The gods were missing. All around the world, patrons and proteges of Greek gods alike were baffled and in disbelief. They have heard nothing from the divine beings–not even a little candlelight blown out, or a response in their dreams, or even a single form of acknowledgement after all the prayers. There was absolutely nothing. A silence that moved across cities and towns, through avid pagans and families. An uneasiness was brewing in the pits of the believers; where had the gods gone?

            What was worse was that it wasn’t just the Greek gods that were missing. Irene was too.

            Seungwan has never panicked as much as she had then, when she received the news from none other than Seulgi. Though that was enough to nearly drive her to insanity, what was worse, again, was that Apollo was nowhere to be seen.

            Not even their secret word–something Seungwan had to utter once for the god of the sun to appear–worked. That was enough for her to know that there was something terribly wrong because that was the first time in all the year that Apollo didn’t respond.

            It didn’t help that Irene was also a powerhouse in their high school so everyone immediately noticed when she started not showing up. The teachers were in a disarray, after all, their star student and overall role model student had just stopped coming. The students were even worse–was worse Seungwan’s new word now? It was just that everything happening kept going from bad to worse and there wasn’t anything she could do about it–they started a witch hunt, almost, going through every turn and every corner in the entire building to find their beloved Irene.

            Seungwan couldn’t blame them. She’d do the same if she could… if she didn’t know what had happened.

            The cops were also alerted, and every one of the officers were on lookout. She had been waiting anxiously for any response from them. Even from her father, who was a high ranking police officer. Though they didn’t talk as much as they did before she was taken in as Apollo’s ward, there was still some lingering affection for him. 

            (After all, he didn’t know. He didn’t know that his daughter survived by offering the rest of her life to a Greek god, or that his memories were severely warped and manipulated–along with the rest of the town–to be living where they were then. He didn’t know.

            He couldn’t know.)

            His father had been coming back with no news, nothing at all that even after they did a search party and went through all the areas in town and the surrounding ones, they didn’t find anything that would lead them to figure out the mystery of Irene Bae’s disappearance.

            Seungwan thought that that was the moment she realized that this wasn’t a normal disappearance. If the human police officers couldn’t find her, and all of a sudden her patron god was also missing, then it was easy to deduce that something supernatural had transpired.

            Even though she knew the other girl didn’t mean to, Seulgi had confirmed this suspicion of hers.

~o~

Seulgi fell asleep crying tucked in Joohyun’s bed, trying to give herself any comfort through her best friend’s scent and familiar room. She hadn’t heard from her. Nobody had. It has been way too long, and the anxiety was taking over her.

            There has never been a time when Seulgi and Joohyun were away from each other to this degree. One way or another, wherever one of them went, the other was included no matter what. So for this to have happened, with no warning whatsoever, not even an excuse, was enough to send the monolid girl into a spiral of bad thoughts and anger.

            Sure, she and Joohyun weren’t on the best of terms before she disappeared, but that didn’t mean that Seulgi was just not going to give a damn about her best friend. They grew up together, their lives were tied together, whether they wanted it or not.

            But now Joohyun was gone, and Seulgi blamed herself for not being able to protect her friend. What was the point of praying to Hermes, for being taken as his ward, if she didn’t get to do the main reason for why she contacted him in the first place?

            What was Seulgi’s reason for breathing now that the other half of her soul was gone?

            “Hyunnie,” she just sobbed helplessly onto the older girl’s favorite pillow, “where are you?” She had been bamboozled by the news, and also by the students, staff, and officers who kept on interrogating her to where Joohyun was. She held back then, not letting the tears fall or even form, because everyone else looked for someone to stay strong during a missing person case.

            That happened to be Seulgi, the best friend, and the one who would be the first one to know something if there was anything to know.

            But when she only answered them with her head shaking, not knowing what to say or even what to believe, then the rest of them lost hope.

            So now that she was alone, in the room that used to be so familiar and so warm, with the owner somewhere out there, she finally let herself cry. She cried, and cried, and cried, until was sore and dry, her eyes puffy, and her emotions just all around.

            Usually this was when Hermes would appear, giving an incorrect quote about something a millennial or a gen z would say, and that would have made her smile, but she hadn’t seen him since everything went downhill. Now, not only was her best friend missing, but also her god.

            Nothing was going well, and nothing should ever happen like that until Joohyun was back, safe and sound. Nobody else deserved to be happy while she and Joohyun were apart. Nobody deserved to be happy until Joohyun was back with her.

            Seulgi choked out a sob, deciding then that she wanted water to drink. She went outside the room, looking back at it as if there was a chance Joohyun would be there on her desk, and headed downstairs.

            “This has never happened before,” Auntie Bae cried out, and Seulgi stopped at the middle of the stairs.

            “Yes it has…” An old man talked, and Seulgi recognized it as Joohyun’s great grandfather. “Only once has this happened, when a daughter of the Baes went missing alongside the gods.”

            Seulgi stopped breathing when she heard what he said. She sat on the stairs and continued to listen, hoping–praying–that they would know where her friend would be.

            “What happened, grandpa?” Uncle Bae asked, and she almost flinched by how hoarse his voice sounded.

            “Our dear little Joohyun… may share the same fate as her ancestor and namesake.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “The other time this has happened was when Irene disappeared thousands of years ago.” Great grandfather Bae started talking slowly, as if waiting for the rest of his family to catch onto something.

            Auntie Bae screamed, and then a thud rang out. “Please no, not my daughter!”

            Seulgi started to panic; why was this Auntie Bae’s reaction? What happened to the princess from old?

            “Whe-when you say she’ll share the same fate… did you mean..?” Uncle Bae’s voice wavered in disbelief.

            What was going on? What happened to the first Irene?! Seulgi couldn’t handle not knowing, so she started running down the stairs to ask the Baes what the hell was going on.

            “When princess Irene came back…”

            “Where is Joo–” Seulgi started before the rest of her question fell into silence when the old man continued.

            “...she was dead.”

~o~

Seungwan was ready to fail her finals.

            Irene has been missing for a month, which meant she didn’t have the time to study because all she had been doing was help look for her. She didn’t want to say it out loud, but she was starting to lose hope.

            She shouldn’t, she understood, but the older girl has been gone for a month, which meant that was a month without a kiss from Seungwan. Everything would have been okay if it weren’t for that stupid rule of kissing her once a day or else she dies.

            She couldn’t help it, the fear and the doubt surfacing every night whenever she would look at her clock. But she couldn’t help it–not a single lead was in sight, and everyone was just anxious to find news of Joohyun’s body appearing somewhere else in the world.

            “Seulgi…” she started, and her classmate stopped writing furiously onto her notebook to look at her. “How are you holding up?”

            Seulgi paused, as if thinking what to say. Seungwan gave her an encouraging pat on the head, urging her to answer because it was only the two of them that knew what the stakes were with Irene’s curse. 

            “Not good, obviously.” The monolid girl answered, giving her a weak smile that she mirrored back. “I’m just… I’m trying to be okay, you know? Okay enough that when she comes back I won’t break down.”

            Seungwan pursed her lips. Of course Seulgi was still holding onto hope. She did too, until it lasted a whole month of radio silence and even the police gave up looking for Irene.

            “Seulgi…” she started again, careful with her tone and voice, “have you ever thought–”

            “No, Wendy, I haven’t. Hermes will come back with some kind of information and she will be found.” The other girl was quick to respond, seeming like she had been practicing on saying that to someone who ever started to doubt Irene’s survival.

            “We just have to be ready for anything,” Seungwan frowned deeply, feeling hurt because she knew there was nothing she could do. Nothing anyone can do.

            However, the sooner that Seulgi accepts the mere possibility that… that Irene might not come back… then the sooner she could move on.

            It may have sounded harsh, Seungwan’s thoughts, but it was the best she could do then. She had looked–the gods would know how damn hard she looked–until there was nowhere else to look.

            Insanity, she remembered telling herself, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. 

            Einstein’s words were what snapped her out of her reverie, of her hopeful ideology and belief that everything was bound to work well and Irene was coming back. 

            But Irene wasn’t coming back. It has been a month, and not a single kiss was given, which just meant…

            “Seulgi…”

            “Wendy, don’t.” Seulgi’s voice was sharp as a knife, cutting whatever the hell Seungwan wanted to say.

            But Seungwan was also stubborn. Holding onto false hope will help no one–especially when they were dealing with the realm of the supernatural.

            “Seulgi, I just think you should accept–”

            Seulgi slammed her hands on the table as she stood up abruptly, glaring at Seungwan in a way she had never seen before.

            “I’m not accepting , Wendy. She’s coming back, no matter what.”

            Seungwan sighed, pitying the other girl. But if Irene wasn’t there for Seulgi, Seungwan would be. “Everyone else has moved on from it, Seulgi. A whole month was all it took for everybody to give up because what other teenager would be okay after missing for that long? A missing person case has started, but everyone else has moved on and just hoped that something would come up sooner or later.” She leaned closer to the other girl before continuing, “Especially since she has a curse, Seulgi. We saw what happened when the curse came to effect; Irene almost died! Since it has been a month, and I haven’t kissed her a single time then, it’s just highly likely that she’s… dead.”

            A punch to the face was the last response she ever thought she would receive from Seulgi.

            Seungwan fell, tumbling backwards as she clutched her broken nose. “Wha–”

            She didn’t even have the time to react because Seulgi was on top of her in an instant, one hand holding her collar and the other one peppering her face with punches.

            “Shut up! Shut the hell up! Joohyun is coming back no matter what!”

            With every word out of Seulgi’s mouth, Seungwan received a punch. She couldn’t open her left eye anymore, and she felt powerless being pinned down by the other girl.

            However, the powerlessness was gone after she grabbed Seulgi’s closed fist and used her body weight to roll to one side, efficiently switching their spots.

            “She’s gone, Seulgi!” Seungwan grabbed her friend’s collar with both her hands, shaking her as if it was her attempt to convince her of the reality they were in. “It’s been a month! She’s just gone!”

            Seulgi yelled at her and started punching again, this time with tears streaming down her face. Again, with every hit she received, Seungwan just took it.

            She took hit after hit after hit until Seulgi stopped and started crying instead.

            Someone finally called the teachers and they pried them off of each other. They were sympathetic to them, Seungwan found, probably because they were the ones closest to Irene, and such news would have been horrifying for them. It was… It really was.

            Other teachers escorted them outside the library, where the entire commotion happened.

            Seungwan took one last at the room locked away with yellow and black caution tape, before letting herself be escorted out of the place.

            The bike home was awful. Her face was bruised and some bones were broken, her body was sore, and her tears won’t stop streaking her face.

            A simple hum from a nursery rhyme would have been enough to heal everything, but she felt as if she deserved this. That this was some sort of punishment for having to introduce the reality to Seulgi, who only wanted to keep holding on to the hope that Irene would come back.

            Her parents were out, as usual, so she just went up to her room and threw her bag onto the floor before lying down on her back, only the soft blankets as her source of comfort.

            A white handkerchief with a W sewn on the corner was on her table, and Seungwan wanted to curl up into a ball and cry. The handkerchief was wrinkled and dirty, and a singular drop of blood was on the other side.

            Seeing that red drop on the corner sent her back to when the world started to crumble.

~o~

Seungwan was done looking through textbooks of human anatomy, silently cursing herself by taking Biology and sticking to the dream of being a doctor (that she just decided after Apollo saved her). She lugged the books as she went to the library to return them, and she was sure that the deadline had gone past but the librarian was usually nice to her so she didn’t think much of it.

            By the time she went inside the library, there was a commotion going on in front of one of the rooms. Of course, she wasn’t usually nosy like this, but living in a small town, it was bound to be gossipped and spread about later in the day so she might as well just know about it now.

            She trudged to the crowd, curiosity gnawing her bones because whatever could have started such a commotion?

            Oh.

            One of the rental study rooms within the library was an absolute wreckage. There was caution tape around it, and the cops were already on site. She saw her father, squatting down by the sea of broken glass with a magnifying glass in hand.

            “Dad, what’s going on?” She approached him, making sure she was on the other side of the tape.

            He looked up at her, his brows furrowed and almost looking confused. “Seungwan, do you know whose bag that is?” He pointed to a lone bag by the floor, which looked like any other school bag that was popular, but something twinkled that was hanging from it that made Seungwan’s blood run cold.

            It was a rose pendant. Irene’s rose pendant.

            The only reason she recognized it was when she pointed it out one day while the three of them were walking home. ‘Seulgi’s gift’, Irene only grinned, holding it up from her bag to make Seungwan see it clearer.

            “Dad that’s–” Seungwan stopped breathing, finding herself ducking under the tape and going into the crime scene.

            Oh gods, this is a crime scene by the looks of it.

            “Seungwan you’re not allowed in here,” her dad grabbed her by the arm and started pulling her away. 

            She shook it off of his grip, shaking her head, either from denial, disbelief, or both. “I know whose that is, Dad, and it’s… it shouldn’t–”

            Seungwan whirled to the room, gasping at how everything was basically broken or wrecked into pieces. She felt her knees wobble, and she went down on the shards of glass, wincing. 

            Her dad called out her name, but it was just drowned by the commotion of voices going on in her head. Something white poked out of the remains of what used to be a table, and Seungwan gingerly picked it up, heart dropping as she saw blood on one side, and her signature W on the other. 

            This was Irene’s for sure–the handkerchief that started their very first encounter with her bloody nose. 

            “Seungwan, let’s go.” Her dad picked her up by the armpits like a child, and they hobbled to one of the desks outside the room. “You have to tell me, sweetheart.”

            She shook her head, clutching the handkerchief because it was probably the last thing she’d ever had that was also Irene’s. The tears started to fall, and her knees were in pain from all the shards that dug into skin.

            “It’s… Irene. That’s Irene’s bag. Where is she, Dad?” She only looked up at him for answers and whimpered when he only looked on the floor guiltily.

            “We don’t know yet, but there was no sign of Irene ever leaving the area. We’ve talked to a bunch of witnesses and all they said was that Irene was in the room, then everything exploded, and then she was just gone. We’re looking through the security cameras right now, but we are starting to think it was a kidnapping.”

            Kidnapping. 

            The world started to sway, and her dad held her upright. “Seungwan, rest for now and go home. I know she’s an important friend but we can’t continue our jobs when we have to worry about you too.”

            Seungwan nodded mutely, starting to walk outside even after there was some protests from her dad saying she should get her knees checked out first. She just ignored him and continued, ignoring the other students who were also itching to see the scene, ignoring the ones who saw her bloodied knees and asked if she was okay.

Ignoring everything else because Irene was now missing.

~o~

The memory was like a punch to the gut, and maybe an uppercut to the heart.

            Apollo has also been gone throughout the entire time this happened, so she couldn’t even ask him if there was anything he knew, anything he heard, anything at all to give some sense to whatever the hell was happening.

            But he wasn’t there. Irene wasn’t there, either.

            Seungwan started to sob again because the only other confidant who would have any understanding of how she felt just gave her a busted lip and a broken nose.

            For the longest time in a while, she was alone again.

RV ALBUM RV ALBUM??!?!?!?!

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SCREAMS CRIES THROWSD UP OMG I MISESD THEM SO MU CH