The baby has dark blue eyes flecked with stars, a tuft of black hair not yet dyed silver, and a gurgling, self-satisfied smile as he stares up at Seokga.

Seokga’s wailing abruptly stops.

He stares down at the baby.

The baby stares back.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” the trickster swears. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“Grrmurgrrmur,” babbles the baby toothlessly, shifting in Seokga’s arms to better grab his own tiny foot and stare at it in amazed delight. “Brrrbrrrmmbrrrm!”

Fucking deity reincarnation. Seokga blinks away his tears and sighs in extreme annoyance.

“Seokga—” He turns to see Kisa, who’s still staring at Hwanin’s body, eyes filled with tears. Seokga glares at the corpse as the baby’s chubby hand swats at his cheek.

“Here,” he says, passing the baby into Kisa’s arms. Her mouth falls open, but she handles the baby expertly as Seokga—ignoring the ensuing twinge of pain in his right leg—drops down to crouch near Hwanin’s body.

“You idiot,” he snaps, all hints of grief forgotten. “You just had to get yourself killed, didn’t you? You just had to land me with babysitting duty for the next eternity? I hate you. I hate you so much.”

The baby makes inane baby noises as Kisa, nestling him close, gasps softly. Turning back to her, Seokga watches as her expression of horror shifts into hungry curiosity, to sharp realization, and, finally, something almost like delight. It vanishes a moment later as she, looking somewhat guilty, reverts to sadness.

Under any other circumstance, Seokga would be laughing.

“Godly reincarnation,” she whispers, as if reciting from a textbook. “Only an eoduksini can truly kill a god. If a god is murdered by any other means, or has aged enough that they require a new body, their soul will find its way to jeolmeojineunsaemmul, the spring of eternal youth. The god will be reincarnated into its baby form…”

“…and return to where they were last,” Seokga mutters, quite embarrassed to have put on such a show only to be reminded that he’ll never truly be rid of his brother. The feeling in his chest is certainly not relief, he tells himself sternly. Not at all. “You’re currently holding baby Hwanin, Kisa.”

Baby Hwanin burps and delightedly claps his tiny hands.

“Why would anyone kill him?” Kisa whispers as Seokga crouches over his brother’s corpse, examining the messy cavity where his heart should be. She’s soothing the little boy, bouncing him on one hip with such expertise that Seokga suspiciously—jealously—wonders if she’s had a child. Baby Hwanin, the colicky thing, snuggles closer to her chest and yawns gigantically.

“Mmmmahhhhh,” sighs the baby, who is his brother but not really, having lost all of his memories and the tiny intellect he had to start with.