𝗺𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗺.

⠀ you

taehyung walks through the wood, a single daffodil in his grip as he looks out onto the glade.

his heart thumps out a rhythm that odes to the longing tugging at his cheekbones when he looks at the moon. it's massive at the peak of the hill in the centre of the clearing, casting down a magnificent silhouette of a slim and perfectly postured boy, sat there peacefully in the glow of the stars.

taehyung's eyes widen in his presence, feet drawing ever nearer and faster in speed, grass blurring out of vision as he stumbles the last few inches to the top, nearly crumpling up his humble offering to the being who doesn't so much as stir upon taehyung's rather noisy entrance.

rosey cheeks darken like ripe berries, colour even carrying through to the tips of his ears — all flushing at the sight of an expanse of milky skin, bare flesh, and the artful stretch of a back with shoulder-blades that provide a bed for the roots of his small, feathered wings. they're an innocent white in harmony with his skin that curves softly into a thin waist and pretty rounded hips.

free from blemish, mark, or scar, legs crossed, and hands rooted into the grass that blows between the valleys of his fingertips, the boy sways ever so softly to the lullaby of his own humming. and although it is captivating to the point of taehyung's mouth falling agape, he isn't afraid, because this isn't a siren's song; that's not how the story goes. this being is nothing to be afraid of.

he is an angel, after all.

and it's like the breeze of an early summer morning the moment taehyung reaches out to touch him. just a gentle tap upon the shoulder of the being so celestial that the village boy falls humbly to his knees behind him. it's only right that he should feel all worry drain from his tired body with the brief contact.

around the angel turns with a smile of utmost ease, and taehyung is gormless in the dwindling light (threatening to bleed out into an estranged aurora), certain that he shall look upon this moment in time with only the greatest of joys. he shall call him serenity.

it's strange to drink someone in so slowly that you can catch the flecks of golden starlight (moonbeams fractured and planted amongst the waves) in his irises. strange to watch the curvatures of his face soften under the peace, but a weight catches in the cage of taehyung's lungs; settles itself amongst the bones there and pulls down on them like a distant ache that dulls itself amongst the beauty. it makes him forget about all common courtesy, and he just stares. helpless with disbelief radiating from the glow of his skin.

he feels the urge to rub at his eyes to be sure that he's not mistaken with a shaky sigh to rid himself of the (nearly) eerie familiarity that scratches at the passages of his throat, and for once, kim taehyung simply breathes.

"to whom do i owe the pleasure?" asks the boy woven of all of the perfections of the galaxy and the bounties that any life has to offer. his eyes glisten in the reflection of the light from the stream beneath the weeping willow tree.

"kim taehyung," an easy breath passes through the reflex of taehyung's lungs and it seems that the world from which he came is as dissociated and needless as the fear inside of his tummy. because he's really real and taehyung knew it all along. "i came to discover if you actually exist... you're in my favourite fairytale, after all."

"ah," the boy responds, lips like the tentative blow of wind through a sheer curtain. a constellation of freckles and moles all paint their very own milky way across his face, and taehyung counts each one, not wanting to take for granted a single feature on this being. "and have you found your answer yet?"

taehyung wonders: should the boy not be cold in his state, nude and honest, with only a thin sheet of cloth bunched and draped around his lower half?

"i know you're real. i've always known. i just wanted to see you for myself," the boy nods, chestnut locks falling awkwardly into his face before he blows a puff of air upwards to deter it from blocking his vision of the angelic boy ahead of him. "i brought this for you."

taehyung holds up the daffodil he'd plucked from beside the stream just before traversing the hill, and he urges it towards the other boy with hands that can't seem to stay still. they shake delicately. not from nerves. he is not nervous. how could he be? he feels he knows the boy better than any other person he'd met before. he has flooded his dreams, his hopes, and his every waking thought, after all.

"i like daffodils," the boy replies, turning properly around now and plucking the yellow flower from between taehyung's fingers. he clutches the gift with an unspoken gratitude and peers up through his eyelashes with doe eyes that see right through taehyung's soul. "i'm jeongguk. but... when i have to go... will you come and visit me again, taehyung?"

"you have my word," taehyung nods thoughtlessly, awestruck by the way jeongguk speaks out his name as though it were worth any value at all. "how long do we have until then?"

"i could tell you, or we can pretend that we have all the time in the world and savour each second as one hopeful for the next," jeongguk responds, the pink on his cheeks highlighting the look in his eyes that tells taehyung that time will be no factor as long as the two of them are in each other's company.

and so he will cherish each memory made here on this hill under the full eye of the moon who bides them time; dipping beneath clouds and holding off the sunrise for as long as he can before jeongguk wishes taehyung a sweet goodbye that becomes tangible through the presence of warm lips upon his cold cheek.

and even when jeongguk disappears in pretty lights, taehyung feels his kiss lingering on his skin, watching hopefully into thin air just in case he comes back 364 days early. alas, all he discovers is a single feather that must've been displaced from the rest as jeongguk had disappeared.

he picks it up and holds it close, sure he'll hide it beneath his pillow to keep his fairytale boy in his dreams until they should see each other again.

he's just like the boy from the book, now. hope in his lungs and stars in his eyes, because he's met his angel, and now he'll have his own fairytale.