"You can't help her."

My throat feels dry and raspy, papery from dehydration and my mom knowingly passes me a paper cup that I put to my lips. The liquid instantly satiates my thirst, but I only take two sips, for drinking too much may cause my stomach to get soggy.

I put the cup back down, making sure I release it entirely before pulling my hand away. "I have to." I tell her. She is busy checking on the dough rising from the stone oven and I catch a whiff of the heat when she pulls away.

She turns around and gives me a stern look, "No, you can't. There's nothing you can do for her at this point."

"How do you know that?" I can feel the heat rising at the back of my neck.

Mother lets out a huff of exasperation, "I just know. People have been talking."

"Like people talked about me?"

"Papier." She says my name as if I've said a big swear word, but I keep my gaze on her, steady and unwavering because I know that people talk, I know of the rumours and gossip she tries so hard to hide from me.

"What?" I snap back, "do you think I don't know what people have been saying about us? About me?"

"That's..." her strong demeanor falters, "that's different."

"It's not different. People are saying I'm disfigured, grotesque, unable to walk in direct sunlight because I might burn on the spot. And yet, here I am. The rumours mean nothing, Mother. And I'm not leaving Aurore to fight this alone."

My eyes then slide away to fall onto the table. I can't seem to put my thoughts together. They seem to crash and jumble into each other as if a storm has taken over my logic. Aurore's pale face flashes through my mind and I can't help but wince.

Aurore, so pure and kind and genuine. Aurore, who's been nothing but wonderful to me.

I'd die before leaving her alone in the dark. I know how it feels, I know how scared she must be.

I decide to take action. I push my chair back and it screeches against the stone floor before I grab onto my jacket hanging from the coat hanger. Ignoring my mother's cries, I exit carefully through the door and start walking towards the village centre, towards Aurore's house. Already, I can feel the familiar ache in my ankles, still bruised from yesterday's walk to the hospital and back. Even when the wooden sandals were adequate and safe for my feet, that doesn't mean I can walk miles in them. My ankles had been bleeding by the time I reached home.

Her family does not know about our relationship but that did not stop me during the few times I had managed to crouch right outside her window to murmur into her ear until the early hours of the morning.

When I reach the familiar redbricked building, I can hear hushed voices, high childish sopranos mixed with soft brass tenors, and I lean against the stone wall of their bakery for a moment just to let the comforting hum of night time calm my nerves. Aurore has told me so many stories about her family, stories that have made me smile and dream of my own siblings. While my mother had done everything in her power to keep me safe and to make me the happiest individual even with all my handicap, I had always wondered what it felt like to have a brother or a sister, to be able to fight with them and run around to do chores together. Mother had never told me about my father, but the least I know is that he had spared me one look, before deciding that I wasn't his child. Ever since then, my mother and I had lived alone.

Aurore's bedroom light is on, shining through her translucent curtains. I curl my fingers into a soft, relaxed palm before reaching over to knock on her window. Two taps, just as we'd established a few years ago.

I wait for a few minutes with bated breath, hoping that no passersby on the street will notice a boy with barely concealed paper skin glowing in the darkness of night. Light or dark, it does not matter. The light protrudes through my flesh and makes me physically appear like a ghost.

My ears perk up when the window screeches open.

After a moment, a soft voice flows through. "Hello?"

A smile graces my face and I step into the light. There she is, with her dark mane pulled back into a braid and her seafoam eyes blinking into the darkness of the alleyway.

"It's me." I confirm as I crouch down and take in her features, admiring the outline of her nose and her thinly shaped mouth, as uneven as they are. She is beautiful to me, no matter what she looks like, no matter how many names they call her on the streets.

"How are you feeling?" I ask as she opens the window wider and proceeds to hop onto the edge so that we're practically on the same level. Her room is like an underground cave, small and cramped and barely enough for a single individual. But she makes do, considering that she has four other siblings to think of.

"I'm alright." she shrugs and tries to act nonchalant. But I notice the pain bordering at the edge of her seafoam-colored eyes, "I thought you weren't allowed out after dark."

"Since when did that ever stop me?" I raise a brow, causing her to laugh.

Rolling her eyes, Aurore crosses her legs before placing her head into her palm, "So what gives? I know you're not one to upset your mother. What is it?"

"I want to help you, Aurore."

She stays quiet for a minute. Then, a soft sigh escapes her, "I told you there isn't anything they can do. The healers have tried everything."

"The same healers that told my mother that I was going to die an early death." I shoot back, "There must be a way."

Aurore laughs, but it's hollow and fragile. "You are quite tough for someone made out of paper, I'll give you that."

"I'd make a good spy."

"Sure, whatever you say."

"Hey," I shove her shoulder lightly, "at least put some heart into the compliment."

She cracks a grin and I rejoice in the familiar warmth of her smile. It has been a while since I've seen that much emotion on her face that isn't related to tears or pain.

We spend the night talking, hushed murmurs dissipating in the darkness of night as the hours slip by seamlessly. As the lights slowly go out in each house and as the night dusts over with stars sprinkling over its vast black canvas, I let my fingers brush against hers and with sheer thrill, feel the rush of adrenaline rush through my blood when her fingers timidly tap mine in a friendly manner. We get closer and closer, her warmth giving me the comfort that I need against the stark cold of the evening. I get cold easily due to my frail consistence, and at some point I feel Aurore drape her scarf over my shoulder, careful not to be too harsh or brutal for even a slight misstep in touch may cause me to bleed.

My hands ache to hold her, my body desires to feel her touch, to feel her warmth, so many times have my lips parted at the thought of pressing them to hers and kissing her like nothing existed in this world, except for us two.

But I know I can't.

I can't.

Not because I'm too fragile or because I might tear up at her touch.

Not because there's no possibility of a future or even the chance of bearing a normal family.

But because she loves someone else.

Someone that isn't me.

And every day, every single second, I can't help but wonder why I wasn't born like anyone else, why I was born with such a deformity that makes me almost inhuman. When I came to know about Aurore's affection for the neighboring farm boy living on the other side of the street, I couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like to step in this young man's shoes if only for a minute.

"Did you tell Perrio yet?" my question is a soft murmur that blends into the hum of the night, trying not to show how even saying his name affects me.

She is quiet for a moment. Her eyes flicker hesitantly between the ground and my face.

"No." she mumbles.

"Why not?"

"He doesn't have to know."

"Aurore, he's your boyfriend."

"I know, but--" she cuts herself off, before shaking her head and mumbling a bunch of words under her breath that I can't quite catch.

"What?" I lean closer as she repeats herself with averted eyes. "What if he doesn't want me anymore?"

I lean back to gape at her, "Why would he not want you?"

"Think, Papier." She snaps suddenly, "Why would he want to be with me when I can't give him the life he wants? I can't live long enough to give him the family he needs."

"But he loves you."

Her lips press together, "Sometimes, that isn't enough."

There is so much emotion in her words that it breaks me to think about them. They keep echoing through my head as I trudge back home with drooped shoulders. How ironic, that the girl who does not want me would not be wanted by a lover. I can't help but think that things would be different if she reciprocated my feelings. But alas, I never had the courage to tell her how I really felt, not because I feared her response, but because I knew, for her own well-being, that I'd rather not tell her about my affections. I don't want her to give her life to a man whose life is as fragile as glass.

My mother was definitely not pleased when I got back, but she can't keep her anger for long. I ask her about healers the next day with the hope that it will give me a sense of direction. Aurore's time is running out fast and the solution I seek isn't one written down on paper.

"Papier, for the last time, there is no available cure for such a thing." My mother decisively drops the pan in which she had been baking muffins onto the kitchen counter, the noise bouncing off the walls with a piercing echo. Placing her hands on her hips, she throws me a glare that can practically burn someone alive.

But I press on still, leaning my elbows gingerly on the wooden table surface, "What about the stories and legends? There were myths about this disease before, right?" I make sure not to snap my fingers to hard when I do, "remember that one about the wishes? The one with the oracle that supposedly grants you any kind of wish if you give him something in exchange?"

"That's just a silly bedtime story." my mother huffs while removing the muffins from the pan and placing them in colourful muffin wrappers, ready to be sold on the market. As usual, I am only allowed to admire her handiwork from afar, and I feel glad and less guilty knowing that her pastries are selling more and more across the village. People actually like my mother's baking, which does not surprise me. She is a great cook, has always been.

"It's not, you said it yourself, that he was so tormented that he decided to run away because people wouldn't stop pestering him. Do you know where he went?"

"How would I know that?"

Her answer might have seemed as innocent as I, but she had been quick to reply. Too quick.

"Because you sought him out."

She freezes.

I keep my eyes on her.

Silence. Outside, a bird chirps.

"No." Was all she said. And resumed icing the muffins. I could only stare at her in astonishment, hands lifting in exasperation, "What do you mean 'no'? Mother, this can help Aurore. It can save her."

"He's gone, Papier. Gone and never to return. Even if you did find him, there's not a chance he'd help you."

"But he helped you."

She said nothing again, focusing on putting some more icing on her muffins before reaching over for the multicolored sweet sprinkles that she then scatters over the top as the finishing touch.

I lean forward in my chair, eyes insistent and intent, "You found him, didn't you? He helped you. You wouldn't have figured out all these tricks by yourself, it's too obvious. I would've already been dead by now." I keep my gaze on her, willing her to look at me and be honest for once, to actually break down her walls and talk to me like I'm an actual adult and not just her child who needs to be bubble wrapped from the rest of the world, "and Aurore might be saved too if we get to him on time."

She suddenly meets my eyes, her own brown orbs flickering with so much emotion, filling with tears as she chokes on her words, "You can't do this, Papier. You-- It will break you to do it." She shakes her head, but that's enough indication that there is a solution. So I press on.

"What is it?" I ask her, "What did he ask you to do?"

As the tears roll down her cheeks, mother quickly brushes them away with her apron and busies herself with setting the cakes on the cart, "When I found him, he had one condition that he asked of me." her soft soprano was trembling, as if she is threatening to break at any moment. A part of me wants to hold her and keep her qualms at bay. But I keep my ground, listening attentively to whatever she has to say.

"He wanted me to bring him a thousand paper cranes. A thousand paper cranes for one wish." her brown orbs settled on my stormy grey ones, "that was back when you were still a babe, Papier. I didn't know what to do. Paper was expensive and we had no money to live, let alone to buy paper for some stupid cranes." she chuckles, but it sounds hollow and devoid of amusement, "But I knew it was the only way to save you. So I had to make do with what I had. I tore up some of my books and spent most of my free time trying to find used or old books that people didn't need anymore. With some extra cash, I managed to get just the right amount of paper. The people of Melona said that the oracle's wish is one that nobody has ever succeeded in doing before, because he was very particular with how the paper cranes should be folded. Every man that sought him out with their paper crane bags had been sent back with unfulfilled wishes, so I knew that I had to make them right."

"How did you figure it out?"

"It took me a while. I didn't know what paper cranes were, to be honest. I had to do my research, tried to read books about folding paper cranes and their significance. I remember your grandma teaching me once, how to fold paper into tiny objects or animals, and that's what I brought to him. With that, he managed to grant me the wish of your life in exchange for a thousand paper cranes." her lips trembled and she pressed them together. Her hands, I notice, are shaking as she forces herself to continue talking, "He told me that while he couldn't wish all of your injuries or your disease to disappear, he would take away the death that came along with that disease, made you immune so that if you died, it wouldn't be because of your paper skin."

Something inside me breaks a little at her statement. Not only has my mother burned the midnight oil and has given half of her life away to get me through the first few horrible years of childhood, but no matter how hard I try to think of a way around it, the answer hangs in the air loud and clear: the only thing that will definitely cut me open in half is paper, the material from which my skin is made. It has something to do with the elements of nature, my mom had stated when I once ran over to her crying my eyes out because of the blood gushing from my finger as if it would never stop. Paper, being the material from which my genes come from, is the only thing that can potentially kill me because it is so similar to my own skin and flesh and bones. It's like fighting for survival, my mother had explained, just like squirrels fight each other to get food, just like plants try to overgrow each other, competition of the same kind is always a threat, and that includes me and my paper self.

I swallow down the doubt and questions rising up my throat, "How do I find him?"

"It is said that he resides where the birds sing the most."

"How come you found him?"

"He hadn't gone in hiding yet when I reached out for his help. He used to live like us, on the outskirts of Melona for centuries." she takes a deep breath in, closing her eyes briefly before opening them again with a more confident light, "But nobody knows where he is now. They can only speculate that he followed the birds to safety, because the birds are the ones who know where it's safest."

"Birds?"

My mother nods, "There is a rumour that if you travel down South, you might even get to see the Bird King, the greatest royalty worshipped by all of his kind, or so they say."

The Bird King, huh? Interesting. There had been rumours once, of a man crowned as the King of the Sky, the one that was unbeatable because of his huge wings that could whip into shape huge gusts of wind to protect his people. Aurore had told me all about it when a villager had stumbled, half torn and bloodied to death as he shakily mumbled out how the said King had saved his life from a pack of werewolves.

"Papier," my mother murmurs, and I don't have to look at her to know that there is worry swirling in her maroon irises, "You know you can't--"

But I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear those words falling from her mouth because I know deep down where it counts, that she's right.

"I'll be back by sun down," I tell her while gingerly wrapping my woollen fitted jacket carefully over my shoulders. I step out of the house and force myself to keep moving forward towards Melona's village centre with just one goal in mind. If my mother has managed to find the Oracle and get his prayers for my life, then why can't I?

Because you might die doing so, a small voice in my head echoed.

I brushed it away. This was for Aurore, and I can't imagine living my life without hearing her laugh or without having her tell me of the things and experiences she's had. Call me greedy or selfish, but I need her as much as she needs me to breathe and get away from her chaotic life. I'm going to find a way to make this work.

Because to me, no matter what the cost, Aurore is worth saving.