Feathers of Black and White: Chapter 1 - Angels
Angels
The only beings I - and everyone for that matter - know that had wings. They were the image of purity, of real happiness, of freedom without constraints, of utter contentment, of love. And the moment the dreams started was when I first began drawing them, finding myself magnetized at how I wanted to capture on paper everything the angels’ innocent beauty had to offer.
It wasn’t their so called angelic faces that had drawn me to them though, it was their wings. A pair of white wings looking softer than cotton, smoother than satin and as mighty as the meaning of being an angel is. The wings were always white though; too white that it was glowing, like nothing could stain its purity, and it makes one wonder what it would take for an angel to have its wings turn to black.
Curiosity must have been the main reason I started to draw him in all his black wings’ glory and his sorrowful eyes. Because no matter how beautiful those white wings were, there was just something about those black wings that made them unforgettable.
And they said black meant emptiness. The color looked more colorful than anything to me.
“Do you believe in the afterlife?”
It wasn’t supposed to be asked loudly, it was supposed to be a personal reflection, but when you’re too caught up in trying to input a vague dream into paper your brain becomes detached from everything else. It made me snort at the weird look I received from Chanyeol though.
“Maybe, but I haven’t been there yet so I don’t know,” was his reply accompanied by a shrug and I blindly nodded because surprisingly, it made sense.
Chanyeol was older than me, but we have been friends and are neighbors since I could remember. He had a pair of huge eyes that could rival mine, ears that looked like elf ears and a height that could have him easily be mistaken as a giant - and walking beside me just makes him look taller than he already is, even when sitting down he’s still a good a head and a half taller than me.
“I believe in past lives though,” Chanyeol added and that made my hand stop for a moment for me to look at him with a brow raised. I wasn’t confused, just amused.
“Reincarnations, for all you know I could have been a King in one of my past lives!” he defended, a smug expression on his face and I couldn’t help but chuckle. “What? I can be a cool king!”
Chanyeol wasn’t the smartest person in our school, but he wasn’t stupid either. If there was one thing he could do best aside from fast rapping and playing instruments, it’s his ability to strategize. His brain works best under pressure, thinking of ways to solve puzzles, or thinking of a way to checkmate his chess opponent, or trying to escape mazes. That alone made the image of Chanyeol being king not hard to imagine, he would have been a great king.
“I know,” I answered and Chanyeol grinned, bumping his shoulder onto mine. He’s also a giant ball of fluff, I forgot.
“What are you drawing?” he asked, peering over my sketchpad. I felt him chuckle.
“Angels again? When are you going to draw other things aside from angels, Soo?”
Chanyeol had called it my personal obsession aside from it being a hobby - to draw angels with black wings. The angel would either be flying grandly across the sky, or resting on a tree branch with his wings folded neatly on his back as his cushion, or is playing in a meadow with his wings almost folding itself on its body as the wind plays with it.
I shrugged, “I draw other things, Yeol.”
“Yeah, like what?”
I closed my sketchpad and looked at him.
“Other… stuff.”
“Like your angel in a suit, or him modeling some clothes, or him enjoying a cup of coffee, or him in anything and everything, just without his precious black wings. Face it Soo, you draw nothing else but your angel.”
“I guess it’s just like what you always say, I have an angel fetish.”
“That or you have a thing for that guy, whoever he is.”
I looked at Chanyeol, both in surprise and confusion. If there’s something to be addicted about angels - if I’m not addicted to angels themselves - it would be their wings, the only things that I could only dream about having. But when I reached home, flipping through my old sketches up to the one I’m currently working on, I ended up laying down drawings of a single man doing almost every little thing people do everyday - only he made it look more intriguing, like he wasn’t even meant to do them yet he is.
I think Chanyeol had a point.
I might have a fetish for the only angel I know with black wings and golden skin who exists only in my dreams.
===============
Patiently waiting
It was something I’ve done so many times I actually lost count. But when you’re waiting for someone who gave your life meaning, it makes it easier to do - may it be hours, days, months, and years… decades. But when memories of happiness haunts every second of your day, you longed to hear that one voice you missed hearing, you hoped to see that one smile to make anything seem brighter, wanting to hold that one hand that belonged to that special someone, the loneliness becomes too unbearable at times you start to find ways to permanently end it - except there’s nothing.
People spoke of the truth when they said time heals all wounds - broken limbs and bones repairs themselves on their own, scratched skin mends on its own. The only thing time won’t be able to heal - especially when you refused to let it - is the heart. It takes longer to heal it; the pains are worse, the breaks take longer to patch itself, and sometimes it just doesn’t.
And when you let yourself hang onto something you believe to be worth every pain, it stays broken, waiting patiently for that little piece of hope you have to help it heal. And when that ray of sunshine steps into your world, you realize the reasons of exactly why you were doing it in the first place, why you chose to let yourself break a little more each day and tried to live a normal life like everybody else when you know you’ve given up a long time ago.
Everything was for that one moment of everything suddenly coming back into life with colors more vibrant than that of a rainbow, of that heavy feeling finally being as weightless as the air you breathe, of your heart fixing its pieces back into place like it was never broken in the first place.
Yes, that one split-second moment in life worth waiting for.
Happiness
Contentment
Love
That very being oozed them out and the reasons you were looking for just seemed unimportant, insignificant. Why would they when you finally found the one?
Mine was in the form of a person with a beautiful set of doe eyes, height that is perfectly built for him to clearly hear that every beat my heart ever made - and the ones it will make - was for him when I hug him, lips so plump they make the clouds cower in jealousy.
The very sight made my whole body spasm with excitement, urging me to sprint to wherever he was standing and engulf him in a bone crushing hug to make sure that the next time the flame eats him, he would melt with my flesh, and maybe I’ll find the end that I was desperate for. When that smile flashes itself in public it made my heart skip a beat as if every other thing he do doesn’t do it enough.
Despite the need to get closer, to take his hand and run away, to kiss his lips until the end of everything else, the fear was a much more overwhelming feeling that never failed to keep me rooted to a spot. I stood there, eyes focused on him and only him, trying to fight away the need to get nearer in fear of those flames, the flames that would eat him alive and the reason for all the times I’ve spent waiting and wandering the surface of the earth just waiting for him - painfully waiting for his return. And every single time I wasn’t afraid that I wouldn’t be able to find him, I wasn’t worried to mistake someone else to be him no matter how many times time alters his physique in an attempt to hide him from me because there was something that binds me to him. His soul just naturally attracts mine, screaming for me to find it, longing for that space beside him to be filled by me, that familiar tug at the heart that kisses the words of safety.
Memories be damned, we were in love even before he had forgotten the beginning of everything.
And that moment of stupefaction is what happened to me this morning, except this time I wasn’t standing, I was playing basketball with Baekhyun and the others. Suddenly, unexpectedly, I felt that I knew, somehow I knew; he was near, somewhere around the premises. My heart pounded more than necessary that I was swiftly breathless, I felt my soul glow with glee, the earth started to rotate again. And when I turned my head, there he was simply sitting down and yet he made the gesture so splendid. The familiar set of doe eyes stayed beautiful as I remembered them to be - if not better. His lips stayed as plump as the clouds and his voice silkier than ever even though I couldn’t hear it from where I was.
The person I was guarding had long run across the court but I couldn’t care - I didn’t want to. I’ve found him, I could feel that very soul glowing with the same shade mine was emitting.
“Kai, look out!”
It was Baekhyun’s voice. I knew I should have looked like he told me to but like every other time my eyes finds him for the first time, I was frozen in both awe and fear. The ball collided with my face, the force sent my body falling on the ground, yet my eyes stayed glued to that figure I love so much.
“You okay?” Baekhyun asked, crouching beside me in the middle of the court, inspecting the damage the ball made on my cheek. I could only nod dumbly knowing the he already knew why.
There was ever only one reason for my everything.
“Did you find him?”
I nodded again, this time with a smile slowly curving its way onto my lips.
“Yes, in this lifetime, I found him, finally.”
===============
“Why don’t you just talk to him already?” Baekhyun asked over lunch, chewing on a chicken wing like it was the best food mankind had ever created.
Baekhyun and I go way back with the others. He stuck with me through thick and thin, making sure I stay sane in this pathetic excuse of a life. He had kept me together when I was on the verge of breaking, supporting and encouraging me when I wanted to give up, fixing every single mess I did to try and escape the cycle. I owe Baekhyun everything that I just couldn’t find a way to return the favor.
Sometimes his presence brings back all the loneliness and the longing when I start drowning in everything for the nth time. Unlike me, his significant half stayed around, only disappearing when mine finally does, returns when mine stayed missing and disappears again when mine returns too only because he was bound to him as a confidante. Jealousy was there only because he doesn’t have to do the kind of waiting I do - the kind I was eternally stuck with. They’re always together, and that fact alone was enough to feed the green monster.
“You know very well that I can’t. It’s too soon,” I replied, sneaking a glance to where his table was. It was on the other side of the cafeteria, and as normal as breathing, I found him again.
“You know how he is. He won’t be the first to approach you,” Baekhyun argued as he dropped the bone onto his plate, finally done with lunch though we still have half an hour left before the next class.
“I know.”
“Then go to him.”
If only he knew how much I wanted to do just that. But from past experiences, I know it wouldn’t work - it never does. The last time I moved because of hastiness was a lesson traumatizing enough that it drilled itself on the walls of my memories; haunting me. I vowed to avoid doing the same mistake.
The information was too much for him. He wasn’t even able to process anything when the truth ate him, starting from his core until slowly it devoured him, stripping my soul of its happiness and crushing my heart as he slowly turns into nothing. It was painful to watch because no matter how many times I tried to reach for him, my very touch sparked more flames and it hurt as I realized I was causing his pain - every single time.
I couldn’t save him.
And I still couldn’t.
I longed for the end our cycle because the pain was much more unbearable at that very moment - his leaving. It hurt, not in its physical sense.
And the worst kind of pain is the invisible one.
I sighed.
“The time will come Baek,” I said as I looked to where he was sitting, and even from this distance I knew he had just smiled. I smiled too.
“When?”
“Soon.”
The only beings I - and everyone for that matter - know that had wings. They were the image of purity, of real happiness, of freedom without constraints, of utter contentment, of love. And the moment the dreams started was when I first began drawing them, finding myself magnetized at how I wanted to capture on paper everything the angels’ innocent beauty had to offer.
It wasn’t their so called angelic faces that had drawn me to them though, it was their wings. A pair of white wings looking softer than cotton, smoother than satin and as mighty as the meaning of being an angel is. The wings were always white though; too white that it was glowing, like nothing could stain its purity, and it makes one wonder what it would take for an angel to have its wings turn to black.
Curiosity must have been the main reason I started to draw him in all his black wings’ glory and his sorrowful eyes. Because no matter how beautiful those white wings were, there was just something about those black wings that made them unforgettable.
And they said black meant emptiness. The color looked more colorful than anything to me.
“Do you believe in the afterlife?”
It wasn’t supposed to be asked loudly, it was supposed to be a personal reflection, but when you’re too caught up in trying to input a vague dream into paper your brain becomes detached from everything else. It made me snort at the weird look I received from Chanyeol though.
“Maybe, but I haven’t been there yet so I don’t know,” was his reply accompanied by a shrug and I blindly nodded because surprisingly, it made sense.
Chanyeol was older than me, but we have been friends and are neighbors since I could remember. He had a pair of huge eyes that could rival mine, ears that looked like elf ears and a height that could have him easily be mistaken as a giant - and walking beside me just makes him look taller than he already is, even when sitting down he’s still a good a head and a half taller than me.
“I believe in past lives though,” Chanyeol added and that made my hand stop for a moment for me to look at him with a brow raised. I wasn’t confused, just amused.
“Reincarnations, for all you know I could have been a King in one of my past lives!” he defended, a smug expression on his face and I couldn’t help but chuckle. “What? I can be a cool king!”
Chanyeol wasn’t the smartest person in our school, but he wasn’t stupid either. If there was one thing he could do best aside from fast rapping and playing instruments, it’s his ability to strategize. His brain works best under pressure, thinking of ways to solve puzzles, or thinking of a way to checkmate his chess opponent, or trying to escape mazes. That alone made the image of Chanyeol being king not hard to imagine, he would have been a great king.
“I know,” I answered and Chanyeol grinned, bumping his shoulder onto mine. He’s also a giant ball of fluff, I forgot.
“What are you drawing?” he asked, peering over my sketchpad. I felt him chuckle.
“Angels again? When are you going to draw other things aside from angels, Soo?”
Chanyeol had called it my personal obsession aside from it being a hobby - to draw angels with black wings. The angel would either be flying grandly across the sky, or resting on a tree branch with his wings folded neatly on his back as his cushion, or is playing in a meadow with his wings almost folding itself on its body as the wind plays with it.
I shrugged, “I draw other things, Yeol.”
“Yeah, like what?”
I closed my sketchpad and looked at him.
“Other… stuff.”
“Like your angel in a suit, or him modeling some clothes, or him enjoying a cup of coffee, or him in anything and everything, just without his precious black wings. Face it Soo, you draw nothing else but your angel.”
“I guess it’s just like what you always say, I have an angel fetish.”
“That or you have a thing for that guy, whoever he is.”
I looked at Chanyeol, both in surprise and confusion. If there’s something to be addicted about angels - if I’m not addicted to angels themselves - it would be their wings, the only things that I could only dream about having. But when I reached home, flipping through my old sketches up to the one I’m currently working on, I ended up laying down drawings of a single man doing almost every little thing people do everyday - only he made it look more intriguing, like he wasn’t even meant to do them yet he is.
I think Chanyeol had a point.
I might have a fetish for the only angel I know with black wings and golden skin who exists only in my dreams.
===============
Patiently waiting
It was something I’ve done so many times I actually lost count. But when you’re waiting for someone who gave your life meaning, it makes it easier to do - may it be hours, days, months, and years… decades. But when memories of happiness haunts every second of your day, you longed to hear that one voice you missed hearing, you hoped to see that one smile to make anything seem brighter, wanting to hold that one hand that belonged to that special someone, the loneliness becomes too unbearable at times you start to find ways to permanently end it - except there’s nothing.
People spoke of the truth when they said time heals all wounds - broken limbs and bones repairs themselves on their own, scratched skin mends on its own. The only thing time won’t be able to heal - especially when you refused to let it - is the heart. It takes longer to heal it; the pains are worse, the breaks take longer to patch itself, and sometimes it just doesn’t.
And when you let yourself hang onto something you believe to be worth every pain, it stays broken, waiting patiently for that little piece of hope you have to help it heal. And when that ray of sunshine steps into your world, you realize the reasons of exactly why you were doing it in the first place, why you chose to let yourself break a little more each day and tried to live a normal life like everybody else when you know you’ve given up a long time ago.
Everything was for that one moment of everything suddenly coming back into life with colors more vibrant than that of a rainbow, of that heavy feeling finally being as weightless as the air you breathe, of your heart fixing its pieces back into place like it was never broken in the first place.
Yes, that one split-second moment in life worth waiting for.
Happiness
Contentment
Love
That very being oozed them out and the reasons you were looking for just seemed unimportant, insignificant. Why would they when you finally found the one?
Mine was in the form of a person with a beautiful set of doe eyes, height that is perfectly built for him to clearly hear that every beat my heart ever made - and the ones it will make - was for him when I hug him, lips so plump they make the clouds cower in jealousy.
The very sight made my whole body spasm with excitement, urging me to sprint to wherever he was standing and engulf him in a bone crushing hug to make sure that the next time the flame eats him, he would melt with my flesh, and maybe I’ll find the end that I was desperate for. When that smile flashes itself in public it made my heart skip a beat as if every other thing he do doesn’t do it enough.
Despite the need to get closer, to take his hand and run away, to kiss his lips until the end of everything else, the fear was a much more overwhelming feeling that never failed to keep me rooted to a spot. I stood there, eyes focused on him and only him, trying to fight away the need to get nearer in fear of those flames, the flames that would eat him alive and the reason for all the times I’ve spent waiting and wandering the surface of the earth just waiting for him - painfully waiting for his return. And every single time I wasn’t afraid that I wouldn’t be able to find him, I wasn’t worried to mistake someone else to be him no matter how many times time alters his physique in an attempt to hide him from me because there was something that binds me to him. His soul just naturally attracts mine, screaming for me to find it, longing for that space beside him to be filled by me, that familiar tug at the heart that kisses the words of safety.
Memories be damned, we were in love even before he had forgotten the beginning of everything.
And that moment of stupefaction is what happened to me this morning, except this time I wasn’t standing, I was playing basketball with Baekhyun and the others. Suddenly, unexpectedly, I felt that I knew, somehow I knew; he was near, somewhere around the premises. My heart pounded more than necessary that I was swiftly breathless, I felt my soul glow with glee, the earth started to rotate again. And when I turned my head, there he was simply sitting down and yet he made the gesture so splendid. The familiar set of doe eyes stayed beautiful as I remembered them to be - if not better. His lips stayed as plump as the clouds and his voice silkier than ever even though I couldn’t hear it from where I was.
The person I was guarding had long run across the court but I couldn’t care - I didn’t want to. I’ve found him, I could feel that very soul glowing with the same shade mine was emitting.
“Kai, look out!”
It was Baekhyun’s voice. I knew I should have looked like he told me to but like every other time my eyes finds him for the first time, I was frozen in both awe and fear. The ball collided with my face, the force sent my body falling on the ground, yet my eyes stayed glued to that figure I love so much.
“You okay?” Baekhyun asked, crouching beside me in the middle of the court, inspecting the damage the ball made on my cheek. I could only nod dumbly knowing the he already knew why.
There was ever only one reason for my everything.
“Did you find him?”
I nodded again, this time with a smile slowly curving its way onto my lips.
“Yes, in this lifetime, I found him, finally.”
===============
“Why don’t you just talk to him already?” Baekhyun asked over lunch, chewing on a chicken wing like it was the best food mankind had ever created.
Baekhyun and I go way back with the others. He stuck with me through thick and thin, making sure I stay sane in this pathetic excuse of a life. He had kept me together when I was on the verge of breaking, supporting and encouraging me when I wanted to give up, fixing every single mess I did to try and escape the cycle. I owe Baekhyun everything that I just couldn’t find a way to return the favor.
Sometimes his presence brings back all the loneliness and the longing when I start drowning in everything for the nth time. Unlike me, his significant half stayed around, only disappearing when mine finally does, returns when mine stayed missing and disappears again when mine returns too only because he was bound to him as a confidante. Jealousy was there only because he doesn’t have to do the kind of waiting I do - the kind I was eternally stuck with. They’re always together, and that fact alone was enough to feed the green monster.
“You know very well that I can’t. It’s too soon,” I replied, sneaking a glance to where his table was. It was on the other side of the cafeteria, and as normal as breathing, I found him again.
“You know how he is. He won’t be the first to approach you,” Baekhyun argued as he dropped the bone onto his plate, finally done with lunch though we still have half an hour left before the next class.
“I know.”
“Then go to him.”
If only he knew how much I wanted to do just that. But from past experiences, I know it wouldn’t work - it never does. The last time I moved because of hastiness was a lesson traumatizing enough that it drilled itself on the walls of my memories; haunting me. I vowed to avoid doing the same mistake.
The information was too much for him. He wasn’t even able to process anything when the truth ate him, starting from his core until slowly it devoured him, stripping my soul of its happiness and crushing my heart as he slowly turns into nothing. It was painful to watch because no matter how many times I tried to reach for him, my very touch sparked more flames and it hurt as I realized I was causing his pain - every single time.
I couldn’t save him.
And I still couldn’t.
I longed for the end our cycle because the pain was much more unbearable at that very moment - his leaving. It hurt, not in its physical sense.
And the worst kind of pain is the invisible one.
I sighed.
“The time will come Baek,” I said as I looked to where he was sitting, and even from this distance I knew he had just smiled. I smiled too.
“When?”
“Soon.”