Gods & Comics

Chapter 1

“Come on, come on, just upload,” Grace urged her tablet, watching the progress bar. She should have done this last night. She shouldn’t have stayed up so late tweaking the final panels over and over until she ultimately fell asleep at the desk. Speaking of . . . she rubbed at the crick in her neck.

It was her own fault. She’d spent too long revising this latest webtoon episode. But she had a regular posting schedule, and she always stuck to it.

Grace scanned the images of the final panels as the progress bar crept across the screen. The next panel showed her version of Haemosu, the Korean sun god, his handsome face submerged in water. His pale hand reached for Yuhwa, whose hair was floating around her beautiful features. Two teenage gods, trapped in human bodies, cursed to navigate the modern world. And, perhaps worst of all, attending public high school.

The perfect formula for drama and angst. Maybe that’s why it had gone viral.

She scrolled up to the previous panel. The dark outline of the water god watching her two heroes get swallowed by the raging river. Was it too soon to introduce him? No, she couldn’t doubt her decision now. The episode was about to go live.

As she willed the progress bar to move faster, Grace noticed the time. She’d been so focused on uploading the episode that now she was running late.

With a quiet curse, she grabbed her bag from the worn upholstered rocking chair in the corner. It sat under a photo of her mom sitting in the same chair, cradling an infant Grace in her arms. The blue fabric was torn and stained, and the chair didn’t even rock anymore. It probably should have been thrown away years ago, but Grace refused to part with it. She had so few things left of her mother’s.

Snatching up the first clean shirt she could find on top of the basket of unfolded laundry, she exchanged her sleep shirt for it. Then made a mental note to finally fold the laundry after school.

You’re going to forget.She heard the echo of her halmeoni’s voice in her head.

She pulled out her phone to actually add a reminder.

“Happy?” Grace replied out loud. And a part of her half expected to feel the ghost of her halmeoni smack her on the shoulder for being mouthy.

The tablet dinged, the happy chime it gave when an episode had successfully uploaded.

“Yes, good. Let’s go.” She stuffed the tablet into her bag, zipping it too fast and catching the edge of her thumb. With a pained hiss, she shoved it into her mouth as she clattered down the stairs.

She hated being late on a normal day, but today she wanted to get to school early to check on preparations for the winter carnival this weekend. And she was supposed to stop by the guidance office before homeroom.

You’re doing too much again,her halmeoni’s voice chastised her.

“I know, but I have to stay on track for the plan, right?” Grace said.

As she raced through the kitchen, she saw her father’s wallet on the counter. With a sigh, she paused long enough to text him:Forgot your wallet, don’t get pulled over on the way home or you’ll get in trouble for driving without your license.

Florida humidity practically slapped her in the face as she left the house.

It was worse than usual, and sure enough, clouds were gathering overhead.

As she buckled into her grandmother’s old Volvo, a text buzzed back from her dad:Thanks. See you guys for dinner.

You guys. Grace’s entire body went still, tingles of discomfort spreading over her scalp.

She told herself it was probably just an auto reply he’d chosen. Or thoughtless muscle memory. It hadn’t even been six months since her halmeoni had died. Her dad had so much on his mind as an emergency medicine physician. Of course he’d slip up sometimes. But it threw her off enough that her nerves buzzed.

She ran her hands over the worn steering wheel. There was still a perfect set of indents at three and nine, where Halmeoni had always held it.

Grace let her fingers settle into the grooves and took three long breaths.

With a final deep inhalation, she forced herself to focus on her driving-prep routine. She’d only had her license for a couple of months, and the routine helped her calm her nerves. Seat belt. Check. Rearview mirror. Check. Car in reverse and not drive. Check.

That last one was embarrassing, but there was still a small ding in the garage door from accidentally driving into it two days after getting her license. She would not take that chance again.

Grace clicked her cell into the dash holder and pulled up her GPS. She knew the way to school by heart, but she liked to see the traffic conditions as she drove. Seeing the small lines of red ahead of time helped dispel the stress that came with delays.

And of course as soon as she pulled onto the road, it began to drizzle. Grace hated driving in the rain (a real problem when living in Central Florida). She couldn’t bring herself to go even a mile above the speed limit for fear of hydroplaning. So, it all made her even later by the time she pulled into school. Maybe she should just skip the guidance office appointment. She knew what it would be about, a check-in asking how she was coping after last semester. Not really something she liked discussing.

The school was made of brick and concrete squares and rectangles, set up like fallen Jenga pieces around a central courtyard and sandwiched by the giant football field to the north and the more modest baseball diamond to the south. It was a cookie-cutter design from when all the suburbs realized they had an overcrowding problem in the early 2000s and built a bunch of schools while the students languished in muggy construction portables.

Overcrowding issues were slowly creeping up again, which was reflected in the jam-packed junior parking lot. Some had parked along the edge in areas that weren’t even marked spots. She drove past a spot near the front reserved for the junior class president. A silver Lexus SUV sat in it. Grace had started the school year thinking this spot would be hers to claim. And even though it had been months since she’d lost that race, it still stung a bit.

Mrs. Krol, the security guard, was driving her small golf cart across the courtyard, shouting at kids through her megaphone. She’d probably write down the license plates of kids who’d parked in non-spots.

Grace was worried she might have to go to the overflow lot, which was all the way across campus, when she found an empty spot right at the front. Plus, it had stopped raining.

Maybe today wasn’t starting out so bad after all.

She’d just turned on her blinker when a black BMW sped up, barely missing Grace’s bumper as it stole the space. She slammed on the brake, jerking forward so hard the seat belt dug into her collarbone. In the span of two seconds Grace pictured a dozen scenarios where her car was smashed to smithereens with her mutilated body trapped inside.

“Son of a bee sting!” Grace shouted. Then glared as Chuck Wilson climbed out of the BMW. His football build made him a foot taller than Grace and twice as wide, but still, she rolled down her window. “Hey! You could hurt someone driving like that!”

He didn’t even turn. “Not my fault you drive like an old grandma.”

Following traffic laws did not make her a grandma.

Grace wondered what would happen if she jumped out of her car, demanding Chuck move out of the spot and be a freaking normal human being for once instead of a self-centered ass. But she pushed that urge away. Grace wasn’t built for confrontation.

As she parked in the overflow lot, her phone dinged with a text from her best friend, Zoe:Grace Xavier Bak, esquire! How dare you put my babies in danger!

Grace laughed as she climbed out of her car:Please tell me you’re texting this from school. If not you’ll be late to homeroom.

Zoe:No can do, waiting in line for my latte. I might just take a mental health day to mourn the impending fate of Haemosu and Yuhwa.

Grace knew Zoe wasn’t joking. They were as likely to take one of their infamous mental health days as they were to come to school. Just thinking about skipping school gave Grace heartburn.

She opened her webtoon app as she crossed the lot. Should she have been less corny with the loving dialogue between Haemosu and Yuhwa? Did it detract from the drama of the arrival of Yuhwa’s vengeful father?

Grace was so distracted that she almost ran right into someone.

“Oh, sorry.” She tried to skirt around. But he moved with her. When she shifted the other way, so did he.

“Why don’t you go first.” Grace finally looked up. And just gaped. Because he was the most beautiful boy she’d ever seen. With lightly tanned skin, thick black hair, and eyes that curved gracefully at the corners.

“Nugu-shimnikka?” he asked with a frown.

“Excuse me?” Grace was thrown off by not just the Korean but how formal it was. Her halmeoni always spoke to her in informal banmal.

She craned her neck back to stare at him—partly due to her small stature, but also because he was tall—and something about his face poked at her brain. A tingling of recognition that she couldn’t fully grasp yet, even though she was sure she’d never met such a gorgeous human being in her life. He was a head taller than her. With sharp chiseled features accented by straight black brows. He looked like he could star as the perfect main character in a sweet high school K-Drama.

“Do . . .” Grace’s voice broke nervously. “Do I know you?”

“Finally, someone recognizes me.” He spoke English this time and grinned expectantly, like he was waiting for her to start fawning over him. He was wearing slightly formal clothing, khaki slacks and a navy blazer over a white button-down. Maybe he was a fashion influencer or something. If so, he’d picked the wrong person to try to impress. She never did social media.

“What grade are you in?” Grace wondered why he looked so eerily familiar. She’d definitely remember meeting a beautiful Korean boy in her school. There were only three Asians in her entire class of five hundred kids.

“Ah, so you don’t recognize me. What has happened to people?” He scowled with such ferocity that Grace almost apologized before she remembered she’d done nothing wrong.

“Are you new here or . . . ?”

He gave a mirthless laugh. “Yes, definitely new here.”

It sounded like he was being sarcastic, but Grace had no idea how or why.

She was about to give him directions to the front office when her phone dinged. She glimpsed down to see a notification that Zoe had texted, but it disappeared to reveal the webcomic app, still open on the face of her main character in all his gorgeous sun-god glory.

And that tingling, unreachable feeling exploded into full-blown recognition.

No, it can’t be . . .

It had been hard to place him because he was just a bit more angular and a bit more 3D than she was used to. She stared up at the boy, then down at her phone. This was impossible. But somehow, the gorgeous person standing in front of her was the spitting image of the sun god she drew in her webcomic.

“Impossible,” she whispered.

He lifted a brow, like he found her reaction amusing.

She started to reach out. A part of her unsure if he was even real. Would her fingers touch skin or air?

“Ms. Bak?” someone said.

Grace yanked her hand away, pushing it behind her guiltily.

Mrs. Brown, the guidance counselor, was standing just beyond the mystery boy. “We had an appointment to chat before homeroom, remember?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” she said, scurrying past the boy after Mrs. Brown. When she looked back again he was gone.