Seek in the Gloaming
Kouryuu has a way of dealing with things. This may be one of them.

By: Rosethorn Li

Kouryuu comes because hell is boring and the kittens won't leave him alone, whispering to each other just out of his hearing, gossiping and snickering and obnoxiously loud. Teasing him with giggles and saying that name he never wants to hear again. Not any time soon, anyway.

So he comes and stares, half remembering the times he'd visited this house, perched in the high branches to nap and sneak peaks on those admittedly interesting people. But now, for the first time, Kouryuu is alone.

He presses his hand against the tree, feels the pulse of Heaven's power inside, spreads his wings in answer to that power, soaking up the moonlight and the comfort and peace the night brings. He thinks about that simple smile, that blonde hair, that innocent face and digs his claws into the bark because suddenly he wants to strangle something, overcome with the urge to kill. No way in hell does he miss that idiot; he'd rather be a priest, mouthing prayers all hours than say,

"Kohaku, I miss you," because of course he would never, ever, in all millennia, admit to such a thing.

But that damnable face is floating in his mind's eye, expression flitting through all ways he'd seen: leaking sizable tears under his merciful attentions; whimpering in pain and honest confusion; begging; shouting and scowling and irate; smiling so wide, so happy, his heart missed a beat. Kouryuu can nearly hear the cries of that idiot angel, calling, singing, shouting, simply speaking, saying his name.

"Kohaku," his mouth betrays, whispered like a prayer, the name igniting something inside, making him weak.

He wants to rend the tree to pieces, claw his way through and rip out that radiant heart that God so cruelly hid. What he wants, what he wants is his victim back; so many pranks to pull, so little time. To have those tears spilling from innocent eyes and sobs choking in that thin throat, helpless and at his mercy. To feel that surge of something: what made his playful grins into wicked, joyful smirks, into a twisted smile of glistening fangs and sharp teeth.

No other victim is so satisfying. Demons cower at the name Kouryuu now, caught in his mischievous glory. Humans, humans he left alone only because of Kokuyo's instructions. Angels, well, more newbies had cried their way back to heaven from the Gate in the last decade than in any before. (He held envy for them, those who had awoken to beautiful ballads sung in their honor. Sobbing and cries for mercy he'd witnessed, but nothing so damn moving as those songs.)

There is a thrill in soiling the purest of the pure, to shred apart those white wings with bolts of thunder and make Kohaku squirm. Thinking, 'This is because of me' and revel in terrified cries of, "Stop, please!", the perfect picture of a slim body cowering and begging and powerless.

What he may want is for God to be fair, for that darn human to be born and wake the waiting Angel, to have a sappy, happy ending. This is only what the loving part thinks, so far a minor piece of his demon self.

'Hell damn it all,' he thinks, forehead pressing roughly against the bark. "Why?" is the question he dares not ask.

Kouryuu arches back and, snarling, spreads his wings to their full span, so wide the tips brush the roof tiles. A single stroke of his leathery wings and he ascends to the sky, a dark figure blocking the stars. Enchanted wind whirls around him, ruffling his bangs, fingering his cloths, as he mouths an incantation, one of destruction, and shouts the words, voice strengthened by purpose.

The heavens he forces to obey his call for thunder, for lightning to destroy the thing that keeps the angel from him.

'If I can't have Kohaku, no one can!' he thinks, so desperate. (And part of him knows that Hisui would laughingly call him childish, scold him in that musical voice, and Kokuyo's Betrothed would be correct.)

Lightning strikes in a blinding flash, but there is no sickening crack to follow. The tree is whole and pulsing life, a protection by God himself.

Kouryuu watches and, wearily, allows his wings to fade. Radiance calls him near, hypnotic, beautiful as any of Heaven's own; he floats, slowly, to the tree. One hesitant touch and he hears a song, so sweet it nearly rots his teeth. Eyelids slide down with the rest of his body, pressing tight against the floral vessel, leaning toward it, arms wrapped around it, mind consumed by a silent singing.

'This is for me' and it is the most beautiful thing Kouryuu has ever heard.

A night passes and he stays, curled up against the trunk, growing small in its branches, and sleeps soundly, listening.

Omake

Of course, the peace does not last through the next morning.

"He's sleeping!"

Female laughter. "Isn't he just so cute? Master Kouryuu is the best!"

"Ssh! You'll wake him."

"Hun, you know the only thing that will wake in is--"

"Shush!"

"--that bubbly angel."

Bubbly angel?

A very quiet, almost testing, "Kohaku."

"Where am I?! That bubble butt, putting me to sleep!" He, of course, throws a tantrum.