The End of Gods (A Welcome to the Underworld Novel, Book 4) (68 page)

Distracted momentarily, her eyes followed the descent of the innocuous object.
Yoori stared at it numbly, watching as the small object hid in the nook of the dock to keep itself from being blown away. Unable to help herself, as
something deep within her was urging her to inspect it
, she crouched down. She retrieved the rolled up paper from the ground and unraveled it to appraise its contents.

Her eyes widened.

Yoori felt her heart expand after she read the contents and realized what this piece of paper was.

A mentor is in town.

I'll be out all day.

You probably didn't remember and

I didn't want to wake you

but have fun on your day off.

Don't do anything I would do.

--TH

It was the note that Tae Hyun wrote to her during their “boss-and-assistant” days.

Overcome with its sudden appearance, Yoori covered her mouth in disbelief. Warmth suspended over her as she held onto a note that Tae Hyun wrote to her so long ago. She held his note in her hand like it was a priceless artifact. Tears bubbled in her eyes as she greedily soaked in his writing. The note only served to remind her of how far they had come and how much she loved him.

She loved him
so much
.

So much so that even a simple note from him from months ago could make her feel warm inside and quell the storm brewing within her, if only for a fleeting moment. She cried softly, her tears trickling onto the piece of paper. As her tears moistened the note, it revealed a shadow of something on the back of the letter.

Holding her breath, she flipped the note over.

Yoori felt her world stop in its revolution when she read what was written on the back. It was a piece of writing so small that she had never noticed it before. She desperately read the contents of the words. Her heart rate accelerated while she read a message that was meant to pertain to him and Yoori separating that day when she took her day off.

P.S.

Don’t miss me too much, Brat.

Below it, in a smudged up area that appeared to have been erased by Tae Hyun, she could read the additional message he left her a lifetime ago. It affected her more today than it could ever affect her months back.

P.P.S.

I’ll miss you.

As soon as she read this, Yoori then remembered one of his last words to her before he left her. Words that haunted her—words that would prevent her from doing what she wanted to do to escape from the misery of missing him every second of every day.

“. . . Please don’t go,” Yoori begged as she trembled uncontrollably. Hot tears glided down her cheeks. Hopelessness filled her hollow and aching heart. “You know I can’t do this without you. You know that I can’t live without you.” She bit her lips at the thought of something so unimaginable. “I can’t be without you.”

Misery filled his eyes as he shook his head at what she said.

“Don’t follow me,” he told her painfully. His tormented eyes implored her to listen to him, to never do something so foolish. He did not want her to do what his mother had done. He did not want her to take her own life to follow him. “Don’t follow me. I don’t want you . . . to follow me.”

Expelling a hardened and pained breath, Yoori felt the tides change within her. She painfully abandoned all thoughts about jumping into the lake. Instead, she allowed her body to fall back to the foundation of the dock.

Tears shed from her eyes when she realized she wasn’t going to do it.

Yoori held the note close to her chest while she sat at the edge of the dock. She rested her hands just above their necklace and closed her eyes in resolve.

She wasn’t going to do it.

It did not matter how much she wanted to free herself from the pain. She couldn’t disappoint Tae Hyun like this.

He died to keep her safe—
to keep her alive
.

He died for her, and now . . . she had to live for him.

No matter how much pain there was to come, no matter how unbearable those lonely nights would be, no matter how agonizing the years to come would be, she was resigned to endure this simply because she loved Tae Hyun
more
than she loved herself. Simply because whatever he wanted, she wanted to give to him.

Looking out into the lake as she held all the worldly possessions that belonged to her and Tae Hyun beside her, she forced a smile to appear on her lips. She grew lost in the horizon that she once gazed into when they first sat on this dock. She gradually allowed herself to breathe again, to take things one second at a time—
to slowly breathe and live again
.

“
You’re worth it
,” she whispered long seconds later, still feeling all the pain there was to feel. Only this time, she was determined to endure it—all of it.

He was the only one she would do this for; he was the only one she loved more than her own life.

“
You’re worth all of it
.”

Laying her body across the wooden dock—while hugging the hoodie close to her and allowing her tears to drip into the fabric—she fixed her gaze on the breathtaking horizon and made preparations to close her eyes so she could dream about him and a love she would never forget.

How she would go on after this, she still wasn’t sure. How long before the Underworld would find her, or if they would even care to find her, she was uncertain. How agonizing and heart-wrenching the pain to come was a thing she couldn’t estimate. How she would continue to live and breathe without the love of her life by her side was something that still eluded and terrified Yoori. The only thing she knew with certainty was that she would continue to breathe for him, to live for him—just like he wanted her to.

All that she knew was that she wanted to lie there and stay there for as long as she could, perhaps until the end of her lifetime. All she wanted to do was stay at the place where the magic began for them—the place where the magic of his existence would always be her comfort, her guiding light, and her source of strength in her times of frailty.

She wasn’t going to leave the lake house; she wasn’t going to leave him.

“I love you,” her soft voice promised before the weight of sleep fell onto her, claimed her, and took her away with its magic. “I will
always
love you.”

As the wind graced her face and as the last of her tears dried from the kiss of the breeze, Yoori allowed the sweet lullaby of the lake to enrapture her senses and lull her into a peaceful slumber.

The last thing she heard before she fell asleep was
his
voice.

His voice when the magic began—when they first came to this dock. His voice to lead her through the darkness, his voice to give her strength, and his voice to keep with her through all the days of her life . . .

■
■
■

“. . . What’s your one wish tonight, Yoori?”
he whispered softly, purposely keeping his voice low so she didn’t wake up entirely.

Yoori was silent for a while, still registering the question as she fought to stay awake. She was slowly losing.

“I want us to both find Paris,”
she answered slowly and thoughtlessly, drifting further and further into a deep slumber.

“What would be your one wish?” she managed to mutter out before she finally drifted into the land of no return.

Tae Hyun appraised her. Hilarity suffused his eyes as he watched his precious assistant fall unto the mercy of her own slumber.

“It would make sense that you’d fall asleep as soon as it was my turn to answer,” he muttered with bitter amusement. He shook his head at her and the predictability that came with the spoiled one’s behavior. She got away with too much when it came to him. Unfortunately, he seemed to always be the stupid one who ended up spoiling her rotten by
always
allowing her to get away with anything she wanted. “Damn little Brat . . .”

He watched as a cold breeze flew through them, causing her to shiver from the cold.

Unable to help himself, he stood up and gave her full estate of the purple blanket by covering his portion over hers. Then, after sitting back down on the dock—
before he could consider his own actions
—he bent his knees up and carefully positioned her small body between his legs. Mindful to not wake her up, he became her source of warmth by gently embracing her from behind.

The shuddering of her body instantly ceased while her petite figure instinctively relaxed under his hold.

At the sight of this, Tae Hyun couldn’t help but allow a smile to grace his lips.
How strange it was for him to feel so protective over a girl
. He didn’t understand his own set of emotions when it came to her. There was something about Choi Yoori that softened areas of him that he once thought were ice-cold. There was something about her that brought out emotions he thought had left him after being immersed in the darkness of the Underworld for so long.

He sighed internally, determined to keep himself from venturing into an area of thoughts that he should never privy himself to. To further help his cause, Tae Hyun briefly tore his gaze from her sleeping face, silently begrudging the effect this strange and energetic girl had on him.

While keeping his eyes on the vast expanse of the shimmering lake, the question she posed before she fell asleep came floating back into his mind. It veered his peaceful state off course as he considered the question again.

“What would be your one wish?”

Double-checking to make sure she was asleep before he went on—his heart never weighing more than it did as he spoke with nothing but emotions and instincts—he took the opportunity to answer her.

“I think,” he began, his eyes never leaving her sleeping ones. His warm breath caressed her cheek. “I think it would be nice if I became human again and fell for you.”

Before he could sift rationale into this illogical train of thoughts, the depths of his heart and what was left of his soul continued to carry the words out.

“I imagine it would be nice if I could love you unconditionally with no guilt or qualms,” he mused to himself. For the first time in his life, he was speaking without filter, without thought, and without care. “It would be nice if I could make you unreservedly happy as we fade into the enchantment of our own world and have that undying,
once-in-a-lifetime love
that the world dreams about. The type that would be worth living for—
the type that would be worth dying for
.”

He laughed self-mockingly while taking a second to stare at her sleeping face.

What an odd thing for a King who had everything to desire, but Tae Hyun couldn’t control his yearnings. Something about how Yoori spoke about finding her once-in-a-lifetime love, and giving the guy the honor of taking her to Paris, made him jealous beyond all measure. He was jealous because in the deepest core of him, he wanted to be the one who gave her that type of magic.

He wanted to be the one who gave her the
city
she wanted all her life.

Tae Hyun smiled bitterly, knowing that a King as ruthless and power-hungry as him would never have the opportunity to do any of this.

Perhaps in another lifetime, he would be the guy who would possess the strength and willpower to not only stop his own greed from taking over his soul, but also be strong enough for her. Perhaps in another lifetime—even through the dark shadows of his own life—he’d emerge from the unforgiving darkness and find the mercy of being able to
welcome Paris to the Underworld—
to his own personal Underworld. Regardless of the impossibilities that something like this would ever come to fruition, it did not stop Tae Hyun from voicing out the remainder of a wish he never knew he wanted.

“I think it would be worth it to wish that I get”
—
he inhaled deeply before allowing the unspeakable words to come out of his lips—
“to be the one who disappears with you and shows you the magic of Paris.”
He smiled, easing her bangs away from her sleeping face. “And if the impossible occurs, then I’ll whisper in your ears:

“
Choi Yoori
. . . I found Paris
.
It’s a thousand times more beautiful than I could have ever dreamed it to be. So, you know what that means, right?
It means that anything and everything that has led to this moment has been worth it to me because it means that I’ve found you—I’ve finally found my
Paris
.
Philosophers spend their entire lives trying to find the meaning of life and they never find it. But right here, right now . . . being with you, being human with you, being unconditionally in love with you—
this
is heaven,
this
is the meaning of life,
this
is what makes life
worth
living
.
”