When Taehyung woke up, he found himself on a feather soft bed and something told him there were actual feathers inside the mattress. He sat up slowly, let his eyes sweep the dark room as he tried to recollect his memories.

The room was quite small, almost like a child's room with several closed windows dotting one of the walls. He could hear a clock ticking somewhere but couldn't figure out its location. There was a dwarf closet against one of the corners of the room and a smaller version of the dining table next to the head of the bed.

Taehyung frowned when he remembered two things- a) he had surely collapsed on the ground and b) the clothes he wore last night were white. But there he was sitting on the bed, wearing a blue nightshirt and trousers.

He decided to ponder on those thoughts later and got out of bed in one swift swing of his legs.

Bad idea

Excruciating pain clawed at his back and made him double over and fall on his hands and knees. Tears pricked his eyes as the agony intensified by the moment. Taehyung tried to remain very still and took deep breaths.

After what felt like forever, the burn began to subside and Taehyung hoisted himself on his feet carefully. Taking timid steps, he approached one of the many windows and carefully opened one of its doors. Sure enough, it was daytime.

"-and if you dare to even show your face again within ten metre radius of my house, I will see every feather in those wings turn to dust."

Taehyung pushed the leaves of the willow tree aside and craned his neck to see what was going on. His blood ran cold when he saw three pairs of white wings and a familiar red badge. Taehyung did not care to see their faces because he immediately dropped to his knees to shield himself from the sight of the guards. He wanted to close the window but he was afraid one of them might notice.

"Sir," Taehyung heard a gruff voice "You must understand that this is a mandatory procedure-"

"Do not speak of your laws in a land that is not yours!" Seokjin cut through like a dagger.

"You must understand-"

"That you have the right to barge into my house and create an absolute wreckage of it in my absence?! Is that your damned law?" Seokjin spoke with so much heat that it made Taehyung cower even though he was not in fault.

...or was he?

"Enough, Dark one. We are here on duty-"

"And I am here to let you know that I will snap your wings if you remain here for another minute. Our ruler does not tolerate trespassers and I can assure you that she would be more than happy to know that I took well care of you."

"You conceited Dark-"

"Wonho. Do not speak. We will leave, Seokjin."

Taehyung heard the powerful batting of wings and his heart nearly stopped beating when the silhouette of a guard passed by the window. Silently, he said thanks to the willow for veiling the opened window.

After counting till two hundred, Taehyung quietly exited the room and descended the stairs. He found Seokjin sitting on a beige couch with his wings splayed on either side of him. His face was resting on his hands with his eyes closed and eyebrows knit in concentration as if he was drowning in the ocean of thoughts.

"You got rid of the guards," Taehyung's faint voice pierced through the silence.

Seokjin's eyes opened and stared at Taehyung with absolute loathing. He raised to his full height, his mighty wings making him ten times more intimidating.

"What the hell is going on, Taehyung?" Seokjin asked with hostility.

"You- you got rid of them. Why?" Taehyung should be frightened, and honestly he was, but he felt more grateful than scared.

"Do you think I will tolerate anyone breaking into my house like that? Just because one is a Light being?" Seokjin demanded in an exasperated tone and Taehyung couldn't help but notice how red his ears were.

"O-of course not," Taehyung replied.

There was a minute of suffocating quietness as Taehyung stared at the floor and Seokjin burned holes into his soul.

The Dark one swept by him, striding into the kitchen. Taehyung spared no moment to think and followed Seokjin.

His jaw nearly reached the floor. The kitchen... It was all ruined. The shelves were ripped from the walls and their contents were all sprawled across the floor. There were broken flowering pots with the soil everywhere on the floor, carrying the footprints of the intruders. Shards of glass dotted the floor and substances mixed together to form bubbles of strange colours. The cabinets were thrown open as well, and the guards had even messed up the food and cutlery stored inside them. Thankfully, the table was intact, but still...

"Seokjin... Seokjin, I'm so sorry..." Taehyung managed to say after swallowing the lump in his throat with some difficulty.

"So they were looking for you, weren't they?" Seokjin hissed.

Taehyung began to stammer, "Like- like I had told you- l-last night-"

"Last night?" Seokjin chuckled darkly. "You have been asleep for four days."

"I- what?!" Taehyung bemused. It shouldn't be surprising given how much his body and mind were exhausted when he had arrived at Seokjin's cottage, but still it took him a few moments to stomach the fact.

Seokjin turned away and snapped his fingers. A broom and dustpan flew out of somewhere and began to sweep the chaos on the floor.

"Seokjin-"

"There's an extra brush for you in the bathroom. Fix yourself and come back down."

"If your story is not worth this trouble, be ready to leave this land," Seokjin concluded before venturing deeper into the kitchen to sort out the mess.

"But- but you said your friend-"

"And what sort of person passes their burden to a friend?!" Seokjin spun around and bellowed.

Taehyung feels a horrible jab at his chest and tears prick his eyes. No, it was true. He was a burden, a stranger who was causing so much disruption to someone's life.

"Okay, I'll go clean up." And with that, Taehyung zoomed out of the kitchen.

Under the cold water that sizzled on his warm skin, Taehyung's mind ran a thousand miles per second. He had to think of something... something that would trigger enough compassion out of the Dark one. His brain began to whir and threads of white lie began weaving themselves, fabricating a story that could move Seokjin.

But was it enough? Was it enough for Seokjin to lay his trust in him? There was only one way to find out.

When he returned to the kitchen, he found Seokjin sitting at the less chaotic side of the table with two cups, one of which he was already drinking. With his eyes, he gestured Taehyung to take the seat next to him which Taehyung obeyed without a word. He recognised the warm liquid by its smell and cringed at it internally.

Coffee

He didn't want to offend Seokjin so he picked up the green cup and pretended to sip on it carefully, wetting his bottom lip for good measure. He looked up at Seokjin nervously, whose expression remained unchanged from last time, so Taehyung began to speak.

"My wings were snatched away from me. I don't want to describe how they were taken away but all I can say is that it was agonising to the core."

Not a drop of emotion in Seokjin's eyes.

So he began the lie.

"There was a-"

Ding dong

Taehyung's blood lost warmth.

"Jin hyung!"

Oh thank heavens

Seokjin stood up and said, "Don't go anywhere. It's just a friend."

The Dark one swept out of the kitchen, and the opening of a door and boyish whining was heard. Quickly, Taehyung dumped half of his coffee into a pot of orange flowers and just prayed Seokjin would never find out how his flowers died.

A few seconds later Seokjin reentered with another Dark one following him like a sad puppy. He was shorter than Seokjin and his wings were sleeker but his frame was larger than both Seokjin and Taehyung as if he bench-pressed in his leisure time.

"-then I tried to- oh, emergency customer?" The boy stopped in his tracks when he saw Taehyung who just smiled awkwardly.

"Oh heavens, they really destroyed this place..." Jungkook commented as he walked around the trashed kitchen.

Seokjin just hummed as his eyes searched the table for something. Taehyung hoped he didn't notice anything suspicious about the plant.

"Here," Seokjin said, turning around to hand the boy a jar of blue cubes from the table and the latter exclaimed a few words of gratitude before flying over the debris to open the cabinets.

"Continue," Seokjin said as he sat back down and fixed Taehyung with a demanding gaze.

"Um," Taehyung eyed the other Dark one.

"Oh, Jungkook can stay," Seokjin said, gesturing Taehyung to carry on as said Jungkook turned on the stove and something began to sizzle on the pan.

"Okay," Taehyung breathed out.

"There was a mortal named J..."

"Jay? What sort of name is that?"

"Jungkook, shush."

"I had some duty in the mortal village that day. A young girl got lost in the woods and evening was approaching so I was guiding her back without making my presence seen or felt. When the girl finally found her way home, I watched her from the mouth of the woods and J... just happened to be there."

"They were the first mortal who felt my presence even when I was trying to hide my essence. They looked right at me and asked me if I was cold because it was an Autumn's evening. But I wasn't supposed to interact with mortals directly so I flew away."

"But I was curious. I returned to the village where J was and sure enough they felt me again and after a few visits like that... I finally showed them myself. And I just kept visiting them more and more frequently every time I was free from my duties and well..."

Taehyung swallowed and let out a feeble noise before saying, "We fell in love."

"I experienced the best months of my life. I have been alive for eight thousand years now and never have I felt such joy before..."

"But-" Taehyung choked and his eyes turned watery.

"My superiors found out. They found out that I broke one of the most ancient divine laws. They- They snuffed out J's soul one night, wiped out their memories and stored his soul for another body that would be born a million years later. Afterwards, they imprisoned me for heaven knows how long and- and broke my wings."

"Seokjin, the pain was too much to handle. I don't want to go insane so I came to you to get back at least one of the two beloved that I lost."

When Taehyung finally looked up, he was astonished to see how soft Seokjin's eyes had become. He heard a sniffle and turned to see Jungkook fisting away his tears while trying to crack an egg over the pan.

"It was his soulmate, hyung," Jungkook croaked as he ended up smashing the egg.

"Hey," Seokjin said in an impossibly tender voice as he got up to hug Jungkook who smeared tears, snot and yolk all over Seokjin.

After pacifying Jungkook, who was oddly miserable by Taehyung's story, Seokjin took a long breath and said, "I will help you."

"Really?!"

"Yes... but-"

Oh no

"-you need to help me too."

"How..?"

"Growing someone's wings from scratch... the potion for it would have been easy for me to make if not for the guards. The ingredients for it are nearly impossible to acquire. It took me two lifetimes to gather them."

"Oh..."

"That's why I need your help. Now I know where to look for the contents of the potion but I would need assistance. Since you do not have any other means to pay me, you will accompany me," Seokjin concluded, crossing his arms while waiting for Taehyung's word.

"How long will it take to get everything?"

"Depends on how badly injured we are."

"...what?"

"Ah!" Jungkook cried out from behind them, snapping his fingers. "Hyung, you don't mean you have to get the dragon's breath again, right?"

"I'm afraid I do," Seokjin sighed as his eyes fell on the rubble that was being neatly broomed into a corner by the animated broom.

"Jiminie told me one of his wings almost got burned from the heat. There's actually a char mark way down here," Jungkook said as he pointed at a very intimate point on his inner thigh before blushing at the realisation of what he just hinted at.

"Um, so yeah, be careful uh-"

"Taehyung."

"-Taehyung. Hyung."

"I have to make a list of what we need. We will be leaving after breakfast." With that, Seokjin flew out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

"Here you go," Jungkook chirped as he handed Taehyung the smashed egg omelette.

"Say, you're a Light one, right?" Jungkook asked with both his cheeks stuffed with food.

"Um, yes," Taehyung answered as he took a careful bite of the egg, eyebrows shooting up when he found it to be delicious.

"I didn't know Light ones punished themselves for appearing in front of mortals. Namjoon hyung has written many books about your kind and none of them mentioned it."

Taehyung spoke before the ball of panic could unfurl within him, "Oh, has he actually been to the Light realm?"

"Uh, no."

"There you go. You cannot know about everything until you have lived there."

"But Namjoon hyung's a clairvoyant. He just knows stuff, you know? Maybe he still has a lot more to see."

Taehyung made a mental note to avoid this Namjoon person, even though he had no idea what he looked like.

__________

So basically I quit this story and began writing a modern Greek myth take on Hades and Persephone instead but I wasn't really feeling the story so like literally two or three days before the dead line, I was like you know what I'm going to write the angel story and here we are.

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Saranghae❤️