No one remembers the precise moment the town of Busan began to feel less like home and more like a memory. But for the seven brothers who carried their grief like an inherited curse, the weight of their past began long before they stepped into that museum.

It started with a scream—a woman’s final breath echoing through the old house during childbirth. She left behind seven sons, a grief-stricken husband, and a silence that never quite left the walls.

The youngest son, barely old enough to speak, grew up behind a locked door. His father claimed it was for everyone’s safety. "He’s not like you," he told the elder sons. "He’s cursed. Born of blood, not love. A devil in disguise."

The boy listened to this so often, he began to believe it.

Years passed in shadows. The six older brothers turned wild, angry, feeding on chaos. They fought over nothing and everything—until one night, a silver blade flashed through the dark, and their father collapsed on the floor, blood seeping into the wooden boards.

The youngest son stood there, breath heaving. His hands trembled. "He was going to kill me," he whispered.

No one asked for more.

The six brothers didn’t abandon him. They ran with him. Into the night. Into uncertainty.

Seoul was cold and unforgiving. They had no home, no plan. Just a headline on a crumpled flyer:

*The Grand Reopening of the Museum of Shadows. Ancient Works from Lost Civilizations. One Night Only.*

The building stood like a cathedral to forgotten things. A towering glass and stone monolith that loomed above them, casting jagged shadows onto the pavement. It felt like the end of the world. Or the beginning of another.

Inside, time seemed to slow down.

Paintings of winged beings with twisted expressions stared down at them. Marble statues of faceless gods and warriors lined the halls. And somewhere, in the center of it all, a vast room opened to a dome of dim light.

Here, the brothers scattered—youthful, reckless, breaking into laughter and running fingers across forbidden relics. All except the eldest.

Jindal.

He stood still before a massive painting. Oil cracked and faded with time, it depicted a host of angels falling from heaven—cast out, wings torn, eyes filled with rage and sorrow. At the center was a figure in black, silver hair cascading, a smirk playing on blood-red lips. The Devil, painted with heartbreaking beauty.

Something in Jindal’s chest twisted.

A sound like wind, though there was none. A whisper that didn’t echo.

"You remember now, don’t you?"

He did.

Fragmented memories clawed their way to the surface—of marble columns and sand underfoot, of a temple by the sea, and six men standing behind him, eyes bright with loyalty. Of himself, once draped in white robes, halo burning bright. Of his fall.

It wasn’t just a metaphor.

In another life, they had all stood at the gates of Mount Olympus. They had tasted immortality. And they had thrown it away for a lie whispered by a Tempter who promised more.

He was no leader. He was the reason they fell.

He turned, eyes darting across the room to where his brothers laughed and played like boys, unaware of the storm. But he saw it—on each of them. A flicker of darkness beneath the skin.

*Lust*
The second eldest, lingering too long by the statue of Aphrodite.

*Gluttony*
The third, licking honey off a stolen offering, eyes wide with hunger.

*Greed*
The fourth, clutching gold coins from a shattered urn, stuffing them into his pockets.

*Sloth*
The fifth, lying across a velvet chaise, dreaming in the midst of chaos.

*Wrath*
The sixth, punching the glass case that held a rusted sword, blood trickling from his knuckles.

And the seventh —

Jindal’s gaze landed on the youngest. The devil-child. The cursed one.

But he saw it now—he was the only one untouched. Untainted. Pure.

Because he had never been the devil.

Jindal was!

Suddenly, the painting before him began to bleed. The figures inside moved. The fallen angels stretched their limbs, crawling closer to the frame. A hand emerged—long fingers, clawed—reaching for him.

He stepped back, breath short.

And then, he was no longer in the museum.

Stone beneath his feet. Fire in the sky.

The sea roared in the distance as he stood once more in that forgotten temple. But this time, he held a pen in his hand. Not a sword. Not a crown.

A voice echoed through the halls of his mind.

"Write it again."

He looked down and saw parchment, blank and waiting.

"Write the truth this time."

The brothers stood around him again, but they were children now. Lost, broken, tired. He could write their story differently. He could choose another ending.

His hand moved on its own. Ink spilled onto the page.

As he wrote, the museum crumbled around them. The paintings screamed. The statues wept. The dome cracked and moonlight poured through like silver rain.

One by one, the brothers looked up, dazed—eyes filled with recognition, memories slamming into their minds.

They remembered the sea. The war. The fall.

Jindal wrote faster.

"Let them live. Let them be boys again. Let the devil be me, not him."

The parchment burned. The pen shattered.

And then—

Silence.

The brothers awoke on a hillside just outside Seoul. The museum was gone. No one else remembered it. No articles. No signs. Not even the flyer remained.

But something had changed.

They were quieter. Closer. As if they’d been broken and put back together.

The youngest, once locked away and blamed, now walked in front. The others followed him.

And Jindal?

He kept a notebook now. Always scribbling. Always writing.

He said it helped him stay grounded.

But sometimes, late at night, when the wind howled just right, he swore he saw those fallen angels again. Watching. Waiting.

Because the lines between fiction and reality had blurred.

And some stories never end.


(Inspired by BTS' music video 'Blood, Sweat and Tears') 💖💜