Chapter Text
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“Ambrosia?”
“Check.”
“Water?”
“Yeah.”
“Permission?”
Jimin throws an empty water bottle in the general direction of his best friend’s voice. “Of course I have permission. Who do you think I am?”
“How’d you get a quest, anyway?”
He turns around. Taehyung’s leaning against the cabin doorway, smiling in an extremely mischievous manner and generally just being unhelpful. “I’m just that good,” Jimin says. “They had a whole meeting and everything, and they were like, ‘Oh, we really need a powerful demigod for this one. How about Park Jimin? His magical skill is simply unmatched.’”
Taehyung squints at him.
“What?” asks Jimin, shoving weakly at Taehyung’s shoulder. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Did you beg Sejin-hyung to let us go?”
“No,” says Jimin after a beat, knowing full well that he did.
“You did,” says Taehyung, grin spreading across his face. Jimin knows he’s filing it away to tease him about later. So what if Jimin might be a tad overeager for the chance to go out on missions? At least he’s showing initiative. Camp directors love initiative. “You begged for it.”
“I did not ,” insists Jimin. “I never beg. I only ask five million times.”
“You demand ,” says Taehyung, shaking his head solemnly. “No wonder Sejin-hyung put our names down. You probably frighten him.”
“You should be grateful for me,” counters Jimin. “None of us have been getting any quests lately. At least you get to come on a scouting mission.”
Taehyung drops to his knees and bows. “What would I do without you,” he intones, hands stretching out to grip Jimin’s ankles, and Jimin conveniently ignores the strange tug in his stomach.
“Get up,” he mumbles, detaching his legs and busying himself with the supplies scattered all over his bunk. “Should have just offered to go by myself.”
“Don’t lie to yourself, Jimin-ah,” says Taehyung, giggling to himself like he's just made the world's funniest joke. "We're partners in crime. You wouldn't dare go on a quest without me."
"It's not really a quest," insists Jimin. "It's just scouting. Monster activity. Probably a demigod or two around. We go there, we find the kids, we get the kids, we leave."
"It sounds real suspicious when you say it like that."
"You are insufferable," says Jimin, firmly zipping his bag shut. "Absolutely insufferable. I’m leaving you behind. Give—no! Give me my car keys. Kim Taehyung, don’t—”
“What do we know?” asks Taehyung, as they’re driving. “All I know is where we’re going, and that’s only because I saw you put the address into the GPS.”
Jimin drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “Apparently there’s been increased monster activity at SNU,” he says. “They didn’t tell me anything about demigods, but it only makes sense. The file’s in my backpack, if you want.”
“That’d be on the older side for an unclaimed demigod,” notes Taehyung, flipping through the file Jimin had been handed just before they left. “It says here they’ve been monitoring the SNU hotspot for over a month. Why wasn’t anyone called here before us?”
“Could be claimed already,” muses Jimin, as the light turns green again. “There have been cases. Demigod gets claimed, doesn’t want to get too involved with any of it, stays at school or university or work or whatever and deals with it as it comes.”
“Must be a minor god’s kid, then, at SNU. No way a Big 3 demigod would be out here on their own for so long without ever finding camp.”
“Probably not,” Jimin agrees, glancing over at the GPS. The unit’s old and clunky, and he’d much prefer to use his phone, but demigod magic and mortal technology have never really mixed well. “Gods, the campus is huge. I’ve only been here once, in like, five years. I don’t even know where to start.”
“Well,” muses Taehyung, “it’s barely six in the evening. Library’s probably packed. Student center’s definitely busy. We could start with the department buildings—they’re probably quieter right now. We shouldn’t have to search for too long.”
As it turns out, they search for long.
They search for so long, Taehyung manages to justify buying them snacks, and they take a restless break with eyes and ears perpetually open for any sign of a monster. The sky gets darker and darker as they wait.
“Okay,” says Taehyung, finally throwing out his empty bag of chips, “well, we’ve been through nearly half of campus. Half to go. Look, it’s the Engineering Hall. Want to go in?”
“Yuck,” says Jimin, but he obliges nonetheless. The building is only dimly lit—some of the lights are motion activated, and there is virtually no motion. The near-silence, coupled with the distant echoey sounds of talk and laughter a couple of floors above their heads, is definitely unnerving.
“Your hands,” whispers Taehyung sharply. Jimin glances down. Tendrils of magic are seeping out of his fingertips. He clenches his fists.
“What’s that?”
“Nervous energy,” mutters Jimin. “Literally. Don’t worry. I have it under—”
Out of the corner of his eye, something moves.
Taehyung pulls Jimin back around a corner faster than Jimin can blink. He chances a peek. The blob in the distance is only vaguely humanoid, which is both good and bad news for them. The good news: they’ve finally found the monster.
The bad news: they’ve found the monster, and when Jimin squints and strains to see it clearer—
It’s a telkhine.
It’s a lone sea demon, standing in a dimly-lit corridor in the Engineering Hall at SNU.
The first thing Jimin’s brain registers is that there isn’t a single other human being in the vicinity other than the two of them. The second thing Jimin’s brain registers—or tries to, anyway—is that there’s a literal, actual sea demon in a university in Seoul, which is decidedly far away from the sea. Taehyung reacts far, far quicker than him—by the time Jimin has even begun to process what’s going on, Taehyung’s slung his crossbow off his shoulder and loaded the bolt. The demon lumbers along the hallway, still oblivious to their presence, heading away from their hiding spot.
“Wait,” whispers Jimin, trying to think, “Taehyung, wait—”
“Tell me when,” says Taehyung quietly, raising the bow and lining it up. It’s Taehyung. It’ll be a perfect shot, but if he doesn’t get the demon in one hit, they’ll be given away. Jimin draws his daggers. Not his preferred weapon, but something tells him the magic needs to wait. Something doesn’t feel right— the silence, the monster’s attitude; everything’s just ever so slightly wrong , and it’s throwing him off balance. He’s running scenarios through his head, thinking about traps, trying to calculate when he and Taehyung will finally have to give up and go in for the kill—
They don’t have to.
Something comes hurtling out of a hallway on the right, and the telkhine is caught completely by surprise. In the dim light, the scuffle is nothing but a blur of motion, and Jimin takes the distraction as an opportunity to slip around the corner and get a better vantage point. They could fire, but it’s hard to see who or what is fighting the demon, and Jimin doesn’t want to hurt anyone he doesn’t absolutely have to.
As soon as he sees an opening, Jimin hisses, “Now,” ducking as Taehyung fires his shot and reloads the crossbow. Jimin rushes forward. As a child of Apollo, Taehyung’s best at long-range combat—which makes him absolutely deadly when he’s fighting alongside Jimin, who gets right up close. They’ve practiced their maneuvers together a thousand times; it’s the one thing Jimin doesn’t even have to think about while he’s doing it.
In what is probably the most satisfying battle of his entire life: Taehyung’s shot finds its mark, their unidentified ally gets one more swing in with what looks remarkably like a baseball bat, and Jimin slashes once with each of his knives. Before the telkhine can get a single hit on any of them, it’s reduced to a pile of magical, gradually-evaporating ashes on the tiled floor.
Before Jimin can say anything, their mysterious ally backs away. Taehyung jogs up behind him. “Nice job,” he says, squeezing Jimin’s shoulder. “Oh, hello.”
It’s painfully obvious that their new friend is a student. He looks about their age, more or less, with slightly unkempt hair and wide, tired eyes.
“I’m trained in martial arts,” he shouts, raising the bat, though he doesn’t come any closer. "You don't scare me.”
“Good,” says Taehyung, “because scaring you really isn’t the plan, I promise.”
It’s at this point that Jimin realizes his brain is… suspiciously silent. His and Taehyung’s auras are still present, however faintly, in the back of his mind. He’s well attuned to that. But the magical energy of a new demigod should be setting his senses off like crazy, and yet—
“You’ve got a crossbow,” says the man, giving a sharp jerk of the head in Taehyung’s direction. “I don’t like that.”
“A pity,” says Taehyung, because he is simply incapable of resisting. “It’s cool. But I’ll put it down.”
“We’re not here to fight you,” says Jimin, gently sheathing his daggers. “That—the thing we just killed. That’s what we came here for. Are you hurt? Do you need help?”
“I’m fine,” answers the man, voice ever so slightly softer, though his stance doesn’t alter in the slightest. “What are you, like, monster hunters or something?”
“Among other things,” replies Taehyung, without missing a beat. “You should come with us. There might be other monsters around, and we need to get you to safety—”
“Taehyung,” says Jimin insistently. “Something’s not—this isn’t—”
“There might be others,” repeats Taehyung, and he’s already striding over to the double doors at the end of the hallway, checking the windows, looking around corners. He hasn’t noticed Jimin’s uneasiness, and he definitely hasn’t noticed that something’s off. “Um—sorry, what’s your name?”
“Jeongguk,” says the guy, in a voice so hesitant Jimin is ninety percent sure he just made up a fake name on the spot.
“This wouldn’t be your first time seeing a monster, would it?”
“It… would, actually.”
Taehyung spins around. “You’ve never seen anything like this before?”
“I—no, why would I?”
“Taehyung,” says Jimin for the second time, “I don’t think he’s—I don’t know if he’s the, um, right person.”
“What does that mean?” demands the guy—Jeongguk. “Who are you?”
Jimin prides himself on preparedness. He prides himself on his organization, on his strategy, on his ability to make a plan and tear it down and build another one on the fly, if he has to. (He has to, quite often. Such is the life of a demigod.)
In all his demigodly years, he has never once encountered this. He is not prepared, not organized, and decidedly has no plan. There is a young man in front of him, a university student—presumably just out of his evening lectures for the day—who just fought a monster with them. Under normal circumstances, that’s just another day. Now, with every second that passes, Jimin is increasingly sure that the young man is… not like them.
Taehyung stares at him, understanding dawning on his face. “Oh. You mean—oh.”
“Jeongguk,” asks Jimin hesitantly, “would you mind walking out with us to the parking lot? This dark building is making me nervous.”
Jeongguk squints. “Are you going to kidnap me?”
“You can knock me out with that bat of yours if we do,” says Taehyung, already heading for the doors. “It’s just that—well, we came here expecting more than one monster, because that’s what all of our reports said. So I honestly think there’s more.”
“And this one was alone,” notes Jimin. “Telkhines are very social monsters, too. It’s like it was—I don’t know. Almost like it was patrolling or something. Looking for something.”
“Or someone,” adds Taehyung helpfully.
“That’s cool,” says Jeongguk, looking very much like he’d like to laugh hysterically or cry, and can’t decide which.
Jimin leads them to his car. Even outside, in the cool evening air and wide-open space, he still doesn’t feel entirely right. “You can put your stuff in the trunk, if you’d like. Taehyung, can you—”
“Got it.”
“Can you please explain,” says Jeongguk, “what you mean by ‘not the right person’? Were you actually looking for someone?”
“I can’t explain anything here,” whispers Jimin frantically. “It’s not safe. Just get in. Please.”
“You want me to get in a car with you without any idea of where you’re going?”
“Listen,” says Taehyung in a low voice, heaving his backpack into the trunk.. “I know this isn’t ideal. But you’re the one who fought the monster. You know it’s a monster. We know it’s a monster. You’re confused and you’re wondering how we found you. You know something’s not right, you know you could be attacked again if it’s happened once, and we’re telling you to come with us because your life is in very real danger and we happen to know the one place where you might be safe.”
“Right,” says Jeongguk, after a beat. “Right, yes. That does make sense.”
“Excellent,” says Taehyung. “Would you like to sit in the front?”
“I would like that, yes.”
“Do you need water? I have water here.”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
“Please get in the car,” says Jimin, nervousness rising exponentially with every second they’re just stationary in the parking lot. He sees no other option, but he can’t help but second-guess his decision to drive Jeongguk to camp.
Jeongguk puts his backpack in the trunk, hesitates, and then asks, “Can I keep my bat with me?”
“Of course. You should always be prepared.”
“Can I ask where we’re going?”
Jimin starts the car. “Somewhere safe for—” people like us , he wants to say, but he doesn’t know if Jeongguk is a person like them. “For us. It’s like a summer camp, but it can be year-round if someone wants it to be. And it’s protected from monsters.”
Jeongguk is silent for a few seconds, and then he asks, “Who exactly are you?”
Taehyung says, “You’ll see,” and clicks his seatbelt into place.
The gathering is unlike anything Jimin has ever been part of. It also makes him nervous. Neither he nor Taehyung are senior counselors for their cabins, so they’re not accustomed to meetings like this. The common room in the camp’s main house is packed to the brim with counselors, satyrs, swordfighting instructors, and of course, their camp director. The atmosphere in the room is unnervingly tense. (Of course, thanks to his demigodly powers, Jimin feels it ten times as strongly.) He’s sure a new demigod would never be introduced to this many people at once, but then again, that’s not exactly what Jeongguk is. (He thinks.)
He tunes back into the conversation just as Taehyung is wrapping up his summary of their quest.
“Jimin,” says Sejin, “you, of course, must have realized.”
“I did,” confirms Jimin. “When we were there, I couldn’t sense it—it was like I knew I should be feeling a presence, but my mind just felt empty.”
“Realized what?” asks Jeongguk.
“That you were not at all who they would have expected to find fighting a monster at a university,” says Sejin. “They expected to find a demigod.”
“And by demigod,” says Jeongguk, “you mean—”
“Half Greek god and half mortal.”
Jeongguk’s eyes are alarmingly wide. “That’s kinda cool.”
“It just makes sense to you?” asks Sejin, frowning. “It’s not overwhelming, or just ridiculous-sounding, or anything like that?”
“I don’t know,” says Jeongguk, staring at his hands. “It doesn’t feel as weird as you’d think. I can’t explain it, but everything you said makes sense.”
An extremely tense silence follows. No doubt everyone is confused as to why he’s taking it so calmly.
“It was really just the monsters we detected,” says Sejin finally, clasping his hands where they rest on the desk. “Not you. I realize that now. I don’t think the monsters were there for you, either—I can’t give a good reason why they were, but I don’t think they were hunting you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think they can sense you,” explains Jimin. “They can sniff demigods out, but you have virtually no magical aura. And meanwhile, you can see them . It’s like a one-way connection.”
“Could I have killed it with my baseball bat?”
“No,” answers Taehyung. “You could hit it forever, but you’d need special weapons to actually kill it eventually. Like the ones Jimin and I have.”
“Can I have a weapon?”
“Well—”
“Alright,” interrupts Sejin, likely because he knows Taehyung would agree very quickly. “The point is, Jeongguk, based on all the information we have right now, you’re not a demigod. There are rare instances where mortals—that is, non-demigods—are born with the ability to see through the veil of magic that keeps these worlds apart.”
Jeongguk nods. “But the monsters can’t kill me?”
“You still have to be careful,” warns the Hermes cabin’s senior counselor. “Monsters can’t hurt you on their own, but if they used a regular weapon, or tried to hurt you in an indirect way, through someone or something else—”
“Got it,” says Jeongguk. “I will stay away from monsters.”
“Well,” says Sejin, standing up, “that was an interesting series of events. Jeongguk, it’s quite late already— you’re welcome to stay here for tonight, if you’d like.”
“I’ll consider it,” says Jeongguk, bowing. “Thank you.”
The crowd begins to disperse. The intensity of the evening is starting to wear off, at least a little—it doesn’t seem as bad as it did in Jimin’s head while they were driving to camp. Something tells him not to let Jeongguk leave right away, though.
He and Taehyung walk Jeongguk out of the main house and towards the cabins. “Stay here overnight,” he urges, and though doesn’t actually say it, he knows Jeongguk can tell he’s still worried. “The Hermes kids are really fun, and their cabin is huge. They’ve always got space. It’s right there, across the lawn. Just—I just think it would be best for you to stay here. For now.”
Jeongguk hesitates, nods, and then asks, “You worried about me?”
“Not that I think you can’t hold your own,” says Jimin hurriedly, “just that—”
Jeongguk’s got a tiny, playful smile on his face. Jimin hasn’t really thought about it before, given the events of the day, but Jeongguk really is gorgeous. His smile lights up his entire face, and his hair’s falling into his eyes in a disarmingly attractive way—not that it’s any of his business, of course, and not that it matters in the slightest—
“Jimin worries a lot,” says Taehyung, slinging an arm around Jimin’s shoulders. “Don’t sweat it. Get some sleep, and you can bother us all you want tomorrow. We’ll drive you back to school. And you can ask us a gazillion questions.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” says Jeongguk, hiking his bag higher up his shoulders. “Have a good night.”
“You too,” calls Jimin, as he walks away.
“I like him,” says Taehyung tentatively. It almost comes out sounding like a question.
Jimin chews on his lip. “You sure?”
“Of course I’m—yeah.”
“You don’t sound like you’re sure.”
“I just—oh, forget it. He makes me kind of nervous.”
Jimin waits a beat, and then asks, “Good nervous or bad nervous?”
“A bit of both,” replies Taehyung. “Ah, shit, I left my water bottle at the main house. Come with me?”
Just as Jimin’s jogged up the stairs of the main house and is about to round the corner into the common room, Taehyung pulls him to the side and presses a finger to his lips.
“What?” whispers Jimin. They are awfully close together.
Taehyung jerks his head to the side. “They’re still talking. I want to hear.”
There’s a few moments of silence, and Jimin is about to berate Taehyung for screwing with him when someone speaks up. An oddly familiar voice says. “Just think about what else he could do.”
"Prophecy?"
"Unsure."
"I've been waiting for someone like him for a long, long time."
Every single hair on the back of Jimin's neck stands up at once. Beside him, Taehyung tenses.
"You think it's time to make our first move?"
"Think about it," says the incredibly familiar voice. "There’ve been enough legends about clear-sighted mortals. It would be absurd of us to pass up this opportunity."
Jimin glances at Taehyung, and even though they’re still deathly silent, he can tell they’ve come to the realization at the same time. The voice belongs to another camper. A child of Athena—not their senior counselor, but still one of the oldest demigods at camp.
“Someone may have actually been looking for him, then,” says someone else. “During the meeting, you guys said—”
“I’m aware of what we said,” interrupts the Athena camper. “We only said that because we didn’t want him to be any more suspicious than he already is. We need him to let his guard down.”
Every muscle in Jimin’s body is screaming at him to run, get Jeongguk, and leave, but something keeps him glued to his spot. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t, but he wants to—he has to.
“What do you think?” asks a different voice in the room. “You know the situation best. What you say goes.” They must be asking someone else, Jimin thinks. Someone who hasn’t spoken yet.
There’s a beat of tense silence, and then—
“We’ll never get another opportunity like this,” says Kim Sejin, camp director. “We’ve got him right here at camp. Let’s make our move.”
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