Joohyun never felt like she had the right to be suspicious or angry at Wendy. After all, she had been hiding the same secret for a while now. She did, however, glare at the Sun God for having no remorse whatsoever for this little game he decided to play with them.

            The fact that her patron goddess was also taken aback said a lot of the mischief he was so adamant on doing.

            Joohyun grabbed Wendy’s wrist and dragged her to the corner of the room. She glanced at Aphrodite and saw the woman grabbing Apollo’s neck and then flying upwards, going past the ceiling and to wherever they’d end up in.

            The two mortals stared at the spot where the two gods had gone through, waiting for a few minutes before looking at each other awkwardly. Joohyun didn’t know what to expect of her patron goddess—just not what she had seen. Neck-grabbing had never been the kind of action she would associate with the Greek goddess of love and beauty.

            But nevertheless, she liked to believe it was Apollo’s fault for making her act that way.

            Joohyun looked back at Wendy, realizing that she had been holding her wrist the entire time a full monologue went inside her head. She let go hastily, and the other girl looked at her with confusion swimming within her eyes.

            She had thought she needed to talk to Wendy about something, but now that they were alone, she didn’t really know what to say. It’s been established that Joohyun felt like she had no right to be angry at the younger girl, but she didn’t really know how to approach the feeling in her gut.

            She didn’t even know what it was.

            Hurt?

            It shouldn’t be, right? Perhaps it was because she was on the receiving end of being deceived, but Joohyun should already have gotten used to it. She’s been plenty deceived due to her looks already—something as simple as this shouldn’t be a problem.

            But it was.

            Wendy was Apollo’s ward.

            She knew what it was like to be mixed in with the gods and fate and stupid curses. Maybe the gut feeling was Joohyun’s relief of someone else in the same position as hers?

            Sure, she had shared her experiences with Seulgi, but the girl didn’t understand how it was to have a god or goddess looking over your shoulder.

            Wendy did.

            “What did you… want to talk about?” Wendy finally spoke, after feeling like Joohyun had just been staring at the girl and talking to herself in her mind for hundreds of years.

            “How long have you been his ward?”

            “I’m not sure if I should answer that…”

            “Why not?”

            “Apollo is, um, complicated,” Wendy smiled apologetically, and Joohyun wondered what kind of inhumane thing the god was capable of doing.

            It wasn’t like she wasn’t well aware of the power of the gods; Aphrodite usually didn’t show Joohyun her powers of seduction or whatever, but she knew it was there. But with a more aggressive and attacking god like Apollo, whose arrows are said to burn down castles and end sieges, she didn’t really know what to expect.

            Except probably the worst, now that she understood why Wendy would be scared of her own patron god.

            “I’m not scared,” Wendy clarified, as if she heard Joohyun’s thoughts. “It’s just that I’ve seen what he can do, and I’m being cautious for the both of us.”

            “Thanks.” Joohyun replied, not really sure if she was thankful, but she just blurted out the word anyway.

            Wendy played with her fingers, her eyes stuck on one part of the floor. “But it’s been a while… since I became his ward. That’s all you have to know.”

            Joohyun shrugged, feeling like whatever answer was good enough as it’s an answer, nevertheless.

            “You fool!” Aphrodite boomed, her arms crossed as she appeared sitting on one of the chairs in the room.

            Apollo shrugged, his arms crossed over his large chest again and looking upset. “Don’t yell at me.”

            “I’m older than you, you idiot.”

            “Who cares,” he raised his hands in exasperation, then looked at the two wards comically as if waiting for either, or even both, of them to agree with him.

            “Let’s all talk about this in a calm way, please?” Wendy piped up, almost sounding like a squeak.

            “Fine,” Aphrodite replied, just at the same time Apollo said, “Whatever.”

            Wendy sighed in relief, then looked at Joohyun apologetically, as if the former was the reason there was this problem happening in front of them.

            “Well, let’s start with the question of why you want our wards to meet,” Aphrodite scoffed, rolling her eyes at the sun god.

            “Well,” Apollo mocked, “I thought it’d be a wonderful idea.”

            “To whose pretense?”

            “On my own.”

            “Stupid basilisk balls.”

            The two gods continued to throw petty names at each other, which would have been quite entertaining if not for the fact that the sun began to darken even though it was too early. Not just that, but birds began to fly towards the house, with doves looking through the windows as if they were ready to break through the glass and pounce on the male.

            “Oh boy,” Joohyun sighed in defeat.

            It’s going to be a long day.

hiya kids! I know this is super duper short, but I thought an update is an update nevertheless.

I've gone through a lot of emotional and mental stuff lately but I find writing to help me escape dark thoughts, so I'm back!

I'll make sure to update again soon, so stay tuned, and thank you for being patient with me the entire time!