ʟᴏᴠᴇ & ᴡᴀʀ Ღ ʟᴇᴇ ʜᴀᴇᴄʜᴀɴ

Ikosi eksi

If Athena wasn't anywhere near contesting for the title of the best mother in the world, she was surely atoning for her neglect towards her son with the ridiculous amounts of money she so generously spent on him.

She'd brought him a duplex in one of Seoul's most luxurious residencies once he'd turned 18 upon his demand for a place in the mortal world.

"Is this spacious enough for you?" She said as they both stepped through the front door. "I'd have gotten you a villa, but I thought this was better for a starter."

"It's fine." He shrugged, sweeping glances around the place with an apathy so heartened it converged to insolence.

"Do you like it?"

Her tone dripped with expectancy, the lines on her forehead creasing into upward crescent moons as her profound stare bored into his face, hunting for any slight twitch of a lip or narrowing of an eye. But his face betrayed no expression, remaining as stern as he always succeeded in maintaining when he stood before her.

He'd heard from the nymphs that his mother had gone to great lengths to decorate the house according to his taste, inquiring with his acquaintances about his preferred colors and advocating for permission to renovate despite it being prohibited in that area.

He'd say he liked it quite a lot if he let franchise command his words, but he'd never give her the satisfaction of thinking her near-effortless bribery weighted anything in light of the wrongdoings she committed to his detriment.

"It's not bad." He rewarded her with two thumbs-ups and an approving nod. She deserved at least that, his moral compass nudged him.

"I'm glad."

"You know." She added, hesitating over her words. "You can always come back to live with us in Mount Olympus if you ever grow tired of this place."

"No thanks, I'm good."

   
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Ji-ae was awoken by the sound of a choleric sky hammering rain droplets into the soil nearby. The smell of petrichor was prominent in the breeze that seeped into her room— or so she thought— through the open window.

The cool air plucked soft pinches on her closed eyelids, and just then she wanted to sink her whole body deeper into the mattress to contrast the chilly ocular bliss with a pleasant warmness.

She threw her arm in the air— in an attempt to enclose her bed into a hug—, expecting it to land and drape loosely over the edge, but instead she was met with more mattress than what her single-size bed provided.

A few seconds of brain fog passed by before the horrific realization dawned on her, and her body shot up straight like an ice bucket had been spilled above her head.

This was a king-size bed.

And this was not her room.

Her eyes snapped open, and she looked around the foreign room, confusion written all over her face as she tried to recollect last night's events and how she ended up here, or if it was feasible to Irish exit her way out of the window. It wasn't.

"Oh, you're awake." A voice ripped off the silence that had engulfed the room, and she hiccuped a shriek, hands instinctively gripping the blanket that offered her shelter for the past few hours as a form of protection.

A figure emerged from what seemed to be a connected bathroom and Ji-ae's tension immediately melted into streams of relief upon seeing his face.

"War."