For Persephone

Chapter 6 – The Start of a Problem (1)

A faint shadow hung over the girl’s feet. Hades carefully scanned her body up and down and flashed a grin as she shot up from the ground. Her feet, her body; they were moving like they were going to pop out at any moment.

“You gonna run away today too?”

The girl put her hands over her bright red cheeks and nodded.

Slowly striding towards her, Hades locked his eyes on hers and pulled down the hood covering his head. His thickly braided light brown hair, small earlobes, and gray pupils that were clearly visible in the shadows all appeared shyly from under the hood.

“… did you get lost and wander around?”

“No, it’s not that; I…”

He lowered his hand from his hood, and glanced at the girl’s blue lips. Perhaps she noticed who he was, as she bit her lower lip and smiled.

“You look cold.”

“Just a little.”

“I know you don’t belong here, so what’s your reason for bothering the agent of Acheron and wandering around the edge of my territory?”

Hades stopped talking there and closed his mouth, pressing his lips in a thin line.

The situation was unfamiliar and the warm feeling that swept through his gut frightened him. When he looked down with a blink of his gray eyes in embarrassment, he saw the girl with her arms folded around her with all her might.

Was she hugging something? No matter how he looked at her, it was nothing other than her waist.

“I wanted to meet you again.”

For a split second, Hades forgot how to think. His heart was beating so fast he didn’t know what to do.

*

Today was Persephone’s fifth time visiting.

Except for the mystifying first day, she constantly just tried to cross the Acheron River. But just like today, it always resulted in rejection. She cursed at Kharon the boatman in her head and wandered around the riverbank early today in search of another way.

The strange thing was that even though she had clearly followed the edge of the river, after walking for some time, she had ended up back at the forest entrance.

She was taking a rest for a while because she felt like everything was spinning; feeling silly about the situation that wasn’t going her way.

“Have you forgotten who I am?” she whispered into the night.

Just as the girl struggled with a single determination not to be forgotten by this man, her mother had locked herself in a single determination not to release her to the world from the moment she was born. For she is indispensable due to only that ‘need’.

Her wish is to get him.

Quinair’s master, the lord of the underworld, the end to which everything on Earth succumbs.

“What should I do?”

If she spent today meaninglessly again, when would she come here again and meet him like this? Everything was distant and hopeless. But right at that moment, without a warning, he appeared and frightened her to death.

“What are you doing just sitting there all alone in this glorious darkness?”

“Hades…?”

“You gonna run away today too?” His heavy voice sent her heart racing as she blushed and nodded, not comprehending what he asked, for she was ecstatic that he didn’t forget her nor that day. He asked again with a calm smile, as friendly as ever.

“… did you get lost and wander around?”

“No, it’s not that; I…”

“You look cold.”

“Just a little.”

“I know you don’t belong here, so what’s your reason for bothering the agent of Acheron and wandering around the edge of my territory?”

Persephone ran at once, her slender arms wrapped themselves tightly around his torso as she confessed.

“I was looking for you!”

“….”

“Really, I’m so happy that you have come back to look for me like this.”

*

For quite a while she didn’t let Hades go, and he just stared at the clinging girl, his arms trapped in her grip. Though her height barely reached his shoulders, she was much stronger than he had expected and, above all, more persistent than he had thought she would be. A loud laughter made its way out of his throat.

“What is this?”

“It’s an expression of my joy of meeting you again.”

“So we’ve been acquainted enough to express our joy like this?”

She slowly lifted her head and looked up at him with a nervous smile. Her sharp eyes seemed wide and innocent, and Hades knew he could never hate her. But it would be strange and embarrassing to express how he felt.

The underworld was all about the dead and the powerless. Every now and then, she found her way through the underworld, and he knew she had to have a desire. And when she appeared in front of him, he got so anxious. His forehead dropped down as he inhaled deeply, because he had never seen a girl so free.