You had started to notice the stalker a few weeks ago, and you were becoming increasingly frightened by the situation. He was everywhere you went, his blonde head towering over every crowd, blue eyes always studying you from across every room. You’d mentioned it to a couple of your friends, but no one but you ever saw the man. You were beginning to wonder if you were simply losing your mind.
Until he saved your life, that is.
It was a despicably hot day for early autumn, with not many people willing to leave their air conditioned homes. You were only out and about because you had promised to meet your friend for lunch today. You mentally cursed the busy lunch rush, which had forced you to park your car a considerable distance from the restaurant you and your friend had agreed on. You had to walk several blocks and cross two lanes of traffic to reach your destination. The minor inconvenience probably wouldn’t have annoyed you so much if it wasn’t so unseasonably hot, your hair going limp and clothes sticking to your body as you walked.
You weren’t really paying attention to where you were going. People always said that you tuned out of your surroundings too often; The nicer ones called you a dreamer, while the not-so-nice ones said that you were an airhead space cadet. So it wasn’t at all out of character for you to forget to look for traffic before crossing the street. You were too occupied by your own thoughts to notice the speeding car until it was practically on top of you.
You flinched, screwing your eyes shut, but the impact never came. You cautiously opened your eyes, drawing in a gasp at the sight they were met with. The car that surely would have killed you was on the other side of the street, its front bumper dented around the fire hydrant that it had crashed into, smoke curling from under the hood. But you could barely see the wreck through the mass of snow white feathers that blocked your vision. You quickly realized that the feathers were attached to wings, which were wrapped protectively around you. You also noticed that a pair of hands rested firmly on your hips, holding you steady. You whirled around, only to be met with an all-too-familiar pair of blue eyes. Blue eyes that widened in shock at the words that immediately left your mouth. “Who are you?”
He looked at you in utter disbelief, like you had just said that the sky was green or something. And then he spoke. It was the first time you had ever heard his voice. “Y-you can see me?”
"Of course I can." You huffed, pushing him away and crossing your arms. "What kind of question is that?"
When you pushed him, his wings (and you realized now that they were his — firmly grafted to his back from right behind his shoulders down to just above his hips) withdrew from you, snapping into a new position spread out behind him in an almost self conscious gesture. He spoke again, his gaze not leaving your face. “You’re not supposed to be able to see me. They said no humans would be able to see us, not even our own…”
"Your wings." You stared at them, mesmerized by the hundreds of tiny rainbow reflections where the light bounced off of feathers. They were the most beautiful things you had ever seen. You managed to tear your gaze away from them to make eye contact with this strange boy (for you now realized he wasn’t as old as you originally thought). "What are you?"
"I— uh, you’re going to be late meeting your friend. I would hurry up and get out of here before the police show up if I were you." Before you could even open your mouth to protest, there was the sound of a thousand rustling feathers, and he was gone.
×××
You told your friend about what had happened (leaving out the winged stalker part, of course) and the two of you had agreed to get your food to go and reschedule to meet up another time. She insisted on walking you back to your car afterwards, just in case. You were extra careful driving home, refusing to let yourself focus on anything but the road ahead of you, despite a certain pair of blue eyes lurking at the edges of your thoughts.
