One-shots for dayyyyyzzzzz my friends. One-shots for dayz. Anywho I decided to make a one-shot involving Angel since I never did, and in this, he's not going to be completely rude and murder-y towards Rin! Lol

That said, know that I haven't been watching the second season of Blue Exorcist ~planning on waiting for it all to come out and binge-watch the whole thing in addition to rewatching the first season~ so idk if anything that happens here is canon or not. Don't be butthurt, please.

Enjoy~

The one Rin Okumura remained somewhat of an enigma to Angel. He was a filthy demon; the son of Satan no less. So why exactly was he sitting here, reluctantly eating the most delicious thing he had ever put in his mouth that had been cooked by none other? The smiling navy-haired boy watched with baited breath as if looking for approval. It was almost appealing, in a childish kind of way; that was a strange thought, considering he'd cut off that same boy's foot. Yet here he was, and the boy didn't seem to care. Like he had nothing but forgiveness to give, nothing but smiles to express, nothing but a childlike feeling of delight and wonder to radiate from him like his own personal telltale aura.

As for how he got here? Well, that part Angel remembered with explicit clarity.

"Rin Okumura is no longer to be executed, however, he is to be watched."

And who better than the Paladin to keep an eye on him? Not unlike his life up until him entering high school - after all, he had been raised by that traitorous Shiro Fujimoto, the former-and-now-deceased Paladin, had he not? When he had heard of it, this is not what he expected to find. He had expected to find a bloodthirsty demon, burning all in his path and razing the ground with his claws. That is not remotely close to what he had found. He had found a bluenette who loved his cooking, and valued his friends and family above all else, even his own safety and wellbeing. One who seemed to have a smile eternally plastered onto his face. Perhaps it had been the camping trip that hardened his resolve; when he lost control when fighting the Demon King, a Baal, and would have obliterated him if not for Mephisto.

The boy waited expectantly for a response. The blonde looked up at him with a rather normal expression for him, saying nothing other than:

"Thank you for the meal." The boy had seemed to delay a moment in response, then nodded with that stupid grin of his.

"You're welcome!" Angel swore he could see some kind of resolve harden in his expression; do better next time.

He was a people-pleaser, that was for certain. How does one grow up to become so selfless, in this corrupted and word, riddled to the brim with demons? And yet, to find that this selflessness came from the son of the King of Gehenna himself... it wasn't supposed to add up, but it did.

Strange.

The following day he had awoken to the sound of clanging in the kitchen. As no less was expected of him, the Paladin had made his way downstairs quickly, hand already reaching for the grasp of Caliburn at his side. What he found was both surprising and amusing, though he wouldn't have admitted that to anyone else. Before Angel was Ukobach and Rin locked in a quarrel. Rin wanted to experiment with the recipe, one of Ukobach's favorites, and Ukobach seemed to not approve, Caliburn supplied. He stood in the doorway for a moment, watching the hilarity of the situation play out before him. He was only noticed as a pan nearly hit him and he sidestepped out of the way. Deciding to end it before it escalated further, he cleared his throat.

Both their heads snapped up to see who it was, and both were flushed with embarrassment just from realizing someone else had been there. Still, the fight had been rather comical. Not something he would've expected from the son of Satan. Still, for the time being, that is who he forced himself to see. After all, that was who he was to watch over, right?

At first, the thought of training with the knight-to-be was something that scared him, just a little bit, though he'd deny it to the moon and back. What happened if his flames came out? What happened if he burned him? Yet, he found that no such thing was to come. Despite unsheathing the Kurikara, it was quite obvious the boy was holding his flames back, even trying to discreetly suppress them from sight. The effort did not go unnoticed, though Angel had said nothing to the raven about the matter. Besides that, his sword-fighting wasn't completely lack-luster, though requiring a bit more technique, some fine-tuning and finesse. These things went a long way, and Rin did not seem to care. He threw his weight around carelessly, and while that could sustain him easily in short fights against one or two opponents, he'd be no match for a group without more attention to detail.

Why did he care if a battle went wrong? He was just hellspawn, right? Just doing his job, he reminded himself. Just doing his job.

One night he woke up, decidedly due to a need to relieve himself. However, on his way back to the room he had claimed for himself, he heard a soft noise bobbing in and out of existence from the twins' shared one. He stepped a bit closer to the door, now most definitely certain that there was something there. But what? The younger Okumura was out, serving as backup on a higher grade mission in Rome and wouldn't be back for a few days, and he'd come to learn the older was a hard and fast sleeper, out before he even hit the bed and doomed to remain as such until he deemed it late enough in the day to rise, or until Yukio gave him a rude awakening.

He retrieved Caliburn from his room and came back, the noise still ongoing. It was shaky, almost like a gasping. He slowly turned the knob and slid the door open, apparently going unnoticed by whatever was in the room. But then he saw him.

The happy, goofy raven, with an eternal smile, plastered on his face, doomed to days of lazy sleep and forever bound to radiate cheerfulness, the permanent people-pleaser... the boy who aspired to be a chef and wanted nothing more to protect his family - the spawn of Satan- crying. He was curled in on himself, hugging a pillow to his chest. His tail crushed the thing in a death grip, and he had never seen such melancholy eyes before in his life. He was an absolute mess, tear tracks staining his face. With one hand he gripped his hair and with the other he cradled his own face, continuing to sob, evidently trying not to be loud. Bright blue eyes that were somehow so much more than just blue, indescribable in their own right, screamed his emotions for all to hear. Fear and sadness flashed and danced within them.

Blue flames licked his form, although the Kurikara was sheathed just a bit to his right. Yet, somehow, one Angel Arthur, Paladin, couldn't find it in himself to look at him and see the son of Satan. What he saw was angelic, a poor soul wronged by faith. It was supposed to be wrong; humans were not supposed to be like this, and demons were supposed to be evil and heartless. Yet, for a moment he swore he saw something white upon the boy's back, though no longer there. For a moment, the title of 'demon' did not fit him in the slightest - and when he thought about it, and never truly had.

This world gave him a part to play that did not fit him at all, yet crushed him when he went along with it anyway.

The boy tried to wipe away his tears, tried to stop crying, to no avail. He choked out another sob. All the while, Arthur only stood there quietly, and for a moment, someone had to wonder how a person could keep things bottled up for so long. He could only imagine what the boy felt, as he pieced together what may have brought him to this state. Most would have cracked long before now, and completely deteriorated against the wave of emotions that seemed to crash over him again and again. How does one hide something like this? How does one keep smiling through this, day after day?

Because he tries. But like every other human, he inevitably crashes and burns.

The raven seemed to finally notice his presence and went wide-eyed when he did. For a moment he was quiet, staring in shock, shame written clearly all over his face, but then quickly ducked his head down into the pillow, trying to hide it. Arthur walked over, and the time it took to reach him felt like an eternity. He didn't sit next to him, or hug him, or coddle him, or anything like that. Instead, he kneeled in front of him and gently forced his face up from the pillow, despite the flames surrounding him.

They were warm and comforting, something that could be likened to an accepting embrace. He was pleasantly surprised by this but would make no comment on it for the moment. The teen looked at him quietly, tears threatening to spill over again. For a moment, all he was lost in his orbs. That startlingly beautiful yet dangerous blue color, lethality at its most precious and lovely. But as he continued to look into those eyes, suspicions that had slowly begun to build up within his mind were confirmed. There was not an ounce of a demon in these eyes; just a hurt soul.

Looking back on that day, some part of him wondered if he would ever know what he was truly looking at. Rin Okumura was an enigma to him.

Neh, I wanted Angel to describe Rin as looking like a, well, angel, but meh. Satisfactory- yay or nay?