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Crossing the Acheron is no feat at all. The ferryman is easily tricked, his fiery eyes regarding the coin underneath Sicheng’s tongue that he had stolen from Yuta’s stores. His long unkempt beard tilts up and the tip of it brushes against Sicheng’s navel, almost solidified with grime. Still, Sicheng keeps his mouth open.
It is at the entrance to the Underworld where Sicheng’s real problem lies. Cerberus guards the gates but the hound is fond of Sicheng—to Yuta’s indignation—and he bounds towards Sicheng when he climbs out of the boat, allowing him to pet one of his heads with a content whimper. There is a line of souls winding down to the riverbank, floating onto the boat one by one with coins under their grey tongues.
And then there are the Judges.
“Hello!” Donghyuck calls out. Sicheng keeps his head low, greeting Donghyuck with nothing but a short nod and continues his trek across the entrance. Soon enough, though, Donghyuck’s red hair appears in his periphery. It licks around his bronze skin like flames.
“Donghyuck,” Sicheng says, nodding again and stepping around him. Donghyuck only latches onto his back, burying his face into Sicheng’s neck, making a sound much like Cerberus had before.
“If you escape the Underworld, who will I hug?” Donghyuck mumbles, letting go of Sicheng to pout at him.
“You can hug Mark,” Sicheng points out, tapping his foot against the dirt. He eyes the gates. He doesn’t have long.
“It’s just not the same, you know?” Donghyuck complains. He reaches for Sicheng again, but Sicheng steps back just as quick, used to Donghyuck’s routine.
“Where is Mark, anyway?” he presses. To the side of the gates is an opening, covered in a bramble of black roses, their thorns sharp as dragon’s teeth. Sicheng’s arms are cross hatched with scars.
“Dealing with a war hero,” Donghyuck says, “You know how those are.” He whispers behind his hand, “He was on the bad side.”
“Thought you didn’t pick sides,” Sicheng replies. The ferryman has reached the other side of the Acheron. The boat is sailing back. He doesn’t have time.
“Just saying,” Donghyuck drawls, “C’mon, do you want my help or not?”
“Alright, but I don’t owe you anything,” says Sicheng, trailing after Donghyuck and ducking his head back down, fingers curled around Donghyuck’s robes. “I don’t care how enamoured you are with that warrior, I’m not killing him for you.”
“His name is Jeno Lee, keep up,” Donghyuck says. A wistful sigh leaves his mouth. “So blonde and beautiful. I want his soul.”
“Well, sorry I’ve been stuck in Hell for so long that I haven’t stayed up to date with earthly matters,” Sicheng grumbles, though Donghyuck doesn’t hear him. The roses are so close. He has to step on rotting pomegranate seeds to reach them, and the bittersweet smell is familiar. When he reaches the other side, there will be a bush of yellow daffodils, the narcissus flower. He thinks about them, about seeing them, feeling the sun beat down on his face.
He thinks about Yuta, his black hair, the way it curls around his throat, his big, menacing smile that he’d found so beautiful he had leant down and kissed it.
He has to leave.
Donghyuck is on lookout while Sicheng hacks away at the thorny branches. They grow back faster than he can get rid of them, but he has done this many times before. In minutes, there is an opening, light beaming through all of a sudden. But it hits Donghyuck, and he cries out, gasping at the sight of his arm, burnt right through.
Sicheng, in a lapse of judgement (oh, if there is anything he’ll miss about the Underworld, it’s Donghyuck), rushes over to him, laying a soothing hand on his skin.
“Escaping again, are we?”
Sicheng sighs, looking up.
Jaehyun, Yuta’s secretary, is standing there, arms folded across his chest. His face is a mask of indifference, eyes cold and blank. Of all the monsters in the Underworld, Jaehyun scares Sicheng the most.
“Yes, I am,” Sicheng says through gritted teeth. He holds onto Donghyuck tight, like he’ll keep him grounded here for just a little longer, away from Yuta’s palace. “What are you gonna do about it?”
Jaehyun clicks his fingers, bored, and the ferryman appears, pulling Sicheng away from Donghyuck with his dirty, skeletal hands. Sicheng wants to scream, but he’s past that. His throat would collapse in on itself if he tried again. He narrows his eyes at Mark instead, from where he is standing sheepishly behind Jaehyun, mouth twisted in a sad smile. He had been the one to summon Jaehyun. He always is. Mark is good, he can’t help it, and Yuta had told Sicheng that he threatened to take Donghyuck away from Mark if he didn’t snitch. It’s Yuta who is to blame, really. He always is.
“Let’s go,” Jaehyun says. Donghyuck is outwardly sobbing now, turning away from Mark when Mark tries to touch him. The burn on his arm is pitch black, ashes fluttering to the ground as he moves.
Donghyuck will heal, but Sicheng, shoved onto the boat on his hands and knees, never will.
“Never is such a strong word,” Yuta says. He sounds displeased, but Sicheng knows he’s smiling, if he cared to look up from the scripture he has in his hands. He cannot read it, but Yuta doesn’t need to know that. “Don’t you think, darling?”
Sicheng merely hums. He’s sitting beside Yuta’s throne, on his own one. It is smaller, the seat made of blood red velvet and the back ornate with carvings of spiralling vines and flowers.
“I prefer forever,” Yuta continues. He swings his legs over the arm of his throne, robes falling apart. His skin is pale against the onyx of his throne, forged from the fires of Tartarus. Again, if Sicheng cared to look. “It has a more positive ring to it. I like to be optimistic. You taught me that, Sicheng.”
“I’m happy for you, my Lord,” Sicheng says, turning a page.
“I told you not to call me that,” Yuta whines, bare feet poking at Sicheng’s shoulder. Sicheng ignores him. He protests every time yet secretly he loves it. He doesn’t know that Sicheng is mocking him. Or he does, and he doesn’t care.
“Yuta,” Sicheng says, putting the scripture down. “I’d like to go to the Asphodel Meadows.”
“Again?”
“Again.”
Yuta frowns, and when he takes five minutes to ponder over the request, Sicheng thinks he might say no. But Yuta is weak, so weak. He is nothing like the cruel, heartless god Sicheng had heard stories of, who made men quiver at his feet. He’s nothing but cracks, filled with gold.
“I’d like to accompany you this time, Sicheng,” Yuta says.
Sicheng’s head snaps up. Yuta looks so hopeful.
“I, myself, prefer Elysium,” Yuta is chatting away alongside Sicheng, an arm hooked around his. He’s left his bident with Jaehyun, and his body is pressed up against Sicheng’s. Sicheng can’t find it in himself to push Yuta away today. He’s warm and he feels human and if Sicheng imagines really hard, it is almost as though he’s walking beside his brother. “I’m not sure why you like the Asphodel Meadows so much. They’re so dull.”
“They’re neutral,” Sicheng explains, without much conviction. “Helps me imagine I’m anywhere but here.”
They enter the Asphodel Meadows. A shudder runs through the field of ghostly, waxen flowers at Yuta’s presence. “Where do you imagine yourself, Sicheng?” asks Yuta, settling down against a tree trunk, pulling Sicheng down to sit next to him.
“Olympus, drinking ambrosia,” is the answer Sicheng offers, though it is a lie.
Yuta’s face scrunches up, and Sicheng almost wants to kiss him again. “Olympus is corrupt.”
“I know,” Sicheng says.
A soul wanders past, bringing with it a mild breeze. Yuta is still looking at him. He never looks away, even when he thinks Sicheng doesn’t notice. Over time, Sicheng has come to find it less eerie but rather a comfort, in a sense, knowing that Yuta found something in Sicheng that captivated him. Sicheng always found himself quite plain, but he could be sly, and though Yuta couldn’t keep his eyes off him, he knew how to slip through his cracks. It often involved leaving Yuta hard as marble beneath his black robes, while Sicheng was already halfway across the Acheron.
“I’d like to be in my garden with my brother, planting daffodils and lilies,” Sicheng says, after a while. Yuta is playing with his fingers, a privilege Sicheng allows him, for he does feel a little sorry that Yuta longs so badly for touch he’ll even try to cuddle Jaehyun sometimes. He’s like Donghyuck in that way, childish and mischievous and clingy.
(Sicheng once asked Jaehyun why he wasn’t the god of the Underworld instead since he seemed to be running the whole show. Jaehyun put down his scroll and looked up at Sicheng. “I’m not a god,” he said, like that was answer enough.)
“His name is Renjun,” Sicheng continues.
“Renjun,” Yuta rolls the name over his tongue. “Pretty, like Sicheng. I would like to meet him someday.”
Sicheng’s eyes widen, horrified. “No, no, you can’t. You can’t ever.”
“I—” Yuta looks perplexed. “What?”
“You can’t bring him here,” Sicheng shouts, shoving Yuta’s hand away, “Not like you did to me.”
Yuta’s mouth stretches into a grin, and Sicheng would nearly have punched him if Jaehyun’s impassive face hadn’t entered his mind at that moment. “Oh, Sicheng. You’re so adorable. I only meant that I’d like to escort you back to Earth and your home. It will be fun.”
“Forever?” Sicheng asks, not quite believing it, but he edges forward again and Yuta cups a warm hand around his cheek, sadness brewing in his eyes.
“Hm,” says Yuta, “You’re optimistic. Earth isn’t the place you once knew, Sicheng.”
Yuta was right. He leaves Sicheng with Renjun and pays a visit to his own brother, the brother of the sea, pressing a kiss to Sicheng’s forehead as he goes. “I’ll miss you, you know,” he whispers.
“I know,” Sicheng whispers back, because the I’ll miss you too gets stuck in his throat.
He and Renjun cannot plant daffodils and lilies like Sicheng had dreamed of. Their garden no longer exists, war wreaking havoc through the land. Yuta has been gone for two weeks, and every sunrise, Sicheng sits on his balcony, looking out at the sea where a thousand ships had sailed, and hopes he’ll come back soon.
“Good morning, brother,” Renjun says, at the close of a month, the full moon covered in clouds. “The war is coming to an end soon, I hear.” He sets a tea down next to Sicheng, the sweet smell of nectar filling Sicheng’s nostrils.
“It is?” Sicheng says, distantly.
“The warrior, Jeno, was killed. Shot right through the back of his foot,” Renjun explains, wincing as he does so, “His lover too.”
That piques Sicheng’s interest. He turns to look at Renjun, thinking of Donghyuck. “His lover?”
“Jaemin,” Renjun says quickly. “You knew him?”
Sicheng shakes his head. “No, someone I knew, in the Underworld was fond of this Jeno. He’ll be quite jealous,” he says. He smiles to himself at the thought of Donghyuck stomping his feet, steam pouring out of his ears. Mark behind him, unsure of what to do when all it would take is a simple kiss to fix everything.
“You talk about the Underworld a lot,” Renjun muses. His tone is somber.
“I was there for months,” Sicheng says, turning away to stare into the waves again. He doesn’t like Renjun looking at him like that. Disappointed. Yuta may have been hurt that Sicheng tried to escape so often but never was he disappointed in him.
“May as well have been longer,” Renjun says, with a nervous chuckle, “It’s like you’ve been revived from the dead.”
Yuta returns from the sea with the souls of Jeno and Jaemin. He will personally escort them to the Underworld, he tells Sicheng. “And you?” Yuta asks, wringing his fingers.
“I’d like to go with you,” Sicheng says, holding up his finger when Yuta starts to smile. “On one condition,”—he turns his brother for a second before looking back at Yuta—“I want to return every spring.”
“For the flowers,” Yuta says, and it’s not a question.
“Yes,” Sicheng agrees, walking forward to return to Yuta’s side.
“Oh my, he’s even more beautiful in person,” Donghyuck says, hiding behind Mark but taking peeks at Jeno’s soul when Jeno is looking elsewhere.
“He is,” Sicheng agrees, at the same time, Mark scoffs, “No, he isn’t.”
“You’re right, Mark,” Donghyuck says, “His lover is the one who really glows in the Underworld. What’s his name again? I always forget.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mark mumbles. He turns to Sicheng, scratching at his nape. “I’m sorry, Sicheng, for telling on you. I know how much you wanted to leave. But,”—he squeezes Sicheng’s arm, “I’m glad you decided to stay.”
“You apologise every time, Mark,” Sicheng laughs, “And every time I accept. Maybe this time think about why you obeyed Yuta.”
Yuta is talking to the two lovers, under the Elm tree, but he looks over at Sicheng at the mention of his name, giving him a wave.
Sicheng only smiles, a hesitant quirk of his lips, but Donghyuck’s arm stretches up to wave back at Yuta, and there’s a white scar there, the shape of the sun. He hadn’t healed, not entirely. Sicheng was wrong.