He falls. In the beginning. In the end. 

 

This time comes somewhere in the middle. 

 

He lands in Jeju not with broken bones, but a broken heart; broken wings of social graces fractured, leaving him with sharp edges that very nearly make him rude. Impulsive to a fault. Aggressive in a way he has not been since his adolescence, in the days of fire and blood. The threads of his adopted humanity have started to unravel—the seams that contain something greater are now coming undone. 

 

It feels as though he has been alive for an eternity. Born inside the brightest light of the sun—so he shone, glittered and gleamed. Held in the highest regard, most respected, most holy. Reborn in the guise of a man much the same. 

 

It is not an exaggeration to say he has fallen from grace yet again. It is a simple truth to say that he’s furious about it. 

 

Jongwoon loses himself in art and architecture; in those rare, fine things that humanity has to offer. Little glimpses of genius through the divine, the greatness of eras long since past, and never again reached in this age of nonbelievers and heretics. Heathens. Each of his footsteps on stone echo with the weight of a hundred years. A thousand.  

 

And yet, these steps are taken alone. Jongwoon is here, condemned to beautiful solitude in the land he loves most, without the one he— 

 

Loved. Loves? 

 

The wrath that lives inside his heart knows no direction. Hannibal can no more strike out at Jungsoo from here than he can embrace him. He is abandoned. Disowned. And the feelings that churn inside the blazing fire that might be called a soul cannot be defined as positive or negative. They simply are, and they are strong. 

 

Beneath the veneer of civility and light is something wounded. It cries for its fellow as he traverses city streets, shrieks with pain as he crosses the thresholds of the cathedral he has long regarded as most beautiful: Junjang Cathedral, floor clean and no longer graven with the etchings of Jongwoon's memory. As Jongwoon stands alone before the ancient altar, something equally primordial digs its claws into the cage of his bones. Samael, Lucifer—there are many names. All of them become him. 

 

Jongwoon cannot deny his nature. He cannot deny himself the way Jungsoo has so carelessly denied him. 

 

Jongwoon has never allowed any to live that denied him even once, and yet, Jungsoo— 

 

But what else can he do? Even the attempt to sever this bond between them has been unsuccessful. Jongwoon could not bring himself to claim Jungsoo's life; only to forcibly demand Jungsoo's penance in shades of red. Flashes of history between them, spanning back to the very beginning—auburn curls, the flesh of an apple, the raw flesh of man, and the crimson of life and death entwined. 

 

Once, they had been joyous. A marriage of mutual respect, of fierce freedom, of loving children. At the time, it had been stolen from them. Jongwoon only wanted to return what was taken; give back to his beloved what he could give. A reunion. A new beginning. A rare gift. After all these years, the chance to allow his love to be free, and for them to reign together. A singular opportunity. 

 

Jungsoo didn’t want it.  

 

Why didn’t he want it? 

 

The thought is incensing. Infuriating. Were it not for the attention such a thing would draw, Jongwoon would set free his rage upon this place. Destroy the many beautiful artifacts, the likenesses of saints and angels. Even now, even now, he has placed the sanctity of his memories in the hands of God, despite having no respect for that—that thing. So quick to turn a blind eye, to refuse his children, to ignore his creations, to turn away from what Jongwoon has seen in them since the dawning days of his life. 

 

Humans are animals like any other. 

 

Perhaps it is his failing that he has never once regarded Jungsoo like the others; never once considered him to be something so simple as human. But maybe Jungsoo is human. Maybe Jongwoon is wrong, and that keen intelligence and his familiar compassion and cruelty are not the impressions of a life previously lived, but cruel temptations from a capricious God. Perhaps Jungsoo himself was a test set out that, once failed, has seen Jongwoon fallen once and for all. 

 

He had never imagined he’d find what he found in Jungsoo. A solitary life seemed the only option, his sole desire in the absence of his one and only—until that day in a cookie-cutter office, when a vibrant being clad in terrible clothing had lashed out against those who would claim to know his mind and his heart. He had been so familiar then, so irresistible. To know him again, in a new form, a new shape. To reclaim his affection after all this time, and to aid in his awakening.  

 

Lilith, reborn.  

 

Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps he was right, and the cruelty of God and the paradox of space-time has returned them to the moment of their love fulfilled, only to see it lain to waste. To see Jongwoon destroyed. 

 

But he will not be destroyed.  

 

And if he is to live this life, tempted and subsequently disappointed, betrayed and alone, then he will be more cruel and capricious than he has ever been. His retribution will know no end.  

 

Even for Jungsoo. 

 

So he finds a man who is just close enough to Jungsoo to be satisfying, and makes a beacon of his body. A sculpture. A monument to his love, now lost. Places it at the altar that he’d somewhere, somehow, distantly hoped they might stand before together— 

 

Jungsoo is certain to follow him here. They have spoken of this place before. And when he does, he should know. He should know what he has done, the decision he has made, and what has come from it. Even if he may never see the depths of fate and circumstance that have led them here, even if Jungsoo never awakens as what Jongwoon had so foolishly dreamed of, he knows that part of Jungsoo is sure to see it, and part of him will know—the truth, and all its consequences. 

 

 

There is a magnetism between them that has always been. From the very beginning, Jungsoo has been drawn to him, a desire he cannot categorize or explain. It has pulled him away from the loyalties he’s held all his life—to justice, to the law, to Shin Donghee and his ilk.  

 

He had previously allowed himself to be used where Donghee saw fit, a sharp tool tragically pointed on both ends. But Jungsoo had lived an empty, lonely life; all the happiness he had strived for had felt so unattainable, just out of reach. When he caught up to it, regardless, it never ended up being what he’d hoped.  

 

The emptiness inside him that has always, always longed for company. Someone who could fill that space, fill his mind with song and light, his life with belonging.  

 

That person had been Jongwoon. And oh, his betrayal had hurt more than any loss Jungsoo had ever suffered, awakened a rage inside him that, even in his fury, filled up that emptiness. It pulled him into a terrible place of fear and pain, but it was his only way forward. For better or for worse, Jongwoon became his reason for—for everything. 

 

That soft siren’s voice calling out to his darkness had been nigh irresistible. Jungsoo had run to the edge of their sharp precipice and looked down over the edge, into the abyss, and found the abyss staring longingly back at him. 

 

Jungsoo wishes he could say Jongwoon pulled him in. But in reality, he was the one who jumped. 

 

And now, the tether between them calls him east, across the roiling East Sea and her tumultuous currents. In search of the one who, even now, has a hand firmly around Jungsoo's heart. 

 

Will has always been other, but he has always considered himself human. He knows what he is. He knows who he is.  

 

But as the sun rises, there is a woman that sits beside him and stares out at the waves, and the sunrise bleeds her hair red. She is always gone by the time the sky turns blue, and she never says a word. 

 

  

Jungsoo stands before the altar and sees the echo of what Jongwoon has left for him: a heart made from a man, raw and bleeding. Jungsoo doesn’t do anything but stare at the space where it had been, and sit down in the place where Jongwoon had stood like he can still sense him there. 

 

Perhaps he does sense Jongwoon, because Jungsoo looks up as though he can feel his presence, follows him into the catacombs without fear. Without hesitation. And in the blackness that has enveloped them, inside the place that Jongwoon has been cast to, seething and alone, he hears Jungsoo's voice echo among the bones of long-dead men. 

 

“Jongwoon!”  

 

He stops. Does not answer. Hears his name ricochet in Jongwoon's voice between age-old stone and flickering candles. Hears Jungsoo gain momentum, give pursuit, running blindly into the depths of perdition.  

 

Somewhere in the distance, Jungsoo stops. And he is not alone. He warns the age-grizzled Inspector who has pursued him to return to the light, as though Jungsoo himself intends to stay shrouded in darkness, follow Jongwoon until the ends of the earth if he must. 

 

"You’re already dead, aren’t you?"  Kang Hodong asks him.  

 

Yes, he is.  

 

Because Jongwoon gutted Jungsoo and left him to bleed out on his kitchen floor. What emerged from the empty halls of his home was something that unnerves mortal men. Something that moves like a wraith in the imprints of Jongwoon's footsteps, dancing between the shadows of the dead. Here, Jongwoon reigns—a creature of light that has been forcibly rehomed to darkness, and has found his belonging as the sole spark among the night. Jungsoo has stared into his heart for too long, and though his vision is a wash of rainbow color, and though he has been blinded, he pursues. 

 

He will always feel that damning pull between them; he will always pursue.  

 

Jongwoon feels the heat of Jungsoo's body as he passes, and draws away. Does not touch. Does not tell Jungsoo he is there, but Jungsoo knows. Jungsoo knows. Jungsoo has always known. 

 

“I forgive you,” Jungsoo whispers, and all of Hell is there to bear witness—to wait with bated breath for their lord and master to answer. 

 

Jongwoon does not. Can not. 

 

He has no use for forgiveness; what he craves most is the heat of Jungsoo's passion and the ice of his determined defiance, expanding and coalescing inside him until there is nothing left of Jungsoo's mortal self but the darker things, the immortal things. The Hellish things. 

 

Forgiveness is a virtue—but even love, in the way they once felt it, was so deep and crushing and all-consuming that it was only ever sin. 

 

And Jongwoon is a creature of sin. 

 

Perhaps that is what leads him to his conclusion, in the end—that if he cannot have Lilith, and by extension Jungsoo, as they were meant to be, then the rift between them must be mended by nothing short of utter consumption. 

 

  

When Jungsoo is well and truly alone, once Jongwoon has left him behind again, Jungsoo knows he should go home. He should give up this chase, this anger, this desire. He should free himself from the sloping and beautiful downward spiral staircase into Hades, but he can’t. He can’t, but he knows he should. 

 

Instead he traces his steps backward, into the chapel. Stands before the altar one last time