"Mio amore!" I yelled a bit over-excitedly when my groundskeeper entered the room. I flaunted off my new robe and batted my eyelashes, flying right into the man's strong, reliable arms.

I didn't know why I was acting so damn insecure, but when my body was reunited with it's other half, a calmness washed over me that finally allowed me to breathe. Taehyung's eyes still sparkled for me every time we found each other, and that was something I didn't think would ever change. Not even when a new face entered our garden and turned both our heads.

I caught the groundskeeper's lips with my own and held his face as I kissed him. I only ever felt like I'd truly made it back home when I was in his arms. I'd been stuck in limbo since my return from Calabria, but here my savior was to give me a break from purgatory. Taehyung guided our kiss like it was a slow-dance, and I smiled in step with relieved sighs and desperate moans.

"You smell like lavender, mio amore," I whispered, combing my fingers through the groundskeeper's luscious locks.

Taehyung hummed and looked down at me with those sad, puppydog eyes. "And you smell like another man, mój anioł."

"Oh, you're not cross with me about that, are you?" I asked with a pout, swinging my arms around Taehyung's neck to drag him closer. "You should stop being jealous of Emilio, he's been with us for quite a while now..."

The groundskeeper glanced away with a bittered look, and it felt quite like being shot through the gut. "Mio amore," I tried with a pout, taking the groundskeeper's chin between my fingers to make him look at me again. "You know I need to be held with firmer hands when I come back from school, right?"

Taehyung nodded almost unnoticeably, but I knew he would never be upset with me.

"Besides, Emilio fucks like a rabbit, it's not like I enjoy it more than being with you."

The older man huffed, his puppy-dog eyes making another return. "I could be rough."

"I think we both know that's not true, mio amore," I chuckled. "You love me too much."

I gasped and punched the groundskeeper's chest when his hands found my sore ass and groped it without mercy. He was punishing me just a little. Teasing me just a tad for everything I had ever done to him.
"Bastard," I whispered, wincing at the pain.

"We are not alone in this room mój anioł," Taehyung murmured with a smirk. "We should be more respectful to mister Jeon. He isn't used to this kind of behaviour."

"Oh, I noticed." I side-eyed the new butler. "He's a bit of a prude, isn't he?"

Taehyung clicked his tounge against the roof of his mouth and sighed. "You do know you're halfnaked, right, mój anioł? I think most people would be too stunned to speak seeing you like this."

The man kissed my forehead, and I closed my eyes, snaking my arms around his waist to pull him closer. "Did you miss me, mio amore?"

The groundskeeper hummed, and I felt it in the deepest parts of my soul. "Time moves way too slow sometimes, mój anioł. But let us make the next two weeks feel like years..."

"Years?" I whispered, resting my head against Taehyung's head and letting the steady beats of his heart reassure me. "Eons would be nicer."

The new servant boy cleared his throat, and reminded us yet again that he was still present in the room.

I managed to suppress an eye-roll, and pouted when I realised I wouldn't be getting my massage right now.

"I'm sorry, velike oči," Taehyung said, giving the servant boy an apologetic smile instead of me. "We must make you feel terribly uncomfortable..."

Velike oči? I glanced up at my groundskeeper and scowled. What did that mean? I asked myself. Why wouldn't he call the boy by his name? He had a name, and it was Jungkook. It was a perfectly fine name. It wasn't a difficult one, so there was no need for it to be changed into a word I couldn't understand.

But Taehyung grabbed my chin and dragged his thumb across my lips, throwing me into submission just when I thought I was becoming cross with him. "Excuse your butler, mój anioł, let's go for a walk in the garden... get you some fresh air."

I couldn't help but chuckle, because that wasn't what my groundskeeper usually proposed we did when I found my way back to him again. I didn't want to be in our garden. I wanted to be here in my bed, with him between my legs, to make me forget, forget, forget. I brought Taehyung's hand away from my face though it pained me. "You're both excused. I... think I need some more time to myself. I'm going to read in the library."

Taehyung frowned, because he knew me better. "Are you sure? If you're not feeling well the sun can heal you, mój anioł..."

I tucked some of the groundskeeper's locks behind his ear and crinkled my eyes at him. "I'm fine, Taehyungie... really."

This wasn't usually how it went between us. The butler had changed things and it had only been his first day on the job. Why were we saying goodbye? Why were we both trying to make different impressions on this kid? I wondered if Taehyungie could feel it too. That there had been a shift in things, and that the world suddenly turned faster usual.

The man stepped away from me and nudged his head for Jungkook to follow him.

"Mio amore," I said right before the two men left my room. "Mister Jeon has agreed to fix that old pocketwatch I once told you about." My eyes met the butler's for the briefest of moments, and yet it nearly broke time. "See to it that he gets what he needs."

_____________

Dead. The woman was dead and I had succeeded.

After my father called to congratulate me, I opened my bedroom window and threw my telephone machine right out. I watched it fall three stories down until it clattered onto the ground into about a hundred pieces.

"Hm..."

I lifted my legs through the opening and sat down on the wooden window frame, entertaining the idea of me jumping to my death as well, just for the fun of it. "I wouldn't break like that," I murmured as I stared down at the smashed telephone and swung my feet. "I'd just crash with a thud. Horribly anti-climactic. Very, very dull."

"Tae, stop it!"

"You'll have to make me, velike oči!"

I froze up, the laughter coming from the garden filling up my ears like defeaning thunder.

Oh, well, that did hurt.

I couldn't see into the garden from my bedroom window, which meant that I could only imagine what my groundskeeper and the new servant boy were doing. I heard them giggle like children, which was something Taehyung rarely did around me.

Had they kissed already? I wondered. Had they fucked? The young boy seemed uncomfortable with homosexual behaviour, but Taehyung had his looks, his charm, and his gentleness to throw into the mix. I didn't think there was a man alive who could refuse him for longer than a day.

I gripped at the window frame with whitened fingertips when I felt a surge of self-hatred drag me forward.

Taehyung had been with other men before. I knew that. I knew he loved seducing innocent farm boys, and enjoyed fooling around with older, closeted men from time to time. But they had always been outside of our home. Outside of our garden. I'd never seen what they looked like, and I'd never known their names, which was exactly how I liked it.

"Tae! Honestly!"

I cringed when another wave of laughter rang through my ears again.

I climbed down from my window, closed it, and fled out of the room.

Obviously I was in no position to make demands. Taehyung was promiscuous, but in a way, so was I. My right to be upset about him not being monogamous was revoked the moment I started giving myself to another man right under his nose.

It was just that, for some reason, that whole thing felt different from this. I never laughed with Emilio. I never felt good with Emilio. We didn't fool around like secret lovers under a bright blue sky. He was just the noose I tied around my neck in a cold, dirty shed, to remind myself of the concepts of good and evil.

"A book..." I mumbled after entering the library. "I need a book."

I could see the garden from the library.

I tried to find a book, a distraction, a cure, but I could see the garden from the library, and Taehyung was nowhere to be found.

Had they gone to his room? To his atelier? Were they lying in the grass outside? Exactly out of my sight?

"I need a fucking book!"

"Master Park?" Yoongi the kitchenhelp was carrying a crate full of groceries into the house, but stopped when he noticed me spiral in the library. "Need anything?"

"Yoongi..." I straightened up and caught my lower lip between my teeth, feeling my eye twitch sporadically. "Yoongi I am... I am starving, please send someone up with my lunch."

The kitchenhelp arched a brow at me. "You're... starving?"

"Yes. Lunch, now. Please."

Yoongi nodded slowly, though he seemed skeptical of my intentions. "Alright. Sure."

___________

"G-goodday, sir."

I looked up from my book, and my eyes fluttered when my brand new butler looked like he'd been crawling through the woods for hours. His attire was smudged with dirt and wrinkled, ruined beyond saving.

The butler hung his head, and I took a deep breath when I noticed him tremble like a scared pup.

He was clearly remorseful.

"So," I said, putting my book away. "You and Tae?"

"I... I promise it won't happen again, sir," the servant blurted out.

I glanced away for a moment, shoving my bittered feelings as far as possible. He was able to make my groundskeeper smile. He was able to make my Taehyungie laugh, and I had to appreciate that. I wouldn't be a good friend if I didn't.

"Why would you promise me that, tesoro?" I asked, looking up at the servant without any ill feelings. "That uniform isn't mine. It doesn't belong to me. If you and your uniform had fun I'm happy for you."

I grabbed my book again, and though I felt like I'd done a decent job at being kind to the new kid, I knew my behaviour didn't seem natural to him.
I bit my nails and tried to continue my book, but I was stuck reading the same sentence over and over again, the words never taking me back into another world. "You are excused, tesoro," I said, exhaling a shaky breath.

"Why do you call me tesoro, sir?"

I blinked, before looking up at the servant with parted lips. What... was he doing? I'd allowed him to run off back to Taehyung. I'd given him permission to do as he pleased with the most important person in my life, so what did he still need from me?

I shut my book, set it away again, and decided to entertain this new kid just a little longer, just for the intrigue.

Keep your enemies close, but your friends as far away as possible...

"Do you like to read, tesoro?"

The servant swallowed thickly. "I haven't read in a long time, sir, but I used to tell my sister bedtime stories..."

I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the overly anxious village boy seemed to have a brain. "Really? What kind of stories? Fairytails? Biblical stories? Myths? Legends? The ones with the courageous heroes?"

"M-My sister enjoys the ones about heroes, sir..."

I hummed and nodded, that did seem fitting. "Yes, I used to love those when I was a kid... though I read them by myself since my nanny couldn't read. Then I grew old ofcourse... books about heroes aren't very useful to me now... it's better to keep one's eyes up instead of down, isn't it?"

The butler swallowed thickly before speaking up again. "There are things you can learn from books about heroes, though... you can learn courage and persistance."

Spoken like a true kid, I thought, shaking my head. The boy was very innocent. Maybe even more innocent than I initially thought. Obviously I knew he never meant to get himself stuck in this odd situation, because none of my butlers ever did. Jeon Jungkook was just a boy in need of a job, and accidentally caught the attention of my groundskeeper in the process.

He didn't deserve my resentfulness. He hadn't done anything wrong.

"Maybe you, tesoro. And maybe your sister..." I sighed. "But some people don't have what it takes to be a hero..."

The butler bravely raised his chin, puffed his chest, and shook his head. "It doesn't take much to be a hero. If you follow your heart and do what's right--"

"I don't--" I interrupted, holding my chest to feel nothing but emptiness inside. "I don't have a heart, tesoro..."
I looked up at the kid again, and suddenly saw him exactly for what he was. My opposite. My antithesis. Hopeful, naive, pure, soft. Dear God, I hadn't met a person like that in such a long time. A person who could experience tragedy and remain the same as he was before. Not bittered with anger, not apathetic to the world, not hateful and destructive.

Perhaps the word tesoro matched this boy a lot more than I initially thought, I wondered. Perhaps he was a gift, a treasure, a surprise, in a Pandora's Box sort of way. Perhaps it was time I pushed him away to keep him safe, just like I did with everyone else I adored. "You... you are one of God's treasures, tesoro," I quietly whispered.

But why the fuck would God send one of his Angels into this Hell?