studio 306 - chapter 18 | jjk
Pairing: Demon!Jungkook x Reader (f)
Genre: fantasy!au, demon!au, haunted apartment, horror (its not too bad bc im a coward guys), slow burn, forced proximity, supernatural romance, angst.
Summary: Jungkook is trapped in an attic, cursed to win affection from those who fear him most. Every tenant has fled until you move in. With your budget and patience on the line, you refuse to leave. Now you’re stuck sharing a space with a creature no priest, shaman, or exorcist can get rid of, and neither of you can escape.
Warnings: supernatural/fantasy themes, mentions of blood and physical attacks, mild language.
Word count: 9.3k
a/n: wrote some parts while listening to less by olivia, so maybe yall should do it too (just listen to it on repeat the way i did!) hopefully the chapter does justice to the wait, since you’ve all been waiting for it for a while now hehe 🤍
check out my: masterlist | banner creds to: vzzartt
chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4 | chapter 5 | chapter 6 | chapter 7 | chapter 8 | chapter 9 | chapter 10 | chapter 11 | chapter 12 | chapter 13 | chapter 14 | chapter 15 | chapter 16 | chapter 17 | chapter 18
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“You did this,” Eris said to you. You wanted to say no. You wanted to tell Jungkook not to blame himself, that none of this was his fault, that you were scared, but you were glad he came. You wanted to tell him you were glad you got to see him one more time, even here, even like this, even if the last thing you saw was him on his knees because of you.
Jungkook seemed to understand it anyway, because his face changed before the knife moved. His eyes widened, and he moved forward like instinct had finally broken through restraint.
But Eris was closer to you than he was.
The knife shifted with a little more pressure, and that was all it took. You heard Jungkook calling your name, and you never imagined you would hear him sounding so broken while doing so.
One moment, you were looking at Jungkook, his eyes wide with horror, at his hands reaching for you even though he was too far away.
And the next, there was nothing.
"Oops, I didn't mean to kill her," Eris said as she smiled.
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You remembered the pain you felt from the bruises and scars on your body, but you somehow woke up with no pain at all.
It took you far too long to realise that the pain was gone. Because for so long, your body existed in a constant state of pain that you forgot what it felt like to simply be without something aching, throbbing, or burning beneath your skin. The absence of pain was almost more disorienting than the pain Seokjin and Eris inflicted on you.
You could not tell whether it has been a full day since you were kidnapped or only a few hours. Time blurred beneath the pain that never seemed to fade. Since being kidnapped the second time, there has always been something, like an ache in your ribs, a sting along your skin, and throbbing somewhere you could not reach or even see.
Now there was nothing and somehow that frightened you more.
The air felt different wherever you are now.
It had no warmth or coldness, it was the perfect temperature for you, just the way you like it. You breathed in and it felt so easy for you. Your ribs did not hurt, your chest did not tighten, for the first time since Seokjin and Eris kidnapped you, you did not wince at the simple movement of breathing.
You looked around and all you could see is white. Everywhere you looked was just white extending in every direction.
You pushed yourself up to your feet, half-expecting your legs to give out beneath you, but they didn’t. There was no tensed pull in your muscles, no weakness felt in your knees. You could stand up so easily, then take a step and another step.
Your body then moved as though nothing happened to it, like being kidnapped was just a dream. Then you started to walk around the room, the white space, or wherever you were in.
You noticed that there were no walls, corners, or doors. There was nothing that could tell you where the space begins or ends, and when you looked up, there was only white stretching endlessly above you. You couldn’t figure out if it was sky or if it was an illusion, because it was all just white.
You, well, any normal human being would have panicked. But instead, the longer you stood there, the calmer you felt. Whatever this place was, it softened and calmed something inside you.
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Author’s Note: from this point onward, ALL italicised text represents The Ancient One speaking!!!
You remembered everything that happened to you clearly.
You could still feel the blade against your throat, you could feel your blood dripping when the sharpness of the blade cut through your skin. You remembered it all.
You could still see Jungkook on his knees against the stone floor, one tear slipping down his face. You remembered when his hands were stretched out towards you, reaching to you across a distance he was not able to close in time.
You remembered the last thing you felt was how cold it was.
It was a special knife, my dear child.
The voice was all around you, it was everywhere around you and did not come from a specific direction. You turned around instinctively, looking for a face, a body, something to assign the voice to.
There was still nothing but the white space, "Who are you?" you asked.
They would often refer to me as The Ancient One
You did not know what it meant for something or someone to be The Ancient One. Maybe someone told you about it before. Maybe Father Gabriel mentioned it once, or Jungkook explained it during one of those long days when the two of you had nowhere else to be. But you just could not remember it and right now, all you knew was what your Demon senses and your human intuition was telling you: that The Ancient One was not just powerful, it was above power. The Ancient One felt like the being every realm answered to, the one above every king, prince, angel, demon and humans; the boss of every boss.
You looked around again at the white space, "So," you said, "you are God."
The voice, or The Ancient One, did not confirm or deny it. You had a feeling it didn't say anything because the answer was obvious, and even you already knew the answer without The Ancient One answering your question.
"Then I really am dead, aren't I," you sighed, before adding, “where are you? why can't I see you?" as you looked around again at nothing but the empty white space.
I am all over, I do not have a form.
You just nodded, The Ancient One pretty much sums up what God was described to you on Earth. Nothing, but also everything and everywhere all at once.
You exhaled slowly, before quietly saying, "I just wanted a normal life.”
The words came out before you could stop them, it was one of those things that came up when you were just too tired to pretend you were fine. You have said something similar to Jophiel and even to Seokjin.
Would you go back to your previous life? One where you did not know Jungkook?
You thought about the question for some time. Then you opened your mouth only to close it again. You expected this question to be easy to answer. For weeks you have been angry about everything Jungkook's existence has taken from you. Your family, friends, students, your previous life, and your chance at an ordinary life and death.
All because a cursed Demon prince ended up in your studio apartment and you were just too stubborn about rent to move out. So you waited for yourself to say yes to the question.
But it never came out of your lips.
You thought of Jungkook watching a sitcom from behind the sofa, telling you what the character would do next. You thought of him lying beside you when you had a fever, his body radiating cold through the layers of blankets. You thought of Jungkook standing outside your door for weeks because he did not know how to talk to you, yet didn’t want to leave you all alone. You thought of Jungkook on his knees on the cave floor with one tear on his face begging Eris to let you go.
"No," you replied.
You were more certain of your answer than anything that you have felt in months, "No. I would want both. I would want my life on earth and I would want to have known him. But if I had to choose one without the other…” you stopped before continuing, "..I would choose him."
We cannot have all, my child.
"But you are the Ancient One," you said, and the stubbornness in your voice was the same stubbornness that kept you in a haunted studio for months, "I assume you have existed before Kratos and Heaven. Could you not reverse things? Could you not simply fix this?"
The Ancient One did not answer and for a moment, there was only silence.
"So what happens to me now?" you asked, breaking the silence.
What do you want to happen to you?
You looked at the white space that surrounded you entirely, and thought about the question The Ancient One just asked you. You wondered exactly what you want, was it your old life back with all those you loved and cherished? The ordinary life where you were guaranteed a normal death? Or do you actually want to stay a Demon and live your life with the three friends you have? A completely new life in a new body?
"I don't want to die," you said firmly, "I want to live, and I want to do that with Jungkook."
You said it before you could stop yourself. But once the answer was out, it did not feel as scary as it sounded in your head. It just felt like you have known it for a while and you have felt it for a while, you were only just saying it out loud now.
There you have it. You have figured out what you are truly feeling.
"So I’ll live, right?" you asked, the hope that flickered in your chest felt stupid to you, “even after I was stabbed with that special knife you mentioned?”
The Ancient One did not answer your question. But instead, the floor beneath your feet changed. One second the white space stretched endlessly around you and the next, the ground turned clear beneath you like glass.
You looked down and noticed the cave was now below you and you dropped to your knees when you realised what was happening. Your hands pressed against the transparent floor as you leaned closer, pulled towards the sight of the cave.
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Through the glass floor, you could see the cave below so clearly.
Jungkook was on the ground, holding your lifeless body against his chest. And a few feet away, Jophiel stood over Eris with one hand around her throat and his wings were spread wide enough to reach both sides of the cave.
You have never seen Jophiel look like that before, with his wings spread out as if to assert his dominance. From that sight alone, you could tell Jophiel was furious. His anger filled every part of the cave until there was nowhere for Eris to hide.
Eris laughed even with Jophiel’s hand around her throat and her feet barely touching the ground, she laughed.
"You wouldn't dare," Eris said, still sounding so sure of herself, “no angel would dare. That is not what your kind do. Killing is not what you do, it never has been and it never will be."
Jophiel’s grip tightened on Eris’s neck, "You killed a human," Jophiel said.
You never heard Jophiel sound like this before. He did not sound like the gentle Jophiel who sat at the edge of your bed, brought you books from Earth, and this was also not the same Jophiel who always seemed to know what to say when you were feeling too overwhelmed.
Jophiel’s voice sounded so different. There was something in his voice you never heard before. It was not just anger. His voice was stripped of everything gentle, of the careful way he spoke to you, and the patience he always carried.
"You know what Humans mean to Angels," Jophiel added, "you have always known that and that Human happened to be someone I am very fond of."
"You are fond of me," Eris giggled, "you love me, Jophiel, you have always loved me. Whatever you think you feel for that thing is fleeting and stupid."
"No, Eris," Jophiel firmly said, “not anymore.”
While Jophiel and Eris were exchanging words, Jungkook said nothing.
You watched him from above, trying to make sense of what you were seeing. He didn’t seem to be thinking of anything, Jungkook was just looking at you. It was as if Jungkook could not believe you were really there. His fingers moved carefully over your jaw, your bruised cheekbone, your wrists, and the dried blood all over your clothes and skin.
What was Jungkook supposed to feel now? What was the Demon prince supposed to feel and acknowledge?
Somewhere between the studio and North Kratos, Jungkook started to believe there would be a future with you in it.
Jungkook imagined a life where he would come back from whatever the citadel demanded of him and find you in the North Tower, sitting by the window with a book in your hands, annoyed about something.
Jungkook never called it a future, saying it out loud would have meant admitting that it was something he wanted, and wanting things had never come easily to him. Yet Jungkook has been moving towards what he imagined and wanted anyway. In all the small, awkward things he has never done, but did so for you.
But what Jungkook has imagined is now gone.
His father was right, and Jungkook hated that his father, The King, had been right: that no Demon is ever safe, and nothing in Kratos was ever really permanent, not even the thing you most carefully tried to hold.
Still looking at you, Jungkook called out to his friend, "Jophiel."
"Yes?" Jophiel said, his attention still on Eris.
"Kill her," Jungkook said, with a flat voice like there was no emotion left in him.
"You didn't have to ask," Jophiel replied.
You could not look away from what happened to Eris, even though part of you wanted to. Jophiel was not cruel in the way Seokjin was cruel, he did not seem to take any pleasure in what he was about to do, he was just very thorough about it. Jophiel didn’t reach for any weapon, he didn’t need one because he himself, was the weapon. He extracted some light from his body, and it wrapped around Eris before she could move.
“You wouldn’t fucking dare, Jophiel,” Eris said.
Jophiel looked at her with no sympathy or even a trace of the affection he had once shown her, “This should have been done long ago,” Jophiel said flatly before moving the light through her.
And then, Eris was simply gone.
You noticed then that Seokjin was gone too. The cave entrance was empty. You figured he must have slipped away while everyone had been looking at Eris or at your lifeless body. Even now, Seokjin has chosen his moment carefully.
Jophiel turned his head towards the cave entrance and stood still when he realised Seokjin was nowhere to be found, “Seokjin ran away,” Jophiel snapped.
Jungkook did not answer straight away, he was still holding you against his chest, “He won’t be far,” Jungkook said at last, “he knows I’m at my limit. He can feel it,” Jungkook’s grip tightened slightly around your body before adding, “Seokjin can feel my wrath from anywhere in Kratos.”
"I don't doubt it," Jophiel responded, because he too could barely shield himself from the wrath radiating off Jungkook.
Jophiel then walked towards Jungkook, lowering himself towards the cave floor across from Jungkook. Your body was still in Jungkook’s arms between him and Jophiel. The pain on Jophiel’s face when he looked at your body was so raw that looking at him hurts you too.
Jophiel looked up and he, who has seen thousands of years of Demons and their wars and cruelties, went very silent and still, as he didn’t know what to say or do because his friend was crying.
Jungkook was visibly crying.
It was not only one drop of tear like what Jophiel saw minutes ago. This was Jungkook's face covered in tears. All the things that usually made him Jungkook were gone, and there was nothing left in Jungkook except grief and anger.
Jophiel has known him for centuries and never once he has seen him like this.
The grief coming off Jungkook was now so deep that Jophiel did not know how to make sense of it. It was not anything he understood about Demons. It was not lust, wrath, or pride turned into something else. Jophiel said nothing for a long time, for once, he really did not know what to say.
"Jungkook," Jophiel said finally, "I'll take ____ to Heaven. There should be a way. I'll find a way for you.. and for her."
Jungkook didn’t say anything back, he just stared at your body in his arms. He tried to remember, watching you now, if he had ever seen you truly happy since the transformation. He went back through every day in the North tower, every conversation, every moment he had listened from the corridor, or the training ground, or the window of his father's study. Jungkook has seen or heard you laugh with Jophiel. He remembered hearing you eat the Baskin Robbins ice cream with Jophiel and Woojin. He even remembered the argument the two of you had, he remembered every word of it.
But Jungkook had also seen you happy on Earth. Jungkook watched you for days from the studio before you even knew he was there. He remembered you packing your lunch, humming off-key under your breath, sitting at your desk with your ankles crossed as you marked the papers of your students.
He saw who you were when your life was still yours. And now, kneeling on the cave floor with you in his arms, tears drying on his face, Jungkook understood something he has been avoiding for a long time.
You have never been that happy in Kratos.
"Having her come back again as a Demon would be selfish, wouldn't it," Jungkook said, it was more of a statement than a question, "Jophiel," Jungkook said, still looking at your face, "I have never felt this way before. I don't know what to call it. But I know that I cannot stand to watch her suffer because of me anymore. I cannot stand to know that every moment she spent here was harder than the one before it because of choices I made and things I failed to prevent."
"What are you saying?" Jophiel asked his friend.
"I think," Jungkook said slowly, "this is what humans call love."
Jophiel did not move an inch hearing his Demon friend’s confession.
"Take her," Jungkook said, "save her. Even if she becomes a human again, or something else entirely, or even something I don't have any right to follow into. But I don't think it would be good for her to stay with me. I don't think I am something she should have to keep surviving."
“Jungkook,” Jophiel said firmly, it was a warning to stop before Jungkook let himself believe any of it was his fault.
"I need to deal with Seokjin and his army," Jungkook said.
Jungkook kissed your forehead. He left a kiss so gentle that watching it from above made you shed tears.
It was so gentle but it also felt like a goodbye.
Jungkook stayed there for a second too long before pulling back. Then he carefully and slowly shifted you in his arms, getting ready to pass your body to Jophiel.
"Wait," Jophiel's voice came out harsher than he intended it to be, "wait one fucking minute. You are the only one she knows in this entire world of ours, do you understand that? You are the only creature here that she chose. Not because of obligation and not because she had no other options. She chose to stay every time she woke up in the morning and she could have decided the citadel was too much, packed everything, and started screaming at you to find another way out. She chose you every single time. And you want to decide, right now, that she would be better off without you?"
"She has never been happy in Kratos," Jungkook replied.
"And you think she will be happy anywhere without you?" Jophiel asked, "You think she will wake up somewhere else, feeling healthy, happy, and better? You think that choosing this is better for her?"
"She will suffer without you," Jophiel added, “she will suffer even more greatly, and she will know that you chose this for her without asking her."
Jungkook stood very still. He thought about what Jophiel said, looking at it from every available angle. Jungkook thought about what the North tower room would feel like without you in it, he thought about what it would feel like to stand outside a door that no longer had you on the other side of it.
"I'll call for you once I'm done with Seokjin," Jungkook finally said.
"I'll search for you even if you don't," Jophiel replied immediately, "I am not letting you do this to her. I am not letting you make this decision before she has the chance to make it herself."
Jungkook did not answer.
He placed you in Jophiel's arms with the same care he had shown every bruise and broken part of you since he got you back. Then Jungkook walked towards the cave entrance without looking back.
Because if Jungkook looked back, he was not sure he would be able to move forward at all.
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Author’s Note: from this point onward, ALL italicised text represents The Ancient One speaking!!!
In the white space, you sat on the transparent floor and you haven’t been able to stop your tears from falling ever since seeing Jungkook and Jophiel in the cave.
You kept staring at the cave entrance where Jungkook had just disappeared and you could feel the Ancient One's quiet presence in the white space around you, as if it understood that you were not ready to say anything yet.
Jungkook still wanted to save your life yet step out of it completely, because he believed letting you go was the kindest thing he could do for you.
You thought about the lyrics from a song you could not remember the name of, something you listened to on earth in a life that felt like someone else's now.
And now, watching Jungkook leave, you understood the lyrics in a way you never had before. It was easy to call it love when someone said they were letting you go for your own good.
It sounded selfless, noble, even.
But sitting there, with tears running down your face, all you could feel was the pain of being left behind.
If this was what loving someone looked like, you thought, then maybe you wished Jungkook loved you less.
Because maybe then, Jungkook would have stayed.
I have never seen my Demon children become so aware of their feelings the way Jungkook does. He is a very powerful Demon, full mastery of all seven traits, and a bloodline built from the two oldest citadels in Kratos. And what he uses all of that power for, in this moment, is to try to do what he believes is the right thing for someone else. That is rarer than any of his other gifts.
"It's the wrong thing to do, what he believed I might want, is not what I want at all," you said as you pressed the palm of your hands against your eyes, "so now, again, my question is what will happen to me?"
What do you want to happen to you?
"I want to live. I want to be with Jungkook," you stated.
There you have it.
"So I'll live?" you asked.
The Ancient One did not answer in words, but the floor beneath you changed again and through it you could now see not the cave but the territory beyond it, the ridge and the border of North Kratos.
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Jungkook moved through Seokjin's followers the way fire spreads in a bushfire, he was quick and impossible to contain.
You watched from above and felt the glass floor vibrate with the force of Jungkook’s energy even from the distance of whatever existed between the white space and the world below.
Jungkook’s wings were spread to their full width for the first time since you have known him, and the span of them was enormous that it filled the wide ridge path from wall to wall, blocking the path and space simultaneously.
The first group charged at Jungkook at the same time, there were twelve of them and they were not weak, these were not low-ranking soldiers or untrained followers.
Seokjin spent years building this, and these twelve Demons listened to Seokjin's philosophy about unrestrained Demon powers and believed that he was right. And they charged Jungkook with the belief that they were the strongest thing in the room.
Boy, were they wrong. And so were you, who couldn’t help but be terrified of Jungkook losing against twelve Demons attacking him at the same time.
Jungkook moved through these twelve Demons with such focus and precision that you couldn’t help the gasp that escaped your lips. But what surprised you even most was although he was angry, Jungkook wasn’t acting based on his rage.
After what happened to you in the cave, you expected this to be the moment he would finally lose control, but Jungkook did not or has not lose control yet. The Jungkook you are seeing is not some mindless Demon tearing through bodies in a blind rage. He was calm and focused, and terrifyingly so. Every movement Jungkook made was somehow calculated, his hand caught his opponent’s wrist before they could raise their weapon, and he knew which Demon would try to attack him next.
It was as if Jungkook could read their movements before they decided to move themselves. And five of them were down before you could properly take a look into what was happening.
The remaining seven met the same end before they could even express their fear. Jungkook’s sword flashed through the air again and again, and by the time the last body fell, he was still standing exactly where he had started.
The ridge path has now cleared for Jungkook.
More Demons came from the eastern side, spreading out in different angles to try to trap and catch Jungkook. You feared for his life as there were now even more Demons from different angles which would force Jungkook to choose who to defend himself against first.
But Jungkook only tilted his head before moving and attacking. At one point, you gasped when one of the Demons managed to land a hit on Jungkook. A heavy blade cut across the armor on his shoulder, hard enough that your own body flinched even from where you were standing. But Jungkook did not slow down.
Something in the air changed not long after he was hit.
Jungkook’s power seemed different, you always knew he was powerful, but his energy now seemed different. Your Demon senses told you that this energy you felt from Jungkook was the North's founding energy responding to the North's truest son fully claiming it. It was the territory itself recognising him, and every Demon near him could feel the difference between who they thought they were fighting and who they were actually fighting.
By the time the ridge cleared entirely, you have stopped counting how many Demons Jungkook has killed.
"He's furious," you said, stating what you could see and feel even from above. The Ancient One said nothing, but you felt it agreeing and acknowledging what you said.
"He's never going to stop until he kills Seokjin, is he?" you asked more to yourself than The Ancient One.
The floor below you shifted, widening and pulling back to show you more of the landscape, and now you could see the border itself, the flat ground between the North and the Lee’s territory.
The North's garrison forces were already there, deployed along the line in tight formation. On the other side of the line, The Lee army was positioned and God, they were enormous, the largest standing army in Kratos were just waiting for their command.
And at the boundary line, standing alone, was Seokjin.
Seokjin was not surrounded. He stood alone at the border with his wings spread behind him and his arms at his sides as he watched Jungkook approach him. From above, you could still make out the expression on Seokjin’s face.
Seokjin looked pleased with himself. Like everything up until now had only been a show, and this was the part he was waiting for.
Seokjin was smug enough to think he could still win this.
♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡
Jungkook walked from the ridge path onto the open border ground and the Jeon Princes were now visible to each other again. The Jeon soldiers held their ground and across from them, The Lee army did the same.
Jungkook walked slowly towards his brother. He did not rush at all nor did he draw any of his weapons. You understood then that this would not be a quick and easy fight between two brothers. This would not be over in a few violent seconds as this was something that had been waiting for them for a long time.
This was a fight they both had been heading towards for years.
Jungkook stopped walking when he was close enough to his brother to speak without raising their voices.
"I wondered if you would come," Seokjin said.
"You knew I would," Jungkook replied.
Seokjin looked at his brother for a moment, reading him the way The Kim read everything, extracting meaning from his little brother’s posture and expression, "She's dead," he said.
"Yes," Jungkook said flatly.
"I did not plan for that. Eris was not supposed to kill her, she was just supposed to be leverage, not a dead body."
"It doesn't change anything," said Jungkook.
"No," Seokjin agreed quietly, "I didn't imagine it would."
Seokjin looked out at The Lee army behind him and then back at Jungkook, "I built all of this. The camp, my followers, the Lee alliance, the years of it. And standing here I keep coming back to the same thing. I built all of this because I am the one who deserves the throne."
Jungkook said nothing to his brother.
"That's all," Seokjin said, “I am the rightful heir to the throne, you are not. The Lee will hold until I give them an order. You either willingly give me the throne.." Seokjin looked at his brother before adding, "or we fight. Just the two of us without the involvement of the Lee or Jeon army, like it always should have been."
"Yes, fight," Jungkook said. Jungkook replied to Seokjin’s question so quickly that you wondered if Jungkook knew exactly what was about to happen.
Seokjin nodded once in response, and then the first prince of the North attacked his younger brother, Jungkook.
Seokjin was fast and that was the first thing you understood watching from above with your hands pressed flat against the glass floor and your knees cold against the transparent surface. You have seen Jungkook move in the ridge path and understood what his power looked like, and you assumed Seokjin would be less powerful.
But Seokjin was not less powerful. His power just worked differently. Seokjin was the complete opposite of his youner brother. Seokjin was explosive with his movements, he hit hard and without holding anything back. His energy seemed to burst from him with every strike.
Their swords collided with a sound that cut through the whole battlefield. Jungkook moved forward and Seokjin met him head-on. The force, power, and impact of the two swords colliding split the ground beneath them open and the impact had them land several feet away from each other.
You pressed your hand against your mouth, you weren’t sure what the impact of this fight would be. You knew Jungkook was powerful, and you believed that his mastery would eventually win this fight. But, seeing how Seokjin moved throughout the battle wasn’t something you could ignore.
They charged towards each other again. Seokjin read Jungkook's patterns from the first exchange and adjusted his attacks on the second. A strike Jungkook made that should have landed cleanly was redirected, and the redirection created an opening that Seokjin moved into immediately, catching Jungkook across the chest hard enough that you felt the impact as a vibration through the glass floor of the white space.
You let out a loud gasp, still The Ancient One said nothing but you felt it still being around you.
Jungkook was about to fall from the attack, but his wings spread open and one second he was dropping backwards, the next he caught himself in the air and twisted sharply to the side. Jungkook was now behind Seokjin before Seokjin was finished reading where Jungkook disappeared to. Jungkook’s sword struck Seokjin across the shoulder, hard enough to send him stumbling three steps away.
Both of them stopped for a moment to catch their breath.
You took a quick glance at the hundreds of soldiers on both sides standing in perfect silence and watching the two princes fight for the North Kratos throne.
But for Jungkook, he wasn’t fighting for the throne at all, still even now, he was fighting for you.
You did not have words for how long the fight went on. Time in Kratos did not run the same way time did on earth, and time in the white space you were in ran in an even more confusing way. What you knew was that neither of them was winning.
Seokjin spent centuries trying to prove himself. You could see it in the way he fought, every movement was sharp, every attack was meant to show exactly how strong he was, and he wanted Jungkook to see it. He wanted every single Demon watching to see it. What he learned makes him powerful and dangerous, but it also made him easier to read than Jungkook. Whenever Seokjin saw an opening, he went for it, because he wanted to be the one who took that first move.
Jungkook was different from his older brother. He spent centuries learning how to control himself or mastering the seven traits before anything else. Jungkook did not need Seokjin or anyone else’s approval. Jungkook didn’t need the soldiers watching from either side to understand what he was capable of, he only needed this to end. And because that was all he wanted, there was nothing extra in the way he fought.
The fight reached its turning point thirty minutes in, or what felt like thirty minutes in a space where time was just an approximation.
Seokjin landed a strike that opened a cut along Jungkook's jaw that immediately started to bleed. Something changed in Seokjin’s expression then. He looked relieved, like he has been waiting for proof that he could still hurt Jungkook, that he could still make Jungkook bleed.
Jungkook noticed the small drop in Seokjin’s guard immediately. He always noticed things like that, and the second Seokjin’s focus slipped, Jungkook moved forward into the space Seokjin left open.
The North Kratos sword made for Demons and for bodies that could survive wounds that would kill humans, came up in one smooth motion. But Seokjin caught Jungkook’s arm with both hands before the blade could reach him.
For a second, neither of them moved. The Jeon brothers were locked together, Jungkook forcing the sword forward while Seokjin held him back with everything he had.
Then, out of nowhere, Seokjin’s grip gave out.
You could not tell whether he meant to or whether his body simply had finally given up on him, and you were not sure it mattered. Because Jungkook didn’t stop; the sword drove forward and went through Seokjin’s throat in one clean motion, the blade cutting past his throat. It was quick. So quick that Seokjin only seemed to realise what happened when he looked down at Jungkook’s hand still wrapped around the handle of the sword.
Then Jungkook pulled the sword free.
Seokjin’s legs gave out as he dropped to one knee and his body started to tip sideways, but Jungkook caught him before Seokjin could hit the ground.
When Seokjin finally went still in his arms, Jungkook dropped him to the ground. He was now sure that his older broder is dead.
Jungkook stood up proudly, he was now the only prince of North Kratos.
He stood there for a moment with his back to both armies and his face toward the border's empty middle ground, and you watched his wings fold close behind him.
♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡
The battlefield stayed silent long after it should have.
Jungkook was still standing where Seokjin’s lifeless body had fallen. His back was still to both armies, his wings still folded close, and his sword was still in his hand. There was still blood dripping from Jungkook’s sword, and the sight of it made your chest tighten.
You pressed your palms harder against the clear floor beneath you as if you could somehow reach through it. As if Jungkook might feel you from down there, but of course he didn’t.
The North soldiers behind their line have not moved either. They were waiting for Jungkook’s order, watching the back of their prince with the stillness of soldiers who understood that this was not their moment. This moment belonged to Jungkook alone, and no one on the North side of the border was going to take that from him.
The Lee army was different.
You could see the shift moving through their formation from above, a subtle restructuring, a recalculation happening across hundreds of bodies. They had come to this border expecting a specific war. They had an alliance, a plan, and a promised reward for the largest standing army in Kratos behind them. They watched Seokjin's followers fall in the ridge path. They watched two Jeon princes fight to the death on the contested ground between territories. They were also hesitating, which was a thing you did not expect from an army the size of theirs. They had the numbers, weapons, and they came prepared for war. But they also just watched Jungkook kill Seokjin. They saw and felt the power of the North Kratos second, or the now one and only, prince. And whatever they believed about Jungkook before, seemed to have disappeared.
But the Lee prince, whose name you did not know but you could figure out he was a prince from your Demon senses sensing his energy, still moved forward.
He stepped across the territorial line onto the contested ground by himself, his hands were visible on his sides and his posture seemed to communicate that he was approaching Jungkook for conversation rather than combat. He was not as afraid as the rest of the Demons there, you noticed. Or if he was, he did not show it the way the other Demons there showed it.
The Lee prince looked calm as he stepped forward and closer to Jungkook. He was still confident as he was taught that having a bigger army meant he could never lose and until now, he probably never had a reason to question it.
He looked at Jungkook's back for a good few seconds, waiting for Jungkook to turn around.
And when he did finally show his face, Jungkook’s expression was nothing you’ve seen before and something in your heart went cold.
Jungkook's face was completely emotionless, there was no expression, there was nothing on his face at all. There was no rage, grief, or even boredom.
Jungkook looked as if the storm in his life has already passed through him and took everything with it. Like there was nothing left for any Demon to threaten, nothing left for Jungkook to hold himself back.
"Prince Jeon," The Lee prince greeted. He inclined his head in a certain way that acknowledged Jungkook’s rank without conceding anything, “we offer our acknowledgment of the resolution of your family matter."
Jungkook said nothing to it.
The Lee prince continued, "What has happened here does not require escalation. Your forces and ours are both present and prepared. The question before us is not whether we could continue but whether continuing serves either citadel," he paused, “your brother made certain promises in exchange for our support. Those promises ended with your brother, we understand that. But we are an army ready for war, and we do not want to march home with nothing to show for the Demons back home."
The Lee prince lifted his hands slightly, like he was trying to show Jungkook the only options Jungkook had. He was acting as if what he was about to offer could still be talked through with the now emotionless North Kratos prince.
"Give us the unclaimed border territory Seokjin offered," The Lee prince said, “it is a modest concession. The North retains everything of substance and The Lee retains their dignity and both our soldiers live to see tomorrow. Both citadels return home intact, would that not be a good outcome for everyone involved?"
The Lee prince eventually stopped talking and waited for an answer, but Jungkook said nothing.
From the glass floor of the white space, you watched Jungkook's face, trying to figure out what he was about to do next.
Jungkook laughed, which was not something you expected at all. You expected him to say “fuck no” or continue with the war by attacking The Lee prince. But you did not expect Jungkook to laugh.
It was also the most frightening laugh you have heard him make, and you have heard Jungkook make many different sounds in many moods across many months of living in his proximity. You just could not feel any warmth behind his laugh.
It was a terrifyingly empty and emotionless laugh.
Without any notice, Jungkook moved forward to attack The Lee prince.
The Lee army did not hesitate to move and attack after that. Jungkook attacked their prince and that was enough for them to act. Whatever fear they felt disappeared in order to fight, and the North soldiers responded to their movement by charging before The Lee soldiers could cross too far into the North Kratos ground. Then all you heard were the sounds of steel, wings, shouting, and bodies rushing into each other from both sides.
The land between the North and the South disappeared under the fight so quickly you could barely tell where one side ended and the other began.
It was now war.
Hundreds of demons from both sides, and the sound of it reached you even through whatever barrier existed between the white space and Kratos.
You cried. But it wasn’t because of the war, you couldn’t really care less about the Demons who weren’t even going to accept you in Kratos.
You cried because of Jungkook. You cried even harder as you watched him move through The Lee forces. You cried not because you were scared for his life, but you cried because the Jungkook you are looking at looked so different from the Jungkook you knew.
It was as if you were watching a different Jungkook. And to you, it almost felt like Jungkook’s emotions swallowed him whole.
That was what confuses and pains you the most: watching Jungkook becoming something that looked nothing like the version of him you knew, and you partly blamed yourself for it.
If it wasn’t for your stupidity in trusting Eris, if it wasn’t for your dumb brain seeing Jungkook as someone trying to control you instead of protecting you, if it wasn’t for you.. Jungkook would still be himself.
But right now, Jungkook looked nothing like the Demon who sat next to you on your sofa, nothing like the Demon who laid beside you under the blankets, nothing like the Demon who dropped to his knees and begged for your forgiveness. You remembered all those versions of him with you, but the Jungkook standing on that battlefield did not feel like any of these versions. And you were to blame.
You knew it was not fair to blame yourself for what he chose to do. You knew that much, but it was hard not to wonder if you had changed something in him anyway.
You kept thinking about the moment Jungkook held your lifeless body in his arms, the way his hands were shaking, and how he was looking at you like losing you has destroyed something inside him that Jungkook would never be able to put back together.
You could not stop wondering whether you changed Jungkook somehow, whether loving you has given him something else to lose, and whether that made him more dangerous than he has ever been before.
Could you, if it really was possible to revive you back to life, could you really go back to his life after this?
Could you sit beside him in the studio again and pretend you have not seen him standing in the middle of a battlefield with blood on his sword?
Could Jungkook still look at you the way he had before, like you were something soft in a world that has never been either of those things?
Or have you become part of the reason Jungkook turned into some Demon you barely recognised?
The thought made your chest hurt, but you did recognise Jungkook. Somewhere beneath all of this, beneath the violence and the lack of expression in his face, he was still the Jungkook who held you when you were sick, the Jungkook who knelt in front of you and begged for forgiveness. Jungkook was still the Demon who cried for you.
You just did not know whether there was enough of that version of him left for you to find when this was over.
"Is he going to be alright?" you said, it was not a question to The Ancient One, but it was more to yourself.
You wiped your face with the back of your hand and kept watching, because you did not know how to stop watching the Demon you love losing himself.
The Lee army was large, you’ve heard it repeatedly in every description of Kratos politics Jungkook has given you. The largest standing army in Kratos, the one thing that made The Lee citadel dangerous and overwhelming.
but you were relieved to see The North soldiers fighting as though the numbers of their opponent did not matter. because they knew the mastery of their traits has helped them to become even more powerful than their enemy. And numbers in this case, truly did not matter at all.
And at the front of all of it was Jungkook.
You watched him for a long time, until the tears stopped coming because your body seemed to run out of them, or maybe you were just tired of crying since what felt like forever. and you were just exhausted.
You did not know what would happen if you were revived back to life. You no longer know if being with Jungkook would be good for him anymore. Maybe loving him would not make his life better.
And maybe, for Jungkook, loving you would only give him another thing to lose.
♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡
Jophiel had no time to think about how he was carrying you when he opened the passage to Heaven from the cave.
He opened up the portal with one hand, which left the other free hand to hold you against his chest. Soon after, there was a light that opened in the cave wall that was less elegant than his usual portals, more torn than opened, but Jophiel couldn’t care less about what the portal looked like, he needed to save you.
He needed to save his dearest human.
Jophiel arrived in one of the outer halls of Heaven, the wide pale corridor that connected the lower reception chambers to the inner palace of Heaven, and the moment he stepped out of the portal, two angels turned and walked towards him from the far end of the hall.
They gasped when they saw what, who, Jophiel was carrying.
Jophiel walked towards them without slowing down, "I need help," he said in a hurry because there was no time for anything else and because, you, who were in his arms, had no pulse.
The two angels in the far end of the hall were Gabriel and Raphael, and once they noticed something was genuinely wrong, they ran towards Jophiel. Gabriel reached out to Jophiel first before taking a good look at your body in Jophiel’s arms. And when he looked at you, Gabriel knew then that the damage had been done.
Raphael came to the other side and pressed two of his fingers to your wrist, then your neck, then he held his palm flat over your chest. Angels could tell if a soul had left a body, yet Raphael just had to check again and again, because a part of him wished what he felt was not real and was just some sort of error in his Angel senses.
Raphael looked up at Jophiel, "There is no pulse," Raphael said carefully.
"I know there is no pulse," Jophiel said, and his voice came out harsher than he intended it to be, “that is why I am here, tell me what can be done."
Raphael and Gabriel exchanged a quick look, while Jophiel turned to look at his friends just as Gabriel looked down at you again. Gabriel’s lips parted slightly to say something only to close it again. Whatever Gabriel was about to say, he was trying to find a way to make it less painful to Jophiel to hear.
"Jophiel," Gabriel finally said after a good one minute pass by, but Gabriel’s voice was so careful it made the hair on the back of Jophiel's neck rise, "the knife they used to kill ____, we can see its work in her. This is not a wound that falls within the scope of what we are authorised to intervene in, this is not a ghost in need of guidance or a human soul that has crossed without cause. This is a Demon's body that has been struck by something designed specifically to kill Demons."
"Then tell me what I should do," Jophiel demanded.
"Jophiel," Raphael said softly, trying to calm his friend down.
"Tell me," Jophiel said again, still demanding an answer from his brothers.
Gabriel looked at Jophiel again, feeling sorry for his dearest brother, "Only The Ancient One could help her. This is beyond what Heaven, or any Angels can offer. I am sorry, my friend."
The corridor went very silent.
Jophiel stood there in Heaven’s outer hall with you in his arms. Jophiel heard what Gabriel and Raphael said to him, and he understood what they meant right away. But Jophiel wished he did not. For once, the Angel of Enlightenment wished he did not understand the information that was given to him.
Jophiel knew the moment your soul left your body, somewhere in the back of his mind also knew that this was the answer he was going to receive from his brothers.
Jophiel knew what was going to happen in the cave when he took your body from Jungkook's arms. He knew it when he tore through the passage between realms with one hand. Johpiel knew it the way he knows things that he did not want to know, because he is the Angel of Enlightenment. And for the first time ever in his life, he wished he was not.
His brothers watched him carefully, not because they were scared of Jophiel. They just did not know what he was going to do next. Jophiel has been holding you against his chest so tightly ever since he left the cave in North Kratos. He just could not accept that The Ancient One would do this to his dearest Demon friends.
Since he walked into the North tower and found you with Jungkook, he understood what the two of you were to each other. What you meant to Jungkook and what Jungkook meant to you. The two of you have barely been given a moment of peace since the beginning; there was always something waiting for you or Jungkook. Was this what a love like yours, a love so deep, had to conquer? It just did not seem fair to Jophiel.
Then something inside him finally gave way.
Jophiel has not cried in a very long time. and crying is not a common behaviour of Angels, tears were not usually a way for Angels to express what they feel. But Jophiel was also not, and has never been, a standard example of what angels were. He has spent too much time in other realms, including Kratos, and he has too many arrangements with beings his kind was not supposed to care about.
The tears were unexpected even to him.
Gabriel and Raphael did not dare to utter a single word. They stood at either side of Jophiel in the pale corridor and let the silence be, because there was nothing to say that would make it easier for Jophiel. So Jophiel held you and cried.
Jophiel thought about the first time he came to the North tower, where he found you in Jungkook’s old bedroom. You looked exhausted, yet so guarded too, like you were waiting for someone to talk to you yet you were determined to not let them see how close you were to breaking down. He thought about the books and the baskin robbins he brought from earth. Jophiel thought about all the afternoons he spent with you, the conversations the two of you had and the questions you asked him.
He then thought about Jungkook, his oldest friend or 'frenemy'. Jungkook was there for Jophiel through more things than Jophiel could count. Although Jungkook would never mention it, he understood Jophiel without needing him to explain his train of thoughts.
And then you came into Jungkook’s life and Jophiel saw things he never thought Jungkook could ever experience. Jungkook who stood outside your door for weeks, refusing to leave you even when he thought there was nothing he could do except wait. Jungkook, the Demon prince, who begged for the Human-turned-Demon’s forgiveness. Jungkook who possibly became the first Demon to ever cry, the first Demon to become so aware of his feelings that he cried.
Jophiel thought about how lucky his friend was to have you, because somehow, loving you had brought Jungkook to a place no Demon was supposed to reach.
And because of you, Jungkook is now more powerful than any Demon had ever been.
Jophiel thought about the two of you, his dearest and most complicated friends, one of whom was fighting a war at a Kratos border and one of whom was in his arms without a pulse, and The Ancient One was the only answer anyone was going to give him.
Jophiel wiped his face and forced himself to breathe and let himself feel what he was feeling. You were still in his arms and there would be plenty of time for Jophiel to fall apart later.
But right now, Jophiel had to do something. Then Jophiel turned to look at your body in his arms as he called out, "The Ancient One.”
He said it quietly, without any of the old prayers that he was taught to recite when calling for The Ancient One. Jophiel was just hoping that somehow, somewhere, The Ancient One would hear how badly he was begging.
"I beg of you.. please help my dearest friends."
The end (for this chapter)
