“Jackson, please calm down.” Henry sighs as he watches the bassist jiggle his knees up and down, constantly glancing at the clock impatiently. From across Jackson, lead guitarist Jung Joonyoung is miserably sipping coffee, visible bags under his eyes. Jackson continues to jiggle his knees.

“What happened to you?” Henry nods to Joonyoung who only blinks at him, continuing to sip his coffee.

“Hangover.” Joonyoung grumbles.

Well, that explains it.

Jackson finally stops jiggling his knees when the door opens and the band manager comes in with the new member in tow. She’s wearing a black baggy shirt and skinny jeans, platinum blonde hair peeking out of her backwards cap. Jackson stands up immediately, grinning widely and Henry swears if he has a tail, it would be wagging excitedly.

Amber looks a bit surprised by Jackson; and Kenzie, the manager, chuckled, patting Jackson on the chest.

“Amber, this is Jackson. Bassist.” Jackson waves, still sporting that wide, borderline creepy grin. Henry snorts.

“This is Henry, frontman and rhythm.” Henry meets her eyes for the first time. She doesn’t look as much as a boy in person than she was in the video. She’s certainly has a masculine air around her and she carries it well. However, she also seems to carry a certain kind of gentleness and fragility. It’s interesting, he thinks. She’s handsome...but pretty. Very pretty. But don’t tell his mother he said that. He’s not suicidal, you know. He wouldn’t dare to say that he finds someone else pretty in front of the Goddess of Love and Beauty. However, he had to break their gaze when something caught his eye. There, at Jackson’s hip, is a small silver arrow and he knows exactly who it belongs to. Goddammit. He’s gonna have to have a good talk with his mother.

“And last but definitely not the least, Joonyoung. Lead guitarist.” Kenzie subtly kicks Joonyoung’s sneakers to keep him from nodding off, cocking his head towards Amber’s direction and waits for his response.

Barely opening his eyes, Joonyoung looks up to the new member and nods in approval. “Welcome to the band.”

Amber looks at Kenzie with a worried expression.

“Don’t worry about him,” Henry intercepts, taking a step forward. Jackson does the same, trying his best to get between him and Kenzie. “He’s just hungover. He’s weirder when he’s sober.”

Amber chuckles, nodding. “Thank you for picking me, by the way. I’ve always been a huge fan.”

“You were really good!” Jackson exclaims. “Henry and I stopped watching after your audition video. Right, Henry?”

Henry’s gaze is fixed on the arrow at Jackson’s hip, knowing very well that he can’t pull it out because he’s not the one who shot it. What the hell was his mother thinking?

“Henry?”

He feels Jackson’s elbow on his side and he snaps out of his thoughts, looking up and seeing Amber’s expectant face, a hint of blush on her cheeks.

“Oh, yeah. You’re really good. I really liked your audition.”

“Thank you.” Amber grins.

“Well, come on now, kids,” Kenzie says, ushering Amber out of the waiting room. “We have schedules and that Valentine’s Day concert to talk about.”

“Valentine’s Day? But it’s August.” Amber asks, confused, looking back at the other members walking behind them.

“The V-Day concert is always our biggest event every year.” Henry grins and Jackson nods besides him. Joonyoung leans on Jackson to prevent himself from falling. “We have to be extra prepared.”

The Valentine’s Day concert is very important to Henry. Of course it is. He is the God of Love, after all. He just doesn’t understand why they named the day after a saint when he exists. It should be named after him! After all, they all have him as a symbol of love (albeit, in a very embarrassing baby version of himself).

“You’ve never been to our Valentine concerts before?” Jackson asks just as Kenzie opens the door to the conference room.

Amber blushes faintly, shaking her head. Kenzie leads her to her seat just across Henry’s.

“But I’ve been to your other shows, though.” She mumbles.

Joonyoung, more awake now, smirks as he takes the seat next to Henry. “No boyfriend?”

Amber looks directly at Joonyoung. “Don’t need one.” She deadpans.

Henry snorts at Joonyoung’s embarrassed cough who’s trying his best not to look at her directly. It’s always a delight to watch him suffer.

“So,” Jackson starts, leaning over to Amber’s seat. “You’re single, then?”

The arrow on his hip catches light and Henry glared at it and at the person it’s attached to before grabbing Joonyoung’s Starbucks to-go-cup and throwing the lid at Jackson.
 

Henry closes the door behind him with a thud, sighing as he throws his keys to the couch and trudging over to the huge painting on the wall - The Birth of Venus.

“Mother, we need to talk.” He says to the painting. There’s no answer. “Mother.”

Soon enough, the Venus on the painting started blinking, smiling as her gaze focuses on Henry. It was his mother’s idea to have this as a way to communicate and of course she chooses the most famous painting of hers in the most obnoxious size. The painting practically covers an entire wall.

“Ah, Eros, my beloved child.” She greets, smiling. Henry rolls his eyes. “I thought you have forgotten about your mother.”

“What were you doing?” Henry immediately asks. There’s no point in dragging it out. Otherwise, his mother would find a way to avoid the subject. She’s always been very good at that.

“What?” Qian blinks innocently.

“I wanna talk to you face to face.”

Qian sighs. “Fine.”

The painting stays still for a minute, Venus back to being a mix of paint on canvas before a hand emerges from it. Followed by another one, grabbing on to Henry’s shoulder as a pair of legs comes out one after another, a torso, and finally, the head, revealing the Goddess of Love herself.

She smiles and gives him a hug.

Henry glares at her. “You shot Jackson with an arrow.”

Qian giggles, unaware of her son’s rising temper. “Oh that. You noticed? Funny, isn’t it?”

“How could I not notice it? You used my arrow!”

Qian pouts and points a finger at him. “Hey, I’m doing your job for you! Be thankful.”

“It’s not that I’m ungrateful,” Henry sighs. “I just don’t want the band to get into trouble. You already cost me a drummer when you made Brad fall in love and move to London. I don’t want it happening again.”

“Lighten up, it’s just a temporary love arrow. It’ll be gone in a week.” Qian tsks.

“Mom, the girl is new. She’s probably freaked out by Jackson and I don’t want her to back out.” Henry matches his mother’s pout. “She’s really good and I need this job in case Siwon won’t forgive me.” He adds in a bit of puppy dog eyes. Qian scoffs, arms across her chest.

“Fine.”

Henry grins. “Thank you.”

Qian squints at him, mumbling. “If you weren’t my favorite child…”

“I’m your only child.”

“Which is why you’re my favorite.”

Qian faces the painting again, clapping twice and the painting changes into Jackson’s room where he’s already sound asleep on his bed. The silver arrow glistens in the moonlight. Henry glares at it. He enters the painting and into Jackson’s room, Qian following behind, scowling. She scrunches her nose at Jackson’s snores.

“Let’s get this over with.” She mumbles. She sighs as she leans over, quickly pulling the arrow from his hip. Henry winces as Jackson jerks in his sleep. He waits to see if Jackson would wake up but he stays asleep, mumbling something incoherent into his pillow. Qian rolls her eyes before stepping out of the room, waiting for Henry to get out before clapping twice again to change it back to the original painting.

“Happy?” Qian scowls, handing the arrow to Henry.

“Yes. Thank you.” Henry grins, grabbing her shoulders for a hug, batting his eyelashes. Qian sighs and pats his cheek.

“Siwon’s not gonna be mad forever.” She says. “I bet Seohyun already forgot about the whole incident. You know her, she’s always got a lot of things going on in that brain of hers.”

“I know.”

“Are you taking care of your wings?”

Henry looks up from her shoulder, chuckling. “Yes, mom.”

“Bring them out and let me see.”

Henry steps back and takes his shirt off and makes his wings appear, stretching it out with a sigh.

Qian smiles and points to the floor. “Sit.”

Henry smiles and sits on the floor, legs crossed comfortably. Qian sits behind him, straightening up his shoulder before inspecting the golden wings in front of her, looking out for wounds or falling feathers. When he was younger, he used to injure his wings a lot. Mostly by playing with Mark and Hyoyeon. Hyoyeon’s good at hunting and always makes him and Mark be the look out for beasts. He’d always get in trouble with his mother for it.

“Remember when you used to do this all the time when I was a kid?” Henry says, still smiling.

Qian chuckles, running her hand thriugh the feathers of his wings. “You only got to be a kid for a week before you had a growth spurt.”

Henry laughs. “I always end up falling asleep.”

They both share another chuckle before falling into a comfortable silence with Qian still inspecting every nook and cranny of Henry’s wings and him enjoying his mother taking care of him. It has been five years.

“Okay, you’re good.” Qian smiles as she pats his shoulders and straightens herself up, giving one last look at her son’s wings.

“Thanks, mom.” Henry grins, stepping into his mother’s arms to give her a hug. Qian chuckles and hugs back, mindful of his wings.

“I promise you’ll be able to come home soon, okay?”

Henry nods, head still buried on Qian’s shoulder. “Okay.”

Qian pats his arms to release her and Henry obliges, letting her go and leading her back to the painting. He waves goodbye and watches as she slowly disappears, until the painting stood still again. Henry sighs and changes into a pajama bottom, leaving his wings on and heads to bed.

He tucks himself in his wings and falls asleep humming his mother’s lullaby.

God/Goddess introduced in this chapter:

Artemis (Goddess of hunting and being a ) - Hyoyeon