Redemption

CHAPTER ONE

This can't be happening.

Sighing in frustration, Brianna gathers her cards and shuffles them once more. The customer before her taps his foot impatiently. Clearly this psychic isn't as good as his buddy made her out to be, this is the third time she's felt the need to try again.

But no matter how many times she tries, Brianna Smith is mystified. She can't see a goddamned thing! This has never happened to her before.

In the end, she's forced to give the burly man a refund, and listen to his angry tirade. She apologizes profusely, gritting her teeth and digging her nails into the palm of her hands as she does. This mortal couldn't even begin to comprehend the truth, but is so quick to judge.

Some things never change.

From the back of the shop, Seokjin emerges, parting the beaded curtains with an inventory ledger in hand. He takes one look at his boss' tense posture and sighs.

"Rude customer again?" He asks.

Brianna does not need to reply, because her posture, and the way she stiffens even more, tells him all he needs to know.

"Want me to curse him?"

He sets his clipboard aside, depositing it upon the counter in order to crack his knuckles menacingly.

But she shakes her head.

She's too magnanimous for that, of course. It's one of the many reasons that Jin adores her. Not in a romantic way, however. No one could ever replace his beloved Wujin. To him, Brianna is a dearest friend. After what she'd done for him, he really wishes he could do more for her besides inventory, and cleaning the bathrooms. She freed him from the prison created for him by the Antediluvians, for crying out loud. He'd been stuck inside that volcano for thousands of years, and might have faced thousands more if not for her timely assistance.

Genies don't do manual labor. They are extremely proud creatures, after all, and are the only race capable of wordless magic. They require neither spell, nor ritual, for they simply will things to be and they occur. It's very raw magic, the purest form of it in the opinion of many. And yet, Seokjin could hand scrub the shops toilets for centuries and still not repay the seer's kindness. Especially when the stubborn woman insists on paying him. As if he were some kind of mortal who needed such trivial things as money.

The thought alone makes him scoff.

Granted, he loves working here. It's the first time in centuries that he's felt as if he had any real purpose in life, any real meaning that is of his own choosing. And it certainly beats being cramped up in a hyper-dimensional prison located within the belly of a volcano. And that's before taking the enormous, all-devouring wurm into account.

But...

Genies are notoriously gifted at cursing others, and finding oneself at the receiving end of a genie's curse is no laughing matter. If she'd let him, he'd curse the bastard straight to Tartarus, the realm of demons.

Brianna Smith is a compassionate and kind-hearted woman, however, no matter how aloof she may seem.

"Still having that dry spell?"

"I can't see anything Jinnie, " she admits, shoulders slumping in defeat. "I'm totally blind!"

"And you're sure that this has never happened to you before?"

She nods. "Never. And I've never heard of a seer suddenly losing their sight either."

Brianna rubs her arm nervously, and Seokjin can sense her unease. Hell, he can practically see it, for that matter. Brianna has always been particularly pale, delicate features lending credence to the idea that she might even have been carved out of fine china. But today she looks downright ashen.