"You finally got to come to the Han River. Is it everything you thought it would be?" he asked. "Full of magic and unicorns?"
Shane snorted out a laugh. "Unicorns don't exist."
"I've learned never to discount the existence of anything." Jihoon winked. "And you didn't answer my question."
Shane grinned as she glanced toward their friends. Minjae was yelling curses as Eamon chased him on the bike.
"It's definitely nothing like I imagined," he mused.
"And?"
"It's perfect."
Shane linked his hand with Jihoon's.
He didn't know how long he had in this world. A hundred days, a hundred months, or a hundred years.
In this moment, as Shane watched his friends and held on to Jihoon,he was happy. And he would keep finding his happiness in each moment, until he had no more moments to spend.
From a distance, a woman watched them, her long silky hair shining in the sun. She was weak but her green eyes bore the mark that she had endured a lot.
"You have grown well, my little brother." Loralie said before she left to return to hell. Shane had played his part well.
The End.
***
Kim Katsu Rin sighed in relief as he laid back against the headboard of his bed, a satisfied smile adorning his full lips. His phone screen was still glowing as it showed the line "The Story Is Ended". He had been waiting for a while for his favorite author to complete the book he was reading.
Rin stifled a yawn as he looked at the author note.
"Hey everyone, it's your sarcastic author Roselia Black here to inform you that this is the end of the journey of Oshane Larson Kensington. But don't be disheartened my dear readers, another journey of another Kensington sibling. In another time, in another life.
Till then,
Stay Safe and Healthy,
Lots of love,
Roselia Black."
Rin's hands made no delay as they pressed upon the vote button and immediately voted two powerstones to the author's latest chapter. His two votes were always secured for this author who always managed to tug at his heartstrings with her angst and agony. His hand hovered over the vote button once again as he wondered whether he would give his third vote to the book as well.
The author had worked hard for the book and she had finally finished it.
Maybe she had deserved another vote for the day after all.
But something in his gut told him otherwise. Something that was telling him not to waste another vote on the book. Something was telling him to save that third vote, just in case.
Rin decided to not vote for the book a third time after all.
Instead his nimble fingers swiftly moved over the phone keyboard as he rated the book a five star review.
"BL is not one of the genres that I usually read and I am really glad to see that the authors are trying to write out of their comfort zone so I decided, why not read out of my comfort zone. Roselia-san is one of my favourite authors and I am excited to read another book that she would be releasing soon. Good luck Author san!
Your reader,
Kin."
A bright smile lit up Rin's face as he posted the review. Roselia Black had been his favourite author for quite some time, even though he considered the author to be underrated.
'What should I do now?' a loud sigh escaped Rin's lips as he laid back in his bed, hugging one of his cushions. It was his day off and he could call someone to keep him company, but all the people he knew were from his work. He didn't like to bring someone into his personal life.
Rin again turned to his now shut phone and stared at it. He glanced up at the clock to look at the time. 8:30pm. It wasn't a long time before his brother would be back from work and bring dinner. He wasn't in the mood to play games, he had been doing that since morning. And now all he wanted was a break.
'Maybe I should read another Novelleo after all.' he thought as he pressed the cyan and lilac N con.
Rin could never get used to the bright flash that greeted him as he opened the app. It was pretty amazing that he loved the books but he couldn't just get over the warm giddy feeling that occupied his stomach whenever he opened the app. So many books of so many genres, of so many variations lay within the reach of a single tap. And what was more, he could unlock more chapters for himself with coins and fast passes.
The popular books dominated the homescreen, but somehow Rin wasn't attracted to them. He'd read them all but somehow a popular book could do nothing to hold his attention. He always looked for the underrated books, the books who didn't reach popularity, the ones that lived in the shadow of the ones that dominated the screen.
He clicked the search tab and searched "Dystopian Romance."
Sure enough, tons of books sprung up which seemed to match the genre or carried the tag that Rin was searching for. He had read all of them, he had somehow managed to get time out of his busy schedule to read them. It was his only escape, one happy place where he could let his imagination run wild.
He kept on scrolling and scrolling until his eyes fell on a particular book.
'This seems familiar,'he thought as he squinted his eyes to peer at the cover closely.
"HOLY FUCK!" Rin almost fell down the bed when he realized what the cover was.
It was a fanfiction, something that was quite popular in these few days and someone had decided to write one on him. The cover page bore his face no doubt, but it was different. It looked like someone had edited his pic to look like a robot. Beside him another handsome male stood, and he had been edited to look like an angel.
'What the-' Rin read the title. "A King's ClockWork Heart."
He looked at the author's name- Mistue Keisha- it was a name that he hadn't come across before. Maybe this author was new and like many authors had decided to start with writing fanfiction. Shrugging, he continued to read the synopsis, but was met with a huge disappointment, when he found none.
Disgusting.
He always hated it when books didn't have synopses, it always made him want to skip that book. It took all of his willpower to not skip this one since it was written on him.
***
"Being the king of heaven wasn't easy.
At least for Damon it wasn't. It tired him out, every muscle of his body aching and begging rest, with the kingdoms of both heaven and hell falling apart. Not to count to chaos on earth as well.
Being the most powerful son seemed like a crime to him now.
In heaven, the eldest son was never the one who was crowned king. Instead it was the child who had the biggest capability of power who ascended the throne. Damon was lucky to be both the oldest as well as the most suited heir to the throne.
But that seemed like it was just a charade. All the glamour and glitter of being a king was gone as soon as he had ascended the throne. What seemed like an amazing and lavish life turned out to be an avalanche of council meetings, revolts and the army's pathetic attempts to stop them.
He hadn't wished for this. He hadn't wished for anything that would strip him away of his free time, leaving him nothing but just a functioning body with no soul.
Damon couldn't help but chuckle when the word soul came across his mind. It reminded him of his cousin Bradon and he couldn't help but think of the ruckus that he had caused as his final mission to succeed the throne. Bradon had fucked up of course, by falling in love with Jihoon and almost giving up his own life to save a mortal's.
Loads of years had passed of course, Bradon had been shunned away from being the king of Hell. Perhaps even his powers were gone, no one was certain what had happened. As for himself, he had returned to Heaven with Annie two days after the incident was over.
Maybe he could have fallen in love with someone on earth as well and perhaps forgotten about the crown and lived a happy life.
But all that seemed like the past now.
Maybe he could pay a visit to the earth and see what had become of it. He could ask one of his younger brothers and ministers to look over the matters while he was gone, a simple visit wouldn't hurt, right?
And besides, it had almost been a millennia since he had last been among humans, they would probably be much more advanced now and Damon wanted to see that.
***
Katsu walked through the hallway clutching the straps of his backpack close to him. Even though he had been here for a while, it was difficult for him to adapt to his new high school. It was tough for him, being the only humanoid in an all human school. A place where human teens were driven by hormones and picked on people different from them.
Despite his inability to feel, he hated the place.
Being a humanoid in an all human school was tough as fuck for Katsu, despite the fact that humans were so advanced in their field of study, yet they left no effort to make someone feel out of place. He knew the humans would look at him the same way they did at the human Katsu only a few years back. To them, he was just one of them, just another robot, another evil being. He didn't ask for this.
He wasn't a part of this.
He had just been made and had been programmed to function just as fine as a human.
The only flaw?
He wasn't.
These humans recognized who he was and all they could do was provide him with the only treatment they thought fitting. It wasn't his fault humanoids had taken over their government. It was the humans who had brought this upon themselves and they hated the fact that they were responsible that things had gone out of hand.
For a humanoid who couldn't feel, he felt enough pain.
***
'Wow,' Rin thought as he read the first chapter, 'Not bad for a book that doesn't have a synopsis.' Usually the books that didn't have a synopsis carried a crappy first chapter and he dropped those books- even removing them from his reading lists. But this one seemed to have caught his attention and now Rin was waiting to know more.
He looked at the number of chapters- four of them. The book had just been vetted.
Rin quickly added the book to his reading list and was about to continue with his second chapter when.
"RIN, I'M HOME! DINNER'S HERE."
"COMING," Rin shouted at the top of his voice as he sprinted to the kitchen to greet his brother.