Chapter Text
four years after the incident.
Chuuya Nakahara had always loved colours.
Colours were everywhere—in the fiery hair of his mother, the purple hyacinths in their family garden, the blue expanse of the Aegean Sea, and the golden jewelry adorned with green sapphires.
Until they weren’t.
Because the colours he painted on lifeless, gray statues weren’t real. They were only an illusion, something meant to create the fleeting impression of life on the dead, marble sculpture.
Completing the last stroke with his brush, Chuuya took a deep breath, slowly raised his gaze, and stood up from his knees. The statue, staring at him with an empty gaze, was probably his most beautiful work. And probably the last one he would ever create.
Chuuya lifted a hand and placed it on the cold cheek of the statue. It felt so similar to how it once had, yet so different. Lifeless.
And the eyes. Despite doing his best to capture their seraphic whiteness, something still felt off, something was different. Perhaps that was for the better. He wasn’t sure if he could bear looking into those exact same eyes he once had, knowing they weren’t looking back at him.
“Nakahara.”
He didn’t turn around. He had no intention of doing so, though the traveler was surely prepared for that possibility. Chuuya saw no reason to prolong this moment any more than necessary.
“That’s what they call me,” he replied in a monotone voice.
He didn’t even flinch. He had been ready for this moment, he wasn’t leaving anything behind. He didn’t have anything to leave behind.
His narrow pupils found their way back to the statue standing before him—one of dozens present around, yet unique and way more special than all the others combined. Every detail, every shadow, every fold of fabric in the chiton, every strand of hair that had once flowed so beautifully in the wind—all of it had been meticulously perfected down to the smallest detail.
It was the least Chuuya could do. It was the least he deserved.
“You, who terrorized innocent people, mercilessly killing them with your deadly stare. You will now receive the punishment you deserve.” The voice behind him echoed in a sharp and confident tone.
“I deserve…” Chuuya said quietly, his voice feeling almost alien, detached.
Deserve. He had always been the one to tell Chuuya that what happened to him wasn’t his fault. That he didn’t deserve the fate the gods had planned for him.
But now, he wasn’t here to say it.
“Very well. Be the hero then.” Chuuya said, his voice empty, lacking any hint of emotion.
The next and final thing he felt was the silver blade against his neck.
one month before the incident.
“Chuuya!”
With a smile, the red-haired sixteen-year-old turned over his shoulder. The sound of small footsteps and that adorable voice were already too familiar to him.
“Yumeno,” Chuuya said gently, kneeling down to be at the same level as the child and running a hand through their dark-white hair. “What are you doing here?”
“Are you going to the temple? Can I come with you? Please, please!” Yumeno exclaimed, completely ignoring the question Chuuya had asked.
The child’s joyful voice brought a soft, muffled laugh from Chuuya. With the corners of his lips slightly upturned, he looked into Yumeno’s eyes. Large, dark, with golden highlights around the iris, they looked almost magical. Even the light reflecting in them seemed to form something similar to the shape of a star.
Chuuya always had the habit of rarely breaking eye contact during a conversation. He had always believed that the eyes were the only part of the human body that were able to provide a glimpse into a person’s soul—if one could look for it. Eyes, unlike words, could not lie. But, they could express just as much, or even more.
“You can,” he replied after a moment of feigned contemplation, standing up and offering Yumeno his free hand.
Yumeno smiled cheerfully and began walking alongside Chuuya in small steps. Before long, the child pointed to the basket Chuuya carried in his other hand.
“What’s in there?” Yumeno asked in a curious voice.
“Offerings for the most holy Athena,” Chuuya replied, lifting the lid of the basket slightly so Yumeno could get a better look.
Inside were fresh fruits and the widely recognized specialty of Chuuya—flowers. The Nakahara family garden was considered the most beautiful in the area, and their knowledge of various ornamental plants was beyond the average person’s imagination.
Had it not been for the great opportunity he was given and becoming a priest at Athena’s temple, Chuuya would probably have become a florist like his mother. He had been raised with that in mind; it was meant to be his only path in life. However, things turned out differently, and both he and his mother were happy—happy that he could fulfill himself in his faith, in his devotion to the most holy Athena.
That was enough for him.
Over the years, Chuuya had learned to be grateful. Grateful for every smile he was given or could share, grateful for his mother, grateful for Athena—he couldn’t name a single thing he lacked in life. The people around him gave him the strength to walk through life with his head held high and to take as much from it as he could.
“What’s in there?” Yumeno asked again, looking up at Chuuya.
“Peonies, hyacinths, delphiniums, and some gardenias,” Chuuya replied, not needing to look into the basket to list its contents effortlessly.
The walk to the temple wasn’t long but refreshing, with the light spring air serving as a pleasant companion for the journey.
As always, Chuuya was greeted by breathtaking beige marble columns supporting the entire structure. At the entrance, he bowed, gazing with respect at the beautifully carved images of the goddess standing at both sides of the main gate. Yumeno did the same beside him.
Inside, at the very center of the grand hall surrounded by more heavy columns, stood a massive statue of the goddess. Athena’s eyes, carved from the finest marble by the best sculptors, gazed forward confidently and intensely. Every fold of her garment was perfectly thought out, every piece of jewelry adorned with real gold.
Chuuya carefully laid the offerings before the statue and then knelt, Yumeno following suit. He closed his eyes and began his daily prayer. This was the time when he could fully dedicate himself to her, relax, and quiet his mind.
The rest of the day passed peacefully and in the usual routine—offerings, prayers, communal worship of the goddess alongside other priests and priestesses in the temple. By evening, Chuuya was one of the last remaining in the temple, but determined to finish polishing Athena’s statue. It wasn’t just his duty—it was his personal will. The goddess deserved no less.
On his lap lay Yumeno, already half-asleep. A few hours earlier, Chuuya had told the child he should go home, but Yumeno stubbornly insisted on staying until evening. Now, the ten-year-old was half-lying on Chuuya’s chest, their eyes long closed, their small body in a deep sleep. Chuuya didn’t have the heart to wake them.
Hearing footsteps coming from the temple’s main entrance, Chuuya looked up from his work. He smiled upon seeing Kouyou, one of the closer—if not the closest—priestesses to him.
“Still here?” she asked after bowing respectfully before the statue, her gaze shifting from Chuuya to Yumeno and back.
“As you can see,” Chuuya replied. “I didn’t see you earlier. Some special occasion?”
“Preparations for Panathenaea. There’s still a month left, but you know how it is.” Kouyou responded, sitting beside him.
“Ah,” Chuuya said, lightly biting his lip. “Right.”
“This will be your first Great Panathenaea as a priest, won’t it?” Kouyou asked, her voice suddenly softer than usual, like an older sister speaking gently to a younger sibling.
Chuuya nodded in confirmation. The Panathenaea celebration was an annual event, but the Great Panathenaea was held only once every four years, while the Lesser Panathenaea took place in the other years.
“It’s a bit… overwhelming,” he murmured, averting his gaze, focusing on the small figure still lying on him.
“Overwhelming?” Kouyou repeated, as if trying to better understand Chuuya’s perspective.
“Isn’t it?” Chuuya asked, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Kouyou’s melodic laughter echoed through the temple, causing Chuuya to look up and meet her gaze. Her eyes were also among his favorites—ruby red, tinged with pink, reminded Chuuya of red wine. Sparkling like diamonds, the luminous shine reflecting in her pupils seemed capable of lighting up the entire room.
“Chuuya, you’re young, of course,” Kouyou continued. “But you’re more loyal than most priests and priestesses here, more mature than your age would suggest. You deserve to be where you are.”
Chuuya smiled faintly. He would be lying if he said Kouyou’s words didn’t reassure him.
“Thank you,” he replied with a smile.
“There’s no need to thank me,” she said. “Now, go home. I’ll take care of this and later escort Yumeno to their house.” She gestured toward the statue and then the child, who was still deep in slumber.
“But I can-”
“No buts,” Kouyou interrupted. “You need rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
After a quick goodbye and one last bow to the statue of Athena, Chuuya left the temple. He walked down from the low hill on which the temple stood, then glanced back over his shoulder. Illuminated by the starlight, the temple looked almost abstract, magical. And at the same time...
It felt like home.
The following month passed in constant preparation for the Panathenaea.
Chuuya made every effort to fulfill his duties with utmost diligence—spending most of his days in the temple, meticulously preparing it for the upcoming celebration. He also focused on his spiritual development, trying with each prayer and offering to bring his insignificant human soul closer to the powerful, sacred soul of Athena.
I’m proud of you, his mother, repeated to him every day.
You’re in the right place , Kouyou said.
Yet, every day, intrusive thoughts and doubts crept into Chuuya’s mind. Was it truly so? Could the temple really be his home? Was he worthy enough to call it that?
He couldn’t ignore the rumors that began spreading. Being new to his position, even priestesses he hadn’t yet spoken to began speculating about him—about his origins, abilities.
Most often, however, they commented on his appearance.
Chuuya loathed every second of it. The talk of his beautiful fiery curls, his graceful figure, his stunning eyes—eyes that somehow managed to capture both the azure of a pristine ocean and the rich brown of the rarest amber.
He had never paid much attention to his looks. He was someone who valued what lay within a person’s soul, not their exterior.
His mother had always told him that behind the most beautiful face, could hide a monster, and behind a monstrous visage, a heart of gold could be found.
Chuuya wanted recognition. But he wanted his devotion, effort, and loyalty to be acknowledged. These were things he had worked on for years—things he could feel proud of. What value was there in praising something as shallow as his appearance, something over which he had no control?
“You’re awake again,” his mother’s voice echoed through the room. Chuuya cracked his eyes open slightly, but it made little difference in the dark, night-shrouded space.
“Do you blame me?” he asked with a dry chuckle. “Tomorrow is Panathenaea.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” his mother replied. In her voice, Chuuya could sense a smile, even if he couldn’t see it in the darkness. “You’ll do just fine. You’ve worked so hard for this, sweetie.”
He nodded slightly, sighing. His mother’s hand reached for his hair, gently combing through it in a soothing manner.
“Do you think…” Chuuya swallowed. “Do you think Athena will appreciate it too?”
“I’m sure of it.”
A soft melody filled the room—a tune his mother always hummed when he was stressed or struggling to sleep. It seemed to bring him comfort and calm him, at least in most cases.
“Is it still before midnight?” Chuuya asked quietly after a moment.
“It is,” his mother replied.
“I think I’ll take a walk to the temple. Is that okay? I feel… I need to be there. Tomorrow it will already be crowded—”
“I understand,” his mother interrupted. “Take care of yourself and don’t stay out too long. Tomorrow’s a big day.”
The temple at night felt like an entirely different place than during the day. It was empty, of course, and the usual whispers and murmurs of conversation were absent. The only sources of light were the eternal flame and the moonlight streaming through the columns.
He knelt in front of the already well-known statue and took a deep breath. As usual, he began mentally listing every thing in his life for which he was grateful.
His family, his mother, from whom he inherited everything he considered good and pure in himself, who had been his greatest support throughout all his sixteen years of life.
His friends from the town—Shirase, Yuan, and also Kouyou, who, since he had joined the temple of Athena as a priest, had been his mentor and someone who Chuuya could only describe as an older sister.
For the world and its beauty, for the passion it carried, the purity of nature, the enchanting views of changing weather, the warm breezes of the wind on the skin, the sound of waves crashing against rocks, the noises of the town, the laughter of people, the joyful shouts of children, the distant barking of a dog.
And of course, for Athena, whose love Chuuya felt every day—in his faith, in his loyalty, in himself, in–
“Who would dare to enter our Athena’s temple at this hour?”
Chuuya practically jumped when a loud male voice echoed behind him. He immediately turned around, his eyes meeting dark blue irises, as deep as the oceans.
They belonged to a man, but not just any man. Despite an appearance that at first glance was indistinguishable from that of an ordinary man that Chuuya could meet in the town, there was something different, unsettling about him. His presence carried an almost tangible weight, a formidable power, an eerie aura could be practically felt around him.
Chuuya’s eyes widened in disbelief. No. It couldn’t be…
"Someone observant, I see." The man laughed, a deep, cold sound, stepping closer with each word until he finally stood directly in front of Chuuya, towering over the kneeling boy.
The man's shoulder-length hair was a warm brown, the same was the beard framing his face. Up close, his piercing gaze was even more intimidating, cutting through Chuuya like a blade.
Chuuya found himself completely unable to move even a finger, let alone stand up. The very thought, the mere possibility that he might be kneeling before a god, paralyzed his body with an unimaginable fear.
"What’s your name, boy?" the man asked.
Chuuya cleared his throat nervously, struggling to find his voice beneath the heavy lump in his throat.
"Nakahara Chuuya," he finally managed to choke out.
"Chuuya," the man repeated. The name sounded completely unnatural coming from his lips.
Chuuya had heard tales of gods descending from Olympus to the mortal world, but in every story, they did so in complete disguise, passing themselves off as someone else. Yet the man standing before him seemed intent on leading Chuuya to realize the truth behind his true identity.
"I think you know who I am," the man said, "but out of courtesy, I’ll introduce myself—as an equal." He laughed mockingly, as though his own words were so absurd they were amusing. Chuuya could hardly argue—he was far from being equal to a god. "Poseidon."
Chuuya couldn’t utter a word. What was one of the most significant gods of Olympus doing here, of all places, in Athena’s temple, the domain of his eternal rival?
Before Chuuya could even begin to consider Poseidon’s next move, the god suddenly grasped his jaw in a strong grip, forcing Chuuya to look directly into his icy blue eyes.
His touch felt strange —both liquid and solid at once. As if someone had pressed a piece of ice, pulled from the deepest depths of the ocean, against Chuuya’s face and it started melting at the contact with his warm skin.
“Beautiful. One eye as clear as a mountain stream, the other brown like autumn's dead leaves,” Poseidon murmured, studying Chuuya’s face as if he were a critic examining a piece of art.
“I was… born like that,” Chuuya stammered, determined to keep his voice steady despite his whole body trembling in fear.
“And the hair,” Poseidon continued. “Burning like fire. So intense, so full of life. And your skin.”
Chuuya felt the god’s grip on his face tighten, while his other hand found Chuuya’s waist.
“It’s a shame no man or woman desired you before.”
“It was my choice,” Chuuya said, utterly frozen with fear yet desperate to defend himself from the false claim. “I chose to stay pure for Athena, for-.”
“For Athena,” Poseidon mocked. “There’s more to life than serving some useless god. There’s more, and I can show you that.”
“That’s not where my loyalty lies,” Chuuya said, striving to make his voice as steady as he could. "I don’t need more. My faith is enough for me."
"Faith? Has Athena ever revealed herself to you, as I stand here before you now?" Poseidon asked in a low voice.
"I don’t need her revelation. Faith speaks for itself," Chuuya raised his voice slightly. "It’s believing in something greater than myself, something that doesn’t require empty promises or words. That’s what I’m loyal to."
For a moment, Poseidon stared at him in silence, and then a mocking laugh escaped his lips.
"For a mortal, and such a young one at that, you have spirit," Poseidon said. "I want to see how long it will take to break it."
Chuuya felt his whole body ache as he lay curled up on the floor, his knees pulled to his chest, his entire body trembling from pain and quiet cries.
He remembered the silence. The temple had long been empty and dark, making his pitiful sobbing and cries were all the more audible.
He felt dirty. He felt humiliated. But most of all, he felt scared.
He didn’t know how much time had passed before he somehow managed to force his body to roll onto his back. His half-open eyes wandered to the ceiling, the familiar white marble painted to resemble the night sky, filled with constellations created from white and pale blue paints.
When he was a child and first came to the temple, Kouyou had told him about those clusters of stars. She had pointed to each one in turn, naming them and explaining their meanings, as well as the roles they played in the real night sky. Chuuya had always thought they were beautiful.
Now, everything around him filled him only with disgust—the stars, the temple, the cold floor he lay on, the sound of his own breathing. But most of all, himself. He now had undeniable proof that he could be broken. And he was.
With a groan of pain, he pushed himself up into a sitting position, using his arms for support to keep from falling. He reached for his chiton lying beside him, wrapping it around himself as tightly as he could, covering every part of his tainted body as much as it was physically possible. At that moment, he couldn’t bear to even look at himself.
Enveloped in the soft fabric, he crawled to the statue of Athena, kneeling before it, as he had done thousands of times before in prayer. Slowly, he lifted his head, gasping for breath. The statue, as always, gazed forward with its usual, confident expression, bathed in the moonlight streaming through the columns.
He had come here for her. He needed her support, needed reassurance, needed to find comfort in his faith. Instead, he found himself abandoned by every strength that had once kept him going.
“Please,” He choked out, his voice coming out raspy, his lungs feeling like they had tightened. “Please, please, I didn’t want this to happen, forgive me, I-”
He grabbed the edge of the statue in desperation, his sobs breaking through his attempt to speak, his words turning into a fit of coughs.
“I really—”
“Don’t touch it.”
Instantly, he turned around, his hand slowly sliding off the statue as a firm, feminine voice echoed behind him.
Squeezing his eyes, he noticed a woman approaching him. She was neither his mother, Kouyou, nor any of the priestesses of the temple. And still, she felt familiar, as if he had seen her thousands of times before.
Terrified, Chuuya’s gaze darted back to the statue and then returned to the woman, a chilling realization settling over him.
The same piercing dark eyes, the same adorned robe, the same straight dark hair, the same golden diadem crowning her figure.
Was he hallucinating? Was this all just a dream? It all felt too abstract, too unreal to be anything else.
His body seemed to act on its own, without any consultation with his mind. He practically threw himself to his knees, his forehead hitting the cold marble floor with a resounding thud. Clenching his teeth, he held his breath. He couldn’t allow himself to show any more weakness. Not in front of her.
“Stand.”
He felt a hand that was both delicate and feminine yet simultaneously strong and unyielding grab his hair, forcing him into a standing position. He stumbled backward slightly but forced himself to meet her gaze.
She was beautiful. Athena was everything he had always imagined and more. It was to her that he had dedicated his life, in her beliefs he placed his faith—loyalty, justice, wisdom.
Through half-closed eyes, Chuuya could not—or perhaps did not want to—see the burning anger in the goddess’s gaze.
What he saw was a mother.
“Forgive me,” he said, his voice coming out weaker than he had expected—and his expectations were already low enough.
“Forgiveness isn’t something that comes freely in this world, child,” Athena said, her melodic voice filling every inch of the temple. “Especially not for an act such as the one you’ve committed.”
“He forced me,” Chuuya said, feeling even more pathetic, almost like a child explaining themselves to their parents after getting into trouble. "I never wanted to—I’ve always been loyal only to you—"
“What a sin,” Athena sighed, twisting one of Chuuya’s fiery curls around her slim finger, tipped with a sharp, impeccably beautiful nail. “To commit it in my temple. On the eve of my festival. Are you proud of yourself, Chuuya?”
“No, of course not, I—”
He cried out in pain mid-sentence as the goddess suddenly ripped the strand of hair from his scalp, the lonely curl falling slowly to the floor.
“You were a promising follower, Chuuya. I always appreciated the flowers you brought me; the symbolism of your bouquets was always so thoughtful, even to the point of impressing me,” Athena continued, turning away and stepping back a few paces. “Such a shame you turned out this way.”
“Just tell me,” Chuuya’s breath hitched, the pain in his scalp stinging, but he was determined to keep going. “Tell me how I can atone. I’ll do anything.”
Athena turned over her shoulder, her gaze colder than the night air surrounding them.
“Atonement?” she echoed. “You think a sin like yours can be forgiven, forgotten with mere apologies? You defiled my sacred ground, Chuuya. You defiled it with sin, and you will answer for it.”
“Please,” Chuuya repeated once more. “I know I did wrong, but—”
“Enough.” Athena was suddenly before him again, almost gliding across the floor, her presence now more divine than ever. “For your transgression, you will be punished with a curse. Trust me, no man will ever lay his hands upon you again.”
Before Chuuya could respond, a searing pain pierced through his entire body. Every nerve seemed to burn, the pain in his head surpassing any migraine he had ever experienced by millions of times. The scream that escaped his lips reached his ears as if through a fog, as if it were heard from another room.
The only worse pain was in his soul. He felt as though, by involuntarily betraying the goddess, he had lost a part of himself—the part that made him who he was. Now he just felt hollow inside.
"Trust me," Athena's voice rang out through his screams. "No man will ever lay his hands upon you again."
And then the pain ceased. Silence. Only his heavy breaths and quiet sobs remained.
"Beautiful. Beauty can be defined in many ways, don’t you think, child?" Athena said mockingly, sliding her hand across Chuuya’s cheek down to his hair.
Or at least, where his hair should have been.
Maybe he was hallucinating from exhaustion, after all, there was only so much his mortal, young body could take. But he could swear, he suddenly stopped feeling the slightly longer part of his hair that usually fell on his left shoulder. And unless it was just a product of his imagination, he heard something near his ear, something which he could only compare to the hiss of a snake.
"Look," Athena commanded, directing his face toward the floor, the marble so polished that Chuuya could easily see his reflection in it.
His red hair, which he had always been proud of, a symbol of his identity, was no longer there. Instead, it had been replaced by living, moving crimson snakes, each one scarier and more foreign to him than the other. Each hiss of the creatures made Chuuya want to rip his ears off.
“What– have you–” Chuuya couldn’t even form the words, as his reflection stared back at him in terror, mirroring exactly his own.
Not only had his hair changed, but his eyes. Once a deep shade of blue and brown, they were now almost black, with red seeping into a few parts of his irises. His pupils seemed more constricted, almost like snake eyes.
"I made your appearance reflect the sin you committed," Athena explained, her voice suddenly calm, devoid of any emotion.
"I look like a monster," Chuuya said, clenching his fists, unable to look away from his reflection, and feeling the irresistible urge to smash the gleaming floor at the same time.
"You don't look like a monster," Athena replied, kneeling beside Chuuya, staring directly at the face of the devastated boy. "You are a monster, Chuuya."
Her words struck him almost as hard as the earlier wave of pain. What had he become? He couldn’t possibly show himself to his family, to his friends, not like this. To some extent, no—completely—he no longer even resembled a human. It would be stupid to live among people while being so different.
"I can't... go back home like this. How do I explain this—" he stammered, hiding his face in his hands. Even his skin suddenly seemed paler than ever, and his once-short nails had grown longer, now resembling more the claws of an animal.
"Oh, definitely not," Athena replied. "Because your external appearance is the least you should worry about, when it comes to your curse."
Chuuya shuddered, not only at the goddess's words but also at another snake-like hiss that echoed right by his ear.
"What... does this mean?"
"From now on," Athena began, "any living creature, whether animal or human, that you lock eyes with, will be turned to stone. You will never again be able to live among people. Condemnation to eternal loneliness is what awaits you as the consequence for the act you have committed."
Chuuya felt the world spinning around him. It sounded absurd. Turning people into lifeless statues? It seemed like something plucked straight out of a myth, a story he could overhear somewhere in town. This couldn't be reality.
This couldn't be his reality.
"You can't—" he began, but once again, his voice got caught up in his throat.
"Oh, but I can," Athena replied. Then she began to move away slowly, her figure seeming to glide into the temple's shadows, disappearing gradually into the darkness. "Now go, Chuuya. You are no longer welcomed here."
The sun was slowly rising over the horizon as Chuuya reached the base of the hill on which the temple stood. He squinted, staring at the town spread out before him, gradually coming to life under the warm rays of the morning sun reflecting off the rooftops. He might have heard the chirping of birds if not for the deafening, endless, and maddening hissing of snakes.
Far off in the distance, he could make out the outline of his home and the garden beside it—a place he had always loved and cherished above all else. Should he go back there? He had nowhere else to go. Maybe Athena had lied about his curse, only scared him into isolating himself from society.
And yet the thought that there might even be a sliver of truth to her words made him want to run far away, without looking back.
He wiped his eyes and face, clearing away the traces of tears still lingering there, and took a few steps forward. Each one felt like torture, torture for his mind, which didn’t know which direction to guide his body in.
Then, suddenly, he heard a scream behind him. A shrill, high-pitched, feminine voice.
Instinctively, he made a move that would later become one of his greatest regrets. The source of his nightmares, a memory that would keep him awake at night, each second of painful isolation stabbing at his chest.
He turned around.
For a split second, he saw the girl—he even recognized her as one of Athena’s temple priestesses. Though they had never spoken, he knew her by sight, and surely they had exchanged a few smiles and nods of acknowledgment.
Before he could blink, she stood before him as a stone statue.
He stumbled backward in horror, then immediately rushed toward the statue, tripping along the way and practically collapsing into the marble figure’s arms.
"No, no, no..."
Once full of life, her deep eyes now stared at him with an empty, gray gaze, an expression of terror forever etched onto her face. That single moment, captured in stone for eternity.
Chuuya bit down on the inside of his cheek, tasting the metallic tang of blood filling his mouth. He wouldn’t cry. He couldn’t cry. He wasn’t the victim here.
He got what he deserved.
After all, Athena hadn’t been bluffing. Oh, how foolish of him to think, even for a moment, that she might have been.
He ran his hand over the girl’s cold, frozen hair. In her stiff hands, she held a basket filled to the brim with various kinds of fruit and jewelry. She had probably intended to pay tribute to Athena in solitude, just before the start of the Panathenaea. Chuuya’s original plan had been similar—and for neither of them had it ended well.
He had to go. He couldn’t run into anyone more – just a mere picture in his mind of either his mother or Kouyou being turned into stone by his newfound curse made him want to throw up.
Chuuya ran until his lungs burned. The sun had risen long ago, its bright rays searing his face and scorching the patches of skin that his white chiton left uncovered.
He only stopped when the louder rush of the wind and the sound of waves crashing against rocks reached his ears. He must have found himself near the sea. The journey there usually took several hours, but it felt as if only minutes had passed. Had he really lost track of time so much?
Around him, sparse trees dotted the landscape, and the ground beneath his feet was a mixture of dirt and sand, confirming his suspicion that he was near the coast. He bent down and picked up a small shell he had spotted amidst the grains of sand. It was slightly rounded and gray in color.
He threw it away immediately, reminded of the gray hue of the statue he had turned the innocent girl into at the temple.
Following the sound of the waves, he eventually stumbled upon a beach. It was small and appeared to be rarely visited —after all, the surrounding area seemed uninhabited, and the last town he had passed was at least a few hours' walk away.
He raised his chiton slightly, carefully wrapping it around his shoulders while exposing his calves just enough to avoid soaking the fabric in the water, but still keeping it as low as possible. He was already ashamed enough of his body and had no intention of seeing more of it than it was absolutely necessary.
He stepped slowly into the sea, the cool, salty water immediately wrapping around his bare feet. Taking a deep breath, he looked up at the sky. It was almost milky white, with only a few streaks of blue shyly peeking out from behind the omnipresent clouds. Perhaps his world was forever doomed to shades of white and gray.
His gaze drifted to the water’s surface, where his reflection, distorted by the rippling waves but undeniably real, stared back at him with a bitter expression.
With a heavy heart, he examined it more closely. The snakes emerging from his head writhed restlessly among each other, though a few lay still, occasionally hissing softly. They were all crimson red, with darker spiral-shaped markings along their scales. His eyes, now darker with streaks of red in the irises, expressed a deep, excruciating pain that he no longer even tried to conceal.
He took a few steps forward, but an uncomfortable shiver ran through his body, causing him to recoil violently and collapse once more onto the warm, sun-heated sand.
Instinctively, he had entered the ocean hoping to wash away his sin, to cleanse the stain that had been left on him forever by what had been done to him. He had forgotten that it was the god of the sea who had forever tainted his body with it.
He felt angry. He felt helpless. But most of all, betrayed.
Athena was the one to whom he had dedicated his entire life—the one for whom he would have given everything he had without a moment's hesitation. And yet, she was the one who decided to punish him for his own undeserved suffering.
He tried to push away all the negative thoughts, but the vision of eternal isolation, of never seeing his loved ones again—not his mother, not Kouyou, not even his friends from the town, Yumeno, Shirase, Yuan —it all filled him with an unimaginable, unbearable sorrow.
Chuuya walked along the shore, keeping a safe distance between himself and the point where the waves lapped at the sand. Until, in the distance, he spotted a hollow in one of the rock walls, partially hidden by trees, one that could resemble an entrance to a cave.
After a few minutes he managed to reach the place, and just as he had predicted, it turned out to be a small, dark cave. Despite the short distance to the sea, the interior was dry and cooler than the hot summer air that surrounded Chuuya everywhere outside.
Exhausted, he leaned against the rough, uneven stone wall, sliding down into a sitting position. He closed his eyes, his body suddenly feeling thousands of times heavier than five seconds before, unable to muster the strength even to stand.
Despair. Chuuya couldn’t think of a better word to describe what he felt—frustration, helplessness, regret—all of it seemed too insignificant, unable to capture the storm of emotions that raged within his mind.
Once again, his mind recreated the image of the girl whose life he had taken—there was no other words to put what he had done, there was no point in sugar coating his act, even if it was unintentional. Her stone face, forever etched with the terror she had felt upon seeing him.
With that image seared into his thoughts, he finally drifted into a restless, but welcomed sleep.
three weeks after the incident.
The wind rustled through the treetops as Chuuya sat on the ground with his knees drawn to his chin, leaning his back against the trunk of a tree, humming a melody his mother once used to sing him with the intention of lulling him to sleep.
The past few weeks had been harder for him than all the most difficult times of his life combined. All the troubles he had once found insurmountable seemed so mockingly insignificant compared to his current situation.
The cold, empty cave had become the closest thing to what he could call home. His mother’s cottage or the temple of Athena, where he had spent most of his life, his mind now associated only with suffering and alienation. He no longer felt as if he belonged there—no, he simply didn’t belong there anymore. It wasn’t his feeling, it was a fact.
The snakes permanently nestled on his head were a constant reminder of that. There had been moments of weakness, especially in the first few days, when Chuuya tried to forcibly tear the creatures from their place., but that ended only in skull-piercing pain, a few small bites on his hands, and an even greater sense of helplessness.
For the first three days, he ate nothing and drank only water from a stream he had found about half an hour’s walk away from his hideout. However, as time passed, his body began to demand food, and Chuuya mentally thanked the world for the knowledge his family had imparted to him about plants and their uses. He could easily distinguish edible, ripe berries from a lookalike species that could kill him in mere seconds.
Because of that, his supplies consisted mainly of plants—there weren’t many animals in the area, and even if he did encounter some, hunting them without accidentally making eye contact and turning them into lifeless stone statues presented a tremendous challenge. He had also considered fishing, but for a particular reason, he wasn’t ready to approach the sea at the distance as close as this activity would require.
Mornings were the worst—he always woke with terrible back pain from sleeping on the cold, rocky cave floor, which was nowhere near the comfort of the bed in his family home. But that was a trivial discomfort compared to the torment caused by his nightmares.
The images from that one day seemed determined to haunt him for the rest of his life. When he thought about it, he could hardly believe it had all happened so quickly. Just one day had been enough to turn his life upside down.
One day was enough to transform a man into a monster.
From the disgusting, enraging image of Poseidon, to Athena’s furious eyes and the clear disappointment he had become for her, to the wave of pain she inflicted as she turned him into what he was now, and finally to the memory of the girl turned to stone—these memories combined into countless sleepless nights and even more shed tears.
The days passed painfully slowly, with nothing to do in complete isolation and loneliness. Chuuya tried to focus on the small amusements he could provide for himself—one of them being none other than flower collecting.
Though the area didn’t offer as wide a variety of colorful flora as the one he had once lived in, he still managed to find a few familiar species. Violets, hyacinths, irises, chamomiles, and even a few anemones soon adorned the area around his cave, as Chuuya carefully transplanted each plant one by one with great care.
“Good thing you all don’t have eyes,” Chuuya muttered to himself, patting down the soil around another flower. “It’d be weird seeing a violet in gray.”
He had always heard that talking to yourself was a sign of going insane. Ironically, it felt like one of the few things keeping him sane in his sentence of eternal solitude.
He even tried talking to the snakes on his head—after a prolonged few minutes of staring at his reflection in a pool of water, he counted nine of them. Though they never gave him any meaningful responses, he tried to find comfort rather than revulsion in their quiet hisses.
It didn’t always work, especially when he would wake up once again drenched in sweat, his dreams making him relive the night Athena had cursed him all over again. But he tried.
Most of his time, however, he spent praying. What surprised Chuuya when he knelt down to pray for the first time, was the sudden reaction of the snakes on his head when he began whispering words of devotion to Athena—the creatures started writhing and hissing, as if in outrage or anger. He ignored them and continued his prayer.
He asked only for forgiveness. Nothing more—he didn’t ask for food when his stomach twisted in hunger, nor for companionship when he felt he was losing his mind from loneliness. Forgiveness was all he needed. With it, everything else would follow.
At the same time, he hated himself for how devoted to Athena he still was. The goddess had betrayed him—punished him for someone else’s sin despite the life he had dedicated to her. Yet still, Chuuya found himself kneeling every night, his knees scraped raw against the stone floor of the cave, his vocal cords aching from hours of spoken pleas.
No one, however, seemed to hear him. No one wanted to hear him.
Days turned to weeks. Weeks into months.
Slowly but inevitably, winter arrived—and although the area that Chuuya stayed in spared him from freezing temperatures or snowstorms, the season made itself known in countless ways. His chiton was far from the warmest clothes he could have wished for, but he had managed to weave a light cloak that at least provided a bit of additional warmth. The fruits he had lived on throughout the summer were no longer readily available on every tree and bush within sight, forcing him to ration his portions carefully.
Leaning against the wall, Chuuya sat in the cave that had served as his home for the past few months. Though it was still far from the blissful atmosphere that his family house had once provided, the place no longer felt as empty as it had at first. Supplies and tools he had managed to gather were neatly arranged along the corners and walls. The cave's surfaces were adorned with charcoal drawings and patches of dried flowers glued in place with resin.
Chuuya was in the process of sharpening something that, with a stretch of imagination, could be called a weapon—it was a stone, unnaturally sharp, shaped almost like a dagger. Chuuya had learned not to underestimate things like that - with a bit of skill and luck, a wound caused by the item could even be deadly.
He remembered clearly when he had found it a few weeks earlier—picking it up from the ground and, almost reflexively, pulling aside the fabric on his chest slightly, pressing the sharp tip to his sternum while taking a deep breath. Not even ten seconds passed before he threw the dagger-like tool into his pocket, turned around, and walked away without looking back.
Of course, things were bad. But he hadn’t gone mad enough yet to commit suicide over something as foolish as snakes instead of hair or a petrifying gaze.
He turned his gaze away from his work toward the cave entrance when he heard a muffled noise outside. The snakes on his head instantly began writhing and hissing, as if they were sensing danger.
"Calm down," Chuuya muttered, standing up slowly, the dagger in his hand ready.
He moved toward the entrance, the sounds growing louder and clearer with each step. Footsteps. At first, Chuuya wasn’t surprised—animals weren’t anything uncommon in the area—but then he heard something that made him freeze.
“It should be somewhere around here, right?”
A human voice.
Something that had once been part of his everyday life, a sound he had taken for granted, and now something utterly inaccessible to him, no matter how deeply he longed for it. Once again, the crushing weight of his eternal solitude struck him with the same force it had on the first day of his curse.
His nails dug into the rocky wall of the cave as he stood just before the entrance, torn between staying hidden and leaning out, just a little, to catch a glimpse of the voice’s owner. Before he could decide, however, the snakes on his head all began hissing in unison, so loudly that he could barely hear his own thoughts.
“Shut up!” Chuuya whisper-yelled, trying in vain to calm the creatures with his hands.
The footsteps abruptly stopped, only to resume again—louder, faster, and unmistakably heading toward his location.
He had nothing left to lose. Whoever these intruders were, they already knew where he was. With firm steps, he strode out of the safety of his familiar cave, keeping his gaze fixed firmly on the ground.
He saw them immediately, two men —though only out of the corner of his eye, as he was careful not to meet their gaze. The glint of golden armor caught his attention, along with the pristine, gleaming blade of a sword. For a fleeting moment, in the reflective surface of the weapon, Chuuya caught a glimpse of his own, despised by him reflection.
"I think we've found what we were looking for," one of them said in a low voice, and then two swords simultaneously rose into the air, ready to strike.
"What a monster," added the second, "Prepare yourself to leave this world."
Chuuya just scoffed. Of course, he wasn’t seen as human by these two. He hadn’t been human for a long time now.
"I suggest you leave, now," he said calmly.
Both men sneered, and one of them spat on the floor.
"You think we searched for this long just to say hello?" the first one mocked. "We won’t let such a creature live in this world."
"You searched?" Chuuya repeated quietly.
Why would anyone search for him? He could picture a scenario where his mother would go from house to house after his disappearance, asking about him, desperately searching for her youngest son. He would lie if he said he never imagined it, or that he didn’t hope he was important enough for that to happen.
But that was about the old version of him. The human version of him. These people were clearly searching for the monster, the monster he was now. But why? He hadn’t left any traces, none except for the petrified priestess, whose terrified face still haunted his dreams. But that had been months ago—so why now?
You thought it was going to be that easy?
Chuuya’s breath hitched as he suddenly heard the familiar, cold voice in his head.
Of course, she couldn’t leave him in peace. The gods were powerful, but they were also petty and bored, and Athena was no exception. And bored gods liked to return to old matters and conflicts.
I promised you that no man would ever touch you again, if you only made proper use of your gift. But I never promised that no one would try. They will always try to hurt you, Chuuya .
With an empty gaze, Chuuya stared at two once proud warriors, standing before him frozen forever in time, immobilized in cold marble, like two guardians of the place that he was now forced to call home.
two years after the incident.
As time passed, the visits from stubborn warriors who had taken it upon themselves to slay the monster that Chuuya had become did not cease—every so often, naive adventurers eager to complete this foolish and impossible mission would appear at his place.
Athena must have spread the rumor about his curse; that much was certain. She had admitted it herself, speaking to him that one single time – apart from the fateful night in her temple.
However, he couldn’t deny the fact that the weapon she had put into his eyes wasn’t one to be easily conquered. It was as much of a curse as a blessing.
Soon, a small collection of stone statues had gathered in front of Chuuya's home, a total of nine. Every encounter played out the same way: a fleeting moment where Chuuya could catch a spark in his opponent's eyes before it extinguished forever, fated for eternity in a marble shell.
With each confrontation, the guilt grew smaller.
After all, he was only defending himself. He hadn’t asked for this fate.
The second summer of his exile arrived, and Chuuya began spending more time in his garden and outdoors. He tended to the flowers he had managed to grow—plants were the only living things he could be around without risking turning them to stone. He also learned to extract paint from a mixture of colorful flowers and water.
He painted the statues.
No matter how strange it might seem—not that there was anyone to judge him—it brought him peace. Even though they were petrified versions of people who had tried to kill him, painting the vibrant colors of their irises, the sunlight-catching gloss of their hair, or the blush on their cheeks gave him a sense of tranquility and control. Perhaps he was trying to salvage the lives he had doomed with his own hands.
It was midday when Chuuya, intending to water his garden, realized that he had run out of water. He grabbed a clay vase and headed toward the nearby stream. After two years, he knew the area by heart—the forest, the stream, the spots where animals usually wandered.
And the sea. But that was a place he hadn’t dared to return to.
He crouched by the stream, slowly filling the vessel with water while keeping his eyes fixed on the clouds. He always tried to either look at the sky or directly at his feet—a habit he had developed after accidentally locking eyes with a few animals in the forest. Their statues, he painted with even greater care—those were testaments to the innocent lives he had taken.
Once the vase was full, he stood up slowly. The sun was blazing with its full summer force. He was just about to head back to his hideout—or as much as a place surrounded by a garden and nine stone statues could still be called that—when he suddenly heard a crack behind him.
He didn’t turn around immediately. The instinct to react to any noise in that way had long been forgotten and abandoned by his body. With his gaze fixed on the ground, he slightly tilted his head to catch a glimpse of the source of the noise from the corner of his eye.
Unfortunately, the curse hadn’t sharpened his eyesight. All he could make out was a blurry white-and-brown shape several meters away. Yet the height, the silhouette, and the fact that the figure was moving made it clear—it was a person.
Damn it. It had been a while since Chuuya had any visitors, and he wasn’t looking forward to another one.
He quickly got to his feet and started circling back the way he came. However, the stranger must have seen him because Chuuya soon heard a melodious, male voice echoing in the air.
“Oh! Is someone there?”
Chuuya’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. What kind of question was that? He bit his lip nervously as he saw the figure, still visible only from the corner of his eye, clearly beginning to walk toward him. Chuuya himself was never particularly skilled at sneaking or hiding, so he didn’t even bother trying it. He could start running, of course, but then he’d spill all the water he’d just collected— that would be annoying. So, he quickly pulled his hood over his head, hoping to hide the most striking, monstrous aspect of his appearance.
When he heard footsteps right next to him, he shielded his eyes with his free hand, peeking out cautiously from between his fingers. He managed to make out the stranger’s lean, tall frame, draped in a white chiton with blue fabric at the waist and arms almost entirely wrapped in linen cloth. That alone set him apart from the other visitors Chuuya had encountered.
He didn’t look like a warrior.
The snakes on Chuuya’s head went into a frenzy as soon as the stranger got close, hissing and writhing dangerously.
“Quiet!” Chuuya snapped, pulling the hood further down.
“Whoa! Is that... thing on your shoulder? Or should I say those things...?” the stranger said curiously.
His voice was masculine yet boyish, as if the inner child of an adult man lay just beneath the surface. Confident yet innocently sweet, like honey on a bright morning, and melodious, as if made for singing songs.
“What?” Chuuya replied dumbly, not bothering to make sense of the question. “What are you doing here? This is a pretty remote place, you know.”
“I was walking along the coast,” Chuuya saw the stranger’s shoulders lift in a casual shrug, yet his gaze did not dare to venture higher than the man’s neck. “Then I sort of... accidentally wandered off course. It just happened.”
“‘Sort of’?” Chuuya said. “We’re a good fifteen minutes away from the coast.”
“Oh. That’s a shame,” the stranger muttered, visibly disheartened. “You can still hear the waves from here.”
Chuuya perked up his ears. All he could hear was the faint murmur of the stream and quiet rustles of wind.
“No, you can’t.”
“Well,” the stranger laughed, “I’ve always heard a little more than others. Oh, and my name’s Dazai,” he added.
Dazai. Chuuya couldn’t remember the last time someone introduced themselves to him in such a casual way. No shouting, no death threats—God, Dazai had even laughed a moment ago.
“Well, my name is Chuuya. I—”
Before he could finish, the snakes on his head began hissing even louder, almost drowning out his voice. No matter how much he tried to coexist with them, at this moment, he just wished they would simply disappear.
He didn’t have time to react before two of the creatures shot out from under his hood at lightning speed, heading straight for Dazai, hissing in warning.
“Shit, I’m sorry, they—”
He didn’t finish, suddenly feeling a sudden, long ago forgotten warmth of a hand. Dazai started stroking one of the snakes, almost in a way that he would pet a stray cat, and to Chuuya’s surprise, the animal didn’t seem to mind. The creature even leaned into the touch, as if quietly seeking more.
It was an odd sensation—Chuuya couldn’t pinpoint exactly where, but he could feel Dazai’s touch. After all, he and the snakes were forever connected.
“They seem well-behaved,” Dazai laughed again. His hand glided over the snake’s skin until it finally reached Chuuya’s face, brushing against his cheek and jaw.
Memories dared to flood Chuuya’s mind and his first instinct was to immediately push Dazai’s hand away, but the moment he grabbed it with his own, Dazai lifted his chin, forcing Chuuya to look up.
“No—!”
The word caught in Chuuya’s throat, time seeming to freeze. In the moment he let his guard down and raised his gaze, he had already braced himself for what was to come—to see the lively, deep eyes, glowing at him for a fleeting moment before turning into their lifeless, stone version.
But that didn’t happen.
With Dazai’s hand still on his chin, Chuuya saw something of incomparable beauty, something he would never be able to liken to anything else for the rest of his life. Milky-white irises, practically blending into the whites of his eyes, gazed at him softly, and the smile playing on Dazai’s lips seemed almost visible in his pale pupils.
Dazai's skin was pale, but that didn’t detract from his overall appearance—it only added contrast to his dark, chocolate-brown hair framing his face on both sides. In some places, the strands seemed almost golden, catching the light just in the rightest way.
“You– You’re blind,” Chuuya choked out. It probably wasn’t the most appropriate thing to say, but he couldn’t muster anything else. Dazai stood here before him, looking him straight in the eyes, alive. It was something Chuuya had never expected to experience again in his lifetime.
“You just realized?” Dazai asked, genuinely surprised. “You’re kind of slow. Like a slug.”
Chuuya huffed in offense, finally snapping back to reality and yanking Dazai’s hand away from his chin, taking a few steps back. His gaze, however, remained fixed on Dazai’s unresponsive yet breathtaking eyes.
“I wasn’t paying attention!” Chuuya raised his voice slightly.
“Yeah, sure, let’s say you weren’t,” Dazai replied. “By the way, sorry about the face-touching thing. It’s how I remember people—apart from their voices, you know.”
“It’s fine,” Chuuya said, though it wasn’t entirely true. Dazai’s touch didn’t remind him of his touch in the slightest, yet still, Chuuya wasn’t particularly fond of feeling someone’s hands on him. The memory lingered, showing itself in his reactions, in the guarded aura he carried. He hated how much that incident had shaped who he was, but what happened, happened. He chose not to dwell on it too much.
“So, as I said, I was walking along the shore and kind of got lost,” Dazai admitted again, his hand wandering up to rake through his brown curls, which fluttered in the breeze. “Maybe you could guide me back?”
“What do you need from the sea?” Chuuya asked, his voice coming out more accusatory than he intended. He had no desire to go anywhere near the water.
“Well, I thought about drowning myself,” Dazai replied as if it were the most normal thing to say. “Or maybe I’d get lucky and find one of those jellyfish that kills you in seconds. Hey, by any chance, are your snakes venomous?”
“What the hell are you rambling about?” Chuuya scoffed in disbelief. And to think he’d considered himself the insane one here.
"That was a joke," Dazai said matter-of-factly.
Weird sense of humor , Chuuya thought.
"I tried drowning once, but it wasn't very pleasant. And you know, I recently had this thought—suicide alone is so, so boring. Wouldn’t it be better to die with someone by your side?" Dazai asked, clearly engaged in the discussion he had initiated himself.
Chuuya definitely didn’t get the point of Dazai’s joke.
"Mhm. You’re crazy," Chuuya muttered. Just his luck, that the one person he could safely be around turned out to be an insane suicide fanatic.
"I’ve been called worse," Dazai chuckled, brushing a strand of hair behind his ear.
"Do you live nearby?" Chuuya asked, even though he already knew the answer would be no. If Dazai lived anywhere close, Chuuya would have known—they would have run into each other at some point over the last two years. Besides, there were no towns in the area—only an endless forest and the coastline stretching for hours.
"No," Dazai shook his head. "Is it noon?" he asked, tilting his face upward toward the sky, his unseeing eyes seemingly trying to catch the light and sense the sun’s position in the infinite blue expanse.
Chuuya did the same. Dazai’s intuition proved to be surprisingly accurate—the sun was indeed at its zenith.
"Yes," Chuuya replied. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"I left home at sunrise and have been walking straight ahead ever since. That should give you a general idea of how far I used to live."
Chuuya hadn’t expected that. What would drive someone to undertake such a journey? Why did Dazai speak as if he’d left his hometown behind for a definitely longer period of time than just a few days trip? Millions of questions filled Chuuya’s mind, and he didn’t even know which one to ask first.
"Used to live? So where do you live now?"
"Uh, good question." Dazai scratched his chin, mimicking a thoughtful gesture. "Maybe at your place?"
Chuuya nearly laughed at those words, and even more at how nonchalantly they rolled off Dazai’s tongue.
"Yeah, quit the act. I'm serious."
"Well, nowhere then. I kind of... how do you say it nowadays? Ran away from home this morning. So I don’t particularly have anywhere to go." Dazai shrugged.
"Ran away? Why the hell would you do that?" Chuuya said, almost offensively.
"Had my reasons."
The words suddenly sounded distant, and it was painfully clear that Dazai didn’t want to elaborate. Chuuya fixed his gaze on the ground, biting his lip.
A wave of non-physical pain coursed through his body. Ironic, how their situations—though he knew so little about Dazai’s—seemed to contrast so starkly. Dazai, voluntarily leaving his family home behind, and Chuuya, who would give anything just to return to his own, even for a minute, for a second.
Well, one can’t have everything in life.
"Come on, I’ll lead the way. Don’t slow me down."