What is this feeling? It's so bright and clean. And warm.

Jeon Jungkook opened his eyes.

Whiteness and space echoed around him, beneath him. He sat up from the blank ground.

He looked into the lines of his perfectly clean hands. His fingers plucked at strange white linens that wrapped around his frame. Then he leaned forward and got to his feet.

"KOOKIE?!"

There was a rush of wind and limbs, and suddenly lanky arms were wrapping around Jungkook's neck and he felt laughter quaking in the chest that was stuck up against his. Then the arms let him go.

"TAE?!"

Kim Taehyung's smile shone with the delicate glow of starlight, crinkling his narrow, happy eyes. The two young men held onto each other's shoulders a moment, stuck inside of their laughter, feeling beautifully happy and absurd all at once.

"Tae, what happened to your hair?" Jungkook reached out to tug at a few strands of what had somehow become crimped grey hairs that were now falling around Taehyung's perfectly symmetrical face.

"Uh, is it different?"

"Yeah, bro, it's like grandpa status."

"But it still looks cool, right?" Tae asked with a boyish wonder to his voice.

"Yeah. It still looks cool. Actually...it kinda suits you." Jungkook punched Tae playfully in the shoulder.

Tae punched Jungkook in the arm playfully back. His jazzy voice asked innocently, "Oh? How's that?"

"Because the way you dress... you are such a grandpa!" Jungkook shoved Tae square in the chest, then started running away from his friend at full speed. Jungkook's screech of joy echoed in his wake, as Tae bolted after him.

The two young men ran and whirled their way through the whiteness, through and around obstacles they couldn't really see clearly, shapeless and formless lumps beneath them--until Jungkook's run suddenly came to a halt.

His eyes went wide

Taehyung let out a few gasping breaths of laughter as he jogged up to Kookie's side and threw a hand casually onto Jungkook's shoulder. Tae looked over at the stern look that had crept into Jungkook's features, then the playful young man's gaze followed Jungkook's.

"What is that thing?" Tae asked.

It was a white tree. It's branches were almost bare, save for a scattering of pink petals that lingered on the lower branches. An un-felt breeze whistled through those few pink petals that remained. A couple of them were plucked from the branches by that breeze. The soft pink petals twirled and fluttered their way towards the boys, and a single petal landed on each of their shoulders.

Tae brushed his off.

"What kinda tree is that?" Tae asked, feeling a touch annoyed that Kookie was ignoring him.

"I've seen this before," Jungkook answered with almond eyes wide in wonder. He took a step closer and stretched out his hand to brace his palm against the white bark. It was warm and smooth. "I know this place."

Tae took a step backwards. "It kinda reminds me of somewhere I've seen before. Someplace I didn't like." He wrapped his arms stiffly into his frame and a fearful look crept into Kim Taehyung's face. His eyes were suddenly unseeing, as if he were remembering something that he didn't want to.

Jungkook turned around and watched his dear friend. Somehow, at his hand touching the tree, a strange realization had struck the young pilot.

"Are you... are we both...? Tae, what the heck happened to you?"

Then a voice echoed inside of Jungkook with gentle authority, Take his hand.

Tae's eyes were still unseeing, his brow furled in stern concentration.

Jungkook walked towards Kim Taehyung and pulled his friend's arms out of being folded around his slender frame. Then Jungkook reached out as if to give a handshake, and took one of Tae's hands in his.

There was a flash of white light that burst from the skin-on-skin of their clasped hands, and time around them felt like an eternity and a blink all at once. In that exchange, glimpses of understanding passed between the two young men, as they saw into each other's lives as Gwangju Ai with technicolor clarity.

Jungkook didn't let go of Tae's hand even after the brightness and the telepathic exchange had ceased. Jungkook's grip around Tae's hand tightened. Tae's own grip was nonexistent.

Then Kim Taehyung's beautiful face melted into a wave of grief. A sob rose from his gut and the now-gray haired young man fell forward and flung his arms around his friend.

Jungkook pulled Tae into him with all his might.

"It's ok now, Tae Tae. You're free. You're all you again."

"But I--"

"It wasn't your fault."

"I--"

"It wasn't. It wasn't your fault."

Jungkook pulled Taehyung away from him by the shoulders, firmly but not unkind. Jungkook leaned forward and his wide eyes and careful smile peered up at Tae's downcast face. Tae wiped at his nose with the back of his wrist and gave a sniff.

Jungkook's voice was calm and reassuring. "None of it. Petra made a monster out of you that she could control. But even when you were in her grasp, you were trying not to be." Jungkook's fingers clawed deeper into Tae's shoulders a moment before his hands fell away. "Gosh, I can't believe I was so blind to what you were dealing with, Tae. That we all were. I guess I just thought that everything changing so suddenly the way that it did...that you were just a little depressed from all the changes or something."

Tae gave a sniff and spoke in a cracking voice. "I had no idea you were going through the same thing, Kookie. But... at least Shae never got around to barking orders your way. I'm glad you didn't experience what that's like. It's hell. Like your own body...your own head doesn't really belong to you anymore. You're just watching this movie of your own life, except it's not yours anymore. And the voices...." Tae seemed on the verge of crying again.

"Yeah, the voices were annoying. I'd be minding my own dang business and then BAM. Always something to do with a crisis, always my job for some reason to fix it." Jungkook gave a slight chuckle as he shook his head, his hands shifting to his hips.

Taehyung looked at Kookie with childlike confusion. "They never...whispered things to you?"

"Uhhhh, like what kinda things Tae?"

"Terrible things. Like...." Tae's face became a stern stare and his eyes seemed latched onto something in the far distance.

Jungkook looked over his shoulder, but there was nothing there except the tree.

Taehyung stepped past Jungkook and his stern eyes scoped the white tree up and down once again. He said, "I HAVE seen this before. Except when I saw it, it was black. And scary. And there were no leaves or anything. I would touch the bark, and my insides would feel like they were screaming. It was always in my dreams--but then I'd wake up and feel like my whole body was on fire."

Jungkook didn't know why the words came out of his mouth, but somehow they seemed right to say. "Put your hand on the bark, Tae."

Taehyung hesitated. He'd done that on the black tree of his nightmares. He remembered the hellish feeling that came after. But he trusted Jungkook--and so he slowly, timidly reached one of his hands out and pressed it against the smooth white bark.

A rush of wind scattered around Taehyung's body, around the low hanging branches of the white tree, and through the white linens that wrapped around the forms of both Tae and Jungkook.

Then a flickering of several bright voices all at once spoke in unison for both boys to hear:

"Kim Taehyung. Jeon Jungkook. You have both given your lives in service to your Satoor Ai."

There was an ache that started to form in both Tae and Kookie's chests as the voices swelled around them, but the ache was somehow a satisfying one. The boys looked at each other with sternness and hopefulness.

"And now your service has ended. The House of Card has judged you, and found you both deserving of honor."

Tae started to speak, but a fresh gust of wind burst over him and startled him into silence.

"For your loyalty of service, Jeon Jungkook, and for your purity of heart, Kim Taehyung, you both have earned a just reward."

The wind suddenly ceased, leaving both young men looking windswept and awed.

"Know this: if you freely choose to render service to the House of Card henceforth, your blessing will be beyond measure. However, if you choose to go your own way, then we shall leave you in perfect peace. For those who have lived and died in service to the Satoor Ai of our great house, who have not been found wanting, will be greatly blessed as they continue on their journey towards Paradise."