"I am Thanatos, the God of death." His stormy greys keeps me rapt in his grasp as he continues. "I sevre the Underworld as its minister. "

"I guessed." And every set of eyes except one turns to me. "Zeus called you death and for you be here it was the most practical reason."

He lips stretch to a smile highlighting his dull eyes. "You have always been smart."

Instead of rejoicing for such a rare compliment, the familiarity with which he spoke brought a cloud of gloom.

"Is it because of your identity as a god that you left? For duty sake?" I ask forcing myself to only nod in understanding if it were true.

"No." He replies and my heart palpitates.

"Then, why?"

This breaks something clear in his eyes as it churns in contrasting thoughts before he sighs seeming defeated and weighed down by unspeakable burdens.

"I was hurting you Rain."

The initial wave of shock is subdued by anger. "You could have come up with a better excuse, Thanatos."

The name foreign to my tongue shocks him silent.

"Please believe me Rain, I am not making up an excuse."

Reigning in my temper I smile, putting off the effort to make it seem real. "Its hard for me to believe since I remember no such thing."

Witnessing how the truth he had held back for all those bitter years unravel and failing to pass through, his fists clench turning his knuckles pale. "Can't you feel yourself weakening?" His voice rise louder not in rage but aggravation.

"What does my present condition have to do with you leaving five years ago?"

"I am the god of death." He repeats as in explanation.

"So?"

This time his eyes smile with its usual light even if it were only fleeting. And in the background that had long lost its colour Will sniffles his laughter being the only one to react to our banter while all others present looked on with a blank face and without judgement as if it were their only way to grant privacy.

"My duty as the god of death is to collect and guide the souls of the deceased to the Underworld thus bringing death to all mortal creatures."

"I am...death."

"My presence weakens living souls, it drains them of their life." The words were only a whisper.

"Then why were you on earth that day?

Why come to my door?

I did not let an emotion flicker through as he stares in disbelief of how lightly I seemed to look at the matter.

"I was at your hospital by an accident, in a mishap that occured due to a wandering soul and then I met you."

"Your aura Rain." He eyes seem to look past mine seeing something I couldn't. "It was strange and I remained a while in curiosity and in the end met you in person out of a whim."

A smile shadows his lips as he thinks back. "The whim of mine was without an intention to stay, but I found myself coming back to you."

"And somewhere along I realised I couldn't leave, but I was too late to realise the consequences of my action."

Finding only daggers around every corner, I steeled myself to listen further.

"I was not familiar with the health conditions of mortals and with your frequent recurring fevers, I only feared it was a serious physical ailment till your doctors could no longer keep you awake."

My mind recollects the bedridden days, the bitter fevers that refused to leave, the fatigue of headaches and nausea and the thermometer readings thst never showed the normal body temperature of thirty seven degrees for months.

And the day I lost consciousness I remember how he stood the farthest away beside the door as if not daring to come closer.

"When I realised how I was at fault the only way I could keep you safe was to distance myself from you."

Five days later when I woke up he was gone without a trace.

"It might not be true." I say, unable to believe past the first words.

"Rain."

"Then why would you affect me after four years, I was always healthy in the years before I fell sick." But my contradiction still met an answer.

"I experimented with hundreds of mortals while you were in that hospital bed and each and everyone of them showed unexplained weakness within the first day or two."

"Your soul must have been the reason for your resistances but you too are not immune to it anymore." There was regret in his eyes so evident that it rang out in words.

"Rain, you ask if I wanted it to be the only way out."

"No!" I knew by one look at those scared eyes that I was in denial, but I was afraid it would crush me and choose to look away from the gaze that scratched ones heartstrings in a song of melancholy.

"So why doesn't Hades affect me?"

Noticing how I neither accept to agree or disagree, he replies with a calmer tone.

"Lord Hades being the God of the underworld gives him power over death and the afterlife thus creating a state of balance. It is similar to how the gods residing in Olympus are closer to life.

"So being here helps my condition?" I raise my brow.

"Yes." He nods and something to me feels off in the moment even though it doesn't show.

"If this is true why not bring me here back then? And if its because you did not want to reveal your identity you could have kept me unconscious."

He thought a while longer to answer, but he never spoke lies."I am not supposed to intervene with a mortals life and since I did, it was only natural for punishment to befall me."

"Punishment?" I was baffled by the revelation. "Nothing happened to me, I still recorded then why punishment?"

"No, you don't understand, death was looming over you it wouldn't have taken any longer before I would have to be your guide!" His breaths were uneven and heavy, his eyes were the saddest of greys and angst chained him down.

"This is ridiculous." I whisper in misery only for me to hear. "What sort of punishment?"

"It was only exile." He doesn't explain any further and I feel a suffocating weight set upon my shoulder.

And even though it may have saved me the pain, I ask."How long?"

"Two years." He says with caution as if he knew what my next question would be, but suddenly I realise a small oddity I overlooked.

"My conditions were rare, but the rate of my recovery was unnatural. If it was only because you left it should have still taken longer than just days for me to recover." A happy miracle, the doctors had said.

The observation hit its mark and he stumbles to answer as quick. "Before I was exiled I asked a god to stay by your side to help you recover faster."

"Who?" The pause that follows turns to silence and his restlessness doesn't go unnoticed.

My mind pulls out each fragments of those days when I had refused to be entertained by company other than the usual visits of a curious friend through the first floor window.

"You were that cat." I knowingly look over to stormy blues that then had slits of a snow white feline.

And I realise this was the missing piece to something everybody here seem to want to avoid but did not want to hide.

I turn back to Izumi not waiting for the god to agree on my observation. "Why couldn't ypu come back after your exile if you could ask Zeus for help like then."

It was this exact doubt that I feared would trigger a minefield.

But it was surprisingly not Izumi that answers. "I made him stay away from you."

I say nothing, not understanding why. In a rare moment of seriousness Zeus explains, with startling guilt. "I made him stay away an year more after the period of exile inreturn for me helping you."

Betrayal, I felt betrayal as he continues.

"Because I wanted to know if....you would forget him." His fluent speech stampers and as the words fall I turn away, and never again did our eyes meet.

My fingers constantly fiddles with the hem of my top, a small distraction to appease my anger. "The years still doesn't add up, you still had time to meet me."

"You could have atleast given me a proper goodbye and even though I may have been immature I would have tried."

His face turns downcast, a shadow hiding away his expression. "I could not tell you the truth."

But then he looks up sure of the words he spoke. "Is death not what you fear the most."

I flinch by the reply. "That maybe true, but I am not afraid of you...can not see that." My voice breaks in the end and his eyes grow duller.

"I couldn't."

"To put you through all that again, there was no way I could bring myself to do so...."

"Rain?" His voice lace with concern.

I cover my face, my cheeks moist against my palms. I was still unable to distinguish beetween selfless and selfish while stubbornly holding onto the past, but deep down I knew what I was putting him through with this persistent questioning, with each having the only goal to turn it all to a lie.

"I am sorry." I whisper.

"I am...really sorry."

And this was when I broke, when the facade of lies looks backs in my face and demands the truth and falls apart for everyone to see and everything blurs with the salty tears that couldn't extinguish the pain. "Can't you just come home?"

"I just want you to come home" It was all I wanted.

I listen to my sobs, like a distressed child and the muscles of my chin trembles as to hold it in.

"So...everybody knew." It was not a question and my eyes trace past Will' helplessness to the god who silently sat beside me and last they test on Aphrodite who somehow knew the meaning to my whisper.

"Please."

And then I fall back to my mothers arms walking away from Zeus' palace.

"It is alright now." Her words weren't of comfort but permission.

And I cry in desperation to numb the pain of an injury no one else could see.

_________________________________________

I thank the maid offering me herbal tea which I wholeheartedly gulp down.

"Do you want to come to my party?" She asks expectantly leaning closer to my side as we sat in the garden outside her palace.

"Do I have a choice?"

"Nope" she chirps looping an arm around my shoulder as she laughs at her own wickedness.

And just as me, I notice a patrolling unit stop their activities and simply stare at her as in a trance looking as if they would fall to her feet the next second but respect and fear kept them diligently following their drill.

"Please tell me that they are not looking at my mother like that." She turns to the gaurds with a wave and turn backs to assure me.

"Nope, it's not your mother that they see in me."

"Who do you appear to them as, is it your real appearance?" My curiosity has gotten the best of me.

"I take the image of the person they consider the most beautiful."

I tilt my head not completely grasping the concept and she seems to catch onto my confusion.

"For example, you see me as your mother because you consider her the most beautiful amongst the rest, while others may see me as their wife, sister, lover or even someone they only had a fleeting image off, the person they find the moat beautiful."

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." I state, finding her even more wonderful.

"But you know, you look younger than my mother, though I can't point out how."

Her face looses its cheerfulness and I realize I may have strayed onto something sensitive. "I can look like the woman a person admires but I can never be her and so its only the illusions that they see." The smile she smiled was perfected over the years, one that gave nothing away.

Taking use of the proximity, I hug her and she returns it laughing. "I think we switched places.

"I guess we have." I finally smile.

"So, let's have some fun, shall we?" She pulls me up hoping around in pure excitement and soomthly jump over the table than choosing to walk around it.

And I think to myself how the poised lady of a mother back home would shrivel up in fright watching herself pull such a stunt in her suit.

he's a jem.