Chen let out exasperated groan as the new angel asked another question about how the human’s (ah, wait, there are two of them now—okay, fine—Kim Minseok) becoming a demonic proxy would affect the human currently passed out on the couch, Luhan. Even without the guardian angel attached to his back, Chen could tell that this human had been blessed from birth. He radiated a weaker version of an angel’s aura, and from what he heard the guardian say about his habit of inadvertently wandering into places and progressing on a milestone in life, Chen guessed that his blessing came in fate.

And the big boss upstairs said that it could be dangerous, thus the guardian angel.

Chen stopped listening to Yixing and the GA—his name was Tao, apparently—and instead glanced over at Kim Minseok. The proxy had gotten a blanket and some water and was currently staring into space while rubbing the guardee’s shoulder. He would have gagged at the act if Kim Minseok’s early behavior hadn’t intrigued him. The proxy had suddenly stopped reacting, his eyes wouldn’t focus, and fear had wisped out of his scent.

He didn’t get it, but he knew that Yixing knew something about it. After Kim Minseok went to the door, the coordinator had grabbed Chen’s wrist and seared light into his skin. He hadn’t used enough to leave a permanent mark, but before Chen could even voice his annoyance, the angel projected out his aura and yanked him to his face.

“Don’t ever say those words to Minseok again.”

Normally, Chen would’ve incited a challenge right then and there, but he didn’t like not knowing something. It made him that much more similar to ignorant humans, and he would rather step foot in a church before that happened. Plus, Chen saw this as an opportunity to understand the strange mind of Kim Minseok—for psychological tormenting later, of course. Torture always came in three methods, as his unit leader said: physical, mental, and empathic.

So when the angels finished talking, Tao woke his guardee, and Kim Minseok came up with some excuse that he and Yixing were his coworkers who needed to see some work documents, Chen followed them to the door, watching. He basked in the fact that Kim Minseok had to defend him against the human’s questions of whether he was a sleazy coworker or if he was treating the proxy well. The human sent suspicious glances to him right until he left, but his GA lingered at the door for a moment, looking at Kim Minseok.

“Kim Minseok?”

“Yes?”

“Your house, what wood is it made out of?”

The human’s eyes widened a little (from their usually already wide- position).

“Hawthorn.”

Tao nodded and gave him a little smile, fluttering his wings a little to catch up to his guardee. Haughty angel.

“Minseok, I’m sure that today was a bit overwhelming, so let’s talk more tomorrow. Rest for now.”

Kim Minseok’s eyes slid to Chen.

“He will come with me. I need him to show me the place where he fought with the target.”

The human nodded and patted Yixing’s shoulder, not even sparing another glance to Chen as he moved deeper into the house. The coordinator jerked his head towrads the doorway, and Chen huffed but followed. Yixing shut the door and tapped the knob, the lock clicking from inside.

“Hawthorn explains why his house feels so cloaked. Sacred wood, and it was probably blessed.”

Chen looked back at the house and squinted when the outlines of the house blurred, roof melding into leaves, beams blending into trunks, and the pathway covered by forest litter. He hadn’t noticed it since he had been unconscious getting into the house. Ugh, those words together felt disgusting to think.

“I felt traces of a fight that night I came and healed you. We’ll start there.”

“Alright, but I have a question for you.”

“What is it?”

“Are we really letting this human keep his memory? It’s heavily advised that no human aside from certain exceptions get to know about what we do.”

“A human unintentionally turned into a proxy ought to warrant that exception.”

“We can protect him without him knowing. Like I said, cleanse with a little hellfire and then erase his memory. He’s not demon enough for his body to recognize that connection with hell yet, so I’m sure it’ll work.”

“Your so-called certainty is not something I’m going to wager Minseok’s life on. Also, our target is Hayong. Power from a high-level demon can be volatile.”

“Look, Yixing. I know you’re buddy-buddy with this human, but he’s a liability, and I’m not taking the blame for when this guy starts blabbering.”

“He won’t blabber.”

“How do you know? He seems wishy-washy.”

Yixing stopped walking and turned around. Under the streetlamp, the angel’s aura flared, causing the light to dazzle, blinding to a mortal but manageable for a demon. Chen squinted against the brightness, but he didn’t miss the flash of white in his brown eyes. Angel eyes couldn’t change color unless the big boss upstairs was seeing through them, and it didn’t look like that.

“He’s recovering from more than just discovering our existence and becoming a proxy.”

“You’re talking about his little freeze up in the living room?”

“Yes.”

“So? What set him off? I was just stating facts. One human soul for the trade of a thousand doesn’t sound so balanced.”

“The sacrifice of even one is too much, Chen.”

He shrugged. “Then why can’t we just protect the guy without him knowing? Hayong won’t have her power to fall back on, and we can devote our time to protecting more humans, and Kim Minseok won’t turn demon or die. And it’s not like we have to erase everything. He can keep the memories of you playing human.”

Yixing didn’t say anything for a moment, but his aura dimmed back, and Chen watched his brown eyes again.

“Perhaps. But I think this is the best way to protect him as well as capture our target.”

“You’re using your coordinator status over me?”

“Yes, because it’s in our best interests.” He looked past Chen, back to the house. “And I’m a little selfish.”

Chen couldn’t believe his ears. An angel admitting that they were anything but justified, a rule-follower, and holy? He grinned.

“Oh? You’re a little too attached to this human, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” the angel admitted without hesitation. “If you ask me, someone higher-up must’ve had their up in spite for giving him such ungrateful grubs for family.”

Chen liked a good roast, especially towards those goodie two-shoes, but even he glanced up at the heavens at the angel’s curse. And it honestly surprised him that the angel who always took a trap-and-reason-with-the-target kind of approach and who cried over stolen souls sounded so acrid towards anyone against this particular human. And he wanted to know why.

“Is that so? Then what if I had asked you what gave you the balls to defend this human so badly, then what would you say?”

Yixing chuckled, turning back down the road, but Chen heard the bitterness bite in his words, which only made him want to pull out the secrets even more.

“Old habits die hard.”

~~~~~

Minseok looked at his back through the mirror and sighed. A snowflake symbol really had inked itself in the space between his shoulder blades. The snowflake had eight points with four of the points ending in spikes and the other four in circles. Two additional circles hovered on the outside, one filled, the other open. He had never really thought about getting a tattoo, but if he had to get one, he would have liked his life to be not hanging on the line because of it.

He probably should have been more freaked out about everything. After all, he had been forced to undergo a process that was altering his very species, and no one had talked of a cure or a reversal. He asked himself about his relative calmness, and the voice of his brother echoed. Those words he recognized without actually hearing them. They accused him of not really caring. Minseok opened his mouth to disagree but closed it again. No one would hear his argument, and the longer the words echoed, the closer ‘yes’ formed on his tongue. In the last second, he found the strength to whip his head to the side, then to the other, and again and again until the voices left. He gripped his arms, and when the skin started to leave harsher trails of sensations under his nails, he slipped on his polo shirt. Covered, he sighed, made his way through his morning routine, and drove to work.

Yixing had texted him to meet for lunch to discuss things, so Minseok just had to pretend that he wasn’t slowly turning into a demon to get work done until then.

Clocking in, Minseok started work by calling his most pleasant client, Jeong Jaehyun from NC Tech. They had solidified the terms, and all Jeong Jaehyun had to do was get his boss to sign it. Minseok had told him that they accepted electronic signatures, but the rep insisted that they meet in person for dinner as well. Tonight too. His own boss, Gu Dawae, couldn’t make a dinner on such short notice, but Jeong Jaehyun said that Minseok himself would be enough.

From then until lunch, Minseok had a mildly frustrating day trying to inform a new client, Horizon Malls, about the standard terms of their commercial business collection in between other phone calls. He might have clicked the ‘send’ button for the email a little too harshly since he had to manually lift the left mouse button back up from its stuck position afterwards.

Once lunch neared, he let himself check his phone. Luhan had messaged him, asking if the rude cat-looking guy was bothering him, so Minseok replied that he was fine (for now). In between telling him that all his co-workers had been so nice to him and that he wanted to make his mark on the school soon, he also asked for a raincheck on the pet park, and Minseok didn’t have any excuse planned so he ended up agreeing. He groaned just thinking of how this was going to bite in the later.

Yixing messaged him to meet at the Cafeteria, so he headed towards there. Even though he was hoping and wishing that a certain demon wouldn’t be there, he felt a static in the air before he even turned the corner, and he sighed.

Yixing waved at him, Chen had taken one of the little flag decorations that the lunch servers stuck into food for the visiting fieldtrip kids and played with it, and… Kyungsoo was there? They never ate together before, and Minseok thought that they would discuss more about the proxy problem. Unless—

“Minseok! I hope you rested well. Since you know about us now, I thought that I would reintroduce you to Kyungsoo aka one of the demons in our team, D.O.”

“Minseok,” Kyungsoo—D.O nodded at him.

He sat down next to Yixing, staring at his coworker who was a demon all this time. His scary onsite managing power and radiation of ‘go away’ aura clicked into place.

“You two knew each other this whole time?”

“Yes, he’s one of the best fighters on the team.”

Minseok nodded. He remembered the way he found the disposal manager in a defensive stance when they ran into each other in the office hallways. In the corner of his eye, he saw Chen huff.

“Now that we’re here, we can start planning what to do with your situation, Minseok.”

“Is all of your team here? Don’t you need to discuss it with everyone?”

“We have one more demon and two more angels, but they are tending to their individual tasks. For example, Kai, the demon who popped into your car, is scouting for Hayong, and Luna, one of the angels, is currently blending in with humans who are more likely to be taken to watch over them. They know of your situation, and I will update them on the plan once we think on it.”

Minseok supposed that he couldn’t escape Chen even if he wanted to, and he very much wanted to. The demon was eyeing him like a cat eyed its prey, plus a smirk.

“First, we already decided that we will protect you from any contact with Hayong with you knowing about it.” Yixing narrowed his eyes at Chen, who just crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “She’ll likely come after you, and if other creatures find out about a chance to absorb an easy source of demonic power, they’ll also flock to you.”

“What kind of creatures? Are they also demons?”

“Some might be. Some might just be creatures that escaped from hell or heaven, hungry for power.”

Minseok rubbed his arms, repeating the idea in his head before following it with a flood of reassurances, all depending that Yixing would have a plan that would keep him from becoming supernatural mincemeat.

“In order to preempt that, I’m assigning Chen to guard you.”

Minseok took that back—he would rather be supernatural mincemeat.

“You’re what?”

“I’m WHAT?”

Minseok winced at Chen’s screeching volume, and even D.O scowled at him and got up from the table, heading to the lunch line. Yixing merely took a sip of soup.

“You will be guarding Minseok in case Hayong or anyone else comes after him again. She tried twice at two different supermarkets. She knows where he frequents.”

“That’s not my problem! I will not be stuck babysitting a human who was in the wrong place at the wrong time!”

Minseok flinched at that word, rubbing his arms, but he stilled his hands at his sides. Maybe Yixing didn’t notice.

“Chen, lower your voice.”

A group of workers walked in, chatting with each other and greeting Kyungsoo—D.O—in the lunch line. Minseok took a deep breath.

“I’m not looking after or even at this human any longer than I have to,” Chen hissed.

“What happened to your liking of the cat appreciation Minseok gave you?”

Minseok looked at Chen, but he clicked his tongue, glaring at Yixing.

“I was a freaking cat. Any human would’ve treated me like—like Sekhmet.”

“The Egyptian lioness goddess of warfare and healing?”

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