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They had said their goodbyes, wordlessly but in their own way. It was the end, they’d claimed, with a sparkle of sadness in their eyes. Seokjin had embraced them each and at once they had become one with him as they always had been. And thus, he had been thrust into the world of adulthood alone, yet eternally protected by six nonexistent yet ever present souls.
In his heart, he had known that he would seen them again. There was left one unfulfilled space in his adventure that he could feel ever so slightly in his thoughts.
They returned to him once more, on a chilly October evening when the moon was bright in the sky and Seokjin had been entertaining thoughts of the liquor cabinet in the parlor below his bedroom. The wind howled mournfully in the drafty halls of the mansion around him.
The house was his grandmother’s home, left to him in her will when she had passed. Once he came of age, his parents revealed this to him and he took up residence there, offering them a place with him which they declined in favor of their own house (though they did insist that it should be used for his brother’s wedding when the time came). Seokjin has been not close with his grandmother, but they had been on good terms and he had a wealth of childhood memories of her home that was now his.
The house had lay abandoned for years as Seokjin grew up, and when he moved in he did not spare much attention in the way of renovation. Seokjin kept the unused rooms dark so as not to waste energy, and the effect was rather dreary. The house, once bright and joyous, was now home to dust and shadow, as if it was mourning its previous owner.
In the present, he sat in the window seat of the only parlor he kept open to use. The room was lit by a small lamp in the corner. Spread before him on the cushion were his collection of Polaroids that he kept in a box on the piano.
Jin’s hands drifted over the empty Polaroids. They'd once seemed filled with bright, smiling faces, but since his friends’ departure he'd found them departed too from his photos and films. To a stranger, the pictures would be beautiful, perhaps melancholy, Polaroids of the lonely places in the world- an abandoned pool, a forgotten traincar, couches and blankets unoccupied, an empty beach. A stranger would not see Taehyung’s bright smile, or Hoseok’s sleeping form, or even the picture of Jungkook merrily shoving a very startled Jimin into the ocean. Their loudness was absent from the pictures now, leaving behind only silence.
When he finally retired to bed was when they appeared to him.
He had just closed his eyes when fingers intertwined with his. The hand had no warmth, nor was it cold. Not rough, yet not soft.
“Hyung,” A breath of wind whispered to him.
He opened his eyes to the sight of the six spread around his room. Though it was not the room in his old dusty mansion, but rather a room that he had never seen before but that he knew was his somehow.
Taehyung, appearing now with blond hair and piercing blue eyes, withdrew his hand from Jin’s and instead caressed his hair gently.
“Is this a dream?” Jin murmured. Taehyung smiled down at him softly.
“Of course,” He said. “Weren’t we always?”
Jin threw the covers off and slung his feet over the bed. Nearly as soon as his feet touched the wood below, he was assaulted by an almost aggressive hug from Hoseok who had been standing behind Taehyung. He, like Taehyung, had changed since Jin had last seen him. In fact, as Jin looked at each of his childhood friends, he realized that they all had. No longer were they lost, helpless boys, but instead in this place they seemed angelic; their smiles were bursts of light and their laughter was sweet music.
They led him from the bedroom down into a great hall. The hall was gorgeous, bright, elegantly designed, lit by huge windows that beckoned white light inside. The high arching ceiling was supported by stone columns. Beautiful paintings adorned the walls and ceiling, elaborately carved marble statues and busts stood on pedestals. Doorways were filled with light, seeming to lead nowhere yet everywhere at once- as if one could step through and be in a new world altogether.
Perhaps his friends were angels, and this was his heaven.
His friends ran ahead, not phased by the beauty as Seokjin was. He moved to follow them but his attention was commanded by a large and elegant painting. It was distantly familiar to him, so he knew that he had probably seen it long ago. The painting was chaotic, the entire frame filled with heavenly and hellish beings. Angels reigned from above on the rebellious angels below, dealing heavenly justice with their swords. The fallen angels, who had once been heavenly beings like their executioners, were depicted as terrible creatures.
“Seokjin,” A voice said. The voice was sweet and bright, but as Seokjin gazed at the painting, the voice filled him with an unexplained dread.
He turned to Taehyung behind him, and the boy, though still smiling, was looking at him strangely. In that moment, despite Taehyung’s beauty, Seokjin remembered what Taehyung had done.
Seokjin looked away from Taehyung, and instead to the others. Yoongi was gone.
“Where's Yoongi?” He asked.
Jungkook looked up and smiled secretively at him, “Just wait, you'll see.”
“How are you, hyung?” Namjoon asked suddenly. “It's been so long since we were last together.”
“It has,” Jin agreed. “I've been fine, getting by as best I can. The house is a bonus, though it's too big for just one person. I wish you all were there to share it with me.”
“That would be great,” Jungkook agreed.
“It was time, though,” Hoseok said, a little sadly. “You became whole, hyung.”
“I don't feel whole,” Seokjin said.
“Don't be silly, hyung,” Taehyung smiled. “You broke free and became.”
“But what if now that I'm free, I want to go back?”
Taehyung gave him that odd little smile again and didn't respond.
Then suddenly, music filled the hall and Seokjin knew that it must be Yoongi. The music seemed to come from everywhere around him, invading his mind and carving it's wordless meanings into his soul.
The others all stood and rushed away from Seokjin, across the hall toward the largest entrance. He ran after, and they looked over their shoulder with joy in their faces as they disappeared into the light beyond the doorway.
And then, he felt a presence behind him. It commanded him to stay, and he found that as his friends left him he could not follow as it was not the will of whatever heavenly or and demonic being lay behind him.
He turned to face the creature, but found nothing behind him. Yet, the overwhelming presence still remained.
Hands came over his eyes, and he heard Taehyung’s laugh behind him but it was no comfort. It sent a chill through him.
When the hands were removed, he saw a statue. A kneeling angel- white, but with huge black wings. Huge and great and terrible it was, good and evil, light and dark. It beckoned him forward, and he obeyed.
As he neared it, his fear was replaced by a strange sense of calm. The statue called him closer still, and soon he was stepping up on its pedestal and past the angel’s arm until Seokjin’s breath caressed it’s stone face.
He caressed the angel’s cheek and kissed it gently, as if he loved it and in that moment, his heart did. He was for that moment entirely devoted to the being before him.
As he closed his eyes, he saw in his mind’s eye the presence as a kneeling figure, surrounded by black. The figure was shirtless, displaying two ghastly black scars that contrasted terribly with his snow white skin between his shoulder blades. A fallen angel, cast from heaven for his sin.
Taehyung turned to him and smiled.