Chapter Eight

Seokga

As Seokga stumbles into the suite he will be sharing with Hwanin, his brother leaps to his feet from where he was sitting on one of the plush armchairs.

The suite is just as lavish as any mortal hotel, with two bedrooms joined by a sitting area facing a large window displaying the Seocheongang River outside. It’s the biggest suite—the King Suite. Only the best for Okhwang’s emperor. Art that Yeomra would probably insist is “interpretive” but is really just ugly splashes of paint hangs proudly on the walls above the black-carpeted floor that Hwanin currently treads on as he makes his way over to Seokga. A fire crackles merrily in its hearth—too merrily. Seokga wishes to violently extinguish it. He just might.

“Seokga,” Hwanin says as Seokga leans heavily against the doorframe, “I’m going to assume from your expression that you’re either nauseatingly happy or very seasick.” He hesitates. “Did you find her?”

On trembling legs, Seokga manages to carry himself to another armchair, sinking into the soft fabric and running a shaking hand down his face. “I found her,” he confirms in a whisper.

Hwanin’s brows furrow together. “This is not the happiness I’ve expected for years,” he says. “You look ill. What happened?”

Throat dry, Seokga tells him, detailing everything from the flying paperweight to the café. Hwanin watches him, face growing more and more somber. “I knew not to expect Hani,” he whispers, throat dry. “I’ve been telling myself not to for years. But I still…”

“Expected her,” his brother finishes, eyes kind. But the trickster god’s mood is already turning.

“This never would have happened,” he pants, hurt suddenly replaced by hot anger, “if you hadn’t made that bargain in the first place. Did you have fun?” He launches out of the chair, glowering down at the emperor. “Watching it all unfold? Watching me fall in love with the woman I was meant to hunt down? They say I have Father’s cruel streak, Hwanin, but yours—yours is unparalleled.”

Hwanin’s eyes flash. “Do not compare me to Father.”

Mireuk. The original creator god. Hwanin and Seokga’s father, who went mad and shaped the worlds’ sufferings. As Mireuk had spiraled further and further into evil, Hwanin and Seokga were given no choice but to imprison him, far within Jeoseung, beneath the river on which the SRC Flatliner cruises.

“You did this,” Seokga sneers, undeterred. “You—”

“I made that bargain for you,” Hwanin interrupts, voice deceptively calm. “To reinstate you as a god. And later, I modified it for you, to save your life. All for you! How was I meant to know you would fall in love with her?”