Namjoon sits back down and readjusts his glasses on his nose. There's a heavy, taut pull on the corners of his lips and his jaw is set, almost strained, his eyebrows drawn.

The judge clears his throat and Seokjin realises just how much pressure is pushing down on him. The entire gallery is full, and all eyes are trained on him. He feels every single pair of those eyes, weighing down on him like bricks.

His feet are no longer anchored to the sand. The water has now just risen above his head and he's struggling to keep his nose above the surface. To keep pulling in air.

But every pair of eyes that are trained on him feels like a brick tied to his ankle, pulling him down.

There's an immense pressure in the courtroom, filling up every space, and Seokjin tries to pretend like he isn't being crushed under it.

"Jung-ssi, your opening statement, please," the judge requests. Hoseok clears his throat into his fist and rises to his feet with a piece of paper in his hand. His lids are low over his pupils as he looks down at the information printed out.

"Yes, your Honour," he begins, his voice the slightest fraction strained. He coughs and clears his throat again. "On February the sixteenth, the defendant, Kim Seokjin, was caught on camera entering the locker room at the police station after the victim, Myung Minwoo, and was caught rushing out. It was then that suspicions arose and the victim's body was discovered."

"Very well," the judge accepts solemnly. "Please call in your first witness."

"I'd like to call in Detective Min Yoongi to the stand, please," Hoseok requests, and Yoongi rises from his seat and wordlessly takes the witness stand. His eyes are stern and his lips are set in a straight line. "Please state your full name and occupation to the court."

"Min Yoongi, chief investigator."

"Thank you. Please tell the court about the events of February the sixteenth."

Yoongi coughs into his fist to clear his throat. "I had a patrol up and around the apartment of one of my officers, Officer Jeon Jeongguk. At eleven PM, the officers on patrol retired for the night at the end of their shift. Defence Attorney Kim Seokjin was, at his request, also on patrol. At eleven, Officer Myung Minwoo returned to the police station and headed into the locker rooms to change. He was caught on CCTV just outside the locker room at ten past eleven. Defence Attorney Kim Seokjin walked in after, recorded at eighteen minutes past eleven. And at twenty-six past eleven, he was caught on CCTV fleeing the locker room. This was confirmed by the officers who saw him in the station."

Seokjin furrows his brows. Something doesn't seem right. He was caught on camera walking into the locker room at eleven eighteen, but was caught leaving at eleven twenty-six? Did he really spend eight minutes inside that locker room? No. He couldn't have done. He'd walked in, flipped the light switch on, saw the body and ran out. He couldn't have spent more than a minute, at the most.

But when the judge asks if either Hoseok or Namjoon wishes to question Yoongi, neither of them do. Apparently, what Yoongi had testified was correct. Apparently, Seokjin did spend eight minutes inside that room.

He looks down at his hands. For a moment, the lines on his palms disappear.

"Thank you, Detective Min Yoongi. I'd like to call the defendant up to the stand, now," Hoseok requests, flicking his eyes down at where Seokjin is sitting.

"Go ahead," the judge allows.

Seokjin silently rises from where he'd been sitting and takes up the witness stand. He clasps his hands together and swallows, hard, and tries to keep himself from shivering in anticipation and dread.

"State your full name and occupation to the court," the judge orders Seokjin.

"Kim Seokjin, criminal defence attorney."

Hoseok looks like there are a million different things he'd rather be doing than this. "Please tell us, in your own words, what happened on the night of the sixteenth."

He rises above the water for just long enough to inhale. "I was working with the police in keeping patrol," Seokjin begins. His voice sounds hollow and empty but he doesn't think he could do anything to fix it. "My shift ended at eleven at night, but I wanted to continue on into the night. I decided to take a break and went back to the police station because I knew Jeongguk kept snacks in his locker. When I walked into the locker room and turned the lights on, I discovered the body."

There's a pause in which nobody talks. The whole courtroom is silent. Seokjin presses his lips together and watches as Hoseok circles around his desk and comes to stand in front of Seokjin. "Why were you helping the police keep patrol?" Hoseok asks, his face stern and cold.

"The person who'd killed Jang Jaewon and Hong Haejoo was going to kill again that day. We needed to prevent the murder and hopefully catch them."

"How did you know the third murder was going to happen on that day? Who was it that predicted it?"

Seokjin swallows. "I did," he answers and tries to ignore the way Namjoon's shoulders seem to stiffen. "I predicted it."

A soft but painful sigh escapes Hoseok. "Please explain to the court how you came to that conclusion."

"There were clues left behind by the killer in the rooms belonging to Jang Jaewon and Hong Haejoo. The first murder hinted at the second, and the second murder hinted at the third."

"And yet, the police and detectives found no such clues when they carried out their investigations."

Seokjin presses his lips together and doesn't falter in his steeled gaze.

Hoseok takes a step away, but he doesn't return to his seat. Instead, he heads to his table and picks up a remote control. He directs everyone's gaze to the screen on the side of the courtroom, presses on a button, and blows up a photograph of a letter. The first letter sent to the police station where Jeongguk works. "Please explain this letter to the court, Kim Seokjin."

The letter has faint pencil scratchings etched into the surface where Jeongguk had tried and in the end, succeeded to decipher the message. Seokjin recognises his handwriting. But he doesn't recognise the writing of the one who'd written it out. "That letter was sent anonymously to the police on the tenth of December. Nobody was able to figure it out, but Jeongguk decided to keep it and continue trying to solve it."

"Tell the court who Jeongguk is and what your relationship is with him."

Seokjin swallows. "Jeon Jeongguk is an officer at the police station where the murder occurred. He's my younger brother. Half-brother. We share the same mother."

"And he was the one who solved the puzzle detailed on this anonymous letter?" Hoseok prompts, raising a brow.

Seokjin nods. "But it wasn't until after Jang Jaewon was murdered. It would've been impossible to solve it before. The answer to the puzzle was Jang Jaewon's name."

"What were you doing on the tenth of December?"

Heat starts to rise in his chest. He clenches his fists and tries not to think about this; about any of this, but it's so hard not to. But he knew this was coming, that he would be linked to the first two murders, as well. How could he not? He'd been accused of murdering someone in the same fashion as the first two, so he had already prepared himself to be accused of the first two, as well. But the reality of it, now weighing down on him, makes his blood boil. "I was in trial with my subordinate. Against you, Jung Hoseok."

Hoseok doesn't change his expression at all or let Seokjin's words rattle him. "What were you doing before and after the trial?" he clarifies.

"I helped my subordinate prepare, as he was leading a case for the first time. After the trial, I drove to my mother's home with Jeongguk."

"Can you confirm that that's what you were doing?"

"Look at the footage from my dash camera. You'll see that I didn't make any stops to the police station or anywhere else."

Hoseok doesn't look at all, fazed. "You could have walked there."

"I have a Bentley, why would I walk?"

"Objection," Namjoon calls out, interrupting the face-off Seokjin seemed to be having with Hoseok. "Relevance."

"Sustained," the judge replies.

Hoseok rubs his nose and accepts it like he'd just been scolded, but he bounces back unscathed. "Tell the court about what you found at the first and second crime scenes," he requests from Seokjin.

"In the case of Jang Jaewon," Seokjin begins after pulling in a deep breath, "we noticed that the cuts on his chest looked like roman numerals. And those roman numerals indicated page numbers of the only book in his bookcase that stood out. Using the first and second letters of the first word on those pages, we pieced together Hong Haejoo's name."

"Who's we?"

"Myself and my subordinate, Kim Namjoon."

Hoseok's eyes flick over to where Namjoon is sitting, his expression still stoic and taut. "The same Kim Namjoon who is defending you, today?"

Seokjin nods.

"And who was it that deciphered that hint? Who looked up all those pages and found the first word in each?"

"Namjoon."

"And did you, yourself, have a look at the pages of that book? The words he'd picked out?"

Seokjin bites down on his lip as he pans his vision, slowly, over to Namjoon. His brows are furrowed, much deeper now, and there's tension building up in his shoulders and his clenched fist. Last time, Seokjin was by Namjoon's side, ready to reach over and take his hands to ease his grief. This time, Seokjin is the cause of Namjoon's grief.

Hoseok just nods. "Tell us about the clue you found in the second crime scene," Hoseok continues.

"The legs of the chair Hong Haejoo was found dead in had little dots punched into the wood. The patterns were different on every leg, so I speculated that it was Morse code for something. We looked it up, and the clue read out History repeats itself. He will lie in the bed you've made."

"Again, who deciphered the code?"

"...Namjoon."

"Did you verify it?"

Seokjin doesn't reply. He only stares back, trying to hold back his anger. "I have no reason to doubt him," he says instead.

"Answer the question, defendant."

"No, I didn't verify it."

Namjoon hasn't said a word since the beginning of the trial but when Seokjin looks over at him it looks like he's barely containing himself. His fists atop the table are shivering and though his lips are set, sternly, in a straight line, Seokjin knows what's really going through his mind.

That this isn't looking good for either of them.

"So you took your subordinate's words for it," Hoseok confirms, and though his expression doesn't change, Seokjin can hear the hint of smugness in his voice, the way he knows he got what he wanted. "Tell us, now, about what that clue meant to you."

"That the third victim would be a male."

"How did you come to the conclusion that your little brother would be targeted?"

Seokjin swallows, hard. He hadn't even explained in full every reason Seokjin had to think that Jeongguk would be next, that the killer, whoever they were, was fixated on Seokjin. How was he meant to explain that? To put it across without digging for himself an even deeper grave? "I just... had a feeling," he replies vaguely.

"That's not gonna cut it," Hoseok snaps at him. "You predicted Jeongguk would be targeted on the sixteenth of February, and you had an entire patrol out to protect him. That's too specific and serious for just a feeling. And while no one was looking, because you'd distracted everyone, you slipped into the locker room and took your third victim."

"Objection!" Namjoon shouts out, almost making Seokjin jump. "The prosecution is speculating."

"Sustained," the judge accepts, and Seokjin feels his shoulders sag a little as if he can relax, now, even though he knows it won't be as easy as that. It will never be as easy as that, but Seokjin still exhales and allows himself these short few seconds of reprieve. He prepares himself once more, but the judge smacks his gavel down and snaps him out of his mind. "We shall reconvene after a twenty-minute break," he decides, and Seokjin exhales again, heavier and deeper this time. He feels relieved, and when he stands he takes a step towards Namjoon before a bailiff stands in his way and stops him.

For a second there, Seokjin had forgotten he's the defendant in this case and not the defence attorney. He'd almost gone to join Namjoon, to talk and laugh with him, to make jokes to lighten the mood.

He doesn't know, right now, how he can lighten his own mood. The bailiff leads him into another room from the back exit of the courtroom while everyone else leaves through the main entrance. The bailiff closes the door and Seokjin waits in the room, alone.

The room suddenly feels cold. Seokjin stares down at his hands and he remembers how there'd been blood on them, just after he'd flipped the light switch on in that locker room. He looks down at his hands and he can almost envision that blood still on his hands, covering the soft skin of his palms, making them slick and shiny.

He blinks and squeezes his eyes shut, and the blood on his hands disappears. It's not there anymore. Seokjin frowns as he tries to take himself back to that night, tries to remember what had happened. He'd walked into the locker room, he flipped the light switch on, and he saw a dead body. He ran to Namjoon's apartment. He washed his hands in the sink... but there wasn't much blood on his hands anyway. He'd only touched the light switch.

His reflection stares back at him, his eyes bloodshot and his skin pale and lifeless, in the bathroom of Namjoon's apartment. There's blood running from his hands into the sink where he'd left the taps on. His reflection stares back at him.

You're running out of time, his reflection says to him.

"To do what?" Seokjin asks in return.

To save everyone. You have to fix this. It can only be you.

"But I'm powerless," Seokjin laments, and his eyes start to sting. He reaches up and rubs at his eyes in an act of defiance against his tears, and when he pulls his hands back down, he's left streaks of blood on his eyelids. "I can see the numbers, but I can't change them."

Yes, you can.

"I can't."

The door to the side room opens, and Seokjin snaps his head away from the mirror. Namjoon steps inside the room and closes the door behind him.

"Are you allowed in here?" Seokjin asks as he stands from the bench he'd been sitting on.

Namjoon walks fast and purposefully, crossing the distance between himself and Seokjin. "Yeah, they gave me five minutes," he ushers out breathlessly, and when he bridges the gap between them he grabs Seokjin's face in his both hands, and he crashes his lips onto Seokjin's with the all urgency of a dying man. Startled, Seokjin stumbles back but is caught by the wall, and once he's breathed in a lungful of Namjoon's soft, familiar scent, he reaches up and wraps his arms, tightly, around Namjoon's neck, as if he would lose Namjoon forever if he lets go.

They kiss desperately and frantically, until Seokjin has to pull away because for a moment, breathing just wasn't as important as Namjoon. He inhales, long and heavy, before he leans back in and he kisses Namjoon again.

Namjoon presses into him, urgently, pushing him harder against the wall. His tongue finds its way into Seokjin's mouth, tasting him, letting himself be tasted.

He tastes like everything good in Seokjin's life that's about to get taken away from him. It's sweeter because he knows it'll be gone, soon.

And he pulls back to gasp for air, again.

Namjoon caresses his cheeks with his thumbs and leans forward, touching their foreheads together. He looks into Seokjin's eyes, his gaze heavy and forlorn like they hadn't just been kissing as if their lives depended on it. "I'm so sorry. I couldn't find anybody else to represent you," he whispers.

"It's okay," Seokjin whispers back. "It's going to be okay."

"I wish I believed that."

Seokjin licks his lips to say something, anything, that could possibly raise his spirits and heal his pain, but nothing comes to mind. His own heart is breaking and bleeding all over the floor. His head is filled with chaos and he doesn't know how to clear it. He doesn't know how he's supposed to save everyone, let alone save himself.

"I have to go," Namjoon murmurs solemnly, closing his eyes for a moment before he lets go of Seokjin and detaches his forehead from Seokjin's.

"Wait," Seokjin breathes, pushing himself off the wall to wrap his arms around Namjoon's waist. He tightens his arms around Namjoon, squeezing him, and he buries his face in Namjoon's neck.

And Namjoon envelopes Seokjin's body, keeping him safe and warm, but only for a moment. Because then he's gone and he's no longer in the room and Seokjin is once again all alone with nothing but a heart that's aching and crying out in pain. He sinks back down onto the bench.

He doesn't know how long he waits and stares at the marble floors until the bailiff returns to collect him and escort him back to the courtroom. He takes a seat in the witness stand like he had been, before the break, and waits as the gallery fills up once again, as Namjoon and Hoseok return.

The judge smacks his gavel and silences all the voices and chatter in the gallery. "Namjoon-ssi. Please begin your cross-examination," he requests, and Namjoon clears his throat. Readjusts his glasses, flattens his tie against his abdomen. Then, he stands.

"Kim Seokjin, please repeat to the court what happened on the night of the sixteenth."

Seokjin sighs heavily. He looks down at the marble floor and wishes that it would open up and swallow him whole and end his misery. Instead, he parts his lips and starts talking. "I was helping the police in keeping patrol – to make sure that Jeongguk was protected and to hopefully catch the killer. My shift ended at eleven, but I wanted to continue on during the night. I went to the police station for a short break and went into the locker room to take some snacks from Jeongguk's locker. I flipped the light switch on and discovered the body."

"Why did you agree on helping the police keep patrol, and why did you want to continue on into the night?" Namjoon asks. "You're not a police officer. It isn't your job to keep patrol."

"I couldn't sit back while someone out there was planning on murdering Jeongguk."

"Who is Jeongguk to you?"

Seokjin's eyes flicker over into the gallery, where he meets Jeongguk's eyes. "He's my brother. My last remaining family member. He's all I have left."

Namjoon nods. "What made you believe that he was going to be targeted, next?"

"There was a single volume missing from Jang Jaewon's bookshelf of an otherwise complete collection of a manga series. It was volume twenty-two, Jeongguk's age. The book it was replaced by, the one that held the clue that led to Hong Haejoo, told the story of a boy named Jeongguk. There was two-hundred and sixteen pages in both the missing volume and the book – detailing that the murder would occur on the sixteenth of February. In Hong Haejoo's room, the Morse code told us that history would be repeated. The third victim would have the same initials as Jang Jaewon. J.J. Jeon Jeongguk."

"What were your thoughts when you made that connection?" Namjoon asks.

"I thought... I thought that I would protect him, no matter what. I wasn't going to let anything happen to him."

"What did you do after that?"

"I told him, and I told Detective Min Yoongi. I knew I would need help if I wanted to protect him."

Namjoon nods and his facial expression doesn't shift. "What were their reactions?"

"They were sceptical of my reasonings, but they trusted me. I guess."

"Why did they trust you?"

"A bouquet of red spider lilies was sent to my office along with another anonymous letter to the police station on the day I went to question the suspect at the time, Lee Mirae. I couldn't have dropped that letter off or sent the bouquet to myself."

"That bouquet was purchased from Lee Mirae's shop on that same day," Namjoon tells the judge as he pushes his glasses up on his nose. "The defendant has an alibi for the time that transaction was made."

"Do you have an alibi for night of the sixteenth?" Hoseok challenges, resting his chin against his palm at his table.

"Yes, I do," Namjoon snaps back, and Seokjin licks his lips in anticipation. For a moment, Seokjin can't bring himself to trust Namjoon. They'd omitted the fact that it was Namjoon who'd figured out that Jeongguk would be targeted next, not Seokjin. They omitted the fact that Seokjin had run to Namjoon's apartment after stumbling upon the dead body. It doesn't sit right with him that they're keeping those facts hidden, and now he's scared that Namjoon might just do something he shouldn't. He sits at the edge of his seat, halted in dread and anticipation.

"Please detail to the court this alibi," the judge prods Namjoon.

"Yes, your Honour. For that, I'd like to call the second person to discover the body. Officer Hwang, if you will."

An officer, dressed in the same uniform Jeongguk wears, approaches the witness stand as a bailiff escorts Seokjin back to the defendant's seat. The officer sits down and dusts some imaginary dust off his knees.

"Please state to the court your full name and occupation," the judge requests.

"Hwang Daehyun, officer in homicides, you Honour," he replies meekly.

Namjoon shoves his hands into the pockets of his dress pants, pushing back his suit jacket. "Please tell the court about the events of February the sixteenth."

Daehyun pulls in a deep breath, letting his eyes close for just a moment. Seokjin looks down at his own feet and he wonders how many times he's going to be forced to relive that night, how many times he's going to have to hear it being told again and again, from different angles and perspectives, with none of them painting him in a good light. It doesn't matter who recounts those events, because in every version of the story, Seokjin was the one who walked in after Myung Minwoo, and he was the one who left right after.

"I normally work during the nights, so I arrived at the station at eleven twenty-five. I was planning on having a cup of coffee, relaxing for a while, before I went out on patrol," Daehyun begins. "I headed to the locker room first to leave my jacket there before I went into our break room. As I approached the locker room, Kim Seokjin came out, running. I tried calling after him, but he didn't respond. He looked shaken up, so I went into the locker room to find out why, and that's when I saw the body."

Namjoon drums his fingers along the surface of his desk. "You arrived at the station at eleven twenty-five exactly?"

"Yes," Daehyun confirms. "We have a clocking-in system to record the exact time we arrive to work."

"Did you recognise the defendant straight away?"

"Yes," Daehyun confirms again. "He's Officer Jeon's older brother. And a friend of the chief's. Everyone at the station knows him."

"Describe how he looked that night," Namjoon orders.

Daehyun nods and purses his lips like he's wracking his brain to remember. "He was wearing a tan-coloured trench coat and black jeans."

"Was he carrying a bag of any sort with him?"

"No."

"Did you see any blood on him?"

"No, not really."

Namjoon nods, and he looks over at Seokjin. The gaze only lasts for a moment, less than that, but he offers Seokjin the tiniest of smiles that he's sure nobody else saw. Seokjin wants to feel reassured by it, he wants to feel what Namjoon is trying to make him feel, but nothing gets through to him. The lack of blood on Seokjin's clothes speaks volumes about how he could've executed such a grisly murder without soiling his garments, and he knows this, he knows how good it makes him look, but he can't seem to unwind. He doesn't feel any more reassured than he did when he'd first discovered the body.

Dark clouds continue to laud over him and nothing he does, nothing Namjoon tries to do, will clear those clouds away.

"Now, please tell us what you saw when you walked into the locker room. Be as descriptive as you can."

Daehyun visibly gulps, and he clasps his hands together atop his lap. He looks nervous – whether he's nervous to be here or nervous about retelling the horror of what he'd seen in that locker room, Seokjin doesn't know, but suddenly he doesn't want to be here or hear this at all. There's something in him that desperately wants to reject everything right now, to run away from it all like he did that night. He wants to run and run and fall into Namjoon's arms and be cocooned in his warmth and his protection.

But he doesn't get to do that.

"There was blood all over the walls," Daehyun begins his testimony. "All over the floor. Myung Minwoo... Officer Myung... his body was... in pieces on the other side of the room."

"What about the flowers taped to the wall?" Namjoon asks, his tone of voice not holding any kind of questioning lilt to it.

"Oh!" Daehyun's meek-looking eyes widen. "I heard that those were there. I didn't notice them, though. I uh, was too shaken up. Sorry."

"So," Namjoon begins, walking around the table to stand in front of the gallery. "There was blood all over the walls, blood on the floor. And yet when Kim Seokjin ran out of the locker room, only eight minutes after entering, there was no blood on his clothes or soles of his shoes."

"He could've changed his clothes," Hoseok suggests from where he's sat at his table. "He has access to Jeongguk's locker. They're both similar in height and build – he could've easily changed into something from Jeongguk's locker."

"Where would those bloodied clothes have gone, then?" Namjoon challenges, turning to face Hoseok. "Because he wasn't carrying a bag with him when he ran out of the locker room, and there was nothing of the sort found there either."

"He wore black jeans and a tan trench coat. Blood wouldn't show on the jeans, and he could've easily covered any blood on his shirt by buttoning up his coat," Hoseok reasons. Namjoon just shakes his head.

"Can you explain the shoes, then? He didn't leave behind any bloody footprints."

Hoseok presses his lips together and doesn't speak for a few seconds, but those few seconds to Namjoon means everything.

"Yeah," Daehyun pipes up, snatching everyone's attention back to himself. "He didn't leave behind any bloody footprints."

"There's no way Seokjin could've murdered Officer Myung, dismembered him, sprayed his blood over the walls and floor, changed out of his sullied shoes and made them disappear, all in eight minutes before running out of the locker room and being seen empty handed, wearing clean clothes," Namjoon reasons, counting off points on his fingers one by one. "He couldn't have done it."

Hoseok plants his hands into the table and he pushes himself up to his feet. "Then what was he doing for eight minutes? According to the defendant, he walked in, turned the lights on, saw the body and immediately ran out. That doesn't sound like eight minutes."

Namjoon's lips part, but he, like Hoseok had been just a few moments earlier, is speechless. He doesn't say anything, and Hoseok continues to stare, to challenge him, but neither of them back down. Neither of them wants to drop the ball, and it's only becoming more and more difficult for Seokjin to bear.

All eyes are on him. Namjoon and Hoseok are staring off at each other, but every pair of eyes in the gallery are focused on him like bricks tied to his ankles. The weigh him down and Seokjin knows it's only a matter of time until he runs out of air and his lungs fill up with dirty water. He swallows, hard, and his hands curl into fists atop his knees.

He tries to look down at his knees in the hopes that he might stop thinking about all the eyes. Like he could pretend they aren't there if he can't see them. But he still feels them, every single pair of them, oppressing him like a pressure he can't fight. The room feels like it's starting to go dark, and Seokjin's vision starts to feel fuzzy. He narrows his eyes – he tries to clear it away, but his attempts are futile. So he raises his chin and he looks up.

His reflection stares back at him, in the mirror after Seokjin had run like a coward to Namjoon's apartment. The harsh white light is on, his skin is pale and almost translucent. Dark circles under his eyes make him look like he hasn't slept for years. He looks down and there's blood on his hands. His hands are covered, slick, dripping with blood. He quickly turns on the taps and he frantically tries to wash the blood away, and within seconds there's a stream of red draining into the sink.

He rears his head once again to greet his reflection now that his hands are clean, now that everything has been washed away. Seokjin stares at his own face in the mirror; a face he isn't entirely sure he recognises, until a line appears on its forehead. The line splits, the skin on either side pushing apart, and from the fissure on his forehead, an eye emerges.

The third eye on Seokjin's reflection looks around, hysterically, before it notices Seokjin and fixates on him. His own eyes begin to sting but before he can even think about stopping himself from sobbing, tears spill out and roll down his cheeks.

His reflection starts to cry tears of blood. A little rivulet of red streams down the centre of his face from his third eye.

Like a light bulb bursting, Seokjin's vision goes completely black.

Seokjin stands at the shore, the sand soft and warm by the edges of his lonely island. The sky is a pale, dull blue, with cottony clouds wafting far out in the horizon. The soft and salty breeze whistles past his skin, drying the tear tracks left behind on his cheeks.

He reaches up and he touches the tips of his fingers to his cheeks, to the dried tears just under his eyes. He stands at the shore and he looks out into the horizon, wondering wistfully if he'd managed to save everyone, and if they're all happy.

Nothing else really matters. He pulls his hand back down from his cheek, and he holds it out in front of him. There's blood on his palms.

A sudden quake jostles Seokjin awake, and when he snaps his eyes wide open he quickly discovers that he can't see anything – only tiny patches of light pinpricking through the cloth that's been secured over his eyes. He reaches up to remove the cloth but promptly realises that his hands are bound, tied together with something, and held behind him.

Panic and dread come crashing in like waves. He parts his lips to start yelling but there's a gag over his mouth and his words turn into muffled cries of desperation.

The car he's in drives over another rock in the uneven, bumpy road. Seokjin almost falls forward from the tremor of it. Seokjin cries out, and he thrashes against the seat he's in, against the ties that bind his wrists together, against the seat in front of him, until a voice he doesn't recognise barks at him to shut up. He screams out even louder in resistance, but he doesn't even have time to regret because something hard and heavy collides with his jaw, snapping his head backwards, smacking it into the window of the car.

The lights go out.

Thunderclouds start to form far out in the horizon. The sand under Seokjin's feet is still soft, still lukewarm. But Seokjin doesn't really feel that anymore – he can't remember when he stopped feeling it, because all he feels now is dread and anticipation as he watches those grey, melancholy clouds looming in the distance. He wonders if they'll reach him, if they're going to destroy him and everything he loves.

Those clouds are still far, far away. Seokjin still stands at the shore, watching them, as if he'd get swept away in the storm if he turns a blind eye for just a second.

Two hands grasp his shoulders from behind, tough fingers digging into his muscle, before they push him down and force him to kneel. His hands are no longer bound behind him but there's still the blindfold over his eyes and a gag over his mouth, and once his knees hit the floor the two hands on his shoulders lift off and roughly, harshly, they untie the blindfold and gag. A few hairs from Seokjin's scalp rip away with the knot in the cloth, but Seokjin doesn't even register the pain in the face of the bright, blinding white light that assaults his eyes and causes them to sting.

It takes a minute for his eyes to adjust to the light, but before that happens everything around Seokjin's head is thrown into utter disarray; a mess of coloured lights, a cacophony of voices whose words he can't decipher. They all meld together, low-pitched and slow, and it takes Seokjin a minute to make sense of anything.

There's a throbbing pain in the right side of his jaw and in the back of his head where he has vague recollections of being smacked ruthlessly until he'd passed out.

Then, when his vision finally returns to him, his eyes first fall upon the marble steps in front him. He cranes his neck up, up, until he finds a grand baroque throne of black velvet and intricate gold filigree. The chair is empty, but there's a man standing beside it, his hand resting on the back of the chair. Seokjin looks up and narrows his eyes in an attempt to sharpen his vision and make out the features of the man standing beside the chair.

He doesn't recognise him straight away. But a short moment later it all comes crashing back to him and a clamouring pain bursts in the back of his head, causing him to drop his head and cradle it in his hands. It radiates inside his skull, the pain pulsating and sending shockwaves of agony through his head like bolts of lightning. His fingers dig deep into his scalp and he grits his teeth but no matter what he tries, he can't contain the pain or make it quieten down.

"Seokjin, raise your head," the man besides the chair tells him. His voice, though he knows is a voice he's heard very recently, sounds nothing like what Seokjin remembers of it. "You have a duty to fulfil, so raise your head and take responsibility."

With his hands still cradling his head and the pain still demanding to be heard in waves, he raises his head slowly but surely. Daehyun's hand lets go of the back of the chair, and he calmly, almost demurely, walks down the marble steps. He seems nothing like the little act he'd put on for the trial, he doesn't look meek or shy or nervous. And he seems nothing like what Seokjin remembered of him, twenty years ago, when he'd predicted that his mother would die in a few days. He doesn't look angry or brash or dangerous. Seokjin hadn't realised it then, during his trial, that the witness Namjoon called to the stand was the kid whose mother Seokjin predicted the death of. He hadn't realised it then, but Daehyun was the first person Seokjin had ever failed.

That had all come crashing back to him, just moments ago, and it continues to reverberate in his skull like unbridled chaos and clamour.

Seokjin bites down on his lip. "What are you talking about?" he tries to ask but his voice is reduced to a raspy whisper.

Daehyun doesn't answer. He just holds a hand out to Seokjin to help him up.

"Tell me," Seokjin seethes, ignoring the hand. "What the fuck is going on."

The owners of the two hands that had forced Seokjin to kneel now grab him again, gripping his shoulders to yank him up to his feet. Seokjin tries to shake them off him, to struggle out of the hold of the two that flank him, but he barely has enough energy to keep himself upright, let alone fight away two large, muscular men.

But Daehyun seems to fight Seokjin's battles for him. He narrows his eyes at the two men. "Do not," he begins, his voice dropping low and dangerous, "ever touch him like that again."

Seokjin furrows his brows, confused beyond words. His lips are pressed together and he doesn't say anything, but he watches Daehyun and questions flit around his mind at lightspeed. What was Daehyun doing here? What is his role in all of this? Why doesn't he seem angry at Seokjin, like he was twenty years ago?

Because he doesn't, at all, look angry at Seokjin. Like he blames him. Like he still carries it with him the way Seokjin still does. Instead, Daehyun returns his focus to Seokjin in front of him and smiles delicately. Reaches up with one hand and cups Seokjin's cheek gently. It's only now that Seokjin's eyes widen and his lips part in shock. He stands, still as stone. "I'm sorry for all your suffering until now," Daehyun tells him, his voice softening. "It was all to prepare you for this."

"What," Seokjin whispers, his voice impossibly quiet and shivering along the edges in fear as Daehyun smooths his thumb over Seokjin's cheekbone, "is going on?"

"There will be time for explanations later," Daehyun answers vaguely as he drops his hand from Seokjin's cheek. He moves around him until he stands beside him, and he places his hand onto Seokjin's back.

He starts to walk forward, gently but firmly pushing Seokjin along with him. Seokjin complies, but only because he's shivering with fear and dread and he's scared out of his wits about what's to come. Together they walk up the marble steps, Daehyun escorts him to the baroque throne, and he coaxes Seokjin to sit. Scared of what would happen if he refuses, Seokjin sits down.

Daehyun stands in front of him, and then he lowers himself onto one knee. The two men who'd manhandled Seokjin into this place also lower to one knee.

"Our God has returned to us," Daehyun announces, pressing a hand to his heart. "To set straight the path that this wretched world has fallen down."

Seokjin's hands grip tightly onto the cold metal of the armrests on the throne, tightly, and he swallows hard. "What are you talking about?" Seokjin asks, his voice nothing more than a whisper that strains against his vocal chords and hurts to get out.

"You," Daehyun angles his head up just enough to meet Seokjin's eyes from where he remains, kneeling in front of him, "are more important than you know. You aren't Kim Seokjin, criminal defence attorney. You aren't the grim reaper."

"Then," Seokjin begins quietly and fearfully, his knuckles turning white from where they clench hard around the armrests of his throne. "Who am I?"

"You are Chronos, God of Time."

The tide comes in, Seokjin tells himself, even though the moon has yet to rear her head and bring with her the darkness of night. The tide comes in and water laps at Seokjin's feet. It's cold, and it feels good on his dry skin, and Seokjin wants to enjoy this, he really does, but the thunderclouds look like they've slowly but surely inched towards Seokjin like a lion ready to pounce on him at any moment to devour him whole.

The sky is still a pale, dull blue. Thunderclouds with Seokjin's name written in them stalk a littler closer to him. Seokjin takes a step back, but the sand that's now waterlogged anchors him in place. When the time comes for those thunderclouds to finally meet him, he'll be swept off his feet. It's only a matter of time, now.

Seokjin walks through the long, empty hallway. The floors, the walls, everything is made of polished white marble. There are simple chandeliers hanging from the ceiling every few metres, and though the hallway is well and brightly lit, Seokjin can't really see through to the end.

He continues to walk nonetheless.

It's been a few days since his trial. He doesn't remember much from it – only that it seemed like nobody was on his side and even the ones who were could do nothing to help him. He remembers that Namjoon had represented him in court even though he barely had any faith in himself to lead such a case; how nervous he was and how much he doubted himself when Seokjin tasked him with leading Park Jimin's trial. He wonders about the days leading up to his own trial, how Namjoon must have tortured himself before he'd finally decided to represent Seokjin. He wonders about how it must have felt. He wonders about why it had to happen in the first place.

He wonders about every step he'd taken in his life that had led him to this destination. The numbers he saw above Daehyun's mother's head that didn't look right to him. The numbers above his father's head. The numbers above that little girl's head, and the numbers above Jeongguk's father's head. He wonders how many of those were just coincidences, and how many of those he had a part to play in, how many he had influenced

He wonders about how much of what Daehyun told him was true. He wonders why he's even entertaining the idea.

The courtyard is beautiful, with a grand marble fountain in the centre and lush greenery around it, the buds of flowers waiting to bloom lining the fountain. Seokjin walks along the stone path, watching the water gushing up and out of the fountain. He watches it come up, come down, and then become one with the water once again.

He looks up at the dull, pale blue sky. It's been over a week now since his trial and he has no idea where he is, how far from home he is, and what everyone is doing right now. If they're worried about Seokjin or if they're angry at him, and whether or not they're searching for him.

He wishes he could get out of this place, but he's been here for over a week and he still can't manage to leave. It seems like a big, almost gigantic settlement in the woods far away from civilisation. There's the main house – a large mansion with a courtyard, and several smaller houses around the area. There are tall gates encompassing the settlement constantly watched by guards as if every single one of them knows that Seokjin wants to escape.

But it's been a while since he started pretending that he doesn't want to escape anymore.

Daehyun calls themselves Timekeepers. They're a group of people who believe that the timeline the world is embarking on is wrong, and that the path needs to be set straight. That all the wars, bombings, killings, are all by-products of this mistaken track.

It was the morning after his trial that Daehyun told Seokjin all of this. After he and his men had effectively kidnapped Seokjin and forced him here, against his will. Seokjin had woken up to the late morning sunlight filtering in through thin white lace curtains billowing softly with the breeze. Someone had rid him of his suit and dressed him in a soft white shirt that hangs off his shoulders like it's a size or two too large, and a pair of white shorts that just about reach his knees. He'd swung his legs over the side of the grand bed with the mattress and duvet softer than anything he's ever slept in before, and he walked out of the room.

The hallways were long, made of polished white marble that made Seokjin wonder if there was ever an end to them.

But somehow, he'd reached a set of double doors, and he pushed the doors open. Found inside a large open room with nothing but a long dining table, two chairs on either end, in the middle of the room. To the side, a grand piano, with Daehyun sitting at it.

"Chronos, my Lord, please sit," Daehyun immediately stood when Seokjin walked in, ushering him into one of the two seats at the dining table. In front of Seokjin sitting atop the table was a tray, adorned with a plate filled with fresh fruit and a glass filled with a liquid Seokjin didn't trust.

"What the fuck is going on?" Seokjin had spat, giving the tray of food in front of him no more than a glance. "What happened yesterday? Where am I?"

Daehyun didn't answer, not at first. Instead, he reached down and plucked a grape from the plate and brought it up to Seokjin's lips. "Here, eat."

"No," Seokjin replied, angling his head away. "I want answers."

Slowly, obediently, Daehyun placed the grape back down. Then, he turned just enough to sit atop the side of the table, one hand planted into the table in front of Seokjin. His other reached forward and touched tenderly at Seokjin's hair. "What would you like to know, my Lord?"

Seokjin flinched away from Daehyun's touch, but he didn't seem fazed by Seokjin's disgust. "Why am I here?" he asked first.

"I told you yesterday, my Lord. You are Chronos, the God of Time."

I am not, Seokjin immediately thought. He swallowed, hard, and pressed his lips together as he looked up at Daehyun from where he sat. Daehyun didn't move from where he was perched atop the table. "What makes you think that?" he followed up with instead.

"You have the ability to see time," Daehyun answered mildly, "and manipulate it."

"I can't manipulate it," Seokjin challenged, furrowing his brows harshly over his eyes.

That didn't seem to disappoint Daehyun the way he'd wanted it to, because Daehyun had just leaned over, smiled, and brought his hand up once again to touch his finger under Seokjin's chin, angling his face upwards. "Don't underestimate yourself, my Lord. I have prepared you to be the strongest you can possibly be."

Seokjin gritted his teeth together, hands clenching tightly into fists beside the plate of fruit. "What are you talking about?" he seethed.

"You can never gain true strength without adversity," Daehyun told him. "A piece of coal turns into diamond but only if it's under extreme pressure. We did what we had to do to prepare you for this role."

"Like... like murdering those three innocent people?"

Daehyun nodded. "You are accustomed to death, already. I needed to subject you to something more sinister, more personal, more difficult. I needed to break you before I remade you."

"But why?" Seokjin bit down on his lip.

"To awaken your true power. Seeing lifespans isn't your limits. You have the power to influence those lifespans, to manipulate them. The goal of the Timekeepers is to set straight the path that this corrupt world has embarked on, and to do that, we need a God. We need you."

"What are you going to make me do?"

Daehyun looked down at the plate of fruit he'd put in front of Seokjin and reached down to pluck up a few pomegranate seeds. He lifts them up to Seokjin's lips, and this time, he makes Seokjin eat them. "You will cleanse the world of the people who don't deserve time."

That was over a week ago. Little by little, in small doses so that Seokjin can adjust himself to it, Daehyun teaches Seokjin about their cult. Daehyun doesn't like it when Seokjin calls it a cult, and he was really unhappy after the first time Seokjin tried to escape, so Seokjin doesn't try anymore and he doesn't call it a cult.

After his first attempt to escape, Daehyun had made sure Seokjin never walked anywhere unaccompanied. It seemed as though Daehyun was the leader of the cult – had taken over from the previous leader.

Little by little, he teaches Seokjin about the Timekeepers. Their beliefs, their ethics, the things that they do. On the very surface of it all, they just look like a religious cult who condone the actions of the wicked and the criminal. But as Seokjin peels back the layers of the organisation he realises it's no where near as good and well-intended as Daehyun thinks it is; they'd organised the deaths of three innocent people: Jang Jaewon and Myung Minwoo, two of their very own members, and the child of another member, Hong Haejoo.

"They weren't sacrificed," Daehyun stands firm against his actions, but his tone of voice doesn't sound challenging or opposing in the slightest. "They were catalysts, necessary to make you who are meant to be. It's for the greater good."

Seokjin pretends to go along with all of this, because while he knows that Daehyun or any of the Timekeepers would never hurt him, he doesn't doubt that they won't extend that hospitality to Jeongguk. They'd already threatened Jeongguk's life before, and it seems like they won't have any remorse in doing so again.

"Why me, though?" Seokjin asks one day, just as Daehyun is about to leave after the end of Seokjin's training. "I come from a long line of Seers. Why did you pick me, specifically?"

Daehyun stands by the door. "You are special, Kim Seokjin," Daehyun tells him as if he doesn't tell Seokjin the same thing every single day. "You aren't like everyone who came before you."

"And why is that?"

"The DNA belonging to those of the Seers will die with you," Daehyun tells him. "Your offspring will not be a Seer like you."

"W-what?" Seokjin stutters, his lips parting in shock. "But... why? My mother was a Seer, and her mother was a Seer, and-"

"They were all women, weren't they?" Daehyun asks. "Seers are always women. It resides in their mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited solely from the mother. As a male, your biological offspring will not inherit your mitochondrial DNA, which you inherited from your mother. Your offspring will not be a Seer."

"B-but... I thought it was always the first child who would be a Seer," Seokjin asks in disbelief.

"It's the first female child."

"So I was... an anomaly? A mutation?"

Daehyun shakes his head slowly and smiles softly. "No. You are the chosen one. You are perfect. You are not just a Seer, you are a God."

"Daehyun," Seokjin sounds softly as the other man brushes his hair from behind. He sees less and less of Daehyun these days; as the leader of the cult he has certain duties he needs to fulfil (though what those duties are, Daehyun doesn't tell him and Seokjin doesn't want to know), and on most days he goes to work where he pretends to be an officer alongside Seokjin's little brother, whom Daehyun reports back as fine and healthy.

Fine and healthy is what Daehyun assumes Jeongguk is, even though Seokjin knows that Jeongguk won't be fine or healthy. He knows that Jeongguk won't be well, not in the slightest, not when Seokjin's been missing for a while, now.

He hasn't asked about what the police are doing or how they're taking Seokjin's disappearance. Do they see this as a kidnapping, or do they think Seokjin is on the run? Are they trying to save him, or are they trying to apprehend him?

"Yes?" Daehyun responds, softly brushing Seokjin's hair. It's getting longer, now, and so long as Daehyun doesn't mention a potential haircut, neither does Seokjin.

"Do you remember when we were seven years old?" he asks lightly, cautiously. "I told you that your mother didn't have long left."

"I remember," Daehyun answers, putting the hairbrush down on the bed beside Seokjin. Then, he rests his hand atop Seokjin's head.

"You were really mad at me at the time. Why... why aren't you angry anymore?"

"How could I ever be angry at you?" Daehyun asks, shuffling around the on the bed to come in front of Seokjin. He reaches forward and cups Seokjin's cheeks in both hands delicately.

Seokjin furrows his brows and feels something burning in his chest, but he doesn't move away from Daehyun's touch. "You were angry when I tried to run away," he recounts.

A soft smile replaces the concern on Daehyun's face. "You didn't understand your importance, or who you truly were. I wasn't angry."

You could've fooled me, Seokjin wants to say. My scalp still hurts from the way you dragged me by my hair across the floor. "Right," Seokjin mumbles.

Daehyun's smile grows wider, and his thumbs stroke over Seokjin's cheekbones tenderly, before he leans in and presses a kiss to Seokjin's lips that he doesn't return.

His own reflection in the mirror in front of him stares at him, scrutinises him, sneers at him. Seokjin doesn't know why, but for the first time in a long time, he feels like his mind is clear. He's been here for a while, now, and he doesn't entirely recognise the face he sees in the mirror. The person looking back at him has hair that reaches just below his earlobes, wears a billowing white shirt that hangs off his shoulders and exposes his collarbones, and has a third eye in the centre of his forehead.

His third eye is open, but when Seokjin reaches up to touch it, he feels nothing at all. His forehead is completely smooth.

A hallucination, Seokjin tells himself, but acknowledging it as such does nothing in the way of stopping himself from seeing it every time he catches sight of his own reflection. His mind feels clear, clearer than it has for a long time, but still he continues to see a third eye that he knows isn't there.

There are many people who call themselves Timekeepers. Lee Mirae and his older brother, for example. When he isn't working, Lee Yoonseo comes to Seokjin and weaves flowers into his hair.

People he's seen once or twice, people he's walked past on the streets. People he's worked with, his friends have worked with, that he's crossed paths with. He doesn't interact with them, because it's much too strange to remember speaking to them as Kim Seokjin, criminal defence attorney, and to now be spoken to as Chronos, the revered God of Time.

He doesn't believe, even for a moment, that he is capable of manipulating the lifespans that he sees, or that he deserves any of the reverence Daehyun bestowed upon him. He is not a God. He is just a human cursed with the ability to see lifespans. He cannot manipulate them. He refuses to believe that any of the three lives that were taken in the hopes that it would break Seokjin were necessary or had any effect on him. They were senseless murders, nothing more. They were not catalysts as Daehyun told him they were. The Timekeepers were just as bad as the people they claimed Seokjin would cleanse the world of.

Of course, Seokjin never voices any of these opinions, to Daehyun or to anyone else in the cult. He remembers what happened the last time he tried to escape, the last time he disobeyed, and he knows that he'll have to bide his time. He'll have to play along and pretend that he is who they say he is.

Until March the twenty-first.

Daehyun eases Seokjin into the big, soft bed but tonight, before he pulls the duvet up, he climbs into the bed with him. He pulls the duvet up and pushes one arm under Seokjin's neck and circles it around his shoulders. He turns his head on the pillow to face Seokjin and buries his nose into Seokjin's hair.

Seokjin stays stock-still. Continues to stare up at the ceiling and tries to ignore the way Daehyun holds him so tenderly and affectionately. "Daehyun," he whispers into the night.

"Yes, my Lord?"

"How did you do it? Myung Minwoo? Hong Haejoo and Jang Jaewon?"

He pauses to gauge Daehyun's reaction to his question, but the other man doesn't seem fazed at all. His hand tightens around Seokjin's shoulder, but there's nothing else in his demeanour that says Seokjin shouldn't have asked. "There's no need for you to know, now," comes his short reply.

"I want to know," Seokjin protests.

Daehyun sighs, his breath fanning over Seokjin's ear. "Alright, if you wish. I had arrived at the station long before you did and signed in with another officer's card. I hid myself inside my locker and waited while many officers came and went. Then, when Myung Minwoo arrived, I exited my locker and took care of him."

"And then...?"

"I returned to hide inside my locker. Another Timekeeper arrived at the police station and signed in with my card. Then, you arrived, found the officer, and ran. My aide posed as me until I was able to get out of the locker before more officers came to investigate."

"And Jang Jaewon? Hong Haejoo?"

"I was responsible only for Myung Minwoo. You've already met Lee Mirae and his brother, Lee Yoonseo. They were responsible for Jang Jaewon and Hong Haejoo."

"You pulled all of this off... to make it look like I did it. To point all the fingers towards me."

"You have to understand, my Lord," Daehyun squeezes Seokjin's shoulder and nuzzles his nose into Seokjin's hair, "that we had to do this to prepare you."

Seokjin wants nothing more, right now, than to push Daehyun as far away from him as possible. His stomach feels queasy with the thought of being held so affectionately, so intimately, by someone who had taken the life of another and in the way that it was carried out. Daehyun had chopped Myung Minwoo's body into pieces. Splattered his blood across the walls and the floor. Did all of this because he wanted to break Seokjin down.

He'd succeeded in that, Seokjin will admit. It did break him. It pounded him, it crushed him, and it cremated him. But where Daehyun believed that he'd remade Seokjin into Chronos, the God that would cleanse the world of people who didn't deserve time, he was wrong.

Seokjin is not a God.

His hair reaches his chin, now. Seokjin doesn't recognise the man in the mirror at all.

The third eye in the centre of his forehead is still there, and it's wide open, now. It's still painful to look at, so he turns away from the mirror and looks back at Daehyun, standing at the foot of his bed, brandishing a dagger that he polishes with a cloth.

"Tell me again," Seokjin requests quietly, "why I'm here."

Daehyun raises his brows and looks up at Seokjin curiously. After a moment he places the dagger down on the bed and crosses the distance between himself and Seokjin, and with one hand he reaches up and clasps the back of Seokjin's neck. "You are here to cleanse the world of the people who don't deserve time. You are our God, Chronos."

Seokjin doesn't say anything.

"Have you ever heard of the Eleusinian Mysteries, my Lord?" Daehyun asks, coming forward slowly to ghost his lips over the skin on Seokjin's neck. "In ancient Greece, it was believed that Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, was the Goddess of Vegetation and Springtime. She was kidnapped by Hades and taken to the Underworld. Demeter forced him to return her daughter, but unfortunately she had done the one thing she shouldn't have done in the Underworld – she had eaten the food of the dead, pomegranate seeds."

Daehyun presses his lips to Seokjin's neck, over his throat, kissing it softly. Seokjin remembers being fed pomegranate seeds, remembers swallowing them. Daehyun continues to caress his throat before he pulls back just enough to speak more words into Seokjin's skin.

"As a result, she was forced to return to the Underworld every year much to the grief of Demeter. In their honour, the Greeks had the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which initiates were shown the real nature of life and death."

Daehyun's hands now circle around Seokjin's back.

"But the great work was destroyed. The Temple of Demeter was ransacked. The Christians took over, and the mysteries were thought to be destroyed, and their knowledge gone. But knowledge lives on, and the rituals continue. Which is why we had to do what we did."

"By killing people?" Seokjin breathes out as he tries to move not even a single muscle.

"We all need a victim. We have blood debts to pay. In the original mysteries, you had to be free of blood guilt, that you can't have killed anyone. But we are executing the advanced mysteries now, and now a blood debt is required. You need to meet it in order to be initiated. Mine: Myung Minwoo. Lee Mirae's: Jang Jaewon. Lee Yoonseo's: Hong Haejoo."

Seokjin now pulls back, ever so slightly, so as not to disturb Daehyun as he goes. Daehyun leans back and looks at him, his arms still around Seokjin's back. He swallows, hard, and tries not to let his fear and dread show on his face. "What's going to happen tomorrow?" he asks, his voice turning quiet and trembling along the edges.

"We kill two birds with one stone," Daehyun answers him confidently. "It's March the twenty-first tomorrow, the Spring Equinox. The time that Persephone returns from the Underworld. You will fulfil your blood debt and complete your rites to unleash your true power. Then, we will begin to cleanse this world."

"I... will have to kill someone?"

"To initiate your power, yes," Daehyun nods. "Right now, as a Seer, you are able to witness lifespans and you have a small amount of influence over them. But tomorrow, once you fulfil your blood debt, you will become a true God. You will slay the one that stands in your way, absorb his life force and his power the way Chronos did to everything around him. Then, you will be able to see the hearts of every human, whether they are good or evil. And you will be able to manipulate their lifespans."

Daehyun hugs him, tightly, one hand at his back and another on his head. "Who do I need to kill?" Seokjin asks quietly in the dark room.

"Kairos, the God of the Fleeting Moment. He is everything that you are, and at the same time, nothing. You must end him tomorrow and bring back his blood so that we can begin the rituals."

The sun continues to make its descent from zenith, throwing brilliant orange streams of light into the hall. The white walls are bathed in bronze light and the chandeliers refract those rays into a thousand different colours. Seokjin sits on his throne, white lilies woven into his hair braided around the crown of his head, leaning over on one side to prop his elbow up on the armrest, his closed fist a seat for his chin. He looks out at the hall, at the mass of people congregated before him below the marble steps.

Each of them kneels in front of him, their hands clasped together as they pray. The sun continues to fall, painting everything that Seokjin sees in bright, vivid golden rays. For the first time in a very, very long time, it doesn't feel like winter anymore. Seokjin doesn't feel cold from the inside anymore. He doesn't feel like the same boy who, on that cold winter night, cried and held a girl as she died in his arms. He doesn't feel like the same boy who lost his father, his step father, his mother, all on cold and desolate winter nights. He doesn't feel like the man who had watched the lifespan of the one he loves change in front of his own eyes as he stood in the middle of the night, tiny snowflakes flurrying to the ground around him.

Seokjin doesn't feel powerless anymore. The Timekeepers who pray to him start rocking back and forth, growing frantic in their prayers. They praise Seokjin, they call out his name, they call him Chronos. They ask him to rid the world of evil, they ask him to rid the world of the people who hurt them. Daehyun is there, too, at the front of the mass but there nonetheless, crying and praying with them. He, too, begs Seokjin to cleanse the world of the people who hurt him.

I had hurt you, Seokjin thinks as he watches the heretics. He doesn't say anything, however; he sits silently atop his throne and he watches. I am not your God. I cannot save you.

Just after the sun dips below the horizon, Seokjin finally leaves the settlement. Though it doesn't feel like it at all, Seokjin had been held prisoner here for four weeks. In between brief conversations with Daehyun, of exploring the settlement and promptly finding that there was not a single vantage point he might've thought he could escape from, and from avoiding every other cult member who spent time there, he had undergone some sort of training as Daehyun called it – preparation for Seokjin to become to human weapon Daehyun wanted him to be.

He'd thought about lopping off his hair with the dagger Daehyun gave to him, but even though he's been held captive for four weeks he doesn't want to leave looking like an insane person with hair that's uneven and choppy. He'd thought about it, sure, that he might have a kind of Mulan-type moment where he cuts it all off and looks like a badass, but for this Seokjin will have to admit to himself he won't do a great job on. Instead, he ties his hair back at the base of his skull into a tiny ponytail that's only about an inch long.

The settlement, Seokjin discovers, truly is in the middle of nowhere, and he can understand why, now, that in the four weeks he was missing, nobody had found him. He doesn't even know where he is, or where he's meant to go. He just runs, through the woods, and hopes that he ends up somewhere where there's people. The more people there are, the better his chances are in keeping himself safe and away from the Timekeepers once they realise that he isn't coming back.

Daehyun had pointed him in a direction and told him that he must do this himself, that he must return before midnight with the blood of Kairos on his hands, and for some reason he believed in Seokjin's loyalty to the Timekeepers. Daehyun was a cunning man, a very smart man, but he was crazy. He was batshit insane. He was completely senseless.

He believed in Seokjin's act, that Seokjin was on their side, and had accepted the role of being their God.

Absolute bullshit.

He runs through the woods as quickly as he can, trying his hardest not to trip over tree trunks or foliage, with only the rising moon as his source of light. He doesn't know where his phone is; hasn't known since he was knocked out at his trial and brought here. But he runs, nonetheless, because he needs to get away.

Seokjin's legs give up on him and his knees buckle. He falls forward but catches himself on his hands before he smashes his face into the dirt. Huffing heavily to regain his breath, he decides to take a short break. He's not out of the woods yet, and he doesn't even know how long he's been running for or how much longer he has to run. He swallows, hard, but his throat is dry and it's painful.

Trying to stand back up is next to futile. The moon has risen and Seokjin stares up at it, his chest heaving with every laboured breath, and he wonders again why his life has come to this. Why he had to be plagued with this curse. Seokjin has never asked for much in his life and he's always worked hard. He's not perfect, but he tries to be a good person. He really does.

He pushes himself up onto his feet but his thighs want to lock into place. He can feel the lactic acid building up in his muscles, can feel it slowing him down and holding him back. He can't run, he knows this much, so he starts to walk instead. When his muscles no longer feel like solid lead, he might try to run again.

He follows the path Daehyun told him to take, he knows he's going in the right direction, but Seokjin isn't sure if he's taking the right path at all. What will happen when he returns? Will he be welcomed back with open arms, or did his absence paint him into the killer they thought he was, wracked with enough guilt that it made him run away? Will they believe him?

It's March the twenty-first. The day that Namjoon is fated to die. One-hundred days ago, Seokjin was as happy as his cursed life allowed. He still had his mother, even if she had completely lost her sight and was dying, and he had Jeongguk. He had a subordinate that he loved and knew would live until old-age. One hundred days ago on a cold winter night, Namjoon had bundled him up and put him in cab to take him home.

It was around midnight, one-hundred days ago, that Seokjin saw with his own wretched eyes as Namjoon's lifespan plummeted down from sixty-one years to one-hundred days and counting. It's coming close to midnight now, Seokjin realises as he continues to walk on, regardless of whether he'll be accepted back or not. It's not cold or snowing like it was one-hundred days ago. The trees around him are starting to grow back their leaves. Plants have sprouted little colourful buds that will soon bloom into beautiful flowers. Life is seeping back into the earth, while Namjoon's life seeps out of him.

Five minutes. Those are the numbers above Namjoon's head when Seokjin reaches a small clearing in the woods and finds Namjoon, huffing, pressing a hand to his chest. He pants for air as he slumps slightly against a tree. He narrows his eyes at Seokjin.

"How'd you find me here?" Seokjin whispers, holding onto the bark of the tree besides him for support. The numbers atop Namjoon's head are glowing, pulsating almost. Four minutes and fifty-one seconds left. Four minutes and fifty seconds left. Four minutes and forty-nine seconds left.

"A hunch, I guess," Namjoon answers breathlessly, his hand still pressed to his chest.

"You don't just... find someone in the middle of the woods after they've been missing for a while on a hunch."

Namjoon pushes himself off the tree and comes into the clearing, letting the white moonlight fall on him. There are dark circles under his eyes, his hair is unkempt, and there's stubble along his jaw. He looks haggard and messy, like he hasn't taken care of himself for a while. Seokjin wonders if he looks just as wild as Namjoon does, but he remembers that the Timekeepers took that responsibility upon themselves. They shaved him, they bathed him, they trimmed his nails and they kept his skin moisturised. Up until his departure from the settlement, he had flowers woven into his hair. "Do you remember..." Namjoon begins as he stops in the middle of the clearing. Seokjin walks slowly and joins him there. "When I told you that I had a dream I saw you running through the woods?"

"Vaguely," Seokjin replies as he takes a step forward.

"It wasn't a dream."

He looks up and meets Namjoon's eyes, furrowing his brows heavily over his eyes.

"When I... when I touch someone's skin," Namjoon begins, looking down and letting his eyelids droop low over his pupils as he lifts his arm up and trails his fingers along Seokjin's wrist, "I can see the moments that have or will impact their lives the most. The moment that a person stands at the train station and boards the train that will take them away from their past lives. The moment that a child first holds onto his father's finger and the man realises who he is. The moment that you witness a dead body for the first time."

"Y...you see all of this?" Seokjin whispers quietly as Namjoon's fingers on his wrist trail up, lightly, gently, until his hands curl around Seokjin's arms.

Namjoon nods. "I don't know why. But I've always been able to see those fleeting moments. All I have to do is... touch their skin."

Kairos, Seokjin remembers Daehyun telling him, the God that opposed Seokjin, the God he was tasked to kill. It's Namjoon, Seokjin realises then. There are three minutes and thirty-two seconds left until the end of March the twenty-first, three minutes and thirty-two seconds left until Namjoon dies. Seokjin bites down on his lip, hard.

"I can manipulate those moments," Namjoon tells him softly. "That's why I'm here, now."

"Y-you can manipulate them? Why... why didn't I know about this before? Have you ever manipulated anything before?"

Namjoon nods and squeezes his arms. "Only once, though. A long, long time ago. I knew a girl who was being abused by her father. Kept coming to school with bruises that she tried to hide and never told anyone about. Her fingers brushed mine when we both went to pick up the same pencil, and I saw the moment that she would come home early from school and find her father with another woman, and the moment ended there... I didn't see anything past that short, fleeting moment, but it was enough that I knew I had to do something."

"What did you do?"

"I made is so that she didn't go home early. Delayed her bus. Made a reason for her mother to return home to catch her cheating husband and kick him out of the house."

"And the girl...?"

"Her bruises healed. I don't know what would've happened if I didn't intervene... I try not to think about how sinister it could've been... so I don't regret what I did."

Seokjin reaches up and grabs Namjoon's arms, anchoring himself to him. "If you don't regret it, then why haven't you ever done it again? You said that was the only time you ever did."

"Because there's a price to pay when you mess with timelines that have already been mapped out. I might've saved that girl, but her father died a few months later from an overdose. He might not have been a good person, but it's not up to me who lives or dies. I wanted to be a lawyer so that... so that bad people got what they deserved, and I would be justified in my actions."

Two minutes and twenty-six seconds left. "Then why... why are you here?" Seokjin asks quietly as if that would mask the fear in his voice. It doesn't.

Namjoon cups Seokjin's cheeks and leans down to press a soft, chaste kiss to his lips. "Because for you, I'll do anything."

"...why?"

"I love you."

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded-up piece of paper that he holds up and shows Seokjin. Seokjin knows what it is before Namjoon even unfolds it, before he even speaks.

"I've signed my part," Namjoon tells him softly, a wistful smile on his lips. "It doesn't matter if this country doesn't accept us, or if nobody cares. I am yours, and you are mine."

Seokjin closes his hand around Namjoon's, burying the folded-up marriage contract in his fist. He pushes himself up on his toes and he kisses Namjoon with every inch of his being, with all the fire that he can muster up in himself. He kisses Namjoon like it's their first kiss, like it's their last. He kisses Namjoon like he hasn't seen him in a long, long time, and he kisses Namjoon like he won't ever see him again. And just before Seokjin runs out of the fire that keeps him going, he pulls back and he remembers to breathe.

Ten seconds left.

Seokjin pulls out the dagger from his holster and grits his teeth before he holds it, determinedly and resolutely, between both his hands. He clasps it tightly.

Seven seconds left. Namjoon's eyes widen in shock and his lips part to say something, anything, but whether he speaks or not Seokjin doesn't know. All he hears is his own blood rushing through his ears like the tidal wave that has finally come to knock him off his feet and sweep him away in the currents.

Six seconds left. Seokjin squeezes his eyes shut.

Five seconds. He opens his eyes and looks, one last time, at the face of the man he loves, the man that he's fated to. Kairos, the God that stands alongside himself, the God Chronos.

With all the strength he can muster in his muscles, Seokjin drives the dagger up and towards his own eyes.

Seokjin has long since stopped questioning whether his actions were wrong, whether he was mistaken in every decision he's ever had to make. Briefly, he thought about where he might be right now if the decisions he made were different, but there were perhaps a million choices he had to make in his life, and each of those choices led to another million choices, and the path that he followed in his life was one out of an infinity. Maybe the path that he's on isn't the right one, and maybe there were paths that he would've been happy to take, but it's too late now to go back and do it all over again.

So he continues resolutely down this path that he's chosen, and he walks. Back to the Timekeeper's settlement with Namjoon's blood dripping from his hands.