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Aguero was the God of Nothing.
It was placed on him as his punishment and the coronation of his exile. Away from the heavens he descended into the mortal world where he would be constantly looked down upon with disgust.
Aguero walked away, a heavy feeling following him as his shadow.
In the forestry debris of his shrine, Khun met a lost child of chestnut locks and golden eyes. The child looked at him as if he was the only god.
It crawled under his skin unpleasantly.
The child, which Khun had guided back to the market, clung onto his sleeves.
"Thank you," the child said with a smile and ran. He never once looked back, and Khun walked on in the opposite direction.
He was used to people leaving without a single explanation.
Two decades and a half later, a man came to visit the shrine. Khun hid himself away from mortal's sight. He was a god and being seen by a human was never a deity's purpose, but to hear their orations. Gods were divine, well-kept away from eyes of a frail life—
"Aguero the God of Nothing."
—No. Khun wasn't a god. Not anymore.
The man wore silk robes and expensive cloaks, Khun assumed he was the sovereign King of the territory nearby. He could vaguely familiarize with the sunny eyes behind lidded lashes and the clumsy way he clasped his hands together in prayer.
Khun felt pity sinking into his chest at the thought of a king praying to a god that didn't exist anymore.
The man whispered, "Please watch over me and my people."
Watch over could mean anything. Watch over could mean nothing. Watch over could mean everything.
When the man left the abandoned shrine, Khun trailed after him.
He was just a lost god with a king to watch over.
Khun found out that the king's name was Viole. He ruled over his people and with gentle grace and unparalleled justice. Viole didn't lack in the regal stern department. He was also harsh when the situation deemed it necessary.
The man was too soft to be a ruler, Khun thought.
There were tiny, minute twitches of his fingers when violence couldn't be avoided. A frown that expressed his displeasure but did nothing to stop a public execution. Then, there was also a pained gaze when he sat on the throne. It looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there. He acted as if the throne and its glorious power didn't rightfully belong to him.
For the first time ever since her, Khun wanted to break the rules and take him away from here.
That night, Khun watched over the reposing king.
When he was a god, Khun always heard their prayers. This was the least that he could do.
Khun was caught by Viole himself on the fourth night.
“I found you,” he said. Viole wore a smile, a small yet genuine one and Khun realized this was the first time he had seen it. “Who are you?”
Aguero, he was about to say, but instead—"Khun."
Viole raised an eyebrow, amused and intrigued all the same. "Khun? Like the Gods?"
"Yes," Khun answered, "I'm called Khun, because people say I look like them." Truth was easy to twist with lies and humans were a little too blindly devoted to notice the hidden message behind their words.
"You don't have a name?" Viole situated himself on the cushion in the middle of his room; all carpeted and adorned with gold. Khun was perched on the window that was left open. His feet touched the soft fur.
"No." I lost it.
"I see." Viole was easy-going, carelessly pouring himself alcohol and Khun thought if this man planned to shorten his lifespan by drinking.
He didn't notice the new glass when Viole offered him one.
The glass reflected the midnight moon and Khun took Viole's offer for company.
Talking to a mortal was pleasant after all.
After that, they established a routine.
Khun, for all his suspicious identity that Viole somewhat threw aside, would arrive after the capital lights dimmed. Viole would announce his entrance with a silent click of the door and Khun never failed to notice the tension easing out of his shoulders, as if he could finally take a break after all the pressure.
Khun, with his inquisitive personality and desire to know all, had a lot of questions, but he swallowed them and greeted Viole. "Good evening."
Viole would smile. "Good evening."
Khun was an exiled god. He was expected to never be afraid—
This time, Viole settled with a book. He looked at him and his eyes were blazing gold.
—but Khun was afraid that if he asked questions, he would break something that he didn't even have.
One time, Khun saw internal chaos unfold from the hills. There was a rebellion waging and Khun found it all pointless, since he could never understand the fire in their eyes burning with passion to shape their society for the better. Khun supposed that's how civilization functioned.
Viole was on edge, his somewhat sharp disposition becoming even sharper, leaner and more powerful, yet Khun knew it was close to breaking.
Khun decided not to show up that night, only cautiously waltzing in when Viole was sleeping, his mouth pressed in a tight line and eyes closed shut.
For the first time since Khun was banished from the heavens, he wished he could help this man who cared for others.
(There were times, when Viole slept, Khun would ask himself if he really regretted what he did .)
“Do you even like to rule over your own people?” Khun asked and he winced at his choice of words. This was rare.
Viole gazed at him and he never looked so tired of the burden on his shoulders. "No, I don't." He gripped on the fragile wine glass. Khun wondered how it didn't break yet. "Too many sacrifices have been made for me to become a king when I'm not even meant to be one."
"Clearly—" Khun watched the sloppy yet firm curve of his back, his fingers itching to write something, to occupy himself, to serve his kingdom "—you love your own people to reign over them."
Khun liked how he could read people but he was frustrated at the blankness of Viole's expression.
"I never asked to be a king in the first place." He said, voice too collected for saying such a thing. "I never wanted a crown made of blood."
Khun wasn't fond of the memory he remembered.
"As a child, I always got lost in the market." Viole spoke, the bag of his eyes rimmed unpleasantly dark with restlessness. The rebellion was at its peak, but Viole never intended to break his promise against his own people, not when he was forced into this and he was facing his life's very purpose.
Khun was assured that the rebellion would end soon. After all, Viole was a wise ruler.
"And?" Khun prompted. He moved away from the balcony to focus his attention on Viole.
"It stopped when I met a man in the nearby abandoned shrine." There was a slip of mirth and that quick honesty brought relief to Khun, because it pained him one way or another when he saw Viole like this. "He never spoke, only hid himself behind a tattered cloak, and brought me back to the market."
"What do you think of that man?" Khun asked, unbidden and unplanned. He was a little anxious about the answer.
"Well, I got a look on his face, albeit I do not remember clearly, but I do remember thinking he was more beautiful than the gods and goddesses combined."
It had been so long for Khun to allow himself to smile. And this time, it's genuine.
There's a sense of happiness and hopelessness in living with immortality.
Die a hundred times and revive a million times more. That’s it. Nothing had changed, everything was the same, and eternity still ticked on. It’s a repetitive cycle with no endgame in sight. Always check, but never checkmate.
The semblance of bliss in forever was there was no end, it was infinite. It being life and divinity was there to amplify the greed for recognition and glory. Humans always craved immortality and Khun had it. He wasn’t human, but a god—an exiled god, and he existed since before time and even beyond time. End was foreign point he would never arrive at.
(One time, in the face of his sins, he thought that this might be a concept of his end.
Despite that, for the first time in forever, he hated being a god. He hated hearing and granting wishes. He was tired .)
Hopelessness wasn’t an accurate word, but it was the closest that Khun could think of.
The thing with a never-ending lifespan was the despair in living. Deities weren’t meant to feel despair, but no god was a perfect god. In myths, gods swallowed their own children and committed crimes worthy worse than Khun's banishment. They were no different from these fallacies. Hopelessness was present in everything. It was the sinking feeling that Khun loathed to feel (and he never thought he would feel).
Viole arrived that night and Khun knew there was something wrong in the redness of his eyes.
“A close friend died,” Viole said, “It’s fine, at least he’s in a better place,” and nothing more was spoken for the rest of the night.
That was great in mortality: the pain in living, the hopelessness had a relief, an endgame, a sense of peace in death.
For Khun, there was no death, no end, to the despair he couldn’t even scream out.
“Khun, you’re not human, are you?”
Khun was confused why his body had frozen when Viole asked the question, because he subconsciously thought that this conversation would still come eventually.
His lips were closed and his silence was already enough for an answer, but vocalizing it was terrifying for Khun. He didn’t want this—whatever this is—to shatter.
“Yeah,” he admitted and Viole simply nodded. This was another one for the tally of Viole throwing Khun off.
On the surface, nothing changed, but Khun wished he wasn’t a god.
Khun realized he just wanted to be a simple man. Not a powerful god, but a fragile human.
No matter how far Khun ran away, he could never truly escape the past.
It came back biting at him in a blurry haze: a thunderous roar of the heavens that sounded like a gavel, a pair of citrine eyes that reminded Khun of his judgement day, and there was light beneath their feet that was impossible for humans to conjure.
Khun was on the floor of Viole’s room. There was a heavy ticking sound and a ringing bell outside.
Viole stood there, his lips moving but Khun couldn’t hear what he said as everything was swallowed by darkness.
So much for being a god wishing to be a man. It must be because no one prayed to him anymore.
Khun found out he was locked in some sort of dungeon. If not, then an underground basement. The ever-glowing clockwork circle underneath him brought bile in his throat. He had been here before, restricted and incapacitated. He waited for what seemed like years before he was banished.
He had been forced to reflect, they gave him a chance to beg for forgiveness, but Khun had pride and gods never asked for mercy in the first place. He didn’t care about the constant buzz in his body that restrained him, because he never regretted what he did.
That was what it's supposed to feel like. It’s supposed to be nothing that he shouldn’t worry about, but it felt like he was forced underwater and he couldn’t swim back up. It was difficult to think, it was too hard to breathe .
Viole visited him that night, confessed the truth as if he was a priest, and Khun simply laughed his forgiveness.
Humans were such desperate creatures.
Khun hated being a god. He hated granting one prayer after another. He hated being divine and being worshipped made his skin crawl when he saw the crazed eyes of his devotees as they looked at his image. He hated the very concept of religion and their oppressive beliefs.
One of the truths that Viole said was the thirty gold coins, that he was sold for thirty gold coins and Khun cackled at the irony of it all. The mortal had the audacity to say it’s for his own sake.
He must be going crazy in Viole’s sight, but it didn’t matter compared to the universe that was crumbling for the second time.
“For my sake?” Khun might as well be a worshipper with the hysterical glare he gave Viole, “you sold me for thirty coins and you dare tell me this is for my own good ?!”
Viole merely looked at him and Khun despised that gaze more than anything.
“ANSWER ME!”
Lies be damned, Khun never lied to Viole even once.
“It’s for your sake,” Viole repeated, and Khun loathed how it almost resembled the orations whispered to him. “They’re going to take you away.” from me was unspoken, but Khun heard it perfectly.
“You’re not human, you’re there, but you’re not mine, never will be, and I have no right to be selfish to wish for myself, but your presence alone was sanctuary in this life.”
They had been nothing. Only two people who met every night to talk about mundane things. Khun didn’t know when he— they crossed the line.
Maybe, it was Viole all along. He should’ve known, but maybe he chose not to know, chose not to care, chose to be human and pretend that he found normality in them.
Before Khun could speak, the door opened and it revealed the last person on his list. Why is she here?
“Aguero.” Maria smiled at him, deceptively sweet and dizzyingly intoxicating.
The game of chasing ended and Khun lost.
“Aguero?” Viole incredulously stared at Maria. “ Aguero, the God ?”
"Who else?" Maria shrugged and the gesture itself was graceful and otherworldly. "The difference is he's no longer a god, Your Highness."
Khun watched, frustratingly helpless, as Maria spelled out the reason why he wasn't in heavens, being a god.
"He deserved it. After committing a crime, against the divinity."
"And, what is that crime?"
Don't, Khun choked on his words and Maria was still smiling . Don't tell him. No. Please.
Maria was a beautiful goddess, but she was merciless.
"Human sacrifice." Maria shook her head in disapproval, in dismay, as if she wasn't the reason why Khun did a cruel thing in the first place. "It was an unspoken taboo, but Aguero went ahead and asked for a human sacrifice—no, not just one. It might as well be countless lives."
Khun wondered why every wall he built would always break in the face of Maria.
"Oh," Maria blinked, "your parents were included, right?"
Khun also wondered why something shattered when he looked at Viole.
"The heavens give you two choices, Aguero." Maria whispered as she hugged him and Khun shivered at his own helplessness. "We will grant you mortality for the price of this man's everything or you will embrace divinity because you will always long to be and will never be a human."
“I’m not inquisitive to that extent,” Viole said. Khun stared at him then he might have intimidated him because he corrected himself right away, “Nosy.”
It was an attempt to lift the mood. It was useless, but Khun appreciated the thought.
“There must be a reason for you to ask your own followers to offer themselves to you.” Viole sat there, a little too careless of what Khun could do, even if he was rendered immobilized with the light on the room’s floor.
“I regret it.” Khun admitted and the feeling was invigorating. There was something in it that he found light and easy, like a burden lifted from his chest, but Khun never fully accepted yet, because the motive behind the sacrificed lives was his own belief. Not because he was the belief, but rather of what he believed in.
He didn’t like the idea of not meeting Viole if he ever chose to repent.
“I’m sorry.” Khun brought his knees to his chest. It was a pathetic sight, but right now he didn’t mind. It was okay to be human with Viole.
After a long stretch of silence, Viole spoke. “You lied to me.” His gaze was intense even if Khun finally accepted himself as a coward by not looking back. “You never told me your real name.”
“But, Aguero is a god and I am not.”
Viole ignored what he said and continued, “There’s another thing I haven’t said to you.” There were footsteps and Khun felt the tip of their shoes touching.
Khun froze when he felt a kiss on his head.
“Thank you for hearing my prayer.”
Aguero, as a god, had heard people thanking him when their prayers had been granted and their goals realized. They came in muted, soft whispers and what made this— Viole’s —unique from all others was the clear, soft voice of Viole as he uttered it. Intimate and sincere.
“You’re welcome.”
Good things never last.
Viole found out about Aguero’s ultimatum and he never visited again.
One night, Viole arrived, saying sorry and I’ll help you , then left.
There’s actually a way for an immortal to be a mortal, Aguero found it by accident, but he never liked the idea because he was steadfast on the belief against human sacrifice.
There were qualifications. One of which was killing a god. Aguero found it troublesome and never dared to think of it again for eons.
“No, you are not going to do this.”
“I have to.” Aguero refused to accept the determined glint in Viole’s topaz irises. “You have been waiting for this since the beginning and I can’t let you live an eternity in pain.”
A ritual was in order. A god becoming human was impossible, but here Viole was, crashing into his orbit and giving him the salvation he needed, but at the cost of his own life. Aguero wouldn’t allow that.
“Look.” Aguero closed his eyes because he knew he would crumble if he saw Viole. “Aguero.”
A deep breath and he opened his eyes. He was done running.
Viole made the choice of sacrificing himself for Aguero and saving his kingdom at the same time. Of course, Viole was a king. Even if the title and its promised triumph was forced upon him, he would always give his everything for his people.
Aguero smiled, albeit bittersweet, in the thought he was one of his.
“It’s okay.”
“Yeah,” Aguero breathed. The intricate glowing clockwork began to turn slowly, ticking down their time together. “It’s going to be alright.”
In a rush, Aguero whispered, “Viole, promise me.” Words stumbled out of his lips desperately. “Promise me you won’t forget me.”
“No, I won’t. It’s a promise.”
Aguero etched this scene to memory—Viole’s simple clothes. Viole’s radiant eyes. Viole’s soft smile. Viole’s promise. Their time together in the moonlit room. Everything. Please watch over me and my people.
“Thank you.”
Aguero woke up and he was greeted by Maria.
“Welcome back, Aguero.”
Bam snuck out of the manor, wary of the maids and his worrying parents. The viridescent grass tickled his skin and the warm afternoon sunshine casted over him. The wind blew and Bam giggled, skipping deeper into the forest.
He passed by a well-kept shrine, never forgetting to pay respect to God, Aguero, before trudging to his merry way again.
Stopping in his tracks, Bam spotted a dark lump that was too contrasting in the spring forestry. It was a stranger, a man, and he was sleeping with no care in the world.
There was familiarity. He was taught manners, but Bam was assured that this napping blue man wouldn’t mind.
“I found you,” he shook the stranger’s shoulder. “Who are you?” he asked politely.
The man groaned, blinking the sleep from his eyes. It was the most beautiful blue that Bam had ever seen.
Bam couldn’t decipher the type of look that the man gave him.
“Aguero.” He said, sitting up.
“Aguero? Like God?”
Aguero smirked, “Like God.”