by Con Template
His bittersweet smile was confirmation that she used the right term. “That was when I realized that this was the debt all ‘Gods’ must pay. The longer you live your life being above human, the more you become numb to the simple human emotions that make life—life. I had a deteriorating soul, and all I had left was my ruthlessness and greed. The only love in my life was power. That was all I woke up for. It was all I lived for.”
The melancholic hue in his eyes gradually dissipated. Happiness began to illume in his once dim gaze.
“Then Choi Yoori came and changed everything. Like a fallen angel, she turned my world upside down. In the beginning, she amused me because there was something about her feisty personality that intrigued me. It was fascinating how she always managed to put me in my place—how I always seem to let her. Not long after, she started to make me happy—really happy. She’s such a strange and dorky girl, but everything she does has me eating from the palms of her hands. I’d never felt that way about any other woman.” He let out a reminiscent sigh. “Then I started to realize that I was smiling more as I went to sleep, smiling more as I woke up, and smiling more because of her simple existence. It wasn’t until I brought her to the lake house that I realized how I had changed. It wasn’t until I kissed her that night that I truly felt human again.”
“You felt alive again,” Soo Jin provided instinctively. It was terrifying how much she related to what he was saying.
He smiled, his eyes holding hers.
Seconds later, with no preface to what he was about to do, he snaked an arm around her hip and melded their bodies close together. His eyes searched hers with yearning.
“I can’t wait anymore,” he told her gently, gazing at her like she was a gift he waited his whole life to unwrap.
The last of his control deteriorated as he held her to him. She could feel the tensing of his muscles and the growing heat from his body. He was ready to take her, to make her his.
Pressing his forehead against hers, Tae Hyun managed to exert one last shred of control before it began to dwindle from him.
“I won’t be a mistake on your part.” Conviction pulsated in his declaration. “I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do. I won’t force myself on you.” His gaze never wavered from hers as he spoke, and neither did Soo Jin’s. She was mesmerized by him and wanted everything he could offer her. She no longer wanted to be logical. Not right now, not when she wanted him this much.
“So right here, right now, I’m giving you your chance,” he said with effort, every part of his body telling her that he didn’t want to let her go. “Tell me you don’t want this. Tell me to leave you. Tell me you don’t want me—that you never want to be with me, and I’ll walk away. I will never bring you to my bed, I will never touch you, and I will never chase after you again. Just say the words. Say it and I’ll go.”
Soo Jin parted her lips to vocalize those damning words. Her mouth was open, but none of those words came out. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his neck and did something she knew she would regret: she kissed him.
She pressed her lips against his and felt the world recede around her. No circumstances mattered but her kiss with him. No problem was big enough that they couldn’t overcome. Nothing else mattered but this perfect moment.
She kissed her denial into his gorgeous lips, kissed her heart into his, and kissed what was left of her soul into his.
“I love you.”
Her words caused every muscle and nerve in Tae Hyun’s body to freeze up. He pulled his lips from hers. Staring at her with shell-shocked eyes, a myriad of pain, love, and desperation clutched him while he touched her face. His eyes lit up with hope as he tried to decipher whether she actually said those three words. When he concluded that she did voice those beautiful words, the hope and joy in his eyes grew brighter.
“Yoori . . .” he whispered.
The world stopped for Soo Jin.
Akin to being splashed with ice-cold water, Soo Jin felt her logicality return. An ache unlike anything she had ever experienced sliced into her heart, slaughtering any trace of ecstasy she felt seconds prior. Devastated, she pulled away from him and physically trembled from the onslaught of sorrow that consumed her.
Yoori.
He was calling her Yoori.
“I’ll never love Soo Jin . . .”
His previous words echoed in her mind, stabbing into her like scalding knives. An excruciating truth hit her.
He would never love her. He would never love Soo Jin.
It would always be Yoori. It would only ever be Yoori.
“Get off me.”
Panic enflamed his eyes. He could see that she was putting her walls up again. He knew that this time, if he did not stop her in time, it would be a hundred times harder to break those walls down.
“Yoori,” he pleaded. “Please don’t leave—”
“Get off me! Get off me!” she bellowed, using all her strength to push him off the bed. Adrenaline and torment pumped through her as she jumped off the mattress, grabbed his car keys, and bolted for the door. Her bare feet ran across the surface of the glass stairs with unmatched speed.
“Yoori!” Tae Hyun shouted, desperately chasing after her.
“Stop calling me that!” she screamed over her shoulder, running so fast that Tae Hyun was unable to catch up. She threw herself into his car and locked it before he was able to open the door. Soo Jin backed out of the driveway while Tae Hyun urgently pounded on the window. As he pleaded for her to stay, she put the car on drive and without another wasted second, drove off into the night.
“Yoori!”
She heard Tae Hyun scream for her, but she did not turn back. She did not so much as look at the rearview mirror because she knew she would see him running after her—or more precisely, running after Yoori. Determined to not allow him to catch up, she floored the gas pedal, and just like that, Soo Jin was gone. She was off in her own world of agony, off in her own world of misery.
Yoori, she thought with immense anguish.
She could not stop thinking about Yoori and Tae Hyun as she drove back home. She could not stop the heartache as she relived her misery.
All he would ever see is Yoori . . .
“Ahhhhhhhh!” she screamed hours later in her living room, destroying everything in sight. An uncontrollable firestorm raged through her, blinding her rationale and rendering her unable to do anything but destroy everything in her path.
Unfortunately for Soo Jin, every decimated object acted as reinforcement to a reality she could no longer deny.
“I love you . . .”
She couldn’t deny it any longer.
Yoori and her . . .
Yoori and—Oh God, no!
Boom!
Lamps were strewn across the room, sofas were thrown upside down, and chairs were broken apart. Anything and everything that stood in her way was destroyed, yet she felt no satisfaction. She breathed unevenly in the darkness, briefly quelling the monster inside her. As she ran her fingers through her hair, she recalled something that had yet to be destroyed—something that needed to be destroyed.
Her eyes fixated on the hall with a feral light. Resolute on destroying this item, she stormed into her dark bedroom, extracted the black hoodie from the closet drawer, and ran back outside.
No more temptation . . .
Before she could process her decision, she let out another grating scream and hurled the hoodie in the fire.
Whoosh!
The moment the open flame devoured the black fabric, she felt her heart and soul rip apart. Unable to withstand the mind-numbing pain, she collapsed onto her knees and watched the fabric that once held her memories, her tears, and her dreams burn.
She breathed quietly, clenching and unclenching her injured knuckles. They bled from the damage she inflicted onto her estate. As Tae Hyun’s jacket burned before her eyes, all she could think about was reaching her hand into the fire. She was tempted to grab hold of the hoodie so she cou
ld save it—so she could save her dreams. But she held still, forcing herself to fight the temptation that destroyed Gods, the temptation that enticed her to reach her hand into the fire, the temptation to finally become human and live again.
She allowed Tae Hyun’s hoodie to burn to ashes, for she had made her final decision. There would be no more temptations for her. There would be no more weakness. There would be no more tempting of the Gods.
There would be no more Kwon Tae Hyun.
“Welcome, Paris . . . to my Underworld.”
19: The Temptation of Gods
Numb.
Numbness was all Soo Jin felt for the days following her altercation with Tae Hyun.
She felt numb, but the best part was that she didn’t feel the pain. Just like a God, her human emotions were draining out of her and fading from existence.
Grateful for this small mercy (and desperate for some private time to herself), she decided to brave the unforgiving weather and explore the world outside. She smiled to herself as she walked in silence, thinking of the day when she would never feel anything again. She imagined how great that day would be because it would mean that she was finally invincible, that she was finally a God amongst humans.
What a liberating day that would be.
Snow crunched beneath her black boots as she strolled through the snow-covered streets. With her long black trench coat swaying in the wind, Soo Jin did as every Underworld soldier once did whenever they were about to go to war. Twenty-four hours before her life changed, she decided to journey into the world outside her estate to compartmentalize her emotions. She wanted to clear her thoughts and prepare herself for the war to come.
She walked through bustling, congested sidewalks before taking a lesser-used path into a park that was lined with balding winter trees. Although the journey was aimless at best, it offered a serenity that she would have never been able to find at her estate. The unbearable frigid weather demanded that people stayed indoors, thereby meaning that she was gifted with the opportunity to enjoy the world alone.
Her exploration around her beloved city was simply an aimless walk . . . until everything started to look all too familiar to her eyes.
Soo Jin came to a brief pause and surveyed the landscape ahead of her.
How she managed to saunter into the familiar playground and lock her eyes with a swing that was swaying listlessly, she didn’t know. How she found herself walking through a row of benches that she once sat on, she wasn’t sure. How she was walking on the familiar trail that breathed dreamlike memories into her, she wasn’t certain. All she knew was that it took all her strength to not look at the swings that Yoori once sat on with her boyfriend. It took all her will to not stare at the bench where Yoori stole a kiss from her boyfriend, and it took every ounce of her control to not recall how Yoori was given a piggyback ride by her boyfriend on this very trail.
Soo Jin continued to navigate through the cold, windy night.
She did not miss the trail of footsteps that marked itself into the snow, leading her down a path that was all too memorable to her.
Voices from a distant past infiltrated her reality, and she wondered if she could survive them . . .
"Tae Hyun, this better be good." She ducked her head when she was near a tree branch. "Where are we going?"
"Choi Yoori, can you exercise a little patience?” Tae Hyun whispered before picking up speed. There was no doubt he was excited. “What fun would it be to tell you now?"
A disturbing paranoia invaded her mind when he jumped over a log. "Oh my God, you're not going to kill me for punishing you this week, are you? Is that what you meant by taking my breath away?"
Tae Hyun snorted at her unreasonable question. "Yes. I spent the entire week being obedient, nearly breaking my back to give you your stupid piggyback rides to throw it all away by killing you at the end of the week."
She frowned. "Your sarcasm is not appreciated."
"Nor is your stubborn heart," he whispered, stepping onto broken tree branches.
"And what do you mean nearly breaking your back?" she asked, not hearing what he just whispered. "Are you insinuating that I'm fat?" Before even giving him a chance to answer, Yoori already said, "For your information, I'm not fat. I'm deliciously plump."
"I swear, I'm going to spank some sense into that deliciously plump little butt of yours if you don't stop assuming that I think you're fat."
He held on to her more tightly just when he jumped over a pair of twin bushes.
She gaped. "You wouldn't dare spank me!"
"Dare me to do it. I dare you."
"How dare you dare me to dare you? What kinda assistant are you?"
A smug look embellished his face. "One who, at the stroke of midnight, will turn back into your boss."
Yoori laughed at his clever response. She played along. "Oooh, you're just a modern day fairytale pumpkin, aren't you?"
"A deliciously plump pumpkin," Tae Hyun corrected lightheartedly. "You got that, my deliciously plump Cinderella?"
"I prefer Princess," Yoori mischievously corrected . . .
The voices stopped when she entered the secret garden to which Yoori’s boyfriend once took her. The exquisiteness of the garden caressed her eyes.
The sight was still so breathtaking.
Blue Christmas lights still embellished every corner of the garden and the Winter Wonderland here glowed just as exquisitely as the night it was first introduced to her. To her pleasant surprise, the white bridge had also been rebuilt during her absence. The bridge hovered above the frozen lake, looking so magical that it caused Soo Jin’s heart to skip a beat.
Lost in a dreamlike stupor, she walked onto the bridge, her boots stepping in the snow that adorned the foundation. Her fingers moved over the blue icicle lights that embroidered the bridge, and instinctively, she sat down with her legs suspended off the edge.
An icy breeze tousled her hair about, keeping her company as she quietly stared at the frozen lake. The splendor of the blue decorative lights and the calm snow brought her peace. A multitude of thoughts rushed to get through her mind, creating something alike to a traffic jam. Nothing but jumbled sounds came out from her mind. For this, Soo Jin was relieved because she no longer wanted to be consumed with any thoughts. All she wanted was to be a soul with no emotions—a soul that was better than human. All she wanted was to be a God.
Then, as the tranquility lingered around her, a sound ruptured the silence.
Creak.
Soo Jin averted her attention to the sound. When she saw who had joined her, she froze in her seat.
A handsome face stared back at her, nearly taking her breath away as he stood in the middle of the falling snow.
Kwon Tae Hyun.
The images of the swing swaying back and forth, the imprint of a body laying across the bench, and the footprints in the snow told her that he was here before her—that he came here long before she did.
She smirked to herself.
Of course the irony of her life would lead him here.
She paused briefly.
Was it irony, or did she subconsciously come here because she knew he would be here? There was no time to get her question answered, as Tae Hyun chose that moment to sit down beside her.
“By the way,” he uttered after situating himself in the seat, “I’m not stalking you. I’ve been here for a while.”
Soo Jin nodded, aware that it was a coincidence that they wound up here. She breathed peacefully, too numb to exert any open hatred for him. She no longer felt the need to push him away because she had already made a resolution to herself—she had already promised herself that she would never let him affect her again. Considering that their battle was a mere day away, she was certain she could keep her promise to herself.
“I love you.”
The words that she said to him replayed in her mind. It was three simple but powerful words that made her grasp the reality of her situation and made her realize what a fool she had
been. Looking back, Soo Jin saw now how careless she was to continuously allow Kwon Tae Hyun to come near her, to continuously allow him to tempt her. She knew all along that he was her epic match. He was the only man who could sway her conviction and the only man who could be her downfall. It was unquestionably reckless of Soo Jin to give him so much power over her, but the mistakes of her past were no longer relevant because she had already made her decision. After she voiced those three words, an inescapable truth presided over her. It was a cold, hard truth that she could no longer avoid. There was nothing more to say, nothing more to prove. She not only knew the truth about herself, but she also knew who she really was. In addition to that, she was also aware of what she had to do twenty-four hours from now. Her decision was set, and nothing could change her mind.
Perhaps it was for poetic reasons, or maybe it was because being around him always had a warming effect on her, but she no longer had a problem with being in his presence. She welcomed his company as they sat there, both quiet, with their legs hanging listlessly off the bridge.
Silence was all that accompanied them until she said, “Being here . . . is really strange for me.”
He was quiet for a longer moment before saying, “I’ve missed you.”
Right to the point—that was always Kwon Tae Hyun’s style.
Something leapt in her numb heart. She wasn’t sure if it was real or if it was purely her imagination. It astounded her that after days of numbness, all it took was a simple statement from him to rouse her senses back to life.
“I need you,” he went on, pouring his heart out to her. Anguish pulsed in his quiet voice. His cold hand intertwined with hers. The flash of cold from the touch was gradually replaced with warmth. As he interlaced their fingers together, she finally took her eyes off the lake.
Soo Jin was quiet, attentive as her emotionless face appraised his wounded one. There were dark circles under his eyes that indicated that he had not gotten enough—if any—sleep. He looked pale, like he had the blood drained out of him. He looked like he had lost weight, and most importantly, he looked like he was in tremendous pain. Pity overcame Soo Jin as she examined his current state. She wondered why it was taking so long for him to acknowledge how much better it was to be a God rather than a human in this world.