My Lesson's To Come A Light Reaper

I leaned my shoulder against a rough boulder and fumed. Dappled sunlight shifted upon my sneakers as the wind made my hair tickle my neck.

The sound of kids swimming at the nearby lake was loud ,but the happy shouts only tightened the knot in my gut. Leave it to KimHyun Joong to try to turn around four months of failed practice in a mere twenty minutes.

"No pressure ,"I muttered ,glancing across the dirt path to the reaper standing against a pine tree with his eyes shut. Hyun was probably older than fire ,but he blended in nicely ,with his jeans ,black T-shirt ,and lanky physique.

I couldn't see his wings ,which we'd flown in on ,but they were there. He was an angel of death with frizzy hair and brown eyes ,who wore a pair of holey sneakers.

Would that make them holy holey sneakers ? I wondered as I nervously rolled a pinecone back and forth under my foot.

Feeling my attention on him ,Hyun opened his eyes. "Are you even trying ,Raven ?"he asked. "Duh. Yes," I complained ,though I knew this was a lost cause. My gaze dropped to my shoes.

Black with red laces ,and skulls and crossbones on the toes ,they matched the red-dyed tips of my short black hair ,not that anyone else had ever made the connection.

"It's too hot to concentrate ,"I protested.

His eyebrows rose as he looked at my shorts and tank top. I actually wasn't hot ,but nerves had made me jittery. I hadn't known that I was going to summer camp when I'd slipped out of the house this morning and rode my bike to the high school to meet Hyun.

But for all my complaining ,it felt good to get out of Tokyo. The college town my dad lived in was okay ,but being the new girl eggs.

Hyun frowned at me. "Temperature has nothing to do with it ,"he said ,and I rolled the bumpy pinecone under my foot even faster.

"Feel for your aura. I'm right in front of you. Do it ,or I'm taing you home."

Kicking the pinecone away ,I sighed. If we went home ,whoever we were here to save was going to die. "I'm trying." I leaned against the boulder behind me ,reaching up to hold the black stone cradled in silver wire that hung around my neck.

At Hyun's impatient throat-clearing ,I closed my eyes and tried to imagine a hazy mist surrounding me. We were attempting to communicate silently with our thoughts.

If I could give my thoughts the same color as the haze around Hyun ,my thoughts would slip through his aura and he would hear them. Not an easy thing to do when I couldn't even see his aura.

Four months of this odd student/teacher relationship ,and I couldn't even get to stage one. Hyun was a light reaper. Dark reapers killed people when the probable future showed they were going to go contrary to the grand schemes of fate.

Light reapers tried to stop them to ensure humanity's right of choice. Having been assigned to prevent my death ,Hyun must have considered me one of his more spectacular failures.

I hadn't gone gentle into that good night ,however. I had whined and protested my early death ,and when I stole an amulet from my killer ,I'd somehow saved myself.

The amulet gave me the illusion of a body. I still didn't know why I'd been targeted ,either. The amulet had felt like fire and ice when I'd claimed it ,shifting from a dull flat gray to a space-deep black that seemed to take in light.

But since then...nothing. The more I tried to use it ,the more stonelike it was. Hyun had now been assigned to shadow me in case the reaper who'd killed me came back for his amulet ,and I'd gone back to living as normal a life as I could.

Apparently just the fact that I had been able to claim it without blowing my soul to dust made it-and me-rather unique.

But watching over me wasn't Hyun's style ,and I knew he couldn't wait to get back to his soul-saving work.

If I could just figure this thought-touching thing out ,he could resume his regular duties ,leaving me showed up again. But it wasn't happening.

"Hyun," I said ,weary of it ," are you sure I can do this ? I'm not a reaper.

Maybe I ca't touch thoughts with you because I'm dead. Ever think of that ?"

Silent ,Hyun dropped his gaze to the pine-rimmed lake. The worried lift to his shoulders told me he had. "Try again ," he said softly.

I tightened my grip until the silver wires pressed into my fingers ,trying to imagine Hyun in my thoughts ,his easy grace that most high schoolers lacked ,his attractive face ,his riveting sile.

Honest ,I wasn't crushing on him ,but every angel of death I'd seen had been attractive. Especially the one who'd killed me.

Despite the long nights on my roof practicing with Hyun ,I hadn't been hanging arond so much that my dad thought he was my boyfriend ,and my boss at the floer shop thought I should take out a restraining order.

I pushed myself away from the rock. "I'm sorry ,Hyun.

You go on and do your thing. I'll sit here and wait. I'll be fine."

Maybe this was why he'd brought me. I'd be safer waiting for him here than several hundred miles away-alone.

I wasn't sure ,but I think Hyun had lied to his boss abot my progress in order to get out and working again.

An angel lying-yup ,it happened ,apparently.