Chapter Six;
The Circus

chanhee

   “Welcome back everyone,” Aphrodite greeted warmly.

   All of the cupids, young and old, filed into the giant circular meeting room. Niel, Psyche, and I were seated near the back because we had come late before. This was the fourth inning so far. Psyche and I had sat through a total of 30 hours of the meeting, whereas Niel had 40.

   In those hours, Aphrodite had explained our new system in full detail. Cupids would be split into two groups, field workers and office workers. Office workers would use a strict system to pair up mortals, and if something went wrong they would assign a case to a field worker. Field workers received cases from office workers and went down to Earth to personally take care of the case and then report back. It seemed like it would be much more effective than our old system.

   Now Aphrodite decided to let each cupid come up, row by row, and write down in the big book that was displayed in the center of the room, whether they wanted to be a field or office worker. At first, I pondered this. But then I realized that, no matter how dangerous, the only way to see Joohee freely would be to become a field worker.

   I was the first out of our trio to write down my choice, and I knew that they would follow what I choose, as I was the leader, so I attempted to switch spots with someone else but my attempts were not successful. I’m only doing this for them, I told myself when I saw my friends glaring at me, and it’s for the greater good. But still, I could not manage to switch places with any other cupid in the line. I pouted and seeing that it was my turn, went up to the book.

   There was a form written on the page, it demanded our cupid number and desired position. I filled in the blank areas and went to sit down with the other cupids. I silently laughed when I saw Niel’s awestruck face when he realized that I had not chosen to be an office worker as he had previously suggested.

   Next, I saw Psyche smirk as she went to write her choice in the book. I wondered what she could have possibly planned. The two sat on either side of me when they finished and we began our wait to be assigned our clients.

   “The wait will most likely take more than you can sit here for,” Aphrodite’s assistant told us. “Therefore, you are all free to go as long as you are ready to complete your assignments when you are called upon.”

   The three of us nodded, as we figured saying anything more would prove awkward to the situation since the assistant was talking to a large group of people and we were only three in it. Niel, Psyche, and I grasped each others’ hands and began to navigate our way through and out of the crowd.

   “The circus,” Psyche announced when we had finally arrived back to the headquarters.  I could tell from the way that her eyes began to glimmer that she had her heart set on visiting this place once before we were officially assigned our jobs.

   “What about it?” Niel said, obviously not having clued in the same thing I had.

   Psyche shook her head at his dimness. “I want to go,” she told us. “Together.”

   “Seems reasonable,” Niel nodded as if agreeing with himself. “But why specifically the circus? Why don’t we just go to a party or something like that?” He asked her.

   “The circus holds a greater magic than even you or I could imagine,” she explained shifting her gaze from Niel to me.

   “When would you like to go?” I asked, slowly becoming more curious on the matter.

   “Well I think we should go right now,” she said, ignoring the awestruck look that had floated upon Niel’s face. “If we don’t do it know, we might never get another chance.” The eerie tone of despair that I usually heard in Hyomin’s voice now seemed to be transmitted to Psyche’s.

   “Let’s go then!” I exclaimed, not wanting to hear one more word come from Psyche’s mouth like the ones that would have preceded.

   Once again, we each grasped the hand of the person beside us and began to leave. This odd time Niel was in the middle. It never actually occurred to me that Niel was the person who was least the center of our attention. Either Psyche or I usually took the place of the middle, never Niel. Odd, I thought just as Niel leaned closer to me and began to whisper something in my ear.

   “Jieun is at the circus,” he said and my eyes grew to the size of watermelons.

   Jieun? Lee Jieun? The very same Lee Jieun who threw away her life as a cupid to be with the mortal that she loved so similarly to the way I love Joohee?

   Niel nodded, as if reading my thoughts. “Really?” I gaped at him.

   I know that nearly all of the cupids had heard the rumours about her. Some said that the mortal she had fallen for didn’t really love her back; others said that she had turned into a mortal and then passed away with her lover. But the oddest, most scary of all rumours that I had heard was that the mortal had refused her and she had killed him in vengeance, after which she begged Aphrodite to let her come back but was once again refused, finally Jieun then retreated to the circus, where she would stay forever eating the souls of any couples that would otherwise spend eternity together.

   And it looked like the rumour I had feared most was the one that had become true. Though I supposed it was too early to gain suspicions, I could not help but wonder about it. About if I gave my life up for Joohee, it would turn out similarly. I hoped to Zeus that it wouldn’t.

a/n:

so sorry for such a late update.
my laziness got the best of me =.=
also it's shorter than i had originally hoped. oh well.
anyways, thanks for reading, commenting, and subscribing! :)