“Erm,” she replies, wishing she could disappear forever. “When you say it like that, it sounds rather ridiculous, doesn’t it?”

“Because it is.” Seokga shakes his head, and there’s a glimmer of a smile on his lips again. “Kisa, I have wanted you before I even knew you. It wasn’t your dancing, or the way you touched me, that made me fall in love with you the first time. It was your bravery, your intellect, your complete loyalty to your friends. You posed the Ship of Theseus question to me. I know my answer. The parts that are important—the parts that I cherish, that bravery, intellect, and loyalty—are still the same. And perhaps I needed…Hani first. To show me the path to you. It took me time to realize that, but, Kisa—you’re not so different from who you were in your past life as you think. As I recall, you still seem to have a thing for my ‘arse’…”

She groans in embarrassment.

“You’re perfect, Kisa,” Seokga says. “And I want, very badly, to kiss you.”

“But you won’t,” she guesses, voice feather-soft, disappointment churning in her stomach.

“ ‘Just friends’ is a terribly restrictive label,” murmurs Seokga, staring at her lips. “It’s already beginning to chafe.”

Kisa tucks a strand of hair nervously behind her ear. “We never had it on paper…We never swore it on Hwanung…Agreements can be, ah, modified…”

“Loopholes can be found,” the trickster god agrees, eyes sparkling with something like mischief. Kisa’s face heats as he reaches for her. Seokga’s lips curve into a smile as he—in one smooth motion—tugs her onto his lap. Kisa stifles a small yelp of pleased surprise. Her legs bracket his, and this close to him, she can count each and every one of his beautifully long lashes. Heat pools low in her stomach as his right hand skims up her back, coming to rest on the nape of her neck—but not before he tugs, gently, on one of her curls. “Promises can be broken.”

“Spoken like a true trickster,” she replies, voice humiliatingly breathy. But Seokga’s perennial rasp is huskier than usual, too, and his eyes darken as Kisa lowers her head so her nose brushes against his. Atop him, she feels his shiver, his gasp. The way his right hand spasms, the way his left one trembles as it finds her waist, the barest hint of skin peeking out underneath the hem of her scrub top. Her lips are so close to his. Seokga’s breathing is uneven. Her curls flutter with each of his shallow exhales.

“You’re going to break my heart again, aren’t you?” whispers her god, staring up at her.

“I don’t know,” Kisa murmurs.