i begin to understand why god died

by viscrael

Summary:

I was human when my heart was stolen by him, and I was human when I longed to be by his side. This fact won't change, no matter what name I decide to give to these feelings.

 

--

It was sometime around 1,200 A.D. when he met Shion.

Notes:

a few things abt this fic:

1. any and all of the theology in this fic is Wrong. Wrong as hecky. everything. every last bit of it i pulled out of my ass and not actually from any official religious text. im christian (sort of) but i know Jack Shit abt christian angelology. also, a lot of other stuff in this just sort of . doesnt make sense? the more i read it the less sense it makes but i just Dont Care at this point so. do me a favor and pretend that its logical pls

2. the story is split up into a couple of different parts: the beginning, the second beginning, the end, and the rebirth. for the sake of how long this fic is as of current (rn its at 33k words, but i have a feeling it will get to be much longer if it continues how im going), the first half of it is the beginning thru the end, while the second half is the rebirth.

3. ive been working on this since march, maybe april, of this year. i started writing it without the intention of ever going past 3k words, just a short lil au to entertain myself, but i stopped for lack of an ending and let it sit in my folder until june. since then, ive been working on it p much nonstop, at least between other small fics ive been doing, and it escalated dramatically.

4. the fic is in nezumi's pov in case you couldnt tell and nezumi is surprisingly difficult to write, so i apologize beforehand for however ooc anything is

5. i love inukashi and safu with every bit of my gay lil heart, so even tho a lot of this is focused on nezushi, im trying, and have tried, to include more stuff w/ them + their developing relationships with our lovely protags

6. i know the general direction of where the rest of the fic is gonna go but i have none idea with left beef just how long itll take me to finish it so forgive me if the wait is less than satisfactory

anyway enjoy gay boys

Chapter 1: the beginning / the end

The Beginning / The End

 

It was sometime around 1,200 A.D. when he met Shion.

It started out quietly. They passed by each other a few times. They interacted just about as much as you’d think any standard demon and angel would—which is to say, not very much at all. Nezumi got in trouble quite often, messing around with a few other demons. He didn’t remember why Shion was there, why angels were in a mainly demon populated hang out—didn’t they have things to do, people to inspire, humans to blind? Did angels ever do anything except bide their time?

(Later, Shion would look at him with those blinding eyes, unwavering, pure, and ask, unfazed, “Do you do anything but bide your time?”)

Whatever the reason be, it would just so happen that Shion was there, just in time to catch him messing around with someone else. Something or another happened that caused the two to interact. Fate, maybe. Shion’s wonder, more likely. Shion had gotten in the middle of a fight somehow, but when Nezumi was at his throat, only sparing his life because the aftermath was too much of a pain, the angel had only blinked, eyes widening, and excitedly asked how he’d managed to disarm him so quickly. Nezumi didn’t remember much from the encounter after that, except that it was the Beginning. That, and those big doe eyes, filled with childlike curiosity and amazement.

 

--

 

He didn’t think about those eyes for a long time. It was 1,360 A.D. that he met Shion again. This time, less pleasantly.

Nezumi wasn’t one for following orders or sticking to other people’s plans, but he’d been assigned some portion of Earth to watch over, although “watch over” wasn’t a very fit description. He was to guard it from angels, the war between the Two Sides that’d been going on for about thousands of years then far from over. He had never gotten behind the cause, but it was better than the methodic life he tended to before. Earth was better than one might expect, as much as he hated to admit it. He’d spent his whole life vowing that he didn’t care for humans or their land, but somehow he’d fallen in love with the idea of Earth.

That was the Second Beginning.

Shion was sent to try to persuade him to give up the land—some large portion in the west Nezumi couldn’t be bothered to remember the name of—but it was obvious that he’d been instructed to use force if Nezumi resisted.

“And what’s in it for me?” Nezumi had asked, flicking his tail on purpose because he liked the way Shion’s eyes followed it sometimes, though why he wasn’t sure. He told himself it was because it was fun to mess with the angel, just as gullible and naïve as the first time they’d met, the excited chirp of “How’d you do that?” that he’d sworn he’d long forgotten ringing in his ears.

“Less mess,” Shion answered simply. Nezumi barked out a laugh, jumped from the perch he’d made of a tree to be at Shion's level.

“And you believe that’s going to make me give it up? ‘Less mess?’”

The angel before him clasped his hands behind his back—all four of them—and tilted his head to the side, looking much like a cat, and much too knowing. “You seem like the type to take the easier way out, so less of a mess means an easier time, doesn’t it?”

Nezumi couldn’t help it; he started laughing. This guy was…amusing. “You really think you know everything, don’t you?”

“Mm, not everything,” he said honestly. “But enough to be correct about you, right?”

“If by ‘correct’ you mean that your assumption that I’m just going to give in is true, then no.”

“Either way,” Shion said, making unwavering eye contact, “I’m going to convince you. I just wanted to give you an option that was less hassle, but if you won’t take it, that’s on your shoulders. Not mine.”

Nezumi’s eyebrow twitched. Less amusing now, more annoying. “Isn’t that your job as an angel though? To carry the weight of everything on your shoulders?”

“Angels don’t work the way you think we do. And besides, isn’t the job of a demon to not carry anything at all?” Shion countered. “To not care at all? Supposedly you have no sense of morality. But you’re protecting the humans. Why is that?”

“You’re really annoying me, you know that?” Nezumi drew a small dagger from his bag, and Shion followed suit. When they fought, it wasn’t at all like the first time. It was a close fight, both dancing around each other like they’re meant to, but when Nezumi ultimately managed to disarm Shion, the blade stopped right at his throat, the angel’s arms bent awkwardly behind his back so he couldn’t loosen Nezumi’s grip.

Nezumi found himself in the same position as during the Beginning, his mouth close to Shion's ear, dagger an inch from killing him and still, his hand stopped, paused, didn’t move again. He half expected Shion to come around with some sarcastic or overly blunt comment about his sudden uncharacteristic mercy, but the only thing that settled between them for what felt like forever was silence. Nezumi was in control, but he still found himself holding his breath.

Shion broke it first. “If you’re not going to kill me,” he said, “do you think you could let go of me now?”

Nezumi didn’t move for a moment, before he let out a quiet breath and loosened his grip. Still, he took Shion’s blade and kept it. Later, it would become his preferred weapon of choice.

“We’ve met before,” Shion said after he’d stepped away enough to look at Nezumi, a thoughtful expression on his face. Nezumi only nodded in response before trying to crack a grin, an attempt at seeming less bothered by the meeting than he was.

“You’re better now than you were, what, a hundred yeas ago?”

“Not good enough, apparently.” Shion smiled, and it was blinding. “Why didn’t you kill me this time either?”

“Like you said,” Nezumi tried to answer, voice feeling thick, “less mess.”

The Second Beginning ended when Shion realized that he’d been gone for quite a few hours, and the others would be angry when they found out he hadn’t succeeded. He left with one last look over his shoulder, looking like he wanted to stay, or maybe like he knew that Nezumi wanted him to stay. Nezumi was forced to look away when he disappeared in a ray of light, bright enough to blind him. He was left with a sudden chill and tug in his chest like something rapping on a door.

 

--

 

Twenty-seven years later, Nezumi still couldn’t get the image of smiling Shion out of his head, bright and curious and amazed at even the slightest lilt in conversation. They’d seen each other two other times between those twenty-seven years, but both times only increased the rapping in his chest, now like something trying to claw its way out.

Nezumi never told any of his friends—although he used the word lightly, as companionship between demons was rare, and the extent that friendship went to was not wanting to kill each other and maybe having a conversation every now and then—about the feeling that grew. If he told them, or even just if he said it out loud at all, there was a chance he would be found out and then he’d be sent to Earth permanently, deemed unfit to stay where he was. and as much as he enjoyed being stationed there, he didn’t want to live there. Earth was beautiful, but humans were horrible, and the repercussions that came with living on Earth for more than a few months made his desire to see the land pale in comparison for his desire to continue living. He wasn’t too keen on being sent to Earth because of a stupid feeling in the pit of his stomach; and even as the feeling built—rapping, rapping, rapping continuously, until it was getting unbearable—he ignored it.

He ignored it for a long time, even by his standards. They saw each other a total of nine times within 600 years, but when he saw Shion the tenth time, he still hadn’t changed, the same blinding smile, the same doe eyes, the same naivety that followed him even closer than a halo would, if angels actually had those.

They didn’t talk. Nezumi saw him staring at him from the other side of the room, eyes intent and heavy and full. Shion didn’t smile when they made eye contact, but it looked like he was repressing the urge to. The girl he was with, another angel, tugged on his sleeve and brought his attention back to her.

The moment ended.

The feeling grew.

 

--

In the end, only twenty-four years later, Nezumi was stationed to be on Earth permanently—which was as good as being found out, because being on Earth for long periods of time meant his body regressing back to its natural state, until he would eventually become human again. Depending on how long it took, he had about eighty years, ninety if he were lucky. Maybe less, if something sped the regression; and, of course, becoming more human meant he could die of other causes, instead of regenerating.

The End came when he found Shion, bleeding and shaking and covered in blood that looked too red to be angelic. He had wounds wrapping up the sides of his body, his arm, his leg, leading up his neck and snaking around to his cheek, like burn marks, heavy and scarred, his clothes torn where the wounds glowed. His hair was turning white, and the screams that tore through his throat got more hoarse the longer he kept it up; he was losing his voice.

Nezumi wasn’t sure what compelled him to stop the bleeding, treat the wounds, and carry the unconscious boy back to his makeshift home, but that’s what he ended up doing anyway. Shion slept for nearly a week, only waking up every now and then to stare up at the ceiling and mumble something to himself before falling back asleep. Nezumi was nearing two thousand years old, but those seven days felt longer than all the years under his belt combined.

The first thing Shion asked when he finally woke up was, “Where am I?” He was still blinking his eyes open; they were violet now, so unlike the doe brown they had been previously.

“The middle of nowhere,” Nezumi stated bluntly from where he sat next to the bed.

“Wha…Nezumi?”

Said man didn’t respond, instead crossing his legs and flipping through a book he’d already read four times. He’d been living on earth for a while now, a couple of months, maybe even a year, and to someone as old as he was, it felt like days. His perception of time and time passage was starting to adjust to a human’s, but there was still quite a lot of dissonance. Still, the regression had started already. He’d been feeling hunger since the first weeks, and fatigue overcame him like it never did when he was a full-fledged demon. He still had a few perks left over, such as a stronger body, but his tail and claws were gone, and he could feel himself grow weaker the more days passed.

“Why are you…?” Shion started to ask, but he trailed off uncertainly, frowning at the ceiling. He started again. “Are we on Earth?”

“Where else would we be?” Nezumi answered, faking disinterest.

“I…don’t know.” The angel tried to sit up, ignoring Nezumi’s remark of I wouldn’t do that if I were you, only to fall back a moment later, hissing in pain.

“You shouldn’t try to move yet,” Nezumi advised, flipping a page of his book, although he hadn’t really been reading it. “You’re still not in any shape to be getting up; your wounds will reopen if you try anymore than that, and then you’ll be stuck here in pain even longer.”

“Why are you on Earth?”

“Why are you on Earth?”

He didn’t respond for a moment.

“Nezumi,” he croaked.

“Hm?”

“Am I…”

Nezumi didn’t look up, but he glanced at Shion from under his bangs. After another moment of silence, signifying that Shion really wasn’t going to attempt his previous question again, he turned back to his book, flipped it shut, and stood up, making his way across the room to get a cup he’d filled with tap water.

He handed it to Shion. “Drink this.”

Shion did so with no comment, gulping it down like he’d never had water before; and, considering his background, he probably hadn’t—or at least hadn’t needed it.

“Why did you help me, Nezumi?” He asked once he’d finished drinking, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. He seemed to have just realized there were bandages covering his arm, as he stared at them for a moment too long.

Nezumi considered the question for a moment.

“You were screaming,” he said, taking the cup and setting it on the table behind him. “Much too loudly. You were starting to lose your voice, I could tell, and you were bleeding everywhere. When I was trying to help, you kept yelling for me to let you die. Do you remember that?”

Shion's face was red, like he was embarrassed by his actions. He looked away. “Some of it, yeah.”

“Hmm.” Nezumi busied himself with cleaning up the old bandages and replacing them with new ones. Shion tried to help the most he could, but he couldn’t move much in the state he was in. As the dark-haired man was pulling away, he grabbed his wrist to keep him in place, grip surprisingly firm considering the state he was in.

“You never answered.”

“Isn’t that answer enough, Your Majesty? You were obviously in pain, and I had the resources to help. It’s common sense.”

“But…” he frowned, looking troubled. “You’re a demon.”

“Not for much longer. Give me a couple more months, a year at most, and I’ll be a full, authentic human.”

Shion’s eyebrows furrowed. The news didn’t seem to help soothe him at all. “What?”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know that one lovely piece of information about demons,” Nezumi said, only half-sarcastically shaking his head.

“I…”

He sighed theatrically. “If a demon stays on Earth for long periods of time, they regress back to a human, with all the lovely perks of a human body, timespan, and emotions. You weren’t taught that, huh?”

“We…weren’t.” Shion responded finally, exhaling like it pained him to realize so. “Or…maybe we were? I can’t remember.”

“Seems unlike you to forget something like that,” Nezumi mused, more to himself than anything.

“I guess so…”

“You should rest some more,” he advised. “You’re still healing. It’s been a week, but those wounds are going to take much longer before you’re in any condition to get up.”

The angel nodded. “Alright.”

“I’ll be sleeping in the living room, since you’re in my bed. It’s late, so I’m going to sleep. If you need me, I’m sure I’ll hear you if you call loud enough.” He grinned at the last part, but none of the situation seemed appropriate for grinning.

“Alright,” Shion repeated. As Nezumi was at the door, just about to close it behind him, he suddenly spoke up, “Nezumi?”

Nezumi stopped. “Hm?”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said, but he still refused to look at Shion. “Goodnight, Your Majesty.”

“Goodnight.”

 

--

 

Nezumi woke the next morning and immediately went to check on the angel. When he got to his room, the man was awake, crying into his hands.

“Good morning,” Nezumi said as way of letting Shion know he was there, seeing as he didn’t seem to notice him come in. Shion didn’t look up and didn’t respond, instead just turning his head away and burying it in his pillow as if that would take back Nezumi having seen him.

The demon didn’t say anything, and when he racked his brain for something to break the ice, to make the atmosphere a little less uncomfortable, he could think of nothing. Instead, he found himself sitting down on the bed and prying Shion’s hands away from his face.

“Shion,” he said, “look at me.”

After a moment, the angel did; his eyes were red and puffy and so, so human, violet and striking and no less beautiful than when Nezumi had first seen them.

“I fell,” was all Shion was able to say before he was crying again, and Nezumi wasn’t sure what made him want to reach out and hold Shion, but he wanted to, so he did, and they sat there for a long time, until the sun hung in the sky and it was nearing noon.

When Shion pulled back this time, he wiped his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm himself. “I’m okay now,” he said, but Nezumi got the feeling it was more to himself than anything.

“I have work today,” Nezumi said. “But I don’t have to go in until two. It’s around lunchtime now. Do you think you can eat?”

Shion thought about it for a moment before nodding hesitantly. “Yeah. Yeah. Food sounds…good.”

“I’ll be back in a moment.”

Nezumi returned with a tray carrying two plates and two glasses of water, setting them down on the bedside table. They ate in silence, and quite a few times, Nezumi was afraid Shion would start crying again, but each time he bit his lip and continued eating.

“I’ve never cried before,” he said.

Nezumi didn’t look up from where he was eating. “I wouldn’t imagine you had.”

“I’ve never needed someone to comfort me before, either.”

The demon didn’t say anything at that. There was a pause in conversation.

“You’re being really nice to me,” Shion said once he’d finished all his food, setting the plate back on the tray and staring at his hands, still bandaged.

“Do you not want me to be?” Nezumi asked. He checked the time. He’d have to leave soon.

“No, it’s just…I mean…” Shion thought about it for a moment. “Demons and angels aren’t supposed to get along, but…”

The unspoken but we’re both human now hung in the air between them.

Nezumi snorted. “What a completely conventional and predictable way to think. Does it really matter anymore? Would you rather I left you to die? You would have, you know, if I hadn’t helped you. For a day or two, I thought you weren’t going to make it, even with my help, because you were in such bad condition.”

Shion shook his head. “No. I know, and I…I want to live. It isn’t that.”

“Then what is it?”

He smiled gently, a little bitterly. “Habits of thinking, mostly. You think that way for quite literally hundreds of years, and it becomes difficult to think any different—but you didn’t seem to have that dilemma with me at all. Why is that?”

“Oh, no, don’t get me wrong, I had that dilemma—to let you live or die, to save the enemy or leave you to suffer? I thought about it, but figured it didn’t matter here on Earth. The War doesn’t travel over here anymore, not like it used to. And I have nothing to lose anymore, since I’ll be human soon anyways. Might as well help you.” He leaned his chin on the palm of his hand, letting a slow teasing grin spread over his lips. “What would you have chosen, Your Majesty, if it had been the other way around?”

“I would’ve helped you.”

He smiled sardonically. “How noble.”

Shion ignored his sarcastic jab. “Two other times before, you had the chance to kill me, and both times, you chose to let me go.”

“What, getting nostalgic now?” Nezumi stood up, gathering the tray and their shared trash to take it down to the kitchen. “That was a long time ago. We were both really young then.”

“Why didn’t you kill me?”

“Both of those times, I told you the reason why.” Nezumi sighed, making his way to the door. “Less of a hassle, remember?”

“The real reason.”

Nezumi didn’t answer, just leaving the room in favor of putting the dishes away, making sure to take his time. His house was small, just one floor with a few rooms separated by a thin wall, but he was eager to put distance between them for a moment. Once he got back, Shion was lying down on his side, eyes closed and breathing steady, like he was asleep.

Nezumi pressed the back of his palm to Shion's forehead, feeling his temperature. He was warm. His body was still trying to adjust to being human.

“There isn’t a ‘real’ reason,” he mumbled to himself absentmindedly. “Not any more than there is a ‘real’ reason I’m stuck here on Earth, anyway.”

He turned away and started out the door to get ready for work.

“You’re stuck on Earth?” Shion called. Nezumi jumped in surprise before turning back around.

“You were pretending.” He glared.

“Sorry,” Shion apologized, not sounding sorry at all. “But you’re stuck here? Why?”

“None of your business.”

Shion frowned. Neither said anything for a moment.

“I’m off to work.”

Nezumi shut the door behind him a bit too harshly on his way out.

 

--

 

Somehow, Shion ended up living with Nezumi.

It took another day or two, but eventually, he was able to take his bandages off and move around again; Nezumi walked in on him staring forlornly at his reflection, looking with heavy eyes at the red snake wrapped around his body, curling from his leg up to his cheek. His hair had lost its color, and he ran his fingers through it like he was checking to make sure it was real.

“Personally, I find the white to be quite charming, but we can dye your hair back if it bothers you,” Nezumi had offered, but Shion shook his head and stood up on shaky legs. He nearly fell over, but managed to steady himself on the bathroom sink.

“It’s fine. I’ll just…keep it this way.”

Nezumi shrugged. “Suit yourself. I take it you’re feeling better?”

They made eye contact through the mirror, Shion giving him a small, gentle smile, not unlike the ones they’d shared years before while passing each other. “Yeah, just a bit. I’m thinking about looking around for a job tomorrow.”

“You might want to wait more than a day before job hunting,” Nezumi advised. “Your body isn’t ready for that much strain yet. Slow down a bit.”

“I know, it’s just…” he stared at himself in the mirror. “I feel bad for making you take care of me all on your own when you already have yourself to be worrying about.”

He shrugged. “It’s not that big of a deal, you know.”

“But it is. You didn’t have to save me, and you didn’t have to let me stay with you…you easily could’ve left me there to bleed out—even if I had been in the right state of mind to think about saving myself, I doubt I would’ve been able to account for the way my new body works, and the fact that I’m much more vulnerable now. I’m much less resistant, and I don’t think I would’ve remembered in the state I was in that humans need blood to survive. Even outside of that, in all reality, you should’ve kicked me out the moment I could walk.”

Nezumi’s eyes narrowed. “All great points. And what exactly are you getting at, Your Majesty?”

He turned around so his back was to the sink. His gaze was unwavering, eyebrows furrowed as he stared Shion down. “What’s your real reason for saving me?"

The demon snorted. “Don’t go acting full of yourself. You’re not something special. The only reason I helped you was to repay a debt. And we’re even now.”

“A debt…?” The information didn’t seem to clear up any confusion at all. “What…?”

“You don’t remember.”

“Well, if you would tell me, I’m sure I would—“ Shion cut himself off as his legs gave out under him. He grabbed onto the sink in an attempt to steady himself, but it didn’t do much to help; Nezumi was rushing forward before he could think to do otherwise, grabbing onto his elbow to help pull him up. Once he was steady enough, Nezumi took a step back.

“You’re still not in good condition.”

Shion shook his head, still clutching the basin. “I’m fine.”

“Don’t bother trying to find a job today. It won’t do you any good.”

“Nezumi—“

He didn’t slam the door on his way out, but he sort of wanted to.

Human emotions are a pain in the ass.

 

--

 

Both demons and angels alike used to be humans. They lived on Earth, had their own lives and families and memories, but when they died, they were turned into one of the two. It wasn’t a clear split between heaven and hell; in some cases, they bled over into each other, so that some areas were populated by both of the two classes, thus making it easier for the two to interact. Heaven wasn’t floating on clouds in the sky, and Hell wasn’t engulfed in flames under the Earth. Both were quite similar, to the point where if you weren’t careful, you could end up in either.

Angels didn’t remember who they were before they died. The only thing they were worried about was taking care of their jobs, keeping humans and Heaven safe, fighting the war, the whole stereotypically noble ordeal; but demons were different. Most of them weren’t reborn knowing all their memories, but quite a few were able to remember or regain them as time passed. The purpose for remembering had something to do with torturing them further; after all, demons were evil, and were reborn solely for the sake of suffering more.

Nezumi had always had his memories. He wasn’t sure just how old he was now or what year it was that he became a demon, but he knew that he had been sixteen when he died, swallowed in flames the way his family had been eight years prior. Most of his memories were scattered, just little blips of conversation and people he met and events that took place, but he still remembered his mother, the way she had cared for him so deeply and sang lullabies as he fell asleep, and the way she screamed as she was burned alive, the trees around them being eaten up by red hot flames that licked up his back and left a permanent scar. His whole clan had died that night, with him the sole survivor, the only one who had escaped the massacre.

When you were turned into a demon, you didn’t get a fresh new body, and you didn’t get relieved of all the things you didn’t want to remember; when he looked in the mirror, he could still see the burn marks at his spine like torn away wings.

After the massacre, he had little memory except starving and disease and suffering, but there was one image that stuck out above all else: a boy who could’ve been no older than him, treating a wound in his arm that would’ve otherwise been fatal, either due to blood loss or infection. How he got the wound, he couldn’t remember, but the image of those doe eyes, so bright and unwaveringly caring for what Nezumi was used to, never left his mind.

Even after he’d grown up and taken revenge on the people that had murdered his family, he didn’t forget those eyes.

 

--

 

“You think I’m the boy.”

Nezumi had just finished his story, albeit leaving out quite a few details, but he’d figured that since Shion couldn’t remember on his own, it wasn’t his fault he didn’t realize what the debt was.

“Tell me, Shion, do angels get new bodies when they’re reborn?” He asked, leaning back in the couch where he sat. He didn’t have much furniture in his makeshift home, but he’d taken the time to make sure he acquired a couch as long as Shion was living with him. They didn’t share the bed.

Shion thought about the question for a moment. “Well…no, I guess we don’t. Of course, a few fundamental things change when you’re reborn, like the composition of your body and the way it functions, making it much more resistant than a human’s and without the need for food or sleep, and, of course, the matter of wings and occasionally extra appendages—“

“You’re rambling again.”

“—But the basic structure is the same, yes. Our faces, body type, hair, and eyes are usually the same as when we were alive, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Nezumi nodded. “In that case, I don’t just think you’re the boy.”

“You’re saying that you are completely sure that I’m him.”

He didn’t nod, but his silence was answer enough.

“Nezumi…” Shion frowned at his hands where they sat in his lap. “That’s…”

“Ridiculous?”

“Well…sort of, yes.”

“Angels don’t get the privilege of remembering their past,” he said sarcastically. “But I did, and there’s no way I could’ve forgotten that. I’ve known you were him for a long time.”

“That’s the reason you never killed me?”

He shrugged noncommittally. “At first, I just didn’t want to kill you. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want to, so I chose not to. But I realized who you are—were.”

“And you felt like you owed me,” Shion finished for him. “So you brought me in when you found me, after I fell.”

“Yep. And now we’re even. You saved me, I saved you. No more favors need to be had, so don’t go feeling like you need to repay me.” He leaned over and flicked Shion on the forehead for emphasis. Shion rubbed his head and pouted.

“But I would feel weird if you repaid me for something I don’t even remember doing,” he continued to protest. “It still feels like I need to make it up to you, especially considering how much trouble I’ve caused.”

“You can make it up to me by not making a big deal out of it, starting now.”

He blinked. “That doesn’t seem right.”

Nezumi sighed dramatically and pushed himself off the couch. “You and your high sense of morality.”

“It’s not about morality—“

He waved Shion off. “I’ll be back in a bit. Try not to make a mess while I’m gone.”

“Where are you going?”

“Out.”

 

--

 

When Nezumi returned, Shion was asleep on the couch, curled up into a ball with an old blanket thrown over him. Nezumi set a bag of groceries in their makeshift kitchen, which really only consisted of a counter, a sink, and a fridge, and put the food he’d bought away; a couple of cans, some cheese and bread—just a few things to hold them over until Shion could find a job and help with the expenses and keep busy. The town they were in was in quite literally the middle of nowhere, and there were few things around, but Nezumi couldn’t seem to bring himself to be worried about Shion finding a job. He was too persistent and too eager to work. Someone would hire him soon enough.

Nezumi considered waking Shion up so he could sleep in their bed, seeing as he wasn’t fully healed yet, but in the end, he sighed and mumbled something to himself about not complaining if he got the better sleeping situation that night. He didn’t deny to himself that part of his reason for letting him sleep was because of the way he looked, peaceful and open and angelic, as ironic as that word choice was, with his white haired splayed around his head like a halo. The image wasn’t much different than from how he normally was, naïve and honest and so predictably pure, but there was a different air around him when he slept verses when he was awake.   

Nezumi sighed.

 

--

 

“Do you want to know why I fell?”

It had been a couple of weeks since Shion moved in with Nezumi, and since then, he’d found himself a few jobs here and there, cleaning and helping around at businesses, but his most steady one was washing dogs. The residents’ main source of income was still Nezumi, but he couldn’t say Shion wasn’t helping.

The two of them had been eating breakfast at the one small table in their alcove, falling into the rhythm they’d created of teasing banter, only half serious. It seemed both of their bodies were getting accustomed to a human’s body clock, as their sleeping and waking schedules were regulating, and Nezumi was starting to feel like the days were longer—but whether that was because of his regression or the snow falling on the ground outside, he wasn’t sure. Either way, they would need to invest in some warmer clothes soon. They would freeze otherwise.

“Why would you think I want to know?” He finally responded after a moment too long of silence.

Shion stared at his plate. “You never asked, but I’m pretty sure you’re curious. I can tell.”

He was right. Nezumi wanted to know. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“I know I don’t have to, but I feel like it would only be fair. After all, you’re letting me stay with you.”

“If you want to tell me just because you think it’ll somehow make us even, forget it. I don’t want you repaying anything when you have no reason to. We’re already even.”

“No, that’s not why,” he was quick to reassure. “I want to tell you.”

Nezumi stared at Shion, trying to gauge if he was lying, and after a moment, leaned back in his chair and nodded. “Okay.”

Shion took a steady breath, seeming to debate how he should go about it. “It’s…I assume you’re aware of the differences in angels and demons, right?”

“There are a lot of differences in case you couldn’t tell, so I’ll need you to be more specific than that.”

“I mean, angels and demons are reborn from humans who’ve passed, and we both keep the same basic body structure, but that’s pretty much where the similarities stop. Angels don’t have the same sort of emotions the way demons and humans do, and we don’t fundamentally work the same way either—if demons are born from hatred and sin, angels are born from—“

“Love and happiness and purity, all that shit. I’m aware,” Nezumi snapped.

Shion didn’t even blink at the interruption. “Right. So the ways our emotions and brain function are different. Humans and demons are actually very similar, in the sense that they can feel a wide range of things, like anger or a sense of justice or pain. Angels don’t have anything close to that. We don’t really feel…anything, most of the time. Happiness, maybe; a sense of tranquility, some times. We don’t get angry at injustices, which makes it easier for us to deliver ‘divine punishment’ and right what’s wrong without going overboard, and all of that that we’re supposed to do. We aren’t meant to remember our past because it makes us…”

“Sinful?”

“Something like that.” His voice sounded uncharacteristically small.

“Alright, so where are you going with this?”

“When an angel begins to remember their past,” Shion was staring at his plate, purposefully avoiding eye contact, “they can begin to regain all the emotions that are normally left for demons and humans—anger, hatred, jealousy, unhappiness, anxiety—anything that an angel shouldn’t, under normal circumstances, be able to feel.”

Nezumi could begin to see where this was going.

“It makes us unholy, to feel things like that. When an angel dies, they’re reincarnated on Earth again. Falling is similar, except we get to remain with the memory of our time in Heaven, wishing we could be back there.”

There was silence for a few moments. Shion’s eyes were shining like he was holding back tears.

“I’d seen one other angel fall, in all the time that I’d been reborn. I didn’t think much of it. That was what he got, you know? That’s how we viewed it. It was justice, and it was fair. We didn’t have the capacity to view it as anything different. It was the natural way of things, the way things were supposed to be; if an angel regained their memory, or went against Him, or did anything to make themselves sinful, they were thrown out of Heaven. It only made sense.”  

“Do you still think that way?”

Shion shrugged. “I don’t know. But I do know that I started…feeling things. Love. And anger. And a sense of injustice. My morals were shifting, changing from what angels considered normal. At first, I chalked it up to be nothing but an irregularity; I could fix it, I thought, or if not, it would go away soon. But then I started remembering things…” He smiled at his plate, a little sadly. “Did you know I had a mother?”

“Most humans do.”

“She had dark hair, and she baked, and she sang me to sleep. My dad died when I was little, so it was just the two of us. I was supposedly very smart, and I guess I looked a lot like her, because people told me I did pretty often.

“I was fifteen when I died. I don’t remember how, but it was painful, and my mother was crying a lot. And at the time when I was thrown out of Heaven, I didn’t remember you, but after you brought it up, I started having dreams about a boy I’d met in my other life, when I was twelve or so. He had very quiet eyes, and he tried to kill me when we first met. He didn’t, because I offered to treat his wound.” Shion smiled across the table. “Do you remember that?”

“It was in my arm.” He crossed his arms over his chest, but he felt his expression soften. “Hurt like a bitch, too.”

Shion laughed a little. “Yeah, I would imagine. It’s a very fitting first meeting, don’t you think? The first time I met you as an angel, you tried killing me that time too.”

“You were too curious for your own good.”

“Another thing angels aren’t supposed to be.”

The phrase hovered between them.

“So you fell because you recovered some of your memories, which is considered a huge no-no in Heaven,” Nezumi summarized. “And now you remember us meeting in our other lives?”

“Sort of.”

Nezumi nodded, but there was something that was still bothering him. “How…how long have you been feeling…emotions?”

“Probably since the day I was reborn, honestly.” Shion laughed, but it sounded cold and bitter and human. “I don’t think anyone noticed for a long time, because I kept it under wraps and barely realized it was there myself. Really the only thing I felt at first was curiosity, which didn’t inhibit me from my duties. Once things like anger and injustice started showing up…that was it for me, I guess.”

“So…what was the thing with your scar? And the hair?”

“Punishment.”

“Well, that’s a little fucked up.”

Shion snorted a laugh. “Yeah. And you know what’s funny?”

Nezumi raised an eyebrow to indicate he was paying attention.

“The way things work in Heaven is really messed up, but no one notices it, because we’re too holy to realize it. By angelic standards, it completely fine, but now that I have emotions and human morality, it’s just—it’s so messed up.”

“Oh trust me, I know. Why do you think demons hate angels so much?”

“You’ve been feeling like this since you were reborn?”

Nezumi nodded. “All two thousand years.”

Shion looked down. He stayed silent for a moment, evidently lost in thought.

“Do you regret it?” Nezumi asked in the silence. His voice was quieter than he’d anticipated it being.

Shion looked up from his food, distracted. “Hm? Regret what?”

“Being alive. Getting your memories back. Falling.”

He thought about it for a moment. They stayed in silence like that while he mulled the question over, eyebrows furrowed. Just as Nezumi was beginning to assume he wasn’t going to answer, he shook his head. “No. I don’t regret it. I’m glad I remember you, and you know…” He smiled. “Now that I have them, I don’t think I’d want my emotions gone.”

Nezumi felt his breath leave him. They maintained eye contact for a while. “You’re crying.”

Shion blinked, bringing a hand up to his cheek. “I am?”

Nezumi leaned over and wiped away a stray tear with his thumb, snorting to himself in a laugh that sounded fonder than he’d intended for it to be.

“You’re really an airhead, you know that?”

The moment ended.

The feeling grew.

 

--

 

It was winter. The two of them weren’t used to the cold, as most things that were completely new to them, but Nezumi was at least more accustomed to life on Earth than Shion was. He bought them both warmer clothes and extra blankets, but as the days passed and the nights grew longer, even those weren’t enough.

It was Shion’s idea at first.

“What?” Nezumi whipped around, momentarily forgetting he was supposed to be cooking them dinner.

“If we share the bed, it’ll be warmer.” Shion blinked at him in confusion. “I don’t see what the big deal is. Humans do it all the time.”

“Romantically involved humans, maybe,” Nezumi snapped.

“I just don’t see the point in alternating between one of us on the couch and one of us on the bed when the bed is big enough for two people. Plus we’d need less blankets that way, since we’d just share.”

Nezumi sighed. “You’re hopeless as always. But I guess, yeah. It’s better than sleeping on the couch every other day at least.”

Shion smiled, too bright and too pure.

Thus began a different routine, one consisting off sharing body heat and kicking the other on accident. Shion was more than annoying quite a lot of the time (all the time), because he couldn’t seem to understand that Nezumi saying “I’m going to sleep” meant he didn’t have free reign to just start talking. Their body clocks were almost fully on a human’s, so it was even worse than before when Nezumi was unable to sleep.

Their makeshift home was small, so it was a lot of shared space and bumping elbows in the morning while they got ready for the day. Shion had taken it upon himself to handle their financial situations; he was gone for most of the day, even longer than Nezumi, and had four or five jobs he rotated out on. How he found that many and how he kept up with them, Nezumi didn’t know, but it was helping considerably, so he chose not to mention it.

Because of their shared living arrangements, it was only natural that they got more acquainted, exchanging comments over dinner or on the way out. During the day, neither of them talked about their mutual past; they pretended they were normal people, normal humans, living in poverty on the outskirts of a small town populated by only a few hundred.

But at night, things were different; when Shion couldn’t sleep and Nezumi was still awake, he rolled over and talked. He kept talking, about his other life, about his time reborn, about the friends he’d made when he was human and the friends he made when he was an angel.

“I look a lot different now,” he mumbled one night. Their backs were pressed against each other, a sort of faux-reluctance to be near that neither of them really believed.

“I would imagine,” Nezumi said back, voice soft despite no one else being in the house to wake up. “Anyone would look different without the extra arms and wings.”

The sarcastic tone of his voice was ignored, as it often was. “I’m still getting used to having only one pair of arms. I don’t have scars from them.”

“Would you have wanted scars from them?”

He felt Shion shrug against him. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

There was a lull in conversation.

“Do you have them?”

“Have what?”

Shion’s voice was getting softer the more he talked. “Scars. From when you were…sent here. I don’t think you have a tail anymore, do you?”

“Nah. Too obviously demonic.”

“Mm.”

More silence.

Nezumi sighed. “I do. Have scars, that is.”

Shion rolled over to look at him. “Really?”

“Lower back, yeah. ‘S not a big deal though.”

Even before he said it, Nezumi knew Shion was going to ask, just a little too eagerly, “Can I see them?” so he was already sitting up when Shion asked, sighing to himself.

“If I show you, will you go to sleep?” he grumbled, even as he was already lifting his shirt. Shion grabbed a flashlight from beside the table (they hadn’t invested in a lamp yet, seeing as they were mostly out in the day anyway) before helping to lift the shirt up.

Shion was quiet as he studied the scar. Nezumi had seen it in their cracked mirror; it wasn’t a big deal, just a red mark the size of a golf ball on his lower back, along the stroke of his spine. He hadn’t lifted his shirt enough for Shion to be able to see his burn marks, as he wasn’t sure he wanted to show those just yet.

He felt a cold hand touch him, and tensed at the contact.

“Sorry, did I scare you?” Shion apologized, but he didn’t take his hand away.

“Don’t be stupid,” Nezumi snapped, but it was lacking in every aspect. He hadn’t had another person touch him without intent to harm since his other life. The contact felt strange, and foreign, and pleasant, and he wanted Shion to keep touching him, and maybe never stop.

Instead, he lowered his shirt and turned around, lying back down with a snapped, “There, see? Not a big deal, so go to sleep.”

Shion laid back down at the order, mumbling a quiet good night, Nezumi. Nezumi had closed his eyes and was resigning himself to sleep when he felt the gentle shake of Shion’s shoulders against his, a clear indication he was crying.

Nezumi didn’t turn around to comfort him, but he really wanted to.

 

--

 

In the morning, both acted like it hadn’t happened. Still, they repeated the routine that night, of talking about their past when it was dark and cold and they had nothing but their shared warmth and the lingering memories and the ache to go home to guide them—and whether home was Heaven or Hell, or whether home was their past lives, neither knew.

“I wish I had scars from them,” Shion had confessed, muffled into his pillow.

“You have enough as it is. Don’t go wishing for any more. You’d be stupid to do something like that.” Nezumi’s eyes were closed, but he didn’t have any trouble imagining the face Shion would make in response to that; eyebrows furrowed in confusion, violet eyes downcast, curling into himself just a little bit like he did when he was thinking too much.

“It’s…” Shion took a deep breath. “It’s not because I want scars, per say, it’s just…it feels like such a dream, you know?” He choked on the last words, coming out in a harsh, watery, humorless laugh. “Everything from when we were reborn, it feels like it was a dream. You—you have proof that you were a demon, that you’d been reborn, that you aren’t supposed to be human right now. You have a reminder. I just have to trust my memories, but how am I supposed to do that when they’re the thing that caused me to fall in the first place?”

Nezumi felt himself grow angry the more Shion spoke. “Yeah, exactly, I have a reminder of me being a fucking demon—I wouldn’t say it’s exactly the best thing to be reminded of.”

Shion was quiet at that. “Nezumi…”

He sighed, harsh and heavy. “Listen, I get that you’re—you’re an angel, of course you don’t get this, you don’t know how to—but trust me when I say that you don’t wish to be in my place. You don’t wish to have been me. The scar isn’t a badge and it isn’t something that’s meant to soothe me and hold my hand like you think it is. It’s a reminder that I’m a demon, or I was, or whatever the hell is happening. Don’t go around saying such selfish things when you don’t even know what you’re saying to begin with.”

They laid there in silence for what felt like forever. Nezumi had started to think he’d gone to sleep when he heard a small sigh.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Good. Now sleep.”

 

--

 

“I didn’t know you worked at the theatre,” Shion said one day as a way of greeting, taking his coat and shoes off at the door. “How come you never told me?”

Nezumi shrugged, not looking up from where he was sitting on the couch with his feet propped up on their coffee table, attempting to read. “I didn’t want you to know.”

“Oh.” Shion set the bags he was caring on the counter, pulling out a couple of cans and bread. “It’s your turn to make dinner tonight.”

“Mmm.”

Nezumi was too busy reading to notice Shion walking over to him, but he definitely noticed it when the book was snatched from his hands. “Hey!”

“It’s your turn to make dinner tonight,” Shion scolded, setting the book to the side and putting his hands on his hips, before crossing them like he was unsure which to choose. Nezumi had a clear image of what he would’ve looked like had he still had two pairs of hands; one set on his hips, one set crossed. Old habits died hard.

“I heard you the first time, Your Majesty.” Still, Nezumi stood up and stretched with his arms over his head. “How was dog washing?”

“Messy. Cold.”

Nezumi snorted and made his way over to the stove. “I would imagine. Why are you still coming in to wash them when it’s snowing outside?”

“If I don’t wash them, you know Inukashi won’t, and then their customers will have dirty dogs to curl up with.”

“That isn’t your problem.”

Shion frowned. “It is though. If I choose not to, it’ll be my fault if they get sick. So it’s my problem.”

Ever since falling, Shion had developed some sort of complex about helping others; something to do with his guilt for not having been able to feel angry or sad for others when horrible things happened to them. When Nezumi had first asked about it, he had frowned at his hands and talked about how, when he was stationed on Earth, he had seen countless tragedies: war, famine, death, abuse, rape—the list went on. And even as he saw all of those things taking place, he’d never felt sympathetic or angry for the people who experienced it; he’d only watched. Now that he could feel human emotions, he’d taken it on himself to care for everyone.

It was idealistic, and it was naïve, and it was so undeniably Shion.

“What about you?” Shion said, taking Nezumi out of his thoughts. “How was work today?”

“Boring. Long.”

Nezumi saw him grin out of the corner of his eye. “Rikiga said I should go to one of your shows.”

“That’s a fantastically horrible idea.”

Shion laughed, a clear sound that made Nezumi’s heart speed up. “You don’t want me to come see you perform? Isn’t your first show coming up?”

“I guess so. That doesn’t mean I want you to come see it.”

“I would feel bad missing it, though…”

Nezumi sighed, turning the stove on and getting out a pot to begin making soup, which was pretty much the only thing the two ever had.

“If you’re going to be that concerned with it,” he said, opening a can and pouring it into the pot, “I can give His Majesty his own home performance.” He gave a sardonic grin. “Would that please you?”

The offer was meant mockingly, but Shion actually seemed happy at the offer. He nodded, looking satisfied. “It would.”

Nezumi shook his head. “You’re—“

“An airhead, I know. Inukashi told me to remind you that you still owe them two gold coins.”

“Tell the bastard to get lost.”

“I’ll relay that message tomorrow, but I’m not sure how happy they’ll be.” He smiled before beginning to head back towards the bedroom, yawning. “Call me when dinner’s finished.”

“Don’t blame me if you don’t wake up in time.”

Shion only smiled wider. He closed the bedroom door behind him with a soft click.

The anniversary of Nezumi being stuck on Earth was approaching. He couldn’t remember what the exact date was, but he knew it was sometime in April. It was early February now, snow still falling on the ground outside, and it’d been two months since the two had started living together. Shion seemed much more accustomed to Nezumi and his attitude than he did back in December. He was doing much better too; he cried less, and when he talked about his memories, it was with a bit more fondness and a little less grief, although the longing never left his voice. Nezumi couldn’t really blame him. Were he able, he would’ve chosen to be an angel over a human or a demon any day.

But there was nothing either of them could do anymore except get by as they were. They both knew that. Nezumi hadn’t told Shion about the anniversary, nor had he even mentioned how long he’d been on Earth. He was fully human now, just as Shion was, and that’s all that mattered at the moment.

Dinner that evening was quiet, but not unpleasantly so; they sat in compatible silence while they ate. When they were done eating, Shion took both of their bowls to the sink and started washing them. They only had a few bowls and plates, so cleaning their dishes wasn’t much of a hassle, but Shion usually ended up doing it most of the time anyway. Whether or not it was because Shion still felt like he owed Nezumi, Nezumi didn’t know, but he didn’t question it. It seemed too mundane a task to make a big deal out of.

That night, Shion rolled over so he was facing Nezumi in their shared bed.

“Our bodies are used to a human schedule,” he said, like he was commenting on the weather.

“Correct you are. Which would be why I’m tired as fuck and you should go to sleep already.”

“You do this every night, Nezumi, I know you don’t ever fall asleep right away.”

“Only because you keep me up every night,” he grumbled, but he said no more, which was as much of a go ahead as Shion was going to get.

“Our bodies are getting used to human time and life span,” he continued. “The days feel a lot longer than they used to. And I know it’s only been a couple of months since I fell, but it feels like way more than that.”

Nezumi nodded, just making out the outline of Shion’s expression in the dark. Two violet eyes trained themselves on a spot on the cover.

“In Heaven, months felt like days. Nothing much happened in that short amount of time, not enough to be significant at least. I always liked visiting Earth every now and then, because every time I went, it seemed so different, like the seasons changed over night.” He seemed to smile at the memory. “Now it feels like they take forever.”

Nezumi snorted. “I wouldn’t mind getting out of this frozen hell myself.”

The comment brought a laugh from Shion. “Yeah, I can’t say I disagree with that.”

“Are you happy?”

Shion halted. “What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly what I asked. Are you happy?”

He frowned. “I can’t really tell what qualifies as happy.”

“Try.”

Shion thought about it for a moment, biting his bottom lip and alternating between wringing his hands and clenching them, those old habits still present. “I guess...” he started. Nezumi waited patiently.

“I guess I was like that in Heaven at some point—happy, I mean. But I can’t remember what it felt like, so maybe I wasn’t as happy as I thought I was.” He was still frowning.

The two waited in silence for a moment. Nezumi found himself scooting closer in the bed, the overwhelming urge to touch hitting him like a truck. He threw an arm over Shion’s waist and pulled him closer so his nose was buried in that white hair.

“Nezumi…?” Shion asked, sounding confused but not upset.

“Just let it happen,” he mumbled, voice muffled as he was still pressed against Shion. “Think about the question. It’s fine if you can’t come up with the answer tonight; just tell me in the morning. But I’m going to sleep, because I had a long day and I’m tired as fuck, so g’night.”

He heard the smile in Shion’s voice when he said, “Alright. Good night, Nezumi.”

Nezumi was already half asleep when he felt Shion melt into him and mumble, “I think…that the answer is probably yes. Yeah. I’m happy.”

 

--

 

Shion never explicitly said it out loud, but Nezumi could tell that he hated the scars that wrapped around his body.
“It looks like a snake,” he’s said one day after having passed a mirror while they were walking around town at the market. He stared at his reflection, scowling with eyes just a bit too sad. Nezumi tugged on his wrist and told him to keep moving or he’d get trampled by the people behind them.

That afternoon, when they got home, he said, after passing Shion looking disgustedly at the mark on his arm, “You don’t seem too happy with those.”

“Hm?” Shion looked up and then back at where Nezumi was pointing to his arm. “Oh. Yeah, I guess I can’t say I am.”

He thought about saying something sarcastic, something mocking to lighten the mood, or to get on his nerves, or whatever it was he was hoping it would achieve—but the words wouldn’t come, and even when the phrase formed in his mind, it got stuck on his tongue. The topic was too serious; the scars were too much of a reminder to Shion of what he used to be, of what had transpired, and he looked so genuinely upset about having them there to remind him that it felt cruel to make a joke of it.

What came out of his mouth instead was, “It’s your turn to cook tonight,” before he turned and walked back to the bedroom, cursing himself quietly for not having said something different.

 

--

 

“You were at the show tonight,” Nezumi stated rather than asked as he walked in the door, throwing his jacket off with more force than needed. He was less than happy.

Shion smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “You caught me.”

“Did Rikiga take you?” Nezumi just a bit less harsh than intended, taking his shoes off and heading to the stove to heat up leftover soup. They weren’t able to eat dinner together tonight, as Nezumi had been at his show, and evidently Shion as well.

“No. Inukashi did.”

He quirked an eyebrow at the news. “Inukashi took you? To one of my shows?” He snorted a laugh. “Sure.”

“Rikiga got the two of us tickets,” he continued, ignore the comment, “but something came up and he wasn’t able to come. I gave the other to Inukashi, and they came with me.”

“And I’m sure they had a blast.” He poured his dinner into a bowl and shuffled around to find a spoon before plopping down on the couch unceremoniously. All he wanted to do was eat his dinner and then go straight to bed.

“They seemed to like it, actually!” Shion’s eyes lit up as he retold their night, something about how Inukashi was a “good friend” to go with him to something like that; apparently they hadn’t felt like letting Shion go by himself and risk a shady place like that. That part Nezumi could believe, but there was no way Inukashi had stayed for more than ten minutes of the show.

Shion shrugged. “They did! Oh, but I have a feeling it was just because I was there, and they didn’t want to leave me alone.” He smiled fondly at the memory. Nezumi couldn’t help but to notice that he was much more open in expressing positive emotions than he used to be.

“So you saw the show, huh.” Nezumi took a spoonful of his dinner and leaned his chin on the palm of his hand. He was more angry about the whole ordeal than he was letting on, but it was getting easier to let things go these days; when he was a demon, every negative emotion burned so much brighter and lasted so much longer than they did now that he was human. There wasn’t much he could do about Shion having seen him now. And in any case, he wasn’t ashamed of it.

“Yeah.” Shion nodded. “You were amazing.”

Nezumi grinned a little sarcastically. “Be careful with your compliments, Shion. You might inflate my ego even more if you keep this up.”

“I’m serious though, you were amazing. I didn’t know you could sing so well.”

“What, you’re saying you’ve never overheard me in the shower?”

Shion shrugged. “You sing to yourself sometimes, yeah, but it’s different from on stage.”

Nezumi nodded like he understood, swallowing another spoonful of soup. “And whatever happened to me giving you a ‘home performance’?”

Shion raised an eyebrow in challenge. “You only said that because you didn’t want me to go.”

“Not true.” Nezumi leaned back where he sat, propping his feet up on the table. “What if I had everything all planned out already, huh? And you just ruined all my hard work.”

Shion smiled, too honestly happy with the banter. “You wouldn’t have needed to plan anything anyway, since you already had to memorize your lines for the play…unless you were counting on doing something special just for me.” The last part was said with that same smile, although now it looked challenging.

“Did you want me to do something special for just you?”

“If it were okay with you, I think I’d like that.”

They sat in silence for a few seconds, neither breaking eye contact. Finally, Nezumi had to look away under the weight of his gaze, somehow sultrier than he’d seen him before, and it occurred to him suddenly that Shion was flirting, and it was working a bit too well.

“Well.” he stood up, having finished his meal, and brought his bowl over to the sink. “As much as I would love to do that, it seems I can’t as of now, seeing as you went to the show anyway.”

Shion pouted, bottom lip jutting out. “Next time, then?”

“Next time,” Nezumi promised.

 

--

 

“Do you regret it?”

Nezumi’s hands stilled where he was pulling a shirt over his head. He thought about how to respond for a moment. “Regret what?”

“Your other life,” Shion said, like it was an obvious answer. He was sitting on the bed in their room, watching Nezumi change while the two of them got ready for the morning.

Nezumi pulled his shirt off, tossing it on the bed before putting a clean one on. “What made you ask that all of the sudden?”

“I don’t know. I was just wondering.”

“Usually people don’t ‘just wonder’ about something like that. And if they do, they don’t actually ask it.”

“You don’t have to answer.” Shion crossed his legs where he sat, sitting with his hands in his lap. “It was only a question.”

Nezumi sighed and said nothing as he finished getting dressed. While he was putting on his shoes, he finally responded, “A little.”

Shion perked up at his voice, waiting to see if he would say anything else.

“I don’t regret how I acted and how I spent my life, as short as it was. Obviously, I wish I hadn’t been…”

“Reborn,” Shion finished.

He nodded. “Yeah. Reborn. And if I had to be, I can’t say I would’ve minded being an angel.”

“I’m not sure it was all it was cracked up to be,” Shion mumbled.

“Mm.”

They finished getting ready in compatible silence. As they were leaving the house, Nezumi asked, “Do you regret it?”

He thought about it. “Not much. I regret leaving you, but even when I was dying I don’t think it ever crossed my mind to be sorry about how things turned out. If anything, I just wish I had been there for my mother more. I have no idea what happened to her after that.”

“So you don’t wish you hadn’t fallen?”

“At first I did, yeah.” He smiled. “But I think I’m okay now.”

 

--

 

They fought.

Nezumi was naturally hot-tempered, and Shion too optimistic; their views too different and morals too skewed. Neither said it, but it was clear that they were opposites, almost too greatly so. They were, in simple terms, incompatible, and had been since the start.

It wasn’t new information. Nezumi knew that. Shion had to have known that. They were opposites in the most literal of ways, from the very beginning; but there had been a peace that settled for the months following their descent that led them to believe it was okay. They argued often, just little banter that was only half malicious on Nezumi’s side and still managed to bounce right off Shion, but it was never anything serious. It was never something that truly hurt either of them.

Nezumi had been in a bad mood, and they’d fought—over what, he couldn’t remember. Something mundane, something irrelevant; a comment Shion had said in passing, something idealistic and ignorant about the nature of the two. It wasn’t important, and it shouldn’t have caused a big fuss.

They didn’t talk for three days after that. Nezumi wasn’t nearly as upset over the exchange as he was letting on, but Shion wasn’t saying anything, and it was easy to pretend he was still angry about it for a day or two longer than he was, just for the sake of ignoring confrontation. He was, after all, an actor.

Shion didn’t cry over it, but when they slept, he rolled over and refused to face Nezumi for the first time in weeks. Their backs didn’t touch. Shion shifted away if they ever did. He had spent two thousand years getting used to being alone and avoiding physical contact, but now that he’d known what it felt like, it felt so much worse to have it be taken away again all of the sudden. But Nezumi was anything if not stubborn, and he refused to give in and apologize first.

The fourth day rolled around. Their mornings were spent in silence. Shion didn’t so much as look at him. They didn’t say goodbye on their way to work.  

Inukashi must have noticed that Shion wasn’t acting so much like himself, because they showed up at Nezumi’s work that afternoon, right as he was getting off and getting ready to go back home.

“What the hell did you do?” They demanded, hands on their hips.

Nezumi finished wiping his lipstick off. “That would be easier to answer if I knew what you were even talking about.”

“Oh, cut the bullshit, you know exactly what I’m talking about!” They were right. He did know. “What the hell did you do to make Shion so goddamn upset?!”

“I didn’t do anything,” he snapped, standing up and throwing the wipe in a trash bin. He talked as he drew his hair up in a bun. “We got in a little argument, it’s no big deal. I’m just letting him cool off for a while.”

Inukashi rolled their eyes, blowing a strand of hair away from their face. “Sure, a ‘little argument.’ I’ve seen you guys get in arguments before, but he just laughs it off and says it’ll be fine by the time he gets home. He hasn’t said that in, like, three days. What did you say to him?”

“It’s none of your business.” He pushed past them irritably.

“It is if it’s going to affect Shion’s work.” They followed him. “I’m not paying him to look upset and sulk the whole damn day.”

“You’re barely paying him to begin with.”

“And you’re changing the subject.”

“How he acts when he’s at work isn’t any of my concern.” He shrugged his jacket on and started out the door, waving at his manager to signal he was leaving. Inukashi followed them for a moment, before stomping their foot and throwing their hands in the air in exasperation.

“Ugh! Ok, fine!” They huffed. “At this point, I’m not saying it as his employer, but—Shion’s my friend, alright, and I care about him—“

“Oh? How interesting. I didn’t realize you were capable of that.”

“Shut up, bastard. My point was, I care ‘bout him, and you really fucked with his head or something, because he’s been acting weird—and not, like, Shion weird, like weird weird.” They looked down, arms crossed grudgingly. “And you don’t have to tell me what it was you fought about or whatever the hell, but just make it up to him. If you care about him at all, you’ll get off your damn high horse and apologize for once.”

They started down the alley, headed towards their hotel. “And if he’s not okay by tomorrow, I’m kicking your ass!” They called.

Nezumi sighed.

If you care about him at all…

“That’s the whole damn problem, though, isn’t it?”

 

--

 

When Nezumi got home, Shion was already there, lying on his back on their couch, staring at the ceiling and mumbling to himself.

Nezumi frowned, momentarily forgetting that they were supposed to be mad at each other. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Shion titled his head back so he could see Nezumi, and blinked. “Why’re you upside down?” His words sounded slurred.

Nezumi stared at him a moment. “Don’t tell me you’re drunk.”

“What?” Shion’s eyes widened. “No. ‘F course I’m not drunk.” He stayed silent for a moment. “Am I?”

“What, did you go out with Rikiga again or some shit?”

“Mm,” he hummed, seeming to think about it. “I don’t think I did. I saw him a little bit and went back to his house, but—“

“That’s exactly what I meant, airhead. This’s just…fantastic.” Nezumi sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “So, what, he got you drunk? Let me guess, he offered for you to work for him too.”

For some reason, Shion laughed at that. “No, of course he didn’t do that. I think—I think Rikiga thinks I’m a saint or somethin’; he was reluctant to give me anything to drink to begin with. I don’t think he thinks I’m even capable of something like sex.” He frowned suddenly. “An’ anyway, aren’t—aren’t you supposed to be angry at me? You haven’t talked to me in daaaays.” He rolled over on the couch so he was lying on his stomach instead, pouting. “’S a long time.”

“I came to apologize, actually, but now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t think I will,” Nezumi grumbled, taking his jacket off and beginning to walk back to the bedroom to sleep and not deal with a drunk Shion.

“Aww, what? No, c’mooon, that’s not fair!” Shion pushed himself off the couch and followed after Nezumi. “Why’re you takin’ it back?”

“Because you’re drunk and I’m not about to apologize to you like this. That’s bullshit.”

“Why’s it bullshit?”

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m not too big on saying sorry, so I’d rather not the only time I do it be while you’re falling over yourself.”

“I am not—“ He tripped over the door’s threshold, cutting himself off. “Okay. I’m mostly not falling over myself.”

Nezumi ignored him, feeling a headache coming on, and sat down on the bed, kicking his shoes off and beginning to get changed to sleep. He wasn’t very hungry or in the mood to deal with any more bullshit.

“You know,” Shion started, sitting on his side of the bed, legs crisscrossed, “I’ve been—I’ve been alive, I guess that’s what you say? Are angels alive? Well, I was an angel for, like, a couple thousand years an’—“

“We were like that the same amount of time, dipshit,” Nezumi interrupted.

Shion pouted. “Anyway. I was like that for, like, a long time, but angels can’t get—get inebriated, ‘cause I dunno, body composition and stuff, so I never bothered trying wine or alcohol in the first place.”

“Are you going anywhere with what you’re currently saying or are you just spouting absolute bullshit?” Nezumi snapped.

“So I’ve never gotten drunk before!” He continued like he hadn’t heard the outburst. “And it’s not really that great? I don’t get why Rikiga does it all the time. Anyway—I had a point to what I was saying, I’m pretty sure. I think.” He flopped on his back on the bed, looking at the ceiling.

Nezumi continued changing in silence, pulling his shirt over his head to throw a clean one on.

“Mm, Nez’mi?” Shion mumbled, sounding like he was about to fall asleep, but he was staring at Nezumi very intently. Nezumi paused what he was doing and glanced at him from the corner of his eye, feeling self-conscious under the violet gaze. He turned away and grunted in way of letting Shion know he was listening.

“When—when I was an angel, I didn’t get to…to feel stuff, y’know that?” His voice sounded small.

“I know.”

“But I’m human now, so I get to feel all sorts of stuffs, like being drunk, for ‘xample.” He giggled, and Nezumi felt him scoot closer on the bed.

“Congrats,” he mumbled, feeling arms wrap themselves around his waist, keeping him from putting his clean shirt on. Still, he didn’t move away.

“Angels only get to feel happy, sort of…” His ‘s’s were slurred. “But I can get angry now. An’ upset. An’ anxious. I can feel love and jealousy and sadness and—and—you get the point.”

Nezumi felt Shion’s arms tighten in a hug, pressing his forehead into Nezumi’s shoulder. “Before I met you, I didn’t know what it was like to feel all of that stuff…I was defective, I guess—as an angel, I mean—‘cause even…even before I fell, I think I was in love with you.”

Nezumi didn’t say anything.

Shion continued. “Y’know, if we had stayed together in our other lives—if we hadn’t died so early an’—an’ if we’d stayed friends—I would’ve fallen in love with you then, too, I think. I think I always would’ve fallen in love with you. I think that no matter what, I would’ve fallen in love with you, over and over again.”

“You’re throwing those words around again,” Nezumi said through clenched teeth. “You don’t know what those mean, the weight they carry—”

“But I do!” he protested. “I do know what they mean! I only feel this stuff because of you, Nez’mi, and I’m not…I’m not exaggerating or imagining any of this…” His voice cracked. “Don’t tell me everythin’ that’s happened between us has been…has been my imagination…Don’t you dare say that…”

They sat in silence for a few moments. Shion’s shoulders were shaking. Nezumi turned around on the bed so he was facing Shion and lifted his head up to face him.

“Shion,” he said, voice oddly thick. “It’s nothing to cry about.”

Shion blinked up at him in confusion. “Then why are you crying?”

“I’m…” Nezumi brought a hand up to his cheek; felt the tears there. He smiled bitterly. “Well, that’s bullshit.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” he dismissed. “We should talk about this when you aren’t drunk.”

“I’m only a little drunk,” Shion insisted. “Tipsy’s a better word.”

“It’s bed time. Go to sleep, Shion.”

“Okay.” He grabbed Nezumi’s hands in his and didn’t let go. “You’re sleep’ng too.”

Nezumi sighed. “Yeah. Okay.”

 

--

 

Shion must’ve woken up first, because Nezumi stirred to grumbling and muffled cursing.

“Aww, hell…” Shion mumbled, his arms tightening around the pillow he was hugging. He groaned into it. Nezumi shifted his arms around Shion as a signal that he was awake.

“’Don’t hear you curse very often,” Nezumi commented groggily. Shion shifted in his arms so they could face each other.

“My head is killing me,” he groaned. “Do we have any Asprin?”

“In the bathroom. ‘S probably not much left though.”

Shion wiggled his way out of Nezumi’s grasp and disappeared into the bathroom. He returned a moment later, tipping his head back to swallow the pill, grimacing after it was over and throwing away the paper cup he’d used for water.

“I hate taking pills,” he complained, climbing back into their bed. It was too early for either of them to start getting ready for the day. Nezumi half-hoped that Shion didn’t remember anything that had happened with him last night, but considering the fact that he wasn’t pulling away from contact, Nezumi was probably hoping in vain.

Sure enough, just as he thought they were going back to sleep, Shion said, voice quiet, “You never did apologize, you know. And I’m sober now, painfully so.”

Nezumi snorted into Shion’s neck. “You’re right about that.” He felt himself frown unintentionally. “I’m sorry about what I said.”

“…Which time?”

He shrugged. “All of them, I guess.”

“We still need to talk about last night.”

“I’m forbidding you from ever going out drinking with Rikiga again.”

It was meant as a joke, but Shion didn’t laugh. “You know what I meant.”

They stayed silent for a few moments. Nezumi sighed. “So I take it that means you remember everything, right?”

Shion nodded.

He sighed again. “What do you want to talk about first, then, Your Majesty?”

“Why do you keep refusing to believe that I’m in love with you?”

Nezumi barked a laugh. “I thought that one would be obvious. We’ve only known each other for six months.”

“We’ve known each other much longer than that and you know it, Nezumi.”

He didn’t say anything. Shion sighed and turned around so they were face to face.

“Why were you crying last night?”

“I wasn’t.”

“Nezumi…”

“I don’t know why,” he admitted finally. “Human emotions are bullshit anyway.”

“You don’t like them,” Shion observed.

He smirked sarcastically. “No shit.”

“Nezumi,” Shion said. “I’m in love with you.”

“You’re not.”

“Stop saying I’m not!” He sat up abruptly, eyebrows furrowed in frustration at Nezumi. “Stop acting like you know what I’m feeling better than I do!”

“You’re just new to the whole ‘emotions’ thing,” Nezumi continued. “You’ve only just gotten yours, but I’ve had mine since I was reborn—“

“And it was, what? Anger? Hatred? Distrust?” Shion’s voice was rising, his hands running around in a flurry as he talked, body still trying to make up for the lack of gesticulation from only having one pair of arms. “I know how demons work, I’m not ignorant, and I know that it wasn’t things like love and trust and comfort that you were feeling, it wasn’t the good things, you’ve told me that enough. It was all the bad stuff, I know that, but you keep forgetting that I’ve had emotions! I had them before I fell! I’ve felt like this about you since before you found me!”

Nezumi sat up himself. “What do you know about things like love? You lived all of your years in luxury, and sure you couldn’t get angry at shit, but we’re not talking about anger, Shion. We’re talking about love, or whatever it is you think you’re feeling for me—which, when it comes down to it, is just fascination,” he sneered. “You’re just a little kid who’s jumping to conclusions about someone you feel like you owe. It’s the novelty of it. I could be anyone.”

Shion turned his head away, refusing to look at Nezumi. His eyes were staring at the sheets in front of him, his hands clenched. “What do you know about things like love, then? You’ve never felt it. I know you haven’t.”

“You don’t know—“

“See! There you go again! There’s your hypocrisy!” He threw his hands in the air. “I can’t possibly know what you feel, but somehow you know exactly what I’m feeling. I can’t feel love, but you can. I can’t know how the world works, but you can. That’s bullshit, Nezumi, and you know it is. You’re making excuses.”

“I only say that because it’s true. You’re a kid, you’re so damn easy to read—“

“You don’t think I know you as well as you know me.” His voice was surprised, apparently having just made that revelation.

“Of course I don’t. It’s true, isn’t it? You wear your heart on your sleeve; you never think about what you say, you’re too idealistic for your own good, you think that everyone is somehow—“

“You talk in your sleep.”

Nezumi stopped. “What?”

“When you’re having a bad dream, you talk in your sleep. Sometimes you say my name. I try to wake you up if it looks too bad, but you usually calm down when I hold your hand, so I figure it’s okay.”

He willed himself to not get embarrassed. “Thank you for telling me, Your Majesty, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“You grit your teeth when you’re annoyed, but not when you’re angry; you clench your fists if you’re really pissed off, like you’re ready to hit who ever it is you’re talking to. You laugh when things aren’t funny because you think it’s ironic or because you’re being pessimistic. You’re scared of me saying that I’m in love with you. You’re only so vehemently denying that I know anything about my own emotions because if I do, then that means that I really do love you; you’re scared of rejection, and of being hurt, and of growing attached because you know that things can be taken from you so easily. But I don’t think you actually want me to not be in love with you, do you? I think you love me back, but you don’t want to admit it, not to me, and not to yourself.”

Nezumi couldn’t find his voice. He wanted to respond, to scream, to yell, get angry, and say, you’re wrong about me, Shion, I don’t care about you. None of that is right; you’re all wrong, you’ve been wrong this whole time, you don’t know anything about me. But the words wouldn’t come. They got stuck in his throat like the time he tried to make fun of Shion’s scars. They felt petty, and wrong, and he couldn’t say them, no matter how hard he tried.

He wasn’t sure when Shion had gotten so near, but suddenly his face was impossibly close to his, close enough to feel his breath on him, close enough to see his eyelashes, white and beautiful and fluttering half-closed as he leaned in. “Tell me if I’m wrong, Nezumi,” he said. “Tell me I’m wrong, that you don’t want me to do this, and I’ll stop. Tell me.”

Nezumi didn’t tell him.

 

--

 

Shion leaned in.

Nezumi let him.

 

--

 

“Hey,” Inukashi barked.

Nezumi barely glanced at them. “I’m at work. Go away, unless you’re here for the show.”

They ignored him completely. “What did you say to Shion?”

“I thought you weren’t going to ask about it as long as he started acting normally again,” he responded, stuffing his hands in his pockets moodily.

“I said I wasn’t gonna ask what you fought over, but you obviously haven’t apologized yet, so I want to know what’s such a big deal that you can’t get off your ass and say you’re sorry already.”

“What makes you think I haven’t apologized?”

They scoffed, rolling their eyes. “I’m not stupid, ya know—“

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“—And Shion’s still acting weird.”

He stayed quiet for a moment, busying himself with taking his hair down and shrugging out of his jacket before sitting down in the chair in front of the mirror, cracked and dirty but still in use. “I already apologized.”

They snorted. “Sure ya did.”

“Believe what you want, but I did, this morning actually. I was going to last night, but when I got home from you yapping at me, he was drunk—“

“What?”

He didn’t flinch at the raised voice, only shrugging in response. “He went out with Rikiga, apparently.”

Inukashi’s jaw clenched. “Of course. What else could you expect from Rikiga, the greedy fucking asshole.”

“What, protective much? You get that worried about Shion, huh.”

“I’m not protective!” They snapped. “You think Rikiga’s an asshole too, so I don’t know where you’re getting off from!”

“Watch your word choice there.”

“Shut up!”

“Anyway, the point is: I apologized already, so you have no reason for coming to yell at me again. I did what you told me to, so I don’t get why you seem so eager to fight me. You know you’d just get kicked out right now, seeing as I’m at work, and supposed to be getting ready right now.”

They growled low in their throat, obviously less than pleased at the comment. “I don’t care if you apologized, because whatever it was you did just ended up messing with Shion more, which is the opposite of what you were supposed to do.”

Nezumi turned around in his seat so he was facing Inukashi, reaching a hand up to grab their chin in his hand and pull them forward so the two were nose to nose as he talked.

“What, you’re worried about Shion? You care about him? I thought you were the one who was supposed to not have any attachments, isn’t that right?” His voice slipped into a higher pitch; it was a woman’s voice, deceivingly sweet and maternal. “Caring about people only brings you down. Don’t you know that by now, little one?”

They jerked away from his grip angrily, face red. “Oh, that’s rich coming from you. You care about the weirdo even more than I do, you damn hypocrite. And Shion’s…Shion doesn’t deserve to get dragged down by you. He cares about you—not that I can see why, considering how much of an asshole you are. He’s too damn naïve for his own good, and if you aren’t careful you’ll end up like he is.” They glared at him.

Nezumi smirked, voice returning to normal. “That won’t happen.”

“It already has.”

The smile left his lips, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “What exactly are you getting at?”

“You’ve already lost, Nezumi. You let yourself get affected by him and now you can’t shake him off. That’s your own business if you set yourself up to get hurt—frankly, I couldn’t give less of a damn. But you better not hurt Shion in the process.” They turned around, voice low. “You’ll really be the naïve one, then.”

Nezumi didn’t say anything as they left the room, the door slamming shut loudly behind them. He sighed into the silence that followed, thinking about what they’d said. His eyes narrowed.

“I’ve already lost, huh?”

 

--

 

Shion got home after him that night, as he’d had something to “take care of,” as he’d put it, before he left work. They ate dinner in silence, both avoiding eye contact. When it came time to do dishes and Nezumi went to work on them without being prompted, Shion stared at him for a good couple of seconds before sighing.

“Nezumi, we should talk,” he said.

“Last time we tried to do that, it ended up making things worse,” Nezumi quipped. “We’d be better off not opening that can of worms, don’t you agree?”

“I don’t agree, actually.” Even without turning around, he knew Shion was frowning, always so predictable.

But, no, that wasn’t it; he wasn’t predictable at all. Nezumi wasn’t sure what he was getting himself into half the time, still living with someone like Shion and even going as far as to form an attachment. He doubted he could’ve broken off from Shion at that point anyway.

He’d done this to himself, and now it was too late to go back.

Might as well plow on forward.

“How come you didn’t push me away this morning if you were just going to stay quiet all day and ignore me?” Shion continued, none the wiser to Nezumi’s current predicament.

Nezumi didn’t turn around to answer. “I was giving you time to think things through and work stuff out on your own. More confrontation would’ve just made it worse. In fact, I think it’s currently making things worse, but you’re going ahead anyway, against what I’ve already advised.”

“So how long were you planning to give me to ‘work stuff out’?” Shion didn’t sound angry, but his tone was tense, inquiring.

“A day, maybe two. However long you needed,” Nezumi responded coolly, rinsing off the last bowl left and wiping his hands on a dishrag. “But you seem eager to start things now.”

“You always let things fester,” Shion said matter-of-factly. “You’ll let things like this sit on the back burner for as long as possible until you can’t ignore it anymore. But I don’t want to ignore it, and I don’t want you to ignore me. I don’t regret what I did, and I don’t take back what I said—I meant, and still mean, all of that. Would it make you more comfortable if I chose different wording?”

“’I love you’ has too many connotations already attached to it,” Nezumi replied, turning around finally to face Shion and tossing the dishrag back on the counter. “Too many preconceived notions about it and the people exchanging the sentiment."

Shion blinked and seemed to think about how to respond for a moment. “It’s got certain connotations, yes, but I’m not sure any of them are false to what I’m feeling. It seems like the best word choice I could’ve come up with at the time.”

“But now that you’ve had time to think about it, have you thought of anything better?”

He shook his head in a no. “I stick by what I said, Nezumi. I do love you, and I don’t wish I hadn’t kissed you, although you’re sort of acting like you think otherwise.”

Nezumi pointed to himself faux-innocently. “What, me?” He smirked. “Now why would I regret something like that? I’d say it was as good a kiss as any. Although I could’ve done with it being not so early in the morning.”

“So…” Shion bit his lip in thought; he was shifting subtly where he stood, like he did when he was worried or nervous. “You’re not angry about me kissing you?”

“Trust me when I say that if I hadn’t wanted you to, I would’ve stopped you.”

He let out a puff of air, somewhere between a relieved sigh and a laughed-huff. “Yeah, on that one I can say I trust you.”

“I am, however, disappointed.”

Shion looked up, blinking in confusion at the comment. “Disappointed? About what?”

Nezumi grinned, less hostile than usual but just as teasing. “Was that the best you could do, Your Majesty? Don’t tell me that was your first kiss.”

Shion stared at him for a second, eyes wide and mouth just the smallest bit open like a surprised fish. Nezumi could almost see his brain processing the comment, and once he did, his face heated up in a blush until it disappeared behind his scar. “Angels didn’t…find enjoyment from things like romantic or otherwise intimate relationships, and by the time I’d been reborn I was still only fifteen…” He scratched his cheek, like he was embarrassed.

Nezumi stared back before the information hit him and he burst into a fit of laughter. “Oh my God, you’re serious? That was seriously your first kiss?”

“It’s not that funny!” Shion defended, expression that of an angry puppy. “What do you expect? Angels don’t naturally have anything close to romantic or sexual attraction!”

Once he’d calmed his laughter, he straightened up and put on a more serious, albeit still teasing expression, one hand on his hip. “Seems I’ll have to teach you then, huh.”

“Teach me?”

“Of course!” He made some over-exaggerated, sweeping hand motion. “It only makes sense, doesn’t it? I’ve had experience with this kind of thing, so I should help to teach you.”

Shion raised an eyebrow, leaning his weight on one leg, apparently over his previous embarrassment. “I’m not sure how great of a teacher you’ll be.”

Nezumi felt himself smile, pleased that he was going along with it. “You haven’t seen me try yet. This morning was different; you caught me in the worst possible time.”

“So if I kissed you right now, it would be different?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“Hmm.” Shion clasped his hands together behind his back, faking thinking about it. “I’ll hold you to it.”

The kiss was mutual this time, their height difference causing Nezumi to lean down and Shion to lean up. He was just as gentle, just as hesitant as he was the first time he kissed Nezumi, but Nezumi led this time, bringing his hands up to cup that white hair, and after a moment, Shion seemed to grow braver.

They pulled away. Shion’s face was red.

“Was that any better, Your Majesty?”

“I—I don’t have much to compare it to,” he answered, voice a little heavy like he was distracted, “but I think I can say that it was.”

Nezumi smiled and leaned down to brush his lips against Shion’s cheek gently, just the smallest bit teasing. “Does that mean you want me to do it again?”

Shion nodded eagerly. “Yes.” And then, as an afterthought: “Please.”

“As you wish.”

 

--

 

Nezumi came home one night bleeding and covered in bruises.

“Welcome home—Nezumi!” Shion cut his greeting off by his own outburst, rushing up from the couch and to the doorway where Nezumi was standing, leaning against the frame. “What happened to you?”

Nezumi waved him off and tried to say nonchalantly, “Nothing, just something after work,” but his voice wavered and he was still leaning against the frame for support, so he doubted it was at all convincing.

Shion raised a hand to his cheek, brushing over a bruise that was beginning to form on the top of his cheekbone, nasty and purple. Nezumi had hoped Shion would be asleep, or at least falling asleep so he wouldn’t notice his condition. He hadn’t wanted to worry him, but from the way Shion’s eyes were wide and anxious, mouth open in shock, it was too late for that.

“I’m fine,” Nezumi tried to say reassuringly, setting a hand over Shion’s and lowering it from his cheek so he could hold it instead. He squeezed it in a way he hoped was comforting, but if it was Shion didn’t respond to it. He blinked away tears.

“We have to get you cleaned up,” he finally said once he’d gotten over his shock at the situation, blinking rapidly like he was still trying not to cry and gently tugging Nezumi in the direction of the bathroom. Nezumi didn’t resist the contact, and obediently sat on the closed toilet seat while Shion shuffled around dazedly to find the First Aid kit. He pulled it out from under the sink cabinet and opened it, going to disinfect the cuts.

“You don’t have to do this,” Nezumi protested, but it sounded weak. He hadn’t ever seen Shion looked so worried about him, and frankly, he was afraid of making the situation worse by saying something wrong.

“I want to,” Shion answered, voice thick. “Let me get some ice for your bruises. Don’t move while I’m gone, okay?”

Nezumi nodded and watched him disappear into the kitchen. He was alternating between wringing his hands and clenching his fists, like he did sometimes when he was nervous, and when he came back with a bag of ice, his eyebrows were furrowed in worry.

Shion cleaned him up in silence for a few minutes.

Finally, he bit his lip, and asked, “What happened?”

“Stage accident,” Nezumi lied, and, of course, since it was Shion, he saw right through it.

“Someone hurt you.”

The hairs on the back of Nezumi’s neck stood up. He’d never heard Shion sound like that, so genuinely pissed. He’d heard him angry before, mostly at him, but not once had it sounded like this.

He didn’t try to deny the claim, only staying silent as Shion washed off the dried blood that was dripping from a cut on his forehead. Nezumi winced when he brushed against an open cut.

“Who was it?”

It was less of a question and more of a demand.

“I don’t know.” It wasn’t a lie this time. “Some guys that I’d seen staying around after the show.”

“And they just—they just attacked you?!” Shion’s fists clenched, voice racing in anger.

“I’m fine, Shion, it’s not a big deal,” Nezumi tried to placate him, laying a hand on one of his clenched fists and gently opening it so he could trace the lines on his palm.

“Of course it’s a big deal—they hurt you!” Shion’s voice didn’t lower, but he let Nezumi trace his palm, and his eyebrows were furrowed more in worry now than anger. “They can’t just get away with that…”

“And what do you suggest I do, huh? Call the police?” Nezumi snorted. His words sounded harsh, but he ran his thumb over Shion’s knuckles in perfect juxtaposition of what he was saying. “Like they’ll care at all. They can’t do jack shit, Shion, and there’s not much else I can do.”

Shion looked down, frowning with eyes a little too shiny. “I can’t just let them…let them hurt you like this…” He was quiet after that, biting his lip and blinking rapidly once again. Still, a tear made its way down his cheek.

Nezumi brushed the tear away, smiling gently. “I know what you’re thinking. Don’t go doing something stupid like getting yourself hurt over me. Besides, I wasn’t totally useless. I think I broke one guy’s nose.”

Shion snorted in a laugh, leaning into the hand on his cheek. “Alright. I won’t do anything.”

“Promise me.”

He nodded and raised his hand, offering his pinky. “I promise.”

They hooked pinkies, and it was a deal.

Shion seemed to feel a little better after that. He went back to cleaning Nezumi up, apologizing any time Nezumi winced at a particularly bad bruise, and when they were done, he leaned up and kissed him on his swollen, cut lip. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he whispered.

“Can’t say I don’t agree with you.”

“Next time you have a show, am I invited?”

“You don’t want a private one?”

Shion smiled. “I’d prefer both, if possible. Besides, it’d be fun to go see you. I like spending time with Inukashi.”

“Don’t let them hear you say that. They’d get embarrassed and overly defensive to compensate.”

He laughed, the quiet sound something that Nezumi had the privilege to hear more often these days. “Oh, I’m aware. I don’t think they like me saying out loud that we’re friends.”

“Mm,” he hummed distractedly, only half paying attention to the conversation as he set his hands on Shion’s hips, pulling him closer by the hook of his jeans.

“Nezumi,” Shion said, just as the other was about to lean down and kiss him.

“What?”

“You need to rest.”

He huffed. “I’m fine.”

“Your work ran late, and you’ll never heal if you don’t get any sleep.”

“Ugh,” he groaned. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Nezumi.” Shion was using his “no nonsense” voice.

Nezumi huffed in irritation but complied anyway. “Fine.”

Shion smiled, a little triumphantly. “Great! Now come eat dinner before we go to bed.”

Still, Nezumi didn’t miss the way his expression returned to a worried frown on their way out of the bathroom.

 

--

 

Shion’s scars weren’t like normal scars.

There were times where, whether it be the middle of the night or while he was walking around town, they would start burning again, like they had the night he’d gotten them, and to Nezumi it almost looked like they were fresh again—but he could never touch them to check that hypothesis, because Shion was always withering in pain, screaming again like he had been when Nezumi found him, and it was like they were forced to relive that night—for what reason, Nezumi didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

Inukashi was scared, to put it lightly, when it happened one day while Shion was working. Nezumi hadn’t been there, but when Shion retold the story, he smiled a little sadly when he talked about Inukashi’s reaction. They didn’t know what to do, and Shion wasn’t in his right state of mind from the pain, so he’d not been much help to calm them down. In the end, their dogs ended up helping Shion more than Inukashi really could, curling up next to him and licking his wounds until he stopped yelling.

They’d cried.

Nezumi didn’t believe that when he heard it. Inukashi didn’t cry. They weren’t as detached from people as they thought they were, but they still didn’t cry. In all the time Nezumi had lived there with them, they hadn’t even cried when one of their dogs died, and they considered those dogs their family.

But Shion wasn’t really much for lying or exaggerating things, Nezumi knew that, and so it had to be true that Inukashi, for once in their life, cried over someone else.

“They were—panicking a lot, and I think I passed out. When I woke up, I was in one of their hotel rooms, one of the unoccupied ones, and they were there with Rikiga. They actually…they hugged me when I woke up, and they were crying. Rikiga was, too, though.”

Nezumi smiled a little sardonically. “And here they were, getting on my ass on being attached to you when they were doing that themself.”

Shion blinked. “What makes you think they’re getting attached to me?”

“Inukashi doesn’t cry or hug anyone, much less both for the same person. You’re one of a kind. Managed to screw over both of us.”

He frowned. “I don’t think that’d be screwing you over.”

“Inukashi and I both know that trusting and caring about people is almost always a death sentence.” Nezumi shrugged. “Nothing we can do about it now.”

“So does that mean that you screwed me over?”

Nezumi looked over at him. “What?”

Shion’s gaze didn’t waver. “I care about you and Inukashi, but caring about people gets you hurt. Does that mean you screwed me over?”

“If you want to think of it as going both ways, then sure,” Nezumi said, looking away. “What did you end up telling Inukashi about what happened?”

“Nothing, really. I couldn’t really tell them anything without explaining everything, so I just sort of said that I wasn’t ready to tell them. They got angry after that, though…”

“They’ll get over it.”

Shion frowned, thinking about something. “Do you think we could ever tell them about…us?”

“No.”

The answer was immediate. Shion looked up. “How can you be so sure?”

“We’re human now, but that doesn’t mean we can just tell people about us. Inukashi would hardly believe you if you tried to tell them, anyway. If anything, it would freak them out and cause them to withdraw—which would help them, really, so sure, go ahead and tell them. Just don’t mention me, if you’re so set on it.”

“Nezumi,” Shion said, voice stern, “I don’t think this is going to be a one time thing—my scars already done this twice now, and what happens if it does it again while I’m with them? They’ll want to know, and I’ll have to tell them something. I can’t just keep saying that it’s a secret and expect them to deal with me while I’m…” He trailed off, left the unspoken screaming in agonizing pain, out of my right mind open in the air between the two.

“Do you have any idea why this is happening in the first place?” Nezumi asked.

“I don’t…” Shion frowned. “I have a theory, sort of, but it’s not much to go on, and I don’t know how accurate it actually is.”

“Let’s hear it.” Nezumi crossed his legs and leaned back on their shared couch. Shion shifted where he sat next to him and rubbed the back of his neck.

“It’s probably not right, but I have a feeling that it’s supposed to be a reminder of what happened to me. I think…I think I’ve gotten too used to the human world, and I like it a little too much, even though that isn’t the point in falling. The point is to suffer and regret what I did, but I’m not suffering, and I don’t regret it. But if I had something like this—reliving what it felt like to fall—every now and then periodically, it could change how I feel.”

“So, you’re saying this could be a regular thing.”

Shion nodded somberly. “If I’m right, this’ll be a thing until I start hating Earth, and wishing to go back to Heaven. And I have a feeling that it won’t exactly care for where I am when it starts.”

“You could potentially have this happen at any time.”

“Potentially,” he agreed. “But if there’s a pattern to it, then I can predict when it’ll happen. The first time it happened was while I was asleep, right? How long ago was it?”

“Two weeks, I think.”

“Then right now it probably goes in two week intervals. It’ll have to happen a few more times before I can actually come up with anything, but hopefully this won’t…be as big of a deal as we thought it was.” He smiled optimistically.

“You’ll still be in excruciating pain. Planning for it doesn’t change what it feels like.” Nezumi frowned. “And if you’re right, wouldn’t the intensity of it change depending on whether or not it’s making you hate Earth?”

He shrugged nonchalantly, like the news wasn’t bothering him. “We’ll have to find that one out.”

“And you’re…not bothered by this? At all?”

“No, I am.” Shion was still smiling even as he said that. “But I’m just going to have to deal with it until we figure something out. I don’t think anything can make me hate how I am now.”

“You like being human.”

“I like being with you,” Shion corrected.

“So you would be okay being an angel as long as you were with me?”

“I think I would be fine being anything as long as I was with you.”

Nezumi looked away, those eyes too blinding even now. “You make no sense to me, you know that?”

Shion smiled widely. “I think I make more sense to you than you want to admit that I do.”

“Not to mention that head of yours has only gotten bigger since living with me.”

He blinked. “Really? I’d thought I just got more confident.”

“There’s a thin line between confidence and arrogance,” Nezumi said, standing up from the couch and stretching. He didn’t ignore the way Shion’s eyes followed the line of his shoulders and the strip of skin exposed when his shirt raised.

“Oh, of course.” Shion grinned. “You walk it quite often, don’t you?”

Nezumi narrowed his eyes. “Be careful what you say, Your Majesty.”

“Even if what I say is true.”

This time he couldn’t quite keep the small, satisfied grin from spreading. “Not only has the prince gotten a bigger head, but he’s also gotten better at comebacks.”

“You call me ‘prince’ and ‘Your Majesty’ a lot,” Shion noted, changing the subject suddenly. “Why?”

“Oh, come on, you can’t say it doesn’t fit you perfectly.” He held out a hand to help Shion up from the couch. “So noble and naïve, like royalty.”

Shion smiled and took the hand until they were both standing, but neither moved. “As much as I like you calling me that, I think I would probably like it more if you tried calling me by my name more often.”

“As you wish, Your Majesty.”

Shion raised an eyebrow at his snark, but followed him out the living room into their shared bedroom.

Still, when he was falling asleep, Nezumi felt himself mouthing “Shion” against Shion's shoulder.

 

--

 

“Your bruises are almost all gone,” Shion noted one morning while they were getting ready. Most days, he would wake up first, get dressed, watch as Nezumi got dressed himself, and then they would eat breakfast together.

Nezumi didn’t really mind the way Shion stared (it was a bit flattering if he was being honest). He pulled his shirt on over his head. “It’s been two weeks. I would hope they would be.”

Shion hummed in agreement, and Nezumi felt him shuffle off the bed before there were arms wrapped around his waist and a head against his shoulder blades, nuzzling into him tiredly.

“Hey.” Nezumi set his hands over Shion’s. “I can see that big head of yours thinking too much. I’m fine. Stop worrying about me.”

“Have those guys come back?” His words were muffled.

“No. I haven’t seen either of them since then.”

It seemed to reassure Shion a little, because his shoulders relaxed and his arms shifted so they were less stiff around Nezumi’s torso. “Okay. Good.”

“You need to stop worrying about me,” Nezumi mumbled. “You should put some of that energy into caring about yourself.”

“I do care about myself,” Shion said. “I just care about you too.”

“Mm.”

Shion moved out of his position and came to stand in front of Nezumi instead, so he could look at his face. “Nezumi,” he said, setting his hands on Nezumi's cheeks gently. “I can care about both of us. You can too.”

Your heart is too big.

What came out of Nezumi's mouth was, “I know.”

“People don’t have to choose between caring about others and caring about themselves.”

I’m not a person. Not really. “I know.”

Shion kissed him, but it was a little sad, like he knew what Nezumi was actually thinking. “I love you.”

“I know.”

“You’re sure you know?”

He nodded. “I’m sure.”

“I can see that big head of yours thinking too much,” he parroted, offering a smile. “You keep going about things like you’re still a demon, but we’re both human now. It’s okay to care about others, and it’s okay to care about yourself.” He laid his head on Nezumi’s chest. “Angels had to care about others; demons had to care about themselves. But we don’t have to choose here. You shouldn’t treat it like it’s the same set of circumstances.”

Nezumi wanted to say I know. He didn’t say anything.

Shion pulled away and kissed his cheek. “I’m going to be late for Inukashi’s if we don’t hurry. I’m sorry.”

Nezumi shook his head. “It’s fine. Let’s just go have breakfast.”

 

--

 

There was a mutual understand that neither of them did anything beyond kissing. The one time they’d gotten carried away, Shion’s scars had acted up, sooner than they’d expected, and he’d spent the next half hour trying not to claw his throat out from the pain. Nezumi had spent the next two hours tending to him, as they’d started getting accustom to. It didn’t hurt any less, but Nezumi knew what helped and what made things worse through trial and error, so it was better than nothing.

One night during dinner, Shion set his spoon down and said, “I think my theory was correct.”

Nezumi looked up at him from where he was eating. “Oh?”

“And I think that things—things like kissing, touching, pretty much anything, um,” his cheeks were pink, “anything intimate—makes it worse.”

“How so?”

“It…” he scratched the back of his neck. “I think it makes me less…likely to start hating Earth.”

Nezumi wanted to smirk, say something sarcastic about what a compliment that would be to him, but he couldn’t find it in him to do so. “So being with me is making you hurt more.”

“No!” Shion was quick to answer. “That’s—that’s not it at all, I just…I think that’s why, the other day when, um…”

Even with the solemn atmosphere, watching Shion get flustered over talking about the fact that they’d made out was amusing. They were two thousand years old and he was still a blushing virgin. “That’s why your scars started hurting,” Nezumi finished for him.

Shion nodded. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” Nezumi took a sip of his drink. “Then we don’t do that anymore. It’s not a big deal. We weren’t exactly doing anything before anyway.”

“Well, um…” Shion swirled his spoon around in his bowl, which was apparently very interesting. “I sort of wanted to—if you wanted to, also, that is.”

“To, what? Have sex?”

He glared Nezumi, obviously annoyed that he’d right out said it when they’d been tiptoeing around the phrasing the whole conversation. “I mean—yeah. I did. Er, do, I guess.”

“Even though it’ll likely make your scars hurt more?”

He nodded decidedly. “But only if you were okay with it.”

“Oh, no, don’t worry about me, I’m okay with it.” Nezumi leaned his chin on his hand, elbow propped up on the table. “I just don’t want you to get hurt over something as fleeting as sex.”

“I won’t get hurt.”

“If you have sex with me knowing that it’ll make your scars burn worse, it’ll be what hurt you.” Nezumi frowned. “I don’t want to if that’s the outcome.”

“But you’d want to outside of that.”

“Right.”

Shion nodded. “Then let’s have sex.”

Nezumi gave him a look. “Were you not listening to anything I just said at all, airhead? I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t be the one hurting me,” Shion corrected.

“You’re so one track minded sometimes, you know that?” He sighed and got up from the table, taking both of their empty bowls over to the sink and setting them down. “Are you going to try to convince me to sleep with you?”

He felt Shion shake his head from behind him. “No. If you say you don’t want to, I’m not going to push it. But I really do want that, and I think it’d…I think it’d be worth it, even though there’s a chance it’ll hurt me later.”

“And you’re sure that your scars won’t burn in the middle of it?”

He thought about the question for a moment. “Theoretically they could, but I don’t think they will. It happened the other day already, and it still goes by two-week intervals, so we should be fine.”

Nezumi snorted. “You sound pretty sure of yourself.”

“I am.”

He turned around to face Shion, leaning back against the sink with his arms crossed. After a moment, he sighed and pushed off from where he was leaning, heading towards the bedroom. “Well, come on then.”

Shion blinked. “What?”

Nezumi didn’t respond, but heard Shion’s footsteps following him a moment later. He smiled despite himself.

 

--

 

“You called me by my name.”

Nezumi curled up deeper in the covers, grabbing the sides and wrapping Shion in them too so they were cocooned in blankets and pressed chest-to-chest. “Hm?” he mumbled sleepily. He could already feel himself drifting off.

“You called me my name,” Shion repeated, and after a moment, the words registered and Nezumi blinked at him.

“What, did you not want me to?”

“No, of course not. I love it when you say my name.”

“Then what’re you talking about it for?”

He shrugged and laid his head on Nezumi’s chest, closing his eyes. “Usually you just say ‘Your Majesty.’ It just…it made me happy.” He smiled against Nezumi’s collarbones. “To hear you say it made me happy.”

“Go to sleep, Shion.”

“I love you.”

Nezumi didn’t say it back, but he had a feeling that Shion knew anyway.

 

--

 

“Tell me what’s wrong with Shion.”

Nezumi blinked at the doorway where Inukashi stood, dripping wet. It had been raining all that weekend, so Shion had gotten the day off, and was currently asleep in their bedroom.

“What?”

Inukashi tried to push themself inside, but Nezumi pushed them back. “You’re covered in mud and you’re not about to get my whole house wet.”

“I need to talk to you,” they insisted.

“You can talk here.”

They huffed in annoyance, glaring at him, before giving in. “Fine. Is Shion here?”

“He’s asleep.”

“Good. Now tell me what’s going on with him.”

“I’m going to need more information than that,” Nezumi said, leaning against the doorway.

“You know what I’m talking about!” Inukashi insisted, still glaring. “When he was at work and got hurt…” they trailed off, voice getting smaller at the memory.

“Oh, I heard about that,” he commented. “I heard you cried into Shion’s arms once he woke up, isn’t that right?”

“Shut up! I thought he was going to die, give me a break!”

Nezumi snorted. “You’ve never acted like that with anyone else. Could it be you’re in love with him?”

“As if,” they snapped. “And stop trying to change the subject. I know you know what that was about and what it was—and Shion refused to tell me, even though I was the one who had to deal with that…”

“You’re bitter because he couldn’t tell you something incredibly personal to him?” Nezumi clicked his tongue. “Sounding more and more like you are in love with him, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask you, and I have a right to know when he’s the one who just fell on the ground and started screaming in the middle of washing my dogs!”

Nezumi’s smirk disappeared, and he pushed off the doorframe. “I can’t tell you.”

“And why the hell not?!”

“Because it’s not my story to tell. Also, keep your voice down. You’ll wake him up, and I doubt he’d be too happy knowing you’re going behind his back.”

Inukashi’s eyes widened. “I’m not—I’m not going behind his back!”

“Oh, but you are. You’re coming to me to find out something about him that he refused to tell you, while he’s asleep nonetheless. Seems to fit the definition pretty close.”

“Shut up!” Inukashi looked away, crossing their arms. “It’s just…”

Nezumi’s frown faltered. As much as he hated to admit it, he sort of sympathized with Inukashi. He remembered what it felt like the first night he’d found Shion, and he remembered all the times recently that he’d had to deal with it. It was scary as all hell, but it was easier for him because he always knew that Shion was going to be okay.

Inukashi didn’t know that.

“You’re worried about him. I get it,” Nezumi mumbled. “But Shion will tell you when and if he’s ready. I’m not going to tell you for him.”

“But you do know what it was.”

“I do,” he confirmed.

They nodded, scowling at the ground. “Can you at least tell me whether or not it…it can kill him?”

“It won’t kill him,” Nezumi reassured. “He just has to endure it.”

“Okay.” They nodded again. “Okay.”

“So if that’s all you wanted to bother me about, you should leave now.”

“Why, is he waking up?”

“No, I just don’t want you standing dripping at my doorway.”

“Fuck you!”

 

--

 

Shion woke up an hour later, shuffling into the living room with a yawn. Nezumi looked up from the book he was reading on the couch.

“Good morning, Your Majesty. Did you sleep well?”

“Mm,” he hummed groggily. “What time is it?”

“Almost three. You were asleep for quite a while.”

Shion rubbed his eyes and made his way to where Nezumi sat, plopping down next to him and leaning his head against his shoulder. “I’m sleepy.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Nezumi said, flipping a page.

“I couldn’t sleep last night.”

“So it would seem.” He tried to focus on what he was reading, but it was difficult when he could feel eyes trained on him, watching as he read. After five or so minutes of the two sitting in silence, with Shion staring as he flipped another page, he sighed and dog-eared where he was in the book, glancing at Shion.

“Did you want something?” He asked impatiently.

“You have the day off,” Shion observed.

“I do.”

“Did somebody come by earlier?”

Nezumi glanced at him. “What do you mean?”

“I woke up a little bit earlier and heard you talking to someone before I fell back asleep. I didn’t know if someone had come over or if you were just talking to yourself.”

“What would make you think I was just talking to myself?”

Shion gave him a look.

Nezumi rolled his eyes half-heartedly. “Yes, Shion, someone came by.”

“Who?”

“Inukashi.”

Shion blinked. “Inukashi did?”

“That’s what I just said, yes.”

“What’d they come by for?”

Nezumi shrugged. “Getting on my ass about money again,” he lied.

“You still haven’t paid them back yet, have you?”

“I’ve been busy.”

Shion stuck his tongue out teasingly before shifting where he sat so that he was all but sitting in Nezumi’s lap, wrapping his arms around Nezumi’s neck and nuzzling into his shoulder.

“Would you happen to be in need of attention, Your Majesty?”

Shion huffed. “I haven’t seen you all day.”

“And whose fault is that, huh?” Despite his words, Nezumi kissed Shion back when he leaned in expectantly. They stayed like that for a while, sharing body heat on the couch and listening to the rain pounding outside while they kissed leisurely. Shion sighed into his mouth and pulled back, pressing their foreheads together. He’d managed to wiggle his way around so he was straddling Nezumi at some point while they were kissing.

He had just opened his mouth to say something when he faltered, blinked his eyes open hurriedly, and yelped, slumping his body forward so he was pressed against Nezumi’s, clutching at the fabric of his shirt a little too hard. Nezumi knew what was happening; his scars were acting up again. He cursed loudly and picked Shion up to repeat the familiar process.

Still, his heart raced just as badly as it did the first time.

 

--

 

“You’re thinking too much,” Shion observed a couple weeks later. They were at Inukashi’s, Shion in the middle of washing one of the older dogs, while Nezumi sat and watched him, for lack of anything else to do. It was Saturday, and he didn’t have anything until a dress rehearsal later that night, so he was killing time at Inukashi’s.

“What makes you say that?” Nezumi asked, leaning back on the palms of his hands, tilting his head as he watched Shion take off his gloves, the dog he’d just finished cleaning shaking its fur in an attempt to dry itself.

“You’re not very good at hiding it when you’re worried about something,” he explained. “Although, to be fair, I can’t ever tell what you’re thinking about, just that you’re thinking too much.” He smiled. “Wanna talk about it?”

“Hell no.”

“I figured as much.” He sat down next to Nezumi, sitting with his legs folded under him. “Is it about my scars?”

“We shouldn’t talk about that here.”

Shion blinked in confusion. “Why not?”

“Inukashi. They’re a horrible eavesdropper.” He said the last part loudly and heard the sound of a door slamming in response, no doubt in his mind that he’d succeeded in letting them know he’d heard them trotting around trying to act like they weren’t paying attention.

“But it is, isn’t it?” Shion continued, ignoring the small exchange. “You’re worried about them. They haven’t hurt as much lately, if that’s what—“

“It’s not that.”

“Then what?”

Nezumi looked down. “It’s nothing,” he mumbled.

“It’s obviously something. Are you worried because they’re getting more frequent?”

“No, that’s—“

Another door slamming, and this time a man stormed out of the hotel, looking pissed off, most likely at some poor business decisions Inukashi had made. He grumbled as he stormed past, not even paying the two of them any mind. Shion didn’t say anything more until he was out of earshot.

“There’s no point in pretending you’re not bothered by something, Nezumi,” he said, gently.

“I’m not pretending anything, it’s just not a big enough deal to bother you over.” He shrugged. “Stop worrying about it. I’m fine.”

Shion gave him a wary look before finally sighing in defeat. “Sometimes I wish you weren’t such good of an actor. It makes it difficult to tell what you’re thinking.”

Nezumi stood up, smirking. “Well, if you’re done for the day, shall we go, Your Majesty?”

 

--

 

“I told Inukashi.”

Nezumi set his glass down, eyes narrowing. “Told them what?”

There was a moment of silence. Nezumi got a sinking feeling that he knew what Shion was going to say even before he opened his mouth and a small, “About us,” came out, voice steady but his hands shaking.

“About...us,” Nezumi repeated.

Shion nodded, still not turning around from where he stood at the stove.

“What exactly did you tell them?” He was struggling to keep his voice level, already feeling anger starting to bubble, but he kept it down to hear what Shion was going to say.

“Most of it. I told them about what we...used to be, and I explained the scars…”

“And you mentioned me.”

“I…” He faltered. “I hadn’t meant to at first, but once I’d gotten them to believe what I was saying about me, they’d already sort of guessed what you were. I just confirmed it.”

Nezumi stood up. The chair he was sitting in scraped against the floor, and he saw Shion winced visibly.

“Shion,” he started.

“I know!” Shion turned around finally to face him. “I know you didn’t want me to tell them, but it didn’t feel fair keeping them in the dark about me when they already saw it happen!”

“They didn’t need to know! Now you’ve just gone and dragged them into our shitty business!”

“They were already in our business, Nezumi,” Shion tried to reason. “They saw what happened to me, and it’s happened more than once since then. And, once I told them, you know what they asked about you?” He gave a laugh at that, one that meant nothing was actually funny. “They wanted to know if you were a demon, and when I asked how they knew, they said they could feel it off of you, and that they’d known since we got here that we weren’t normal.”

Nezumi felt his jaw clench. “That’s great and all, but that still doesn’t mean you should’ve told them anything about us!”

“And, what, just expect them to handle it all when things finally go to shit?”

Nezumi blinked, faltered at the words. “What’re you…?”

Shion’s face paled. “I, um…”

“You’re not telling me something.” It wasn’t a question.

“I’m not not telling you anything,” Shion corrected. “You already know, I just haven’t...explained it...well…” he trailed off sheepishly, looking at the ground like he was aware he was guilty of something and felt bad about it. Good, he should be.

“Explain,” Nezumi said.

“The scars are acting up more frequently.”

“You already told me that.”

“They’re acting in a pattern.”

Nezumi raised an eyebrow and turned around, headed to the living room. He sat down on the couch. “Okay, I still have no idea what you’re getting at.”

Shion sat down next to him, pulling his knees up to his chin. “I thought at first that they were determined by my emotions, and that the less I wanted to leave here, the more they acted up. Punishment, you know, for not being resentful about my fall.”

“Right,” Nezumi nodded. “You told me that.”

“But they’re not doing that. My emotions have regulated, but the occurrences are happening more often and more severely.”

He took a deep breath, arms wrapped around his knees. His eyes were downcast. Nezumi felt himself starting to get anxious for what he was going to hear, the anger replaced by a sense of dread.

“I think,” Shion said quietly, “that the end goal is to kill me.”

The sink faucet dripped where it hadn’t been turned off all the way.

“Eventually,” he continued, his voice almost too soft to hear, “I think that they’re going to get so bad, and so frequent, that it’s just that pain, nonstop, and I guess it’ll continue like that until I die from it or someone puts me out of my misery.”

“A slow and painful death,” Nezumi said quietly.

“Torture,” Shion corrected. “These scars are going to torture me until I’m killed by them. It’ll probably be days before they actually do enough damage to stop my heart, so—”

“That’s enough.” Nezumi’s voice didn’t sound like his own. “That’s enough, Shion.”

“But I’m right, aren’t I?” His words were choked, a laugh coming out like a sob, forced and pushing on hysterical. “I’m right, and you know I am, these things are going to kill me—”

“Just stop it!”

Shion stared at him, surprised at his outburst, and Nezumi forced himself to sit back down from where he’d stood up. He sank into the couch, covered his eyes with his hands, felt a tear there. “Just stop it,” he whispered.

“Nezumi…”

He didn’t respond, couldn’t respond, felt his heart leaping in his throat and the bile rising. He ran to the bathroom and just barely made it to the toilet in time to puke.

He heard soft footsteps moments later, and there were hands on his hair, holding it back for him as he puked until he was retching. Those hands carded through his hair even after he was done, soft and soothing, and he leaned his head against the cold basin.

“Nezumi…” Those hands were braiding his hair now, gentle and comforting and so, so real, and when the braiding was done, they were rubbing his back, between his shoulder blades. “You know what I’m going to ask of you, don’t you?”

“I can’t.” His voice was hoarse. His mouth felt disgusting, gritty, just like everything else.

“Please, Nezumi. I need you to promise me something.”

He shook his head, once, twice, three times for good measure. “No. You can’t ask that of me, Shion, you can’t ask me to do that—”

“You’re the only one that can.”

“Stop acting so calm about it!” He snapped. “Stop acting like it’s not a big deal! You damn airhead—don’t you want to live anymore?!”

“I need you to kill me.”

“Bullshit you do!” He whipped around to yell at Shion, and then immediately turned back to the bowl, puking another time, but all that came up was bile and spit. His tongue felt like lead, but once he’d stopped, somehow he still managed to say, “I’m not going to kill you.”

“You have to.”

“We’ll find another way. We’ll get rid of the scars, we’ll make them stop hurting, we’ll do something—”

“There isn’t anything left to do,” Shion placated. “You think I haven’t tried looking for a way out? This is…” He paused, like he was considering something. “...This is the only way left right now. Once it starts, I need you put me out of my misery. I don’t wanna go from some divine punishment.”

“Shion…”

“I want you to kill me.”

“I won’t do it.”

“If you don’t, the only other person I’ll be able to go to is Inukashi, and you and I both know I can’t ask that of them.”

“You can’t just ask me to kill the only person I love!” Nezumi barked. “I spent two thousand years wallowing in my own fucking hatred, cursing every second I was alive—like hell I’m going to let you get taken away like that just because you got your memories back!”

Shion smiled, but his eyes were shining, wet with tears. Nezumi stared at him, confused. “What?”

“That’s the first time you’ve said you love me,” he said, and then they were both crying, bordering hysterical, and when Shion threw his arms around him, Nezumi hugged him back this time.

 

--

 

That night, when Nezumi and Shion were lying in bed, sweaty and tired and drained, Shion tracing patterns with his thumbs on Nezumi's chest, Nezumi sighed and asked, “How long do we have?”

“They’re happening every week now,” Shion said quietly, still tracing. “I can’t really be sure, but it should be more than a few months.”

“A few months…” Nezumi repeated.

“Maybe more, but there’s no way to know until it happens.”

“Let’s get married.”

Shion’s thumb stopped. “What?”

“Let’s get married,” Nezumi repeated. “I mean, why not? If you’re going to die anyway, and we only have a few months, let’s get married. In the meantime, I’ll work on figuring something out, and if it turns out that we can stop whatever the fuck is happening, then we’re married, and we go on living the rest of our lives, happily ever after. Not a bad idea, right?” He grinned, but it felt sadder than normal.

“Nezumi…” Shion had a hand over his mouth in disbelief and his eyes were wide.

“But then, you don’t have to say yes, obviously.” He looked away, putting his hands behind his head in faux nonchalance. “I’m just thinking out loud—”

“Of course I’m going to say yes!” Shion interrupted, and it took him a moment before he realized that Shion had all but thrown himself at Nezumi, and was now sitting in his lap, arms so tight around him that it was difficult to breathe.

“Shion, you’re choking me,” Nezumi managed to say, and there was an oh! before the arms around his neck disappeared and he was instead able to look at Shion's face, brighter and happier than he’d probably ever seen him.

“I take it that’s a yes, then,” Nezumi said, feeling himself grin. Shion didn’t respond, stopping any continuation of the conversation with an enthusiastic kiss that managed to get out of hand pretty quickly.

He pulled away some minutes later, smiling, hands cupping Nezumi’s cheeks, and said, voice heavy with happiness, “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

 

--

 

In Nezumi’s dream, he and Shion were making love when Shion started screaming, and the scene changed so abruptly it was hard to keep up with.

Suddenly, they were in the woods the night he found him tattered and bloody, and the scars were bleeding again, cuts open and fresh like they’d never healed, burning bright like there were embers under Shion’s skin, illuminating the inside of his body and the bones underneath. Nezumi tried to stop the bleeding, but it didn’t help. Shion was screaming, screaming, screaming, begging Nezumi to kill him.

Kill me, Nezumi, he said, mouth full of needles. Kill me kill me kill me kill me.

I can’t do it, he tried to say, but what came out was a garbled mess that didn’t sound like any string of words. His skin started to burn where he was holding Shion, and he dropped him without thinking about it.

Except that was a horrible mistake, because then Shion was falling, falling, kill me, Nezumi, kill me—

 

--

 

He woke up in cold sweat, but when he looked beside him, Shion was sleeping soundly, unhurt, face serene and breathing even. When he checked the clock, it was nearing midnight.

Nezumi pressed a lingering kiss to Shion’s forehead before slipping out of bed, into his shoes, and out the door.

 

--

 

“What the actual fuck do you want at twelve in the goddamn morning?”

“Nice to see you too, Inukashi,” Nezumi responded smoothly, sidestepping them so he could get through the door and out of the cold.

“Explain,” they demanded, crossing their arms, but they shut the door behind him anyway. Nezumi took a seat on the tattered, dirty sofa, crossing his legs and leaning an arm over the back of it.

“Shion told you about us,” he said, more of a statement than a question.

Inukashi side-eyed him warily. “Yeah,” they said slowly, shifting where they stood like they were uncomfortable with the topic, “what about it? What, you pissed off or somethin’? Shion said you wouldn’t be too happy when—”

“I need your help.”

Inukashi stared at him for a moment. They sat down on the couch across from him, propping their feet up on the coffee table. One of their dogs jumped onto the couch next to them and curled up there. “Go on.”

By the time Nezumi had gotten finished explaining the situation and just what he needed help with, it was nearing twelve-thirty, and he was starting to get anxious that Shion would wake up and find he was gone.

“So,” Inukashi said, leaning forward where they sat. “You want me to help figure out something to help Shion?”

Nezumi nodded. “Yes. I figured you didn’t want him dead any more than I do.”

“Well, that’s true and all, but what the hell do you want me to do about it?” They gestured widely with their hands. “I don’t know jack shit about this whole ‘other-worldly’ business besides what you guys have bothered to explain. I don’t have any more of a clue on how to help him than you do!”

“You can think of something,” Nezumi mumbled. He hadn’t really known why he’d gone to them in the middle of the night anyways, besides the fact that he’d needed to clear his head from that dream. He’d known that Inukashi wouldn’t be any help, but he hadn’t been able to stop his legs from taking him here. He rubbed his eyes tiredly.

The two of them sat in silence for a few moments, just a little bit awkward.

“I mean…” They finally said, looking away. “I can try, but don’t get pissed off if I come up with nothin’.”

“Thank you,” Nezumi said, meaning it.

Inukashi shivered. “Ugh. I hate hearing you say that. It sounds like nothin’ but bad news.”

He grinned, standing up to leave. “Then I’ll make sure never to do that again, would that appease you?”

“Just get out of my hotel, ya damn rat.”

 

--

 

He’d just gotten back in the bedroom and was sliding under the covers when he felt Shion stir and blink his eyes open sleepily.

“Nez’mi?” he asked, voice slurred with sleep. “What’re you doing?”

“Go back to sleep,” Nezumi told him. “I’m fine, I just woke up and had to step outside for a bit.”

“Did you have a—” he yawned, cutting himself off. “Did you have a bad dream?”

“No, Shion, I’m alright. I’m going to sleep now.”

“Mmm.” Shion closed his eyes and shifted so he was pressed against Nezumi, their legs tangling. “Okay. Love you.”

“Love you too,” Nezumi said to the ceiling, already feeling Shion’s steady breathing.

He didn’t find sleep again that night.

 

--

 

They got married in the loosest of terms.

In fact, it was hardly a “marriage” at all, as there was no ceremony, nor rings, and the only thing that changed was the title. They didn’t have a party and they didn’t make it public, and if they weren’t dirt poor, Nezumi might’ve thought it wise to at least get them both rings, if nothing else.

It was Shion’s idea to go about it so loosely.

“Wouldn’t it be sort of ironic to go to a church and have someone marry us?” He’d said. “If anything, I feel like I’m at least qualified for something like this.” And when they’d had their own ceremony the next morning, since neither had work until the afternoon, Shion smiled and said, “I now pronounce us husband and husband,” with that look that meant he was only half joking.

It wasn’t much of anything, but Shion seemed content with it. He couldn’t stop smiling and barely let Nezumi out of the bed at all, and even then only after some childish pouting.

Nezumi knew why Shion was acting so happy, why he was so desperate to enjoy their “ceremony,” and he could hardly blame him. He went along with it, trying the press the weight that was pulling him down to the back of his mind.

“Hey,” Shion said, as they were lying side by side on the bed, bare skin pressed together, “we’re married now.”

“That we are.” Nezumi raised an eyebrow.

“You’re my husband.” Shion sat up.

“Mhmm.”

“I’m your husband.”

“That’s generally what it means when people get married, Shion,” Nezumi said, but Shion was already swinging his leg over so he was straddling Nezumi, looking very pleased with himself.

“So what now?” He asked, hands on Nezumi’s chest.

“Mm, I don’t know, you tell me. Don’t people normally go on vacation?”

“Honeymoons,” Shion corrected.

“Yeah, that. Maybe we should do that.” He grinned.

Shion laughed. “And where to? The Bahamas?”

“I’m not so sure about that one.” Nezumi grabbed Shion’s hips and flipped them over so they were turned on their side in one move, and Shion yelped in surprise before laughing.

“Warn me before you do that next time,” he chastised, but his hand found Nezumi’s.

There was a knock on their door right as he was leaning in, and both of them paused, waited a moment, before hearing the banging again, and a voice that sounded an awful lot like Inukashi demanding that they let me in already, I’m freezing my ass off out here!

Nezumi, sighed, rolled his eyes, and forced himself out of the warm bed, slipping on some shorts before making his way out of their room and into the living room, where the main entrance was. He swung open the door irritably.

“What do you want?” he demanded, not bothering for a hello, and not too pleased at having been interrupted.

“I’ve been out here in the cold waiting for someone to open this damn door forever now!” They huffed, arms around themself as they shivered. “And put some fucking clothes on!”

“Sorry, I happened to be in the middle of something when you tried to break in,” he snapped sarcastically, just as Shion made his way out of the bedroom to greet their guest, having wrapped himself in a blanket for more warmth.

“Oh! Inukashi!” His face lit up in a polite smile. “What are you doing here?”

Inukashi looked between the two of them before they seemed to realize what exactly Nezumi had meant by the middle of something. Their face heated up and they looked away from Shion quickly. Nezumi rolled his eyes but closed the door behind them.

“N-nothing,” they mumbled. “I need to talk to Nezumi about...something.”

“If it’s about Shion, he should be around to hear this anyway,” Nezumi said, leaning against the doorframe and crossing his ankles.

“What about me?” Shion said, making his way to the kitchenette with his blanket dragging behind him like a cape. He turned on the stove and put a pot on. “Oh, and Inukashi, I can make you some tea if you want. You must be really cold.”

“I’m fine,” they snapped, but they were still shivering, and they sat down at the kitchen table anyway. “And...yes, it’s about Shion.”

“I told them about the situation,” Nezumi explained.

Shion blinked. “When did you have time to talk to them?”

“Came to me in the middle of the goddamn night,” they provided helpfully with a snort. “He pretty much begged me for my help.”

“I did nothing of the sort.”

“Did too!”

“So that’s where you went last night?” Shion intervened, filling the pot with water and setting it back on the burner. “And I take it that means you explained everything to them.”

Nezumi nodded before taking a seat at the table as well. “Yep. So, what’d you come here for anyway?” he said. He could feel that they’d been staring at the scars on his back, both the burns and from being forced to Earth, but he pretended not to notice.

“I don’t know all that much about...well, you guys,” they admitted, scratching their cheek, “but I sort of figured, if things like you two, ya know, angels and demons and shit, are real, why wouldn’t magic stuff be real too? And then I was thinkin’...that there could be some sort of...magic that could help get rid of Shion’s scars, right?”

“Magic isn’t real,” Nezumi shot down immediately, but Shion was surprisingly quiet, saying nothing and doing nothing but staring at the teapot as the water boiled. They all sat in silence as they waited for Shion to respond.

After pouring them all a cup of tea separately and sitting down at the table, he stared at the contents of his mug and said, “Magic is real.”

Nezumi gave him a look. “Shion—”

“Not the kind that normal people can do,” he hurried to amend. “Humans can’t do magic, and the term magic probably isn’t even the best one to use in describing it. But angels—and demons—have powers, you know that, don’t you, Nezumi?” He took a sip of his drink. “You had some, and I did too, before…”

“That may be true, but humans can’t do magic, and we’re human now. And I’m not exactly seeing any angelic beings coming down to help us right now.”

“Do you know how long it takes for an angel to become human?”

Both Inukashi and Nezumi stared at him.

“You said it took a few months, a year at most,” Nezumi answered. He hadn’t touched his drink.

Shion nodded. “Right. Generally, I thought that if an angel fell, then it shouldn’t take much longer than a few months to become human. But the only reference I really had was myself and my own experiences because they never talked about any of the Fallen Ones in Heaven, because it was—well, to put it lightly, it was taboo. We didn’t talk about it, so we didn’t learn about it either.

“But when I got here and I found you, you were saying that in a year, you would be human, and that that’s what happened when demons ended up on Earth for extended periods of time, so it only made sense that I would follow the same rule, wouldn’t it? Considering just how close the two species are.”

Inukashi set their drink down and shook their head. “This is still so weird to hear about.”

Shion smiled at them. “Ah, right, you’re new to this. I’m sorry.”

They shrugged and leaned back in their chair. “Sorta knew you guys were gonna have some weird shit goin’ on with you. Keep talkin’.”

He nodded and traced a ring on the top of his mug. “So I assumed that the same thing would happen to me, but it’s not much of a secret that angels and demons are pretty different, so there really wasn’t any way to know for sure how long the process would be—or if that process would even happen at all. I realized the other day that, in Heaven, no one actually ever said that falling makes you human—only that you get stuck on Earth, and that it was the ultimate punishment for the worst crime you could commit.”

“Which was apparently just having emotions,” Nezumi mumbled into his drink.

Shion ignored the comment. “And I realized that there’s not actually any way to know if I’ve really been turned into a human or not.”

Both Nezumi and Inukashi stopped what they were doing and stared at them.

“Wait.” Nezumi set his cup down. “You’re saying that you could still be an angel?”

“Theoretically.”

“What do you mean, ‘theoretically’? Are you or aren't you?” Inukashi demanded.

“I don’t know.” Before either of them could say anything else, he continued, “But if I am, that means that I could still have some abilities from when I was in Heaven. I have emotions now, and I’m down to a normal number of limbs—”

“Holy fuckin’ shit,” Inukashi mumbled.

“—But I had emotions when I was in Heaven too, and you could very well make the case that I only have four limbs now because otherwise, I couldn’t fit in on Earth, same with why I don’t have wings anymore. Alternatively, I could be stuck in essentially some sort of limbo between human and angel—without angel appearances but with human memories and emotions, and then, making it so I couldn’t truly fit in either place, I could’ve been stuck with angelic powers.” He smiled, a little sardonically. “More punishment, to be stuck between both forms without ever being able to choose one. That would explain why the scars can hurt me in the first place, since human scars wouldn’t do that.”

“But so then, you can stop them from hurting, can’t you?” Inukashi set their chair down from where they’d been leaning back and instead put their elbows on the table.

“Again, this is all just theory,” Shion said, scratching the back of his head, “but I think...that’s technically possible.”

“Technically?” Nezumi glanced up from his mug.

Shion nodded. “Yeah. Whatever ‘powers’ I have left are...really faint. Like, really, really faint, to the point where I can pretty much only feel that they’re there when…” he stopped what he was saying abruptly, and looked away, his face redder than normal. “W-well, that’s not that important. But the point is, if I wanted to use whatever’s left to get the scars to stop, I would need something that could amplify what’s left. You know, make it more easily accessible.”

“Like what?” Inukashi asked, eyebrows furrowed.

“Like…” Shion thought about it for a moment. “A church, maybe?”

“A church?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Being in a church might help to ‘channel’ it better, so to speak.”

Nezumi looked away. “How come you never mentioned any of this to me?”

“I’ve been...mulling it over for a long time,” he answered, voice gentle like he was choosing his words carefully, “but it was all just sort of a feeling, and not anything concrete, so I didn’t want to mention it and get anyone’s hopes up, especially to you, but…it’s looking like this is the only option left. And to tell you the truth,” he smiled at Nezumi, “I only really figured out last night that there were any sort of powers left over at all.”

“What happened last night?” Inukashi asked, and then immediately said, a little louder than necessary,  “Wait, never mind—don’t answer that. Please.”

Nezumi smiled, but it felt a little less hostile than normal. “What, you don’t want to hear about my husband and I’s private affairs?”

They wrinkled their nose at the words. “‘Husband’?”

“I married us,” Shion provided helpfully.

“You’re not a priest,” they said, deadpan and with an eyebrow raised.

Shion smiled brightly. “No. But I’m an angel, and I’d say that’s sufficient enough.”

 

--

 

It felt odd to continue going to work after everything that had happened, but most of their days were spent in a weird sense of calm, where they both knew there was nothing they could do but try to figure out their game plan and wait, so they couldn’t afford to not go to work, at least if they still wanted to eat.

Shion still came to his show two weeks after they were married, walking all that way out in the cold, and when it was over, he visited Nezumi backstage with Inukashi, whom he’d forced to come along once more.

“You were great!” he said, all smiles—most of which felt just a little more forced those days.

Nezumi felt himself grin in response. “I would’ve done better had I known you were going to be here tonight.”

Inukashi huffed and blew a strand of hair out of their face.

“I agreed to go with you to see it, but not to stand behind while you two got all gross and couple-y,” they complained. “I’m goin’ home.”

“Aww, don’t whine,” Shion chastised. “And besides, it’s snowing, and your hotel is a while away. I’ll walk with you.”

“You don’t have to do that!”

“What’s this? Inukashi, are you blushing?” Nezumi teased.

“Shut up! I’m leaving!”

Shion gave him an apologetic look, before pecking him on the cheek and saying, “I’ll see you at home.”

Nezumi watched them leave in the snow and felt a tug at his chest.

If they didn’t figure out what they were going to do, this would be Shion’s last winter.

 

--

 

“Your one year anniversary is coming up.”

Shion blinked, looking up from the book he was reading. “One year anniversary for what?”

“For when you fell, of course.” Nezumi propped his feet up on the coffee table, shuffling a deck of cards in his hands absentmindedly. “But I guess that’s not a very pleasant memory, so if you’d like, you could think of it more as the one year anniversary of us living together.”

At the words, Shion smiled. “Yeah, I think I like the latter much better. Things are a lot different now than they were when I first got here, huh?” He mused. “The year felt...really long, surprisingly.”

“A lot more happens in a year on Earth than it would in a year on Heaven,” Nezumi said. “‘S probably why it felt so long.”

“Do you think we could’ve had this had we not gotten stuck here?”

Nezumi stopped shuffling and looked at Shion for a moment. “Hm? Had what?”

“Us. I mean—not living together, probably, because there wouldn’t have been a need for that, but us being together, romantically, I mean. Do you think that could’ve happened had we not been here?”

“Nope.”

Shion pouted at the immediate answer. “You’re not even going to give yourself time to think about it?”

“Don’t need to. I already know the answer, and it is: no. There’s absolutely no way we could’ve been together had we stayed the way we were.”

“What makes you so sure?”

Nezumi set the cards down and leaned forward across the table. He saw Shion’s surprise at the movement, but Shion didn’t move away.

“Because angels and demons couldn’t and still can’t be together, even in the most innocent meaning of the phrase. No one would’ve allowed us to be like this, and if we’d tried, we’d get stuck here in the end anyway.”

Shion didn’t respond, instead frowning and seeming to think about the words for a few minutes. Nezumi had just started to open his mouth to ask about dinner when Shion finally said, “So, Earth is the birthplace of us. Because even if we’d been together before this, we would’ve been sent to Earth in the end anyway.”

“If you want to think of it like that, yes.”

“Earth…” He stared at the page of his book, but he wasn’t reading. Nezumi watched him for a moment; watched the way his fingers curled around the sides of the cover; watched the way his lips formed a small, fond smile; watched the way his violet eyes softened almost unnoticeably.

“It’s my turn to make dinner tonight,” Nezumi said. Shion’s lips twitched. Nezumi ignored the urge to kiss him.

“Alright,” he finally answered, glancing up from where he’d been staring at the page, and offered a small smile. “I went to the store this morning, so we should have everything.”

Dinner that night was oddly silent, as Shion still seemed lost in thought and Nezumi had little to say, but about halfway through, Shion asked, “How long have you been on Earth?”

Nezumi thought about the question. “Almost two years now, I guess.” He took a sip of his drink. “What makes you ask that all of a sudden?”

“I’ve only been here for a year, so I don’t know as much about how the world works as you do…”

“You get by pretty okay,” Nezumi said, only half teasing.

“I really love Earth.”

Nezumi didn’t say anything, waiting for him to finish.

“I know that...I know that I was acting like I’d given up on living, and that it seemed like I didn’t want to…to be alive...” He frowned at his food. “But I really do want to live. I want to keep living, like this, with you, on Earth. I know I said a long time ago that I’d have been okay with still being an angel as long as I was with you, but I really don’t think I would have…”

“What brings on all this so suddenly?” Nezumi asked gently.

Shion shrugged. “Nothing, really. I’ve just been thinking about it, and it felt like I needed to tell you.”

They finished dinner in silence.

Once he was done, he smiled reassuringly and got up from his seat, taking his plate to the sink. “I’ll do the dishes tonight.”

Nezumi stood up and stretched, nodding at the statement. “In that case, I’m heading off to bed.” He made his way to the bedroom, but stopped at the doorway, hand stilling on the frame, just out of sight of the kitchen.

“You love Earth, huh…”

 

--

 

The illusion of peace that had lasted in the winter thawed along with everything else as spring came, and by the time flowers were blooming, the sense of calm was anything but present.

 

--

 

Near the city limits in the mountains, there was a church sitting on a hill, abandoned and empty, with a small, decaying graveyard in the back with dates on the stones preceding the 1850’s. Inukashi had lived in that town all their life, and they swore up and down that they’d never seen even so much as a single car in that church’s parking lot, and it had been boarded up for most of their life until recently.

Which, as it turned out, was most of the reason Shion chose it, the other reason being that he felt more comfortable with it being so far away from the main part of the town, and conveniently not near any houses. I don’t want us to get interrupted, he’d explained.

Nezumi didn’t really care about where it was they chose, and he was perfectly fine with whatever it was suited Shion most, but he had to admit the church was ghostly, with moss growing on the walls and pews with rotting wood. The podium at the altar was all but destroyed, a bible with damp pages lying on the floor in front of it, untouched, covered in dust and missing a few pages.

Approximately a day before it would start (according to what Shion had estimated), they took a bus up the mountain and then walked the rest of the way, but they had to stop in the middle of the trek because of Shion’s scars. Nezumi ended up carrying him the rest of the walk, and by the time they got to the church, it had calmed down and Shion could think properly again. Inukashi looked apprehensive. Shion looked like he was stepping up to his execution. Nezumi mostly just wanted things to be over with.

They entered the church, stepped over dead animals that had crawled their way in just to suffocate, pushed back cobwebs that hung from the stained glass windows, and got ten feet in before Shion immediately collapsed on the floor. Both Inukashi and Nezumi rushed to help him up.

“This place smells horrible,” Inukashi grumbled, wrinkling their nose even as the two of them lifted Shion onto one of the pews that hadn’t collapsed already. They were masking their worry for Shion in childlike complaints, or at least trying to; it didn’t work so much when they were biting their lip and looking off with eyebrows furrowed the moment they had finished talking.

Shion was so used to the pain of it by then that he didn’t scream anymore, barely whimpered at that point either. Most of his reactions came from the way he lost control of his movement, as his legs seized up and left him to fall. Inukashi and Nezumi had been getting desensitized from the process, but because of the events ahead, their worry had returned fresh in their mind.

“I’m fine now,” Shion croaked, standing up on shaking legs, but he fell forward again and Inukashi had to help him stand up. They stumbled to the front of the church, right at the decaying alter, and Shion sat on the floor in front of it.

“You get to do the laundry once this is all over,” Nezumi commented, looking at the way dust and dirt collected on Shion where he sat, but the comment was a hollow attempt to act like there was a certain once this is all over, a way to soothe their minds about the outcome a little.

The truth was that it was very likely Shion would die there.

“How do we…?” Inukashi asked, fidgeting nervously where they stood, wiping their sweaty palms on the front of their jeans.

“I’m not really sure what will happen,” Shion answered, sitting with his legs criss-crossed, arms slack in his lap, “so we just need to be careful. Make sure I’m not interrupted while this happens, but besides that, we should be fine.”

“Awesome,” they mumbled, looking around. “So we can’t do anything else.”

“Stop complaining. Let’s leave him to it.” Nezumi turned around and started to walk out of the church, hands in his pockets. He felt Inukashi start to follow him before they stopped.

“Shion…”

“I’ll be fine.” Even without seeing it, Nezumi was sure Shion was smiling, reassuring something that he had no real knowledge about. Making a promise he couldn’t keep. “Don’t worry about me.”

There was silence for a moment. Inukashi took a deep, ragged breath, like they were trying to hold back tears.

“Just don’t die, stupid.”

“I’ll see you guys in a little bit.”

Nezumi bit his lip and felt Inukashi start to follow him. They got to the double doors, rusted and breaking, before he stopped, barely feeling Inukashi looking at him over the heavy drumming of his heartbeat in his ears.

“Shion.”

He didn’t look, but he heard the quite hmm? in response and could almost pretend they were in their kitchen, the night after a show, with his back to Shion as he sat on the couch and watched him do the dishes.

“It’s your turn to cook tonight,” he said, and refused to turn around even as they closed the doors behind them.