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Sunghoon had not expected sunlight.
He ruled in a place where light arrived only as memory, filtered through stone, diluted by distance, obedient to him. The Underworld bent to shadow and silence. Roots whispered through dark soil. Rivers moved slowly as thought. Nothing bloomed unless he allowed it and nothing decayed without his permission.
So when the Earth ruptured and gold light spilled down like a wound in the world, he did not react quickly enough.
Vines shot downward, bright, fragrant, and alive with reckless magic. They wrapped around his wrists, slid across his shoulders, and tangled in his dark robes like laughter catching on grief.
He could have broken them.
He felt their spellwork, young but powerful. Threaded with summer law. Fed by the sun itself.
Instead, he looked up.
And saw him.
Jaeyun, the young god of summer, stood barefoot at the edge of the tear in the Earth, hair glowing like pale wheat in the wind. His eyes were bright with triumph and mischief and something deeper. Something daring.
“Got you,” Jaeyun said with a triumphant smile.
The vines tightened, not cruelly, but decisively, and pulled Sunghoon upward into the blaze of afternoon.
The Underworld trembled at the loss of its sovereign.
Sunghoon did not struggle.
He let himself be taken.
<><><><>
Jaeyun did not drag him into chains.
He built Sunghoon a garden.
It rose in a secluded clearing above ground, woven of jasmine hedges tall enough to block even shadow. White roses spilled over arched trellises. Wisteria curtains swayed lazily in warm wind. Bees moved lazily from blossom to blossom, entirely unbothered by the presence of a death-god in their midst.
A lake shimmered at the center like liquid sky.
Sunghoon stood in the heart of it, dark against green abundance.
“You cannot hold me,” he said calmly.
Jaeyun clasped his hands behind his back, rocking slightly on his heels. “Maybe not forever.”
The boundary of the garden shimmered faintly, every vine interwoven with Jaeyun’s magic, every root anchored in seasonal law. It wasn’t brute force that kept Sunghoon contained.
It was life.
“You’ll get bored,” Sunghoon added.
Jaeyun smiled, slow and bright. “That’s bold of you to suggest.”
And then, with deliberate casualness, Jaeyun conjured a cushioned bench beneath the shade of a flowering tree.
“For when you get tired of standing dramatically,” he said.
Sunghoon stared at it.
“I do not stand dramatically.”
“You absolutely do.”
Sunghoon did not sit.
But he remained exactly where he was. He did not try to escape.
Despite how inconvenient this all was, his curiosity had been piqued.
<><><><>
The first few mornings were quiet wars.
Sunghoon tested the edges of the spell. Sent subtle threads of shadow through the roots. Attempted to wither a rose by proximity alone.
The rose bloomed brighter.
Jaeyun found him crouched beside it later that day, studying the stubborn petals.
“Trying to intimidate it?” Jaeyun asked lightly.
“It lacks proper respect,” Sunghoon replied.
Jaeyun knelt beside him, their shoulders nearly brushing. “You can’t glower at summer. It thinks you’re flirting.”
Sunghoon did not answer.
But he stopped trying to kill the rose.
<><><><>
Jaeyun insisted on eating meals inside the garden.
“You’re not technically mortal,” he reasoned, “but it feels rude not to offer.”
He brought peaches the first day. Sliced neatly, arranged like sunbursts on a porcelain plate.
Sunghoon eyed them.
“I do not require sustenance.”
Jaeyun popped a slice into his own mouth. “Sure. But have you considered enjoyment?”
Sunghoon hesitated.
It had been centuries since he had tasted fruit.
He took one slice. Bit into it carefully.
Juice ran down his fingers.
Jaeyun leaned forward immediately and caught the droplet with a cloth before it could stain Sunghoon’s sleeve.
“There,” Jaeyun murmured, too close, smile soft. “Can’t have the Lord of Darkness sticky.”
Sunghoon swallowed.
The peach was unbearably sweet.
He took another slice without being prompted.
Jaeyun pretended not to notice the victory.
<><><><>
Days passed.
The garden adjusted around Sunghoon.
Certain flowers began opening at twilight instead of noon. Moonflowers crept along the outside of hedges. A patch of black lilies bloomed without Jaeyun planting them.
“You’re influencing it,” Jaeyun observed one evening, kneeling to inspect the lilies.
“I am not attempting to.”
“You don’t have to,” Jaeyun said gently. “It wants you here.”
Sunghoon found that statement… unsettling.
And oddly pleasing.
<><><><>
They developed small routines.
Jaeyun talked to plants while pruning them, narrating his thoughts out loud. Sunghoon would stand nearby, pretending not to listen.
“You’re listening,” Jaeyun said one afternoon.
“I am monitoring your spell stability.”
Jaeyun grinned. “Sure you are.”
<><><><>
Sometimes Jaeyun would braid small chains of daisies absentmindedly.
One afternoon, he tossed one toward Sunghoon without warning.
It landed against his shoulder and slid down.
Sunghoon stared at it as though it might explode.
“Decoration,” Jaeyun explained.
“I am not something to be decorated.”
“You could be.”
Sunghoon picked up the chain carefully. And, after a long pause, placed it atop his dark hair.
Jaeyun blinked.
Sunghoon’s expression remained perfectly composed.
The contrast was devastating.
Jaeyun had to turn away to hide his smile.
<><><><>
The day Sunghoon first showed a real emotion, the air shifted.
Jaeyun had been attempting to demonstrate how lotus flowers responded to gentle encouragement.
“Like this,” he said, leaning too far over the lake.
The moss at the edge betrayed him. He slipped, arms flailing inelegantly, and disappeared into the water with a dramatic splash.
Silence.
Then sputtering.
Then Jaeyun’s offended voice saying, “I meant to do that.”
Sunghoon stood at the shore, robes untouched.
He stared at Jaeyun, soaked, hair plastered to his cheeks, dignity entirely dissolved.
And something warm cracked through him.
A sound escaped, low, startled, and real.
A laugh.
Jaeyung froze mid-pout.
“You can do that?” he asked, eyes wide.
Sunghoon recovered quickly. “It was… a moment of weakness.”
Jaeyun waded closer, squinting up at him. “Do it again.”
“I will not perform on command.”
Jaeyun narrowed his eyes, then deliberately splashed water at Sunghoon’s boots.
The water evaporated before it touched him.
Jaeyun tried again.
Same result.
Sunghoon arched a brow. “Are you attempting assassination?”
Jaeyun huffed and lunged out of the lake, grabbing Sunghoon’s sleeve.
For one shocking second, Sunghoon stumbled.
They both froze.
Then Jaeyun burst into helpless laughter.
And this time, Sunghoon didn’t suppress his own.
<><><><>
Summer began to lean toward autumn.
The light changed, less sharp, more amber.
Sunghoon felt the quiet pull of his realm beneath the earth, like gravity remembering him.
Jaeyun felt it too.
He grew quieter at sunset.
One evening, they laid side by side in the grass, watching the clouds drift.
“You’ll leave,” Jaeyun said, not accusing, just certain.
“Yes.”
Jaeyun nodded. “You should.”
Silence stretched.
After a moment, Jaeyun reached out and tugged lightly at the end of Sunghoon’s sleeve.
Not to stop him.
Just to confirm he was there.
Sunghoon let his hand rest beside Jaeyun’s in the grass.
Their fingers did not quite touch.
But they were close enough to feel the warmth.
<><><><>
Another night, a chill crept in early.
Without comment, Sunghoon summoned a faint ripple of shadow to block the wind from Jaeyun’s side.
Jaeyun blinked, surprised.
“Was that…?”
“Yes,” Sunghoon said shortly.
Jaeyun smiled, soft and unguarded.
“Thank you.”
Sunghoon did not answer.
But the shadow remained.
<><><><>
The tree ripened at last.
It had grown near the center of the garden, patient and deliberate. Its fruit split open at dusk, revealing six seeds glowing red as spilled sunset.
Sunghoon stood before it. He knew the old laws. Knew what eating such fruit meant when offered within a binding realm.
To eat was to bind.
To accept tether.
Jaeyun stood still beside the tree.
“I only wanted you to see the sky,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to stay.”
Sunghoon studied him.
This reckless, radiant boy who had dragged him into sunlight not for conquest, but because he thought the Lord of Darkness deserved warmth.
“You trapped me,” Sunghoon said.
Jaeyun winced faintly. “I did.”
“But you did not cage me,” Sunghoon continued. “You taught me.”
Jaeyun’s eyes lifted slowly.
Sunghoon stepped closer to the fruit.
He thought of peaches.
Of daisies in his hair.
Of laughter at the edge of a lake.
Of a sleeve tugged gently at twilight.
He plucked the pomegranate.
One seed.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
The magic sealed with a breath like turning leaves. The garden did not tremble in resistance. It settled, content.
Jaeyun stared at him, hope shining and vulnerable.
“You’re staying?”
“For half the year,” Sunghoon said. “The other half, you will practice patience.”
Jaeyun smiled, wide, bright, and victorious. “I’m very patient.”
Sunghoon raised a brow.
Jaeyun grinned sheepishly. “Relatively.”
Sunghoon reached up and brushed a stray petal from Jaeyun’s hair.
“For half,” he repeated.
Jaeyun leaned just slightly into the touch.
“Half,” he agreed.
Above them, the sky shifted toward autumn gold.
Below them, the Underworld waited.
But for the first time in eternity, the Lord of Darkness did not dread the turning of the seasons.
He anticipated the return.
Six seeds.
Half the year in shadow.
Half the year in bloom.
And somewhere between them…
A garden that was no longer a prison.
But home.