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The first rule of the Divine Matchmaking Bureau is simple: never miss.
The second rule is even simpler: if you do miss, do not let a mortal find out you are a celestial being who just ruined their life.
He was currently failing both rules.
Clad in a ridiculous oversized pastel hoodie that smelled faintly of clouds and ozone, the Love God sat on a neon green plastic stool in cowarded collage cafetaria. In his right hand, hidden beneath the long sleeve, was a micro bow forget from starlight. In his left was a golden arrow no longer than a toothpick, dripping with pure, concentrated romantic infatuation.
His target was sitting three tables away. He was a textbook romantic protagonist: six-foot-two, broad shoulders, a star athlete on the university track team, possessing a smile that literally made background characters drop their notebooks. The files from the upper realm started that the athlete was supposed to fall in love with the girl currently walking towards him with a tray of iced coffee. It was classic "meet-cute" scenario. All it needed was a tiny cosmic nudge.
The God took a breath. He raised his hand beneath the fabric of his sleeve. He aimed at the athlete's chest. He fired.
At that exact microsecond, the athlete dropped his car keys.
The tall, handsome target bent completely in half to retrieve them from the linoleum floor. The golden arrow, already in flight, zipped cleanly over his ducked head.
"Oh, sweet nectar of Olympics, no," the God whispered.
The arrow did not stop. It sailed across the aisle and struck a completely different target straight in the shoulder.
The victim was a boy sitting alone at a corner table. He was the polar opposites of the star athlete. He wore a dark, oversized black sweater, noise cancelling headphones pushed down around his neck, and a permanent, soul-crushing scowl. He was staring at a laptop screen filled with complex coding, looking like he wanted to fight the concept of electricity itself.
The instant the invisible arrow dissolved into his shoulder, the grumpy coder froze. His fingers stopped typing. The deep, habitual wrinkle between his eyebrows smoothed out. He slowly turned his head away from his laptop, his gaze scanning the cafeteria like a heat-seeking missile untill it looked onto the pastel clas God.
The coder's eyes, previously dull and irritated, suddenly dilated. A soft, terrifyingly uncharacteristic flush crept up his neck and flooded his cheeks.
Thump.
The coder stood up so fast his chair screeched against the floor. He abandoned his expensive laptop. He marched straight past the star athlete, heading directly toward the God's table with the intensity of a man walking into battle.
The God panicked. He tried to dissolve into a cloud of pink mist, but his terrestrial body was anchored to the human realm untill the assignment was complete. He was stuck.
The coder stopped right in front of him. Up close, he was taller than he looked sitting down, smelling faintly of black coffee and old paper. He stared down at the God, his chest heaving, his dark eyes wide and completely captivated.
"I don't know who you are," the coder said, his voice surprisingly deep and entirely deadpan despite the furious blush on his face. "But i think my heart just stopped. Do you want to get out of here?"
Before the God could formulate an excuse involving an emergency ascension to the heavens, a shadow fell over their table.
"Hey. What's going on here?"
The God looked up. The star athlete had returned from picking up his keys. He was standing with his arms crossed, his athletic frame towering over both of them. But he wasn't looking at the girl with the iced coffee. He was staring intensity at the coder, his jaw tight and his knuckles white.
"Nothing," the coder snapped, his tone instantly reverting to its usual icy coldness as he glanced at the athlete. "Go back to your track practice."
"You just left your laptop wide open," the athlete said, his voice dropping an octave, heavy with a strange, possessive edge. He stepped closer, deliberately inserting his large frame into the space between the coder and the God. "And you don't talk to strangers. Who is this?"
The God blinked, his divine senses tingling. He looked at the athlete, then at the coder. He rubbed his eyes and squinted.
Oh, by the creator, the God realized with a jolt of horror. The file was wrong.
The star athlete didn't need a golden arrow to fall for the girl with the coffee. The athlete was already deeply, secretly, and desperately in love with his own grumpy best friend. And now, thanks to a stray cosmic projectile, that grumpy best friend was hopelessly infatuated with a disguised deity.
The Love God had just walked face first into a self inflicted nightmare.
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By day three, the situation had escalated from a minor bureaucratic error to an absolute circus.
Because the golden arrow's magic was absolute, the grumpy coder was completely unyielding. He did not know how to court someone normally, so his romantic gestures felt like covert military operations. Every morning, he would appear at the God's newly registered campus dorm room, silently thrusting a cup of perfectly brewed tea into his hand before walking him to class. He didn't speak much, but he would stare at the God with an intensity that could melt glaciers.
"I bought you this," the coder muttered on Thursday, handing over a heavy, beautifully bound book on ancient mythology. "You wear pastel, but you look like you belong in a temple. I thought you'd like it."
The God's heart did a strange, forbidden flutter. "Thank you. You really didn't have to."
"I did," the coder said firmly, stepping closer. His usual scowl was entirely absent, replaced by a soft, vulnerable look reserved only for the God. "I can't stop thinking about you. It's annoying, but... I don't want it to stop."
Before the God could handle the sudden wave of guilt washing over him, a loud slam echoed thought the hallway.
The star athlete was standing at the end of the corridor, holding a basketball under one arm. He looked like he hadn't slept in forty eight hours. His eyes were locked onto the coder's hand, which was currently resting gently on the God's sleeve.
"We have a project due," the athlete lied smoothly, marching down the hall and grabbing the coder by the shoulder, physically pulling him away from the God. "You missed practice to buy a book? Since when do you care about mythology?"
"Since now," the coder said coldly, trying to shake off the athlete's grip. "Let's go. I am busy."
"No," the athlete barked, his eyes flashing with a dangerous mix of jealousy and hurt. He glared down at the God, his chest heaving. "You've been ignoring me for three days because of him. He's a freshman. He doesn't even know your favourite color. He doesn't know you can't sleep without a fan on. Why are you spending all your time with a stranger?"
The God raised his hands in peace. "Look, guys, i really think there's been a misunderstanding ___"
"Stay out of this," the snapped at the God, his voice cracking slightly. He turned back to the coder, his grip tightening. "Come back to the apartment. We need to talk. Alone."
"I'm staying here," the coder insisted, his eyes narrowing.
The tension in the hallway was thick enough to suffocate a mortal. The God stood between them, sweating thought his divine robes. He had to fix this. If he didn't extract himself from this triangle, the athlete's heartbreak would cause a localized depression anomaly, and the coder would be bound to a fake love forever.
According to the Divine handbook, there was only one way to break a misplaced arrow's spell without rewriting a mortal's memory: the target had to experience an act of genuine, selfless Love from their truest soulmate, causing the false magic to shatter.
The God needed to make the athlete confess. And he needed to do it through a massive, ridiculous display of jealousy.
The plan was set for Friday night at the university's rooftop campus festival.
The God had text-massaged both of them from his newly acquired smartphone, inviting them to the highest terrace under the pretense of "making a final decision about who he wanted to date." It was a classic rom-com trope, but desperate times called for desperate cliches.
The rooftop was decorated with string lights, overlooking the sparking city. The God stood by the railing, wearing a crisp white shirt that caught the moonlight.
The coder arrived first. He looked nervous, his hand stuffed into the pockets of his dark jacket. When he saw the God, his gaze softened instantly. "You asked me to come."
"I did," the God said, his voice dropping into a serious, theatrical tone. "Because i need to tell you the truth. I am not who you think i am. And this feeling you have...it isn't real."
"Don't tell me what i feel," the coder said, stepping forward. He reached out, his fingers brushing against the God's cheek. The touch was surprisingly warm, making the deity's breath hitch. "I've spent my whole life keeping people at a distance. I thought everyone was loud, annoying, and wasteful. But when i look at you, everything goes quiet. That's real to me."
The God felt a massive pang of guilt. The magic was amplifying it, yes, but the coder's capacity for devotion was entirely his own.
"Hey! Get your hands off him!"
The heavy rooftop door burst open. The star athlete sprinted out, completely out of breath. He had clearly run all the way up to six flights of stairs. His hair was messy, his jacket was half zipped, and his face was twisted in absolute panic.
"I told you to stay away from him," the athlete panted, marching straight towards them. He grabbed the coder's wrist, pulling him backward. "You're losing your mind! You've know this guy for less than a week! What about us? What about everything we've built over the last four years?"
" There is no 'us' like that," the coder said, his voice flat, thought his eyes flickered with a hint of pain at his friend's distress. "You're my best friend. But i love him."
The word love went through the athlete like a physical blade. He stumbled back a step, his eyes welling with tears. The popular, invisible star athlete suddenly looked incredibly small.
"Best friend?" The athlete whispered, his voice trembling under the festival lights. "You think i stayed up with you every night during your finals just because we're friends? You think i let you cook those terrible, burnt meals and ate them with a smile just to be nice? I've been tailoring my entire life around you since the day we met!"
The coder froze. The absolute raw agony in the athlete's voice seemed to pierce through the golden haze of the arrow's magic.
The God saw his opening. He stepped back, positioning himself near the edge of the terrace. "He's right," the God said loudly, drawing their attention. "He loves you. But it doesn't matter, because I'm going to take him away from you forever."
The God summoned a tiny fraction of his divine power. The wind on the rooftop suddenly whipped up, blowing the string lights into a frantic dance. The God let his eyes glow with a faint, ethereal golden light.
"Choose," the God commanded , looking at the coder. "Leave this mortal behind and come with me, or stay in your dull, quiet world."
The athlete didn't understand the magic, but he saw coder taking a step toward the strange, glowing boy. Panic overrode every ounce of pride the athlete possessed. He didn't care about looking foolish. He didn't care about rejection.
The athlete lunged forward, throwing his arms completely around the coder's waist from behind, burying his face into the coder's shoulder.
"Don't go," the athlete sobbed openly, his grip so tight it was brushing. "Please. I don't care if you don't love me back. I don't care if you think I'm annoying. Just don't leave me. I can't do this life without you. I love you. I've always loved you."
The confession was pure, raw, and completely selfless. It was a declaration of love that asked for nothing in return except the boy's presence.
The moment the words left the athlete's lips, a faint, golden spark erupted from the coder's chest. It drifted into the night air and vanished.
The wind died down. The string lights stopped shaking.
The coder blinked rapidly, his eyes shaking as the heavy, artificial fog lifted from his mind. He looked down at the large, athletic hands wrapped fiercely around his waist. He felt the hot tears soaking thought the fabric of his jacket.
Slowly, the coder turned around in the athlete's embrace. He looked at his best friend's face red, tear stained, and completely terrified. The coder's heart, finally free from the Divine spell, gave a violent, entirely human thump.
He remembered the last three days. He remembered the strange obsession with the pastel wearing boy. But looking at his best friend now, the puzzle pieces of his entire life suddenly clicked into place. The comfort, the constant presence, the quiet safety he had always felt it hadn't been a lack of feeling. It had been a love so deeply rooted he had taken it for granted.
"You idiot," the coder whispered, his own voice cracking. He raised his hands, finally wiping the tears from the athlete's face. "Why didn't you just say something sooner?"
"I was scared," the athlete choked out, his eyes widening with a sudden ray of hope. "Do you...are you still going with him?"
The coder looked over his shoulder to check on the mysterious freshman, but the space by the railing was completely empty. A single, pure white feather was drifting slowly down to the rooftop floor.
The coder looked back at the athlete, a small, genuine smile finally braking through his usual grumpy expression.
"No," the coder said, pulling the athlete down by the collar into a firm, breathless kiss. "I'm staying right here."
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High above the university, sitting comfortably on the edge of a fluffy, pink tinted cloud, the Love God checked his digital smartphone.
The file for the tow mortal's flashed bright green. A large, golden checkmate appeared over their names, followed by a notification: Mission Accomplished. Match Rating:100%.
The God let out a massive sigh of relief, learning back against the cloud. He tucked his micro bow away and pulled out a bag of heavenly ambrosia popcorn.
"Well," the God chuckled to himself, watching the tow humans embrace on the rooftop below. "It was bit messy, but a happy ending is a happy ending."
He vowed, however, never to shoot an arrow near a track athlete ever again.
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