Archive of Our Own ^beta

"What do you mean, I'm dead?!"

Standing in front of the hysterical young ghost, Kuzuha remained silent, arms crossed, with a deeply unimpressed expression on his face.

How many times has this ghost repeated those lines by now?  Leaning against the wall of the narrow alley with his scythe tucked under one arm, Kuzuha checked his pocket watch impatiently.

Fuck. He'd been waiting here for almost an hour already. The usual protocol dealing with confused souls like this was generally to let the souls they were collecting freak out as long as they needed. It made the job of the ferrymen easier, if souls were brought back in a relatively calm and cooperative state. 

Unfortunately, it also made his own job much harder.

Why do we have to cater to the ferrymen so much anyways?  Kuzuha grumbled internally. Newly reaped souls had to drink from the Styx anyways. A ferryman could just force feed a troublesome ghost river water and wait for it to wipe the memories of their past life. Reapers, on the other hand...

He'd learned pretty early on that trying to talk to these kinds of ghosts resulted in him having to wait there a lot longer. As a consequence, Kuzuha had, unwillingly, become pretty good at standing there silently as he tuned out the rambling of whichever idiot soul he was assigned to at the moment.

It wasn't often, however, that they were this stupid.

Feeling the last of his already thin patience crumbling, the reaper picked his scythe up with his right hand, slamming it hard against the cobblestone below. It felt pretty unsatisfying. The scythe, unfortunately, couldn't interact with objects from the world of the living the way reapers could, instead sinking slightly into the ground at his movements. Kuzuha pretended it made a loud clang anyway.

He was a professional, after all. He'd learned a lot of professional coping strategies to deal with work induced headaches in the past. It was already pretty impressive of him, that he could professionally resist the urge to use his scythe to bash the ghost's head in.

"Did you lose your brain together with your corpse?" Kuzuha asked instead through gritted teeth, fingers tightening against the shaft of his weapon. "Did the fact that humans can't see you or that you can float through walls not clue you in to the fact that perhaps - just maybe - you aren't alive anymore?"

At Kuzuha's sharp words, the ghost broke into a renewed round of sobbing and shrieking. He hadn't thought it was possible for the ghost to get even louder, but his already ringing ears were now approaching the point of permanent hearing loss.

Fuck, he thought to himself again, more emphatically this time. He really hoped that the reaper contract included health insurance. Or, at least, that the underworld had a law firm to help him sue the reaper bureau for work-related injury.

And given how his boss had pretended not to see the complaints he'd added to his report the last time he'd dealt with such an assignment, Kuzuha really wouldn't put money on the former. That guy would sooner eat his own scythe than pay out a penny more than the lowest he could get away with.

To be honest, if Kuzuha hadn't been conned into signing a 200 year long job contract as soon as he'd first entered the gates of the underworld, not even twice his current salary could get him to take this kind of glorified taxi driver slash customer service position.

Unfortunately, it was now years too late for any regrets.

With a sigh, Kuzuha's left arm shot forward, grabbing the still talking ghost by its collar. Before the ghost could even let out a startled shout, a teleportation array appeared at the reaper's feet, yanking one reaper and one disoriented soul through to the entrance of the afterlife.

A few minutes, some rope, and a disgruntled ferryman later, Kuzuha hurried away from the banks of Styx, resolutely ignoring the distant sounds of muffled shouting behind him. It was nearing the end of his shift. Since Kuzuha was done with his assignments for the day, if he handed in his report quickly, he'd be able to clock out before his boss had the chance to con him into working overtime again.

Hey, maybe I'll be able to finish that book today... He tried to cheer himself up silently as he ducked into a side entrance of the reaper bureau's main building, navigating the dusty, winding hallways with the ease of long time familiarity. 

There was, of course, a much shorter and cleaner path to his boss' office from the front entrance. Kuzuha, being Kuzuha, never took it. The risk of bumping into a coworker there - and, god forbid, being forced to make small talk - was far too high for comfort. There were only so many times you could talk to a person about the weather, especially in the perpetually foggy underworld.

Unusually, the door to his boss' office was closed once he got there. Normally, that bastard had an inane hobby of calling out to visitors by name a few steps before they reached the office door, in order to seem mysterious and omniscient. It had, admittedly, fooled Kuzuha for a few years back when he was a newbie - up until he'd noticed his boss had strategically placed mirrors in his office to reflect the view of the corridor outside.

Today, though, the hallway remained silent as he walked up. For a moment, Kuzuha's hand lingered on the doorknob. On one hand, it would probably be rude; on the other. he really wanted to hand these assignment forms in quickly. After a few moments of internal deliberation, Kuzuha leaned forward carefully, pressing his ear up against the door. Through the wood, though the sound was dampened, he could still clearly hear the conversation going on inside.

After all, the person in there was shouting and crying pretty loudly.

"No, you have to reassign me! You have to!" The hysterical voice repeated over and over, each time more frantically than the last.

"Now, now, calm down," the familiar, irritating sound of his boss' voice responded. "You've only been on this assignment for - what, two months? The previous reaper lasted half a year before it was handed over to you - I'm sure you can hold on a little while longer -"

"I've been holding on!" The first speaker interrupted, voice cracking audibly mid-sentence. "I've been - but every week - every week, that psychopath…!"

Outside the door, Kuzuha raised his eyebrows. Even as the newest reaper in the department, he'd seen his fair share of hard to handle souls in reaping tasks. For a veteran reaper of the department, your mental fortitude should already be pretty strong - after all, most of his seniors were well over a hundred years into their job contracts.

So what, or who, exactly, was capable of breaking a grim reaper this badly?

"That Kanae - ! Is there really nothing you can do about him?! After all these years - Anyone - "

"There's nothing we can do," his boss responded helplessly, tone for once completely devoid of its usual condescending smugness. "The living are outside of our jurisdiction, even if that person is a necromancer. The most we can do is to try and retrieve the resurrected souls as quickly as we can…"

"Fuck your soul retrieval!" Even with the protective barrier of the door as a buffer, Kuzuha couldn't help but wince at the sound. Pressing a hand over his ear, he slowly backed away from the door. He was not putting the health and safety of his hearing at risk for the second time today.

Unfortunately, he'd moved back a little too slowly; not a second later, the office door opened with a bang, and a dark blur rushed out, knocking Kuzuha off his feet as it barrelled down the corridor at full speed. Kuzuha's limbs collided painfully against the black tile floor. Involuntarily, he let out a loud hiss of pain, before seeming to suddenly remember something, freezing him in place.

From where he'd fallen, Kuzuha slowly lifted his head - and made eye contact with the only figure left inside the office.

At the sight of him, his boss' face seemed to have lit up, as much as a dark shadow in a black hood could light up, anyway. "Hey, it's my favorite junior reaper! You've been doing a pretty good job this past decade... What do you think about getting a promotion?"

A sinking feeling began to form in Kuzuha's gut.

"Of course, though, there's no free meal in this world. Higher wages mean more responsibility, after all!" His boss chattered on, not even bothering to feign interest in getting a response back from the blank faced Kuzuha. "You're in luck, though - I have an easy one lined up just for you! Your senior that just left graciously decided to hand it over to you..."

Turning his head stiffly to stare at the hallway the unknown reaper had just run off through like they were being chased by a pack of hellhounds, Kuzuha opened his mouth, before closing it again. He chose instead to look back at his boss silently, an incredulous expression on his face.

The bastard, of course, happily pretended not to see it. Picking a page off the top of a stack of assignment forms and pressing into Kuzuha's slack hand, he hauled the white haired reaper up off the ground and began pushing him forward.

"All you have to do is retrieve the resurrected souls listed on the sheet. They should be pretty easy to find, I'm sure you'll be fine!" Kuzuha walked forward mechanically, too dazed to react as that annoying voice kept chattering in his ear. "We even have an array prepared just for this assignment, no coordinate calibration needed…"

If he'd been given the time to, Kuzuha would probably have been concerned that the department had permanently reserved an array to transport reapers to this Kanae person's house. Instead, as Kuzuha was unceremoniously herded through a door covered in a large red Do Not Enter sign, only a single, very important thought ran through his head -

Fuck.

 I was tricked into doing overtime again.

Kuzuha wasn't sure what he was expecting a necromancer's house to look like. Decorated with a tasteful selection of skulls, perhaps. Maybe a shrivelled head or two. The true answer was neither of these - as Kuzuha landed on the other end of the teleportation array, he was immediately greeted with the sight of an extremely gaudy and extremely hideous vase.

Despite himself, Kuzuha couldn't help but give it an appreciative once over. The entire vase was plated in gold, with a column of diamonds embedding along the neck. There was a circle of black paint around the rim at the top, and a very poorly drawn cat head was engraved near the base, inlaid with some kind of dark stone. It was probably the most impressively memorable vase he'd ever seen.

He hated it, of course. But you had to be really rich to afford taste this bad - and if there was one thing that Kuzuha could always forgive, it was money.

You'd think that, when it came to breaking and entering, the intent to rob would come first. Not that what he did was breaking and entering, mind you - no doors were broken or entered, with the help of the ever convenient teleportation array. But damn - were all necromancers this rich?

Unconsciously, he took a step forward out of the array, trying to get a closer look at the vase. Then another step. And then another -

Splat - !

Slowly, Kuzuha raised a hand up to his face. Something sticky and metallic-smelling was dripping down his hair, almost getting into his eyes. Rubbing at his face, he pulled his fingers away to take a look at the unknown substance. 

His hands were stained… red?

Instinctively, he shook his head, trying to get some of it out of his hair. He rubbed at his eyes more vigorously.

Unseen, a stray drop of liquid landed near his feet.

Kuzuha opened his eyes again, blinking a few times to clear his vision. He paused. Why was the room glowing?

Without warning, the ground seemed to give way under him, and the familiar feeling of array teleportation seized his body. When Kuzuha finally regained his balance, a row of slightly rusted brass bars appeared in front of him. He reached out to touch them. Surprisingly, after dematerializing his hand, his fingers didn’t pass right through them - a sign of enchanted metal.

He looked around. Within a relatively small diameter, the bars encircled him, trapping him in place. Beyond them, from the depths of the unlit room he was currently in, he could vaguely see the sight of several similar large structures, scattered around in no discernable pattern. 

Kuzuha squinted, trying to adjust to the dimness of his surroundings. With some effort, he managed to make out the long and tall arches sketching out the shape of a bell, glowing with a faint blue light. Each was tall enough to house an adult human being.

Birdcages?

In the eerie silence, the shivering shadows crawled slowly across the ground, swallowing more and more of the room around him. Kuzuha clenched his scythe uncertainly, the movement accidentally dragging its hilt across the metal base of the cage with an unpleasant screech. Faintly, he could hear the slow, deliberate click of footsteps, drawing closer and closer.

From the far left of the room, the drawn out creak of a rusty hinge announced the opening of an unknown door, casting chilly light into the room. In the doorway, a tall silhouette stood silently, watching.

Then it spoke.

“Couldn’t you have waited a little longer to come? I didn’t even get around to swapping the red paint out for real blood…”

Kuzuha felt his eyelid twitch involuntarily.

“To be honest, I didn’t think you’d be back so soon,” the unknown figure sighed, walking inside the room. “I was worried I’d scared you off for good...”

As the stranger drew closer, his features became visible in the dim light. Soft brown hair was tied in a short ponytail over his shoulder, and a pair of gentle, almost sleepy looking eyes were underlined on one side with a small mole. It was a wholly ordinary appearance - if you ignored the fact that he was dressed like a guest at a funeral.

At the sight of Kuzuha, the stranger’s eyes widened. 

“Ah, you’re a new one! So the last one did get scared off - my bad, my bad, I didn’t even introduce myself, where are my manners…” He smiled at Kuzuha, eyes curving happily. “My name is Kanae, nice to meet you!”

Ah. So this was Kanae.

See, Kuzuha had an old routine he’d developed for dealing with particularly difficult souls he had to reap. The routine was pretty straightforward: stay silent and play up the ‘intimidating grim reaper’ image as much as possible to discourage any further conversation.

While Kanae wasn’t exactly a soul he had to reap, and it wasn’t exactly easy to seem intimidating while trapped in a cage and soaked in paint, Kuzuha did his best anyways. Pushing his bangs out of his eyes, the reaper set his expression into the coldest scowl he could manage, pressing his lips together deliberately.

The necromancer, unfortunately, remained undeterred. “Wah, did I get a shy one this time?” He leaned in closer, peering at Kuzuha’s face carefully. Kuzuha fought the urge to recoil at the feeling of Kanae’s warm breath against his face, narrowing his eyes back in response.

“Wait, now that I’m looking at you… are you even old enough to be working?” Kanae tapped at his chin, an obviously feigned expression of concern on his face. “Your reaper department is really so shortstaffed that they had to resort to child labour?”

“You - ! Who are you calling young, bastard!” Completely forgetting about his plans from a few seconds ago, Kuzuha puffed up like an angry pomeranian, hissing indignantly. “I’m probably decades older than you!”

As if he hadn’t heard anything, the necromancer cradled his cheek in his palm, sighing dramatically. “Ahhhh, I feel bad for bullying a child…. Let this old man make it up to you? Do you want some candy...?”

“Are you deaf?! And what's with that suspicious child kidnapper-like line?!”

Kanae's eyebrows raised slightly, smile somehow growing wider. "Haven't you heard? I'm the scary old necromancer that lurks under the bed, waiting to steal all the naughty little reapers that come my way. And you haven't been a very good boy, have you?"

Kuzuha squinted back doubtfully. "Don't act so full of yourself, I've never heard of you before in my life. And I really don't want to hear that from some human who keeps giant cages in his basement. Seriously, what the hell? Is this what you do to all your guests?"

There was a strange pause. Through the fringe of his bangs, Kanae gave the reaper a long, considering look.

Kuzuha stared back unflinchingly, brow wrinkled slightly in confusion. Just as the silence began to stretch uncomfortably long, the necromancer laughed, tilting his head to one side. "I don't do this to my guests, no, but you're not a guest, right? I don't even know your name - doesn't that make you a stranger that broke into my house?"

Despite himself, Kuzuha coughed a little uncomfortably, looking away. He wasn't about to let this psychopath guilt trip him about doing his job, a job that definitely did not involve any breaking and entering - is what he would say, if he cared as little about his first impression to others as he pretended to. "That's - hello, I'm Kuzuha. There you go, you know my name now. So could you maybe, you know, let me out of this cage?"

"Nice to meet you, Kuzuha-chan! And… no. What kind of kidnapper would I be if I let you out so easily?"

Kuzuha once again felt his eyelid twitch.

“Why did I take this stupid assignment again?” He couldn’t help but mutter under his breath, fingers tightening on his scythe reflexively. “No, wait - my stupid boss forced it on me. As usual...”

Kanae blinked at him curiously from outside the cage. “How do you reapers decide how to assign your jobs anyways? Is there paperwork in the afterlife? Did you get a file on me or something?”

“Yeah, I have it right h- why am I telling you this?! Reaper department affairs are confidential, you know?!” Kuzuha covered his mouth with a hand, a little flustered. He really didn’t know why he was so talkative today - that could’ve gotten dangerous...

“If you tell me, I’ll let you out,” Kanae tempted, smiling badly. Kuzuha shook his head with his hand still clamped over his mouth, doing his best to strongly convey Fuck You No with his eyes.

The reaper pointedly turned away and acted as if the necromancer wasn’t there, setting down his scythe against the bars of the cage. Using his free hand, he began to grope blindly at the metal structure, trying to find a weak spot in the softly glowing locking spell keeping the cage shut.

Without saying anything, Kanae stood by with his arms crossed, watching Kuzuha’s fumbling with amusement. After a while, he finally opened his mouth. “Are you not even going to try just cutting your way out with your scythe?”

Kuzuha froze. He could rapidly feel his face heating up in embarrassment - he’d completely forgotten that his scythe could be used against enchanted metal. Or that it was a weapon at all. 

“That’s - I - shouldn't you be grateful?” Trying not to let his tone sound too flustered, he could only pray silently that his face wasn’t as red as it felt. “That I didn't add destruction of property to the breaking and entering? I’m saving you money, aren’t I?”

“Aha!” Kanae leaned forward, eyes curving smugly. “So you do admit that you were breaking and entering!”

“That’s - ! I’m not - ”

Kanae seemed to be having a great deal of fun watching the increasingly flushed Kuzuha scramble for a rebuttal, leaning back leisurely against a dusty cage to the right. “You know, you kind of remind me of my old pet dog,” the necromancer commented.

Kuzuha, in the middle of doing his best impression of sudden deafness, couldn’t stop his eyebrows from jumping up incredulously. First you call me a child and now I’ve been demoted to something not even human?! He only barely managed to choke back his response.

As if he hadn’t just been flat out ignored, the necromancer chattered on blithely. “How did someone like you become a reaper, anyway? You don’t seem like you like your job...”

Kuzuha’s face convulsed slightly. Involuntarily, he recalled the day he’d been collected by the underworld, - the silent, black hooded reaper escorting him, towering scythe decorated with blood red ribbons. He turned away from Kanae once again, trying not to let his expression show as he quickened his inspection of the locking spell. 

There was no way in hell he was letting this guy know he’d gotten so excited over how cool the grim reapers looked that he’d forgotten to read over the job contract they asked him to sign....

After a few more questions went similarly ignored, Kanae let out a dramatic sigh. “Fine then,” the necromancer’s pout was audible in his voice, “If you won’t talk to me, I guess I’ll just leave!”

At first, he didn’t think Kanae was serious, but at the abrupt sound of the door creaking open, Kuzuha turned around sharply, startled. Blankly, the reaper could only watch as the room's only exit closed behind the departing necromancer. The sudden lack of inane background chatter in the room left him with an odd sense of loss.

He stood frozen for a few minutes, staring at the closed door uncertainly, before lifting both hands up to his face and smacking himself lightly. 

"What the hell are you doing, Kuzuha?" He mumbled to himself. "This is an assignment, act like it..."

He went back to work on unravelling the lock on the cage, gaze vaguely unfocused as he tugged on the strands of light. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, painstakingly unravelling the enchantment, but it was starting to seem like the necromancer wasn’t planning on coming back. After tangling the threads for the nth time, Kuzuha rubbed a hand through his hair in frustration. He let the spell snap back into its original place helplessly.

Habitually, he clenched his right hand, but his fist closed only around air instead of the comforting grip of his weapon.

He turned his head. From where it was still lying against the cage, the sight of his scythe seemed to be taunting him. In the silence, the necromancer’s words from earlier echoed faintly in his head. Are you not even going to try just cutting your way out with your scythe...?

He hesitated. Looked over at his scythe. Hesitated again. Gaze quickly darting around around the room as if to check for invisible watchers, Kuzuha reached forward slowly, fingers carefully closing around the shaft of the weapon -

Bang!

The door of the room flew open, revealing a smiling Kanae with his leg outstretched mid-kick. Kuzuha retracted his hands from his scythe quickly, trying not to look too guilty as he tucked his hands into his pockets.

"I'm back! Sorry for making you feel lonely…!"

Kuzuha’s temples throbbed. "Oi, I didn't say anything - "

"Okay, okay, I said I'm sorry, alright? You don't have to be so mad at me…" The necromancer interrupted loudly, tone heavy with exaggerated grievances. "Look, I even brought an apology gift - stretch out your hand for me~?"

Reflexively, Kuzuha took a hand out of his pocket, palm facing upwards. Before he could even process his own actions, Kanae had already pulled a small lumpy object out from behind his back and plopped it down into the reaper's hand.

Kuzuha blinked down at the item in his hand, slightly dazed. The necromancer had given him a completely ordinary - though particularly well made - coin pouch. Though it was slightly larger than the typical make and clearly quite full, the brown leather pouch was noticeably lighter than expected.

Unable to stop himself, Kuzuha pulled open the pouch, peering inside curiously. Expectedly, it was not filled with money. Unexpectedly, it also wasn't another one of the necromancer's pranks.

Instead, the pouch was filled with… candy.

Kuzuha stared blankly at the bright red and white wrappers for a long moment, before slowly lifting his head to look at Kanae. You could practically see the question marks written all over his face.

"You - Weren't you - ?"

Kanae clasped his hands together, beaming at the speechless reaper. "Well, it was nice meeting you today, but kids shouldn’t stay out past their bedtimes, you know ~? Remember to take care of your health first ~ "

Before Kuzuha could let out the emphatic What The Hell waiting on the tip of his tongue, the area around him lit up with the familiar glow of a spell. He looked down. Under his feet, a previously hidden teleportation array had whirred to life, blue light pulsing brighter and brighter.

"Bye bye ~!"

Unable to say a word, Kuzuha could only brace himself for the intense disorientation of teleportation, the necromancer's goodbye still echoing in his ears. When he opened his eyes again, he was greeted not with the sight of the manor's entrance hall, or anywhere in the human realm at all - but, instead, the familiar sight of a long and dusty hallway.

Standing in a daze in the reaper department's main building, hair and clothing still caked in dried red paint and clutching a small bag of candy in hand, Kuzuha could only utter a single sentence.

"... the fuck?"

He stood still for a few minutes, processing. After a moment, a vein popped out on his forehead. That guy -

Turning on his heel, Kuzuha marched single-mindedly towards the array room he'd been deployed from, slamming the door open without a care for the warning signs on the door. Smacking a hand against the floor, he triggered the spell in preparation for transportation.

"Warning! Warning!"

The blaring of the office alarms' generic voice recording startled him out of his annoyance, accompanied quickly by obnoxiously flashing red lights. "Activation forbidden! We have detected one or more unexpected souls on your person. Please be advised that smuggling souls out of the underworld is a serious offence, and any violations will be punished accordingly!"

"... Huh?"

Kuzuha looked himself over. Aside from the additional red paint, his coat and scythe were exactly as they were when he first left on assignment. He checked his pockets. As expected, no souls here either. So where -

He froze.

Slowly, disbelievingly, he looked down at the pouch of candy in his hand.

"Don't tell me..." 

Tugging open the drawstring, Kuzuha turned the bag upside down, shaking violently. With a loud clatter, dozens of individually wrapped strawberry candies scattered across the floor. 

After squeezing the last candy out, Kuzuha looked inside the pouch again... only to see a dense cluster of faint blue soul flames, still stuck together from being buried under the candy.

He poked at the condensed souls to check their data, before pulling the assignment file out of his pocket and checking the list of souls he was supposed to retrieve.

… the names matched.

"..."

(Later, when he'd cleaned up the mess he'd made and handed the souls off, Kuzuha once again found himself staring at the bag of candy, this time soul-free. He should definitely throw these out, right? There was no way he was going to play along with that smug necromancer's whims…

After several days of deliberation, he finally cleared out the pouch.

...the candy was really good.)

Normally, Kuzuha would consider himself a pretty polite person. While he wasn't much of a conversationalist, it was much easier to keep to yourself if you maintained a cordial distance from the people you worked with.

Now, however, as Kuzuha gave Kanae the best death glare he could squeeze his face into while paralyzed in place by yet another spell, he wondered if maybe he had let that philosophy survive far too long.

"Hey, necromancer."

"Waaaa, Ku-chan is so cold... Call me Kanae, Kanae!"

Balancing on the tips of his toes, the necromancer hummed to himself, brandishing an obnoxiously gold plated paintbrush in hand. Carefully dipping its hairs into a small pot of black ink set on a nearby table, Kanae stuck out his tongue in concentration, slowly drawing strokes across each side of Kuzuha’s face.

In the corner of the room, a record player was cheerfully blaring music, creating a festive atmosphere diametrically opposite the mood Kuzuha was currently in. Not for the first time, Kuzuha thought back to what his boss had said to him when shoving this assignment onto him. 

'I'm sure you'll do fine,' my ass.

As Kanae drew on the reaper’s nose, Kuzuha reflected sadly on how he’d fallen to this point. When he’d visited his boss, souls in hand, to report the completion of his assignment, the bastard had been suspiciously unfazed at the sight of him covered in blood red paint. Even worse, the bastard was visibly delighted, an infuriating note of incredulity in his voice as he exclaimed, Wow! You’re back so fast!

At the sight of his boss’ expression, the exhausted Kuzuha began to have a terrible sense of deja vu.

Not two seconds later, his trepidation was proven to be spot on. At the sound of the words your new permanent assignment, Kuzuha’s expression visibly shrivelled up. He could feel himself age 20 years in an instant.

“Are you sure you don’t want to... reconsider?” The white haired reaper requested feebly. To absolutely no one’s surprise, his boss didn’t even acknowledge it. The horrified Kuzuha could only watch, helplessly, as the bastard gave the approval stamp on a form reducing the frequency of his ordinary reaping tasks, filling in the reason for the change with a single, damning sentence:

On Kanae duty.

This extremely unpopular job even had an annoying caveat hidden in its fine print, preventing him from taking days off whenever a new Kanae-related assignment was released. A caveat he only found out about today.

See, the dead didn't exactly celebrate their birthdays in the underworld, since they didn't remember them. Instead, they had their rebirth day, commemorating the day they'd first crossed the Styx and shed the memories of their past life to start anew. Since a decade wasn't a long time to those in the underworld, much less a year, rebirth day wasn't considered that significant an event. Still, it was customary to take a day off every year.

And sure, Kuzuha usually spent his rebirth day at home, by himself. But it was the principle of the matter. Instead of being happily asleep in bed today, here he was - forced to work. The reaper once again considered the merits of finding an underworld law firm. This had to be breaking some kind of labor law, right?

There was also another unexpected 'perk' of his new permanent position. For some reason, his coworkers that he never used to talk to, and who never paid him much attention before, had begun to act strangely around him. A few days ago, he’d started to find small gifts on his desk, mostly snacks.

A secret admirer?

- is what he wish he could say. It would have been far less concerning than the alarmingly heartfelt thank you and apology notes accompanying the gifts. He’d even gotten warm, pitying handshakes from reapers he’d never seen before in his life, as if sending a soldier off to war for the first time.

There were also concerned whispers going around the office about child exploitation which - oi. Kuzuha kind of wondered if they would be happy to hear that Kanae himself had made the same comments. The same blatantly untrue comments. He was at least thirty, thank you very much! And that wasn’t even counting the potential years he could have spent as a ghost...!

The click of a tongue interrupted his thoughts. Leaning back, Kanae looked over his handiwork, nodding to himself in satisfaction. “And… done! Thanks for staying still for so long, Ku-chan! It must have been hard on you…”

Kuzuha tried his best to convey his exasperation telepathically. Do you really think I would’ve sat through this if it weren’t for the spell you put me in? The spell that, you know, won’t let me move?

From the guileless expression on Kanae’s face, it seemed like his telepathy had failed. That, or the necromancer was ignoring him deliberately.

“You know, a good boy deserves a treat...” Kanae continued, tone like he was speaking to a small child. Or a dog. He reached into his pocket, pulling out a small, familiar round object. The loud crinkle of unfolding wrapping paper filled Kuzuha’s ears.

"Say ahhhh…"

Kuzuha mentally ran through a list of every expletive he had ever learned. He wondered if his boss would enjoy hearing them.

The reaper once again attempted telepathy. Hey, it’s not like I can open my mouth with this spell on. He couldn’t tell if it was because he had succeeded, or if the thought had just come to Kanae on its own, but an expression of realization appeared on the necromancer’s face. 

Reaching to the side, Kanae played casually with the ropes of light floating around them. Abruptly, it felt like a weight had been lifted off Kuzuha’s body… from the neck up.

Well, at least he could talk now.

“... what did you even draw on my face?”

Kanae blocked his mouth with a candy, smiling. “Shhh. Doesn’t matter. Have a candy!”

Staring intently at Kuzuha until he was sure the reaper had swallowed the candy, Kanae reached into his pocket again, this time pulling out a handful of individually wrapped candies in different colours and flavours. 

“I got some new types today! I know the strawberry ones are your favourite but I wanted to try mixing it up…”

Kuzuha’s eyebrows slowly wrinkled. How did he know that my favourite flavour was strawberry…?

Was it possible for a reaper to get a restraining order against a human? 

The logistics of a human stalking an undead entity living in the underworld aside, this guy was just too suspicious everywhere. For one, the seemingly endless supply of candy he had at home. Why are you so obsessed with giving me candy?  Kuzuha had asked him previously. Do you not eat it yourself?

Of course not. There’s way too much for me to finish, and I’m not a big fan of sweets anyways, Kanae had responded dismissively, like it was a given. As if it was totally normal for someone who didn’t eat much candy to stock it in such large quantities.

... Was the candy really for luring and kidnapping children like he’d claimed before?

As Kuzuha began to seriously consider if he should call the police, Kanae continued to feed him candy one by one, looking a little too fascinated at the sight of the reaper eating.

For each new candy he fed, the necromancer would stare fixedly at Kuzuha chewing, not saying a word. When he deemed enough time had passed, he would then start to poke impatiently at Kuzuha’s chin until the reaper opened his mouth to show that he had swallowed the candy already.

Now, you may be wondering: why was Kuzuha playing along so obligingly? See, it was only because it was too troublesome if he didn’t. That was definitely it. Kanae would probably start fake crying again, and it would take way too much compromising to get him to stop. Kuzuha definitely did not look forward to trying the new things Kanae prepared for him to taste every visit at all.

After maybe the fifth candy - he’d lost track - Kuzuha turned his head away, scrunching up his nose. “How many do you want to make me eat? Are you trying to give me cavities?”

"Can grim reapers even get cavities?" Kanae tilted his head to the side curiously. "Are there dentists in the underworld?"

There were not. And no, it wasn't possible for the dead to get cavities. Thank god, or the bills racked up from these meetings - as well as the underworld candy that Kuzuha had taken to buying recently - would've been enough to bankrupt him. Being a grim reaper didn't include health insurance, after all.

If Kuzuha told him that, though, he wasn't sure how long the necromancer would keep going with the alarmingly large pile of candy he had produced from his suspiciously deep pockets. Kuzuha stubbornly kept his mouth shut instead.

Their stalemate lasted several minutes before it was broken by Kanae turning away. Carefully, the necromancer set down the remaining candies next to the forgotten pot of ink. “It must be hard to eat without something to drink, right? Ahh, I’m such a disappointing host… I’ll be back soon...!”

Kuzuha waited until the living room’s door closed, listening carefully to the sound of Kanae’s footsteps. When he was sure the necromancer was gone, he bent his neck forward, using his teeth to tear through the weak spot Kanae had accidentally revealed when he first adjusted the spell. With a gentle tinkling sound, the strands of blue light shattered into pieces, fading before they even hit the ground.

Rolling his stiff shoulders, Kuzuha looked around the room, checking for any hidden traps. After dismantling a few near the door, he made his way out into the hallway, looking for the way back to the entrance hall.

He had a scythe to find. And a job to do.

As he made his way through the winding corridors of the manor, he became uncomfortably aware of how familiar he was with the house's layout. Had he really been forced to come here that often?

Thinking back, this was only maybe the third visit here since the first time he met Kanae. The last two visits had been equally troublesome - the infinite portal trap had been hell to dismantle, and the fake dog ears and tail had taken weeks to wear off - but there was something different this time, somehow. Kuzuha wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, but - why did it seem like Kanae was putting in an abnormal amount of effort today?

That, or Kanae was secretly raising a child. Kuzuha looked around blankly at the manor’s halls as he walked. Originally cold and regal, the gloomy and luxurious home was currently decorated like someone was throwing a kid’s birthday party.

Given Kanae’s taste, it was a miracle that the decorations only looked this obnoxious. Along the dark wood walls, colourful streamers were hung up, each spaced apart at extremely exact intervals. The ground was scattered with shiny confetti, the furniture was draped with long ribbons, and even the marble states were decorated with little party hats.

In the corner of Kuzuha’s eye, a streak of black darted out of a nearby room. The reaper blinked, stopping and turning to make eye contact with Kanae’s pet cat, Roto.

As usual, the black cat quickly turned tail and ran at the sight of him, but not before Kuzuha saw the party hat tied on top of the cat’s head. He couldn’t help but laugh a little at the sight. His fingers twitched as the familiar compulsion to pet the cat’s head surfaced.

...it just looked so fluffy....

It was too bad the cat hated his guts. Maybe it was just the natural fear of the undead towards grim reapers, or that the cat had been chased by too many reapers before, as the one resurrected soul no reaper had ever managed to retrieve from Kanae.

But was it so stingy that it wouldn’t even allow a single head scratch? The department had basically given up on collecting the cat, Kuzuha could always just pretend he hadn’t managed to catch it as usual...

Shaking away his treasonous thoughts, Kuzuha touched his face cautiously. It may have just been his imagination, but Roto seemed to have stared at him longer than usual today. But that was ridiculous, right?

He continued his trek down the halls. Unnoticed, the mirror on the wall beside him reflected the image of a white haired, black robed boy with cat whiskers painted on his face.

Kuzuha quickly reached the entrance hall. This is where he’d dropped his scythe accidentally when he’d first arrived today. He looked around, first checking the area around the trap that had transported him to the living room and then slowly circling around to the various corners of the hall to search. After searching ten minutes without results, the reaper scratched his head. Had that guy moved it?

Feeling uncomfortable in his heart, Kuzuha sat down cross-legged on the floor, wracking his brains for possible locations Kanae was likely to hide the weapon. While the reaper could go back and requisition a new one, he’d unwittingly become kind of attached to the scythe that had been with him since he first became a reaper, his closest companion in the last decade.

Frustrated, he pressed an arm over his eyes, flopping down to lie on the ground. Kuzuha breathed deeply, trying to clear his head. After carefully reviewing his mental map of the manor for the most likely hiding spots, he finally removed his arm, opening his eyes.

Kuzuha blinked. He lifted his arm again to rub at his eyes, wondering if he was seeing things. He rubbed at his eyes again. The image before him remained unchanged. After mechanically repeating his actions a few more time, he was finally forced to accept reality,

His scythe was stuck to the ceiling with gum.

Kuzuha lovingly imagined setting Kanae on fire.

As the reaper floated up to the ceiling to free his scythe, he couldn't help but grumble to himself a little. "Are all parties like this?" To be honest, he had heard gossip at the office before about parties getting pretty wild, but. "It's not like I've been to a party before anyway…"

It wasn't like he had any friends to drag him to one, after all. Wait. That sounded kind of pathetic - it wasn't like he couldn't make friends if he wanted to! He just wasn't interested!

As the ten year introversion champion was mentally patting himself on the back, a figure stood quietly at the entrance into the hall. Leaning against the wooden archway, an inexplicable expression crossed their face as they stared at the back of the oblivious reaper.

Kuzuha, still busy picking gum off his beloved scythe, almost fell to the ground at the sound of a loud cough coming from behind him. Only barely stopping himself from crashing into the floor, he carefully floated down the last few inches before turning around to see the ominous sight of Kanae smiling brightly at him.

"I didn't think you'd find it so quickly," the necromancer sighed exaggeratedly, "Look, you've made the poor thing unhappy. It wanted to play hide and seek with you so badly yet you ended its fun so early. How cold-hearted!" 

Kuzuha's eyelid twitched.

"Please stop projecting onto a non-sentient object," the reaper returned. "And I really don't think that's how hide and seek works."

Kanae put a finger on his chin, as if deeply considering Kuzuha's words. "Well, you may be right," he conceded. "What should I do? You can't have a party without games..." As if coming to some epiphany, Kanae clapped his hands together. "Hey, Ku-chan~ Do you want to play a round of darts with me?"

"Hey, I'm here for a job, you know. Not to play games." What was 'darts' anyway?

"Well, this is your job now! To play games!" Kanae reached an arm out as if to shake hands. "I'll make a deal with you - play a round with me, and I'll return the souls to you after we're done. Just one round!"

Kuzuha squinted at the necromancer suspiciously. "And why should I trust that you'll keep your promises?"

"You don't need to trust me. If I'm telling the truth, you can take back all the souls on your list without lifting a finger. And if I'm lying, you can start looking for the souls after just a short little game. It won't take much time, and you might even have fun! So there's no loss, is there?"

Kuzuha had to admit - Kanae's words were pretty convincing. After hemming and hawing for a bit, he reluctantly reached out and shook the necromancer's hand. Before he could let go, Kanae tightened his grip on Kuzuha's hand, pulling him forward. "Then let's go!"

Several rounds of darts, an assortment of other new games, and an oversized slice of strawberry cake later, Kuzuha staggered back to the office, feeling the beginnings of a stomachache from all the sugar he'd been force-fed. That liar - sure, he'd handed over the souls at the end, but what the hell happened to 'just one round'?!

… Kanae had been right about one thing, though. Darts was pretty fun. And as annoying as the necromancer usually was, playing games with him didn’t really feel annoying at all…

As Kuzuha was making his way home, he stopped for a moment, a thought suddenly occurring to him. By the time he'd left, It was already well into nighttime in the human world, but he hadn't seen any guests visit the manor the whole time he was there. So who had Kanae been throwing a party for?

Kuzuha sighed to himself, feeling a bit of pity for the necromancer. He wasn't sure which kid Kanae had been waiting for, but being stood up by your guest at the party organized just for them… damn…

In the middle of taking down a streamer, Kanae sneezed several times in a row. "Am I catching a cold?" He frowned, rubbing at his nose as he tossed the decorations back into a storage box.

A few decorations slid off the top of the full box, sliding to the floor. Leaning down to pick up the fallen streamers, Kanae went to look for a new container to use. When he found one, he opened the lid to throw the decorations in, only to freeze at the sight of the contents within.

"Ah!" Kanae smacked his forehead. "I forgot to put this up!" Shaking his head at his own forgetfulness, Kanae threw the streamers into the box anyway. There was no use crying over spilt milk now.

He turned his back and walked away, returning to the tedious task of dismantling streamers. Behind him, a few lonely streamers scattered over a large banner buried at the bottom of the box.

If you looked inside, you would still be able to read the message painted on the banner in large, bold text.

Happy Rebirth Day, Kuzuha!

It was in the middle of a game of checkers that an unfortunate realization dawned on Kuzuha - he actually enjoyed his meetings with Kanae.

It was hard to say when exactly it had started. For one, even calling them meetings felt like a stretch, given he was really only there because it was his job to clean up Kanae's messes. But ever since that fateful party, every time Kuzuha came to the manor on an assignment, Kanae would 'coincidentally' have a new game prepared for the two of them to play. Even if Kuzuha tried to protest that he was here on assignment, he somehow got dragged into a new game every time anyway.

At some point, Kanae even started to prepare dinner, claiming that he had been 'stood up by a scheduled guest' and 'it would be such a shame if the food went to waste'. With the number of guests that had supposedly stood Kanae up at this point, Kuzuha would've started to feel sorry for how unpopular the necromancer was. If, you know, those guests had actually existed.

Of course, though he made sure to give Kanae doubtful looks every time, he still ate the food. It would be a waste, since it was already made. He, admittedly, enjoyed the games too... From an outsider's point of view. though, if you took out the obligatory soul collection, these assignments probably looked more like going over to a friend's house to play.

Okay, putting it that way, maybe he'd always enjoyed hanging out with Kanae - aside from all the pranks. But since when did he start looking forward to being called into the office for assignments by his annoying boss?

His boss was delighted, of course, at his diligent corporate slave behaviour. His coworkers were also deeply concerned. Kuzuha was almost offended by how many people had asked him if he was being blackmailed by their boss. Or if his family was being held hostage. They were all grim reapers here! No one in the underworld had any relatives to speak of!

He did somewhat understand their concerns though, particularly the concerns about him being unfairly overworked. The meetings with Kanae had become much more frequent recently. It felt like almost every other day, Kuzuha was called in for an assignment. Today was, what, the third time this week?

"Oi, Kanae. Is this all you do in your free time? Resurrecting souls every day?"

Across from him, the necromancer was staring intently at the board, still trying to calculate the best possible move. "Why are you asking this all of a sudden?" he asked distractedly. "I spend my free time with you, don't I?"

For reasons even he didn't understand, Kuzuha felt his ears heat up. "I meant like - don't you have other friends to meet with instead of dragging me to play with you all the time?"

Various peculiarities in his personality aside, Kanae was undoubtedly a charismatic person - though whether that charisma was used to inspire love or hatred was often debatable. Combined with his skill at conversation, the necromancer was probably pretty popular among humans.

"Oh? Is Ku-chan jealous?"

Having completed his move, the necromancer leaned back in his chair, attention now fully focused on his favourite pastime: teasing Kuzuha. Unfortunately for him, Kuzuha had already gotten too used to the necromancer's antics to be fazed by this kind of low hanging fruit. "You do technically govern a town, don't you?" The reaper asked casually as he picked up a checker piece. "Or however your human nobility system works."

Kuzuha had never really been outside the manor during his visits, but there was a town down the hill the manor sat on. He’d seen people there through windows on the upper floors sometimes. 

Though he had met his fair share of souls through his reaping work, he'd never talked to a living human being before, up until he'd met Kanae. Sometimes, he wondered if the humans in the town were anything like Kanae. Wasn't it said that a leader reflected their people?

Well, it seemed pretty unlikely. Though Kuzuha didn't have the frame of reference to back it up, he could say with confidence that Kanae was definitely a unique person. After all, not just anyone could claim the honor of being the reaper department's number one nuisance.

"What's with this sudden interest in the human world?" Kanae asked, watching Kuzuha skip his piece across the board. "I thought these kinds of worldly affairs didn't concern an intimidating, emotionless grim reaper like yourself?"

Kuzuha ignored the joking note of irony in the necromancer's tone. "Don’t you have responsibilities too? Or some kind of job?"

For someone as seemingly unemployed as Kanae, he sure had a lot of money. From what he’d read about human society in books, that was usually a sign of status, inherited by blood.

Also, Kanae’s manor was the largest building in the town by far. So there was that. 

“My job… well, it’s a secret!” Kanae pressed a checker piece down with a loud clack. “You should focus, you know - are you really looking forward to losing to me again so much?”

Kuzuha scoffed, but didn’t keep pressing. He'd asked Kanae about it before and the necromancer didn't seem to want to talk about it, but also didn't deny anything. So he probably was a noble - the kind of eccentric noble that stayed at home all the time, conducting unknown experiments. Or playing checkers with grim reapers.

He changed the topic. "Why did you become a necromancer, anyway? What do you use all these souls for?" Kuzuha also hadn't seen Kanae do much of what the stereotypical necromancer was known for. The souls he resurrected didn't seem to be acquaintances or his, nor did he employ them to do his evil bidding or whatever.

Honestly, Kanae only seemed to resurrect souls to do pranks.

He'd once brought back a large number of souls just to make them hide around the manor, forcing Kuzuha to play hide and seek to find them. Another time, he'd had the souls disguise themselves as household objects, tricking Kuzuha into bringing back a lot of ordinary furniture to the underworld and having to start the assignment from scratch. At this point, even Kuzuha could tell these pranks were just designed to keep him from leaving as long as possible.

"Hmm… that's also a secret!" Kanae used the same deflection as before, smiling oddly. "Besides, if I didn't become a necromancer, I wouldn't have met you, right? What a stroke of good luck ~"

"Gross." Kuzuha scrunched his nose. "Do you always have to talk like a creepy old man?"

"I am a creepy old man, though?" Kanae feigned confusion. "Didn't I tell you that when we first met?" He leaned his cheek against his palm. 

After a moment, the necromancer sighed. "It is a pain to have to go through the necromancy process every time though… Isn't there some direct communication line to hell I can call? I don't want you to miss our dates…"

"Please don't call my work assignments dates," Kuzuha deadpanned. He eyed the board seriously. He was currently losing, but if he could promote his piece…

"Is that all our relationship is to you? Work?" Kanae clutched his chest dramatically. "I know this only paid dating, but I thought after all this time maybe you at least thought a little better of me… Ku-chan…"

Even as he fake sobbed, his fingers moved decisively, capturing the piece Kuzuha had been thinking of promoting. Kuzuha let out a quiet hiss of disappointment. He returned to focusing intently on the board, doing his best to tune out Kanae's inane babble.

"Hey, is it possible to summon reapers directly?" Kanae abruptly stopped his fake crying, tone curious. "If I summoned you, would you come? Maybe if I substituted the blood sacrifice with strawberry jam…"

"Do you use your brain at all? Grim reapers aren't that easy to reach. And magic circles don't work like that either." Though his tone was mocking, Kuzuha's eyebrows were furrowed with uncertainty as he eyed his last remaining pieces on the board. Tentatively, he moved one out of the danger zone, not noticing the complicated look in Kanae's eyes.

Despite his best efforts, Kuzuha lost anyway. "What's the record now, 16 to 7?" Kanae teased. "What happened to all that big talk earlier about winning today?"

"… This is my first time playing most of these games! Isn't it already impressive that it's not 23 to 0?!"

Laughing brightly at Kuzuha's protests, Kanae stood up and started to pack up the game board. He glanced over at the clock. "Thank you for the game today~ I guess I have to keep my end of the bargain now, huh?"

He moved the checkers box onto a nearby dresser, beckoning Kuzuha to follow him out. Kuzuha trailed after him obligingly, picking his scythe up from its spot next to the doorway as he went.

“Hey, by the way, what’s with all the weird names on the soul list today?” Kuzuha recalled the weird mood he’d fallen into when he’d first gotten the assignment, seeing the long list of oddly named souls without last names. He'd forgotten to ask Kanae about them earlier.

You may be thinking now - what happened to Kuzuha’s concerns about reaper confidentiality? A rule abiding reaper, so easily giving away information about the details of his assignment? Well, he’d tried to keep things confidential. At first. Then he gave up on it, the day he’d found out Kanae had somehow managed to steal files from the bureau.

It was only fair since Ku-chan wouldn’t tell me anything, he’d claimed. Like, the fuck? Did the souls he'd resurrected before love him so much that they were willing to break the law to sneak into the reaper bureau for him? How charismatic was this guy?

“The names… well, it’s a surprise~” Kanae cheered. Kuzuha followed him apprehensively as they made their way out to the manor’s back courtyard. 

Aside from some stone benches, cobbled paths, and neatly manicured grass, the courtyard was markedly empty. There wasn't a single soul in sight. "Kanae…?"

"Shush," the necromancer interrupted. Lifting his fingers to his lips, he whistled sharply. The rapid pattering of many footsteps quickly followed.

Kuzuha blinked disbelievingly.

In front of him, lined up obediently in rows, were a large number of undead… dogs.

"I see the way you look at Roto, but I can't let you take away my baby..." Kanae did his best impression of dejection, but still couldn't quite hide the smile on his lips. "I had no choice but to prepare an alternative offering to appease the scary reaper. You like dogs, don't you?"

Kuzuha opened his mouth, only to close it again after a few moments, completely speechless. There was only one thought running through his head, preventing him from stringing together any coherent response.

Fluff! Dogs!! Fluffy Dogs!!!

An hour later, Kuzuha returned to the reaper office, a pack of dogs at his heels. With some regret, he left the dogs to the bureau for relocating, returning to his desk to clock out for the day with an uncontrollable smile subtly pulling at the corners of his lips.

There was no denying it - Kuzuha felt really, really happy. Happy because of the joy of playing with the dogs and petting their fur, of course. But there was another happiness there too, quietly buried under the rest.

Lingering in his chest was an almost foreign warmth, gentle and pervasive. Maybe Kuzuha wasn't as immune to the need for social bonds as he'd thought - though he wouldn't admit it out loud, Kanae had affected him more than he'd ever expected, over the last few months.

Compared to the cold dimness of his bedroom where he sat alone after work, re-reading the same worn paperback for the hundredth time, there seemed to be this strange, ordinary sort of warmth in the manor every time he visited, at odds with its ostentatious decoration. A warmth like a heated blanket on a winter's day, or a cup of hot cocoa on the living room couch, thick and sweet.

A warmth that felt a bit like... home.

Kuzuha laughed to himself, a little self-conscious.

Hey. Wasn't he becoming kind of sappy?

If there was one universal constant that stuck with you in both life and death, it was paperwork.

Leafing through the pile of forms stacked on his desk, Kuzuha pinched at his forehead, fighting off the beginnings of a headache. Across from him, one of his coworkers shook his head commiseratingly. “Damn paperwork, am I right?”

Kuzuha let out a hiss in agreement, head dropping down on his desk with a thump. Coworker A laughed at his dramatics, soon joined by the Coworker B that just walked into the office.

Yes, these were kind of terrible nicknames to be calling his coworkers in his head. No, he was not about to stop. Kuzuha had long forgotten their actual names, and a sunny day in the underworld was far more likely than Kuzuha asking for their names again at this point, thanks.

"You know, you've gotten a lot more talkative lately," Coworker B suddenly piped up. "Trying to get a sentence out of you used to be like pulling teeth - did something happen to you recently?" The reaper gave Kuzuha a teasing smile "Maybe a lover?"

First of all, Kuzuha had no idea how they got the impression he had become more talkative recently. As usual, he barely contributed to any of the conversations going on at the office - the only difference now was that he would occasionally nod along in agreement, instead of just trying to find the first opportunity to leave.

And second of all. "Where would I find the time to date, with all the work we get piled on us?" Kuzuha sighed. "If it weren't for this stupid contract, I'd probably be married to someone rich and living the high life at home right now…"

Coworker B sighed in agreement, patting Kuzuha solemnly on the back. At that moment, the one voice that remained conspicuously absent in the conversation spoke up.

"I don't think it's a relationship that changed him," Coworker A's voice sounded unusually serious. "Or at least any relationship worth celebrating, that is."

Both Kuzuha and Coworker B turned to look at him. "It's good that you're opening up some more now, instead of bottling things up and trying to deal with it on your own," Coworker A continued. "We're here to support you. Taking care of your mental health is important."

Kuzuha furrowed his eyebrows, confused. What the hell was this guy suddenly on about? 

"What are you talking about?" Coworker B voiced the thoughts running through Kuzuha's head. Coworker A shook his head in response. "You didn't hear? Shin-chan got reassigned, and this kid is the one that's picking up the slack."

Kuzuha's quiet protest at being called a kid again was drowned out by the clatter of an office chair as Coworker B stood up from his desk in shock.

"That guy - !" Coworker B covered his face with a hand. "I'm glad Shin-chan finally got out of there but - that boss of ours is inhumane. Couldn't they have found someone else to take the job for a while?"

Ah. This again. Kuzuha leaned back discreetly in his chair, trying to avoid his passionately disapproving coworker's line of sight.

Kuzuha always felt a bit awkward whenever the topic of Kanae inevitably arose at the office now, especially since he knew Kanae’s reputation was really bad among the reapers. 

Any attempts at defending the necromancer usually went quite badly, and Kuzuha wasn't the type to sit silently as others talked shit about his friend either. As a result, he mostly ended up valiantly trying to tiptoe around the subject whenever he found himself in a conversation with other reapers. It got pretty challenging at times, though, when Kuzuha had become famous at the department for his apparent patience dealing with the necromancer in question.

Like now. "It's really not that big a deal," Kuzuha tried to defuse the situation. "Let's. Not talk about it any more."

"You don't have to hold back," Coworker B reassured earnestly. "We've heard a lot from the previous assignee already - he's our friend, you know."

"Well, he’s kind of troublesome.. but really, Kanae’s not that bad…" Kuzuha's voice grew weaker and weaker in the face of two pairs of intent eyes. He tried to laugh awkwardly, but the heavy atmosphere didn't break at all.

Somehow it seemed like… they were really serious.

Unbidden, a question he had never considered before slipped out from his lips.

"What happened? To the reapers before me."

Coworker A pressed a hand against his temples, a dark expression on his face."What didn't happen? That guy is crazy," he muttered. "I'm not sure what deep grudge he has against us, but there hasn't been a single reaper that got out from that assignment without being put in mandatory therapy."

"...Did the pranks go too far?"

"Calling them pranks is putting it far too lightly. That necromancer is too good at finding your weak points and using them against you. Did you know he trapped a reaper in the body of a doll and let his cat play with it for a week?!" Coworker B interjected.

...What?

"The next reaper - that one actually ended up becoming the only case of a reaper retiring ahead of their contract expiry in the history of this department. That necromancer almost tricked them into reaping living human beings. The paranoia on every reaping assignment after that - they just couldn’t work anymore. I heard they even applied for reincarnation, just to escape the memories..!”

"Shin-chan, too. He was always really claustrophobic, but it only got worse after he was put on assignment. All the small spaces he’d get trapped in, every time…”

Kuzuha swallowed uncomfortably. His mind buzzed as he fought the churning of his stomach, threatening to make him retch.

That first meeting, where Kanae had almost mistaken him for someone else. The cages, the red paint that was supposed to be blood. With all the harmless pranks later, he hadn’t thought too much of that first meeting, but in retrospect...

Unconsciously, Kuzuha recalled Kanae’s gently smiling face, his look of concentration while playing games together. The indulgent gaze he wasn’t able to hide as he watched Kuzuha playing with the undead animals he brought back. The way he always masked his care in jokes so Kuzuha wouldn’t feel too embarrassed.

That stranger haloed in cold light, standing amidst the tall cages and fading wisps of blue ghost light.

Kuzuha clenched a hand in his pocket, palms cold. The movement accidentally knocked into a small object forgotten there, rubbing his hand against the familiar texture of waxy paper wrapping. 

He pulled his hand out, pinching the object between two fingers, and stared.

It was a piece of candy.

Looking back up at the other reapers, Kuzuha laughed self-deprecatingly. “You don’t have to worry about me. I guess I got lucky - it's really not like that for me at all.”

The smile on his lips felt sour and brittle.

"...Hey, Kanae."

Kanae blinked at the reaper that appeared in the middle of his study. His golden fountain pen paused mid-sentence on a page of notes. The necromancer’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, clearly delighted by the unexpected visit.

“Ku-chan! What brings you here today? I don’t think I resurrected anyone new recently…?”

Kuzuha didn’t respond, brow twisted with discomfort. The red eyed gaze that landed on Kanae was deep and conflicted.

He attempted to speak several times, but stopped short every time. Even after several false starts, Kuzuha only managed to blurt out a single sentence.

“We need to talk.”

Kanae’s expression had grown visibly worried at Kuzuha’s strange mood, but he quickly pasted a smile on his face at Kuzuha’s words. "You're breaking up with me?" Kanae sniffled dramatically. Though he used a joking tone as usual, it was softer than usual, worn down around the edges with concern.

"We can’t break up, we're not in a relationship," Kuzuha retorted instinctively. Unconsciously, his shoulders loosened at the familiar banter, easing his tenseness for a moment.

Kanae stood up from his chair, taking advantage of the reaper's lapse of attention by reaching forward to pull the scythe from Kuzuha's slackened grip. With the familiarity of an old habit, the necromancer slotted the weapon onto the rack next to the study's door. 

Briefly, Kuzuha reflected with some irony over how much things had changed since they'd first met. From having his scythe regularly stolen by the necromancer to giving it up willingly himself, there was a lot to be said about how much he'd grown to trust Kanae over the recent months.

 "I haven't had lunch yet, do you want to go eat?" Kanae opened the study door, making as if to step out of the room, only to be stopped by Kuzuha grabbing his arm. The necromancer turned back, tilting his head to the side inquisitively.

"Could you… stop with all the deflecting?" Kuzuha furrowed his eyebrows. "I'm trying to have a serious conversation here, you know."

"Are you sure? You don't look like you're all that ready to talk about it yet…" Kanae leaned back against the door frame, eyes gentle as he met Kuzuha's troubled gaze. He didn't even seem to notice the way the reaper's nails were digging into his wrist, almost tight enough to draw blood. "You don't want to leave some time to sort out whatever you're worrying about in that head of yours?"

Though he knew this was the necromancer's way of trying to comfort him a little, it only made Kuzuha feel worse. Kanae was right - no matter how many times Kuzuha turned his chaotic thoughts over again, the words and questions would choke on their way out his throat.

But the longer he waited, the more the sense of turmoil grew, each warm and familiar gesture from the necromancer grating harshly against the fresh memory of the conversation with his coworkers.

Could this person in front of him… really be so cruel?

“Hey, Kanae," Kuzuha tried again, forcing the burning question out of his mouth.

"The things that the other grim reapers say about you. Are they… true?"

Kanae paused.

“Hm…? What things?”

His expression was slightly unnatural.

“The things you did to the reapers before me. Were they really… as bad as they say?”

The door made a harsh sound as it bumped against the wall. Kanae had accidentally nudged it open a little too wide, but neither of them paid attention to it.

“Ahaha, is the grim reaper rumour mill really wild?” Kanae's voice tasted like vanilla extract, cloying and chemical. “Maybe you reapers take things too seriously? I suppose it’s to be expected, for those with ‘grim’ in their titles -”

"Could you stop doing that?!" Kuzuha burst out, voice breaking a little mid sentence. "You were all worried earlier - but aren't you running away now?"

Kuzuha's hands were vibrating from the tension again. It wasn't the first time Kanae had dodged personal questions like this, but Kuzuha had never paid it much mind before. Now, he found himself regretting that he hadn't pressed harder the last few times.

It hurt. Kanae was so careful when it came to Kuzuha, paying attention to all the little details even Kuzuha missed about himself. But when it was Kuzuha's turn to try, Kanae closed off like he was radioactive. Sometimes, Kuzuha felt like he was taking advantage of Kanae, thinking of him as a friend when he didn't really know him at all. But who was taking advantage of who? What kind of twisted ideal of a friendship was Kanae trying to create?

The dark and tumultuous feelings twisted and turned inside his head, staining the rose colored memories he'd been carefully trying to preserve. 

Kanae may have cared about him, but he didn't trust Kuzuha at all.

"Can you be honest with me for once?" Kuzuha released his grip on Kanae's arm, taking a tired step back. "Let's talk about it seriously this time, okay?"

Silence.

Kanae's expression gradually grew more and more unreadable. “What is there to talk about between us?”

Kuzuha had never heard such a cold voice coming from the necromancer before.

“Whatever they say about me - it’s probably all true, you know.” Kanae cradled his cheek in his hand like he was amused, but there was no smile on his face at all.

“Do they call me a monster? I’m probably worse than whatever they’ve said, to be honest. You see, I still have some manners. I’ve only ever been perfectly polite to all those reapers that came to my house. I try to be a good host, so I have to work hard not to listen to the voice in my head saying - can’t I just let them suffer? More and more and more?”

“If they can’t just go die and leave me alone, then don’t I have the right to punish them?”

The blank laugh he let out didn't match his expression.

“Does knowing the truth make you happy, Kuzuha? There's no need to keep playing at this farce anymore. You can run along back to your little reaper friends now. Was it tiring, playing along like this?"

Kuzuha didn't respond.

The murky light in the necromancer's eyes was all too familiar. There was no ironic smile to accompany it this time, but Kuzuha could still recognize it from a mile away.

Kanae was a pretty good actor, wasn't he? It was getting boring, though, how obsessed he was with the role of the villain.

"You know, coming here to ask you about all this - it doesn’t mean I’ve already taken their side. Aren’t I here to have a conversation with you?"

The questions he hadn't been able to ask before were all rushing out now. "The you I’ve heard about isn’t the you I know at all. What's so different about me? Why are you so nice to me, if you're as awful as you claim to be? Do you hate me too, the way you say you hate all of us grim reapers?"

Kanae's expression had collapsed, looking slightly bewildered by the direction of the conversation. It was maybe the first time Kuzuha had seen him at a loss for words, too unaccustomed to even slightly losing control of the situation.

“... The me you know. What kind of me is that? That you want to give me so much benefit of the doubt?" 

Kanae covered his face with a hand, suddenly tired.

"You’re only setting yourself up for a greater disappointment, you know. I'm not a good person at all. Me treating you better than your predecessors is just my selfishness."

"I don't know if you want to hear that I'm secretly a kind person, or that I'm a changed person now, since I met you. But neither of those is true. I'm just taking advantage of you. Aren't you too optimistic?"

He smiled humorlessly. "The answer to your questions - it's not going to make you feel any better, you know?"

Kuzuha pursed his lips stubbornly, crossing his arms across his chest.

"That's for me to judge, isn't it?"

Kanae leaned back, head hanging down silently. The necromancer stood still, as if in deep thought. His bangs covered his face, concealing his eyes in shadow.

After a moment, he spoke.

"Hey, Kuzuha."

"Do you want to hear a story?"

There once was a sickly young boy that lived in a manor on top of a hill.

His parents were nobles, and were responsible for governing the town at the bottom of the hill. These parents were always traveling here and there in town, and almost everyone living in the town could recognize them on sight. And yet, no one had ever seen their son.

He was born with a weak constitution, his parents would explain apologetically to the occasional curious townsperson. He's too sick to leave the house.

The thing was, though, the boy's sickness wasn't something you could notice just by looking at him. He moved just as energetically as other children his age, and his cheeks were always rosy and healthy. There was just one problem.

He could see ghosts.

.

.

.

"Young Master Kanae, wait - !"

Ignoring the shouts of the staff behind him, a young boy ran through the halls, looking around desperately.

"Ku-chan? Are you there? Ku-chan?" The boy called out again and again. He rubbed at his red eyes. "You're still here, right?"

Despite his desperate cries, there was no sign of that furry head anywhere. He clenched his small fists. The servants were probably shaking their heads at him right now, sighing at the futility of his search.

After all, his dog had already died a few days ago.

Kanae was no stranger to death. For as long as he could remember, he'd been cursed with the ability to see the dead. At first, he hadn't known it wasn't normal, to see these people no one else could see. But on the day his parents had finally realized that Kanae was talking to something more real than just imaginary friends, this curse became the shackle that weighed on him every day since.

There wasn't any chance to make friends anymore, either living or dead. We can't let anyone know, his parents had whispered worryingly between themselves. Those superstitious townsfolk - they'll never let him go.

Playing with other kids his age was out of the question. What if Kanae slipped up, and they went to their parents? Playing with ghosts was even more impossible. Though his parents trusted their staff, a single pair of loose lips could be devastating, so this needed to be kept secret from them too. And what if hanging around ghosts made his strange affinity with death even worse?

Instead, Kanae stayed at home all day, barely seeing the light outside his room. His parents were usually too busy with business affairs to accompany him, and the servants who took care of him kept their distance, too mindful of their status gap. This kind of isolation would be difficult for anyone, let alone a young child. 

Kanae was a good boy, though. He quietly and obediently followed his parents rules, even if he felt lonely sometimes. Really, it wasn't so bad. Even if he had no one else to talk to, at least there was still a companion to stay by his side every day - his pet dog.

That is, until his dog wandered out and got hit by a hunter's stray arrow.

Kanae was not being a very good boy at the moment. For the first time in years, instead of avoiding them, he was out looking for ghosts himself. Ku-chan wasn’t really gone, was he? He definitely would have left a ghost behind, right? He wouldn’t leave Kanae alone.

Right?

“Ku-chan?” The stubbornly running Kanae no longer recognized his surroundings, having run deep enough into the house to enter a floor of unused attics he’d never visited before. The air was filled with large specks of dust, kicked up from the layer of grey blanketing the ground.

He sneezed, the force of it causing him to lose his balance and fall to the ground with a loud crash. The impact of the fall caused large clouds of dust to billow into the air, stinging his eyes. Maybe it was this, or the pain of the fall, or the slowly building despair of failure. Or even all three at once. But Kanae could no longer help it.

He burst into tears.

The sound of the child’s wretched hiccups and sobs bounced around the large, empty attic. Curling up into himself, Kanae sat on the ground, thin shoulders shaking. He couldn’t tell how much time passed, but the feelings of loss and hurt only deepened, cries growing louder and louder.

“O-Oi, kid, are you alright?”

A vaguely panicked voice broke through the room, interrupting Kanae's crying. The boy was startled into silence, lifting his head to stare wide eyed at the source of the new voice.

It was a ghost.

Maybe the ghost had been around for too long, but his outline was hazy, as if you were seeing him through a layer of frosted glass. It was hard to see the ghost's features clearly, but Kanae could barely make out long, flowing white hair, as well as the kind old fashioned clothing he had only ever seen in the portraits of past nobles scattered around the house.

Kanae hiccupped. "M-mister, who are you? Why are you in my house?" 

"Your - hey, this used to be my house, you know?!" Though the ghost sounded offended, his posture was still awkward, fingers curling with the hesitation of an internal debate over the appropriateness of patting Kanae on the head.

"Okay, listen up, kid. I'll tell you who I am - but don't be too shocked when you hear it, alright?" The ghost folded his arms proudly. "My name is Aleksandr, of the ancient and esteemed house of Lagusa!"

"Lagusa…" The boy scrunched his nose in thought. "Never heard of it."

The ghost blinked. "...eh?"

There was a moment of awkward silence. "A-Anyway!" Aleksandr coughed, embarrassed. "What are you doing here? I thought no one came to these attics…"

"I-I'm looking for my dog." Kanae's face crumpled again. "Have you seen any new ghosts around recently, Mister Lagusa? He's not that big, but his fur is really white, you can't miss him…"

"Kid…" Aleksandr's voice had turned quiet and serious. "I'm sorry to say this, but - animals usually don't leave ghosts behind, you know. It's rare that they have regrets as strong as humans do, to keep them here after death."

Kanae pressed his face against his knees, silent. Deep down, he had already suspected as much, but it still hurt to hear it from somebody else. "Has anyone ever told you that you're bad with kids, Mister?" The boy's voice was muffled by the fabric of his shorts. "Aren't you supposed to tell me that maybe I'll find him someday?"

"O-oi, that's - I don't want to hear that from a weird kid like you! Aren't you just fine now? You're not crying anymore - isn't that thanks to me?"

"No, now I'm even more sad than before," Kanae huffed. "I'm going to start crying again any second now, and it'll all be your fault, you big meanie."

"What are you - wait, are you serious?" Aleksandr started panicking again at the sight of Kanae scrunching his face up again, doing his best to squeeze new tears onto his lashes. "S-stop doing that! Hey!"

"You big bad adult, making a kid cry," Kanae grumbled in a nasally voice. "You're going to have to make it up to me, you know."

Aleksandr flitted around him anxiously. "Make it up to you? How?"

"Be my new pet dog."

"..."

"Eh?!"

.

.

.

"...and this part of the house was - oi, kid, are you still listening?"

A small blue flame bobbed indignantly next to a distracted Kanae as the two of them explored the house, peeking into various unused rooms and corridors. "I'm listening, I'm listening," Kanae promised earnestly. "It's just - you're really cute like this, Sasha! But why aren't you using your other form today?"

"I'm saving energy," Aleksandr huffed. "You don't get to be a ghost for as long as I have by constantly wasting your energy on appearances, you know."

"How long have you been like this, anyway?" Kanae tilted his head curiously as they pattered down another hallway. "Been a ghost, I mean."

"Eh… maybe a couple centuries?" The faint flame flickered unsurely. "I kind of lost track. There aren't many ghosts around my age, you know. I guess the reapers must have lost my file a long time ago..."

After becoming a lot closer with his so-called 'new pet dog' over the last few months, Kanae had found that the seemingly airheaded aristocrat was a lot more knowledgeable than he looked. Aleksandr had taught him a lot of things so far, like miscellaneous trivia about the ghost and grim reaper system or forgotten history about the manor and neighbouring town.

He even talked about his life before he became a ghost sometimes, or at least what little he still remembered from it. Ever since the ghost had shared that his family used to call him Sasha, Kanae had insisted on addressing him that way despite Aleksandr's multiple protests.

Since your full name is too hard to pronounce, the boy had justified righteously. After a while, Aleksandr reluctantly gave in - it was better than being nicknamed after a dog, like Kanae had been doing previously.

Right now, they were in the middle of exploring the house together, with Aleksandr acting as the tour guide for all the areas Kanae had never visited. "This room here used to be the statue room, where we kept the full-scale gold statues of all the Lagusa ancestors…"

Kanae laughed. "That's so dumb! What do you need gold statues for?"

"For decoration! You know, your family really decorates this place too plainly. It's too wasteful if you don't redecorate! You know, back when this was my manor, we used to have gold everywhere…!"

"Pfft - that sounds really tacky…"

"No, but - what's the point of having a manor if you don't show off how rich you are to all the guests?!"

As the two of them argued playfully, Kanae pushed open the door of the library located at the end of the hall. This was a place that Kanae had been to often, both alone and with Aleksandr, in order to read books and pass the time. "Why did you want to come here today, anyway?" Kanae questioned curiously. "Haven't we been here a lot already?"

"No, but - recently I remembered that the library had a - wait just a second - "

The little flame darted forward into the depths of the library, Kanae running after him in order to keep up. He finally caught up to Aleksandr when the flame slopped in front of a small alcove, tucked away near the back of the tall shelves.

"I don't know if I remembered the location correctly, but - can you take out that book on the far right? Okay, is there a groove on the wall behind it?"

Kanae tugged out the heavy book with some effort, running his small hands over the back of the shelf. His nails caught on an indentation in the wood. "I found it!"

At the ghost's instructions, Kanae pressed down on the hooked groove, causing a loud creak to echo through the library. The rusty hinge hidden behind the shelf groaned from decades of disuse as it swung open, revealing a small, musty dark room.

The young boy ran inside excitedly. Though there was no lighting inside the room, the gentle blue glow emanating from Aleksandr's current form illuminated the walls, revealing shelves full of dusty old books.

"My old secret collection," the ghost proclaimed proudly.

Kanae glanced at the title of the nearest book. "The Inner Workings of the True Occult?" he read aloud, raising his eyebrows. "Your taste was kinda weird…"

As Aleksandr sputtered in the background over how his taste was, in fact, cool, shut up you shitty brat, Kanae browsed eagerly through the shelves. Despite his words, he had also become interested in this kind of stuff, ever since he started talking to ghosts again. “Are any of these books real?” He wondered. “Isn’t magic just a scam?”

“No, they’re definitely real,” Aleksandr confirmed. “Or at least, most of them are. Most of these were given by my old magician friends - though it seems like magicians are a lot less common nowadays…”

In the corner of his eye, Kanae caught sight of a small black book, almost hidden by the large tomes flanking it. Though it had nearly slipped his attention, the blue embossed patterns that matched the exact shade of a ghost’s soul flame stood out among the usual brown and gold of the book covers.

He reached forward to pull it out. Though the cover was blank, the first page listed its title in elegant cursive, scribbled in almost carelessly by some person from centuries back.

Necromancy Journal II.

“Hey, Sasha? What’s neco- necra-” The boy stumbled over the word a few times. “- necromancy?”

“Necromancy? That’s a special type of magic - it’s used for resurrecting the dead,” Aleksandr explained. “There’s a lot of limitations to it - it’s called resurrection, but a body occupied by a ghost can only ever be undead at most - but I had a friend back then who was really into it…”

Kanae jolted, spine straightening in surprise. The ghost didn’t seem to be thinking too deeply about his own words, but the implications couldn’t escape Kanae’s attention at all.

A body… occupied by a ghost…?

“So this book is real, then?” Kanae spoke in a falsely casual tone, spreading the pages of the journal with both hands to show the ghost the title of the book.

“Oh, yeah. That one was actually written by that friend I was talking about, you know. I asked if I could keep his old journals, but I couldn’t learn anything in them at all - there wasn’t even the slightest affinity for death in me back then, couldn’t even see ghosts…”

Unnoticed by the rambling Aleksandr, Kanae’s eyes, still glued to the book’s pages, widened in excitement. Affinity for death - wasn’t this what had plagued him throughout the entirety of his short life?

It seemed like Kanae had changed a lot since meeting Aleksandr. For years, he had only felt like this ability of his was a curse, sentencing him to a life of solitude. But now, he couldn’t help but feel grateful for it.

Grateful that it had allowed him to meet Sasha, and that it was allowing him now to repay Sasha’s friendship.

“Hey, Sasha… Have you ever thought about having a body again...?”

.

.

.

Necromancy was hard.

While Kanae was a smart kid, trying to teach yourself a forgotten art with nothing but a bunch of dusty old books was not an easy feat.

It had taken several months of trial and error to even make it past the first chapter of the first journal. Though progress got significantly faster after crossing that first hurdle, it was still slow going trying to reach the point of managing a full body resurrection.

Aleksandr had tried to help, passing along what second hand tips and tricks he could remember from the necromancer he'd gotten the books from. "Not that I remember him all that well. It has been a few centuries, after all."

Well, there was only so much you could expect from a ghost that had even forgotten why he'd become a ghost in the first place. And while Aleksandr wasn't much help on the education part of the whole project, his constant worried hovering as he supervised the young Kanae's experiments only drove Kanae's motivation to learn necromancy harder.

"What would you want to do first, once you get a body again?"

Kanae kicked his feet in the air as he spoke. He was currently lying on his stomach on the floor, carefully trying to sketch out a magic circle in chalk as Aleksandr's soul flame hovered over his shoulder nervously.

"First…?" The ghost pondered absentmindedly. "Eat food, I guess? Probably dessert... I still miss strawberry pudding…"

From their conversations together, Kanae had long since learned that Aleksandr used to have a massive sweet tooth, back when he was alive. He still remembered that particular discussion, and the shock the ghost had shown when Kanae admitted he didn't really eat sweets.

How can you not like sweets?! Don't children love sugar?  Aleksandr had protested. Kanae had laughed at him for having tastes more childish than an actual child, but afterwards he'd still secretly asked the staff to start stocking candy in the house. You really never knew when he'd finally succeed at his resurrection, after all. Wasn't it good to prepare in advance?

"Maybe I should go look for some stray cats, too," the boy mused aloud. "Or dogs! We can pet them together when you get your body back!"

The blue flame flickered disapprovingly. "Oi, could you maybe pay a little more attention to your safety, kid? Strays might have fleas or something…"

Kanae pouted. "But you like animals so much! If you don't wanna meet strays, maybe I can ask for a pet cat…?"

"Hey hey hey wait a moment, who said I like -"

"And I won't have to move your pieces for you next time we play chess!" Kanae barrelled on enthusiastically. Unwittingly, he'd already begun to daydream again about the things they could do together soon.

"And we can finally read all those books I can't reach in your secret room!"

"And, and…"

A few weeks later, Kanae sat on the ground and stared at the remains of his latest resurrection circle, face blank with exhilaration and disbelief. In the center of the carefully constructed formation stood a tall, white haired figure, partly obscured by a large cloud of dust.

"Sasha…?"

He'd… succeeded?

In the dim light, a pair of red eyes shone brightly, curved with excitement. "Kanae! You really did it!"

Sasha… was really tall. Kanae's neck was starting to get tired from craning it back so far. Would he also grow that tall when he grew up?

"Kanae?" Aleksandr crouched down, waving a hand in front of the young boy's eyes. His old fashioned red cape flopped against the floor. "Kid? Are you zoning out or something?"

Kanae's head felt fuzzy. He was probably dizzy from excitement. What was he thinking about just now?

"Hey Sasha…" The boy's voice was faint. "Has anyone ever told you that you're really pretty?"

Were those black spots always there on the wall?

The sight of a panicked Aleksandr rushing over to catch him was the last thing he saw before he passed out.

Kanae woke up to white hair tickling his face.

"Achoo!" The boy sneezed loudly, startling the man hovering over him into jerking back in his chair so hard he nearly tumbled to the ground.

"Kid! You're awake!" Aleksandr sounded immensely relieved, reaching forward to press a hand against Kanae's forehead. His palm felt burning hot against Kanae's skin.

The boy tried to reach up and grasp the resurrected ghost's wrist, but his arm collapsed back against the blankets after just barely lifting it up. He realized abruptly that he was no longer in the basement - Sasha must have carried him back to his bedroom. "What happened to me?" He was startled by the sound of his own voice, weak and hoarse.

Aleksandr's shoulders sank. "You're sick," he informed him. His expression was scrunched up in guilt. "I guess the ressurection ritual drains more of your energy than we thought…"

He looked like a dejected puppy - if he had a tail, it would probably be drooping right now. If Kanae had the strength to move, he would have definitely tried to pat the man's head. "It's okay," he said instead. "It's my fault for not double checking the energy calculations." Not that knowing would have stopped him from trying the resurrection anyway.

"I wish I was older," Kanae sighed, upset with himself. "Then I wouldn't get knocked out like this over a single spell… I'm sorry, Sasha, I wanted to play together when you got your body back, but now that I'm like this…"

"It's okay, it's okay!" The ex-ghost insisted in return. "We have plenty of time to do whatever once you get better. Health comes first, kid."

Aleksandr reached forward tentatively, bundling the boy, still cocooned in blankets, into an awkward hug. Though he didn't have the strength to hug back, the warm, solid feeling of Sasha's arms around him cheered Kanae up instantly.

It was all worth it, just to be able to experience this.

Gently lowering Kanae back down onto his bed, Aleksandr reached over the nearby nightstand, lifting a tray with a bowl and a spoon on it over onto his lap. He carefully scooped up a spoonful of porridge, blowing on the hot food slightly before holding it in front of Kanae's mouth.

"S-Say ah…" The ex-ghost's ears were slightly red as he tried to speak in a soothing tone. The corners of Kanae's lips turned up uncontrollably at the sight, but the boy tamped down on his urge to tease his friend, instead opening his mouth obediently to eat.

After the first mouthful, Kanae's expression turned slightly strange. "Did you… make this yourself?" Aleksandr nodded proudly, crossing his arms over his chest smugly. "I snuck into the kitchen to make it. Didn't get caught by a single servant! Is it good?"

It was not good. "It's really… special," Kanae said instead. "I-It's not everyday that you can eat food made by a member of the esteemed Lagusa family!"

Aleksandr puffed up even more with pride, if that was even possible. "Hey, aren't I a genius at taking care of sick people? Was this my hidden talent all along? I even prepared hot towels, I'm so thoughtful -"

He reached out to the nightstand again to pick up a towel, only to freeze when he touched the wet fabric. "Uh… maybe I left them here too long, um…"

The damp towels were freezing cold.

Kanae couldn't fight back his laugh this time at all. This guy really wasn't good at taking care of people like this - but even without the hot towels, Kanae could feel a sense of warmth spreading throughout his body.

He'd never had anyone to care for him like this. Though the servants looked after him, it was just their job. No one worried like this when he caught a cold or flu, with his parents never being around to notice it and all. But now, he had Sasha.

"I'll go reheat the towels," Aleksandr stood up, still looking slightly embarrassed.

"You'll be back though, right?" Kanae mumbled drowsily. The comfortable feeling of being in bed and watched over with care was starting to make him feel sleepy. "If it's Sasha, I won't be abandoned again... Promise me you'll always come back..."

Kanae usually hid his insecurities too deeply to ask these sorts of questions, but his illness and sleepiness had made him far more careless with his words. Aleksandr, who had been turning around to leave, turned back towards the bed, looking quietly down at the young boy curled up in his blankets. His red eyes were soft as he leaned down towards him.

Gently, Aleksandr placed a hand on the boy's head.

"I promise, kid."

.

.

.

"Stop, wait - Please, could you give me some time to talk to the kid first -"

Kanae rubbed groggily at his eyes, awoken in the middle of the night by the sound of commotion. "Sasha…?"

It had only been a few days since he fell ill from energy exhaustion, and while he had slowly begun to recover, his condition was still too weak for him to get out of bed. The boy struggled to push himself up into a sitting position, but could only collapse helplessly against the sheets several times.

"Sasha?" He tried again, turning his head to the side and craning his neck. The room was dark. "Sasha, I can't see you. What's wrong?"

At his words, a spark of blue flame ignited the candle on his nightstand, illuminating the room in an eerie glow. Kanae had to blink several times before his blurry eyes adjusted to the change in lighting.

There were two figures in his room.

At the sight, Kanae shrank back inside his blankets in fear. Closer to the bed, he could see the familiar long white hair flowing down Aleksandr's back. The ex-ghost wasn't looking at him, instead watching the other person standing by the doorway. His stance was wide and unfamiliar, as if trying to… shield Kanae.

He was standing between Kanae and a tall, black robed figure.

"Undead," The stranger spoke, voice cold and almost robotic. "You should rejoice. Today is your reaping day, the day you will be reborn into the underworld." They lifted a hand. The blue firelight caught on a wickedly curved blade, gleaming suddenly in the darkness.

It was a scythe.

"You no longer need to bow under the control of that necromancer," The reaper continued. "Why do you insist on staying longer?"

Aleksandr swallowed. "Hey, my relationship with the kid isn't that bad. Isn't it rude to leave without saying goodbye?"

"Leave -?!" Kanae tried once again to sit up. He failed. "Sasha, where are you going? Why are you saying goodbye? Didn't you say -"

"Necromancer." The reaper spoke. "Are you really so arrogant as to meddle with the laws of life and death without a care for the rules of the underworld?" The shadow under their hood flickered, like a cloud of dark smoke. "We will be taking this soul back where it belongs. Don't mess with the dead any longer - or we will have to come back and find you again."

The scythe swooped forward, hooking Aleksandr by the neck and forcing him forward. The ex-ghost turned his head frantically. 

"Kanae -" The scythe nicked his throat, wisps of blue flame leaking out of the wound, but he continued to speak without a care. "Kid, I'm - I'm sorry." He smiled weakly. "Looks like I might not be able to keep that promise after all."

He tried to wave, but the motion could barely be seen through the building glow of a teleportation circle around him and the reaper. "Take care of yourself, okay?" Aleksandr called out hurriedly. "Don't mess with us dead people anymore. You still have the rest of your life in front of you, Kanae. You should spend the rest of your days in the sun."

His smile was so, so sad.

"Live well, okay?"

The light slowly faded, returning the room to its original state of pitch darkness.

Kanae was left alone.

Impossible. This was all a dream, right? Kanae wanted to shout, to scream, but nothing came out of his throat. No, this was just a twisted nightmare. There was no way Sasha would leave him like this.

What about the desserts they were going to try together? What about the pet cat they were going to adopt? Kanae's hands curled helplessly into fists.

Didn't Sasha promise he would never abandon him?

His nails dug painfully into his palms. The sting felt too real. Painstakingly, Kanae heaved himself forward with his arms, trying to get out of bed once more. He tumbled over the edge of the bed with a loud crash.

Ah, his knees really hurt. He thought that to himself distantly, but his body was still struggling forward, dragging his uselessly weakened legs across the ground as he crawled his way slowly towards the door. Sasha wasn't gone, right? Maybe this was all just a terrible prank. All he had to do was get to the door. Sasha must just be hiding outside in the hallway. Wasn't this joke kind of cruel, though?

Belated, he realized that he was crying. The tears felt hot against his cold skin.

"Young Master..!"

The door to his bedroom swung open. At the doorway stood several servants, all in varying states panic. They must have heard him fall to the floor earlier and come to investigate.

"Young Master, why are you out of bed?" One of the stronger servants lifted him up off the ground, carrying him back towards his bed. "You're still sick, you shouldn't be moving around! If you need something, just call for someone, you don't need to do it yourself…"

Kanae didn't respond. The exaggerated looks of concern on the servants' faces felt like they were mocking him. These people who knew nothing about him, who didn't care about him besides how his condition might affect their paycheck. Why were they trying to act like this? Only Sasha was allowed to fuss over him like a child. At least when he did it, Kanae knew that he really meant it.

He was really, truly alone again, wasn't he?

Live well.

What a terrible joke.

.

.

.

The study smelled like rust.

Blankly, Kanae wiped a hand against his face, ignoring the streak of blood his fingers left behind on his cheek. Another failure, today.

Several months had passed since Sasha left. He'd long since recovered from his illness, throwing himself single-mindedly back into studying necromancy.

It wasn't hard. He'd already mastered the most difficult step, reconstructing an undead body. Only now, the soul needed to be retrieved from the underworld first.

He'd managed to bring back many, many souls from the underworld. But why were none of them Sasha?

The amount of fresh blood he needed to use for summoning was starting to concern the servants. It was getting difficult to pretend that the livestock Kanae had called for them to purchase was simply for the sake of a new cooking hobby. Not that he cared, anyway. Who were they going to tell? It had been months since he last saw his parents. And no one else around here had even seen him, much less cared about what he was doing.

He walked over to his desk and pulled out his journal, flipping it open to the latest page to log the results of his latest attempt. Looking at today's date under the soft candlelight, the boy paused. He turned around to check the calendar on the wall.

No, he hadn't gotten it wrong. It really was today.

Today was the one year anniversary of the day he'd first met Sasha.

Silently, Kanae walked out of the study, not even bothering to clean up the mess inside. He locked the door and headed towards the kitchen, hefting a small lamp in hand to light his way.

There was no one there. Unsurprising, as it was well into the night, and many hours had passed since dinnertime. 

The pantry was still stocked, at least. Kanae rubbed at his eyes tiredly as he reached for the ingredients he needed. Eggs, flour, sugar…

It was a cake he could probably bake with his eyes closed. Blankly, Kanae recalled the many times he'd practiced this recipe before, in the secret moments he'd hidden from Sasha during those months he'd studied the journals. He'd excitedly have the cooks teach him how to bake, when the sun was too high for the ghost to come out without wasting too much energy.

Aren't you tired of making the same cake over and over again, Young Master?

No, he'd responded, concentrating hard on measuring the flour. It needs to be perfect.

A perfect cake for a perfect anniversary.

Kanae smeared a dollop of strawberry jam onto the cake. The dark red jelly looked a bit like congealed blood.

The house was silent. It was getting colder, recently, and a slight chill had settled in the kitchen without the heat of the oven left to warm it. Using the dwindling flame from the handheld lamp he'd brought, he ignited the smaller candles stuck meticulously in a circle on top of the cake.

Silently, Kanae sat in the kitchen, waiting. He waited alone for over an hour, not moving at all as he watched the candles slowly burn out.

He waited, but Sasha didn't come back to blow out the candles.

Once the flames finally extinguished themselves, Kanae stood up, lifting up the untouched strawberry cake with both hands. He gently placed the cake in the cooler, before picking up his lamp and making his way back to the study.

As he raised his butcher's knife over the neck of another chicken, ready to harvest its blood for a new ritual, Kanae couldn't help but imagine his knife stabbing into a black robe instead. 

In the kitchen, the strawberry cake rotted quietly in the icebox, waiting for Sasha to come back and eat it.

And he would, wouldn't he?

He'd promised to always come back, after all.

The study was choked with silence. Kuzuha’s knuckles were white against the hilt of his scythe, nails digging into his palm painfully. 

Inexplicably, he thought of his rebirth day. The party with no guests, the untouched storage boxes full of candy. The sweet and thick taste of the cake Kanae had insisted he eat.

Rebirth day, a day sometimes called by a different name in their department.

Reaping day.

Though Kuzuha often appeared not to pay attention to Kanae’s careless words, he could still remember many of them. The half-forgotten memories suddenly tasted bitter.

—  “If I summoned you, would you come?”

Kanae tilted his head back, eyes unnaturally bright. “After that first meeting, I couldn’t quite stop myself. Did you know that I stole your file from the reaper department?”

“You probably haven’t even seen it. It's forbidden for reapers to see the records of their own reaping, right? Not that seeing it would’ve brought your memories back…!”

The necromancer laughed hysterically, voice cracking. “There’s only your life recorded there, the time you lived as a ghost isn’t documented at all. No matter what, you still wouldn’t recognize me. Even your reaping was only listed as - retrieved after resurrected illegally by a necromancer. My name isn’t even there - !”

“Isn’t this such a sick joke? Did they know what they were doing, when they recruited you? When they assigned you to me?”

“The person I loved the most, becoming the thing I resented so deeply?”

His bitter smile waned slowly. "It's pretty bad of me, right? That I started to hate them so much, for so many years… the grim reapers that were only doing their jobs. From what I hear, the afterlife isn't a bad place at all. You seem to be doing fine now - I have no place to interfere with your life anymore...”

"I've been selfish, haven't I? Because I don't want to be alone, I make you visit me again and again. And even though you don’t remember me, I’ve been one-sidedly shoving these expectations on you. You deserve to be able to start over in the afterlife like everyone else has, without the baggage of your past life… and here I am, over 10 years later, the fool who still hasn’t moved on...”

Kanae’s mouth twisted. "Sorry, I'm... not a good person. I don’t want to let you go. Still, even now, I can’t help but hate those reapers - if they reassigned you, if one day the reaper that came to collect from me was a stranger -"

“If you don't want to see me again anymore, I understand - I can give up necromancy. I didn’t really have a reason to keep doing it all these years, anyway, after I kept failing to summon you back. I was too caught up in a useless vendetta before - and then after meeting you again, I just kept making excuses to myself, wanting you to visit me again and again. Isn’t it pathetic...?"

"I don't know if it means anything. But I really… do consider you a friend. The current you, the one I met a few months ago. I don't know if you reciprocate those feelings, but - I don't mind, you know? I'm glad, at least, for the time we were able to spend together."

Silently, Kuzuha watched Kanae’s face, his uncharacteristically crumpled expression. The necromancer’s chest was still heaving, exhausted from his own outburst.

Kuzuha’s head hurt. It felt like something was buzzing in his ears, like white noise drowning out the thoughts in his head. There was just too much information to process. This past life… he didn’t understand any of it.

The words made sense, logically speaking. Even with only a decade of reaping experience under his belt, he understood very well the fate of those souls that had been forgotten due to lost or misfiled paperwork. The ones who lingered as ghosts until what energy their souls retained burnt out.

And the memory erasure, after being reaped - it was universally accepted as a part of life in the underworld. Not many were curious about their past lives, since they had no memories to generate attachment to their former lives. Kuzuha was one of these people, who had never really thought about what life he lived before.

And yet, though he’d never gone looking for it, somehow this knowledge had fallen into his lap anyway.

It was kind of ironic, he thought distantly. He wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t muster up any humor at all. There were reapers that had gotten arrested for trying to read their own files. He hadn’t even had to lift a finger - Kanae had already done all the dirty work for him.

He looked over at the necromancer who was still trembling from exhaustion. Kanae, Kanae. Even now, he still didn’t understand that man. This was the most vulnerable he’d ever seen him - the Kanae he was used to was nothing like this, raw and unfiltered. The brunet wore smiles like they were a new pair of clothes, easily worn and easily thrown out. Cheap and convenient.

There were so many Kanaes that he knew, and so many that he’d never met. The Kanae in his coworkers’ mouths, as black as a devil. The Kanae that liked to act mysterious, playing pranks and having fun at his expense. The Kanae of the past, the lonely child that wanted nothing more than a friend. The Kanae right now, a man teetering dangerously at the edge of a pit of his own making.

The Kanae that had unknowingly dug his fingers into Kuzuha’s heart, until he could no longer imagine leaving.

There was a lot Kuzuha didn’t understand. Even if he knew, intellectually, of their long shared past and Kanae’s deep, tangled emotions, he didn’t have the memories to match. Their story sounded like one of his novels, a life that belonged to a stranger. 

And yet, though he didn’t understand, though he still didn’t know what to think of all this, there was one thing that he was more certain of than anything.

Kuzuha looked at Kanae and thought, Fuck it.

“Hey, Kanae. You can rely on me more, you know? Don’t just keep all these things bottled up for so long.”

Kuzuha scratched his cheek. “I can’t really respond to all that stuff about past lives now, but we’re friends, aren’t we? Just things explain it to me, and I’ll try my best to understand. And really - I’d have visited you even without all the resurrections. You could've just asked.”

Though he stumbled awkwardly over some of his words, the reaper made eye contact with the necromancer seriously, trying to convey his genuine feelings.

“No matter what -"

"- you’re my closest friend.”

There was a moment of silence.

Kanae’s mouth fell open slightly, forming a soft ‘o’ - perhaps the first time Kuzuha had managed to surprise Kanae and not the other way around. Then, slowly, he began to smile. 

The smile was one Kuzuha had never seen before; faint, tired, disbelieving and yet somehow realer than any smile the reaper could remember him wearing. Even with the traces of tears still caught in Kanae’s lashes, the brightness in his eyes tasted sweeter than any candy Kuzuha had ever eaten.

“So it turns out Ku-chan likes me too!” Kanae joked weakly, unable to hide the happiness in his voice completely. In a daze, he leaned forward, closing his eyes and resting his forehead against Kuzuha’s chest. Kuzuha didn’t stop him. “You know, you can't take it back. I’m very clingy. You have to take me on a date every week~'

Habitually, Kuzuha choked. “A da - Oi, wait a minute -” However, despite the protest in his words, he didn't pull away when Kanae reached forward, linking their fingers together.

As they continued to bicker, Kuzuha secretly pressed his palm against Kanae’s. He couldn’t quite hide the smile on his own face either.

Somehow, the warmth spreading through their joined hands felt like an old promise.

.

.

.

“So it turns out that was my name before? Damn, Aleksandr sounds pretty majestic...”

“Do you want to see your file? I still have it ~”

“.... I really don’t want to get into any more trouble, thanks. Also, please return it. Do you want to give the secretaries conniptions?”

“Well, they still haven’t noticed it was taken, have they? If they don’t know it’s gone, then what’s the problem?”

“... were you always like this? Since you were a kid?”

“Don’t you like me like this ~?”

“Don’t be too full of yourself. Just because I acknowledge we’re friends once…”

"Which, by the way. I remember you saying I’m your ‘closest friend’? After just a few months? So you really never managed to make any new friends since you entered the underworld?"

“That’s… Oi, stop laughing so hard! What’s wrong with being an introvert?! Kanae...!”