Chapter Text
Yoongi looked up at the sky and frowned lightly at the nonstop downpour. The fire spirit raised his hand and a block of warm air enveloped him, spreading outward to form a bubble where rain didn't fall. The mud dried under his feet, but as soon as he took another step the rain hit it again. He headed directly to the center of the city toward the large building with the white walls.
He made his way up the white steps and was stopped by a guard. "I'm sorry, sir. The shrine does not allow visitors."
Yoongi snorted. He looked up at the guard, letting his eyes flash a dark red. "Let me through."
The man's eyes widened and he dropped into a deep bow. "The spirit of fire! I'm sorry, your holiness. I could not recognize you in the dim light.. What brings you here late at night? The rain spirit is.. occupied currently."
Yoongi waved his hand without an answer, but the guard stepped aside to let him through. The shrine was brighter inside, illuminated by glowing droplets of water that rose and fell in continuous loops on the walls. The floor was water, but Yoongi had visited the shrine enough times to know it was charmed. He made his way across the room slowly and climbed the steps at the end in the same ease. Yoongi had always wondered what the point of all the grandeur of the rain spirit shrine was, when almost no one was allowed in it, anymore.
The only people who entered the shrine was the high priest, who sometimes brought the shrine maidens or the shrine boys, and the guards, who were restricted on the first floor and were forbidden to even take a single step up the steps. Spirits were able to enter as they wanted, but the rain spirit rarely had visitors. In the over thousand years Yoongi had known the rain spirit, the only spirit that had ever visited was himself. It hadn't always been this way. The grandeur used to have a point, because Seokjin was a kind spirit who everyone loved visiting. Yoongi remembered the day suddenly when the high priest of Seokjin's state decided to ban everyone from the shrine.
He raised his hand and the waterfall split to let him through. The room inside was more warmly lit, soft shades of pink where the rain spirit had brought in his own touches to the shrine. The rain spirit was in the middle, face bowed as soft sobs wrecked his body.
It was the first time Yoongi had visited at night, and he quietly sat in front of the rain spirit. "Seokjin," he called softly, and Seokjin looked up in surprise, hurriedly rubbing his cheeks free of tear tracks. Yoongi raised his hand to carefully cup Seokjin's cheeks, rubbing the trails of tears that Seokjin missed.
It was a shame, Yoongi thought, that the rain spirit had to cry for it to rain.
It was the reason why Seokjin was barred from the public while the other spirits had open shrines. Seokjin had been condemned to a life of loneliness and darkness, reduced to sobs every night in desolation, for the sole reason that the state depended on it raining every night.
"Stop crying." Yoongi whispered. "You're shivering. Are you cold?" Yoongi, as the spirit of fire, never felt the cold (or the heat). Seokjin shook his head, his shoulder trembling as more tears spilled down his cheeks. Yoongi sighed. "You're not alone anymore. I'm right here."
Seokjin hiccupped but bit his lips, rubbing at his eyes. "I'm supposed to be crying all night."
"Who sets the rules: us spirits, or the humans?"
Seokjin cast his eyes to the ground. "Us spirits..."
"Then why do you let them torment you like this? The gods didn't make you to suffer like this, you know. They made us to help the humans, not for us to be used by them like this." The problem was, Yoongi thought, that Seokjin was too kind. If Yoongi's high priest tried to ban visitors from his shrine, Yoongi would have burned him. When Seokjin's high priest announced it, Seokjin had been shocked but he'd done nothing about it after the priest coaxed him it was the best thing for Seokjin to do. "Stop crying. The state doesn't need it to rain every night, all night."
Seokjin sniffled but nodded, wiping his eyes with the sleeves of his silken robe. Seokjin rubbed his arms, shivering a little, and Yoongi frowned, opening his palm to let a puff of fire burst to life and rest on Seokjin's lap. "Thanks," Seokjin smiled, and that was so much better, even though Seokjin's eyes were still bloodshot.
"What happened to the other one I left here?"
"The priest took it. Said it wasn't pure for a rain spirit to have fire around." Seokjin said, stroking the fire and glancing at Yoongi. "I'll hide this one."
Yoongi stared. "I honestly can't believe you're letting the humans have their way." He thought about setting the entire city on fire, and then decided against it because he knew Seokjin really did love the people in it.
He ended up spending the night in the rain shrine, Seokjin in his arms and the ball of fire on Seokjin's lap. He tucked Seokjin in under the blankets when the sun rose. Seokjin woke blearily. "You're leaving?"
"Got my own state to tend to." Yoongi smiled, ruffling Seokjin's hair. "I'll be back tonight. Go back to sleep."
Seokjin smiled sleepily and hugged the ball of fire to him, and Yoongi stayed to watch Seokjin sleep peacefully for a few moments before he headed out of the shrine.
--
"Your holiness, I cannot let you in."
Yoongi had expected this. The guard looked nervous, and Yoongi didn't blame him. Follow the orders of his high priest, or let the spirit through? Yoongi looked up at the rainy sky, and he didn't think he was imagining it was raining harder than yesterday. "Answer me this. High priests, they're servants of the gods, right?" The guard nodded. "And us spirits, what are we?"
"The embodiments of the gods themselves, your holiness. Created by the gods directly, to lead us and to represent them."
"Good." Yoongi smiled, and the guard flinched under his sharp smile. "To deny me, then, is to deny a god. The high priest is below me. How dare he think he can ban me from wherever I please?" The last sentence came out in a threatening growl and the guard bowed his head, shuffling aside rapidly to let Yoongi through.
Yoongi hurried down the hallway and up the stairs, not even bothering to part the waterfall into Seokjin's room. He felt his heart stop for a moment when he saw Seokjin's arm. "Who did this to you?!" He demanded, grabbing Seokjin's arm. The robe was torn at the elbow and stained with blood. Underneath, Seokjin's arm was bandaged, but the blood under was seeping through. "It was the priest, wasn't it?"
"I'm okay, Yoongi." Seokjin cried, his shoulders shaking. "I shouldn't have stopped crying yesterday. He's right. The state needs me to make it rain."
"Where's the fire I left you?"
"He took it." Seokjin whispered, bowing his head. Tears dropped onto his blue robes and made dark circles where they fell. "I'm sorry. I couldn't - I couldn't stop him. I was asleep when he came in with the guards."
"The guards?!" Yoongi snapped, "He let the guards into your room? Seokjin, no one’s allowed in here except the priest, and maybe the shrine maidens and the shrine boys.” He feels like his blood is boiling. Not only did the high priest spill his spirit’s blood, he’d just blatantly committed blasphemy.
Seokjin could apparently feel his anger building and his fire starting to rage within him, because Seokjin grabbed his wrist. “Yoongi, no.” When Yoongi’s eyes flickered red, Seokjin gripped him harder. “Yoongi, I’m fine. I promise. It’s just a bit of blood. I’m not in pain. Don’t. I love the state and its people. I can’t… I won’t let you blaze it to the ground.”
Yoongi felt his anger deflate when tears started dropping from Seokjin’s eyes again, and the rain that had stopped started to pick up again. He sighed and gently thumbed away the tears. “Don’t cry. I won’t.”
“Promise.”
Yoongi smiled. “All right, I promise. But on one condition.” Seokjin looked up curiously. “You have to smile whenever you see me.” He rubbed at the corners of Seokjin’s eyes.
Seokjin blushed. “That’s it?” He smiled shyly and Yoongi chuckled, nodding. He smiled sadly, thumb rubbing the corners of Seokjin’s soft smile.
“It’d be nice if you could smile like this all the time.” Yoongi sighed, leaning back. He opened his palms and a ball of fire burst from his hands. He spread balls of fire all around the room, illuminating the blue light with the orange. Seokjin laughed, hugging a ball to him and sighing at the warmth.
“The priest will get mad.” Seokjin said, reaching out with a foot to nudge a ball by his legs. “He says it’s not pure to have fire in a rain spirit shrine.”
Yoongi hummed in his throat. “And you also think so?”
Seokjin looked offended. “Of course not. You made these. How can anything you make be impure?” He hugged a ball tightly to him. “It’s so warm. I’m just scared he’s going to try to hose them all down again.”
Yoongi scowled. There was so much wrong with the situation. The spirit was supposed to be the one in power, not the high priest, but it looked like Seokjin had been pushed to the bottom of the food chain. Yoongi blamed it on Seokjin’s unending kindness and human’s vulnerability to corruption. It wasn’t done anywhere else, where the priests wouldn’t dare to stand up to their spirits. He sighed and tugged a ball over, spreading his palm over it. It contracted into the size of a small marble. “Here. He can’t take away what he doesn’t see.” He loosened a thread from his robes and strung it through, looping it around Seokjin’s neck and tucking it in securely under his robes. Seokjin beamed at him and Yoongi smiled back.
When he came back the next night, he blinked curiously up at the clear sky. No rain. He brushed by the guard, not even bothering to talk to him. When he got into Seokjin's room, worry gnawing at his insides, he found Seokjin calmly reading. When Yoongi walked in, Seokjin smiled. "No rain."
"No rain," Yoongi agreed. "No fire, either."
Seokjin smiled sheepishly. "I told the priest that if he took the fire away, I wouldn't cry at night. He took them away, so I'm not crying." His bottom lip quivered, like he was trying not to cry at the thought of them being taken away. He confessed, "I cried in the morning when he took them away, so I think people will be okay even if I don't cry tonight."
Yoongi sat back, leaning back on his heels and feeling the worry seep out of him. "They'll be fine without a day of rain. Did he take away the necklace, too?"
Seokjin beamed again. "Nope. He didn't even know." He tugged out the necklace and Yoongi and they smiled at each other. Yoongi settled, lying down with his head in Seokjin's lap. Seokjin smiled down at him before returning to his book, and Yoongi closed his eyes, enjoying the peace and letting the soft plips of water from the lower floor of the shrine lull him to sleep.
--
"You've been visiting the rain state really often lately," Yoongi's high priest told him.
Yoongi raised an eyebrow. "Is that a problem?"
"Of course not." Jungkook replied, frowning. "Why would it be a problem? I was just commenting."
Yoongi hummed. This was what it was supposed to be like. Seokjin wasn't supposed to be worried about what the people thought of what he did. Jungkook was a little snarky sometimes, but he never tried to put himself above Yoongi. "The rain spirit needs some warmth."
Jungkook shrugged. "The rain spirit needs his seat back, that's what he needs."
"So you think there's something weird going on there, too?"
"Of course I do. The high priest controls everything the rain spirit does. That's just - it doesn't sit right with me, but what can I say. I'm just another state's priest." Jungkook frowned. "Do you need new robes? Your sleeve is starting to unravel."
Yoongi glanced down at the sleeve he'd unraveled the thread to make Seokjin's necklace. "Ah.. No. It's fine for now. Come on. I haven't got all day. Let's go visit the people."
--
It wasn't raining the night after when Yoongi visited, or the night after that, or even the night after that. The rain had all but stopped, and Seokjin spent all his time smiling, laughing at whatever stories Yoongi had to tell him and eagerly waiting for books Yoongi brought from his own state. Yoongi told Seokjin everyone was doing fine outside, in his state, but that might have been slightly twisted.
Seokjin's state had been so dependent on Seokjin's rain that a week without a drop of rain had everyone starting to panic. Seokjin wouldn’t know, of course, since he never stepped foot outside, and Yoongi had told him not to believe anything the priest told him, but there was general discontent. Yoongi scowled when he heard the whispers as he passed. Seokjin had called them innocent people, but they were all one and the same. Exploiting their spirit for their own good, and then cursing Seokjin out when he didn’t do what they wanted.
He wanted to grab each and every one of them and tell them that’s not how spirits worked. That they were supposed to let the spirits do what they wanted, and the humans were the ones who were supposed to be working around their powers. If it were Yoongi, he’d have burned everything down.
Yoongi smiled, drumming his fingers along Seokjin’s sides. Seokjin was resting in his arms, humming lightly and reading the book Yoongi brought him. The room was filled with puffs of fire again, providing a warm light for Seokjin to read by. “Seokjin, are you happy right now?”
Seokjin smiled warmly up at him. “Yeah. More than I’ve ever been for a while.”
“Good.” Yoongi chuckled, rubbing his thumb along Seokjin’s waist. “Seokjin, you’ve cried for humans every night for hundreds of years. You deserve to be happy.” Seokjin just hummed in response, a shy smile toying at his lips, and Yoongi echoed the smile, thumb running on the curves of Seokjin’s waist.