Being a high school senior with a boring, repetitive life wasn’t the dream. No drama, no real friends, and enough past trauma to make me cringe at every memory. That was me—nobody with nothing to look forward to. Until he found me.

It was just another awful day when I stumbled across a crumbling, church-like structure in the woods. That’s where I met Ezra, a spirit with an ethereal glow and an otherworldly voice. He said he’d been watching me and that I was "chosen." Chosen for what? He didn’t explain. Instead, he pressed a cold kiss to my forehead, muttered something cryptic like, "The balance must be restored," and vanished.

That was a week ago.

Turns out, Ezra wasn’t just being dramatic. His kiss turned me into the kamisama of an abandoned shrine deep in the mountains. A shrine I was now bound to. The place was eerie yet oddly clean—thanks to him.

There he was, lounging in front of the shrine’s gate: Levi, the shrine’s “guardian spirit.” And by spirit, I mean dark siren. Piercing silver eyes, tousled black hair, and an attitude sharper than the blade strapped to his side. Apparently, he’d been ditched by the previous god (Ezra) a century ago. Now, he wasn’t thrilled about me—a mortal—stepping into his former master’s shoes.

"You’re a child playing god," he sneered when we met, leaning against the archway. "Don’t expect me to follow orders from someone who doesn’t know the difference between divine energy and a headache."

Charming, right?

Since then, the shrine’s tiny angels (adorable winged spirits who annoy me like siblings) kept harping on one thing: I had to “tame” Levi. Easier said than done. The guy was an enigma wrapped in sarcasm, with a temper like wildfire.

And that’s how I ended up here, in the Underworld. Apparently, Levi had stormed off after an argument and had been lurking in the Shadowlands—a place teeming with rogue spirits.

“Why are you even here?” Levi asked when I tracked him down. His voice echoed through the dark cavern, the light from his blade casting eerie shadows on the walls.