Hwanin, in all his towering adult annoying-ness, paces in a corridor with his phone held to his ear. His lips are moving silently, perhaps almost angrily. Seokga leans forward, reminding himself not to stand directly behind Kisa and positioning himself next to her instead.

“I know where this is,” she says slowly. “It’s part of the I-95 on Deck 0.”

“Part of?” Seokga asks carefully.

“Due to its massive length, the rest of the corridor isn’t on-camera. He’s near the center.” Kisa is so focused that her words are absent-minded and perfectly factual. Seokga wishes he had time to admire how her brows pucker and her lips purse when she focuses, but unfortunately, his brother is about to be murdered onscreen.

For a brief, bitter moment, he wonders if he even wants to solve this mystery. If solving it means letting go of Kisa so soon, perhaps it’s not even worth it. Perhaps he’d rather have Hwanung lose his shit and possibly strip him of his godliness once more if it means keeping Kisa close…

But Kisa isn’t a butterfly that he can keep trapped in a jar for his own amusement. He tries to remind himself of that. A part of him is disgusted that he’s even considered sabotaging this bargain. For a moment he wishes that deceit wasn’t so very ingrained in his nature, that he didn’t have thoughts like these. Dr. Jang has tried to weed it out of him, but it’s as much part of his nature as his DNA. It composes him.

And as much as he may deny it, Seokga is deeply furious at whomever hurt his brother. Nobody is allowed to do that—except him. Never mind that he’s been fucking saddled with a drooling baby with chubby cheeks and a button nose. Somebody hurt his older brother. And that somebody wasn’t him.

Somebody has killed a god.

And that somebody must be punished.

Seokga leans in farther, watching the tight set of his brother’s mouth, the way he drags a hand down his face—the same way that Seokga does when he’s tired and irritated. “He’s speaking to Hwanung,” he realizes. His brother and his nephew often fight. Every month, Seokga will wake up in his own palace to angry shouting literally shaking the heavens and causing him to tumble out of his bed and bonk his head on the hard floor. The indignity of it. And in the hours before both Hwanin and Hwanung exploded, Hwanin’s facial expressions would be much like this. Tense, with a certain air of Why did I have a son, again?

Baby Hwanin gurgles sleepily, as if in agreement.

“They’re arguing,” Kisa muses analytically. “Hwanin is agitated. His attention is fully focused on whatever’s being said on the call. What was their relationship like?”