[J19] SOMETIMES IT DOESN'T HURT TO FALL FROM HEAVEN (1/2)

[kaisooaufest]

Prompt Code: J19
Title: Sometimes It Doesn’t Hurt to Fall from Heaven
Rating: g
Side pairings (if any): ninja brotplayhan
Word Count: 11,963
Summary: After not behaving as an angel should one time too many Jongin has to become a guardian angel to a human of his choice as punishment. Unfortunately the human he chose (a college student named Kyungsoo) is just as against his job as Jongin himself is. Although he is kind of cute… But he still hates him. Obviously. Totally. Always. Maybe..?
Warnings: None
AN: I’m so scared this feels like sending away my baby to uni and not knowing if it’s good enough or not. Hopefully I don’t disappoint the prompt giver too much because I really liked the prompt and I would hate for it to go to waste. Anyway, this is my contribution to the NODTT ficfest~



There was a guy sitting on Kyungsoo’s bed. A guy was sitting on his bed. His bed! The most sacred thing in his miniscule dorm room (the only thing in his room not counting the tiny desk cramped in between said bed and the opposite wall and a small dresser that Kyungsoo had forced into the room even if it actually didn’t fit)! He had managed to get a room for himself but unfortunately that had meant less space for furniture… And people. But that wasn’t the problem right now. There was a random guy sitting on his bed! In his room! He didn’t even close the door after himself, he just stood there gaping, waiting for an explanation for all this. Finally the guy looked up from his position on the bed only to seemingly judge Kyungsoo’s appearance from head to toe.

“About time you showed up. I’ve been waiting for hours.” The guy said. He was wearing all white, a colour that contrasted nicely to his slightly tanned skin and dark brown hair. He was also barefoot, a feature that confused Kyungsoo as he couldn’t see any shoes or socks anywhere in the room that didn’t belong to him. After having stared stupidly at the stranger for a couple of seconds he finally snapped back to it.

“Wait, ‘hours’? I don’t even know you! What are you doing in my room!” Kyungsoo practically shouted. “And how did you get in here?”

“Yeah hours, and I’ll have you know it’s very rude to let someone wait that long. But they said I could choose anyone and this was the first place with an open window so here I am.” The guy said before quickly looking around the room. “And judging from it you really do need me.” He added with an expression of disgust.

Disgust?! There was nothing wrong with Kyungsoo’s room! Sure it was a bit small and everything was kind of grey-beige, no real colour or anything, and there where next to no decorations at all, but who was he to judge? If Kyungsoo had just been a little bit braver he’d throw this guy out on his ass. However he wasn’t, so he opted to stand against the door (he’d closed it not wanting to create a scene) trying to be as far away from the other as possible.

“Choose? Choose for what?” Kyungsoo asked trying to calm down because maybe if he pretended to be nice he could get the stranger out of his room faster.

“I’m your new guardian angel…” A phrase that could sound amazing but was said with so little excitement that it sounded more like “Death…”. Kyungsoo slid down against the door and put his head in his hands.

“Great, I have a psychopath in my room.” He whimpered not caring if said psychopath heard him or not. “And no one to call for help as Baekhyun just had to take that fiction-writing class and everyone else takes basically 3 hours to respond to texts… I need new friends…”

“And you call me a psychopath. Look at who’s talking to himself.” The stranger stood up from the bed and walked over to Kyungsoo “Okay, let’s do some formal introductions. My name is Kim Jongin and from now on I’ll be your guardian angel.” He put out his hand for Kyungsoo to shake, but the latter only stared at it until this Jongin dropped it. “Your turn.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the polite thing to do! Don’t you have any manners?”

“Comes from the person who broke into my room!”

“Okay, sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have done that but I had to get in somehow. Can’t you just please give me your name. I need to know when I report back otherwise they’ll just think I’m lying and have me do something worse than this.” Jongin shuddered at the thought.

“Kyungsoo…”

“Look that wasn’t that hard.” Jongin sounded exasperated. “Family name?”

“Like I’ll give you that.” Kyungsoo laughed before standing up. He wasn’t a fool, he wouldn’t give out his full name to a potentially dangerous man. The room was so small so when he came to an upright position they were standing chest to chest. Kyungsoo begrudgingly noted that Jongin was a few inches taller than him so he had to glare up at the other, something that wasn’t as intimidating as he’d wanted it to be. Unfortunately he couldn’t just change his height so this would have to do.

“Now would you please get out of my room?” He hissed out and when he saw that Jongin was about to say something he quickly added “Before I call the police!” For all Kyungsoo knew Jongin might’ve been about to argument against leaving and Kyungsoo took no chances.

“Wow, okay, sure Mr grumpy-pants” Jongin answered with raised eyebrows as he slowly backed away from Kyungsoo towards the window. He acted as if what Kyungsoo had said was completely out of line, which kind of struck a nerve with Kyungsoo. He was acting totally rational considering Jongin had broken into his room!

“Hey, where are you going?” Jongin was supposed to be leaving and the door was behind Kyungsoo for god’s sakes so why was he going further into the room?

“You told me to leave so that’s what I’m doing. I’ve been away for a few hours anyway and they probably want me to report back by now so… See you soon.” He answered before opening the window wider and swiftly jumped out of it.

Kyungsoo screamed before running towards the window. He didn’t mean for the guy to kill himself, that wasn’t what he meant with ‘getting out of the room’! Then again his room was only on the third story of the building so he might’ve survived but still! Kyungsoo fumbled while trying to get his phone out from his back pocket to call an ambulance as he looked out the window only to see nothing. Nothing at all. Okay he saw the ugly flowerbed right underneath his window, the huge tree that shaded basically the whole building so you never got any sunlight into your room… ever, as well as the traffic and a lot of other things but there was no sight of Jongin anywhere. He was completely gone.

Kyungsoo slowly sat down on his bed and looked blankly at the opposite wall. He should never have let Baekhyun talk him into reading Twilight because it was clearly getting to his head.

~ * ~

After sitting like that for a while and trying to figure out if he had gone completely insane and just imagined the whole ordeal with Jongin he decided that he really didn’t want to know and that he really needed something to eat. Like right now. And preferably something with sugar. Like chocolate. Chocolate sounded good. So Kyungsoo walked over to his petite dresser (everything about the room was so tiny you couldn’t even exaggerate it) to put on a cardigan because he didn’t feel like freezing during his walk to the grocery shop. His day had been bad enough and freezing because of bad planning was something he did not need.

But even though he wasn’t cold at the moment the gods had clearly been against him this whole day. First they’d made his bus late by half an hour so he had to run to his lecture showing up all sweaty only to be told that the professor was sick so it was cancelled, then they put a weirdo in his room (who might not even be real) and now his favourite chocolate was all sold out. Sure, his day could’ve been worse and he still walked out from the store with a chocolate bar in his hand but he’d just wanted that special, favourite flavour of his when he’d later snuggle up under a blanket to watch some bad soap opera and forget about this horrible, horrible day.

He was just about to cross the street outside the store when he felt someone grab his arm and yank him back just in time to see a motorcycle speed past right in front of him.

“Dude, I leave you for like an hour and you’re already almost getting killed. Haven’t you ever heard of checking for crazy taxi drivers before crossing the street?” That very someone said with a very familiar voice that Kyungsoo had hoped to never hear again. He turned around to come face to face with Jongin who looked exactly the same as when he’d sat on top of Kyungsoo’s bed (still no shoes).

“Oh, it’s you again.” Kyungsoo grumbled, all excitement leaving his body at the sight of the man. Not that he’d been that excited before, his favourite chocolate being out and all, but now he felt completely drained. He turned around to cross the street (discretely checking both ways for ‘crazy taxi drivers’). “And it wasn’t a taxi, it was a motorcycle actually.” He added when he felt Jongin following.

“No difference. The point is that you have a death wish and that you clearly need me. And hey! What about a ‘thank you for saving my life’” Jongin said the last part in a mocking, high pitched voice as if the two of them didn’t basically have the same depth in voice.

“Yeah, because I totally sound like that.” He answered not looking at the other but just continuing walking onwards. “Are you going to follow me everywhere, or what?”

“Yep.” He made a popping sound with the p but still managed to sound utterly bored. “What kind of guardian angel would I be if I didn’t follow my subject?”

~ * ~

True to his word Jongin followed him the whole way home, also forbidding him from taking the short cut through a dark alley meaning that the walk took almost twice as much time as usual. But at least he had company even if neither one of them had said a word (excluding that moment at the dark alley were Jongin were dragging Kyungsoo away by the arm while the other were shouting profanities until he finally gave up). Kyungsoo stopped outside his dorm room, turning around to lean against his door and look at the white-clad boy in front of him.

“So…” He started. “I’m home now, so you can leave.” He pointedly looked at Jongin willing him to go away.

“Leave where?”

“To where you’re staying.” He had meant to say it as a command but it came out more like question than anything else.

“I have no such place. So I’m staying with you.” Jongin answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Excuse me?” Kyungsoo screeched. “No you’re not! First of all, I don’t know you. You could be a psycho murderer for all I know. Secondly, I have no room for you and I don’t think I’m allowed to have anyone staying with me. And third of all, I don’t know you!” This was crazy. How could Jongin even begin to think that he was okay with him staying in his room?

“Yes I am.” Jongin said as if it was final. Which it wasn’t! “And if I was a psycho murderer out to get you I have had plenty of chances to finish you already. Why would I save you up until now?” He had a point Kyungsoo begrudgingly acknowledged. “And sure you have room for me. I can sleep on the floor and I don’t take up much space so that reason is invalid. The third we’ve already gone over so, yes I’m staying here. No chance in hell that I’m leaving you alone during the night where you might go out raving with friends with no one who keeps your intake of alcohol in check. I’m here to keep you from making bad choices and I’ll keep you alive at least a bit longer than you would’ve if you’d been alone!”

Kyungsoo still weren’t too convinced. Jongin might’ve had a point about not being a crazy killer but Kyungsoo still didn’t know the other at all. And he was going to keep tabs on how much he was drinking? Jongin was not his mother for god’s sake and not even his mom was doing that anymore.

He didn’t disagree completely again though. He just said that he’d think about it for a while before leading Jongin to the dorm’s shared kitchen. Kyungsoo actually hadn’t planned to eat any dinner that night, chocolate would’ve sufficed, but he thought that food might distract Jongin to either forget all about the whole staying over thing or at least enough so he could sneak into his room unnoticed, lock his door and then Jongin would have to go someplace else. Then again, Jongin did say that he had no other place to go. And Kyungsoo would feel quite bad for leaving him all alone outside. If only he’d been meaner this would’ve been so much easier. Thankfully he had some time left before he had to make any decision about whether to kick Jongin out or not.

They were currently in the otherwise empty kitchen, Kyungsoo frying some onions while Jongin was cutting the rest of the vegetables. Apparently he didn’t trust Kyungsoo with knives as if Kyungsoo hadn’t cooked for himself before Jongin came here (he didn’t need to know that the first aid kit in the kitchen was put up solely for Kyungsoo’s frequent mishaps with cutlery…). The two of them were quiet and although Kyungsoo usually liked some silence this was starting to get awkward. And even though he had given up on the murderer thought because, seriously, the other had been in possession of a knife the last couple of minutes and he hadn’t tried anything yet, he still wanted to know more about him. Was he really an angel? Probably not because that was impossible, but he had disappeared instantly after jumping out of a window only to seemingly pop out of nowhere later again. So something weird was up with the barefooted guy. Maybe he was just incredibly fast and having a built-in Kyungsoo radar of some sorts, or had friends helping him along the way just being an extremely enthusiastic pranker. Now that Kyungsoo thought about it, it wouldn’t surprise him if Baekhyun were behind all this. And the easiest way to get rid of Jongin would then either be to pretend to agree with him so Baekhyun could jump out laughing from behind a corner or to try to prove Jongin wrong so he would win this whole thing so he could laugh at Baekhyun’s face instead. He liked the last option better. Better to be the one laughing than to be the one laughed at.

“So…” He started effectively scaring Jongin who tried to hide it unsuccessfully. “Guardian angel, huh?”

“Yep.” He did that popping sound again that Kyungsoo for some reason found incredibly annoying. Neither one of them was looking at the other. Jongin because he was still trying to act as if he hadn’t been scared and Kyungsoo because he simply didn’t want to. He was still kind of hoping that this was all a bad dream and that Jongin actually didn’t exist.

“For some reason I find that hard to believe. Can you prove it?” Kyungsoo said and now turned to Jongin. Both because he wanted to see the other’s reaction and because he needed the tomatoes to add to the onions. “If you really are an angel there must be something you can do to prove it.”

Jongin was looking at him as if he was crazy.

“You want me to prove to you that I am an angel?” He asked disbelievingly. This was it. Now Jongin would admit that it was all a prank and Baekhyun would come out sulking from his hiding place so Kyungsoo could laugh at him.

“Okay. I’ll prove it.” Wait. What? This wasn’t supposed to happen. Kyungsoo was in utter disbelief and could only stare when he saw Jongin raise the knife from the basil he’d been shredding and place it against his left hand. It was first when Jongin put pressure on it and began to cut that Kyungsoo reacted, basically throwing himself at Jongin and pried the knife from his hands.

“Holy mother of- I told you to prove it not to hurt yourself!” He screamed and backed away to a safe distance where Jongin couldn’t reach him or the knife.

“Calm down. I’m not hurt. I’m not even bleeding.” Jongin answered and opened his hand towards Kyungsoo, showing him his palm. And it was true. There was no blood. No scratch could be seen. Okay, that wasn’t true. When Kyungsoo got closer to inspect his hand he realised that there was actually a cut across Jongin’s palm. A deep one too. However no blood could be seen. And nothing else either actually. It was as if you’d cut halfway through a piece of rubber. When the hand was still you couldn’t see anything but as soon as Jongin began to move it you could see the wound open and close. It was quite disturbing actually but Kyungsoo’s curiosity won over the disgusted feeling as he went even closer, grabbing the hand to be able to really inspect it. After looking at it for a while and realising that nothing happened to it no matter how much he turned the hand in different directions (that he hadn’t hurt Jongin yet by pulling his hand in any wrong way was a miracle) he looked up at the other.

“Are you a vampire?” Kyungsoo instantly regretted the question and he would seriously kill Baekhyun for forcing him to read Twilight. It had messed with his brain.

“Yeah.” Jongin deadpanned. “The guy who’s been calling himself your guardian angel for the last couple of hours is obviously a vampire.”

~ * ~

Jongin actually stayed the night. Kyungsoo allowed him after realising that if Jongin really was his guardian angel it would just be stupid to send him away (he was still considering the idea of him going mad and Jongin just being a figment of his imagination, but if that was the case the imaginary Jongin hadn’t hurt him yet so it probably wouldn’t hurt to keep him around a bit longer), and also after being the target of Jongin’s puppy eyes attacks. Jongin had tried to sneakily ask if he couldn’t share the bed with Kyungsoo but to no avail. Apparently the only time Jongin would be allowed to sleep in his bed was when hell was freezing over (Jongin thought about calling Sehun and ask him to do that for him but guessed that that wouldn’t exactly put him in Kyungsoo’s good books anyway so he spared him the trouble) so Jongin begrudgingly agreed to sleep on the floor. He might’ve sneaked into the bed at midnight as he couldn’t fall asleep only to later be woken up by being harshly shoved onto the ground by a shrieking Kyungsoo who had found himself squished between the other and the wall when his alarm had rung.

Although the whole wake-up call was kind of lucky for Jongin. It had made Kyungsoo feel real bad and offered to cook breakfast for Jongin. Falling of the bed hadn’t hurt at all (why would it? He had cut his hand opened without flinching so falling had only made him a bit disoriented at best) but why would he say that when he was promised pancakes as an apology?

The breakfast was mostly quiet with Kyungsoo muttering apologies and death threats in between obviously torn between wanting to kill Jongin for sleeping in his bed and do all of his bidding for mistakenly pushing him off said bed. After deciding that Jongin didn’t deserve to be killed (or maybe he’d just put that option on hold for now) and while they were putting away their dishes Kyungsoo asked if Jongin was supposed to follow him to school.

And that’s how Jongin found himself beside Sehun on a cloud overlooking the city (no way he was going to school if he had a choice. He’d probably have to follow Kyungsoo tomorrow but today he could at least use the excuse of having to report to the higher ups about his work). He was busy arranging the feathers in his wings because apparently they had decided to lie in every different direction possible after being gone for a whole day (where they went when he was down on the ground he didn’t know but that it had messed up the feathers was obvious).

“So how’s the guy you have to work with?” Sehun asked not even looking at Jongin. He’d been scared when Jongin suddenly appeared in front of him but he’d played it off as a sneeze and was now lying on his stomach at the edge of the cloud, arms serving as a cushion for his chin.

“Terrible…” Jongin answered with a sigh. “He’s shorter than me so he’s the perfect armrest height and he’s got these huge ador- eyes that gets even bigger when I say something stupid, he looks like a tiny baby owl or something. He knows how to cook, like he offered to cook for me both yesterday and this evening and it was delicious. And even though he allowed me to sleep in his room he very violently woke me up by pushing me off his bed, which is really cramped by the way but it was kind of cosy at the same time to sleep with him there. Then again, as I said before, he did make me breakfast so I guess I have to forgive him for that reaction… I just wonder what his smile looks like because for some reason his face is set into a permanent scowl when I’m around and his lips are really full, his upper lip is almost fuller than the other, so I want to know what-“ He had started to ramble and he should probably shut up because Sehun was giving him a really weird look that he didn’t really enjoy watching.

“Yeah, sounds really terrible.” Jongin just wanted to wipe that stupid smirk of off Sehun’s face.

“It is!” Jongin exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air officially giving up on his stupid wings at the same time. “But how are you holding up so far?”

“Huh? I’m good.” Sehun answered sounding far to confused for the question being asked. “You’ve been gone for a day, I think I can survive that long without looking at your ugly face.”

That wasn’t what Jongin had meant. He had asked about Sehun’s punishment not if he’d missed him. Jongin hadn’t even begun to miss Sehun yet so why would he ask that? And Jongin’s face was beautiful thank you very much.

“I meant about the person you’re working with…” Jongin deadpanned “Aren’t you a guardian angel too? Or do you help out with the babies or something?” Sehun must be even stupider than Jongin remembered, and he had only been gone for a day.

“Oh you mean that!” Sehun answered and Jongin nodded. “I didn’t get a punishment.”

“WHAT?”

“I didn’t get a punishment.”

“I HEARD WHAT YOU SAID I’M JUST WHAT?” This was crazy. Why was Sehun free to go when Jongin had to become a freaking guardian angel of all things. “We did the exact same thing why was I the only one who walked away being punished for my crimes? It’s not like this was your first time either we’ve done all things together so YOU DESERVED TO BE PUNISHED TO! How did you escape Joonmyeon’s wrath in the first place?”

“You know how Joonmyeon reacts to my puppy eyes.” Sehun smiled knowingly. “I just shoot them his way while saying that I didn’t mean to do that and that I’ll never do it again. Works every time!”

For Sehun it did yes. For everyone else it didn’t. Jongin doubted even Lu Han could survive from Joonmyeon just by doing bambi eyes. Then again Lu Han was older than Joonmyeon and could be scary when he wanted to be so he probably didn’t need that skill.

“This is not fair… I think I’m going to sue…” Jongin grumbled.

“I don’t think that’s going to work.” Sehun said far too happily for Jongin’s liking “Joonmyeon’s protected by Siwon and Siwon’s protected by God so I think you’ll just dig yourself deeper by trying that.”

“True…”

“Anyway,” Sehun continued trying to cheer up Jongin by changing the subject but still not really changing it at all “What did you say your terrible dude’s name was?”

“Terrible dude? Oh, right. Kyungsoo.” Sehun’s horrible attempt apparently worked as Jongin immediately looked a bit happier.

“Kyungsoo? As in Do Kyungsoo? As in DO Kyungsoo?”

“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me his surname.” To say that Jongin was a bit taken aback by Sehun’s reaction was an understatement. “Who’s this DO Kyungsoo anyway?”

“The youngest of this generation of Dos, and the most accident prone member of the Do family ever, according to Lu Han at least. Thankfully for him he’s always had a guardian angel by his side.”

“Huh?”

“Some 500 years or so Do Kyungsoo’s great great great… you get the point, many greats… grandfather struck a deal with God, no one knows exactly how he managed to do that but it is believed that God managed to, by mistake, kill this Do even when it wasn’t his time to go yet. This deal was that every Do thereafter should always be protected by a guardian angel. It hasn’t been any problem with this as we’ve always had guardian angels that have been happy to take care of the family until Do Kyungsoo was born. I believe he was assigned Minseok at birth and he stayed until Kyungsoo turned 10 then he was in dire need of a vacation. Every angel after him has only been able to stay for about two years before they were replaced because they got too tired.” Sehun explained. “And now that you’ve mentioned it (“Mentioned what?” Jongin piped up but was ignored) I actually heard something about the latest one being replaced yesterday. Maybe it was you who unknowingly took that angel’s place!”

“Wait…” Jongin looked quite disturbed to say the least. “So you mean to say that I just left one of the most accident prone humans of all time alone for the last couple of hours?!”

“Hey, don’t worry. He’s a grown man he can survive alone for some time at least.” Sehun tried tor reassure the other but to no avail, Jongin disappeared from him. “Or not…”

~ * ~

Kyungsoo was sitting, bored out of his mind, in one of the university’s lecture halls taking notes and fighting to not fall asleep when he suddenly felt a presence in the formerly vacant seat beside him. When he turned around and saw Jongin sitting there trying to look innocent it would be an understatement to say that Kyungsoo was scared.

“Holy mother of fudge-“ He exclaimed realising somewhere along halfway through the sentence that maybe he should keep it down so not to get the teacher’s attention on himself. Luckily he had sat down in the back and it seemed like no one else than him had noticed the boy suddenly appearing out of nowhere beside him. “How and what are you doing here?” He hissed at Jongin who looked so out of place it was almost comical.

“Well I am your guardian angel so I thought that I probably should… guard you or something.” Jongin whispered back without looking at him while either trying to melt into the desk or pretend to take notes (Kyungsoo wasn’t too sure about which of these things Jongin tried to do).

“I have survived my whole life without you I would think that one day more or less with you shouldn’t make too much of a difference.” Kyungsoo slid a page from his notebook to Jongin so his pretence at least looked a bit more real.

“You’ve probably lived your whole life with an angel by your side so I wouldn’t say that. One day could make all the difference.”

“Excuse me? I think I would’ve noticed if a creep was following me around all day, every day. Unless you’re telling me that it’s one of my friends, and the only one I’ve known my entire life is Baekhyun. And he’s barely around all the time, so no. I don’t think so.”

“They were probably invisible so of course you wouldn’t notice them.” Jongin whispered so quietly Kyungsoo almost didn’t catch it, most likely in the hopes of calming Kyungsoo down as he had started to gain volume the longer he spoke.

“Invisible?” He half screeched half whispered.

“I’ll explain at home, okay? Now pay attention and take notes.” Jongin quickly ended the conversation with a nod towards the teacher and Kyungsoo was too befuddled to neither answer nor notice how Jongin called Kyungsoo’s dorm room “home”.

Let’s just say that Kyungsoo wasn’t as focused as usual this day. He couldn’t let it go that apparently he’d had angels by his side all his life. Invisible! That was impossible! Then again Jongin was pretty much the very contradiction to the word impossible so maybe he shouldn’t be too surprised. But that didn’t mean that he wasn’t slightly zoned out most of the day.

Unfortunately this was also the day that Baekhyun decided to unannounced meet up with Kyungsoo right outside the university building. Any other day Kyungsoo would’ve noticed Baekhyun’s bright blonde hair miles away and could’ve gotten Jongin to go another way and then meet up back at his room or at least decide on an alibi on how Jongin and Kyungsoo knew each other. Now when Baekhyun greeted them with just that question Jongin simply answered that they were childhood friends and Kyungsoo knew he was doomed. Especially when Jongin said that they were on their way to Kyungsoo’s and Baekhyun answered with an “Oh, then I shouldn’t disturb. Have fun!” and wink while strutting away. Baekhyun had been Kyungsoo’s best friend since birth and therefore knew all of the latter’s friends and consequently also then knew that Jongin absolutely wasn’t a so-called “childhood friend”. Kyungsoo didn’t know if he wanted to know what Baekhyun thought but deeming from the single text message saying “Get some ;)” Kyungsoo would have to sit him down and explain that whatever it was he was thinking it was all wrong (preferably without Jongin in the room).

Then again, thanks to Jongin Baekhyun left them alone, which meant that Kyungsoo could begin his questioning as soon as the two of them entered his dorm room.

“Invisible?” Was the first thing Kyungsoo said (more like screeched).

“Yep.” He wished Jongin would do something about that annoying habit of popping the p.

“Then why aren’t you?” Kyungsoo actually didn’t know what made him more upset, the fact that he’d always had people watching him without him knowing (he felt his privacy seriously invaded) or the fact that people actually could be invisible for real.

“Because I wasn’t allowed to.” Jongin answered but Kyungsoo clearly didn’t think that was enough of an explanation. Something that Jongin noticed as he continued before Kyungsoo could ask more questions. “To become a guardian angel you actually have to sign this huge contract going over rules and what consequences you’ll have to meet if you break them and whatnot. In that contract there’s also a section where you get to choose whether to be invisible when on Earth or to stay visible. Most angels chooses to be invisible, both because it’s easier as you don’t have to go through any awkward introductions, like I had to, but also because you get to keep your wings. I wasn’t trusted with wings on Earth and therefor I simply had to choose option number two, to stay visible.”

“Wait, so you do actually have wings they just disappear when you’re here? Then where do they go?” He should probably ask more about the invisibility but he’d actually wondered about wings, as far as he knew angels usually sported a pair of wings but Jongin didn’t. And he could always go back to the invisibility topic later on.

“No… I’m an angel without wings… Of course I do.” Jongin deadpanned. “And I don’t know where they go I just know that it seriously rumples the feathers.”

“Okay, I’m sorry for not knowing anything about angels!” How was he supposed to know this stuff anyway? It’s not like they learned it in school!

“You haven’t told me anything about angels! How do you even become an angel?” Kyungsoo thought it was about time to get some answers.

“You die don’t you.” Jongin answered both looking and sounding just as upset as Kyungsoo. A silence settled between the two of them and Kyungsoo could feel guilt creep up on him.

“Oh… I’m sorry.” He probably should’ve been able to guess the answer to that question but this day had just been too much to him so he hadn’t thought before he spoke and therefor he came out far more insensitive than he ever wanted to.

“S’okay. Has to happen sooner or later for everybody.” Jongin answered. “And the afterlife is pretty chill so I don’t complain.”

“I’m still sorry. It was a dumb question.”

“Don’t be, it’s okay.” Jongin said with a smile and ruffled Kyungsoo’s hair (he didn’t know what to think about that so he settled with just fixing the strands with a small pout on his face after Jongin retracted his hand again). “So, do you have any more dumb questions for me?”

He had. But when he thought them over they all sounded extremely rude and insensitive so he just looked over unsurely at Jongin, not knowing how to proceed. Somewhere along their conversation they had both situated themselves on Kyungsoo’s bed and Kyungsoo felt a weird sense of déjà vu seeing Jongin sitting at the same place as where he’d found him yesterday. Except now he wasn’t scared shitless but instead there was a weird combination of awkwardness and comfort surrounding them.

“Come on, you can ask me anything. You won’t hurt me.” Jongin said trying to coax some questions out of the other. He knew that Kyungsoo had more questions for him and even thought he doubted he had answers for all of them he just wanted to get this over with so he could go back to… whatever it was he was supposed to be doing. Guarding Kyungsoo from dangers?

“Okay… But I’ll just say sorry beforehand because I’ll sound like a jerk with half of these.” Kyungsoo said, half-glaring at Jongin as if it was some sort of crime to answer questions. “You said you were dead, sorry, but how does age work? Like do you continue to age or do you just stop the day you die, sorry.” He mostly asked this because he was afraid of how old Jongin were. He looked to be about the same age as Kyungsoo but what if he actually was a hundred years old man trapped in an attractive young man’s body. Not attractive. Just a man. A man-boy at best.

“I thought you said sorry beforehand?” Stupid smirk on stupid handsome face. “But we’re dead, right? So most of us just stop aging physically, or if they die at old age they can choose one of their younger appearances if I’m right? But I know that you can choose to have a body that continues to age too because most of the babies that die grow up and stop aging at around 18 years old or something. And then we have this dude that I think experiments on how long his body can go because he’s over 700 years old he and he mostly looks like a cute raisin but is still capable of doing everything everybody else can do. Being an angel is simply just weird.”

“Babies?”

“Babies die too, you know. Tragic but true. So we have kindergarteners and schools and stuff so they’ll get education and learn everything essential so they too can grow up. It’s usually quite weird when they meet with their parents long after but it mostly turns out well without any complications.”

“Okay, that’s good.” Kyungsoo was thinking about getting out a notebook to take notes because he had a feeling that all this was far more complicated than he thought but he opted not too. “I’m sorry, again, but how old are you?” He felt horrible for asking but he really needed to know.

“19 or 20. Depending on how you want to count. My body’s 19 but my mind is 20.” Good then he wasn’t some pervert pedophile that’d just taken the job to get closer to Kyungsoo. Not that he’d thought that before either but it’s never bad to be sure.

“Wait, then I’m older than you! You should pay some respect!” He said and lightly hit Jongin’s shoulder. He was older no matter what way you counted Jongin’s age (only by little as he was 21 years old but still) so he guessed that he now could play the age card to get what he wanted.

“Hm, nah, don’ think so. You still look younger than me so-“ Jongin was disrupted by being hit again by Kyungsoo, a bit harder this time. “But you have to have more questions. This can hardly have satisfied you.” He continued before an argument about age and respect could start. The awkwardness had eased up around them and it all felt like a comfortable conversation between friends now. Although Kyungsoo didn’t know if he actually regarded Jongin as a friend considering that he’d only known him for a day. And was still slightly scared of him and didn’t really know if he existed for real or only in his imagination. A few more days and he’d probably have made up his mind about Jongin’s existence.

“You did say something about a contract,” Kyungsoo started “and rules. What kind of rules do you have to follow?”

“Well, considering that I only skimmed through that part as I didn’t really care, “ Jongin rubbed his neck in embarrassment (or lice, but embarrassment sounded more likely for Kyungsoo). “I actually don’t know all the rules. But I know a few of them.”

Apparently there was different rules based on whether you were invisible or not and it was actually easier to interact and “save” the subject if you could, in fact, be seen. If you were invisible you would have to stay that way and could in no way make the subject start believing that s/he was not alone. Therefore you couldn’t touch them (or drag them away from danger as Jongin had done with Kyungsoo earlier) if there weren’t any people around so that the subject would think that it simply was someone else who pushed them accidentally. If they were to be ambushed you couldn’t interfere by jumping in between the ambusher and the subject as it would raise questions if they suddenly couldn’t be reached due to an invisible wall of some sorts. You couldn’t punch them in the face either (Jongin actually was allowed to do that, but he couldn’t injure them too much) because that would raise even more questions. Tripping people was an invisible angels best kind of sabotage (and visible if you didn’t want to punch an ambusher in the face). But some things were easier for the invisibles. As they couldn’t be seen they could sneak into anywhere to listen in plans or sabotage attacks before they even happened, they could remove poison or drugs before they entered the food or drink, they could ruin people’s aim in fights and so on. If you wanted to do sneaky stuff, being an invisible guardian angel was for you. If you wanted to do something more direct, it was better to just lose your wings and stay visible. Also, if you were a social person it was better to stay visible as then you could actually interact and speak to people, otherwise you were completely alone and would have to stay that way.

Kyungsoo didn’t know if that had actually clarified anything for him or if it’d just made him more confused. What it had done was to make him realise that maybe Jongin were right about him having had guardian angels before too. It had happened that he’d been the victim of robbery attempts where the robber suddenly fell over so he could run away. And sometimes when he was cooking and had fallen over holding a couple of knives, and he’d been sure that he would manage to stab himself in the chest and die, he’d landed on the floor, all knives landing far away from him and maybe only having scratched him slightly in the hand or the arm. And then it was that time where he’d tripped out in front of a bus but luckily his momentum had been so great so he’d actually made it to the other lane and therefore not being killed. It could’ve just been luck or it could be as Jongin had said. He’d always had an angel by his side. So maybe he should be happy about that but he didn’t know how far these invisible angels could go. Did they follow him into the bathroom? Because that just made him really uncomfortable and if/when Jongin left he hoped he would get another visible guardian or he’d never be able to go on the toilet or shower again.

“Okay, thank you. And sorry again.” Kyungsoo said. He knew he had had more questions, the problem was that he now couldn’t remember any of them. “I don’t think I have anything more to ask as of now.”

“Okay. Just ask when you think of something.” Jongin answered with a smile. “Unless we’re in public because then I won’t answer. Because it’s my job to get you through life as easy as possible and if people think you’re crazy that won’t happen.”

“Because you’re making such a great job at making me don’t believe I’m crazy…”

~ * ~

”How many times have I told you not to sleep in my bed?!”
“I know! I’m sorry, but the floor’s hard. It won’t happen again!”
“That’s what you said yesterday!”

~ * ~

After a week of Jongin sneaking into Kyungsoo’s bed at night Kyungsoo finally went out and bought a mattress for the angel. He didn’t know how he would explain it if there ever was a dorm inspection as he wasn’t allowed to have guests but he guessed he’d face that problem when it appeared. As of now he just wanted to have his bed for his own.

They fell into a routine. Kyungsoo would wake up first and then proceed to wake up Jongin by accidentally trip on him while on his way to the bathroom. The two of them would then go to the shared kitchen (which almost felt like a private one as they next to never met anyone else there) to eat breakfast and then Kyungsoo would go to university with Jongin following closely. After his lectures Kyungsoo would either go home to study or hang out with friends and Jongin would join him in either task (he had managed to hang out alone with Baekhyun a few times after some serious persuasion and promising that Baekhyun wouldn’t hurt him in any way). On weekends Kyungsoo again either studied or hung out with friends, or both at the same time, and Jongin always sat beside him trying to help or join the conversations. Kyungsoo’s friends had all welcomed Jongin with open arms and it hadn’t taken long for him to feel like he belonged there. It was only Baekhyun who still was a bit suspicious of him as he still went with the “I’m Kyungsoo’s childhood friend” explanation whenever someone asked and Baekhyun still seemed to think that Jongin was either Kyungsoo’s extremely long one night stand (several nights stand?) or secret boyfriend. Some nights Kyungsoo went to parties and Jongin always joined him and always drank at least half of his drinks. This had bothered Kyungsoo at first but later on had realised that it actually all was for the better. He was also out of the danger-of-getting-drugged zone now as Jongin always was in control, and never got drunk (probably because he was an angel or something as no matter how much he drunk he always stayed completely sober). Kyungsoo had gotten so used to Jongin’s presence so it always felt quite weird and empty whenever he left for a couple hours to report to the higher ups (always with a promise that he’d set someone up on watching him (he didn’t know what to feel about that)) or to check up on someone called Oh Sehun.

The first time Jongin had left hadn’t actually been to report to the officials but to report to Sehun (not that Jongin would ever tell Kyungsoo that). Jongin had finally seen what Kyungsoo’s smile looked like as he had laughed wholeheartedly at something Jonghyun had said. He didn’t think that a smile could ever daze him like that but it did and he needed to talk to someone about it and Sehun was the only one he could think of. Apparently Sehun didn’t think that Kyungsoo’s smile was that extraordinary but he was obviously completely wrong.

It was also Sehun who helped Jongin to realise that he was attracted to the shorter human he was supposed to guard (more like persuaded him into coming out of denial), not only to his appearance but to his personality too. Let’s just say that the next couple of days was extremely awkward as Jongin tried to stay as far away from Kyungsoo as possible due to embarrassment at the same time as he tried to stay close to make sure that Kyungsoo stayed out of danger (Sehun had really fun at this and apparently his new favourite thing to pass time had become to watch Jongin and Kyungsoo’s life).

But other than that their lives had passed by naturally. They became better and better friends as time went by (hard not to when you spend basically every hour together) and almost the only time something out of ordinary happened was about a month into their friendship (agreement to let Jongin be Kyungsoo’s guardian angel?) when they were making dinner Kyungsoo suddenly exclaimed:

“You don’t look like an eraser any more!” It was lucky that they were alone in the kitchen as Kyungsoo had basically screamed his thoughts and were pointing aggressively with a spatula at Jongin.

“Thanks, I guess.” Jongin answered and carefully took the spatula away from Kyungsoo before he could do anything stupid with it.

“I knew there was something different about you, I just couldn’t put my finger on it…” Kyungsoo grumbled while Jongin sneakily tried to continue the stirring of the fried vegetable the other had previously been doing (they had some sort of agreement that Kyungsoo did all the “cooking” while Jongin handled everything that had anything to do with knives). “But now I know! You don’t look like rubber any longer!” He screamed and pointed at Jongin’s face again, without a spatula this time though as it had been confiscated.

“Okay, okay, I believe you!” Jongin answered holding up his hands as if to prove it and to calm Kyungsoo down. But all it did was make the other even more excited as he started pointing at Jongin’s left hand instead.

“Look, look! It’s gone!” He was almost jumping now and pointing at Jongin’s hand so Jongin had to turn it around to only see… His hand. Nothing unusual there in the palm of his hand and that’s when it hit him.

“Oh right. Yeah I healed it last time I went up to see Sehun.” It was the hand where he’d cut himself the first night on Earth. He had actually forgotten all about it (as it didn’t hurt or anything) until Sehun told him that he’d have to do something about because he felt like puking every time he saw it.

“What do you mean you’ve healed it?” If Jongin had thought that him understanding what Kyungsoo was on about would calm the older down he was very wrong.

“It means that it can’t heal by itself so I had to do something about it, more precisely soak it for a few seconds in Holy Water and voila, as good as new!”

“Holy water?”

“Yep”

It was actually only about 60 years ago that the angels discovered the healing powers of Holy Water. And it was all by accident. The tale was told to all new angels (or most of them at least) and it differed according on who told it. But Jongin had been lucky and got to hear it from the one who’d been the one who discovered it, Lu Han. Or maybe you could say that it actually was Yixing who discovered it but Lu Han was the one who saw it all.

Before the discovery of the powers of Holy Water angels just lived with their injuries. Not that many got injuries and if they did it was never anything major so it was never a problem. Until Yixing. No one knows why or how it happened but on one of his trips down to Earth he managed to get blown up. Completely. He was the first angel this happened to and no one knew how to react. Did he die? Could angels die? What happened to them if they died?

Anyway, the only thing left after the explosion was a single white feather, and considering that Lu Han was the one who was closest to Yixing it was obvious that the feather was given to him as a memory. Lu Han of course was devastated and kept the feather as a necklace for a couple of months before he decided to bury it, and where a better place than beside the beautiful lake of Holy Water? The day of the burial Lu Han was walking by the shore of the lake, searching for the perfect spot and when he finally found it and sunk down on his knees to start digging a sudden breeze went by, catching the feather and bringing it out over the water just to drop it there, right in the middle of the lake.

That completely broke Lu Han. It was forbidden to enter the lake, even just touching the water by mistake was severely punished, and now his best friend had been taken away from him once more. It was in this very moment of deep desperation that the feather sunk down under the surface. Only to later let Yixing rise up from the water, looking the same as usual (except for a small glow) and as if nothing had happened.

Lu Han of course thought he was hallucinating out of despair and just started to cry harder. It was first when Yixing hugged him and asked what was wrong (soaking wet and naked by the way) that Lu Han realised that maybe, just maybe, his friend had came back to him. The first thing they did was to report the weird happenings (attracting a few stares as Yixing was still dripping water and Lu Han was still sobbing loudly) and the officials immediately started testing the water. They just had to get one of the few injured angels to go down into the water for a few seconds to see the immediate changes that happened. All their cuts closed up and all bruises disappeared. Skin regrew and broken bones healed. It was a miracle and after that Holy Water has been used for healing purposes. It’s still forbidden to bath in the lake just for fun thought (something that Jongin and Sehun have done more than once anyways).

During Jongin’s explanation Kyungsoo had taken Jongin’s hand in his and was examining it in a fashion similar to when Jongin had first cut it. Jongin was fighting himself not to blush because of the feeling of Kyungsoo holding his hand and looking more as if in awe than disgusted. But even though he kind of wanted to flee so that Kyungsoo wouldn’t see his red face he much rather stayed where he was, with Kyungsoo playing with his hands.

They would just have to eat burned food today.

Part 2