See, Hiyori, you can deal with.

The kid's fourteen—it's not like you're surprised. The bolt of pain coursing down the first few knobs of your spine warns you of the sin; the slight heat in your throat tells you its nature.

You spin, castigate him, smack him upside the head (with the flat of your palm, so as not to injure) as Hiyori blushes and Yukine stammers excuses.

The tingling of the skin on your thighs a few nights later is something else. Your eyes slide open at the phantom flush. It's a peculiar feeling to a being like you, not meant for the gross pleasures of mortals. Still, you know what it means. You close your eyes and jump into Hiyori's bedroom and seize Yukine's wrist midair. Hiyori shrieks and hits you instead of Yukine, which is, like, totally unfair, considering who was doing the groping here… but you guess Yukine's just a kid, after all.

And yeah, your new regalia's a bit of a handful, but it's nothing you wouldn't have expected from a teenager.

What you're at a loss about is the more—recent—developments.

You're not sure when you first caught on. It happened after some battle or another—after enough time, they tend to blend together. Your shirt's drenched with sweat, summer a muggy press of damp breath against your shoulders. You hate it, inasmuch as gods can hate something inane as weather. Winter suits you better (okay, honestly, you just don't like the undignified feeling of your slippery palms, bad enough even in cool weather—but you'll be fucked if you admit that to anyone).

So you toss your shirt to the floor, stretching, and say to Yukine, "Hand me the ladle." You don't even turn to look at him, just hear some movements and then a thin wooden handle is being fumbled into your fingers, but in that instant—

You touch the handle, and a flash of pain shocks you, a vicious pinch chased by a by-now familiar swollen heat.

You glance around, but there's no Hiyori. No anyone. Just the two of you and melting summer air.

Of course, your mind jumps to certain conclusions, but—even gods can delude themselves. You elbow it quickly into a corner of your mind. A second later, the splash of shrine water over your skin chases the feeling away.

()

If only things were that damn simple.

In short, it keeps happening.

So far, the pain's been manageable, nothing more than your average, brief stab. But there's times like—

Like the one night the summer storms are particularly loud. You and Yukine are lying inside the shrine and the rain's coming down so hard you half expect to wake up to the entire building grinding down the hill in a mudslide.

Instead, you blink aware to eerily green air and nerves lacing your chest, squeezing. You sit up slowly.

"Yukine…?"

He's crouched against the far wall, fingers digging into his knees, feet so tense you can see the veins raised like wires in them.

"I-… I… Yato…"

You sigh. This stupid child, scared of something trivial as thunder. Well, not really—it's something bigger, more fundamental, isn't it? Certainly, though, the storm isn't helping the inevitable darkness.

"You okay?"

There's some shuffling, and a few seconds later a warm body knocks the air out of you. Incredulous, you look down at your hands, filled with fluffy golden hair trembling like a hypothermic duckling.

"Incredible," you complain, even as you feel the boy's hands latch into your shirt. "All the time, it's 'Yato's so stinky! His hands are sweaty! I wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole!' So what's this…?"

You know it's bad when Yukine, always the first to shoot you in the ass with some insult, doesn't so much as respond.

Without letting go of you, the boy somehow wedges himself in the tiny gap between you and the shrine wall, as if the two of you can compress him enough to stop his shaking. He's crying in earnest, and your heart trembles with tiny electric shocks, one for each jolt of lightning, each particularly fierce slap of rain on the bruised roof. Damn it, it hurts. Guess you're not getting much sleep tonight.

But the shocks die down quickly enough, as does the boy's trembling. Even as the storm continues to howl, Yukine's hand stills on your sleeve; his breathing settles.

Well, at least you've a shot at a few hours of shut-eye before dawn. Moving slowly, you make to shift a few inches away, and it happens again. A bright shot of agony, arcing down your back. It's worse this time, stronger. You gasp. Your skin glows with pain.

A quick check on Yukine's mind reveals he's far from asleep. No, he's awake, all right, and thinking of—

Oh, no. No, no, no.

Hasn't that brat caused enough damn trouble already? Now, this you really don't need. Even if he was a woman—even if he wasn't a fucking child—

Honestly, it'd ruin your romantic-playboy image to admit it, but you'd never pursue a relationship with a shinki, even if she was some luscious shrine-maiden type. An attachment makes it too hard to work together, too hard to feel nothing but the hilt of a weapon in your hand when the ayakashi rear up. You're a god, for fuck's sake.

…Although maybe you haven't been acting the part lately. Damn Hiyori and her emotional human bullshit (well, okay, not really…). The boy's not your kid, not your son. He's your shinki, and that's it.

The problem is, the kid probably doesn't see it that way. Knowing about—that—stuff that happened in the past, he's probably got some kind of weird trauma-borne desire for an older-brother figure, a guardian and a friend, even a father. Someone who refuses—has refused, already, several times—to abandon him. Add that to your usual fourteen-year-old lust—but unfulfilled, never fulfilled; death took that from him, too, on top of everything else.

Fourteen; that's about the age, isn't it, when humans start finding out what they like? Boys versus girls and all that? And of course it'd be just your luck to find one of the rare eggs who don't like the opposite gender.

Although, hang on, the kid was definitely feelin' Hiyori up in his mind. There's still hope, you tell yourself.

Even as the dawn creeps upwards and you're shocked, over and over, until your neck burns with warmth like the slow drag of fingertips, until your whole body is aching, your skin ill-fitting, stretched too tight.

You wonder if he got any sleep at all. You know you didn't; even his dreams kept you up.

()

"Hey, Hiyori?"

"Mmm?"

Best to tread carefully. "Have you noticed anything up with that kid lately?"

"Yukine? I can't say so, no… Why, do you think something's wrong?"

You grunt. I'll say.

"Just a feeling."

()

Then you're falling to your knees in the river, doubled over as agony tears over you, and you close one trembling hand over your lips and the other around the nape of your neck.

The water, cold even in this season, feels so good. You're tempted to just lie down there, let it and the pain wash over you, slack-limbed. It might even feel nice.

You squeeze your eyes shut, fingers convulsing around your burning throat.

Enough is enough.

"Yukine…"

The kid doesn't answer, just stands at the bank and watches you with those fireflower irises, and you're, you're too conscious of your wet clothes, the transparent damp of your cotton undershirt—

You stand carefully, skin still sick with heat, knees weak, and if rills of water are caressing every inch of you, well, it's not like you can help it.

"I can feel that, you know," you say. You mean it to sound some sort of threatening, some kind of hands-down back-off, but it comes out much more of a question.

And you expect—well, curses, protest, maybe even a fierce blush—at least some sort of denial.

But Yukine just looks calmly at you and says, "I know."

For some reason, this rubs you the wrong way, his almost-callous tone of voice.

"'I know,' huh?" you repeat, and thrill a little at the whiff of congealing fear in the boy's eyes. Yes, you're still a god, you still have those ice-cut eyes, sharper than sekki even on a bad day. You're still his master. "How long?"

"You know."

You laugh, mirthless. "Yes. That I do." And walk out of the river. Water everywhere; tch, you'll have to change your clothes. What a mess he's made of you. "Well?"

Yukine backs, if only by an inch. "Well what?"

"Here I am," you say. It's wrong, it's so wrong, but your fingers rise of their own accord, sluice across your collarbones, the pale triangle of skin between shirt neck and chin. It's wrong, but you taunt him, like some grade-school bully, standing on the shore and dripping all over the space between the two of you. "You think you have a chance?"

When he doesn't move, you make a sudden grab for his hand (and what the hell do you plan to do with it—you don't know, press it against your chest, make him feel, make him burn like you). The boy flinches back, and suddenly your triumph is deflating. This whole farce is pointless. You're a god and he's your shinki. That's all.

"No," he says, looking away. Quieter, he mumbles, "I know I don't."

()

He does try. You have to at least give him credit for that.

In some ways it's like going all the way back to the beginning again, when Yukine was fresh-recalled from his lost snow-puff of a form, stumbling around the world, newborn and coltish. Back then he'd never meet your eyes but to glare, never speak but to spit curses. Now, he draws back into sullen silence, and you can feel him trying not to look, staring at dead space when he's forced to speak to you. Even the swathe of bandages around Sekki's naked blade seems to recoil from your grip.

Hiyori's convinced that you've gone and fucked up again, said something or did something to wall Yukine back up. She's absolutely right.

Even your so-called girlfriend, with her bubblegum hair and her bubblegum head, notices.

Yato's being mean to Yukine again, I just know it, she complains to you, and Hiyori leans in across the low tea table and demands to know whether you're feeding him, clothing him, talking to him. To which you reply, hai, hai, and toss down your iced tea in immense irritation.

"You can tell us if that jerk's picking on you," says Hiyori to Yukine (sitting pointedly on Hiyori's left, as far away from you as he can get), but Yukine just makes some mumbling noise and disappears loudly into the kitchen to help himself out of Kofuku's fridge. "Mou, what's up with you two lately?"

"Can't be helped. It's a lover's quarrel," chirps Kofuku, and the girls laugh.

You don't know—you think Daikoku, impassive as ever, might shoot you a look from over the rim of his cup, but you can't be sure.

You put down your glass and it rattles slightly against the tabletop.

Damn it.

()

"So that's how it is."

How the hell you ended up confessing to that damned fan, of all people, you have no idea.

…Okay, so by "have no idea" you mean Kofuku's stupid shinki crowded you up against the wall of the trash alley of their shrine, like some C-list thug out of a bad yakuza flick, and pretty much squeezed the truth out of you.

He leans back a little. You quickly gauge the available space. Nah—making a run for it would probably only result in him grabbing you by the arm and throwing you straight back against the wall. Still, you lean forwards, intending to try for an escape the second he moves out of the way.

"Okay, all right, now that we're all straightened out, I happen to be very busy, so—"

Daikoku snorts. "Bullshit, Yato. What the hell are you gonna do about it?"

"I don't know!" you shoot back. "Nothing! What am I supposed to do about it?"

"Hm," Daikoku rumbles. "I don't know, either. But—"

"What? Spit it out."

He prods a massive plank of a finger against your chest, which is, like, entirely unnecessary, ew, personal space. "He's your responsibility. Whether or not you care for him that way, no matter what happens, he's still your shinki."

"I know, I know," you grumble. "Get that stick out of your ass, it's not like I'm going to cut his contract because of a few boners or whatever."

"…it's that bad?"

"Shut up, as if you don't scope out Kofuku's ass every now and again."

"You—"

Part of the old wall cracks when you hit it, and you go down in a cloud of dust and packed earth. Vaguely, you hear the girls running over, demanding to know what happened. You roll your tongue over your teeth and taste stars, black and bursting like berries.

What, in all the realms, are you going to do?

()

The worst of it is that you can't—

Things aren't the same now. It's useless to pretend they are. And so when the next summer storm sends Yukine into near-convulsions (you grip your chest, gasping—his heart's going so damn fast), you—god, you hate it, but you stir in your "sleep," yawning to cover the wrenching breath of pain, and turn over, and even manage to actually fall asleep eventually.

You half-want Yukine to shake you awake, call your name, but he doesn't, and his eyes in the morning light are bloodshot and glazed.

He drifts through the next week of jobs like that. Mostly silent. He cuts as well as ever, but when he's not Sekki he seems to you even frailer than usual.

You don't like that look in his eyes. It reminds you of—other eyes, round, wrong-colored.

Whatever dirty thoughts that boy might be having about you, you'd give the world never to have to see those hideous things embedded in his frail-boned back again. Fourteen's not big enough to bear such sins.

And Hiyori notices too. Of course she does; she's always been sharp about these things, even if she's still half-human (maybe because).

She finds you alone one day (you're alone a lot now; the boy runs off practically every moment you're not working), and tells you what you've feared, what you've known. How she'd gone looking for him the other night when it was well past eleven and he still wasn't home; how she'd eventually caught him wandering the saccharine, themed "couple's cafes" so popular in the city, neon light streaked like spraypaint over his dull eyes, surrounded by laughter. Picking at his cuticles—it's one of his bad habits, something that he does mindlessly while his mind spins in closed circles. You know it well; you've scolded him for this a million times, clothing your worry in stern lectures about preserving the integrity of his weapon-form, even as you plastered his hands with too many cartoon-patterned band-aids.

And—and, damn it, you're not going to lie to yourself, you were happy, to see him frown and glare and spit at the little teddy bear wrapped around his index finger, complaining that you're treating him "like a little kid."

Hiyori reiterates to you in no uncertain terms that you're expected to look after Yukine, and you can't find the heart to tell her that getting closer to him is the last thing you want right now, the last thing he needs.

Still, you redouble your guard on him, watching him, if from afar. Making sure he doesn't step over any lines he'll regret, even if you can't get close, even if it'd hurt him if you tried.

()

You'd been foolish enough to think Yukine's phobia had gotten better.

But it's as simple as the lights flickering just once in warning before vanishing altogether, right after dinner at Hiyori's. A common enough occurrence at this time of year—the storms often bring down the generators for brief periods.

"I'll go get the flashlight," offers Hiyori.

You don't respond, too busy feeling your heart seize, vise-like. Even echoed panic hurts this much. You can't quite imagine what Yukine's feeling—pain, all being know, but emotion is a mostly human domain.

There's only so much you can stand. Only so many residuals.

You reach for him in the dark.

"Hey. Snap out of it," you command.

But of course, you think, even as you thread your hand around his arm, bracing him against his own trembling, of course he's regressed. How many stormy nights have you let him weather on his own, now? How many sleepless stretches, awake and alone in the pitch-black interior of the shrine?

You see it in the way Yukine seizes Hiyori when she returns, squashing the little circle of light between them, his hands fisting the back of her dress. Hiyori hugs him back, rubbing Yukine's back with one hand and patting his hair with the other, and casts you a bewildered look over his head—Yukine's not normally a child to be affectionate, physically or in any other way.

Silently, you rise, and help Hiyori bring out candle after candle after candle, dishes full of little tea-lights. Together you light them until smoke weaves thick as an opiate through the air, and still Yukine presses himself against Hiyori's side, breathing funny, using his toe to nudge candles towards himself.

When the lights come back on (four hours later, four goddamn hours, might as well be forty years), Yukine goes nearly faint with relief.

He's so pale, in the fluorescent, without the smoky firelight to lend him color.

()

He still insists on spending half his days sleeping at the shrine with you, even though you've told him a bunch of times that if he likes Hiyori's brightly-lit mansion better, he's welcome to stay there.

The next time a storm hits and you feel him seize up, you curse loudly, and drag him over to sleep by you.

That pain goes abruptly away, replaced by shocks of a very different sort.

"Sorry," he mutters after a while. He won't look at you. This close, you can feel his rasping breaths. His breath is milky-smelling, clean and wet like a baby's; his arms are curled parentheses, braced between the two of you like walls. "I'll—"

"No," you say. "It's fine." And it mostly is. There's pain, and then there's pain. Lust is as strong a shock as any of them, but it somehow doesn't feel as bad. For a god, it's okay to put up with.

You lie there and lie there, and the shocks begin to feel almost normal, not quite as sharp as burns, more like presses of an extremely warm towel to your neck, over and over, stirring your nerves like chopsticks whisking miso. It's bearable, if not pleasant.

But just when you're untethering from the world—

"If…"

You stir. "What?"

"I…"

"What," you repeat.

Suddenly there are small hands clasped around your neck, and they're touching that spot, the area right where the first tentative wisps of dark hair whisper out of your skin, the base of the taint, currently purple-stained. You can't help it; you convulse in pain and cry out—

"Ngh—!"

But he doesn't, he doesn't move his hands, doesn't move back, damn it…!

Little, little finger tapping once, twice against your nape, before pressing firmly down, and you're sparking in agony, eyes screwed shut, embers all over, and this is what sin feels like, this—

"Is—"

"Ah—"

"This is okay, right," he asks, climbing on top of you, now, and your body is thrilling in every place the two of you meet, white throes everywhere. "If it's too much, I—"

You kiss him first because it's your right, because he's just a child and you're responsible, because you have to show him the way, you have to make it right, and if this is what Yukine needs to keep him from that edge, then yes, a thousand times, yes.

Incredible pain blooms, bright and beautiful as a starburst, behind your eyes.

()

You guys don't say a word to one another for about two hours the next morning. Breakfast is made and eaten in silence. Every square inch of your skin hurts and you'd be pretty down with, like, not talking for the rest of the week.

It's only when the last bite of toast is headed down your throat that that little brat says, casually—

"So, are you, like, some kind of weird masochist or something?"

You cough and choke and have to hurriedly down half a glass of milk, sputtering.

"Where the fuck did you get that idea?"

"I dunno," he says thoughtfully, and even in your fluster you notice his eyes are clearer, like windows cleansed by the rain. "I mean, I thought I was hurting you at first, but then it kinda started seeming like you were getting off on it…"

That is—so, so utterly unfair.

You shoot back, "The way I remember it, only one of us got off, and it sure as hell wasn't me."

Yukine peers at your groin.

"Wh-what… stop fucking looking down there, you perve—"

"Can gods even do something like that?"

You call for Sekki purely to shut him up. It's immature as hell, but you don't care. Still, even as the glow of the tattoo flashes, you catch a glimpse of Yukine smirking at you.

()

You'd been naive enough to hope that one time was enough.

The last thing you'd meant to do was encourage him, but now that stupid brat's taken his guilt-trip of a license and is running amok with it. Holding hands randomly in the street. Pressing his mouth against your arm. Too eager for you to use him. The sting of sin is so familiar now; the back of your neck tattooed blueberry-dark.

Still, not a single throbbing eye breaks any inch of Yukine's skin. That, at least, means you're doing something right.

It's almost a relief when Kofuku notices. They're eating watermelon, the dirt yard filled with seeds from a spitting contest, and Yukine's dozed off (normal enough)—against your shoulder (not so much).

She makes some banal comment about how much closer they've gotten, you nod, and the next thing you know she's saying softly, "I think Yuki-chan's in love with you."

You flinch. Knee-jerk reaction. That word's so wrong, lies so far against your very grain. God of darkness, god of war. These hands that Yukine loves to hold, these hands have killed men, women. If you were human you'd be a mass of roiling eyeballs long, long ago.

She looks carefully at you. You're too late to hide the reaction.

"Right?" she says.

You sigh and look down at the boy coiled around your arm. So small.

"What do I do?" you ask. "Kofuku, I can't ask anyone else. You're the only, I mean—"

"You mean I'm the only other god," she says.

"I mean, if it were you, what would you…?"

"Mmm, can't say," she trills. "That's between you and Yuki-chan."

"…As expected, you're no help at all."

"Eh? Yato-chan's so mean to me!"

"Are you bad-mouthing my lady again?" roars Daikoku from somewhere in the depths of the kitchen.

In the end, you receive nothing but a swelling lump on the head from your visit. You don't know what else you expected from the poverty god's shrine.

()

You ease yourself in with hypotheticals.

If…

If you were to, to, get involved, or whatever…

There's a headache building behind your eyes, and for once, it's one of your own making.

Would that boy still be your shinki, then? You could let him go, take another just for work. But you're, well, settled with him now; you've got an understanding that you like. Besides, realistically speaking, you have some serious doubts about how quickly you could obtain another partner, considering how the last time went…

Furthermore, there's that old adage: a shinki's only defense is the boundary line, the disgust and revulsion generated by the space between two different beings. Part of what makes Yukine an excellent regalia is his intense self-alienation, his natural wariness, bordering on hostility, of all other people. Yukine might not remember his past, but you have no doubts that the things he went through are what forged him into such a powerful blade.

Loneliness, fear, longing. Unquenchable thirst, unfulfilled hunger, unrelenting pain. These are the qualities a god looks for in his shinki.

You can practically hear Hiyori's voice, yelling at you to stop. Stop thinking about that kid like a tool, start thinking of him as a person.

Damn it, Hiyori, I'm trying. Can't you see what I'm going through here?

And anyway, despite it all, you're still a god.

Still, you can feel yourself dipping a toe in the pool of humanity. Cautious, slow. Not sure if you'll ever come to enjoy it.

You hear the boy sleeping—he tends to snore a little, the way you imagine some small cub of an animal might snore, which is both mildly annoying and oddly endearing. He's been much better, recently. Doesn't press so close behind you when you do jobs at night, scurrying from streetlight to streetlight like schoolchild playing hopscotch. And the smaller, milder rainstorms don't seem to bother him anymore.

You'd like to think you're a part of that.

Still, when he wakes he reaches for your hand—you know why, you caught glimpses of his nightmares, so strong they were thrown from his mind into yours through your connection—and you smile, electricity flashing down your neck.

()

"…and it still hurts, you know."

"Not that again," sighs Hiyori.

"It does! Stings, all the time!"

"Don't tell me we're going to do another purification."

"No, no—there's nothing wrong with him, I don't think."

"I don't get it. Does that really count as sin?"

"What else would it be?"

"So it's a sin just to be in love?" She looks at you, earnest as ever. "Is it so wrong to the gods?"

"Well, I mean…" You can feel yourself flushing; love is not a subject a war god is very familiar with. "It's not that it's wrong, in and of itself. Definitely not. But lust is wrong."

"Where's the difference?"

You nearly spit out your tea. "That's a pretty scandalous thing to be saying. It's a deadly sin."

"Wow, you're such a prude. I don't know how old-fashioned all you gods are, but nowadays most people would say the physical part's important in a relationship, too. Or else we'd never have babies—"

"Please stop," you choke out. "I don't want to think about that."

She swirls a finger around the rim of her cup. "Could it be that it's because you haven't accepted it yet?"

"What do you mean?"

"You said that Yukine didn't have any problems. So maybe, like, because you're still fighting it, to you it counts as lust, not love. I think Yukine's made up his feelings, probably a while ago. He's just waiting on you now."

"Waiting on me, huh…"

"Do you want to?"

It takes your breath away. The sheer reckless boldness of the question, naked as Sekki's blade.

"Well…"

()

The day dawns brilliant in a hailstorm of color.

It's cooling already—and where did that summer go, so long when you were mired in it, so fast in hindsight? Kofuku and Hiyori want to go picnicking before the weather turns, so that's what you all are doing today, play-acting at human domesticity with your very own half-human guide to authenticate the experience. You've seen the spread—Western-style sandwiches with watercress and cheese, fresh fruit and tiny cute sets of silverware and everything; they're going the whole hog.

You and Kofuku and Hiyori chatter away as you "help" Daikoku lug the basket up the grassy hill—you're mainly just steering the thing a little, since he's on the downhill edge and bearing the brunt of the weight. Even Daikoku's copious threats can't rend the crisp beauty of white checked cloth on emerald ground. The colors on earth are so bright you can practically taste them, yellow daisies like bursts of sun in your mouth, the fluffy-headed swaying dandelions resembling a certain shinki you've grown rather fond of.

You pluck grass and clumsily try to learn how to make a daisy crown under Hiyori's patient tutelage. Yukine's making a judging face at you, and you throw ripped-up grass at him. You know Yukine thinks you're kind of immature, which is fucking hilarious because Yukine himself's got the temperament of a five-year-old—

Or a fourteen-year-old, really. To a god, what's the difference?

You think that Yukine's settling into his spirit-hood. He doesn't watch the city as often, doesn't glance with painfully keen eyes at the schoolchildren his age, younger, the same, growing past him. Subconsciously, perhaps, he's beginning to come to terms with the fact that that is a race he cannot win, or maybe one he's already won. It must be odd, becoming a creature not of time, but it's something all of them have learned to do—well, except perhaps for Hiyori, but Hiyori's still bound to earth, after all.

Someday, you think, you'd like him to remember. Giving him back his human life, short as it was, would be easy as a flick of the finger for you. But only if he asked. It'd be pointlessly cruel if he didn't. Right now, even though Yukine's much stronger, that kind of thing would still break him, send him dancing along the cliff's edge.

Maybe he won't ever ask. In that case you, too, will throw those cast-off memories down the wells of your mind. They're not yours to keep.

For now, though, he still cries sometimes at night, and you still don't tell him that you know. Just hold him. Be there. It's not so different from any other of the hundreds of odd jobs you've taken, only this time, there's no five-yen coin waiting at the end.

Still, there's happiness, and there's happiness, and money isn't always the foremost thing. Besides, it isn't even as if that little brat could pay you—he's just as broke as his master.

You smile to yourself. Yukine's wandered a little ways down the hill, so you stretch and trail after him. You still marvel daily at how small he is, a tiny blonde flame like a scratch on a painted-blue wall. That, you suppose, is just something you'll have to get used to. After all, he's going to be fourteen for a long, long time.

"It's pretty, huh?"

"Mhm."

Yukine watches the ocean, spooled out like loose thread at the rolling foot of the hill, and you watch Yukine.

There's the happiness—of killing. You can't deny it: the dark vicious thrill, thick and rich as cherry syrup, blood singing, dry eyes stinging in a kind of unblinking high. The feeling of being unconquerable.

Still, you don't think you'd know what to do with that feeling anymore. Besides, who're you kidding—you're just some minor no-name god, at least for now. You were never on top of anything at all.

But, standing on this hill, you can begin to clear the blood from your eyes. The clouds, reflected in your mind's eye, form a palace, a mighty shrine of joyously dressed humans and fragrant offerings and festivals—yeah, lots of festivals. You're going to be great, and you're going to be great with him.

"Hey."

"Hm?"

He turns just in time for you to plop the daisy crown on top of his head. Scoffing in irritation, he reaches to brush it off.

But you catch his hand; hold it. A shiver runs down your neck, but no pain. Just the chill of the open sky, the taste of things to come.

"What, weirdo…" mutters Yukine.

"Be my boyfriend?" you ask.

His eyes widen, and then begin to fill alarmingly quickly with tears.

"I-…. I-…"

"Oh, come on, you wuss," you tease, laughing.

"Sorry… I'm sorry, I…yeah. Yes."

"Hey. It's okay, now."

You lean down, graze your lips against his forehead, and he makes an impatient noise through his tears and tiptoes and meets you halfway, mouth to mouth, salt soft against your tongue, and when you settle your hands on his shoulders (because he said yes, because he gave you permission, because it's happening now, it's really happening) you have never, ever felt more godlike.

He breaks away first with a little breath.

"Did that… Was that okay? You're not hurt?"

"Not any more," you say.

"Sorry, you maso," he mutters after a moment.

"Hey—!"

The two of you bicker about your sexual tendencies—and really, the entire conversation's utterly ridiculous; you don't have sexual tendencies, you're a fucking god (to which Yukine snipes, "Then what was that thing I felt the other night when I—")—the entire way back to the picnic blanket, and you forget how loudly you were speaking until Hiyori throws the empty basket at you, shouting, "Don't talk so loudly about those things!"

"Oh, blame me, why don't you! He's the one who started—"

But of course Yukine's giving them all his patented puppy face, and everyone's picking on you, and you sigh, and sink into defeat. Just for today, you tell yourself. He can consider this the damn honeymoon period. That brat better as hell not start taking liberties with you at work. No way you're going to put up with that shit. No, fucking, way.

On the train on the way back, you can't help telling him that you love him anyway.

Even if it's not a very godlike thing to do, it's worth it to see him smile.

()

Fin.