Archive of Our Own

PART I - THE FALL

To Chanyeol, dying feels like waking up.

It’s ironic, for an end to feel like a beginning, but it’s the only way he can think to describe it. His eyes open, he comes to a black sky dotted only by strange, blue stars, and he inhales. There’s simply an air of tranquility about it all, like a sense of fulfillment after a deep rest, having had no time to dwell on the day’s grueling tasks to come.

And still, the stress of a day’s work never catches up to him, and Chanyeol feels relaxed. He doesn’t know why it’s as foreign as it is, but just knows deep in his heart that he --whoever that may be-- is someone who has longed for it for quite some time. Longer than perhaps he, in his pure state, can ever remember.

“Chanyeol,” a voice calls. It’s melodic, even-toned and sweet. “You are dead. Your soul now rests in the Fields of Asphodel.”

“Okay,” Chanyeol says, sitting up. He feels at peace, even knowing that he’s died… he remembers nothing of what it is like to live. He has no way to mourn what he has lost. 

The voice that had spoken to him stands in front of him in the figure of a stranger wrapped in shadows. They drip from his lithe body and pool at his feet like smoke. His face has a pallid tone to it, though only the bottom half can be seen; the top is obscured with a plain mask as black as night, though mismatched gold and black eyes peek through. 

Despite the strangeness of it all, being dead and waking to an ocean of flowers, Chanyeol knows the stranger before him is no threat. He watches on, placid, as the figure reaches into his cloak and pulls forth a pomegranate, tearing into its red skin and white flesh with an amount of strength that leaves the fruit in perfect halves. He outstretches one half to Chanyeol.

The stranger says nothing.

It feels like a test --no, it is a test, that  much Chanyeol is certain of. It’s intrinsic to his being as much as his own name is. The only problem is, Chanyeol does not remember the answer.

He stands, and takes the fruit.

At the first taste of the pomegranate’s seeds, Chanyeol remembers… everything , the sun, the wind, the sky and the stars. It leaves him greedy, and with each seed he tastes the more his memory of the world above returns to his spirit, leaving him hungrier and hungrier for more.

Until finally, Chanyeol’s memory is filled up to the days before he died, and the fruit is ravaged to nothing but pulpy, white flesh. It only leaves Chanyeol feeling empty.

“Chanyeol,” Death speaks up once more, “Son of the Harvest and Champion of the Pantheon. You are dead. Your soul now resides in the Fields of Asphodel.” 

Chanyeol does the only thing he can think of as he hears those words.

He cries.

PART II - THE SEARCH

For the most part, the God of the Dead looks uncomfortable as Chanyeol blubbers like a child. No tears can fall in this state, so it’s nothing but pained wailing. It’s humiliating, but he’s a little too dead to care about that right now.

“How can I be dead ?” Chanyeol asks for the umpteenth time as Death just looks at him, stiff and awkward. “I am a God . Gods do not die.” 

Death seems extra perturbed by that, which Chanyeol deems unfair. Death is still alive --as… confusing as that seems in Chanyeol’s head.

“You were born from a mortal’s womb,” Death supplies. “Perhaps that made you more fragile than you think…?”

Chanyeol pulls a face, albeit reluctantly, Death does have a point, though he seems uncertain himself. Chanyeol had to ascend to his mortality; it was not born within him naturally.

“And? If I am dead then why am I here? Why aren’t I on Elysium?”

Once again, Death looks short of answers, but he also seems somewhat irritated. “Perhaps your life was not as righteous and glorious as you once thought it, Flower Prince.” 

Chanyeol scoffs. “Coming from Death.”

“I am God of the Dead,” Death corrects, sufficiently irked. Chanyeol doesn’t know why that’s as satisfying as it is. “Not God of Death. Considering you have found your way into my realm and eaten my sacred fruit, it’d be best if you showed some respect.”

Now Chanyeol is the one who’s irritated, growling under his breath. He’d always heard the stories of the God’s pomegranate-shaped tricks, so why did he fall for it? For the life of him, Chanyeol can’t remember what on Earth and the skies above he’d been thinking when he’d eaten that first seed.

“Very well, Jongdae ,” Chanyeol snips back, and watches as Jongdae seems to stumble a little, unused to his own name. The ground at Chanyeol’s feet seems to shake with it, the sea of asphodels rustling together. Even the sky trembles with the power of something so unspoken --though it’s not a sky, Chanyeol comes to quickly realise, but the roof of a cavern far above, decorated by strange glittering lights. “I demand you set me free lest the pantheon feel my absence.”

At the mention of the pantheon, Jongdae’s whole body seems to twitch. 

“It is not that simple,” he speaks, though his once-irked voice now seems somewhat apologetic. “You are a spirit, Chanyeol. You have eaten the fruits of the Underworld. You know the rules of this place.”

And Chanyeol does, of course, because with the memory of his life comes the memory of stories by the firelight from his mother --his human mother-- depicting a test from the King of the Underworld himself. Lost souls wandering in the Fields of Asphodel are sent to be reborn, unless they succumb to the allure of the King’s sacred fruit. With the memory of all that they have lost born in its seeds, it is impossible for them to move on, doomed to wander for an eternity until they do.

Absolute bull turd.

“And I am also a God,” Chanyeol counters. “The rules of mortals do not apply to me.”

“And yet here you are,” Jongdae argues, though he sounds tired of doing as such. “A lost soul wandering the fields.” He reaches out, and Chanyeol flinches, but when he raises his arms to block Jongdae’s sudden movements his hands only pass through Chanyeol like smoke. “You are only your spirit, Chanyeol, tied down to this plain by the roots of the seeds you have devoured.” Through the eyeholes of his mask, at least Jongdae looks somewhat pitying. “There is nothing more that I can do.” 

Just like that, Jongdae turns and whistles. From the sky lands a chariot pulled by two pegasi made of shadow much like his cloak. He steps up onto its body.

“Wait!” Chanyeol calls, reaching for Jongdae’s billowing cloak but his fingers pass through it, unsure if Chanyeol is intangible or the shadows are. “You cannot be serious! My mother will be furious .”

“There is nothing you, nor she, nor I can do,” Jongdae consoles, and with a flick of a reigns the pegasi pull away into the fake night sky, disappearing as quickly as they’d appeared, leaving Chanyeol alone in a field of white flowers. 

This time, he refuses to let himself cry.

Chanyeol’s human mother had always said Chanyeol was stubborn, competitive, bull-headed, and it had been a trait that had carried him into his god-mother’s favour. He was passionate about training in the ways of combat and the knowledge of scholars, filled with a sense of greed that made him want to succeed. It’s that which let him slay the sea monsters of the East, and conquer the Isles of the Salt Witch; it’s what made him a champion to the gods, and carried him up the roads of Mount Olympus to take his rightful seat in the pantheon itself.

And it’s what now has him trekking through the endless sea of flowers, constantly cursing at the very things he had been worshipped for. Despite his intangibility regarding the Dead King, it seems the flowers can still tickle and prick at his bare calves, his spirit left in nothing but a simple white toga that barely hangs past his hips. Every now and again, the sea of flowers crests with a wave of petals that washes over Chanyeol and leaves him sneezing. It’s dreadful.

All his life, the Fields of Asphodel were said to be… nothing. They weren’t the torturous hellscapes of Tartarus, nor the eccentric ecstasy of Elysium. Yet somehow Chanyeol is still suffering, and he doesn’t understand why . The Fields of Asphodel are reserved for the complete and utter ordinary, neither criminal sinners nor righteous heroes. Just… common folk.

And Chanyeol is not common folk.

Or so he’d believed. 

He’s unsure if time can pass where the Sun and Moon chariots cannot reach, yet still it feels like for days Chanyeol wanders, neither growing thirsty, tired nor hungry but still left with a sense of emptiness about it all. He doesn’t know what he expects to find, for his mother’s stories always said that the fields are endless but they must end somewhere , right? Otherwise where else would the Dead King live? 

Chanyeol’s ceaseless wandering comes to fruition only moments after another wave of petals crashes over him. Just as he’s clearing them from his nose and throat, cursing at the ocean of blossoms, he spots in the distance a familiar figure swathed in black, extending half of a pomegranate.

Chanyeol’s reaction is instantaneous.

“Don’t eat it!” he calls. “It’s a trick! It will trap you here!”

The harmless spirit --a young girl, poor thing-- looks somewhat confused by Chanyeol’s appearance. Not that he’s any better, for his eternity of wandering he has yet to come by a single spirit such as himself. Nothing but flowers; it has perhaps left him with a touch of madness, but nothing he isn’t used to after all his journeys. 

The spirit just looks back at Jongdae with concern. “Is it true?” the girl asks, her voice far too calm considering the situation.

“If the fruit calls to you then eat it,” Jongdae grits out. “That is the way.” 

“I don’t know…” The girl’s face twists.

“Don’t do it!” Chanyeol reminds her, jumping up and down frantically. That has Jongdae scowling and dropping the pomegranate half at his feet as he storms over to Chanyeol’s position in the field, his cloak billowing behind him.

“What is the matter with you?” he snaps, then glances at Chanyeol from head-to-toe, eyes looking worried beneath the mask. “How far did you wander these fields? How did you get here?”

Chanyeol scoffs. “I don’t know! Perhaps it was the will of fate.”

Such a mention as Jongdae faltering, a frozen expression that breaks only at the sound of wailing, as the poor young spirit behind him spills intangible tears over an empty pomegranate husk, the juice of the seeds spread over her fingers like blood. 

“I told you not to eat it!” Chanyeol calls matter-of-factly, and the girl only cries harder. He looks to Jongdae. “Aren’t you going to comfort her?”

“It isn’t my duty,” he snaps, regarding Chanyeol warily before walking past him. “Come.”

Chanyeol takes a second to process that. “Huh?”

“You wanted to leave the fields, then very well.” Jongdae’s chariot appears suddenly just as it had before, and he hops aboard, gesturing for Chanyeol to join him. “You may leave.”

Sudden joy has Chanyeol grinning like a madman, but it falls when he remembers the Dead King’s tricks --reminded by the sound of wailing still behind him.

“Where will you take me?” he asks, defensive, though it’s difficult to imagine a place worse than the aimlessness of these fields. Perhaps it was a mistake that Chanyeol ended up here, or something, maybe this is all part of some quest he’d forgotten about, because no matter how hard he tries Chanyeol can’t remember what killed him.

“To destiny, Chanyeol,” Jongdae answers. “To Fate.”

Chanyeol had thought that from the air Jongdae’s chariot would reveal for just how long the fields extend for --in case he ever gets put back in them and needs to find the end-- but as soon as the strange, night-coloured pegasi take off, the fields apparate into smoke as if they were never there to begin with, replaced with the darkness of the Underworld. What a strange, frightful place it is indeed… Chanyeol knows of heroes before him who had had quests that had brought them here, and is grateful he’d never been one of them.

Or maybe he is… now, or something.

Regardless, despite being intangible the sight of the Underworld gives Chanyeol chills. An endless, sprawling cavern with those strange glittering lights being the only thing to chase away the darkness. The river Styx carves through the infinite void of rock and darkness, a body of water as red as blood. In the distance, Chanyeol can spot numerous other rivers circling throughout it, including the river of fire, Phlegethon, which leads straight to the depths of Tartarus.

Chanyeol feels dizzy, shuddering. Naively, he reaches out to grab for Jongdae’s waist for some sense of balance, but his arms only pass right through him. Embarrassed, Chanyeol pulls back and stands up straight, clearing his throat in hopes that Jongdae had not noticed his mistake. 

Eventually, Jongdae lands the chariot on the banks of a river with black waters. Acheron, the river of pain. Chanyeol is careful to toe off the chariot and skirt as far away from the water as possible.

“Oh?” a voice calls from behind them, and Chanyeol turns to see a small rowboat docked on the banks a short ways away, its ferryman leaning on his ore curiously. “What’s this?”

“None of your business, Baekhyun,” Jongdae clips. “Don’t you have a job to do?”

“Don’t you?” he counters, cocking an eyebrow, then turns to Chanyeol. “I remember you. Kept crying like a baby ‘till we made it the whole way across, going on and on about how you’re not supposed to die.” 

Disturbingly, Chanyeol has no memories of the Underworld’s ferryman, but less so the longer he considers the fact. His spirit is meant to be stripped clean for judgement after all, it makes sense to not have any memory of such a thing. 

Baekhyun can obviously see Chanyeol’s discomfort, because he grins, flashing a row of sharp, pointed teeth. “It’s not every day the Dead King picks up a soul, you know.”

“Enough,” Jongdae commands, stern. Baekhyun looks unperturbed, but shrugs, mouth staying shut, luckily. “Come, Chanyeol.”

Chanyeol doesn’t particularly want to follow the god who tricked him, but something about Baekhyun is far more unnerving, so he stumbles after the billowing cloak of shadow as Jongdae leads them along the rocky slats beside the river of pain until black marble columns begin to appear, and the uneven ground beneath their feet smooths over. Chanyeol is amazed at the way a grand temple seems not to appear before them but form around them, revealing a wide, open room decorated by mono colour mosaic tiles, where three women lounge on plush black chaises, eating red grapes from a silver platter placed between them. One of the women, however, sits in front of a loom, spinning silken golden thread throughout it. It’s strange --in the low din of the temple, the thread seems to glow.

“And so the King arrives at last,” the weaving woman speaks. “Just as the tapestry foretold.”

“What is the meaning of all this?” Jongdae snaps. “Why have you brought him to me?”

“We did nothing,” one of the lounging Fates speaks, though Chanyeol knows her name. Juhyun. They’re the ones that gave him the prophecy of killing the Salt Witch, after all. “It is the will of the Thread.”

“I thought when a mortal dies their thread ends,” Jongdae counters, growing stiffer by the minute. Miyoung, lounging on the opposite chaise, merely laughs.

“But Chanyeol was not mortal when he died, no? His thread continues.”

“And weaves its way alongside yours,” Taeyeon, the last fate, weaving the tapestry, finishes. 

“Is that how he found his way through the fields?” Jongdae asks, though no answer is given.

“What?” Chanyeol interjects. “Was I not meant to?”

Jongdae casts him a wary glance, then says, “You should have wandered the fields alone until your grieving ended so that your spirit may be reborn.” His mouth is a hard, set line that looks somewhat unnatural on the exposed half of his face. “It should have been impossible for you to find me again.”

“And impossible for a god to die!” Taeyeon calls out cheerfully. “But the tapestry must always find a way to make new patterns.” 

“Are any of those patterns depicting me living again?” Chanyeol asks, hopeful. “I’d like to return to the world above, thank you very much.”

As if it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever heard, all three fates laugh, and cut off at the exact same time. Sharply. 

“We may see the pattern before it is woven but it is not our duty to reveal it,” Miyoung answers, reaching for another grape. 

“The Thread is ever-changing,” Juhyun continues.

“Its path is set by you,” Taeyeon finishes, never taking her eyes off the loom. 

“A dead immortal trapped in the Underworld by the roots of the sacred fruit!” Miyoung says, amused and bright. “What a tapestry this shall make!”

“The turmoil it will cause!” Juhyun agrees.

“The threads it will cut!” Taeyeon ends, gleefully, and her eyes flash up to meet Chanyeol’s.

Unnerved, he steps closer to Jongdae, who, despite landing Chanyeol into this mess in the first place, is the only sane person he’s met who hasn’t seemed incredibly threatening. 

Jongdae’s glance flicks to Chanyeol, worried. 

“Come,” he says, voice gentle. “Let us leave this place.” 

The Fates only giggle as Jongdae turns on his heel and Chanyeol scrambles to follow. Their empty temple for empty gods fades away but the laughter seems to echo in Chanyeol’s head. Despite being unable to feel any sense of cold, Chanyeol shivers. 

“What now?” he asks, growing impatient. “Can’t you just send me up the river Oceanus and be done with it?” 

Jongdae’s mouth twitches. “It is not that simple, a river only flows one way. A spirit cannot return to the world of the living.”

Chanyeol senses a hanging edge. “But…?”

“But… Fate wishes to draw you to me,” Jongdae reveals, mumbling. “Though I do not understand why.”

“Neither do I,” Chanyeol admits. He’s the god of nature, after all, of flowers and life and blooming. There is no pairing of gods in all the realms with less in common than them.

“If the Fates wish to cause chaos then I wish to know why, and to prevent it,” Jongdae murmurs. Chanyeol opens his mouth to say more, but stops short as marble pillars begin to form around them again. This time it’s different, however, as the walls of an entire palace form around them, with twisting hallways and marble staircases, spiralling up to the floors above. A palace fit for a king.

Once again, Chanyeol is left speechless and frozen in the face of such twisted grandeur, in onyx marble and quartz the colour of blood unlike anything he’s ever seen upon the surface. It’s dark and twisted, fit for the land of the dead and their designated King.

Jongdae stands on the stairwell watching him patiently, until he breaks the silence.

“Chanyeol,” he calls, only mildly irritated. The way he controls his temper amazes and disturbs Chanyeol both. 

“Right,” Chanyeol mumbles. “Sorry.”

He follows Jongdae up the endless marble staircase, though his feet make no sound, until they come into a wide archway leading to a wide open balcony. There, Jongdae reaches into his cloak and pulls out a large brass key, tossing it into the centre of the terrace.

The key spins across the ground until it reaches the centre of mosaic rings outlining the balcony, in which the key keeps spinning and spinning, growing faster and faster until the scrape of metal across stone creates a high-pitched, whistling noise, not unlike a song. 

Chanyeol waits, and waits, and waits , but his mother --the godly one-- has always described him as impatient. 

“Well?” he prompts. “What now?” The key keeps spinning.

“Shush,” Jongdae chastises. “Be patient.” 

Chanyeol huffs, but just as he’s beginning to prefer the fields of flowers to this dreadful boredom, mist begins to spiral out from the key, and a figure of a woman appears in its visage, holding a torch.

“Jongdae?” she says, but the land does not shake with its power. Strange. “Is that you?” 

“Seulgi,” Jongdae greets, nodding. “I am sorry to summon you so suddenly, but I’m afraid it’s urgent.”

Chanyeol’s eyes widen as the Goddess of Magic regards Jongdae with concern, her visage flickering between three alternate forms. It’s only then that she seems to notice Chanyeol at all.

“Oh dear,” she says. 

“Indeed,” Jongdae agrees, sighing with exhaustion. “It appears his death is not as natural as I’d first hoped.”

“Of course it isn’t, he’s a god ,” Seulgi retorts, filled with exasperation.

“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Chanyeol blurts, glad somebody gets it.

Seulgi glances at him with a mixed expression, then faces Jongdae again through the mist. “Jongdae, if the pantheon finds out he has been killed…”

Even through the mask, Jongdae looks shaken. “I know,” he says. 

Silence passes as the two Underworld gods stare at each other, leaving Chanyeol more lost and confused than he had been in the Fields of Asphodel.

“Is no one concerned about me being dead ?” he asks. The pantheon must be a mess so unbalanced, after all, and his mother… “Has anyone told my mother I’m here?” She must be turning the earth over and over looking for him.

Seulgi and Jongdae exchange looks, and Jongdae says, “We will inform your mother of your whereabouts,” he consoles. “Though there is little to be done. Your spirit is bound to this plane.”

At the mention, Chanyeol deflates. So he’s been hearing --he knows . 

“But there may be a way to restore you to your body on the surface,” Seulgi adds, something that has Chanyeol brightening, vibrating on the spot. “I am not sure. Such magic is beyond even me, at this point in time.” 

“It’s fine,” Chanyeol offers. “Until you work out how to make me alive again I can just wait here, right?” He glances around at the others, both oddly silent. “Come on, we’re gods ! There’s nothing out of our reach. And you guys are first-generation gods! Born from Titans themselves!” At such a mention, Jongdae winces, though Chanyeol bulldozes onwards. “If anyone has the power, it’s you two.” 

Silence stretches onwards, broken only by Seulgi saying, “...I’ll see what I can do on the surface.” She meets Jongdae’s eyes, her changing face unusually stern on such a soft image of beauty. “A crossroad stands before you, brother. Do not make the wrong choice.” 

Jongdae merely nods, and the white mist hosting the goddess spreads into thin air. The key has stopped spinning, now lying plain on the ground. He steps forward to pick it up, once again tucking it away to his shadowy cloak. 

“ Sooooooo …” Chanyeol prompts, dragging out the syllable in such a heavy silence. As much as he loathes his current situation, he knows better than to doubt the words of the Goddess of Magic. If his fate at this point in time is to stay with the God of the Dead then so be it. As long as this all leads to Chanyeol regaining his normal life again, he’s content to follow the path of his thread in the tapestry. “What do you do for fun around here?” 

The question seems to catch Jongdae off-guard. “Nothing,” he answers. “I have duties to attend to.” He whistles, and once again his midnight chariot appears at the edge of the balcony, which he hops onto with an easy grace. “You are free to stay here as you wish. I will return later to deal with the matters concerning you.”

“But I--” Chanyeol starts, but Jongdae has already flown away. “Okay then.”

He huffs out hard enough that the bangs on his forehead flop up, but it soon tampers out into a sigh. Alone in a palace built for the King of the Dead.

Great.

Exploring, it turns out, is not as fun as Chanyeol had hoped. The palace is empty and unlived in, with most of the vast rooms left empty and plain except for a single four-poster bed he finds in one of the bed chambers at the uppermost levels. Other than that, even the gardens are empty, devoid of any plants save for a single, deadened tree that looks like a hand reaching out from the ground, and it leaves Chanyeol sufficiently homesick. At least in the Fields of Asphodel he’d been somewhat in his element; here, he couldn’t be farther from it.

It’s made worse without the happenings of Jongdae around him. Chanyeol now has far too much space to think about his circumstances, and how unsettling they are. Being dead leaves Chanyeol somewhere between panicked and uncertain, knowing that it’s unnatural in tandem with the work of cruel fate both makes him dread being stuck here and comforted knowing he may soon leave. Then again, it leaves the question of how Chanyeol died --after all, he had been immortal, so it’s quite unlikely he peacefully passed away in his sleep.

Worrisome.

To ignore the consuming panic that train of thought takes him along, Chanyeol occupies his mind with exploring the Underworld beyond Jongdae’s palace. Most of it is nothing but black rock and strange, glittering blue lights, though he does sometimes come across the wide banks of one of the Underworld’s six rivers and quickly changes direction, uncaring of where he may end up. If their threads are as woven as the Fates say, then Chanyeol has faith that he’ll find his way back to Jongdae, whether he wants to or not. 

It’s only when Chanyeol sees black waters that he begins to grimace, wanting to turn around but it’s too late.

“Well well well,” Baekhyun’s familiar voice calls, “lost soul out for a wander, eh?” 

Chanyeol turns to him in distaste, watching as Baekhyun idly plays with a gold coin between nimble fingers.

“My business does not concern you, ferryman .”

Baekhyun’s eyebrow only raises. “On the contrary, everyone’s business concerns me one way or another, whether they want it to or not.” He flashes another one of those fang-riddled grins. It’s a miracle no hero has been sent on a quest to slay someone so… unnerving. “Though it’s not everyday a God ends up down here. Not a dead one, at least.”

“Yes, well…” Chanyeol doesn’t really have a comeback for that one. Damn. Baekhyun just appears amused.

“Who managed to kill you anyhow?” he asks, uncaring of Chanyeol’s lackluster arguments. “I couldn’t make it out through all your blubbering when you arrived.”

“I-- I don’t know,” Chanyeol answers, frowning. The last thing he remembers is simply waking up in his own bed on Olympus. Gods don’t need sleep, per se, but they partake in the pleasure of it. The rest is gone from his head. 

“Ah,” Baekhyun says slowly in understanding. “Jongdae took pity on you, hm? Always a bit softer than his father, that one.”

That just makes Chanyeol frown, watching as Baekhyun flips the coin he’d been fiddling with into the air and catches it with disinterested ease. It derails Chanyeol’s train of thought.

“Did I have a coin? To pay you?” he asks. “When I arrived.” 

“Made it over here didn’t you?” Baekhyun counters, lazily rolling the coin over his knuckles. 

Chanyeol withers. “Then someone gave me a proper burial.”

“Ah.” For the first time since Chanyeol has met him --at least met him and remembered the fact-- Baekhyun looks… on edge. “I see how that might cause concern.” 

“You think?” Chanyeol sighs and sits on the bedrock beneath his feet, careful to avoid the cresting riverbank. “The longer I stay here the madder I become.”

“But I can’t see you going elsewhere anytime soon,” Baekhyun points out. “My boat may have carried alive heroes up the river styx, but you--”

“Ate the seeds and are anchored here blah blah,” Chanyeol cuts in. “Believe me, I know.”

Baekhyun doesn’t seem insulted, merely grinning.

“It’s not all that bad down here you know,” he counters. “Gods know Jongdae needs some good company. Maybe that’s why Fate wove you here.”

Chanyeol sincerely doubts his probable murder and definite burial was all for the sake of keeping a grumpy, cold god company. Then again, considering the only other people he’s seen down here has been a wailing spirit, an unnerving ferryman, and the goddess of mystery… Huh. 

“I’m not here to appease the Dead King,” Chanyeol grumbles. “There must be something more to me being here. Something we’re missing. Some greater purpose or important quest...”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes, though it’s concealed and Chanyeol only just catches it, narrowing his eyes.

“You heroes are all the same whether you achieve immortality or not,” he drones. “ Purpose this, quest that.” Baekhyun makes a chatterbox motion with his left hand. Chanyeol is unimpressed. “If your life is so holy and righteous why were you in the Fields of Asphodel, hm?” 

Chanyeol flinches as if struck by a full blow. Not that his mediocrity is a sore spot, or anything.

“Me being sent there just proves my quest isn’t over,” Chanyeol counters. He’d thought ascending to his full power and purpose as a god of the pantheon had been the end of his journey, but perhaps he’d been wrong. If his soul had been judged and sent to the Fields of Asphodel then there’s more in his tapestry than he’d first thought. Good. Life with immortality had grown a little boring anyway.

“If you say so, hero.” Baekhyun grins. 

The sound of wings flapping overhead prevents Chanyeol from any sort of witty retort, and Jongdae descends on his black chariot, looking irritated.

“Chanyeol,” he scolds. “You should stay at the palace.”

Chanyeol hmph s, crossing his arms. “I may do as I please.”

Jongdae scowls, then turns to Baekhyun. “And you! Stop meddling in duties that do not concern you.”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes, far less concealed than last time. “The souls on the riverbank have an eternity of death ahead of them,” he drawls, “they can wait a few extra moments more.”

“Don’t have me punish you in the pits of Tartarus,” Jongdae threatens. 

Baekhyun blows him a kiss. “You wish you wanted to get rid of me.” 

Jongdae exhales a long breath that has Chanyeol inwardly commending him for his temper control, but then points to his chariot. Chanyeol waddles over to it with a metaphorical spirit-tail tucked between his legs. 

On the chariot, the dead wind halcyon rushing past is silent, but thick. Chanyeol just feels… awkward. Jongdae is not the god of mysteries but he is a god of mystery, even in the pantheon. For all of Chanyeol’s life the King of the Underworld has merely resided in his own domain, never venturing to the surface or beyond.

“Someone buried me,” Chanyeol blurts out, at a lack of what else to say. “That’s-- that’s why I was talking to Baekhyun, is all.”

A half-lie, but hopefully something that can put him in his only company’s good graces. Jongdae’s mouth smooths out somewhat, but still looks displeased. Mismatched black and gold eyes meet Chanyeol’s, unreadable. Chanyeol feels the need to look away first.

“So your body was found,” Jongdae eventually says.

“Probably by my mother?” Chanyeol offers. The Goddess of Harvest is the only person he can think of who would care for him so tenderly. But if that’s the case, why hasn’t she come to free him? Jongdae’s mouth flattens into that unnatural straight line again. 

“I doubt that,” Jongdae says, making Chanyeol falter. “She’s not the kindest woman around.”

“Pardon?” Chanyeol blinks, confused. “That’s the Goddess of Harvest you’re talking about, she saved all of humanity by giving them grain.” 

Jongdae only hums, as unreadable and cold as always. Chanyeol grinds his teeth together to stop himself at yelling at the King of the Underworld for such insolence. If there’s anything Chanyeol had learnt sailing the Great Seas to conquer islands and slay terrifying beasts, it’s that working alone is much more bothersome than having help. 

Chanyeol hates being alone.

The chariot flies to the ground, and the palace forms a short ways ahead, its empty, barren garden looming. So much deadened earth leaves Chanyeol homesick, and he decides that the sooner he gets out of this mess, the better.

“You may go wherever you like here,” Jongdae explains. “But when I say stay I mean it, Chanyeol.” Jongdae is nearly a whole head smaller than Chanyeol, but as he eyes Chanyeol calmly Chanyeol feels the need to shrink, ducking his head into his shoulders. “These may not be the pits of Tartarus, but it is still the Underworld. It isn’t safe for a wandering spirit beyond the Fields.”

“I understand,” Chanyeol mumbles, “sorry.”

Jongdae softens, sighing. “I understand that this is confusing for everyone,” he consoles, his voice gentle. “But I am doing all that I can to restore the natural order of things. It is my duty. The most you can do to help is stay out of trouble.” 

“You’re right,” Chanyeol agrees. “Sorry,” he offers again.

Silence hangs between them, until Jongdae says, “There’s a library on the third floor.” He tilts his chin upwards. “Maybe you can pass the time there. I must return to the Fields.” 

“Okay,” Chanyeol says, as even as he can manage. There’s a weird sort of tension in the air, but then Jongdae gives a slight nod and turns on his heel, cloak billowing behind him as he leaves the palace. Chanyeol just puffs out his cheeks, lost and confused, but figures that until Jongdae and Seulgi find some way to get him out of here, he has an eternity of death ahead of him.

He heads upstairs. 

Additional to his findings from before, Chanyeol manages to find (within the twisting corridors of the undead palace) a few rooms that aren’t entirely empty: namely a black marble bathhouse and the library Jongdae mentioned before. 

Which is weird, because Chanyeol could swear that he’d come this way before and found nothing of the sort, but perhaps the palace, much like everything else in the Underworld, seems to form on a whim Chanyeol has yet to find the hang of.

Yet despite the sparse, barren interior of the rest of the palace, the library is filled with books and scrolls and parchment from floor to ceiling. Shelves carved into the wall lined with ornaments and artifacts and all sorts of fascinating things. 

However, just as pure glee overtakes Chanyeol and he reaches for the closest book, he’s forced to pull back with a grimace at the somewhat slimey cover, the parchment inside drenched and crinkled. Of course, Chanyeol realises, there’s no way for Jongdae to have such a collection without having fished it from the River Oceanus that encircles the entire world, or pulled it from the earth. The thought brings a surprising chuckle to the forefront of Chanyeol’s throat; it’s a funny picture, to see the God of the Dead himself fishing lost items in the great river.

It’s a side of Jongdae Chanyeol would have never guessed, an urge to collect knowledge of the world beyond, but it’s something Chanyeol can relate to. Even as a mortal child he’d always just had a hunger for… more . He wanted to learn everything, wanted to master the world. 

Chanyeol gets lost in his reading, after that, finding texts in languages he cannot even recognise and forgotten stories from authors he’d thought were forever lost. It’s intoxicating, and it helps that he is undisturbed and never tired, free to peruse through the infinite knowledge at his fingertips. From time to time he finds a book with a turned corner or a neat note scribbled on the margins in graphite. It’s yet another side to the God of the Dead that seems uncharacteristically… tender, leaving Chanyeol somewhat wondering if perhaps he’s misjudged him. After all, despite the stigma around the Dead King on the surface… Chanyeol has never heard anything ill of him. All he knows is that when the titans were overthrown, Chanyeol’s mother and father made Jongdae the ruler of the Underworld in his titan father’s place. For all he can remember, Jongdae has only been held in poor regard because he rules the Underworld, which… isn’t even that bad of a thing? Somebody has to do it, don’t they?

That train of thought has the words failing to register in Chanyeol’s head, so he snaps the current book of heroes fables shut and tosses it to the side, letting his gaze wander throughout the library for something fresh to sink his teeth into. Instead of finding a book however, Chanyeol only sees something tall covered by a black cloth in the corner of the room. Strange.

When he pulls the cloth away, it’s nothing but a standing brass mirror, polished clear by magic, something that has Chanyeol jumping at his own reflection. It’s certainly confirmation that he’s dead, Chanyeol thinks, to see his body oddly pale and translucent, as plain as he had been when he was a mortal. His branching horns of blooming blossoms and leaves are missing, his figure is weakened, his skin doesn’t glow. He looks like the version of someone in a forgotten memory, foggy and far-off, smudged at the edges. 

“Has this helped pass the time?”

Chanyeol jolts in place -- again -- startled to find Jongdae regarding him beyond the mirror’s frame. He turns around, somewhat embarrassed --the mirror had been covered after all. 

“I-- yes, thank you.” Chanyeol clears his throat, his eyes finding the ground very interesting all of a sudden. “Any news from Seulgi?” 

“Not yet,” Jongdae answers, voice soft. He takes a half-step forward, a little awkward in his movements, like he isn’t sure if he’s allowed in or not. Which is preposterous, it’s his library. “Do you look different?” 

Chanyeol blinks. “What?”

“In the mirror, do you appear different to what you remember?” Jongdae clarifies. “It’s enchanted to show a person’s very spirit itself. You just… happen to already be in that form.”

“Oh, um-- yes, very different.” He glances down at himself, now noting the odd translucency to his own body. “I’m not particularly godly, am I?”

Jongdae takes a long pause. “No,” he says. “I suppose not.”

Then again, Jongdae doesn’t look all that godly either. His clothes do, certainly, with the dripping shadows of his cloak and the silken black toga beneath it, but his mask is plain, the only half of his face uncovered distinctly human looking. Chanyeol wonders why he wears it, now that he thinks about it. He can’t remember any stories of why the Dead King would hide his face, and has yet to see Jongdae without it, even within his own home. 

“I’m very see-through,” Chanyeol continues, just to fill the awkward silence, flapping his arm in the air. It derails his thought process. “Wait, how can I touch the books and not you?”

“Oh, that…” Jongdae turns thoughtful, fiddling with his earlobe. It’s a strangely cute gesture. “The dead and the living exist on separate plains, but objects are neither dead nor alive. That’s why you can interact with them, as can I. They are an in-between.”

“I see… that makes sense,” Chanyeol manages, with a lack of anything else to say. Silence grows again, and Jongdae appears to almost wince, stiffly turning.

“Yes, well… I must eat, so…”

Chanyeol perks up. “Can I join you?” he asks. Jongdae blinks at him, stunned. “What?”

“You have no need to eat,” Jongdae points out. “Why bother?”

Now Chanyeol is the one feeling more awkward. Who asks someone such a thing? He’s starting to believe that an eternity underground has left Jongdae with some lacking social skills.

“I am more in it for the company than the food,” Chanyeol answers, something that seems to shock Jongdae yet again. Chanyeol tilts his head. “Is it so strange to want to know the God who shares my woven fate?” 

“...No,” Jongdae says eventually. “I suppose not.” He tears his eyes off of Chanyeol, then gestures for him to follow --which he does so gladly, satisfied with his strange victory. The halls twist around them yet again, and Jongdae leads Chanyeol to a great dining hall he hadn’t found on his own, with a long black table that only has one seat at the head. Jongdae waves his hand, and another chair forms from the marble floor at the other end. 

Nectar and ambrosia is already laid out, poured into silver goblets and plattered on silver plates. From the other end of the lengthy table, Chanyeol watches Jongdae eat, which seems to perturb the God, given by the way his eyes keep nervously glancing at Chanyeol. Chanyeol can’t blame him, no doubt they are both unused to these things.

Deciding being metres away from his host is far too awkward, Chanyeol drags the chair along the table until he is seated at Jongdae’s right side, propping his chin on his hands to watch him drink from his goblet. If possible, Jongdae looks even more uncomfortable. 

“...Must you stare so intently?” Jongdae asks, almost sounding a little petulant. It’s cute, Chanyeol thinks, and then gets confused by that thought, because he must be feeling all sorts of madness if he thinks the God of the Underworld is cute . 

“Well I don’t have anything better to do,” Chanyeol argues. “Must you wear your mask even when you eat?” 

That makes Jongdae stiff, defensive. “Yes,” he answers, clipped.

“Why? Surely it’s uncomfortable.” As moulded to Jongdae’s face as it is, Chanyeol can see the metal shift with each movement of his jaw and cheeks. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Jongdae counters. “It is something that must be worn when I am not alone.”

Chanyeol flaps his long arms to the great dining hall. “You are practically alone,” he argues. Jongdae gives him a pointed look. “What? Just for me? I’m a spirit taking refuge in your palace, Jongdae.” Chanyeol snorts. “I’m hardly a cause for formality.”

“It’s not out of formality.” Jongdae sighs. It only piques Chanyeol’s interest further, however. He’d thought it some strange rite of the Dead King --it seems he’d thought wrong. “My countenance is not… pleasing to look at.”

Now that Chanyeol doubts. All gods are beautiful; it’s simply their way, an emphasis of their holiness.

“As hard as I find that to believe, I’m also not one to care.” Chanyeol waves his hands. “You should be comfortable in your own home.”

“You are the god of nature,” Jongdae mumbles. “Beauty is in your blood. Of course you care.”

Well maybe Chanyeol had, when he was alive, but down here he finds beauty being the last thing on his mind. There were a lot of things Chanyeol worried about much more that seem so frivolous in comparison to his current predicament.

He shrugs. “I know I’m beautiful but I’m not cruel. Really, Jongdae, I don’t care. Unless you have Gorgon eyes under it I’m curious to see your true face.”

“You don’t understand ,” Jongdae implores, now sounding almost desperate. “You are a son of two gods. My father was a titan and my mother was the sea serpent. I do not look as you do.”

“What?” Chanyeol blurts. “Your parents were what ?”

Jongdae lets out a long breath. “Were you never told this story?” Chanyeol shakes his head. Jongdae looks reluctant, but relents. “Before your father overthrew the titans for good, he and the other gods tasked my mother, the Sea Serpent, with seducing my father and destroying him. Her venom was so potent it could kill even the gods themselves.

“They disguised her as a beautiful woman, and my father fell for her disguise. But instead of killing him, my mother fell in love. She had me in secret, but before she could even tell my father of my existence, the pantheon banished him.

“In her grief, my mother thrashed and wailed, and pushed the waves to form. Her rage was potent, and the gods sealed her under the ocean to contain her. This lead your Uncle, the ocean god, to discover the child she’d hidden in secret at the bottom of the ocean. When your mother, the Goddess of Harvest, saw me in your Uncles arms, she called me grotesque, and flung me to the Underworld, to fill the space my father once took.” 

Chanyeol is left speechless, unsure of what to say. He’d known Jongdae had been put here to fill the role of the titan before him, sure, but so… unwillingly? Chanyeol had never considered such a fact. Jongdae is practically a prisoner --and Chanyeol’s mother is his prosecutor. 

“I’m sorry,” is all Chanyeol can manage to say, looking down at the stone table in shame. “I never knew. It is not a story told on the surface.”

Jongdae shrugs it off, though the movement is stiff. “It’s alright. I assumed as much.” He stabs his fork pointedly into his ambrosia, chewing it rigorously. 

It certainly puts more pieces together in Chanyeol’s head, helping him understand why Jongdae is… the way that he is, but it brings with it a strange amount of sadness, too.

How lonely it all is.

His mind made up, Chanyeol stands, and seats himself on the edge of the table in front of Jongdae, staring at him stubbornly.

“What are you--”

“You are a god ,” Chanyeol cuts him off. “One that rules a third of the realm! Mortals are made to envy your image, and any who insult it you can simply throw into the pits of Tartarus.”

Jongdae laughs, a strangled noise, soft and stuck in his throat, but a laugh all the same. It leaves Chanyeol greedier for more.

“That seems a bit cruel,” he says, eyes still looking up at Chanyeol. 

He shrugs. “It is your right as a god.” 

Then, summing up all the courage he can manage in such a situation, Chanyeol reaches out, his fingers brushing the edge of Jongdae’s mask. Jongdae’s breath hitches, but he makes no move to stop Chanyeol, allowing him to peel the piece off entirely, breaking the illusion.

Jongdae’s true form, Chanyeol sees, is strange indeed. His mismatched eyes have slitted pupils, a detail hidden by the magic of the mask, and they rest beneath cute, straight eyebrows. His face is lean but sculptured, his jaw wide, throat strong. He has a pair of elongated fangs behind parted, full lips. What makes him different to most, however, are the patches of black scales lining his skin sporadically, beneath his eyes and down his neck, over his shoulders under his cloak. It’s… mesmerising.

“See?” Chanyeol prompts, though his voice feels weak, but not for reasons he can pinpoint. “Beautiful.” 

There’s a split second where Chanyeol can catch the way heat floods Jongdae’s pallid face, but then he’s snatching the mask back and covering it, the illusion settling into place once again.

“Those are easy words for you to say,” Jongdae says, voice low and cold. It’s a tone that doesn’t befit such a warm face, Chanyeol idly thinks, even if that face is hidden. “You do not understand what it’s like to be hated, to be feared , to be hideous and stuck in the duties of my father before me--”

Chanyeol scoffs, cutting Jongdae off. “At least you have duties, a purpose .” Chanyeol’s voice clogs in his throat and he doesn’t understand it, swallowing the feeling. “I spent my whole life trying to be worthy of such a thing and apparently never was!” 

Jongdae is stunned into silence. Usually, Chanyeol loves victories, yet he feels no satisfaction in this one.

His chair pushes back, and Jongdae stands, his eyes pointed to the ground.

“I should go,” he excuses. “I have duties to attend to.”

The usual excuse.

“Of course you do,” Chanyeol says, clipped. He waves his hands. “Attend them, then.”

As Jongdae leaves the room, he lingers in the entryway, his eyes meeting Chanyeol’s with something akin to regret before disappearing.

Alone once again in the grandeur of a house of ghosts, Chanyeol sighs. 

It’s hard for Chanyeol to keep track of how much time has passed since his death. Without the sky there’s simply no way of knowing, only the strange, wandering blue lights. It doesn’t help that being a spirit makes everything feel… foggy. It’s hard to describe the sensation, but space and time around Chanyeol just feels warped and stretched, probably because he’s not exactly a part of the physical realm. 

Or something.

The lack of timekeeping leaves Chanyeol lonelier than ever, however, unsure if it’s been days or weeks or months since he last saw Jongdae. Which he’s keeping track of only since Jongdae is his only form of company in the empty palace, and Chanyeol never has done any well with silence. 

Slowly but surely, Chanyeol feels like he’s withering.

Such a feeling brings him to the palace gardens, in some hope of negating it. The soil is dry and dead, not a single seed to be found. A few times, out of boredom, Chanyeol had tried to access his magic, but to no surprise he’d come up short. It’s still disappointing. He misses the connection to the earth, to life . Here, he has nothing. Not even a friend.

Chanyeol, in this form, knows that he cannot cry, but he can still feel quite wobbly. He buries his fingers in the soil in an attempt to stop the sensation from growing any stronger; it helps, if only marginally. A reminder of home.

Chanyeol falters, however, when a low rumble sounds, staring at the ground in disbelief and quickly pulling back his fingers. The sound doesn’t stop, and Chanyeol begins flapping his arms in panic, unsure of what to do.

Until a large drop of something wet lands in front of him and he looks up, realising that the sound isn’t coming from the ground at all. Rather, a large, three-headed dog with glowing red eyes now stares at him and growls.

“Ah,” Chanyeol squeaks. “Hello.”

The dog, having pawed up onto the stone wall, easily leaps over it, towering over Chanyeol nearly four times his height. It’s somewhat terrifying. Chanyeol has slayed great beasts before, sure, but that was when he had weapons, a tangible body, and the power of gods on his side. Never like this.

The dog lunges for him, teeth snapping, and Chanyeol cries out pathetically as he falls back in an attempt to dodge the blow, if only just. 

“ Cerberus ,” a voice commands. “Stop.” 

When Chanyeol dares to open his eyes again, he finds the three-headed monster is now sitting on its hind legs and whimpering as an unimpressed Jongdae stands between it and Chanyeol.

“Chanyeol is not a lost spirit, he’s with me,” Jongdae tells it. “Do you understand?”

One of the heads nods, one has its ears pressed and looks guilty. The third huffs. The other two look at it pointedly, and eventually, it nods too.

“Sorry,” Jongdae apologises, offering a hand out. “He’s very well-trained, just not for this.”

“Um.” Chanyeol passes his hand through Jongdae’s, and Jongdae draws it back, sheepish to have even offered. He clears his throat to pretend like he’d never attempted it. 

“He guards the gates of the Underworld, makes sure the spirits coming in from Baekhyun’s ferry stay in line.” Jongdae approaches the monster, and all three heads bend over gratefully, as he reaches up to scratch under each one’s chin. Cute, Chanyeol thinks --both Jongdae and the dog. “He also stops them from trying to leave.”

“Ah…” Chanyeol rubs the back of his neck. 

Jongdae softens. “He gets lonely sometimes and likes to visit me, he probably smelled your soul essence and got confused. Sorry, I hadn’t thought far ahead enough to warn him.”

“It’s okay,” Chanyeol consoles, eyeing the three headed dog getting its pats. Its tail wags vigorously behind it --a tail which, Chanyeol realises, is an actual snake, getting flung around. Poor thing. “He was just doing his job, right? Because he’s a good boy.”

At the mention, all three of Cerberus’ heads perk up, and he clambers over to Chanyeol with all three tongues hanging out, heads lowered in expectant pats. Chanyeol coos and obliges, finding that his hand can touch the dog, scratching into its thick fur. 

“Yes you are, aren’t you? A good boy, so cute .” Chanyeol continues to coo in his baby voice until he notices Jongdae staring at him. “...What?”

Jongdae tears his gaze away. “Nothing.” He fiddles with his ear lobe, looking flustered. Cerberus happily barks and rolls onto his back, allowing Chanyeol to scratch its belly. “I… I’ve been meaning to apologise.”

Chanyeol blinks at the sudden mention. “About what?”

“The last time we spoke,” Jongdae clarifies. Chanyeol just keeps on blinking. It’s been so long since then he’d almost forgotten they’d ended it on bad terms. “I didn’t mean to act so harshly, I just…”

Chanyeol shrugs. “It’s fine. Gods have a flair for drama.” He offers Jongdae a timid smile, something that Jongdae awkwardly returns. Ah, it looks far more natural on his face, Chanyeol thinks, upturned lips and all. 

Jongdae huffs out a small laugh. “Perhaps being raised a mortal gave you a better perspective on such things. I’ve had an eternity to be bitter.” 

“Being bitter is fine, but it’s better to focus on the positive.” Chanyeol keeps his eyes on Cerberus’ large belly as his leg thumbs against the ground with each vigorous rub in reflex. “Yes, being stuck down here is bad, but at least your parents never wanted you here. If anything, your dad is probably super proud that you’ve taken such good care of the Underworld!!” he offers in an attempt to cheer Jongdae up, relieve some of the bitterness. Chanyeol’s hand begins to slow. “...I’ll never be good enough for mine or my mother.” 

He’d spent his whole life trying to gain their approval, ascending to godhood itself, and still ended up in the Fields of Asphodel. Now he’s stuck in the Underworld, alone, without the feeling that either of his parents care enough to look for him. 

Jongdae hums, and crouches over to also pat Cerberus, opposite to Chanyeol. The beast looks like it’s in Elysium.

“If there’s anything I’ve learnt from watching spirits move on,” Jongdae starts gently, “it’s to let go of regrets like that. They only weigh you down.”

Chanyeol doesn’t know how to respond to that, meeting Jongdae’s masked, mismatched eyes with his tongue heavy in his throat. Having both of them stopped their pats, all three of Cerberus’ head whines, and it’s something that startles a laugh out of Chanyeol, endeared, as the beast attempts to paw at them to make them keep patting. 

Chanyeol just keeps laughing, and watching him, somehow, Jongdae joins in too. It’s ridiculous, but it’s also the first time Chanyeol has ever seen Jongdae laugh so openly, a timid noise that grows. It’s a sharp, bubbly cackle, with a beautiful grin that lights up his entire face even while masked. It leaves Chanyeol feeling wobbly again, but this time for much more different reasons. 

Chanyeol won’t attribute Jongdae spending more time in the palace to them clearing the air, but… well, he does. While a lot of Jongdae’s time is spent doing… whatever the God of the Underworld must do, he does have his occasional rest breaks. Eating ambrosia and drinking nectar in the dining hall, sleeping in his four poster bed, reading in the library, bathing in the marble hot springs. All of which Chanyeol accompanies him to --well, not the sleeping or the bathing, but the other ones! 

It’s a side-effect of being stuck in the Underworld with very few company choices, Chanyeol supposes. It doesn’t help that every inch of Jongdae that opens up only leaves Chanyeol greedier. His cold, rigid, hardworking demeanour seems to only be a shell for something far more soft, and Chanyeol yearns to water it, care for it, change its soil and watch it flourish. He wants to see the hidden flower Jongndae could bloom into, if there weren’t so many defensive weeds keeping guard.

Chanyeol also learns the breadth of which Jongdae has been working behind the scenes, to find a way to free Chanyeol from the Underworld. Every god in the Underworld he can contact is furiously researching and asking for ways to bring back the dead in one piece, but all are coming up short. While such a thing is demoralising, Chanyeol refuses to give up hope. Restoring the dead is not natural, yes, but neither is a god dying --they have to balance each other out somehow, right? 

Then again, being here isn’t… the worst thing in the world, Chanyeol supposes. It could have been a far crueler fate than keeping a lonely god company.

It’s what occupies Chanyeol’s thoughts as he and Jongdae play with Cerberus in the gardens. Rather, Chanyeol watches as Jongdae effortlessly tosses a boulder through the grounds for Cerberus to chase after and return with a heavy thud each time. They’re not speaking --somewhat unusual these days, with how much Chanyeol loves to fill the silence-- but that’s okay. Chanyeol has come to appreciate even the quiet moments between them.

Jongdae lets out a long sigh. “I should return to my duties,” he says, albeit regretfully. “I’ve spent too long here resting.”

Chanyeol doesn’t have a heart in this form, but he feels it sink anyway. “So soon?”

Jongdae smiles, a much more common expression now. “It’s already been half a day, by surface standards.” His voice is light and teasing, pretty like a song. “You are just as needy for affection as Cerberus is.”

Chanyeol splutters. “Don’t compare me to a dog! I am a God.”

“Which is only dog spelt backwards,” Jongdae points out, then snorts at Chanyeol’s large frown. “Relax. I’ll return soon.”

“You alllllllways say that and you’re alllways gone for far too long,” Chanyeol protests. An idea strikes. “Can’t I just come with you?” Jongdae freezes. “So long as I’m with you I’m safe, right?”

He looks reluctant. “I don’t know…”

“I’ll stay out of your way, promise!” Chanyeol widens his eyes. “Please?” 

He attributes it to Jongdae’s softness, how easily he relents.

“Fine.”

“Yes!”

“But you must stay on the chariot at all times, understand?” 

“Yes yes yes!” Chanyeol agrees, half-cheering in joy. Finally he can leave this wretched, empty palace. “I won’t interfere, cross my heart.”

“You don’t have a heart,” Jongdae mumbles, and sighs as he walks forward to the only (dead) tree in all the gardens. As he approaches, the branches seem to reach for him, bearing pomegranates that weren’t there before. How strange.

Jongdae pockets the fruit in his shadowy cloak before Chanyeol can think to ask, and is too overjoyed at the sight of the chariot to say anything more on the matter. He stumbles into it alongside Jongdae, cheering for joy as it takes off into the air.

“Ridiculous,” Jongdae mutters, but he’s smiling. It makes Chanyeol grin.

Chanyeol hadn’t known what to expect of Jongdae’s ‘duties’ in the Underworld, assuming he’d only be handing out pomegranates to ghosts, but they run far deeper than that. He must routinely check on Baekhyun, on the spirits waiting on the banks of the river, on the gates themselves. He has to take care of Cerberus, speak with the judges, receive stone tablets engraved with the numbers pouring in and their delegations (Elysium, Asphodels, Tatarus ). There are more monsters and gods working down here than Chanyeol had first expected, all ensuring that the afterlife runs smoothly. 

It’s only once that’s all done that Jongdae flies the chariot higher than before, and the Fields of Asphodels form beneath them, bringing back uncomfortable memories for Chanyeol. They remind him of his mediocrity, and his current situation, and it settles uncomfortably in his gut.

“Wait here,” Jongdae demands, as he lands his chariot onto the sea of flowers. The waves of petals bob past the pegasi’s hooves. “Don’t speak this time, understand?”

“Promise,” Chanyeol offers sheepishly. Jongdae gives him a narrow-eyed look through his mask, but steps off the chariot, approaching something Chanyeol cannot see. Fair enough that Jongdae is so suspicious, considering the last time they’d been here Chanyeol had attempted to sabotage him. It feels like it was so long ago, now. Maybe it was.

For quite some time, nothing happens, and Jongdae simply stands there, a strong figure swathed in black immersed in a field of white. It’s a startlingly beautiful image, one Chanyeol feels he will remember forever no matter what happens.

Then, finally, Jongdae speaks.

“Yerim,” he says, his voice gentle. “You are dead. Your soul now rests in the Fields of Asphodel.”

A spirit sits up, blinking at Jongdae.

“I see,” she says. She must be young, barely an adult. It makes Chanyeol feel withered.

He can only watch and wince as Jongdae tears the fruit in half, holding it out to the girl. Gingerly, she takes it from his hand, curious, almost, as she stares at the seeds. Chanyeol almost wants to call out to her, but he remembers his promise to Jongdae, and bites his tongue.

“It’s alright,” the young girl says, her voice even and calm. “I’m not very hungry.”

He watches Jongdae soften as she holds the fruit up, returning it to him.

“Thank you for your kindness,” she says, turning her gaze up to the strange, cavern-sky. Chanyeol wonders what she sees. “But I think it’s best I go.”

Jongdae smiles. “Safe journey, Yerim.”

She nods at him, standing, and Chanyeol watches in fascination as she begins to walk away and… fade. At first, Chanyeol thinks he’s imagining things, but as Yerim walks through the fields of flowers she grows harder and harder to see until eventually there’s nothing but thin air and a soft gust of asphodel petals, lost in an unfelt wind. 

Jongdae keeps staring forward, then eventually returns to the chariot, looking somewhat… peaceful.

“That’s quite a rare occurrence,” he notes, smiling up at Chanyeol. “A lucky sight for both of us.”

“Um. What just happened?” Chanyeol blurts, mesmerised and also confused. “She didn’t eat the fruit.”

“Not everyone does,” Jongdae answers. “Some spirits are more tired than others, and wish to move on. The greedier the person, the more likely they are to eat.” Chanyeol frowns. “Greed isn’t meant in a cruel sense,” Jongdae backpedals, looking apologetic. “But… greed can be for anything. Knowledge, power, purpose. It’s important for spirits to let go of fruitless desires, if they wish to grow and move on.” 

Chanyeol swallows, feeling a strange weight in his chest. 

“The pomegranate,” he starts, a desperate urge to change the subject. “...Isn’t a normal pomegranate, is it?”

Jongdae laughs, sweet like fruit. “No,” he agrees. “When the body is buried, the heart is planted, and grows into the fruit. Memories belong to it, left in its seeds.”

Chanyeol’s eyebrows furrow together. “Then why do you only offer half?”

Jongdae sighs, even as the chariot launches into the air, and the fields disappear behind them.

“Did you know the human heart is asymmetrical?” Chanyeol shakes his head. “One half is heavier than the other. I suppose it’s my attempt at being merciful. They’ve already died, the least I can do is ease their passing.”

Chanyeol slowly exhales, coming to realisation. “That’s why I can’t remember how I died, isn’t it?” he asks. “It was in the other half.”

Gently, Jongdae nods.

“I see.” Something bothers Chanyeol, like maybe that empty feeling inside him isn’t meant to be there to begin with, but Jongdae looks so sad and so soft, it’s hard to hold it against him. He’s just trying to make it easy for spirits to free themselves, yet still, Chanyeol is stuck here. 

He only has himself to blame in the end. 

After a long day (night?) hard at work (watching Jongdae work) Chanyeol thinks rest is well-deserved.

And while most nights (days?) he’d be content to curl up with Jongdae in the library as they both read in silence, Chanyeol has grown a little bored. It’s the restlessness that grows inside him, he thinks, being stuck down here with little to influence or do. Watching Jongdae perform his duties only fuels it more. Day by day Chanyeol’s hope of escaping the Underworld grows bleaker and bleaker. (Though his acceptance of such a thing also grows, which is terrifying in its own way).

Jongdae has become the only stable in Chanyeol’s inconsistent not-life, he’s found, a rock in turbulent waters, the warmth of the sun in the sky. It’s the only thing Chanyeol can come to rely on when his future grows more uncertain by the day.

It’s such comfort that lets Chanyeol confidently pick up a pillow from one of the chaises and toss it into Jongdae’s lap, allowing him to settle his head there. It’s strange how Chanyeol can feel the sturdiness of Jongdae’s thighs beneath it yet not touch them to begin with.

“Comfortable?” Jongdae asks, not taking his eyes off his book.

“Very,” Chanyeol answers, pleased with himself. He grins up at Jongdae unabashedly. “What are you reading?” To reply, Jongdae shuts it and tilts the book so that the cover is visible. “A tome on agriculture?” Chanyeol chokes out a half-laugh. “Is that remotely interesting?”

“Yes,” Jongdae grumbles, defensive. “Nothing grows down here, and I find the human’s inventions of survivability… fascinating.”

“Half of them came from gods.” Chanyeol waves his hands. “They’re not so great.”

“I don’t believe that,” Jongdae argues, though his voice is gentle in a way that doesn’t prickle inside Chanyeol. It’s something he’s grown to like about Jongdae --one of many. “Millions of humans come here, and each one is so different to the last. Gods are all the same. I find it hard to believe we can be half as creative.” 

Chanyeol blinks, surprised to hear a god speak so highly of mortals. It’s so uncommon; yet another surprising facet of Jongdae that leaves him greedy.

“Maybe,” Chanyeol mumbles, fiddling with his fingers.

“I wouldn’t think you one to stand with the gods so firmly,” Jongdae admits, and his fingers twitch, once, in Chanyeol’s peripheral, like he wants to touch but knows he can’t. “Having experienced mortality and immortality.”

As best as he can lying down, Chanyeol shrugs. “There are flaws to both,” he says, now staring at his stilled hands. “Humans are made in our image, but we were born flawed, so they are too.”

Jongdae softens, and when Chanyeol risks meeting his eyes he has to look away from all the emotion swimming behind gold and bronze.

“What were they like?” Jongdae gently asks. “Your human family.”

The memories are hazy, to Chanyeol, decades ago now. Foggy and far-off, like all things. He thinks remembering them should hurt, but the pain feels numbed.

“They were…” He remembers his human mother wiping dirt off his cheeks, promising him greatness. His father making him his first bow and his mother teaching him how to shoot it, his sister showing him how to cook and how to sow the first seeds of the season. “...Kind. Supportive.” His face contorts. “My mother… the human one, she was a farmer’s daughter, devoted to my true mother. When my father found out about my conception he wanted me dead, afraid of the power of a new god.” Chanyeol frowns. “So my god-mother hid my unborn heart inside the womb of my human mother, so that I could still be born.” 

“They were nobodies, by human standards, and that’s what made it so perfect.” He exhales, a short, pained breath. “They had no reason to treat me as human, not when my mother knew the truth of my existence, but they raised me like a blood son. They weren’t rich or noble or smart they were just… Family.

“Then my sister overheard my parents discussing the truth, and told me. My God-mother appeared before me and my life changed for good.”

“I’m sorry,” Jongdae offers. “It must’ve hurt to be taken from such a thing.”

Chanyeol blinks, startled.

“I-- maybe?” he replies. Jongdae stares back, cocking his head. “I mean, I’ve never really thought about it. Being a hero of the gods meant so much to me at the time, because I was nobody…” he trails off. “It’s like I never really considered what I’d given up.” 

It hits Chanyeol like a falling anvil, but the impact feels softer than it should, a feeling that continues to perturb him. Jongdae looks pitying, reaching out to touch Chanyeol on instinct, but his hand only passes through Chanyeol’s fingers. It only makes Chanyeol sadder; all his life he’d been so focused on looking forward he’d never taken a moment to look back. 

He misses it, his human mother and father, his sister, and now Chanyeol is dead, and so are they, most likely --after achieving immortality, he’d never even thought to check. Now, he’s stuck down here and won’t ever have the chance. 

Chanyeol can feel the wobbliness begin as his eyes grow wider and his mouth tucks into a pout, and he can see Jongdae begin to panic a little, quickly standing.

“Come,” he starts. “There’s something I want to show you.”

“Right now?” Chanyeol asks, only slightly petulant. 

“Yes, now,” Jongdae retorts, laughing under his breath. “I think you’ll like it.”

Jongdae isn’t often so spontaneous nor mysterious, so Chanyeol’s interest is sufficiently piqued. His shadow cloak sweeps over marble flooring as he leads Chanyeol to the chariot outside, gesturing for him to step aboard first. 

Quickly, the Fields of Asphodel form beneath them, and Chanyeol says, “Oh, you have work to do?”

“Not quite,” Jongdae answers, still cryptic, and there’s a smile hidden in his lips that makes Chanyeol suspicious. 

Just as quickly as the Fields have formed, they dissipate, and Jongdae lands the chariot on a stretch of bedrock beside a river with waters a deep purple. Chanyeol eyes it warily; the river Lethe, the river of forgetfulness. 

“You have to submerge in it to forget,” Jongdae tells him, sensing Chanyeol’s fear. “Come.” 

Chanyeol eyes the river once more before following Jongdae as he leads them forward, then settles himself firmly on the dirt, plopping down like a child. He’s so small, like that, all swathed up in shadow and a quarter Chanyeol’s height. It makes Chanyeol want to hold him, just to see if he’d fit in his arms.

A stupid urge --and a fruitless one.

Gently, Jongdae pats the spot beside him, and Chanyeol folds his long legs beneath him as he slowly lowers, suspicious.

“You brought me here to threaten me with a river and some rock?”

Jongdae laughs, bright and sharp. It’s become one of Chanyeol’s favourite sounds, sweeter than the singing of lillies in bloom. 

“We’re not meant to be looking at what’s down here ,” Jongdae says, slowly leaning back. “But what’s up there.”

Chanyeol blinks, once, twice, before lying to join Jongdae, staring up at the cavernous ceiling. The sight leaves Chanyeol gasping.

All above them from every angle, small, blue lights dance in the darkness, filtering upwards like stars returning home. It’s mesmerising, lighting the whole makeshift sky, and leaves Chanyeol breathless.

“What is this?” he asks, unable to look away.

“We are in the centre of the Fields,” Jongdae answers. “These are the spirits being freed, returning to the overworld to become reincarnated.” 

“It’s beautiful,” Chanyeol says, lost in awe. 

“Yes,” Jongdae agrees, and his head turns to the side to face Chanyeol. “It is.”

Chanyeol turns his own to meet him. “How did you find this place?” he asks, voice growing softer by the minute. All the light reflects off of Jongdae’s skin, the black of his mask and the gold of his left eye, leaving him glowing and ethereal. Something plants itself in Chanyeol’s chest then, in this moment, and he has no idea how to pull it out.

“Decades ago,” Jongdae starts, turning his head to face upwards again, “I was… a touch more rebellious. I used to hide away here to neglect my duties, watch the freed spirits and wish I was up there instead.”

It makes Chanyeol laugh, a short huff of breath, as he too returns to watch the glittering lights. It’s unlike anything he’s ever seen before, brighter than the stars themselves.

“Why didn’t you ever leave?” Chanyeol asks. “There’s nothing stopping you, right?”

Jongdae squirms beside him. “I’d never be accepted on the surface or beyond, I knew that.” His sigh is long, filled with a sort of deep pain Chanyeol will never begin to fathom. “And I know I can’t neglect my duties down here for so long.”

Chanyeol scoffs. “You are filled with excuses.”

Jongdae frowns, face snapping towards Chanyeol. “What?” 

“Filled with excuses!” he repeats, sitting up. “Surely you could delegate the tasks to another, if only for a short while. How can you keep yourself so… so…” His frustration grows. “Imprisoned ? You’ve never known the surface world for a single moment, how can you be so sure it would turn you away?” 

Jongdae’s laugh is less sweet, more grating, pushing himself up too. “I am the Dead King. Mortals shun me, as do gods and monsters. I am welcome nowhere and liked by none.” 

“That’s not true,” Chanyeol argues, angered beyond repair. “You bury yourself down here and refuse to see the sunlight. How can you expect anyone to judge your blossoms if you stay buried under the earth?” Jongdae seems startled, eyes wide. “It’s so… frustrating , Jongdae. I mean-- you’re immortal, you’re a god. You’re not actually stuck down here, like I am, yet you still throw your life away to hide behind a mask.” Chanyeol takes a long, slow breath, attempting to calm himself down. “But I’ve seen glimpses of your face, Jongdae, and I don’t shun you. Why should anyone else?” 

“Chanyeol…” Jongdae starts, but his voice cuts off as Chanyeol stubbornly reaches forward to peel off his mask again, breaking its enchantment. Patches of scales, slitted eyes all beneath his dark curly hair. It’s as breathtaking as it had been the first time, but in this instance Chanyeol is far more adamant. His hand curls around the mask, keeping it out of reach.

“Stop it,” Jongdae says, curling into himself. “I’m a monster.”

“No,” Chanyeol retorts, adamant. “You’re beautiful.” He shuffles forward, trying to reach out to tilt Jongdae’s face but failing, his hand passing through. Jongdae still looks up regardless, mismatched eyes and all. “How can you expect anyone to accept you when you can’t even accept yourself?”

After all, Jongdae is kind, compassionate, and caring --hardworking and diligent-- gentle. He is the sort of god humans should hear stories about, not the narcissistic God-King who tried to have Chanyeol killed, not the egotistical fools who fall for tricks and traps, quick to temper and unleash their wrath. No, Jongdae is a star in the darkness swathed in shadow, a guiding light so hidden Chanyeol had never thought to look for it until now.

Jongdae looks at Chanyeol, silent, and Chanyeol watches all the light reflected in his eyes, across his skin and scales leaving him iridescent and glowing, irreverent. Jongdae reaches out to brush his hand against Chanyeol’s, though they cannot touch. Chanyeol doesn’t care; he fully believes with all his soul that remains that Jongdae is beautiful, and he’s finally beginning to understand why.

Oh dear.

To Chanyeol’s surprise, the mask stays in Jongdae’s chambers on top of his dresser, untouched. It’s something to get used to, Chanyeol thinks, seeing Jongdae’s shy smiles when their eyes meet at random moments. Work or rest, Chanyeol finds his eyes are always drawn to Jongdae no matter how hard he tries to stay away --the strangest thing is, Jongdae is almost always staring back.

Without half of his face hidden, Chanyeol finds Jongdae is far more… expressive, quicker to catch the way his eyebrows furrow together when he’s thinking, tilting when he smiles above curved, crescent eyes. The way the slits of his eyes widen when he’s relaxed or conjures ambrosia on the table after a hard day’s work. Chanyeol grows accustomed to Jongdae’s face and seemingly so does Jongdae himself, becoming brighter and more open by the second. 

Landing the chariot, Jongdae steps off only to be greeted with, “Oh gods.” 

Ignoring it, Jongdae holds out an arm to let Chanyeol step off, who follows, saddened for the umpteenth time that they cannot touch.

“Is that what you look like?” Standing by the riverbank, Baekhyun gawks. The nervous-looking spirit in his ferry steps off and heads towards the queue by the gates where Cerberus stands guards, its three heads scrutinising each spirit.

Timidly, Jongdae touches his face. “Yes…” he answers, with a forced sort of confidence that makes Chanyeol smile. “And you… should get used to it.” Jongdae puffs up a little. It’s cute.

Baekhyun snorts. “Sure. We’re quite lacking in pretty things down here, you know.”

Chanyeol’s fingers twitch at his side on reflex, but Baekhyun clearly catches it given by the way he grins, showing off every pointed tooth. Jongdae ignores him and goes forward to speak to the judges and Cerberus, keeping everything in line.

Chanyeol waits by the chariot.

“So, is this your doing then?” Baekhyun asks. Chanyeol loathes conversation with the ferryman, and Baekhyun seems to clearly know this yet doesn’t care. 

“Maybe,” Chanyeol mumbles, folding his arms over himself, defensive. 

“It’s good,” Baekhyun says, lazily leaning on an oar. “You’re good for him.” 

Such a thing sounds almost genuine, like Baekhyun might actually care , but when Chanyeol glances at him he’s only leaning on his oar again, spare hand picking between his teeth. Disgusting. 

“Don’t you have work to do?” Chanyeol asks, attempting to save Jongdae the trouble when he returns. It’s a usual fight, with Baekhyun. Lazy bastard.

“Ugh, let me have this, I’m exhausted,” he groans. He waves his hand behind him. “There’s a million spirits waiting for passage over there, I swear. I can’t catch a break.”

That makes Chanyeol frown in confusion. “A million spirits?” When he looks past Baekhyun, he can see it too, a fog of translucent silhouettes across the river Acheron, far more than usual. “What’s caused this?”

Baekhyun lifts an eyebrow. “What? Jongdae didn’t tell you?” He looks genuinely surprised. “There’s some great famine. Your mother left the land infertile in her grief… the mortals are starving to death.” 

Chanyeol’s eyes widen, shocked. “What?” he snaps. “Doesn’t she know I’m right here? She could at least attempt to visit before moving straight to mourning!”

“Well…” Baekhyun’s eyes travel past Chanyeol. “Perhaps I’m not the one to ask about that.”

Chanyeol turns, seeing a confused Jongdae returning, his eyebrows drawn together in concern.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, reaching out to touch Chanyeol’s arm even though it passes straight through. Chanyeol still pulls back.

“Why is my mother causing a famine ?” he hisses. “I thought you said you’d tell her I was trapped here? Did you not allow her to visit?” 

“Oh.” Jongdae gulps, his throat bobbing, and shirks into himself, impossibly small. “About that…” He swallows again. “I… perhaps… never sent word of your predicament.”

Fury hits Chanyeol like a wildfire. 

“You… what ?”

Jongdae looks piteous, like a scolded dog. “Chanyeol, please, you have to understand-- I didn’t know what would happen if they found out your spirit was trapped here! She might’ve started a war with the gods of the Underworld or worse , I couldn’t risk it.”

“Couldn’t risk it?” Chanyeol repeats, searching Jongdae’s face. “I’m her son , Jongdae. Does she not deserve to know that I’m here? Do I not deserve to have her help?”

“Chanyeol it’s not…” Jongdae frowns. “...It’s not like that…”

“Then what is it, Jongdae?” Chanyeol snaps, though receives no reply. “Do you enjoy seeing me trapped here? Helpless? Seeing thousands of innocents die?”

“ No ,” Jongdae counters. “I just wanted to restore you to the surface peacefully without anyone thinking I’d killed and trapped you down here because I’m some sort of... horrible monster--”

“Yet I’m still here! And my mother is killing thousands because of you--”

“Because of me?” Jongdae asks, and he finally looks as mad as Chanyeol feels. Good. He laughs, bitter and sharp. “I couldn’t have predicted her sorrow would cause death. She’s the one choosing to have the mortals suffer alongside her, not me.” Jongdae scoffs, shaking his head, and his anger seems to have settled, but Chanyeol’s still blazes. “Honestly, it’s as if you forget that she’s the same woman that trapped me down here.”

“You aren’t trapped Jongdae,” Chanyeol bites out. “That’s the difference between us.” 

Jongdae shakes his head, scowling and turning away. “She’s manipulated you, as all gods do because that’s all we’re good for, right? Lies and deceit.” When Jongdae turns back to face Chanyeol, he staggers with the weight of hatred in Jongdae’s eyes. All the unkempt, unculled loathing. Always so restrained and controlled, it’s finally burst free. “You should’ve stayed a human. Maybe that’s why you died.”

It pushes Chanyeol over the edge, blinded by rage, storming off in his fury, as far from Jongdae as he can get.

“Chanyeol, wait--” Jongdae calls, but the underworld forms around Chanyeol, knowing he wants to be far away and taking him there. For the first time since he’s arrived, Chanyeol just wants to be alone, with his anger and his sadness as his only companions.

And soon enough he finds it, as rock is replaced by flowers and Chanyeol finds himself in the Fields, nothing but an unheard wind and the rustling of petals as far as the eye can see.   It’s frustrating, because even Chanyeol’s pain doesn’t feel quite like it should, and it leaves him feeling more empty and alone than he already is.

In silence and his loneliness, Chanyeol wanders.

Be it days, weeks, or months --like all time in his newfound existence, Chanyeol doesn’t know. Eventually, though, as the flowering ocean stretches on for miles and miles more, his anger begins to thin, and sorrow takes its place. Chanyeol has regret --for how he spoke to Jongdae, for how he lashed out, for how he may not have a chance to repair it, if he’s stuck here once again. He keeps drawing his eyes to the sky in hopes of a black chariot, but it never comes. Perhaps Jongdae has left him here to rot after all --and Chanyeol deserves it.

Jongdae had no right to lie about such a thing, but perhaps his caution had merit. The Goddess of Harvest can be rash and impulsive, after all --Chanyeol has witnessed it firsthand. It would be easy for malicious rumours to attack the pantheon’s ego and end in war. If gods he’d been told were ugly will hide their beautiful faces behind masks then perhaps it’s the beautiful gods, Chanyeol thinks, that hide their ugly face instead. 

But Chanyeol has many more regrets than just Jongdae, he discovers as he wanders. He regrets blindly worshipping his God-parents so much, he regrets not visiting his human family, he regrets chasing honor and glory when he finds so much solace in the simpler things. It’s only in death that Chanyeol has been able to reflect on what he wants when he’s alive again, and the longer he spends here the more he realises why it is that he's still trapped. He knows each regret only digs his roots around his spirit down deeper, but he can’t seem to stop.

A particular wave of flowers knocks Chanyeol over, sending him tumbling through the Fields. He springs up hacking petals out of his throat and off his chest, sneezing as they tickle his nose. When he finally regains his senses after being washed away, he’s startled to see a figure in the distance.

“Jongdae?” Chanyeol says, then brightens, racing over. “Jongdae!”

The figure in the fields turns around, and Chanyeol is met with three faces.

“Oh.” His running slows to a stop as Seulgi regards him. “Seulgi… Hello.” Chanyeol clears his throat, embarrassed by his own eagerness. “What’re you doing here?” 

“I believe that’s my question to ask.” Seulgi drifts over, smiling gently. Her two torches glow with blue flame. “Jongdae is looking for you, but you have made yourself hard to find. Unfortunately, all crossroads can be found if I search for them.”

“Crossroads?” Chanyeol parrots, face scrunching.

Seulgi hums. “There’s one before you, do you not see it? Fate awaits your choice.”

At the mention of the word, Chanyeol winces.

“I’m quite tired of fate,” he admits, plopping down into the flowers. They tickle his skin. “I’m not sure what they want from me.”

Seulgi shrugs, mulling it over. “It’s possible they simply craved war and destruction, blood for their great tapestry. Or perhaps for no reason; Fate is random, they’re known for being fickle like that.”

“But why me?” Chanyeol implores. “Surely another god would be more suitable? A more powerful one?”

Again, Seulgi shrugs. Her torches flicker. “You are all things living and beautiful, Jongdae is all that is dead and grotesque, yet there is more in common to you both than seen at first glance. Perhaps your threads were the easiest to intertwine.

“If the Fates wanted death, war and chaos, however, they failed,” she continues, attempting to comfort Chanyeol. “At the crossroad presented before you, both you and Jongdae both chose a path of birth, one of new life and love instead.” Chanyeol splutters at the bluntness of it, but Seulgi seems unperturbed. “Not even Fate can control the crossroads.”

Chanyeol exhales, letting it settle over him.

“So?” he prompts. “Where does my path intersect now?” 

Seulgi laughs. “That’s for you to decide,” she tells him. “But perhaps the path you’ve been searching for all this time is the one that’s been right in front of you all along.”

She gestures forward, and Chanyeol follows his gaze, seeing the endless stretch of asphodels and the glittering blue lights above. His eyes widen in realisation, and in fear.

Seulgi seems amused. “If it would make things easier, you could bathe in the river Lethe.”

“No,” Chanyeol is quick to say. “I… I don’t want to forget him.” Not now, and not ever; not even when it hurts.

Seulgi smiles, pleased. “Then perhaps it pays to remember, Chanyeol--” She bends over to place her torch on the ground and pluck an asphodel from its stem. The flames do not catch, only flicker in the unfelt wind. “--That even when all hope is lost, the Underworld is a realm of death, yet these flowers still grow.” She releases the flower, lost to the ocean behind it. 

“And so do pomegranates,” Chanyeol finishes, staring down at his hands. When he looks up again, Seulgi is gone, but the crossroad remains in place.

Knowing what he has to do, Chanyeol stands.

It turns out it’s easy to find the palace again, when Chanyeol truly wants to go there.

With no need left for senseless wandering, the Fields disappear, and Jongdae’s palace lingers on the horizon, a figure of black marble. Even when it looks so far away it seems to grow closer far too quickly, and before Chanyeol knows it he’s approaching the front gates, wandering through the gardens.

He approaches the only thing that’s grown in all the soil, watching as one of the trees’ branches seem to dip over as he approaches, weighed down by a growing fruit. It grows strangely though, only half a pomegranate forming, torn cleanly in half, seeds left to bare.

Chanyeol plucks it, cradling it in his hands. It’s heavier than it should be, he thinks. 

“It will hurt,” a voice calls. “You realise that, don’t you?” 

“Yes,” Chanyeol answers, turning to face Jongdae. “I know.”

They regard each other in silence, for a moment, with all the distance between them. They both step forward.

“I’m sorry,” Jongdae says. “I shouldn’t have lied to you like that, but I… it became complicated.” He looks down, his bare face so open and easy to read. So vulnerable --it makes sense why he’d protect it. “I was afraid, and I was being selfish. I first thought you were just another egotistical god, but then you… you became much more to me than I could have imagined.” 

Such a confession has something inside Chanyeol flourishing, and it aches as much as it soothes.

“It’s alright,” he consoles. “I thought you were just some gloomy barbarian, but you became much more to me too.”

Jongdae’s pallid skin flushes, a pretty shade of red. Chanyeol wants to coo, but he holds himself back. 

Gingerly, Jongdae reaches out, and his fingers curl over the pomegranate half.

“You shouldn’t have to suffer more than you already are,” he whispers, “it’s not worth it.”

“Jongdae…” Chanyeol reaches out with his other hand to touch Jongdae’s cheek, fingers passing through. “It’s okay, you know. You can’t just run away from the things that scare you… you can’t just feel everything in halves to make it hurt less.”

Jongdae frowns. “I can try.”

Chanyeol laughs --Jongdae is always so stubborn and headstrong. “You can try, but the parts of you you hate and fear are still parts of you in the end.” He holds up the pomegranate half, examining it. “I’ll always have regrets no matter what, I think, but that’s okay… It’s what it means to be alive.”

Jongdae’s eyes are wet, when Chanyeol dares to look at him, and though the tears don’t fall they’re dangerously close. He wonders if maybe Jongdae has known all along that there’s only one way for Chanyeol to return to the surface, but if he’d been running from that, too.

“I think you should take me back to the Fields,” Chanyeol says. “One last time.”

“No,” Jongdae insists, shaking his head, stubborn. He moves to almost bury it against Chanyeol’s chest, though they don’t touch he’s still so close. “Is it really so terrible to stay here, with me?”

“No,” Chanyeol amends, offering a half-smile. “But it seems like the surface world is a mess. Someone needs to stop all the mortals from dying because of my stupid mother.”

Jongdae looks up at Chanyeol, searching his face, filled with so many emotions Chanyeol can’t bear to name. 

“I don’t want you to,” Jongdae says, voice quiet like it’s a secret. “You’re all I--” he cuts off, choked. “What if you forget me?”

“I know,” Chanyeol consoles. He wishes he could touch Jongdae, if only for a moment, to reassure him that he feels the same, but Chanyeol needs to be alive again for that. Instead, he lets his hand ghost over Jongdae’s cheek, drawing back to regard the pomegranate. “And I won’t, I refuse to. In this life or the next, I’ll always find my way back to you. Our fates are entwined, remember?” He gives Jongdae an affectionate, sad smile. “No matter what happens, Jongdae, don’t bury this feeling.” 

Jongdae only watches on in silence as Chanyeol plucks a seed from the fruit, and pushes it past his lips.

At the first taste of the pomegranate’s seed, Chanyeol feels everything . His pain and his sorrow and his agony and his love, it all comes back in rushing at full force, excruciating to new amounts he’s never felt before. He remembers his lowest moments, the darker parts to himself he’d been missing, his rage and his loneliness. 

He remembers his death; he knows who buried him.

At the last bite of the fruit, Chanyeol finally feels alive again. He scrapes it off around the seed on his tongue, then takes the seed from his mouth, planting it in the ground at his feet. 

For the first time since arriving, Chanyeol feels full.

PART III - THE ASCENT

Chanyeol awakens to dirt.

Which is mildly unpleasant. He claws through it, confused and strangled, until he breaks through to the surface, squinting at the sun above.

Strange. Chanyeol coughs soil out of his mouth and rubs it out of his eyes, glancing around his buried self. Behind him is a small rock, marking the place he’d been buried, decorated with wreaths of withered flowers. He reaches out, and when his fingers touch the petals he breathes life back into them, watching them bloom.

There’s snow around him, which is strange to see so far from the mountains, confusing him, and all the plants seem… dead. None of them are green or in bloom, save from the pine trees, leaving Chanyeol sufficiently bepuzzled.

He pulls himself out of the earth, staring down at his hands. His body… he’s back, but it feels… different. His power has changed, somehow, he’s sure of it. Perhaps gods can’t die after all if they only return to their original form. How strange.

As Chanyeol walks, the snow begins to melt and the withered grass at his feet peeks up beneath it, blooming with small flower buds. The land is deadened and withered, but Chanyeol breathes life back into all of it, just as he had reemerged from beneath the earth, so shall all of nature alongside him.

Once again, Chanyeol wanders, but unlike his other journeys in life, his path has no set goal. He watches as the world begins to wake up alongside him, as crops shoot forth once more and farmers weep with joy, as snow sneaks away and the sun rises higher and grows warmer. It heralds a new period of life, of time --Chanyeol is reborn, and the world is reborn with him.

His wandering, however, eventually brings him to the base of Mount Olympus, leaving Chanyeol to stare up at the mountain with a small smile on his face. Yet another crossroad presented before him, though he already knows the path to take.

“Chanyeol,” he hears from behind, filled with emotion and relief. “You’re alive… You’re alive .”

“Hi mom,” he greets, cut off as the Goddess of Harvest squeezes him in a hug. “Can’t-- breathe--”

She releases him, wiping dirt from his face. “What happened to you? Where have you been?” She frets over him, straightening out his dirtied clothes and mussed hair. “I received a message days ago from Iris that you had passed through the Underworld in your journey but I didn’t understand why you had gone there or what for-- I could hardly believe it at all really I thought you’d been kidnapped or worse--”

“I’m fine, mom,” Chanyeol reassures. “It’s a long story. You don’t have to worry about me now.”

“Oh, well…” Her composure fractures for a moment, but she quickly fixes it. “...That’s good news, then. You can share your tale at a feast tonight! The pantheon will be glad to have you back.” 

Chanyeol shakes his head. “I’m not going back.”

His mother stares at him. “...Pardon?”

“I’m not going back,” he repeats. “There’s still more I have to do.”

“I don’t understand-- I…” His mother steps back, looking at him, really looking at him. Chanyeol has changed, and he knows it shows, on his skin and in his hair, his horns, his power. “What happened to you? Where did you go?”

“I have an eternity to tell you, mother,” he says, kissing her on the cheek. “But this can’t wait.” He keeps walking, calling out behind him. He knows she won’t follow, too attached to the realm of gods. 

“ Chanyeol ,” she scolds, but he’s already walking past her, leaving Mount Olympus and all the gods that live there behind him, onwards to more important things.

It takes some time for Chanyeol to return near to where he’d been buried, laughing when faced with a field of asphodels tucked into the mountainside. He can’t believe he’d forgotten what home had looked like for all those years.

His family’s home is nestled in the mountainside, a quaint farm joined to a village a few miles away. It looks rough, lacking in the care needed to maintain a home, no doubt a side effect of the sudden famine. As he approaches, Chanyeol diminishes his form back to one of a mortal, losing his glow and his horns and general ethereal qualities, reduced to nothing much more than a tangible version of who he was as a spirit. 

He knocks on the front door after moments of deliberation; it opens.

“Chanyeol?” his sister says. “Oh gods.”

“Hi,” he greets. “I’m back.”

It takes quite some time for Yoora to take it all in, that Chanyeol really is a god, that he went to the Underworld and back, that he’s to blame for what the humans apparently now call ‘changing seasons’. But it does process through her fragile mortal mind, eventually, and Chanyeol is able to thank her for burying him, because he wouldn’t have been able to make it back without her.

“I… you’re welcome?” Yoora offers, no doubt the strangest gratitude she’s ever received. “When I saw your body lying in the fields outside I…” her gaze grows distant, and she trails off. “What were you even doing here, Chanyeol? How did you die?”

“A witch told me there was a flower here sought by many legendary heroes…” he cringes at the memory. Gods he was so embarrassing. “I don’t think I even bothered to remember it’s where I’d grown up. When I was picking the flowers looking for it, a snake bit me.”

“A snake?” Yoora repeats. “A snake killed you?”

“Yes.” Chanyeol laughs, though it’s strained. “Who’d have thought… Gods have a weakness after all.” 

Yoora sits down, holding her head. “I’m dizzy,” she says. Chanyeol laughs.

Their conversation is interrupted by knocking at the door, and Yoora says that it must be her husband and children returning from the fields. Chanyeol is shocked to discover he has nieces, but it makes sense considering Yoora is considerably older than she had been when he left. Decades have been left between them after all. Yoora introduces him as their long lost uncle, and Chanyeol suddenly feels so welcome, so accepted, he begins to cry. He’d been so lost in his quests, in his search of glory and recognition, that he’d forgotten there are things out there more important than duty.

They all fret over him after that, bringing him tea and a warm meal that Chanyeol gratefully accepts. He comes to know them, his family, over many days and nights. What games his nieces like to play, what his brother-in-law likes to cook, how Yoora does business in the village, how to work in the fields (and if Chanyeol works a little magic to make the crops extra special… well, who needs to know?). He grows accustomed to it, somehow, this mundane, mortal life. There’s nothing special about it, no great honour or huge glory attached, but somehow that’s what Chanyeol likes about it. He doesn’t have to work to be accepted by his human family; he just is.

One day, however, as Chanyeol sits outside by the fields drinking tea and reminiscing as he stares out at the horizon, Yoora joins him.

The silence is comfortable, but it feels heavy. Chanyeol longs to break it.

“You don’t have to stay here, you know,” Yoora starts, always the first to move. “I mean… we want you here, of course we do, but stay too long and they might notice you’re a little too good-looking.” She pinches his cheek.

Chanyeol laughs and brushes her off. “I don’t want to leave,” he counters.

“But…?” Yoora prompts. It reminds Chanyeol of their mother, the way she can read his mind like that. Too bad he hadn’t had a second chance to visit her too.

“But…” Chanyeol looks out at the horizon. “There’s somebody waiting for me. I don’t want to keep them waiting too much longer.”

“Oh?” Yoora says, coy. “And who’s this somebody ?”

“Stop it.” Chanyeol bumps their shoulders together. “It’s not like that.” Yoora gives him a look. “...It’s a little like that, but not… Officially.”

“ Officially ,” she mocks. “If they’re waiting for you to go back to them, it sounds pretty official to me.” 

“It’s not that simple,” Chanyeol argues. “We’re gods.”

“Yeah yeah, and that makes you ten times stupider than regular humans,” she teases, poking him. “If you want to go see them then go see them, Yeol. You’ll always be welcome back here any time.”

“You mean that?” he asks her with big, pleading eyes. “Really?”

“Really,” she affirms, then slaps his shoulders. “Go romance the Underworld out of that stupid god, Yeollie.” She sighs, looking wistful with a smile on his face. “You were made for more important things than a little farming anyway.”  

Chanyeol’s journey is long and arduous, harrowing. He must follow the line of the ocean to the end of the world, after all, if he wishes to find the river Oceanus and return to where he needs to go.

It takes months for Chanyeol to make it, climbing over mountains and across fields, sailing the high seas, but eventually he reaches the small islet, where the gates to the Underworld lie, guarded by the sleeping gods. 

His ship settles on the sand, and Chanyeol disembarks, turning to face the ocean.

“Thank you for safe passage,” he tells it, hoping she can hear his words. “I know you… probably hate me, especially since I came back, but… I don’t hold it against you.” It’s a little awkward talking to no one, Chanyeol must admit. “You just wanted her to suffer like you have, I get it, but you should be proud of him, you know. He’s grown into an amazing son.”

Chanyeol stands there with baited breath, wondering if he’s naive to expect any sort of response. All that comes is a particularly heavy wave that crashes onto the shoreline and leaves Chanyeol’s shoes wet, frowning in discomfort.

“Okay,” he says. “Good talk.”

He continues along the beach towards the gate, but something glimmering in the light catches his eye, revealed beneath the waves. He approaches it, seeing a gold coin embedded in the sand. He brightens.

“Thank you!” he shouts to the waves, only to squeal as they attempt to soak his shoes again. He hurries towards the gate.

The sleeping gods remain… sleeping, which is anti climatic as Chanyeol pushes through, watching time and space shift around him as he enters the mouth of a cavern, passing the monsters and beasts who dwell there. They seem to pay him no mind, which is strange, but maybe Jongdae had been holding out in hope.

As he reaches the banks of the river Acheron, Chanyeol is greeted by a bark of laughter.

“My my my,” Baekhyun remarks, rowing the boat to shore. “You absolute fucking mad man.”

Chanyeol grins at him, tossing the coin from the beach his way. Baekhyun catches it flawlessly.

“Are you finally going to do your job?” he goads. 

Baekhyun laughs more, all his pointed teeth showing. “I’m feeling generous.”

It’s strange to be in the Underworld alive, Chanyeol thinks, the way the world responds to him differently. He can feel the magic now, feel the pull of the earth, and knows that it’s not quite as dead as it seems --on the contrary, it’s just asleep, and has been waiting for somebody to wake it up. 

He can also feel him amongst it all, a source of power in a field of death. It’s honestly staggering how much magic and strength Jongdae emits even from so far away… he truly is a god, and far more powerful than Chanyeol had fathomed until now. It only makes Chanyeol like him more, that Jongdae can have so much strength yet be so subdued.

Cerberus yips happily as Chanyeol greets him and passes by with a few pats, heading straight for the palace. It’s hard to say if Jongdae will be working at this time or not, but he sees no chariot in the sky, hoping for the best. Spirits stare and shy away from him, afraid --Chanyeol doesn’t blame them. He radiates power too.

The palace gates open as Chanyeol approaches, and he startles to see what greets him: green, as far as the eye can see, spread throughout the gardens. New stalks peek out from beneath the ground, and even the pomegranate tree has grown leaves, thick and green and dotted with red fruits and flowers.

Amongst it all, however, is a puddle of black in a field of colour, and Chanyeol’s breath catches in his throat.

Jongdae is crouched over, studiously staring at a green stalk and comparing it to a book of references in his hands, a pail of water nestled in the grass beside him. The mask is long gone.

“That’s a forget-me-not plant,” Chanyeol calls, “if you were wondering.”

Jongdae startles, looking at Chanyeol with wide eyes. 

“Chanyeol,” he breathes out. “You came back.”

“I promised I would, didn’t I?” 

“Idiot,” Jongdae curses, then storms forward to kiss Chanyeol.

He smells like lillies, this close, and tastes like coming home. He’s warm and soft and it’s the best feeling in the entire world. 

Chanyeol has waited so fucking long to be able to do that.

“Your horns…” Jongdae remarks as he pulls back, hands cupping Chanyeol’s face and brushing over the asphodels in his branches. It makes Chanyeol shiver, more sensitive than he’d care to admit. “Your… everything.”

“Handsome, right?” Jongdae pinches his ear. “Ow!” 

“I missed you so much,” Jongdae says, hands curling in Chanyeol’s tunic. “ Stupid .”

“I missed you too,” Chanyeol replies, tilting Jongdae’s chin up. His fangs peek through parted lips. “But it was worth it to do this, right?” He leans down for a kiss.

“Maybe,” Jongdae mumbles as they pull back, his eyes slightly dazed. “But you’ll need to do it again for me to be sure.” 

Chanyeol is happy to oblige.

Later they can talk; they have all of an eternity to, for Chanyeol to mention this newfound spring and his godly involvement, and how that maybe when he returns to the surface Jongdae can too, abandoning his mask and his fears. Yoora would love to meet him, for sure. 

But… well, Chanyeol spent half a year down here unable to touch Jongdae, and half a year to return to him. It’s his chance to make up for lost time.