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jimin is moon-bleached hair and giant, feathered wings. he sits upon sandstone cliffs and sings to the ocean below, luring in unsuspecting swimmers and sailors. they follow his song to the rocks and he lulls them to sleep.
they drown in knee deep water. their dying breaths are ripped away as jimin's knife-sharp teeth tear into their throats, blood and gore consumed with blissful violence.
-
taehyung graduated in a flurry of uncertainty and a sudden desperation for stability. to him, stability was his great uncle's cottage. summer by the sea as a child, warm sand and cool cliffs, the row of apple trees by the front gate.
he took his camera and his craft kit. he felt safe, alone by the sea, embroidering flowers onto his shirts to pass the evenings by. in the day, he wandered endlessly across the fields and forests, down to the shore, printing polaroid after polaroid of lush landscape.
when he found blood in the water, he though of sharks. when he found bones, he thought of the tide. when he found feathers, he thought of gulls.
when he found jimin, he thought of nothing but follow, follow, follow the song.
-
the first song jimin sang for taehyung had the boy fall at jimin's feet with a scatter of photographs, icy ocean water bleeding into the precious ink. as taehyung lost breath after breath, jimin found life that he had never seen before.
jimin knew grey and black and blue. he knew red. he knew the water and the rocks and flesh. but he did not know the soft give of fertile soil, or the sight of rampant bluebells in the spring. a world he had never seen stacked up in the form of polaroids, brought by a boy that was drowning just below him.
for the first time in jimin's life, he did not sink his teeth into gasping flesh.
-
taehyung lay limp across a flat bed of rocks, soaked, shivering in the brisk ocean wind. he gasped through an aching throat. tears traced their way down his cheeks and he didn't know why; he didn't know where he was or how he got here.
he sat up with a groan, limbs protesting, gaining balance only to lose it when he saw what was standing before him. taehyung tumbled back into the sea below with a small splash, newly soaked to his thighs as he sat up in the water.
frozen before the terrifying creature, all taehyung could was stare.
-
"show me this." the angel demanded. across his palms lay taehyung's pictures of his home, his forests, his passion. taehyung did not reply. the angel stood over him, teeth bared, eyes glowing gold.
"show me, or i kill you."
taehyung takes the closest picture, one of his porch, warm and inviting in the setting sun and adorned with a growing collection of windchimes.
"this is my home." he says.
"show me." the angel insists.
-
jimin has never left his cliff. his victims come to him; lured in by the far reaching magnet of his magic, captured by his song. but the human boy leads him past the rocks, far along the beach until gravel turns to soft sand. jimin eyes the grass. it isn't crunchy, like he expected, but instead gives gently beneath his bare feet.
behind, the sea grows further and further away. trees arch up, waving as the two pass beneath them. jimin reaches a clawed hand out to trace across bark, across leaves, across tiny white flowers growing in fragrant bunches. his mind spins as he takes it in and he slows to a halt, dizzy.
"soft."
"the flowers?" the boy has stopped too, stares at him.
"flowers..." jimin murmurs, a sharp fingernail tracing gently across several petals. he takes one between his fingers and tugs. it pulls free with a tiny shivering of leaves, a few petals lost to the ground, and sits slightly squashed in his grasp. jimin blinks down at it, fascinated.
"i have more flowers in my garden, if you'd like to see?"
"more? yes."
-
taehyung's hands shake. he can hear the angel behind him, though his steps are silent. his wings give him away, catching on twigs and leaves, rustling endlessly. taehyung wonders if the feathers ever fall out, and his mind wanders to angel-lore and the price of rare bird feathers on ebay. he forces his way through the thoughts in an effort to distract from his growing anxiety.
but the angel only follows slowly. past the gate and into the garden, where he stops before a drooping sunflower and stares like it was the strangest thing he's ever seen. his moon-hair drips into his face as he bends over to inspect the drying seeds, and taehyung has the strangest urge to brush it out of the way.
instead, he watches as the angel drifts around the overgrown garden, feet staining with dirt, loose leaves and cleaver seeds sticking to the silky white clothing he wears.
-
jimin could spend forever here, surrounded by flora. he's mesmerised. but there is still more to see, the boy is there watching, jimin wants more.
"home?" he asks, pointing towards the structure in the center of the garden. he tilts his head and the boy nods, starting to move closer. it smells like smoke, like rain on sun-warmed rocks. several shiny, dangling objects chime with a musical quality as jimin and the boy pass them. it makes jimin want to sing.
-
the angel stays for hours, staring and touching and moving around and around the house. taehyung sits at the kitchen table the whole time, doing nothing but naming every object the angel prompts him to. clock, laptop, couch, bag, book, plate, desk, needle, window.
then suddenly he stops. turns and walks towards the door.
"i will," the angel pauses for a moment as if to find the words, "back. come back."
and then he is gone.
-
taehyung is tired. he wants to go home, home, home. he doesn't want to dream about angels anymore, he doesn't want to believe. it was just an imagination, he tells himself, and tries not to think about it.
he embroiders angel wings on the back of a sweater. he gathers bird feathers when he walks in the woods. the sunflower seeds from the garden go into a bowl on the kitchen counter that he catches himself staring at too often.
when the angel returns, taehyung hides tears behind his raised hand, and he doesn't know if it's relief, fear, or joy he feels as the angels invades his home once more.
-
"jimin."
"h-huh?" the human stares at him stupidly.
"name. jimin." jimin points to himself as he sits down on the - chair? - in front of the boy.
"oh! i'm taehyung."
jimin nods and peers across the surface before him. it's his third visit here, and he had found the human eating when he entered the home. it did not look like flesh going into the boy's mouth, rather, it looked like something that might grow in the garden. jimin was perplexed, watched closely as taehyung cut the red object up to reveal white insides, and placed the cut pieces in his mouth.
without hesitation, jimin snatched up a bit to try. to his disappointment, the thing tasted bland and far too crunchy for him to even consider swallowing down. his nose scrunched, and he spat it out onto the table top.
-
the third time taehyung went to the cliffside, he saw jimin eating for the first time. several polaroids sat upon taehyung's dresser from his second visit, the bleak grey and blue vista of the open ocean captured in tiny shots. a growing collection of large white feathers stood in a jar beside them.
taehyung's feet took him around the beach and over the rocks, up a rise on the cliff face to overlook the ocean. he searched for jimin and found him below, knee deep in a starburst red water.
a man lay at his feet, face down. with slowly freezing limbs, taehyung watched jimin crouch down and tear into the body, spilling gore down his chin and chest, his high, pretty voice sighing in pleasure.
jimin was not an angel.
-
taehyung was not sleeping. it was jimin's sixth visit, and he walked into the home to find his human slumped over the kitchen table, eyes red and face grey. at jimin's arrival, the boy sat up swiftly and eyed him cautiously.
"afraid?" jimin asks. the boy had seen him feed.
taehyung nods.
"you need sleep," jimin says, "i will not eat you."
the boy's shoulders raise, so jimin walks closer. close enough to lean into taehyung's space, to run a gaze across his face and capture every detail. human faces were different; they were flawed. taehyung had moles and scars and asymmetrical features.
still pretty. jimin doesn't know how it works for humans, but he wants to touch taehyung, hands and body, mouth to mouth. for now, he will settle for taking care of him.
he sings a lullaby. taehyung falls asleep on the table and jimin carries him to the couch. the human is warm in his arms, heart beating to a rhythm that urges jimin to hum along.
-
jimin does not eat him. jimin has barely touched him in all the days they've known each other, and taehyung keeps this at the forefront of his mind the next time they meet.
revealed now is the purpose of jimin's sharp teeth and long claws; what are clearly tools of survival rather than whimsical aesthetic choices. even so, taehyung isn't repelled. he is afraid, like a deer standing before a tiger, but jimin holds the draw of magic. of beauty.
taehyung can't help his wonder.
-
jimin brings taehyung a pearl from the ocean. round as the moon and just as luminous, he hands it to the human with a fistful of wet sand. clumps of grit dirty taehyung's floor as he brushes off the stone, and he stares at it in shock as jimin looks on with some sort of quiet apprehension.
"a pearl." taehyung says.
"do you like it?" the not-angel asks. tae responds with a smile that lights his whole face up. he reaches out for jimin's clawed hand and squeezes once, twice, until the angel smiles back.
-
"jimin, why are you giving me all of this?" taehyung asks, gesturing to the plethora of items jimin has brought him in the past few weeks. sea glass, pretty shells, fish scales and bird feathers. the pearl sits in the centre of it all, next to a worn, salt-crusted diamond ring that jimin found in a shipwreck near the treacherous cliffside.
"i am courting. courting you. gifts?" jimin says slowly, pointing toward the items.
taehyung eyes him, his tilted head and great, fluttering wings. tae thinks about the bones that wash up on the beach, and the gentle way jimin touches the flowers in the garden. tae thinks about the future, and mutters a quiet 'okay'.