the bell rang, telling everyone at school that the last period has come to an end.
“Ughh finallyyy” Y/n, a fourteen year old middle schooler whined loudly as she started packing her bag, shoving everything inside and not caring about how tidy it looks. She just wants to go home and relax.
“Yeah I knoww” Nicholas, also a fourteen year old middle schooler, agreed with her as they walked past the teacher’s desk and through the door where all students seemed to be rushing left and right in the very busy school hallway.
Nicholas and Y/n have been best friends ever since they were little babies.
They did everything together. They learned everything together, from learning how to properly eat, to riding a bike. They were there for one another through every step of the journey. They never let anyone or anything go between them. They are -what the books describe- inseparable.
*Beep beep*
The alarm blared through the room, its piercing shriek jarring Y/n awake in an instant.
She exhales before yawning and sitting up, looking at the clock to her right. It brightly reads “5 AM”.
She softly whines as she reaches over to her ear piercing alarm to turn the sound off, she sits back down as she begins to stretch out her tense muscles.
A great reminder of the day she had had with Nicholas yesterday - playing in the snow and running up the hill which was close to their homes.
She smiles to herself as she remembers the great day she had had with her best friend.
Getting up to get ready for the day, she starts off by fixing her bed, neatly and gently. Then she makes her way to the bathroom. Splashing her face with water as she is fully being awakened by the cold water running down her face and down into her neck. She grabs her toothbrush and toothpaste and does her magic, what people would call ‘brushing your teeth’.
She leaves the bathroom all freshened up and ready for school. She quickly pulls the uniform from her wardrobe and puts it on, making sure she looks decent enough as she looks at herself in the mirror. She grabs her hairbrush and start brushing her hair, pulling it back into a high ponytail “This’ll make my hair less annoying when I do schoolwork” she thinks to herself as she ties her hair into the ponytail. After about ten minutes of looking at herself in the mirror, she announces to herself that she is ready for school.
Little did Y/n know, today was gonna be a different day.
the bell rang, telling everyone at school that the last period has come to an end.
“Ughh finallyyy” Y/n, a fourteen year old middle schooler whined loudly as she started packing her bag, shoving everything inside and not caring about how tidy it looks. She just wants to go home and relax.
“Yeah I knoww” Nicholas, also a fourteen year old middle schooler, agreed with her as they walked past the teacher’s desk and through the door where all students seemed to be rushing left and right in the very busy school hallway.
Nicholas and Y/n have been best friends ever since they were little babies.
They did everything together. They learned everything together, from learning how to properly eat, to riding a bike. They were there for one another through every step of the journey. They never let anyone or anything go between them. They are -what the books describe- inseparable.
*Beep beep*
The alarm blared through the room, its piercing shriek jarring Y/n awake in an instant.
She exhales before yawning and sitting up, looking at the clock to her right. It brightly reads “5 AM”.
She softly whines as she reaches over to her ear piercing alarm to turn the sound off, she sits back down as she begins to stretch out her tense muscles.
A great reminder of the day she had had with Nicholas yesterday - playing in the snow and running up the hill which was close to their homes.
She smiles to herself as she remembers the great day she had had with her best friend.
Getting up to get ready for the day, she starts off by fixing her bed, neatly and gently. Then she makes her way to the bathroom. Splashing her face with water as she is fully being awakened by the cold water running down her face and down into her neck. She grabs her toothbrush and toothpaste and does her magic, what people would call ‘brushing your teeth’.
She leaves the bathroom all freshened up and ready for school. She quickly pulls the uniform from her wardrobe and puts it on, making sure she looks decent enough as she looks at herself in the mirror. She grabs her hairbrush and start brushing her hair, pulling it back into a high ponytail “This’ll make my hair less annoying when I do schoolwork” she thinks to herself as she ties her hair into the ponytail. After about ten minutes of looking at herself in the mirror, she announces to herself that she is ready for school.
Little did Y/n know, today was gonna be a different day.
You should’ve seen the huge smile that spread across my face🥹 I’m so glad you liked my fic <3 this actually gave me some motivation to work harder on the fics I’m working on
A/N: I don’t celebrate Christmas, but this is my entry for secret Santa. You’ll know who this fic is for at the very end. Thank you to @lune-net for hosting this secret Santa event. I hope you guys enjoy this little fic I wrote 🤍.
Pairing: ballet dancer!reader x prince!Taki
Genre: Fluff, as requested by giftee. A little crack cause I couldn’t help but make it silly. I’m serious
Warnings? Reader experiences a major ankle injury (you did this Taki) reader’s pronouns are she/her. There’s a kiss at the end.
Today is the day.
Today is the day the artistic director will announce it, the names of those who auditioned for the roles.
And Y/n finally got the part she has always yearned for.
The role of Clara in The Nutcracker.
Everyone wanted to be Clara. Only the most skilled and talented people get those kinds of roles. And everyone was focused on getting that role. Why? Well of course because the role is an important one. All the attention will be on you if you were the one dancing as Clara.
So of course when the artistic director said Y/n’s name as the girl who plays Clara, everyone had mixed reactions;
“What? I worked so hard for that”
“I’m so happy for her” “yeah she deserves it” “I did see her late at night practicing, so yeah absolutely deserved”
“This has to be sabotaged”
Vanessa Smith, the former ‘favorite’ said as she glared at Y/n.
As Y/n was happily celebrating with her friends, she felt as if she was being watched. So as one has a feeling as such, she looked around, and she thought correct when her eyes laid on Vanessa’s glaring gaze.
Y/n sweetly smiled as Vanessa only to receive no response from her. Y/n’s face frowned upon seeing Vanessa be irresponsive.
“Don’t worry Y/n, she’s just jealous you got picked to be Clara.”
“Yeah I mean at the end, you’re the one dancing for the prince.”
One after another, Y/n’s friends chipped in with affirmations to try and cheer Y/n up. After a few more praises and cheers, Y/n finally cheered up and began getting ready to learn the first steps to Clara’s dance in The Nutcracker.
As the artistic director taught Y/n the first sixteen steps of Clara’s dance, she started remembering when she was a child, how she wanted to be a ballerina when she grew up.
Little Y/n was sitting on the floor, two barbie dolls in each of her hands. One had a ballerina tutu and the other had a beautiful pink gown.
She moved then as if to show that they are dancing, left to right, round and round. She hummed music for the as she moved them from side to side delicately.
“Oh wow look at you making your barbies dance like ballerinas” Y/n’s mother smiled as she was preparing Y/n’s snack for the day.
“No mum, this one isn’t a ballerina” she lifted the one wearing a gown “she’s just swaying to the music this one is dancing to” she lift the barbie wearing a tutu.
“Sweetheart, do you want to be a ballerina or a princess?” Y/n’s mother questioned as she approached her daughter.
“Can I be both?” Y/n asked. Her mother laughed and shook her head “No baby, you can only choose one” she folded her pinky, ring, middle fingers and thumb to form a number one, showing her daughter as she continued “If you were a princess, they won’t let you be a ballerina, cause they have all these crazy rules about being delicate and untouched blah blah blah. But if you were a ballerina, you’d be too busy to be a princess, you’ll have shows day and night, practice day and night. So.. which one is it?”
Y/n looked at her mother, then her gaze dropped to her dolls, going left to the ballerina, then going right to the princess.
“I want to be a ballerina. Now”
Her mother laughed at her daughter’s cuteness, placing a hand on her chest. “Now? Like actually right now?”
Y/n nodded, she was always so ambitious once she puts her mind on something.
What happened next was very very simple.
Y/n’s mother signed her up to a ballet class. Y/n kept excelling in every class and show she did.
One day, an employee of the Royal Ballet Theatre was attending her daughter’s show, that’s when she saw 10 year old Y/n on that stage. Dancing so delicately and beautifully, it’s like the music moves with her, not her moving with the music.
Long story short, Y/n has been climbing the fame ladder ever since.
Y/n practiced and practiced, day and night. Till the day finally came.
Little did the whole team know. This show was going to be different.
“Places everyone, places. Ready Y/n? Our Clara” the director said smiling at Y/n making her blush as she nodded her head, “I was born ready” “That’s what I want to to hear”.
As the show began with dancers left snd right, dancing as they practiced. One after another their facial expressions went from shocked to quickly changing it back to normal.
Y/n noticed their faces changing as she watched from the side of the stage, “Why are they shocked?” The director shrugged her shoulders “Maybe they each saw a ghost in the audience?” Y/n laughed and shook her head “I guess I’ll have to see that with my own eyes, I’ll report back to you after I do my first dance” Y/n said as she got in position, standing on her pointes.
As she always is, Y/n was delicate as she did her part as Clara, spinning and dancing on stage as if there were no one watching. That is until she saw him. Prince Takayama Riki, Prince of Japan.
As their eyes locked, Y/n felt herself slip, her ankle hitting the floor with a loud pop!
As Y/n was rushed to the medical examiner, he noticed something strange seeping from Y/n’s pointe shoes as they sat her down on a chair, “Oil?” He questioned looking at Y/n. “Did you do this to yourself miss Y/n?” Y/n was quick to deny “No of course not, why would I self sabotage myself? I just want to dance” “Well, I can tell you that whoever did this, they don’t like you very much. You need to rest for three weeks-” “Three weeks? I can’t rest, we have shows day and night, I can’t rest” “I know that this is important to you, but your health is more important. Listen to me, you won’t be able to dance in this condition, you can barely walk, let alone dance ballet. Take my word, rest up. I’ll put a cast around your foot, you’ll need crutches to walk around” Said the medical examiner as he quickly brought the tools to make a cast around Y/n’s foot. Y/n winced in pain as she held to her best friend Yuna “It’s okay bestie, at least you get three weeks off from this hell, right? You always wanted a break” Yuna tried to lighten up the mood by telling Y/n how much she wanted a break “Well yeah, but I was joking. I didn’t mean it” Y/n laughed but it was cut off by a wince “Did you see him?” Yuna asked as she look down at Y/n, Y/n looked up into Yuna’s eyes and slowly nodded her head “I locked eyes with him, that’s when my ankle gave up” Y/n and Yuna giggled.
“Are you okay Y/n? You didn’t look like you were in pain when your ankle popped” the director asked Y/n “Yeah I didn’t feel pain, I think the adrenaline of looking a prince in the eye made my pain disappear” Y/n answered. “Wait THE PRINCE? Japan’s own prince? The next one in line?” All the other dancers nodded their heads. “Oh so you’re telling me, your ass fell in front of prince Riki? That’s not gonna be good”
And as if on cue, the second the director finished saying his sentence, two security guards busted door open, followed by non other than the prince himself. His highness, Prince Takayama Riki of Japan.
“You’re the beautiful ballerina I locked eyes with? Are you okay?” Asked the prince.
The whole team was too shocked to speak.
Until the director broke the twenty second silence that felt too long.
“His highness asked you a question Y/n,” “Answer him”
And as if she was brought back to life, Y/n shook off all the thoughts clouding her mind and nodded her head up and down with a sweet smile plastered on her face “yes, yes your highness, I’m the one you locked eyes with”
“May we be left alone?” The prince asked looking around at the whole team, they eventually understood and all left the side of the stage to leave them alone.
At first, the two did nothing, partly because Y/n was sat on a chair with a cast around her foot.
Then, the prince approached Y/n, she bowed her head to him as a form of curtsy. Her eyes never leaving his, searching for some sort of reason as to why he decided to come all this way from the royal room and to the side of the stage.
He then sat next to her which took Y/n by surprise, her tutu’s fabric laced with the hem of his jacket.
They both looked at the fabric’s interaction, no words were spoken as the light above them surrounded them with warmth.
Y/n sneaked a glance up to his eyes, only to find him looking at her.
One thing led to another, and now they’re kissing.
Lips dancing together, as if they’re doing their own kind of ballet.
[A/n: this is total shit, you know it, and I know it. I was an amazing idea, but I didn’t know how to make it work, anyhow this is from me to @slytherinshua 🤗🤗I hope you liked it, you can imagine it better cause honestly I went through hello and back trying to write it 😭 ]
A/N: I don’t celebrate Christmas, but this is my entry for secret Santa. You’ll know who this fic is for at the very end. Thank you to @lune-net for hosting this secret Santa event. I hope you guys enjoy this little fic I wrote 🤍.
Pairing: ballet dancer!reader x prince!Taki
Genre: Fluff, as requested by giftee. A little crack cause I couldn’t help but make it silly. I’m serious
Warnings? Reader experiences a major ankle injury (you did this Taki) reader’s pronouns are she/her. There’s a kiss at the end.
Today is the day.
Today is the day the artistic director will announce it, the names of those who auditioned for the roles.
And Y/n finally got the part she has always yearned for.
The role of Clara in The Nutcracker.
Everyone wanted to be Clara. Only the most skilled and talented people get those kinds of roles. And everyone was focused on getting that role. Why? Well of course because the role is an important one. All the attention will be on you if you were the one dancing as Clara.
So of course when the artistic director said Y/n’s name as the girl who plays Clara, everyone had mixed reactions;
“What? I worked so hard for that”
“I’m so happy for her” “yeah she deserves it” “I did see her late at night practicing, so yeah absolutely deserved”
“This has to be sabotaged”
Vanessa Smith, the former ‘favorite’ said as she glared at Y/n.
As Y/n was happily celebrating with her friends, she felt as if she was being watched. So as one has a feeling as such, she looked around, and she thought correct when her eyes laid on Vanessa’s glaring gaze.
Y/n sweetly smiled as Vanessa only to receive no response from her. Y/n’s face frowned upon seeing Vanessa be irresponsive.
“Don’t worry Y/n, she’s just jealous you got picked to be Clara.”
“Yeah I mean at the end, you’re the one dancing for the prince.”
One after another, Y/n’s friends chipped in with affirmations to try and cheer Y/n up. After a few more praises and cheers, Y/n finally cheered up and began getting ready to learn the first steps to Clara’s dance in The Nutcracker.
As the artistic director taught Y/n the first sixteen steps of Clara’s dance, she started remembering when she was a child, how she wanted to be a ballerina when she grew up.
Little Y/n was sitting on the floor, two barbie dolls in each of her hands. One had a ballerina tutu and the other had a beautiful pink gown.
She moved then as if to show that they are dancing, left to right, round and round. She hummed music for the as she moved them from side to side delicately.
“Oh wow look at you making your barbies dance like ballerinas” Y/n’s mother smiled as she was preparing Y/n’s snack for the day.
“No mum, this one isn’t a ballerina” she lifted the one wearing a gown “she’s just swaying to the music this one is dancing to” she lift the barbie wearing a tutu.
“Sweetheart, do you want to be a ballerina or a princess?” Y/n’s mother questioned as she approached her daughter.
“Can I be both?” Y/n asked. Her mother laughed and shook her head “No baby, you can only choose one” she folded her pinky, ring, middle fingers and thumb to form a number one, showing her daughter as she continued “If you were a princess, they won’t let you be a ballerina, cause they have all these crazy rules about being delicate and untouched blah blah blah. But if you were a ballerina, you’d be too busy to be a princess, you’ll have shows day and night, practice day and night. So.. which one is it?”
Y/n looked at her mother, then her gaze dropped to her dolls, going left to the ballerina, then going right to the princess.
“I want to be a ballerina. Now”
Her mother laughed at her daughter’s cuteness, placing a hand on her chest. “Now? Like actually right now?”
Y/n nodded, she was always so ambitious once she puts her mind on something.
What happened next was very very simple.
Y/n’s mother signed her up to a ballet class. Y/n kept excelling in every class and show she did.
One day, an employee of the Royal Ballet Theatre was attending her daughter’s show, that’s when she saw 10 year old Y/n on that stage. Dancing so delicately and beautifully, it’s like the music moves with her, not her moving with the music.
Long story short, Y/n has been climbing the fame ladder ever since.
Y/n practiced and practiced, day and night. Till the day finally came.
Little did the whole team know. This show was going to be different.
“Places everyone, places. Ready Y/n? Our Clara” the director said smiling at Y/n making her blush as she nodded her head, “I was born ready” “That’s what I want to to hear”.
As the show began with dancers left snd right, dancing as they practiced. One after another their facial expressions went from shocked to quickly changing it back to normal.
Y/n noticed their faces changing as she watched from the side of the stage, “Why are they shocked?” The director shrugged her shoulders “Maybe they each saw a ghost in the audience?” Y/n laughed and shook her head “I guess I’ll have to see that with my own eyes, I’ll report back to you after I do my first dance” Y/n said as she got in position, standing on her pointes.
As she always is, Y/n was delicate as she did her part as Clara, spinning and dancing on stage as if there were no one watching. That is until she saw him. Prince Takayama Riki, Prince of Japan.
As their eyes locked, Y/n felt herself slip, her ankle hitting the floor with a loud pop!
As Y/n was rushed to the medical examiner, he noticed something strange seeping from Y/n’s pointe shoes as they sat her down on a chair, “Oil?” He questioned looking at Y/n. “Did you do this to yourself miss Y/n?” Y/n was quick to deny “No of course not, why would I self sabotage myself? I just want to dance” “Well, I can tell you that whoever did this, they don’t like you very much. You need to rest for three weeks-” “Three weeks? I can’t rest, we have shows day and night, I can’t rest” “I know that this is important to you, but your health is more important. Listen to me, you won’t be able to dance in this condition, you can barely walk, let alone dance ballet. Take my word, rest up. I’ll put a cast around your foot, you’ll need crutches to walk around” Said the medical examiner as he quickly brought the tools to make a cast around Y/n’s foot. Y/n winced in pain as she held to her best friend Yuna “It’s okay bestie, at least you get three weeks off from this hell, right? You always wanted a break” Yuna tried to lighten up the mood by telling Y/n how much she wanted a break “Well yeah, but I was joking. I didn’t mean it” Y/n laughed but it was cut off by a wince “Did you see him?” Yuna asked as she look down at Y/n, Y/n looked up into Yuna’s eyes and slowly nodded her head “I locked eyes with him, that’s when my ankle gave up” Y/n and Yuna giggled.
“Are you okay Y/n? You didn’t look like you were in pain when your ankle popped” the director asked Y/n “Yeah I didn’t feel pain, I think the adrenaline of looking a prince in the eye made my pain disappear” Y/n answered. “Wait THE PRINCE? Japan’s own prince? The next one in line?” All the other dancers nodded their heads. “Oh so you’re telling me, your ass fell in front of prince Riki? That’s not gonna be good”
And as if on cue, the second the director finished saying his sentence, two security guards busted door open, followed by non other than the prince himself. His highness, Prince Takayama Riki of Japan.
“You’re the beautiful ballerina I locked eyes with? Are you okay?” Asked the prince.
The whole team was too shocked to speak.
Until the director broke the twenty second silence that felt too long.
“His highness asked you a question Y/n,” “Answer him”
And as if she was brought back to life, Y/n shook off all the thoughts clouding her mind and nodded her head up and down with a sweet smile plastered on her face “yes, yes your highness, I’m the one you locked eyes with”
“May we be left alone?” The prince asked looking around at the whole team, they eventually understood and all left the side of the stage to leave them alone.
At first, the two did nothing, partly because Y/n was sat on a chair with a cast around her foot.
Then, the prince approached Y/n, she bowed her head to him as a form of curtsy. Her eyes never leaving his, searching for some sort of reason as to why he decided to come all this way from the royal room and to the side of the stage.
He then sat next to her which took Y/n by surprise, her tutu’s fabric laced with the hem of his jacket.
They both looked at the fabric’s interaction, no words were spoken as the light above them surrounded them with warmth.
Y/n sneaked a glance up to his eyes, only to find him looking at her.
One thing led to another, and now they’re kissing.
Lips dancing together, as if they’re doing their own kind of ballet.
[A/n: this is total shit, you know it, and I know it. It was an amazing idea, but I didn’t know how to make it work, anyhow this is from me to @slytherinshua 🤗🤗I hope you liked it, you can imagine it better cause honestly I went through hell and back trying to write it 😭 ]
ur reblog of the pantheon series fics unlocked my brain omfg i havent read them in so long 😭🥀
Me tooo🥹 I’ve been looking for it for so long bcuz the author deactivated their account but thank god I found this angel who reblogged all of the author’s amazing work 🥹🥹🥹
concept: pushed to his limits, heeseung arrives at his brothers' pearly gates to take what is owed to him. he knows very well what this will involve, what his brothers will try so hard to keep, but he won't be so easily swayed. at least, he didn't think so.
it turns out there is something hidden in this palace that he wants more.
w/c: 13.9k
warning: god au, religious themes, religious imagery, fire imagery, in depth discussions of death, reincarnation & souls; sexually explicit content, god fucking, body worship, vaginal sex, multiple positions, *unprotected sex, coming inside
There is a change in the air, a heavy foreboding that causes Jungwon to sit up in his bed, the blankets pooling around his waist. His goddess stirs beside him, sitting up slowly at his side. He throws the blankets back, getting dressed as quickly as he can, knowing very well what comes. His goddess blinks her soft eyes at him, watching but not moving, confusion in her expression. Once dressed, Jungwon rushes back to her side, cupping her face in his hands.
“Do not leave this room,” he tells her with nothing but urgency. She frowns, fear starting to bleed into her expression. “Promise me.”
“I promise, I will not leave this room,” she assures him and he kisses her gently on the forehead. He leaves her side, reluctant as ever, pushing his way past the curtain.
His feet take him down from his tower, to the ground of the palace, all but running for the front hall. He can hear the echo of his brothers’ feet, all of them quickly converging on the courtyard at the front of the palace, the gates that are usually closed. He knows that when he gets there, they will not be. He knows that by the time he reaches the courtyard, it will be far, far too late for any of them.
When they all reach the courtyard, the gates are hanging open, sparking golden and creaking in the wind. Jungwon can feel his heart in his throat, the ominous sound of them and the darkening sky causing goosebumps to arise across his flesh.
“Heeseung’s home,” Sunoo whispers at his side.
Regrettably, they know they have to find him and face him. And find him they do, in the grand hall, surrounded by the opulence they’ve all come to know. He’s sitting on the edge of the fountain, watching it fall from the tall spout, rolling over the edges into the pool below. Jungwon takes the lead, approaching him in front of all of them, knowing well exactly who he’s come to see. Heeseung smirks as soon as Jungwon is close, slowly lifting his gaze from the sparkling pool of water.
His brother hasn’t changed at all, Jungwon can’t help but think, from the knowing glint in his dark eyes to the sheen of his silver hair, constantly draped in black. For all that Jungwon is the one who sent him there, he hoped that one day Heeseung would understand his decision, but he never has. Instead he sits opposite him, all of them, as though they are his enemies. Jungwon never wanted that, but it’s far too late.
“What brings you home?” Jungwon asks.
“You know very well what brings me home,” Heeseung says, getting off the edge of the fountain to face them, straightening himself out. He stands toe to toe with his younger brother, but Jungwon won’t back down. Not this time. “After all this time, I thought we had an understanding,” Heeseung says, faux sympathy coating his tone as he tilts his head. “I took your punishment very well, all things considered. The least you could do is continue to uphold the agreement we made. I am in charge of the balance of this world and yet you act without thought. I thought better of you, brother.”
“It was never without thought. You can’t honest think—”
“What I honestly think of you is irrelevant,” Heeseung cuts him off. He rolls his eyes as he walks around Jungwon. Jungwon sighs heavily, turning around to keep his brother in his line of sight. He wouldn’t dare to not. “What I honestly think of any of you is irrelevant when you’ve all been acting so rashly. Impulsivity doesn’t suit any of you,” he says, his eyes running over his other brothers. Sunghoon clenches his hands while Jongseong’s jaw sets. “Well, except maybe you, Jaeyun,” he adds. Jaeyun’s eyes blaze and Heeseung laughs softly, turning around to face Jungwon again. “You know why I’m here.”
“I know. And I’m prepared to make a deal,” Jungwon informs him. Heeseung laughs again, crossing his arms over his chest.
“A deal? A bunch of mortals is enough for the King of the Gods to make a deal with me? What have they been putting in your offerings?” Heeseung mocks him. Jungwon glares back at him. “If you think I’m willing to make a deal based solely on the lives of six mortals, you’d be wrong.” A confused crease appears in Jungwon’s brow and Heeseung scoffs, throwing his head back. “Oh, you’ve no idea the things our brothers have done for their goddesses.” He lowers his head with a pitying gaze. “This is what you get for letting them run so wild.” He steps closer. “If I had been king, this never would’ve happened.”
“Mother didn’t want you king,” Jongseong spits and Heeseung leans away from Jungwon, pursing his lips. “You think we’re uncontrollable? Nothing would’ve stopped you, and you know it.”
“Because this is what we all wanted, is it?” Heeseung says, whipping around to glare at him. “The chance to throw our entire existence into question because you couldn’t control yourself?” He steps towards Jongseong. “A whole village, promised to me, and instead you promised it to her! You swore their safety, and for what?!” His eyes glow with black flames as he glares at Jongseong. “There are souls rotting in my library that should be on the river and are not. The balance of our lives is completely thrown. Her life is hardly the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what I deserve!”
“Well, you won’t be getting it,” Jungwon says, his voice calm. Heeseung sighs, closing his eyes. “Any of them.”
“If you’d like, we could always fight you again,” Sunghoon says and Heeseung’s eyes open, sliding to him. “You know you won’t win.”
“I didn’t come here to be thrown into the abyss. Again,” he deadpans. “I came for what I’m owed. And if I will not have it,” he turns back to Jungwon, “an equal exchange is required.”
“And what, pray tell, is equal in exchange?” Jungwon asks.
“Well, that’s hardly up to me,” Heeseung replies. “After all, I’m sure to the six of you, your goddesses are priceless and perfect. I can place whatever price I want on them and it still would not equal in your eyes. And you know so well how much I value an equal exchange,” he drawls, causing Jungwon’s eyes to narrow. “So, you decide.” He closes the distance between himself and his brother who calls himself King once more. “I’ll give you… 24 hours to make a deal with me? At the end of the next 24 hours, if you all are still incapable of coming to a decision, I guess I’ll just have to take what I am owed.” Jungwon clenches his jaw and Heeseung smirks. “Think on it, brother. You’re smart, I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
Heeseung leaves the grand hall, pushing through his other brothers, in a flutter of black and silver. Jungwon stumbles back against the fountain, gripping the edge of it as soon as Heeseung has gone. As with every interaction with his brother, he could feel the power that came off of him in waves, draining him. Were it not for all six of them working together in tandem, they never would’ve chained him to the underworld.
“What will you do?” Jongseong asks immediately, stepping forward. “You cannot give into him.”
“It’s hardly about giving in,” Sunoo points out, causing Jongseong to turn his attention to him, though reluctant as he is. “He’s right.” Jongseong huffs, looking away from the Sun God though Sunoo looks at Jungwon imploringly. “There are mortal lives that he is owed due to the deals we made. We changed the course of history by not handing them to him. If we wish to keep the balance, we have to give him something.”
“Would you like to give him your goddess first?” Jaeyun quips, his tone clipped. Sunoo turns to him with glowing, white eyes, barely restraining himself. Jungwon walks forward, gently touching Sunoo’s chest and his brother’s eyes slowly die back down to their amber warmth but his expression doesn’t change, nor falter from Jaeyun.
“We cannot fight amongst each other if we want to come up with a solution,” Jungwon points out, his gaze swinging from Sunoo to Jaeyun, who looks away from Jungwon’s pointed gaze.
“What solution do we have?” Riki speaks and they all turn to their softest spoken brother. “Sunoo and I both saved our loves from death, Sunghoon and Jongseong entire villages for theirs. You and Jaeyun might be the only ones who’s goddesses didn’t cost a soul to save. What could possibly match the weight of that? You know how Heeseung is,” Riki says. He walks forward towards Jungwon, staring at him with wide, worried eyes. Jungwon’s hand falls from Sunoo’s chest with a heavy sigh. “He will weigh them, he will not just take our word. Just any deal will not appease him.” Riki shifts uncomfortably. “Heeseung will want something of value.”
“Of all the things, we’ve indebted ourselves to our eldest brother,” Sunghoon mutters, shaking his head. “A fate worse than death.”
To say that Heeseung didn’t know this would be a lie. He knows very well that there are very few things in this world, godly or otherwise, that will carry enough weight for what he asks for. He knows it and is quite glad to play such a game with his brothers. He knows they will flounder for a solution that does not exist, they will look for a way to weasel their way out of this exchange, this deal he’s so graciously bestowed upon them, only to come up short. He knows it and he will take great pleasure in every moment that they struggle with their own hubris. They are too prideful to admit it and he will make them watch as he takes every single one of their goddesses from them.
In the meantime, he has no other choice but to bide his time in the palace. He could return home, the shackle of it weighs on him, reminding him that he’s not welcome here, but he refuses to let this chance pass him by. He will be a constant reminder to his brothers for the next 24 hours that their options are slim to none to save the lives of their loved ones.
Its opulence chokes him. He can barely stand it, the way they live in such luxury while he spends his days surrounded by the gray, rushing waters of the river, forced to sit on the other side of it, watching souls come close but hardly ever do they make landing. He’s been forced to watch from afar for too long, though maybe it truly is better this way. Now he’s unsuited to this, the thin air, the sparkling white and gold of the place, everything. It’s enough to make him sick.
When he retreats to the gardens it’s simply because he can’t stand to look at the wide expanse of white and gold before him anymore. It’s blinding and horrible, truly he does not understand how they all manage to be surrounded by such eyesores as these.. The gardens extend before him, lush and warm, almost enough to give him joy. Still, when he touches the hedges, they shrink from his fingertips, wilting and turning brown. Somehow he can’t find it in himself to be surprised, instead taking his hand away, folding them behind his back to wander around blindly.
It’s while he’s in the garden that he hears it. The sound of singing, coming from deep within the gardens. There is something about the call of the voice from inside that draws him in. While the gardens, trees and bushes and flowers, grow thicker around him he’s forced to try and push his way through to see what is hiding inside. Despite the way the flora scrapes against his hands, retreating from his deathly touch, he does not stop. It is like he can’t stop himself as the trees encroach on him, when he sees it. Sees you.
The river that falls down to earth from these heights lies beside you, rushing with clear water, the sound of which accompanies your voice. Heeseung thinks briefly of how sad you sound, like agony, like tragedy. He leans against the tree beside him, once he has passed the threshold of cloying flowers and shrubs, hardly giving the wilt of the bark any mind as he watches you sing, your fingers dipping into the water beside you. You’re wearing clothes of cream, a crown of flowers on your head. If he didn’t know any better, he would think you one of the goddesses his brothers have fallen so desperately for but you cannot be. Surely, none of them would’ve let you out of their sight, much less a place where he can find you so alone.
You stop singing slowly, sighing to yourself once your voice trickles to a stop. Heeseung pushes off from the tree to approach you, knowing he walks silently, like the death that he embodies. There is something about you, the way the light hits your profile, lashing casting shadows down your cheeks from your forlorn expression. You don’t see him coming, your eyes focused on the water below you, until he’s crouched beside you. Almost as if sensing you’re no longer alone, you turn towards him. Finding him right beside you, your breath catches, jerking away from him.
“Heeseung,” you gasp. You lean away from him, trying to put space between yourself and the God of Death but Heeseung is faster, wrapping an arm around your middle.
“Leaving so soon. When I don’t even know your name,” he teases you, a sharp smile pulling at his lips. You swallow, gripping his shoulders to try and push him off of you. “You have such a lovely voice, my dear,” he insists, holding you tightly, his other hand landing on the edge of the riverbed, keeping you imprisoned in his touch. “What could I do but come to you? What a beautiful Muse you are,” he whispers salaciously. With all your strength, you push him off of you, throwing yourself backwards.
You land in the grass, rolling over to try and get away. Amused by your actions, Heeseung isn’t so easily deterred, dragging you back by your ankle. You yelp, pulling all the way back to him until you’re pinned beneath his body. He forces you onto your back, staring down at you.
“How rude,” he admonishes you softly. You whimper, trapped beneath the elder god. You are hardly a goddess, just a Muse. Though you might be godly, imbued with immortality and powers, It means nothing in the face of the God of Death. He knows you cannot fight him off, forcing you to relent to him, fingers fisted in the front of his shirts as you squirm beneath him. “I know I hardly come off as approachable but to run off so quickly,” he mocks you, brushing the backs of his fingers over your cheek.
“Let me go. Jaeyun will—”
“My brother is spineless and childish, he’ll do nothing,” Heeseung hisses to you, knowingly. “Tell me your name and I’ll let you go, my dear. It is the least I deserve after such a rude display.”
“Y-Y/N,” you stutter out and Heeseung smiles. He gets off of you, allowing you the ability to slip out from beneath him. You crawl away from him, curling into yourself once there is a bit of space between the two of you. Heeseung rolls onto his back, propped up on his elbows, looking at you. You catch your breath, avoiding his piercing gaze.
“Well, what’re you still doing here? Shouldn’t you be running?” Heeseung goads you, making his eyes flash black and menacing. You swallow roughly around the lump in your throat. “Unless you aren’t really that scared of me,” he teases you, reaching out towards you. His fingertips brush your ankle, causing you to flinch away. “Muses, all the same. Jaeyun has always adored you, hasn’t he?” Heeseung comments. His fingertips still just barely graze your skin though you daren’t meet his gaze. You don’t see the softness in his expression. “Before his goddess, that is. Perhaps he’s grown tired of you?” He questions, bringing his gaze up from your ankle. Though you still don’t meet his gaze, he sees the way your expression drops, despondent once more like how he found you. “Is that why you’re alone? You poor, neglected thing…” he coos with faux sympathy, crawling towards you. You shuffle back, away from him, trying to curl up tighter, away from his reaching fingers.
“Stop!” You bark, “you don’t know what you’re talking about!” Heeseung stops, falling back. “What’re you even doing here?” You finally lift your gaze to look at him. “Shouldn’t you be away, beneath the Earth, handling the dead? Isn’t that where you belong?” You remark, tone acidic. Heeseung sighs, collapsing back into the grass. You don’t miss the way it wilts beneath him, turning yellow. You watch with a sort of morbid curiosity as the God before you doesn’t even seem to notice.
“Such a sweet, pretty thing and yet you speak with such sharp words.” He turns his head towards you, his silver hair falling into his dark eyes. You swallow, struck by how handsome he is. All your life, yours and the other Muses, you’ve heard Jaeyun spin tales of his eldest brother, how ugly he is. Perhaps it was just in personality, because you see nothing but beauty in his face. His gaze meets yours steadily behind the curtain of his hair. “Where I belong is such a harsh thing to say to me, don’t you think?”
“It’s where you were sent,” you remind him, though your tone isn’t as hard as it was previously. “Where your brothers imprisoned you.”
“A great many eons ago,” he confirms. “But I’m more powerful than them. Their gates are not indestructible, I am more than capable of coming to see them. Not forever,” he lets his head fall back against the ground once more, staring back up towards the sky, “but for short whiles. I’m sorry that my brother managed to leave that out.”
“What brings you here now?” You can’t help but wonders, your own curiosities getting the better of you.
“I am owed something,” Heeseung admits to you. You tilt your head, not understanding. Heeseung smiles and then turns to you again, but his smile is hardly kind. “Not that it’s any of your concern, Muse. The tragedy of my life is hardly something for you to worry your pretty self with.” He rolls over to climb to his feet and you flinch away from him as he stands, brushing himself off. “I meant what I said,” he tells you, looking down at you. “Your voice is very beautiful.” You can’t help but be struck by the way he says it, almost kindly.
“Thank you,” you whisper. He departs shortly, leaving you alone. You curl your legs even closer to yourself, wrapping your arms around them. You can’t help the way your eyes follow him as he walks out, slipping between the trees until he disappears from view.
On the other side of the garden, Heeseung pauses. He leans back against the trees, listening out for your voice. It doesn’t return though it echoes through his mind. When he lets his head drop back against the tree, he smiles softly to himself. Perhaps, just maybe, he was a bit hasty in his convictions.
24 hours is hardly any time at all, they all know this, and by the time Sunoo is forced to raise the sun in the morning again, they’ve all talked themselves to death. The knowledge of what comes weighs heavily on their minds, as they know Heeseung will make the decision for them. They won’t simply allow it, they’ll sooner throw Heeseung back to his abyss than let him simply think he can take whatever he wants, but they all knew that this price might come. Even if they deny him, he will demand something of great value if not the souls he’s unable to attain.
The sun has risen above the horizon when Heeseung lets himself back into the grand hall, a grin upon his face. Never has Jongseong felt such a strong urge to throw his brother back into the abyss from whence he came than by that look of utter satisfaction that is written across his expression. He stands before Heeseung can get too close, blocking him from getting closer to Jungwon.
“Oh, are we fighting already, Jongseong? I knew you might grow tired of me but so soon?” Heeseung mocks him.
“Your greed will be your downfall,” Jongseong warns him. Heeseung laughs in amusement.
“Greed? I have greed because you are the one who made an agreement without giving it thought. I’m greedy because I am fulfilling the role that which you so graciously bestowed upon me, by the way,” he points out, causing Jongseong’s expression to tighten, “all those eons ago. If you would like me to step down from weighing the souls of mortals so that someone else may do it, I would gladly, but they must be weighed.” Heeseung leans towards him, his expression turning dark. “Everything must be in balance. I believe you were the one who insisted upon it.”
“Tell us what you want,” Jungwon says, hopeful to avoid bloodshed. Heeseung leans away from Jongseong, stepping around his seething brother to approach where Jungwon remains seated. “Surely you know that we have nothing to offer you.” Heeseung smirks, clearly having expected such an admission. His other brothers won’t even look at him. “So name your price. Just know that it will not be their souls.”
“That is what I asked for,” Heeseung reminds him and Jungwon glares up at him. “Theirs and all the mortals that you made the mistake of letting live. Those souls are crowding my shelves, I haven’t the room for the mistakes you have allowed to happen,” he insists, leaning menacingly towards his brother. “Prepared to make a deal with me, little brother? You are hardly meant to be king.”
“Would you like to be thrown back into the river once more?” Sunghoon says, jumping to his feet. Heeseung looks to him, lifting a brow. “We may have made our mistakes, but you are hardly the God Jungwon is. Mother insisted upon your disposal, you should thank him for your life.”
“Thank him, for an eternity of solitude?” He says, straightening up to face Sunghoon. “Well, let me drop to my knees!” Heeseung snarls. “How dare I expect to be treated as equal with you, at the very least? Without me, this world would’ve destroyed itself already. You should be thanking me!” He demands, eyes blazing.
“Make your choice,” Jungwon demands, getting to his feet. Heeseung turns back to him and Jungwon’s eyes crackle with lightning. “But know that it will not be them. You may take the souls you so desire if that is really what you want. Let it consume you, your need for balance, but you will not have the goddesses.”
The blazing fire in Heeseung’s eyes extinguishes and he smirks.
“You will do anything. Truly, it is almost admirable. Almost… romantic,” he comments, and Jungwon’s eyes become brown once more, surprised by his eldest brother’s tone, his consideration. “Let me offer you a deal then, brother,” Heeseung says, smirking. Jungwon’s brow creases in confusion, shifting slightly away, concerned for what Heeseung might propose. “The weight of a few mortals is far from that of a goddesses’ soul and we all know it. Especially six of them. However, I might be amenable to an exchange of another goddess.”
“Whom do you ask for?” Jungwon asks.
“Y/N,” Heeseung says, a smile on his lips. “Tragedy.”
“You are shameless!” Jaeyun insists, getting to his feet. Jungwon glances away though and Heeseung knows Jungwon is considering it. “To take a goddess for another is low, even for you, brother. What makes you think—”
“I think,” Heeseung cuts him off, cutting him a look, “that the price of a lesser goddess is well worth it to you. After all, how much attention do those Muses even get with your adoration of yours?” He mocks him and Jaeyun clenches his fists at his sides. “Offer me thanks, Jaeyun, I am taking one off of your hands. You will have so much more time to waste in the arms of your lover.”
“Why you—” Jaeyun says, stepping towards him. Sunoo pulls on his wrist to stop him from advancing further on Heeseung.
“I cannot give her to you outright,” Jungwon says and Heeseung’s gaze swings to him. “She is a goddess, her soul has never been bound to the Earth. She must give it to you of her own volition. You must get her to agree,” Jungwon warns him and Heeseung nods, accepting the terms. He knows very well, after all. “However, if you manage it, she will be yours. You may have her as recompense.”
“Jungwon,” Riki hisses but Jungwon won’t meet any of their eyes.
“I knew you could be reasonable, Jungwon,” Heeseung says with a grin. “After all, you’re saving so many souls this way,” he mocks him, Jungwon closing his eyes against the guilt that eats at him. Heeseung then turns to Jaeyun, who is still burning with rage. “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of her.” He turns on his heel, leaving them. Only once he’s left the room does Sunoo finally let go of Jaeyun, who turns to Jungwon.
“Do you know the things he might do to her?!” Jaeyun points out. “Heeseung will manipulate her, she will agree. Once she gives him her word, she’ll be trapped down there, his to own. How could you—”
“I did what I had to,” Jungwon finally says, voice soft. “I am hardly proud of it. So you best remember the choices we’ve been forced to make when you lie with your lovers tonight.”
“It’s like you’ve not even left,” Heeseung says, startling you. You thought for sure that he would’ve left by now, but he edges through the trees and bushes to approach you, your eyes darting between him and the way the nature seems to shrink away from his touch, turning yellow and brown when he brushes against it only to turn green and lush once he passes it. It saddens you, though not for the reasons one might expect. Your eyes land on him when he gets to you, kneeling beside you on the ground. “Perhaps I’m just lucky.”
“Why’re you still here?” You ask and he laughs softly.
“Blunt, aren’t you?” Heeseung asks and you shrug, looking away from him, your fingertips dipped into the river. He leans towards you, almost touching you as he watches the river rush past your fingertips. “So strange,” he whispers and you resist the urge to jump at how close his voice is, “seeing water such as this. I’m not particularly familiar with water so clear you can see the bottom.”
“The Sanzu must be very different to this,” you whisper and Heeseung’s eyes focus on you instead of the river.
“It is,” he whispers. His hand touches your waist gently. He watches you shiver but you don’t look at him. “The waters are so deep and fast, nearly uncrossable in most places. I watch souls attempt to cross through its snake infested waters all the time. Watch as they’re dragged beneath the waves.” A chill creeps over your body. “But most are afforded the bridge. The ones that are allowed the ford, they are few and far between.”
“Can a river like that truly have a ford?” You ask, turning to look at him. You jerk back, surprised to see him so close.
“The Sanzu is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Trust me, you’d be amazed by it,” Heeseung tells you, lifting his free hand to your cheek, tucking your hair behind your ear. “I think it’s rather unfortunate you’ve never seen it. Given that you are tragedy after all.” You hold your breath, trying to remain unaffected but he can see the surprise in your eyes. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out? There are so few who understand sadness and agony like me, after all. Maybe that’s why I was drawn to your voice,” his fingers brush over the roundness of your cheek.
“What do you want?” You ask, trying to swallow down your fear. You know the whispers, what people say about Heeseung, that he is more than just a God of Death. He knows very well what he is, what kind of powers he possesses. It cannot be a coincidence that he might come back to you, speaking to you with such kindness. Not after he trapped you beneath him, forcing your compliance.
“I should’ve figured you would see right through me,” Heeseung sighs. “I have a proposition for you, pretty. A deal that you might… be willing to take, if you’re as kind as I believe you to be.” You watch him and his eyes meet yours slowly. “You see, I was owed something, something that brought me here. That something was a few very precious souls that my brothers… well, they’d do just about anything to avoid giving them to me.”
“Who do they belong to?” You whisper.
“Their goddesses,” Heeseung tells you and your eyes widen in surprise. “Before they were brought here, they were just mortals. Simple, and unknowing. And I’m sure you’re well aware that souls of mortals belong to me. All of them.” You nod, hesitantly. “Well, I simply came to collect. Everyone dies, it’s my job to make sure of it.”
“What does this have to do with me?” You ask. He smiles softly, cupping your cheek in hand.
“My brothers and I came to an understanding regarding these souls, but you have to understand, everything comes with a price,” he tells you. “And this price, is you.”
“Me?” You gasp. “Why me?”
“Are you not tragedy, my dear?” Heeseung asks you, stroking his thumb over your cheek. “Are you not the one thing in this whole wretched world that might understand me?” He pulls you closer, pressing your chest against his, taking your breath with it. “Death is my life, and it’s such a terribly lonely existence. You understand, don’t you?” You look into his eyes, shrouded slightly by his silver hair, dark brown and staring so intently you feel as though you can feel it in your soul. “Surely you do. While the rest of the muses experience the joy of things like poetry and prose and song you continue to be cursed by the agony of it all. Happiness is but a fleeting dream when the only call you are allowed to answer is that of death and disaster.”
Unfortunately, he’s right. You’ve never minded too much, but even you know that you’re far from Jaeyun’s favorite, from anyone’s favorite. You’ve always known you’re barely departed from the God of Death, drawn here to the heavens but brought down to earth to see the saddest parts of humanity. You’ve never been to the river but you’ve seen the souls that depart for it, never to be seen again. It haunts you, and you’re all the more lonely for it.
Could Heeseung truly be just as so?
“Do you see?” He asks, words whispered to you. “The only thing I ask is you, in exchange for all the rest of them. You would be saving them, and me,” he coos. You look into his eyes, expression softened, almost pained. Your heart aches in sympathy and you touch his cheek gently. His eyes flutter softly when you touch him, leaning his head into your palm. Despite his godliness, he does not emanate warmth like the others, as human as the ones you’ve seen below. Truly he is othered by his brothers, he must be.
“What would I have to do?” You ask and Heeseung smiles. He knew you wouldn’t refuse.
“Give me your word,” he tells you. “And become mine.”
“I will,” you agree.
“I was so hoping you would understand,” he coos, bringing his hand down from your face to your chest. His fingers move aside the v of your neckline, revealing the center of your chest to him. You go to flinch back but he holds fast to your waist, not letting you move an inch. “Oh, no, pretty, you misunderstand,” he whispers. “You gave me your word. You belong to me.” His eyes blaze with black flames as his fingers touch your bare skin and you gasp through the pain that rips through you.
It’s like you’ve been engulfed by flames, licking at your skin, melting you down to the bones. Your hand falls from his face to grip at his arms desperately as he smirks, watching your wide eyes stare into his.
“Hurts,” you whisper, the only word you can get out through the unbearable pain and he coos again, but this time he mocks you with it. You feel as though you have never been more foolish in your immortal life.
“I’m sure it does,” he hisses, staring intently into your eyes.
Your eyes roll back into your head, gasping through the pain that rocks through your body, agony like you’ve never felt it before. Your fingers dig into his forearms, your head thrown back as you try not to scream. Darkness starts to take over your vision as you succumb to the horrendous pain, collapsing in Heeseung’s arms.
When you wake, you wake alone. You throw yourself upright in bed, the blankets of pitch black gathering around your waist as you gasp for air. The air is thick and heavy in your lungs, an ache in the middle of your chest making it hard for you to get a full breath in. You reach down for the front of your dress, pulling the folds of the fabric open to see what he’s done. With a trembling hand you touch the scarred words into your skin, his name burned into your flesh.
Lee Heeseung is written across your skin, and you resist the urge to sob. You press your fingers against the smarting wounds, knowing there’s nothing else you can do. It’s too late. He’s taken you.
When you finally drag yourself from the blankets, you stagger across the cold stone beneath your feet, trying to find your way out of the bedroom that you’re in. The furnishings are all made of wood and stone and decorated in black and silver. It’s dim, lit only by a few sconces on the walls, kerosene lamps lighting your way. You try to get out as quickly as you can, pushing your way out the sliding wood door, stumbling into the hallway.
Wherever you are, it’s freezing cold, the thin dress you wear far from enough to keep you warm. You have to wrap your arms around yourself as you walk down the cavernous halls, high ceilings of gray stone above your head, the walls all lined with kerosene lamps. It’s dim, the air heavy as you try to make your way towards something. Towards anything at all, just to figure out where you are.
Every door you try to open is locked, refusing to budge even when you pull on their flimsy, wooden frames. You try every door along the long hallway, hopeful to find someone, anyone who might be able to help you. You know you belong to Heeseung but you can’t stand the idea of it, being left alone in his room, helpless. You just keep trying doors, desperately hoping someone might be inside one of them or, at the very least, one of them will be open so that you can hide from him in peace.
You get to the end of the hall, only to realize that you’re at the end of the line. The walls of the hallway fall away and you’re standing at the edge of a river, a great rushing river of gray water, running past you never-endingly. In both directions, the river stretches out so far it eventually turns into nothing but fog, extending out for what must be an eternity. You don’t need to be told what it is, you know what river you’re looking at. Before you, in the middle of the path, there is a bridge, arching upwards, a steep climb from where you stand. You try to catch your breath but the roaring water is too much, the air humid. You’re standing on unsteady legs, unfamiliar with the stone beneath your feet, which causes you to sway dangerously towards the edge of the river as you try to get a full breath in.
A hand around your arm pulls you back, throwing you into the chest of the person that tugs you from the edge. You let go of yourself to touch the person that grabbed you, using them to stay upright. They let go of you as soon as you do though and you fall heavily to the stone flooring, right on your backside. When you lift your gaze, Heeseung is staring down at you.
“Do you know what would’ve happened to you if you had fallen in?” He tells you, glaring down at you. “I never would’ve been able to get you out. Souls that fall into the river's waters don’t come out. Don’t get so close, even I can’t save you.”
“Well, considering I woke up lost and alone, I don’t know what you expected!” You retort, getting back to your feet. Heeseung surveys you critically, watching you struggle to your feet. “Where have you even been? After all that nonsense you gave me at the palace—”
“I had to get you to agree somehow,” he interrupts you and you scoff, shaking your head.
“I am a fool. I thought you had a heart, but clearly you’re as empty and hollow as Jaeyun has always said you are,” you accuse him, making Heeseung’s eyes blaze. “If the only thing you ever wanted in exchange for the others was my soul, then go on! Take it! It’s clearly the only thing you care about!” You insist, leaning towards him.
Heeseung’s fingers are suddenly pressing painfully into your chest, right above where his name has been written into your skin. He presses them in hard enough to ache, and it feels like something is stealing your breath right from you. Heeseung watches you with dark eyes full of black fire as you gasp for air, his fingers moving slowly up your chest, towards your throat. It’s choking you, something wet and thick rising up within you. Not your throat, not your windpipe, something deeper, intangible, as his index and middle fingers trace their way up your skin.
It rises up your neck, until it’s in the back of your throat, your mouth, hot and wet and pulsing. Your hands wrap around your throat, still you can’t breathe until you’re forced to open your mouth as Heeseung’s fingers trace up underneath your jaw and chin. When it pours out of you, you’re shocked to see a glowing ball of liquid, silver like mercury floating between you above his fingers.
“Silver. I expected gold,” Heeseung says. You still cannot breath, choking on nothing, like all the air has been sucked right out of your lungs. A bottle materializes out of thin air, which Heeseung pours the liquid into and then magicks a chain around. With a snap of his fingers, the bottle is hung around your throat and you can breathe again. You look down at the small bottle that hangs from your throat, lifting it gently in your fingertips. “You should be more careful with what you say,” he advises.
“What is this?” You ask, turning the bottle over in your fingertips.
“Your soul,” Heeseung says and your eyes dart up to him. Your hand lets go of it, the bottle bouncing off your collarbones. “Did you forget who I am in such a short, short time period.” He leans towards you menacingly. “If you’d really like me to take it, I can. Oh, I can and I’ll pour it right into the river where it will never be seen again.” You stare at him through wide eyes, Heeseung smirking at you. “I’m showing you kindness by keeping you alive. Perhaps you should think about that.”
“What about the others?” You ask. “You said my soul—”
“It will suffice,” Heeseung says boredly, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest. “For the souls that I desire, even one made of silver is worth plenty. Come with me, I’ll show you what you’re worth.” He tells you, turning to walk away. You hesitate, glancing back at the river. You stare at its gray, rushing waters, swallowing through the fear that threatens to rise through you like your soul previously did. You still ache, but you have no one else to be with other than him. When you look back over Heeseung is standing at the mouth of the hall, leaning against it with a raised brow. You walk over to follow him, Heeseung pushing off to lead you back into the cavern of the underworld.
You discover you ran the wrong way when Heeseung leads you so far inside, past all the previous doors you tried to force open, until you pass the door of the bedroom you ran out of. Strangely, it doesn’t look any different from the other doors that line the walls, small and unassuming. Not far past it the two of you end up at a pair of great, double doors. Heeseung pushes them open, stepping inside with confidence. You follow him, only to stop in the doorway.
Before you is a great room of shelves, all of them lined with bottle upon bottle of liquids. Some of them shine with bright colors, glittery and beckoning, some of them dark, dull and swirling, but many are just gray. They look as though they carry the water of the river inside of them, swishing and churning inside of their bottles. The shelves go on for what feels like forever, rising up towards the high ceiling, wrapping around the massive room. Heeseung pays you no mind, moving to a table that sits in the middle of the massive room. Most of the flooring is draped with carpets and seating, couches and chairs, tables and sitting areas. But in the middle of it, there is a table, covered with a cloth of black that is trimmed in silver, a pewter scale sitting on it.
“Don’t just stand in the doorway all day,” Heeseung says, moving around the bottles that are on the table already. You look over to him, noticing the way he separates them all into pairs. You walk over to him to watch him move, his brow creasing as though he’s working on a particularly difficult puzzle. You stand beside him, tilting your head as he finally picks two of them up.
“What’re you doing?” You ask and Heeseung lifts one into your line of sight. It is gray, as most of them are, swirling inside of its bottle.
“Mortal souls have weight,” Heeseung informs you and you nod in understanding. “Pay attention.” You nod again and he places one on one side of the scale. The scale drops and then he carefully places the second one, darker and duller than the other, onto the other side. The scale struggles to balance them, the darker of the two clearly heavier than the first. It weighs it down, leaving it uneven. “All things in balance,” Heeseung says, plucking the gray bottle from the scale and replacing it with another.
You watch as he readjusts, putting a different, equally as gray liquid filled bottle onto the scale. This time, the scale readjusts, and the two sides sit evenly with each other. Heeseung smiles to himself, picking them both up. You watch as he carelessly throws the both of them, your heart jumping into your throat. They shatter in midair, but nothing spills to the floor. It all seems to disappear from existence, both bottles gone before your very eyes.
“What did you do that for?” You ask and Heeseung turns to you.
“It was their time,” Heeseung tells you. “All the bottles that you see on this table, are well due for their death.” He nods to it and you look over to the way the table is absolutely littered with bottles. Every single one of them must represent a mortal soul. Which means…
“All of these bottles…” You begin, slowly turning to look at him, “are souls?” Heeseung nods in agreement. “So… the souls I’m worth…?”
“They’re… still on their shelves,” Heeseung sighs, rolling his eyes. “Without indication of their time, I haven’t been able to take them down, but you see now, don’t you?” He asks and you tilt your head. He huffs at you. “Your worth, Muse. Your soul is well worth at least 20 or 30 of these simple mortals.” He gestures to the table as whole, which looks as though it’s holding at least that many. “Your soul would tip the scale. Everything in balance,” Heeseung reiterates. “That is what I do. That is my purpose.”
“That is why you…” you trail off but something occurs to you. “But I couldn’t possibly weigh the same as a full fledged goddess.”
“No, you are inconsequential to the weight of a goddess. You will never measure up,” Heeseung sighs. “Unfortunately, I have no grasp of them anymore.” He turns around and you follow his gaze towards the back of the room. He walks towards it and you follow close behind, the case before you becoming clear as you get close enough.
Inside of a glass case, there are bottles, sealed with golden wax on their stoppers, swirling, glittering and effervescent. You watch the colors of them swirl inside of their bottles. Gold, and navy, and red, and white, and blue and purple. Your breath catches when you realize what you are looking at. You turn to Heeseung but he is already looking at you.
“I know not how it happened, but now every single one of my brothers is accompanied by a bottle.” A pair of gold bottles sits at the front but the rest of them are aligned with a bottle of the exact same matching color and shade. You watch them swirl and dance inside of their glass prisons, like the embodiment of joy. “I couldn’t have taken them if I tried,” he turns to look into the glass case with you. “It would’ve ruined everything. There is nothing in this world, in the entire cosmos, that would match the weight of their goddesses except for them.”
“So you would’ve—”
“My brothers hate me,” Heeseung says, “but I still love them. I couldn’t take their lives even if I wanted to.”
“Then why threaten them?” You ask. “Clearly, you couldn’t have them. Those goddesses aren’t yours to take. Why did you—”
“Why do they get to be happy?” Heeseung cuts you off, turning to you with a tense expression, his tone exploding out of him like he can barely hold it in. You jerk back, surprised. “Why do they get lovers while I’m left down here, alone? I may not have been able to kill them, but I have many empty rooms. Would I have taken them prisoner? Perhaps. Would I have found a way to keep them away from my brothers? Found a way to force my brothers to their knees just for what they crave most in the entire universe?” He shrugs. “Perhaps. After all they’ve done to me, would it have really been so bad?”
“You’re… diabolical. Evil. And self centered and greedy and—”
“If you think you’re going to hurt my feelings, think again,” Heeseung tells you. “There is not a thing under Sunoo’s shining rays that I have not been called by my very family.” He leans towards you. “I am not afraid of you, Muse. But don’t forget,” he tucks his finger under your chin, tilting your head up towards his. “When I could’ve taken them, I took you. I’m not truly as horrible as you think I am.”
“Then why take me?”
“Not everything I told you was a lie.” He leans back, letting his hand drop away from your face. “Now you’re more than welcome to stay, but there’s not much else to be seen,” Heeseung tells you. He walks back to his table, still strewn with bottles, carefully organizing them with gentle hands. “Also, every room is yours to choose from.” He waves a hand carelessly but you’re sure all the rooms in his large home have been unlocked. “Unless you can’t stand to depart from my bed,” he comments, looking at you from over his shoulder. You scoff, walking past him and out the doors. Heeseung waves a hand and you startle as the doors are suddenly slammed shut behind you.
For all that Heeseung took you, you spend an inordinate amount of time alone. It’s almost as if you never left the heavens, the only difference being that instead of lush green gardens and sparkling marble towers, it’s nothing but desolate gray stone and cavernous rooms and ceilings. You may have your pick of rooms, but none of them are truly that welcoming. Nothing in this place seems to be much other than a means to an end, a resting place for Heeseung to lay his head and do his work. Everything else is far, far from what one might consider homey.
You spend days wandering the halls, of which you discovered there are many, this lair seeming to be a gigantic labyrinthian maze the longer you walk around it. The doors you tried before are all unlocked, some of which belong to rooms while others lead deeper and deeper into this rockface you seem to be living on the edge of. You’re shocked when you can find your way back to the places you started, though you’re starting to think that’s the way of this place. What would Heeseung get by letting you get lost down here anyway?
The main hall is the only place where you see him though, but hardly does he seem to be doing anything other than what he apparently busies himself with at all hours. If he’s not in his library of souls he’s in his bedroom, presumably resting, and vice versa. He hardly pays you any mind, even when he walks right past you, the drape of his black cloak fluttering around him as he walks around, always his mind on something it appears.
You can understand what a lonely existence this must be, always being forced to do what is necessary of you, hardly ever having the time for anyone else. Not that it seems that anyone else seems to care about Heeseung, with the way he regards the world and its other Gods with such coldness. Even if you wanted to, you don’t know that you would know how to break through that icy exterior.
But you find yourself lonely too, retreating to your bedroom most days, or sometimes the edge of the river. You can’t help but be curious about it, watching the gray waters rush past. You don’t see souls approach the stone landing you sit on, legs pulled up into your body, your knees against your chest. Even though you thought for sure that you must, at least one or two of them, none of them seem to be able to make it over the top of the bridge and to you. Strange, isn’t that the meaning of the bridge?
“What’re you doing?” Heeseung asks, finding you on one such day you find yourself thinking about it. You don’t look at him though you know he looks at you with thinly veiled disdain. He always does.
“Aren’t souls supposed to cross the bridge?” You ask him. Heeseung sighs, looking over at where you’re staring at the wooden bridge before the two of you. “Why don’t they?”
“Souls are on the bridge, but hardly ever do they actually cross it,” Heeseung informs you. You lift your gaze from the bridge to look at him. “The Sanzu is not a destination, it is a journey. Souls are supposed to make their way across it, it’s what they’re meant to do.” He looks down at you, into your wondering eyes. He tsks softly. “So little you understand. Are all gods like this?” He questions and you look away from him, embarrassed. “If my brothers are going to fill your heads with stories, the least they could do is get them right. Honestly…”
“I know you don’t care for kindness, but would it really bring you so much harm to speak with any sort of understanding,” you admonish him, getting to your feet. Heeseung sighs at you yet again. “It’s no wonder your brothers can’t stand you when all you do is belittle them and act as though everyone is so beneath you. You may be powerful, but what use is the power you have when you’re forced to live a life of loneliness and solitude as a result of it?” Heeseung’s eyes don’t stray from yours and you scoff. You go to walk past him, but Heeseung grabs you by the wrist.
“Do you want to see the bridge?” He asks and you stop in your tracks. “I can show it to you. But you must not let go of me. It’s the only thing I require.”
“What would be the point?” You ask, glancing over your shoulder at him. Heeseung moves to your side, letting his hand slide down from your wrist to thread his fingers through yours instead.
“You want to know why souls don’t make it to the other side,” he says, standing at your side. Slowly you turn to face him, Heeseung lifting a brow at you. “Don’t you?”
Rather reluctantly, you agree, and Heeseung pulls you over towards the bridge. The wooden bridge is hooked onto the stone landing, surrounded by the rushing of gray water. Heeseung steps onto it, guiding you along behind him. You hesitate at the edge though, staying on the stone. Heeseung is stopped when you remain immobile and looks back at you, expectantly. You look back at him, apprehensively. Heeseung huffs and stands at the end of the bridge, still holding onto your hand.
“Don’t let go,” he tells you and you nod. You step onto the bridge behind him.
The feeling of being on the bridge is immediate, reminding you that you’re stepping onto a literal liminal space. The boundary between the earth and the afterlife surrounds you and you grip even tighter to Heeseung’s hand, though he doesn’t seem as perturbed by it. Perhaps he’s just used to it, he’s not bothered by the crushing feeling of being somewhere he shouldn’t be. Then again, maybe this is where he was always supposed to be. After all, he is shackled to this afterlife, his brothers once threw him into the abyss beyond the river, forcing him to guard it. Maybe this is just who he is now.
You walk alongside him for a long time, longer than you think is fathomable, the wooden planks and high railings of the bridge on either side of you your only company other than the god you cling to. You daren’t let go of him, not when that was the only thing he required of you. You clutch his hand like a child to their mothers, resisting the urge to lean into him.
Eventually, you start to see them. Your eyes widen when you see people, half formed and beginning to fade out of existence. Heeseung glances at you and then walks right down the middle of the bridge, the souls surrounding you moving around the two of you. They don’t seem to be seeing you, however, walking forward almost trance-like, like it’s the only thing they know how to do.
“These are the souls you wanted to see, aren’t they?” Heeseung says. He stops and turns to you, forcing you to do the same. “This is the middle of the bridge. We’ve already made it there. Once we cross this line, the souls will start to take on a more solid appearance. Some may even know their names or their families or some of their memories. The further we get from where we began, the more these souls will know of themselves.”
“Is that why they never make it to the end?” You ask.
“They’re not meant to,” Heeseung tells you. You stare at him in surprise. “Souls that make it across are souls that have expired. They’ll never be reborn again. Souls that don’t will be reborn. They’ll reincarnate, into another. Usually another person, if they’re on the bridge, but not always. Souls of exceptional depth and weight will be reborn as animals or insects, a way for them to lighten their load and try to become human again.”
“So… almost all souls are reborn?”
“Of course,” Heeseung tells you as though it’s obvious. “Why do you think it is so important that I maintain the balance?”
It all starts to come together in your mind. Balanced souls are reborn, they are brought back around to the next life, and if they are not taken at their time, they cannot be reborn. Every soul must be weighed, they are taken in pairs. If they are not equal, they cannot be taken. His brothers… by making those deals… they completely threw the order of the world. So many souls that should’ve been taken, they are still walking. So many lives that should’ve been weighed and reborn, following the proper cycle of all things. You are the exchange, you cannot be killed, or reborn, you can be equal to souls that are both alive and dead. Everything must be in balance.
“I could either have taken those lives, or I could’ve taken something that is the same. Do you see?” Heeseung asks and you look at him in wonder. “I’m not so cruel.”
“Is death not cruel?” You ask. Heeseung’s expression softens. It’s both unimaginably sad and understanding. He touches your cheek gently.
“Death might seem cruel, that is the state of things, but it is necessary,” he tells you. You blink up at him. “I didn’t understand either when my brothers forced me to do this, but I see now. As lonely as this existence is, I know that none of them could’ve been able to do this. I know that none of them would’ve been able to shoulder the weight of so much tragedy. Do I resent them for forcing it upon me? Of course I do. That does not mean I don’t see why it is necessary I do such a thing.”
“Do you…” Heeseung tilts his head at you. “Your soul? What does it weigh?”
“Nothing,” he tells you. “I can show you.”
The world melts away around you, only for it to rebuild itself into the shape of the room you found yourself in when you first arrived. You’re shocked by the feeling of stone instead of wood beneath your feet. You look around in shock when you can feel the heat of his kerosene lamps, fending off the chill of the stone. Heeseung’s hand drops away from your face and his hand leaves yours as he steps away from you.
He goes to a shelf along the wall, picking up a bottle. He brings it to you, holding it out to you. You look at it, shocked by what is inside. Or rather, what is not.
Something gaseous and black swirls around inside, like it’s fighting to get out. You watch for a moment, then reach a hand out to touch it. Before you can, Heeseung lets go of it and you watch in horror as it falls, smashing to the floor.
The glass shatters and then dissolves into nothing. Your eyes dart up to Heeseung’s face, watching a shiver rush through him, Heeseung trembling like a swift chill just ran down his spine. He meets your eyes again and smirks.
“Neat trick, isn’t it?” He says and you stare at him in shock. He looks at the shelf once more and there it sits, like he never picked it up, black gas moving restlessly around inside of it. “I’ve tried to break it a great many times, but you see, it’s useless. I’m chained to his plane, this damned world. It doesn’t matter what I do, I can’t die. I’m not allowed.”
“But what does it weigh?”
“Nothing,” Heeseung sighs. He looks at you. “It weighs nothing at all. I assure you.”
“Have you tried?” You ask and Heeseung’s brow creases. “Against something. Anything? Surely it has to weigh something. Surely—”
“Did you listen to a thing I’ve told you since you arrived here?” Heeseung asks, his tone going tight and angry. “All souls are to be taken in balance. Every one of them. If my soul was meant to be taken, that would mean it would have to weigh the same as another. I can’t die so it can’t be weighed against anything else. There is nothing that will match its weight.”
“How can you be so sure?” You retort and Heeseung huffs, smirking at your naivety, rolling his eyes. “Have you tried everything? What about…” your eyes dart around in thought while Heeseung stares at you in thinly veiled amusement. You are dumber than he thought, he’s sure. He waits, watching as your eyes alight, meeting his eyes. “What about mine?”
“Yours?” He laughs. “Your soul? You think a godly soul could ever align in weight with mine?” He goes back and picks his bottle up off the shelf again, smirking at you. “Let’s see then, shall we?” he asks, pushing past you and out into the hall.
You follow after him, Heeseung leading you back to the library. He doesn’t pay any attention to the bottles on the table, standing behind the scale yet again. You move to his side, waiting to see but he doesn’t place his bottle down first. Instead, he reaches out and closes his fingers around the bottle tied around your neck, breaking the silver chain it hangs from. You gasp, but in his hands, your breath doesn’t stop. Heeseung smirks at you as the silver chain around it dissolves, leaving just the stoppered bottle.
“Let’s see your weight, Muse,” he comments, extending his hand to drop it on the scale. It tips dramatically, the plate your soul is sitting on almost touching the table top. “As I suspected,” Heeseung says, still looking at you, not even having glanced at the scale. “The value of your soul is unimaginable. Mine, however,” he says, lifting his own, nearly empty and lighter than air, “is nothing at all.”
He places it on the opposite plate and turns to look, fully expecting it to not move at all. He knows what he weighs, he’s weighed his soul more than he can even say, watching as the scale tips up and up and up, forcing his soul to rise above all else. There’s no way he could ever—
“They’re even,” you say and Heeseung’s eyes widen in shock as the two plates come together, sitting at an even keel. His soul sinks down to sit evenly with yours, despite the impossibility of it all. His heart feels like it’s being squeezed in his chest, his breath tight, watching with bated breath as they finally stop bobbing up and down, beside one another.
“No,” Heeseung whispers. “That’s impossible.”
“Clearly not,” you speak and his head turns slowly to look at you. Surely you still don’t understand what this means because you look at him without shock, clearly thinking you have bested him. His heart is racing in his chest, his mind is spiraling, he can’t imagine it. He can’t, not after everything, all this time. This is a mistake, it has to be, but still he moves towards you. You let him even when his fingers curl around your cheek.
“What are you?” He whispers softly, vehemently, looking you up and down as though he’s seeing you for the first time. Apprehension begins to paint your expression as you see the wild look in his eyes as he tries to figure you out. “What, in the cosmos, could you possibly be?” His words come out almost reverent, his other hand coming up to touch you, but instead it hovers over the curves of your body, like he can’t fathom your very existence.
“I don’t… know what you mean,” you finally speak again and Heeseung’s gaze finally focuses on your face again.
“You are so much more than a Muse,” he says, bringing his other hand up so that he may cradle your face between his hands. “You must be. You have to be.” You stare up at him, trying to read the wild look in his eyes, but it all disappears when they’re suddenly flaring to live with black flames. “Impossible,” he breathes.
His mouth descends upon yours like a storm, like a wildfire, his mouth taking yours in a kiss so world stopping, mind numbing you’re forced to clutch his wrists to keep upright. Your legs feel like they’re going to give out underneath you. Heeseung kisses you like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do, letting go of your face just to wrap his arms around your waist, pulling you up against him. You’re forced to let go of his wrists, instead finding the sides of his neck, digging your fingers in when he forces his tongue further into your mouth, hands bunching up the fabric of your dress.
You’re surprised when you’re suddenly being forced up against the edge of the table, Heeseung’s hands grabbing at your body, lifting you onto the edge of it. The entire table shakes, bottles clatter against one another as you’re perched on the edge of it. His hands run over your body as he kisses you breathless, tongue running over the insides of your mouth like he hopes to memorize it. His hands move from your waist to your back and back down, to your hips and your thighs. You gasp into his mouth, which he swallows, tongue pressing into the softness of your palate as he digs his fingers into your exposed thighs, parting your legs so he can step between them. He brings your legs around his waist so he can lift you from the table, into his arms. You flail against him, wrapping your arms around him lest you fall. From this angle, you can gain an upper hand, forcing his head back with your hands on his jaw, kissing down into his mouth.
“Muse,” he moans into your mouth. It’s the most gorgeous sound, you don’t even mind the way he’s carrying you from the room, nearly stumbling into the wall when he’s moaning into your mouth. His hands are under your dress, feeling over your thighs and ass, blindly making his way to his bedroom with you clinging to him. You move your attention from his mouth to his neck, letting the blinding feeling of desire and need fill you. Heeseung moans fill your head as you mouth over his neck and jaw, burying your face into the crook of his neck.
He all but throws you onto the bed when he finally makes it to the room, still staring at you with flaming, blackened eyes. You feel helplessly pinned beneath his gaze, watching as he looks at you with flushed skin, chest heaving, lifting a hand to rip his cloak from his shoulders. A burning feeling starts to begin in your chest as he climbs onto the bed, crawling towards you. You lift a hand to it, spread out on the bed beneath him, trying to find the origins of it but Heeseung already knows it. He gets on top of you, all but tearing your dress open so he can look, finding where his name has been written into your skin. You look down to see it burning and glowing black, Heeseung staring down at it with dilated pupils.
“You can’t be,” he whispers but still his gaze lifts back to your face, open and surprised, eyes hazy with arousal. “You’re not mortal. You’ve never been mortal.” The words leave him like he can’t understand it.
“No, of course not,” you tell him but it doesn’t quell anything within him. If anything it makes him shake, unrestrained lust and desire surging through him. He pushes you down into the bed, hovering over the top of your body. You stare up at him, entranced by the look in his eyes. Somehow, you’re not scared, instead watching as his blackened eyes run over your form with something like adoration.
“How have you been hiding from me this whole time?” He whispers. Heeseung’s hands run over your body with adoration. He struggles with the tie of your dress, all but tearing it the rest of the way open so you can finally be revealed to him. You flinch back from his rough movements but once your dress has been opening, revealing your body, his touch becomes soft. Scorching and burning and flaming over every inch of skin he touches, hot enough to hurt, fanning a flame inside of you you didn’t know was there. You throw your head back, overwhelmed by it all as Heeseung leans down to kiss your chest, mouthing over the words he put on your skin. “It could’ve been you. I could’ve been first,” he moans brokenly into your skin, bringing his hands to your waist to slide them beneath you, gathering you in his arms.
You don’t know what he means, but it doesn’t matter. Your thoughts all disappear as you arch your back into his touch, his mouth moving over your skin with a desperation, tongue and teeth and lips. His kisses travel over your collarbones and your chest, licking over your nipples, making you clench the bedding beneath you. Further down, Heeseung showers you with affection, over your breasts to your ribs and stomach and waist. You look down to see him caress you with his mouth like he can’t get enough of your body, like he never wants to stop touching you.
Lying you out again, he moves further down, to your undergarments, which he hastily pulls down, your hips lifting to help him. You couldn’t imagine pushing him away. Heat melts through you, centering deep within your hips. Your undergarments are damp with your slick, dripping from you onto the bedding once he’s taken them from you. Heeseung doesn’t waste any time, parting your legs with gentle hands so he can get between them, letting his mouth run over your body once again.
“I needed you so badly,” he moans into your skin, lips kissing your lower stomach, over your hips, down towards where you need him. You still can’t find it in yourself to touch him, worried that it might break whatever desperate lust filled spell is filling his head. He keeps going, skipping where you need him most so he can kiss over your thighs, mouthing and sucking and licking and biting at the skin inside. You whimper, hips kicking when he avoids you, your cunt clenching and unclenching around nothing. You look down at him, watching as Heeseung finally lifts his gaze from your body once he’s finished biting a dark mark into your thigh. He rests his cheek against the inside of your thigh, panting heavily as he looks up at you with nothing less than adoration in his eyes.
“You have no idea what you are, do you?” He asks and you shake your head. “You’re what I need. You’re my other half.” He interrupts himself just to needily kiss your skin. “And all this time, you’ve been hidden from me.” Barely can he say a single sentence without kissing your skin with a desperation that bleeds from him. “Another great punishment from the cosmos, from my very mother who swore that I was never meant to be born. You were kept from me.” He crawls up your body, hands all over you, mouth trailing all across your skin, only to take your face in his hands once he’s knelt between your legs. “But no longer.” He swears, kissing across your chest, your collarbones, like devotion, like worship. “I’ll have you as I was always meant to.”
“Why do I not know?” You ask, tears building in your eyes with frustration. “I feel like I know nothing. I feel like I’ve never known anything at all.” You grab at him, fisting his shirts in your fingers. He lets you, looking at you with such softness you can’t stand it. “All this time, and I know nothing.” Heeseung brushes your tears away when they fall from your eyes. “Tell me you’re not lying,” you demand, pulling on him, forcing him closer. Your tone is tight, but it threatens to shatter like glass and Heeseung’s heart aches, listening to you beg for the truth. “Tell me you’re not lying to me. I couldn’t take it, after everything—” You cut yourself off with a sob.
“I am not lying,” Heeseung assures you. “Of all the things in these cosmos, I would not lie about this. Please, you have to believe me.” His own eyes have softened, dark brown and pleading with you. “Every soul is weighed because every soul is only half of what they are. Every soul is forever seeking their other half, even us.” He sounds breathless as he says it, stroking your cheeks like you’re made of glass. The most precious thing he could ever touch. “Even Gods. You are mine.” He presses kisses to your tear streaked cheeks. “You are my other half, my beautiful Muse.” He kisses your lips again, sweet and deep and desperate. You pull him closer, trying to get him against you, but his clothes rub uncomfortably against your skin. When he parts, he speaks into your lips, “And now I will have you, as I have always meant to.”
When he slips away from you, it’s to disrobe, his clothes peeling away from his gorgeous body. You watch from the bed as he strips them away, layers between your skin, until he’s able to move back to you, laying himself over you. His golden skin slides over yours, warm and sweet, his mouth making its way from your stomach to your chest as he drops down between your spread legs. His hands slide over your thighs to your hips and waist, gathering you in his arms once more. You wrap yours around him, finally allowing yourself to touch him, his lips caressing the burn of his name as he presses himself against your body.
He brings you into his lap, your legs parted around his hips. Heeseung departs from your skin just so he can look down, taking a hand from your back so that he might spread you open from him. You moan as his fingers run over your slick folds, gathering the wetness that drips from you to spread it over himself. Already his cock is hard and leaking, but still he needs more. Heeseung moans, teasing himself with the slick of you, pressing forward to align himself with your entrance. You’re more than he could ever hope for, he wants to savor this. He wants to have you for the first time as long as possible.
Your body aches for him as he carefully pushes himself inside of you. You lean forward to clutch him against you as you’re filled with him. You shift over his lap, all but straddling him, his hand leaving his cock to instead take you by the hip, dragging you down over him. Heeseung’s gasps and whimpers filter through your consciousness but it’s hard to focus on it when it feels like you’re being torn apart from the inside, fire and flames washing through you, a bone deep ache.
“You feel so good,” Heeseung moans into your cheek, his hands gripping you so tightly it hurts. “Like you were made for me.”
“I was,” you whisper into his ear, a shiver ripping through him.
His hands slide over your body, his lips pressing kisses to your shoulder and neck as he grips your ass, guiding you on top of him. Every stroke of him against your walls sends new, mind numbing, earth shattering waves of pleasure through you. You have to dig your fingers into his shoulders to keep yourself grounded to the reality of him, his body against yours, his hands on your body, to keep from floating away. Your eyes are constantly rolling, your body following his guidance so mindlessly, eating up every last ounce of pleasure he gives to you.
“So good,” you whisper into his ear. “Heeseung, please,” you whimper, choking a moan from his lips.
“Oh please,” he cries out. He forces you to move faster, building to a frantic pace, your hips meeting his with loud, wet slaps, your slick dripping out of you to stain his skin, dripping down between your bodies to the bedding. “Oh please, please,” he moans, head thrown back. You press your lips to his skin, kissing over the golden skin beneath you, watching as he trembles underneath you, wracked with pleasure like he’s never known before. “I need more,” he whimpers into your throat. “I need you.”
You pull him with you, down towards the bed. He falls with you, your back hitting the bed. You’re trapped beneath his body, your legs parted around his hips, Heeseung leaning over the top of you. His cock slips deeper inside, forcing you to take him at a different angle. You choke out a strangled moan as Heeseung adjusts for you. He takes your thighs in hand, pressing them back against your stomach, leaning over the top of you, making you cry out for him. Your hands find his wrists, digging into them as he starts to fuck you slowly, rolling his hips down into the tight press of your body, your knees over his shoulders. He looks down at you through flaming irises, watching your expression grow hazy, your mouth open, your eyes staring into his, unfocused and hazy.
“Like this?” He asks, going faster and faster. You throw your head back into the pillow as he takes you apart. His hands leave your thighs so he can take your hands in his, bringing them up beside your head, pinning you down with his hands on either side of your head. From this close, he can practically bend you in half watching from up close as you take him, over and over again, forced to experience every last mind breaking wave of pleasure that rushes through you.
Your eyes are transfixed on his eyes, the way they’re turning pitch black, soaking up all the light in the room, spreading out to fill even sclera, turning deep and endless. You can’t tear your eyes away from him as it happens, heat rising up from deep within your pleasure, aching through you, licking out at your every nerve ending. The heavy pressure of him inside of you, the feeling of him filling you over and over again, you can feel it building inside of you, closer and closer to the precipice.
“Heeseung,” you whimper, squeezing his hands in yours, your hips trying to buck up against his but unable to with the way he’s pressed you down into the bedding. “I- I-”
“Give it to me,” he whispers. “Let me feel you. Like I was always meant to.” He watches you as something dark and all consuming builds inside of you, flaring through the words on your chest, rising up into your eyes. Black and flaming, reaching out through your pupils, swallowing your irises, into your sclera. “Yes, yes, yes,” Heeseung moans. “Yes, beautiful. Become mine.”
You cry out, head thrown back as it tears through you, your cunt spasming around his cock. Cum gushes out of you, dripping and adding to the mess between your bodies. Heeseung grips your hands, chasing the way you tighten around him, over and over and over until it breaks over him too. His eyes close, mouth falling open as he comes apart inside of you, filling you up.
In the library, left alone on the scale, Heeseung’s bottle glitters. The gaseous form inside turns silver, sinking down to the bottom. The liquid inside swirls against the side of the glass, splashing and lashing and churning until it settles down, idling at the bottom of the bottle. A perfect match to your own.
“Do you really think I could’ve been first?” You ask, lying in bed beside him once you’ve both cleaned up. You’re cradled against his chest, like he can’t imagine letting go of you. You rest your head on his chest, his arms wrapped around your waist, a hand rubbing up and down your side. Heeseung hums from above you, as though truly still thinking it over.
“If things had been different, perhaps you would’ve,” Heeseung says.
He knows well how different things could’ve been. He knows that his mother always resented him, feared him perhaps, for all the power he possessed. He was the one who killed their father, he was the one who helped form the Earth, he was the one who made the very first human. Heeseung’s always had power unlike anything else, and for that their mother feared that he might one day turn on all of them. It was with great fear and resentment for her eldest child that she turned to her other sons, begging them to stop him. He knows that, had their mother had her way, they would’ve killed him, but they didn’t. Instead Heeseung was thrown to the abyss beyond the river, chained to an eternity of doing what they feared he would’ve destroyed. Maintaining a careful balance.
Their mother did everything in her power to destroy what Heeseung created, including humans. It killed her, what she did, trying to undo what her son had done. She unthreaded human souls, forcing them into two, doing what she thought was necessary to be sure that her son’s creations could never fulfill what she feared most. Dethrone the sons she loved so desperately. She tore herself apart to do it, hiding the truth from her six sons in the hope that they would never discover it.
Truly, Heeseung knew this might happen. His brothers were built in his image, he knew they would never be whole on their own. He, though, he thought maybe he would be. His mother was more devious than he thought. She must’ve known otherwise for how else would you be a God if she had not purposefully hidden you from him?
“If things had been different, I wouldn’t have had to go to such lengths to find you. I would’ve… maybe I would’ve had you a long time ago.” He looks down at you and smiles gently. He presses a soft kiss to your forehead, making you smile as well. “I would’ve torn the world apart for you if I knew they were hiding you from me,” he whispers into your skin. “You know this, don’t you?”
“I know it,” you agree.
a/n: *the unprotected sex depicted is both purposeful and symbolic, engage in safe sex practices like condoms and contraceptives in real life. safe sex saves lives; i'm not crying, you're crying. honestly, i'm crying though, this was such an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime story to get to write and i'm so, so unbelievably happy with how it turned out and how it's ending. i hope you guys love as much as i do and thank you will never be enough to thank all of you for being so wonderful and kind and invested in this story as much as i was. i think it's so amazing, the pantheon is truly a one of a kind story. thank you so much for doing it with me. and so ends the pantheon.
concept: your life has always been quaint and simple in your little village at the foot of the hill your god's temple sits upon. when everything takes a turn for the worst, choices have to be made in a desperate attempt to save your village. sacrifices have to be made.
w/c: 7.6k
warning: god au, religious themes, religious imagery, human sacrifice, virgin sacrifice, blood, knives, fire imagery, consumption metaphors; explicit sexual content, god fucking, body worship, vaginal sex, rough sex, *unprotected sex, coming inside, oral (f. receiving)
You kick the dusty ground beneath your feet, dirt rising up into the air in a dirty, brown cloud. The ground is so dry that the grass has turned yellow, the dirt that holds it having grown so thin and dusty that a deep rainstorm might actually flood the houses and roads now. You look out towards the fields, the basket of clothing you’ve retrieved from the river bed sitting upon your hips. The crops are brown, long since having begun to die, many will not make it another day. Your village has been harvesting what they can, but the heat is too much. Even the river bed is thick with half dried mud, the water is low. The drought is worse than ever.
You take the clothes to the house, dried from the heat of the day. The air is so thin and dry that your hair feels brittle, your home is hardly a reprieve from the warmth of the day, heat soaking in the dark wooden bones, the shutters left open to let what little breeze is around come through. Still, you duck inside, sitting down on the floor of the small sitting room to begin folding the clothes for your family.
It’s while you’re doing this that voices float from the back of the home. You lift your head from the clothes, holding a tunic to your chest when you recognize one voice as your father’s, the other a village elder. You climb to your feet, shuffling across the stone flooring, trying to keep quiet. You lean against the wooden wall, straining your ears to listen.
You know you shouldn’t. Your family has told you time and time again that it is not your place, you are too young, too fragile. You haven’t even married yet, your opinions are thin without the knowledge that comes from maturity, from a blooming love and burgeoning family. Still, you can’t help yourself, perhaps it is your worst trait, your intense curiosity.
“We haven’t much time—”
“I will not discuss this with you any further,” your father cuts them off, his voice tight and tense. “I have given you my answer.”
“Don’t be selfish,” the elder demands harshly. “Your daughter might very well save our lives. The village is dying, we haven’t seen rain in over two moons. We’re running out of time. If we don’t do something soon, the Gods will be sure that none of us survive the hot season. You would do well to give your daughter to them. They will look upon you kindly.”
“My daughter does not belong to them, she is my daughter!” Your father argues. “If they want a child to appease them, they will take them where they stand. She is not a cow for slaughter!” Your breath catches softly, causing you to press your hand over your mouth, lest they hear you. “Find another.”
“There are few in this village,” the elder tells him. “Most of them are too young, barely older than babes. You know this. Give her to the Gods, they will treat her well.”
“They will devour her whole. I won’t let that happen.” The retreating sounds of your father’s footsteps reach your ears, as well as the heavy sigh of the elder. You sag against the wall, still holding the tunic to your chest.
“May the Gods have mercy on our souls,” the elder whispers before retreating as well.
It is cooler at night, though not much cooler. You close the shutters to the home, your mother having already gone to bed, her stomach swollen with your soon-to-be younger sibling. It is just you and your father awake now, your father stoking the fire to keep the house lit while you finish cleaning. Once the thin blankets have been folded, and the kitchen cleaned, you are able to sit down beside him. You open your mouth to speak but your father beats you to it.
“I know you were listening. I heard you,” he says, but doesn’t turn away from the fires. You sigh softly, looking down at the floor. “You’re too curious for your own good, child, you should mind your business. You’ve not even married and you are trying to become involved in the worries of the village. That is my job.” He sets the metal poker aside, leaning it against the wall, then turns to you. “I handle the things in this family. You know this.”
“Is it true, though?” You ask and his lips thin. “Will the village die without a sacrifice? The elders are right, it hasn’t rained in many days, over two moons now. The crops are dying and the river is low. We won’t have enough food for the cold season if it continues. If we wait—”
“I have given them my answer,” your father interrupts you. “It is the same one I will give you. You’re my daughter and I will not be handing you over to the Gods just for a little rain. We will pray and we will hope and they will bless us as long as we are faithful.”
“A little rain?” You scoffs. “Father—”
“Your life is precious, you are my only daughter,” he tells you and you sigh. “Besides, you know not what the Gods would do with you.”
“Whatever it is, my life is not worth that of the entire village!” You argue but he simply shakes his head at you, turning back to the fire. “If I do not go, the village might very well die anyway, and then what will become of me? It matters not, I may die regardless!”
“Quiet,” he tells you. “Do not wake your mother.” You sigh, crossing your arms over your chest. “Should you die by way of the rest of the village, I will find comfort in that.” You scoff, shaking your head at him. “I will find no comfort in handing you to the Gods. You are not just a sacrifice, you are a virgin,” he points out and you turn away, skin hot for more than just the weather. “You know who they will hand you to, do you not?” He points out, giving you a hard look.
Of course you do, the patron God of your village, Jongseong. He is many things, but merciful is not one of them. He is the God of War and Justice, the belief that things that are just will prevail over all. He is a depiction of what is right, and what befalls men who misunderstand such things. You know not what will become of you in his hands, perhaps he will use you, bend you to his will, subject you to the punishments that your village is currently experiencing, channeling his rage into you. It’s a terrifying prospect, of course, but what choices do you have?
“I do,” you agree and he sighs. “Perhaps, if I’m given freely, he will show mercy—”
“He knows not mercy, you know this,” your father reminds you, glaring at you. “Don’t be stupid. You know well enough, you are beyond the age of silly hopes. You know what the Gods are capable of, of the things they might do to you. Jongseong will devour you, he will take you for all that you are. You are pure and untainted, he will make sure you are no longer the moment you are handed to him. I will not do that! I will not subject you to such depravity.”
“But—”
“This conversation is over,” your father tells you. “I am the head of this household and I will not be questioned. You are to remain here, safe. If they want a lamb for slaughter, they will find another. In the meantime, you pray. Pray every night to him, and to Jungwon. Hope they will have mercy on our village.” He turns back to the fire and you deflate, leaning back on your hands.
You look towards the window, thin streams of moonlight trying to slip through the shutters. There’s not a cloud in the sky tonight.
There’s not a cloud in the sky for another several days. The elders are unsure of what to do, you watch as members of your village share what meager food they have with one another, full hours of prayer being held in the village square. It drives you almost to madness, so close you think you might meet Jongseong just based on how filled with rage you are. Your father’s selfishness drives you to the brink, it’s what convinces you to take matters into your own hands.
You walk into the meeting hall while the elders are meeting, surprising all of them into silence. You walk towards them, dropping to a prayer kneel before them, hands on your knees. Slowly, the village leader gets to her feet, looking down at you from the front table.
“What brings you to us, child?” She asks.
“I wish to offer myself to the Gods,” you tell them. A murmur runs through the others though the leader does not look away from you as her expression softens into one of profound sadness and regret. “I know that I am young and unwed and virgin. I know that I am the best choice to be handed to the Gods. I know that you have asked my father and he has staunchly refused, but I am offering myself. My life may save the rest of the village’s. Please let me do this.”
“You’d give your life?” She asks and you inclined your head slowly.
“Yes, I would. Allow me to save everyone else’s.”
When the day comes, you have not spoken to your father since you returned home from the elders. He yelled himself hoarse, calling you reckless and stupid. He near threatened to lock you in the home, keep you trapped until the village elders forgot all about your offer, insisting that it was only to keep you safe from yourself. You took his scolding with a steely gaze and told him that it wouldn’t change anything. He refused to speak to you, storming out of the home while your mother wept.
You drape yourself in a ceremonial robe, of sheer white fabric that leaves your body near on display. You feel embarrassed but you know it’s all for show, that it’s meant to be symbolic of how pure and untainted you are. Despite the heat of the weather, you have goosebumps as you walk out of your house, greeted by much of the village and the elders.
“Your sacrifice will not be vain,” the leader of your village assures you, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “You are a special child to give your life for us. We will never forget your sacrifice,” she assures you and you nod in understanding. “Have peace with your family, and then we will take you to the temple.” You nod again and then turn to your parents.
Your mother is still crying and your father is still furious. Your mother kisses your head through her tears while your father glares at you. Still he kisses you and tells you that he loves you. You think the shine in his eyes might be tears, but you can’t be sure. You’ve never seen him cry before.
The elders take you up the hill to the temple, a great stone building. It rises up in front of you, with its long stone columns, curved roofs and spire rising up towards the heavens. Your breath is taken by it, as it always is. Once a year your village all come up here for a festival in Jongseong’s name, praising him and leaving offerings at the foot of his altar. You swallow harshly around the lump in your throat as you’re guided up the steps and into the great hall of the temple.
At the back of the temple is the altar, decorated with many offerings. Nearly every day someone comes here to gift to him whatever can be spared, desperately hoping that he might have mercy on the village. It’s not changed anything so far, but perhaps, you will. Just before the altar is a long, low stone table, usually decorated with a feast for the festivities but now it lies empty, white and cold. The village leader helps you lie down on it.
It’s been a great many years since a sacrifice has been made on this slab, but you are laid out on it like the sacrifices of old. Barely covered in the thin, gauzy fabric that drapes you, the stone is chilling against your skin despite the heat of the season. Once lying down, your wrists and ankles are taken by the elders while the leader says a prayer, ceremonial knife in hand.
The shackles that surround your wrists and ankles are heavy, rusted with time, having not been used in far too long. They weigh you down, keeping you trapped against the table that you lie upon. You close your eyes, letting the words of the prayer wash over you, trying to calm the rapid beating of your heart. With your eyes closed, you don’t see it coming, until the sheer fabric of your robe is pushed aside and the knife is pressed into your skin.
You resist the urge to scream despite how much it hurts, characters carved into your skin, running down your sternum, between your breasts. Blood wells and then runs down your skin, pooling on the stone and in the fabric of your robe. It’s symbolic of your virginity, that the God that may take you will take with him your purity. You try not to think too hard upon what that might mean as you feel your blood trailing down your body.
When it ends you can finally breathe, through the aching pain that still runs through you. When you open your eyes, the village leader has stepped away from you. You watch as she and the rest of the elders kneel before the slab, hands clasped in prayer. You sigh softly, dropping your head back against the stone you lie upon.
They stand after a few moments in prayer and then turn, leaving the temple. You’re left alone, open and on display, as the heavy wooden doors close behind them. You let your eyes fall shut again, waiting for what might become of you.
You don’t know how long you laid on that stone, the air around your thick and stifling. You could feel the blood on your skin drying down, sticky and then flaky and uncomfortable. When you moved your hands and ankles, the chains of the rusted shackles clanged in the silence of the temple, the sound bouncing off the stone, filling the room. The hours seem to drag on and on, the only indication of time passing being the open ceiling above you, the sun tracing across the sky. Your breath becomes slow and tired, the heat of the day filling your lungs as you wait for what might inevitably befall you, no matter what it might be.
The day has turned into night by the time anything happens. Your eyes are heavy with exhaustion, your wrists and ankles ache with the weight that surrounds them, your chest still painful but having fallen into a near constant throbbing that you can mostly ignore now, the wounds will open but scabbed with blood. You stare up at the sky as the moon starts to rise over the edge of the open ceiling, the stars shining down on you sweetly. It almost makes you feel hopeful.
You’re startled by the sudden flaring of the torches in the temple, looking around to see them all burning brightly where they line the walls. They glow orange and warm for a moment and then turn an eerie blue, dousing the room in cool light. You blink several times, looking around to see if anyone is nearby. Your mouth is dry and your heart is pounding.
A crackling, creaking sound reaches your ears and you whip your head around to look at the altar. Right above the altar is a life sized carving of the God of War & Justice, carved out of stone that builds his temple, a constant presence. You watch the stone slowly shift in color, changing from cold gray into a warm, golden skin tone and flowing navy blue and silver. Your heart stutters in your chest as the stone comes alive, eyes closed, only for them to suddenly blink open, dark brown and intense. You swallow as best you can as he steps out from the wall, using the altar as a step to climb down from his perch, onto the floor of the temple.
You watch as he approaches you, his expression one of disappointment and disdain. You feel shame, just lying before him as you are. He stops at your side, looking down upon you.
“It’s crass, the things they do,” he comments, though it doesn’t seem to be towards you. “At the very least, they could show me some respect. These words mean nothing to me.” He reaches a hand out, running his fingertips over the words carved into your skin. They smart from the slight pressure, making you hiss. He doesn’t seem to pay you any mind. “If they want devotion, it would be my name carved into your skin. Not these useless words.” He brings his hand up to the top of the carved characters, slowly running the pad of his thumb down them.
The smarting pain of the wounds slowly disappears, replaced with a cool, soft feeling, like silk over your skin. You look at your chest, seeing the wounds disappear right before your eyes. The characters change, reappearing once his thumb passes over them, knitted together on your skin in shades just lighter than your own complexion, scars reading his name. Park Jongseong is forever embedded in your skin once he’s gotten to the bottom of it, lifting his hand once completed.
“Much better,” he comments. “Now, as for you,” he says, walking around the stone slab. “I don’t know what they think they’ll accomplish by bringing you to me.” He touches the shackles binding you, the heavy metal immediately coming undone and falling to the tiled floor with loud crashes. “But I don’t ask for human sacrifices. I don’t want them. Your village is misguided to think that giving me a life will change my mind.” He touches the last shackle around your wrist, allowing you to sit up, once freed. “I don’t bargain with humans who know not their place,” he tells you.
“What… if I may?” You say and he nods his head. “What do you mean, your Divinity?”
“You come from the village below, yes?” He asks and you nod, hesitantly. “They are reckless and disrespectful. They have driven their own land to infertility. They overfish and over breed their livestock. I have no use for humans who don’t understand how to cherish what they are given. This was a test, and by handing you to me, they have failed.” He leans towards you, eyes running over your figure. “A perfectly untouched virgin, pure and untainted. And they gave you to me, desperate to appease the God they’ve already disappointed. I owe them nothing.”
“Please,” you say and his dark eyes meet yours. It makes you shiver, the intensity in them. “Have mercy. My village will die if you do not help.”
“Mercy?” Jongseong asks. “You sit before me, carved and laid bare like a lamb, and you ask for mercy.” He touches your face gently, expression softening. “You must be young and innocent, to ask for such a thing. They gave you to me for their lives.”
“What else were we to do?” You ask, voice shaking. “Without you, we’ll succumb to famine. If we survive the hot season, we won’t make the cold season. Please, I’m begging.”
“You beg? You beg for me?” Jongseong asks, disappointment in his voice. “You are naive. Brought to me in a desperate bid to save your lives, knowing what I could do to you. I could devour you whole, do you realize what I am capable of?” He asks, forcing your head back, making you whimper under his hold. “Are you aware of the things I have done to humans for less? They know this and they bring you to me. You beg for mercy, as if their malevolence deserves it. Mercy begets mercy, my dear. A lesson your village will soon learn.” He lets go of you, and turns on his heel, walking back to his altar.
“Wait, stop!” You call out, climbing off the stone table. He stops in his tracks. “Please, you don’t understand! They didn’t take me by force, they didn’t. I offered myself.” Slowly, Jongseong turns to you. You fold into yourself, shying away from his intense presence. “I offered myself, to the elders. They wanted a virgin, they wanted to appease you, yes, but my father refused. It was me. I’m the one you should blame, not them.”
“You are more naive than even I thought,” Jongseong says, voice soft. “You hand yourself to me?” He asks, taking a careful step towards you.
“I do,” you agree. He approaches you again, causing you to shuffle back against the stone. With one hand, he grabs you by the waist, pulling you in. You gasp, suddenly pressed against his chest. Jongseong looks at you with dark eyes, but it doesn’t feel like he’s seeing you. It feels like he’s seeing through you, making your heart race, your hands tremble. Suddenly, his hand is on your face again, fingers gentle against your skin.
“A selfless sacrifice, for the good of your people,” Jongseong says. You don’t speak, too scared of what might happen. “You hand yourself over to me, knowing well what might happen. You speak out of turn, disrespect your father, disappoint your mother and let the elders carve my prayer into your skin. You bare yourself to me despite your shame and fear. Even now, you tremble in my hold.” You try to turn away but he holds fast to your face, forcing you to meet his gaze. His eyes glow blue for a moment, making your breath catch. “Your village doesn’t deserve you, my dear.”
“Wh-what?” You whisper.
“Do you want them to live?” He asks, voice soft and alluring.
“Do- yes,” you agree immediately. The glow of his eyes dies down.
“You do?” He asks and you nod vehemently in agreement. “You would do anything for that, wouldn’t you?” He asks, backing you back up against the stone. You swallow, nodding slowly this time. He pushes you down to sit you on the slab, causing you to grip at his clothes to steady yourself. As soon as you realize what you’ve done, however, you jerk your hands away, making him smile softly. “Your faith is more important than anything, I can see that within you. Do you pray to me?” His fingers trace the side of your face, looking up at him.
“Yes,” you agree. “Every night.” It’s true, you pray to Jongseong every night, born under his stars and his village. You are devout to him, gave your life to appease him. Others may cower in fear at the idea of him, but you know him for what he is, just and right. No matter how much fear you may feel towards how he will treat you or your village for what they have done, you know that it is not without reason. He will do what is necessary.
“If that is truly what you wish, I will accept your selfless act as appeasement. You are devout and precious. Your village will mourn the loss of you like they have never mourned anything else,” Jongseong tells you, tucking a finger under your chin, tilting your head up further. “Your village will never truly move on from the grief of your loss.”
“But they will live?” You ask and he nods once. “You promise me?”
“I promise you,” Jongseong tells you, getting down to his knees before you. All so backwards, the way he kneels before you like a follower and you are his God. “I will let your village live, so long as you become mine. You have given yourself to me, and I will take what you have given. However, your sacrifice will resound throughout their history.”
“I understand,” you agree. “I agree.”
His lips press to yours. Your eyes widen, but you don’t see. The world becomes a swirling, spinning haze in front of your eyes, Jongseong disappearing from your sight as you’re consumed by a void, a navy blue void that envelops you entirely. Stars dot your sight, your body is being moved but you can’t make sense of it. Desire devours you whole, an aching, sizzling want settling deep within you, causing you to arch blindly against him, Jongseong’s hands landing on your body.
When he pulls back, the room flares alive in your sight again. You’re opening your eyes but you don’t remember closing them, the whole temple bathed in blue light, the torches on the walls burning wildly enough that it looks like they might devour it. You can feel a warmth on your body, trails of scalding heat running over your bare skin as you’re pressed down into the slab you’re lying on. A body is over the top of yours, which you realize is the God himself when you can focus again. You look at him, mesmerized by the flickering, glowing blue that fills his irises when he lifts his head from your neck, your skin smarting from where his mouth once was.
“I’m going to have you, fully and wholly,” he tells you, staring down into your eyes. “Your body will be mine by the end of the night.” Your breath leaves you in gasping pants, watching as he straddles your waist, hands running over your skin. It feels as though he could burn you, the heat seeping from his hands as he pushes the gauzy fabric from your body easily, revealing you to him. There’s not much to be revealed, but he does it eagerly, like he can’t wait to see what will be his before long.
You clench your hands around the sides of the stone when he leans back down, kissing your skin again. His lips are like silk on your skin, your eyes rolling back as pleasure rushes through you. It’s unimaginable, the way he makes you feel though he’s barely touched you. You can feel a wetness between your thighs, your nipples pebbling without being touched. With every brush of his lips along your skin the scar that lies between your breasts aches, smarting like new, a reminder of who is about to claim you.
When he pulls back again, he looks down at you softly, running his hands from your hips to your waist, caressing your skin gently. It builds an ache between your legs that is nearly incomprehensible.
“You don’t touch me?” He asks, squeezing you gently. Your cunt clenches around nothing.
“Would you like me to?” You ask and he lifts a brow. “I… don’t want to sully you with my touch.”
“You’re more pure than anything else in this room. I’m going to sully you, my dear. Put your hands upon me.” Hesitantly, you uncurl your fingers from around the edges of the stone, gently touching his shoulders. His eyes roll back, as though in ecstasy, swallowing roughly. “I’ve never been touched by something so blindly pure before. Your body makes me ache, my dear.” When his eyes meet yours again, the flicking fire in his irises seems brighter somehow. “I’m going to destroy you.”
His mouth lands back on yours, the world spinning out of control. Your eyes slide closed, your fingers clutching at his neck. Jongseong moans into your mouth, his tongue pressing past your lips. He licks into your mouth like a man starved, desperate to taste every inch of the inside. You whimper as his hands start to move over your body again, heat trailing his every move.
You lie back against the slab, letting yourself be kissed and touched by this God, that seems intent on worshiping you. Your mind spins as desire eats you up, through your whole body, feeling like there’s lightning in your bones. You arch underneath him, eyes rolling back as Jongseong runs his hands over your breasts, squeezing them softly in his hands, your nipples sore from sheer desire. He circles them with his thumbs, making you squirm underneath him, hips rocking up towards his, desperate for friction.
He doesn’t give you any, he keeps you down against the slab as he runs his hands from your breasts to your ribs, being sure to graze his fingertips over the characters that mar your skin. You gasp, feeling like someone just poured molten metal down your spine, burning and sizzling and aching through you. Jongseong pulls away from your lips, doing it over and over again, watching you writhe underneath him, needy and helpless to his touch.
“Do you feel that?” He whispers right above you. You dig your fingers into the sides of his neck, trying to ground yourself against the onslaught of sensations that are filling you. You don’t know that you’re meant to feel all of these things, that lying beneath a God won’t kill you, but perhaps that is your sacrifice. When Jongseong said he would devour you, he meant it.
“J-” you stutter out, biting your tongue to stop yourself from speaking his name. You don’t deserve it, to call him by his name. He presses his thumb against your sternum though, right against the last character and you choke out a moan.
“Say it,” he demands of you. “Say my name.”
“Jongseong,” you gasp out and he moans above you.
“Like a fucking prayer from your lips,” Jongseong sighs. “How beautiful.” He kisses you again, running his hands down your body, over your stomach. He climbs off of you, pulling away from your mouth so he can spread your legs apart, exposing you to him. You whimper at the idea of him seeing you like that, but he doesn’t pay it any mind as he kneels between your spread thighs, running his hands up your legs. “Look at me,” he demands and you do, shifting up onto your elbows to look at him.
His eyes are the first thing you focus on, glowing like coals, bright blue and entrancing. You only tear your eyes away from them when he moves, lifting a hand to his cloak. He pulls it away from his body, revealing his golden skin beneath, all lean muscle, his body perfectly sculpted like that of marble. He is truly Godly, you realize as Jongseong pulls the fabric away, more and more of him until he’s throwing it to the ground and your heart leaps into your throat as your eyes roam the rest of his body.
Down his chest, over his toned stomach, to the carved v of his hips and down between his thighs. Jongseong’s eyes don’t waver from you as yours focus on his cock, standing proudly between his thighs, ruddy at the tip and dripping from the slit. You swallow roughly, unfamiliar with the arousal of men, and yet it courses through you, the thoughts of what he might do to you. When you bring your gaze back to his face, he smirks at you.
“You still wish to give yourself to me?” He asks. You nod in agreement, uncertainty disappearing from your mind. As nervous as you are, you won’t pull away. You won’t change your mind now, not when he’s already promised you. He leans over the top of you, causing you to drop back down onto your back, his hands resting on either side of your waist as he hovers above you. Hesitantly, you touch his shoulders, watching with rapt attention as his eyelids flutter over the top of his smoldering eyes. “Your mortal body may not be able to handle it,” Jongseong warns you, meeting your eyes again. “I may actually take you for all that you are. Do you still wish to hand yourself over to me so readily?”
“Yes,” you agree. “Yes, I gave my word.”
“And what a beautiful word that this,” he tells you. He gathers you in his arms, he pulls you up from the stone, pulling you onto his lap. You yelp softly, clinging to his shoulders as he does so. All of him is so hot against your skin, every place his skin touches yours scorching. Your robe flutters off of you fully, leaving you exposed and bare. You whine when you feel his cock press against your folds, warm and tempting and wet.
He moves you like you weigh nothing, shifting you over his lap so that he can press the tip of his cock against your entrance. You squirm, suddenly anxious about it. Will he hurt you? Will he take you roughly, brutally, using your body for his own pleasure? Will he harm you as he takes you apart? Will you survive this encounter with the deity you’ve always prayed so desperately to? Gods help you, you don’t want to see Heeseung today.
“I can hear you thinking,” Jongseong warns you. “Don’t you dare think another God’s name in my presence.” Abruptly, he pulls your hips down on his cock. You scream, head thrown back, pleasure pulsing through your body like you’ve just been cut open.
Your heart is racing, your cunt is aching and the world is spinning. Bright flashes of light, gold and silver, fill your vision as Jongseong clutches you to his chest, fucking up into you. All you can do is cling back onto him, closing your eyes against the bright lights that suddenly fill you, shaking against his body as he fucks you with reckless abandon. You’re hardly more than a doll in his arms, being pulled down onto his cock over and over again, used for his pleasure.
“Mine,” Jongseong bites out into your ear. His words tremble through you like they’re being spoken into your soul, a brand so deep you could never erase it. “This body is mine. This soul is mine. You belong to me.” You think you might be whining, might be agreeing, but all you can feel is a pulsing, relentless need that soaks into you. You’re barely human, mind empty, body flayed open for his taking.
Your back hits the stone again, Jongseong hovering over you as he takes you for all that you are. When the haze of bright lights clears, you’re looking into the shining golden glow of the God that takes you. You can barely understand it, there’s blue fire dancing around his head and shoulders, sweat dripping from his body. You reach your hand up towards his face, gently cradling his cheek in your palm, causing him to look away from your body and into your eyes.
“I belong to you,” you tell him. “I always have.”
He leans down to press his lips to yours, eagerly kissing you. Your eyes slid closed, wrapping your arm around his neck while still cradling his face with the opposite hand. Warmth fills your body, golden and bright. You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him in closer, urging him to stay inside of you. Jongseong does as you ask, fucking you in short, tight thrusts, keeping himself buried inside of your body. Heat ebbs through you, needy and desperate, centering deep within your hips. You arch up against his body, silently begging for him. Jongseong’s mouth diverts from your mouth to kiss down your throat, biting into the skin. You whimper, the pain a shock to your system through all the pleasure he’s given you, aching through your body.
“Give it to me,” Jongseong urges in your ear. “Give it to me. Become mine and mine alone.” You don’t know what he means but when he grips your hips and fucks into you, hard enough that you feel as though you’re going to bruise, hips jarring against the stone beneath you, your eyes roll back into your head. Blue fire fills your vision as you’re taken apart by him and him alone.
You’re consumed by the heat of him, like you’ve been swallowed whole by blue flames when you feel a heavy gush of wetness between your legs. Your mind is empty and blank, your body going lax beneath his. Jongseong watches from above you as your eyes turn white, a glowing blue lighting up the scars on your chest. He presses a kiss to the hollow of your throat, chasing his orgasm.
“That’s it,” he moans. “You’re more precious than you could ever imagine, my love.” He closes his eyes, throwing his head back as he lets himself come inside of your body.
You awake in a bed, swaddled in soft fabrics, head lying upon a pillow more luxuriously soft than any you have ever known. You roll over in the bed, looking up into a blue sky, the most clear, cloudless sky you’ve ever seen, framed by marble. Your brow furrows as you slowly sit up, clutching the blankets to your bare chest. You’re still naked, left in the nude in the large bed you lie in alone. When you look around, you find yourself in a vast room of marble, the bed much too big, large swaths of decorated silk and stunningly embroidered tapestries hanging from the walls and blowing in the soft breeze that comes in the large, open windows. You have no idea where you are, but you are sure you don’t belong here.
You extract yourself from the bed carefully, still wrapped in the blankets from the bed. You can’t leave without clothes, forcing you to look around, hopeful to find something to dress yourself in.
A draping robe of navy sits upon the back of a chair that sits before a vanity, gilded in silver. You snatch it from the back of the chair, wrapping it around yourself, letting it hang from your shoulder. It’s not the best option, threaded with silver along the edges, the fabric far too soft and gentle against your skin, clearly worth more than probably your own home. Still, without anything else to wear, it's your only option.
You approach the hanging curtain of the doorway, gently brushing it aside. Your breath catches when you realize where you are.
Marble and white stone stretches out as far as the eye can see, towering columns of white, curved roofs colored in jeweled tones, intricately decorated with gold, draping cloth with designs of silver and gold hanging from the overhangs. You can’t see where it ends but your attention is easily taken by the people around you. They all glow with a golden hue, draped in silver and golden jewelry, elegant robes and are more beautiful than fathomable. You try to stumble back behind the curtain lest someone see you, but you’re not fast enough.
“There she is,” someone says, suddenly catching you by the wrist. You’re tugged aside, eyes widening as you find yourself face to face with the God of Merriment himself, Jaeyun. You try to get away, but he has a tight grip on you, smiling at you with all of his teeth, glowing golden and warm. “Come now, beautiful. You’re the talk of the palace.”
“Please, I- I don’t mean any disrespect—”
“Disrespect, from you! Never, my dear,” he lays on, bringing you in closer. His arm wraps around your waist, pulling you in. “Someone as devout as you could never be disrespectful. After all, Jongseong brought you here, didn’t he?”
“He did?” You ask, voice cracking.
“Don’t remember much?” He asks, a twinkle in his eye. “Doesn’t surprise me none. The way he took you—”
“That’s enough, Jaeyun.” You turn away from the God before you, only for your breath to catch in your throat. “Haven’t you something better to do than bother our newest guest?” The King of the Gods himself, Jungwon, tells him while approaching the two of you. Jaeyun’s arm slides away from your shoulders. “Busy yourself elsewhere,” he tells him.
“How disappointing,” Jaeyun sighs. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around, your highness,” he teases you, winking pointedly. Your brow furrows, not understanding. Jungwon, however, quickly comes to your side, turning you around to guide you back into the room.
“You shouldn’t be out here,” Jungwon warns you. Once inside, Jungwon closes the curtain behind you. When he turns back to you, he smiles gently. “Don’t mind Jaeyun, he’s like any other God. A mortal is nearly irresistible to such Gods, the desire is unimaginable, even if you do belong to Jongseong. Be glad it wasn’t Heeseung.” He warns you.
“What did he mean?” You ask, heart racing. “When he called me that?”
“I think Jongseong should explain it to you. Stay here,” Jungwon tells you. “You don’t want to be caught outside of this room by anyone else.” He turns and walks back out, being sure to keep the curtain closed behind him. You stumble back to the edge of the bed, sitting down on it with a sigh.
When the curtain is suddenly thrown back not long later you flinch back, thankful to find that it’s Jongseong who’s coming in. He places a plate on the vanity and then goes to you. You lean away, worried that you might’ve angered him somehow by walking out without telling him but he simply drops to his knees before you. You gasp softly, surprised by the action.
“You’re more reckless than even I thought,” he tells you, reaching for you. His hands land on your legs, sliding up them, gathering the material of the cloak you’re wearing. You squirm away from his wandering hands but Jongseong simply ignores you, collecting the fabric that drapes your body until he’s got enough of it in his hands he can simply take it off of you. You gasp, trying to cover yourself, but he quickly climbs you, covering your body with his own. The fabric of his robes brush against your bare skin as he leans over the top of you, forcing you onto your back, his mouth landing on the valley between your breasts.
Hot metal trickles down your spine, your hands flying to his hair, biting your lips to keep your sounds in. His hands grab your waist, his tongue laving over the scars that decorate your skin, your head thrown back into the bed as you ache, arousal pooling between your legs, deep within your hips.
“Don’t you dare keep quiet,” Jongseong whispers into your skin. His mouth trails over your skin, scorching and burning. “Those bastards have already touched you. Tell them who you belong to.” He bites your nipple, making you cry out. “That’s it. Let them all know who’s body this is.” He moves to the other, also biting, pinching and tugging at the one already bitten. You moan, digging your fingers into his scalp.
“Jongseong!” You moan, back arching, hips rocking up against his.
“Louder,” he demands, sliding back down to the floor so he can get between your legs. You gasp through every breath, pushing yourself up to your elbows to look. “I want them to hear you below the fucking earth,” he tells you, eyes burning blue. “I want everyone to know who’s fucking mortal you are.” Spreading your legs apart he dips down towards your hips, fitting his mouth over your cunt.
“Jongseong!” You scream as he laps at you, holding you open. His mouth eats at your cunt like he can’t get enough, lapping and sucking, obscene wet noises reaching your ears, heating your skin further in embarrassment. Even still, bright flashes of light go off in your vision, reminding you of who you’ve managed to find yourself in bed with. Heat and desire and need crackle through you as Jongseong sucks at your clit, taking a hand off of your leg just so he can spread you open further, shoving two fingers inside of you. You scream, back arching, body all but convulsing on his sheets.
He thrusts his fingers in and out of you at a manic pace, sending your eyes rolling back, cunt clenching and unclenching wildly, trying to pull him in further, chasing the feeling. You don’t even register the way your hips are working back against his fingers, long since having fallen back onto your back. Your mind is utterly blank as you let yourself be consumed by him, his need, his desire, his jealousy to remind every God on the planet just whose follower you are. Whose bed you woke up. Whose bed you belong in.
You come all over his fingers with a helpless scream of his name again, back arching, silver light filling your vision. You’re completely taken apart by him again, going limp against the bed as he finishes with you, pulling back with your cum on his lips and his fingers. Jongseong stands, licking his lips clean as he climbs into bed with you.
“How naive you are,” he tells you, turning your head to look at him. You blink your eyes open to look at him, trying to catch your breath. “Those Gods would tear anyone apart to get a mortal of their own. But this one,” he touches the scars on your chest again, making you shudder, “it belongs to me. My pretty queen,” he coos, leaning down to kiss you. When he pulls back, you gently touch his cheek again.
“You’d take me as your wife?” You ask and he smiles softly.
“You are faithful and selfless. You are the embodiment of mercy, my dear,” he tells you, stroking his fingertips over your cheek. “You’ll become a Goddess yet.”
a/n: *the unprotected sex depicted is both purposeful and symbolic, engage in safe sex practices like condoms and contraceptives in real life. safe sex saves lives; this is a god concept i came up with myself, modeled after the greek pantheon but it's kind of a fusion between the pantheon and korean cultural gods so, suspend your disbelief. this was an idea i thought of and really wanted to play with and jay was so perfect! i hope you enjoyed it, this was a very visceral and yet abstract concept for me, i hope you understand!
my dream as a fanfic writer is for one day, one of my fics to be someones comfort fic. like the fic that they reread when they don't feel good and want to be happy. i want my words to comfort someone one day
NOTICE: As more and more fanfic writers are using generative AI for their works (you uncreative dweebs), I hereby swear on everything I hold dear that I have not and will NEVER use generative AI in ANY of my written work. Everything I post will be organically and creatively my own.
Y/n breathes in a sigh and stands up from her seat, which she was seated in front of Heeseung since no one came in, and because of the door being locked up tight, she presses her lips together, making a line and forming a little smile. She then nods understandingly.
"Yeah, I remember seeing his face full of bruises and blood placed on every corner of his face." She looks down at her apron, playing with the end of it.
"And I remember that I thought he got into another fight… because he always tried to protect my mother and me, but I guess not… I remember my mum saying something about a brother, but I don't know. She always said that I had three of them and that they were the sweetest, most adorable kids she had ever raised…"
Y/n paused and then continued to play with the stripes of the apron that were around her neck. She turned her head towards Heeseung.
"One day, my mother said that my father took my three brothers with him… He never came back home… nor did my three brothers."
Her eyes met with the ground beneath them again, feeling tears forming in her eyes, threatening to fall in front of Heeseung.
"After that, I guess I began to forget about them… I forgot what they sounded like… and what they looked like… and I've never met nor seen them ever since they went with my dad… Then my mum just continued raising me until she saw me in my graduation gown, smiling and looking ever so beautiful."
Y/n smiled at the memory, remembering what her friends said that day:
"I can't believe we actually graduated."
"Ahh, we look so good in graduation gowns, right, Y/n?"
"This is it, we're free from high school! Ahhh!"
Heeseung took a glance at her, his brows knitting together. He then started feeling the need to protect her and tell her the truth about what truly happened to her father. He had to make a decision. He either tells her himself or lets her find out by herself.
He had made a decision.
While Y/n was talking, he interrupted her.
"Y/n, do you know what happened to your father and brothers?"
He asked her, knowing the answer to his own question.
"I don't know what happened to my father, but my brothers went missing the day after they went with my father."
Heeseung looked down at his americano, which now had melting ice in it. He then looked up again at Y/n and started speaking.
"I know what happened to your father, Y/n. Do you want to know what really happened to him?"
Y/n nodded her head, giving Heeseung a sign to continue talking.
"Well…" He stopped talking, taking in some air and letting it out to soothe himself. "He was in the mafia, which meant that his life was at risk and in danger… So, in order to live his life, he had to take some risks in order to live it."
“What?” Y/n gasped as tears filled her eyes again, she closed her eyes as she began to shake her head violently with a frown plastered on her face, “I have so many questions”.
"Y/n, listen to me… I need to continue, and then you can ask all the questions you want to ask, okay, beautiful?"
Y/n shook her head up and down as she tried to calm her breathing. Heeseung then leaned over to her as he reached his hand over to her face and wiped away her tears.
"Okay, so his life is all dangerous. He needs to protect what's his, which I assume is you and your mother—"
"But what does that have to do with my brothers suddenly disappearing? Huh? Tell me why they SUDDENLY went missing!"
Y/n suddenly burst out standing up on her feet as she hits the table with her right hand, her anger and sadness crashing into each other, with her tears forming again and streaming down her face.
Heeseung stood up immediately and made his way to her side of the table. Taking her hands in his, he wrapped her arms around himself and placed his arms around her neck, giving her the world's most love-filled hug.
The two stayed in that cuddly position as Y/n laid her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat while her tears fell nonstop. Meanwhile, Heeseung placed his head on hers, taking a breath in, smelling her lavender-scented hair. He smiled, but his smile faded when he felt Y/n's arms tightening their hug.
"Can you continue while we stay like this, Heeseung?"
Y/n asked, her voice cracking at the end of the sentence. She felt Heeseung’s head on hers moving up and down, meaning he would continue talking while they hugged.
"Your father took your three brothers with him to train them to be stronger and to teach how to protect you and your mother...but then one day when your father was training your brothers..they got a sudden break-in by their rival..they started shooting at your father, and your brothers tried to do something but they couldn't, so they went to the place your father told them to go to when these things happen... it was like a hideout...after all your brothers heard was silence they started to running to the place where your father was.." Heeseung paused again hesitant to tell her what happened next, Y/n pulls out of the hug and looks up at Heeseung, puffy red eyes and a frown, "continue.... please" Her voice desperately calling for him to continue talking, he sighed as he nodded his head and started talking again.
"They...found him... on the ground...blood was everywhere and..he....gave a note to one of your brothers, then he said his final words "please protect your mother and especially your little sister Y/n"" Heeseung stared down at Y/n whilst she returned his stare.
