Archive of Our Own

Ακόμα και ένας θεός βρίσκει δύσκολο να συμβαδίζει ο έρωτας με την λογική.

Εραστές και τρελοί.

Ever since Wonwoo could remember, he knows only of his place in the underworld. He tries not to think of it as a prison but more of a responsibility he has to shoulder; his part in keeping the world in order. And that is beginning to seem to be the better prison given that he has been nothing but imprisoned by his own mind.

Gods have no need for sleep the way mortals do but Hypnos himself has told him that dreaming is as close as one gets to feeling the bliss of death without the commitment and permanence of death itself. It makes a lot more sense given that Hypnos and Thanatos are twins but Wonwoo digresses. What Wonwoo is trying to say is that dreaming has been his only way to escape his tether to the underworld. And now his dreams are flooded with blooming flowers and sunshine and the worst thing one could ever have in the underworld.

Hope.

But Wonwoo's story of hope does not begin there nor does it begin with him. No. it begins far earlier than that.

Wonwoo is not completely shackled to the underworld. In fact, he is not really forbidden to go to the surface. But he knows the effect he has on.. things. Living things, that is..

The thing about being the personification of hell is that it comes with a certain set of skills. Some call them gifts. And others, like Wonwoo, call them curses. Wonwoo has the ability to command any earthly gem with just a wave of his hand and by doing the same thing in a forest he'd get nothing but the crunch of dried trunks and ashes of what once breathes.

You see, scrolls would say that the king of the underworld wreaks havoc and leaves nothing but death in his trial. But no one knows that it is just death that trails after Wonwoo.

But gods are sympathetic at times. Very rarely, for other gods, but it does happen.

Boreas often lets him drift along the north wind. He says Hades is the most suitable to add a rather more chilling force to it. Hecate has grown to be fond of him over the years that he has given him a name only a few knows. Names are a rather fickle thing for something that outlives some of them. There is Hades the dark, and Pluto the fair, and there are a few others that he would rather not claim regardless of how devoted people are in naming him that. There are versions of Wonwoo as a god and there are scrolls where he is a goddess there are others where people mistake his capabilities, his multitude of talents, as different entities. Stories where he is compassionate and stories where he punishes unfairly. Gods do not interfere with humans over life threatening choices they make that may alter the world's growth so they are obviously not allowed to interfere to correct them on something as trivial as their job description.

Hecate, or as he had told Wonwoo to call him, Minghao, shares a lot of the same sentiment as he does when it comes to humans.

"They see themselves studying magic on a molecular level and decide to call it something else." Which is true. The human mind has this distinctive trait which makes them think that naming something that already exists is something akin to creating it themselves. But there is a certain charm in the way they trip over each other in finding infinite ways to name every little detail on how the world works. Minghao divulges on how the only difference between magic and science is method and application. The goddess of wisdom herself would agree but, again, she needs not to go down to the surface to explain that to those who worship her.

And then there is Demeter. The goddess of agriculture, mother of grains. She is one of the few who isn't sympathetic because of her 'personality' but more because she cares less about the power dynamic in Olympus. She is one of the few who do interact more with mortals and Wonwoo had expressed his envy of that so she does what she does best and grows Wonwoo his own field. Wonwoo expresses how he doesn’t need one but she told him it was obvious that he wants one.

And she goes by him these past few centuries and Demeter has expressed that he feels more himself when he calls himself Dokyeom in front of mortals he cares for, and Seokmin in front of gods who care enough.

"You three may have become the gods of the three biggest realms of the world but I was equally your sister as the other two are your brothers." Seokmin says and he asks Wonwoo one last thing for Wonwoo's own pocket of the world. "Make a stone path that cuts through these woods. Out of the three, I know you are the one with the most patience and the most restraint so I give you this field to have. But remember that these are just like any other living things. So let us not act on greed, brother." Seokmin tells him and Wonwoo nods, smiling to himself. "I understand. I'll keep my hands to myself." Wonwoo promises and Seokmin guides him as to where to direct a path made of the toughest stone. He watches as he takes the lead, as Seokmin's bare feet steps on the grass and he silently wonders what it's like to be on top of something still alive. To feel that with his own skin. Seokmin had given him a land where he could see the most varied sights he could in such a small space. Wonwoo can see the slope of a mountain close enough that he can make out the different trees that grow on it. He has a cliff's edge view of a waterfall that holds a beautiful rainbow for an hour after noon. He also has an edge where the field Seokmin gave him extends to a bigger, more lively one. Wonwoo thought that seeing white and yellow popping out in between all the green was overwhelming enough but nothing could have prepared him for this field.

The field is cut through by a river which Wonwoo figured was from the waterfall on the other side of his land. There are colors upon colors that glimmer in the sun and Wonwoo can sense a kind of deep, old magic that runs through the ground. Minghao thought him that, that magic is just channeling the nature through your fingertips, and Wonwoo was naïve enough to let his fingertips touch the ground beyond his rock path and he flinches and stumbles back as the ground where his fingers were start to wither. He calls for Seokmin silently and he appears out of one of the trees at the edge of the path and he only had to look at Wonwoo once to know what to do. He kneels where Wonwoo was a minute ago and he calls for Wonwoo to come.

"For someone so known for their power, you certainly have a dislike for it." Seokmin says and Wonwoo broods as he stands behind him. "People assume I would appreciate it because they think death brings me power. I have to have three judges, three of the fates, and three different places for all the souls that depart their bodies because it is all too much for one god." Wonwoo opens up to him and he can see why people would gladly worship him. Demeter or Dokyeom, he is loved because all he is, is loving.

"We are more than what they want us to be, Wonwoo. Our brothers had to split what is on the surface and reign over the sky and sea. But you reign over the entirety of what is left. You have the entire underworld and the land above. I know better than any that death is not just one ending, it is the beginning of two journeys."

Wonwoo used to believe that he was created because people didn't want death to be the end. The prospect of death is only terrifying because no one has come back from it to tell what lies ahead. He thought that people's beliefs created him to be the way he is. Their longing for explanation gave him purpose to work diligently and their willingness to not face death had planted something in Wonwoo that made him want to see how it is to live.

"People farm their livestock and their deaths mean nourishment for their bodies. When trees die and their leaves fall, they crumble into the soil which makes it better for the tree that stands there. There is more life in death than you think there is, Wonwoo." Seokmin explains and Wonwoo listens. He does. "You do not need to patronize my role in the world to keep me from falling apart, Seokmin. I know my place." Wonwoo says. "And that's exactly what I mean." Seokmin says with a sad smile.

"You speak of your place as if it is a burden rather than a responsibility." Seokmin argues.

"I am allowed to grovel at my own twisted fate, Seokmin. Not all of us are worshipped out of love and respect."

"And I am allowed to call you out when you are being unfair to yourself." Seokmin says back but doesn't explain further. "I gave you my gift and I have no question that you will cherish it, brother. Do not hesitate to ask me of more, brother. I have no qualms in giving what I can." Seokmin says and he steps off the path and starts walking around the trees until he disappears from sight.

And he is right. Wonwoo cherishes it more than any other offering he had ever gotten. Wonwoo had grown used to having his arms by his robes all the time and he had even conjured up a spell that makes it so animals would not be able to come close to him. Seokmin warned him that animals may come but he wasn't expecting them to seek refuge in his little paradise with him. Creatures so small but so soft looking that they remind Wonwoo of clouds. Birds who sing so beautifully, as beautiful as their varied colors are when they fly over Wonwoo's head. Wonwoo watches them, helps them however he can, and he watches from his stone path as the animals enjoy his paradise as much as he does.

Gods have no need for sleep so he stays in the underworld for the entire night and comes up to his forest to see the sunrise over the mountain, eat what fruit he could grab with the use of fallen branches by the cliff so as to see the rainbow appear and disappear as the sun flies over his head, and watches the sunset blanket the field he cannot touch with such a warm and vibrant glow that Wonwoo revisits even when he dreams.

And then he saw him.

On a warm and beautiful day, Wonwoo sits on the edge of his stone path and watches the sun paint over the flowers on the field. It is nothing new to Wonwoo but he does believe that every sunset is a different hue every day for some odd reason. But today it was different. There was something different. In the midst of the dancing flowers of the field is a beautiful figure dancing along with them. They were so beautiful, too beautiful that Wonwoo is reminded of Hercules's stupidity all to save his lover and now he feels rather embarrassed to say that he understands why he did what he did.

Wonwoo's first thought was that it hurt.

Looking at him, seeing the way he danced with the Naiads, the river nymphs, hearing the way his laughter rings all over the field like the summer breeze.. All of it hurt.

Then Wonwoo watches as he angles his head to smile at the sky as he sways his arms and his eyes are closed until he opens them and looks right into Wonwoo's eyes. Wonwoo does what he thinks was the smartest thing to do and melts into the shadow of the nearest tree.  He can feel his heart singing in his chest and his immediate thought was that he was in danger. Why else would his body react so fiercely towards someone he is only seeing for the first time? And why does his laughter feel so familiar if he was only seeing him for the first time?

Wonwoo drowns himself in his duties in the underworld and come morning, he's back in his little paradise. And now he knows why. The laughter he had heard from the day before had been ringing throughout his own little forest the day before. It's present, yet oh so subtle, like how the songs of birds all around him fuses with the whistling of the wind. But it's there. And right now, he hears it more prominently than ever.

Wonwoo is left to do what he had always been doing. Watching the things that interest him from afar.

It appears that he stays in the vicinity of the field enough to always be there. Wonwoo does not need a closer look to know that he is not a mortal, as well. He runs around the field, asks tree nymphs for fruits and talks to whatever animals he comes across with. And at noon, he walks down the river and heads to where the waterfall is. Wonwoo wonders what he could be doing there, could he also see the rainbow that Wonwoo does? Does he collect fish for his meal? Or does he simply just lie there and rest, safe from the rays of the sun as the cliff shadow blankets everything below.

But instead of any of that, he gets to the edge of the river and takes off his robes.

Wonwoo hides, lies back down to keep himself from being seen and to keep himself from seeing what he should not. He hears that laughter again, loud and even more full now that it echoes through the rocks of the cliff, and he hears water splashing along with it. Wonwoo chances a glance and finds that he's surrounded by river nymphs who are laughing along as they hit each other with water. Wonwoo sees nothing too indecent so he lets himself watch. He can't help himself as every little movement he does seems.. irrational to Wonwoo. The way he jumps at the littles touch on his body that the nymphs do, how his laughter gets louder and louder as they do, and how they seem to be in the middle of playing and performing for no one in particular.

It was unusual, for Wonwoo, to see anyone perform outside of an audience and outside of a theater. He lies back down on the edge of the cliff, lets himself stare at the sky as he listens to more of their laughter, more of his laughter, and Wonwoo gets lulled into a dream.

A dream about a bigger meadow and a louder laugh. Only, it doesn't seem louder. Just a lot less distant. Then he feels a hand in his, something he didn't know he still remembered enough to even dream about, and Wonwoo turns and sees him next to him. He turns to look at Wonwoo and he smiles. Wonwoo says something, he knows he does, but he can not hear it. He smiles at Wonwoo and then says one word.

And it's been a dream that hasn't let him go for weeks now.

"Dreams are as fickle as death, Wonwoo. The more we want to let it go, the deeper it's teeth bare down and cling to us." Hypnos tells him and Wonwoo sighs in resignation. He had hoped that seeing him in the morning would be enough to stave off the dreams but now he thinks those moments just fuels them even more.

"What is the ruler of the underworld so restless for? It is nothing but a dream, Wonwoo." Hypnos asks and Wonwoo sighs and thinks of a way to convey his distress.

"It's more than just that, Jihoon.."

"Holding onto your dreams and claiming them to be more than just that is beneath you, Wonwoo. You've seen what happens to mortals who misinterprets my dreams for them as something akin to a prophecy."

"He is more than just a dream. That's what's haunting me." Wonwoo confesses and he is then subjected to a face more bothersome than the usual face he sees on the god of dreams.

"You yearn for him." He says it as if it is amusing, smiling as if it is entertaining to see Wonwoo at his wits end, trying to grasp at the situation and make something of it so as to come up with a way of dealing with it.  So Wonwoo grovels.

He's been told he's quite the groveler. That, and he's apparently marvelous at brooding.

"This is not something you should be making fun of. Jihoon, he is in every single thought in every single moment that I am aware and I am aware that this is more than just another fascination. He is real and he's but a breath away from my person every time the sun rises and yet he feels like oceans away when the sun sets."

"And that is the thing, is it not? He is real and he is breathing." Jihoon says, more composed and less entertained by Wonwoo's misery and anguish.

"I cannot own him the way I own those who do not breathe anymore. I can never own him in any way I want to." Wonwoo expresses his heart and he must admit that speaking out what he feels does feel rather pleasant. But, alas.. Jeonghan defiles his sincerity by finding his despair amusing.

"Only the ruler of death would think that to love is to own. You must think that affection is a cause and the reciprocation of it is the effect that follows." Jihoon says, as if mocking him for he knows that this is what Wonwoo does know. "I am afraid my expertise falls short here, my king. Thanatos may be a brother of mine but I'm afraid he knows more of Eros than I do." Jihoon says and he excuses himself as he leaves Wonwoo to his throne.

Thanatos and Eros do go hand in hand in the handful of times Wonwoo had seen them. The god of death and the god of love. One would think that Wonwoo would know more of how love operates given how souls that come to him never offer anything to him but rather bargain that they have love that they cannot lose to death.

Which causes Wonwoo yet another existential crisis.

If people really did just make him up with their fear of not knowing what it's like to die, why do they still want to live with the comfort of death's welcome?

"And this bothers you?" Seokmin asks, he hands Wonwoo an apple and they both watch as the fruit crumples up in Wonwoo's palm. It is one of the very rare days Seokmin allows himself to share with Wonwoo. Wonwoo sits on the edge of his rock path, teetering on the edge as if teasing himself of the infinity in between him and the life in front of him.

"I should understand why they plead for more time living with the reason of leaving someone they love, should I not? It is the least I could do for someone who is willing to offer all that is left of them for a single moment to be with someone again." Wonwoo tells him and Seokmin laughs at him. No ill will in the way he does, barely the way one would laugh at a child who would mispronounce a word by changing one vowel with another.

"That is your first mistake, then."

"What is?"

"I may not be Eros, nor Aphrodite, for that matter, but I do know a few things about cultivating something for so long with such tender ways." Seokmin says. He places his palm on the soft ground and Wonwoo watches the ground break as a miniature tree grow as he pulls his hand up.

"They are pleading not because they want more time to spend with their loved ones, Wonwoo. They are pleading because their loved ones will be left alone." Seokmin says and it's like he expects that one statement alone to be enough for Wonwoo to comprehend what the difference is.

Wonwoo lets his mind shackle him, still. Incapable of grasping the logic behind love and the hold it has on mortals that give them strength and courage to scream at a god. The god who holds the fate of their souls, no less. So Wonwoo does what he does best. He roams the plains of the underworld and listens.

He pays no mind to those who reside in Elysium. Achieved men and women may hold a lot of wisdom as do they in victories, but Wonwoo finds it hard to sympathize with those gifted with good fortune in the underworld. The greatest warriors, the brightest scholars, the most spoken of conqueror with the most gold in his name. Wonwoo finds it ridiculous to ask such noblemen about the woes of a heavy heart.

No. Wonwoo heads for the meadow of Asphodel. Here lies those who lived their lives with no valor but with no regrets as well. Those who lived and died. They are left to remain in the field for all eternity for their souls did not good to deserve Elysium and the opportunity to be reincarnated that comes with living there and they did no foul acts to deserve punishment. Wonwoo can let their memories come back for a short period of time, enough to let them regain their identity, their pain and their laughter. They can become who they were so Wonwoo can learn from their mistakes.

But none of it is enough. They give him stories of hardships and stories of great acts all to prove something so simple as love. Why do humans put themselves in so much self-inflicted sacrifice all to vindicate their own feelings for another and expect others to feel glad that they did? Why try to escape death in order to keep loving if the way you love someone is killing yourself, little by little?

Humans are wonderful and frightening at the same time. They have everything at their disposal, all the gifts from every single god, and they still create more contraptions to make their life a little less difficult. And yet they make the simplest thing such as affection and torture themselves with it. Fascinating but also frustrating to watch and yet Wonwoo still watches.

There's a certain grandeur to their fumbling. Something Wonwoo can not quite put a finger on but something so heavy that he avoids the idea as much as he could.

Wonwoo thought finding out why mortals love would help him understand love. But now he is more lost than he ever was before.

Wonwoo sighs, defeated, and he walks to the edge of the river of Styx. Wonwoo looks out into the expanse of it, circling the edge of the underworld seven times before reaching it's land. The moment his feet stopped, he hears the labored breaths of a certain guardian he leaves by the river banks. "Cerberus, my old friend." Wonwoo feels its head rubbing itself on its palm and another sniffing at his robes. "Has Charon come yet? The Fates told me there's been quite an accident above and Charon will be coming with more than two handfuls of souls." Cerberus barks at him, signaling that he has yet to come, and Wonwoo turns and lifts his hand so as to keep Cerberus from lowering one of it's head to his hand. "What about you? What do you think love is, old friend?" Wonwoo asks and Cerberus snarls in disgust at him as if Wonwoo had just cursed him. Wonwoo leaves him there, lets Cerberus do its job at scouting around so as to keep anyone alive from passing through and getting to the underworld.

Wonwoo does not realize it at first but a whole year has passed since he had heard his laugh for the first time.

Jihoon points out that it is quite pathetic that he remembered the specific day he first saw him and Wonwoo leaves right away to find his escape in his little paradise. It seems like the best idea at the time but in hindsight, Wonwoo should've seen how this could end the way it did.

Instead of hearing him play with the usual nymphs, Wonwoo finds the subject of his torment and affection lying softly on the meadow. He is lying on the slope of the hill that grants his head a little bit of elevation from his feet and at the same time, grants Wonwoo an unobstructed view of his peaceful face. But the more he looks at him, the more it hurts.

Looking at him hurts.

Wonwoo did not want to accept it, the truth about who he is, but he is not so pathetic as to lie even to himself. It was too good to be true, anyway. Thinking that he could find someone like him and have him be anything but something he's allowed to have.

But being the child of Demeter and Zeus does put a hindrance in the way Wonwoo imagined the story to go. The story he had hoped so hard to be about the two of them. 

If he is right, and there is a high chance that he is, then the man who has had a hold on him for a year is no other than the goddess Persephone. Wonwoo finds humor in how tragic everything has turned with this revelation. On one hand, he finally has a name to the face that's been nothing but present in his mind. In the other, he has little to no chance in ever having him the way he wants him.

Asking Seokmin for a little piece of land that Wonwoo can have is one thing, but to ask for his child, the one he cherishes the most even more than the way he cares for the mortals, is like asking Apollo for the sun.

But Apollo did ask Helios for the sun.

So Wonwoo asks.

"It's been a while since you've visited your seat in Olympus." He says and Wonwoo keeps his head up enough to muster some sort of courage. "I am not here for a mere visit. I came to ask for something." Wonwoo says and he receives a smile. He may not have been here for centuries but no one knows them better than Wonwoo does.

"Right to the point, then. What is it that you want, brother?" Zeus asks and Wonwoo holds his gaze.

"Persephone." One word. A simple name. And yet that single word weighs twice as much as all the responsibilities sitting on Wonwoo's shoulder. Zeus gives him a look, amused and a tinge of surprise mixed in the way his lips part in his smile.

"Do not make light of this, Seungcheol. You have asked too much of me with the responsibilities you made me accept and I only ask this one single thing of you." Wonwoo adds and Seungcheol rises from his throne and walks on to him.

"Forgive me, brother. It is not that I find humor in this. You haven't shown any interest in anyone for quite a long time, or in anything for that matter. I am simply.. overjoyed." Seungcheol explains and Wonwoo looks at him only to find nothing in his face but a sincerity.

Wonwoo departs Olympus on that note and Seungcheol is nonchalant as ever. Wonwoo could never know what it's like to be the one who sits on that throne, to be the king of gods, and he never wanted to be. All he had ever wanted was a life where there is not a single question he could not answer.

And yet here he was. With the answer he had been yearning for but all that comes with it is discontent and misery.

"You are a lot more entertaining now that you found out that your heart beats for someone." Jihoon shares and Wonwoo has half a mind on dropping him in the river Lethe. Maybe forgetting his memories would give the god of dreams a better hand at talking to him.

"And you're quite unhelpful given how you were only summoned in here to help."

"What do you expect of me, Wonwoo? I am the god of dreams and you have a distressed goddess in your palace who refuses to speak to anyone."

"Goddess?"

"Persephone is Demeter's most precious daughter, Wonwoo. Gods go by any body and any identity any time they want just because she is in the body that rivals Adonis doesn't change that she's a goddess. Now can we focus on the less trivial part of this narrative? Like how you intend to own up to your decision and what you expect to gain from taking her captive?"

Loving is not owning. Wonwoo knows that. He has just been told this not that long ago by Jihoon himself and.. And by Persephone's mother as well.. And yet Wonwoo can not keep himself from being greedy. From taking what he could because for the first time, in such a long time, he finally could.

"What do you want from me?"

What does Wonwoo want from Persephone? Can one give their laughter to someone else? And could Wonwoo possibly keep that if one could? Does Wonwoo deserve to have it? What could possibly warrant anyone to own someone else's laughter? Maybe Wonwoo can ask for- should ask for something more.. tangible.

"I did not mean to frighten you." Wonwoo offered and even he could see how empty those words could sound given what he had done.

"You erupted from the middle of the field and took me on your chariot to drag me to literal hell." All correct. But that does not mean Wonwoo did not actually mean to not frighten him.

"You must understand I only-" "You do not get to think that you deserve my understanding!" The voice that comes out of his mouth does not have the same cadence as his laugh. It startles Wonwoo, frightens him, even, and it must have been why Cerberus appeared from the shadow behind him. Cerberus snarls at the only other being in the room aside from him and Wonwoo raises his hand to keep him at bay but it is a second too late as Cerberus pounces. Wonwoo tries to use the shadows to transport Cerberus away but it seems that he did not need to.

Wonwoo could not see it at first, given the size of his hellhound, but as he moves his body he sees that the god in front of him does more than just bewitch Wonwoo. He has both hands under the chin of two of its heads and he smiles as the middle head nuzzles his snout under his chin.

Cerberus does not even do that to Wonwoo.

"Cerberus that is enough." Wonwoo says and they pull back and stand by Wonwoo's side.

"You have too much loyalty for someone so.. undeserving of it." He says it with such conviction, such sharp thorns that Wonwoo cannot help but let the words dig into his skin. He did not have the need to direct his eyes to Wonwoo for him to convey it but the eye contact conveys the message so much clearer.

"Please. I just want-" "What more could you possibly want from me?"

What does Wonwoo want from him? Wonwoo had a list of infinite number of possibilities how this could have gone but not a single one of those did Wonwoo account for disdain. Which is naïve of him. Hopeful and moronically naïve of him. What does Wonwoo want from him? What could he tell him right now that would convince him to hear him out? 

Can you ask someone for their love? Even if one asks for it kindly?

"I just wanted to ask what I could do to make you feel more.. comfortable." Wonwoo asks and all he receives as a response is a scoff. One dripping in malice.

"Let me go home. If you will not let me then bring my home here. Only then will I be comfortable here. Only then will you deserve my understanding." He says and Wonwoo lets himself walk back to the door without a word. Wonwoo knows more than anyone else when he hears a task that is set to be impossible.

"And stay." he adds and Wonwoo freezes. He turns, letting his hand tangle on that thread of hope that passes through him, only to be disappointed once again.

"I do not want to be as alone as I already feel." Persephone adds and Wonwoo turns to Cerberus.

"I will have other hellhounds take over your post, old friend." Wonwoo says and Cerberus lets out a growl of understanding. He walks back into the room and Wonwoo leaves without closing the door behind him.

Wonwoo may know when a task is set to be impossible but he is nothing if not stubborn.

Wonwoo visits the surface, searching fields after fields for flowers he has painted permanently on his mind. He would make sure to go under the veil of the night sky and he would collect as many of the flowers he had seen on the field next to Wonwoo's.

Wonwoo knew better than to take from Persephone's field itself. He moves around. He collects one of the same flowers from dozens of towns and then collects another from dozens of fields. He had disguised himself as an old and sickly man asking strangers and farmers for how to care for them and how to gather them. He learned to collect patches of grass and to plant them in intervals for they themselves would crawl and fill those empty patches. He learned that some tall grass need more water and some do not need much at all. How some grass would keep growing unless it is trampled on from time to time so one man lets his nephews play around his garden. These people did not even need his name for them to be so kind as to help him and Wonwoo is grateful for all of them. He remembers all of them and promises that he will remember them when they are on the gates of his kingdom.

One mother was extremely kind to Wonwoo. Kind enough to say that his sickness is not a bother to her as she kneels next to Wonwoo and helps him pull out more flowers for him. "I am also sick, you see. But I am fortunate enough to have a sickness that I cannot pass onto other, unlike yours." She says and Wonwoo can feel it. The thread of her life is stretched thin by the Fates. Like a string on a lyre. "This field is not mine but the townspeople like to call it mine for how I care for it. They say their thanks to me when we decorate the town with the flowers here but I tell them that I am only passing along my thanks." She says.

"You see. When I was young and alone, I heard a laugh brightening this very field." She says and Wonwoo's world stops.

"I know who you are, too. I know you came here because we were blessed by that goddess." She says and Wonwoo smiles at her and removes his disguise.

"They were beautiful. The tree nymphs danced along with them and they moved so, so gorgeously that I knew they could not be anything but a god." She says and she unearths another flower.

"Our town was always cold and lifeless but their laughter was warm like a summer breeze. No one believed me when I told them what I saw but I know that they have brought warmth and life to our town. They brought us a new beginning and they brought me hope." She says. Wonwoo kneels in front of her and smiles.

"I have met her. Her name is Persephone." Wonwoo says and she looks up and smiles.

"What a lovely name."

"These will be for her." Wonwoo explains and he can feel.. He can feel the coldness of death nearing her. He can feel the warmth of life leave her body as she smiles wider.

"Please give her my thanks. Tell her how much warmer our lives are now because of her." She says and she reaches for Wonwoo's hands.

Wonwoo can feel her life, barely a candle light flickering but still oh so bright. "I wish I could give you more time. You are the first to reach for my hands in all the years I have been alive and I wish I could give you more life and not be the one responsible for taking it." She laughs at this. Wonwoo bares his soul to a mortal and she laughs.

"I do not need time, lord Hades. When I was born, my parents were told that I have but weeks to live. And here I am now, a great friend, a loving wife, and a mother of two wonderful men. I have already cheated you for so long so I have no fear in welcoming death in my arms." She says and Wonwoo smiles.

"There is not much I could do for you with your life but there is something I can do for what comes after." Wonwoo says and he imprints his mark on her soul as a soft cold breeze passes by them.

"You will be welcomed to the underworld as warmly as you have welcomed me. But I do hope that my welcome will not have to come so soon." Wonwoo says and she thanks him. She lets go of his hands and he kneels. She began to wrap the ground on the roots of the flowers she had unearthed for him and held it up to Wonwoo.

"If you are making a garden in the underworld, please grant me at least a single glance of it when it is my time. I would love to see how my flowers have helped in making it even better." She smiles and takes a step back. She lowers her head in a bow and then smiles at Wonwoo again with her head held high.

How could someone so full of life smile so genuinely at death?

Wonwoo watches her make her way back to town before stepping inside the shadow of the nearest tree. He looks down at the flowers and dreads the next thing he has to do.

His plan is flawless. Make a field in the underworld for Persephone and have the chance to speak his heart out. He will collect everything almost identical to Persephone's field and come back down to plant it. But to collect them is to hold them long enough for him to bring it to the underworld.

"It is quite entertaining to see how you flounder about on the ground like a mortal." Jihoon says. Ever so helpful.

"For a god who rules over people's dreams, you sure are quite persistent in ruining mine every chance you could."

"Because your dream is a lot like mine. They're not meant to dwell inside of you. You are expected to let it pass through you and then move on." Jihoon says and Wonwoo sighs.

"Feel free to pass through whenever, old friend." Wonwoo says and he lets Jihoon trip on a mound of earth he pulled as Jihoon walks closer and he goes back to his work.

"Dreams are dangerous, Wonwoo. If a mortal decides to dwell on his dreams longer than he is supposed to, he will wake not in his bed but in Charon's ferry on his way here." Jihoon says and Wonwoo ignores him. Ignoring may not make Jihoon any less correct but it feels a lot better than voicing out that he is right.

"The god who rules over death is trying his utmost best to plant flowers. You do realize how absurd this is." Jihoon claims and Wonwoo pays it no mind.

Of course Wonwoo knows. Even he himself thinks it is completely ridiculous for him to think this would even work. There is no harm in trying, though, and Wonwoo wants to at least do that. To try. He may not be able to change who he is, what he stands for, but he can learn to be more than what he is supposed to be.

Love and Death are more alike than one would think.

Wonwoo gets up from the cold hard ground, dirt clinging to the skin of his hands up to his wrists, and his shoulder brushed upon that of someone he's all too familiar with. "It's beautiful." Eros said, slipping his fingers between Wonwoo's and he could feel how genuine it was. The god of love leans closer to Wonwoo and he can't help but think of it as consolation for his actions. Wonwoo's love may not be so easily conveyed but at least Love himself thinks that the effort is to be accounted for. "It is." Thanatos said, and the god of death does the same with his other hand.

Love and Death, Eros and Thanatos, Jeonghan and Jisoo. They come with many names for all the years that they have been together but Wonwoo has lived long enough to know that whatever names they wear, no matter the when or the where, they always come hand in hand. Always, together.

"Oh, Wonwoo.." Jeonghan starts and Wonwoo smiles at Love in the face.

"Is this where I throw a fit and put the blame on you?" Wonwoo asks and Jeonghan gives him a beautiful yet sad smile. Something Wonwoo thinks only Love can give.

"I do not think I could ever find it in myself to apologize for something like this.. This is not something I could ever feel guilty for. Wonwoo, this is gorgeous. I.. This is the most tangible love I have ever seen from you. Or from any god at all." Jeonghan says and Jisoo kneels at the side of the path he had left for his little garden.

"This is the most beautiful way one could ever view death."

"I was not purposely trying to kill them." Wonwoo argues and Jisoo smiles at him.

"You will find that death pays no mind to intent, my lord. A man could kill for good and a man could kill for the darkest, most selfish of reasons. But in the end they are both just dead." Jisoo says and he gets up from the ground and smiles at him.

"That is not as comforting of a passage as you think it is." Wonwoo quips.

"It is beautiful, Wonwoo. You have done good in all the time you spent governing our kingdom but I think this is by far the only thing you have done with all your heart." Jeonghan says, somewhat a form of comforting him, but Wonwoo brushes it off.

"I do not seek comfort, nor validation. Not from you, that is. I just want to know if someone could find something in what I have done that isn't death nor destruction."

"If you listen to them you will realize that they cannot even see death in it." Wonwoo turns, watching as Cerberus rushes past the three of them to inspect the garden Wonwoo stole from the world just to bring down for him, and he sees it. A glimpse of the laughter he had grown to miss and love. "I think it is quite beautiful." Persephone says and Wonwoo's heart beats erratically.

Wonwoo never knew hearts could do that. Change the beat of the sound they constantly drum.

Jeonghan and Jisoo bow their heads towards Persephone and he does the same right before the pair walks off.

"I was-" "It took you a whole month, coming back and forth. Cerberus showed me." Persephone says and he walks up to Wonwoo and he steps back and lets Persephone see the entirety of his work.

If there was one good thing that came from his dreams, it’s the constant image of Persephone's field that helped Wonwoo in mimicking it down to the last flower. He scoured all around, at the edge of farms, open fields, and even some fields that are a little too close to villages. He takes a single flower from every field so as to not cause too much change in it and he thinks he s ucceeded in keeping his presence to the minimum that he didn't affect any of the surrounding flowers, much less the people around the vicinity.

"It never crossed my mind that the god of death would take words of pain so literally." Persephone says, still on his knees as he watches Cerberus look around and inspect as many of the flowers as its three heads could.

"I govern the dead but I'm afraid the god of death was one of the two who just left." Wonwoo says and he sits on the edge of the flowerbed, a little distance away from where Persephone was.

"I was told that death and love always comes hand in hand but I never thought it would be so literal."

"They are.. A curious pair."

"But I think they do go together. One thing I learned about growth and life is that death makes love more beautiful." Persephone says and Wonwoo sighs.

"How does that.. What does that mean ?" Wonwoo asks, frustrated. Persephone turns to him, curious eyes in a solemn face.

"How can death bring about anything but grief and sadness? How can it make something good even better when all I have seen it do is breed pain and suffering to the people that I am supposed to govern?" Wonwoo asks, he hopes his genuine curiosity does not come off as desperation. But all Persephone does is smile at him.

"You haven't seen much of life for someone who governs over death." Persephone says and Wonwoo seems more lost now than ever.

"Would death seem less dark if I knew how they lived?"

"I do not think so, no.. But I think it would give death more meaning; more sense as to why it is dark. Why it has to be dark. And why it inevitably has to come." Persephone says and Wonwoo is struck silent.

Maybe if Wonwoo sees the meaning of death, he would understand his existence more. He could understand his purpose. Persephone stands up and walks through the field. Wonwoo tries to reach for him, to stop him, but he falls short and immediately retracts his hand to his chest. Wonwoo should have told him about the flowers and their fragile state but it seems there was no need for it.

The flowers that were an inch away from crumbling into dust just sways along with Persephone's strides. Wonwoo watches as his fingertips kiss petal after petal as he walks and he watches as the dark field grows lighter as the flowers gain some life in them,

"They are thanking you." Persephone says. Wonwoo gets up and watches as Persephone kneels and closes his eyes.

"They remember how gentle you were. Cold but delicate fingers, lighter than rain." Persephone says and Wonwoo can't help but take a step back.

"Can you.. Could you apologize to them? For what I did.." Wonwoo asks and Persephone opens his eyes and stares at him.

"I don't think an apology would be necessary, Hades." Persephone says and Wonwoo feels his chest tightens.

"Please. You can refer to me as Wonwoo." Wonwoo says and Persephone smiles at him. Wonwoo cannot tell if it is just his mind hoping but the smile seems genuine.

"Then you can use my other name, as well." Persephone says and Wonwoo wonders if this is what it is like to have a heart. To have a heart and to have it skip a beat.

Chan thanks Wonwoo for the field and Wonwoo cannot let himself be happy enough from it because of the guilt that comes with why Chan was even here to begin with. Why Wonwoo decided to make the field in the first place. Does he think of Wonwoo as desperate? An old soul, so sad and lonely, so starved of light that he would think of stealing the sun. But Chan seems indifferent. He seems grateful for the gift enough to let himself lie down on the cold ground and let himself be buried, hidden by the flowers around him.

"I used to do the same before. But the sun always bothered me." Chan says and Wonwoo holds himself back from saying that he knows this. He knows this all too well.

"The underworld seems warmer than I thought it would be." Chan offers and Wonwoo sits back down, crosses his legs as he watches over the field.

"That would be because of Phlegethon. It is a river of fire that flows around my castle and down into Tartarus. If you wish for somewhere cooler there is a plain right by the river Styx." Wonwoo says and all he hears in response is a soft hum.

"I'm quite all right with just staying here." Chan says and Wonwoo takes a deep breath.

He does not mean it that way. Not in the way Wonwoo wants him to mean. He meant here, right now. Not staying here, staying with..

Cerberus takes careful steps in order to reach Chan and Wonwoo watches as it leans down and lets Chan hold his middle head.

"He is quite fond of you." Wonwoo says and Chan's laughter escapes him. It is not as loud and vibrant as it used to but it is his laughter all the same.

"I could say the same for you." Chan says and Cerberus folds his legs under him and Wonwoo watches. It is laughable how much he envies to be Cerberus right at that moment.

"All those times you left to the surface, he would drag me out as he waited for you by the doors of your castle. And when you come back he will simply bring me back to my room." Chan explains and Wonwoo doesn't know what to make of it.

"We saw you. I saw you. With every single day you left, I saw you come back. And I do not think I have ever seen that before." Chan says with a sullen voice.

"Seen what?" Wonwoo asks.

"Seen such delicate dedication. One that is directed towards me, nonetheless."

That cannot be right. Chan is a pure god by birth right and he's the son of two Olympians at that. Wonwoo knows that not every god is worshipped and he knows that some worshipers are misdirected. One would express their anger at Hades for things Ares and his wars had done and another would thank Athena for knowledge that Hepheastus had granted them to construct. But Wonwoo feels no deeper wrong than knowing that no one worships Chan the way he wishes he openly could.

"I must sound spoiled to you. A god with little to nothing as their duty asking to be known."

"I think your want to be known is pointless, yes, but not because you are undeserving of it. Because you are. Known, I mean." Wonwoo explains and Chan sits up from the field and he smiles at Wonwoo with such hollowness that it physically pained Wonwoo.

"A god who wish to be acknowledged and a god who wish to not be acknowledged." Chan says, saying it more to himself as he lets all three of Cerberus's head rest from his lap to his lower leg.

"It is not that I do not wish to be known. I just wish to simply know why I am to be worshiped." Wonwoo offers and Chan looks up at him.

"And you think you know why I am to be worshiped?"

"I could list them all out starting now and I know I would not have enough time to finish them all." Wonwoo says before he could let himself think and Chan smiles at him. Wonwoo composes himself and clears his throat.

"For one, you have this effect on flowers that not even your mother does. For her, growth has this purpose. An end result one must meet. But the way you do it is nothing like that." Wonwoo looks down at the flowers and he dares himself to let his heart take over. He reaches for a flower and is met with a flower that is equally as cold as he is.

"You do not know what your purpose is but instead of being torn about it, you let it become an endless possibility. Like how.. Uh.. potted plants could only grow to a size appropriate to the pot. And you were planted on a field in its stead. You had no direction in what you should become so you let yourself bloom to the fullest. You let yourself become who you really are, who you are happy to become. And I admire you tirelessly for it." Wonwoo says, baring his heart and is glad to see that it is received well. Wonwoo is only apologetic with half of his heart as Chan wipes at his tears and Wonwoo lets himself walk closer to him.

"I can show you. I would gladly show you, if you let me." Wonwoo says and he offers him a hand. And Chan takes it.

Wonwoo cannot remember ever feeling warmth. He has felt the raging fires and the numbing pain that comes with frostbite. But warmth is a completely new concept to him and his old heart. Wonwoo leads Chan to a much darker side of a huge tree he had brought down and he asks Chan to hold onto him tightly.

It was incredibly overwhelming, holding Chan in his arms. Wonwoo is so moved that all he could think for a moment is that this is what Icarus wanted. All he could have ever wanted. To hold the sun without his wings melting in the process. Wonwoo feels guilt and appreciation for it; he almost feels devastated for the fate he had ended with all because he had wanted this. And Wonwoo gets to have it.

He carried Chan through the shadows and he gently slips out into the shadows right by a small field that overlooks a small town. Wonwoo covers Chan’s eyes with his palms, telling him to slowly let his eyes adjust to the light before opening them, and Chan gently holds his hand and slowly pulls them away from his face.

"There is a woman in the town who had seen me the day I was taking a flower from the field and she knew what I was before I could even sense her." Wonwoo says and he takes Chan's hand and walks them on the edge of the tree line to let Chan see the field clearly.

"She told me she knew why I came here. She told me that their town is graced by you." Wonwoo says and he lets go of Chan's hand and watches as he walks further and kneels to greet the flowers.

"She knew who I was?" Chan asks and Wonwoo nods.

"She told me that when she was a child, she saw tree nymphs dancing and singing along with a beautiful deity who moves like the wind and laughs like soft summer rain. She told me that after that fateful day, their field had always bloomed and the spirits in the forest had been kind to those who needed them. Their town was filled with warmth and hope and all live with such confidence and it was all thanks to that god. All thanks to you"

"That could have been anyone."

"You are right. It could. But we both know it is not. And I personally think that she described your laughter very well." Wonwoo claims and Chan gives him a playful glare before the flowers let the breeze push them closer to him. Wonwoo wished he could do that, press himself against Chan and blame it on the breeze, blame it on something other than his pathetic desire to do so.

Wonwoo is shaken when he hears it. The laughter that he has been chasing for weeks. It is like a wave of nectar hitting him, the way it revitalizes him in ways he never knew anything ever could. And he feels his heart break at the sight of it now just being a few feet away from him and yet it has never been so unobtainable than it is now. Because now he knows that the only way he could ever have that laughter is if he did not have Chan.

He could not keep Chan's laughter the way he wants to if he keeps Chan all to himself. He could not keep Chan.

It is quite frustrating, getting hit with the answer he's been yearning for but in the most inconvenient way. It's frustrating that all he needs to understand how love works is to understand what he needs to do to love Chan.

To love is not about owning.

Wonwoo takes a cautious step back, being as quiet as he can, and he gives himself one last look at the way Chan glows under the soft sunlight before turning and heading for the shadows. He never knew how whole this empty feeling could weigh on his chest. He has been teaching people to let go of their earthly ties as they drink from the river of Lethe to forget their life and he never could understand why that would be so taxing on them. Now he is considering drinking from the river Lethe just to forget the way Chan's laughter makes him feel the most alive he has ever been in the eons that he's been alive. He considers a lot of things that he could do to make the pain bearable and he completely breaks because now that he knows what love is, he knows that it's something he could never have. Because now he knows that love isn't owning, it's the complete opposite of it.

"Can I bring more flowers to the field?" Chan asks, gripping Wonwoo's wrist right before he could touch the shadows, and he must have seen something in Wonwoo's eyes for his smile to leave his face.

"Is something wrong?"

"You don't.. There's no need for you to come with me back to the underworld Chan. I-" Wonwoo faces him and he gently pries Chan's fingers away from his wrist. "I know I have to apologize for what I did but I do not regret having you even just for the brief time that I did." Wonwoo says and Chan reaches for him again and instead of his wrist, he slips his fingers next to Wonwoo's and comes closer.

"But I want to come back with you." Chan says and Wonwoo takes a deep breath.

"I cannot let you-"

"You took me there when I did not want to do anything with you and now that I want to be with you, you're telling me that I can't?" Chan says and Wonwoo does his best to hold back tears and fails. He never had anything to cry about before, much less, reason to hold them back.

"You had your chance to be selfish. Don't you think it's just fair that I get my turn, too?" Chan says and he uses the hand that Wonwoo isn't holding to wipe Wonwoo's cheeks of his tears.

"Do you not want me there?"

"I do. Of course I do. I want nothing more than just that. And that is exactly the problem. Nothing would make me happier than having you by my side as much as I can. But I feel as though that would be unfair of me."

"You think you're doing something wrong just because you get to be happy with it?" Chan asks and Wonwoo answers this by not answering at all.

"You will find that not many people find it comforting when they see death smiling at them."

"That's only because they have not seen you smile the way you do with me."

Wonwoo is never one for confrontation to begin with so in the end, Wonwoo comes back to the underworld holding onto Chan's waist as Chan holds a few flowers who had told him that they wanted to come with them. Wonwoo feels unsure the entire time, new to having someone in his lonesome castle and even more new to just having someone. Chan strikes up conversations with him which catches him off-guard most of the time and he would reach to hold onto Wonwoo one way or another which.. Wonwoo does like. It is rather distracting but Wonwoo will not deny liking it as much as he did. Wonwoo lets himself be happy, lets himself care a little less, lets himself be with Chan and have nothing else in his mind other than the way Chan makes him feel.

There was no need for Wonwoo to go back to his little paradise above ground, for he had found a new one here. A paradise he can hold; one he can touch. Chan was a wonderful addition to the underworld and in only two days, he had turned the dread of the dead into something more hopeful. Wonwoo takes him around the underworld and the first he had asked to visit, which came as a surprise to Wonwoo, was the hall of judgement.

Wonwoo need not introduce Chan to them for he stood up next to them and did this himself.

Aeacus, the holder of the keys of the underworld, shifts the scepter in his right hand to his left and offers a kiss on the back of Chan's hand as welcome.

Rhadamantus, the one who governs over Elysium all its inhabitants, grins at Chan and offers only to hold his hand and shake it to show his respect.

Minos, the one in the center who holds his head high, gives Chan nothing but an amused smile. Chan returns it and that seems to unnerve Minos. Wonwoo took his place right next to Chan and led him away from the hall with nothing more than that introduction.

"Three unlawful kings having to decide on a soul's fate seems rather unfair." Chan says and Wonwoo sighs.

"Rhadamantus is lawful enough to provide balance for his brothers."

"The three are brothers?"

"Minos and Rhadamantus are full brothers. Both have the same mother. But all three of them have the same father." Wonwoo says and Chan nods.

"Same as I." Chan says and Wonwoo nods.

"How does their judgement stand for everyone that passes through your gates? They were kings, selfish and arrogant kings, in the time that they were alive."

"I chose them because they do not hold prejudice."

"Prejudice?"

"To a king who thinks the world owes him all the riches he could ever want, he can look at the greatest hero and the worst man and see them as equally beneath him." Wonwoo explains and Chan seems to understand what he means.

"So they will be fair by being unfair to all." Chan sums up and Wonwoo nods.

"They're pretty easy to appease. I gave one Elysium so he can live the grand life he thinks he deserves. Another, the keys to the doors of death that need not be opened at all."

"And Minos?"

"I gave Minos the only thing he wanted. Power over all. He thinks his decision holds more power since he is the last to vote but-" "But his vote just seems that way to him because of his own arrogance." Chan finishes for him and Wonwoo nods.

"I must say I am a little afraid of how you handled that." Chan says but he holds Wonwoo's hand tighter.

"You would be mad to not be afraid of me even in the slightest."Wonwoo says and Chan demands to be taken somewhere else.

Wonwoo loves that about him. No one had ever demanded something from Wonwoo. 

Wonwoo walks around Elysium with Chan, his hand in his, and he tells stories of the heroes that are here. Kings covered in medals of valor, scholars praised for breaking down how the world's mechanism function part by part, performers who brought beauty to the world, and helpers who were there to rid the world of negativity and amplify how the others' good deeds could spread more. The sight of children in Elysium struck Chan as odd at first but it had turned into something heavier than dread the moment after. "Death comes to us all. Though some are taken earlier than others." Wonwoo explains.

He also explains to Chan how Elysium houses very few children and why that is so. It is because souls who are granted passage to Elysium are granted the chance to be reborn. Most kings would rather live with their legendary status here but most children are convinced to accept the offer for them to live a proper life that time around. Wonwoo strays Chan off that path and heads on over to the part of the underworld where he might just find alluring.

"I’ve heard of this. Asphodels." Chan says, kneeling by the edge of the meadow of Asphodels.

Wonwoo raises the fog covering most of it to show Chan the souls that linger inside it. "This is the part of the underworld I like the most. No pain and no pointless glory." Wonwoo says and Chan looks onto the field and Wonwoo cannot help but feel his sorrow. "But it is void of anything. It is but an endless field of beautiful flowers and empty souls." Wonwoo has explained this to Chan. He explains that to enter the underworld you will be judged and then be made to drink in the river Lethe to wash away your memories if you are not to be welcomed in Elysium. So the souls here are void of memories and therefore void of emotions. Souls who did no misconducts but have done no good deed as well. No punishment but no comfort granted.

Chan picks a single stem of Asphodel with the flowers blooming a gorgeous shade of dull white as Wonwoo helps him to his feet and he holds it gently in his fingertips.

"I think souls deserve that kind of time." Chan says.

"Time to be confined into nothingness?" Wonwoo asks, confused.

"Time to be nothing. To give the soul time before they have to be alive again." Chan says and Wonwoo ponders about this. Chan smiles at him and then smiles at the flowers in his hands.

"Even Boreas give flowers time to be nothing in the trail of his frigid snow, Wonwoo. I even appointed myself a role for myself with him. Telling him where his frigid snow is needed and giving that part of the world time for the land to rest. That is why they find the courage to bloom again, the flowers. I hope every soul gets a chance to rest here for a few decades before having to deal with living again." Chan says and Wonwoo hums.

"I think to myself that I should appoint you to a position here. One to judge if a soul deserves rest or punishment." Wonwoo says and Chan laughs.

"I am not trying to tease, my love. I think your fairness will bring balance to the unfairness you so outspokenly pointed out in my kingdom." Wonwoo confesses and Chan smiles at him.

"I will keep that in mind." Chan says and Wonwoo smiles.

They walk into Wonwoo's castle and they pass by the dining hall. Wonwoo splits that second into an hour and thinks of offering Chan to eat something from his table. To offer Chan a ticket that would grant him a guaranteed permanence at Wonwoo's side. He wonders if Chan would want this enough to make Wonwoo think that he is not as selfish as he is for wanting this more than Chan. But he leaves that second and walks past it with Chan in his arms. They head towards the back of the castle, where Wonwoo had placed Chan's garden for him, and they see Jeonghan and Jisoo sitting in the field. Wonwoo lets Chan run to them, watches as Chan's clothes sway along with every stride and he watches him kneel in front of the two with his flower still in his hand.

"That's the same smile you had the day you first told me about him." Jihoon says from behind him and Wonwoo sighs.

"Must you antagonize me so frequently?"

"You would be surprised at how many people dream of antagonizing death itself. I am merely living up to my duties." Jihoon explains and Wonwoo walks off.

Wonwoo leaves no time for himself to feel shame that he knows he should feel and he drowns himself in all the ways he could take in Chan and all of his person. From the way he laughs along to Jeonghan's antics, to the way he speaks so fondly about his field to Jihoon when the god of dreams asks him why his dreams are as bright as they are. Even as Jisoo tries to explain to Chan why death comes to those who even he knows does not deserve death. 

Wonwoo was even given the chance to see all of Chan. A chance he never knew Chan would grant him. He was given the opportunity to touch him, hold Chan like how he had wanted to touch all the living things on the surface that Wonwoo could never touch.

Chan was, is.. sweet. In all the ways one could be. His way with words, the way he touches, the way he tastes. Wonwoo could spend an eternity where he was, with Chan giving a piece of himself that only Wonwoo could claim as his. He gets the chance to be with Chan as he walks around the underworld and maintains its order. Chan spends a lot of time in Elysium and even ended up making a deal with one of the known architects that reside there. "You told me how there needs to be a better way to accept souls and lead them to where they need to be. He will be able to help with that." Chan claims and Wonwoo does not argue. Even if he could, he would rather not argue with someone as persistent as Chan. They spend a few days talking with him, coming up with designs on the better flow of the souls in the vast underworld, and Wonwoo gives him permission to handle the project.

Chan then takes it upon himself to create a little meadow right by the river Lethe for his newfound friend. "He is the god of dreams, Wonwoo. He must need something to give him comfort when he dreams." Wonwoo wanted to argue that Jihoon practically lives in his castle as well but Chan seems determined in creating a little gift for Jihoon. So Wonwoo sits by the riverbank, Cerberus sitting next to him, as they watch Chan spread seeds all around and then make them grow in an instant. It is the kind of grass that is soft and does not stand up but rather lie down on top of each other. "I made one for Cerberus as well." Chan says and he shows Wonwoo Cerberus's own little patch of paradise.

Wonwoo can not compare this to anything. This feeling of being someone's person as you are his. Chan used to be in every single thought he had in every waking moment and now he is in every single moment in  Wonwoo's life. He has him by his side, in his arms, holding his hand, holding him tight. Wonwoo used to want to know why living is such sweet sorrow because death comes right after but now he knows. He knows because now, Chan calls himself as Wonwoo's queen. He knows because when Chan calls himself as Wonwoo's other half, Wonwoo thinks to himself that he is his better half. He knows because Chan had shared with Wonwoo his story of love; love that he can never forget. 

And just like every story of love, it must always have an end. Wonwoo knows this better than anyone.

He knew it would come eventually but he never knew it would come so soon.

After exactly ten days of having Chan in his arms as Chan sleeps in Wonwoo's bed, after ten days of waking up to skin on his, and after ten days of knowing what a kiss feel like, news come to them in the form of the only other Olympian who frequents the underworld.

"Junhui?" Wonwoo walks up to him as he greets Cerberus and Junhui smiles at him. Only, it is a smile Wonwoo does not quite want to see.

"I am afraid I come to you more as Hermes than Junhui tonight, my friend." He says and Wonwoo can feel how serious it is already.

Chan is by their field, curating it more and even trying a new found talent in making new flowers from the already existing ones. He can even make trees grow to the point where they bear fruits but Wonwoo knows better than to offer him to taste them. He takes Junhui to the edge of the field and Junhui seems surprised to see Chan wave at them when he sees them.

"He is.."

"Taking over my castle and everyone who resides in it. I just found herbs growing on my window sills this morning. Do you, perchance, know what basil is used for?" Wonwoo says, asks, and Junhui seems a little confused by all this.

"Is there something wrong?" Wonwoo asks.

"Well, for one, I came here because I was told that you should let Chan go. Set him free.. But it seems that you were never holding him down here at all." Junhui says and Wonwoo smiles, embarrassed by the truth.

"I did try to tell him to go back. But he doesn't seem to be too keen on following what others tell him to do." Wonwoo jokes but Junhui's face seems indifferent.

"Junhui, what is this really about?"Wonwoo asks and Junhui sighs.

"You've had a rather huge influx of souls coming down recently haven't you? Over the past months?" Junhui asks and Wonwoo nods.

"Yes. But Chan had already helped me with that by fixing a part of our system here. Souls can find their way around as easily as they did before." Wonwoo informs him but it seems like that is not what Junhui meant to inquire. 

"Zeus had told me to tell you to let him go because if you don't, many more will die." Junhui says and Wonwoo feels his heart get struck by something much more painful than even Zeus's thunderbolt could.

Hermes being the messenger of the gods has been how Wonwoo could manage some sort of friendship with him. He tells him news and information as to what is happening in the world and even some things the other gods want to tell him. But this is far more grave than all the other news he had ever delivered to Wonwoo.

Seokmin, one of the kindest gods that was more than kind to Wonwoo, had turned devastated when he found out of Chan's disappearance. He had been scouring the surface for Chan since the day Wonwoo had taken him and on the tenth day of his search, The goddess of magic, Minghao, came across him and they shared a similar day of different records. Because on the day Chan disappeared, Minghao felt a large wave of magic being used. The old magic Wonwoo had used to take Chan back to the underworld. So the two could only come to the only god who could have any information about it. The one god that quite literally rides the sun that lights up everything which in turn, could show him everything.

Apollo, the god of poetry and archery and the wielder of the sun, was easy enough to find given that he rides the sun in a tight schedule. Wonwoo remembered that Junhui had once called him Hansol and that he was more.. Brazen than even Zeus himself. The two gods in search of answers came to him and he gave them the answer they had needed, but not what they wanted.

Minghao felt wronged that the magic he showed Wonwoo, the magic he shared, was used in such a way. And Seokmin was beyond betrayed. He felt used, tricked, hurt. All the kindness he showed Wonwoo was returned by him taking the one thing he cared for more than anything else in the entire world. So Seokmin went to Olympus as soon as he could and he told  Seungcheol what had happened only to feel more betrayed when Seungcheol told him that he gave Wonwoo his permission. Seokmin took all that rage, all the pain and the betrayal, and he kept that inside. Buried it and nurtured it by himself. He walked out of Olympus with his head held high and never showed himself to any of them since.

"Where has he gone?"

"We never knew. Well, we didn't until after a month."

Seokmin had disguised himself as a mortal and had been living with humans ever since. But instead of helping them the way that he used to, Seokmin took out all his pain and sorrow and buried it deep in the land. And that affected every single crop he could reach. If he had simply stopped helping farmers, it would not have been as much of a devastating thing. But he willed the ground to not bear fruit, he had destroyed every crop from within and he watched as people grew weaker and weaker until people had started to die.

Seokmin had gone cold. He had grown a stone cold heart that stayed there, watching as people died from hunger and despair. He watches them die one by one and he listens to their prayers in detail and he does nothing. Junhui tells them that the deaths are taking a toll on the gods. Gods as minor as the wind gods and even ones that have a seat on Olympus. The more desperate the humans become the more hateful they are towards the gods. On all gods. That's why Seungcheol asked them to look for Seokmin but even when they had found him, they could not do a single thing to undo what he did. Not even persuade him to stop. 

"He threatened him, Wonwoo. Seokmin has gone mad. He threatened Seungcheol that he will watch until the last mortal dies of starvation and then he will gladly accept his own death and watch as they all disappear into nothing. You have to let him go." "No." Chan says before Wonwoo could even say anything back and Junhui sighs.

"You have no idea what your presence here is doing to the world, little one. You cannot stay here."Junhui explains, pleads with all he can, and Chan takes a stance and glares at them.

"Whatever it is, the fault is not ours." Chan argues and Wonwoo steps in front of Junhui before he could say anything else. Wonwoo takes notice of Junhui's form, of how shoddy his robes are and how his feet are on the ground when Wonwoo had grown used to scolding him for keeping himself flying even as they spoke..

Wonwoo knew what he had to do. He is prepared to rip his heart apart for the rest of the world but he is not as prepared to do the same for his Chan.

"Will you be taking him?" Wonwoo asks. And the disbelief in Chan's face hurt more than he thought it would so he turns to Junhui.

"I could."

"Would it be too much for me to ask you to bring Seokmin here? Tomorrow morning." Wonwoo offers and Chan turns his back on them and runs, leaving his tears on his tracks as Wonwoo stands his ground.

"Why does it seem like this parting is hurting him more than it is hurting you?" Junhui asks and Wonwoo hopes it is not. For he is hurting far more than he ever had before and he would not wish this on anyone, especially not his better half.

"I just have more experience with losing compared to him. He is quite young. But thank you, my friend.. Please send them my word and we will meet you tomorrow morning. I am sorry.. I never intended to but I know the fault is mine." Wonwoo says, already heading towards where he thinks Chan will be, and Junhui stops him by holding onto his wrist.

"Wonwoo.. This may come as hollow, given the circumstances, but I don't think I have ever seen you like this." Junhui says, smiling weakly.

"Like this?"

"Whole. You talk with your whole chest now." Junhui says and Wonwoo smiles as the wings on his sandals flutter and lifts him off the ground.

"You also brood a lot less, as I've been told. Although Jihoon's dreams do come as faulty at times when I am in Olympus." Junhui adds and Wonwoo waves his hand as Cerberus starts growling, trying to catch Junhui in the air, and Junhui plays with him for a few seconds before he takes his leave.

It fills Wonwoo's heart to find that he knows Chan enough to know where he would find solace in the vast underworld. There is this one specific spot where the river Styx curls into the ground and creates a little pond and there Chan sits by himself with his knees pulled up to his chest. Wonwoo stomps his feet twice and he feels it grumble before Cerberus comes running behind him and it only takes him a second to run up to Chan and take over his space. It pleases Wonwoo to think that Cerberus does what Wonwoo's subconscious wants to openly do. To hold him and smother him and just be next to him however he can. Wonwoo takes his time walking towards Chan and he sits on his other side as Cerberus lies on the other and hums contently as Chan pets his middle head.

"I never thought it would hurt like this. To have you give up on me." Chan says, voice dipped in sorrow that Wonwoo feels every bit of betrayal Chan is feeling.

"It may seem like that but I am not giving up on you. On us. Far from it, really." Wonwoo sits by his side, letting Chan lean on him as he did.

"They are going to take me away." Chan counters and Wonwoo sighs.

"No. They are going to take you back. Remember that it was I who took you away from the world, first, my love."

"And I want you to remember that you gave me a choice. That you sent me home and I still chose to be here.. I want to be here, Wonwoo. I want to be here with you. Does that mean nothing to you? To any of you?" Chan complains and Cerberus whines along. Feeling Chan's despair.

"You cannot live the rest of your years with me, Chan. Not in the way you want to. We both know this is never going to last forever." Wonwoo admits and Chan lets out a soft cry.

"No, you believed it was never going to last long. But I had hoped that we could have this."

"It's not that, my love. Not everyone can survive here, Chan. Not even gods." Wonwoo says and Chan cannot argue with this fact. Not even his stubbornness can ignore that Chan himself is growing weak for not having been able to eat for months.

"The rest of the gods with me here, they did not choose to be here. But it is here and only here where they can find a place to call home."

"What if I did find my home here? I could eat-"

"Chan. Please. This is already taking its toll on me as it is. Do you think I want you gone?" Wonwoo asks and Chan takes a deep sigh and lets his tears fall.

"You have been the one and only flower I have ever held in my hands that hurt me more than I hurt it and I regret not a single moment of it. Okay? In the mere year that I had you to myself, you had taught me what it is like to live; what it means to love. And am I wrong to say that this is part of that? Was it not you who taught me that letting go is part of that? Part of living and loving." Wonwoo says and he watches as tears fall down his lover's face and onto his arms. Wonwoo pulls him in, holds him close and lets him cry on his chest.

"I will never forget you, my love. I couldn't even if I had wanted to. You have dug your thorns in me and I let it. Welcomed it, even. Now I get to have the scars of your love on me for all eternity and that is going to have to be enough for me." Wonwoo says and Chan takes a deep breath.

Wonwoo holds him there, by the river Styx, and he wonders if his words of love could have been interpreted by the river as an oath.

Then he decides that he won't leave it to chance and make it one.

"I, the god and ruler of the underworld, swear that I will love you for every moment in time, from here on out. I will hold onto our love like it is a physical thing and I will never let a day pass where I will not recall your laugh to remind me what it is to love like I was alive." Wonwoo says, holding his hand out over the river, and he feels the oath bind around his arm and it runs like a vine and binds around his heart.

Chan pulls away from his chest and smiles at him, holding out his hand over to where Wonwoo's arm is, and he smiles back at Wonwoo. "And I, for what measly god I am, swear to all those things as well with all that I am." Chan says and Wonwoo watches as Chan gasps and reaches for his chest.

"I love you, Wonwoo. More than anyone could imagine." Chan says, swears, and Wonwoo lets it fill his heart.

Wonwoo was ready to comfort his lover for as long as he needed to but it seems he knew Chan a little less than he thought. He had cleared his throat from crying and gets up from the ground telling Wonwoo that he needs to say goodbye to a few names before his departure tomorrow.

The first being Jihoon, who they find idling by the river Lethe, in the meadow Cha gifted him, who Chan thanks for all the dreams he gave him throughout the years. And Jihoon reminds him that he doesn't deserve his gratitude for his dreams are only as vibrant as the memories one makes. Chan takes Wonwoo by the hand again and now brings him to his castle, towards the rear end, where Jisoo and Jeonghan are talking.

Chan walks up to Jisoo and Wonwoo cannot remember if there was a time where someone looked at death himself in the face and smiled the way Chan does. Chan bows his head, learning from the past that he cannot touch Thanatos the same way he can touch Hades. Jeonghan, on the other hand, did not wait for Chan and held him close to his chest. And Wonwoo watches as he thanks Chan.

"I do not think I did anything to deserve that." Chan says, hugging him, holding Love, Eros, in his arms. And Love laughs at him.

"There are endless kinds of love in the world but even I have to play favorites. And that is the kind of love that you have."

"The kind that we have?" Chan asks, gesturing towards Wonwoo, and Jeonghan shakes his head.

"No, Chan. The kind you have. Love that you had long before you have even met Wonwoo." Jeonghan says and Chan smiles at him through his tears.

"Your love is the kind of love that inspires love. The kind that gives and gives and expects nothing in return but for the love to be passed on." Jeonghan says, pulling back enough to hold Chan's face in his hands and look at him properly.

"Your love does not do anything but grow and I want nothing more than to thank you for it. For your love dug its roots so widely, far enough for it to even reach us here." Jeonghan says this and sneaks a glance at Wonwoo. Jeonghan lets go of Chan with tears and adoration in his eyes and love in his smile.

Wonwoo holds Chan close as they take a final stroll around the underworld. Now, Chan asks for Wonwoo to show even the ugliest part of it. From the wails of the forgotten souls in Cocytus. Souls that were not given proper burial so they cannot pay the fare for Charon's ferry and thus, left to swim in endless agony for all eternity. Wonwoo lets Chan walk close to the edge of Tartarus as well. The darkest part of the underworld with the most gruesome and heinous beings that had to be taken down. Wonwoo tells Chan that his very father is there and Chan tells him that he knows.

"I used to think that I am made for nothing more than to be my father's shadow. A remnant of his darkness, fear that is instilled in the people's hearts that they had made me in his stead.. That I am meant to be just as vile and ruthless as he was." Wonwoo says and he smiles at Chan.

"But If a god like yourself can find the good in a god like the one that I am, if a god like you can find it in yourself to love me, then I must be worth more than that." Wonwoo says and Chan smiles.

Instead of spending their last night in the comfort of Wonwoo's castle, in their kingdom, in their bed, Chan asks him to come spend the night in the field Wonwoo's made for him. Wonwoo does not need to ask if he's sure, Chan is always sure. Wonwoo lets himself be dragged in the middle of the field and lies down next to Chan, letting him rest his head on his chest. Wonwoo looks up at the dark ceiling of the ground over their heads and he cannot help but smile when he hears Chan start to cry once more.

"I am quite unsure if you know, but I have had months to get to know you on the surface. Watch you prance around fields and laugh while you play in rivers. Watching you used to be the one good thing in my daily life that I've grown too attached." Wonwoo confesses. Chan sniffles, tries to drown his cries as quietly as he can and Wonwoo holds him closer. "Laughter is pretty rare here, if you have not noticed. And you alone showed an abundance of it whenever I would steal glimpses of your life from afar. I feel as though I owe you thanks for that." Wonwoo says and Chan shakes his head.

"I knew." Chan says.

It took Wonwoo a couple of moments to understand what he meant and he tensed under Chan. "That day.. I thought I had hidden away before you could see me." Wonwoo says and Chan smiles at him. "You did. But I always felt you there. A soft chill at the back of my neck. You were always watching over me." Chan says and Wonwoo can not tell him how it's not like that at all..

"I am glad for the company. It may have felt a little cold when you were there but I had never felt alone whenever you were close."

Wonwoo did not think words were needed that night. Not that he would know the right ones to say. Wonwoo's right arm curls around Chan's shoulders, his sleeves wrap around Chan's back, and he lets his robes soak up Chan's tears throughout the night. Chan held him as well, but it is in a way that pains Wonwoo more than anything else. He clings onto him, as if holding Wonwoo tighter would keep the morning from arriving or at least slow it down. He has seen it before, when Jisoo would bring Wonwoo to the surface to show him what death looks like to mortals. Seen it in the way children drag the ceremony longer by not letting their parents go, seen it in the way soldiers, friends and brothers alike, would deny logic because they cannot accept the truth around their comrades' death. 

He's seen it in lovers who would offer the people to bury them along with their loved ones.

"I do not want to leave, Wonwoo. Please." Chan's once so beautiful and warm voice is now cracked, like gravel against gravel. Wonwoo pulls the two of them to sit up and he pulls Chan on him, holding him as close as their physical bodies would allow him.

"And I do not want you to leave just as much, my love. But this is beyond us, now. There is a price for this love that I do not wish for you to pay."

"Wonwoo.. We will not get the chance to meet again after I am to take my leave. You know that just as well as I do." Chan tells him and Wonwoo nods.

"I do. And that does nothing for my love for you. I can go through eons and eons on end of not being able to hold you, or even see you, and my love for you would not learn what it is like to waver. Not ever."

"But I am not as strong.. I am not strong enough to just move on and not acknowledge the void in my chest with every single moment I spend apart from you." Chan confesses and it fills Wonwoo with such sweet sorrow. Such painful adoration and love that he can not help but land a soft kiss on his lover's cheek.

"That weight, that void you speak of, it is not a feeling of emptiness. That is our love weighing you down, trying to drag you closer to me, to here." Wonwoo says and Chan nods, wiping away his own tears.

"That is not a painful thing, my love. You taught me that to love is not to own. It is about letting yourself grow. And we will. And someday, when the stars align and the fates allow it, I will hold you once more. Like how the moon and the sun are never meant to meet, an eclipse will inevitably come and they will come together." Wonwoo says, promises, and Chan holds him closer, clings tighter.

"I do not want to be the sun nor the moon. I just wish to be who we are now, where we are right now."

"But you already are the sun; my sun. Just like Apollo who was given the sun by Helios, I was selfish enough to ask to have you. And you have been my sun for every moment I had you, my love, and I, your moon." Wonwoo runs his palm over Chan's back and he wills himself to be strong enough for the both of them.

"You have given me light, warmth, and a reason to keep being who I am rather than change for what I thought would be for the better. Because you showed me that I could be the moon; light in the midst of all that darkness and a guide to all who needs me. And just like the moon, I shine only because of you." Chan's hold was not desperate anymore, but it was tight nonetheless. Wonwoo hopes he had eased Chan's restlessness enough for him to resign to what they have to do in the morning. But for now, Wonwoo does what he can and he holds his love like it is a physical thing. He wipes its face of tears and let those tears soak the ground around them. For now, Wonwoo does what he can and admits to himself that even he, who owns the dark half of the world, deserves love as light and warm as his Chan.

In the morning, there was no sunrise that tells them the morning has come. Their only tell was Cerberus softly lying next to Chan and grumbling softly. Wonwoo can feel the presence of two gods in the underworld and they are two that he knows the most. Chan is awake in his arms but he does not move like he is. He is sluggish and heavy and Wonwoo carries him up to sit.

"I don't suppose begging would work at this point.." Chan says and Wonwoo smiles at him. Chan smiles back, it was not wholehearted but it is still Chan's smile.

"Come on. It is not like I can offer them anything to eat to prolong what has to come." Wonwoo says and Chan tenses in his arms.

"I have to.. There are things in the castle. My things. I have to get them before I take my leave. Can you face them first? Without me?" Chan asks and Wonwoo can not think of a single thing he cannot do for Chan.

"We will wait for you by the front of the garden. Cerberus will come with you lest you try to do something foolish. Like running away." Wonwoo says and Chan pets Cerberus' middle head. Wonwoo helps him up and they both part ways as they leave their field.

The thing about gods, they way they can shape and reshape into whatever they want, it often leads to mortals confusing them for someone else. Like the bloodthirsty anger that breathes through Ares can be interpreted by mortals as their version of an angry god of death. That is because no matter what shape they turn into, what body they choose, their aura will always be legible. And right now, as Wonwoo walks towards the god he owes the most, he cannot help but feel like he is facing what mortals think death looks like.

"I suppose a welcome will not be worth much to you seeing that it comes from me." Wonwoo offers and Seokmin holds his gaze like he is holding a dagger of imperial gold over his throat.

"Nothing that comes from you will ever be worth anything to me. You have made sure of that when you did what you did." Seokmin says, voice as deep and cold as Tartarus itself, and Wonwoo takes a step back to show that he means no ill will.

"Brother-"

"No. You do not get to reap the weight of that word anymore, Hades. I thought you were different from them. I thought that amongst the three of you, at least one would not be like the others."

"I am not like them."

"You do not get to think that you deserve the right to explain yourself to me. You threw away all my love and respect for you when you did what you did." Seokmin says, his voice is louder and much more sharp than Wonwoo had ever heard from his gentle brother.

"I gave you all that I can give to you, Wonwoo.. I helped you see the world that you have been desperately trying to reach. I have given you all that I can give you and yet you still took the one thing that means the most to me." Seokmin may be a distance away from him but Wonwoo feels his words wrap around his neck.

"You are exactly like them. Three of a kind. You may hide behind your misery, entice pity in the eyes of gods with this helpless act, but it will not take away the fact that you are just like the brothers you despise. Men drunk in power that would take what they deem is rightfully theirs. It was not enough that you three split the world amongst yourselves. It was not enough that you made sure people would know you and fear you by instinct . None of it was ever enough." Seokmin, for the god that Wonwoo knows him to be, is anything but a liar. And Wonwoo had always admired his need to voice out the truth even when the world does not want to hear it.

"Maybe you were right, Hades. Maybe you do need another purpose to feel whole. Because as of now, right now, all I see is nothing but a mere shadow. All I see is an empty shell of a coward, a coward who used to be my brother, clawing desperately for a chance to be a hero."

"That is enough." Chan's words echo over their heads and Wonwoo turns and sees him standing there with Cerberus at his side.

"Chan.." Seokmin's voice was soft, warm as it was before, but it immediately drops as he sees Chan.

"You will get to have me.. You will get what you want from him. So there is no need to talk to him in that manner." Chan says and he walks past Wonwoo and straight to Seokmin and Junhui. Wonwoo tries to reach for his arm but something felt wrong, Chan felt.. different.

"Wonwoo." Chan calls out to him, Wonwoo looks up and sees Chan mid-throw. Wonwoo barely catches what he thinks is a pouch full of seeds as Chan takes off and flies along with Junhui.

"Plant these by the river of fire." Chan says and Wonwoo watches as the three disappear into Junhui's passages and out of Wonwoo's sight. Wonwoo takes in a deep breath and feels the weight of an empty heart for the first time in all his years alive.

But he cannot even wallow in his own misery as he hears Jeonghan call out for him.

Wonwoo dives into the shadows and appears in Jeonghan's shadow only to find himself in his own dining hall. Wonwoo wonders why Jeonghan would have felt that much fear only to find him looking at the table. A table that is always set with food for the gods who live here and for no one else.

And he stares at a lone pomegranate out of its usual place and in the middle of the table, halved open, and still dripping.

I have to.. There are things in the castle. My things. I have to get them before I take my leave.

No.

"I felt it." Jeonghan said. As if it would ease Wonwoo to know that Chan did what he did out of love.

Wonwoo runs. He runs towards the tree on Chan's field and dives into its shadow to reappear on the shadow of a tree in his little paradise on the surface. The very paradise where it all started.

He calls for him. Calls for both of them. He is desperately running on the stone path of his little domain here in hopes that he can be heard. When he was on the slope downwards, towards the field, he saw tree nymphs, the very same that Chan calls his friends, pointing toward a single direction. Wonwoo follows them, he can feel a warm breeze behind him as he runs and sees a glimpse of a single tempest, an air spirit in the shape of a steed, galloping by Wonwoo. "She will help you." One nymph said. "She can carry you to him , lord Hades." another said, and Wonwoo slows his run and reaches for the tempest and jumps on her back. Wonwoo accepts their help, accepts what he can to fix this as soon as he can, and within no time, they are out of Wonwoo's little paradise and are riding on the field next to it.

The field where Chan is.

Wonwoo jumps off the tempest and runs towards where Chan is sitting and he grabs him to face him.

"What have you done?" Wonwoo asks, tries to calm himself as much as he can but not enough for his voice to seem that way.

"I did what I had to." Chan says, indifferent and content. As if causing Wonwoo this much agony empowers him through sheer stubbornness.

"Chan please. I want this, too. I do. I want this more than you think you do. But I do not want to keep loving you this way. I do not want you to be shackled to the underworld like the rest of us are."

"Wonwoo-"

"I will visit you. I will. As frequent as I can. I can- I can create a land in the middle of the sea and we can call it yours, ours. Please , my love. You are breaking what is left of my heart. You cannot do this, please. Not like this-""Wonwoo." Chan reaches for his face, wipes the tears Wonwoo did not notice to be falling from his own eyes, and Chan smiles at him.

"This is my decision and mine alone. That pomegranate seed is not the shackles that you think it is to me, my love. It is no more than my promise to be with you for as long as I possibly can." Chan says and Wonwoo feels weak as he kneels in front of Chan.

"I do not-" "I said this decision is mine. If you do not feel like it is the right thing to do then you have all of eternity to reprimand me about it when I spend part of my years in the underworld. With you. With my favorite flower." Chan says and Wonwoo does not know what to feel as the love of his life laughs so brightly while he breaks down in tears.

"Even gods find it hard to love and be wise at the same time." Chan says, and it fits the irony of where they are right now. Between night and day, between heaven and the underworld. Between  love and insanity. The silver lining, the horizon. They are where they are supposed to be. Together.

Wonwoo lets himself spend the rest of the day, the first day that Chan left him, with Chan holding him. They lie on Chan's meadow, on the slight slope that used to help Wonwoo see Chan's peaceful face as he sleeps, and Wonwoo gets to know the friends who had helped him. By sun down, Chan watches him as he and the tree nymphs go back to Wonwoo's little paradise hand in hand. Wonwoo could not help but turn to smile at Chan with every other step and he memorizes the way the sun hits Chan's face. Wonwoo walks backwards, waving at Chan, and he takes one deep breath before waving on last time and going back into the woods and heading back to the tree at the top to travel back home.

"It seems as though he was right." Wonwoo jumps in his steps and the tree nymphs hide away in the trees. Wonwoo turns and finds Seokmin, the real Seokmin with a hint of the one he met just earlier in the day.

"What?"

"Has being love sick turned you into more of a fool than you already were, brother?" Seokmin asks and Wonwoo smiles.

"Wonwoo. Do you remember why you even asked me to give you this?" Seokmin motions towards the forest they stand in right now and Wonwoo blinks.

"Because of the wreckage I bring wherever I go." Wonwoo admits and Seokmin smiles at him and rolls his eyes.

"And yet you had met tree nymphs and a gorgeous tempest, spent the entire day on a meadow full of flowers, and not a single one crumbled to dust." Seokmin says and Wonwoo just realized that he did. That he was out of the stone path.

"What.. How could I-" "It wasn't a curse. Nor is it part of your abilities. Or perhaps it was, but not anymore." Seokmin says.

"Gods are the embodiment of elements, Wonwoo. Personification of every single gear that serves different purposes in the mechanism of the world. And our hearts reflect those abilities, Wonwoo. Like how Hecate brings wonder by sorcery and spells, and how Apollo's heart sings and lights up just as he lights up the sun."

"And yours is to nurture, and grow." Seokmin smiles at that and he nods.

"And yours was dark, disturbed because you were lost on who you are. You were not bringing death to those you touch, Wonwoo, you turn them into nothing." Seokmin explains.

"When I saw what happened to the patch of grass you had touched, it was neither wilted nor was it burned to ashes. It disappeared into nothing. Because your heart knew that you thought of yourself as nothing. Your heart projects your thoughts that the world would be better-"" Without me in it.." Wonwoo finishes and Seokmin nods.

"But I am like that no more. Someone taught me that I could be more than that." Wonwoo adds and Seokmin smiles at him.

"In the minutes I spent with my son on the way out of the underworld, he had shown me your heart by showing me his."

"His is just like yours."

"But mine is not so sharp. Mine is to nurture. To grow and gain. To reap what I sow. His is not like that at all. Or maybe it is, but a lot more."

"His heart is kind, above all else, but he does not let that kindness become his weakness. And he showed me that kindness is never a weakness.. He shows people how to grow for the sake of watching them grow. His heart shows people light and expects nothing in return." Seokmin says and Wonwoo gets another chance of seeing someone else see Chan for who he is, what he really is, and it fills Wonwoo's heart to the brim.

"A love that gives and expects nothing in return." Wonwoo copies Jeonghan's words and Seokmin nods.

"In a way, I feel like I have done the most that one can as his mother. That he had grown into something more than I could ever hope to be. And I am quite afraid that he will soon realize what he is capable of."

"He has that effect on people.. Making them hope for more than what they think they can have. Chan is quite stubborn. And persuasive." Wonwoo says.

"A dangerous combination for a god. He gets that from his father." Seokmin says and Wonwoo laughs.

Seokmin walks him towards his tree in comfortable silence and he feels as though he should say something before leaving. But Seokmin beats him to it, just like always.

"I have to voice out that this does not mean I forgive you for what you did. You did break my trust, Wonwoo. And though that can be mended, it will take centuries for it to get back to how it was before. If it can even go back to how it was before." Seokmin says and Wonwoo nods.

"All I ask is for a chance to redeem myself. It was desperate and conniving of me to think I can make a scapegoat in taking Chan, in justifying going behind your back, by going to Seungcheol. And I will not deny that what I did was wrong. I would like to make peace with you again, brother." Seokmin nods and Wonwoo, in his newfound courage, reaches for a hug. It catches both of them off guard but Seokmin reciprocates the hug and pats his back.

"I do have a favor to ask. That all the souls that had reached the underworld because of me be given the chance to be reborn." Seokmin says as he pulls away and Wonwoo nods.

"I will take care of it myself. You need not worry, brother." Wonwoo says and Seokmin lets go.

When Wonwoo returned to his kingdom and told everyone about Chan's decision, all were unsure. Worried for their friend and Wonwoo assures them that their worry is not needed. Wonwoo told them to trust Chan enough to make his own decisions. Jeonghan was the first to push aside his worries and given that he was the most worried to begin with, all seems to make peace with it.

All but one, that is.

"You have grown soft, old friend." Wonwoo says, taking a seat next to Cerberus where Wonwoo remembers to be the exact same spot where Chan lied the night before.

"You still have duties, you know.." Wonwoo adds and Cerberus lets out a soft grunt on all three of it's heads and Wonwoo cannot help but laugh.

"You miss him.." Wonwoo says and Cerberus lets out a softer whine.

"As do I. But he.. He will be with us again. Soon. The sun will shine through the underworld once more." Wonwoo says and Cerberus lifts its head from where it rests and starts to sniff at Wonwoo's sides. Wonwoo empties his pockets and sees a pouch he had forgotten given the events of the day.

Plant these by river of fire.

"Come. It seems he left us with something to keep ourselves busy." Wonwoo says and Cerberus stays on the field as Wonwoo walks off only to find him tailing Wonwoo, following what remains of Chan's scent in the gift he has left them.

Wonwoo heads for the part of the river Plegethon that is closest to his castle, the patch of land he and Chan took as he showed him the edge of Tartarus. Cerberus walks as if his limbs are as heavy as mountains, dragging his paws on the ground to exhibit his longing for Wonwoo's other, better, half. Wonwoo stops a good distance away from the edge and wills the earth to soften under his palm. He takes one seed, places it in the ditch, and covers it. In an instant, Wonwoo sees a mere sprout break through the ground. It is small and frail but Wonwoo watches as it sways, as if it is trying to reach the fire that flows next to them.

Realization hits Wonwoo, figures out what the flowers are, and he laughs. Instead of a huge patch to plant the seeds, Wonwoo lines them up along the river bank. I single file line of sprouts that circles the castle and reaches for the fire. And Chan gave him regular seeds, ones that need nurture and care for a long period of time and not the kinds that Chan used to create fields in an instant.

So Wonwoo does what Chan had expected him to do; Wonwoo took care of the sprouts for days on end. Watch as they grow taller by the day and in a month's time, a stalk has taken the sprout's place. Wonwoo wonders if the water from the river Styx is alright to be used as such but he uses it to water the plants. The stalks grew huge and gorgeous leaves and after another month, a huge bud grew on the stalks' ends.

And in this time, stories of a goddess, a new one, spread through Wonwoo's kingdom through the souls that come to Elysuim.

One that spreads warmth like no other. She is not like Apollo that shines but she is just as warm, if not more. She does not grant favors to farmers like her mother, Demeter, does, but she shows beauty and growth in the nature all around. She is not Zephyrus, the god that brings the wind from the west, but she wills Boreas to leave her land to let nature grow once more. Zephyr had been known to be the messenger of spring for all those years before them but it is only then, with Persephone, that a god took the name and title of the one that governs Spring itself.

Wonwoo had only wanted to know what death could mean by learning what it is like to live. But in the end, he had learned to live because he had learned how to love. And Chan taught him that one can be more than what their love is. That your heart is but one part of your person and you can be more than just who you are when you love..

And just like the name suggests, Persephone, Hades's Persephone, Wonwoo's own Chan, becomes one of the traveling gods that govern the world. She is fair and loved and most of all, she embodies growth, new beginnings, and hope. Wonwoo gets to learn that his better half had received the worship that Wonwoo knew he deserved long before and he feels nothing but pride in knowing that Chan not only helped Wonwoo find his true self, but also embraced who he really is and bloom into the goddess that Wonwoo knew him to be.

And true to his name, the fields that scatter the underworld blooms into much more vivid colors the moment Chan arrives. The moment that sunlight once again graces the underworld. This means that he had given Boreas permission to freeze over the ground, to give seeds and plants time to rest, to be nothing for now, so they can have the strength to bloom once more. Wonwoo welcomes him, his queen and his love, and he welcomes him the only way he knows how. Wearing his heart like a crown and with his arms as open as they can.

Wonwoo cannot see it, for his eyes are on Chan, and Chan alone, but the field by the river of fire blooms the moment he holds Chan in his arms. Sunflowers with deep red petals unfurled and all turned as if trying to reach for the fire by the river. Sunflowers that Wonwoo remembered being compared to him by Chan because he tells him it is his favorite flower. And Wonwoo thinks it is fitting. For if Chan was the sun, then Wonwoo was a sunflower and everything and everyone who had ever yearned for the sun.

If Chan was the sun, Wonwoo was the moon that only holds the sun for a moment but it is a moment of power and beauty that no mortal eye can gaze upon their love with their bare eyes.

If Chan was the sun, Wonwoo was but a god who can do nothing but ask for it and wait patiently for it to be his. Like Apollo, he did not own the sun to begin with but he cannot be who he is now without the sun in his arms.

If Chan was the sun, Wonwoo was nothing more than a boy with mechanicals wings held together by wax and his father's hope for freedom. Like Icarus, with a heart so big one could not find logic in how he could lift off, he will fly as close as he can, as fast as he can, towards the sun regardless of the possibility of falling. For what is falling if not flying for the last time.

But that is not the love Wonwoo deserves. Not the love Wonwoo wants to give to Chan. Those are love of hardship and pain and they would make great stories of eternal love. But still, it is not the love Wonwoo wants to give Chan.

For if Chan was the sun, Wonwoo is but a sunflower in a field of more sunflowers. Always admiring the sun, reaching for it, but he is always grounded. He is given the reality of their love and does not expect more or less, for Chan will give him what he can, what he deserves. Their love is not a hopeless romantic gesture just as an eclipse is, one that happens once every century, nor is it as fate ridden as the way Apollo considers owning the sun to be. One should never beg for love. And it certainly is not as tragic as young Icarus's story. Chan would reprimand him if Wonwoo had decided to sacrifice more for him when he never expects him to, never wants him to.

For Wonwoo loves Chan just the same as a Sunflower loves the Sun. It helps them grow, it hurts not to accept its light and it hurts not the sun for it to give light. And it is as simple as that. A fact of life; a simple way nature made it to be. It is simply the role of the sunflower to love the sun.

And as such, a sunflower needs not explain why it yearns for the sun.

It just does.

Which is why Wonwoo finds it unfair, unreasonable even, for there to be a need for him to answer why it is that he loves Chan.

He just does.