Kingdom Come

Chapter Five

"You know," she started, wiping a mug dry, "looking away when I glance at you doesn't make it less obvious," the woman in front of him laughed while he eyed her from the side, a furious blush spreading on his face. "It's nice to see you again, Taeyong."

His head snapped towards her, his eyes traveling back to the gorgeous smile and kind eyes she graced, "y-you remember me?"

"Of course! How could I forget the cute guy from Greece that couldn't find his way around Busan?" Jennie leaned forward on the counter, resting her chin on the palms of her hands.

"...You think I'm cute?" he muttered, more so to himself. She laughed again, the sound itself tugging at his heart strings and soothing his soul.

"Down right adorable." in the back of his mind, Taeyong kept a tally of 'points'. One point is equal to one step closer to Jennie's affections... his ultimate goal. Right now, he was giving himself pats on the back. The interaction between them may not have started out too smoothly (seeing as he just, kinda, started staring at her and just got caught), but let the cards fall where they may and you get satisfying results.

His sister would probably laugh at him if she saw him like this. Heck, all of Olympus would see him as a joke: Apollo, the god who abandoned his duties to love a human. Maybe even Ares could get a kick out of this. It was strange how a girl can make him feel so warm and fuzzy just by giving him some of her attention. He's never felt like this when cities worshipped him. Never felt like this when his father chose him to be the successor to the throne. The feeling was just so strange, so lovely, so... human.

He knew the feeling could lead to two things: he turn her into a goddess (esentially grant her immortality) or he turn himself human to live out his days out on earth... and he chose the latter. Yes, he, Apollo-- Taeyong, whatever you choose to call him, wants to become human. He wants a family that's not as confusing as his own, he wants children to love whole heartedly and he wants to one day live peacefully along side his future wife.

But time wasn't on his hands. He had to find the book. It's the only way out of his immortality, but no one knew where it was. Coincidentally, it was apparently last seen in the hands of a korean man. Where in Korea, he wasn't so sure. So, he chose to travel to Busan first; with his search, he also gets to interact with the reason he's even looking for the book in the first place, "So, Taeyong, how's Busan treating you so far?"

"The people are nice, but people keep staring at me. Is there something wrong?" he checked himself. He made sure, multiple times even, that he looked human enough to not draw attention, but it's gotten hard to not notice how he's gotten the opposite reaction.

Jennie just blinked, looking around the store to indeed find a good portion of girls oggling at him, much to her amusement.  She caught their eyes and sent them a sweet smile only to be returned with a scowl (the girls around the neighborhood didn't like her all that much), "I don't see anything wrong. Maybe it's because you're handsome."

"People think I'm handsome?"

She shot him a look, as if to say 'really? Do you even look in a mirror?', "most likely. I can never, for sure tell you what other people are thinking. We all have our own opinions."

"That's confusing," she glanced at him with an eyebrow raised.

"Along with not knowing your name, you sound like you don't know much about human emotion either," she squinted her eyes at him, causing him to visibly gulp, "are you an alien or something? Maybe you came from another world."

He internally panicked, how'd she know?! He was about to say something when she suddenly started laughing, "you look so serious, I was just kidding!" he gaped at her, not at all understanding the mechanics of 'joking' and 'teasing'. Honestly, he doesn't even know the mechanics of 'flirting' but he's willing to think that he's a natural at it.