Yokai AU:

His skin was warm against your cold one, the scent of dark amber and ginger lily played against the top of your nose as you nuzzled yourself within his arms, the night was colder than usual, Winter was near. Despite his tender wounds and the constant stinging discomfort on his upper back, he willingly let you sleep on his arms, and chest whenever you moved.

“Ryosuke ..” You softly called, taking him by surprise as he swore you were in a deep slumber. “Yes?” He replied, eyes still fixed on the ceiling.

“Will it ever stop? The attacks I mean .. will it get better?” The torment lingering in your tired voice tugged even the most stiff strings of his heart.

“It doesn’t matter, I will always be here to protect you. I can take it all, it truly doesn’t matter.” He spoke so nonchalantly, so unbothered and it most certainly irked you. Ryosuke was expressionless and careless, you questioned if he was truly that strong or simply foolishly presumptuous, it was a mystery.

Concerned you lifted your gaze from his arms, immediately pulling his eyes on you, “But your wings .. t-they ripped them off—“

“It doesn’t matter. They will eventually grow back, you need not worry.” A weak attempt of a reassuring smile made its way upon his chapped lips, he was drained and it showed. But you couldn’t settle for his apathy towards his mutilated body, or the situation; he was too relaxed.

But you knew better, you fully knew it was all a mere facade to ease your own worry. It wasn’t working, unbeknownst to him.

“Stop acting like this, so .. so indifferent. Please .. stop pretending like this isn’t my fault—“

“Silence!” As expected, Ryosuke’s unremarkable temperament lashed out at you, stunned at his quickness in lifting himself off the bed you stayed quiet, not by his orders but by perplexity. He was fast in getting up but did not measure the amount of pain he would feel coursing through his back muscles as he did so, while he pretended to be unfazed by the blistering pain, you saw it being displayed crystal clear within his body language, he was as stiff as rock and his breathing was agitated.

Putting his brutish temper aside you stood from the bed and walked towards him, the bed sheets clinging gently on your fingers to tenderly lift them over his sore shoulders, covering his shirtless body and bringing him warmth. The tender act brought a sense of relief to his sudden anger, your predictable kindness alleviating his rigid breathing, the thin material upon his shoulders wasn’t remotely as warm as the fingers that gently graced him.

“This is not your fault. Please stop saying it is, don’t ever say it again ..” His anger ultimately lessened and his tone became low, tired. Still you could hear the implore in his voice, “You aided me in my time of need and for that I devote myself to you, a human. I, as a Tengu took that as my own burden willingly. I was fully aware of the consequences of taking care of a human, it is not your fault, it never will be.”

As Ryosuke spoke you went back in time for a moment, the recollection of your teenage years and how you met Ryosuke hitting you in vivid flashbacks. You still remember him, like a wounded animal resting ever so uncomfortably by a near river, his upper body was laying on the riverside while the other half was soaked in the waters, as you cautiously approached the boy you could see evident wounds, deep and raw on his arms and back. Similar to the present time, you found Ryosuke with deep lacerations just a little below his shoulders, a few black feathers were stuck to his skin, as bizarre as it was, they seemed to be plucked out. Little did you understand what you were witnessing; a wounded boy, of course! Yet you couldn’t understand how was it possible that a human boy had black feathers sticking out of his forearms and the lacerations on his back. What happened to him. You’d ask your 14 year old self.

Naturally you helped the half conscious boy to dry land, receiving a few mumbles and winces by his freshly looking wounds. You helped him. Little by little as days went by, you learned his name. Yamada Ryosuke, he said. The young boy was fascinating to you, a bit grumpy and whiny but so interesting; perhaps the icy blue eyes the boy possessed were the key part to your undying interest in him. Your teenage heart had, slowly but surely, caught a crush on the mysterious boy you happily gave a home to.

At the time, Ryosuke had long hair and most days he would wear it in a messy short ponytail, the rebellious strands of hair that fell to the sides of his face and the fringe that covered his ethereal eyes surely added to the beauty he had. He helped both your mother and yourself around the house with chores, he even took it upon himself to cook most nights, he was truly a dream inside one hell of a moody teenager. Ryosuke’s generosity did not match his character, but it added to your interests.

You grew close to the boy, in truth he was one of the first friends you made while living in the Gunma Prefecture in the town of Kusatsu. It was the countryside of Tokyo and you lived mostly with elderly people or children, you were the only teenager until Ryosuke appeared. The boy was reserved and didn’t speak much unless angered, then he would be the most outspoken and straightforward person, never missing a beat on telling it how it is regardless of whom he spoke to. You wondered why he decided to stay in your town but he would just say he had nowhere to go, no friends or family, he was alone.

It wasn’t until your last year of high school that you finally had the chance to see his true form and identity. Little did you know that the teenager you helped back on the riverside wasn’t even a human boy, but a god. One that rebelled against the demons of war and was ultimately rejected into living among the humans ..

You learned that all along Ryosuke had been serving you as a familiar, a kind repay for the days you spent sheltering him. He was a Tengu, the most humanized yokai you had ever met—or seen for that matter. You’d hear stories about dangerous Tengus, yet Ryosuke seemed to be gradually softened into one of protection. Stubborn but kind, grumpy but beautiful .. he wasn’t a monster like his kind had been depicted for years.

During that year you also learned that one of the reasons Ryosuke willingly protected you was because other fellow demons wanted to persuade you, see who was the infamous human Yamada Ryosuke proclaimed himself as their familiar, have a taste of you perhaps. To his kind, he was a traitor.

It was then after high school that the attacks became more serious, no longer were you able to live a normal life within the comfort of your home, things were unstable. The best place for security against the evil spirits and your wellbeing was entirely within the walls of a shrine in Kyoto far inside a forest but not entirely isolated from society, frankly, it was your own wish to be among nature and a little bit away from the busy streets of the crowded city.

The Atago Shrine reminded you of home, it’s forest felt like your childhood town in Kusatsu, filled with greenery and nature. You became known as the shrines caretaker and heard people’s prayers and stories, although you were not a land god or even a spirit, the locals were fond of you nevertheless. They found it strange how an unknown girl came from out of nowhere to live her days in a rundown shrine, the locals had their own theories about you however, and you could tell. Never had the locals met Ryosuke, but rumors say ‘they have seen a man with black wings aro