The cold seeped into his bones, biting through the thin fabric of his borrowed existence. William Yu—the name Zeus had bound to him—shivered as he stumbled into the shadows of a deserted alleyway. Gone was the divine strength that had once coursed through him, replaced by a frail body that felt as though it might break under its own weight. His chest heaved with labored breaths, and every step sent sharp pangs shooting through his limbs.

Pain.

It was a foreign concept to Eros, the god who had walked eternity untouched by mortal fragility. Now, it was his constant companion. His legs trembled as he leaned against the cold brick wall for support, the rough surface biting into his palms. His stomach churned with a hollow ache, an unfamiliar gnawing that demanded to be fed.

“So this... is mortality,” William murmured, his voice hoarse and tinged with bitterness.

His once radiant reflection had vanished, replaced by the shadow of a man. In the faint glow of a streetlamp, he saw the contours of a face that was both his and not his—bronzed skin dulled by exhaustion, dark eyes lined with shadows, and lips chapped from the cold. William reached up, touching his face as if to confirm that the stranger staring back at him was real.

A sudden coughing fit overtook him, each rasping breath tearing through his chest like shards of glass. He doubled over and clutching his ribs, leaving him gasping for air. When he pulled his hand away from his lips, it was flecked with crimson.

“Illness,” he whispered, his voice trembling with disbelief. “This body is dying.”

The realization settled over him like a shroud. Zeus’s words echoed in his mind, each syllable laced with cruel finality: Three months. If you fail, you will die and be erased from existence.

The weight of the curse was suffocating. For the first time in his eternal existence, Eros—now William—felt the crushing weight of time. Each second that passed was a step closer to his end, a reminder that he was no longer infinite.

But the true burden lay in the task before him.

He lifted his gaze to the heavens, the stars above shimmering like distant fires. “How am I to do this?” he demanded, his voice raw with desperation. “How am I to make him love me as a man, when I am nothing but a shadow of what I once was?”

There was no answer. The heavens remained silent, indifferent to his plight.

William closed his eyes, the enormity of his task pressing down on him. Julius—so vibrant and broken, so unknowingly entangled in the fate of a fallen god—seemed impossibly far away. How could he, a dying mortal, ever hope to reach him? To earn his love without the power of his golden arrows, without the divinity that had once set him apart?

The thought of failure loomed like a specter, its shadow growing with every breath. If he failed, not only would he lose his life, but his very essence would vanish, leaving no trace of the god he once was.

But then, amid the despair, a flicker of defiance sparked within him.

“No,” he murmured, his voice steadying. “I will not surrender. Not yet.”

Though his body was frail, his spirit remained unbroken. William straightened, though it took effort, and forced himself to take a step forward. Then another. The pain was unbearable, but he pushed through it, his resolve hardening with every labored breath.

He had three months. Three months to not only earn Julius’s love but to understand the depths of his own. He would have to navigate the labyrinth of human existence—its vulnerabilities, its limitations, and its fleeting joys—without the crutch of divinity.

William stumbled onto a bustling street, the neon lights of Seoul glaring harshly against the night. People moved around him like currents in a river, their faces a blur of indifference. Yet somewhere in this sea of humanity was Julius, the painter whose sorrow had shaken the foundations of a god.

“I will find you,” William vowed under his breath. “And I will prove that love can exist, even in the shadow of death.”

The thought gave him strength, however fleeting. He took another step, then another, disappearing into the chaos of the city.

Above him, the stars continued to shimmer, unaware of the fallen god who now walked among mortals, his heart burdened with the greatest challenge of all: to love, and to be loved, without the safety of eternity.

For the first time in his existence, Eros—now William—was truly alive. And though he did not yet know it, this fragile, painful state would teach him more about love than all the eons he had spent as its master.