Chapter Text
Minho awoke with a gasp.
Air filled his aching lungs and his heart pounded, a searing pain down his middle forcing his body to remain unmoving and frozen. When he sluggishly blinked his eyes open, all he saw was the familiar ceiling of his worship hall. He breathed in again, slower his time, lungs rattling as his flesh knitted itself together slowly and painfully.
The whole mountain was quiet, hovering in scared disbelief, not even the wind daring to whisper too loudly as it entered the worship hall through the open doors.
The shrine was silent, safe for the quiet breathing of the godkiller kneeling by his altar.
Minho didn’t turn his head to the side where he could feel Chan sitting on his knees and watching over him, nor did he do anything about the blood he could feel still slowly trickling out of the deep cuts on his palms, dripping from the tip of his fingers and onto the ground from where his arm hung over the side of his altar.
The ceiling of the worship was the same as it had been since Chan had repainted it. The red color of the rafters reminded him of the divine blood a human had spilled on his holy grounds, of the blood that had seeped into every crevice of the shrine, of the nightmarish past Minho had built his new life upon.
Like a new grotesque god rising from the death of the one before him.
It was still there in the air, the lingering agony of a heavenly creature having its life force stolen from it, the last bits of divine energy seeping into the ground and marking the spot where Chan had killed the minor deity. Minho knew from experience that it would never leave the shrine, just like Yongbok’s life force was still tied to the weeping willow, the blood spilled on the day Minho had killed him giving the evergreen tree its divine life.
Now, Minho’s shrine was the home of two gods who had been murdered.
He didn’t dare move. He could still feel where the heavenly weapon had pierced his stomach, the wound not having healed properly and the cuts on his hands were still bleeding, each drop like a grain trying to measure time, slow and excruciating. It was the only proof that the world was still moving and that their hearts kept beating.
Drip, drip, drip.
Minho had never felt time passing over him as he did, lying where Chan had worshiped every part of him mere days before. He felt it like death himself was standing by his shoulder, looking down at him, his nails digging deeper into him as his blood continued to fall to the floor, every breath a little easier as his flesh knitted itself back together.
They were running out of time.
Minho didn’t know what kept him from turning his head to look at Chan, he didn’t know why his heart was tight with fear, why he wanted to run and hide.
He just couldn’t move.
He was on his altar where Chan had presumably placed him after retrieving him from the forest, his body exhausted from having been pierced by a sword forged in the heavens, a sword far mightier than any other Minho had ever been in the presence of before. He could only thank the stars that the minor deity hadn’t known what they were doing with it, that it had been like a useless branch in their hands or Minho would have been no more.
In his chest, his heartbeat softly next to the echo of Chan’s.
“Godkiller,” Chan suddenly said, his voice dark and full of a power Minho had never felt before. It made Minho’s breath hitch, a wave of fear rushing over him at the strange thrum of energy he could feel from Chan. It wasn’t natural, it was too fast, too foreign, too powerful. “That’s what I’ve become. What I was fated to become. It finally happened after years of holding myself back from the deep-seated hunger to spill the blood of a god, to realize my wrath and make a creature of the heavens feel it,” he continued and Minho didn’t need to look at him to know his precious love’s eyes were filled with hate.
Minho shivered, his eyes trained on the ceiling, his fingers twitching with the need to get away from the creature kneeling at his altar.
Godkiller.
Wasn’t that the one mortal every god feared? They were as much mythical creatures as deranged gods were but they did happen and when they did their bloodlust was rarely satisfied with only one god slain. Godkillers were their own special type of devil, the one kind even the heavens shuddered to think about, the one kind even their king feared hunting.
“I assumed it would happen at some point, but I had hoped it wouldn’t have to be because you had gotten hurt,” Chan said, something wild and untameable to be felt in the room as he spoke, a power Minho had never felt in neither human nor god before. “But you got hurt, and it’s my fault for not having been able to keep you safe,” he rasped, voice trembling as his heart pounded in Minho’s chest.
Minho wanted to protest, to say he was the one who was more powerful and therefore should have kept Chan safe, but in that moment, Minho realized that he might be nothing but an ant compared to the creature sitting by his side.
Chan wasn’t a god, but he wasn’t mortal anymore. He was something beyond anything Minho knew.
“Minho,” Chan called, his voice echoing in the quiet room. “Look at me,” he whispered, words like a prayer.
How could Minho refuse?
His head moved on its own, body aching as he slowly turned to look at Chan. The mortal was sitting on his knees a few feet away from Minho’s altar, his hand resting on his lap, laying palm down on his thighs in a serene position of prayer. In front of him on the ground was the bloodied blade that Minho had pulled out of himself along with the sword Chan had used to behead the deity.
Both were still smeared with divine blood.
Instinctively his eyes flickered up to meet Chan’s, his beloved believer looking like he always had, except for the smear of blood on his cheek. Without asking, Minho knew it was his from when he had been cradled in Chan’s arms, carried home safely in the embrace of the man he loved beyond reason and fear.
“I’m sorry,” Chan said sincerely, catching Minho’s wavering gaze and keeping it. “I know you’re afraid, and so am I, but you need to know,” he said, his hands curling into fists in his lap as if he was struggling to hold himself away from Minho as if he wanted to hold him and touch him. “I think… I think I’m changing.”
Minho didn’t speak. He couldn’t.
“I don’t feel normal,” Chan said, his eyes trained on Minho’s, the depth of the brown irises deeper and more profound than it had ever been before. “I think I should feel bad for what I did, right? It should feel wrong to have killed something, to have ended a god’s life that easily,” he whispered, trembling slightly under Minho’s gaze even if his eyes remained hard and unreadable.
It was like he feared Minho, feared his rejection.
Minho breathed in deeply, realizing he wasn’t afraid of Chan. The fear he felt wasn’t for the not-quite-mortal before him, but for what was happening to Chan. He feared what Chan was becoming, because as always, Minho’s worst fear was losing Chan. He exhaled, the air leaving him easier as his lungs knitted fully back together.
Drip, drip, drip…
“Minor deity,” Minho corrected with a croak, unable to stop himself from speaking. His voice was scratchy and dry, his lips chapped. His body shivered before he forced it to relax as his blood continued to count the precious time he had together. The last moments he had with his human lover before he became something else. “And you mustn’t feel guilty,” he added, wanting to smile at the sheer absurdity of a human who had suffered so much from the vanity of gods that he wanted to feel guilty for killing one of them.
The minor deity wouldn’t have blinked an eye about ending his life, and as long as Chan didn’t kill more gods in his human form, his soul should not be corrupted enough to make him a demon.
Chan could still become a god and that was all that mattered to Minho in the end.
“No?” Chan asked with a small quirk of his lips. He looked down at his clenched hands, no doubt able to see the blood still clinging to his skin, stuck under his nails and beginning to flake off where it was drying. Minho knew the feeling, knew the heavy weight of something so easy to clean away.
The proof of a grave sin committed.
“I don’t feel guilty for killing it,” Chan admitted, voice soft as he held Minho’s eyes, all their secrets laid bare before each other. “I feel guilty because I can’t find it in myself to be sorry for having done it,” he said, the powerful golden light hidden behind his eyes dimming as more of Minho’s mortal Chan became apparent again. “If I hadn’t, then it would have gotten away with hurting you, and I can’t let something like that happen. My god shouldn’t be disrespected like that. My god shouldn’t be killed by a cowardly stab to the back.”
“Chan,” Minho whispered, his lungs running out of air. It would take long, too long, before he would have replenished his energy and got up from the altar. Until then he would have to remain lying like an offering displayed on an altar that wasn’t truly his own. Not anymore. “You’re-”
“I can see light around you,” Chan interrupted, killing the words on Minho’s tongue.
His eyes widened, staring at his precious human in part fear and part delight. It was everything he had dreamt of hearing Chan say, but it also meant that the murder on his hands just gained much more weight than it had before.
A mortal godkiller was something to fear, but a divine godkiller had something to be terrified of. Minho would know, being one himself.
“You’re shining, Minho, it’s as if your skin is golden as if you’re made of something not human anymore. There’s a light inside of you struggling to escape, power beyond anything there should be on this plane residing within you,” Chan said, his eyes full of awe, moving up and down Minho’s body on the altar as if he was finally seeing a part of Minho he had been craving to see his entire life. “I thought Hyunjin was talking in metaphors when he said you gods shone like the stars, but he’s right. You’re light, Min, you’re everything.”
Another drop of blood fell from the tip of Minho’s finger, joining the growing puddle on the floor mingling with the endless divine energy that had preserved the shrine for centuries. Minho couldn’t help but wonder if anyone would ever be able to tear the building down now it was soaked in his divine blood and Chan’s devotion.
A shrine for them both.
“I’m not human anymore, am I?” Chan asked, the question startling Minho enough to pull a weak and scared sound falling from his bloody lips. He wasn’t sure if he wanted Chan to know, to hope for them to be able to be together. As much as Minho hated Chan having killed someone, he knew it only helped push them close to a future of forever.
“A human shouldn’t be able to kill a god,” Chan said, barely blinking as he stared at Minho, reading the truth from the god’s eyes. “If they did, it would still make them into something inhuman. So, I’m not human, am I? Minho?” He asked when Minho remained silent.
It truly wasn't the way Minho had wished for Chan to ascend.
“No,” Minho replied hoarsely, staring down at his believer, wishing he could be with him, but also knowing that something deep inside of him forbade him from moving, both his injuries and the fear of what was living inside of Chan. “You’re something more, Chan. Something far greater than a mortal… but you are not a deity either.”
At least not yet, Minho thought to himself weakly. No, Chan wasn’t divine. It was still Minho’s divine powers that clung to him, feeding the vortex inside of him that was accumulating energy. The energy of the minor deity he had killed was also fueling him, building up the powers that would someday help him ascend, but he wasn’t a god.
One day he would be. There was no doubt about that anymore.
“That’s good,” Chan said with a nod, looking away from Minho and down to the swords placed on the ground in front of him. “That’s good,” he repeated, the candles placed around the hall flickering alongside his words. “I’d rather die than become like those who dare send others to do their bidding, those who dare try to kill you.”
The flames of the candles grew taller, their flames like tongues liking the air. Like snakes sneaking out the scent of their prey, they flickered towards the heavens, burning brightly and hungrily.
“You will be,” Minho breathed, hating that Chan had to change for them to be together, but there was no way for a god to become a mortal - especially not one like him who had never had a mortal body to begin with. “One day you will be a god, my love,” he whispered, heart breaking as Chan’s eyes grew glassy, the air in the hall growing colder as it followed his mood.
“But then I can be with you? For eternity?” Chan asked, voice small and Minho wished that Seungmin was there. Had he had a human who knew what pain it was to go from being human to being a god he was sure that Chan’s uncertainty would be eased, but Minho was only a god.
He had never been anything but immortal.
“For eternity,” Minho promised, allowing the silence to fall as Chan closed his eyes, breathing out deeply, the odd tension leaving the air as the light inside of Chan mellowed out and hid back where it had emerged from.
Once more the valley grew quiet.
“Chan,” Minho whispered as the silence grew heavier, almost suffocating him on the altar.
His eyes were stinging from witheld tears. He felt horrible about having been scared and felt horrible about being happy that Chan was unhappy. Hated that he looked forward to Chan becoming someone he didn’t want to be, but Minho was greedy and this was Chan, he could recognize his soul, could feel his heartbeat echoing his own, knew the taste of his kisses, the feeling of his love, the heat of his body and the divine taste of his devotion.
It terrified Minho how fragile their handmade heaven had gotten by just the drop of divine blood being spilled, and Minho ached at how he couldn’t move from his wounds, couldn’t do anything to keep his precious human safe anymore.
He hadn’t even been able to protect Chan.
“Why didn’t you call for help?” Minho asked, the thick smoke emitting from the incense sticks making his chest tight as he inhaled. “Jisung could have helped, or Jeongin. Like last time,” he added, staring at the wonder that was Chan kneeling before him.
“I didn’t want to worry them,” Chan answered truthfully, blinking his eyes open, looking even more like himself as the candle stopped flickering and the glow within Chan dimmed, settling until it was ready to turn him from mortal to god completely. “I know they wouldn’t hold it against me, but I doubt Jisung would know what to do if he knew what I had done,” he continued regretfully. “I… I don’t want them to see me as a killer.”
“He wouldn’t have blamed you,” Minho was quick to say, coughing at the force of his words. He tasted metal on his tongue. “Jisung wouldn’t care. You forget how old he is. While he looks peaceful, I know he isn’t past violence himself,” he added, thinking back to all the mess Changbin and Jisung had created with Hyunjin in their attempts to right the wrongs of the heavens.
He didn’t even dare think about how Jisung had once led a whole revolt inside a family, fueling the most deadly attack Minho had ever seen and all done by women who had been abused and hurt, the man who ruined them ending his days hanging from his own front gate. With his death the family was safe, the house remained and no one ever suspected it had been his own wife who killed him.
It had been the first time Seungmin had gone against the heavens as well, turning luck against someone.
“Perhaps not,” Chan said, pulling Minho back to the present. “But he would have called upon Jeongin and the little fox needs to not waste what little time he and Hyunjin have left just to help me,” he added, eyes darkening with sorrow and Minho’s heat dropped, bloodied fingers twitching uselessly at his side.
“I don’t need the stars to tell me his time is near,” he said, words like one on Yongbok’s verdicts, final and unbending.
Drip, drip, drip Minho’s blood counted, more and more time slipping from his numb fingers.
“How long?” Minho found himself asking, fear and grief filling his chest. “How long does he have?”
Chan looked up, his eyes once more carrying a golden gleam.
“A fortnight.”
∞
Minho dozed off not long after, his consciousness slipping from him as his entire being was exhausted and still trying to close the bleeding wound through his abdomen. The cuts on his palms had already closed up, the blood finally drying up and leaving his palms sticky from the remnants of blood still clinging to the skin.
Chan hadn’t left him. He barely moved as he kept vigil at Minho's side, prayers slipping from his lips and down Minho’s spine as he slept, the grounding presence of his most devout believer keeping Minho from drifting away.
His prayers were interlaced with subdued hymns as he tried to keep time from passing unnoticed by Minho. His voice was like the moon in the night sky, calm and content as it led Minho home through the darkness of his own mind.
Minho kept his eyes closed and ignored the burning in his veins, his divine energy helplessly attempting to heal him. He could almost pretend that Chan was back to scraping off old paint, pulling out rotten panels in the walls, and hammering new planks into the floor like he had done the entire year. Restoring not on the shrine bit by bit, but also reshaping Minho with his soft war gentle hands.
If his eyes remained closed, Minho was still the god of war, he hadn’t reconnected with his dearest friends, he didn’t know Jeongin was destined to die and that Hyunjin’s ascension hadn’t been forcefully stopped by the heavens, he wouldn't know that Chan was on his way to becoming something not quite divine but also not quite human.
Maybe if he was lucky, Chan would brew him a cup of tea and he could sit under the willow and figure his thoughts out. It was a tempting idea, but as bitter as the present was, Minho knew he wouldn’t change it. He wouldn’t go back to the rotten ruin of the past when he had been dug out and repolished into something brother than before.
“Minho,” Chan's voice said, hoarse and frail, yet still stronger than anything in any of the two planes.
“Hmm?” Minho blinked his eyes open slowly as he looked to the side, Chan standing by him with a bowl in his hand and a cloth in the other.
Minho had barely noticed he had been gone, his consciousness as delicate as the ice in spring, splintering under the slightest touch.
“Can I clean up the blood?” Chan asked carefully. Instead of answering, Minho held his hand out towards him, finger twitching, and dried blood fell from his hand like flaking paint. Chan jumped into action, falling back to his knees before Minho and placing the bowl on the floor. He dipped the cloth into the water and Minho sighed when Chan’s fingers wrapped around his wrist, the cool water wiping away the flakes of blood that had dried on his palms.
“Does it hurt?” Chan asked, voice trembling as he washed the blood away, leaving nothing but sensitive new skin in its wake.
“A bit,” Minho said, lying a bit to make sure Chan didn’t feel too guilty. There was no point in letting Chan know that getting stabbed with a divine weapon, even as underutilized as the sword still on the floor before Minho’s altar, was excruciating.
He knew his precious human well and Chan probably wished he had been able to step in and protect Minho, to make sure it was him who got pierced with the sword and not Minho even though Minho would survive and Chan probably wouldn't have.
“But it’s not too bad. I’ve had worse,” Minho quickly added, echoing the words Chan once had told him when he had gotten hurt outside the shrine. “It takes more than an angry god to make me perish. I'm too stubborn,” he added with a smile as he stared at the wonder before him.
Chan gave Minho a smile, his heart skipping a beat in his chest at the shared secret between them.
If Minho had known that Chan having had worse was because of corrupt priests and due to the suffering caused by one god’s greed, Minho would have used that moment of freedom to return to the heavens and wreak havoc. But then again, Minho wouldn’t have gotten to declare his love to Chan if he had died in the hands of the god of hunt back then.
“I don’t think you’re cruel,” Minho said softly, looking at Chan who quickly returned his eyes to Minho's palm, gently rubbing the cloth over the red and irritated skin. “You did what you had to do, my love. If you’re looking for forgiveness then I’ll gladly give it to you in the stead of that deity because you are not cruel, Chan, you’re everything but,” he added, fingers twitching uselessly in his lover’s hold.
“That’s nice,” Chan said, sounding more than just disbelieving. It was all over his face and the tightness of his heart and brow as he frowned down at Minho’s palm. “I still… I just don’t,” he stopped himself, sighing deeply and Minho twisted his hand so he could catch Chan’s wrist, the golden bangle chiming softly with the movement.
Chan looked down, catching Minho’s dark eyes and Minho smiled at him, happy to see and hear some of his precious human having returned to him.
“I know, Chan,” Minho said, brushing the pad of his thumb over his knuckles, feeling the heat of his skin, the familiar calluses he knew like they were his own, the gentle touch that sent him far above heaven over and over again. “But you shouldn’t be afraid. I’ll keep you safe and whatever is happening to you isn’t going to hurt us, Chan, and while it’s going to be scary then you are worthy of being like me. You’re worthy of the same devotion you’ve given me and while you have spilled divine blood, it’s not proof that you’re immoral or that you’re becoming a devil.”
“Minho…”
“Chan, my love, you are the only good part of me. You have all the necessary virtues of being a god, all the patience and goddess I lack. Do you really think I would look at you and find you unworthy?” Minho asked, holding Chan’s wrist a little tighter. “You are more worthy than any god in the heavens, my love, more divine than any living thing I’ve ever met,” he continued holding on to Chan’s brown eyes as they looked up to meet his shyly.
“Between us, I should not be the one with an altar and if you would have me I would be your willing offering, I’d give you my entire soul for you to ascend, for you to be like me,” Minho said, keeping his voice strong even as his still healing lungs struggled. “We’ll never be apart. Not even for a second,” he said, not even having to force all of his sincerity into the words because he meant them.
He and Chan would never be separated and if Minho could somehow manage to help Chan accumulate enough divine energy to become a spirit or a minor deity then he would do it. He would do everything if it meant they could be together till the end of time, just like fate must have wanted them to, considering how much help they had already gotten.
The strings of their fate had to be destined to be intertwined.
“I’ll be by your side. Forever,” Minho said, smiling at Chan who returned it, first small and then a little wider and brighter as his shoulders relaxed. “We’ll figure it out and-” He stopped and looked over his shoulder at his altar, suddenly feeling the need to correct something about it. “Will you help me stand?” He asked Chan who nodded and dropped the cloth into the pink-tinted water.
Chan was still wearing the blood-stained robe as he leaned in over Minho and lifted up his torso so he could wrap his arms around Chan’s neck before gathering Minho’s legs up in the other arm. With little to no effort, Chan picked him up and stepped away from the altar, cradling Minho to his chest as if he were the most precious being.
The wound in his stomach ached, but Minho would ignore it because he was trapped in the darkness that was Chan’s alluring eyes staring at him and taking note of any discomfort Minho might have.
Minho swore he could see his whole life in those eyes, his past, his present and his future. He swore he could see the night sky and the life the two of them would have.
Together.
“What do you want?” Chan asked, stepping back from the altar, Minho smiled and reached up to carefully brush a strand of hair behind Chan’s ear, the curl a little coarse and frizzy to the touch, but it didn’t bother Minho. Soon, if they were lucky, Minho would start to miss the moments of imperfections mortality brought with it.
As a god Chan’s hair would grow easier to tame, the calluses would soften and his skin would grow smooth. The little blemishes and imperfections would grow weaker and Minho didn’t doubt that even the scars on Chan’s body would pale into barely noticeable lines as the mortality slowly bled out of him.
“I need your help with something, but first,” Minho said, placing his hand against Chan’s cheek and guiding him close, both their eyes falling shut when their lips met in a chaste kiss that left Minho wanting more. “I love you,” he whispered like a prayer against his lover’s lips.
“I love you, too,” Chan replied and Minho gave him one last peck before clapping his arm, indicating that he would like to be sat down on the ground.
Chan obliged with a disapproving frown but kept his arm around Minho’s middle to make sure he didn’t fall. Not that Minho would have protested. His legs were trembling like a newborn deer and he wasn’t risking collapsing in front of Chan one more time.
He might be a god, but right now he was a god with a barely healed stab wound.
With the help of Chan, he limped his way closer to the altar and grabbed the bowl of sand Chan had carved for him, making sure the incense stick didn’t fall over. Chan had moved them aside when he had laid Minho down so he brought them back to the center of the altar. He reached out blindly, grabbing the little box with fresh incense sticks, Chan looking at him worriedly and confused.
Carelessly, Minho dropped the fresh incense stick out over the table, planning on cleaning it up properly later as he plucked the by-now extinguished old sticks out of the sand and threw them on the ground. He could feel Chan shake his head at his messiness but he didn’t scold him so Minho continued his work.
His hand shook when he reached for another bowl, one Chan usually used to hold offerings of berries and small coins and poured half the sand into it from the other bowl. He took a couple of incense sticks from where he had scattered them over the altar, choosing only the prettiest for this purpose.
Chan didn’t manage to protest before Minho pressed them between his palms, bowing awkwardly as he reached out to the flickering candles. He felt a pang of pain travel through him as he lit the incense sticks. He ignored it in favor of placing two sticks into each bowl, nodding at the work he had done as he sank back into Chan’s embrace, staring at the altar now belonging to two gods.
“There,” Minho said, glancing at Chan who was frowning at the display Minho had created. “You might not be a god just yet, and you might not become one anytime soon, but you’re not fully mortal anymore. We ought to start treating you like something closer to the divine, like someone deserving of their own devotion,” he added, clinging tightly to his own little miracle.
“Minho, this is blasphemous,” Chan said, outraged as he stared at the two bowls, two insistence sticks filling the room with their smoky scent side by side. Minho could feel how he wanted to reach out and remove one of the bowls, but he also knew Minho well enough to know that he would never allow it. “I don’t belong there. I am n-”
“It’s not blasphemous,” Minho said steadfastly, voice hard as he held onto Chan. It couldn’t be when it was the god willingly participating in something like this, when it was the god who cleared his own altar, the god himself who blessed the new god with a home, with a shared shrine.
If asked, Minho would say it was the trust declaration of love a god could ever give, to carve out a piece of themself and allow it to feed their lover into becoming divine.
Besides, Chan wasn’t fully human anymore so it only made sense he got a spot at Minho’s altar. If Minho could have it his way, the only god owning that altar would be Chan. Minho would simply become his only offering, every day for the rest of eternity.
“You will become a god. You’re going to ascend,” Minho said, feeling the power of fate in his voice as he spoke, knowing he would topple the whole world to achieve the hope of a miracle he had been given. “I’ll make sure of it.
∞
Like a desperate mortal, Minho made it a habit of praying to Chan every morning, falling to his knees in front of his own altar and offering his devotion as faith to the god he was creating. He went against his nature every time he pressed his head to the cold wooden floors and whispered his hopes and wishes to his god, his Chan.
His precious human sighed every time he stood up after having prayed to Minho, shaking his head and urging Minho to cease whatever it was he was doing. When Minho refused to rise from his spot on the floor, Chan settled in next to him, kneeling as he sent Minho his own prayers, grumbling like a nagging wife the whole time.
Chan couldn't feel Minho's prayers yet, he knew that, yet it didn’t stop Minho from pouring all his hopes and dreams into all of them. He prayed to Chan for him to get stronger, filled his words with thanks and praise about how sweet his life had gotten after Minho had been blessed with the gift of Chan’s devotion, and begged for their future together, he prayed for their love, for Chan’s soft touch, for his kisses, for his attention and for his place at Minho’s side.
Each prayer was a piece of Minho he willingly cut off himself, ripping parts of divinity out of the very soil he was tied to as he made room for another god on his altar.
Chan, in turn, prayed for Minho.
He filled his prayers with love, devotion, dreams, and hope and once they had finished praying to each other, Minho would pull Chan from the floor, sealing their joint prayers with a kiss.
However, as blessedly quiet as the valley seemed after the attack, Minho couldn’t help but worry. He sneaked out at night, while Chan was sleeping, tired from how his powers still hadn’t returned at full, and wandered at the edge of the shrine and chased out every spirit he found - not that he needed much more than to look at them.
The little things were terrified knowing there was a god that had died there.
As the moon waned over him, Minho walked past the scattering of marigolds, sprayed over the cold ground, the body of the god long gone. There never was a body left once a god died. Within a few hours, they simply disappeared and returned to whatever had created them as if they had never existed at all, just a patch of eternally blooming flowers left behind.
Minho supposed he should feel guilty for having pushed Chan to this point and should feel bad for having tainted his precious love’s life with blood, but he couldn’t. Not when it meant Chan had been moved even closer to his divine ascension. He didn’t dare leave Chan, nor did he dare bring his human closer to the borders so he could ask Changbin for advice, but by Minho’s estimate, they had cut several years of Chan’s slow ascent to godhood off.
Minho felt no regrets as he looked at the marigolds. He knew no minor deity's weapon should have been enough to kill him or even hurt him as bad as he had been, meaning that Changbin was right about the heavens growing impatient and wanting him gone. That sword was either borrowed from another god or given by the king of the heavens himself from his extensive collection of weapons.
The sword was lying on Minho’s desk in their room, gleaming ominously with hidden power, but Minho didn’t dare touch it, knowing it had to be older than him, older perhaps even than the king of the heavens himself.
In Minho's hand, it would be unstoppable, he knew as much, but he also knew it did not belong to him and that was enough for him to leave it. At least in Minho’s shrine, it was out of reach for the heavens.
Chan kept looking at it as well, his eyes growing distant every time. When Minho asked he always said he felt like he should know who it belonged to, that he used to know that weapon, that it was so familiar but that he couldn’t remember.
It was a thing Chan had said a lot; that he couldn’t remember. Over and over he would whisper it, staring up at the starry, early winter sky like he was hoping the stars would tell him what he had forgotten.
One thing Minho did know was that the weapon did not belong to Chan.
Whenever they got too close, the powers in the weapon would darken, like anger it would look sharper, like it was warning anyone from trying to touch it and Minho wondered who the king of the heavens had had to kill in order to win such a prized trophy.
He supposed he should be flattered that they had chosen something so strong to try and kill him, but Minho was perhaps a little insulted that they thought him so weak that a mere puny minor deity would be enough to end his life, powerful weapon in hand or not.
Minho was the god of success; he had a new shrine, he had new believers slowly appearing in the nearby villages, incense was burnt for him on their altars at home, their prayers sinking into him and filling him with more power as he slowly granted the most noble of their wishes.
Minho wasn’t the god they cast from the heavens so many years ago anymore. He was different, more powerful, more calm, and, most importantly, he had finally become the god he had always been meant to be.
And yet…
He couldn’t do much else than chase vermin away, hoping that it would be enough to keep those curious or scared of the godkiller living in the shrine away for good. As much as he might want to, he couldn’t tear the heavens apart, couldn’t avenge himself or punish them for their wrongs towards Chan or the hundreds of thousands of other people they had harmed by pulling out the rotten weeds and replanting new, healthy seeds.
Minho wasn't a god of creation, he wasn't enough to build a new heaven. He had at least learned that much. He might overturn the heavens of now, but he wouldn’t be able to rebuild it anytime soon. At least, not as long as Chan was still mortal and defenseless, so Minho waited.
Patience was ironically becoming his strong suit.
“Do you think there will be more?” Chan asked a few days later, both of them naked and spent on their bed.
Minho was looking at the ceiling, his mind mournfully far away from the closeness with Chan he should be focusing on considering he had his beloved completely bare and sinfully covered in marks next to him. It felt like no matter how much time he spent thinking and planning, he never got anywhere closer to something useful and tangible and his worry was starting to sneak in every moment he wasn’t completely devoted to Chan.
It was all too far away for him to grasp and make proper sense of, his ideas and tactics falling flat every time he tried to image them as being more than just theories.
In order to make sure Chan was safe he needed to go to the heavens, but breaking his exile completely was still too dangerous of an idea to try out. He couldn’t rely on the other gods either as Changbin was clearly forming his own plans and no matter how hard Minho thought about it, he kept ending back in the same place; There was nothing to do right now but wait. Again.
“Mmm, fools trying to kill me?” Minho asked as he played with Chan’s curls, enjoying the softness of the strands. His whole body was still thrumming with pleasure, momentarily free from the stress and worries that were a constant companion to him even if his mind refused to bask in the shivers of pleasure still lingering in his body. He sighed, pulling Chan closer as he nodded. “I suppose there will be, but given this one didn’t return I suspect they’ll try and regroup and try out a new tactic,” Minho said, wishing he could remove the fear and worry in Chan’s chest.
“It’s because of me, isn’t it?” Chan whispered, strong fingers slipping over Minho’s bare chest as he hugged him closely. “It’s because they have figured out you’re hiding me and now they want revenge,” he said, eyes a deep brown as he looked up at Minho.
He was fearful of the future, perhaps even more than Minho was, but that was to be expected. Chan was but a mortal all of sudden thrown into the world of gods, suddenly having divine blood tainting his hands and making him the prime target for more than just the deities he had angered with his blasphemy.
“Perhaps, but most of all I think they’ve grown tired of waiting for me to die on my own,” Minho said gently, reaching up to hold Chan’s face in his palm, gently caressing the apple of Chan’s cheek. “I don’t think anyone foresaw you coming here to change my life and bring me back to life,” he added knowing it was the truth.
The plan had seemingly been hoping he turned into a demon so they could kill him without risking him coming back to haunt them. Too bad Minho never behaved like they predicted.
“Nothing could have stopped me,” Chan said, voice a little odd as he too clung to Minho. It carried that same tinge of dangerous power it had in the worship hall and it made it run cold down Minho's spine, but he ignored it, instead holding Chan closer. “I kept seeing you in my dreams, sitting under the weeping willow in your red robes. I knew you had to be waiting for me and as such I needed to come here and be by your side,” he added, burying his head in Minho’s neck.
“I love you,” Minho said, tugging at Chan’s curls again, forcing the mortal to slip out of his thoughts and back into the present. “You know that, right? That no matter what happens to me, to you, to the shrine or the valley, I’m not letting them take you from me. I love you too much,” he reminded Chan, heart heavy with his worst fears.
He couldn’t help but think about what would have happened if Chan hadn’t been able to wield his sword with enough power to kill the deity. Chan would have been gone, and all because Minho hadn’t been able to keep him safe.
“I'm not going anywhere, Minho,” Chan said into Minho’s neck where he had hidden his face. “The heavens have taken too much from me already, I'm not allowing them to take you now. Not if they wish to live,” he added, clinging to Minho.
Minho exhaled slowly, eyes staring back up at the ceiling, the soft curtains closing them off in their own little heaven that suddenly seemed to be collapsing in on itself.
Changbin was right.
Nothing was ever going to be the same.
∞
“Why do you keep praying to me even if it hurts you?” Chan asked as he looked up at Minho. The god blinked a few times as he looked down at his lover, Chan’s eyes brighter than normal as they stared at him.
Somehow Minho knew he wasn’t getting around this question without answering truthfully.
“Because it makes you stronger,” Minho admitted after a while, closing his eyes and leaning back against the willow’s trunk. He was still lethargic, his wounds still having some more days left before they were healed completely over and his powers fully restored. “The stronger you get, the better it will be. I… I don’t know how much time we have before the heavens sends the next god down to test my strength but once they do I want us both to be ready,” he said, allowing the sun to soak into him.
It was almost winter, the valley completely undressed and bare, leaving only the willow to stand in its fully bright green glory among the brown and grays. The sun had been shining brightly and because of that Minho had lured Chan away from his work on fixing the shrine and pulled him down to the willow so they could bask in the last sun before the snow would no doubt come.
With how Chan looked sadder and sadder every morning as he looked out over the shrine there was no doubt that the first snow was rapidly approaching.
“But it hurts you,” Chan said, pressing Minho’s hand against his chest so Minho could feel the beat of Chan’s heart, the very same that was still filling his chest. “I don’t want you to do something painful just because you’re worried,” he added with a sigh, pulling Minho’s hand up and pressing a burning kiss to his palm.
Minho succumbed to the temptation and blinked his eyes open again so he could look down at his precious love.
“It will only hurt for a little while,” Minho said with a smile. The ache of pulling himself out of the earth to make room for Chan was nothing but a small tender ache by now. Soon, as long as he continued, Chan would have a proper place at his altar, both of them sitting side by side like they were meant to. “And it gets easier each day. In no time you’ll be tied to this shrine as well.”
“I still think it’s sacrilegious,” Chan mumbled, his cheeks getting a little pink as he talked about the altar. As it were, not even Chan was immune to getting flustered whenever Minho decided to sit on the altar and gaze down upon him as he prayed, the memories of him taking Minho right there on the most sacred place for a god no doubt still very clear in his mind. “First we… do that on it and then you start praying to me as well even when I’m merely a human,” he added, and Minho couldn’t help but smile wider. “Minho, there has to be boundaries when it comes to this. I mean, you shouldn’t pull yourself down so low just for my sake and-”
In the sun it was easy to forget all the sorrow that would happen soon. After all, Jeongin was still a god, Hyunjin was still alive, the heavens hadn’t fallen from the skies and Chan was by Minho’s side.
Everything was perfect.
“I would never deny you praying to me like that again, on my altar,” Minho interrupted, laughing when Chan huffed, his cheeks getting even redder. “I felt very worshiped,” he added in a lower tone, hand slipping down from Chan’s cheek and to his neck.
“I am not doing that again,” Chan said, shaking his head even if he was smiling brightly. “Not for the next few weeks at least,” he added, closing his eyes and allowing the sun to hit his closed eyes. “I liked it, but it’s… It’s a bit sacrilegious.”
“I will, in that case, pray to the new god of this shrine that you will bless me with more worship on my altar,” Minho quipped, his smile widening when Chan’s eyes shut open again. “I was thinking I could lean over it this time,” he continued thoughtfully, laughing when Chan began to sputter. “It does seem like the right height for you to take me from behind and-”
“You insatiable god!” Chan exclaimed, sitting up so he could glare at Minho. “You’ll never get sated, will you, you silly deity? You’re impossible, but… I love you,” he added, a little serious as he stared at Minho. “I’ve always loved you. I think I might have loved you from before I was born as if the love I have for you was woven into my soul at creation.”
“I love you, too,” Minho said, voice trembling a little at Chan’s sudden sincerity.
He had been saying things like that since Minho had been injured. Constantly confirming his love for Minho, telling him over and over again how much he loved him, how even death couldn't make him stop, almost like he thought-
“Which is why I don't care that it hurts to pray to you at my own shrine,” Minho said, not able to keep the wistfulness out of his voice. “Perhaps once people begin to come up here again in the spring they will pray to you too so we’re both gaining strength as the two gods on the mountain. And I already share my bed with you, my food, my home, and my life. What is an altar compared to that, Chan?”
Chan looked like he wanted to say something, like there was something he hoped and wished to say, but didn’t know how to.
“You’re hopeless,” Chan settled on eventually, but Minho didn’t miss how he was smiling, looking happier than Minho could remember seeing him. “And what do you suppose I should be the god of?”
“Devotion,” Minho said with barely a moment of hesitation. “Or tea,” he added, laughing when Chan rolled his eyes. “You could become the god of many things, Chan, because there’s not a single thing you’ve tried that you have not succeeded at. In truth, I think you can become the god of everything you desire.”
“So the god of devotion sitting side by side with the god of success?” Chan said, a glint in his eyes telling Minho he secretly liked the thought of them sitting side by side, even in something as unlikely as in divinity. “Sounds pretty.”
“Sounds better than the god of war,” Minho said, the bangles around his wrists chiming slightly as he moved. “Success is better than war,” he added, his joy dimming slightly as he stared at the bangles.
They had kept him company for so many years, keeping him tied to the shrine in his exile, mocking him with every step he took and reminding him of the god he once had been - the god who had once thought he possessed the ability to uproot the heavens and rebuilt them in a just and fair image.
That god was no more.
The god of war that had stepped into existence on a battlefield many, many centuries ago had ceased to exist the moment he had reached out and granted a blessing to a starving boy, pretending for a moment to be a harvest god. The god of war who was known as nothing but a greedy and bloodthirsty poor imitation of the god of death had, well, died long before he had broken his exile the first time.
Left behind was only the god of success who had been deceived and fooled into playing a role he was not fit for. A god who had slain a friend and spilled divine blood on sacred ground and had been forced into exile for crimes he committed willingly. A god who had paid his penance, who had taken his punishment, and arose wiser and intent to be better. A god who after years of torment had allowed a mortal into his decrepit shrine and then, inevitably, into his heart as well.
And now there was only Minho and his precious human under the weeping willow.
“Give me your hand,” Chan said, not waiting for Minho to react before he had already taken Minho’s hand in his own, slipping the bangles over Minho’s wrist.
Minho wanted to protest, telling Chan they couldn’t be removed by anyone by Minho, but before he could say anything the first had slid off Minho’s wrist, the others following easily.
“When you’re not the god of war there is no need for you to announce your arrival,” Chan continued, eyes dark and faintly golden as they met Minho’s own surprised ones. “There is no need for you to warn people because there isn’t anything to fear from the god of success.”
Minho could only watch as Chan slipped the bangles of his other hand as well.
“Now your foot,” Chan said, placing the golden bangles next to him. Minho could only obey, carefully unfolding and holding his bare feet out for Chan could slip the bangles of his ankles, the tips of his fingers burning where they touched his skin.
Around them, the willow's weeping branches danced in the wind.
“Chan,” Minho said, a little breathless as he stared at his precious love. “Why?”
“I’ll miss not hearing you approach,” Chan said honestly as he dropped the bangles from around Minho’s ankles onto the pile on the ground, the gold chiming loudly. “But I’ll love for you to stop thinking of yourself as dangerous even more,” Chan said, slipping the last row of bangles over Minho’s foot.
“I feel naked,” Minho said, staring at the pale skin of his wrists. They looked so thin and fragile without the bangles he had been wearing for as long as he could remember. Left behind was only the twine bracelet Chan had braided for him under the willow and gifted Minho so many months ago. “And cold,” he added, blinking as Chan’s hot fingers wrapped around his wrists, covering the earthly twine bracelet from view.
“Then it’s good I’m here to warm you up,” Chan said, pulling Minho’s hands up to place a kiss on the underside of his newly exposed wrists, just under the twine he had tied onto Minho like a string of fate. “You’re not the god of war anymore, Minho, you’re my god, the god of success, a god of wishes and joy, of hard work and sweat and tears, but not of blood,” he added and Minho believed him.
He always believed Chan.
“I love you,” Minho said, staring at Chan, the words so pitifully small compared to the feeling twisting wildly and free in his chest. “You’re so dear to me, Chan.”
“I know,” Chan said with a smile, pressing another kiss to Minho’s wrists. “Now, will I succeed if I ask for a ribbon?” Chan asked, leaning back and picking up all the bangles arranging them into rows of four.
“Well, you have always been blessed,” Minho said around the lump in his throat. He reached out and picked a leaf of the willow and turned it into a long red ribbon that he handed to Chan. “The god of success is on your side,” he reminded him with a soft smile of his own.
“Well, I’m more than just blessed,” Chan said, eyes alight, shining almost like they did in the dreams Minho had of him. “I will need all the success in the world,” he added, smiling as he began to tie all of Minho’s bangles together, creating a long chiming string of gold rings.
“And what do you have planned?” Minho asked, the amusem*nt of his precious love infectious and making his own lips quirk even if his heart was hammering a little hard in his chest. He twisted his hands, feeling odd as there was suddenly no sound to the movement.
“To stay with you forever,” Chan said as he went over and caught Minho’s eyes. “To become a god and right the wrongs of the world, to be what I wished was here in the world. To do it right… this time,” he added, the last words barely a whisper as he continued to tie the golden bangles into a garland of gold and red silk. “And now,” Chan announced, getting to his feet and reaching down to pull Minho up. “Now we tie them to the willow. Another memory of a god who is no more,” he said, eyes gleaming and hints of divine power as Minho could only stare at him.
Chan reached up, pulling at one of the willow’s weeping branches, drawing it down.
“Here,” Chan said, the branch quivering, drawn tight like the string of a bow as he commanded Minho to hold on to it. “Hold it while I tie these to it,” he smiled, fingers making quick work of tying the long and golden chiming string to the branch.
Minho could only do as he was told, once again struck with complete wonder as Chan tied the bangles to the willow, inviting them to hang with the other treasures Jeongin and Jisung had hung there over the years along with the gold chain Chan had tied there right before their first kiss.
“There we go,” Chan said, nimble fingers letting go of the blood-red ribbon. “It is done.”
Minho released his hold of the branch, making the garland chime and sing as the branch snapped back in place, the willow rustling in the wind and shaking all its other trinkets and memories. The bangles simply became another sound to join the soft symphony above Minho’s head.
“Now it is as if you were never the god of war,” Chan said, eyes already on Minho who had already turned his attention away from the gold chiming happily and freely above him to meet Chan’s gaze. “Now there is only my god of success.”
Minho exhaled softly. Left with no word to say, he surged forward and pressed his lips to Chan’s and kissed him, hoping his lips would press all the words he couldn’t say into Chan’s heart.
“Thank you,” Minho breathed, holding Chan impossibly close. “Thank you for finding me, for saving me, for loving me,” he whispered, claiming Chan’s lips again and feeling the echo of Chan's heart beating hard alongside his own in his chest.
“I’m glad I was able to do this,” Chan said, as their lips finally parted. He hid his head in the crock of Minho’s neck, nails digging into the fine silk of Minho’s robes. “To devote my life to you and your shrine has been my biggest honor. I hope it will always stay like this. You shall always be my beloved god,” he said, words sounding almost like a blessing. “May you always be mine.”
Above them, the bangles chimed, nothing but a memory.
It was only hours later, lying in their bed, Chan sleeping softly next to him, that Minho recognized the words from his dream, and remembered he had seen it all before. He stared at the ceiling, Chan’s naked body pressed against his and he began to hope that Chan was right.
That they would never have to be apart.
Because if this dream had been true, well, so could the others.
∞
The first snow came slowly creeping in the night, sneaking into the valley like an unwelcome guest. Softly it covered the mountains, wrapping them in mourning and glittery gemstones. The cold was biting, crisp, and merciless as it crawled over the ground, long claws sinking into the ground and leaving the whole valley petrified in its freezing glory.
It was stunning as the morning sun illuminated it, shining so brightly you would think a god had painted it, that all the heavens' gems had spilled all over, light scattering ethereally and beautifully as Minho stepped out of the house. All Minho could do was stand as frozen as the ground, staring at the snow, his heart breaking in his chest.
“The first snow,” Chan said, voice shaking as he held Minho’s hand, staring at the winter wonderland in horror. “It’s time,” he breathed, tears already flailing from his cheeks.
Minho didn’t say a word, instead, he turned around, his hand slipping from Chan’s warm grip, leaving Chan behind as he changed his robes into ones of pure white instead of getting dressed in hues of green like he usually would.
He didn’t know what to do with himself for the rest of the day. He retreated down to the willow, Chan following him quietly, both of them seeking comfort under the cover of the evergreen branches.
“You wore white the second time I saw you,” Chan said once the sun had reached the apex of the sky. Minho looked away from the mountains and met the familiar brown eyes of his precious love. “Red the first time and white the second,” he added sadly, tugging at the white silk that was embracing Minho.
“Sometimes when I awoke I would change the color of my clothing,” Minho said, heart hurting as he kept his eyes on the bottom of the valley, down to where Hyunjin could be drawing his last breaths as they spoke.
He wondered if he would be able to feel it when Hyunjin died or if he would feel it when Jeongin turned into a demon.
He wondered if it would be a quick fall or a slow descent.
He wondered if…
“The white seemed easier to live on some days than the red… As if I actually mourned the people I killed,” Minho said quietly, accepting Chan’s open arms as he leaned into his precious lover's embrace. “It seemed appropriate, I guess, even though I doubt that I ever spared my victims a sorrowful thought that wasn’t truthfully intended for myself.”
“But you did mourn them,” Chan said carefully, pulling Minho closer into his embrace as if he was afraid to let him go. “You paid your dues and you changed. Now you will help me make sure there will be no one like Hyunjin anymore, that once… once I’m a god, there will be no lonely deities like Jeongin. We will build a whole new heaven if we have to, Minho, but I promise you, you won’t have to lose anyone like this again,” he added, holding Minho so close it was impossible for him to fall apart.
“You can’t promise me that,” Minho said, pressing a kiss to Chan’s pulse point. “And I’ll still miss them,” he whispered, the warmth of Chan the only thing keeping him from drifting away, Chan’s heart keeping his own beating.
“I’ll miss them too,” Chan said, voice wet with tears as they clung to each other. “I’ll miss both of them so much,” he said, voice sounding far away. “But we have to keep moving, Minho. We have to keep walking, have to-”
“You will have to stay alive,” Minho said, not wanting to think about changing the heavens. He knew that Chan wanted more than silence and a seat under the weeping willow next to Minho if he was truly to become a god. Killing one deceitful god had made Chan’s eyes open, made him think and dream of a world without the high council of gods, without the corruption the king had allowed to flourish. Minho could only agree, but they both knew they couldn’t move as long as Chan was human.
“I won’t ever leave you, Minho,” Chan said, voice so brutally honest it was carved into Minho’s heart and branded itself into his very soul. “You’re mine, and mine alone. I’ll be right here next to you for eternity. I thought one life would be enough, but now I know that not even a thousand lifetimes will satisfy me,” he said and Minho pulled back, staring at his precious human.
Chan was beautiful. His wild curls were softer and shining, his skin was smooth and already taking on some of the eternal shine of a god without leaving the flush of mortality behind. His eyes shone like polished gems, gold and amber playing in their depths, hiding just the barest hint of divine light.
He wasn’t quite the god from Minho’s dream, but he wasn’t the mortal Minho had met more than a year ago either.
“And I will never leave you,” Minho said, voice right as he stared at Chan. “Not even death will take you from me. I will battle any god who dares to think they can take you. You belong to me, Chan, you are mine and mine alone,” he promised vehemently.
“Always,” Chan said, eyes bright and filled with that fate-defying stubbornness Minho both loved and hated. “And we will make sure people remember our little fox and his beautiful mortal. I will have the whole world sing of them, tales written about them so no god can escape the unfairness of what they did to them,” he added, voice firm and even if the crushing despair of knowing he was about to lose both Hyunjin and Jeongin to death, Minho couldn't help but smile.
“Changbin will help you,” Minho said, voice thick with the tears he refused to spill before he knew for sure that Hyunjin was gone. “He will surely write it down and share it, keep it in one of his libraries forever,” he added, his chest still tight with grief both soothed from the knowledge that he was not alone.
He would always have Chan.
“He better or I’ll get Yongbok to yell at him,” Chan teased, eyes crinkling adorably and Minho fell a little more in love with him. “Now, let's not mourn preemptively. I will… I’ll go make us some tea. We don’t even know if it is happening today. My odd premonitions aren’t always right, you know.”
“Even if they are not, we both know it has always been a matter of time,” Minho said, reaching out, the movement silent as his bangles chimed above them, the wind tugging at the willow's branches as it danced past them impatiently as ever. “But I’m happy. Happy you decided to ignore me and rebuild my shrine, happy you made a lonely god into a loved one,” he added, smiling wide as Chan’s only response was a burning kiss. “I’m happy.”
“You’re hopeless,” Chan said as he pulled back, shaking his head again, but there was no missing the flush of his cheeks and the happiness in his eyes. “I love you,” he said, again for what had to be the hundredth time.
“And I love you, too,” Minho said, his smile small but genuine as he kissed Chan’s sweet lips again. He swore eternities could pass and he would never tire from their taste. “More than I’ll ever love anything else. You’re my whole world, Chan,” he said, reaching up to hold Chan’s cheek in his palm, heart too big for his chest as Chan leaned into the touch. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“And I you. However, you’ll be my only god,” Chan said with a smile more blinding than the winter sun. “Now, let me go make that tea because you might be an immortal god free of the pains of the world, but I’m getting a little cold,” he grinned as he kissed Minho one last time, detangling himself and getting up.
“I’ll miss you,” Minho pouted, as he looked up at his precious love. “Hurry back,” he added with a smile, his chest feeling a little lighter as he stared at Chan.
He would miss Jeongin, he would miss Hyunjin, but as long as he had Chan he was going to be fine.
“I’m going to make tea and be back in a moment. There is no need for you to look like you’re about to wither away,” Chan scoffed, eyes alight as he pushed the willow branches aside and began to walk up the stairs to the shrine. “Just be a good god and stay put while I’m away,” he added over his shoulder with a laugh and Minho reached out, pulling the willow aside so he could watch his precious love all until he slipped inside the shrine’s walls.
Minho’s smile fell from his lips as he dropped the branches and leaned back against the willow’s trunk.
He breathed in deeply, the crisp winter air filling his lungs as the winter sun caressed his face from above the willow, scattering her light all over him. Clouds were drifting in, dark and threatening as the brisk wind held them up, and Minho wondered if it would storm soon. If the skies needed to weep alongside him as well.
His eyes flickered back to the bottom of the valley, wondering if Jeongin was holding Hyunjin, if he was aware that this would be their last day, that the snow wasn’t just a sign of winter, but nature dressing itself in mourning ahead of losing its god, its wild fox of the forest.
Minho exhaled and settled back against the tree, more happy than ever to have the echo of Chan’s heartbeat thrumming away in his own chest, to know that while things would change for the worse then he and Chan at least had each other. They would keep each other safe, they would-
The sound of porcelain shattering made Minho look up just in time for a clap of thunder to tear its way through the sky from the dark clouds above them. Minho blinked, twisting his head so fast his neck cracked, his eyes on the shrine immediately as he felt the presence of several divine beings appear out of nowhere.
In his chest, Chan’s heart sped up, hammering away in panic inside his ribcage.
Minho was on his feet before he even noticed he had moved, but he barely passed the willow’s weeping branches before he came to a sudden halt.
“Why, hello, old friend.”
The god of thunder stood in front of him, her sharp and intelligent eyes trained on him as if he were nothing but a mere ant under her boot. Najeon smiled at him, pretty like she had always been in her dark gray and gold-lined robes. She looked like a smear of soot against the pure white show, smiling wickedly as her gleaming and almost citrine-yellow eyes burned with hatred and lightning.
“Finally, we meet again,” the god of thunder said, swinging her spear, a woldo, that was terribly familiar in her hands. The crescent-shaped blade shone in the pale winter light and reminded Minho too much of the times he and Najeon had been fighting when Minho was still under the illusion that he alone could reform the heavens. “Long time no see,” she grinned as she swung the blade out, quick as a snake and ready to strike Minho.
For the first time in centuries, Minho was faced with a god equipped with a weapon and a bloodlust that rivaled that of the old god of war.
Before Najeon’s blade cut him, he ducked, drew his own sword, and blocked the strike before it cleaved his head clean off his body.
The two weapons chimed as they collided, the sword quivering under the power of the ancient weapon before it. Minho tried to infuse as much of his own power into the branch-turned-sword as he could, but it was obvious he wasn’t anywhere near healed enough to fight against one of the high gods of the heavens.
“Najeon,” Minho grunted, voice tight as his heart beat almost as fast as Chan’s. His stomach twinged with pain from his still-healing wound and panic tore through him, a mix of his own and also of Chan’s. “Let me guess, Jihwan sends his regards?” Minho tried to mock, his eyes turned to the shrine where he could feel two other gods.
His blood felt like ice in his veins.
Minho needed to get to Chan. He needed-
He barely got to think before Najeon swung the waldo again, aiming for Minho’s sword arm this time, hoping to incapacitate him swiftly. Had it not been for millennia of fighting constantly Minho would have been too slow and have suffered the consequence of his lacking skills, but even with ages of experience, there was no missing that Minho hadn't fought anyone for ages.
Without blinking, Najeon flipped the waldo and sent it whistling right back toward Minho at a terrifying speed, leaving him almost no moment to dodge. He gasped, his heart stuck in his throat when it felt like his arm was burning, a line of fire slipping up his arms, blood staining the pristine snow red as Najeon stepped back with a wild grin.
He glanced down, seeing how the sleeve of his white robe had been sliced open, a long gash making Minho yell in pain. Rivulets of blood ran down his arms and Minho wanted to curse. It wasn’t good for him to be this easily hurt by a divine weapon when he had barely healed from the last attack. He was wasting his powers when he needed to go save Chan.
“Don’t you dare use his name, godkiller,” Najeon said, her knuckles white with his he was holding the huge woldo. “You are not worthy,” she spat at him, swinging the weapon and readying herself for another attack. The blade at the end of the spear gleamed in the pale winter sun.
Minho knew it well and had used to duck under it enough once he got on the old god of mountains’ nerves. To see it now in the hands of another god, someone to whom San would have never gifted it willingly. It had to mean that the heavens had killed him too.
“I see you are still stealing,” Minho said breathlessly, dancing elegantly away from the quick violent slashes and stabs the god of thunder directed at him, blood flying off his arm and making the grip on his sword slippery as he tried to rile Najeon up.
His eyes flickered up to the shrine. It was deadly silent, not a single sound able to be heard from up there, but Chan’s heart was still beating hard in Minho’s chest, so he could only take that as a comfort.
As long as Chan was alive, Minho would fight.
“Hmm, this was a gift,” Najeon grinned, spinning the weapon and allowing the long sword-like spear to sing as it cut through the air, forcing Minho to bend and twist to get away from it. He winced, pain lacing through his stomach from where he had barely healed. More blood gushed from the fresh wound on his arm, dripping down on the already mourning snow.
Panic was flowing through his veins, making his muscles tremble. Had they been just a few days later Minho knew he would have been able to defeat Najeon easily. They had been evenly matched once, but he was stronger than her now, he was sure. Except, it had been mere days since he had almost died.
He was far from strong enough to take on a god of the caliber as Najeon now.
“Stolen, you mean,” Minho corrected, eyes on the long spear and the stone gray tassel that dangled from it. “Because you are not the god of mountains,” he said, using his sword to deflect another ruthless hack aimed at him.
The sword he had created shook under the superior woldo, trembling and threatening to break. Small fissures were traveling through the metal, the blade groaning like weakening wood. Minho willed it to stay together, to withstand the power of a divine weapon. If it broke, it would be over for him and thereby also Chan. He had to get to Chan, he had to save him. He was in this world to protect Chan and make sure nothing bad ever befell and by the heavens, he would make sure that Chan lived forever
Minho looked to the shrine again, the silence almost choking him. There was neither the sound of fighting nor the sound of screaming nor the sound of Chan escaping. Nothing. He regretted ever allowing Chan to leave his side because he should have kept him safe. They should have been safe here, but Seungmin had been right. Minho had underestimated the heavens again.
Even luck was no longer on his side.
Najeon was quick, she always had been, temperamental like her element and she didn’t miss Minho’s momentary distraction. With a yell she flipped the waldo, grabbing it with both hands and aiming it straight for Minho’s heart. He was a beat too slow, his own sword coming up to protect him at an odd angle and Chan’s heartbeat stuttered in his chest and faltered, coming to a sudden halt and then nothing but silence.
Just silence.
For the first time in a year, Minho’s heart was beating in earth-shattering solitude.
Chan was no more.
“CHAN!” Minho screamed, his voice raw and tears already running down his cheeks. He pushed Najeon away, not caring if the blade of the waldo cut into his flesh and more of his blood fell to the ground, mugunghwas shooting from the frozen ground and blooming all around him.
He was blind to the whole world, intent on rushing up to the shrine where Chan had to be because he had to be alive, he couldn’t be gone. It had to be a trick, a mistake. Chan couldn’t- Chan had to be alive, he had to, his heart had to keep beating, he had to be alive. There was no way Chan could be dea-
“CHAN!” He yelled as loud as he could, power rushing from him and he managed to push Najeon away. The god of thunder stumbled and almost lost her footing, glaring hatefully at Minho as he tried to race past her, only the waldo kept her from falling over.
“Oh, so the rumors about you and that little mortal were right?” Najeon noted, swinging the spear around and cutting through the willow's weeping veil. She forced him to step back towards the divine tree. “No one thought the spirits were right when they said you two were more than god and believer. Not even Siwoo and Jihwan, ah, but they will love this,” she crackled, swinging the waldo again, pushing Minho closer to the willow and further away from the shrine.
In his chest, his heart remained alone.
“Siwoo is going to be so happy that his little pestering mortal is finally dead,” Najeon taunted and Minho saw red, slashing out and almost taking Najeon’s eye out as he danced around the waldo, every movement filled with fury.
No one, and especially not someone belonging to the heavens should be allowed to keep on existing if they spoke like that of Chan. She wasn’t worthy of even thinking of him.
“I’ll kill you,” Minho swore, the anger he thought he had left behind in his old life rising up inside his empty chest, seeping into his very being and coloring his vision a fiery red. “I will murder all of you!” He roared in a familiar mad rage.
He could feel it, bubbling under the surface, the madness that had driven him close to becoming a demon once before. It coursed through his veins like poison as he slashed out wildly, his sword colliding with the waldo over and over again, every strike of his sword sending a line of thin fissures down the blade.
Chan’s name was the only thing keeping Minho from slipping, the need to get to him, alive or-
“You can try,” Najeon grinned, seeming more amused than worried about Minho’s attacks. She lifted the spear and twirled it quickly through the air. The huge weapon sang viciously as it cleaved its way through the wind, a crack of thunder rolling over their heads. “You didn’t succeed last time, god of death,” she spat, changing her movement and lunging for Minho faster than a striking lighting.
Minho barely got his sword up, the sky above them rumbling with a brewing storm, the wind picking up and clawing at Minho’s hair, pulling at it as it tore past him. His self-made blade quivered under the enormous power of the god before him as Najeon pulled all her divine energy into the blow, laughing like a maniac when the two blades met halfway.
Clink.
Like splintering wood Minho’s sword broke, lightning tearing its way out of the dark clouds above and hurtling for the willow as the wickedly sharp tip of the spear pierced Minho’s chest and pushed him up against the willow.
The blade easily cut through his ribs, slicing through his lungs and spine as it pinned him to the trunk of the weeping willow. Lightning slammed into him from above, electricity dancing painfully over his skin as the divine tree behind him caught on fire.
“Hah...”
It was poetic in a way that Minho’s longest companion would meet the same fate as him, burning behind him like a funeral pyre, flames licking up around the wood and reaching hungrily for Minho as his heart continued to beat lonely and abandoned in his chest. Perhaps, if fate was gracious, it would break the oath he had made to Chan and kill him now that his precious human was no longer with him.
It was a small mercy, but Minho prayed.
He gasped, blood rushing past his lips soaking into his already stained white robes of mourning and fell to the ground. Mugunghwas shot up from where his divine blood landed, long flowering branches wrapping Minho up like the walls of a tomb.
“Chan,” Minho rasped, blood following the words out of his mouth and down his chin as he stared blindly in front of him. “Chan,” he whispered, blood-drenched fingers trying to remove the spear that had him pinned to the burning willow.
The pain didn’t matter, nothing mattered, because he just needed to get free and then he would be able to find Chan’s lifeless body and lie down next to him and fall asleep. They had promised to not be parted, that even in death they would be together. Minho wanted to sleep, to be with his precious love, his beloved believer. He didn’t care about anything as long as he got to hold Chan one more time, as he got to close his eyes, Chan’s pale lifeless eyes the last thing he would see.
But there was no point in dreaming.
Minho didn't have any more strength, he was pinned to the burning willow, blood rushed out of him as his fingertips grew numb and the word grew quiet. He was done. It was over.
“You always were a show-off.”
Minho’s tearful eyes flickered up to the goddess slowly making her way down to the burning willow, her rose-colored robes stained with blood splatters that made him gag. That wasn’t divine blood, that was the blood of a mortal... from his precious love. Blood filled his throat and made it impossible for Minho to speak, only a painful heartbreaking whine making its way past his lips.
“Now, come on,” Haewon, the god of beauty, said as she came to a halt in front of Minho’s flower-embraced funeral pyre, the god himself pinned to the weeping willow’s trunk. “I do not want to be here any longer than I need to. The setting of this disgraced shrine gives me wrinkles. No wonder no one looked for that puny human here in the first place,” she added with a grimace, wiping her hands on a strikingly familiar piece of light green silk.
Minho screamed, but the sound was drowned by the blood in his lungs, bubbling out of him uselessly as his lungs refused to take in more air, his whole body beginning to falter as his vision grew dimmer. Even the old madness was folding and dying under his pain.
“The stupid mortal attacked us with a hairpin,” Haewon said, dropping the handkerchief on the ground before Minho. It fluttered to the ground, the wind caressing it with mournful love as it ascended and landed by Minho’s feet.
It was Chan’s handkerchief, the one he always carried with him and never parted from.
“Do you think that’s enough to kill him?” Najeon asked, wiping blood off her own face with her hand. Minho hadn’t noticed in his fury, but her body was covered with small cuts, the largest of which was trailing from her eyebrow and down over her cheek. “Jihwan told us to keep him alive and I’d rather not get in trouble for taking out his lovely pawn.”
“Who cares? The human is gone now,” Haewan scoffed, looking at Minho like he was something dirty on her shoes. The fire flickering around Minho cast her normally pretty face into one of a devil. “What does he have left?” She asked, taking a step and disappearing into nothing, returning to the heavens as if she hadn’t just torn Minho’s world to shreds.
“You should have accepted Jihwan when he offered his favor,” Najeon said, her smile wicked in the light of the burning willow. “But you always were a fool, Minho. Rest assured that your sole believer suffered as he died,” she grinned, disappearing into the darkness falling around them.
“Chan,” Minho managed to say, more blood ebbing out of him as he stared at the green handkerchief on the ground. “Chan, please…” he begged, chest empty and pierced by the old god of mountains’ favored weapon as he stared at the one thing he knew Chan would never have let go of willingly.
If the emptiness in his chest wasn’t to be believed then this was. Chan was gone, dead, killed by the very gods he wanted to punish for their crimes and Minho hadn’t been there, he hadn’t been able to protect his precious love and now he was gone and he was never coming back.
Minho was alone again.
Tears tumbled down Minho’s cheeks as he screamed, the last air in his lungs tearing itself loose with his grief, the sound ripping through the valley as the storm continued above him. In his chest, his heart beat slowly in solitary silence.
“Chan...”
And there, under the burning weeping willow, the god of success wept for the man who would no longer walk the earth, for his sole believer and the love of his long pitiful life. The wind howled with him as the valley remained as quiet as the fallen god’s chest.
The god under the weeping willow was once again alone.
