Aura wreathed out of the container, leaking. Suho glanced at the book’s troubleshooting page and then looked for the crack in the tempered container. He had shaped it into a bear since Kai was always excited to see them whenever they crossed paths with one during his training. He found the crack along the flank of his carving and pinched off more gum rubber to seal it. He dusted the charm in the yanghun horn powder and nodded in satisfaction as the leak stopped.

After several iterations and trials of the project, he finally crafted a container able to hold and release aura by command of its bearer. He had used his own as a test, but his plan was for Kai to store some aura inside, which would allow him to draw upon it if needed, an extra storage. He could also make it pulse strong enough to hide the smaller capacity from his being, so no demon would question him.

Satisfied, Suho moved down to his office to look at his next order of business, Yixing’s letter. He had been meaning to write back to the angel, but his personal projects and duties as commander occupied his time longer than he would have liked. He also couldn’t believe that the angel would send him a note of gratitude and enthusiasm and… an apology for the state of his room. Suho actually read the letter several times over, but each time he did, his breath would leave him, and something would fill his chest and head with lightness. As such, he needed extra time to feel rational enough to respond properly.

He found the best paper and ink he had available and sat down, writing his reply, referring to the letter. He emphasized his actions out of his own will and therefore needed no thanks, also that he very much didn’t mind any organization of the angel’s room. The coordinator had much to do strategizing for this high-stakes mission, and Suho thought that he was doing a great job. He just didn’t mention how, despite knowing how rude it was to poke around, he couldn’t help his strange curiosity and did walk around and see things like how he had specific bins for trash, compost, and recycling.

Everything about Yixing drew Suho back to the angel, small details reminding him of the coordinator. Then sometimes, there were no triggers, but Suho would see dimples and a smirk or want to hear that twinkling laugh again. He could feel the trace of a smile along his face whenever that happened.

Aura hummed beside him, and he broke his attention to it. A portal opened and spat out a sealed envelope, an address to him written on the front and in Commander Unmaik’s hand. Suho broke open the seal and pulled out the paper within.

His instincts tensed at the last two words. As he just wrote in his reply, the proxy mission was of top priority, and the unknown surrounding the proxy process as well as Hayong’s goal made the mission dangerous. Who was this person who commissioned Commander Unmaik as messenger to know where to find information on proxies?

He looked at the note again before burning it and the envelope. As fire danced in his hand, he knew that he would go. Proxy information would be valuable to Yixing and his demons’ mission. The Havadia Library he had visited once. His second in command had brought him there, and they spent near two decades pouring through books for information on the standing of life and an edacious personal question.

Suho crushed the ashes in his hand, feeling the last of the flames at his palm. He would go to help the greater angelic world, not himself.

He set aside the aura container and opened a portal to the fourth ring of heaven. He stepped out to the doorstep of an ornately decorated building, marble glistening off the pillars and glass sloping the dome top. Pulling open the doors, Suho walked in and met the gaze of the librarian, Lord Bibith, if he recalled correctly. She blinked and stood, surprise transitioning into a formal bow.

“Commander Suho of Tehom.”

He nodded a greeting and strode over.

“A surprise to see a demon commander here. What can I do for you?”

“I would like to see a book of emerald and blank pages. If you could help me locate it, that would be appreciated.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“That’s an interesting description. Luckily, a recent visit by a certain proxy has refreshed my memory of such a book. If you will follow me.”

The librarian moved around the counter and down the bookcases, stopping at a middle section of the library. The tome she pulled out indeed had emerald wrought at its spine and edges, the cover spinning The Encyclopedia of Ariba in gold lettering. He grimaced the slightest. He recognized that title, but he had never imagined that he would seek out the book, searching through its contents or not. He took it and flipped through the pages—blank. He almost sighed out loud with relief.

“Is this what you’re looking for?”

“Yes, thank you.”

She paused but nodded and turned back for her desk. Suho flipped through the pages again, but there was nothing more than a sheen of gold shimmering on the faces. He thought he heard the echo of a voice, the one that belonged to his second in command who laughed bitterly at all that he had learned from the Encyclopedia— Shaking his head, Suho zeroed his focus for any notes as Commander Unmaik had instructed him to do. There was only one, on the inner back cover, but Suho gripped the book harder as he read the ancient Chinese. The words, at first, seemed like various synonyms for erasure, but combined with the small drawing in the corner and Unmaik’s information—they had to be related to the proxy process.

The proxy process infused one creature with the aura of an angelic and turned them into either angel or demon, like the turning bite of a vampire or a zombie of human imagination. However, unlike those bites, aura took time to manifest, and beyond that information, the process was largely a mystery.

In the last documented case, a faerie had the beginnings of an angel’s aura. Being a creature of Earth, faeries were generally neutral in their souls, making acceptance of either aura bias easy. But accepting aura meant accepting power, and most creatures’ minds and bodies wouldn’t be able to handle the overflow.

A thought struck him. It was long documented that the faerie was midway through the process when a rogue demon killed them, and in the reports, Lord Satan noted how the rogue was especially disgusted and angry at the fact that the faerie had gained some angel aura. So how did the faerie not go mad with power?

The words on the sticky note blared up at Suho, and he couldn’t ignore their possibilities. What if that faerie had somehow diluted, blotted—or any of these other words—their aura away to accommodate the angel's purity?

There was no way to confirm; the faerie’s case happened centuries ago, and no one had discovered the angel who initiated the process either. Minseok was human first, and therefore had an aura too weak to necessitate dilution. Still, the speculation had some merit of possibility.

Taking the note off and pocketing it, Suho stared down at the ornate gold and emerald in his hands, in his memory. Twice the book revealed nothing to him, and yet twice their paths had crossed.

“What in the seven rings?!”

Suho gripped the tome and sprinted to the front. He relaxed as he saw Lord Bibith shouting into a halo call and looking more excited instead of alarmed. The angelic on the other side of the line was also shouting and jumping up and down. They spoke of some gossip in the residential area of the rings, so Suho just continued forward to checkout. Lord Bibith startled, probably having forgotten that he was in the library too. She darted her gaze down, but Suho just gestured for her to continue with the call. The librarian had a right to halo calls, and what he thought didn’t infringe on that, not that he minded in the first place.

“I know, right? What demon would go so far as to call in a repeal? You wanna know the juiciest part? It was approved.”

“What?! They took the demon seriously? The repeal wasn’t just out of spite?”

“Apparently not. Some soul on the second ring basically just told his own brother that he didn’t love him as family.”

“There are lots of humans who treat their family like strangers, sad as it is.”

“I know, but this soul admitted to being a manipulative little and was flaunting it! I don’t know about your thoughts, but that soul deserved to go to Purgatory.”

Lord Bibith glanced at Suho, then shot a look into the halo call as she handed him the checked-out Encyclopedia, though the warning was probably unnoticed by the other. He had to admit that hearing an angel say ‘manipulative little ’ was quite amusing.

“They’re arresting the bastard now. I would’ve gone too, but someone has to take care of the desk and update you, of course.”

“Thanks, Heize.”

Suho nodded his thanks to the librarian and started out the door just as the other on the halo call sighed.

“Poor proxy. First, he has to become a demon and now this.”

He stopped in his tracks.

“Do you think that he’ll have to watch his brother get arrested?”

“He has to. They’re arresting him, but they’re giving the proxy the decision of whether he goes to Purgatory or remains and gets parole—request of the repealer.”

Suho whipped back around to the desk, and it took more control to not slam his hands on the surface.

“Which demon called the repeal?”

“Bibi, is someone there with you?”

“Uh, yes, actually.”

“Please let me speak with your friend,” Suho said.

Lord Bibith shot another look into the call before swiveling the halo to him. The angel Heize choked.

“Commander Suho! Uh, we weren’t talking about anything incriminating—”

“The demon who called the repeal, who are they?”

She blinked. “One of your own, sir. Chen of Tehom.”

Suho felt his blood heat in roils.

“I am going to port to the location. Grant me access.”

“I—but, I need to draw a restraining rune—”

“Grant me access. Chen is of my legion. I will discipline him.”

“But, sir, he didn’t do anything wrong exactly—”

“In the protocol of the angelics, no, he didn’t. But he’s crossing moral lines with the proxy without knowing the commitment he needs first. I will be there shortly.”

He swung the halo back to Lord Bibith, split open a portal, and jumped through, stepping out to the hall for visitors. Heize looked back and forth from her halo call to him, shock in her features, but he ignored the question of ports he knew was in her mind.

“Where is the arrest?”

“In the Dia Complex, the building with a crown on it.”

“Floor?”

“Three-hundred sixty-seven, sixteen-A—”

Suho turned and shot out of the hall, burning down the streets and up buildings until he saw the crown emblem. A few souls were loitering in the lobby, and Suho cut in front and typed in the one he needed, slipping down the halls as soon as he touched the corridor. He didn’t bother knocking on the door.

~~~~~

Suho breathed a quiet sigh as he set the Encyclopedia on his living room table. He didn’t care for the dirty looks the angels of Ophanim threw at him as he had opened another portal and directed it to his house. The way his proud soldier now huddled on his couch with his face sunken behind his knees, however, dissipated his rage. He had never seen Chen look so disheartened even when he had made a grievous mistake on a mission. Still, his actions were done, and Suho needed to figure out what prompted him to submit a repeal on the behalf of a human.

“Chen.”

He looked up. Barely.

“I was going to punish you, but from your behavior, I can already tell that you know of your guilt.”

He looked away.

“Why did you submit that repeal?”

“That brother didn’t deserve to be in heaven.”

“Because he treated Minseok with disrespect or because he didn’t adhere to heaven’s requirements?”

Chen didn’t respond, so Suho sat down on the table, facing him.

“What does Minseok mean to you?”

“He’s my guardee.”

“What does he mean to you?” Suho repeated, the slightest of irritation seeping out of his words. He knew that Chen heard it when he flinched. Such an easy answer belied deeper meaning, and Suho needed to know how each of his soldiers thought—for the legion as well as to pacify an old fear. Chen shrunk a little further behind his knees, but his cheeks had reddened.

“He’s my prey.”

Suho blinked as he processed that statement, then remembered reading it in one of the reports from Kai. The spatial demon didn’t explain in further detail, only that Minseok looked and smelled happy whenever he spoke of or looked at Chen. Maybe this claim of predation was Chen’s version of the same sentiments. Suho remembered that his lightning demon came from a family of hell tigers. He even met the mother and the denmate before, and though he couldn’t understand them, he could see from the way that they treated Chen that they too were a bit of an oddity in the sphere of hell. Family itself was almost an exclusively Earth concept.

He shook his head. He digressed. Suho just needed to know if Chen was serious in whom he was pursuing. Humans did courtship differently, and even if he expected his demons to deviate from most other angelics, certain things needed entire revision for human standards.

“Did you tell him that you were his prey?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“He asked me what it meant, and then we started talking about my family, since that was where I got the term from.”

Suho next question halted as Chen smiled. He couldn’t actually see it, but expressions were easy to see in the curves of his lightning demon’s cheeks. Instead, he considered what such happiness might mean.

“Do you want Minseok to be your prey forever?”

The curves fell, and Chen raised his head from his knees, looking at him.

“Forever might be out of the reach of someone who lived as a human, but it might also be out of reach of an angelic. Think carefully of what you want and how you’re going to ask Minseok, along with how you’re going to apologize.”

Chen lowered his head but nodded. Suho understood why Chen submitted the repeal—what demon, especially of his unit, would allow someone else to sneer at the name of a friend?—but Minseok came from the perspective of an older brother, and those of Tehom knew that unasked interference from another unitmate still had no excuse. Deciding to leave Chen to ponder until he was ready, Suho stood and started for his office.

“Commander, can I ask you something?”

Suho stopped and turned back.

“Did you meet my current coordinator at some point?”

“What prompted this question?”

“Yixing told me about a ‘crush’ thing that humans have. I wanted to know if you could help me differentiate it from…”

A crush? He hadn’t been to Earth for an extended time nor picked up any slang in several centuries, but if he recalled correctly from reports of various demons of his unit watching contemporary dramas, then a crush was similar to fancying someone.

“Differentiate it from what?”

“…From love.”

Suho couldn’t help the bit of surprise on his face. He had written about happier emotions in a memo once but not about love. Actually, he had specifically left out a detailed explanation of it because he didn’t have much experience with the feeling, and it would be wrong to teach his demons about which he didn’t know. Perhaps he should have researched this topic more.

“I did meet Yixing by chance while delivering books back to Commander Unmaik. I’m not knowledgeable enough about love to differentiate it.”

Chen opened his huddle and planted his feet on the ground, shifting forward.

“What’d you think of him?”

“Of Yixing? He was pleasant and interesting company.”

The lightning demon tilted his head, and Suho felt a bit of dread drop in his organs.

“Would you meet him again?”

“I don’t see why I wouldn’t.”

“Did you like being with him? Did he do anything in particular that stood out?”

Chen’s aura was flaring in excitement, while Suho himself felt like ebbing back to his office as quickly as possible. He hadn’t contemplated the question of Yixing that deeply before, but if his soldier was asking for information, he couldn’t turn him away. Suho forced himself to think of the angel and the answers to Chen’s questions, which came surprisingly easy.

“Yes to the first, and no to the second.”

“Does that mean you have a crush on him?”

Suho forced himself to stay in his living room.

“Do I have a crush on Yixing? Is that your question?”

Chen nodded, amber sparking in his eyes, and Suho felt his feet lock into the floor. That wasn’t a question he could answer so carelessly. He needed to strategize, consider the consequences, find the evidence to confirm. But judging from Chen’s context, the reports from his demons, and the feelings he felt whenever just looking at the angel’s letter, Suho’s logical mind lit in conclusion.

“Yes.”

Chen’s eyes widened in shock, and Suho stopped in his entire being.

“Does that mean it’s not love? Can it become love? How does that work?”

Suho couldn’t answer because the weight of what he just said rattled in his head, and some sort of strange tickling in his chest somehow pushed a smile over his lips. The commander of Tehom having a crush on an angel coordinator? From one meeting? And if he was correct in his translation, then he didn’t just fancy the angel. His mind simply grappled for any method that pulled his shapeless but overflowing emotions into something solid, even if as flimsy as a word like 'crush.'

There was a golden hue of pride that Suho realized was admiration whenever he thought of what the angel must have endured; then the steady gaze like hands holding him close that he realized belonged to understanding when they spoke and laughed; and then the most overwhelming—the darker yet innocent radiation of want humming throughout his being. But that was chained by what always accompanied him—old fear. Would that count? Did his emotions matter if another lockmaster bound his emotions and disintegrated the key? He didn’t understand it himself, but his soldier obviously thought he did, so how would he answer him?

Moving to the other side of the couch, Suho sat and sighed in his hands. Yixing’s face and words and laugh were surfacing to his mind, and as much as he wanted those images to leave, he also wanted them to stay. He had had that contradiction wage internal war before, but the last time had been from grief.

Right now, t