"๐ง๐๐๐ฅ๐ ๐ฆ๐๐๐ก๐ - ๐๐๐๐จ๐-๐ก๐ข-๐ฆ๐๐ง๐ข
๐๐๐๐ฌ ๐๐ข๐ง๐ข๐ฅ๐'๐ฆ ๐ฅ๐๐ฆ๐๐๐๐ก๐๐ โ ๐ ๐ฅ ๐๐ข๐ง๐๐ฅ๐จ'๐ฆ ๐๐ข๐จ๐ฆ๐
โโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโ
"I'm Hoshiyuki โ actually, just call me Liriel."
A hand closed around his collar before he could finish the sentence.
"I'm the only one who gets to call you that."
Shiharu's voice came out low and unhurried, the kind of possessive that didn't need to raise itself to be felt. He looped his arms around Hoshiyuki's neck from behind, pulling him back with the ease of someone reclaiming something that already belonged to them.
Hoshiyuki blinked. Cleared his throat.
"Uh โ yes. I'm Hoshiyuki. Please forget I ever suggested Liriel."
Yurina watched this unfold from behind her fan, a full, unbothered smile spreading across her face. She gave a light shrug.
"He's all yours, Haru."
She lowered the fan slightly and dipped her head toward Hoshiyuki. "Nice to meet you, Hoshiyuki. Haru already mentioned me, but โ I'm Yurina."
Hoshiyuki studied her for a moment, something quietly observant moving through his expression.
"You have a rare complexion," he said. "Caramel and milk."
It wasn't flattery โ just an honest observation, stated plainly, the way someone might note a detail they found genuinely interesting.
"He's not wrong." Shiharu gave a small nod of agreement, as though the point had been raised for discussion and he was simply weighing in.
Being called beautiful by two blindingly beautiful people,Yurina thought, the smile on her face widening at the edges. Life is suddenly worth living.
She kept the thought to herself.
"By the wayโ" Her eyes drifted back to Hoshiyuki, narrowing slightly with something more focused.
"You're not really human, are you? Even as a ghost, you're... shedding a different skin."
"Whatever do you mean?" Shiharu asked.
"Right. Aside from being a ghost โ I'm not human."
Hoshiyuki agreed without judgment, more like someone completing a thought they'd already been turning over.
"All ghosts shed black. But him?" She tilted her head. "He radiates. There's a glow to his energy โ something heavenly. Divine, even." A pause. "Which means you should be careful. At a juncture like this, someone with powers like his could possess the body of a living person and simply... continue. Live out the rest of that life as though it were their own."
The silence that followed had a particular quality to it.
"Death is still an option," Hoshiyuki murmured.
His voice came out distant. Not dark โ just honest. The tone of someone who had stood close enough to that particular door to know exactly how easily it opened.
"Right." Shiharu's voice matched it, drifting into the same distant register without trying to. "Dying is easy. You could just die and leave everything behind."
They both stared at nothing in particular.
Yurina looked between them.
These two... The thought settled somewhere quiet in her chest. What happened to them? Why does it feel like both of them have already tasted death โ and simply decided, at some point, to come back anyway?
She kept her smile in place. It took more effort than usual.
"Honestly," she said, her voice finding its lightness again, "you'd understand exactly what I mean if it ever happened to you."
"I wish..." Shiharu's voice came out softer this time โ quieter, less guarded than he'd intended. He drew Hoshiyuki closer by a fraction. "I wish something like that never happens to him."
A breath of silence.
"I love the way he looks."
The words left his mouth before his mind had the chance to review them.
He stopped.
The tips of his ears went red first โ then his neck โ a slow, involuntary flush that crept upward with nowhere to hide. He turned his face away.
Both Yurina and Hoshiyuki turned to look at him at the same time.
Hoshiyuki's face went red so quickly it was almost immediate โ a deep, honest blush that he tried and failed to conceal behind both hands pressed to his cheeks. He was embarrassed. Completely. But underneath the embarrassment, blooming quietly and without permission, was something he hadn't felt in a very long time.
He loves the way I look...?
The thought moved through him slowly, like warmth spreading from a single point.
I'm so... so happy. He pressed his hands a little firmer against his face. I always thought he preferred someone like Ren. More composed. More certain. But maybe โ just maybe โ I hope... I really hope he falls for me this time. Properly. For real.*
"Be careful," Yurina said, laughter threading through her voice as she brought the fan down. "You'll give someone a heart attack."
She watched the two of them for a moment longer, the amusement settling into something warmer and quieter beneath the surface.
I'm glad he made that wish. Because I had a strange feeling something like that was coming. She glanced at Shiharu โ at the way his arms still hadn't moved from around Hoshiyuki, at the flush still sitting on his neck. He really likes him. No question about it. Hoshiyuki is the one he was missing that night. He cried himself out in the rain over him.
How does it feel, she thought, to have your comfort person back?
She let the thought pass without saying it out loud.
"By the wayโ" She straightened, her tone shifting back into something more curious, more purposeful.
"Can you test some of your powers? You're the one with wish manifestation, aren't you? Soโ"
Her eyes wandered the compound. The large grounds stretched out around the traditional house, dotted with trees that stood unhurried in the morning stillness. Her gaze landed on something perched in the branches of one โ a white bird, perfectly still.
"Kill that bird."
She pointed.
Shiharu and Hoshiyuki both looked toward it at the same time.
Strange. Shiharu's gaze lingered. Something about it sat wrong. The stillness was too deliberate. Too positioned. That doesn't look like a normal bird. Is someone watching us? His eyes narrowed. Either way โ I don't like it. Too white. Too still. Irritating.
He raised one hand, almost lazily โ and pushed.
A burning red energy threaded through the air like a current finding its target. It reached the bird in an instant.
The bird dropped from the branch without a sound and hit the ground, still.
"Remarkable," Hoshiyuki murmured, turning to look at him with something lit behind his eyes.
The full scope of what Shiharu was capable of โ the speed, the regeneration, the sharpness of senses that could detect things before they registered consciously, the dark energy that moved at his direction like an extension of his own body โ all of it was still being uncovered. Like rooms in a house he hadn't known were there. He was a vampire, yes โ the devil's son, yes โ but the nature of those powers ran deeper than fangs and strength. They were rooted in something older. Something inherited from both sides of a bloodline that had never been ordinary.
And then there was the other thing. The wish manifestation.
"Demonstrate more," Hoshiyuki said, the quiet encouragement in his voice sitting comfortably alongside genuine fascination. "Either way, you'll have to practice eventually." A brief pause. "Should I find humans you could use?"
"Woahโ" Yurina took a small step back.
"For someone with the face of an angel," she said, pointing at him, "you are surprisingly evil."
"We can all three agreeโ" Shiharu glanced between them, then out across the compound, already raising his hand again โ "that aside from those we care for, the fate of other humans isn't something that particularly concerns us."
He said it plainly, without cruelty. Just a fact he'd already made his peace with.
He turned his focus inward, moving through what he could feel โ testing the reach of it. His hand shifted through different gestures, different intentions, trying to find the edges of things. Speed. Regeneration. Sensory acuity sharp enough to be almost uncomfortable. Dark energy responsive enough to kill a bird from across a courtyard.
But there had to be more. Something specific to what he was. The devil's son, carrying wish manifestation โ surely those two things combined into something distinct. Something with a name.
He pulled in a breath.
"Negaiโ"
Nothing.
"Negaiiโ"
Still nothing.
"๐ก๐ฒ๐ด๐ฎ๐ถ๐ถ๐ถโ!!"
His voice rose on the third attempt. The air around him didn't even stir. He stared at his own hand for a moment, turning it over.
Maybe I was wrong, he thought. Maybe that part isn't real yet.
"Try again."
Hoshiyuki's voice came from beside him โ quiet, steady, carrying the particular brand of patience that didn't feel like waiting so much as believing.
Shiharu glanced at him.
I wish I could move things with ease, he thought, and even the thought felt tired around the edges. I felt it earlier โ when we were relocating. My body is more fragile than it should be.
He caught Hoshiyuki's eye and gave a small nod toward where he was standing.
Hoshiyuki understood without being told. He shifted โ obedient, unhesitating โ repositioning himself without question or complaint.
Shiharu turned his palm toward Yurina.
She was watching them both with mild entertainment, fan raised again, not paying particular attention to what he was about to attempt.
"Negaii."
The word left him differently this time โ less forced. Less demanded. Quieter, like something finding the correct channel for the first time.
The effect was immediate.
Yurina yelped as her feet left the ground โ suddenly, completely โ her body catching an invisible current and lurching sideways through the air. The fan flew from her grip. Her composure, so carefully maintained through the entire morning, evaporated in an instant.
Shiharu's eyes went wide.
Too muchโ
He withdrew the intention as fast as it had come, pulling the thought back like a hand yanked from a flame.
But Yurina was already gone.
Between one blink and the next, she'd vanished โ swept clean out of their line of sight in a sudden flash, there and then simply not there โ the space where she'd been standing holding nothing but the sound of the morning settling back into itself.
Silence.
Shiharu stared at the empty space.
Hoshiyuki stared at the empty space.
A beat passed.
Then another.
"Where is....she?"