Chapter Text
Strophaia had truly run out of options, or had finally succumbed to madness, for there was nothing else to justify the idea that had popped into his head without permission a handful of days ago and had been living in his head rent-free ever since.
Because seriously, he wouldn't actually be seriously considering this in a non-ironic way if he were still sane.
"I must be beyond salvation already."
He lamented the angel as he began to see more and more pros and less cons to the idea, that would not be so ridiculous if his entire being did not feel total repulsion at what he would have to do to carry it out.
The only thing stopping him from firing him out of sheer spite was that it would definitely bring him closer to Aeshma, one way or another, so it can't be such a bad idea, right?
Most likely, with his situation as it is, he will carry out this plan to get closer to Aeshma anyway, but for his own mental health, he will think about it a bit more, just to be sure!
(About what? He doesn't know yet, but let him pretend he's not desperate enough to resort to such an atrocity!)
Punctual as always, Akuma-kun entered the cafeteria where he usually ate his breakfast when Mephisto was not available to make him his morning pancakes for personal reasons (read "monthly trip with his parents").
Ichiro went to his usual spot without paying too much attention to his surroundings, at least until he noticed that there was a particular concentration of red on the table he usually used.
Surprise, surprise, there was another person there.
The grey-haired young man stopped walking to examine the stranger; bright red hair (somehow it looked natural), his hair was arranged in such a way that it covered the right side of his face, he was wearing a sleeveless black crop top and a poorly placed red coat, it was partially open to the point that his lower back was exposed.
At this point, Ichiro simply looked away, already looking for a new table to sit at.
Unfortunately, all the other tables seemed to have been filled with families who had collectively decided that eight o'clock in the morning on a Saturday was a perfectly good time to go out for breakfast together, successfully occupying at least eighty-seven percent of the room. The rest was monopolized by the lucky few who managed to find a place for themselves (like the red-haired stranger who had already turned around for a while and looked at him with what he could only assume was curiosity).
"Do you want to sit here? You kept looking around like you were looking for a table, and from the look on your face, I can only assume that you didn't find one."
"Have you ordered yet?" Ichiro answered in his place as he took the offered seat.
"No, actually, I've never been here before, so I don't know what to order, anything you recommend?" he asked, resting his head on the palm of his hand in a casual gesture.
"Hotcakes."
"A man of few words from what I can see, but I'll take you at your word." The redhead replied with a smile on his face. "Anyway, what's your name? I just let you sit at my table and I don't even know your name, I must have seemed really rude."
"People just call me Akuma-kun."
"I see, but that's not your name, is it?" he said amusedly as he raised his hand to indicate that they were ready to order. "You said that's what others call you, not that you call yourself that, a strange wording in my opinion."
"I don't particularly care what everyone else decides to call me." Ichiro deflected as he watched the waitress approach his table.
"Good morning Akuma-kun, would you like your usual?" The waitress began, taking out the order book and waiting for the confirmation of what was clearly a recurring sight in the establishment without caring too much about the schedule.
"Yes, he'll have the same as me," he said, gesturing to the boy sitting in front of him.
"Oh! I'm so sorry young man, I didn't see you there, Akuma-kun usually comes here alone." The employee apologized with some regret. "Isn't this the first time you came with someone, Akuma-kun?"
"No hard feelings, miss, and he actually came alone, but since there were no free tables left, I invited him to sit with me." he concluded with a soft smile.
"How nice of you young man, anyway, your orders will be ready in no time, I won't bother you anymore."
They both saw the waitress leave their orders in the opening leading to what they assumed was the kitchen, and she went back to serving the other tables.
"What's your 'usual' anyway?"
Ichiro just looked at him silently, the not-so-strange stranger somehow seeming to interpreted his blank face as a silent "you'll find out" and shrugged.
The redhead never took his gaze away from Ichiro's and neither did Ichiro in fact they both had a strange staring contest in absolute silence that was abruptly interrupted when the waitress from earlier placed their orders between them, breaking their intense visual contact. The waitress wishes them a good meal and leaves to deliver the other orders.
"You certainly have a… sweet tooth." the redhead commented jokingly, looking at the tower of hotcakes with chocolate sauce, cream and colored sprinkles with curiosity.
Ichiro simply shrugged his shoulders and began to eat, silently imitating the young man in front of him, both stopping from time to time to take a quick look at the other.
After a few minutes, they both finished and asked for the bill, each paying their share separately.
After leaving the premises, Ichiro simply decided to do what his cousin liked to call "going with the wind". He just walked around without paying much attention to his surroundings, as he usually did when he had many things and ideas in his head.
The redheaded boy just followed Ichiro like a shadow (and a quiet one, he might appreciate that).
"Anywhere you should go or you just don't know what to do?" Akuma-kun asked after a while, surprised at his unsolicited but somehow also not denied company.
"What do you mean? A. Ku. Ma. Kun." the other asked with a too big smile as he quickened his pace to get a little closer to Ichiro.
"To the fact that you've been following me ever since we left the cafeteria… Strophaia."
It must be recognized that the angel never stopped walking, he just laughed as he put his arm around Ichiro's shoulders, making it even clearer that the concept of personal space was unknown to him.
"Or at least when it comes to me."
"Oh, Aeshma finally recognized me? Was my mortal disguise that good?" Strophaia strutted gracefully.
Ichiro didn't deign to answer and decided to get to the point.
"What do you want, Strophaia? It's already strange enough to find yourself in a human disguise in a cafeteria I usually visit shortly after your supposed defeat at the Invisible School and now you just simply decided to follow me, I don't understand what you're looking for here."
The angel continued walking as the human made his point, tightening his grip on the other when the incident at the Invisible School was mentioned, but he showed no other reaction.
"I thought what I wanted was obvious, Aeshma."
"I don't see how disguising yourself as a human will help you release their light."
"So smart… But so stupid at the same time…" Strophaia sighed mentally.
"There's something else I want, Aeshma, and I bet you know very well what it's like when you rule out your first option." the redhead replied as he led them both to a bench in the park where they ended up.
A look of realization appeared on Aeshma's face and Strophaia knew immediately that he had already understood. "…It's me, isn't it?"
"We both know that doesn't need confirmation, but of course, Aeshma, it's obviously you." he admitted to the angel with a smile on his face.
He released his grip on Aeshma, who was already sitting on the bench, and positioned himself behind him to rest his chin on the human's head and return to surround his shoulders with his still uncovered arms.
"So that means your goal is to get closer to me, but I still don't understand why."
"I want you back, Aeshma. Plagues One and Two simply took you away from me the moment I was sealed inside the nail for no reason." You could tell by the dark tone in his voice that the eveents of that day still bothered him quite a bit. "You were perfectly fine with me. and the stupid human and demon just decided to separate us even before the equally stupid Solomon's Flute decided to reveal that you would apparently be the next Akuma-kun!" The angel continued to grumble, raising his voice more and more, barely noticing the other people who passed in front of him and looked at them with confusion.
Ichiro decided that they had enough of an audience and took out one of his spare chocolate bars that he always carried with him in case of emergency (read "in case he got hungry outside the Millenium Research Institute") and, immediately after removing the wrapper he pushed it into Strophaia's mouth without much fanfare.
This clearly caught the redhead off guard and he immediately began coughing heavily.
"Welcome to the wonders of the human body, I guess"
"Okay Aeshma, that was just rude." the angel complained in annoyance as he finally stopped coughing.
"You were drawing too much attention to us." the human justified "Anyway, I'm more curious about how you plan to 'get me back'." he said, directing the conversation back to his original point.
"Isn't it obvious, Aeshma?" Strophaia asked happily, he could almost feel the ghost of his gigant wings moving with excitement. "I'm going to spend time with you as…" he stopped abruptly, feeling a shiver run through him from the sheer disgust he felt at the idea, and that he certainly didn't would carry out if it did not help him get closer to Aeshma in an environment now unfortunately more familiar to him "a human" he hissed in obvious annoyance.
"And how is spending time with me as a human supposed to help you to get me back" Ichiro questioned curiously, he was actually interested in understanding the logic that Strophaia was following with this plan of his, he must have full faith (ha) that it will prove successful if he is even willing to spend so much time in a human form despite his obvious distaste towards these.
"You'll see Aeshma, once you spend time with me full time like before, you'll see why I'm better at these stupid physical beings." the other exclaimed with joy.
"I can see the logic in that plan." He commented lightly, feeling how Strophaia hugged him by the shoulders a little more tightly without even flinching, somehow already used to the angel's clinginess "But I think that we should establish some rules for this plan of yours to take me back with you."
Strophaia nodded thoughtfully, eager to hear what Aeshma's conditions would be for putting his "evil plan" into action.
"You're not allowed to hurt my dumb dad or Mephisto-"
"So you're saying that instead I can-?" he began with a devious smile on his face.
"-actually, you can't hurt any member of my family" he almost felt the need to laugh when he heard the angel click his tongue in obvious annoyance at the specification, almost. "You can't seriously hurt other humans either, for no particular reason."
"You can't be serious, Aeshma!" he complained to the redhead.
"You mean you have to lust after other humans to prove that you're better than them?" Ichiro replied with a contemplative tone of voice, "I guess I should reconsider this agreement then..."
"Well, Aeshma, we both know that won't be necessary…" Strophaia interrupted with some forced joy, at the moment he didn't need his mission to free the Light from the foolish humans to get in the way when he tried to approach Aeshma again "You're right, anyway, they don't deserve me to waste my precious time when it could be better spent with you." he concluded with a vibrant smile.
Ichiro didn't know how to describe the feeling he felt in his chest with the angel's last comment, but he quickly dismissed it, it must be the fact that he feels calm that the other is accepting these terms with relative ease and the people who matter they will not be hurt unnecessarily.
"I guess we have a deal then, Strophaia." he said as he rose from the bench where he had spent most of this Saturday morning and turned to shake the angel's hand.
"Of course Aeshma." said the redhead shaking the human's hand with his own and after a few seconds simply jumped across the bench hugging the other with a happiness obvious enough to make anyone passing by wonder what was wrong with these two young men who in one moment were hugging, in the other one was shouting nonsense angrily, while the other somehow calmed him down and they went back to talking like normal people and then hugged again with clear joy.
"We must look crazy." Ichiro thought with some amusement, looking around at the people who looked away when his curious eyes met his expressionless ones.
"Come on Strophaia, we should think about how I'm going to explain to my cousin that in the near future I will be bonded to a human who looks too much like a certain angel who tried to kill him two weeks ago and for unknown reasons will be staying with me at the Millennium Research Institute." he said as he started walking towards said place with the other boy still hugging him by the side.
"Don't worry Aeshma, I already have three out of four parts of an excellent explanation planned." the angel boasted as he walked still clinging to the human.
"Good to know I guess."