A heavy silence settled between the two.

Persephone, reading the atmosphere, also tilted her cheek.

‘What’s this, why did it suddenly become so heavy?’

Both of their faces were clouded with an ominous expression.

No, honestly, Cerberus might be in a better state, but…

“Lord Hades?”

Hades seemed to have received quite a shock.

He looked as if he would shatter into pieces at the slightest touch.

Persephone couldn’t contain her concern at his completely unfamiliar face, and moved closer to him.

“Are you alright?”

“…Ah.”

Hades, who had been fixing his gaze on empty space, twitched his fingers. His eyes, which had been trembling finely, fell downward.

“…Yes, I’m fine.”

Hades forced the corners of his mouth to lift. It was to hide his momentarily shaken emotions.

For a very brief moment, he considered telling Persephone who Plutus, mentioned by Cerberus, was.

‘But, I think it’s not right after all.’

There were too many things to consider before telling Persephone.

First of all, Hades himself didn’t want to mention the past, as if he had locked it away, but…

‘Even if she didn’t know who her father was, would she have known she had a brother?’

No, dare I say, she probably doesn’t even know she had an older brother.

Hades didn’t want to confuse Persephone. He especially didn’t want to see her cry like when they had their first meal together.

Of course, after observing Persephone’s expressions over the past time, her crying then was probably an act to avoid difficult questions, but…

Anyway, it wouldn’t do for her to be sad because of him.

Instead, Hades cut off the explanations and offered a simple conclusion.

“It seems Cerberus was drawn to your divine power.”

“Divine power? Why?”

“…”

It was because Plutus and Persephone’s divine powers were similar.

Even after Hades became the ruler of the underworld, Plutus occasionally came down to the underworld and often played with Cerberus.

However, after Plutus died, naturally, Cerberus could no longer meet him.

And after Persephone came to the underworld, Cerberus must have detected a divine power very similar to Plutus’s.

Cerberus, with his high self-control, must have endured at first.

Even if Plutus had come to the underworld, he would have reminded himself not to leave his designated place, as Hades had ordered.

But as time passed, and Thanatos or Hermes, who were close to her, passed through the entrance, stimulating Cerberus…

‘Now, his longing has burst.’

Hades’ hand clenched into a fist.

His mind was complicated. He didn’t know how to solve this problem. Because their friend would not come back to life.

Meanwhile, Persephone was mulling over the name Cerberus had mentioned.

‘Somehow, it feels familiar.’

It was like the feeling she had when Hades told her who her real father was.

‘The friend who occasionally visited the underworld was…’

Persephone’s eyes gradually changed to a deeper color as she fell into reflection.

Hydra, standing awkwardly beside them, alternately looked at her superior, who seemed strangely self-deprecating, and her friend, who was lost in thought.

She instinctively realized that she was the only one in her right mind. Therefore, she was the only one who could solve the problem of Cerberus’s strike.

She carefully approached Cerberus and whispered.

“Cerberus.”

Cerberus’s three heads, lying with his belly on the ground, lifted slightly.

Hydra pointed to herself.

“Um, I don’t know if you remember me, but… I’m your older sister.”

“Older sister?”

“Yes. I’m the snake born before you.”

Hydra smiled the prettiest smile she could muster.

“I’m going to ask you a question now, is that okay?”

“…Alright.”

Good, this should do. Hydra, clenching her fist in her mind, pointed at Hades and Persephone simultaneously.

“Do you like Mom or Dad better?”

Hades’ brain, which had been sunk in familiar melancholy, suddenly awoke.

Flustered, he quickly turned his head towards Cerberus and Hydra.

‘What is this…!’

Sadness and sense of loss were instantly erased, replaced by a heated embarrassment.

“Dad?”

“Yes, the person you often see. Your guardian.”

“Then who’s Mom?”

“The one with pink fur, a bit smaller.”

“Ah…”

Cerberus tilted his head.

“What’s good about choosing between Mom and Dad?”

“Well, maybe that Mom or Dad could play with you for a while? But not here, at your place.”

“Wow…!”

Cerberus’s three pairs of eyes sparkled.

At that moment, Hydra’s head turned towards Hades.

She raised the corners of her mouth as if to say, ‘Didn’t I do well?’

Hades, unable to either praise or scold his assistant, turned into a statue on the spot.

If he was the father and Persephone was the mother, then…

‘It means… I’m married to Persephone!’

While his fingertips were cold like winter wind, his heart was beating as if being wrung out. All his blood rushed to his face, especially his brain.

Ruffling his hair, he hastily added.

“No, wait. If we’re being precise, I’m more like an older brother than a father…”

“Plutus is the older brother.”

“…”

Cerberus was the first to throw a rebuke.

Put that way, there was nothing to say.

Swallowing dry saliva, Hades glanced at Persephone. Worried that she might be confused or uncomfortable due to the situation.

‘Well, I still don’t know who this Plu… whatever person is. He seems to be a friend of Lord Hades and Cerberus.’

Of course, for Persephone, who was lost in thought, being paired as a couple with Hades wasn’t such an important issue.

She didn’t know all the original Greek and Roman mythology either.

For some reason, the name Plu-something itself didn’t stick well in her memory.

It was like, even if she tried hard to remember, it felt like it was being erased? She had the intuition that no matter how hard she tried, she would never be able to figure it out on her own, and that was indeed the case.

Life becomes serious every time you hold onto questions that can’t be solved.

‘I’ll just appeal to Cerberus instead.’

Dismissing the thought with her characteristic optimism, she opened her arms towards Cerberus.

To jump into the simple betting game Hydra had set up.

“Alright, Cerberus! You prefer Mom, right?”

Besides, since they had bonded while playing together, it wouldn’t be bad to adopt a guard dog or two.

…Let’s set aside the fact that it’s the guardian of the underworld.

“We had fun playing today, didn’t we! I’ll come play with you again when souls aren’t coming in!”

“Really?”

“Yes!”

Hades, watching the beautiful scene of the guard dog and guest colluding with bribes, made a shocked face.

He quickly interjected between Persephone and Cerberus.

“Um, Cerberus? I’m sorry I didn’t realize you were lonely and struggling.”

“Huh?”

“From now on, instead of leaving it to the soldiers, I’ll come play with you every day, so don’t do this, okay?”

“Uh, um…”

As Cerberus hesitated, Persephone suddenly popped out from behind Hades.

“I can give you delicious food every day! I’ll grill meat for you!”

“No, raw meat is better for you. You’ll get an upset stomach if you eat grilled meat.”

“I’ll let you dig holes too!”

“No, Cerberus. Don’t listen. She’s trying to make you a laborer.”

“Lord Hades, are you going to keep doing this?”

“…I would grant most things, but Cerberus is my family. I can’t lend out family.”

“You’re not going to make him family either!”

“…No, what on earth are you saying…!”

The bickering between Hades and Persephone continued.

Anguish gradually deepened in Cerberus’s eyes as he watched them.

The male guardian – the friend his sister called ‘Dad’ – was doing his best to block the female guardian – ‘Mom’ – who kept popping up from behind like a mole.

So who should he choose, after pondering.

“I, I…!”

Cerberus opened his mouth.

“I, I like… big sister…”

The audience was enveloped in silence at the shocking result.

“…”

“…”

“Oh my…!”

And so the victor became Hydra, who hadn’t done anything but was chosen by the puppy by chance.

* * *

The fight that benefited neither Hades nor Persephone ended.

“Cerberus.”

Cerberus, whose intelligence had returned to normal, looked down at Persephone.

Apparently quite pleased, he sat next to Persephone, wagging his tail.

Persephone, who had been observing the red twilight stretching across the sky in the distance, broke the silence.

“I don’t know why you miss that… Pluto person.”

Persephone carefully rubbed her solar plexus.

“But if it was my divine power that evoked the longing…”

Persephone, who had drawn out the power lingering around her lower abdomen, gathered divine power in her hand.

“I’ll give it to you.”

Then she held it out to Cerberus.

Surprised, Cerberus looked at her. He seemed unsure if he could accept this.

“It’s okay. This much is nothing.”

Her power had increased quite a bit while growing and harvesting beans. Maybe two or three times more than when she first came to the underworld?

So it should be fine to give more than half of it.

Cerberus sniffed Persephone’s hand, then chomped down on the glowing white lump.

He licked Persephone’s cheek, seeming satisfied.

“You have to stay well at the entrance, okay? I’ll come visit you often.”

Cerberus made a whining sound and clung to Persephone.

Persephone hugged each head in turn. Her index finger pointed towards Hades, who was waiting for him a little distance away.

She waved to Cerberus as he ran towards Hades.

“Goodbye!”

It was a farewell.

* * *

That evening, after Hades had taken Cerberus back to the entrance and Persephone had returned to the palace.

“How did you know I wasn’t the culprit?”

Persephone belatedly asked him the question she was curious about.

Hades, who had been walking in step with her, glanced back.

“…How could I think of you as the culprit?”

“No, but honestly, there was evidence that anyone would have misunderstood.”

Persephone is the only deity with the qualities of abundance and life in the barren underworld.

Her power here was like ink on marble.

Yet, what was the reason Hades didn’t think of her as the culprit at all in this incident?

“…Your expression changes depending on the presence or absence of a ‘plan’.”

After a silence, Hades opened his lips.

Persephone’s brain transformed the word ‘plan’ like a magic box.

“You mean my expression changes if I have ulterior motives?”

“…I deliberately said ‘presence or absence of a plan’, but you’re making me feel awkward by accepting it so directly.”

Persephone smiled brightly.

Hades, smiling along with her, smoothed his clothes.

“Anyway, that’s right. Your expression changes if you have… well, ‘intentions’.”

“…”

“Did you know?”

When he asked Persephone, she, who had been fiddling with her cheeks, asked back.

“…How does it change?”

“Eyebrows.”

Unlike her expectation that it would take a moment for Hades to answer, he responded quite decisively.

“Usually, your eyebrows go up as if you’re angry.”

“Is that so?”

“Of course. I remember they go up like that even when you smile. It was impressive how your eyebrows go up even with a big smile, making you look like a mischievous child.”

At that moment, Hades’ index finger rose into the air.

“But when you smile with ‘intentions’, these eyebrows go down.”

The finger’s destination was the end of Persephone’s eyebrow.

“Just like mine.”

The index finger, barely not touching her skin, soon moved to above Hades’ eye.

He traced his own downturned eyebrows as if drawing them.

“That’s how I knew you weren’t the culprit.”

“…”

“I could sufficiently distinguish whether there were ‘intentions’ or not just by your expression.”