Banished Divinity: Learning to be Human

The night it happened—the worst night and the best night, the night that broke him and the night that rebuilt him into someone else entirely—started like all the other bad nights.

His mother was home. His father was home. They were rarely home at the same time anymore—the divorce had been final for two years, but they still found reasons to be in the same room, reasons that usually involved alcohol and screaming and the kind of fighting that made Minjae press his hands over his ears and hum until his throat went raw.

But this night, they weren't fighting.

This night, they were together.

His mother had brought her boyfriend—a man named Taeho, who had tattoos on his neck and a smile that never reached his eyes. Taeho was a gangster. Minjae knew this because Taeho had told him once, laughing, while he held Minjae's chin in his hand and squeezed until his jaw ached.

"You ever tell anyone about what happens here, fat boy, and I'll cut out your tongue and feed it to my dogs. You understand?"

Minjae understood.

His father had brought his girlfriend—a woman named Soojin, who wore too much makeup and laughed too loudly and smelled like cigarettes and something else, something sweet and rotten at the same time. Soojin was pretty in the way that poison is pretty. Bright colors. Soft curves. A warning that you only see when it's too late.

There were four adults in the living room that night.

There were bottles everywhere—soju, beer, something in a green bottle that Minjae didn't recognize. There were white lines on the coffee table, arranged in neat rows like tiny soldiers. There were pills scattered across the carpet like confetti.

Minjae was twelve years old.

He knew what drugs looked like.

He had known for a long time.

---

The night started with laughter.

It always started with laughter.

Minjae was in his corner, trying to make himself small, trying to make himself invisible. He had learned how to do this over the years—how to press his body into the shadows, how to breathe so quietly that even his own lungs forgot he was there.

But tonight, they noticed him.

They always noticed him eventually.

"Hey," Taeho said, his voice slurred but still sharp at the edges. "Hey, fat boy. Come here."

Minjae didn't move.

"I said come here."

He moved. He always moved.

He walked to the center of the living room, his bare feet sticking to something sticky on the floor. He didn't look down. He didn't want to know what it was.

His father was sprawled on the couch, Soojin draped across his lap like a blanket made of bones and bad decisions. His mother was sitting on the floor, her back against the wall, her eyes half-closed. Taeho was standing by the coffee table, a bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

"Look at you," Taeho said, circling him like a shark. "Twelve years old, huh? Almost a man."

Minjae said nothing.

"Almost," his father repeated, laughing. "But not quite. Look at him. Still got baby fat. Still got baby tears."

"Does he cry?" Soojin asked, her voice high and sweet, like honey poured over broken glass. "I heard he cries."

"He cries," his mother said. She didn't look at him. She never looked at him anymore. "Cries about everything. Always has."

"Show us," Taeho said. "Cry for us, fat boy."

Minjae's throat tightened. His eyes burned. But he didn't cry. He had learned. He had learned that crying only made it worse.

"Oh, look," Soojin said, sitting up straighter, her eyes bright with something that looked like hunger. "He's trying not to. How cute."

"He's not trying hard enough," his father said. He stood up, swaying slightly, and walked over to Minjae. He was taller than Minjae remembered. Or maybe Minjae just felt smaller. "You know what real men do, Minjae? Real men don't cry. Real men take what they want. Real men—"

"He's not a real man yet," Taeho interrupted, grinning. "He's still a boy. Still hasn't... developed."

The word hung in the air like a blade.

"Strip," his father said.

Minjae's blood went cold.

"What?"

"Strip. Taeho wants to see how you're developing. So do I."

"I want to see too," Soojin said, and she was giggling, actually giggling, her hand pressed to her mouth like she was watching something funny on television. "I want to see how a twelve-year-old boy develops. Is that weird?"

"It's not weird," his mother said. "It's just curiosity."

"Strip," his father said again.

Minjae didn't move.

He couldn't move.

His hands were shaking. His whole body was shaking. He could feel something rising in his chest—not tears, not this time, but something else. Something that felt like the moment before a scream.

"I said strip."

His father's hand connected with his cheek.

The slap was hard enough to send him stumbling. He caught himself on the arm of the couch, his face burning, his ear ringing.

"You heard him," Taeho said. He was holding the bottle by its neck, swinging it lazily like a pendulum. "Strip, or we'll strip you ourselves."

"I think we should strip him ourselves," Soojin said. "That would be more fun."

"Let's do that," his mother said. She was smiling now. Actually smiling. Her eyes were focused on him in a way they hadn't been in years. "Let's see what we're working with."

Minjae ran.

He didn't think.

He just moved.

He ran for the door, but Taeho was faster, grabbing his arm and yanking him back. He ran for the window, but his father was already there, blocking the way, his face twisted into something ugly and unrecognizable.

"Where do you think you're going?"

He saw Taeho turn toward the kitchen.

He saw him open the drawer where the knives were kept.

He saw him pull out a cleaver.

"Come here, fat boy," Taeho said, and his voice was still casual, still almost friendly, like he was calling a dog to dinner. "Let's have some fun."

Behind him, Minjae heard the sound of glass breaking.

His father had picked up a bottle and smashed it against the edge of the table. The broken end gleamed in the dim light, sharp and jagged and hungry.

"Both of you, stop," his mother said, but she was still smiling, still watching, still doing nothing.

"This is going to be good," Soojin whispered.

Minjae didn't wait to find out what came next.

He threw himself through the living room window.

---

Glass shattered around him. He felt shards cut into his arms, his face, his chest. He hit the ground outside and kept running, his bare feet slapping against concrete, his lungs burning, his heart pounding so hard he thought it might tear itself out of his chest.

He ran to the fire escape.

He climbed.

He didn't stop climbing until he reached the roof.

The roof was flat and gray and littered with the debris of other people's lives—broken furniture, empty bottles, a rusted bicycle frame. The air was cold. The sky was dark.

Minjae pressed his back against the wall and tried to catch his breath.

His arms were bleeding. His feet were bleeding. His face was wet, and he didn't know if it was blood or tears.

Stupid, he thought. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He had trapped himself.

The ladder was the only way up. The ladder was the only way down. And the door to the stairwell—he had tried it already, had yanked on the handle until his palms blistered—was locked.

He was on the roof of a building with no way off.

And they were coming.

He heard them before he saw them. Laughter, echoing up from the street. The clang of footsteps on the ladder.

He scrambled to hide—behind a stack of wooden crates, behind a row of clay pots that still held the dead remains of last summer's plants. He pressed himself into the corner where the wall met the floor and tried to make himself small.

Don't breathe.

Don't move.

Don't exist.

"Minjae..."

Taeho's voice drifted across the roof like smoke. Sing-song. Almost gentle.

"Minjae, where are you? We just want to talk."

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," Soojin sang.

"Stop playing games," his father said. "You're making this worse for yourself."

Minjae pressed his hand over his mouth.

Through a gap between the crates, he could see them walking across the roof. Four figures. Four shadows. Four faces that looked almost human in the dim light.

Almost.

But not quite.

He blinked.

Their faces rippled.

For just a moment—a heartbeat, a blink, the space between one breath and the next—their features seemed to shift. Taeho's jaw lengthened. His mother's eyes went black, all black, no white, no iris, just two empty pits. His father's mouth stretched too wide, revealing too many teeth. Soojin's skin seemed to crawl, like something was moving just beneath the surface.

Minjae rubbed his eyes.

When he looked again, they were normal.

Just people.

Just drunk, cruel, ordinary people.

He was seeing things. He had been seeing things for years—shadows that moved when they shouldn't, figures at the edge of his vision that disappeared when he turned his head. He had learned to ignore them. He had learned to tell himself they weren't real.

But this felt different.

This felt like a warning.

"Minjae..."

Taeho was getting closer.

"Why did you run? We were just having fun. We were just playing."

Minjae pressed himself deeper into the corner.

"You're being very rude," Soojin said. Her voice was closer now. "Very, very rude. We invited you to play, and you ran away. That hurts our feelings."

"When you hurt our feelings," his father said, "we have to teach you a lesson."

"Found you."

Taeho's hand closed around Minjae's ankle and yanked.

Minjae was dragged out from behind the crates, his back scraping against the concrete, his fingernails breaking as he tried to grip something—anything—to stop himself.

They stood over him.

Four faces.

Four pairs of eyes.

None of them looked human anymore.

"You shouldn't have run," his mother said. She knelt down beside him, her face close to his. She smelled like alcohol and smoke and something else. Something rotten. "You made this so much harder than it needed to be."

"Just do this once for us," Taeho said. "Be a good boy. We need something from you. Something special."

"We need you to complete something," Soojin added. She was standing at the back now, her head tilted, her smile too wide. "Something important."

"What?" Minjae's voice came out as a whisper. "What do you need?"

"You," his father said. "All of you. Every last piece."

Minjae looked at their faces.

He looked at the way the moonlight reflected in their eyes—or didn't reflect, not really, not the way it should have.

He looked at Soojin, who was standing slightly apart from the others, whose smile seemed to be the only thing about her that was real.

And he understood, in that moment, that this was it.

This was how he died.

Not in a hospital, surrounded by people who loved him. Not in his sleep, peaceful and quiet. Not in some heroic sacrifice that people would tell stories about.

Here. On a dirty rooftop. Torn apart by four people who were supposed to protect him.

"Please," he said. "Please don't."

"Please don't," Taeho mimicked, his voice high and mocking. "Please don't. Is that all you have to say?"

"Pathetic," his father said.

"Let's get this over with," his mother said. "I'm tired."

They reached for him.

And then—

Thunder.

Not distant thunder. Not the kind that rumbles on the horizon and warns of a storm still hours away.

This thunder was directly above them.

It crashed down like a physical thing, shaking the roof, rattling the crates, making the clay pots tremble and crack.

The four adults stepped back.

Their hands withdrew.

Their faces—for just a moment—showed something that looked like fear.

And then the light came.

---

It was a column of light.

Pure white, shot through with purple, slamming into the rooftop like a spear thrown from heaven. It was so bright that Minjae had to squeeze his eyes shut, had to turn his face away, had to press his hands over his ears against the sound—

But the sound wasn't thunder anymore.

The sound was music.

Not music like anything he had ever heard. Not a song with words or instruments. It was music like the universe itself had decided to sing—a melody made of gravity and starlight and the spaces between atoms.

And when he opened his eyes, the light was fading.

And in its place stood a girl.