Jaehyun stood at the gate.
He was tall. Light sand-coloured hair. His bag was slung over one shoulder like he didn't care if gravity existed. His posture was straight. His face was unreadable—the kind of face that probably had its own security system. His eyes—dark, intense, the kind of eyes that had looked at me at the school gates the first time I collapsed into his stupidly convenient arm (and I hated that, hated how easily he caught me, hated how he made it look like he did it every day, hated how my face caught fire immediately afterwards), the same eyes that had said "I've been looking for you" in a tone that should have been illegal in at least three dimensions—were currently fixed on my face like I was a particularly confusing exam question. The kind with no right answer. The kind that made you want to eat the paper.
"Oh! Shit!" Human Sera's voice was high. Panicked. The voice of someone who had just seen a spider the size of a small moon. "Okay. Okay. You need to say hi. You need to say something. Anything. Just—"
"No," I whispered. "I'm not—"
"Sera, wait."
Jaehyun caught up to me in three strides. His hand closed around my arm—not hard, not painful, but firm. Certain. Like he was afraid I would dissolve into a puff of celestial embarrassment if he let go.
"Look," he said, and his voice was low. The kind of low that makes your internal alarm-gargoyles sit up and pay attention. "I heard what happened. I'm sorry."
I looked at his hand on my arm. I looked at his face. I looked at Human Sera, who was floating behind him with her hands pressed to her cheeks like she was trying to keep her soul from escaping from her soul—which, honestly, she probably needed to do, given how often it tried to flee her nonsense. Her expression was caught somewhere between horror, excitement, and "I can't believe this is my afterlife. I died for this? Really?"
"It was not your fault that a psycho lover is crazy over you," I said.
Human Sera made a sound that might have been a laugh or might have been a scream. Or possibly the sound a teakettle-grub makes when it's been left on the stove too long. "Psycho lover? You called her a psycho lover? That's—that's—"
Jaehyun's grip on my arm tightened slightly. "You're right. But that doesn't give her the right to hurt you."
"You are damn right," I said, with the full authority of a Celestial who had recently been pushed through a gate and called cute.
Human Sera was now floating in frantic circles, her hands waving like two very confused glow-flies. "This is—this is not how you talk to someone who is confessing their feelings! You're supposed to be nice! You're supposed to be sympathetic! You're supposed to—"
"Look," Jaehyun said, and his voice was different now. Softer. The kind of soft that should be illegal in at least twelve dimensions. "Yuna and I are not together. You know that. I was waiting for you at the concert. Why didn't you come?"
Human Sera stopped floating. She stopped moving. Her whole form went still, and her face—her face was doing something I had not seen before. Something that looked like longing. Something that looked like regret. Something that looked like oh no, I should have told her before all these.
"Tell him," she whispered. "Tell him you hurt your head. Tell him you tried. Tell him—"
I beamed my laser eyes at her. They don't actually shoot lasers. But the intent is there. And intent counts in celestial law.
She stopped talking.
I looked at Jaehyun. At his hand on my arm. At his dark eyes waiting for an answer. At the ghost behind him who was supposed to be the one having this conversation, who was supposed to be the one giving answers, who was supposed to be the one standing here, in this body, in this life, making choices that I had no right to make for her.
"I hurt my head while trying to get to you," I said.
Jaehyun's hand fell away from my arm. His face did something complicated. Something that might have been concern, or might have been relief, or might have been what in the seven voids is wrong with this girl.
"You hurt your head," he repeated.
"I was trying to get to you. And then—" I stopped. I did not know how to finish that sentence. I did not know how to explain that the girl he was waiting for had died in that explosion, that she was standing behind him right now, that she was the reason I knew where the cups were in the restaurant and how to wipe a table in small circles and what it felt like to be loved by people who had built something for her with their own hands while I, a Celestial, could barely figure out which way to point a fork.
"I hurt my head," I said again. "I'm better now. Probably. Mostly."
Jaehyun looked at me for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly. "Okay," he said. "Okay."
I turned. I walked away. I did not look back.
"That was rude," Human Sera said, floating beside me like an indignant balloon.
"What do you mean, rude?" I kept walking. My heart was pounding like a Thrumble-drum with a caffeine addiction—the same way Tangled Menace always described herself whenever she had too much coffee after a night-long session of drawing her pictures that never made any sense to me. (Honestly, they were just squiggles. With feelings, apparently.) My face was warm. My hands were shaking. "You have no guts to stop that stalker-adjacent acquaintance. I just helped you make a decision. Now I won't get beaten up again. You're welcome."
"That's not—that's not how you make decisions about people's feelings! You can't just—"
"I can. I did. It's done. The Council of Sera has adjourned."
Human Sera opened her mouth. And then, slowly, she started to laugh. It was a strange laugh, half-hysterical, half-relieved, the laugh of someone who had been holding her breath for a very long time and had finally, finally let it go—possibly into a paper bag.
"You're impossible," she said. "You're absolutely impossible. You called her a psycho lover. You told him you hurt your head trying to get to him. You called him a stalker. And then you just—walked away like you'd just returned a library book you didn't even read."
"I am a celestial being. Celestial beings do not engage in mortal romantic entanglements. It's in the fine print of my existence contract."
"You squeaked at Piglet."
"That was different."
"You blushed."
"I did not—"
"You blushed so hard your face matched the poster of that interdimensional boy band in our room. You know, the one with the hair and the choreography and the unsettling amount of eye contact."
I did not dignify that with a response. I strode. Striding is dignified. Striding is celestial. Striding is definitely not running away from your feelings.
---
Jiyoung and Haejin—Human Sera's so-called "besties," as they were apparently called in this realm—were waiting at the entrance to the main building.
I had my doubts about the title. Besties implied emotional vulnerability, matching accessories, and the sharing of secrets. These two seemed harmless. For now.
They saw me coming from across the courtyard. I saw their faces change—from anticipation to relief to something that looked like joy, bright and unfiltered and completely human. It was mildly disgusting. I approved.
"Sera!" Jiyoung shrieked. She launched herself at me like an eager seedling of a Montiker birdling when its mother tries to feed it a very large worm. Her arms wrapped around my neck. Her bag swung wildly, threatening to take out a passing student. "Oh my gawd, you're back! You're okay! We were so worried! Your mum said you were resting but she didn't say when you were coming back and we thought maybe you were still sick and—"
"Sera!" Haejin appeared at my side, her voice sharp, her eyes scanning my face like a security drone looking for contraband feelings. "How are you? Are you okay? Does anything hurt? Did you—"
"I am a celestial being," I said. "I was able to recover quickly. The head injury has been downgraded from 'catastrophic' to 'merely embarrassing.'"
Jiyoung blinked. Haejin blinked. Behind them, invisible to everyone but me, Human Sera was floating with her hands pressed to her chest, her face contorted in silent laughter, her mouth moving in words I could not hear but could only describe as unhelpful.
"Sera," Jiyoung said slowly, "are you—"
"Economic class," I said. "We will be late. And by 'late,' I mean 'not early,' which is the same as 'late' in mortal terms. Move."
I walked past them, into the building, down the corridor, toward the lecture hall where supply curves waited and demand curves waited and the abomination who had called me cute was probably already sitting in his seat, saving a space for me that I absolutely did not want and definitely was not thinking about.