[FIC] NewS - Heaven (is a place on Earth) [2/2]
← Part One | Part Two →
It was a cowardly thing to do, running away like that. Koyama knows this, and he feels horrible about it, but there’s no taking it back now. Angels are not immune to guilt, he now knows, nor are they exempt from heart ache. Koyama is feeling both at the moment, and he can’t help but feel like he deserves it.
He’s sitting at the edge of Heaven, some far off corner where he can be alone to peek down at Earth and watch Shige from a distance. Shige, who is hurting more now than he ever has before in his life, all because of Koyama.
Time is a funny thing in Heaven; it works differently than it does on Earth, not because there’s a difference in how fast it moves, but because in Heaven, the ones perceiving it have a very skewed view of it. On Earth, it’s so easy to get swept up in the singular events and lives that it seems to stretch on forever. But in Heaven, where time is little more than a vague concept used to define other creatures’ lives, it’s almost impossible to grasp properly.
This concept is not one that Koyama has really considered before, but now, it frightens him to his very core. What feels like just a moment to him is enough for several days to slip away on Earth, and he’s terrified that if he pries his eyes away from Shige for even an instant, he’ll turn back to find that the man has winked out of existence completely, his cycle come and gone in the blink of an eye.
He came up here to think - to try and sort through the bizarre, foreign emotions weighing so heavily on him that he feels like he might collapse under it all - but instead, all he finds himself doing is sitting here and watching as days melt into weeks and weeks into months for his human. (His human. Koyama wonders when Shige became that to him; when his initial feelings of fascinated curiosity towards the student shifted to something far more personal. He doesn’t have an answer for himself.)
Shige doesn’t handle it well. Koyama watches as he falls apart for days afterwards, bouncing from violent anger to soul-shattering sorrow in rapid fire spurts. He cries sometimes, late at night when the feeling of wrong, incomplete, empty gets so unbearable that he can’t stand it anymore. Koyama knows how much it hurts, because he feels it too, a stabbing ache that digs deep into his very essence and screams for relief and comfort and Shige.
It feels a little bit like his soul is splitting in half; it is, without a doubt, the most painful thing Koyama has ever experienced in his time. And that’s partially why he’s here, now; in Heaven, there is no pain, no death or hurt or unhappiness. Just a steady sense of peace and ease, something Koyama has spent his life wrapped in. Something he now wants nothing more than to wash over him and block out everything else; to make him forget.
But he can’t forget now; not when a piece of himself feels like it’s missing. He’s not made for this - angels aren’t supposed to feel, not like this - but he is, and it’s the worst sort of conflict he’s ever faced.
He senses it more than he hears it when another presence joins him. Koyama wants to turn to look, but he doesn’t dare drag his eyes away from Shige, who’s in class right now, but isn’t focusing, is just doodling pictures of wings on his course outline absently; he knows instinctively that the student’s thoughts are on him. He can feel the sharp tug on his soul that tells him so.
“Hello, Yamashita,” He says tiredly, following the movement of his human’s pen with rapt attention. He doesn’t need to see his brother to know who it is; Yamashita’s presence is a strong one, almost overpoweringly so. He was born to be a leader, a soldier, and his aura reflects that.
“Yo,” Yamashita greets in turn, settling in beside him. Yamashita stays quiet for a long while, watching Shige with Koyama, impassive and nonjudgmental, and Koyama is grateful for it.
Of all his siblings, Yamashita is probably his favorite. They’ve always shared a strange sort of mutual fondness for one another, something that many of their brothers and sisters don’t quite understand. It’s not something that either of them feel inclined to try and explain, and although they aren’t technically supposed to have preferences for one another, the others let them get away with it because Yamashita is one of the golden children and Koyama is Koyama, the awkward older brother who waited an unheard of three millennia before receiving his first assignment.
They’re friends as well as siblings, and Koyama is inwardly pleased that it’s Yamashita that approached him first.
He feels something brush against him, then, tentative and shy, asking for permission. It feels foreign to him, like something out of a dream, but so familiar that he trembles from it just a bit. Yamashita’s wings are warm and soft and gold in color, and they fold over Koyama’s shoulders delicately, offering silent comfort and support that he appreciates more than anything else.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Yamashita asks carefully.
Koyama doesn’t, but Yamashita is notoriously bad at taking hints, and saying ‘no’ flat to his face seems a little too rude. So instead, he shrugs helplessly and feels the wings around him flutter in light concern. It’s such a simple motion, but somehow, it makes Koyama feel closer to home than he’s been in months.
On Earth, Shige meets with his friends for lunch. He smiles at them all in turn, but it doesn’t meet his eyes.
“I…” Koyama says shakily. Only it’s not his voice that’s shaking - it’s him. “…I don’t know what to do, Pi-chan,” The nickname surprises him even as it slips passed his lips. He hasn’t used it in ages; not since Yamashita was just a fledgling, before he received his title as seraph.
Yamashita doesn’t look bothered by it, although Koyama thinks he sees him blush just a bit. “Your assignment giving you trouble?” In a sense, this is true, so Koyama nods. “Still can’t figure out what he wants?”
“No. I know what he prayed for.” That is no longer a problem. Koyama had suspected something, but the kiss had confirmed it. He’d felt it at that instant, the loneliness and longing inside his human, the way those feelings had ebbed away in the course of their confrontation. That moment had sparked a connection of some kind, a two-way flow that had Koyama constantly aware of Shige in ways he hadn’t known of before, and even now, he can feel it, not quite tangible but definitely there.
He hasn’t the slightest idea of how to explain this to Yamashita, though. He’s not even sure if there are words for it in any language. It just… is.
“Then what’s wrong?” Yamashita’s tone is neutral, but coaxing. The same tone he uses with the fledglings when he wants them to do something on their own without guidance. Koyama is too distracted by the sight of Shige returning home to an empty dorm room to be offended.
He opens his mouth to respond, but stops when he sees Shige’s expression; heartbroken and lost. He feels the disappointment that radiates off of the student, and then the self-loathing and anger soon after. Koyama’s chest aches painfully. “I don’t think I was supposed to get this assignment, Pi,” He hears himself say numbly. “I think it was a mistake.”
He doesn’t see the look that Yamashita gives him for that, but he can feel the heat of the glare bearing into him. The wing around his back goes stiff.
“Koyama,” Yamashita says, his tone low, dark; dangerous. A warning, then. “That’s blasphemy.”
Koyama nods, not denying it. “I know.” He agrees, and acknowledging it makes his stomach drop and clench, his head swim. He feels like he’s just done something terrible; another first. “But I just… Pi, I can’t.” Maybe it’s the desperate sound of his voice, or maybe it’s just Yamashita feeling sorry for him, but the wings around him curl protectively closer, and everything about the seraph suddenly feels gentler. “I just… I don’t understand. Why me? Why did it come to me?”
Shige is turning in for the night, tugging his blankets up until they touch his ears. But Koyama can tell that he won’t be getting much sleep tonight, and the need to reach out and fix that, to soothe away Shige’s worries until he dreams easy and light, is startlingly strong. He doesn’t realize that he’s reaching out for it until his hand closes over nothing.
For the first time since he arrived back in Heaven, Koyama pulls his eyes away from Shige, closes them slowly and feels something wet trail down his cheek.
Yamashita sighs softly and lets the older angel curl up against him. He remembers a time, thousands of years ago, when Koyama had done the very same for him on many occasions. The role reversal feels strange, but not uncomfortably so.
“Kei,” he murmurs, tightening his grip just a bit. “You know as well as anyone that these things aren’t random. You were given this assignment for a reason. And I think, if you stopped panicking and thought about it for just a minute, you might realize what that reason is.” It the closest Yamashita can get to calling him an idiot without actually saying it, and Koyama smiles despite himself. “Did it ever occur to you that this prayer might have been just as much for you as it was for this Kato person?”
Koyama opens his mouth to respond, starts to say something in his defense, but stops abruptly as the words sink in. And then he snaps his mouth shut, because suddenly everything fits.
“…it’s fate,” He says faintly, and Yamashita smirks at him knowingly.
“There you go.”
“I have to go.” Koyama pulls himself away, untangles his wings from the seraph’s and makes to leave, but stops suddenly as something occurs to him. He hesitates, peers back at Yamashita, who is looking at him in a way that’s almost proud. “I… won’t be coming back, will I?”
“Not for a while,” Yamashita nods. “Not until you finish your work.”
Koyama nods, understanding what he means. With a flutter of his wings, he’s gone.
~***~
It takes Shige almost, but not quite, four months before he finally starts to feel like himself again. And those months are absolute agony for him. It’s a struggle, picking up the pieces and trying to figure out how to move on. Half the time, he isn’t even sure if it’s worth it.
But he manages; holds his life together when he feels like he’s lost at sea and barely floating, even if the effort is only half-hearted. He attends his classes, but doesn’t pay attention. He sees his friends, but hardly ever actually interacts with them. Tegoshi thinks he’s depressed, and Massu, naturally, has adopted his theory. Ryo doesn’t even pick on him anymore; just sends him surreptitious worried looks when he thinks no one is looking. It makes Shige feel guilty, having them fret over him like this, but he’s grateful for it, too; he doesn’t want to think about the place he’d be in if it weren’t for them.
He hates feeling this way, and he hates himself for letting it get to this point. He’s not the type for lovesickness; certainly not the sort to wallow in his misery over something as stupid a broken heart.
Except it’s more than that, and he knows it. He’s felt heartbreak before, and this goes well beyond it. It feels like a piece of himself is gone; like there’s some kind of hole inside of him that Koyama tore out when he left. But no, that’s not right either. Rather, it’s like he’s always been incomplete, and just hadn’t ever realized it until the angel came into the picture and fixed him. And now he’s back to where he was before, only this time, he knows that he isn’t right, and there’s nothing he can do. He’s in pain almost constantly, not a physical kind but something deeper, and he wonders if this is what Koyama had meant by his soul being hurt.
Mostly, he’s just angry. Angry at himself, for the most part; for ruining everything, for not turning the angel away that first night. For letting himself fall in love. Sometimes he’s angry at Koyama, but he can never really hold onto that for long. The self-loathing is far more satisfying, and anyway, he can’t blame Koyama. He just can’t.
He’s finally starting to get better, though. Shige doesn’t think he’ll ever fully move on, but he can come to terms with it and let it go.
That’s what Tegoshi says, anyway. It’s not bad advice, Shige supposes, given that the psychology student doesn’t really have any idea about what happened beyond the fact that Koyama is gone and Shige is unhappy now. But still, it’s so much easier to say it than it is to actually do it.
So, so much harder.
~***~
Shige is in the middle of doing his homework when he hears it, a soft flapping sound that’s familiar and almost nostalgic to him. He feels the air suddenly grow heavier, charged with something not-quite-natural, and in his chest, his heart flutters uncomfortably fast.
He doesn’t need to turn around to know who’s standing there behind him, but he feels the compulsion to look anyway.
Koyama looks no different than he did months earlier, when he slipped away from Shige’s grasp and disappeared from his life completely, but looking at him, Shige can pick up tiny traces of his story. His face and expression look the same as they always used to, but his eyes hold a certain heaviness that the human is unused to. He stands tall, but his shoulders are tense. His wings look as impressive as ever, but they’re unkempt and have lost some of their luster.
The angel looks tired, and Shige can’t help the spark of worry this stirs in him at the sight.
“I… Kei-” It slips out before Shige can stop it, and he snaps his mouth shut the instant it does, shame bubbling up within him at just how needy it sounds.
Koyama’s eyes snap down to him, like he’s just now noticing Shige for the first time, and the change is downright startling. His entire posture relaxes, his wings unfurl themselves and twitch outwards in a motion that’s almost welcoming, his eyes brighten, and everything about him suddenly seems to glow. It’s an intense reaction; one that Shige has no idea how to interpret as anything but sheer, unadulterated happiness.
“Hello, Shige,” the angel says, and Shige can’t help but remember their first meeting. “I’m glad to see you,”
Shige swallows down his knee-jerk reaction, which is the odd combination of wanting to both hug Koyama and break his nose at the same time, and forces himself to remain where he sits. “What…” he begins, and then swallows as his voice cracks dangerously. “What are you doing here?”
Koyama’s eyes flicker with something. Hurt, maybe. “I wanted to see you.”
“Why?” It’s blunt and sharp at the same time, half an accusation. Koyama flinches visibly at the sound of it, his wings curling around himself protectively, but Shige can’t bring himself to feel guilty over it.
“Are you really that angry with me?” Koyama asks, instead of answering properly. Shige feels a spark of irritation at the evasion, and then a flare of anger as the words sink in. Without realizing it, he’s standing up, so fast his chair topples to the side, and he thinks that this might be what people mean when they say they saw red, because at this moment, he thinks he kind of does.
“Why the hell wouldn’t I be?” Shige demands heatedly, practically snarling. “You ran away, Kei. I needed you, and you left.”
Koyama winces, but doesn’t turn away, nor does he retreat in anyway. Instead, all he does is whisper, so quietly Shige almost doesn’t hear him, “I know.” And that sort of takes the wind right out of Shige; the anger remains but suddenly he feels like he can’t let it out, now; not seeing how helpless the angel looks, crestfallen and downtrodden with his wings drooping so far down that they’re trailing on the floor.
It’s not fair, really, but Shige feels the urge to yell and shout seep out of him, and suddenly, all he feels is tired. “You know.” He echoes numbly.
Koyama sighs heavily. “Shige, I…” He stops, and then a moment later shakes his head, like he’s discarding whatever it was he was going to say before. “I’m sorry. I didn’t… know what to do.” Shige remains silent, lips pressed in a thin line, making it clear that it isn’t enough; not yet. Koyama looks hesitant, like he doesn’t want to go further, but Shige refuses to let it go so easily. “Shige, I’ve never… I’ve never felt like that before. I’m not even supposed to be able to feel like that. It was… overwhelming.”
That’s an understatement. Shige can still remember how it felt, that kiss; how intense it had been, how shaken he’d felt afterwards. For an instant there, he’d felt everything, absolutely everything, and the memory of it is still enough to make him feel lightheaded.
“Never?” He repeats, skepticism evident. “So this isn’t something you do with all of your charges.” It’s not a fair thing to say, he knows - even if Koyama is a coward, he’s not the type that would just play with someone’s emotions like that. But some small, petty part of him wants to make Koyama uncomfortable; to make him squirm and feel at least a little of what Shige himself has been suffering.
It works, to a degree. Koyama’s feathers abruptly ruffle themselves, and the angel looks honestly insulted. Instead of the indigence that Shige is expecting, however, he merely says, levelly, “You’re the only charge I’ve ever had, Shige.” And then, after a moment, he adds, “And the only one I ever will.”
And, well. Shige certainly isn’t expecting that. “What?”
Koyama looks uncomfortable suddenly, and he fidgets as he tries to figure out how to explain himself. He looks like he doesn’t even know where to start. Finally, he says, sounding a little bit unsure, “I’m… old, Shige; older than your entire species. But I’ve never received a prayer, not in the entire time I’ve been alive. Not until yours.” He’s not looking at Shige anymore, but rather past him as he speaks. “And I couldn’t figure it out, before. Why, after all this time, it was yours that found me. Why it was that the first soul I was sent to help was one that I wouldn’t be able to resist.” He smiles suddenly, breathes out half a laugh. “I get it now, though. I understand. I was the only one that could have received it.”
Somehow, during the course of this, Koyama has moved closer without Shige even noticing. He’s standing in front of him now, the distance between them barely enough to be considered socially acceptable. He looks like he wants to reach out; like he wants to touch.
Shige feels his heart speed up as Koyama lifts a hand, hesitant, almost shy, his eyes searching Shige’s face for any sign of rebuff. When he finds none, he finishes the motion, his fingertips ghosting across Shige’s cheek slowly, tenderly. His touch is warm, familiar, intimate but chaste at the same time, and Shige leans into it without thinking.
“I’m sorry I left,” Koyama continues, and his tone is earnest, bitter regret lacing the words. “I didn’t realize… I didn’t understand…”
He sounds so conflicted that it makes something inside of Shige ache. Koyama strokes his cheek lovingly, but there’s a pause in each motion, like he’s afraid Shige will push him away if he presses too hard. And Shige is still hurting, still feeling that terrible mixture of betrayal and distress, but the emptiness from before is gone. He feels whole again. For the first time in months, he feels right. And he realizes then that this is a feeling that he never wants to lose again.
It’s an impulse, reaching for Koyama, pulling him forward and down until their lips meet. Koyama is still stumbling over his apology, trying to explain himself, but the words are lost between them quickly.
It’s different from the first one, this kiss. It’s softer, less frenzied and more timid. It’s hardly adventurous, and it lacks the kick that the first one did, but when Koyama slides his hand around to cup the back of Shige’s neck and pull him closer, his other hand curling into the fabric of Shige’s shirt, a quiet sort of intensity buzzes through Shige, vibrating through to the deepest part of him. And when he finally begins to coax Koyama’s lips open to deepen the kiss, it feels a little bit like liquid fire coursing through his blood.
Beneath the physical sensations, though, there’s something else. An undercurrent of something he can’t put a name on, something far beyond his capacity of understanding. It brushes his against mind - his soul he realizes shakily - hesitantly, and it feels strange, foreign, but at the same time soothing and so inherently Koyama that Shige could recognize it anywhere. Let me in, it says to him, not in words but in feelings, Let me give you what you need.
Shige can’t deny it; not when it feels so warm and comforting. It feels like safety, almost; like nothing can touch him, not with Koyama here. It’s tantalizing, intoxicating, and too strong - too good - to ignore.
Shige lets go.
This time, it’s deeper; more complex than it had been before. The near-maddening force from before is gone, replaced instead with something gentler, more delicate. This time, it feels less like slamming into a brick wall made of sheer, inhuman power and more like he’s easing into the shallow end of a pool of water.
It starts with emotions. Not just his own - although those are still there, but more subtle, easier to bear - but Koyama’s too. It startles him, how strong they are, the force of them so powerful it’s nearly crippling. It has never occurred to him that Koyama, being what he is, might feel things differently than he does, but now it’s readily apparent that he does. The intensity of them all is shocking, so much more than Shige himself has ever felt before. Some of them are frightening, some make him hurt so badly he wants to curl into a ball and disappear into nothing. Others are warm and make him feel a sort of joy he doesn’t think he’s felt since he was a child.
Thoughts come next, and oh, there’s so much he can’t keep up. They’re jumbled and tangled and in knots so convoluted they’re impossible to untangle. Some are fleeting, gone before Shige can even acknowledge them. Others scream so loudly he thinks he might never recover. It’s staggering, the sheer volume of it all, but some stand out more than others, and he thinks that these are ones that Koyama wants him to know. So he pushes away the others, fights past the heavy hum of noise they emit, and pulls the important ones close.
And in that instant, he understands. He knows.
They part. Shige isn’t sure who initiates it, but it doesn’t matter, because the instant they’ve separated, his lungs burn and his chest heaves and he wonders just how long they stood like that, clutching at each other and sharing something so much more intimate than anything Shige has ever experienced before.
He thinks he might be crying - he might be bawling, actually - but he can’t bring himself to care; instead, he just lets himself tip forward, buries himself into Koyama’s waiting arms and lets himself be held. Koyama clings to him too, and Shige feels something warm and soft settle over his shoulders; lighter than air and more comforting than any security blanket could ever be.
“Do you see?” Koyama asks him, whispers it into his shoulder, and his voice is raw, unguarded; afraid. “Do you understand now?”
Shige doesn’t trust himself to speak, just nods in jilted movements. Because he does understand now. He understands everything; why his soul prayed when he himself never would, why Koyama was one to receive it, the instant draw he’d felt towards the angel from the first moment they’d met, the crushing devastation and sense of abandonment he’d nearly crumbled under when Koyama had left him behind.
In that instant, Shige knows that Koyama will never leave him again, Heaven be damned. Nothing is worth losing this; whether that thought is Shige’s or Koyama’s, it’s impossible to tell, but the truth behind it is unmistakable, and as Shige lets himself bask in the feeling of Koyama’s wings stretched out protectively around them both, hiding them from the world, he lets himself think of things like forever and love without feeling afraid. With Koyama, he knows, it’s okay.
A million words run through his mind - fated, connected, meant for each other, soulmates -- but none of them are adequate for this; none of them even come close. Only one does, simplistic and basic and so damn right: mine.
“Always,” Koyama promises, curling closer still, and Shige thinks that, for the first time in his life, there’s not a trace of loneliness left in him.
And there never will be again; not so long as he has his angel.
END
It was a cowardly thing to do, running away like that. Koyama knows this, and he feels horrible about it, but there’s no taking it back now. Angels are not immune to guilt, he now knows, nor are they exempt from heart ache. Koyama is feeling both at the moment, and he can’t help but feel like he deserves it.
He’s sitting at the edge of Heaven, some far off corner where he can be alone to peek down at Earth and watch Shige from a distance. Shige, who is hurting more now than he ever has before in his life, all because of Koyama.
Time is a funny thing in Heaven; it works differently than it does on Earth, not because there’s a difference in how fast it moves, but because in Heaven, the ones perceiving it have a very skewed view of it. On Earth, it’s so easy to get swept up in the singular events and lives that it seems to stretch on forever. But in Heaven, where time is little more than a vague concept used to define other creatures’ lives, it’s almost impossible to grasp properly.
This concept is not one that Koyama has really considered before, but now, it frightens him to his very core. What feels like just a moment to him is enough for several days to slip away on Earth, and he’s terrified that if he pries his eyes away from Shige for even an instant, he’ll turn back to find that the man has winked out of existence completely, his cycle come and gone in the blink of an eye.
He came up here to think - to try and sort through the bizarre, foreign emotions weighing so heavily on him that he feels like he might collapse under it all - but instead, all he finds himself doing is sitting here and watching as days melt into weeks and weeks into months for his human. (His human. Koyama wonders when Shige became that to him; when his initial feelings of fascinated curiosity towards the student shifted to something far more personal. He doesn’t have an answer for himself.)
Shige doesn’t handle it well. Koyama watches as he falls apart for days afterwards, bouncing from violent anger to soul-shattering sorrow in rapid fire spurts. He cries sometimes, late at night when the feeling of wrong, incomplete, empty gets so unbearable that he can’t stand it anymore. Koyama knows how much it hurts, because he feels it too, a stabbing ache that digs deep into his very essence and screams for relief and comfort and Shige.
It feels a little bit like his soul is splitting in half; it is, without a doubt, the most painful thing Koyama has ever experienced in his time. And that’s partially why he’s here, now; in Heaven, there is no pain, no death or hurt or unhappiness. Just a steady sense of peace and ease, something Koyama has spent his life wrapped in. Something he now wants nothing more than to wash over him and block out everything else; to make him forget.
But he can’t forget now; not when a piece of himself feels like it’s missing. He’s not made for this - angels aren’t supposed to feel, not like this - but he is, and it’s the worst sort of conflict he’s ever faced.
He senses it more than he hears it when another presence joins him. Koyama wants to turn to look, but he doesn’t dare drag his eyes away from Shige, who’s in class right now, but isn’t focusing, is just doodling pictures of wings on his course outline absently; he knows instinctively that the student’s thoughts are on him. He can feel the sharp tug on his soul that tells him so.
“Hello, Yamashita,” He says tiredly, following the movement of his human’s pen with rapt attention. He doesn’t need to see his brother to know who it is; Yamashita’s presence is a strong one, almost overpoweringly so. He was born to be a leader, a soldier, and his aura reflects that.
“Yo,” Yamashita greets in turn, settling in beside him. Yamashita stays quiet for a long while, watching Shige with Koyama, impassive and nonjudgmental, and Koyama is grateful for it.
Of all his siblings, Yamashita is probably his favorite. They’ve always shared a strange sort of mutual fondness for one another, something that many of their brothers and sisters don’t quite understand. It’s not something that either of them feel inclined to try and explain, and although they aren’t technically supposed to have preferences for one another, the others let them get away with it because Yamashita is one of the golden children and Koyama is Koyama, the awkward older brother who waited an unheard of three millennia before receiving his first assignment.
They’re friends as well as siblings, and Koyama is inwardly pleased that it’s Yamashita that approached him first.
He feels something brush against him, then, tentative and shy, asking for permission. It feels foreign to him, like something out of a dream, but so familiar that he trembles from it just a bit. Yamashita’s wings are warm and soft and gold in color, and they fold over Koyama’s shoulders delicately, offering silent comfort and support that he appreciates more than anything else.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Yamashita asks carefully.
Koyama doesn’t, but Yamashita is notoriously bad at taking hints, and saying ‘no’ flat to his face seems a little too rude. So instead, he shrugs helplessly and feels the wings around him flutter in light concern. It’s such a simple motion, but somehow, it makes Koyama feel closer to home than he’s been in months.
On Earth, Shige meets with his friends for lunch. He smiles at them all in turn, but it doesn’t meet his eyes.
“I…” Koyama says shakily. Only it’s not his voice that’s shaking - it’s him. “…I don’t know what to do, Pi-chan,” The nickname surprises him even as it slips passed his lips. He hasn’t used it in ages; not since Yamashita was just a fledgling, before he received his title as seraph.
Yamashita doesn’t look bothered by it, although Koyama thinks he sees him blush just a bit. “Your assignment giving you trouble?” In a sense, this is true, so Koyama nods. “Still can’t figure out what he wants?”
“No. I know what he prayed for.” That is no longer a problem. Koyama had suspected something, but the kiss had confirmed it. He’d felt it at that instant, the loneliness and longing inside his human, the way those feelings had ebbed away in the course of their confrontation. That moment had sparked a connection of some kind, a two-way flow that had Koyama constantly aware of Shige in ways he hadn’t known of before, and even now, he can feel it, not quite tangible but definitely there.
He hasn’t the slightest idea of how to explain this to Yamashita, though. He’s not even sure if there are words for it in any language. It just… is.
“Then what’s wrong?” Yamashita’s tone is neutral, but coaxing. The same tone he uses with the fledglings when he wants them to do something on their own without guidance. Koyama is too distracted by the sight of Shige returning home to an empty dorm room to be offended.
He opens his mouth to respond, but stops when he sees Shige’s expression; heartbroken and lost. He feels the disappointment that radiates off of the student, and then the self-loathing and anger soon after. Koyama’s chest aches painfully. “I don’t think I was supposed to get this assignment, Pi,” He hears himself say numbly. “I think it was a mistake.”
He doesn’t see the look that Yamashita gives him for that, but he can feel the heat of the glare bearing into him. The wing around his back goes stiff.
“Koyama,” Yamashita says, his tone low, dark; dangerous. A warning, then. “That’s blasphemy.”
Koyama nods, not denying it. “I know.” He agrees, and acknowledging it makes his stomach drop and clench, his head swim. He feels like he’s just done something terrible; another first. “But I just… Pi, I can’t.” Maybe it’s the desperate sound of his voice, or maybe it’s just Yamashita feeling sorry for him, but the wings around him curl protectively closer, and everything about the seraph suddenly feels gentler. “I just… I don’t understand. Why me? Why did it come to me?”
Shige is turning in for the night, tugging his blankets up until they touch his ears. But Koyama can tell that he won’t be getting much sleep tonight, and the need to reach out and fix that, to soothe away Shige’s worries until he dreams easy and light, is startlingly strong. He doesn’t realize that he’s reaching out for it until his hand closes over nothing.
For the first time since he arrived back in Heaven, Koyama pulls his eyes away from Shige, closes them slowly and feels something wet trail down his cheek.
Yamashita sighs softly and lets the older angel curl up against him. He remembers a time, thousands of years ago, when Koyama had done the very same for him on many occasions. The role reversal feels strange, but not uncomfortably so.
“Kei,” he murmurs, tightening his grip just a bit. “You know as well as anyone that these things aren’t random. You were given this assignment for a reason. And I think, if you stopped panicking and thought about it for just a minute, you might realize what that reason is.” It the closest Yamashita can get to calling him an idiot without actually saying it, and Koyama smiles despite himself. “Did it ever occur to you that this prayer might have been just as much for you as it was for this Kato person?”
Koyama opens his mouth to respond, starts to say something in his defense, but stops abruptly as the words sink in. And then he snaps his mouth shut, because suddenly everything fits.
“…it’s fate,” He says faintly, and Yamashita smirks at him knowingly.
“There you go.”
“I have to go.” Koyama pulls himself away, untangles his wings from the seraph’s and makes to leave, but stops suddenly as something occurs to him. He hesitates, peers back at Yamashita, who is looking at him in a way that’s almost proud. “I… won’t be coming back, will I?”
“Not for a while,” Yamashita nods. “Not until you finish your work.”
Koyama nods, understanding what he means. With a flutter of his wings, he’s gone.
~***~
It takes Shige almost, but not quite, four months before he finally starts to feel like himself again. And those months are absolute agony for him. It’s a struggle, picking up the pieces and trying to figure out how to move on. Half the time, he isn’t even sure if it’s worth it.
But he manages; holds his life together when he feels like he’s lost at sea and barely floating, even if the effort is only half-hearted. He attends his classes, but doesn’t pay attention. He sees his friends, but hardly ever actually interacts with them. Tegoshi thinks he’s depressed, and Massu, naturally, has adopted his theory. Ryo doesn’t even pick on him anymore; just sends him surreptitious worried looks when he thinks no one is looking. It makes Shige feel guilty, having them fret over him like this, but he’s grateful for it, too; he doesn’t want to think about the place he’d be in if it weren’t for them.
He hates feeling this way, and he hates himself for letting it get to this point. He’s not the type for lovesickness; certainly not the sort to wallow in his misery over something as stupid a broken heart.
Except it’s more than that, and he knows it. He’s felt heartbreak before, and this goes well beyond it. It feels like a piece of himself is gone; like there’s some kind of hole inside of him that Koyama tore out when he left. But no, that’s not right either. Rather, it’s like he’s always been incomplete, and just hadn’t ever realized it until the angel came into the picture and fixed him. And now he’s back to where he was before, only this time, he knows that he isn’t right, and there’s nothing he can do. He’s in pain almost constantly, not a physical kind but something deeper, and he wonders if this is what Koyama had meant by his soul being hurt.
Mostly, he’s just angry. Angry at himself, for the most part; for ruining everything, for not turning the angel away that first night. For letting himself fall in love. Sometimes he’s angry at Koyama, but he can never really hold onto that for long. The self-loathing is far more satisfying, and anyway, he can’t blame Koyama. He just can’t.
He’s finally starting to get better, though. Shige doesn’t think he’ll ever fully move on, but he can come to terms with it and let it go.
That’s what Tegoshi says, anyway. It’s not bad advice, Shige supposes, given that the psychology student doesn’t really have any idea about what happened beyond the fact that Koyama is gone and Shige is unhappy now. But still, it’s so much easier to say it than it is to actually do it.
So, so much harder.
~***~
Shige is in the middle of doing his homework when he hears it, a soft flapping sound that’s familiar and almost nostalgic to him. He feels the air suddenly grow heavier, charged with something not-quite-natural, and in his chest, his heart flutters uncomfortably fast.
He doesn’t need to turn around to know who’s standing there behind him, but he feels the compulsion to look anyway.
Koyama looks no different than he did months earlier, when he slipped away from Shige’s grasp and disappeared from his life completely, but looking at him, Shige can pick up tiny traces of his story. His face and expression look the same as they always used to, but his eyes hold a certain heaviness that the human is unused to. He stands tall, but his shoulders are tense. His wings look as impressive as ever, but they’re unkempt and have lost some of their luster.
The angel looks tired, and Shige can’t help the spark of worry this stirs in him at the sight.
“I… Kei-” It slips out before Shige can stop it, and he snaps his mouth shut the instant it does, shame bubbling up within him at just how needy it sounds.
Koyama’s eyes snap down to him, like he’s just now noticing Shige for the first time, and the change is downright startling. His entire posture relaxes, his wings unfurl themselves and twitch outwards in a motion that’s almost welcoming, his eyes brighten, and everything about him suddenly seems to glow. It’s an intense reaction; one that Shige has no idea how to interpret as anything but sheer, unadulterated happiness.
“Hello, Shige,” the angel says, and Shige can’t help but remember their first meeting. “I’m glad to see you,”
Shige swallows down his knee-jerk reaction, which is the odd combination of wanting to both hug Koyama and break his nose at the same time, and forces himself to remain where he sits. “What…” he begins, and then swallows as his voice cracks dangerously. “What are you doing here?”
Koyama’s eyes flicker with something. Hurt, maybe. “I wanted to see you.”
“Why?” It’s blunt and sharp at the same time, half an accusation. Koyama flinches visibly at the sound of it, his wings curling around himself protectively, but Shige can’t bring himself to feel guilty over it.
“Are you really that angry with me?” Koyama asks, instead of answering properly. Shige feels a spark of irritation at the evasion, and then a flare of anger as the words sink in. Without realizing it, he’s standing up, so fast his chair topples to the side, and he thinks that this might be what people mean when they say they saw red, because at this moment, he thinks he kind of does.
“Why the hell wouldn’t I be?” Shige demands heatedly, practically snarling. “You ran away, Kei. I needed you, and you left.”
Koyama winces, but doesn’t turn away, nor does he retreat in anyway. Instead, all he does is whisper, so quietly Shige almost doesn’t hear him, “I know.” And that sort of takes the wind right out of Shige; the anger remains but suddenly he feels like he can’t let it out, now; not seeing how helpless the angel looks, crestfallen and downtrodden with his wings drooping so far down that they’re trailing on the floor.
It’s not fair, really, but Shige feels the urge to yell and shout seep out of him, and suddenly, all he feels is tired. “You know.” He echoes numbly.
Koyama sighs heavily. “Shige, I…” He stops, and then a moment later shakes his head, like he’s discarding whatever it was he was going to say before. “I’m sorry. I didn’t… know what to do.” Shige remains silent, lips pressed in a thin line, making it clear that it isn’t enough; not yet. Koyama looks hesitant, like he doesn’t want to go further, but Shige refuses to let it go so easily. “Shige, I’ve never… I’ve never felt like that before. I’m not even supposed to be able to feel like that. It was… overwhelming.”
That’s an understatement. Shige can still remember how it felt, that kiss; how intense it had been, how shaken he’d felt afterwards. For an instant there, he’d felt everything, absolutely everything, and the memory of it is still enough to make him feel lightheaded.
“Never?” He repeats, skepticism evident. “So this isn’t something you do with all of your charges.” It’s not a fair thing to say, he knows - even if Koyama is a coward, he’s not the type that would just play with someone’s emotions like that. But some small, petty part of him wants to make Koyama uncomfortable; to make him squirm and feel at least a little of what Shige himself has been suffering.
It works, to a degree. Koyama’s feathers abruptly ruffle themselves, and the angel looks honestly insulted. Instead of the indigence that Shige is expecting, however, he merely says, levelly, “You’re the only charge I’ve ever had, Shige.” And then, after a moment, he adds, “And the only one I ever will.”
And, well. Shige certainly isn’t expecting that. “What?”
Koyama looks uncomfortable suddenly, and he fidgets as he tries to figure out how to explain himself. He looks like he doesn’t even know where to start. Finally, he says, sounding a little bit unsure, “I’m… old, Shige; older than your entire species. But I’ve never received a prayer, not in the entire time I’ve been alive. Not until yours.” He’s not looking at Shige anymore, but rather past him as he speaks. “And I couldn’t figure it out, before. Why, after all this time, it was yours that found me. Why it was that the first soul I was sent to help was one that I wouldn’t be able to resist.” He smiles suddenly, breathes out half a laugh. “I get it now, though. I understand. I was the only one that could have received it.”
Somehow, during the course of this, Koyama has moved closer without Shige even noticing. He’s standing in front of him now, the distance between them barely enough to be considered socially acceptable. He looks like he wants to reach out; like he wants to touch.
Shige feels his heart speed up as Koyama lifts a hand, hesitant, almost shy, his eyes searching Shige’s face for any sign of rebuff. When he finds none, he finishes the motion, his fingertips ghosting across Shige’s cheek slowly, tenderly. His touch is warm, familiar, intimate but chaste at the same time, and Shige leans into it without thinking.
“I’m sorry I left,” Koyama continues, and his tone is earnest, bitter regret lacing the words. “I didn’t realize… I didn’t understand…”
He sounds so conflicted that it makes something inside of Shige ache. Koyama strokes his cheek lovingly, but there’s a pause in each motion, like he’s afraid Shige will push him away if he presses too hard. And Shige is still hurting, still feeling that terrible mixture of betrayal and distress, but the emptiness from before is gone. He feels whole again. For the first time in months, he feels right. And he realizes then that this is a feeling that he never wants to lose again.
It’s an impulse, reaching for Koyama, pulling him forward and down until their lips meet. Koyama is still stumbling over his apology, trying to explain himself, but the words are lost between them quickly.
It’s different from the first one, this kiss. It’s softer, less frenzied and more timid. It’s hardly adventurous, and it lacks the kick that the first one did, but when Koyama slides his hand around to cup the back of Shige’s neck and pull him closer, his other hand curling into the fabric of Shige’s shirt, a quiet sort of intensity buzzes through Shige, vibrating through to the deepest part of him. And when he finally begins to coax Koyama’s lips open to deepen the kiss, it feels a little bit like liquid fire coursing through his blood.
Beneath the physical sensations, though, there’s something else. An undercurrent of something he can’t put a name on, something far beyond his capacity of understanding. It brushes his against mind - his soul he realizes shakily - hesitantly, and it feels strange, foreign, but at the same time soothing and so inherently Koyama that Shige could recognize it anywhere. Let me in, it says to him, not in words but in feelings, Let me give you what you need.
Shige can’t deny it; not when it feels so warm and comforting. It feels like safety, almost; like nothing can touch him, not with Koyama here. It’s tantalizing, intoxicating, and too strong - too good - to ignore.
Shige lets go.
This time, it’s deeper; more complex than it had been before. The near-maddening force from before is gone, replaced instead with something gentler, more delicate. This time, it feels less like slamming into a brick wall made of sheer, inhuman power and more like he’s easing into the shallow end of a pool of water.
It starts with emotions. Not just his own - although those are still there, but more subtle, easier to bear - but Koyama’s too. It startles him, how strong they are, the force of them so powerful it’s nearly crippling. It has never occurred to him that Koyama, being what he is, might feel things differently than he does, but now it’s readily apparent that he does. The intensity of them all is shocking, so much more than Shige himself has ever felt before. Some of them are frightening, some make him hurt so badly he wants to curl into a ball and disappear into nothing. Others are warm and make him feel a sort of joy he doesn’t think he’s felt since he was a child.
Thoughts come next, and oh, there’s so much he can’t keep up. They’re jumbled and tangled and in knots so convoluted they’re impossible to untangle. Some are fleeting, gone before Shige can even acknowledge them. Others scream so loudly he thinks he might never recover. It’s staggering, the sheer volume of it all, but some stand out more than others, and he thinks that these are ones that Koyama wants him to know. So he pushes away the others, fights past the heavy hum of noise they emit, and pulls the important ones close.
And in that instant, he understands. He knows.
They part. Shige isn’t sure who initiates it, but it doesn’t matter, because the instant they’ve separated, his lungs burn and his chest heaves and he wonders just how long they stood like that, clutching at each other and sharing something so much more intimate than anything Shige has ever experienced before.
He thinks he might be crying - he might be bawling, actually - but he can’t bring himself to care; instead, he just lets himself tip forward, buries himself into Koyama’s waiting arms and lets himself be held. Koyama clings to him too, and Shige feels something warm and soft settle over his shoulders; lighter than air and more comforting than any security blanket could ever be.
“Do you see?” Koyama asks him, whispers it into his shoulder, and his voice is raw, unguarded; afraid. “Do you understand now?”
Shige doesn’t trust himself to speak, just nods in jilted movements. Because he does understand now. He understands everything; why his soul prayed when he himself never would, why Koyama was one to receive it, the instant draw he’d felt towards the angel from the first moment they’d met, the crushing devastation and sense of abandonment he’d nearly crumbled under when Koyama had left him behind.
In that instant, Shige knows that Koyama will never leave him again, Heaven be damned. Nothing is worth losing this; whether that thought is Shige’s or Koyama’s, it’s impossible to tell, but the truth behind it is unmistakable, and as Shige lets himself bask in the feeling of Koyama’s wings stretched out protectively around them both, hiding them from the world, he lets himself think of things like forever and love without feeling afraid. With Koyama, he knows, it’s okay.
A million words run through his mind - fated, connected, meant for each other, soulmates -- but none of them are adequate for this; none of them even come close. Only one does, simplistic and basic and so damn right: mine.
“Always,” Koyama promises, curling closer still, and Shige thinks that, for the first time in his life, there’s not a trace of loneliness left in him.
And there never will be again; not so long as he has his angel.
END