Page 21

Chapter Twenty-One

Seokga

I t’s genius, really.

Seokga applauds himself as he shape-shifts into the adult version of his brother and combs through his newly long, silver hair in the bedroom’s mirror. Hwanin’s punchably perfect face looks back at him, entirely alive and noticeably not-murdered.

Kisa sits behind him on Hwanin’s bed, pursing her lips as she holds his now-baby brother. Her hair is still damp from their swim. “You’ll need to change into one of his hanboks,” she tells him, and banmal has never sounded so beautiful. “I’m not sure Hwanin would ever wear all black like you do. Will you need your cane?”

“Not in this body,” Seokga says, leaning his beloved cane against the wall, already missing the feel of the silver imoogi hilt in his hand. “If I were only casting an illusion to appear as Hwanin, I would. But with shape-shifting, my body becomes another’s.” He strides to Hwanin’s suitcase, perched on the room’s ornate wooden table, and rummages through it before finding a vacuum-stored blue hanbok. Seokga might again flex his back muscles just a bit as he tugs off his dark sweater, since his showcase in the pool was such a spectacular triumph. If Kisa wants to look, which he dearly hopes she shall, he wants her to be suitably impressed.

And then Seokga remembers that he’s baring his brother’s back. Fucking hells.

He grimaces. “Don’t look,” he mutters over his shoulder. If anyone can one-up him, it would be his brother.

“I won’t,” she replies, sounding amused, but he believes her. “Why not cast an illusion? It seems like it would be easier.” Seokga had spent ten long minutes fixing minute details on Hwanin’s face, and wincing as bone and skin shifted.

“How much do you know about illusion work?” he asks, shedding his pants, as well.

“Not much,” Kisa admits, sounding curious. “The Seokga shamans I knew— your shamans—went flinging them around like confetti. Illusions of rabid animals, frightening monsters…Those were the popular sort.”

—they were—terrifying—

“That’s mere child’s play.” He can’t repress a snort of disdain. “They have only a modicum of my powers. My shamans are able to create illusions but can’t access the well of power I can. When I work with illusions, I make them not only look real, but feel real. If I were to create the illusion of a rabid animal, I could also create the feeling of its hot breath, the exact experience of teeth sinking into flesh. Whoever’s unlucky enough to be attacked would believe they were being ripped to shreds—their brains would process it as real. Although the animal is not, technically, real, their pain would be. It’s a delicate process,” he adds proudly, “and requires extensive training and control.” As he smooths out the dark blue fabric of the hanbok he’s just donned, he worries that he’s frightened Kisa off. But when he turns, he sees that she’s open-mouthed and bright-eyed, staring at him like he’s hung the moon.

It’s intoxicating. Seokga feels quite drunk.

“I don’t suppose,” Kisa says, “that you could cast an illusion for me right now?”

His lips twitch mischievously and Kisa blinks in surprise.

—so strange—Hwanin would—never smile like that—so wicked—but kind—at once—

“What would you like?” he asks, and feels like a complete bumbling fool as she grins at him. Seeing Kisa so excited is his drug of choice.

“The rabid animal!”

“Absolutely not,” says Seokga.

“For research purposes—”

“No.” This time, those pleading eyes will not work on him.

“Fine.” She huffs, looking incredibly peeved. “I suppose a rain cloud will do.”

“A rain cloud?” Seokga asks, delighting in how she blushes.

“I just—I love when it storms.”

For some reason, that small admission—this tiny detail about her—is so precious to him that for a moment, he can barely breathe.

“I do, too,” he whispers and then is promptly and absolutely humiliated when affection courses down the thread from his end to hers—a blazing hot pink color. The red thread loops itself into one big heart, and he glowers at it, half-fearful of Kisa’s reaction.

Just friends. Just friends.

But she’s smiling. “If that’s not sentient, I’m a manatee,” she says, laughing, and before the red thread can attempt once more to make a fool out of him, Seokga shakes back the sleeves of his hanbok and begins the illusion. For Kisa, he’ll conjure more than a rain cloud. He’ll weave an entire storm.

Drawing from the well of divine power deep within him, Seokga begins to weave strands of thought together. In his mind, he pictures a tumultuous gray sky, heavy and ripe with cold rain. The bottom swell of a cloud, almost navy blue, dark and delightfully ominous. The air would smell fresh, heavy with hints of the coming ozone, rich with the ground’s damp, expectant soil.

Kisa’s delight fills him as the bedroom darkens, the ceiling overtaken by a blanket of swirling storm clouds. Her hair…Seokga longs to see it flutter in a cold, rain-tinted breeze, and so it does. “Brilliant,” she whispers as he brings forth a crack of lightning that illuminates her upturned face in a burst of white. The thunder is next, a contralto rumbling that grows to a crescendo just as fat raindrops burst from the clouds, freezing cold, splattering to the bedroom floor below and forming glistening puddles.

She laughs, and it is (as always) the most gorgeous sound Seokga has ever heard. Kisa jumps from the bed and twirls around in the rain, Hwanin’s giggles mingling with her delight as she spins him around. With eyes misty from the rain (just the rain, nothing else at all), Seokga watches with trembling pride as they grin up at his creation and find it beautiful.

As Hwanin, Seokga mills about the ship, doing his best to look Absolutely Authentically Hwanin-y. He has interpreted this as smiling at passersby (the horror), maintaining an indulgent expression of humble superiority at all times (quite hard, he’s used to an expression of plain derision), and stopping various times to spit his own hair out of his mouth (not what Hwanin usually did, but what Seokga must do as a necessity—it’s so long ).

Kisa with Hwanin, Hajun, and Somi all trail him from various points as he makes his rounds. The hope is that his presence will draw out the murderer, fool them into thinking that Hwanin somehow survived that fatal night (sans heart), et cetera. It’s a long shot, but it’s the best any of them have got. It also can’t hurt to keep up appearances, reassure the world that Hwanin is most definitely alive and well.

Seokga-as-Hwanin makes his way into Deck 7’s casino, which is alive with the flashing lights of game machines and heavy with the sound of rolling dice. He fully desires to cheat guests out of their money, but Hwanin would never make his way toward the roulette tables in the back. Instead, Hwanin would politely order something from the glossy mahogany bar, which is what Seokga does. Comfortable with the knowledge that three (or four, if real-Hwanin is counted) pairs of eyes are subtly watching for any hint of the murderer, Seokga tries to enjoy his rum and Coke. It’s disgustingly sweet, but he makes himself drink it while waiting. The casino, in its chaotic semidarkness and loud noise, would be an opportune place for the perpetrator to grab a closer look at the Not-Dead god. There aren’t many other drinkers at this time of day, but he notices in his peripheral vision that the woman sitting a few seats away from him seems to be admiring his hair. Typical. Seokga cuts his gaze toward her, and his mood immediately sours when he sees that it’s Soo-min. The hypocrisy.

“Aren’t you working ?” he bites out before he can stop himself, still rather peeved at her earlier interruption. But his voice is Hwanin’s voice, and the usual smooth tone sounds extremely odd with Seokga’s rough demand. Grimacing, he clears his throat. “I mean, hello.”

Soo-min chokes on her drink, still gaping at him.

Seokga sighs. Hwanin would reach over and pound her back, so he does.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” she gasps out, rubbing her throat.

Your Majesty. Instead of imitating Hwanin’s pleasant nod, Seokga finds himself abruptly turning back to his own drink. Once, all he’d wanted was his older brother out of the way. Before Hwanung, Seokga was next in line for the throne. Even when his nephew was born, Seokga had a grand plan to take both of them out at once and steal the title for himself. So many of his life’s greatest longings and sufferings are because of two little words— Your Majesty.

Years ago, perhaps Seokga would have reveled in being acknowledged as emperor, even in Hwanin’s form. Now he feels strangely dissatisfied. There’s something, some one, he wants instead, a bright-eyed woman with wild curls and a sharp mind who surprises him at every turn, whether it be with her fierce intellect or by dancing in the rain and joining him in cold waters.

Dr. Jang would call this positive growth. Seokga isn’t sure how positive it is, if the one thing he desires chooses to leave him—abandon him—once more. He hopes that, after Kisa is gone, he won’t again spiral into villainy…But who’s to say, really, what path he’ll turn to. This time, when she’s gone, she’s gone.

And all of this, these thirty-three years of searching, were for nothing.

He drains the rest of his drink, and signals for another despite its general disgustingness.

“May I ask how you’re enjoying your cruise so far?” asks Soo-min.

“Fine. Yes. Good,” mumbles the trickster god, suddenly extraordinarily depressed. He doesn’t notice that Soo-min has swapped her seat out for the one closest to him until she’s placing a hand on his shoulder. Seokga stiffens.

“If there’s anything I can do for you, sir, to make this cruise more enjoyable, say the word.” Soo-min smiles pleasantly. “I’m in charge of guest entertainment. Maybe you’d be interested in another greenhouse soiree? We can keep your brother away this time.”

He shakes off her touch. “My brother is fantastic and would likely be an even better emperor than me,” he replies shortly, hoping the woman will leave. She doesn’t. Instead, Soo-min is staring at him. Again. Seokga clenches his jaw in irritation as she runs her eyes across his face, no doubt struck with the inane attraction Hwanin somehow managed to procure from almost every living woman. The cruise director looks almost hungry.

“I’m sorry for asking, but I’m curious. You look so…” Soo-min tilts her head, licks her lips. “Healthy. Youthful. Whole. How did you do it?”

“Pardon?” Seokga grits out.

“Your skincare routine,” Soo-min quickly clarifies. “How do you do it?”

The woman listens in annoying rapture as Seokga grudgingly formulates some bizarre ten-step skincare routine that he’s quite certain Hwanin never did. It involves various creams, ice cubes, and—mostly for Seokga’s own amusement—a specific procedure involving a raw, peeled potato and a ballpoint pen. When he’s finally concluded his bullshit skincare speech, Seokga manages to make an excuse and slink off, determined to lure the murderer away from the hungry-eyed cruise director.

Yet to his vast disappointment, the perpetrator seems to be steadfastly ignoring Hwanin’s regal parade about the ship—even when he returns to the exact spot on the I-95 where Hwanin was murdered. Only once does somebody yank him into a secluded corner, and that person is a frustrated-looking Yoo Kisa.

He’s rather excited by this turn of events, but Kisa makes no move to tug him into a fervent embrace (pity).

Instead, she sighs and shakes her head. “This isn’t working. We need to try something else.”

The rest of the day is spent futilely investigating a mystery that doesn’t seem to want to be solved. Seokga shape-shifts into the SRC Flatliner ’s most common sort of guest (an elderly, sagging man who formerly worked in a bank or a business or some other boring establishment) and pokes around for hidden witnesses, stealthily and subtly probing other guests for any indication they observed any part of the murder.

“Well,” one woman slurs through sips of a frozen lemonade that is clearly spiked with some sort of alcohol, “last night I heard a big splash.”

“That might be because we’re on a cruise ship,” grits out Seokga, wanting to rid himself of his old, sagging stomach as soon as possible.

The woman rolls her eyes. “I mean, who knows?” She sucks coquettishly on her straw, eyes unfocused. “Maybe somebody fell overboard. Wouldn’t that be so sad?”

“Not what I’m looking for,” Seokga grumbles, and leaves before the woman can annoy him further. Convinced he won’t be getting anywhere useful, Seokga waddles (the indignity) into the candy store on Deck 6 and emerges with a giant bag of Kopiko.

Aside from the candy and it being a humiliating experience for his vanity, Seokga gains nothing from the expedition. At the urging of Somi (who can fuck off) and Kisa (who wields the art of puppy-dog eyes against him), he’ll be diving back in tomorrow. But for now…

In his suite, Seokga hides his underwear as a precaution, extremely conscious of the fact that the SRC Flatliner hosts not one, but two, Godly Gossip spies—and a murderer. Some fucking vacation this has turned out to be. He’s glad to take his anti-depressant at seven.

In the hallway, Kisa knocks on his door—a knock that has his heart thundering in his chest. Before opening the door, he smooths down his hair and makes sure the underwear he stuffed under the bed isn’t visible. Is it wrong to play house in the middle of a murder investigation? Undoubtedly so. But Seokga simply gives no shits.

She’s radiant in the softly glowing hallway, and when she slips inside, she brings with her an intoxicating scent of cinnamon, and—who knew Seokga could find the smell of lemon antiseptic so alluring? “Hi,” she greets in a whisper as he closes the door. She’s wearing her usual scrubs, but has a tote bag with pink pajama pants peeking out of the top. “Where’s Hwanin?”

He gestures to the bed. Hwanin dozes in the middle, a tiny chubby blob surrounded by a white sea. As if sensing Kisa’s attention, the baby opens his mouth and lets out a scream. Seokga grimaces as the night begins.

It comes to him, between being shown how to soothe the child and crush Hallakkungi’s flowers for his drink, that Kisa is preparing him—for when she’s gone and he’s left alone with this wailing demon. The realization has him clenching his jaw and attempting to force the grief and regret down before the thread reveals it to Kisa.

When Hwanin is finally asleep (in Seokga’s bed, he might add), they slump in the room’s overstuffed armchairs, both exhausted but not yet ready to sleep themselves. After Seokga’s performance as Hwanin tonight, the murderer might return for a second try. As Seokga scrubs his eyes wearily, Kisa draws her notebook out of the bag, and begins to write.

“What are you writing?” he whispers, voice hoarse even to his own ears. She pauses guiltily. Exhausted and slightly intoxicated by the sight of Kisa in her pink pajama pants and wrinkled gift-shop I Like Big Boats and I Cannot Lie shirt, Seokga can’t help a wicked grin. “Love poems, perhaps? Or something more…explicit?”

It’s like a reward when her face goes blue. “I—you—the— no !” she splutters. Embarrassment shoots down the thread, a humiliated purple.

“My eyes have been known to be described as ‘evergreen’ and ‘verdant,’?” he tells her helpfully. “You could also mention my impressive height once or twice. And perhaps my beautiful, chiseled jawline or my excellently shaped—”

“If you must know,” Kisa interrupts, blushing fiercely to his great delight, “I’m, um, writing down some observations. About the bond.”

And he’s back to feeling rather like a laboratory rat.

Her alarm skits down the thread—she must have heard his thoughts. It’s becoming inconvenient, this connection. Seokga wishes he could wallow in peace.

—need to—explain—

“It’s not like that for me,” she says quickly, and her hands are nervously twisting together as she speaks. “Not—I’m not using you as a lab rat…Although being compared to one isn’t always an insult, some are quite intelligent—although that’s often a result of conditioning…” Kisa abruptly clamps her mouth shut, grimaces, takes a deep breath, and starts again. “When I was a student, when I chose my research projects, I chose things that I was…or could be…passionate about.”

Some of his dejection slowly begins to chip away.

“Not,” she hastily adds, “that I’m caught in any, well, throes of passion around you…”

He smirks. The fire crackles merrily in its hearth.

“…and I’m not trying to say that you should take it as a compliment because I hate when people say that—it’s always either for plagiarism or some backhanded insult, or used by creepy men who stare at your chest—but…”

“But I should take it as a compliment,” Seokga finishes, unable to stop his lips from curling upward in a teasing smile. And then he frowned. “Who stared at your chest?” he demands, unable to keep the violence from his voice.

“That’s not the point.” Kisa looks and sounds positively frazzled. “And, well—for you, you shouldn’t take it as an insult, exactly,” she mumbles.

“Can I read some of it?” Seokga’s eyes narrow on the journal. He’s suddenly intrigued.

Kisa appears horrified. The red thread shakes in possible laughter. It’s an effort for Seokga not to join in.

“If you don’t let me read at least some,” he pushes, unable to help himself, “I’ll assume you’re writing that poetry…”

“Oh, fine,” she huffs, flushing. “Here. Take it.” She holds it out, but when Seokga gives it a tug, she doesn’t let go. Kisa’s eyes widen. I—forgot—that I wrote—about— “Just ignore…Just please ignore what’s been scribbled out.”

Raising his brows, he manages to steal the notebook from her. And, contrary to her plea, he does not ignore what’s been scribbled out. “Your handwriting is atrocious. This is English?”

“Yes,” is the sullen reply. “Can you read it?”

“Passably.” Personally, Seokga hates English. It’s an awful, inconsistent, mutable language to learn. But learned it he had, just in case Hani’s reincarnation lived on the other side of the globe…He has also learned Spanish, French, Italian, Thai, Chinese, Hebrew, and Swahili. He had just started on Arabic and Hindi when he was forced into this vacation.

“Maybe you should give it back.” Kisa suddenly looks extremely anxious. “Actually, yes—I think you should…”

Too late. His eyes have already latched onto something very, very intriguing. A scribble. And underneath that scribble…

“Interesting,” says Seokga, a grin stretching his lips.

Kisa’s hands fly to her mouth. “ Ignore the scribbles!”

“I’ve always thought my ‘arse’ was my best feature, too—”

She practically launches herself over to his chair, leaping over the low coffee table, and snatches the notebook back. She’s breathing heavily as she glares down at him, and Seokga’s heart is hammering at how she’s half on the chair, one knee between his legs, a hand gripping one of the armrests…

He blinks lazily up at her. Her hair falls like a curtain around them. Before he can stop himself, Seokga reaches up and tugs one of the beautiful brown curls with a finger. To Seokga’s extreme satisfaction, Kisa’s eyes widen, and her lips part.

His gaze snags on those lips, on their perfect cupid’s bow, their luscious color that reminds him of crushed berries. He gives her every chance to pull away as he slowly moves his hand to her lips, brushing the plump bottom one with his thumb.

Kisa’s eyes darken.

Heat curls low in Seokga’s stomach as her tongue peeks out to tantalizingly swipe against his finger. A moment later, Kisa goes completely blue in clear mortification.

—no idea—why I did that—oh—my gods—

Kisa’s shakily backing away, cheeks flushed, eyes bright. In her hands is the notebook. “Just friends,” she whispers, almost to herself.

“ Mmgmumph, ” he manages, his brain a jumbled mess.

Eloquent.

Kisa is staring accusatorily at the thread. “It’s up to something,” she says. “I just know it. It’s making me feel…”

WHO, ME? writes the thread before smoothing itself back out.

She points at it, eyes wide in alarm. “Did you see that?”

He’s choosing to ignore the question of the thread’s sentience in favor of a more pressing issue. “Actually,” Seokga says, shaking his head in a poor attempt to clear it, “you might be intrigued to know—scientifically, of course—that the thread can’t make you feel anything.” Even on his own face, his smile feels smug. More of a sharp, satisfied smirk than anything. “To my knowledge, the sharing of thoughts, of emotions…None of that manipulates your own thoughts and emotions. You can write that down in your notebook,” he adds graciously, waving an indulgent hand.

—could it—be—true—not—the—thread?—

Kisa narrows her eyes at him, but a moment later, furiously scribbles something down.

—what—could—that—mean?—

A few minutes later, Seokga arches a brow. “You never finished your sentence.”

“What sentence?” The way the words are forced out from in between her teeth tells Seokga that she knows precisely what sentence he’s referring to. Still, he humors her.

“What did you feel?” he asks, internally delighted.

Kisa glares at him. “A nice, platonic friendship. ”

“I’m curious,” replies Seokga with a hope unlike any he’s ever felt before, “does a platonic friend admire their friend’s ‘arse’?”

She scowls, but Seokga can tell that underneath, she’s trying not to smile. “I’m going to bed,” she snaps.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Seokga calls, arching a brow. “If the murderer comes tonight, the first place they’ll check is Hwanin’s room…”

Kisa hesitates.

“Unless you’d like to take your chances, you’re better off staying in here.” Seokga does his best to look extremely pleasant and gestures to his bed, where Hwanin dozes. He’s not afraid to admit that he very much would like Kisa to stay with him tonight.

Unfortunately, it appears that she’s fully aware of his ploy. “There’s a settee in the connecting sitting room,” Kisa informs him, lips twitching. “Good night, Seokga.”

He makes a disappointed sort of grunt in response, earning a laugh.

Unable to sleep for the next few hours, certain the murderer will return, Seokga gets up to stretch his legs and grabs a spare blanket from the foot of his bed. In the sitting room, Kisa is curled up on the settee, a tattered book held close to her chest.

Curious, Seokga eyes the cover. His breath hitches in his throat at the sight of the Highlander pirate and his swooning woman. That book looks familiar. For the second time that day, his mind drifts back to that bookshelf in Hani’s tiny apartment, how she hoarded romance books like a squirrel hoards nuts. Ah, yes, this is it—the book about the Scotsman who is also a pirate who is also a time-traveler. Bewildering.

And this must also be the book blessed with the “sensational glide” of somebody’s tongue. Seokga shakes his head, trying not to laugh. Trying not to overthink it.

He fails.

The Ship of Theseus question is always on his mind. And this falling-apart book makes a little fissure of hope jolt through his heart.

He doesn’t like or agree with Jang’s (rather depressing) theory, but perhaps…perhaps he can formulate his own, one that says the red thread connected him to Kisa because of what they once shared, and what they might again. Perhaps it was Hani he needed first, Hani with her history in espionage to sneak past his defenses and pick the lock on the cage around his heart. To show him he could love, and be loved in return. To show him he was deserving of it.

And perhaps it’s Kisa he needs now, Kisa with her healing hands and gentle nature. There must be some intrinsic part of her soul that calls to him, no matter the time—whether it’s the bustling nineties or thirty-three years later. No matter the place—whether it’s New Sinsi or a rather monstrous underworld cruise ship. No matter the body her spirit rests within—whether she’s a deadly gumiho as seductive as the night itself, or a genius doctor with a mane of coffee-colored curls and the shyest, sweetest smile. Oh, Seokga thinks, he could fall in love with her forever, in all her forms. She’s not Hani. She’s Kisa. And he is beginning to adore her.

Ardently.

Kisa doesn’t stir as Seokga drapes the blanket over her, admiring how the moonlight seeping in through the window illuminates the soft curves of her face, the small part of her lips. The way her brows furrow and unfurrow even in her sleep, as if she’s solving complicated equations in her dreams.

“Good night, Kisa,” he whispers.

When he finally gets to bed, his smile reluctantly grows as his little brother drowsily rolls toward him.

Kisa’s hair resembles an angry porcupine in the mornings.

“Good morning,” says Seokga, who has spent the last fifteen minutes meticulously arranging his own hair into artful messiness, brushing his teeth, and ensuring that he looks overall attractive (sans shirt, he might add) before hopping back into bed with the sleeping baby and excitedly awaiting Kisa.

She blinks at him as she stands in his doorway. “You’re right,” she says sleepily. “Hwanin does cry more than the average baby.” The pair of them were up through the night, constantly awoken by the child and the general anxiety of being on a cruise ship whereupon a murderer is sneaking about. To his disappointment, Kisa is not staring at his pectorals as he sits in bed. Instead, she’s staring at…his lips?

He attempts to subtly pucker them. The lip balm he applied must be paying off.

“You’ve got some toothpaste on the corner there,” she tells him with a wry little smile that would bring him to his knees if he were standing up.

Hwanung’s tits. Seokga grimaces, hastily wiping it away—and freezes when there’s a sharp rapping on the door.

“Seokga?” a familiar voice calls. “I need to speak with you.”

Dr. Jang. Seokga launches himself out of bed, and then abruptly stills, glancing toward Hwanin—but his brother slumbers quietly on, no hint of the yowling tomcat in sight. “Shit,” Seokga whispers. “Shit, shit, shit.” Dr. Jang cannot see that his brother has turned into a baby. “Kisa—”

But Kisa is one step ahead of him, hurrying to gather Hwanin in her arms and then practically sprinting out of the bedroom, across the sitting area, and into Hwanin’s room. The door shuts, and then locks. Seokga takes a deep breath before walking to the sitting room’s door and opening it to a smiling Dr. Jang.

If only Seokga had a camera to commemorate each and every one of Dr. Jang’s outfits on vacation. If he’d thought (or hoped ) that nothing could top the rubber-duck dress, he was severely mistaken. The elderly woman stands before him clutching a humongous floral tote bag and clad in her bright pink sunglasses, a glaringly yellow bonnet riddled with daisies, along with a matching set of Hawaiian print shorts and shirt topped only in vibrancy by giant green plastic clogs riddled with holes. “Good morning, Seokga.”

A noise halfway between a wheeze and a hello escapes his mouth. He clamps it shut. Dr. Jang smiles. “May I come in?”

“Sure,” he manages to gasp out.

Dr. Jang walks primly past him, and after a moment’s hesitation takes a seat on one of the armchairs. After shutting the door, Seokga grudgingly takes the one across from her, praying that Kisa keeps Hwanin silent and hidden.

“Where’s your brother?” Dr. Jang asks. “I haven’t seen much of him recently.”

“He ate a bad clam.”

“Ah.” She smiles, pushes up her sunglasses. “Well, I wanted to check in with you about Yoo Kisa. I glimpsed the two of you yesterday, checking in to the spa. It seems like you two are getting closer—and I imagine some more complicated emotions are coming with that.”

Seokga’s heart lurches before he remembers that Hwanin hadn’t been under their care while they’d been at the spa. “I,” he replies, before remembering that Kisa is just next door and can possibly hear every word.

Dr. Jang waits as he runs through various replies in his head.

“We’re friends,” he finally settles on.

“Friends,” repeats Dr. Jang, and her usually clinical voice has a hint of grandmotherly pity in it. For a moment, she reminds him painfully of Chief Shim Him-chan, who passed on years ago. It was Chief Shim’s paternal meddling that led Hani to him, and Seokga misses the old man dearly. “It must be a rough adjustment, going from soulmates to simple friends.”

“No,” he replies sharply, a knee-jerk reflex to her scrutinizing stare and speculating words. “No. I’m glad to have her. As a friend.” In fact, he’d been rather jubilant about it until his therapist’s pity. Now he feels extremely pathetic.

Jang waits.

“She’s not Hani,” Seokga continues once the silence has become nearly painful. His voice sounds distant even to his own ears as he remembers the grinning, cheerful gumiho whose cluttered room was stuffed with outrageously smutty romance books and who drove like a madman. “And I’ve…I’ve accepted that. She doesn’t remember me. I will take whatever she will give me, even if they’re just crumbs from her table.”

“It’s hard to feel satiated on crumbs.”

“I know,” he snaps, before taking a thin breath through his nose. “But I’d rather have them than nothing at all. And she’s—” Seokga glances to Hwanin’s adjoining door. “She’s…incredible. Smart and kind and—and beautiful.” He smiles despite himself. “I like spending time with her, even if it’s just as friends.” It’s an unusually vulnerable admission for him, but he wants Kisa to hear.

Dr. Jang sighs quietly, so quietly that he barely hears the sad exhale. Seokga narrows his eyes at her. “What?” he demands.

“I’ve noticed a pattern,” the psychologist replies, “and I feel it’s important that I share it with you.”

He attempts to keep his face impassive as she begins. “You love fully and completely, only to have it returned in less than half.”

It cuts him in half, that statement. Right down to the bone.

“You loved your father. You still do.”

“Doubtful,” Seokga sneers.

“You do,” Dr. Jang continues, unperturbed. “You love him. I think that you would still do anything for him.”

Grief gives way to an appalled affront. “I most certainly would not, ” he retorts. “He’s a madman. We locked him away for a reason. ” Brows lowering, he glares down at Dr. Jang, who doesn’t seem to notice, or feel, the wrath of his glower. “Where are you going with this?” She knows, as he well does, that any hint of traitorous intent must be reported to Okhwang. Immediately.

Her lips purse. “I am not sure if you’ve noticed, Seokga, but I have not been taking my usual notes during this session. I’m coming to you as somebody who has come to care about you very deeply and is concerned. This conversation will remain between us. You have my word.”

“Are you aware,” demands Seokga in a low voice, “that you’re violating several of Hwanin’s rules—”

“I don’t care,” Dr. Jang says firmly. “The subjects that you need to talk about most regard your feelings for Mireuk, and I’m certain that I will not be adequately able to help you if I don’t create some sort of safe environment for it. I want to help you. Is that so hard to believe?”

Yes, thinks Seokga, but he lets Dr. Jang continue.

“For you, I fear it probably is. Any help you’ve received in your life has been double-bladed. Hani, who agreed to help you find the eoduksini with the purpose of sabotaging your hunt for the Scarlet Fox…”

“I’m well over that,” he snaps, balling his hands into fists.

“…Hwanin, who allowed you to become a god once more only if you killed the woman you loved…”

Seokga bites down on his tongue. He’ll never be truly over that one, but Hwanin is currently a sleeping baby without the capacity to hurt anybody.

“…the Gamangnara monsters you led to Okhwang. They abandoned you the moment things turned sour. And, of course, there’s your father.”

“I don’t have one of those,” grits out Seokga, who is being purposefully obtuse. “I was born from old household items, like dokkaebi. I was a steak knife, I think.”

The doctor piously ignores him. “It all circles back to Mireuk. Did you ever get closure?”

“Shutting him up in a prison after he invented murder, rape, plagues, floods, serial killers, orphanages, et cetera, was closure.”

“Was it?” Dr. Jang shakes her head. “Do you mean to say that a part of you doesn’t still long for his approval? Doesn’t wonder about what would happen if you earned it?”

Seokga hesitates.

Yes, he wonders about the crazy old man all the time. He wonders if Mireuk regrets any of his crimes, if the meager amounts of food and water the prison provides are enough to keep him alive, but in a desiccated form incapable of exerting any power. If the magic-restricting skeletal shackles will continue to work for the coming millennia. His dreams are filled with memories of Mireuk choosing Hwanin, each and every time. The following waking hours are spent trying not to be like his father, although he inherited his curmudgeonly streak. When Seokga is feeling especially depressed, he plays morose songs and wonders what his life would be like if Mireuk hadn’t gone mad and had loved his second son as much as his first.

After his own fall from the heavenly kingdom, Seokga fantasized about journeying to Jeoseung and staging what would be an impressive prison break filled with his own fantastic heroics. His father would be waiting for him, and would smile when Seokga—drenched in sweat and splattered with the blood of his enemies—freed him. His handsome face, so like Seokga’s own, would glow with pride as he spread his shackled arms in greeting. “My son,” Mireuk would say. “You are very impressive and I am so extremely proud of you. I now vastly prefer you over your brother and forgive you for locking me up in here in the first place. Let’s go exact our bloody revenge, and stop for some soju on the way.” Then he’d take Seokga’s hand in his, and they’d have some lovely father-son bonding time while sieging Okhwang.

Sometimes, when Seokga is feeling especially evil (an ingrained tendency for trickster gods), he revisits that little fantasy. But he’s gotten better at jerking himself out of it and imagining harmless pranks instead—like gluing Hwanin’s ass to the throne or starting up a grand pyramid scheme to cheat other gods out of their money. The latter was how he spent most of the 2000s. The former is how he spent the last half of the nineties.

Dr. Jang is waiting expectantly.

“No,” says Seokga.

“I don’t believe you,” Dr. Jang says, not unkindly.

“And why’s that?”

A rueful shake of her yellow-bonneted head. “You, specifically, would amaze and baffle Freud. It’s as if your unconscious id rules where your ego should—in consciousness. And the id lacks a certain ethical code that the ego does…All of this is undoubtedly due to your nature as a trickster god. I want you to feel comfortable with me, Seokga. You can tell me the truth, whatever that truth may be. I’m here to help you.” Her voice is warm and earnest, reminding him almost of his mother, Mago.

But the back of his neck is itching fiercely, and Seokga shifts uncomfortably in his chair. Although the therapist’s tone is kind, he automatically shirks away from her words. Nobody truly wants to hear the trickster god admit that he’s not as reformed as the world believes. All the other members of the pantheon are so high and mighty—deities of harmless, fun things, like babies or doors, rainfall or fortune. They fear him, the god of deceit. He doesn’t fit. He never has.

He never will.

Seokga already has the distinct feeling that he’s on thin ice, what with Hwanin being murdered and all—and one misstep will send him plummeting into the cold waters, drowning in loneliness and a familiar bitter hatred.

“I barely think about my father at all,” Seokga lies in a hard voice.

“I see,” replies his therapist, and he has the feeling that behind those ridiculous glasses, she really does see more than he ever intended to reveal in the first place.