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‘How annoying.’
Kim Roksu thinks to himself, weaving past the crowded streets of modern day Rain City.
There’s someone trailing his tail, and they’re not even trying to keep it subtle. Even his avian friends seem to agree.
He glances at the reflections of the storefronts, seeing a subtle trace of death aimed directly at his back.
At times like these, his newly acquired abilities are pretty useful.
It allows him a headsup, like a premonition of a disaster that he can’t avoid but must resolve.
Since he’s the literal spiritual and physical embodiment of Death’s ambassador for the mortal world, he’s tasked with dealing with problems relating to death and the balance between life and death.
Even though the rat bastard promised his second lifetime to be one of slacking off and minimal efforts, he’d already accidentally acquired a second self proclaimed father, saved the protagonist twice in the same week, and had to deal with two potential major character deaths during his first two months in this new world.
Even though he’s nigh immortal, has obsidian black wings sprouted on his back and an abyssal-like halo, both hidden for the sake of his slacker life, and is the closest thing to an actual biblical fallen archangel.
Instead of doing what all divine entities do, that being sitting on their asses and only doing the bare minimum to keep the world in one piece as they constantly fight for dominance over each other, he has to go trifle with dangerous, horrifyingly vicious people and prevent their deaths, as well as the deaths of the people surrounding them.
Now, if his instincts are right, and they are always right, this would be his second confrontation with an assassin.
He might as well consider the number 2 an unlucky number. Two twos do make a death.
Even though Kim Roksu couldn’t die, being stabbed by an assassin is astronomically more painful than being eaten alive, and he’d rather not have a repeat of both–
There it is again.
He mentally slaps himself, letting a strange soothing chill that encompasses him refresh his mind.
Avoiding getting packaged into a bodybag comes first.
He eyes the road ahead, noting low buildings and twisting alleyways.
The assailant is behind him, moving with him like a shadow.
Without acting too suspiciously, he puts on the hood of his hoodie. The simple action causes a tiny, almost unnoticeable shift in the link between Roksu and the assassin.
He glances behind himself in the least unsuspecting way possible.
The link begins to pull, and that means the fish has caught the bait.
In the blink of an eye, his momentum shifts gears, he bolts through the crowd of people before taking cover in an alleyway.
In the split second that it took for Roksu to dash off, the assassin was already matching his speed to catch up.
He is confident in his ability to outrun them, but that’s tiring. Plus, what if they decide to chase him outside of the city? That would put a wrench in his timeline, and just imagining himself having to fix said timeline makes the little exertion barely worth it.
He hums to himself as he turns the corner, lightly panting from running for the first time in a while, before signaling to the rooftop opposite of the alleyway.
Immediately, a crow lands on his hand, jumping lightly on it and even poking his facemask with its beak as if excited.
He quickly gives it a pat and a slice of apple he had cut earlier that morning, before sending it away with a low whisper.
“Lead me to the slums.”
He allows himself another moment of respite as the intelligent crow flies away, before moving deeper into the narrow pathways, gaining some time and distance from the assassin.
He crosses an intersection, and nearly gets his head cut off.
“Hello, young master Kim.”
The voice of a benign old man, hiding that of a legendary assassin, Ron Molan, might’ve caught him off guard if he hadn't been expecting it.
They stare each other down, the latter polishing a gleaming sharp antique dagger that was aimed at his neck moments prior.
Roksu knows he stands no chance against one of, if not the greatest assassins in this world in any type of combat.
“Is this why your son is still single?”
Ron’s eyes widened just a fraction, seemingly genuinely surprised at the question. His hand that continued to polish his dagger ceased, just as the aura of death connecting them both fluctuated.
Kim Roksu darts off again, and Ron snaps back into focus.
“Hoh. That’s not how you greet your elders, young master Kim.”
The chase continues through the narrow pathways, splintering into various routes that never lead to the same place twice.
Kim Roksu is being led by sheer survival instincts alone.
Said survival instincts take physical shape in the form of a few discrete black beaks poking out from the rooftops.
The crows gather on the buildings to make a pathway that leads him deeper into the murkier parts of the city.
“You brought quite a lot of friends.” The senile voice audible from above, the sounds of shoes clicking on tiled roofs drowned out by the bustling streets.
From below, the small view Roksu has of black wings flying away as the footsteps draw near, causing him to hasten his own.
But in seconds, even the crows ahead were chased off by the assassin.
“Perhaps you could slow your pace for this old man?” He speaks casually as he jumps directly onto Roksu’s path.
“No thanks.” He reacts by launching himself backwards into another branching pathway using his invisible wings, staggering Ron with the strong gust in the process.
As he continues to create distance, he can hear the amused laughter of the assassin.
“Young master Kim, is the thought of being engaged to that puppy of yours that offputting?”
‘Yes! Because I’m mentally two decades older than that brat!’ Roksu wanted to scream out loud.
He continues to run instead, ignoring the humiliating thought of having to marry into the Henituse household because of the whims of an overly enthusiastic pair of mother and son.
“I’m not your young master, Cale is, and you’re not supposed to refer to your charge as a puppy!”
But it seems as if that only encourages the old man to drag him back kicking and screaming even more.
He turns a corner, and sees himself getting knocked out. He wakes up to a scarlet red filling his vision and his limbs unmovable as a koala cling onto him.
‘Not that one.’
And another, and sees himself on the ground, having tripped, then dragged off by the scruff of his neck. He also sees himself being deposited on a dining table and being served wagyu beef.
‘Too humiliating. Not worth it.’
He turns another corner, and sees nothing.
Because Ron has blindfolded him.
He’s gently shoved into an extra large bodybag, gets comfortably seated in a limousine and is gifted to a drunk Cale Henituse in a giftbox as big as a christmas tree.
‘Nope.’
Every path he potentially takes ends up with him being kidnapped kindly escorted back to the estate, which is not ideal.
At this point, the assassin is acting more like an overqualified babysitter than a killing machine.
Kim Roksu should’ve just ran off the moment the drunken redhead had his eyes on him. Now he has to run for his conscience as an old man with human butchering skills attempts to kidnap him.
He is immediately taken out of his thoughts as he hears a faint silenced gunshot and a capsule narrowly passes his peripheral vision and impacts a wall.
Immediately, smoke begins to pour out from where the capsule landed and a similarly dense aura of death flows out.
Roksu turns around to face Ron. The old man slots the pistol back under his shirt.
“This Ron recommends the young master turn around before I have to tuck you into bed.”
‘Sleeping gas– No, I’m way too old to be treated like this? And does sleeping gas even affect me?’
Kim Roksu is a supernatural being of death that doesn’t need to sleep to function normally even though he’s instinctively attracted to the idea of sleeping.
‘It’ll probably be fine.’
He had once researched his own sleeping patterns, and the results were unsurprising, to say the least.
He can control his own sleeping patterns, allowing him to consciously decide when he starts dozing off or if ever at all. A fantastic, glorious, invaluable asset that allows him to sleep an entire month away without feeling any repercussions in a hibernation-like state.
He should have a week-long nap after today. A fine way to celebrate having finally escaped the grasp of the Henituses.
Ron, ignorant of the young man’s thoughts, remains still as the gas creeps closer to the entranced figure.
Roksu looks contemplative, or possibly constipated. His fragile pale face shifts from denial, to anger, to bargaining, to depression, to acceptance, to staring blankly at the concrete floor.
‘Amusing and strangely endearing, like a stray cat you pick up on the side of the road that got itself attached.’
He thinks back on that night when he accompanied his young master to a bar under the order of Deruth Henituse, Cale’s father.
And instantly regrets it.
It’s the type of memory you’d keep to yourself even in death. Truly, if Cale Henituse, the chaebol of chaebols, could see himself from an outsider’s point of view, he’ll throw himself out of a skyscraper. If he doesn’t, Ron will throw the brat out himself.
Meanwhile,
“My child, oversleeping is bad for your mental health!”
‘Quit fucking blabbering in my mind as if you aren’t just as bad.’
“HEY! No cursing.”
‘Get out of my head get out of my head get out of my head get out of my head get out of my head get out of my head get out of my head–’
Bzzt.
Kim Roksu pulls out his phone, where a single, lonely, depressing, and absolutely deserving message greets him.
[My youngest is so mean…]
Then another.
[He doesn’t even call me his dad anymore…]
The dense gas that’s been slowly creeping in also helps with covering up this embarrassment of a father.
[My parenting skills are divine! How did he turn out like this?!]
‘They are indeed divine.’
[Of course!]
‘As divine as that of the Greek Gods.’
[Right– Wait…]
Kim Roksu lets out a victorious smirk as realization dawns on the divine being.
[ :( ]
Then it turns back into a frown as the self-righteous asshole continues barraging his inbox.
[Then I must be Daedalus! He’s a great father, the symbol of wisdom, knowledge, and power, like me!]
[And he saved himself and his son from danger, like me and you!]
[...But then you’d be Icarus.]
[My child…]
[Never fly too close to the sun, okay?]
He doesn’t plan on flying that high anyways, as the odds of him getting hit by a plane are higher than him being able to fly into space.
The messages pause for a second or two, and Roksu takes that time to discretely check the time and the link of death between him and Ron.
It’s… not there?
He’s about to look for Ron, whose aura of death had seemingly disappeared out of thin air, until another notification pops up.
[Btw, he’s right above you]
‘Huh.’
Kim Roksu stares upward, using his wings to spread out the dense gas, and indeed, Ron is, and probably has been, staring at him from above.
He appears to be… surprised.
Who was he kidding? Nothing can surprise that old man.
Bzzt.
Kim Roksu, having fully developed a horrid attention span as a side effect of being part bird brains, distractedly stares back at his phone.
[See! I can be useful sometimes!]
‘Do something that actually helps me escape that old man!’
[Of course, my child! Just make a call and I’ll come pick you up!]
He continues staring, somewhat intrigued and extremely suspicious.
He looks back up to Ron, then back down to his phone. Once, twice.
On the third time,
“Fuck it.”
He presses call, and out comes the voice of an overly enthusiastic father.
“My child, I thought you’d never call!”
Way too loud.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” He replies with a disinterested tone, “Can you… uhm… pick me up.”
Kim Roksu doesn’t comprehend the literal embodiment of Death celebrating to himself in very audible whispers of “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
Not at all.
Before long, the bastard decides to act like a normal person, still far from a god.
“What’s the magic word?”
Roksu internally screams to himself.
“Please.”
“Nope, not that one!”
He swears he will kill one day or another, making proper meaning of the title of that trashy, nonsensical, tasteless, award winning novel the piece of shit wrote, “To Kill Death” or whatever the fuck it was called.
Roksu sighs to himself, before biting the bullet.
“...dad…”
Before he knows it, he is sleeping on his bed, the same cloud-like mattress that he originally awoke on when he first arrived in this world.
And beside him, a disgustingly handsome man, with bronze skin, ivory hair, and abyss-like eyes that stares deep into his soul.
“Good morning, sleepyhead.” He speaks casually, as if they weren’t conversing literally seconds prior.
Now that he’s here…
“Good night.”
“Wait–”