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Rohan let a silent moan be smothered in his full bloody lips.
A lukewarm testimony was generated by the slender curves of his body, where the palms of his delicate hands, fascinated by the contact and the power of creation, were joined to maliciously larger digits that corrupted the most shaded points of his body and spirit.
A sin was being consummated in Paradise.
The angel responsible for watching over Heaven's Door had made a mistake — a perpetual and irreversible worldly sin. Dimensioned to the keyholder of the celestial world, all the winged beings bet on the most requested hypothesis: the archangel most worshiped by God left his post and gave in to the entrance of the divine lands to an excommunicate.
However, the key still remained untouched in the same place as always.
The creases kept the same amount of dust and the necklace sealed to Rohan's chest still carried it without a single rustle of dawns to the most twisted twilights.
What had been lost, on the contrary, was much worse.
"Can you see the dark?" the prince of Hell asked about the soft clouds, hovering among the golden and illusory masses that carried the weight of his black and firm feathers.
Rohan did not give Josuke the key to Paradise. He gave his spirit to him.
The thoughtful figure snuggled closer to his chest in the confines of the château in purgatory. Caressing the curvature of the infante's wings, he was able to analyze how they looked more beautiful up close in a divergence to be admired.
"Naturally," Rohan replied, feeling excruciating pain tingle in the atria of his now awake heart. If he was not alive, how could he feel something like this? After a certain period in that position and in an inert much less productive rambling, he preferred to conclude that nothing could be created without the purpose of error.
Impure souls waiting for conversion were piled on the edges of a place that had been entrusted to him since the advent of the universe. For a long time, not questioning what was beneath those clouds and trusting the splendor that decorated and directed his deepest thoughts seemed like the right thing to do. Despite that, nothing has been the same since he fell in love with a demon.
He knew he was lost from the moment he came across that entity. There was a strange fascination running through the garden lilies to the tip of his bare feet before Josuke's horns bouncing on the top of his head.
As soon as Rohan realized, he was analyzing the fact that — at some point — Josuke had been an angel just like him. Those traits... they could only have been created by glorious and perfected hands. His voluminous and charming lashes ornamenting his red and sinful cheekbones, until the stormy dark coloring of his locks accompanied by the wisest curves of his not very restrained body.
It was through these thoughts germinating in his mind that Rohan realized that he was just a very naive victim, longing for him as he cultivated the fruit of his impending disgrace.
By all means, he should be the main conservator of light. He should propagate and abhor anything that was against the rules written in the atoms, honor his halo and preserve the order of the universe: be in charge of removing the obstacles that opposed the fulfillment of God's orders, driving away the evil angels that beset them, keeping them within Divine Providence.
Free will should be a simple illusion. A temptation never assumed for the weakest in the face of human vices. Accordingly, the sin of the flesh had new looks when Rohan imagined that love should always be valid, and no matter where it comes from.
It does not matter if Josuke just wanted to trick him into invading Paradise. Rohan wanted much more than just that: the price to be paid could come later, could not it?
Only the tears that overflowed his eyelids at this moment, illuminating his lover's shiny, warm skin as they fell, were vivid enough as his wings disintegrated over time.
"Can you save my bastard soul?"
The nephilim closed his eyes, waiting for something, when, what came to him were small lazy kisses left on his forehead.
"I will not ask you if you are able to fix what has been destroyed." Josuke dragged his nose over Rohan's face and then followed a modest peck on the sublime line of his jaw. Unable to open his eyes for a dozen seconds, the smallest processed each feeling uniquely. "I just want you to know that if you fall, I will catch you."
In that instant, Rohan finally understood: Heaven was never for him.
"I am not the only one to bear the consequences," he noted.
Gradually, Josuke's red eyes became more and more blue.
“We are opposites, Rohan. No matter how much we love each other, we will always be in each other's shadow.”
In this world, whenever there is light, there is also darkness.
The setting sun made the tallest creature's hip bones shine through the orchard on the other side of the immaterial castle ruins, exceeding an idea previously formulated in the bowels of the divine mediator.
He stood up, dragging his partner along with him. Josuke looked almost confused, eagerly curious about what Rohan was about to introduce him to.
What he saw as he passed the fortifications adorned by whitish and translucent circles was an extensive lawn, stretching before his pupils and disappearing on the horizon from a place where Heaven and Earth met.
The Garden of Eden.
Rohan picked up the key, blowing on the particles that represented long millennia of waiting. Josuke was petrified like a statue, watching his movements.
"You don't have to do that."
He turned the sacred article through the lock.
“This is your mission. If you don't, there will be something much worse than light invading your pores.”
The biggest took a deep breath — if he could call it that way — while he hurried to grab one of the angelic being's wrists.
“I don't want to go in anymore. I want to be with you."
Rohan felt his throat burn as he dealt with those words. The flames of the underworld were beginning to seep into what was left of their bodily membrane.
Now, a choice needed to be made.
“Demons don't go up, Josuke. Angels go down." He led the way, extending a hand in his direction. "Someone who cannot sacrifice everything cannot achieve anything."
After an insurmountable amount of seconds in hesitation, the foggy spirit intertwined their fingers together. That was the definitive response to his invitation.
They entered the garden side by side, exploring Eden and their last visit to the Kingdom of God.
If Rohan could not be happy with Josuke in Heaven, he was prepared to be happy with him in Hell.