A/N: Im sorry nico. Pls enjoy the chapter.

The Ivy Moon

In this endless cycle of life, death

And maybe even rebirths,

Time stops for no entity

And life continues

Despite all your losses and gains

Keep sight of yourself despite all pains

To keep moving ahead

The waves crashed violently against the shore, the tide of the sea having risen to the peak as the glow of the cold light of the moon tried to scald anyone that dared stand underneath it to peak at the rare crimson moon. The sight lamented in language of tragedy and anger accompanied by intervening sequences of loneliness and grief.

And the same was mirrored in the eyes of the Lunar Deity as he stared unblinkingly at the grave of Do Kyungsoo, his friend and his lover, whom he had found after so many decades and centuries. Laid cold and unmoving, buried underneath the very ground he stood on.

He wanted to cry; but even tears failed to console his endless grief and he ended up falling into a downward spiral of thoughts that began and ended at regret and he found himself lost, unable to function as his own thoughts chased him everywhere he tried to escape during the day and haunted his nights by consuming his dreams and turning them into nightmares.

And in middle of this chaos, he even forgot to cry.

He watched with a detached sense of envy as a woman and a man shed tears like a waterfall by the grave. He spied from afar not wanting to interrupt their grieving for Kyungsoo.

He didn’t feel like facing Kyungsoo today. With a parting glance he turned away from the scene only to meet with a sight of the Sea God shooting him pitying looks.

Turning the other way, he tried to walk deeper into the forest. He didn’t want to deal with anything tonight. He just wanted to grieve for Kyungsoo all by himself.

“So your love went only so far that you won’t even say goodbye to your lover?” Suho taunted his defeated back.

“I thought Love made people brave but all I see,” Kai heard the smirk in that pause,  “-are cowards around me, well atleast Kyungsoo was brave enough-” Suho’s monologue was cut off mid sentence by the dangerous swoosh of Kai’s hunting staff, that went sailing past his ear, lodging in the bark of tree closest to him.

“Were you a little more courageous, you would have surely had my head as a reward to quench your thirst for blood.” The moment he completed that sentence, Kai had already summoned his hunting staff lodged in the tree and aimed the blade right at his heart, eyes filled with streaks of blood and his pupils dilated looking like a bloodthirsty predator desperately trying to pin down his prey.

Suho merely sidestepped that, anticipating his movements, not moving to summon any weapon of his own. But before he could relish in the satisfaction of escaping one attack, Kai was making another series of attacks all of which were laced with the intent to kill.

The speed with which Kai was moving made it seem like he was at multiple places at once. And honestly he was no match for the hunting god Kai when he decided to unleash that form.

But this was no skilled hunter, neither a strong predator but simply a declawed, howling beast that had already forgotten it’s own name or the reason he was fighting for. It was like an empty being that only knew one thing; to kill. And in this state he could easily injure Kai if he wanted to because this beast cared not about the methods it undertook to fulfill its bloody desires nor it cared about its own body that housed the very monstrosity.

A barrage of attacks were rained down sloppily at him, all of them lacking the skilled maneuver of a hunter,only overly compensated by the killer intent. And that was the only reason he narrowly dodged these attacks because the intent made it sure that he would get sent to the underworld the moment they hit.

The hunting staff sent humans right away to hell but to a God, it was more like an order of punishment. It was what gave Kai the authority to banish any other God to the underworld. Each god had their own way of dealing out punishments.

Kai’s cold unforgiving eyes were more like a punishment than any banishment he could ever hand out. It crushed his very existence to see those empty eyes echo the same loneliness he had experienced and same longing that had consumed his soul but the knowledge that this longing was for another, it pierced his chest devastatingly slow, all the way across leaving painful bursts of sorrow in its wake, even as he continued to dodge Kai.

Suho’s entire being felt the tide of the sea recede away from the cliff and it left a hollow space in his heart to know how sensitive the sea was to his ups and downs.

 He defenselessly continued to evade Kai’s attacks which missed him narrowly each time. Kai aimed for his guts next which he avoided by ducking underneath the staff that went above his head and entrapping Kai’s foot so he fell down.

Instead Kai read his leg movements and entrapped him, making him stumble down.

He evaded Kai’s lethal attack from behind but in no time he was already in the air, twirling his long staff and pinning him down to the ground by his robes as he straddled his torso, leaving him complete deadlock.

There was no way to escape this time, Suho’s sad eyes watched the rise of the pointed end of the staff looking utterly defeated and destroyed, yet maintaining a vacant visage.

“Your eyes could compare to Krystal’s wrath at the moment.” The Protector of the Moon got angrier and brought down the staff with even more force as Suho closed his eyes in defeated acceptance.

The sea below retreated away to dangerous lengths despite the moon; a calm before the storm.

When Suho felt nothing sharp piercing his body, he turned slightly to peak at Kai. His entire form was trembling above Suho and as much as he wanted to comfort him, he couldn’t bring himself to. Who knows? This time he might actually make a hole in his heart if he made even a small attempt.

“Why. Won’t. You. Fight?!” Kai screamed the last word abruptly in a hoarse voice. “Why won’t summon your trident? Why? That scream resonated within his entire body and Suho felt it too. Using the support of his weapon, Kai got up to leave.

“I could ask you the same, why didn’t you banish me?” When Kai tried to retreat into darkness silently, without acknowledging him with a response, the tide of desperation within him only got higher.

The sea continue to crash against the cliff getting higher as if it were reaching out to the raging moon

“Do you really think I can hurt the only person I have ever loved?” With a searing look on his face, Kai whipped around to face him. As an Immortal If Suho ever felt the pain of death, it was at this moment. It was the look that Kai was giving him.

‘No wonder humans are so afraid of death. This pain is indeed indescribable’ Suho mused as Kai’s eyes screamed at him to vaporise that very second, the irises seemed to be flaring up with dark, engulfing flames that swallowed everything within its range,  the power his seething gaze held in that brief moment

“So you are basically confessing that you got rid of Kyungsoo so that you could have me? Is that what it was?” Suho’s brow furrowed, Kai shouldn’t have any knowledge about his lil’ contact with Kyungsoo. This certainly foiled his well crafted plans.

“No-” Suho began but faltered at the raise of eyebrows Kai gave him. But tonight he wasn’t going hesitate anymore.”-It wasn’t that at all, not even in the slightest actually.”

Kai snorted, “Is that the lie you have been telling yourself?” He turned around to face him properly.  “I wouldn’t be surprised at all.”

Suho had a small rueful smile on his face now, as he broke his eye contact with Kai. “No I was trying to stop you from making the same mistake as Krystal’s sister Jessica.” The Moon God’s eyes widened a little but it was gone so fast that if Suho wasn’t aware he wouldn’t have noticed it.

“Don’t talk as if you know something!” He brandished his Hunting staff threateningly in Suho’s direction. “That matter was closed, the moment I chose to banish her in front of the Divine Assembly. This has nothing to do with her!” He was borderline shouting but Suho was not bothered in the least.

The God of Sea moved in Kai’s direction, not fearing his staff at all. “You might have convinced that assembly, that you chose to banish Jessica for such a pathetic reason like attacking you, but you did not even once manage to fool these eyes of mine!.” Kai’s eyebrows furrowed in a quiet display of anger.

“Oh, and what did your eyes actually manage to see?” he taunted Suho because he had enough of someone claiming to know his life better than him.

Suho caught hold of the hunting staff, holding it away from their bodies, effectively blocking it’s direct movement but at the same time giving Kai the option of retreating or defending himself. And with that he stared straight into his dark eyes.

“I saw the pain in your eyes when everyone else only felt the pain inflicted by your words, including Krystal.”

Kai was a bit shaken by how close Suho had gotten and how he couldn’t bring himself to attack him again despite the close range. “Pain? Well, of course Jessica attacked me out of nowhere with all the intentions of exiling me. I was only protecting myself.”

“You banished her for such a lame reason, it was for Krystal wasn’t it?” Suho only iterated quietly but Kai’s face exploded with a spectrum of emotions.

Kai grabbed Suho’s robes in a fit of apoplexy, “What part of that decision, seems like it was meant for Krystal huh? The waves of anger were rolling off him but Suho ordained himself to be calm.

“Cover it up all you can, but didn’t you banish Jessica so that she wouldn't be punished by the assembly by being sent to the mortal world?.” Kai’s grip tightened dangerously. “Wasn’t she going to expose her sin of falling for a mortal so that she would be sent to the mortal world of humans and in doing so, she would die just like her lover did?”

Kai snarled at him to shut him up, “I did no such thing!.”

But Suho continued like he hadn’t heard, “And by banishing her for attacking you with her poisoned arrows, she was only sent to the Underworld instead of the mortal world like she had originally planned so that once her sentence was over she would be reunited with her sister.”

Suho looked at Kai, his gaze soft and worried, as he watched him tremble all over even as he tried to hold on to Suho in a choking grip, gritting his teeth in an effort to stop the tears that Suho was sure were welling up inside him.

These little details, he always noticed. Ever since he saw the contrast between his actions and the look in his eyes during that Assembly, he couldn’t get him out of his head.

“By doing this, didn’t you try to protect what was precious to Krystal? Didn’t you try to protect what remained of her family, so that she didn’t have to feel the pain of being deserted and betrayed?”

After hearing this, it seemed like all the energy was zapped out of him as he loosened his grip and let Suho fall unceremoniously to the ground. He sighed miserably as if this was something that has always bothered him at the back of his mind. “Like I said before, I did no such thing. Don’t glorify my actions as something heroic because at the end of the day, it was me who decided to intervene and rip away her loved ones.”

“All I see is stupidity and selfishness.” A pause. “She really treasured her sister, at least more than Jessica ever did.” He rubbed his temples wearily. “Sure, Jessica must be cursing me eternally for taking away her only chance to die peacefully just like her lover did.”

“Krystal did curse me to stay away from her and her life. And not only did I take away her sister, but also her best friend and her lover all at once. Had I not tried to stop Jessica that time, things would have been different.”

“But you did.” Suho finally got up deciding to seize this moment right here. “You did it because you understood the pain of being alone, because you didn’t want her to experience the same emptiness that you did, the same sorrow you felt.”

“I-I-” He blinked away the pearlesque tears that were