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Getting stabbed sucks.
Not only is it incredibly painful (and gods, is it painful), but it’s also just really fucking inconvenient. They’re supposed to be questing, not stumbling up Half-Blood Hill as the ragged wound in Jeongyeon’s stomach drips blood into the grass.
Jihyo and Momo are half-guiding, half-dragging her forwards, and Jeongyeon would be more inclined towards humiliation about it if she wasn’t in complete agony. Her feet trip and tangle beneath her as she pants through gritted teeth, vision swimming.
“C’mon, Jeong, just a little further,” Jihyo urges, and though she’s clearly trying to sound encouraging, Jeongyeon can hear the desperation in her friend’s voice. Momo stays gravely silent on her other side, but the hand clutching the arm she has slung over her shoulder squeezes tight and shaky.
A distressed groan escapes Jeongyeon as they pick up the pace, the accelerated movement sending nauseating waves of pain radiatating through her body.
Fuck—she’s starting to fade, she can feel it. Black shades dance in front of her eyes and she feels unbearably weak, only just managing to stay upright with Momo and Jihyo’s support.
For a moment, she wonders what will happen to her spirit if this kills her. She’s led a good enough life, she supposes—enough not to end up in the Fields of Punishment, at least. But she’s no fabled hero either; a child of Hephaestus, she mostly just sharpens swords and crafts armour for the real fighters.
She’s still not entirely sure why she was even sent on this quest to begin with; surely Mina and her deadly prowess with a bow, or Chaeyoung and her particular brand of confident chaos, or literally anyone else would have been better choices. But Chiron had said her skillset would be needed, that she possessed qualities necessary for the completion of their mission, and Jeongyeon hadn’t questioned it.
Fuck, she should have questioned it.
Her muddled thoughts are just turning to the possibility of an endless, empty drift in the Fields of Asphodel when camp comes into sight, and she feels Momo and Jihyo’s relief like a physical thing.
“Almost there, keep going,” Jihyo mutters, and Jeongyeon wonders if she’s talking to her or herself.
They’re spotted by some campers as they crest the hill and pass the boundary line, and immediately panicked shouts and calls for help go up. A couple of blond-haired Apollo kids come sprinting over, but Jeongyeon’s knees finally buckle before they can reach her.
Jihyo and Momo lower her to the ground as they’re surrounded, and Jeongyeon knows it’s bad that she can’t make out anybody’s faces through her blurred vision. She yelps in pain as someone presses down on her wound, a choked curse getting stuck in her throat.
She can hear people asking her friends what happened, but it’s muffled and distant—like she’s hearing it from the other side of a closed door. Also not a good sign.
Just before she passes out, she manages to make out the sound of sprinting footsteps coming closer, followed by a familiar voice. It’s frenetic and alarmed and shrill with fear, but Jeongyeon recognises it all the same.
Nayeon.
As her head starts to loll, something akin to contentment settles in Jeongyeon’s chest. She can make her peace with dying if hers is the last voice she hears. A pleasant memory to carry with her across the Styx, something to latch onto as she moves from this world to the next.
But as Nayeon gets closer, all feelings of ease dissipate, oozing out of Jeongyeon alongside all the blood, because Nayeon sounds agonised and it tears at her heart. The older girl is crying—raw, ripping sobs that hurt just as much as the stab wound, and Jeongyeon wants more than anything to soothe her.
She tries to open her mouth, to say anything she can to reassure Nayeon, but then her eyes roll back as the pain overwhelms her and the whole word turns to darkness.
———
When she wakes up, she immediately knows she’s in the infirmary. She can tell from the splotch of darker wood on the ceiling, the one that looks a bit like a centaur if you squint hard enough. She’s been here enough times to know it, staring at that splotch as she got stitched or bandaged after another incident at the forge.
She always was a klutz.
Her awareness expands away from the ceiling slowly, and she begins to take stock of herself. Her stomach hurts, but that’s to be expected after being pierced with a dagger. She’s relieved to feel that it’s nowhere near the blinding pain she felt as they scrambled back to camp. It’s more of an ache now, a dull throbbing that bothers more than it incapacitates.
The rest of her body feels fine. Her back is a little stiff—likely from lying down for however long she was out for—and the light irritates her eyes a bit, but otherwise, she’s ok. She’s not a mindless wraith floating about in the Underworld, at least. She’s alive.
As she breaths a sigh of relief, she becomes aware of a warmth encasing her right hand—a palm, she realises. Somebody else’s pressed against her own, fingers twined with hers, a thumb stroking gently at her knuckle. It’s…really nice, actually.
The muscles in her neck groan in protest as she turns her head to see who the hand belongs to, forcing a discomforted huff out of air through her nose. The noise alerts her bedside visitor, whose head whips up from where it had been bowed, seemingly deep in thought. As that achingly perfect face comes into sight, Jeongyeon smiles.
“Nayeon,” she murmurs, voice cracked and raspy with disuse, but somehow still tender at the edges of her name.
The girl in question shoots upright, eyes going wide as they scan over her frantically, as if checking she hasn’t been stabbed again while she was sleeping.
“Jeong, oh my gods, you’re awake,” Nayeon breathes, relief screaming from her every atom. “Are you ok? How do you feel?” Her hand squeezes at Jeongyeon’s, the contact firm, like she’s making sure this is real. Jeongyeon’s heart stutters.
“I’m alright, I think. How long was I out for?”
“2 days,” Nayeon replies, still holding her hand. Jeongyeon tries very hard not to blush.
It’s quiet for a moment then as they look at each other, Nayeon’s deep brown eyes scanning over Jeongyeon like she’s memorising her. It makes that old familiar ache twinge in Jeongyeon’s gut—that bittersweet longing for her best friend she’s long since given up on.
Jeongyeon was 12 when she first met Nayeon. She can remember it like it was yesterday; it had been her first day at camp, and she’d been scared shitless. Chiron had been giving her the guided tour as she’d taken everything in with wide, disbelieving eyes, and then they’d quite literally bumped into Nayeon. Or rather, Nayeon had bumped into her.
The older girl had been sprinting away from a pissed off Jihyo, having just successfully deduced her crush on a certain Aphrodite kid and being none-too-quiet about it. Her shoulder had rammed into Jeongyeon’s with no small amount of force, knocking her off balance. She’d been about to yell something snappy and shitty when Nayeon had turned, brown hair whipping through the air, and shouted back a breathless apology through stifled laughter as Jihyo raced past them.
And Jeongyeon had been struck entirely dumb. Any cutting insult she was about to spew had died on her lips as her heart had picked up speed, because holy shit, that is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my entire life.
The next day, Nayeon had introduced herself properly, with a sheepish smile and another apology, and that had sort of been it for Jeongyeon. Her own traitorous heart had slipped through her grasping fingers and landed gentle as a kiss in the Athena girl’s palm. And it’s been there ever since.
Friendship came easily despite Jeongyeon’s affections, and pretty soon they were attached at the hip. There’s no doubt in Jeongyeon’s mind that Nayeon knows her better than anyone ever has, and she knows the same is true vice versa. She thinks that if souls exist, hers and Nayeon’s might be inverses of each other—not identical, almost opposite in fact, but so perfectly carved to fit into the gaps of one another’s spirits.
Red and blue. Moon and sun. Yin and Yang. Whatever you want to call it, it doesn’t matter, because the truth is the same in the end.
They’re meant for each other. Jeongyeon believes this whole-heartedly. And as much as she wants that to manifest romantically, it hasn’t so far, and now she’s too scared to fuck things up by confessing.
So she’s never told Nayeon that being with her feels like free fall—exhilarating, terrifying, breathtaking. She’s never put into words just exactly how much the older girl means to her, because she’s not sure the right words actually exist. How can they, when Nayeon has always been bigger, more important than anything language could measure?
Nayeon is her best friend. Jeongyeon has learned to be ok with that, even when it feels kind of like getting stabbed all over again.
She’s just about to break the delicate silence they’ve slipped into with some lame question about what she missed while she was out, but Nayeon beats her to it.
“Ow!” Jeongyeon yelps, bringing a hand up to rub at the shoulder Nayeon just unceremoniously punched. “What was that for?!”
Nayeon’s eyes are narrowed now, and though Jeongyeon kind of misses the warmth they were sitting in beforehand, an angry Nayeon is easier on her poor heart than a soft one.
“You scared me, you absolute moron,” Nayeon hisses, looking for all the world like she could punch Jeongyeon again. “What kind of an idiot gets themselves stabbed?”
“How is this my fault?” Jeongyeon exclaims incredulously.
“I don’t know,” Nayeon replies, indignant and irritated. Gods, Jeongyeon could kiss her, even now. “But it sure as hell isn’t mine. I told you not to go on that quest, and what did you do? You went anyway, and you ended up with a dagger in your stomach.”
Nayeon rambles on a little longer, something about responsibility and knowing better but Jeongyeon kind of stops listening when she gets distracted by how perfectly the afternoon sun is highlighting Nayeon’s eyes. She still has the decency to look a little sheepish, though, and it seems to placate the older girl somewhat.
“You’re not leaving this camp for a month—no, a year,” Nayeon finishes, crossing her arm across her chest. Jeongyeon smiles a little guiltily, even though it really isn’t her fault she got stabbed. But there’s really no arguing with an Athena kid, especially not one glaring you down while you sit in the infirmary.
“You’re on house arrest. Actually, you’re on me arrest. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
And Nayeon says it like it’s a threat. But Jeongyeon, heart pulsing in time with Nayeon’s annoyed little breaths, thinks that it actually sounds rather wonderful.
———
Nayeon visits her for all three days it takes for Jeongyeon to recover. Most of the time she lectures Jeongyeon whilst feeding her bits of ambrosia, but sometimes she sits there, quieter than Jeongyeon’s ever known her. It’s a little unsettling—Nayeon’s never been anything other than endearingly loud in all the years they’ve been friends—but Jeongyeon doesn’t dare ask what’s on her mind in those moments.
When she finally gets the all-clear, Nayeon walks her to dinner. She’s quiet again, but Jeongyeon’s too happy about finally being up and about to worry about it.
The second they enter the dining pavilion, joyous greetings and cries of her name ring out. Jeongyeon grins, raising her hand in acknowledgment, but before she can respond verbally, she’s being knocked backwards a few steps by the impact of a body on hers.
“Oh my gosh, you’re back!”
Jeongyeon smiles and wraps her arms around the clingy daughter of Aphrodite now hugging her like she’s returned from war.
“Hi, Sana.”
Their friends chuckle good-naturedly as Sana pulls back, hands fluttering about as she inspects Jeongyeon.
“I’m so glad you’re ok. And alive! Gods, I think I would have cried forever if you’d died, and then I’d be no use to anyone and I’d have to—“
“Sana, let her breathe, sweetheart,” Jihyo interrupts her girlfriend’s babbling, coming to stand by her side, resting a hand on her back as she shoots Jeongyeon a smile of her own. “All good?” She asks, the nonchalance of her question belied by the genuine relief on her face.
“All good,” Jeongyeon replies easily, but her eyes are soft. She knows Jihyo was worried, though the Ares girl would never admit to it. That’s just the way they are. They don’t ever really say it, but they do love and care for each other deeply.
Sitting down at the old worn-out table with all of her friends inspires a blissful kind of contentment in Jeongyeon. Momo leans over to ruffle her hair, and Chaeyoung cackles as she bats the Hermes’ girl’s hands away. Mina asks about her recovery, sweet and quiet. Dahyun and Tzuyu don’t say much, but they do smile in a way that makes Jeongyeon’s heart swell.
Nayeon joins in the chatter as they eat, conversation drifting from topic to topic with no rhyme or reason. She looks bright, looks happy, but Jeongyeon can tell that there’s something bothering her. For one, she refuses a second helping of fried chicken, which is entirely unlike her—even Momo, clueless at the best of times, furrows her eyebrows at that.
She’s also sitting a little closer than usual—closer than necessary, if Jeongyeon’s honest. Their elbows brush every time either of them brings their food to their mouth, and the heat of Nayeon’s thigh pressed against hers is entirely too obvious to ignore. She chalks it up to residual concern—maybe she’s worried Jeongyeon will get stabbed again in the middle of dessert—but something about it gnaws at her grey matter, burrowing into the back of her brain.
After they finish eating, everybody splits off to do their own thing for the evening. Mina and Chaeyoung head for the woods—they claim it’s for hunting practice, but Jeongyeon knows it’s really so they can make out. Tzuyu and Dahyun follow Momo back to her cabin to look at the new console she scavenged on the quest, and Jihyo and Sana make for the Ares cabin. Sana’s not technically allowed in there, but Jihyo’s head counsellor, and nobody would dare question her.
That leaves Jeongyeon and Nayeon sitting at the table as the sun dips below the horizon, thighs still pressed together. Jeongyeon’s just about to excuse herself—she’s tired, and she’s looking forward to sleeping in her own bunk after several nights in the infirmary—when Nayeon speaks.
“Take a walk with me.”
The words are spoken quiet but firm—like Nayeon’s not really asking, just informing Jeongyeon of what’s happening. And despite the fatigue Jeongyeon can feel creeping up on her, she doesn’t protest; simply nods. She’s never been able to deny Nayeon anything, anyway.
They stroll through the camp in silence, grass cushioning their footsteps as they go. Jeongyeon wants to ask what this is about—because clearly it’s about something—but Nayeon seems almost fragile right now, and Jeongyeon doesn’t want to rush her.
They end up at the lake. It’s undeniably stunning under the moonlight, silver streaks dancing across the lapping water. Nayeon walks right up to the edge, and for a moment Jeongyeon worries she’s about to wade in, but she doesn’t. She just…stands there. Staring at the tiny cresting waves. It’s entirely out of character for the explosive, passionate, vibrant girl Jeongyeon knows, and it freaks her out just a little.
She comes to stand next to her, cautiously watching the older girl. Her eyes are especially pretty under the stars, and Jeongyeon would be marvelling over that if it weren’t for how strange her friend is acting.
“Nayeon?” She breaks the silence carefully, voice delicate. Nayeon doesn’t respond for a long time, but when she does, her voice is a brittle, breakable thing.
“You really scared me, you know.”
Her eyes remain fixed on the lake. Jeongyeon’s breath catches at how vulnerable she seems in this moment. This isn’t a lecture—at least, it doesn’t feel like the start of one. It feels raw, unmeasured—words dropping from Nayeon’s lips almost uncontrolled.
“I thought you were going to die.”
“It’ll take more than a teeny tiny dagger to get rid of me,” Jeongyeon jokes, trying to alleviate some of the tension settling around them. But Nayeon turns to look at her then, fixing her with solemn eyes.
“I’m serious, Jeongyeon,” she says, tone void of playfulness, and Jeongyeon shuts her mouth.
It’s quiet for another moment. When Nayeon speaks again, it’s in a voice unlike anything Jeongyeon’s ever heard from her before.
“There was so much blood,” she starts, and fuck, she sounds terrified, “so much blood, and you in the middle of it. You—I watched you pass out, and I thought you were gone. You…you went so limp, Jeong, and I—“
She trails off with a shaky breath, eyes a little glassy as she takes a second to compose herself. Everything in Jeongyeon aches to comfort her, to wrap her in her arms and reassure her that everything’s ok now, but it’s clear Nayeon isn’t done. And Jeongyeon has never seen the other girl so fragile, so she simply waits, heart thumping unevenly in her chest.
When Nayeon breaks the silence once more, her words knock the breath from Jeongyeon’s lungs.
“I can’t lose you.”
It’s barely a whisper, almost inaudible over the gentle sound of the water against the sand, but Jeongyeon catches it. And it breaks her fucking heart, because Nayeon sounds like she’s in pain.
“I—I can’t, Jeongyeon,” she carries on, voice gaining strength as she takes a step closer that has the younger girl’s breath hitching. “You’re my—you’re more important to me than anyone else, and I don’t—I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Jeongyeon has always known Nayeon to be strong, in every sense of the word. She’s a prodigy with a sword, scarily smart and as well-adjusted as a teenage demigod can be. But right now, every inch of that is stripped away. She isn’t the fearsome Athena head counsellor as she stands there trembling under the moonlight—she’s just Nayeon; just a girl petrified of losing someone she prizes above all others.
Jeongyeon moves almost on instinct, unable to bear a second more of Nayeon looking so miserable, hands encasing Nayeon’s as she too takes a step closer. It brings them inches from one another. Jeongyeon’s treacherous heart pounds.
“You’re not going to lose me,” she murmurs, squeezing Nayeon’s hands, “I promise, you’re not.”
It’s a stupid promise to make—completely unrealistic. They’re demigods, for Hades’ sake. Their safety, their lives, will never be a guarantee.
But Jeongyeon doesn’t care about any of that. Nayeon is staring at her with tear-filled eyes, achingly beautiful in the glow of the stars, hands tangled with her own, and all gods, prophecies and probable fates fade to nothing.
“I’ll always come back to you, Nayeon.”
She says it like a vow. Like an oath. It’s far too tender and much too revealing, but Jeongyeon doesn’t care. She needs the other girl to understand what she means to her, needs her to know that Jeongyeon would claw her way out of the Underworld to return to her side.
“Always,” she repeats, insisting, before stepping even closer. “I’ll always come home to you.”
And fuck, it’s practically a confession in and of itself. That singular word—home—holds more weight than anything else Jeongyeon could have said, is undeniably telling of how she really feels, and icy fear trickles down her spine as she realises she’s basically just admitted the one thing she swore she’d keep a secret.
She waits for the rejection. Waits for Nayeon to step back, to awkwardly laugh it all off, to tell her they really should go get some sleep.
But Nayeon doesn’t move. She doesn’t pull away. She’s silent, eyes steady on Jeongyeon’s own, hands warm and soft and still twined with hers.
“You really mean that?”
Nayeon breathes it, delicate and low, and there’s something in her tone that makes Jeongyeon’s head spin.
Hope. It’s hope.
“Yeah, I do,” she replies, equally quiet, feeling as exposed as bone beneath a gaping wound.
Nothing in the world could have prepared Jeongyeon for the smile that spreads across Nayeon’s face after that. It’s warm, knowing, achingly fond, and its splendour puts the moon above them to shame.
Before Jeongyeon really knows what to do with that, Nayeon takes her breath away again by sliding her hands out of hers, up her arms, and lacing them behind Jeongyeon’s neck. Her eyes must widen in shock, and it must look a little ridiculous because Nayeon giggles, and they’re so close Jeongyeon can practically taste it.
“You’re home for me too, you know,” Nayeon murmurs once her mirth fades, eyes glimmering with something like devotion. Jeongyeon scrambles for something to say that isn’t an embarrassing jumble of overwhelmed nonsense, but luckily, she’s saved from having to say anything at all by Nayeon leaning forward and pressing her lips to hers.
Jeongyeon flails for all of a second—hands jerking uselessly at her sides, eyes going big as dinner plates—before Nayeon hums against her mouth and she melts helplessly into it, eyes sliding shut as she tentatively rests her hands on Nayeon’s waist.
As first kisses go, it’s pretty damn good. By the lake, under the stars, having just exchanged tender confessions—it’s an A plus for romance by any standards. But for Jeongyeon, they could be anywhere and it would still be perfect, because it’s Nayeon she’s kissing, Nayeon whose hands are cupping the nape of her neck, Nayeon who smells like vanilla and tastes like cherries and feels like coming home.
She has to fight not to whine pathetically when Nayeon pulls back, eyes fluttering open dreamily. Her breathing is ragged, like she’s just run a marathon instead of kissing the girl she’s been in love with since she was 12, and it feels like there are supernovas exploding in the melted mush of her brain.
“You’re such an idiot, Yoo Jeongyeon,” Nayeon murmurs after a moment, nose nudging against hers. Jeongyeon’s indignant rebuttal is swallowed by another kiss, and she’s absolutely not mad about it.
“If I’d known all it would take was you getting stabbed to finally woman up and tell me how you felt, I’d have done it years ago.”
Jeongyeon laughs breathlessly, resting their foreheads together, before what Nayeon’s actually just said registers and she pulls back inch or two to fix her with a baffled look.
“What are you talking about? Years ago?” She asks, rather stupidly—sue her, she’s just been kissed by the love of her life, she’s not exactly thinking clearly.
Nayeon chuckles.
“I’ve been in love with you since I was 14, dumbass.”
Jeongyeon’s jaw drops.
“You—what?!”
Nayeon nods, and then as Jeongyeon begins to process, begins to realise how stupid the both of them are, slips from her hold.
“Nayeon, you—hey, get back here!” Jeongyeon yells as Nayeon takes off running, laughing joyful and free. “Since you were 14? Nayeon—Nayeon!”
She sprints after the older girl, intent on giving her a ton of shit for, as it turns out, being just as much a coward as she’s been the last few years. She should be at least a little pissed about it—Nayeon’s the smart one, after all. She should have known Jeongyeon was head over heels. But there’s a smile on her face and ecstasy in her heart as she chases after the girl she calls home, and Jeongyeon thinks that maybe (definitely) she’ll forgive her this.
She catches her just before Nayeon reaches the Athena cabin, tackling her to the floor with a complete lack of grace. They both go down giggling, batting and swatting at each other, playfighting like kids, until Nayeon swings her leg over Jeongyeon’s hips and settles herself atop her.
Any accusation or protest dies on Jeongyeon’s lips as she stares up at her. She’s godlike like this—confident, strong, happy. Jeongyeon thinks she’d risk being struck down by Zeus himself to dedicate her worship to this girl.
She wants to make some smartass comment about Nayeon being just as much an idiot as her, but the words catch in her throat. What comes out instead is drawn straight from her heart.
“I love you,” she says, quiet and reverent, meaning it with every fibre of her being.
Nayeon smiles. Softens.
“I love you too,” she murmurs back.
Jeongyeon’s never heard anything better.