Lia feels like her work as Yuna’s guardian demon was way harder than her fellow demon peers.

 

Shin Yuna wasn’t a horrible person no, she wasn’t a murderer, she wasn’t even a vegetarian— she was just on another level of annoying.

 

Day by day, most of her decisions were just ‘should I piss this person off?’ and almost all the time, the answer is yes- and that was mostly because her guardian angel was Ryujin Shin, one of the busiest angels in the business.

 

Ryujin Shin was one of the higher ups in the ranking of the angels, even nearing the status of archangel, so she was often dealing with bigger problems in the world, like poverty and the ridiculous nerve of some people to detonate bombs left and right.

 

Lia isn’t even sure how she ended up having to become Yuna’s guardian angel.

 

“Hehe, Yeji is coming- should I scare her?” Yuna asks internally, and if Ryujin were here, she’d have to argue with Ryujin about what they would influence Yuna’s decision to be- but since she’s not, Lia just sighs.

 

“Whatever you want kid,” Lia whispers, and Yuna giggles, heading over to the poor Yeji, who yelps as Yuna scares her senseless.

 

“Lia,” a familiar voice suddenly calls, and Lia extends her wings, protecting herself from the new voice, which was more of a natural reflex than something intentional.

 

“Woah- don’t be scared, I’m not here to banish you from the heavens,” Ryujin says with a chuckle, Lia letting her wings droop onto the floor.

 

“I’m a demon Ryujin, I already am banished from the heavens,” Lia scowls, and Ryujin smiles, grabbing Lia’s hand.

 

“Aren’t you going to give me a kiss?” Ryujin asks, her puppy dog eyes at play.

 

“No, your halo might kill me,” Lia states, and Ryujin’s mouth opens and shuts, the angel then making her halo disappear.

 

“Now will you?” Ryujin asks with a loopy smile, and Lia sighs before looking at her counterpart, leaning in for a kiss.

 

Ryujin quickly captures her lips in hers, only pulling away to kiss both the demon’s cheeks and her nose, the devil’s incarnate only pushing her off when she started to kiss her neck.

 

“Hey hey hey- be holy,” Lia warns and Ryujin just laughs.

 

“What’s Yuna been up to?”

 

“What do you think? Pranking people and flunking tests- the usual,” Lia says casually, and Ryujin groans at her words.

 

“Babe! Why didn’t you stop her?”

 

“That’s your job Miss Shin,” Lia reminds, and Ryujin sighs, but instead of chasing after Yuna to stop her from doing something stupid, she kisses Lia yet again, shocking the demon, who shakes her head in disbelief.

 

“What was that for?”

 

“That’s for not guiding Yuna to the light,” Ryujin says in a tone that made it seem as if she’d hurt her or something.

 

“Excuse me? My job is to guide her to hell, and unlike you- I need to keep my job,” Lia states, but Ryujin shakes her head.

 

“I do need to keep this job!” Ryujin exclaims, and Lia squints, because why would this high ranking angel need to keep the most mundane of angelic tasks?

 

“It’s the only way I get to see you,” Ryujin admits, and Lia rolls her eyes at her cheesy angel girlfriend, pushing her towards Yuna, to stop her from shooting a spitball at Yeji.

 

Yes, they were dating. Lia isn’t even sure how she came to like Ryujin. I mean, as a demon, Lia never really hated angels, though it was supposedly in her nature to, meeting and working with Ryujin wasn’t that big of a hassle, but after having to repeatedly argue with her about what was best for Yuna’s wellbeing, she found comfort in Ryujin’s angelic ways.

 

Lia thought her feelings were stupid, and obviously pushed them away every time they threatened to surface, but somehow, that wretched angel caught feelings for her as well.

 

“You’re different,” Ryujin said, and Lia cringed at the clichè words.

 

“From what? Other demons?” Lia questioned, Ryujin shaking her head.

 

“From other angels,”

 

“That’s because I’m not an angel Ryujin,”

 

“You are,”

 

“To me,”

 

“Lia,” Ryujin calls, and Lia snaps out of her daydreams of the past, looking to her girlfriend.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“You need to hold back your influence on the baby!” Ryujin complains, and Lia just laughs at her girlfriend’s defeat in disciplining their assigned human.

 

“I wouldn’t have that much of an influence on her if you just intervened,” Lia states, referring to Ryujin’s lack of attendance in Yuna’s daily life. Ryujin finds herself taken aback by Lia’s words, reaching out to hold Lia’s hand, but she doesn’t take it, only looking away from her angelic counterpart.

 

“And she’s seventeen now- just in case you didn’t remember,”

 

“Jisu I—”

 

“Don’t call me that,” Lia spites, stepping away from Ryujin.

 

“I’m sorry,” she says, looking downwards, not daring to say anymore.

 

Truth be told, Lia wasn’t always a demon. Once upon a time, she was an angel, but she had no recollection of her life as one, all she knew was her name, and that she was cast away from the heavens for a reason she could not, and did not want to remember.

 

Jisu was her name as an angel, a name she couldn’t use anymore for obvious reasons.

 

“One more,” Ryujin says, and Lia finally looks at her, questioning her words with her eyes.

 

“I have one more mission to do, then I can stay,” Ryujin says, taking both of Lia’s hands, almost burning from the touch, but she holds on.

 

“You promise?” Lia asks, and Ryujin is about to die from the hellish heat that Lia was emitting, something she did when she was serious or when she was mad.

 

“I- i promise,” Ryujin replies, though she feels like her face is about to melt off.

 

“Are you alright Ryujin? You look sick? If you can’t promise me you don’t— RYUJIN!” Lia almost screeches when Ryujin passes out, falling backwards and onto the ground, Lia panicking in an instant.

 

“Ryujin? Ryujin what in the name of Lucifer happened?” Lia kneels next to the angel, looking for any possible reason why Ryujin suddenly out despite being one of the most powerful beings in the heavens.

 

Then she spots the burn marks on Ryujin’s hands, and she clamps shut with one hand, using the other to touch the grass on the ground, and as expected, it caught fire immediately, Lia only able to gasp in shock and panic as she stomped on it to put the flame out.

 

“I’m so sorry,” Lia says with a sigh. It was times like this that reminded her that they weren’t actually supposed to be together, but everytime Lia thought of the idea of breaking up, Ryujin would come back, and things would seem to be okay yet again. It was a never ending cycle, but it was always along Lia’s favorite route.

 

“You’re an idiot,” Lia says as she waits for her body to cool down before she could drag Ryujin into Yuna’s house.

 

“An angel with a good life and a perfect track record,” Lia says. “And you want to date the devil that was thrown out of heaven,” Lia scowls, laying down on the grass next to Ryujin.

 

“Why?” Lia questioned, though she knew Ryujin was going to be passed out for a while, since her halo wasn’t there to protect her earlier.

 

“And you made that promise,” Lia says. “Knowing fully well that angel’s can’t break promises- or else they’ll die,” Lia says with a chuckle at how fragile the life of an angel was.

 

When it came to honour, angel’s clearly had the higher status, but when it came to pure and raw power, the demon’s took the lead. Though to be honest, angel’s could reign infinite power if they wanted to, it’s just that they were too nice to actually do so.

 

“MOOOMMMM!”

 

A rogue Shin Yuna came running through the grass, a terrified look on her face as she leaped over the couple, looking back at whatever seemed to be chasing her. Lia sits up from her position to take a glance at what Yuna was so afraid of, and she almost chokes on nothing when she sees the horde of geese running towards her direction.

 

“Geese? She got in trouble with geese?!” Lia questions in distress at how big of a trouble maker Yuna was.

 

“I didn’t even influence her!” Lia sighs in disbelief as she lifts the angel off the ground, the geese passing through them as she used her wings to levitate off the ground, watching as Yuna banged on the door of her house.

 

“Mom!! Help???” Yuna begs, but Lia saw her mom walk out of the house to get to the store earlier, so Yuna was on her own.

 

Well, unless of course, Lia used her own other worldly powers to save her from geese.

 

ing geese.

 

Lia flies to the steps that led to Yuna’s porch, Ryujin still curled up in her arms, she knew animals could see her, they just couldn’t interact with her unless she did first, so she floated right above the steps, revealing her true form to the geese.

 

Her face began to peel off, revealing the deep red skin with the stone-like texture, her horns beginning to extend. Only half of her face was left after she’d fully transformed, both her hands turning into talons with only some patches of regular skin, all in the name of scaring the silly geese.

 

The geese finally stop, looking at the demon in confusion, then fear, and then they ran off, which freaked Yuna out the slightest bit, but she was safe now, so she decided to just shrug it off.

 

“Hahah! Serves you right! Ugly geese,” Yuna says happily, and Lia just sighs, planting her feet firmly on the mortal stairs.

 

“You’re so hot when you go into demon time,” Ryujin mumbles all of the sudden, Lia almost dropping her in the process.

 

“Ryujin! You scared me!” Lia yelps, her voice 5 octaves lower than the usual, and Ryujin just gives her a dopey smile, cuddling deeper into her arms.

 

“You should be scaring me with that satanic look, but I just think you look so y,” Ryujin says, sounding high as a kite as she did, making Lia chuckle at her antics.

 

“Right, and I think we should get you to bed,” Lia says, floating up the staircase and into Yuna’s room, where she rarely slept anyways, since the human prefered to watch TV until she fell asleep, making the living room her bedroom.

 

She tucks Ryujin into the bed at first, the angel snuggling into the warm human sheets. Lia follows soon after, her true skin very much soothed with the feeling of the soft duvet. Even better when Ryujin slinked herself around the demon, speeding up the process of her return to her normal- not all powerful form.

 

“Lia,” Ryujin mumbles into the crook of her neck, and Lia hums in response.

 

“I love you,” Ryujin says, and Lia almost screams, but as soon as she wraps her head around the idea of being loved by Shin Ryujin—

 

She smiles.

 

She wants to say it back, everything in her is begging her to say it back, but she can’t find the courage to, because saying those three words in return- was like making a promise to Ryujin- and though she wouldn’t, she felt that, if she were to break a promise with Ryujin, she’d die.

 

Truth be told, when it came to Ryujin Shin—

 

Lia was just as fragile as the angels.

 

——

 

When Lia wakes up the next morning, exactly when Yuna wakes up- Ryujin is gone. She feels around for the angel’s presence in the bed, but she’s gone. She sits up as quick as light, scanning the room for any note she’d usually leave whenever she went off to work, often on Yuna’s mirror, but there was nothing.

 

“Ryujin?” Lia calls, but there was no response.

 

A sudden flash of light scares Lia out of her wits, and she sees the faint light from a halo from behind her, but the light was unfamiliar, and definitely not Ryujin’s.

 

“Jisu Choi,” the voice booms, and Lia tremors a bit at the use of her real name, but she turns around to look at the angel, Son Seungwan, an archangel who had the second highest ranking of all, which translated her to being Ryujin’s boss.

 

Lia only looks at the angel’s feet, knowing well it was of extreme disrespect to have a mere demon look an angel straight in the eyes.

 

“Ryujin was absent from her morning duties with her cohort today, I assumed she’d be with Yuna,” Seungwan says, and Lia just remains silent, since she had no clue where Ryujin was either.

 

“She’s not here,” Lia says formally, and Seungwan clicks her tongue.

 

“Do you have any idea where she’d be?” Seungwan asks. “Her underlings said the last time they saw her, she was going to Yuna,” Seungwan states, and Lia just remains silent, because she was about as worried as Seungwan was about the wellbeing of the angel.

 

“I have no idea ma’am,” Lia says, shaking her head.

 

“Was she here yesterday?”

 

“Yes, I saw her until nightfall- by morning she was gone,” Lia says truthfully, but Seungwan simply sighs.

 

“Did you kill her Jisu?” Seungwan asks straight, not beating around the bush for a second.

 

“What?! I would never!” Lia defends herself, the shock causing her to look up, straight into the angel’s eyes.

 

Oh .

 

She’s tossed back by an invisible force directly onto the wall, groaning as the sharp pain pulsated through her, the full power of an archangel no match for a lowly demon.

 

“Then why are you recovering from your true form?” Seungwan asks, and Lia, who was limp on the floor, finally saw her foot, which was still in it’s true, demonic form.

 

“I- I was scaring some geese for Yuna,” Lia admits, which makes Seungwan even more curious about the ex-angel than before.

 

“What? Don’t lie to me Jisu, you have every possible motive to kill Ryujin—”

 

“I DIDN’T KILL RYUJIN!” Lia insists, sick of being blamed for killing Ryujin, of all people.

 

I love you.

 

“I didn’t kill Ryujin- I swear on Satan’s name,” Lia says, her breath heavy as the invisible force pressed onto her chest.

 

“You do?”

 

“I do,” Lia says, begging Seungwan to leave her alone, her eyes trained on the archangel’s knees.

 

“Fine then- but if we find any proof- you’re as good as dead Jisu,” Seungwan says, the invisible force immediately lifted from the devil’s chest.

 

“Goodbye,” Seungwan vanishes with a snap of her fingers, and Lia is left alone to ponder about her girlfriend’s whereabouts.

 

I have one more mission to do.

 

“What the are you doing Shin Ryujin,”

 

——

 

After hours and hours of worrying, Lia finally puts a stop to her train of thoughts, abruptly standing up from her spot in the corner of Yuna’s room, marching down the stairs and towards the front door. But a snoring Yuna (at 3.00 PM) stops her from making her next move.

 

Where the hell was she going? What was she trying to do?

 

She had no clue where Ryujin was, and no idea if she were safe, in trouble or if she’d just gone out for a grocery run. She had no friends to help her out either. Well, she did have Irene, the leader of her cohort, but it would ultimately expose her for dating an angel, and that would be no good. All the thoughts in her head somehow take her back to the sleeping Yuna on the couch.

 

The kid did like adventures an awful lot.

 

“Yuna,” Lia calls, channeling a bit of her power, just enough to reveal herself to Yuna. It was a trick Irene had shown her while she was training, since demons often got bored on earth, especially if their human was a goody two shoes, scaring people was how they spent their past times.

 

Lia obviously doesn’t want to scare her, so she jumps on top of the human, proceeding to hover over her with her scaly wings.

 

She spends all her time with me anyways, how could she be scared?

 

“Yuna! Wake up!” Lia says, shaking the girl awake, now having channeled enough power to physically exist in Yuna’s world.

 

“Shhhh I’m napping mom,” she mumbles and Lia slaps her hard on the face, but Yuna seems unbothered, light snores coming out of her.

 

“SHIN YUNA!” Lia screams in a demonic voice, the sound shocking the human out of her wits, the Shin jolting awake, the sight of Lia with her horns and wings only making her scream in terror.

 

“OH MY GOD I’M GONNA DIE!!?” Yuna screeches as she falls off the back of the couch’s armrest, crashing onto the wooden floor with a painful thud.

 

“Yuna! You have to listen to me!”

 

“IT KNOWS MY NAME GOD IT KNOWS MY NAME!”

 

“No! I need you to help me find your guardian angel!” Lia retaliates, but Yuna wasn’t one to listen.

 

“Pleaseeeee God, don’t take me now- I’m too pretty to die!”

 

“YOU’RE NOT DYING!”

 

——

 

It takes one whole hour and 33 minutes to explain to Yuna the entire story of Lia’s life- from who she was, what she was, what she was doing here, who Ryujin was, what Ryujin was, who Ryujin was to Lia, it was all in all, a horridly frustrating ordeal, but Yuna was Lia’s only hope of getting proper help, so perhaps- it was worth it.

 

“So let me get this straight, your angel girlfriend, who’s my guardian angel, is missing- and you need my help to find her,”

 

“Yes! Exactly,” Lia cheers victoriously, though Yuna still seemed to be questioning something.

 

“And you’re the demon that tells me to do bad things,”

 

“Oh I don’t tell you to do bad things, you get the ideas, I encourage them,” Lia clarifies, and Yuna nods in understanding, though she was still very much bewildered by the entire situation.

 

“So you need my help to find her?” Yuna suggests, and Lia nods, very much begging Yuna for her help.

 

“Please,” Lia says, for possibly the first time in her life, and Yuna just clicks her tongue.

 

“Well, don’t you have any idea of where she could be? She said she’d go on one more mission right?” Yuna asks, and Lia nods, trying to crack her head on whatever mission Ryujin could be on.

 

“She did,”

 

“Didn’t she give any other clues?”

 

“I don’t- I don’t, know,”

 

“Have you ever thought of it?” Ryujin suddenly says, Lia only able to look at her in confusion. They were laying on Yuna’s bed, watching the ceiling fan spin around and around, the couple amazed at the technology humanity had managed to conjure.

 

“If we could be together- for real, not trapped within the four walls of Yuna’s house,”

 

“You want me to go to your house? In heaven? You know I’ll just disintegrate,” Lia says with a chuckle.

 

“No I mean—”

 

“Mine in hell? You wouldn’t like it, it’s small and hot- and I’m pretty sure you’d disintegrate as soon as you’d step into—”

 

“No, Lia” Ryujin says, wrapping a firm hand around her waist.

 

“The human world,” Ryujin says, making Lia laugh even louder.

 

“You’re nuts,” Lia says, knowing the only way to become human was to face the Three Jury’s of Life, and make a deal with them, which was proven to work only once, and if you couldn’t come up with a deal that they deemed fitting, you’d be damned for eternity in The Jury’s Court, suffering for their entertainment.

 

Yeah Ryujin was definitely nuts.

 

“No,” Lia says in disbelief, looking directly at Yuna. “There’s no way,”

 

“What? Don’t tell me she’s on a deadly quest that involves her turning human for you?” Yuna’s guess matched Lia’s assumptions almost exactly, making her stare at Yuna in shock.

 

“Was I right? Hah! I know, I’ve read the books before,”

 

“You read books?” Lia questions and Yuna nods.

 

“Once in a while,” Yuna shrugs, and Lia bites her tongue, because Ryujin was always the one that enticed Yuna to read.

 

“So? Where do we need to go?” Yuna asks, pulling out a box of orange juice from the refrigerator.

 

“Do you like apple?” Yuna asks, holding up a box of apple juice. Lia has no answer, because she’s never tried human food before.

 

“Why am i asking? You’re a demon of course you like apples,” Yuna says, tossing the box of juice to Lia, who catches it with her tail.

 

“How do I-” Lia bites on the box, fangs nearly piercing through the box.

 

“No! No no no,” Yuna scolds, circling around the island to pry the box out of Lia’s mouth.

 

“Like this,” Yuna teaches the demon, pulling out the straw and pressing it into the little hole. She hands the demon the juice box, and Lia, still clueless, simply gnawing on the straw.

 

“Noooo, the straw,” Yuna tells, and Lia tries doing it, a sip of water passing through her lips and down .

 

A funny taste, but it was good.

 

“Good,” Lia says briefly, even harder to finish the drink- the box becoming crumpled because of the demon’s aggressive breath control.

 

“Well that was quick,”

 

——

 

“Is this hell?” Yuna asks, looking around at it’s very red interior, fanning herself from the bare minimum of heat.

 

“Not yet, this is just the city of hell, where all the demons live,” Lia says as they travel through the other dimension, as it were the fastest way to The Jury’s Court.

 

The Jury’s Court lay in the absolute centre of the dimensions. If you forgot which door you came in, you’d probably end up exiting to another dimension. Luckily, demons had excellent memory, which unfortunately led them to hold grudges very often.

 

“You live here?”

 

“Yeah, in some alleyway over there,”

 

“Hell’s not as bad as they say, it’s just about as hot as a summer day,” Yuna hums, but Lia shakes her head.

 

“No- you are not going to hell- this is the demon center, so obviously it’s not as hot, but the torture centers? You never want to go there,” Lia tells, and Yuna pouts.

 

“Can’t I just live with you in hell? You are my guardian demon right?” Yuna requests, and Lia finds it funny how this human actually seemed to take a liking to the depths of hell.

 

“Yeah, when you’re alive! When you’re dead you’re on your own,” Lia says. “You’re better off living with Ryujin in the 7th heaven anyways, she’s got a big house and all,” Lia suggests instead, and Yuna seems to like the idea as well, so she changes the topic.

 

“Why is everyone in hell so ugly? How come you’re pretty?” Yuna demands, and Lia doesn’t actually have an answer to that, since things were always like that, demons were relatively ugly, and angels were—

 

“It’s because pure demons in hell mostly use their true form, which is meant to be scary, not ugly,” Lia explains, and Yuna nods, but she doesn't seem completely satisfied with the answer.

 

“Then? Why are you pretty? You’re not a pure demon?”

 

“No, I was an angel- then I became a demon, and I'm not that pretty if you see my true form,” Lia says casually, but then the thought crosses her, her cohort leader, Irene, was a known beauty and she was a fallen angel as well. Her entire cohort, as a matter of fact, were all made of fallen angels. No wonder Satan gave them the odd jobs, they were the damned cohort of mistreatment.

 

“You were an angel?! What happened?” Yuna exclaims, forcing the demon to clamp shut with one of her wings.

 

“Sshhh! Being an angel isn’t exactly a good thing in hell,” Lia hisses, to which the younger just pouts.

 

“Ugh, your wings are so scaly,” Yuna says in disgust, to which Lia just rolls her eyes.

 

“They’re meant to be, it’s supposed to be scary,”

 

“You’re not really scary though, I mean- I’m taller than you!” Yuna teases, and Lia slaps the back of her head with her wing, the human scowling at the demon’s rash actions.

 

“Lia?” Taylor, one of the higher ups in the demonic ranks suddenly calls out her name, and she quickly turns and bows, greeting her superior. Taylor was one of the most convincing demon’s in the history of devil’s, as she was the serpent that convinced Eve to eat the apple, making her very popular amongst humans, angels and demons alike.

 

“Hello Ma’am,” Lia bows yet again as she says this, Yuna smart enough to follow suit.

 

“Who is this demon? I’ve never seen her before,” Taylor says, pointing to Yuna.

 

“Oh she’s new, I got her from the incubation center,” Lia lies casually, since she was a demon, sinning came easy to her.

 

“Really? When was she born?”

 

“50 years ago, no horns and wings yet,” Lia says quickly ,and Taylor nods.

 

“Cohort?” Taylor asks, clearly asking Yuna.

 

“Pride 3,” Lia answers for Yuna, who just smiles sheepishly.

 

“She’s pretty shy for someone from Pride,” Taylor says with a chuckle, and Yuna just smiles.

 

“But she’s smiley, and all those Pride kids are like that,” Taylor says again. “Good luck child,” Taylor says with a small smile, and she dissolved from sight, allowing the two to let out a sigh of relief.

 

“Pride? Are the cohorts named after the seven deadly sins? What’s yours?” Yuna asks excitedly, and Lia just sighs, because even in hell, Yuna had to be the most annoyingly curious little sprout she’d ever seen.

 

“And fifty years? Isn’t that too much? How old are you?” Yuna asks repeatedly, and Lia slams her wings against Yuna’s mouth, making her shut up immediately.

 

“First of all, yes, the main branches are named after the seven sins, I’m in Lust 13,” Lia answers her first question. “50 years is really young for a demon, I basically called you a baby, and I’m 5670 years old? I think,” Lia states, and Yuna gasps as Lia lets free.

 

“Five thousand six hundred and seventy? You’re so old,” Yuna says, and Lia shrugs.

 

“In human years I’m only 25,” Lia says casually, and Yuna pouts.

 

“Do the angels have cohorts? What’s Ryujin’s cohort?” Yuna asks again.

 

“Chastity 1, and she’s the leader,” Lia says with a prideful smile on her lips.

 

“The leader of the first cohort? You’re a loser compared to Ryujin, why does she like you?” Yuna asks, Lia smacking the back of her head yet again.

 

“I don’t know, why don’t you ask her when we find her,” Lia suggests, and Yuna nods, proceeding to walk for a few minutes in silence, and they finally arrive at hell’s immigration checkpoint, a place that wasn’t as red as the rest of the city.

 

There were two gigantic doors and no guards whatsoever, but there were a lot of people, most of them suddenly disappearing as soon as Yuna looked at them. Yuna was about to ask Lia another question, but a terrifying creature spawned in front of the duo, shocking Yuna, but Lia remained unfazed.

 

“Hello Eric,” Lia greets, and the winged bat-like creature smiles with his eyes.

 

“This is Eric the demon of lies, so don’t ask him any questions,” Lia tells, and Yuna nods aggressively, deciding to shut up while Lia dealt with the scary devil.

 

“What you passing through for Lia?” Eric asks, cocking a furry eyebrow.

 

“Looking for my human’s guardian angel,” Lia says truthfully, and Eric nods.

 

“Why?”

 

“To maintain balance, my human’s a bit out of control,” Lia says with a smile, and Eric nods in understanding.

 

“Of course, you’re free to go Lia and her friend!” Eric says happily, and the door suddenly opens, revealing rows and rows of white marble columns, extravagance only added with the marble floors that danced across the flooring.

 

“Please be here,”

 

——

 

Each step they take echoes against the marble, the duo hiding behind almost every marble column, looking out for the Shin. Yuna is crouching behind her, fists ready to attack anything that would threaten her on her mission to save her guardian angel.

 

When Lia spots Ryujin, she almost cries.

 

She was in a large cage, her halo flickering like mad as her wings and limbs were being stretched out with chains that were made from hell’s iron, the only iron that could kill an angel, her lips trembling from the pain.

 

“Ryujin Shin, the greatest angel of Chastity, leader of the first cohort of Chastity,” a booming voice says, and Ryujin just breathes heavily, clearly too tired to respond.

 

“You? Of all angels?” The voice questions. “You want to become human? Yet you give us no reason,” the voice says, Ryujin sighing at the demand.

 

“I’ve fallen in love with someone,” Ryujin admits, and Lia shakes her head, her hand reaching out to stop Ryujin from putting herself through that kind of hell.

 

“A human?” The voice asks, and Lia wants to scream at her to not admit, to never let the words leave that she’s fallen in love with a demon.

 

“A devil,” Ryujin says, and it’s like her words are echoed for eternity, because now there was no turning back, whether Ryujin would succeed or not, it would ruin her. The heavens would never accept her again.

 

After what felt like aeons of silence, the voice speaks.

 

“Lia, isn’t it?” The voice asks, and Ryujin sighs, coughing out a bit of blood as she nodded.

 

“Of course- even when she were an angel, you were already infatuated by her,”

 

“How could I not? She’s beautiful,” Ryujin says with a dopey smile, blood tainting her teeth.

 

“She gave up everything for me- she lied for me,” Ryujin says with a smile, though her eyes were hollow.

 

“So I could be safe, she lied, she broke her oath as an angel, she went to hell,” Ryujin recalls things that even Lia didn’t know, the devil’s mouth going agape as she heard the stories.

 

“You’re an angel of Chastity, in love with the fallen angel damned for eternity for the sin of Lust,” the voice says. “How ironic,”

 

“It was me, I was her sin,” Ryujin stressed, letting out a low growl as she did. “I fell in love with her first, I pursued her, I SHOULD’VE BEEN THE FALLEN ANGEL!” Ryujin’s volume increases with every word, Yuna’s eyes widening at her first official meeting with her guardian angel.

 

“But, but she did it,” Ryujin says, getting tired from her brief screams. “She took the blame, and- and, the very last thing she told me—”

 

“Was that she loved me,” Ryujin says, her eyes starting to gloss from the overwhelming flow of emotions she felt as she recalled the day she lost Lia for the first time.

 

“I, I need to make it up to her,” Ryujin says, determination starting to shine in her tone.

 

“In a world where, I can love her, with everything I have,”

 

“It’s all I need from you,” Ryujin says, and Lia is about to run to Ryujin, to tell her that she doesn’t need to do all that, and that she loved her regardless of anything that happened in the past, or would happen in the future. She’s stopped by Yuna pulling her back, gripping her wrist tight.

 

“You’ll die,” Yuna whispers, but Lia shakes her head.

 

“I have to stop her,”

 

“No- I can’t lose both my guardian angel and my demon on the same day,” Yuna says, and Lia wants to reason with her, but nothing can come out of .

 

“You’ll get a new one,” Lia says, but Yuna shakes her head, pulling Lia towards her so she wouldn’t run off.

 

“They wouldn’t let me bother Yeji everyday like you do,” Yuna says, but Lia shakes her head.

 

“I won’t die, I swear,” Lia says, giving Yuna a soft smile.

 

“On God?” Yuna asks with a matching smile, but Lia just laughs.

 

“On Satan,” Lia says with a smile, pulling herself away from Yuna, turning to run to Ryujin, but just as she does, Ryujin is released from the chains, the 20 meter drop making Lia scream in horror.

 

“RYUJIN!” Lia screams in terror, using her wings to surge forward, but just as she’s about to catch Ryujin, the angel uses her own wings to hover just above the hard marble.

 

“Jisu? What are you doing here?” Ryujin asks, her eyes wide as they landed on the demon.

 

“Fine, I’ll grant we will grant you both your humanity,” the voice booms. “So long as you beat our champion in a fight,”

 

The ground begins to rumble, Ryujin landing gently onto the floor, eyes not leaving Lia despite the chaos beginning to ensue around them.

 

“How are you here? Who’s taking care of Yuna?” Ryujin questions, and Lia replies by taking her hand.

 

“Demons have good memory, and Yuna is-” Lia explains briefly, pointing to the kid, who waved at Ryujin enthusiastically.

 

“You brought Yuna?! She’s just a kid! Who’s gonna take responsibility if she— OH !” Ryujin yells as a creature crashed through the marble flooring, pieces of rubble splattering all over the court.

 

“Ryujin,” Lia calls, distracting the angel from the creature. “Look at me,” Lia says, Ryujin abiding as soon as Lia said so. The demon gives her a quick kiss on the lips, which leaves the divine one bewildered for a moment, but the roaring of the creature pulls her back to reality, and just before they get a clear view of the beast, Lia says—

 

“I love you too,”

 

The creature appears to be a Chimera, equipped fully with it’s impenetrable fur, it’s lion head, and not to forget it’s goat and snake friend it insisted on bringing everywhere it went.

 

“Guys!! I found these on some statues!” Yuna suddenly calls, wielding two swords in each of her hands, trying her best to hold them up.

 

“You are not fighting little missy,” Ryujin scolds, to which Yuna pouts, but she tosses the swords in their direction, and Lia catches it with ease, the demon chuckling at her counterpart, who barely catches the sword.

 

“Ready love?” Lia asks, the sword immediately catching fire from it’s hilt to it’s very tip.

 

“Are you showing off?” Ryujin asks as her halo begins to glow, and Lia only winks at her, running off to charge at the chimera.

 

“HEY BUDDY!” Lia calls the beast, swinging her sword, the bright flames enticing a strong sense of anger in the monster.

 

“You got a name?” Lia asks, trying to aim for any chimera’s ultimate weakness, it’s mouth.

 

“What if I named you Bella? You like that?” Lia asks, managing to slice at the lion’s nose, causing it to roar in pain. Bella retaliated by extending its claws, slicing at the demon, rage emitting from it’s constant sneers and growls.

 

“I take it you don’t like it,” Lia says with a forced smile, and she almost screams when the chimera breathes pure fire into her face- and this was painful fire, the ones demon’s weren’t immune to.

 

She barely dodges the flames, sliding underneath the chimera, trying to burn through it’s skin, since only it’s fur was made to be heavy duty.

 

“Ryujin! It breathes the kind of fire that will kill you! Get away from it’s lion head!” Lia yells as she meets Ryujin on the other side of its body, the angel very much busy with the snake head.

 

“Thanks babe but i—” Ryujin can barely finish her sentence as Lia arrives by her side, cutting straight through the snake's mouth, causing the tail to go limp.

 

“You are showing off!” Ryujin says with a chuckle, Lia shaking her head.

 

“I won’t be if we die,” Lia says. “You take Bella’s goat friend, I’ll deal with the lion,” Lia says, flying off as soon as she did, leaving Ryujin with the goat head.

 

“Why do you even need a goat head? Goat’s are useless!” Ryujin sighs, using the light from her halo to blind the goat, the ridiculous head bleating in distress as Ryujin tried to pry it’s mouth open, yet the goat wasn’t cooperating with her, only showing off it’s horrendously yellow teeth.

 

“Ryujin! Catch!” Yuna suddenly intervened, throwing a bag to the angel, who swiftly caught it with her wings.

 

“What is this?!” Ryujin asked, fending from the goat’s horns with her sword while she opened the bag with her wings, tossing one of it’s contents into her free hand.

 

a P P l e j U I c e

 

“Apple juice?!” Ryujin questions, briefly glancing at Yuna, who nodded aggressively.

 

“Goats love apples! I learned that in biology!” Yuna exclaimed, and Ryujin smiles, because she does remember that class- it was one of the few Ryujin managed to convince her to focus on.

 

Ryujin uses her wings to throw the boxes off apple juice directly into the goat’s mouth, damaging it so it would spill into the goat’s mouth, and after a few agitating throws, the goat finally seemed to sense that the contents of the box were apples, and it opened its mouth, giving Ryujin the opportunity to shove even more boxes into the goat’s mouth, choking the farmhouse enemy in the process.

 

As soon as the goat stopped bleating and began to make choking noises instead, Ryujin flew upwards and stabbed Bella’s friend straight through the throat, blood and juice splattering out from its mouth, Ryujin smiling at the small victory.

 

Then she hears a strong wind.

 

“JISU!” Ryujin screeches as she flew to where Lia was, barely making it in time to shield Lia from the flames with her wings.

 

“RYUJIN!” Lia screams as the angel staggered into her arms, her wings and back completely burnt.

 

“I- it’s okay, I won’t need wings when we become humans,” Ryujin says with a genuine smile, showing off her dimples.

 

“You’re nuts,” Lia says with a chuckle, hoisting Ryujin up on her two feet.

 

“I have a plan,” Lia says, pulling Ryujin with her as she dodged the chimera’s flames, trying not to burn Ryujin anymore.

 

“I’m all ears,” Ryujin says weakly, and Lia nods.

 

“Use your halo, to its maximum, and blind the chimera- then force it to look up with your sword, from above, I’ll stab it,” Lia says with clarity, and Ryujin nods.

 

“But you might die from the halo,” Ryujin reminds, but Lia shakes her head.

 

“I’ll close my eyes,”

 

——

 

“Now!” Lia yells, and Ryujin breathes in, and the light surrounding her begins to glow at an inhumane brightness, Lia flies upwards, looking straight up as she kept her eyes shut, trying to fly as far away from the source of the halo.

 

As soon as she felt the light disappear, she let herself fall, shooting straight down to where Bella bellowed, roaring in pain as it shut its eyes tight, Ryujin pushing the beast’s neck upwards with all her might, Lia folding her wings into an aerodynamic position as she extended the hand that held her sword, falling even faster than before.

 

When she reaches the Chimera’s roaring mouth, she sees the fire, creeping out of its throat, and it was as if everything had fallen into slow motion. Lia bit her lip as she plunged the sword straight through the beast’s throat, yet the fire still came, engulfing Lia’s head in flames, and her ears could only hear static, her vision went black, and then came the pain of death.

 

“LIA!”

 

——

 

The chimera lay dead in front of Ryujin, but so did Lia.

 

“J- Jisu,” Ryujin whimpered as she pulled the demon close, her face revealing her true form, as all demons did when they passed.

 

“Y- you- you’re gonna come to the human world with me right? You’re not going to leave me? Jisu? Jisu?!” Ryujin screams for her love, shaking her body, but to no avail. Her breathing becomes raggedy, her hands trembling as she wrapped them around Lia, pulling her close.

 

“You can’t leave me, Jisu,” Ryujin’s voice cracks as she says this, a single tear sliding off her cheek.

 

“Ryujin,” Yuna says solemnly, placing a soft hand on the angel’s shoulder.

 

“J-jisu,”

 

“Congratulations, Ryujin Shin, the greatest angel of Chastity, leader of the first cohort of Chastity,” the voice booms, though Ryujin didn’t feel congratulated the slightest bit.

 

“Y-you, you’re going to bring her back right? You promised the both of us humanity, you’re going to bring her back right? Right?!” Ryujin demands, her eyes showing signs of insanity as she demanded her answer, the voice only chuckling.

 

“That, is the decision of the jury,”

 

“Shin Ryujin,”

 

——

 

“Are you sure this is the place?” Ryujin questions, her hands gripped firmly around the steering wheel, leaning towards the passenger's seat, where Lia also leaned towards the window, looking at the green field, a single house in the middle of it all.

 

“You know I have great memory,” Lia assures, caressing Ryujin’s hand gently, her face inching closer to Ryujin’s.

 

“You’re showing off again,” Ryujin says with a smirk, rolling her eyes.

 

“Aren’t you going to give me a kiss?” Lia asks, and Ryujin does as expected, kissing Lia gently on the lips.

 

“You happy now?” Ryujin asks, raising her eyebrows, to which Lia nods enthusiastically.

 

“Let’s go see her,” Lia says, and they both exit the car, walking hand in hand as they walked through the grass towards the house, Lia smiling as she recalled all their memories at this very plane of green.

 

When they were reborn on earth, Lia was reborn with all the memories of her life as a demon, and she kept it with her, until the day she found Ryujin again.

 

Though Ryujin, on the other hand, remembered nothing of her past life as an angel, but that didn’t matter to Lia. All that mattered was that she would fall in love with Lia again, as Lia did with her all those years ago when she was cast to hell as a fallen angel.

 

“Do you know this place? We spent all our time on this grass- in this house, our first kiss was, around there,” Lia tells, pointing to an area near the little stream that circulated around the grass.

 

“I didn’t know, but now I do,” Ryujin says with a soft smile, the couple continuing their casual stroll towards the home, and as soon as they arrived, Lia took a deep breath.

 

Lia was 23 now, so Yuna- Yuna would be 40 years old this year.

 

She rings the doorbell, and she hears footsteps coming as soon as she does. Once the door opens, she’s greeted by a surprise.

 

“Yeji?” Lia questions, and both Yeji and Ryujin look visibly confused.

 

“I am so sorry, but, do I know you?” Yeji questions, and it snaps into Lia’s head that Yeji had never actually met Lia before, despite their constant running into each other, as Yeji was the number one victim of Yuna’s pranks.

 

“I’m Lia- an old friend of Yuna’s, um- does she still live here?” Lia asks, and Yeji breaks into a smile.

 

“Baby! An old friend of yours is here! She says her name is Lia!” Yeji calls, turning towards the inside of the house to do so.

 

Baby???????

 

“LIA?! LIA CHOI?!”

 

Oh my Satan her voice didn’t change the slightest bit.

 

“Are you sure she’s your friend baby? She looks so young,” Yeji asks, intending for it to be a whisper, but Yeji was always bad at that.

 

“What? Nah, she’s like five thousand, six hundred and ninety three years old!” Yuna exclaims, and Yeji looks even more than confused, and Yuna finally comes into view.

 

She looks older, like an actual mature adult now, but there was still a mischievous look in the way she smiled. But what took Lia by absolute surprise, was the little boy in her arms, slurping on a box of the classic apple juice. Yuna quickly hands the boy to Yeji, who accepts the other woman with ease, and Lia just can’t ing believe it.

 

“Hello Yuna,” Lia says, trying to hold back a full smile, but she finds that she can’t hold herself back anymore when Yuna lunges forward to give the both of them a bear hug, Ryujin squealing in the process.

 

“Hello two ladies I don’t know!” The boy chimes, waving at Ryujin and Lia, Ryujin managing to wave back enthusiastically through Yuna’s iron grip.

 

“Oh Ryujin! I can’t believe you did it! Hihi, and Lia! You didn’t die!” Yuna blabbers as she kept the two in a chokehold rather than a hug, but the couple enjoyed the oddly familiar embrace regardless.

 

“Actually I did die—”

 

“You know, I was super worried about you two, I thought about it for months! Eventually I just pushed it to the back of my head, but I never forgot you!”

 

“Also!! You know Lia, my new demon ! I became an honour student after you left,” Yuna said with a pout, finally letting the two go, Lia laughing as soon as she did.

 

“Maybe you just got a better angel,” Lia says, and Ryujin pokes her, causing her and Yuna to laugh yet again.

 

“Angel? Demon? Hello? Am I missing something?” Yeji questioned, her eyebrows scrunched together, the boy just playing around with Yeji’s hair.

 

“Oh! This is my wife, Yeji, by the way- that’s my son, Jisu,” Yuna says with a happy smile, and Lia is smiling from ear to ear, giving Yuna a playful shove.

 

“Of course you married Yeji,” Lia says with a chuckle, shaking her head in disbelief.

 

“Hello? Am I supposed to know her?” Yeji questions for the nth time that day.

 

“Remember that story about the angel and the demon who fell in love? And then they requested help from their amazing human friend to help unite them forever?” Yuna asks, slipping a hand around Yeji’s shoulder.

 

“Yeah? You tell that story to Jisu every night,” Yeji says, Lia perking up at the mention of her real name, turning a bit red when she realized Yuna named her son after her.

 

“YEAH! That’s the best story!” little Jisu adds, pumping a tiny fist into the air.

 

“Well- buckle up,”

 

“That story was a hundred percent real,” Yuna announces, tiny Jisu gasping at the truth. “I should know,”

 

“I was the amazing human friend,”