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The altar is the biggest one Haechan knows, maybe the biggest one in the desert. As a child it seemed to stretch all the way into the heavens, its foundation of gray stone holy in every sense of the word, the chiseled obelisk that sat rested on top of it, a gate to a world he could only hope to see—in this lifetime or the next.
Now, it's not so magical. The grooves in the stone seem to be made specifically to dig the heels of his feet into, the inconsistencies of its surface collecting the blood that seeps from his fingers like sponges. He climbs higher and higher, ignoring the pain in favor of reaching the small platform on top. Though the sun beats down on him, it's cold up here, the depth of autumn seeping into his skin and drying the blood on his fingers.
A small plinth stands in front of him. It's a pale silver, shining almost white in the light of the sun. Seated in the stone is a circular talisman, something unnaturally clean compared to the plinth around it. There are remnants of quartz in it, pinks and blues twinkling at him as he moves closer to inspect it.
Haechan had expected it to be difficult, but the artifact lifts easily from the plinth with a soft thunk just as it comes loose. It's cold to the touch and small enough to close his hand around completely. Pulling a small leather pouch from his pocket, he slips it in and ties the pull string as tightly as he can.
Getting down is a lot harder and a lot more painful than going up. In the end he only ends up with sore thighs and too many regions of torn skin to count, but he makes it. Wiping the thin sheen of sweat from his forehead, he retrieves the small talisman from his bag and inspects it.
It's real, it has to be. It has weight and shines in the sun and Haechan put a lot of effort into getting it. But just looking at it is a little dizzying.
Haechan understands the implications of sacrilege, of taking what isn't meant for mortal hands. He thinks he's already accepted his fate, but a small chill runs up his spine when he realizes that there's no going back from this now.
Something in the corner of his vision moves and he turns. Haechan doesn't recognize the person standing observing him with hands resting innocently behind his back. Thin brown hair falls in front of his forehead and he regards Haechan with something he can't place. Maybe apathy, but not quite.
"That's not yours," he says. His voice is light and airy, like it could be lost to the wind at the slightest breeze.
"Whose is it then?" Haechan asks.
"Mine."
Haechan looks him up and down and raises an eyebrow. "You're no god."
The stranger tilts his head. "I don't have to prove anything to you."
That's fair. Haechan holds the talisman out in his palm. "What, so you want this back?"
"That'd be nice."
Haechan closes his hand around it and pockets it again. "Sucks."
"Oh," the stranger says. "That's not very nice."
"I'm not a very nice person," he replies. He has what he came here for. There's nothing left here for him now. There are footsteps behind him, and when he turns he sees the stranger just a few paces behind him.
"Go home, kid."
That gets a reaction out of him. "I'm no kid," he asserts, "And you know my name."
"If Renjun cared enough about mortals, he would have warned the village of the incoming earthquake rather than let them all be buried. Plus, he isn't petty enough to tail some meaningless human just for desecrating one of a billion altars dedicated to him."
The kid tilts his head again. "I see," he says. Haechan starts walking again, and once again, he follows. "Where are you going?"
"I'm going all the way to the end," Haechan tells him. "And I'm going to smash the artifact into pieces so he can never come here again."
"The artifact is him?"
"It has his spirit. See, if you were really a god, you would have known that."
"Maybe I did know. Maybe I was just testing you, Lee Haechan."
He turns around sharply, staring at the stranger in shock. "How did you know my name?"
The stranger shrugs, expression unreadable. "I don't know," he says. "But you already knew mine, too. I was made in your image, no?"
The village always referred to him as Renjun, benevolence, with the underlying implication being that it was a name humans had given him, not one he had chosen for himself. After all, what human could speak a god's true name and live to tell the tale?
I'd be the first to risk it, has always been Haechan's unspoken response to that. Regardless, he can't say he has a decent response to Renjun's question. He doesn't know what his deal is, and he doesn't want him on his tail.
"The nature of the gods isn't for me to interpret," he says.
"But they're for you to murder?"
The valley is vast and empty; a bowl of dust and rocks cradled by a low rising mountain range on all sides. Renjun didn't grow up here. He wouldn't know the ins-and-outs of the landscape like Haechan does. He doesn't even dress like he's from around here; off-white cloth hanging from his shoulders, the fabric spotless, almost glimmering in the sun. He's probably the son of a wealthy merchant who wandered off to ogle at the valleymen.
"Yes," he tells Renjun. "I'm only doing what's expected of me."
The trail away from the village falls on a downward slope first, a trail of fine dust that slides dangerously underfoot if one isn't careful. Haechan has always been surefooted, confident to traverse it at a relatively fast pace without losing his balance. He had expected to hear the telltale sound of someone slipping and falling by the time he gets to the bottom of the hill, but when he does get there, he looks back and finds himself alone. There's only one set of footprints that he can make out in the sand, already disappearing as the sand shifts to cover his tracks.
Haechan is perplexed, but not scared. The sands have been known to whisper to its inhabitants, remnants of lives and conversations that they've swallowed up over time. He can still feel the weight of the talisman in his bag, and his wits are still about him. He continues on.
The outside of the mountain range is, for the most part, just like the inside. It's a vast and beautiful wasteland and Haechan is sad to be leaving it. Another time, when his heart has been unburdened, maybe he can come back here and try again.
For now, he only has an image of his destination in mind formed from stories and fanciful descriptions from strangers; because in truth, he's never been there. Merchants and travelers spoke of a place that seemed so different, nearly unimaginable to Haechan who has only known dry air and empty space. There are fables he'd learned in school about fools who would chase the sun seeking the impossible, and somehow he isn't surprised to find he's become one of them. His destination is an indeterminate distance due east, the edge of the world from which the sun rises each day his only guide.
Still, the nearest town is about a day's walk south, a little more if he chooses to camp for the night. It's the only other town Haechan has ever been to. It's somewhat of a trader's hub for those who try to brave a region as remote as theirs. He's seen their huge bison-driven caravans covered with colorful fabric that could've only been made somewhere far, far away; and more than that, he's seen people climb into their cargo carriages when nobody was looking and let the desert winds blow them away.
The full moon is just dripping below the distant plateaus when the city appears in the distance. His feet are unbelievably sore, but he couldn't will himself to shut his eyes; there's a whirlpool in his gut that's keeping him awake, spurring him on like a hurricane. One of his arrows had lodged itself in a small hare he had caught unawares. He left half of it to the sands as is customary, and there was an awful restlessness while he set up the campfire to roast it. To sit still felt like death in its own right. There hadn't been even a murmur of wind, the only sound in the air coming from the fire whispering to the night air with a sharp tongue. Renjun hadn't shown his face again, which was all he needed to convince himself that he was just a mischievous spirit confined to the valley and nothing more.
On the outer edge of the city is a rocky overhang, and it's there that Haechan forces himself to sleep. He can't allow himself to be caught off guard again while he's in the city.
In the silence of the night, he lets all thoughts of supernatural beings drift from his mind.
Fortune appears to be on his side in the end, because he doesn't even have to sneak onto a caravan to get a ride to where he needs to go. It's probably the dust that's accumulated on his skin from the trek here, but a cargo driver had taken pity on him for whatever other reason and offered him a ride to the next trade stop.
"You have to find your own food, though," he had said with a gruff voice, probably from years of smoking foreign tobacco.
Not enough pity, then, but oh well. Beggars can't be choosers. The caravan was headed due east, which is all that mattered.
He finds a comfortable enough spot between stacks of crates filled with fabrics and ornamentals and other things he can't name. The driver had said he would have time to hunt and relieve himself every nightfall, and so for the next week and a half Haechan's world is a transient one, browns and oranges passing by steadily, slowly, as if in a dream.
Out of boredom or something else, Haechan frequently finds himself inspecting the talisman. It seems to weigh heavier in his palm than before, but the stripes of quartz are just as vibrant as it had been nestled on top of the altar. He turns it over in his palm again and again until it turns warm and paints pictures of his home in his mind to remember down the line.
He dozes off at some point, and when he wakes up again, Renjun is sitting at the opposite end of the cargo wagon watching him intently.
"Why are you here?" he demands, grogginess disappearing immediately.
"I was just wondering how far you had gotten."
"It hasn't been that long," Haechan returns under his breath. If Renjun hears him, he makes no show of it.
"You have a long ways to go yet," Renjun continues. "What will you do when your journey is done?"
"What's it to you? You talk about your own murder like it's the weather."
Renjun's head tilts slightly. "You aren't the first person to try to kill me. And I doubt you'll be the first to succeed."
Haechan doesn't bite. "You're not the god I'm hunting," he says. "You're just a slippery spirit, a djinn. The god I'm hunting let people that loved him die." He's not going to be phased so easily. Renjun is going to need more than words and a little magic to convince him.
"Let?" Renjun echoes, confused.
"My god was supposed to protect me and my home," he tells Renjun. "We were at peace with the land. We were at peace with him. And out of nowhere…" The earth had split itself in two, swallowing up everything in its path including the town, his loved ones, and more, only leaving a massive scar on the land where generations of people had lived and loved. Now, there was nothing. "When we needed him most, he was nowhere to be found."
Renjun is quiet for a while, long enough for Haechan to feel a little embarrassed. He shouldn't, doesn't have to explain himself to a djinn or whatever this Renjun was.
"Maybe it wasn't his fault," he suggests quietly, voice light as air. "Maybe you misinterpreted something. Maybe he was powerless to help you. Maybe you weren't at peace at all."
Haechan doesn't deem him with a response. Overhead a vulture crows. He looks up to admire the way it circles on the wind with beautiful dark wings over a carcass, and when he looks back Renjun has disappeared.
Haechan kneels beside the corpse of a vulture, maybe the same one he had seen before. His heart is full of sorrow. It had fallen from the sky and kicked up a cloud of dust in its landing; when it didn't take off again, he feared the worst.
And the worst it was.
A shadow appears over him, sits besides him in the dirt and regards the bird forlornly.
"Why do you keep following me?"
"You're hurting," Renjun says, like it's the simplest thing in the world. "You loved me, but you're hurting."
"You're not my god," Haechan replies without missing a beat, but there's no heart in it.
"That doesn't mean I'm going to abandon you."
Haechan doesn't respond. Nearby is a large boulder, and Renjun helps heave it up so that Haechan can lay it gently underneath before returning the stone to its place. This way its body can rest in peace.
He can't bring himself to say thank you, but he thinks Renjun understands, anyway.
The next city Haechan comes to is a large one, larger than any he's ever been to. It's loud and chaotic and he's dizzy trying to acclimate himself. He's just passing through, but this is probably the best place he'll come to yet, and he doesn't know if he'll even be coming back.
The desert was never this loud. Sometimes there would be rockslides in the distance from the mountains, maybe once or twice a year there would be a violent scuffle between merchants, but nothing like this. People shout over each other in the marketplace din, and in between trying to navigate it he sees so much jewelry, so much silk, and the sheer opulence here is almost unnerving.
Of course, Haechan has no money. He finds a discarded basket woven from reeds (with one end that looks like it's been chewed out by a stray) and sets out stealing what he can. He's no expert at it, but he thinks he's used up all of his luck for his journey with the way he isn't caught; or if anyone sees him, they turn a blind eye. Maybe people like him aren't so uncommon in a city like this.
Some of the fruits he's never seen before, but they're good. He inspects them on the rooftop of an abandoned apartment home, trying to calm down from the shock of one of the wooden steps snapping under his weight halfway up the building. While he eats, he watches the people below him scutter about their day in haste, and Haechan wishes they didn't have to live such hectic lives. He wonders if it's right of him to pity strangers, but he can't help it. He would suffer in a life like theirs, he thinks.
"I love cities," Renjun says beside him. His legs are stretched out, dangling over the edge. He's smiling at the people milling about beneath his feet.
"I think it smells bad," Haechan says.
"I think so too. But nothing is perfect."
Renjun does look positively charmed, and Haechan can't help but smile, too. He picks another fruit from the basket, an apple this time, but drops it with a cry of disgust when his hand sinks into a rotten part of the skin. He wipes the offended finger on his pants with a scowl. Renjun watches the affair silently, then leans over him to grab the rotten fruit.
"Does death scare you?" he asks innocently, and Haechan isn't in his right mind enough to do anything but buy it.
"Don't make it out to be something philosophical like that," Haechan groans. "I just don't like rotten things."
Renjun hums an acknowledgement. He then passes a thumb over the rotten portion of the apple, and Haechan watches in awe as the decay disappears like nothing, banished at the mere touch of a finger. He hands it back to Haechan, and truly, it looks like an apple that had been freshly picked just moments ago.
For a few moments he's not sure what to say, mouth opening and closing with indecision. Eventually he settles on a simple "Thank you," which Renjun accepts with a smile.
They sit together in silence as the sun makes its wide arc across the sky, not a single cloud to mar its brilliance.
"Will you tell me your real name?" Haechan asks.
"Won't you tell me yours?" he tosses back, and for the second time that afternoon Haechan is shocked speechless.
"How did you know..?"
"I can see into your heart," Renjun says, poking his chest. "When you're moments from tears, I know. When you want to scream from a hilltop, I know. When you tell a lie," he pokes his chest again, this time just where his heart is thudding, "I know."
"You can't know that much of me," Haechan still fights. "You're just a spirit."
"Is that right?" Renjun teases. "Well, in the event that you're wrong, you know the alternative, Lee Donghyuck."
And Haechan flushes with the use of his given name, feeling like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
"You demand my sympathy, my grace, my secrets, yet you hide yourself from me," Renjun continues. It's not an admonishment, but Haechan feels like it should be. "Your kind have kept my name in their prayers for many, many centuries. You know what that name is. You know who I am."
Haechan's skin prickles with shame at his lack of faith, but he's always been an impertinent child.
"Why show yourself to me now?" he asks quietly, almost a whisper. Renjun's gaze softens.
"Maybe I've always been here, Haechan," he answers gently. "Maybe you're only just now seeing me."
Haechan's heart does a flip at the use of his name. Renjun is smiling again; not coy, not mischievous. Just…
"Say my name again," he demands, powering through the flush on his cheeks. "Let me know that you're real. That I can believe you." Please let me believe again, is what he really wants to beg, but he doesn't. Renjun laughs.
"Very few are bold enough to make demands of a god," he says, but that's all. Perhaps the real last of his luck was getting to hear his name wrapped around the tongue of so beautiful a creature even once. Twice was beyond him. He should've known that. And so he deflates with disappointment and says nothing more.
Once again they sit in silence. The sun drifts lazily overhead, and Haechan falls asleep under an impossibly blue sky.
Cities like this are too big to be lacking a variety of temples to many different deities, and Haechan is glad to be proven correct.
Renjun's temple is a little ways into the outskirts of the city, in the farmlands. It sits atop a hill as is customary; in the tales, Renjun always favored high altitudes and wide open spaces. A windy domain that stretched high into the heavens were always associated with his divinity.
Haechan climbs the steps with a sense of duty, wiping the tears that form from the bittercold wind even though it's the dead of summer.
The altar inside the temple is well maintained, a square cutout of stone surrounded by a small pool of water low in the ground. A plinth not unlike the one back home sits in the center, a bundle of amaranth resting delicately on a silk cloth. It gives the small enclosure the bitter atmosphere that comes with flora, but Haechan doesn't dislike it even if it makes his nostrils burn.
Back home, they didn't have amaranth. They would collect cactus needles and balance them on a stone as well as they could, occasionally weaving them into decorative cloths or clay dolls to show their dedication. Haechan had, on more than one occasion, spent weeks at a time on these offerings to Renjun as a display of love and loyalty, as he and those who came before him were taught to.
He kneels in front of the pond facing the plinth, lets the stone dig into his knees through the cloth.
Pray to your god, a voice drifts around in his skull. Haechan bows his head, but he doesn't pray. He doesn't, because how could he when he had openly rejected Renjun several times over? The opal-striped artifact weighs heavy in its leather pouch still, but he doesn't feel like a thief even if he knows that's exactly what he is.
He lets his eyes fall shut and meditates instead. It's silent up here, nothing but the wind passing overhead to keep him company along with the beating of his own heart.
He doesn't need to open his eyes to sense Renjun beside him. He does anyway though, and he watches Renjun's reflection dance in the water's surface.
"Please tell me," Haechan breaks the quiet. "Tell me who you are. I know all I've done is ask you things I don't deserve to know, but—please. I want to know you again."
Renjun keeps his eyes on the water as if he hasn't even heard him. Many long moments pass, long enough for Haechan to think he won't get an answer. Then;
"I was human, once," he says. "Maybe humans know this, maybe they don't, but I meant what I said before. The gods were all made in your likeness. I remember I smiled a lot as a human. Everything made me smile. I was—" he pauses, lets out a breath. Haechan can't pick out any distress in his features, but the atmosphere in the temple turns heavy, weighing against his skin as if it were solid. "I was gentle, like the wind."
"Are you not gentle now?" Haechan ventures softly, and he's relieved when his attempt at making Renjun smile works.
"I am," he agrees, then continues. "I don't know. I don't remember much. I died at the hands of another. It was cruel. Violent. I suffered for a long time. I was still young. When I came back, I was still me. They had expected me to exact revenge, but—I just...I left with the wind. I went to other places, learned of other people. I made flowers sprout from nothing to make children laugh, showed them beauties they had never dreamed of. I cured the ailments of the housepets of widows so they'd stay alive just a little longer, so they wouldn't be lonely. I listened to sons weep for their sick fathers, listened to fathers grieve for their sons that died too young. I was…" he trails off then, and it doesn't seem like he has anything more to say.
"Did anyone mourn for you?" Haechan asks. Renjun frowns.
"No."
"I'm sorry."
Renjun just shakes his head and falls quiet again. Haechan wants to reach out to touch him, but he doesn't. He hasn't earned that.
"I only want to help people," Renjun murmurs after a time. "That's all."
It's more than Haechan could've asked for. "Is there anything you want to know of me in return?" he offers, and Renjun shakes his head again and smiles once more.
"No, that's okay. I know enough of you." Haechan smiles, teasing.
"Oh, yeah? What's your conclusion?"
And there, Renjun laughs and it's the most beautiful song he's ever heard.
"You're funny," is all he says, and Haechan doesn't know if it's an answer to his question or a separate comment altogether.
The templemaster is tending to the weeds outside when Haechan emerges. He gives a knowing smile and his blessing as he leaves.
Many, many weeks later finds Haechan standing on the precipice of a cliff letting the crashing of the waves a distance below drown out his thoughts. He counts the seconds in between each collision, the next wave never coming sooner or later than any other, like clockwork. Tall columns of salt water stretch out to him until their foamy fingers curl in on themselves and crash back down, only for the process to repeat ad infinitum.
Renjun's talisman is warm in his hand. Even as long as he's been standing here staring at the distant blue horizon, his grip on it hasn't wavered once.
To kill a god would be as momentous an event as the creation of all things. It's hard to imagine, which is why he can't decide for himself if it's a responsibility he's willing to bear.
But responsibility isn't really the issue here. Whatever storm had raged within him when had set out on his quest has all but completely petered out, and now there was nothing but a cold wind in its wake; a vague memory and nothing more. No, Haechan can't recall why he's come here at all.
Of course, he knows empirically. He wanted justice, vengeance, whatever he would have called it back then. But those feelings elude him now, just as he's sure the small figure standing atop a cliff and seemingly doing nothing probably eludes the denizen that reaches out toward him from below.
Still, it'd be easy enough to throw Renjun's artifact into the open ocean anyway and be done with it. Haechan was never one to leave tasks undone—but still he can't help but hesitate, and it's this hesitation that's kept him rooted to the cliff edge like a solitary statue, willing himself to come to a decision.
Loose gravel sounds from behind, and he already knows who it is before he speaks.
"You can kill me if you want. I won't be upset."
"I think that's why I can't do it." he tells Renjun.
Renjun steps forward to the very edge of the cliff, and loose gravel slips off the edge and plunges downward. He spreads his arms wide and tilts his head up to the sky. The wind blows through his air and it carries away his laugh somewhere else down the shore.
"I love it here," he cries out mirthfully. Then he turns around and holds a hand out for Haechan, beckoning him closer.
Haechan wants nothing more than to take it and feel Renjun's warmth against his palm, but instead he places the colorful stone in his hand. Renjun tilts his head, a question, then extends his other hand instead. Haechan takes it.
"Watch," Renjun says. He tosses the stone up and catches it once; then rears his hand back and casts it into the ocean with as much force as he can muster. There's a small splash a ways away, barely anything, a white speck against deep blue. Then nothing.
"God of mercy, god of compassion, god of love, god of life…" Renjun lists off. "So many names humans have given me. I just like being called Renjun."
"You didn't die," Haechan breathes. Renjun nods.
"I'm more than you know."
And Haechan just watches him gaze out at sea almost longingly, and for a while it seems like he's living a memory. Though the sky is completely overcast, Renjun carries an odd vividness in his form and Haechan can't take his eyes off of him.
"You're beautiful," he says before he can think it through. Renjun turns to him with raised eyebrows, but he doesn't step away, doesn't release Haechan's hand. He takes the opportunity to intertwine their fingers, and because Renjun isn't showing any signs of rejection, he leans in and kisses him.
Renjun doesn't move at first, but slowly the tension leaves his body as Haechan pulls him closer, revelling in the way Renjun's body melts against his.
"Don't do this to me," he pulls away. "Don't do this to me, Haechan."
"Don't do what?"
"Don't make me fall in love with you." he murmurs, just loud enough to carry over the roar of the ocean down below.
"Why?" Haechan asks. "I've already fallen in love with you."
"Gods can't love humans. A heartbroken god isn't something I want for this world."
"Gods were made in our image," Haechan echoes his words from long ago. "That's what you said. Love is part and parcel. Besides, it's happened before."
The story of Doyoung and Taeyong was a popular one in the village. Haechan had to admit that the tale of a single human quelling the rampant heart of a broken god was hard to dislike, especially when most versions of the fable end with Doyoung ascending to godhood to be together with his lover.
"I want to learn to love you again, Renjun. Differently this time. I want to make up for my hatred."
Renjun's face softens at his words and Haechan can see emotion stirring behind brown eyes.
"Oh, Haechan," he says. "I never had a grudge against you."
And Haechan kisses him again and again and again, letting Renjun's warmth fill his heart and wash away all of his heartache for good.