Seokjin had a sense for unnatural things. 

For a long time, he'd walked the playground at school, alone, and looked up to the sky. He'd spoken with it, felt a sense of comfort when the wind would sweep through his hair, caress his face like a warm hand and push away his tears when the boys picked on him for being skinny and stupid while the girls ran from him for being creepy and weird. It had always felt like there was a connection to someone he couldn't see, someone who was there for him and him alone, but who couldn't reveal themselves, for some reason or another. He was sure, however, he felt the hand of this person when he went into high school, where he met Jimin and Hoseok. 

Supernatural things were not uncommon, old gods and new gods alike inciting worship and granting gifts. Jimin was a Cupid Token - his parents had been hopeless romantics who simply could not find the right person and set up offerings and prayers for a Cupid's help. The result was a child nine months after they got together, and that child was Jimin. As for all the Token children, he was cute in a cuddly way but had a sensuality to him that only ripened with his age. By nineteen, the boy was unstoppable. Not to mention that being a Token guaranteed that he would find true love sooner or later. 

Hoseok, on the other hand, was a Child of Eden. Favours from the Abrahamic Lord were few and often minor, posed to look coincidental. The Children of Eden were His greatest blessings and seemed to come completely at random - somewhere along the line of gestation, the Lord would decide that this child in particular had a worthy soul and would give them the lengthy life, good health and demon sense that came with their new status. On a practical level, all that meant was that Hoseok never got sick, never seemed to break bones despite his long-running stupidity and had an incredible knack to known when something bad was about to happen.

Seokjin had been the one to tell both of them that they were supernatural. Jimin had run home, immediately quizzing his parents on the foundations of their relationship and the happenstance of his birth. Hoseok just went still, then cocked his head.

"How do you know that?"

"I can see it." Seokjin had replied simply. "Jimin's eyes flash red and pink sometimes, like when he charms a teacher. And you . . . you kind of have a glow about you, like the sun. Especially when you smile."

"That's an impressive skill." Hoseok beamed and he felt warm. "If I'm supernatural, then you certainly are. Have you ever asked your parents about it?"

"They tell me I just have an overactive imagination." He shrugged. "It's not a problem and if I just don't tell people about it, no one notices."

"I think it's cool and that you should. I mean, weird people like other weird people, right? Like you, me and Jimin. Maybe we can make people who feel bad about their strangeness feel not so alone with us."

The rest of the people that Seokjin became friends with happened rather accidentally. 

Yoongi was in the lower-level classes and therefore didn't have any real reason to ever bump into Seokjin, Jimin or Hoseok. It was a fortunate accident that Hoseok had secured permission to the school auditorium to show them his dance routine and they found Yoongi, known pretty commonly as Suga for his bitter and reclusive personality. He had been playing a mournful piece on the piano when they came in, completely lost and absorbed in the keening notes to notice or care about their entrance. Gingerly, they crept forwards until they were close enough to see that underneath the hood on his head shadowing his face, that Yoongi's eyes were closed and there was no paper, no score propped up before him.

"Have you seen him here before?" Jimin whispered.

"No. This is the first time." Hoseok whispered back. 

Seokjin was staring at the other boy, thick feelings coursing through him with the thrum of the deep notes. Yoongi was not supernatural, there was nothing about him that said he was, but somewhere in his genes lurked a dark ancestor. It was likely a vampire, but Seokjin could tell that the blood had been far too diluted by not to affect Yoongi in any practical way, let alone know that it was in him. 

"It's beautiful."

Yoongi immediately stopped, scrambling away from the piano with his hands in his pockets and a sneer on his face. "Shut up and get out."

Hoseok and Jimin froze at Seokjin's sides. However, Yoongi wasn't looking at them, crouched in the third row and peering over the edge of the seats. He was staring across the stage at a first year who walked out from behind the curtain, a smile on his face to match the blinding glare of his white t-shirt under the stage lights. 

"A Hestian." Seokjin breathed, eyes widening. 

The boy, youngest of them all, was Jungkook. Blessings of the old gods weren't as rare as those of the Lord and certainly seemed to come with stronger abilities, but Hestia was one of the last to ever interact with humanity. Hestians were the product of the goddess of the hearth and were innocently naive, hopelessly optimistic and generally unshakeable people. They cared very deeply for everyone as if they were family and were known to be some of the leading humanitarians in the world. Jungkook was no different, dressed simply and approaching one of the most secluded people in the school. 

"Who the hell let you in here?"

"No one. The door was open." Jungkook smiled and the warmth of the flame around him spread. Whether he knew it or not, Yoongi softened to the glow, easing his standoffish stance. "I really liked that. It's so beautiful in the saddest way. Have you been practising that or is it off the top of your head?"

"Nah. That as just inspiration." Yoongi sniffed, assessing Jungkook once more. 

Seokjin swallowed his fear and stood up. Yoongi and Jungkook immediately looked to them and Yoongi darkened once more. Maybe the remenents of his ancestor's intimidation was still there, because Seokjin was terrified. But if Jungkook could face Yoongi down, so could he. 

"The ? There's four of you who've been spying?" He barred his teeth. "Who the set you up to this?"

"I want to hear you play more." Seokjin blurted out, all his breath rushing out with the words. "I wish I had known sooner that you play. I could spend every lunch listening to you play."

Yoongi sunk deeper into his hoodie. "I don't play all the time. Those ers find me and mock me for being able to play the piano."

Even Hoseok frowned. "Bastards. Is that why you don't talk to anyone?"

"I don't talk to anyone because people ." Yoongi spit back bitterly. 

"That's not fair." Jimin spoke up from behind his chair, still crouched. "You don't know all people. I mean, Seokjin's really nice. And he'll cook for you."

"It's really good stuff, too." Hoseok nodded along.

"Wow." Jungkook giggled. "I want to try your cooking now."

Yoongi didn't stop scowling. 

"How about we be your friends?" Jimin offered. "I mean, if we're all bullied, why not be bullied with other people you can to? Doesn't that make more sense?"

That startled a bark of laughter out Yoongi. "That's actually pretty convincing, kid. You've got yourself a deal, even if you might regret it in a couple of weeks."

They didn't come to regret it. Yoongi and Jungkook were lovely friends and all four of them made Seokjin feel loved and cherished. It wasn't until he was walking one night to Yoongi's rail car (where he lived, much to their dismay) that the invisible and caring hand of his first friend disappeared. 

There were many times where Seokjin's vision would double and he would see another world, the supernatural one and his worlds would blur together. Sometimes he had full on visions and had lost consciousness due to them on more than one occasion walking to school. Something was wrong this time, he could tell. The worlds were not only blurring together, but it felt like there was a pull and tear at his head which made it throb, deep and hot. His body was hurting and it felt like he was being pulled into the other world. 

There was a chilled hand on his shoulder, erasing the pain and visions with a phantom white light before his knees hit the concrete.

"Holy !"

He fell forwards with is eyes still closed and his body lax. Instead of the hard stone, he hit the chest of a man and felt lanky arms wrap around him before he passed out. 

When he woke up, he was in Yoongi's rail car with the other boy hovering over him, checking him over. 

"Are you sure?" Yoongi asked. 

There was a sigh and then a man in a navy coat and a ruffled button-down shirt appeared on the edge of his vision. "Of course I am. I was attacked by them, remember?"

"Yeah, I know that, but this could be something else. Wraiths don't do this to people who are awake and walking, man."

"Maybe not, but there was something on him, I can tell you that."

"Do you think you scared it off?"

"Unlikely. I'm not powerful like that."

When Seokjin was able to sit up, explain what he remembered and learn the new man's name, he made his fifth friend, Namjoon. He looked nineteen, but explained that he was actually in his mid-thirties. The man was born a Dreamwalker, an elevated class of medium that had out of body experiences every time they slept and usually made careers of fighting Wraiths, demons that preyed on sleeping people with intent to kill and consume part of their souls. Namjoon had been a teenager when he first encountered a Wraith preying on the impressionable mind of his neighbour. He'd attacked the beast and mostly driven it off, but he'd ingested some of the terror's blood and from then on hadn't been the same.

"We're called Wraithwalkers." Namjoon explained with a grimace. "Wraith blood is usually poison. Someone immune to it becomes a Wraithwalker and gains some of their powers."

"What did you gain?" Jungkook asked curiously. 

"I can sense emotions and when I'm sleeping, I can invade minds, if I so choose. I can also Thrall people with a mist."

"A mist?" Hoseok cocked his head. 

Namjoon tilted his head back, a hand coming up to cover his mouth. When the hand fell away and his lips parted, thick white smoke poured out of his mouth and curled upwards, like a dancer's silk scarves. 

"What does it do?"

"I Thrall you." Namjoon explained, puffing out the last of the smoke. "You become my slave in both body and mind. I literally control you until I release you, which could be a couple of minutes or the rest of your lifetime."

"That's . . . a little scary." Jimin replied.

"It is." Namjoon agreed. "Most Wraithwalkers are killed for these kinds of powers. But I just . . . I wasn't ready to die and I didn't do anything wrong. I hid from my family and the rest of the Dreamwalkers. I mean, as a Wraithwalker, I'll outlive them now regardless, but . . . " Namjoon sighed, bowing his head. 

"I think that's enough for one night." Yoongi decided. "We can all camp out here - there's more than enough room. I don't want anyone walking home this late at night anyway. Not in this neighbourhood. Plus none of you will stop blowing up my phone about Jin until you see him in school." 

That night, Seokjin dreamed of blackness and thought he heard the distant wailing of mourners, the shaded echo of an organ playing Yoongi's broken melody.

A week passed since the incident and the warm, ever-present comfort of his invisible friend was gone. That Friday, his class was introduced to a boy none of them had ever seen before, a boy named Taehyung. It didn't take long for his pale blue eyes, white skin and parchment blonde hair to gain him negative attention, especially with the vague and frankly empty way he looked around. 

Of course, Yoongi, Seokjin, Hoseok, Jimin and Jungkook stepped in, rescuing the newcomer from the bullies. They soon learned that their newest and final additional friend was as odd inside as he was outside, especially when he confirmed that his hair, skin and eyes were naturally like this and not the product of dyes, bleaches or contact lenses. When Seokjin looked at him, however, there was nothing. Just a dull silence, like peace on a black tide over still water. The only thing he felt was . . . hollow.

Namjoon was the only one not in school and, as a Wraithwalker, had no ordinary human needs anymore, like sleep, food, shelter. Instead, he spent his days and nights roaming the areas he was unfamiliar with and tracing out pathways. He sometimes fell into a trance, his new version of sleep which would allow him to enter the otherworld, but mostly he just looked around and kept an eye and an ear out for Wraith activity. So, it made sense that Namjoon was the one who found this place. 

Not far from the old abandoned rail yard where Yoongi's car was there was an ancient building. The outside was all crumbling stone with a broken ceiling and  rubble laying around, but inside was cream stucco with vaulted ceilings and mason-crafted doorways. Artistic balconies, fireplaces, pillars and columns were everywhere inside the building, acting as support for the partially destroyed ceiling. 

The most fascinating thing about the house, though, was the vast and extensive collection of artwork and statuary that was housed inside it. Ancient and revered paintings were hung on the walls, perfectly preserved, with massive statues and smaller busts on displays that looked like they had never seen weather, like they were freshly carved and buffed by the sculptor themselves. There were also glass and crystal chandeliers in some rooms, along with glass floors and sparse, but Victorian furniture that looked as if it had just been made. 

Jungkook had been the first to claim a favourite room. There was a long, narrow one that had a rope and plank swing in it. He loved that place. When they weren't hanging out in the foyer, looking at the art or running amok and talking, this was the place he was most likely to go. 

Yoongi, too, had claimed a space, though it didn't exactly make sense. One of the floors in one of the towers had both a glass ceiling and a glass floor. It was a blue room with three separate entrances that lead to different parts of the building with wall sconces. There was only one chair in the room, but that didn't seem to matter much to Yoongi, who sat there and hummed to himself and even slept, sometimes. 

Below him was Namjoon's favourite room. It was a Victorian style bedroom, with a full dressed bed, a loveseat and a desk. Lamps, pictures and random decor were scattered about the place in an odd fashion, but he liked it, so he stayed there. 

Hoseok had found a garden, ironically, which he had taken a liking to. It was walled in with dark stone and not particularly large. There were hedges that lined it and there was a pool with a statue of a madonna inside of it. Hoseok had no idea why he was drawn to this place. Jimin's ty joke about the Child of Eden liking gardens just brought on a little chase. 

Jimin liked to play aroung with Jungkook and Yoongi most, often found inside their rooms or milling about in the hallways. 

Seokjin stayed mostly in the foyer, captured by the artwork, feeling like he knew this place, the meaning behind all of the symbols, but not knowing what the answer actually was. How did he know? Why was he so comfortable? He had all the piece of the puzzle, but he couldn't fit it together, couldn't understand. Not until the visions and the dreams came back.

He was watching from above, but he felt it like he shared that very body.

It was a man, one leg propped up and a hand reaching outwards. He was on his back, eyes open. The whole area, endless as it seemed, was black, but there was a light off in the distance that illuminated the fluid expanse of translucent white that passed over the man's body.

A low thrum of mourning voices, passing of long, slow song overhead. The words were distant, uncomprehensible, but they were funeral rites. The final blessing of the dead. 

He felt the connection he had to the scene snap and it vanished from before his eyes. 

He's at the head of a table now, standing over his friends. Before them all is elaborate plates and untensils, each plate of gold containing only one red apple. The trees around them are dead and the air is a fog of red, pink and orange, like the remants of chemical warfare. 

He stands without his own consent and raises his glass. In tandem, his friends follow the glass with a gesture of their own and only then does he regain control of himself. He looks around, feeling lost and stolen. He is not in his right world. There is something wrong. Like water, the sky above ripples and a sensation like paint flushes up his skin. Colour seems fake, unreal, and just like that, his connection to the vision snaps away as well. 

Everything feels wrong.

"I think the house is affecting us." Seokjin breathes, laying with his head hanging off the edge of the bed in Namjoon's room. Smoke the colour of smudged turquoise meandered from the floor, circling around the glass of the ceiling. 

Yoongi and Jimin are above them, kneeling on the glass. Why does Yoongi have a black sash? Jimin . . . he has one of the apples. 

His perspective has changed, but he didn't recall moving. He's moving past them, throwing open the doors to the balcony. Taehyung is there, familiar and sane. He turns, smiles, then pushes off the stone railing. His heart lurches, but he can't feel his body-

Jungkook lifts from the floor, back arched gracefully as he lifts higher and higher, eyes closed in blissful peace with the very air around him caught in time. 

From the edge of the bed, he sees Namjoon's hand fall away from his mouth. His clothes are different now from what they were before this. White smoke issues forth.

Yoongi wraps the sash around Jimin's eyes, leaving him blind and tied to the door to the balcony. He stands and pulls against it, trying to walk away, but he is pulled back. Yoongi is gone. There is nothing stopping him, no tie to his hands. Why does Jimin not free himself? He is not contained in any inescapable manner-

Colours and the sensation of pain lance through his vision and his body. He feels his friends feel it too. The world goes red and black. Namjoon's voice sounds, like a recording over a PA, and the balloon slips from his grasp. His body is not responding. By the time he is able to reach for it, it is gone. 

Seokjin stumbled along after his friends. Something about Hoseok buying pizza and the other boys were running to join. Even as he followed, at a slow walking pace, he felt resistance that was not his body. It felt like something didnt' want him to leave, like he needed to stay until he figured out what these visions were. 

A flash of Yoongi at an organ, graceful fingers dancing over the keys, eyes closed and body slumped forwards. No one else seemed to hear the song, not even Yoongi himself. 

The boys disappeared into the outside world, but Taehyung stopped running, falling behind the others when he seemed to realize that Seokjin was not following at their pace. 

Seokjin looked over his shoulder and in the blackness, there was a kneeling body, white linens like a sheet of morning dew were pooled on the floor, but flowing upwards, leaving the kneeling figure in their wake. They slid up his back, revealing long tones of pale skin and up into the black void. He turned around completely, lost in the vision, the immense sympathy that washed over him for this man. 

Suddenly, Taehyung's hands covered his eyes and the vision stopped. Everything went quiet.

Seokjin seen Taehyung's fingers move away from hsi face, but the other boy was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was a new dias at the far end of the foyer. The statue atop it was massive, a genderless humanoid crouched down. Stretched out behind it was unfurled black wings. 

Immediately drawn to it, Seokjin walked right up to it, standing on the dias with the creature. As he looked closer, the wings appeared charred and it occurred to him that they were not fake. They had been taken from someone or something. They had been torn from a living thing and mounted here. 

Impulse and strange desire moved him then and though he could pull away, he chose not to, to follow the instinct. 

A flash of the man came to his mind. Kneeling there, the last of the white curtain disappeared into the blackness. The back was broad and a shirt was slumped down, hanging off the man's elbows and pooled at his waist. Blonde hair glowed white in the ethereal light as he approached. 

He the cheekbone of the statue with the back of his fingers, it feeling warm under the gentle caress. Fingers pressing just under its chin, he leant forwards and tenderly connected their lips.

It was obvious now, this close, that the wings had come from this man. Two long lines of scarring ran down his beautiful back, jagged and bitter and painful-looking. The man turned, his body twisting around. The face belonged to Taehyung, who's lips quirked up at him.

When Seokjin opened his eyes, his fingers were pressed against the cool skin of Taehyung's chin and he was breathing against Taehyung's lips. 

Sunlight still streamed through the roof, the same midday it was when they came in. 

"What happened to you?" Seokjin breathed, scared to hear the tears in his own voice. 

"I died." Taehyung replied, smooth, deep voice caressing him. 

"Tae . . . The wings . . . "

Taehyung flinched then. "They were mine. I lost them before I died."

"How?"

"I had to save someone precious to me." There was a flicker of something in those soulless eyes, something the colour brown, and Seokjin felt a cold touch along his collarbones. 

"How did you die?"

"I could not fight them all, so I took his place." Their lips brushed together again. "I was taken and I was tortured and once they had their fun, they set my wings on fire. They pulled my wings from my body by the roots and dragged me back home. I was left outside the Gates, lying there with my wings charred at my side."

"Oh no." His fingers moved, twining in Taehyung's hair. "You were an angel."

"I was."

"It was you . . . I seen you, the funeral bier . . . "

"I passed through the River of Death and come out the other side, here. It was my mercy for dying in the line of my duty."

"What is your name?"

"Taehyung."

"As an angel - what as your name?"

"Hael."

" . . . The angel of kindness . . . "

Taehyung gave alittle nod, intent on not disrupting the intimacy of the moment. "You've pushed yourself too far today. You should rest. I'll protect you from drifting."

"What do you mean?"

"You're a gift, Seokjin." Taehyung's lips quirked up again. "A Soulwanderer."

"I've never heard of those."

"You wouldn't have. Many of them were known as soothsayers and prophets. Your soul moves between the worlds, moves from you to them and gives you your knowledge. You're nothing shy of a miracle."

Seokjin blinked. "It was me, wasn't it? It was me, I was-" He pulled away, hands coming up to cover his mouth as the image of those scars on Taehyung's back came to mind and he had to resist the urge to vomit. 

"Soulwanderers become stars when they pass." Taehyung said softly. "Your soul is so strong and giving that you become a star. The demons that wanted you knew this. They wanted that light ll for themselves and I would not have that. I stayed with you all those years you were alone, sheilded you from the nightmares you had when you were a baby and a young child. I watched over you and pushed you towards Hoseok and Jimin. I kept you from loneliness, from contemplating what it would take to end your life. I would not lose something so precious to me. I am not worth anything - I am an angel, nothing else. But you, you are everything else."

Seokjin still felt sick, but now he knew the tears were coming and he couldn't stop them. "I'm really not. Even if you're right, which you probably are. I was careless and I got you killed."

"Angellic death is nothing like human death. I know exactly what happened to me afterwards." Taehyung replied, stepping forwards and bringing Seokjin back into his embrace. 

"What is it like?"

"Our wings are what make us angels, what give us our power. Without them, we become nothing. Sometimes, that power can be restored, but not after a burning like that." Taehyung kissed the top of his head. "They laid me in the River and I passed through the Veil. I became cold and my colours changed. Brown hair went blonde, brown eyes went blue, tan skin went pale and warm flesh became chilled. Then, the River ended and I wound up here, on my knees, just like you saw. I felt no pain. I stopped feeling pain."

"You can't just forget something like that."

"I don't." Taehyung tilted his head up once more. "I thought I would be bitter; jealous, maybe. But the scars don't hurt. I don't feel anything from it anymore. Only the way you kissed the statue."

"You felt that?"

"This is my mausoleum." Taehyung said, quieter than before. "Buildings like these generate when enough thought from magical beings is poured into something. This is in my memory and everything in it is what the other angels remember of me. It came about two days ago."

"How did you know?"

"I can feel my old power. My wings are here. Normally, wings are taken and never returned, lost to the demons who usually eat them to try and gain the leftover power. But not mine. I was a statement of what would happen the next time their hunts were interfered on."

Seokjin had no words. "You couldn't have done all that just because of me, just to save a Soulwanderer."

"I didn't. I saved someone precious to me, someone worth more to me than my own wings, than being Hael."

"Do you miss it? Being up there?"

"I feel numb when I think about it, like it happened to someone else. I am not Hael anymore. I am Taehyung."

Seokjin cupped his face with shaking hands, lips quivering and eyes glimmering with tears. His father's secretary had told him once that he had the most sympathetic soul she'd ever known. He could feel it now, staring into the washed-out glory of Taehyung's eyes. "You will never recover, will you?"

Taehyung leaned into his touch, sighing as if it brought an end to all worldly turmoil. "There is nothing to recover from."

"You will never be Hael again, is what I mean."

"Oh. No, I won't be. If there was a way to get my colour back, to give me back my wings, they would have done it."

Seokjin took this moment to look at Taehyung, the way he did when he was trying to figure out supernatural things. There was nothing around Taehyung that gave him away, save now that the dull ringing echo of haunting silence was deeper, louder, made his head hurt when he tried to hear it clearer. It was the same visceral nothingness which had assaulted him in the vision. Taehyung carried the aura of the dead inside him.

Taehyung tilted his head up again, gently pressing their lips together. "Jinnie, don't be upset. Don't cry for me - I'm okay. Plus, now that I'm Taehyung, I can actually talk to you, touch you, be a part of your life."

That broke a laugh from him. "Does that make it better?"

"Of course. Now I get to be with you all the time."

"You're crazy."

"Probably."

They stood in silence for a while, just holding each other and breathing each other in. Seokjin found the contact comforting - it was hard to think of someone as dead when you were in their arms, could hear their heartbeat, could feel their chest expand with every breath. 

"I don't want you to feel guilty for something you didn't do." Taehyung rumbled. "You had no control of the situation - I did. I made my choice and I exist now with the consequence of it. And if, by some miracle, you were to take me back to that moment, to give me a second chance at my decision, I would make the same one again."

Seokjin chuckled weakly. "You like me too much."

"I'd say I like you just enough. Love you too much? Maybe."

He shook his head. "It's so strange to hear that someone loves me. Other than my parents, I mean. I've never had alone like me, let alone love me."

"Well, I've been the president of your fanclub for a while now."

That got a real laugh out of him.

"C'mon. Namjoon's gonna order pizza and we're going to be late if we don't go soon and then it'll all be gone. Don't want to miss pizza, do you?"

He shook his head. Taehyung gave him one of his blinding smiles, masking the faint echo of nothingness from his spirit, and took his hand, walking him out of the house - the tomb - of Hael and back into the woodlands just beyond Yoongi's railcar. 

"Are you going to tell the others?"

He looked up at the former angel, taking in the paleness of the man's features. "I wasn't going to. Do you want me too?"

"It's up to you."

"Not really. It's your secret, not mine."

Taehyung met his gaze and those blue eyes sliced through him even though there was no malice, no anger, nothing bitter. "It's yours. The mausoleum isn't for me."

Seokjin paused around those words, contemplating the seriousness of that statement. "Not yet. If I get asked, maybe, if it comes up or someone figures it out . . . Not before that, though. There's no point. I don't fully understand it myself, to be completely fair."

"I understand." Taehyung kissed the top of his head. 

"Do you want them to know? I mean, they're your friends too. Plus, I think Namjoon knows something's up with you."

Taehyung shrugged. "I'll let him guess. Wraithwalkers are strange ducks. They'll walk all the way around a problem before realizing that the solution was in the centre, but they do eventually get there. They don't sleep, so their minds don't stop and when they do their hybernation, they only think clearer. He'll probably be the first to figure me out. Aside from you, of course."

"Usually I get visions and things because I'm around where something happened. But you, and the mausoleum, I was drawn to that."

"Probably the bond you already knew was in place between us. I mean, I was able to follow and protect you because we're attached. Once you stopped feeling me hover, once my mausoleum was in place, you felt drawn to that."

"And how do you explain how I don't feel the pull towards it anymore?"

"Hael is finally at peace - his most loved one came to know him and collected his inheritance."

"Inheritance?"

"There was not much left of Hael when I was left at the gates." Taehyung explained, bumping their shoulders together lightheartedly. "All that was left is now yours."

Seokjin must have looked as confused as he felt because Taehyung laughed at his face, throwing his arm over the Soulwanderer's shoulders. 

"All that was left of him was knowledge of who he was, his mausoleum and me. It's not much, but all of it is yours."

Seokjin paused, turning to face Taehyung properly. There was skill not sign of anything around him, still a ringing, echoing silence. He was right - all of Hael was now Seokjin's entirely, lost to everyone else. "What happens to you? Who do you become, Tae? What do you do without Hael?"

Taehyung shrugged. "I want to stay beside you. In whatever fashion that takes after."

"Stop speaking in riddles!"

"I love you. I want to be with you, whether I get to hold you as a lover or as a friend makes no difference to me. I've always been by your side, since the time you were a baby and that won't change now. Well, I don't want it to change. I want to be there with you, for you, in whatever fashion being human allows me."

Seokjin ducked his head and Taehyung pulled him in, letting the technically taller boy snuggle into his chest. "I don't know what to say."

"Then don't say anything for now."