Hajun gasps and slowly retreats to a back room. But Kisa—Kisa looks at him for a long moment, and he has the distinct impression that her brain works like a book, and she’s currently flipping through its pages, searching for something. It’s almost extraordinary to watch those familiar eyes narrow and widen, to sense the knowledge being riffled through behind them.

“Green eyes…Green eyes. Seokga,” she finally whispers, and his name on her tongue…He fights to remain standing upright instead of sinking to his knees like some bumbling fool. “I knew you looked familiar.”

His agonized heart stutters, stops, and refuses to restart. “I…I do?” he stammers. Inelegantly. “You kn-know me?”

But Kisa, to Seokga’s eternal disappointment, isn’t throwing herself into his arms and swooning with infatuation while rose petals shower down around them. Instead, she’s looking at him as if he is some sort of fascinating insect underneath a magnifying glass. Again, that horrible, splintering pain. “God of deceit, of trickery. Subject of The History of Deceit: An In-Depth Examination of Prince Seokga’s Fragile Ego Throughout the Years by Professor Lee Miyoung. I had a few critiques on that book,” she muses, drumming her fingers on her chin. “The professor was highly biased. Her brother was killed by the eoduksini back in the nineties…It was a glaring conflict of interest. Professor Lee unfortunately didn’t seem to take the criticism very well,” Kisa adds, shaking her head and looking incredibly affronted.

Seokga blinks. If Kisa had access to that blasted novel, to the professor who wrote it, that means…that means she’s a shaman. But to which god? The entire pantheon knew, for years, that Seokga was searching for a girl with distinctly one-of-a-kind wine-brown eyes. Who kept her from him? Seokga can barely breathe as rage replaces his heartbroken mourning, but his anger falters as Kisa pauses, eyes drifting to the red thread.

Seokga holds his breath, terrified that she’ll find him unworthy. That she’ll shun him.

Her next words nearly bring him to his knees again. Those damned eyes are suddenly sparkling again as she looks to him, and there’s a slight blue flush to her skin. “This is brilliant,” she breathes, taking a step closer to him. “Absolutely brilliant.”

Do not fucking cry, Seokga warns himself as she clasps her hands together, grinning. Happy tears are for fools.

“Do you mind,” says Kisa eagerly, and he notices that her nose scrunches when she smiles, “if I ask some questions?”