Work Text:
An Eventful Lunch
Aki checked his watch, and he saw that it was already past 1 PM.
“Later than I thought it was going to be,” he said, tapping a finger to the glass face of his watch.
The Angel Devil leaned back against the vending machine, eating a bag of chips. “What was that?”
“I think we should break for lunch,” Aki asked, pulling his sleeve back down ad resting his arm by his side. “Today has been very slow, so I'm a bit surprised that time got away from me like that.”
“It's been boring,” Angel said, finishing the last of his chips, and dropping the bag onto the ground, a mere foot away from the trash can. “Usually we see at least one devil by now, but so far not a single cry for help from any of the humans we've crossed path with today. Everything is nice and quiet.”
“I thought you would have liked something like that,” Aki said, walking up to pick up the discard trash and throw it into the garbage himself. Maybe he should stop things like that, because if he kept picking up after him, Angel would never learn, but it was an idea made sense in practice more than application, since he had been trying this with Denji and Power, thought it had been slow going. To give him credit, Angel didn't seem as dense as them, just perpetually lazy.
“Don't get me wrong,” Angel said, a small and very rare smile on his lips. “I love it when nothing happens, it means I can do nothing with my time and let the hours of the day wash over me like it's nothing. I pray for days like this.”
“Well it looks like today was your day after all.” Aki said, his voice flat. “Today must be your lucky day.”
Angel then suddenly frowned. “You ruined it.”
Aki raised an eyebrow in question. “Ruined what?”
“My good day,” Angel said with a sigh. “Now that you've brought it up like that, we're going to end up fighting some strong and powerful devil, I just know it.”
“Then we'll kill it,” Aki said, walking past him and down the street. “That's our job after all.”
Angel groaned, his shoulders slumped. “Then I'll let you handle that if you feel so confident.” Despite his protests he followed Aki.
Aki could only roll his eyes. “You're not getting out of this that easy, if we find a devil, you're helping out too.”
Angel could only groan in response.
“Now come on,” Aki said. “It's time for lunch, so let's find something to eat.”
“If you by me lunch I'll stop sulking.”
“I buy lunch all the time.”
“I fail to see your point.”
Aki shook his head and continued on his way, Angel close behind him.
000
Aki's eyes catch a small noodle shop down the street, and by the virtue of being the one who pays for lunch it is up to him to decide where they eat.
“This place?” Angel asks as they enter the establishment, and sit at the counter.
“This place.” Aki takes a look to the cooking area, but he can't see anyone there. “Hello?” he asks out loud, and for a brief moment he wonders if they had accidentally wandered into a closed shop that had not been locked up properly. “Is anyone here?”
It takes a moment, but then someone stumbles in from the backroom, an older, sweaty man with a stained apron that eyes them with suspicion.
“Sorry about that,” he grumbled, shuffling up to the kitchen. “Stuff came out that I needed to be in the back for. Nothing to worry about.” He fiddled with his pots and pans, his back kept to them, though he would look over his shoulder to them. “So, what can I get for you two?”
Aki couldn't help but stare at the odd man, even as he sat down next to Angel, and even as he took up his menu he still kept one eye on the man.
“Pork ramen,” Angel said, fully engrossed in his menu. “Put extra pork in it.”
The man grumbled in response.
“I'm with Public Safety, just so you know,” Angel said, still keeping his attention on the menu. “So you don't have to worry about dying to a devil like me today.”
“Miso is fine with me,” Aki simply said.
The man gave a grunt. “Fine, fine, just wait right there, it'll be a minute.” He then began his work, preparing up the dishes that they would feast on. The stove was lit, pots clattered and water was soon boiled, and the smell of the much desired lunch soon filled the air.
Aki continued to watch the man as he moved through the process of making their meals, keeping his eye on his stilted movements and shaking hands.
Something seemed off about this whole thing, though he couldn't place his finger on it. The man was acting odd, but could there be more to it than that? If so, then what could he do?
Suddenly there's a bump to his arm, and looking over he could see Angel retracting his arm, and like Aki, his eye was also drawn to the chef. Did he pick up on something too?
Angel leaned in towards him, and Aki did likewise. “After this, I want some ice cream.”
No, he didn't think so.
And so the two of them sat in silence, watching the man make their food, before he eventually had finished them, placing the two bowls in front of them, the broth sloshed as they were carelessly put down, some of it splashing onto the counter. It wasn't the best looking dish he had ever seen, it seemed to have been sloppily prepared and while Aki couldn't be certain just from looking at it, he wouldn't be surprised that if some of the noodles were undercooked.
“Eat quick and go,” the man grumbled, folding his arms over his chest. “I got stuff to do, and I don't need you two around hanging around all day, got it?”
“That's rude, we're paying customers,” Angel said, eating a pork slice, though he himself was not actually paying.
“Then fine,” the man growled. “Take your food and go, and just leave this place now!” the man ordered.
“Is something wrong?” Aki asked, firmly and directly.
“What?” the man yelped, turning away from the two of them. “No, nothing is wrong, just take your food and get out of my store!”
“Sir-”
“Just please leave!” he cried out.
Something wasn't right here, Aki didn't know what it was, but there was something amiss.
Suddenly, one of Angel's wings unfolded itself and shoved Aki from his stool, and before he could even hit the ground a pot flew past where he had been, and as it crashed into the wall it exploded into a cloud of steam as the water that had been inside it sprayed all over as he hit the could. He had been mostly protected by his suit, but he could still feel the water's hotness, easy to feel through the cloth, and before he had gotten a chance to stand up, Angel had jumped off from his stool, the seat forgotten as it was pushed to the floor, and in an instant his halo floated to the front of him, allowing him to extract an elegantly designed, golden short sword from it.
He didn't know what was going on, but Aki reached back and grabbed his own sword, and pulled it from the sheath and jumped up to his feet, and upon making it up he saw what it was that Angel wished to confront, though he found himself caught off guard.
The man stood there, and his apron had flown up and wrapped around his neck, choking him as he tried to claw at it, to remove it and save himself. Already he was turning red.
“It's a devil attack,” Angel asked, gripping the sword tightly.
“I can see that,” Aki said, straightening his back, and looking right to the chef, though keeping his ears open. “What devil is doing this? Come out and show yourself.”
The end of the man's apron began to flutter as the end of it came up, and on the underside of it, a twisted and gnarly face appeared on the stained fabric, or rather it looked as though it was pushing out from underneath it.
“Wretched human,” the devil growled deeply, the areas of its eyes bulging out. “All you had to do was act cool, and I would have made this much easier for you, but no, you just had to panic, didn't you?”
The man could only choke as he tried to feebly remove the apron from the deathly hold it had on his neck. “P-Please! I tried! Just me me go!”
The devil let out a shriek, the apron wildly fluttering about as-
Aki accessed his contract with the Future Devil.
-as it suddenly jerked to the side, and with a cracking noise the man's neck became angled at an impossible degree for a human to achieve.
Aki then leaped forward, grabbing hold of the counter to give himself the extra reach he needed, and thrust his sword forward, and before the tip of the sharp blade could piece it, the apron shimmered a blue glow briefly and it was sliced cleanly through. With the damage done, the man was able to pull off the apron off from his neck, tossing the tattered remains to the floor before he leaned against the other end of the counter and began to cough.
“Angel!” he cried out, turning his attention to his partner who had already begun to move. He rushed to the other side of the counter where the old was leaning and grabbed him by the back of his shirt.
“Sorry about this,” Angel said, calm despite the sudden shift in events, his wings extending to their full length, and with a powerful flap his pushed himself backwards through the air, pulling the man with him as he flew back. The resulting gust of air ripped through the restaurant knocking over chairs, their abandoned food, and varying other items that had not been secured down, while Aki himself had to hold onto the counter to stop himself from being knocked over, his arms raised from the blown away items such as menus that wildly flew around them. The man could only scream as he and Angel crashed through the large window and into the streets beyond.
“You bastard!” the devil's voice called out, and Aki jumped down from the counter and onto the floor, holding his sword firmly in his hands, scanning the room to see where the voice had come from. “I was having so much fum terrorizing that man, and you just had to ruin it!”
Aki continued to look around, until the sound of the devil's laughter drew his gaze down, and he found himself looking at the discarded pot on the ground, the devil's face seemingly below the metal surface, reshaping it to form its visage.
“Who are you,” Aki demanded, holding his sword at the ready.
The devil sneered with a metallic grin. “I am the Inanimate Objects Devil,” it sneered. I found that old man the other day and decided to take him hostage by possessing the various things around him, threatening to kill him if he didn't meet any of my demands, and today I told him to open his shop. I was planning on killing a few customers in front of him, but you caught onto something”
Aki swung downward at the pot, but it before the blade contact with it. it shimmered blue, and even as the cut up remains of the pot clattered against the floor.
“You'll never be able to hit me,” the Inanimate Objects Devil cried out, and Aki looked to the wall and saw that it had possessed a picture of the man and several other people. Who they were, Aki could not guess, but the man seemed them important enough to hang up on his wall. “I can freely jump between objects, so you'll never be able to hurt me just by swinging your sword!” It then let out a laugh.
Aki swung again, the blue flash appeared, and after the picture was destroyed. When the devil's laughter could be heard again, Aki looked down at the table and saw that it had moved to a menu.
Right, so it could transfer between objects before he could strike it. Normally this would be a problem for most people, this would be a very difficult devil to hit at all, but Aki knew he had an advantage over it. All he had to do was use the Future Devil's powers to tell him where it would go before he struck, and then quickly direct his attack to said object before it had a chance to escape again. Hopefully that would be enough to kill this this.
Aki used his future sight.
He didn't see what he wanted to see, and instead ducked down as a chair flew overhead, sailing right past where his body had just been, crashing into the wall behind him.
The Inanimate Objects Devil continued to laugh. “You idiot! You think I can only control one thing at a time!”
As Aki managed to push himself off from the ground, he looked up and saw the sight of the varying items from around the restaurant, from menus and plates, to pots and pans, to even chairs, knives and even broken glass all beginning to float in the air.
“Shit,” he cursed, trying to find some way to escape from this, but he knew that the chances were slim for him, he knew there was no way he could manage to dodge or evade every single object floating in the air.
“Die, shitty human!” the Inanimate Objects Devil yelled out, and suddenly Aki found himself with every single item coming down on him, and he knew there was no chance for him to escape.
Suddenly there was a gust of air that that knocked Aki over, as well as blew everything in the around, and Aki found himself pushed along the floor by the figure that appeared over him, grabbing him by the shoulders of his suit jacket.
“Angel!” he cried out as they slammed into the wall, Angel wings spread over them in a protective shield. Aki recalled the first time he properly met Angel, and how his wings were able to stop bullets with only minimum pain to him, so he couldn't imagine that that a thrown plate would hurt him all that much.
Still, he grunted at the objects hit him from behind.
“I told you you'd curse us,” Angel grunted as more object hit him. “I wanted to have a nothing day, and now I am being assaulted by tableware. I'm really hating this.”
“Fine, I'll take responsibility for this,” Aki said, trying to avoid making contact with Angel's skin or feathers. “He doesn't seem like a tough devil, if I can hit him at least once, I think I can kill him. I just need the chance to do so.”
“Get out from under there, you cowards!” the Inanimate Objects Devil taunted from outside the wing shield. “Come out here and die like men!”
“I really don't like this,” Angel said, seemingly having more difficult in keeping himself up. One or two bullets were one thing, but the constant assault of all the items one would find in a restaurant is another thing.
“I just need a moment to get him,” Aki said growled over the sound of breaking furniture and crashing plates.
“Fine, fine,” Angel said, annoyed and agitated. “I'll give you a moment, just make sure you use it.”
Aki's eyes widened. “Wait, what are you-”
Angel suddenly lifted off of him, unfolding his wings and pushing himself off the floor, and in the brief moment he was airborne he spun around, his full wingspan taking out nearly every item that had been suspended in the air, sending splintered wood, shattered plates and torn pieces of paper everywhere, and through the chaotic maelstrom Aki saw the blue flash of the Inanimate Objects Devil in the flurry just as Angel had shattered an empty glass. Without a moment of hesitation, Aki used his future sight to try and find which item the devil would possess next, and hope that it would be close enough for him to strike it down.
There!
Aki lunged forward, sword at the ready and swung down at a bowl that still had messy broth and stray noodles stuck on it, and the moment that the devil's face grew beneath its surface did Aki's blade come down on it. Effortlessly it cut in half before the blue shimmer could appear, and for a split second Aki had been worried it had somehow managed to escape, but suddenly a shape shot out from the bowl in a shower of blood. The two halves of the Inanimate Objects Devil's true body fell out and hit the floor, it wasn't a very large devil, yet that did not deter from how grotesque it was. With the devil's death, its power was lost, and so every single object that had been hanging and flying around in the air had suddenly dropped to the impact, everything clattering and breaking upon. It looked as though a hurricane had been let loose in this place.
With a sigh, Aki relaxed his shoulders before sheathing his sword, and the sound of people gathering by the broken window could already be heard.
“Did you get that man to safety, Angel?” Aki said turning around to where he had expected to see Angel, but he had not expected him to see him as he was at this moment. “Angel!” he yelled, before running to his side.
Angel was laying on his side, on the ground, blood pooling around his back area. He was barely moving.
“Angel!” Aki called out again, sliding to a kneeling position next to him. “What happened?”
Angel could only groan. “I'm fine,” he said, he voice lacking any vigor, even for him.
“You are not fine!” Aki barked. He looked over Angel's body, trying to find where the blood was coming from, trying to figure out why there was so much blood. Too much blood. “I already told you before, you're not dying anywhere near me, understand that?”
Angel could only groan in pain.
Despite how frantic he was feeling, was careful to avoid direct contact, and was quickly able to find the cause the injury.
There was a knife embedded into his lower back.
Angel's wings were strong enough that they should have repelled most everything that had been sent flying at them, but only the area that they had covered. He recalled Angel wincing in pain while he had shielded them, so the idea that the offending the knife struck him there, yet he still was able to give him the opening he needed...
For the moment, Aki pushed those thoughts aside.
“I'm going to take this out, okay?” Aki asked.
“Fine, just get it over with,” Angel said with a pained groan.
Gently but firmly, Aki placed a hand on Angel's hip, and gripped the handle of the knife. It was in pretty deep, the blood had already soaked through the back of his suit, and even his feathers were stained in blood. He didn't know enough about back injuries, but he knew he had to be quick about this.
“Ready?” he asked, trying to keep his eyes on the knife.
“Does it matter?” Angel muttered, before sighing. “But go ahead and do it.”
It's like ripping off a band-aid.
“I'll take it out on 'three', got it?”
Except it's a knife hilt-deep in his back.
“Right, three.”
Aki tightened his hold on Angel as well as the knife.
“One. Two.” He hoped he was as prepared as this as Angel was. “Three.”
Aki pulled on the knife, and despite the hold it seemed to have in Angel's flesh, he was able to yank it free, only for Angel to let loose a sharp cry.
“Sorry,” he apologized, taking note of the sudden spurt of blood coming from the now opened wound. “I need to move you onto your back, so be ready.”
Putting the knife down, Aki took hold of Angel's arms and carefully moved him onto his back, trying to avoid as much discomfort as he possibly could, but from the way Angel was groaning he knew he had failed in that task. When he was certain that Angel was fine enough, Aki picked the knife back up.
“Open your mouth,” he said, hoping that how calm he was trying to make his voice sound was enough to not make him thinking about the worried pounding in his chest.
Angel looked up on him, and already he was looking pale. “What are you doing?”
Without allowing himself a single moment to hesitate, Aki slid the edge of the knife along his palm, the bloodied blade slicing through the flesh with ease, and Aki found himself wincing at the pain, yet despite that he closed his fist and hung it over Angel's head.
“You're kidding right?” Angel weakly asked. “Did you really need to do that?”
“You're hurt, and this is the best thing I can do for you at the moment,” Aki firmly said.
Angel sighed, relenting, and opened his mouth, to which Aki loosened his palm, letting the blood drip from his hand and into Angel's waiting mouth, the drops hitting their mark.
It took a surprising little amount of blood to heal him up, but Aki made certain he had more enough, just in case.
000
All in all, they call in to Public Safety and inform them of the devil's death so that it could be cleaned up. They had done a sweep of the area to make certain that their were no more devils around, checked to see if no one had died, which turned out to be thankfully true, and Aki had been treated by the ambulance that had shown up, his hand patched up and wrapped in fresh bandages.
A job well done.
With their lunch ruined, Aki had decided to try and give it another shot, and had settled for store-purchased bento boxes. He had purchased them from a store up the corner from the noodle shop, as well as a tea for angel and a coffee for himself a coffee, and took the items to the bench that Angel sat at.
“You didn't need to do that,” Angel said, not opening his lunch, just merely staring at the container.
“You never pay for your own meals,” Aki said, having already removed the lid from his own lunch. Between being way overdue past lunch, and fighting that devil, Aki found himself starving. “I doubt you even carry money on you at all.”
“Oh, I don't,” Angel answered simply. “Why carry money when I know you'll pay for everything?”
Aki grunted.
“What I mean meant was....” Angel said, as if he was trying to find the words. “Once again you saved my life, when there was no reason to.”
Aki stopped his eating, and with a sigh placed his meal down on his lap. “I told you once, but I don't want you to die.”
“Even though I do not care if I live? Life is troublesome, bothersome. Sometimes I think it would be easier if I went to bed and never woke up again.”
“Is that all you really think life is?”
“Are you really one to talk? I had thought that you didn't care if you lived or died so long as you got your chance to kill the Gun Devil.”
Aki... didn't know how to respond to that. Yes, he wanted to kill the Gun Devil, it has been all he wanted since he was a child, and he didn't care if he died in the process, but at the same time he couldn't really say something like that to Angel, could he?
“I have a goal,” Aki answered. “One I want to meet, it's why I've fought this hard to get there. I don't want to lay down and die.”
“And what if I don't have a goal?”
For a moment, Aki was going to answer “Well what do you want to do?”, be then he remembered that wouldn't matter. Angel was a devil, he forgot that for a moment, if he chose not to work for Public Safety as either a field agent or a contractor, than they would have put him down. He didn't have a choice in this matter, it was either work for them or die, so if Angel wanted anything it didn't seem to be important in the grand scheme of things.
So then what could Aki say?
“Then how about not dying for my sake?” is what he chose to say.
“Huh?” Angel said, turning his head to Aki. “That sounds like a selfish request.”
“Maybe, but...” Aki sighed, and leaned back on the bench, staring up into the sky. “Did I tell you about my previous partner?”
“She's been mentioned once or twice.”
“Well, I wasn't her first partner, far from it in fact, she already had a few partners by the time she met me, and she had survived all of them. I think I underestimated what that had done to her, how badly that affected her, and eventually she ended up giving up her life to save mine.”
He waited for a response from Angel, but he either couldn't, or wouldn't, give him one.
“What I'm trying to say is, that I have too many dead people in my life already, and I don't want to add you to that list.”
“I mean that much to you already?” Angel asked.
“I...” Aki, once again, had trouble of thinking what would be the right answer to this. “You're my partner.”
“So you don't consider me a friend?”
That was a difficult question to think about, but...
“I think yes,” Aki said, because for some reason the answer to such a difficult question was rather easy to come up with. “I do consider you a friend, and I don't want to see you die.”
“I see,” Angel said, looking back to his unopened food. “So you don't want to see me die. Again, that sounds like a selfish request to make.”
“I'm not denying that.”
“But, I think I'll grant that request. Very well, I won't die if I can help it.”
“Really? That easy to convince you?”
Angel shrugged, and removed the lid from his bento. “You seem determined to have this conversation, so I suppose the best I can do is to agree with you. I will not let my death happen, but you must do what you can to make certain that I don't die. In exchange, I will try and keep you alive.”
“This is sounding like a contract.”
“It's not a contract, but an agreement. Between friends.”
Angel gave a rare smile, and Aki decided it wasn't a bad one.
Aki couldn't help but wonder if Angel would cry if he died.