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Chapter Two

Seokga

New Sinsi, 2025

T he only part of Seokga’s sessions with the venerated Dr. Jang Heejin he truly dislikes is when, halfway through the session, the grandmotherly shaman-turned-deity-psychologist inevitably asks him how his inability to find Hani makes him feel.

When she first asked him that, approximately two days after the Red Thread of Fate appeared, Seokga had fixed her with his cold green glare, leaned in close to the aging therapist, and demanded (in a voice sour enough to curdle milk): “How do you think that makes me feel, you stodgy old crow?”

Dr. Jang hadn’t even bothered with the pretense of writing something down in her ever-present leather-bound notebook. Instead, she snorted. It had taken Seokga aback enough that he’d finally (and begrudgingly) begun to trust the doctor Hwanin had assigned to him back in 1992 when he reclaimed his godhood in full (to make sure he didn’t “snap” again, as his brother so aptly put it).

Since letting Dr. Jang into his mind, Seokga has discovered he has a plethora of daddy issues, an avoidant-dismissive attachment style (for everyone besides Hani, of course—it seems that she was the exception to everything), and a boatload of trauma from watching the love of his life die in front of him with his hand around the hilt of the dagger that killed her. Fun. And since beginning to treat Seokga some thirty-three years ago, the good doctor has gone significantly grayer. Although Seokga would very much like to take the credit for that, shamans do age. At a slightly slower pace than mortals, yes (a sign-on bonus from their patron deity), but they do wither, acquire depressing wrinkles, and ultimately die. He’s loath to admit it, but other than the storm-cloud gray hair, Jang looks rather sprightly for a seventy-something-year-old.

“Seokga?” Dr. Jang prompts expectantly. Now, seven years after the red thread first appeared, Seokga just rubs his eyes in exhaustion. He’s tired, bone-tired, and even the large iced coffee currently perched on the table between himself and Dr. Jang isn’t helping. “I just got back from Antarctica,” he replies hoarsely. His voice is always raspy, but the bitter winds hadn’t helped. At all.

“Antarctica,” Dr. Jang repeats. Her warm brown eyes, lined with wrinkles, show no emotion save for a calm neutrality that Seokga has grown to appreciate. She tilts her head, and the autumn sunlight from the circular window behind her illuminates her permed gray hair. “You thought Hani would be there?”

Seokga grits his teeth, glaring at the long Red Thread of Fate attached to his pinky. Nobody can see it but him. It’s tangled, twisted, and has so far led the trickster on a wild goose chase all around the world. For a blessed handful of hours after it had appeared, the red thread seemed to have been bringing him to Hani—a clear, straight line with neat turns. Imbued with a lightness and filled with a pure, sparkling cheerfulness that he hadn’t felt since before Hani’s life sputtered out in front of him in that cursed warehouse, Seokga had called Dr. Jang almost immediately, bursting at the seams with the need to tell somebody that everything in his world— everything— was going to be right again. Seoul, he’d panted out loud to the kindly doctor as he leaned heavily on his cane. It was leading him to Seoul. But a few hours after night fell, it was like the damned thing had stopped working. It ran him in circles until it tangled itself, brought him to one place only to twist back and head toward another, and was an overall useless piece of string.

In hindsight, his joy is humiliating. As is his happy-go-lucky phone call to Jang. How dare she have witnessed him cheerful ? He’s been working hard to compensate for it ever since by being exceptionally miserable. And it’s easy to do.

If Hani is anywhere on this world, he should be able to find her.

Why can’t he find her?

“It kept yanking down,” Seokga now explains to Dr. Jang, who nods in sympathy. “Antarctica is…down. But there was nothing there except for penguins and fish and ice.” His lip curls. He’d hated the foul, squawking things, but Hani would have loved the penguins. She would have thought they were adorable, and probably would have named each and every one something ridiculous. A familiar ache lodges itself in his chest, and Seokga takes a hasty slug of Creature Café coffee.

He wonders if Hani’s reincarnation—wherever she, or he, is—would name the penguins, too. It’s fine if they wouldn’t, he tells himself. It’s fine if they’re different from who they were in their past life, his Hani, his love. It’s fine. It’s fine. Seokga can’t, and won’t, expect Kim Hani to be as she once was at the other end of the thread.

But you want her to be there, a cold little voice whispers back to him. Waiting for you. The woman from the nineties. The mischievous gumiho. You don’t want anyone else.

Seokga swallows hard and stares at Jang’s desk as he shoves those bitter doubts away. He won’t let himself think about it. Not until he finds Hani. Not until he finds her. All he wants to do is find her—

Dr. Jang leans forward across the polished wooden surface, face serious. “Seokga,” she says, and he’s half-terrified she’ll try to reach for his hand or otherwise comfort him. He has developed a serious aversion to comfort. The one time that Hwanin tried to hug him after a frustrating trip to Australia that yielded nothing, Seokga had nearly jumped out of his skin.

“What are you doing?” he’d hissed at Hwanin.

His brother had made a noise of disbelief. “I was going to hug you—”

“Do it slower next time, then,” Seokga replied, hastily backing away. “I thought you were going to murder me.”

“That’s my line, brother, not yours,” Hwanin replied, lips quirking.

Seokga doesn’t want pity. He just wants Hani.

But Dr. Jang doesn’t reach for him. Instead, she regards him somberly. “You’re burning yourself out. You’re exhausted, and I am seriously concerned about what will happen to you if you keep working yourself like this.”

He stares fixedly at the pictures and accolades on the wall. Her son and daughter-in-law, grinning with their seven-year-old child in a park, the picture of a perfect, happy family. A BS in psychology from New Sinsi University, and a BA in shamanism. A PhD from New Sinsi University, Magical Division in deity psychology. Newspaper clippings of her practice, a cozy office conveniently next to a Creature Café, with headlines applauding her work supporting the pantheon. She’s done a remarkable job reforming him into a god who doesn’t overly obsess about staging coups. Seokga wishes she’d been around when his father, Mireuk, had what Dr. Jang has called in past sessions a “psychotic break” and created all the evils of the worlds.

She might have been helpful.

“I know you miss Hani, Seokga,” Dr. Jang continues, “but some time off is minuscule compared to the amount of time you have to search for her. And…” She hesitates, shifting in her seat. “Well, Hani can find you, too, dear. The thread does go both ways, after all.”

Seokga rips his gaze away from the clippings. “She might not know what it is,” he says, not letting himself entertain the other explanation as to why they haven’t found each other yet. Not considering that she might be running from him. “Statistically, it’s more likely she’s human than a creature. If she’s human, she may not know the stories about the thread.” He swallows hard. Hani, whoever she is now, must feel the same pull—the same longing—as he does. The red thread has turned them into magnets aching to connect. Yet he still hasn’t found anyone with the wine-brown eyes of his Hani, eyes that Hwanin promised would remain the same in this life.

Thirty-three years.

Thirty-three years of grief and longing. Thirty-three years since 1992, that golden year when a woman with a sly smile and a laugh like the tinkling of bells flounced into his life and sent him falling, head over heels. Thirty-three years since they tackled each other in the bamboo forest, since they shared a tentative kiss on a fairy’s mountain, since Hani brought snacks to a stakeout, since she ran her fingers through his hair as he threatened to burn the whole world down, since he held her in his arms…

Thirty-three years since the Scarlet Fox died.

Seokga pushes down a hot stab of bitter emotion, anger, and betrayal. He drowns it in another sip of cold, cold coffee.

Dr. Jang sighs. “I’m going to be blunt, Seokga. You’re falling apart at the seams. If you don’t stop now, you’ll be nothing but a husk. Forgive me, but have you looked in a mirror recently?”

He knows what she’s referring to. The dark circles under his eyes. The bloodshot corners. Finding Hani has consumed his every waking moment. He doesn’t even use conditioner anymore.

And the changes go deeper than that, too. Seokga, although he should possess all of his powers now that he is again a deity, is unable to do one thing—riffle through the minds of creatures. Try as he may, something blocks him each time. Something tells him that it’s the pressure, the desperation and extreme fatigue, interfering with his capabilities. That should he sleep more than two hours a night, perhaps he’d have no trouble at all.

But he can’t stop. He can’t.

For a time, he was better. Before the Red Thread of Fate appeared, he was excited. Eager. Happy. Playing harmless pranks, wandering the streets of Iseung, eager for the opportunity at every corner. Convinced he would see Hani at any second.

Now he’s tired. Depressed. Miserable.

Dr. Jang smooths down her modest black blouse and reaches for the analog telephone at her side, giving him an I told you so look that somehow manages to still be kind.

Yet every part of Seokga stiffens as she punches in a few numbers. “Who—?”

The therapist gives him a stern look. “I’m calling your brother. As your doctor, it is within my jurisdiction to prescribe you with something you dearly need.”

Seokga frowns, thinking of the meds he’s already on—pink pills he takes with his evening coffee at seven each night. “What?”

Dr. Jang presses the phone to her ear. “A vacation.”

Tonight, dinner is takeout from Iseung, the mortal realm: deep-fried corn dogs dusted with sugar and drizzled with ketchup and mustard. It is, in Seokga’s opinion, an affront to his holy eyes and taste buds. It was Hwanung’s turn to bring dinner to the monthly pantheon gathering, in which all Okhwang’s gods sit around an overlarge table in Cheonha Palace and “bond.”

Oh, Seokga hates bonding. He prefers the logistics that come first: the scheduling of Korea’s weather with its respective gods, discussion of Unrulies and how the haetae are faring against them, how things are going for Yeomra in the underworld, et cetera. Today’s discourse was a particularly riveting discussion of the shamans: Korean family lines blessed with patronage of one deity or another, tasked with performing the minute duties that the gods themselves can’t be bothered with (such as the creation and maintenance of glamours, healing the sick, and—at least for Seokga’s shamans—causing chaos whenever the opportunity presents itself)…And there’s also the unspoken obligation of proving their patron deity’s superiority over all the other gods. Seokga’s shamans have been specifically instructed to seek out Hwanin’s shamans and use their shape-shifting magic (generously bestowed upon them by Seokga himself) to change into birds and shit all over their snobby heads.

(Deity shamanism has, clearly, changed since the ancient days. Many still practice the old ways, but Seokga greatly prefers his shamans to practice modern traditions as it’s vastly more entertaining.)

He sighs, utterly bored and wishing he was watching his shamans unleash their havoc.

Seokga envies Yeomra right now. Unable to leave Jeoseung, Yeomra joins these monthly meetings by using some bizarre mortal contraption that allows his face to be projected onto the screen at the front of the dining room. That means he doesn’t need to eat any of this food. Although right now, Yeomra is watching the proceedings with thinly veiled longing in his black eyes.

Sitting across the low table, pinching one disgusting specimen of corn dog, is Hwanin. The heavenly emperor’s blue-black eyes flecked with stars meet Seokga’s for a brief moment before his lips twitch and he sets the corn dog down with an air of grim finality. Next to him, his son is happily munching away, looking quite proud of himself for his contribution to this month’s dinner.

Seokga rolls his eyes but must admit Hwanung’s cheerful little crunches are a nice break from the heavens-shaking fights Okhwang has been riddled with lately. It’s rare, nowadays, that Hwanung’s mouth is (relatively) shut and not screaming expletives at his father about anything and everything.

Focused on the foul food, Hwanung is also leaving Seokga alone, which is a pleasant change. Ever since Seokga’s return, Hwanung has been by equal turns furious with and terrified by him. Many times, Seokga has caught the law god trailing him as if scanning for any sign of wrongdoing to report to his father. Like a few other members of the pantheon (especially Samsin Halmoni), Hwanung has never quite forgiven Seokga for stabbing his father in the back by leading thousands of Dark World monsters into Okhwang and then having the audacity to call the attempted coup “just a bit of fun.” He’s quite certain that if given half the chance, Hwanung would hurl him back down to Iseung.

Seokga formed this theory after Hwanung explicitly told him that if he was given half the chance, he would hurl him back down to Iseung. The dangerous glint in the boy’s eyes had told Seokga he’d meant it. The boy is always dancing with danger—from dating fierce bear-shifters to challenging Okhwang’s seasoned warriors to cage fights. He looks dangerous now, too: studs in his bottom lip, leather jackets, and hair that is no longer bleached silver like his father’s but is instead a shaggy dark purple.

“Delicious,” Dalnim snarfles. The usually dainty moon goddess is attacking her food like a lion would its prey. Next to her, her twin, Haemosu, stares in delight as the mozzarella cheese stretches to an impossible length as he pulls the corn dog away from his handsome face.

Seokga and Hwanin may be as different as day and night, but proof of their brotherhood is in the way both deities push away their plates. Hwanin takes a sip from his goblet (although inside, Seokga knows, is another disgusting mortal creation: soda) and pointedly clears his throat. Immediately, a hush falls over the spacious room. Habaek, the river god, falls silent mid-laugh. Jacheongbi, goddess of agriculture, straightens to attention. At the motion, a few pink cosmos flowers woven in her hair flutter to the ground.

Hwanin’s throne isn’t in here, but it might as well be. Even though he sits cross-legged on a cushion rather than his sovereign perch, he is still the emperor of Okhwang, and the picture of royalty. His silken hanbok of dark blues and silvers matches his eyes and hair, respectively; hair that reaches his chest in an icy curtain. “Thank you, Hwanung, for the lovely meal,” says Hwanin, patting the law god on his head. Hwanung scowls, jerking away. His father clearly pretends not to see, but Seokga doesn’t miss the flash of hurt in his brother’s eyes. It’s been there often recently.

“Now that we’ve all had a chance to, ah, enjoy the food”—Hwanin’s composure seems to falter as he meets Seokga’s eye, and Seokga pointedly lowers his gaze down to the very untouched corn dog on his brother’s plate—“we have some more matters of business to attend to. Specifically, Seokga’s vacation. ”

Seokga is very glad he hasn’t eaten a bite of food, because if he had, he’d be choking on it. It’s been a day since his session with Dr. Jang, and Hwanin has not until now mentioned the damnable thing at all. At Seokga’s shocked expression, Hwanin smirks, and Seokga dearly misses the time when he could be at his brother’s throat without this useless moral compass he seems to have developed holding him back.

It is unfortunate that, since his return to Okhwang, he and his older brother have become almost-sort-of friends, Seokga seethes. (The almost-sort-of condition being there thanks to the role Hwanin played in Hani’s death. No matter how hard Hwanin tries to close the gap, Seokga quickly widens it once more.) Nevertheless, the almost-sort-of friendship is unfortunate, because there is nothing he’d like better, in this very moment, than to strangle Hwanin. Dr. Jang’s “prescription” isn’t necessary and will only hold him back from finding Hani.

“Brother,” Seokga growls, some of that old vehemence brimming to the surface. He wraps his fingers around the cane lying at his side, knowing the blade he can unleash by snapping the silver imoogi handle with the right amount of strength. He won’t, of course, but the motion gives him a sense of comfort. “You overstep. I don’t need, or want, a vacation.”

“Oh, dear,” sniffs Samsin Halmoni in disapproval. “Is that how you speak to your elders, Seokga?”

Seokga turns his wrath to Samsin Halmoni. “Is that how you speak to your superiors ?” he hisses back, slitting his eyes. The other deity goes pale.

“You naughty little boy,” she whispers. Seokga fixes her with an unimpressed look that’s more scathing than any words could ever be.

“Ha!” says Hasegyeong, the cattle god, turning to Jowangshin, goddess of the hearth. “I told you she’d say that at least once tonight.”

Jowangshin sighs and passes a few crumpled mortal bills to a gloating Hasegyeong.

Hwanin does not look very bothered at all as he turns to Yeomra, on the screen. “Go on,” he says to the death god. “Tell him what we’ve decided.”

Feeling as though he’s about to be told he’s been sentenced to death (or worse, thrown from Okhwang again ), Seokga turns his attention to Yeomra. The death god appears to be sitting in his office, surrounded by the rich black hues of his wallpaper, neat bookshelves, and the cushioned back of his leather chair. The darkness of it all is rather on the nose for the ruler of Jeoseung, but Yeomra himself is anything but.

If Seokga saw Yeomra on the street (which is, thankfully, impossible—the ass is stuck in Jeoseung), Seokga would take him for a young, cocky CEO. A chaebol, perhaps. Yeomra lounges in his chair, the buttons of his dark shirt unbuttoned to show off a hint of his chest, a smarmy salesman’s smile on his face. His hair is supposed to look messy, but Seokga has done that very style to his own hair enough to know it takes an immense amount of time.

“Seokga,” Yeomra says, lifting a hand and waving idly, his silver rings flashing in the light, “nice to see you.” He winks, and Seokga sees that his eyelids are smudged with dark powder. He is unimpressed, and part of him suspects that it’s Yeomra that young Hwanung is looking to for style inspiration.

“No,” Seokga replies, voice as chilly as the Antarctic winds he so recently endured. “It is not. As you well know, Yeomra, I do not like you. At all.”

The god’s eyes narrow on the screen. “We’ve decided that—”

“I’m not interested in whatever proposal your egregiously small brain has come up with.”

“Seokga!” shrieks Samsin Halmoni, hands flying to her pregnancy bump, as if she can prevent the fetus from hearing his razor-sharp words.

Seokga doesn’t apologize. He’s hated the death god ever since he somehow missed an eoduksini escaping his realm in the body of one of his jeoseung saja and left Seokga to deal with it—and the consequences. Hani. Again, that familiar pain.

Yeomra narrows his eyes. “Right. Well. Your brother told me about your situation. If you need a place to relax—”

“I don’t,” Seokga snaps nastily, contemplating the ramifications of throwing a corn dog at Yeomra’s projection. “Mind your own business, cadaver.”

“Seokga!” Hwanung hisses, mouth full. His nephew fixes hateful eyes on him. “Remember your place.”

“You’re dribbling food down your chin,” he clips back coldly.

Hwanung’s cheeks redden, and he almost— almost —curls in on himself, shoulders slumping. Yet Seokga decides not to feel at all bad as his nephew rolls his eyes a moment later, apparently attempting to muster some bravado from what must be deep, deep, deep down in his shriveled little soul.

“Ignore him.” Hwanin tells his son, sending Seokga a chiding look. “Continue, Yeomra.”

Yeomra shifts in his seat, apparently feeling the weight of Seokga’s death glare all the way in the underworld. The leather creaks. “I’m sure you’ve heard of my masterpiece, SRC.” He pauses, as if waiting for praise and applause.

Seokga takes great pleasure in staring blankly at him, although he knows very well what Yeomra’s little pet project is. It’s been in Godly Gossip more times that he can count.

Not that he’s reading Godly Gossip. Dr. Jang’s waiting room is, unfortunately, plastered with them.

And they really know how to write a hook.

SRC. Seocheongang River Cruises. Cruise ships, sailing on the underworld’s Seocheongang River, offering one last festive hurrah to the dead guests before they step off for reincarnation. It’s a clever idea, Seokga supposes. And a lucrative one. With the way Jeoseung works, Yeomra has fashioned himself to be more of a CEO than an emperor. Having an entire realm at your disposal and nobody but the dead to share it with leads to boredom. While an emperor can be waited on hand and foot, a CEO must strive to expand. To make their company bigger and better. Thousands of years ago, Yeomra’s first act as “CEO” was to employ jeoseung saja—creatures who guide souls down to the land of the dead. Seokga’s stomach twists as he remembers Hani’s soul slipping into the hearse, leaving him behind as morning sunlight cracked and spilled over New Sinsi.

I swear on Hwanung, god of laws and kept promises, that the sun will shine on us both once again.

What a cruel joke.

Hwanin sighs, jerking Seokga out of his reverie as he looks at his poker face in exasperation. “You’re not being very mature,” he mutters out of the corner of his mouth.

“Anything to make his fragile little ego squirm,” Seokga replies in an icy, quiet undertone.

Yeomra looks like he’s clenching his teeth together as Seokga withholds recognition. “I’m offering you a spot on my best ship for the duration of its upcoming cruise,” he spits, as if it’s being forced out of him. Indeed, his eyes flick momentarily to Hwanin in unconcealed reluctance. “The SRC Flatliner. ”

“It gives me great delight to refuse your offer.” Seokga smiles coldly. “I couldn’t be less interested in taking a trip on your little boat.”

“It’s not a little boat. It has ten decks—”

“I don’t care.”

Yeomra sucks on his teeth, glowering although he’s sinking lower in his seat. Seokga’s don’t fuck with me grin, he is pleased to note, seems to have a universal effect on both mortals and death deities alike. Smugly, Seokga straightens the collar of his slightly rumpled black trench coat and congratulates himself on a job well done.

Yet across from him, Hwanin catches his eye, and his expression has Seokga’s heart sinking before the words even emerge. “Too bad,” his older brother says without an ounce of sympathy. “I’ve already bought three tickets. We leave tomorrow morning.”

“I’d rather skin myself alive,” hisses Seokga on instinct, and then pauses a moment later, brows knitting together. “Wait. Three? ”