Henry flipped the lid of the piano and stretched, “Well that sounds good. You should be more than ready for your competition tomorrow.”

            “I hope so…” Seohyun had managed to take her hands away from the piano before the lid smashed them. “Are your MC skills ready?”

            “Hey, I’m Henry. I can’t do anything wrong” he gave her an exaggerated wink before flopping on a bean bag and rummaging for a ramen package he had hidden away.

            Seohyun swiped the bag away before he could get a bite. “No, this is going to lead to health problems Henry!”

            “It’s not like I’m going to die or anything…we’re immortal…” the god pouted before taking another one out and wolfing it down.

            A few shouts echoed in the hallway outside and the two looked up. Things at Olympus were pretty calm most of the time. There was all of eternity to do everything: no need to hurry, freak out, and most of all, no need to run.

            Yuri stuck her head in and motioned for the two to come out.

            “What’s going on Yuri unnie?” Seohyun stared, completely bewildered at everyone rushing towards the main throne room.

            “Yeah. There’s nothing scheduled for today. As messenger of the gods, I think if there was anything special going on, I would be the first to know.” Henry started walking towards the general crowd as well.

            “There’s going to be a minor disturbance. But it’s going to be good for you. I think.” Yuri tapped her chin and started dragging Seohyun along.

            “It’s in the stars?”

            “Well the minor disturbance, I heard some nymphs talking about it. And well I always feel like you’re special so…Don’t believe all the star parts. Right now I’m trying to see if we can fit mortals on other planets without having them die off. Minho’s been itching to see if we can get an intergalactic space war or something.” Yuri circled her hand in the air and Seohyun saw several small colored orbs hanging in the air. The image vanished quickly and they were both being pushed by the crowd towards the throne room.

            Seohyun lost Yuri in the crowd and she desperately tried to make her way through. Leeteuk might need her expertise and some other gods had taken the seats usually reserved for the muses. She saw Henry sitting on his own throne, frowning as he looked at some papers. Key was fiddling with a ring on his hand as he discussed something with Jonghyun.

            She sighed as she pushed open a side door and hurried up the spiral staircase to the balcony seats that hopefully no one would notice. Seohyun breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that everyone was too preoccupied with their things and sat on one of the two chairs in the booth.

            “Is this safe?” A voice asked behind her.

            Yonghwa grinned as he saw the pretty muse sit in the chair in front of him. She had been so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she didn’t even notice him in the corner of the box.

            “It’s pretty safe…as long you don’t fall out.” Seohyun muttered before she turned around to face the front.

            Yonghwa nodded and took the seat to her right. “So what’s going on?”

            “I’m not really sure…but it looks pretty serious.”

            Right on cue, Leeteuk clapped his hands and thunder echoed throughout the building. “Bring him in.”

            A familiar blond was escorted in by several guards and seated on the chair surrounded by the main gods.

            Seohyun couldn’t help but let out a small gasp as she recognized her friend and didn’t even flinch when Kai appeared in a small gust of black smoke. She quickly found herself deposited at a row of seats near the front with some of her unnies.

            Yonghwa blinked. That Seohyun girl…well not really a girl…was it a muse? Well anyways, she had disappeared with that smoke guy. He quickly found her sitting with several books in her hands, appearing and disappearing so quickly it looked like she was just switching channels on a tv screen.

            He leaned closer on the balcony and watched as the handsome man sat stoically, eyes set with determination. The only thing that might have given away whether or not he was nervous was index finger absentmindedly rubbing the arm of his chair.

            “So Kris, this is what you want?” Leeteuk’s voice was soft, but had a soft menacing undertone. “After you begged for the chance to be immortal, a god, you’re choosing to go back to being mortal?”

            The room seemed to collectively take a breath as the buzz of hundreds of people whispering to their neighbors rose.

            “Well you won’t do anything about family, so I’m going to do my part. I was too young, too rash. I don’t want anything to do with this living forever and watching my family die off.” Kris’ voice shook a little, but he contained his emotions for the most part…well apart from hovering above his chair as gusts of wind blew throughout the room.

            “Your family is right here…wait. You’ve been keeping track of your family?” Leeteuk’s eyes hardened at that. “You know you shouldn’t do that.”

            “Well it seems only fair. None of you keep up with anyone once you’re done with them.” Kris was gritting his teeth. “Apart from the 12 of us, I don’t think any of you ever really helped us when we were going through tough times and always dragging us along to fight in your wars. I’m done with that.”

            The wind was picking up and Yonghwa could swear he even felt a few raindrops hit him from the high arched ceiling.

            “I am your father young man. You cannot just do as you please.”

            “Exactly abeoji.” The word rolled off of his tongue covered in layers of sarcasm. “Thanks for always being there. Even after I did all of this stuff for you, all you can do is just make me young forever and sit me and Chen as some of your prized possessions.  I’m surprised our stepmom even puts up with us.” He glanced at Victoria, who was known to snub her stepchildren.

            She just shrugged and went back to reviewing her papers. “You two are better than most.”

            “Chen!” Leeteuk ran a hand through his hair and huffed as he sat on his throne. He pointed at a chair that had magically appeared next to Kris’. Chen was one of the newer gods along with Baekhyun. Kris had been one of the first to be made immortal. Unlike Kris, Chen didn’t disappear to the mortal world. There were no problems with this son.

            The talented singer from the birthday celebration walked forward and sat down next to his half-brother. Yonghwa looked closer and noticed what looked like a Pikachu on his lap.

            “Did you know anything about this Chen?” Leeteuk rifled through his papers without looking at his sons.

            “No sir.” Chen gave a sidelong glance at a worried Kris. “He has never mentioned anything like this before.”

            “Boys?”

            Yonghwa noticed that everyone in the audience turned to look at the ten boys from where Chen had come from.

            All of them looked confused and one even looked like he was crying. One of the really handsome ones, a few girls even fainted when he spoke, answered Leeteuk’s question.

            “No sir.”

            “Tao. Do me a favor will you? Oh the boys.”

            The crying boy hiccupped and the room fell silent.

            Yonghwa looked around to see that everyone was frozen. A few nymphs in the back had stopped eating with food halfway to their mouths, some minor gods were paused mid-yawn, even the nine muses had frozen. Seohyun was in the middle of turning the page.

            Then how was he still able to see everything and move? Maybe it was because he was mortal…But then he saw that all of the major gods were still moving around. Even the 12 boys were still murmuring to each other.

            “Tao, you forgot Kyuhyun again.” Leeteuk muttered in a softer tone.

            “Sorry.” Tao looked at Kyuhyun and the god began to move again.

            “Good acting Kris.” Leeteuk gave a small smile to the blond before walking over to pat his head. “Are you sure about this?”

            “I’m sorry Leeteuk.” Kris’ eyes looked a little too bright. “But she’s the last one and she’s going to die soon.”

            “I understand. But remember, the change is going to be permanent. There really is no other end other than this.”

            “I know.” Kris sighed before a sobbing Tao reached him.

            The other boys crowded around and there seemed to be more than a few tears.

            “Hurry up you guys. There isn’t a lot of time. And remember Kris, we’ll always be looking out for you. I haven’t forgotten about anything.” Leeteuk gave a small smile as Kris gave a small one back.

            “Luhan stop that, you’re going to get puffy eyes if you keep crying.” Krystal frowned and brushed the tears away with her hands. The boy became even more handsome if that was possible.

            Taemin sighed and waved his hand, causing a puddle to dry up. “Suho…what did I tell you about crying again? You’re going to cause another flood.”

            “Sorry.”

            Yonghwa stepped back from the balcony, feeling like he was intruding on something private. But as he was doing so, he tripped on a loose shoelace and crashed to the floor.

            “What was that?”

            “Tao, I told you to freeze everyone.”

            “I did. I froze time for everyone except the major Gods and us 12.”

            “Maybe your powers are glitching because you’re upset. We better hurry up and make everything normal again.” Kyuhyun’s melodious voice floated to where Yonghwa had frozen in fear.

            “Yes we wouldn’t want anyone else to hear about these things, would we?” Krystal’s voice had turned icy as the boys hurried back to their places and the buzz of people whispering appeared again.

            Yonghwa peeked through the gaps in the balcony to see Krystal staring right at him. He frowned. Why could he still hear the gods when everyone else was quiet? It must have been the thing with being mortal or whatever.

            “So no notice what so ever?” Leeteuk continued as if time had never stopped.

            Chen shook his head firmly.

            “Very well then. Kris, I will take this proposition and you will be stripped of your godly title. Furthermore, you will be cursed if you ever utter a word of Mount Olympus to any mortal and you will be banned from ever entering these halls again. As for your death, I’ll let Key handle that.”

            Key looked at the more relaxed blond and nodded. “I’m thinking fields of Asphodel, maybe you can try the rebirth thing. But I doubt Leeteuk will claim you a second time.”

            “We’ll see.” Leeteuk snapped his finger and Seohyun hurried up to the center of the semicircle of thrones. “Seohyun-a, fix the book.”

            Seohyun nodded and looked at Kris. She had an air of sadness, but also looked determined. “Kris, son of Leeteuk with the powers of flight and some control over other elements of the sky, you are hereby banished from these halls, stripped of your godly title, and will become mortal once you leave the premises. Do you agree with these terms?”

            “I do.”

            “Very well then.” She hesitated before looking at Kris again. He just nodded and waited expectantly.

            Seohyun sighed and opened the book to a random page. She ran a finger over a golden name that turned black as soon as her hand touched it. The book then flipped pages of its own accord and the list of black names grew longer.

            “Meeting adjourned.” Leeteuk called out and people started to trickle out. “Remember, the talent show will happen tomorrow.” He ordered Kris to be taken out of the room and waited until everyone but the 11 other boys remained.

            “I’m very sorry boys, you all had a wonderful performance to give I’m sure. But, I can’t delay the competition to give you all more time to practice.”

            “It’s alright, we’ll make it work.” Suho spoke with confidence, but then turned a little anxious. “What was the prize again?”

            “The winner will be granted a single wish.” Victoria spoke up and looked at the boys. “I guess that means all of you as a whole will get a wish if you win.”

            “A new wing with individual bedrooms wouldn’t be a bad idea.” Sulli mused as she played with a flower in her hand.

            “Don’t worry, we have a wish we can agree on.” Chen smiled at the gods. “We’ll be ready tomorrow.”

            Seohyun looked warily at the group before walking up. “What do you mean? I thought you were all performing separately or in small groups. Chen, you’re with me, remember?”

            Chen looked worried, like a few other boys, before biting his lip and looking at Seohyun with pleading eyes. “Sorry noona, but there’s been a change in plans. I’m really sorry.”

            Seohyun frowned and looked more disappointed than angry at her former duet partner. “Why are you telling me this now? I have no one else to do it with then.”

            Taeyeon walked up to the group and made a decision. “How about you work with Yonghwa? I’m sure he can do it since he’s really fast on the music stuff. I can help Henry with MCing or judging. It’s not like I really care about the prize anyways.” She grinned at the others. “Good luck everyone.”

            Seohyun sighed. “Okay then, I guess I’ll go find him and ask.”

            The boys all hung their heads and looked sorry. “We’re really sorry noona, just we had a great idea and we need all 12…or 11 of us to do it.” Baekhyun looked up and carefully muttered his words.

            “It’s okay.” Seohyun closed her book and shuffled towards the music room.

Hello lovely readers :) it's been a while hasn't it?

The good thing with winging this story is that anything can happen. Well there's been a lot of news lately with a few of the side characters of this story...But in the land of fanfiction...hopefully everyone has a happy ending? Don't worry, we'll get back to Yongseo after this brief interulde!

Hope to post the next chapter soon! And as always,

Thanks for reading!

- chocolate-notes :)