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ten
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Taehyung wakes up against Jeongguk’s chest. The ball had been a luxurious affair that included numerous dances and songs that everyone had joined in to sing. As the only immediate member of the royal family present, it fell onto Taehyung to talk to the guests and assure them of a future as bright as can be. Amaranth celebrated the new day of their freedom like they have never celebrated before and it is why, when the Prince arises, he is still so very tired.
He feels the steady rise of Jeongguk’s chest: the calm beat of his heart. It is from that alone that he does not need to lift his head to know that the other is awake. But he does anyway, because it is Jeongguk – and he would take any chance to look at the angel.
Jeongguk’s eyes trail down to him when he does and fondness swims through them. It will never fail to make Taehyung’s heart swell when he watches those eyes sparkle in the lowest lights of a room, especially when the gaze is trained on him.
“Good morning,” Jeongguk says, a hand absentmindedly stroking through Taehyung’s brown hair. “You look so cute when you wake up.”
Taehyung hardly feels cute; his eyes are still heavy as an incessant reminder that he could use some more sleep and his cheeks feel puffy, but the words still work to rush warmth through him. He lays his head back down, sighing lightly. “Morning,” he says, blinking the bleariness away.
They stay in the comfort of this idleness, before the prodding in Taehyung’s mind no longer wants to be ignored.
“Were you up the entirety of the night?”
The hand stops carding through his hair, but he does not receive a response. Taehyung knows Jeongguk remains silent not because he wants to be mean, but because he is not one who likes the feeling of a lie on his tongue.
So he says to fill the void, “You managed to rest just yesterday.”
“It is hard for me to sleep sometimes. Yesterday was the first in a very long time,” Jeongguk tells him carefully, as if he is thinking out what he wants to say word for word first. “But I’m lucky it is not a dire need for me.”
Taehyung nods, glad that with his head back down his slight frown is hidden from view. The last thing he wants to do is worry Jeongguk. Gentle fingers begin to brush through his hair again and he allows his eyes to fall shut, though it means he becomes dangerously close to falling into sleep again.
“Tae?” Jeongguk asks and the brunette hums, eyes blinking open. “Don’t count it as a bad thing that I didn’t sleep through the night. Angels can rest when we want to but we do not tend to seek it unless we are exhausted – I used to struggle to fall asleep even if I needed to, simply because my mind would not want me to let my guard down by any means. I think … today I did not rest because I was not tired.”
“You’re sure?” Taehyung says, looking up again. “If I even see you yawn today I will have to march you back here.”
Laughter fills the air then, a song that could never grow old, and the Prince believes it – that the parts of Jeongguk’s mind that cause him fatigue both mentally and physically will slowly fade away.
Jeongguk had told Taehyung that he wanted to take him for a walk along the Myroh and, that being the first request of this sort that the angel has made, Taehyung was more than inclined to accept – much to his advisors' exasperation as they have been wanting to discuss the state of the kingdom with him.
Their walk takes them nearby the bridge that connects the two sides of the kingdom that is separated by the crystalline waters and Jeongguk releases Taehyung’s hand to crouch down and begin collecting the small flowers that grow beside the river. The Prince had expected him to stand up once satisfied with the ones he had plucked, but then he sits and Taehyung watches him with warm eyes for a moment before dropping down by his side – glad that he had chosen a dark suit today in the spirit of Jeongguk’s not-so-vast colour spectrum for attire.
Jeongguk doesn’t narrate what it is he does, but he looks so engrossed in the task that Taehyung allows the silence between them to stretch. He basks beneath the sun, the warmth from it and the hug that is his lover’s presence relaxing him right through to his very core.
He observes the many people that walk about this part of the town. When they notice him there amongst the rush of their own business, they stop to smile sincerely and bow. Their smiles only grow when the Prince offers a small bow in return and they turn away with a new lightness in their step.
Jeongguk hums a soft tune to himself, though he looks so engulfed in the flowers that Taehyung suspects he does not realise he is doing so. Not long passes however before the beautiful sound cuts off and he holds up the crown of flowers.
“I wasn’t much too good at braiding them into my hair,” he says, turning fully to Taehyung with a rather shy look on his face, “but yours would be far too short for me to try doing so anyway.”
Taehyung looks down at the flowers so carefully braided, his eyes rounding in a fond sort of appreciation. “This is for me?”
“Mhm,” Jeongguk nods, lifting it up onto the Prince’s head. “I used to make lots of things with flowers, and I had a garden that I loved to care for.” He notices that the way Taehyung’s eyes fill with the want to know more of the tiny, somewhat insignificant parts about himself, and it works wonders to make his heart warm significantly. “They are beautiful right up until their end.”
The brunette studies him before leaning forward to press a gentle peck to the tip of his nose. When he pulls back, he finds the distance between them far too great – so he gently tugs Jeongguk so that his head falls onto his lap and he smiles when the dark-haired blinks up at him with startlement that quickly morphs into comfort. “Thank you. I love it so much, perhaps you could teach me how you make them so that I might gift you one too.”
Jeongguk searches his face and smiles prettily. “If you want me to.”
Taehyung does not say it, but he thinks Jeongguk would look marvellous with a crown.
It is as if the sun makes a spotlight only for the two of them, refusing to move even though time continues to trickle around them: Jeongguk staring up at Taehyung, while Taehyung stares out into the reflective waters.
And only through the Myroh does Taehyung see the glow of white behind them grow and recede to reveal the form that he had previously come to proper acquaint.
It is Yoongi. He carries something dark – thick and folded – and another item, though this one is ivory coloured, of a smaller size in his arms.
Jeongguk feels the presence before any words are spoken and he immediately rises out of his lover’s lap, mouth slightly agape and eyes only just revealing what might be a lick of worry.
“Yoongi,” he says, rising to his feet as the elder approaches closer, eyes flitting down to the bundle he carries.
Jeongguk receives a smile, his brother’s eyes sparkling.
“You look like I might impart you with something terrible,” Yoongi tells him, eyes wandering to Taehyung as he too stands up. “It is nothing terrible. But it is a message.” He raises his arms a little. “Also these. Hello, Taehyung.”
Yoongi’s eyes glimmer much like Jeongguk’s does, but the Prince finds himself being less assured by them and more intimidated. Perhaps that is done with purpose, or perhaps the feeling is merely spurred on by his own mind. The angel standing there is the older brother of his love after all.
“It is nice to see you again,” he says, lowering his head slightly.
The golden-haired nods, his gaze turning gentler. “Peace is restored to Amaranth, congratulations on your feat. I am sure those two kingdoms now feel lost with it.” He glances at the crystal around his neck. “That is clever. They will not be able to do the same thing again.”
“I truely hope so.”
Yoongi smiles kindly, walking closer to the Prince with his hands stretched out in offering. Taehyung holds out his own hands, eyes finally widening slightly in recognition. “I have these – they were left behind in Auron.”
It is the scarf he had given to Jeongguk and the cloak that he had loved to wear at a time of ignorance. He is not sure how to feel about owning it now, despite what Jeongguk had said – but Yoongi’s bright eyes are focused on his brother and so Taehyung turns his head, finding the dark-haired angel’s eyes quickly moving away.
He realises then that they are not for him.
“I had been worried about these,” he says smoothly.
With a hidden smile, he hooks the items skilfully over one arm and uses the hand of the other to bring Jeongguk’s hands up one at a time. He transfers the bundle quickly and pretends not to notice when Jeongguk holds it just that bit closer to himself as he stares back at Taehyung with confusion in his eyes. The brunette just leans forward and plants a soft kiss on his forehead in a way that works to ease the barely visible crinkle there.
Jeongguk flushes prettily, his eyes glancing at Yoongi who watches them with a twinkle in his own. But then the blush begins to fade, and the dark-haired purses his lips. His brother had said there is a message. He’d also said that it entails nothing terrible, and angels are not liars, but he is still anxious to know.
Later, he might muse over how Taehyung senses that and steps slightly nearer. “Yoongi, what of a message?”
“It is from the Gods,” the elder says. “Both an apology and a gift to you.”
And the fact that Jeongguk does not much like apologies is well known, so it is not a surprise when he says, “A gift?”
“The Gods recognise that they abandoned an angel they had themselves sworn to protect. You lived in this world and, though you may think your heart darkened, you mostly stayed true to who you are. They consider you indisputably strong, Jeongguk,” Yoongi relays with an earnest expression. “They wish to give to you an offer that is positive in whichever way you may choose. It is just choosing that is difficult.”
“What must I choose?”
“The first is that you may come and return with us.”
Jeongguk’s heart lurches in his chest so forcefully he cannot help but gasp.
It is an odd surge of emotions that course through him.
He considers his wings; the mere thought of getting them back has his chest tightening in a way that makes his lungs forget how to function.
But even despite the rush of hope that surges through his body, he recognises that Yoongi had said all of the offers are positive and his heart falters when he realises already that it simply is not true. Even if returning home is what he has always wanted – if it is without Taehyung, he does not know if he could bear living that way for more than just a short while.
Yoongi brushes back strands of his golden hair that begin to fly away in a new breeze. Jeongguk looks at him to continue, and so he does. “The second comes in two options. Because you have found an acceptable love,” he says, looking to Taehyung whose brows draw inwards almost an unnoticeable amount. “They include him too.”
Taehyung’s mouth parts in disbelief that he should ever be considered by the Gods. “Me?”
“Yes.”
Jeongguk bites down on his lip. “What is it? What are the options?”
“The Gods deem it only right that you are both granted the lives of enchanted humans: a gift that means you will live on the cusp of immortality. Once you eventually pass, you will be offered divinity.”
Divinity being the life of an angel.
Jeongguk gapes, though Yoongi only softly continues. “It is possible to decline them all too.”
It goes unsaid that this possibility to decline means that eventually, Jeongguk will have to learn to live without Taehyung. The thought is enough to make his eyes sting and his heart clench painfully.
Two of these choices inevitably leave him without the person that he has deeply come to love, and the only other choice seems far too much to ask of someone who has only lived their current lifetime as a human.
“Yoongi those are – how am I to make a decision like that?” he asks, his throat feeling as if it may close up in a matter of seconds.
But the older angel just turns to the Prince. He asks, almost as if it is nothing but trivia, “What do you think?”
Jeongguk’s head turns to Taehyung in haste, his eyes are wide and it only makes Taehyung not want to speak in fear of saying the wrong thing; but he is in the presence of two angels and silence most definitely seems out of the equation.
“I–”
“Wait,” Jeongguk says quickly. He shifts the material in his arms to one hand and presses his hand against Taehyung’s chest. The brunette is almost inclined to enclose his own hand over the delicate touch, but Jeongguk drops his arm down before he can do so. “Don’t say anything. Please. Just wait.”
In a moment of panic, Jeongguk begins to hurry away, drawing the bundle of clothes to his chest. He hears Taehyung call after him once only to follow behind upon not receiving a response to it. Jeongguk walks faster, almost so fast the rippling water of the Myroh is unable to reflect his body without a slight delay as he passes by and, just as Taehyung thinks he might catch up, the dark-haired angel disappears in a glow of white that stuns him in place for what feels to be a minute.
He does not expect to turn and see Yoongi standing there but that is exactly what happens. The blonde regards him with an apologetic expression, holding out in his hand the very crown of flowers that had been on Taehyung’s head. It must have fallen when he began to hurry after Jeongguk and he accepts it with a troubled smile.
“It must be a difficult decision,” Yoongi says. “I can only understand it so much. I am not human, I have never been, and so I do not know how this offer might make you feel.”
Taehyung feels at the petals, soft as down both on top and underneath. “I do not hate the prospect of being with Jeongguk for a long time in this world and forever afterwards,” he says. His voice barely breaches a whisper but the light in Yoongi’s eyes dances as he listens. “It is just something I did not think possible and I am just taking it all in.”
“There is not an expiration date on these offers, Taehyung. The Gods and angels are not limited by time. You do not need to rush.”
“But Jeongguk–”
“Jeongguk is only like this because he does not know what he thinks is right.” At the confused look the angel receives, he tilts his head a little, mouth opening again. “The part of Jeongguk that strives to only do the right thing has not disappeared, you know. He is being offered his wings again. He is being offered to return to the Gods: the very beings that we angels live to serve. But my little brother is also in love with you and I do not think he will make a decision without hearing what you think. As long as you have thought it through well.”
Taehyung furrows his brows. He stops stroking the small petals of the woven flowers.
“I am in love with Jeongguk too.”
“That is easy to tell.”
“Yoongi, I’ll choose him. That means I choose whatever he wants.”
And the golden-haired angel smiles as he watches Taehyung’s body surround in a white glow. “Your heart is pure,” he says. “I thank you for helping my brother, Kim Taehyung.”
***
Jeongguk cannot help the way his mind goes into overdrive as if it might explode at any minute. He thinks himself to be horrible for thinking about Taehyung first before even considering what the Gods might want and he feels even worse for wanting what it is that the Gods can give him. Because the choices include Taehyung and it hardly seems fair to dump it all on him like this.
He thinks it is selfish and it makes his head wage a war on his heart, because that very heart will not let him choose a single option that does not take into account Taehyung’s best interest.
His body materialises in Taehyung’s bedroom and the scent of it immediately relieves the tension in his shoulders. He breathes out shakily and slowly walks over to the balcony door. Pulling it open with the pads of his fingers, he uses his foot to nudge the door open wider and steps through.
Jeongguk likes being up here. He likes thinking about how Taehyung has kissed him weightless and he enjoys how he can imagine that he is not supported by the ground but instead by his wings from here.
He drops the blue cloak in his arms to the floor, the feathers staring up at him. It should be anger that he feels as he looks at it, but that is not what overcomes his spirit at all.
Instead, Jeongguk crouches down and spreads out the thick material and when satisfied, he lowers onto it and curls up against its softness. The cloak smells like Taehyung and the feathers are comforting against his cheek when his head nudges against them.
It comes that the dark-haired angel falls asleep that way: with the delicate caress of his feathers and the scent of Taehyung.
He slips into sleep and wonders if he could possibly have both.
***
Taehyung does not find Jeongguk in the Palace gardens as he had suspected. The flowers were beautifully stretching open to take in more sunlight, but all around it was empty. Yoongi had seemed to look at Taehyung as if he had said the right thing and the very fact that the angel had brought him back to the Palace using more efficient means could only mean that what he had said then, he also needed to say to Jeongguk.
He runs a hand through his hair, walking back inside through the open double doors.
Walking through the halls with determined steps like this wraps a delicate layer of nostalgia around his spirit, though the Palace has today decided that it does not wish to help him find his lover.
He is decidedly frustrated by the mere lengths of the hallway alone when the sound of rushing heels has him turning almost instantaneously.
There, before him, is his mother. She runs despite the rather tall heels of her shoes and it causes the long length of her brown hair to fan out behind her as if to show an excitement of its very own.
Taehyung is unable to move as she approaches closer; the smile on her face is brilliant and her eyes are narrowed into crescents with the unadulterated happiness at the sight of her son. His mother is awake and she has returned to Eburnea.
And she is running to him.
His body stumbles back when her arms wrap around his neck lovingly.
“My Taehyung,” she whispers, dragging a hand through his hair. “I have missed you.”
She releases him after several minutes pass, carding through his hair one last time to fix it.
“I’ve missed you,” Taehyung says, heart in his throat.
His mother smiles and it reaches her eyes, wrinkling them at the corners. “Did you have the time to? You have been hard at work saving our kingdom.” She chuckles at the look of offence she receives. “I know. I know you did. Thank you for the flowers, they gave me lots of strength.”
Taehyung nods, feeling her warmth traverse the entirety of his heart.
“Our advisors told me you recovered the book from Auron,” she says, her lips growing the quality of a scowl. “They are lucky we, in Amaranth, do not like to fight.”
“They are an unhappy kingdom, mother.” Taehyung feels at the crystal; it pulses between his fingers. His mother’s eyes widen as she stares at it, the crystal glistening in Taehyung’s hold. “This is our book’s truer form. I think that from now on, I will keep it safe.”
The Queen allows her gaze to linger on the necklace before looking up and offering him a fondly proud nod. Then she narrows her eyes at him a little, noticing the slightly faraway look in his stare but not quite so obscure enough for her to choose not to question it.
Her head tilts sideways as she appraises her son. “You are currently busy,” she says, smiling when Taehyung blinks his eyes into focus. “I did think that was the case when you were rushing through this corridor but I had been so excited to speak with you finally.”
Taehyung rubs his lips together and shakes his head, wary to say something he should not. He would tell his mother everything all at once if he could, but this is greater than just himself and Jeongguk had disappeared somewhere that he would very much like to find. But she stands before him healthy and with the colour of life in her skin, unlike how she had appeared at the manor house.
“I’m not–” He is levelled with a stern stare and remembers then that this is also Amaranth’s Queen. “I am just looking for someone.”
“Someone? Your knight?” she asks. “I saw him just a minute ago.”
“No, I’m not in search of Hoseok.”
“Taehyung–”
“If you could have stayed with Dad for years and years, would you? Would you have wanted to?”
The question has his mother’s eyes turning soft and the quirk in her brow receding. She searches his face for a moment, wondering what could have possibly brought this on.
“Of course,” the Queen answers gently. “He left far too soon, there was a lot of time we could have had.”
Taehyung presses his lips into a line. He thinks that if he were to choose to remain as human as he is now, he and Jeongguk would be limited to time. It makes his stomach twist and knot. “But… but what if by years and years I meant something more like forever?”
His mother chuckles in a way that narrows her eyes and plumps up her cheeks. “If we both wanted to and that were a possibility, I think that I would have.”
“You would?”
“Isn’t the greatest love infinite?” she asks, her brown eyes studying him. “I fought for mine and your father’s relationship, you know. Your grandfather did not want us to wed because he was a newly appointed knight when our affections had blossomed. He did not trust your father to become royalty so soon.”
She lets the words settle within her son and takes his hands into her own. “I say this because if you are willing to fight for your love; if you are willing to do something you have never done before for your love, then that is proof enough of how it could last forever. I still love your father, it will always be that way – I will continue to until my last breath.” She pauses and hums thoughtfully, squeezing Taehyung’s hand a little. “I believe that love has the potential to be endless, especially when it is undoubtedly mutual. What makes you so curious today?”
“I ... just wanted to know what you would do.”
“Does this relate to you in some way?” is what his mother asks next, not a semblance of a joke in her expression or tone.
Taehyung almost chokes on his own breath and he feels his cheeks heat, helpless to do anything about it. “What do you mean by that?”
He receives a shrug, though there are the hints of a smile on the Queen’s lips. “And you are in love.”
“Ma.”
“Taehyung, I truly am not sure what it is that you are trying to say. But I would like to meet whoever it is that is making you think so profoundly. Is that who you look for?”
Running a hand through his hair, Taehyung blinks down at the polished floors. The sheen of his reflection looks back at him and he looks up from the nervous form with a stifled sigh of abashment. “Yes, he is,” he says finally, “and I think I love him even more than you describe.”
“Then,” his mother begins with a gentleness that makes Taehyung’s mind ease slightly. “You must continue your search and find him, my beautiful boy. I would like to meet the person who has claimed your heart as soon as possible.”
With one last squeeze to his hands, the Queen releases her grip. She stands there and watches as Taehyung runs through the hallway, his brown locks bouncing slightly. She raises a hand to her chest and it is somewhat shaky as she wonders if those questions really meant something: if it could ever be a possibility that the Gods have given her son a choice to make.
Taehyung asks the Palace if it has seen Jeongguk once more and this time he is answered.
The corridor he ends up on belongs to the resting quarters and Taehyung considers the possibility of Jeongguk teleporting into any one of the empty rooms only, which seems completely unlike the angel.
He pushes open the door to his bedroom and his heart sinks even deeper upon finding it empty at first glance, however, his eyes spot the black of Jeongguk’s hair through the glass doors as it catches the rays of sunlight and his stomach practically somersaults with heightened worry as he all but runs to the balcony.
With a quick inspection, the brunette’s heart settles when he discovers that Jeongguk is neither harmed nor unconscious there on the floor. He’s curled up in the centre of the cloak and Taehyung crouches down, brushing away the small drops that have collected at his eyelashes.
His chest rises and falls gently, still fast asleep even after Taehyung’s fingers move away from beneath his eyes.
Taehyung thinks that Jeongguk had chosen here to rest for a reason and so he only settles beside him and runs his fingers through the soft of the angel’s dark hair as if that way he might be a source of comfort even while the angel is consumed by sleep. Jeongguk only nestles against the glistening feathers and like this, the brunette can only begin to imagine how beautiful his lover might look with wings on his back once more.
Taehyung will tell Jeongguk what he had told Yoongi and what he had told his mother; that he chooses him.
Jeongguk’s eyes flutter open when Taehyung stops carding through his hair. It only happens because he becomes so transfixed in watching the clouds sift through the sky in various different shapes that he forgets to continue the delicate movement and though the angel had been asleep when Taehyung had begun, he lets out a sleepy sound against the cloak before slowly sitting up as if he was aware of it all from the start.
He regains his bearings and blinks up at Taehyung, the brunette already watching him with profuse affection in his gaze.
“I’m sorry,” Jeongguk murmurs, leaning against the brunette as if his body cannot hold itself up. “Tae, I’m sorry.”
Taehyung snakes an arm around Jeongguk’s pliant body. “What are you apologising for, my love?”
“The fact that because of me, you now have to consider taking huge leaps.” He looks up with eyes that glisten prettily though there is an air of sadness to them. “I don’t know if you want any of it and it scares me because I like you so much that I even think about leaving you behind before thinking about regaining my wings.”
Taehyung breathes out quietly, his affections growing bigger though he did not think they were capable of doing so. He says gently, voice all but a whisper, “You did?”
“Mhm,” Jeongguk nods against him. “I still am. I feel awful because my priority is always supposed to be the Gods.”
“I think there is an exception for you,” Taehyung says. “There isn’t much you could possibly have done for them all this time in Amaranth.”
“I suppose so.”
“Though, I did wonder how a relationship between an angel and human might work.”
Taehyung glances up at the sky and how it heats up before his eyes. If he lets his mind go astray, he imagines Jeongguk flying amidst the fluffy clouds that travel the skies. Jeongguk considers Taehyung before he considers getting back that part of himself that was so cruelly taken, and that makes Taehyung’s heart beat quickly – even faster at the thought of one day being able to search the vast skies with him.
Jeongguk can probably hear the way his heart hammers with his head this up close.
“This does seem like a great leap for me,” he says then, stroking absent-mindedly along Jeongguk’s waist. “But I am not afraid of taking it. I want to know what you want to choose. Whatever comes will be because you chose it.”
“That is hardly fair, one choice includes the transformation of your own life.”
“It is perfectly fair, Jeongguk,” Taehyung tells him easily. “You are my choice. If I should live only my human life with you or if I should live a long and enchanted one with you, whatever you do end up choosing, I will be incredibly lucky either way.”
Jeongguk lifts his head, leans back in Taehyung’s hold so he can look at his face properly. His lips curl when he sees the earnest expression staring back at him. “You woo me, Prince Taehyung,” he says. “Is this just so that you don’t bear the burden with me?”
“Is there a burden?”
“There is always a burden with a choice,” Jeongguk tells him, developing a small frown. “You seem to forget, if you do wish to be enchanted by the Gods, you then must make the decision as to whether or not you wish to become an angel.”
Taehyung hadn’t forgotten, though he had not thought about it quite so thoroughly.
“What if I do not wish to?”
Jeongguk looks away, his frown unwavering. “Your soul goes where all the others do.”
“And you?”
“Me?”
“If I did not want to become an angel and became nothing more than a soul, what would you do?”
Jeongguk traces the lines of the slightly shimmering feathers on the blue cloak. Taehyung watches the way his shoulders rise and fall with his breaths.
“I was created as an angel, Taehyung,” Jeongguk says, looking up again. He gently brushes a finger over the plush of Taehyung’s cheek. “Even if I chose not to become one after we live enchanted lives, my soul will always belong to the Gods to take. I just need you to think about this a little more.”
When the hand drops, Taehyung subconsciously chases the touch for a moment. “I am. I’m trying to weigh up the good and the not-so-good.”
“The not-so-good?”
Taehyung glances up at the sky once more. He thinks about Jeongguk soaring them again, but this time it is a Jeongguk that he is not supposed to see: a Jeongguk that he is not to touch or speak with. “Yes,” he says. “There are a few undesirable scenarios.”
There is a moment of nothing, where the quiet breath that the angel lets out is loud.
“Jeongguk, I want to be with you always. I do not want the Gods to have you, I want to have you. Is that bad?”
Glistening eyes blink twice and then Jeongguk resorts back to leaning against the support that is the brunette’s body. “Just a little bit. But Tae?” He feels Taehyung’s chest rumble as he hums in question. “I want that too.”
***
Hoseok nudges Taehyung’s arm when he doesn’t respond to the question an advisor directs his way.
The Prince had no other choice but to leave Jeongguk for a while because it became impossible to push any further away his duties to the Crown. It only means that now, as he sits in this meeting, his mind wonders what his love is doing and whether he is safe (which is rather irrational because Jeongguk has not exited the Palace walls). He can feel his mother all but instructing him to be proper with her eyes and finally begins to snap out of the fog he has found himself in.
“Please accept my apologies,” he tells the man with ivory robes and greying hair. “Could you repeat that?”
“Of course, Your Highness. We would like to know if we could ask some things.”
“What would you like to know?”
The man smooths out the sleeves of his garments and clears his throat once. Two more advisors sit beside him, one on either side. “It just regards what we have seen these past two days. As your advisors, we only raise these out of concern.”
Taehyung gestures for him to elaborate.
“At the ball, you gained attention for having someone on your arm.”
Taehyung cannot stop his eyebrows from furrowing, but he is quick enough to keep the frown at bay. “Was it a problem?”
“Well no–”
“So why is it being raised as a concern?”
The advisor’s mouth opens and closes in a way that could be likened to a fish and his ears colour from being coldly addressed by the Prince himself. “He is in the Palace and none of us have ever acquainted him or checked his background. The kingdom has only just become safe again.”
It is the sound of nails tapping slowly against the wooden table that pauses the dark cloud that had begun to form within Taehyung and his eyes find that the hand belongs to his mother, the Queen, looking rather unimpressed.
“That is hardly troublesome, Advisor Insung.” Her shadowed lids lift to stare into the face of the man and he clears his throat again.
“My Queen,” he says, failing to conceal the slight shake to the words. “Now is the most difficult time to bring in a stranger to the Palace.”
Taehyung sighs and leans back in his seat. It was a long time ago when the advisors were last allowed to speak this much into any of his affairs and perhaps it was a mistake to give them temporary power over the kingdom during his search for the book. “Then we will begin with his name. It is Jeongguk and he is a stranger to you but not a stranger to me, let me make that clear.”
“What was the particular qualm?” the Queen asks and Insung lowers his head, already understanding that his words have not been well-received.
“We found it worrisome that Prince Taehyung’s … Jeongguk has been staying under this roof.”
“Advisor Insung,” Taehyung says, voice level.
“Yes, Prince Taehyung.”
“Do you know where the Book of Light is now?” The advisor’s eyes widen, before he slowly shakes his head. “You do not. I know where it is, Hoseok knows where it is, your Queen knows where it is. And Jeongguk. Jeongguk also knows where it is.”
He pushes out of his seat ignoring the way the scrape makes the hair on his skin prickle up and he begins to exit the room, feeling Hoseok following behind right at his heel.
The large doors shut behind them as they fall into a calm step.
“That was the most intimidating I have ever heard you talk,” the knight tells him over the sound of their shoes hitting against the marble floors.
“It feels easier when I am fighting for Jeongguk.”
He hears a gentle laugh from the red-haired. “He is deserving of every bit, after all.” A moment passes by comfortably, before Hoseok makes a small sound of remembrance. “You and Jeongguk are wanted in Iridis.”
“Jimin?”
“Precisely,” the knight says. “He has not seen you since we departed with the crystal and Jeongguk shocked us all.”
It feels like it happened many years ago rather than just days, so Taehyung can understand his cousin’s rush to see them again.
“You won’t come?”
Hoseok shakes his head. “I must sort out all the work I have missed.” He thinks for a moment. “But getting there should be easy this time.”
They round the corner almost as one body and Taehyung digs his hands into the pockets of his long coat.
“Hyung, could I ask for your opinion?”
“Always.”
Taehyung bites down on his lip for a second. “What do you think about prolonged life … something like forever?”
“Oh?” Hoseok looks up to the ceilings in thought, though he does not seem to need much time to think on it. “I think it is intriguing. As humans, we are limited by time and it is a time that is far too short. If you think about it, to not worry would be a relief.”
At those words, the Prince feels a wave of consolation rush over him. He will tell Hoseok soon enough, though not just yet, but it eases him a little to know that the knight does not seem to detest the idea at all.
Yoongi had told him to think through his decisions, and though he is already certain of what his heart wants – asking for the thoughts of those closest to him might help alleviate the tiny sliver of worry in the back of his mind.
***
“Do you not want to?”
Jeongguk frowns, tugging at the collar of the white shirt. Over the shirt is an exceptionally sized cream coloured sweater and it is less extravagant, but still enough to rival the attention-grabbing nature of the outfit he had worn to the ball.
“I can go,” he says, eyes falling to Taehyung through the mirror. The brunette sits on the bed, gaze solely focused on none other than Jeongguk and his head tilts slightly.
“But you do not want to,” Taehyung says in response.
The angel sighs, lifting up a hand and watching how it does not show at all, swallowed up whole by the sweater’s sleeves. “It isn’t that. Just, well, the last time I saw your mother I was put in the Palace cells, so I am just nervous.”
He watches the way Taehyung’s face falls and quickly spins around.
“You are probably thinking something worse than I mean,” Jeongguk says, crouching down to be at level. “I know it is mostly impossible that she will remember me, but I can’t help but feel nervous that she might because she is your mother and mothers always have an intuition regarding their children, and then she might demand that we never see one another again.”
Despite the seriousness of Jeongguk’s words, Taehyung finds himself smiling with enamourment. “She doesn’t know, my angel. And she does not need to know just yet who you really are. What she does know is that my affections stretch far and wide for you.” When he receives a look of uncertainty, he adds: “I promise.”
With that, Jeongguk’s sparkling eyes travel all over Taehyung’s face once more before a small smile reaches his lips.
“Okay,” he says quietly, rising to his feet. He glances back at the mirror, knows Taehyung is looking at him once more too. “Did the attendants prepare this for me?”
“No, I did.”
Jeongguk turns his head to look at real-Taehyung instead of mirror-Taehyung. The Prince’s eyes do not sparkle as Jeongguk’s might do, but there is a rather pleased glisten in the way he looks at him.
“You did?” the angel is helpless to his redundant uttering as something warm washes over him.
Taehyung has changed too in preparation to meet with his mother, though it is just from one suit to another. The dark green has been swapped out for black and white attire: a white shirt tucked into black trousers, finished with an overcoat just as dark. He always looks as if he is ready to attend an important business meeting, though the style is beginning to rub off on Jeongguk.
The Prince stands to his feet, his long legs only needing one single stride to have him close to Jeongguk again. He brings his hand to the long sleeve and trails his fingers within it until his fingers meet and wrap around Jeongguk’s hand.
“I thought I could give it a try,” Taehyung says then. “You look divine in bright colours and I feared you might ask for something black.”
Jeongguk thinks that he really might have and wonders how Taehyung already knows the minutiae of him. He presses his lips together and looks aside, finding that the other’s gaze is rather intense. “Black helps me blend in better,” he murmurs and, had he been looking, he would have seen the deep furrow to his lover’s brows.
Taehyung releases his hold in favour of raising his hand up to brush at the sharp of Jeongguk’s jaw and he lightly follows the line of it before trailing down and settling at his neck, where he sweeps his thumb back and forth against the mole there. He feels the slight shiver at his touch.
“Why ever should you blend in?” Taehyung asks finally and it has Jeongguk’s head turning back. “You have to understand that you were never made to blend in.”
Jeongguk’s mouth parts. “It is just that I never wanted to be seen. Or - or looked at by anybody, and no one bothers to do so when you do not catch their attention.”
“You still feel that way now?”
The angel plays with his sleeves, picking at tiny bulbs of cotton, and then he meets Taehyung’s gaze: the twinkle in his eyes still there. “I like to be seen so long as I am with you.”
Taehyung looks at Jeongguk and he sees truth there. He looks as though he trusts the Prince invariably and Taehyung knows that all he ever wants to do is see Jeongguk happy and unafraid, without a single worry to give him pause.
“You are with me,” he affirms. “Ivory and gold are two of Amaranth’s colours and I can say that you wear it best. Do you like what I have chosen for you?”
Jeongguk nods, the beginnings of a smile on his lips and the delight in his expression grows tenfold when the Prince tells him once again of how he is beautiful and magnificent and lovely. Truly, he does not think he could ever grow tired of hearing it. Especially not from the mouth of someone whose beauty transcends much of what Jeongguk has ever known.
They arrive at the parlour much sooner than the time that the nervousness that makes Jeongguk’s stomach twist needs to dissipate.
“My mother will try to adore you as much as I do, but she will not ever come close,” Taehyung says, and moves to the door. It opens swiftly, welcoming them into the large room that has small circular tables and seats surrounding them, typically reserved for the occasion when guests come and conversations over a hot cup of tea might take place. It is less extravagant than other rooms in the Palace, almost as if it serves to be a breath of fresh air from the abundance of splendour weaved into the walls.
When they enter, Taehyung’s mother is already seated at a table and cups are there on a tray before her, where steam comes out from the spout of the teapot. She notices them at their first step and immediately rises from her seat, moon-eyed.
“Hello. You must be Jeongguk,” she says through a gasp. “How wonderful.”
The Queen does not look much different from how she had last appeared to Jeongguk; only, this time her eyes are not characterised by a tinge of worry nor are her lips pressed thin and her brows furrowed. This time she actually stares at Jeongguk and her face brightens with the glow of awe.
He lowers to a bow and feels the reassuring presence of Taehyung’s hand on the small of his back the entire time.
“It is nice to meet you, Your Majesty,” he says gently and she moves around the table to hurry and usher him up with light touches.
“There is no need to be so formal with me when my son is so in love with you,” she tells him with the lilt of a laugh in her voice. When Jeongguk rises, he realises it is because her words have caused a pinkness to colour Taehyung’s ears and he cannot help the chortle that bubbles up in his throat. “Jeongguk, please call me Ji-ahn.”
Jeongguk blinks at her, momentarily taken-aback, and he turns to Taehyung in a question to which an answer is received in the form of a subtle nod. “If that is okay,” he says, turning back to her.
“Definitely so.” Queen Ji-ahn smiles, waving her hand to the table as an offering to sit down. “I am glad that we could sit down together so soon.” She picks up the teapot with utmost delicacy and begins to fill each of the three cups, smiling to herself when Taehyung takes one and places it right in front of Jeongguk before taking his own last. After taking a small sip, she sets the cup down with a barely audible clatter of porcelain. “How did the two of you come to meet?”
“Jeongguk helped me get the Book of Light back,” Taehyung says. “I couldn’t have done it without him.”
Ji-ahn’s smile only gets wider as she turns to Jeongguk. She says, “Thank you.” And her voice is warm.
Jeongguk shakes his head. His fingers peek out from where the sleeves swallow them as he lightly grips the handle of the teacup. “Taehyung did the hardest work of it alone.”
The Queen raises her eyebrows, glancing between the two of them. She thinks she already understands why her son loves the other and she has hardly spoken many words with him just yet.
“Well, it seems that the two of you make a golden pair.”
Taehyung can feel his mother’s eyes on him, though he refuses to meet it and be teased by her fond gaze, but when she laughs some, just a gentle sound, he finds that a smile tugs his lips upwards regardless.
“I have heard that your cousin requests of you both in Iridis,” she says then. “That means I will not see either of you for a day or two.”
An attendant peeks his head in through the door and her eyes raise instantly at the small sound. Her smile turns into a rather pouty frown before she gives a sigh, gesturing for him to enter, and takes one final sip of her tea seemingly already aware of what this might be about.
The servant hurries to her with a lowered head. He tells her how the meeting room is prepared, with only five minutes remaining until it starts and she presses her lips together before thanking him kindly.
Once he has left, she rises out of her chair.
Her expression is quite sad, that she has to leave so early. “I am sorry,” she sighs. “I shall have to speak with you both soon but please enjoy the rest of your day.”
Taehyung turns to Jeongguk the moment the doors shut behind his mother and he fixes a black strand that falls messily over his face.
“She has taken well to you,” he says. “Not that you make it difficult.”
Jeongguk blinks down to his teacup and hums as if in deep thought. “Your mother is nice.”
The Prince leans his head on his hand, eyes on Jeongguk though the angel does nothing but trace the paint that decorates the porcelain in his hand.
“I did say that she’ll adore you.”
They have time to spare before they depart for Iridis and rather than doing something, they simply choose to bask in one another’s presence that fills the emptiness within the parlour room.
Time passes just like that, and it is nice; to do nothing, and worry about nothing at all.
***
The feeling never does get old, of Taehyung’s skin warming with the light that covers it at once. He always closes his eyes, almost as if it happens at the hands of a greater force and not by choice, but every time he opens them afterwards he is in the place they had wished to travel to. He thinks he likes teleporting most when he is with Jeongguk: the angel holds his hand, even despite not actually needing to and does not let go once they have arrived in their target location.
Taehyung likes Iridis. The snowy landscape is a wonderful change of pace and Jeongguk is warm so the cold does not bother him.
They have landed between the thin rows of pine trees and the aroma swirls around them with the gentle yet frosty winds and with a delicate smile, Jeongguk leads them towards the den where Jimin and the sorcerers of Iridis await their arrival.
It is obscure, what makes Taehyung stop and, in turn, has Jeongguk staggering a step back. But perhaps the answer is simply the angel himself.
“Is everything all right?” Jeongguk asks, closing the distance between them with worried eyes as he searches the Prince’s face.
Taehyung nods slowly, smiles when it looks like Jeongguk is going to ask if he needs to lie down. “I am not going to almost faint like last time, we have only walked a few minutes.”
He almost wants to laugh when the dark-haired narrows his eyes, the only effect the look has now is that it is especially great at making Taehyung’s heart swell.
“Then why–”
Jeongguk jolts in surprise when Taehyung slots his lips between his, and the Prince revels in the way it only takes the shortest moment for Jeongguk to regain himself and raise his arms to wrap them around his neck to bring them closer. As if they are not already close enough. His hands caress the soft of Jeongguk’s waist and the air in Iridis is so cold that his fingers seem to burn.
The angel whimpers against his mouth. “Tae, we are outside of the den.”
Taehyung had been surprised to discover that after the first time the den had been revealed to them, Jeongguk could always see it. He had been even more surprised to know that all the way from afar, when they had been in Iridis’ North, Jeongguk had also been able to see that house too.
They had elected to walk a short distance to the house, rather than teleport themselves directly there but now Taehyung is too distracted to even think much about the invisible building that may stand somewhere before him.
“We are,” is what he says, brushing their noses lightly. The pink of Jeongguk’s lips are a deeper red and they’re already swollen now too. The brunette thinks he could kiss those lips forever, realises that could very much come to be a reality and his mouth breaks into a smile that has Jeongguk leaning back to see in full.
“What makes you smile?”
“Kissing you, being with you,” Taehyung begins to list and it has Jeongguk’s eyes blinking in surprise. “Holding you, speaking with you. Just you.”
Jeongguk looks away. “I make you smile?”
The Prince nods as if the answer is most obvious (and really, the way that he looks at Jeongguk always is proof of it). “Of course you do,” he says, using a gentle touch to guide Jeongguk’s face back. “I love you.”
This time, the glisten in the angel’s eyes makes Taehyung’s heart race; the stars there glimmer and dance, and if he were to look close enough – he would see himself reflected in every single one.
Jeongguk captures his lips softly then, and they take in breaths of air together, they dip back into one another and when the kisses become so deep that they seem like they might drown each other, it never really comes to that. Because, like this, they are the water but they are also the very anchors that stop them from being swept away by even the strongest of currents.
“I am so glad that you do,” Jeongguk tells him when they part. “It would be incredibly heartbreaking if you did not love me as I love you.”
Jeongguk has cruelly gained control of his heart, the Prince thinks. It reacts to everything he does, swells with every twinkle in his eye.
The angel reaches a hand up, cups Taehyung’s face in the delicate way that he fervently loves. “You’re looking at me like I have taken something from you,” he says as a faint smirk forms on his lips.
“You have. As a prince, I am supposed to be reserved and in control of myself, always.”
Jeongguk tilts his head curiously. “But you are in control of yourself right now.”
“Barely,” Taehyung says as a whisper. He leans in, causing Jeongguk’s back to press against the body of one of Iridis’ many tall pine trees in a moment of surprise. “May I kiss you?”
Dark hair slightly obscures the wonderful vision that is Jeongguk playfully rolling his eyes as he swallows down a laugh. “You do not need to ask, ever – but Namjoon and Jimin and Seokjin must be waiting for us.” He gasps, cheeks flushing suddenly. “Namjoon has abilities regarding foresight, what if he feels us? What if he sees us?”
Taehyung thinks on it for a second, before offering a nonchalant hum. “If Namjoon was going to feel our presence, or see us, then what is to say that he hasn’t already?”
It is clearly visible, in Iridis’ frosty temperatures, when Jeongguk breathes out a puff of warm air, his lips parted ever so slightly, and Taehyung feels the gentle heat against his skin where his own lips hover over them. Mortification has no time to blossom within Jeongguk when his mouth is pried open with a soft touch and from his throat, drawn are the most delicate of sounds.
In the den, everybody waits for their arrival and yet here they stand. Each time their lips connect it feels brand new and that feeling never gets tiring, the way Taehyung loves Jeongguk; the way Jeongguk loves Taehyung. It is far more beautiful than almost anything the angel has come to feel and he seeks it out like a sunflower seeks out the light.
Taehyung’s tongue is like molten sugar drops and Jeongguk finds himself sinking back, back against the tree until in the very depths of his mind he fears he might slip down it, but the Prince brings him forward without ever disconnecting their kiss and hugs him so tightly that Jeongguk is falling anyway – faster than ever for Kim Taehyung.
And being an angel, Jeongguk is impartial to the cold but he feels it when light, small drops of it meet his skin and melt there. Taehyung doesn’t stop kissing him though, not until his hand reaches into Jeongguk’s hair and feels the snow melt against the pads of his fingers.
He pulls away slowly, a single string between them as a reminder. When his eyes blink away the snow flurries and lift to focus on Jeongguk’s hair, they grow impossibly large and he takes a step back. It causes worry to surge through the dark-haired, but then Taehyung gives him an open-mouthed smile that has his heart settling in a fraction of a second.
“What?” Jeongguk breathes, trying to decipher the look in his love’s eyes. “Why have you stepped back?”
When the sun peeks out rather sporadically from behind the white sheet of sky above their heads, it scatters over the two of them colouring them in the careful tint of a rich yellow.
Taehyung gapes momentarily, before shaking out of his thoughts and closing the gap between them in an instant.
“It is just your hair,” he says, and Jeongguk’s eyebrows draw near.
“The snow, you mean?”
“Yes, in your hair.” Taehyung lifts his hand and brushes it through some strands to reveal the beautiful black once more. “The snow paints it white, and - and the sun just now, before it hid behind the clouds, painted it golden.”
A look akin to nostalgia and wistfulness flits through Jeongguk’s gaze all at once, but it is quickly swapped with something new. “It did? Did … do you prefer it that way?”
“I think it is mesmerising,” Taehyung says. “But it is you who makes it so. You take my breath away with black hair too.”
Jeongguk drags his fingers through the snowy strands: they pull away wet as if he had dunked them into a pool.
“You say the right things all the time,” he tells the Prince, nose scrunching when a snowflake hits the curve of it. It dissolves immediately against his skin and Taehyung watches it do so, slotting his fingers between the angel’s shortly thereafter. Warm.
“It is only true.” The snow begins to pick up and Taehyung shivers despite the heat that pulses through the hand that is interlaced with Jeongguk’s. “I think I have enjoyed the snow enough, are you ready?”
Jeongguk barely knocks on the door twice before Seokjin opens it with shock over his face when he notices the ice that covers them almost entirely, all but dragging them into the house. Jimin runs in and meets them in the hallway, his eyes turning into crescents when he spots Taehyung and Jeongguk in the middle.
“You’re here!” Jimin beams, grabbing a firm hold of both of their wrists and dragging them into the main room. “How is Amaranth? Namjoon saw that it was–”
“Namjoon saw that Jimin will bump into him if he doesn’t stop guiding Taehyung and Jeongguk into our living room backwards.” Jimin drops their hands, his feet immediately pausing in their movement when the seer’s voice cuts through his speech. He turns around with a sheepish grin. “I’m glad you’re both here, make yourselves at home.”
Namjoon and Seokjin had not stayed long, when a resounding clatter from somewhere within the den summoned them to their feet. As they disappeared through the door, the seer had sworn that Lei had something to do with it and that he did not need an intuition to know.
But now Jimin is explaining how he has almost completed his studies, which means that he is soon to take the test that will see the favour in which the Gods hold him. It sounds daunting, but he has a large grin on his face as he explains and Taehyung can’t help the laugh that escapes him when Jimin (rather shamelessly) asks Jeongguk if he could put in a good word or two.
“I am sure that you do not need my help,” Jeongguk says. Honestly, because he is never not honest. “In Xora, your first thought was to protect everyone from the arrows and that landed you with an injury. Keep your heart as beautiful as that, but maybe protect yourself sometimes too.”
Those words cause Jimin to smile warmly. “I will,” he tells the angel with the firmness of a promise, and then his gaze shifts between the two of them: Jeongguk and Taehyung. “How have you been?”
“Well, nothing too tremendous has happened in Amaranth so far since we returned,” Taehyung says.
“That is good, but I meant the two of you.”
The way Jeongguk looks at Taehyung then causes Jimin’s lips to bear the slight quality of a grin.
He raises an almost accusatory eyebrow and says, “There are no bushes to beat about, Namjoon and Seokjin will tell you that we are just happy for the both of you and I am also happy for me, because there are no more headaches that I will be subject to at the hands of my cousin’s stubbornness.”
Taehyung frowns. “What?”
The elder gives him a pointed stare. “Yes.”
The Prince’s eyebrows furrow at the unhelpful addition to the conversation. “You are more insufferable than usual.”
“Do you think so?” Jimin taps his finger against his chin, not an ounce affected by Taehyung’s, albeit playful, jab. “I feel as if I have become superhuman after Jeongguk’s brother completely healed my injury.” He looks to Jeongguk with a new look of gratitude. “Please tell Yoongi that I am so thankful for his help.”
Jeongguk smiles. He thinks that if anything good has come out of humans being able to see angels, it is the people like this who stop to thank the beings that do only what their heart instructs them to as if there was even a possibility of it being a hindrance.
“I am sure he would like to hear that,” he says. “I think I am unable to see him for a while, but I will.”
Jimin’s mouth parts as though he had made a grave mistake. “Oh, Jeongguk I am so sorry, I assumed that you might see your brother here in this world, I didn’t–”
And Jeongguk cannot help it when his eyes turn into crescents as he smiles a little. It is with a feeling that can be described as none other than fondness. “It is all right, that isn’t what I meant at all.”
“It isn’t?”
The angel nods, his eyes glistening. He looks at Taehyung briefly, turning back when the Prince looks at him with encouragement in his expression. “I do not think Yoongi is allowed to see me until I have made a decision.”
“You must make a decision?” Jimin asks curiously, his eyes darting between the two of them.
“The Gods have given us a choice to make and my brother has always been able to influence me with just his looks alone.”
Jimin’s perplexed eyes do not clear with understanding. He opens his mouth, a question on the tip of his tongue– but the sorcerers’ den is not the sorcerers’ den without an interruption: and Haeseong had only singled out Jeongguk’s presence as he was leaving last time and that was a mistake the seven year old promised himself not to make again.
It is why this time, he enters the room with his small hand dragging his mother along behind him and immediately when her eyes find the angel, she bows in the best way she possibly can whilst being pulled along as though she is merely no more than a giant ragdoll.
“See!” Haeseong beams, dropping her hand.
Taehyung bites down on his lip when a smile stretches on them. “There is your admirer,” he whispers for only Jeongguk to hear and the angel’s eyes sparkle brightly.
“Jeongguk,” Lei breathes, bowing again but properly this time. Haeseong tugs Jeongguk to stand and her shoulders seem to fall dramatically as if her son might land her in great trouble. “I have to do better at getting him to listen to me, I am so sorry.”
“I am the same Jeongguk as I was before and Haeseong hasn’t changed at all either,” Jeongguk says kindly, not a single look of irritation on his face. “This is fine.”
Lei laughs nervously. “I can hardly treat you the same as I used to.”
The angel’s lips tug down a little and the disparity between the look he wears and the arm that is being excitedly swung by the child is rather endearing to say the least.
“Oh! By the Gods, don’t frown, I take it all back!” Lei looks desperately at Jimin for assistance but the other looks back at her as if she is beyond saving (and with a little amusement too). “Oh no - I shouldn’t say that, you’re an angel. Oh–”
Jeongguk giggles then, his laughter making her eyes widen. “It’s okay, Lei. Really. This must be strange for you, so I apologise.”
Jimin leans forward in his seat, whispering something into Haeseong’s ear that has his mouth growing large with a toothy smile.
“Yes!” he squeals, legs moving quickly. “Mister Jeongguk, let’s go! Let’s go!”
Lei watches helplessly as her son ushers the angel out of the room and she sighs in a way that all but epitomises the stress that she currently feels. She pulls down her hair from its tight ponytail and massages at her temples.
“I’m just going - I’ll just go and find Namjoon and Seokjin,” is what she mumbles, not even waiting for a response before she trudges out of the room as if her life is in tatters.
Taehyung watches her depart sympathetically and once she has fully disappeared, turns to Jimin with an expectant look. “And Jeongguk has been taken to where under your magnificent advice?”
Jimin turns to the window behind them where, out of it, Jeongguk can be seen crouched down beside Haeseong as the child rolls up a ball of snow.
“Haeseong likes to build snowmen,” he says, eyes soft as he watches the endeared expression that Taehyung’s face develops.
He waits the better part of a minute before deciding that he does not like feeling single in a room where he is one of the only two people there. “Tae, what did Jeongguk mean? About a decision? He said ‘us’, which in my best guess means you and him. Is everything okay?”
Taehyung blinks back to Jimin. “The Gods gave Jeongguk a few choices to decide between is all. One involves the enchanting of our lives so that we might live in this realm for a long time– I think it is to accommodate me and my human life here, considering I am not an angel.” Jimin does not look short of bemused. “It’s okay. It has just been a lot.”
“A long time,” the elder repeats and Taehyung nods. “Does that scare you?”
“What do you mean?”
Jimin makes a sound as if he’s trying to draw together his thoughts. “I think about living a long time a lot. Seokjin told you that sorcerers tend to live longer than humans that do not harbour magic. I think about what that means when I am to become one and it scares me because it is unusual.”
“Your life already seems quite unusual to me, Jimin,” Taehyung says after letting the words settle. “You are a duke who turned away royalty to learn with the sorcerers of Iridis, and now you are on your way to becoming one yourself. Living a long time does not scare me because I have Jeongguk, and living a long time should not scare you because you have people here.”
“You won’t disappear into the sunset and leave me behind straight away, right?”
“Of course not. I will be with you too,” he says. “Should Jeongguk choose that path.”
Jimin looks out of the window, his lips spreading thin as he smiles at Jeongguk using a small enchantment to make the snowman wave.
“You are being stubborn again.”
Namjoon and Seokjin are the ones to bring Jeongguk back into the house once a small crowd of sorcerers (who had seen the rather spectacular enchantments he’d shown to Haeseong) surrounded him to watch in adoration and perhaps reverence too.
He looks relieved to have been saved from it but there is also a sparkle in his eyes that tells Taehyung he is more content than uncomfortable.
“Are the two of you staying the night?” Namjoon asks. “We have a room if you would like.”
The Prince nods gratefully, helpless to smiling back when the seer sends a dimpled one his way.
Namjoon turns to Jimin then. “Could you guide them to it? Seokjin and I must return to the sorcerers with an affinity for setting things aflame.”
Jimin jumps to his feet with a nod. “Come with me,” he says, practically skipping along.
It is when they arrive at the bedroom door that Jimin turns to the both of them with a half-smirk. The look inexorably grows bigger as he says, “He asked you that because he saw. Good night.”
He's down the hall from which they had come in the blink of a perplexed eye.
“Taehyung,” Jeongguk says through a gasp and Taehyung laces their hands together, shushing him gently as he pushes the door open.
“Namjoon could have seen anything.”
“The uncertainty in those words makes everything a thousand times worse.” The frown is audible in his voice and Taehyung draws him into the bedroom with a laugh.
“This will be insignificant very soon, my angel.”
Jeongguk sighs as he settles onto the bed, pressing his hands against his cheeks. “How can you be so sure? What is this feeling?”
Taehyung places his hands over Jeongguk’s, unable to hide his smile. “It is what overthinking feels like.”
The angel glares. “Then you are under-thinking.”
“Then together we are balanced.”
Jeongguk blinks, cocking his head slightly, and the display causes Taehyung to breathe out another laugh before gently pressing him down and draping over him like he is the blanket.
“We don’t have to go home in the morning,” he says then, enjoying the way Jeongguk relaxes beneath him. “We can stay here for a while, or should you want to return to Amaranth we could go on a walk like we did before.”
Jeongguk hums in agreement, though all he had really heard is home – he thinks home is with Taehyung and that way, anywhere is fine. And simply because of that, the angel makes his decision.
***
Jeongguk had begun by telling Taehyung that he no longer wanted his existence to be a secret to Amaranth and though the Prince had not a single idea of how to go about doing so, he had agreed without a moment of hesitance.
It came that they would begin with Amaranth’s Queen.
Queen Ji-ahn stared at her son as if he had hit his head on the particularly hard marble stairs in the foyer. Taehyung might have wished to play a trick on her which is the sole source of the incredulity in the gaze she directed towards him, however Jeongguk had not a single reason to join in such antics.
An angel, Taehyung had said he is. The angel, to be precise; the one from the Kingdom of Amaranth’s most popular legend.
Ji-ahn could not hold back her profuse shock and had she not been someone who thoroughly exercised the strength of her spirit, she may have fainted once belief washed over her entirely.
Now she covers Jeongguk’s hands with her own. His warmth meets her skin as she looks at the stars in his eyes. “You are the Messenger? The very messenger that saved Amaranth?”
He bites at his lip for a moment. “I have not been a messenger for what feels like aeons sometimes,” he says quietly.
“Oh,” the Queen whispers, downcast as if her heart hurts to know this. Jeongguk sees Jieun in her and it is so distinctive that he cannot help but look away. She hesitantly releases his hand and rises from the seat beside him in a gust of perfumed air, rubbing at her sternum with furrowed eyebrows.
“We do not want to hide him from Amaranth anymore, Ma,” Taehyung says gently. Her eyes are rounder when she looks at him, and then she looks to Jeongguk once more. “Do you remember what I had asked?”
Every cell in Ji-ahn’s body seems to pause. She mutters something akin to ‘by the Gods’, rubbing harder at her chest in a way that almost makes Taehyung wish to call for a medic.
But it is after a moment of silence that she exhales a breath, as if collecting strewn pieces of herself. Then, “You wish to let the people know who you are?” she asks, gaze focussing on the angel.
Jeongguk nods his head. It is the only way. “I do.”
The preparations had been made swiftly upon Jeongguk’s affirmation and before sundown, the Palace grounds in Eburnea is surrounded by very near everyone in the kingdom; so much so, the bodies spread so far into the distance that many might not be able to hear the announcement, yet they have come anyway.
It is Prince Taehyung and Queen Ji-ahn standing at the Palace’s front balcony that they look up at with anticipation. Between them is Jeongguk.
“Thank you for gathering here today,” Taehyung says to the large crowd that has congregated. “I would like to introduce you all to Jeongguk. Many of you may have seen him the day we recovered light to Amaranth, and many of you may know already that he is my love.” The hush that had fallen over the people breaks the tiniest bit to allow for the small gasps of awe. “What you do not know is who Jeongguk is, but together we have decided that no longer has to be the case from today onwards.
The Book of Light was bestowed upon our kingdom when we were in a state of peril, during the Tragedy of the Five Kingdoms. It was an angel, a messenger, that came to bring what is twice now our salvation and I am sure you have heard the stories of what happened next. The angel suffered at the hands of a selfish king, but he did not wither and he did not return to his true home. He lived here, as a human among us all.”
Amidst the people’s faces are looks of confusion and looks of disbelief, but Taehyung squeezes Jeongguk’s hand where he already holds it firmly as he continues his speech.
“I met Jeongguk in a bid to help me find the Book of Light.” His eyes flit over the rows, their eyes are on Jeongguk and not him. “Perhaps it is fate that he was the one. Jeongguk has saved our kingdom twice, even though both times he did not have to; even though he has been unable to return home all this time.”
Behind them, he hears the Queen sniffle once followed promptly by the sound of her heeled footsteps.
She takes in a breath and casts her eyes downwards. There is a stunned silence over the crowd, because the royal family has been nothing but truthful monarchs their lifetime: never has the Crown given them a reason to assume a position of distrust and so they do not know how to respond to this revelation other than stare agape at the three of them.
“It is true,” Ji-ahn says, voice smooth as though she had not just been crying. Taehyung has always admired his mother in that respect. “We are not poking fun at you all, there is simply no reason to. Amaranth is a kingdom blessed by magic itself, this is not as unbelievable as it is eye-opening and somewhat heartbreaking.”
All it takes to encourage a body of movement is one single person confident enough to do it first. It is an old lady, a patterned scarf tied around her head that covers silver strands. She stands at the front of the crowd, flowers for the fountain in her hands, and slowly she lowers to the ground in a deep bow.
After her, people follow: they bow so that their foreheads meet the ground and Jeongguk gasps, his eyes incredibly wide, as his head whips to Taehyung and then to his mother, the Queen, but both times he receives gentle smiles.
Taehyung removes his hand from Jeongguk’s grasp, and the breath within the angel’s lungs disappear at once when he follows the lead of his people and bows too.
“Tae…” Jeongguk’s hands fly out to stop the Prince from going down, but despite that Taehyung doesn’t make as if he has any intention to stop. He turns and Queen Ji-ahn is just the same.
The blurriness of tears obscures his vision and they fall in quick succession from his eyes. The people of Amaranth bow at him; the royalty bow at him and Jeongguk has never been the recipient of such displays of respect that his heart cries too out of an emotion he has never felt before.
He turns to those below, still lowered in deep respect and gratitude. He does not know what to do or what to say and so he closes his eyes, imagining a blanket of light big enough to cover everyone in the kingdom.
When his eyes open, the citizens look to one another in shock as they observe their glowing skin. They then look to Jeongguk with a stronger, new appreciation in their eyes and when he nods down at them, wiping the tears from his cheeks, they slowly rise to their feet. Angels are not strong enough to make great change as the Gods can, but providing blessings of good fortune like this is easy.
“Taehyung, please get up. Please,” he says, barely hiding the way his voice breaks from the tears and thick emotions that squeeze at his throat as he faces them once more. “Ji-ahn, please.”
It is most probably the wetness in Jeongguk’s voice that has Taehyung standing up near instantly. His mouth parts as his eyes widen and he makes quick work of properly clearing away the tears from Jeongguk’s face.
“Don’t cry,” Taehyung says softly after he presses his lips against the angel’s forehead.
Jeongguk sniffles. “I’m sorry.”
“Do not apologise, either.” Taehyung looks at him with a gaze filled with none other than deep pools of love. “You are being treated as you should have been. Right from the start.” He then glances to the Queen. “Ma, we’re going to go.”
She nods at them and watches as they leave before leaning out over the balcony, observing the citizens of Amaranth apprehensively exit Eburnea: a hesitant stream.
This kingdom, she muses with a full heart, is in good hands.
Jeongguk likes the calm that Taehyung’s room brings to him. He hadn’t liked the feeling of the expensive bed sheets against his skin, but he has shared this bed with Taehyung enough to change that view entirely.
Sinking onto it with his hand interlaced with the Prince’s feels like returning home.
“I am ready,” Jeongguk says into the quiet. “I’m going to choose, is that okay?”
Taehyung nods. “How will you do it?”
“I have to go to a place I haven’t ventured into for a long time.” Jeongguk worries his bottom lip, manages a smile after Taehyung carefully coerces it from the cage of teeth. “For an angel, it is a space in our hearts and I - I’m not sure if it still exists for me, but I am going to try.” He looks to their hands then. “Please don’t let go.”
And when Taehyung tightens his hold just that little bit extra, Jeongguk’s eyes flutter shut with a reassured exhalation of breath. He is nervous as he clears his mind and envisions the white space. It’s difficult to get it to stay in his mind's eye for long enough, but then he realises that it doesn’t stay only because he thinks that it will not. The realisation forces him to push away the voice that tells him the space does not exist for him anymore.
The vast plane of whiteness does not vanish after that, and when Jeongguk blinks open his eyes – the plane is there, in front of him. It is Taehyung’s grip on his hand that has the momentary panic easing.
He knows that all he has to do now is state his choice.
It is a choice easier than ever, he thinks.
***
Warmth fills Jeongguk’s heart as if it is a vessel held beneath a steaming faucet: and that is his answer from the beings he had once lived to serve.
***
There is a story.
It begins in an unordinary fashion and will perhaps end just the same.
But it is of how Amaranth's longest reigning, most treasured rulers come to be. It is of how they come to be and how they will come to end. Even then, in that specific end is not how their lives conclude. Jeongguk and Taehyung shall still continue to be, with intertwined hearts and a love as bright as it has always been, but merely elsewhere.
Only, when that time does arrive, they will not be able to be seen – for humans cannot and should not see angels – and they will live somewhere far, far amidst the stars.