A/N: This chapter is long, long, long overdue, initially because of writer's block and then because of the stages of grief that came with realizing V route was going to (and did) redact a lot of my fic into firm AU territory. I've decided that instead of changing my plans for this fic to align with the information provided by V route, I'm going to continue with what I originally had planned for the fic. I'm not complaining about having additional canon information- it's fantastic- but I fear my motivation to finish this will dwindle into nothing if I have to go off my original course too much. I started writing this chapter before V route and finished it after, and it's probably the first time I make a major divergence from canon (other than, you know, having V be the reincarnation of a shinigami from an entirely different series) on purpose. I really hope you enjoy this and I apologize for taking so long to get it out! As always, reviews are much appreciated!
It's not her first week or even her first month at school when another student, not by his actions or anything he's said but by his mere presence, strikes Rem breathless. She's seen him before, in church, in class, but she never realized until now that she isn't the only person who spends their recesses outside alone. As if pushed away by some invisible force filling the air, he stands at the edge of the school courtyard; perhaps it's the same force that compelled Rem to wander off here in the first place. The tall and empty walls that should have diminished him with their size are inferior to the look in his eyes, ice and fire all at once, passionate scrutiny, and with a start this young boy reminds Rem not of her own downfall but of Misa's, the man she loved who used love like a weapon and turned a god to ash. It's too much memory for a boy so young, and when he turns that gaze on Rem in this soft, child's body and asks, "Why do you look at me that way?," Rem has spent enough time as a human to know that he is art.
"Do you want me to stop?" she asks, uncertain if she's disturbed him. He's a little shorter than Jihyun is, but it doesn't feel that way. The boy's eyes survey her up and down, appraising her with eyebrows arched, lips twisted for a moment in thought, before he shrugs and turns his face away.
"Do as you like," he tells her, and for a moment the command stupefies her, desperately searching in her mind for what exactly it is that she'd like to do so she can comply. Her eyes find her shoes, black and freshly shined the night before by Yunseo. The other boy wears similar ones of a slightly different style, his pointed at the front where Jihyun's are square, standard footwear for the compulsory school uniform. Rem hesitates, then raises her head again to look at his face.
"What's your name?" she asks, and the question feels too personal, a few characters on a page that could be the difference between life and death, a secret to be closely guarded yet is so easily taken away.
"You don't know it?" the boy questions, an overly critical crease in his forehead for someone his age. "We've been in the same class for two months and twelve days, we attend the same church, and we've visited each other's houses before, but you don't know my name?"
He speaks like he spends his free time reading the dictionary, a pastime Rem can't deny she's participated in herself before out of boredom, selective of his words in a way that's unnatural for his stature. She stares wide-eyed at him for his harshness. Human names and even faces are difficult, slipping in and out of her mind without a trace no matter how hard she tries, and she's tempted to ask how he can remember her name before she realizes he's not given any particular indication that he does.
"I suppose I've forgotten," she mumbles, allowing her language to slip back into the stiff formalness she was accustomed to as a shinigami to match the other's speech. She's surprised to find how unforced it feels, realizing for the first time that her quietness around most humans might be due to the amount of effort it takes to vocalize as they expect Jihyun to.
The other blinks, scowling but apparently unable to look away from her, and after a moment of contemplative silence he slowly utters, "My name is Jumin Han."
Jumin Han.
It's a name she's heard before, the Han part certainly is, in her parents' dinner conversations and dripping with bitter spite from Yunseo's lips. His family doesn't live far from where Jihyun's does, a large house with black panels that's more modern than most others in the neighbourhood, though the inside is more traditional than one might expect.
She repeats the name several times in her head, Jumin Han, Jumin Han, the words more precious than the other boy could realize, and somehow she knows that this time she won't forget.
"The conventional thing to do, at this point," the other says, startling Rem out of her thoughts, "would be to introduce yourself, but there's no need as I already know who you are."
She nods, her lips feeling stuck together, and though the boy is stern she finds herself taking his word for it easily, something about him exuding honesty and trustworthiness even while he rebukes her with his words. She feels she's somehow unearthed something, trespassed into a space she wasn't meant to be and stuck gold, like the earrings she wore as a shinigami, like the pink paint she took from the human world. He doesn't seem bothered by her staring, though he doesn't meet her eyes, and for a moment Rem longs to stay like this, silently drinking in the details of this boy's world, a world that appears to be all his own, separate from the oversaturation and noise she's come to associate with the human realm. He doesn't interrupt her, completely still and with perfect posture, and she knows then that she was wrong in her initial assessment of him. This boy is better than Light Yagami, greater than Light Yagami, and if the gods fell for him it would only be natural, his effortless honesty making him worthy of it, with no need for deception or delicate maneuvering to make it happen. He emanates magnetism, seems almost composed of it, and it's a quality she thinks can't be taken from him, a fundamental of his being that makes him meant to walk this earth.
She tears her eyes away; too much, too much, and when she does he takes a step toward her and she finds herself breathless once more.
"Spend recess with me," he says, his right foot barely a few centimetres from hers, eyes full of intensity. She nods again, refusing to look away this time, and he remains for just a moment, holding her there in his world, before he moves back.
And then he smiles.
Muscles in his face relax, eyebrows lose their arch, his lips curve just barely upward, and he looks at her with a carefreeness she wouldn't have thought him capable of as the warm light of morning seems to envelop her from his face.
"Good," he says, motioning to a bench by one of the paths in the courtyard. "Should we sit? I think we'll like each other, Jihyun."
Rem knows he's right, and it's a strange feeling, unaccustomed to attention or her presence being wanted, and together they walk away from the towering wall.
Jumin becomes a fixture in her life with ease, occupying a place she didn't know existed and fitting perfectly into it. The two of them are silent more often than not, but it's a different sort of silence than that she shares with her family, a silence that's whole instead of hollow, a silence that's full like a sponge with water, and while she can't tell if she herself contributes anything to that completeness, she knows Jumin does with his overwhelming presence. They don't speak because there's no need for words, and when the words do come they are easy, unedited in their clunkiness, too big for either of them and their children's bodies. She's half-tempted to tell him her history, to ask if he was a god once too, but otherworldly as he seems Rem knows there's something irrevocably human about him, the very thing that drew the likes of herself and Gelus to this world in the first place.
Rem's searches for gods who'd become humans are mostly fruitless, references to human descent almost invariably linked to Christianity. Typing in Gelus's name does nothing either, the other apparently uninterested in making himself known to other former shinigami, if he's even here at all. It's possible that if he too became human then he's in a completely different time period than Rem is, or a different timeline altogether. And there's also a chance he didn't become a human in the first place.
It's much easier to find references to the opposite, the concept of humans that become gods, deification or apotheosis as the process is called. Humans appear to be fascinated by the idea, and Rem supposes she can understand what the allure of power and eternity could be to people who never had them within their grasp. She too might find it enthralling, were the power she had not the power of death, and were the eternity she had not dependent on it. Her parents never ask what she's searching for, so she never has to hide it, though she likely could if she wanted to because Jihyun apparently inherited her talent for going unnoticed, though not through any ability to be literally invisible. He slips in an out of places almost without a sound, and those just realizing he's entered the room remark that he surprises them with his quiet. She doesn't broach the subjects she searches for with Jumin, either, though he'd undoubtedly be interested in the concept of descent from godhood, but he's too sharp and too perceptive for Rem to fully trust he wouldn't put the entire picture together.
He starts inviting her to his house, and though Jihyun is allowed to invite over anyone he wants, he's also allowed to go any place he wishes, and Rem prefers to be at Jumin's. The other boy's house is full of invisible people; kitchen staff and housekeepers that Rem rarely sees, going about their obligations to maintain the orderliness of the place. Jumin doesn't think twice about it, and soon neither does Rem, the novelty of being seen both unnerving and difficult not to enjoy. Jumin listens to her, and Rem knows that if she ever asked him to make her a promise he wouldn't break it, possessing a degree of respect for her that's totally foreign to her life.
Jumin's father is rarely home, though his mother always is, and Jumin makes a point to correct Jihyun when he refers to her as such, firmly informing her that the woman living in his house is not his mother. Rem gives him a questioning look, less aware of human customs than she expected, and Jumin says he'll explain it another time.
Jumin's insistence that he and Jihyun be alone most of the time is no discomfort to her, used to adults taking little interest in her life. Even when their parents get together for dinner, Jumin prefers that the two of them take off on their own as soon as the meal is finished, circling the perimeter of his garden or sitting on the rug in his bedroom.
"I thought you were looking forward to having dinner together with your father," Rem comments, purposely not phrasing it as a question so the other doesn't feel obliged to respond. Jumin leans back against the footboard of his bed, so large it could probably swallow him.
"I was," he says, tracing circles on his kneecap. Even outside of school, Jumin dresses as if in uniform. Jihyun wears a t-shirt and jeans, though Rem isn't sure whether or not they're expensive. "But his girlfriend is with him, and I don't like her."
"Oh," Rem says, and suddenly everything makes sense. She wondered why the woman who appeared to be Mr. Han's wife was so young, but time spent with Kyosuke Higuchi should've told her that this was normal for businessmen. Jumin's father seems so kind, though, she wouldn't have thought to connect the two even in spite of them having the same occupation.
"Mm," Jumin acknowledges. She watches him for a moment, wondering if he wants to elaborate, but he says nothing more so she doesn't press him. Jumin's bedroom is nice, a bit oversized but so is Jihyun's. Everything from the wooden floors to the bed to the armchairs on either side of the table in the middle of the room are white, the only exception provided by a fish tank that sits on top of the table, the fish swimming inside reflecting the sunlight with vibrant colours.
It's quiet for a long time, and Rem wonders for a moment why Jumin sits on the floor when his room has armchairs and a window seat, and she's trying to decide if that's too impolite to ask when she feels a weight press against her arm, eyes widening as she realizes Jumin has shifted to lean on her, just slightly, his dark hair falling on Jihyun's shoulder. The touch is unexpected, accustomed to her only contact being Yunseo's hand firmly grasping Jihyun's when crossing the street or in a crowded place.
"Jumin?"
Jumin stiffens, and Rem regrets it for a moment as he raises his head ever so slightly, then seems to change his mind and leans on Jihyun again.
"You know," he says softly. Jihyun waits. "I've never had a friend before."
This isn't surprising. Jumin is young, has hardly had enough time in the world for it to be confusing that he hasn't made friends before, but the word puts Rem on alert.
"Friend?" she echoes, and Jumin shifts off of her shoulder to engage her in a serious look.
"That's what we are, right?" he asks, and though his voice is steely the question is sincere, searching her face with his silver eyes for answers. "Friends?"
Rem returns his eye contact and for once wonders if Jumin feels her presence as strongly as she feels his, because he averts his gaze slightly to look at her nose instead of her eyes. It's a word Rem hadn't considered for them before. Friends… the weight with which Jumin spoke the word makes sense now, though Jumin himself wouldn't be able to understand it. He's a young boy with the body of a delicate child, only a few short years into school. Rem is ancient, lived for centuries without ever having a single friend, the closest perhaps being Gelus, but even then it was she who was fascinated by him, the other shinigami sharing no similar interest in Rem or anyone other than the human girl he watched. That, of course, was natural. And Misa could hardly be called a friend, care for her as much as Rem did.
But him… Jumin Han. He seeks out Jihyun's presence, remembers things about him that Jihyun doesn't remember about himself, hangs onto his every word even when they're clumsily put together and say nothing of importance. He's unselfish, doesn't only care for Jihyun to the extent that Jihyun can be useful to him, whether as a willing sacrifice or a soundboard. Jumin is considerate of Rem, gives her special attention that even her parents don't give her. His eyes are the only place that Rem holds any significance—that Rem ever held any significance.
"Yes," she breathes, and Jumin watches her, unwavering. "I suppose we are."
Jumin slowly nods, then shifts again, replacing his head against her shoulder once more. Silence overtakes the air, the distant sound of parents' voices downstairs drifting into the room from behind the closed door.
"Let's stay this way," Jumin murmurs, and Rem can hear in his voice that this time it's not a command.
It's a plea.
"We will," she says.
She hopes he can hear in Jihyun's voice that it's a vow.