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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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