Chapter 9: Fall in Love
A Devil That Looks Like an AngelLove makes you do stupid things.
Like how Miyeon foolishly grinned when Minnie first held her hand or when she almost tripped over her own feet when she caught the other girl smiling at her. So it’s safe to say, this is not the first stupid thing Miyeon has done for love. When the accursed archangel offered her soul just a few months short from being offered to be reborn as a mortal, many would’ve said it was outrageous.
Love, they would argue, only lasts a lifetime at most; after each reincarnation, things could change. Miyeon isn’t so sure of that, she’s not sure how many past lives she’s had that she’s fallen in love with Minnie. But, from the moment they met, there was a connection between them that simply couldn’t be anything other than fated love.
For what it’s worth though, Miyeon understood not every soul got a chance for reincarnation, to become an angel. Many just simply disappeared or they were destroyed by the heart that was all divine. So the accursed angel could understand why people would value their soul and a chance at mortal life over anything else. But what of it if she couldn’t ever be with her again? What was a life without happiness?
Miyeon simply didn’t see the point of living without her beloved.
So when Minnie was set to be erased by the heart of all divine, Miyeon no hesitation to exchange her soul for a few more years of her mortality instead. There was no need for divine love when she had her love.
As Miyeon carried Minnie’s body all the way to the depths of hell, she looked at her like no one else in existence mattered. Gently setting her body down on the ashened ground and wet mud, the accursed angel took steps towards the glowing blue cube. Silently, she dispelled her lover’s soul to the heart of all divine before she, herself, was engulfed in blue flames.
She felt the scorching flames burn through her body and consuming her heart, taking her soul and her last chance of mortality. Smiling at the decision, Miyeon doesn’t mind the pain at all, not when she gets to be with her. Through the sparks flying off of her, the accursed angel sees the tips of her finger start to blacken and her strength leaving her body. She closes her eyes, as she feels the darkness in her start to engulf any last bits of her angelic features and lets herself fall deeper into the blue flames.
Was it selfish? Was her decision entirely self-indulgent?
It was, every last bit of it was.
If she had not chosen something for herself, then who else would?
When Miyeon opens her eyes again, she feels herself on someone’s lap. She looks up and can only see a wooden ceiling which she strangely doesn’t recognize seeing in the realm of devils. After a few blinks, she realizes that she’s in quite a familiar place, it seems to be her house on the hill. Miyeon sits herself up and realizes that they’re on a couch which was something she didn’t remember being there before. The figure whose lap she was using as a pillow shifts when the other girl removed herself from her.
“Minnie,” Miyeon murmurs as she sees who the figure is.
The younger girl seemed to be fast asleep, leaning back against the seemingly new couch with a peaceful expression on her face. She appears to be in a blissful state so it makes Miyeon smile, she wonders what she could be dreaming of now. Gently, with great carefulness, the former archangel touches her beloved’s face, caressing her cheek before pressing a soft kiss on her forehead. In her sleep, her lover mumbles something and shifts her position. The older girl decides to keep teasing her by poking her cheeks every now and then. She watches as the sleeping girl makes a disgruntled face at each poke and giggles to herself. When Minnie finally opens one of her eyes, groggily awakening from her deep slumber, she is met with a very lovely surprise.
“Morning sleepy head,” Miyeon says to her, “Hope you had a nice rest.”
“I did, it’s been a long time since I had a nice dream,” Minnie tells her, “It’s been a long time since I’ve dreamed of you and me together.”
Miyeon smiles at her, and then touches her face and softly plants a kiss on her forehead. The other girl simply wraps her arms around her waist and hugs her. This feeling of being in her arms was the type of serene peace that she always wished for, almost too good to be true. The wind blew and the grass outside rustled against the azure blue sky. To have her beloved safe in her arms made her heart warm and feel like all her worries had disappeared.
“How long do you plan on staying like this,” Minnie asks her.
The former archangel looks at her lover with a gentle expression on her face and answers, “For as long as possible.”
“Okay,” her lover snuggles closer to her, “if that’s what you want.”
Just like that, the two of them stayed together, in each other's arms, until the sun started to fall again. The sky morphed from a familiar hazy blue into an even more familiar pitch black. Yet, somehow the stars seemed to shine brighter than usual. Perhaps it was because the sky was especially clear today or maybe Miyeon was just seeing things.
“I’m sorry,” Miyeon apologizes all of the sudden, “You must’ve been hurt after all that’s happened.”
“It’s okay,” Minnie assures her, “the rules of the deities aren’t your fault.”
“Thank you,” Miyeon smiles and closes her eyes before asking, “But this is a dream, isn’t it?”
Before she hears an answer, Miyeon opens her eyes again and she’s back in the realm of devils. She feels the flickering blue flames sear her whole body as she starts to take a few steps towards her beloved, still on the ground, asleep. She watches as her beloved sinks into the cold red mud and ashes fall upon her like little snowflakes. It brings her back to the very day they first parted, Miyeon wonders if today will end the same.
She feels the fire slowly starting to die around her and the intensity of the blue start to fade. Her body starts to feel cold and she wonders what’ll happen to her next. After all, trading her soul for a few more years of Minnie’s mortality wasn’t the only ‘stupid’ thing that she did that day. With pain pulsing through her, Miyeon recalls how she offered her existence to the heart of all divine as well. She wonders what they’ve decided for her as she feels the strength in her fingers slowly slip away from her.
Meanwhile, Minnie faces her dreams with clarity for the first time in a long while.
She finds herself in the realm of the angels with the same perfect halls without a speck of dust in sight. After regaining all of her memories, she doesn’t remember this dream being part of any of them. Cautiously, she makes her way through the long white hall again, it's as empty and eerily silent as ever. Minnie decides to take her time walking through the hall this time, she doesn’t think that she has anything to fear now that she remembers anything.
As the clouds drift along the pure white palace, Minnie reminisces on how she first approached Miyeon on the very steps of this magnificent structure. Sure she was in awe of her beauty when she first saw her, but there was this strange gravitational pull that drew the girl to Miyeon as well. It was almost immediate that Minnie felt the connection when their eyes met each other and something inside of her seemed to click.
A smile crept up on her face as she remembered those moments where Miyeon was like a ghost to everyone. She seemed to quietly carry out orders all alone and was so aloof that it almost seemed like she wasn’t there. When Minnie had approached her, she remembers how the girl was so foolishly excited at first. Sure Miyeon had tried to hide her joy with a straight face, but even then Minnie could tell how much she appreciated.
She let out a laugh as she passed the stairs where it all happened.
Deeper down the hall, she truly wondered what was waiting for her at the end. Surely she couldn’t face any more devastation than she already had. The last memories of her families imprinted in her mind slightly weighed on her; she couldn’t help but think of the burning image of one of them and the hurtful forgetful faces of the other. She bit her lips as she continued on with her leisure walk, surely there was nothing left to lose now.
As she walks closer to the arch, Minnie squints and she thinks she can see a glowing blue.
The younger girl thinks about all the moments they spent together before that fateful day where everything fell apart.
Back then, when Miyeon had brought her to the cottage for the first time, she only had a single chair then. She had told Minnie how she liked being alone and the younger girl never seemed to believe her. Minnie likes to believe that she was right as the next time she visited, there was a second chair there just for her.
When the former accursed archangel had professed her love for the first time, it was in those very fields where it was like only the two of them existed in the world. In a mortal world built on magic, Minnie had never felt or experienced anything more magical than that night.
It was as the sun fell slowly from the sky that Miyeon had given her red roses. With the golden glow of the sun and rose redness in the sky, she shyly held her hand as they walked through the field of flowers together. And, as the sun met the ground, Miyeon had asked if her lips could meet hers. Just like that, their first kiss happened, sunkissed and as delicate as the flowers she had given her.
Among all those memories, and the ones Miyeon had recreated, Minnie treasured them all. But, she did wonder if she could look upon these memories with a simple smile again when so much had been sacrificed in between.
When Minnie reaches the familiar arch where all the madness that had soiled perfectly happy moments in her life, she is met with the heart of all divine.
“So, did you regret it?” the voice reverberated through the long hall.
“Regret what?” Minnie asks, “All I know is that you wanted me to be gone and that Miyeon’s been trying to make the most of the time we had together then. Is there anything else that I should know?”
“Regret what?” Minnie asks, “All I know is that you wanted me to be gone and that Miyeon’s been trying to make the most of the time we had together then. Is there anything else that I should know?”
“So she didn’t tell you,” the glowing cube’s voice booms through the structure.
“No, she didn’t,” Minnie grunts at the heart of all divine, wondering why she had ever looked to its guidance before.
“That’s a pity,” the voice mutters, “She is a coward after all.”
“What about it then?!” the girl shouts at the core of deities, frustrated with all the troubles she’s gone through because of the stupid rules it held up.
“The girl offered her soul,” the heart of all deities tells her, “And existence in exchange for yours. The deities would’ve erased your existence on that very day you decided to disobey us if it weren’t for her, it’s a pity she didn’t bother telling you before she tore your soul away.”
Minnie is stunned into silence and stands there silently for a solid minute, not knowing what to say or even feel. She supposes her emotions could be best as an initial shock where she comprehends the fact that her existence was bargained for. To live so long while not being actually aware of how close she was to death and complete erasure, of course, would come as an unexpected revelation to anyone. It made her feel scared and insecure that all those wonderful memories that she had, and her mere presence or impact on anyone, in this vast universe could very well not matter.
But beyond this feeling of existentialism, which withered as other emotions started to build up inside of her, she felt anger and frustration burning inside of her. She was absolutely pissed that these decisions, regarding her existence and her life, were all decided by people or entities other than her. For something so centered around her, they seemed to forget her thoughts or wishes. Yet, she doesn’t know what else she would’ve expected. In the order and rules of the deities, the rules were simply being followed and Miyeon hard only managed to twist them in absolute desperation.
Still, none of it seemed to make sense to Minnie.
“Do you regret it?”
What did she have to regret if this all started with rules unknown to her? She had only made, what seemed to her, nearly insignificant small careless actions that happened to play into unfortunate events. Moreover, she didn’t know that it would be like this; heck, she had no idea that she would be in this position over mostly things that she could not control or made decisions over.
“What is there to even regret?” Minnie mutters, “The only thing I seemed to do was to live my life as I knew it.”
The cube’s glow dimmers at the response, it lets out a few pulses of light as it seems to think like any other sentient being. When it shines an icy bright blue again, it is almost like it’s come to a decision.
“I suppose you didn’t really have much of a choice,” the heart of all divine reasons, “So I’ll make you an offer.”
“How does that even settle things,” the devil grumbles under her breath.
“It doesn’t,” the cube merely responds, “that’s just how life works. She doesn’t have much time left, so take it or leave it.”
With that Minnie nods and the core of divinity makes its last exchange with the two lovers.
And, it seems like Minnie can make stupid decisions too.
Miyeon blinks and she finds herself back in her cottage with the clear dark sky and speckled stars outside. Minnie is squeezing her hand tightly now and looking directly into her eyes with a look that Miyeon can’t quite decipher the meaning of.
“Yes, Miyeon,” Minnie says to her, with a smile on her face.
“Yes what?”
Intertwining their fingers together, Minnie confirms, “This is a dream.”
“It’s strange, because it feels like I just woke up for a second and that everything was broken again,” the former archangel explains, “And you feel so real.”
The other girl merely laughs at the comment and stands up, walking her towards the door.
“Let’s see how pretty the night is today,” Minnie says.
Pushing the door open, Miyeon walks with her beloved, hand in hand, into the cool dark night. She feels like this is her dream almost because it’s everything she wished for, yet there was something about it that was beyond her. The wind gently brushes against them, it sends a shiver down Miyeon’s spine. She’s scared that even the faintest breeze may whisk this last dream of hers away.
“Relax,” Minnie assures her, almost as if she had read her mind, “This is my dream. I told you it’s been a while since I’ve had a dream like this, with you and I.”
“Then how am I here?”
Letting go of her hand, the younger playfully motions and lets a string of sparkles fall out her hands.
“Magic.”
Miyeon doesn’t believe it, but what could she do about it? It didn’t seem like Minnie was going to tell her the truth so easily and she was, regretfully, at the end of her wits. So she chases after the younger girl who is running through the fields, so freely, without the aliament she’s been suffering for all those years. Oh how the tables have turned now, she felt her body get weaker and occasionally became conscious of the scorching fire outside of this dream world. Wincing in pain, the former archangel pauses in the midst of the field to catch her breath.
Noticing and empathizing with her lover’s struggle, Minnie runs back to her and cups her face.
“Hey Miyeon,” she whispers, “you’re going to be okay, we’re going to be okay.”
“But Minnie,” Miyeon’s voice cracks as she confesses, “I’m disappearing.”
The illusion cracks then, and Miyeon sees the blue flames on the tips of her fingers. She feels tears rolling down her cheeks and the familiar feeling of the start of letting go. What she doesn’t expect though, is to see the same blue flames and tears reflected in her beloved.
“How?” she asks, “I thought that I’d saved you.”
Minnie wraps her arms around her and holds her body, holding her close to her heart as well, before telling her, “You’ve made your decisions then and I’ve made mine.”
Feeling the fire blaze around the both of them and the weird sensation of slowly fading, Miyeon mutters, “That isn’t fair.”
“Life isn’t fair,” Minnie tells her, “But what I do with it and my existence is the only thing I can do about it.”
“And so you traded it for this stupid dream didn’t you?”
“Love makes you do stupid things,” Minnie whispers to her, facing her one last time.
Miyeon leans in to kiss her, making it the last thing she ever does, and laughs, “you really are my angel.”
End.
A/N: Moral of the story? There’s a lot to say about that, but to put it simply: there’s a lot of stuff the world can throw at you, and what you do with yourself is the only way to fight back. There were some themes of uncertainty in identity and discovering how to handle loneliness that I also tried to string in there, I’m probably missing some ideas too but eh. People can take what they want out of it, I mostly just enjoyed writing it for fun. I'm ready to go into temporary retirement now that I finished this lol, hope you enjoyed this story.
Thanks to everyone for reading this story and all the support, it’s the first multi-shot I’ve ever been able to finish/not delete. And as a gift, drew a little something (I don't know how to draw digitally yet so I apologize in advance) that I uploaded on tw*tter: https://twitter.com/kim_minnies/status/1262580486137884673?s=20
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