Guest: Fighting! Thanks so much for the support! :D I just finished writing, so hopefully updates should be consistent now. :) Enjoy!
Annie815: Loved the heaven reference; thanks for the review! They really help. :)
Guest: I'm glad you stumbled across this, then; I don't speak Korean either, but I felt like Goblin needed a little more closure. Hope you like it as it finishes!
A/N: I should be updating more frequently now, as I'm adjusting to school schedule; I'll try to keep it consistent on Saturdays until updates are done. Also!: Be thinking of requests for one-shots, anything pertaining to Goblin that you would like to see. I will be writing those to finish off this story, whether they match with the canon-path of this story or not, any characters you would like featured, any romantic themes you would want. Thanks, and reviews are always welcomed/appreciated! I also have more ideas for Goblin as well as other K-dramas and fandoms in my profile if you would like to look for what is coming up at some point; I will take requests for what I should work on next.
He commands her body to drift off to sleep; he doesn't want to hurt her by leaving. In spite of his power, she is stubborn enough to stay awake for another thirty minutes. She's muttering something about how she can't go on if he leaves again when her voice suddenly cuts off and her head bounces, limp, against his shoulder.
He winces at the impact and reaches to lift her head from his shoulder. But he suddenly misses the contact when the familiar, loving weight is gone; he brings it back to him, presses her exhausted body against his own.
For two hours Kim Shin lies there, breathing and bringing her in, forcing fate to let him accept what is his to own. He married her, twice now, and waited eighty years. Now he must wait another . . . one more . . . another year after that . . . between every first snow.
But he doesn't want to go on like this forever. He doesn't want her to go on like this forever either.
And yet—deep down, he knows Sin was correct. Now as he's helping people, he feels a thirst for life and miracles as he only felt the simple stirrings of before he married Eun Tak again. She can focus on Woo Bin and her family because he is working.
Can't he have her every night, though? Why must he live in heaven? Gods have homes on earth; his home and his house are stuck here, his home a sorrowful puddle of tears when she misses him.
The sun creaks into his window, announcing the cruel reestablishment of his punishment. He breathes a heavy sigh and lowers his bride onto the bed; she won't be asleep much longer. He's overstayed his leave.
But he pauses a moment to brush a stray strand of soft hair from her face before turning for the door. He lets it click quietly behind him, and the moment it does, his power over her releases. He hears the rustle of sheets and clamps his eyes shut. It takes everything he has not to barrel back inside and ask her if she's all right.
"Kim Shin?" Her plea begins quietly, then escalates in pain. "Kim Shin?!"
He clenches his fist before he can hear more, and he marches to the door. No; he will not let this go on, visit her one day a year only to watch her heart break. He had to adjust to immortality, and it took a long time. He would never wish that process on any loved one, especially not her, not the creature that means the most to him.
He appears inside the door of the Sacred Pillar, nearly smacking into Shi Jin. The soldier doesn't look fazed or surprised, but worried.
"You're back late; Sin is not pleased," Shi Jin warns. "He will not let you fight."
Kim Shin ignores him at first, then turns back. "What are you talking about?"
"Do you think I haven't tried to resign my position?" Shi Jin stares at the tiled floor. "Even when Mo Yeon dies, I'll still be here in the Pillar, unable to leave until I'm dismissed. She'll probably forget all about me. I took this up with Sin, and he said I was correct." Shi Jin casts his gaze to the floor. "Apparently there is a punishment for loving."
Kim Shin doesn't ponder Shi Jin's warning for long; this is different. Kim Shin has the status of a god and can argue with Sin if he wishes. Besides, Eun Tak can't forget him.
But as he climbes the never-ending stairs to the top, where he's sure Sin will be, his heart sinks: his alternatives from the start were not attractive by any means. Now he has to at least think of a third way. Sin won't let him go back; he won't let Eun Tak skip her last two lives; he won't let Kim Shin just rest in peace as a dead soul. Kim Shin is marked with the history of a Dokkaebi. He's different from everyone else.
By the time he reaches the top, his energy and his conviction are spent.
"Good," Sin says, stepping out from a pure white corridor. Kim Shin realizes the amount of gold has diminished with every floor he's climbed, as though showing Sin as a creature of purity. He snorts at the thought; hardly true. "You won't have the strength to debate now. Know that you have overstepped your bounds, staying with Eun Tak until daylight. Next time you see her, you only have until midnight. If you are back at the Pillar any later than the time I've designated, I will retract your powers as a god. Restored to the position of a Dokkaebi, you will be banished again to the snowy wastelands where I have no power, and Eun Tak's life will immediately be cut off. She will drink tea and forget about you. Is that understood, Kim Shin?"
Kim Shin bites his tongue until he tastes the sting of metallic blood. He strains not to fight back: he remembers her pained tone this morning and knows he cannot do this forever.
But even if Sin cannot offer hope, if there is anything Kim Shin has learned as an immortal it is that nothing can last forever.
He leaves Sin without any sort of farewell. He ignores the buzzing pressure in his mind, constantly growing thicker, regarding the people within his range of influence and all of them in need at that moment. Names and situations, situations of life and death, situations of discouragement and failure, flicker through him. But the one that sticks out the most is Eun Tak's name. His powers don't alert him to her situation, but she is the one person he cares about and the one person he can't help.
Then Kang Mo Yeon, the woman who tried to save Eun Tak's life, comes back to him. He sighs, exasperated; he hears her name every day, but he doesn't know how to help her. He's tried everything. His powers will show him nothing about her past or future to assist. There's nothing he can do.
"Yoo Shi Jin," he murmurs.
In minutes, the former soldier appears before him, within reach from anywhere in the Sacred Pillar. "Yes, sir."
"Your wife. Kang Mo Yeon," Kim Shin says. He lifts his eyes to meet Shi Jin's. "What can I do to help her?"
Shi Jin pauses. "She seems happy at the moment, for the most part. She is wealthy, popular, still very beautiful. She works with good people, and she is safe. I don't know why she is showing up to you; she doesn't need help."
Kim Shin's brow furrows. "How do you see her? You aren't a god."
"Everything is visible from heaven, Kim Shin. It would be harder for Sin to be jealous and selfish if he had nothing to take blessings from, nothing to be jealous of, no one else to care about. So he watches everyone below, and it is not hard. You focus on where you are from, if you are not a god. Earth is not hard to remember."
"You didn't drink the tea."
Shi Jin shakes his head. "I did. But Sin said he wanted me to work here, and I entered the Sacred Pillar before the tea took effect. When I leave I will forget more."
"He keeps you here because of Kang Mo Yeon."
Shi Jin doesn't say anything for a long moment, letting the white silence mute the emotions behind his response. "You must understand what it's like, not wanting to forget her." His eyes grow distant, empassioned; Kim Shin caught a glimpse of what Shi Jin might have been like as a soldier, steel but still open. "Not wanting to look at her, confused, when she finally dies and still remembers you, but you've lost track of what your life was like." He bites his lip, and for once he smiles. A flicker of agony lights in Kim Shin's mind, as though his powers are trying to reach the dead as well as the living. But he only administers to the earth, not to the heavens. "Don't worry about it. When she dies I will find some way to resign."
With that, Shi Jin salutes. "Sir." He turns on his heel and marches up the stairs, towards Sin; chances are he's been summoned by some other deity.
Kim Shin leaves, discouraged by the whole ordeal. He admits to himself he couldn't have seen Shi Jin's circumstances if he wanted to: he is only meant to help the living.
But if Kim Shin can only help the living, ghosts are out of luck. He can't help everyone. He does, however, decide now is the time to get busy. If anything, he has to forget about Ji Eun Tak at least until the next autumn. Heaven could become hell without the ability to let her go.