Chapter Text
He wasn’t really there, Rin thought, staring at the other angel before him. Just an apparition. But he was as good as there. His energy wouldn’t be sensed, and he couldn’t be touched, but Sousuke could see and hear anything that went on just like he’d be able to were he actually standing in the room.
“Rin, you look good. How are you feeling?”
“How am I feeling?” Rin stared at the apparition. He was in court robes, and had one more pin on his collar than he had the last time they’d seen each other a few months before. He’d been promoted again. Sousuke had been somewhat of a mentor to the younger Rin, but after his duties were complete and Rin became a full fledged angel, he had only gotten colder and colder.
To think there was a time when Rin considered Sousuke his best friend.
But it wasn’t the time to question lost friendships. “I guess I’m okay?” Rin replied. “I mean, I’m a little confused, though. If I’m exiled, why are you here?”
Sousuke smirked. “You’re not exiled. You’d know. If you were exiled, you’d still be an angel, but they’d clip your wings, leaving you broken and defenseless for some demonic earth-roaming creature to find.” He shook his head. “You’re still young, Rin, and you did nothing wrong.”
“Well excuse me for thinking that after I found myself falling out of the sky without any wings.”
“They could have done a better job explaining your mission, that’s true.”
Mission? “They didn’t mention anything about it,” he said. “I was literally walking around one second and falling the next.”
“Well, no wonder they sent me, then." Sousuke sighed. "You’re undercover, Rin. You’re here to hunt a demon for us.”
"What? I've never even seen a demon, much less-"
"You have." Sousuke cut him off. This was already taking too long for him. "Makoto." Rin's eyes opened wide, and he opened his mouth to speak, but Sousuke kept going. "He's a nuisance to angels and demons alike, and we finally found him after decades of searching."
Rin was visibly shaking. If he got chased out of the demon realm, Makoto had some serious power. Yet Rin hadn't been able to sense it at all, except for the little glimpses. "Why me?" he asked, and then had a thought. "Am I bait?"
"I already said, you're undercover. You're so new that no one from any side will recognise you, but you're still a full-fledged angel, so you can protect yourself. Bait...don’t underestimate yourself.”
“You know, it’s kind of hard not to. If I’d had some sort of briefing or something--”
“But you didn’t.” Sousuke shrugged, his image flickering a bit. “But you know now. Just keep observing him for a bit. When you think it’s time, you should be able to call your energy back. It’ll be sudden, and he’ll definitely be able to sense you, so you’ll have to do it quickly--you remember how to kill a demon, right?” Rin nodded. “Good. If you think you need backup, call us. We’ll set something up. Any questions?”
Rin shook his head. There were a million things swimming around in his mind, but most of the questions were rhetorical...except; “wait, what did he do?”
Sousuke shook his head. “He tried to stage a rebellion against both heaven and hell, and he almost succeeded. I don’t have the details--it was before my time, too, and it’s generally not talked about.” It made sense, heaven didn’t like to admit to it’s failures, after all. Sousuke nodded. “Well, I wish you luck, Rin.”
“Thanks,” Rin said, still in thought, as the hologram flickered off. It was just so strange. Makoto had given absolutely no signals of being anything other than completely kind. Again, a demon would never spare a human. A demon wasn’t supposed to be anything other than, well, demonic. A pure concentration of evil and rage.
And if even hell was against Makoto…
The front door opened, and Rin stared at it like a deer in headlights. “Could you help me with some of these--Huh? Rin? Are you okay?” Makoto looked like he had before he left, just like a normal human. No horns, or smoke, or extra limbs, though Rin supposed that if angels could become effectively human, there was nothing stopping demons from having the same property. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost?”
A demon, actually, but close enough. Rin shook his head. “Sorry, you just startled me.” He took one of the bags, doing his best to act as he had been acting. Rin may have been a pretty fantastic angel, but his acting skills left something to be desired, and it didn’t help that his mind was chanting “demon, demon, demon” over and over. “I was really into this show.”
They both glanced at the TV. A man was vacuuming up various spills on various types of flooring, speaking loudly about “calling now” and “special offers,” and a phone number was in bold yellow numbers at the bottom.
Makoto laughed. “Well, I have a vacuum in the closet if you want to try it yourself, but I’m not sure if it’s as good as that one.”
Rin smiled weakly. “No, I’m good, I think. Where do you want these?”
They spent a while putting away groceries. Or rather, Makoto did. Rin didn’t know where anything was supposed to go, but he did his best. Dairy was to be refrigerated, fruit went either in the fridge or on the counter, crackers and pasta in the cabinet. It wasn’t hard to get the hang of.
“So I was thinking spaghetti for dinner? And then brownies for dessert? I got brownie mix, and the directions are pretty straightforward, so I’ll made the main course if you do the baking.”
Rin read over the brownie directions, and it seemed doable, so he agreed.
-----
Makoto ended up doing everything, anyway. Rin ended up getting brownie mix everywhere, and then he put the entire egg--shell and all--into the mix, and finally added way too much oil before Makoto took over the operation, telling Rin to watch the pasta.
Screw the pasta. Rin watched Makoto during the entire ordeal. He hadn’t messed up on purpose, no, baking really just wasn’t his thing, but it was a convenient test of Makoto’s reactions. Demons were supposed to be hotheaded, blowing up when something goes even slightly wrong. Makoto did nothing more than smile, cleaning up Rin’s mess and telling him it was okay.
Somehow, everything was salvaged. The brownies, though they were only half as many as there were supposed to have been, were perfectly soft and chewy. The pasta was also fantastic. He’d been pretty limited to tasting either fruit or sweets when he was an angel, so actual human food was a completely new experience, and it was absolutely fantastic.
“You’re eating like you’ve never had a good meal before,” Makoto said, obviously amused.
Rin shook his head. “I uh...I don’t really remember, but I don’t think anyone I lived with was good at cooking. I’m certainly not.”
“Well, that’s okay. If you want to learn, I can teach you, but if not, I don’t mind cooking. I’m so used to cooking for myself, making a bit more is no trouble.”
It was a chance to ask more. Makoto hadn’t talked much about himself, Rin noticed, but that had probably been because he was worried about Rin. If he were a regular human, Makoto would have been almost just as strange with his selfless demeanor. From everything Rin had heard, there were very few humans who weren’t selfish assholes. “Why are you living out here by yourself, anyway? Don’t you have a family?”
“I like it here.” He shrugged. “My family wasn’t too great, so I moved out pretty much as soon as I could. And I’ve never really liked the city atmosphere. Too much stress.” Makoto tapped his fingers on the table. “I’ve moved around a bit since then, but I really like it here. It’s quiet, yeah, but it’s beautiful, and the people are really nice.”
Instead of getting proof, all Rin was getting was more and more confused. Honeslty, Makoto seemed to be a more decent person than a lot of the angels he knew. Though, all of the family stuff must have been made up, unless he meant the other demons.
They talked late into the night, and it felt more and more natural with each word. Unlike breakfast that morning, conversation started to come naturally, and though of course neither of them were saying anything too personal, they told their likes and dislikes, and Makoto let Rin know some of the things that went on around town.
Rin tossed and turned in bed that night, not able to get himself past this. All demons were supposed to be the same, but then there was Makoto, apparently a huge threat to both heaven and hell, but the nicest being Rin had ever met. It wasn’t like revolutions were organized with kindness; if they were, Makoto would have surely won, with barely any resistance. But the world didn’t work that way.
Either Makoto was a really good actor, or there was some mistake. The more Rin thought about it, the more he really hoped it was the latter.