves on the ground.  

Hyunsuk gawks, one good eye sparkles in wonder when his hand reaches and caresses the white feathers. The wings do a double flap in response, pulling a giggle out of Hyunsuk. Fucking show-off, Jihoon rolls his eyes.

“They’re so soft, Jihoon-ah!”

“Whatever.”

“And are they bigger now? I feel like they are,” Hyunsuk muses, still petting the damn thing like a dog when the wings lift and spread their full length. Hyunsuk’s right, the wings have grown bigger. When folded, they’ll probably hide his upper body down to his butt. They’re definitely no chicken wings anymore.

“Wow, can—can they understand me, Jihoon-ah?” 

Good question. Heck, if Jihoon knows, though. The red-haired teen can’t even control it. The wings do whatever the fuck they want, it’s like having a parasite for a pet.

“It’s like the wings have a mind of their own.” Hyunsuk giggles when one of the wings embraces the petite teen in a fluffy hug. “See? They’re responding, Jihoon-ah!” 

Something inside Jihoon’s stomach does a somersault watching a giddy Hyunsuk get buried in a coat of white shimmering feathers. The wings add softness to his feature, and with leaves dancing around the wind, horizon painted in gradient orange, for a second Jihoon forgets the pain, the loss, the regret, and wishes to live in this picture-perfect moment with Hyunsuk.

Where no one can hurt both of them.

“Who hurt you?” 

Hyunsuk suddenly goes stiff as stone. The picture-perfect moment’s gone. Any trace of happiness is gone from his face, the question has caught him by surprise. There’s a tint of fear reflecting on his one functioning, making his lips clump shut, refusing to answer. This, of course, only riles Jihoon more.

“Is it Junghwan? The fucking muscle head from next door?” 

But Hyunsuk is also stubborn in his silence, purposely turning away from the redhead.

“He’s the one who called you yesterday, right? Those cowards ganged up on you or some shit?”

Still no answer. Jihoon is starting to get sick of the other’s silent treatment. So like a proper delinquent, he relies on physical strength. He firmly grabs Hyunsuk’s startled face to force the teen to look at him.

“Ji—Jihoon-ah—!”

“Shut up!”

Jihoon leans closer, inspecting the big swelling around Hyunsuk’s left eye, the redness along his right cheek, the cut on his bottom lip, the purple bruises on his jaw, then neck, then collar bone, does the shirt cover up the rest, Jihoon never wants to strangle a man more than now, to whoever responsible. It’s gotta be that muscle head, right?

“Jihoon-ah—” Hyunsuk clutches Jihoon’s front tee, pleading with his one good eye. “It hurts.”

Right then the red-haired punk realizes what his grip does to fresh wounds. Jihoon quickly lets go, looking away sheepishly and mumbling an apology under his breath. He doesn’t move away, though, staying right where he is, his knees touching Hyunsuk’s.

“If you need help kicking ass, you could have fucking said so.”

Hyunsuk openly laughs, “Thought you hate me.”

“Thought so too. I mean, a rich kid who has it all and still picks fights out of boredom? Who the fuck like ‘em?”

Hyunsuk smiles bitterly at that. “Yeah? Is that how you see me?”

Jihoon casts his eyes down, losing his earlier spunk. “Maybe,” he murmurs. “I don’t know.” Clenching, unclenching his hand on his lap just to distract the shyness he feels. “I don’t know anything about you, Hyunsuk-ah.”

The name feels foreign on Jihoon’s tongue, it’s the first time he ever said it, after all, but seeing the subtle pink across Hyunsuk’s bruised cheeks, he may consider it for regular use.

“So, tell me,” Jihoon smirks, a bit proud for making the other blush. “Tell me all about you.” He sees how Hyunsuk swallowed nervously in response. The redhead rolls his eyes, starting to get frustrated. “Come on, man. You already saw me having a fucking breakdown twice in public. Not to mention, you’re the only one who knows about my fucking wings and how I ran around the town half-naked. You basically have the best blackmail material about me, so what’ve you got to lose?”

“Everything.”

Hyunsuk smiles wistfully, staring straight at Jihoon as if he wants to convey something words cannot. As if they are forbidden, a delectable apple in the garden of Eden. If picked there will be consequences, but what is it? Jihoon tries to search in the depth of Hyunsuk’s brown eyes only to come up with nothing. He’s no mind reader, after all. He’s just Jihoon; an orphan boy masquerading as a delinquent to protect himself from the cruelty of mortal life. That’s why he has to toughen up. He has to survive, even if he has to walk the path alone. 

But what if it’s the same for Hyunsuk too?

Something dawns on Jihoon as Hyunsuk loses his smile and slowly withdraws back, re-creating the distance that the red-haired teen once erased. Something inside Jihoon protests, something unknown yet so close to grasp, and that something causes his arm to reach forward.

The petite teen yelps when Jihoon pulls him into an abrupt hug, his head to the other’s neck, breathing in the smell of sweat and skin. “Jihoon-ah, what—” before he feels a hand groping around the side of his thigh. Reasonably, blood quickly rushes to his face. “You–What–Stop!”

“Shut up!” says the stubborn man in hell-bent searching for Hyunsuk’s pants pocket to notice the wiggling, flustered teen inside his arms. “Can you stay fucking still—!”

“No—Stop! Stop! It tickles—” In the next second, Hyunsuk starts giggling like a drunken man, betraying his arms that try to push Jihoon away. A futile effort, of course, since the latter is stronger and determined to fetch Hyunsuk’s phone out of his damn pocket. 

“Got it!” Jihoon exclaims, pulling the phone out and shoving it in front of Hyunsuk’s face. It unlocks by facial recognition, and before the owner can snatch it back, Jihoon makes fast work of inputting his phone number and leaving a missed call.

“—That’s a breach of privacy!” 

“Who cares?” Jihoon sticks his tongue at Hyunsuk whose face is red and eyes glaring, though, in Jihoon’s humble opinion, it’s probably more from being embarrassed than mad. “This way if you get yourself in trouble again, at least you have a backup.”

Hyunsuk raises a brow, “Uh, who?”

“Me, of course, who fucking else?” Jihoon flicks Hyunsuk’s forehead lightly, earning a big pout in response. “Just give me a call, midget, and I’ll sweep in and fuck ‘em all,” he smirks, deep down absolutely no idea where this surge of confidence comes from, he isn’t even sure he can land a punch on this Junghwan, much less his whole damn gang. For a while, Hyunsuk too looks dumbfounded, gaping at Jihoon like he grows another set of wings, before a chuckle slips out, building in volume before turning into full-blown laughter; loud and carefree, shaping eyes like a crescent moon as Jihoon watches happiness grace Hyunsuk’s face again. The redhead basks in it, warmed by it, feeling content and in peace for the first time in weeks with Hyunsuk under the oak tree.

-

When the sun sets down, the sky paints darker, the suburbs become dots of light mirroring the stars above. Jihoon breathes in the evening with Hyunsuk, standing side by side watching the world quiet down and tucking to sleep. 

Just like times before, it’s Hyunsuk who leaves first.

After answering a phone call in a hushed voice, Hyunsuk hides his hands inside his pockets and turns around, walking away without a sound. Jihoon keeps his eyes on the retreating back until Hyunsuk stops by the edge of the clearing and looks back, a big grin smears across his face, one eye twinkling bright and pretty even in the dark. “See you at school, asshole.”

Jihoon laughs, this guy.

“Likewise, midget.”

It’s a promise.

-

When Monday morning comes around, Jihoon is stopped by the school gate for ‘dressing inappropriately to school regulations’. Which is bullshit, cosplayers are students too, he argues with a very exasperated-looking teacher who probably hasn’t got his morning coffee to deal with teenage tantrums. So after five minutes of a shouting match, Jihoon decides to fuck it and skips school altogether, texting Junkyu and Jaehyuk to meet up at their usual hang-out spot after school.

Jihoon has been planning since last night to tell his ‘problem’ to his friends. The easier way is to tell the truth. Junkyu and Jaehyuk might not believe him or label him crazy on the spot, but in the most ideal case, maybe they’ll help; start looking for a solution, backing him up with excuses for the school to let him in, asking around the neighborhood for similar cases, and eventually, with the power of friendship, they’ll find a cure and One Piece in the process. 

Jihoon can’t wait for the wholesome stuff to happen. So imagine his reaction after spilling his heart out for twenty minutes to the two people he trusted the most, Junkyu’s first reaction is: 

“But can you fly?”

Jaehyuk snaps his fingers in an eureka moment. “Oh! Now that you mention it.”

“Go! Try to jump off this second floor, Jihoon-ah!”

Oh, if only murders are allowed in the building.

“First of all, fuck you two. Secondly, no, since it’ll be me with a broken leg, not you dickheads.”

“Come on, for science, man!”

“Nothing about this screams science,” Jihoon snaps, glaring at two students who seem to be having the time of their lives. Jaehyuk can’t stop touching the wings while Junkyu has taken pictures of them at every fucking angle. The redhead wishes he can control the wings so he can slap a feather at their damn faces. 

“I got it,” Jaehyuk says, looking like he just solved the Einstein equation. “It’s a mutation. Boom.”

“You’re one of the X-Men?? That’s so sick!”

Jihoon runs a hand over his face and succumbs to fate.

“Or maybe it’s a curse, someone’s cursed you!”

“Yes, into a chicken!”

“Or a bird!”

“A bald eagle!”

“Or, or, a Digimon, you turn into a Digimon!” Junkyu furrows his brows, thinking hard. “Uh, what’s its name again? The one with six wings—”

“Angemon,” Jihoon mumbles.

“Yes, yes, you’re an Angemon!”

“I assure you, I’m not,” Jihoon says flatly. “Also, one more theory out of you two, I’m jumping straight into a moving car.”

While Jihoon starts to regret his decision opening his big damn mouth to the bastards he called friends, Junkyu and Jaehyuk secretly exchange a knowing look, smiling at themselves.

“Well, whatever it is, at least you’re you again.”

“With the additional wings, of course. No biggie.”

Jihoon blinks, puzzled at his friends. He snorts after catching their meaning. “Aw, you morons worry about me?”

Junkyu rolls his eyes, feigning ignorance. “Eat shit, Jihoonie.”

A band of rowdy boys steals the trio’s attention in the next second. They walk into the second floor of the joint and take three tables of their own. Jihoon notices how their uniform is different from his own, along with the sports jacket covering the top. At the back, it reads their high school name followed by the logo of ‘Tennis Club.’

Jaehyuk’s eyes go wide, pointing to the second tallest out of them. “That’s Junghwan.”

Jihoon is instantly on his feet, bulldozing through vacant tables and chairs like an angry bull, startling his friends and other customers around. 

“So you’re Junghwan,” Jihoon spits out the boy’s name like venom, glowering at the boy with brown hair, flowing under his ears. His figure isn’t as bulky as the redhead thought. They’re muscles underneath but are still considered as lean if compared to the stereotypical gym rat. 

The brunette in question stares dumbly back. “And you… have wings.”

Oh, right, that. For a second Jihoon almost forgets the fluffy shit on his back that definitely makes him look less menacing than intended. Whatever, Jihoon clicks his tongue. “Heard you’ve been disrespecting some upperclassman.”

“I don’t know you, hyung.”

“Sure you don’t. But you know Choi Hyunsuk and that’s fucking enough.”

The boy, Junghwan, does a double take. “Who?”

Jihoon barks a laugh, the audacity. “The shorty with an attitude? Hair’s wavy and black, wears the same uniform as me, oh, and face’s fucking ruined thanks to you.”

Junghwan frowns deeper, exchanging looks with the other idiots. “I don’t know anyone from your school. You’re the first, hyung.”

Rage starts coming down in waves, Jihoon cracks a knuckle inside his pocket, struggling to hold it down and not throw the first punch. “Come on, asshole, don’t play dumb—”

“Please leave, I’m with my friends right now. We want no trouble—”

“Shouldn’t start shit with my friend then, fuckface!”

Friend.

Jihoon’s heart skips a beat at the word.

At the same time, the wings flutter, pulling every eye to it including a now gawking, stuttering Junghwan. “What—The wings—”

Jihoon curses at the wings before snapping back at the brunette. “Can it or I fucking end you right now like you did to him last week!”

Another shithead raises to his feet. He’s got an inch over Junghwan, sporting a bored expression framed with ashen gray hair down to his neck. “Last week Junghwan and the whole tennis club went to a training camp. We just got back on Sunday evening.”

“Ruto-ya—”

“It’s true,” the gray-haired student shrugs. “Think you got the wrong guy, hyung.”

The other students nod along, murmuring something Jihoon can’t hear under their breath.

“Don’t fucking lie,” Jihoon hisses dangerously, eyes still shooting daggers at Junghwan. The former only gives a long sigh. “Where were you on Monday morning?”

“On the bus, on my way to the training camp. We’ve got tournament schedule this week, man—”

“But you’re in a gang fight with Hyunsuk!”

“Gang fight? No!” Junghwan rubs his face exasperatedly, having his patience tested. “And for the last time, I don’t know this Hyunsuk you keep telling me—”

A hand on his shoulder pauses Junghwan’s in his rant. The one who’s called ‘Ruto-ya’ stares at the furious-looking Jihoon calmly like trying to tame a bear. “It’s fine, hyung. This happens often. Once other schools get a whiff of Junghwan’s winning streak in tennis, everyone assumes he’s a badass too. This guy can’t even talk to girls, y’know?”

“Hey!” Junghwan shoves the other in response, while the other snickers in the background.

But that explains nothing! Images of Hyunsuk’s face, black and blue with streaks of tears wetting the bruised skin, race across Jihoon’s mind. If not the tennis idiot, then who the fuck did that to him?

“Jihoonie.” 

Jihoon looks over his shoulders, meeting Junkyu and Jaehyuk’s worried expressions. 

“It’s fine, man. Let’s just go,” Junkyu says, tugging the redhead’s arm toward the stairs.

“Sorry for the trouble,” Jaehyuk shoots an apologetic smile at the group of boys before following the other two. 

The trio exits the joint and only stops after making sure they create enough distance from the place. Junkyu tugs Jihoon’s arm harder, pulling the redhead out of his tangled thoughts. “So, you’re chill with Hyunsuk now?” he asks in earnest, not a hint of their usual mocking.

Jihoon pinches the bridge of his nose, feeling an incoming headache. “Kinda. Maybe. I don’t know, fuck. That’s so embarrassing.”

“Nah, man, you’re just following our leads, and we’re just following the grapevine,” Jaehyuk reasons. 

Jihoon bites the inside of his cheeks, calming himself down when he remembers a promise. “See you at school, asshole.” Maybe he can just ask the petite teen directly now they’re on talking terms.

“Today at school, did any of you see Hyunsuk?”

Junkyu and Jaehyuk exchange a look.

“Yeah, but he’s in bad shape, even by his standards. The bruises are nastier than usual,” Junkyu reports.

Jaehyuk nods. “We thought he’d butting heads with Junghwan again but we know now that’s not the case.”

“You know something?”

Jihoon shakes his head. “That’s the thing, I don’t know shit. You guys are always the ones with theories. What’s your take?”

Jaehyuk mulls over for a moment, one finger on his chin. “Another school gang he’s involved with? Schools we don’t know?”

“Or he’s in an underground fighting club!” Junkyu quips. “That’s kinda badass.”

Or lame, Jihoon sighs, crouched down by the sidewalk as his two friends play detectives.

“Or maybe it’s something serious, something personal—”

“A relationship problem?”

Jaehyuk nods. “We’ve heard of victims who had abusive partners in the past. Maybe Hyunsuk’s one of them.”

Anger curls inside Jihoon’s stomach in response, making his jaw clench, his breath uneven, his fists tighten inside his pockets.

“Damn, that’s awful if it’s really true,” Junkyu grimaces. “There’s no easy way out of that kind of relationship. Even if they’re only, like, dating, I heard it's still pretty hard to break things off.”

“And I heard it’s worse if you’re married. Imagine how the family is gonna look like. How’s the kid supposed to grow up in that kind of environment? They would likely be a victim of abuse, too. Physically and emotionally.”

The memory of a black sedan speeding through the rain flashes Jihoon’s mind. He freezes, a chilling shiver runs down his body. The black man in a suit, watching Jihoon, no, Hyunsuk, like a hunter to a target. He can’t escape.

Jihoon stands up abruptly, earning questioning looks from his friends. “I need to go,” he announces.

“Uh, okay?”

“You’re alright, man?”

“No. I mean, yeah,” Jihoon bites down his lips, overwhelmed by the sudden urgent need to run, to find Hyunsuk and ask the million burning questions and confirm them to be wrong. Please, be wrong. The redhead doesn't have time to explain to his friends, so he tries to convey a thousand words in a single helpless look. “Sorry, but I really need to go.”

Junkyu and Jaehyuk reply back with an understanding smile. Better spill us the deed later, it translates. And with their blessings, Jihoon starts running.

-

There were signs, 

Jihoon should’ve noticed.

“Pick up, pick up, pick up—fuck!” he curses at his phone, sick of hearing the beep after an unreachable call. Hyunsuk is not picking up, why isn’t he picking up? Jihoon mutters a string of profanity under his breath as he dashes through a bustling street. He can see the upper suburb in the distance along the uphill road. The redhead doesn’t know where Hyunsuk might be. His messages are left to read. His calls are ignored. Hyunsuk could still be at school or he could be anywhere, kilometers away from Jihoon’s grasp. But as the former gasps out of breath, running full throttle through the busy sidewalk, a secluded clearing crosses his mind. A lone teen sitting under an oak tree. 

All this time, that must've been Hyunsuk’s secret place, his safe haven. To think he introduced it to Jihoon; gave him the key and let the door open, free to roam and witness him at his weakest. 

There were signs, how could Jihoon not notice the most glaring one, when the bruises had been staring right at his face.

“Hyunsuk-ah!”

But the swing is found empty;

silently swaying under the cool shades of the oak tree.

Jihoon is panting heavily when he arrives at the edge of the clearing, eyes zipping left and right, sweeping over the area for a certain petite student but no, he’s not here. There’s only green grass under his soles, leaves fluttering in the wind, a city view soaked under the afternoon noon, yet they’re all bland, dull, compared to Hyunsuk’s laugh.

“Fuck—!” Fishing out his phone in desperation, Jihoon tries to call him again when a spike of familiar pain shoots through his spine. No, no, no. The redhead is down on all fours in the next second, crunching his eyes closed as he cries, tormented by the burning ache of his wings growing once more.

“Not now—!” Jihoon hisses, tears start dripping, his arms trembling for holding his own weight. He feels like being ripped apart inside out, organs torn, bones shattered, skin peeled, Jihoon punches the ground, over and over and over, begging any gods listening to leave him the fuck alone. Hasn’t he had enough? His mother, his father, the family they once were, are all gone. And now, just when he starts to care, to open up, to finally understand that maybe he doesn’t have to be alone, that maybe Hyunsuk is the same, both are paper planes, thin and fragile, living at the mercy of the wind but one evening, they find each other. Maybe together, they can soar into new heights, new places where pain and loneliness don’t exist.

Who hurt you, Jihoon once asked Hyunsuk when it’s all been obvious from the start. It’s not Junghwan, or student, or any outsiders at all, it’s no one other than the resident of the house. The paper plane can’t even fly far before being crushed back to the ground.

A ringing split through Jihoon’s throbbing ache.

The teen stares wide-eyed at the phone, sitting a meter away, displaying Hyunsuk’s name as the caller ID.

“Just give me a call, midget, and I’ll sweep in and fuck ‘em all.”

He needs him. 

In this very second, Hyunsuk needs him. So Jihoon pushes through the pain, gritting his teeth hard, dragging his trembling hand forward, again, again, and reaches the ringing phone. He presses to answer and switches to loudspeaker.

“Hyunsuk-ah—”

Someone’s sobbing on the other end of the line. The sound is enough to break Jihoon’s brittle heart.

“I can’t, Jihoon-ah.”

Another sob. 

The red-haired teen chews his lips until they bleed, thumping his forehead on the grassy mound, white-knuckled grip on his phone that’ll leave red marks. He doesn't know anymore which is more painful; the tearing of his skin or hearing Hyunsuk’s weep?

“Everything is hurting. I can’t—I can’t go on. Not like this.”

Jihoon coughs whenever he tries to speak, throat as dry as the Sahara desert, it’s a miracle he’s choking on saliva, not blood.

He hears Hyunsuk slip out a dry laugh in between his sobs. “You’re right, Jihoon-ah. Home do truly sucks. Do you know how much I hate it when the school bell rings?”

No, Jihoon doesn’t. He knows shit about Hyunsuk, that’s why—

“I hate it ‘cause it means I have to go home. But I don’t want to. Why would I want to? There’s only pain there. They—They never love me. They don't even love each other, why would they love me?”

The grip on his phone hardens until the screen cracks. Bullshit, Jihoon wants to scream, skewer it into Hyunsuk’s head so he understands that there’s a lot to love—his smile, soft palms, crescent-moon eyes when he laughs, the gentlest voice Jihoon ever heard calling his name—there’s too much, in fact, and each one sends warmth to his cold, grieving heart left by his mother.

“Where are you?” Jihoon manages to croak the words out with the little energy he has left. Yet it earns no answer from the other end of the line. Nothing is heard for a full minute except Jihoon’s own heart pounding faster by the second. A dread looms higher over the horizon of his mind the longer the silence stretches. 

“Hyunsuk-ah, where are you—!”

“Jihoon-ah.”

A beat of silence.

“I wish we were friends.”

The call ends.

Hyunsuk hangs up, leaving Jihoon speechless, frozen, heartbroken, staring at the ground like it holds an answer, telling where Hyunsuk is, why he’s crying, why he’s spouting nonsense and sad things when he is everything that Jihoon wants. 

A piercing pain drives a scream out of the redhead, the growth of the wings isn't stopping, the bones keep pushing. His vision starts to shake, the world starts to tilt. If left alone, Jihoon might black out again and he can’t. He won’t, not when Hyunsuk needs him. Where is he, Jihoon shakes the dizziness away, shutting his eyes tight, stop, please, he needs me, I have to go—

“He will, Jihoon-ah.”

On the outskirts of Jihoon’s consciousness, stands a teenage girl in a pale blue dress hand in hand with a boy in a green jersey and a cap. The girl, who he now recognizes as his mother, beams back at Jihoon and says, “He’ll fly us out of here and we can be happy together again.”

Jihoon shoots his eyes open at the same time the wings reveal their full form, extending far and wide, rivaling the web of branches of the oak tree. Feathers are dancing in the air; like a snake shedding its skin, so do the wings shedding the old ruffled one for new, nimble yet strong feathers, strong enough to withstand a storm.

“But can you fly?”

He can’t. The wings aren’t his. Because—

“It’s like the wings have a mind of their own.”

Hyunsuk’s right, he always is. A clever mind with a pretty face, Jihoon will tell him that one day. It’s a promise. He’s broken a couple of them recently but now, with a new ally on his back, he might be able to keep it.

“Take me to him.”

The wings flap in response, sluggish as it is heavy, carrying the weight of its dense spine, coated by a thick carpet of feathers. 

“Come on, man. We ain’t making him wait any longer.”

The wings swish, a beat faster, building momentum.

Jihoon lifts his head, sweat running down his face, but his sharp, gleaming eyes stare straight ahead, beyond the hill, beyond the suburb, over the horizon, to where he is.

“You heard me, shitty wings! Fly me to Hyunsuk!”

In a span of a second, Jihoon’s body is rocketed upward in a straight line; air muffling his ears, nose, lungs, stinging his eyes so he shuts them tight, submitting to the surge of wind catapulting him to the sky, until he feels speeding down, intaking the freshest, coolest air ever entering his lungs, the wind under his feet disperses and when he squints his eyes open,

Jihoon is floating above the clouds.

Blue, as far as his eyes can see. Lying before him is the blank canvas of sky, the floor of clouds under his feet, the edge of the Earth above his head. Jihoon never feels more human than he is now; a frail existence living under the omnipotence that is the universe. 

The humbling moment doesn’t last long as the wings remind Jihoon what’s at stake. They gather the wind under the feathers before taking a dive, surging through the clouds in a slanting line. Jihoon battles against the pressure, covering his sight and nose until the speed dies down once more, opening up to a sight of his town in miniatures. The wings do a swish, pulling Jihoon’s whole body swirling, as they soar high above the buildings and pedestrians, passing the fast food joint where he met with Junkyu and Jaehyuk earlier. It clicks to Jihoon right then the direction they’re heading. The wings are flying him back to the school. Such cruel fate, he never regretted skipping school as he is today.

As they fly over the school grounds, Jihoon’s eyes start skimming every inch of the building. The classes, the corridors, the track fields, seeking a petite figure in desperation. Where is he, Jihoon asks the wings when his sight finds anything but Hyunsuk. In a swish of a wing, Jihoon’s body tilts, turning a corner and swirling upward, hovering above the rooftop of the main building. As he looks down, the red head sees a familiar figure, standing at the edge of the railing, one step away from jumping—one step away disappearing from Jihoon forever.

“Hyunsuk-ah!”

Jihoon’s voice cuts through the air, finally, finally, reaching Hyunsuk. The latter looks startled and beaten up, even from afar the wounds are too visible, Jihoon hates it, so he takes no more chances, not another second of his arms empty of Hyunsuk. And it seems, the wings agree. They sweep down and fly straight at the shocked teen. 

In the next second, Jihoon opens his arms and snatches Hyunsuk in a firm hug.

“Up!” He tells the wings. The speed quickly picks up, a burst of air propelling both teens toward the clouds. The redhead feels how Hyunsuk is squirming in his arms; face pinched and eyes closed, thin arms clinging around Jihoon tight, afraid to let go. As if the other will ever let that happen. Jihoon tightens his hold on the smaller teen and lets the wings take them higher, away from the cruel world even if it’s just for one moment in time.

Shortly, the wings slow down. Like before, as he opens his eyes, Jihoon finds himself back to being surrounded by the endless blue. The wind engulfs both teens in a cool embrace, making them float in stillness.

“You’re flying.”

Jihoon turns to the wide-eyed Hyunsuk, one good eye gleaming in childish wonder.

“Yup.”

“How—How—”

“Well, thank fuck I am ‘cause have you lost your mind, Hyunsuk-ah? What the hell was that all about?”

In an instant, with a change of expression, Hyunsuk looks guilt-stricken. The corner of his mouth tugs downward, the split lips tremble. “You should’ve just let me fall,” he mumbles, tucking his chin down, pressing his temple to Jihoon’s collarbone, hiding tears trickling down his bruised cheeks.

The sight makes something inside Jihoon’s chest ache, wanting to wipe the sadness away and bring back the laughter he sorely missed. 

“Why would you do that, Jihoon-ah?” Hyunsuk cries louder, pounding a hand to Jihoon’s chest in weak punches. “Why would you save me? I hate it here! I can’t take it anymore. My arms, my face, my body, everywhere is hurting. I can’t stop it. I can’t stop them. All they do is scream at each other and break things. But I’m not things, Jihoon-ah. I can feel pain but why do they always break me?”

The hand stops its tantrum, now hanging in limp like it gives up. Lifting his head, Hyunsuk gives up because Jihoon sees no more hope inside Hyunsuk’s pretty brown eyes. Inside, there’s an abyss staring right back, resembling one belonging to his mother waiting by the window.

“Let me go, Jihoon-ah. Let me fall.”

Will Jihoon lose him too to the abyss? 

“No.”

Of course, not. Jihoon has come so far, after all, making peace with himself. 

Hyunsuk opens his mouth to protest but Jihoon isn’t finished. “Not right now. After I land you on the ground, you can do it again from the school rooftop.” He rests their forehead together, sighing when he feels the warmth of the living. “But remember this, Hyunsuk-ah. You can find the highest building in this city, or bridge, or mall, or hills, it doesn’t matter ‘cause the result will be the same.”

Jihoon smiles, genuine and, for the first in a long time, grateful to be alive.

“I will always catch you, Choi Hyunsuk.”

Floating high above the ground, closer to the heavens than Earth, Jihoon finally grasps the meaning behind the wings. They are there to help him fly high and see life's ordeal through a new perspective; look, Jihoon-ah, life isn’t so bad when you have someone to love.

It truly isn’t, Jihoon sniffs, his tears mingling with Hyunsuk’s. He will never forget the love he has lost—a portrait of a family tucked close to his heart—but to the love he hasn’t, he will cherish it, take its hand, and live the rest of their remaining life without regrets.

“I’m sorry for your family, Hyunsuk-ah. I can’t imagine what it's like to be you. But I want you to know that no matter how many times you jump, or fall, or seconds to shatter into pieces, I’ll still catch you in the end. And I’ll do it again and again and again until you’re out of options and just let me fly you around this damned city,” Jihoon grins widely, happily, thanking every day, every loss, every piece burn and tears spilled, everything he had endures and pushed through to finally arrive at this moment; having Hyunsuk tucked safely in his arms.

Happiness, you see, it’s contagious. Watching the big grin plastered on Jihoon’s face, hearing promises woven in his words, feeling his arms stubborn in their hold, in the face of such affection, Hyunsuk’s wall finally comes crashing down. All his life, he’s convinced he didn't deserve any form of love, only screams and beatings, but Jihoon has shown him the opposite. Jihoon shows his love by sweeping him off his feet and saving him from himself.

In the face of such affection, Hyunsuk bawls like a baby born yesterday, letting years-old hurt out as loud as he can, until his voice hoarse, his throat tears. Here, out in the open sky, none shall judge. 

Hyunsuk can be free as a child should and he knows Jihoon will hold him close through it all.

-

When the sun sets, the wind picks up, Jihoon feels the petite teen resting against his chest shiver. The sky has changed its color, the canvas of blue has been painted orange, a color Jihoon has grown fond of, a color that reminded him of times spent with Hyunsuk.

As his eyes roam around his surroundings—from the blanket of clouds to the distant horizon, to the edge of the world where the color thinning into black, where the planets align and stars twinkle a million lights away—his sight narrows to a pair of stars; one on the right blinks brighter than the rest. 

The second star to the right and straight on till’ morning.

A chuckle slips out of Jihoon.

“What’s wrong?” murmurs Hyunsuk in a sleepy daze.

“Nah, it’s nothing.” Jihoon leaves a kiss on top of his head, feeling the other nuzzle deeply inside his arms. The redhead shoots a smug smile at the distant star, home to the boy who can fly but can't grow up and keep the girl.

Look at me winning, Peter.

-

Life, inevitably, goes on. 

Hyunsuk’s family situation isn’t solved in a day. Every morning, before the first period starts, the teens meet up in the nurse's office. Jihoon helps him clean the wounds, smear the balm, apply the bandaid, and sneak a couple of pecks just for good luck. The last one always leaves Hyunsuk red and flustered and Jihoon would tease him for it for the whole day until one day, the petite teen has enough of the jackass so in an act of revenge, Hyunsuk snags Jihoon’s collar, tiptoe, and proceed to kiss him on the mouth in front of the whole class B.

Everybody, including Jihoon, expectedly, loses their shit. 

It makes headlines for weeks in every student group chat, forums, social media, spilling the deeds of how the two infamous delinquents get together, courtesy of Junkyu and Jaehyuk. 

A couple of months after, though, the headline changes into shocking news of Hyunsuk’s transfer. It isn’t shocking to Jihoon, of course, since he was right there by Hyunsuk’s side when the other told him about the divorce, about how Hyunsuk chose to live with his grandmother in the countryside rather than either of the parents. 

Jihoon is also there when Hyunsuk cries his goodbye at the train station and leaves one last kiss for the road and better days ahead. 

Through it all, the wings start shedding the last of its feathers. Each night following that fateful noon where the wings learned to fly, Jihoon feels the bones shrinking back in, inch by inch, back into the gaping skin, melded into the main body. It continues until one morning Jihoon wakes up feeling lighter on his back, a two-ton weight lifted from his shoulders. The wings’ departure leaves him a feather, white and shimmering filled with memories, Jihoon frames it and puts it next to Mother’s ceramic jar, sending words of gratitude to each one every morning.

Jihoon lives the rest of the year with newfound confidence. He graduates with his uncle by his side, snapping photos with Junkyu and Jaehyuk, and the rest of Class B, creating a memento of their youth. A week later, he lands a job as a delivery man at a nearby family-owned restaurant. The owner is an acquaintance of his late mother, thus quick to give the job opening to the teen after the graduation. In turn, Jihoon swears to be the fastest delivery man ever.

The wind once favored him as he soared through clouds, surely the wind will lend a help this time too.

So a year passes by, and every day, Jihoon buttons up his green vest, puts on his helm, and rides to work, delivering warm food at record speed around the neighborhood. Until one evening, his delivery takes him to a two-story house with a second-floor balcony. In front parked a moving truck filled with sealed boxes and bubble-wrapped furniture. Jihoon enters through the opened gate and walks into the front yard, head turning left and right, looking around for the owner of the house and the customer waiting for his delivery.

Unknown to Jihoon, it’s not just the food that the customer’s been waiting for.

“Jihoon-ah!” 

The man looks up, his heart takes a familiar dive the second his brain recognizes the voice. On the second-floor balcony stands Hyunsuk—bright, smiling, free of purple bruises and beautiful Hyunsuk. His face glows under the orange light of the setting sun, like times before, like how Jihoon never stops loving him every moment they’re apart.

“Catch me!” before Hyunsuk fucking jumps out of the balcony, fully trusting his whole life to Jihoon. But the redhead has learned to accept and overcome any challenges. His life, after all, isn’t one to pull punches.

Dropping the food on the ground, Jihoon spreads out his arm and seizes the smaller man in a safe hold. The impact, though, is stronger than Jihoon anticipates, toppling his body backward into the carpet of grass with Hyunsuk landing on top of him.

“You fucker—!” 

“Even after all these years, Jihoon-ah!” 

Hyunsuk belts out a laugh, free and loud and unabashed, happiness has never looked this better on him until now. Jihoon can’t help but pinch his cheek playfully. “‘Course, midget. I told you, didn’t I?” 

Whispering a lifetime promise in Hyunsuk’s ears, “I’ll catch you every time.”