Hello, dear readers! I'm pleased to present the beginning of my new story, "Subtle Steps." This is a fic I have been planning for many, many moths now. I wrote this prologue forever ago, and never really looked back at it since. Then I rediscovered it and found a few other notes and paragraphs for this that I had yet to put together to form more chapters with. I figured I could at least post this up and see what people think. I hope it will all make sense somehow in the end.

Prologue

In their world, where the threat of death surrounds the lives they struggle to maintain, personal matters were best left alone, buried and locked away to examine at a more convenient time. But before they were exorcists, they were first and foremost, human beings, and as such, they were prone to temptation.

This change doesn't just appear out of the blue. You don't just wake up one day and decide that you actually have feelings for the person you can't stand the most. You don't just fall out of love with one friend, and in love with another. You don't stop being a flirtatious slacker on the outside while letting go of a life of dedication and self-responsibility on the inside. You don't just throw caution to the wind and damn your honor in the name of something as stupid and insignificant as affection.

Still time brings about change, and with these changes new and unexpected feelings begin to emerge.

This is the story of how three young men and one young woman suddenly confront the world of romance; a world where a secret best remains secret, where tiny sideways glances and hidden desires are carefully kept in check, where everything you thought you knew about yourself is suddenly turned upside down and questions of who you really are and what you can potentially become slowly surface in the back of your mind. However, unlike the fairytales of ages past were boy meets girl and "happily ever after" is a guarantied ending, this particular account follows a series of unusual and at time hilarious fallibilities associated with falling in love.

But where there is love, there is always heartache and uncertainty. Forbidden emotions gradually fall under the suspicion and judgment of others. One's own guilt, duty, pride or all three tear apart at a warring conflict between what the mind knows and what the heart knows best. The question remains, is it worth the risks?

Amidst the confusion, turmoil and sometimes humor of this tale, it is important to keep in mind one fundamental truth. In this story, the impossible becomes maybe just a little bit more plausible.

So this story... It's going to take some time before I ever complete it. It's a complicated process because I'm trying to make the scinarios as real and as in character as humanly possible. It will be a while, but I promise that this will be completed eventually.

Hope you enjoyed the prologue, none the less, and I will try and update "Cursed Wings" as soon as I can!