chapter 3

You smile at him over your shoulder, your heart skipping a beat.

When you look in the mirror while you’re washing your hands, there’s a line of what looks like burns across your throat, and you trail your fingers along them in wonder.

Taehyung looks almost mournful when you mention them and show him, later, tugging down the hem of your shirt.

“Oh, dove. I’m sorry. Sometimes…sometimes when we get…emotional, there’s angelfire. I can heal them-”

“No!” You cry out, and you flush and look down. “No, I want to…I want to keep them. For when you have to go.”

He flinches a bit, looking so stricken that you go to him, put your arms around him and rest your head on his chest, like you do every night before you go to sleep.

He doesn’t say anything else, but for the first time, he’s not there when you wake up and your heart starts to pound with panic.

But you can hear his low baritone from just outside the door, this time less calm, and you can’t understand what he’s saying but he’s almost shouting, and your breathing slows.

You’re still sitting there a few minutes later when he comes back to the doorway, and his wings are spread and your eyes widen at the sight.

He grunts in frustration when he can’t get through the door and folds them, huffing out a breath.

“What’s wrong?”

Taehyung doesn’t answer, just looks at you with big dark eyes, and then he sits on the edge of the bed.

“I…they want me to come home.”

Your heart falls to your toes, but you swallow hard and give him a weak smile.

“Well,” you say, trying to keep your voice from shaking. “I guess it’s been enough time.”

“No!” He almost shouts, and his eyes soften when you look surprised. He takes your hands, rubbing his thumbs across your palms as he did the first night, looking down at your hands in his, and it makes your chest ache. “It’s not enough time. It will never be enough time.”

When he looks up at you again, tears are rolling down his cheeks and you brush one away with your thumb.

“It’s okay, Tae. I’m okay. I won’t…I won’t do the things I was before. You helped me.”

He shakes his head, throat working as if there are words stuck in it that he can’t say, and you kiss him softly.

“You can go,” you say, and your voice doesn’t break, to your surprise. “You have to go.”

Taehyung leans down to rest his forehead on your joined hands and your heart is breaking, tears rolling down your cheeks.

You reach out a shaking hand to stroke his hair.

“Y/n,” he says, brokenly, kissing the tops of your hands. “Little dove.”

“I…I can’t watch you go. But you’ll be watching me, yeah? You’ll be watching me, and I’ll be safe.”

You have to tug hard to take your hands from his and you wonder if you’ll ever forget the wrecked look on his face when he lifts his head.

You leave the room as quickly as you can, scrambling off the bed and closing the door behind you before you start to sob.

You pace in the kitchen until the lights in your apartment flicker, the way they did the first night he came to you, and you bolt to your room, hoping against hope he’s still there, but there’s nothing but a burned, smoking spot on your bed where’d he’d been sitting and on your pillow, a white, silky feather.

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