Chapter Text
Angel’s amber hair had cascaded across the table like a curtain. His head rested on folded arms, cheek smushed against them—soft and flushed from alcohol, giving his usually slim features a rounder, almost childlike innocence.
The warm overhead light turned his skin an appetizing peach-orange, hah...
He’s pretty.
...Mm, actually. No—no, thank you.
But then again...
Aki was drunk—very drunk. His mind was split clean down the middle:
One half was calculating the tab, the train lines, and exactly how late he could sleep tomorrow without looking like he’d crawled out of a ditch.
The other half was the one responsible for his fingers slowly drifting toward a loose lock of Angel’s hair, twirling it once around a knuckle.
This much was safe. Better than nothing.
“You’re drunk,” Angel murmured, voice muffled by his sleeve.
“I think I look plenty sober.”
Bullshit. Aki was even more slouched than Angel, one arm stretched across the table, hand dangling off the edge like a forgotten coat. Better that than reaching for another beer.
How many had they had?
His gaze wobbled across the mountain of empty glasses forming a half-fort between them. Through the foam-streaked walls, he could barely make out Denji and Power flailing dangerously near the dartboard. Division 2 stragglers cheered them on, blissfully unaware that the longer those two handled sharp objects, the higher the likelihood of someone losing an eye.
At least Aki and Angel had a barricade.
Aki’s eyes drifted back to the devil beside him, sight blurred at the edges. He looked—really looked. And for a second, he wished the image would stay even if he shut his eyes. Or something.
“If you fall asleep, I’ll steal your lighter.”
Aki scoffed. “Good luck, I have three.”
“Not when I’m done.”
Angel's voice had an edge of amusement, but his expression stayed perfectly neutral. Always did. Aki didn’t mind. Navigating their banter through audio cues came naturally now after spending most waking hours attached at the hip, hunting mid-level devils until something worse appeared.
“And how, exactly, would you do that?” Aki engaged. “Ransack all my pockets on your own? Risky. Lots of... almost-touching.”
“I’d bribe Power into doing it.”
Honestly? Believable.
Angel was absently poking at a leftover yakitori skewer, examining it with the languid curiosity of a cat. “Or I’d fish them out with this,” he added.
He poked the skewer again. It rolled away, came to rest against Aki’s knuckles. Angel’s hand stopped mid-reach. His eyes found Aki’s—mostly neutral, a bit cautious maybe, but something in the way they lingered.
Then Angel sighed. “You’re lucky. You can rob people without consequence.”
That almost made Aki chuckle. “You’d be okay with robbing people as long as you don’t hurt them? Very noble. Chivalry lives.”
Angel nodded once—slow and serious—then a loose strand of hair fell across his eyes. His hand twitched like he wanted to brush it away but was too drunk to manage it.
Aki wanted to do it for him.
Was equally wasted.
Also knew he’d get his shin kicked in if he tried.
“Say,” Aki drawled, inhibitions loosened by the alcohol and something else, “If you could have one day—just one—with no consequences... What would you do? Besides robbing people.”
Angel’s lips pursed. Aki caught the movement, forced his focus back to those eyes. Was he always this not-bad-looking or is it the Asahi talking? Ever since Denji mentioned some wet dream including Angel in thigh highs and lingerie, his mind wouldn’t give him a break and–
“Get a haircut,” Angel said after a while.
Huh? Aki almost scoffed, but caught the sincerity in Angel’s expression.
Oh, he’s serious.
A haircut. Aki didn’t know what he’d expected—something grander, maybe. But Angel apparently only wanted someone running their hands through his hair, touching his face to check the cut, massaging his scalp without fear of collapse.
That did something uncomfortable to his chest.
“AKI!” Power hollered from across the bar.
Aki’s head pounded as he lifted it, manually adjusting his depth of vision to take in the sight of... shirtless Denji? Another Division 2 hunter in nothing but boxers and socks?
Denji was pointing accusingly at Power. “SHE said losers strip, and now she’s refusing to take her shirt off!”
“Denji rigged the dart board! My throw was perfect, I NEVER miss, I’ve been told I’m Olympics level–”
“THERE’S NO DART OLYMPICS.”
“Well, there SHOULD BE.”
Aki dropped his face back onto the table with a hollow thud.
Angel’s unassuming wish resounded in his skull. A haircut. Was that request really that impossible? His alcohol-soaked brain made a connection. Fuzzy, half-formed. Something involving Public Safety’s basement levels.
There might be a way.
...If he could remember through the hangover.
***
He had remembered.
Had also managed to convince Angel to follow him somewhere before embarking on their usual patrol route—no small feat considering Angel’s default response to detours was “just leave me somewhere to sleep”.
Angel had stayed surprisingly quiet down multiple flights of stairs, finally breaking his silence when they elbowed past a heavy door that led to B7—the bureau’s forgotten basement. The dungeon aesthetic was immediate and aggressive: iron smell, moldy walls, something undoubtedly sinister hanging in the air.
“And this place is...?”
“Where we keep the more unruly devils,” Aki informed. His voice bounced off the wet concrete walls, coming back distorted. “Dangerous, uncontactable, or just unpredictable.”
The corridor didn’t seem like it had an end to it. Water dripped from overhead pipes in an irregular rhythm—persistent enough that Angel kept glancing upward as if expecting rain. Somewhere far ahead in the darkness, surely there would be a stop, right? Aki had never tried walking to the end. Public Safety had enough contained devils down here to fill a small prison, and he wasn’t sure if that impressed or disturbed him more.
“And this one is which category?” Angel’s eyes dragged over every door they passed, head craning back occasionally like a kid at an aquarium, drawn to whatever moved behind the reinforced glass.
Funny thing—Angel seemed to slow at every door Himeno had specifically warned about. Like the devil had a death wish radar, magnetically attracted to whatever was most likely to tear him apart. The survival instincts on this one registered somewhere in the negative numbers.
“This one falls under annoying,” Aki kept his tone flat. “You’ll see.”
The deeper they walked, the louder it got.
Something ahead leaked ominous sounds that grew with each step. By the time they passed door 75, it was unmistakable: slashing, wet impacts, something halfway between a splatter and a stomp. Door 76, closer now—actual painful howling, the kind that would make any sensible person turn around.
Then they reached it. Same rusty door, same number plate reading ‘777’—or ‘77’ with that wobbly extra seven someone had scribbled in front. New additions since last time: a sparkly star sticker crowning the middle seven, a cartoon bear hugging a strawberry below it.
Someone kept decorating this prison cell like a teenage girl’s locker.
Through the tiny window, bluish light flickered in seizure-inducing intervals. Inside, the sounds of a woman screaming— no, a child. No. Definitely a woman. A woman and a child? More commotion followed. Slash. Squelch. A raspy cry for help.
Angel looked at him. Aki looked back, expression deliberately blank.
Aki knocked.
The slashing inside softened to a lazy drag, like someone pausing mid-murder to listen.
He knocked once more. “We’ve come in search of your services.”
Silence.
Then, a very annoyed: “Fuuuuck, man.”
The aggressive blue shifted to warm yellow, like someone had toggled a switch. Locks groaned their protests as they disengaged and the door swung halfway open. Aki pushed inside first, Angel close behind.
The dungeon aesthetic dissolved instantly. The room was wallpapered, string lights zigzagging over posters of comic heroines with big knockers, many of which had been decorated with random stickers like holy relics. A slushie machine churned in one corner. A popcorn machine hummed in the other. A bed bigger than Aki’s twin-size. And at the dead center—cross-legged on a beanbag, controller in hand—sat... what looked like a teenager.
“I was so close to clearing this level,” it groaned, waving the controller toward an old, square TV. ‘GAME OVER’ flashed over a zombie woman with her eye dangling by the optic nerve, hand reaching toward the player. Aki paid less attention to the screen, more to the fingers clutching the controller—way more than five. At least seven.
The devil turned toward them, chin propped on a fist with too many knuckles. It—he?—wore a faded pink hoodie, ‘MAKE A WISH’ peeling across the chest in iron-on letters that had been through too many washing cycles. Other than that, there were no distinguishing features. Where a face should peek through the hood was absence. Not darkness—absence. Like some glitch had skipped rendering it.
“And you are?” it asked, head turning between them despite the lack of visible eyes.
The Wish Devil. Aki had been here once before—different request, same migraine. Himeno had mentioned it in passing: unpredictable, but weirdly reasonable if you brought the right bribes.
“Aki Hayakawa. We’ve met before.”
Wish Devil went still. One of its extra fingers tapped its knee. Then it perked up, as if remembering something.
“Ah– yeah, yeah, yeah! Y’were the one who got me the gumball machine, yeah? And wanted a day with your fa–”
“We’ll give you anything if you fulfill another wish.” Aki cut him off sharply.
Angel stayed statue-still beside him. Not even a curious tilt. Good.
Wish Devil deflated back into the bean bag with a sigh, plastic pellets rustling. “None of y’all know how to engage in conversation anymore. Pitiful beings.” The faceless hood tilted at Angel. “And what’ll the wish be, hm? Something for your little girlfriend over here?”
Aki didn’t bother correcting him. “Make Angel human for one day.” Then, as an afterthought: “Please.”
“...That’s it?”
“Yes,” Angel quickly filled in like he’d just snapped awake. His wings had drawn in tight against his back, wary.
“Kid. People come in here asking for celebrity lifestyles, flight capabilities, resurrection of loved ones, and you want to be human? The thing with cholesterol and hemorrhoids and—”
“Will you do it?” Aki pressed.
Wish Devil jabbed that impossible seventh finger at him, controller nearly flying. “You. Need to learn to not interrupt others.” Then the void of a head whipped towards Angel again, tone dropping into something sweet. “But I’ll do it. For you. Never seen you around here, and I need recurring customers.”
Aki’s jaw clenched. Something about how the devil addressed Angel made his skin itch from the inside. Irritating.
“Price?” Aki asked.
“Pack of smokes and a pizza. That one from Fifth Street with the thick dough—pepperoni, extra cheese. Cigarettes can be whatever, just not that mint bullshit.”
“...That’s it?” Aki repeated the words from before, thrown.
Should’ve kept his mouth shut. Wish Devil was notorious for escalating demands mid-negotiation. Most of the items surrounding them—the gumball machine, the PS5 that hadn’t been here last time, the slushie maker—were prizes from previous exchanges. At least this devil preferred tangible goods over the usual devil currency of organs and lifespans. Called itself a fan of the human world.
Whoever got stuck finding that PS5 deserved a raise.
“Man, I’m hungry for something real. And with all the chaos topside, I’m losing customers.” It paused. “I mean, there’s this scrunkly-looking blonde kid who keeps coming down here asking for orgies. Plural. I told him to come back when he’s developed a personality beyond horny.”
Aki didn’t want to question that one. “Deal.”
Thirty minutes later, the small cell was hotboxed with the smell of pepperoni grease.
Wish Devil leaned back, pizza slice drooping in that abomination of a hand, mozzarella stretched nearly to the floor. Where would it even go? Did the void have a throat? Must have—the delighted sound it had made when they’d returned with the food suggested a functional voice box at minimum, probably a whole digestive system lurking under that hoodie.
“You sure? Nothing else? Million yen? Lamborghini for transport? Wake up in Bali with a trust fund?”
Angel looked at Aki. A tiny shake.
“Tokyo is fine.” Then Aki reconsidered. This was Angel’s shot. “Maybe money would—”
“That’ll be a twenty-pack of cheeseballs.”
“Fuck you.”
Angel’s elbow found his ribs. Sharp.
But Wish Devil barked out a laugh, loud and delighted. The pizza slice got set down on the greasy cardboard so it could raise both hands in mock surrender.
“Alright, here’s the deal. One second here equals one day in wish-world. You fall into REM sleep there, you wake up here. Everything else stays consistent—house, wallet, friends. Though I’d skip meeting up with people. I can only puppet their personalities based on your memories. T’will be difficult since I’m dealing with two memory banks here.” Wish Devil pointed at the two of them. “Clear?”
“Clear,” Aki said.
“Excellent. Time for the lucky couple to hold hands.”
Pause. What did it just say?
“Excuse me?”
Angel froze beside him, like someone had yanked the world out from under his feet. Aki swears he could see him actually stumble.
Wish Devil quirked its head, like it didn’t understand the problem. “Your hand in his. Hers? His. I swear I heard some baritone in that voice.” Still cracking jokes. “Otherwise you’ll end up in different timelines. Needs skin contact.”
The temperature plummeted. Of course. Of course there was a catch.
“You can’t. We can’t. No.” Angel had already retreated a step, protective. “Deal’s off.”
“It’s not off.” The words left Aki’s mouth before his brain caught up. “Angel. I’ll do it.”
Where had that come from? His mouth had moved on instinct, like he’d been pre-programmed to say that.
“You are not going to do anything,” Angel insisted.
“You heard it. It’s two seconds max. Two seconds is nothing.”
“Two seconds is one week of your life.” Angel’s voice had taken a lower tone, careful where it was treading, sincere. “I can go on my own. It’s fine.”
Aki stopped mid-argument. Right—he could let him go alone. But the thought sat wrong with him, uncomfortably so. Why did he want to witness it so bad?
The answer came in fragments: Angel at the office, hands always carefully tucked away. On missions, flinching from thank-you pats on the shoulder. Angel in a bubble of untouchable space while the rest of them forgot what it meant to not casually bump elbows, ruffle hair, grab wrists.
And what was he gambling? Time he’d already started burning through the moment he signed up to hunt the Gun Devil. Time that might not even exist if the next mission went sideways. Offering a fraction of that to witness Angel get a day’s worth of being human? Of being touched and touching back?
Maybe it’d quiet that guilty voice in his head—the one that spoke up every time he thoughtlessly used touch around Angel.
Worth it.
“I’m already living on borrowed time. I go from, what? One hundred weeks left to ninety-nine weeks left, that’s nothing. It’s nothing. It’s worth it. Let me do this for you.”
Angel’s eyes went wide—furious, terrified.
Behind them, Wish Devil had been steadily demolishing pizza, watching their argument like dinner theater. Aki caught the void’s attention, and it froze as if expecting Aki to reprimand it for using them as easy entertainment. But that wasn’t it. Despite no eye contact possible, understanding passed between them—the devil slowly leaning forward.
Signal sent and received.
One lunge forward and Aki’s fingers found Angel’s wrist. The world smeared into motion blur. Angel’s mouth opened in what was definitely a shout but the sound bled away as reality folded in on itself like a collapsing house of cards. Darkness rushed in from all angles while Wish Devil’s voice echoed behind them:
“Good luck.”
***
Light detonated, and sound flooded in from every direction: birds arguing in the trees, the whistle of leaves, distant traffic, twigs snapping under the weight of a cat sneaking through bushes. Aki threw an arm over his eyes against the sudden assault of sunlight.
They were in a park.
And Angel was, Angel was... there. But different.
Aki squinted, mouth opening to speak when something cracked across his skull, rattling his teeth. Then fists kept raining down like meteor strikes.
“—absolute, brain-dead, thoughtless fucking idiot—”
“Wait.”
“—I told you not to and you went ahead and—”
Another dunk at his temple. Christ, the boy could clear a battlefield with those fists. Aki’s fingers shot up, catching Angel’s wrists mid-swing, holding them steady despite the thrashing.
“I said wait.”
His voice finally penetrated. Angel’s eyes tracked from Aki’s face down to the hands holding his wrists—not on top of his sleeves. No. Skin against skin, warm and soft, palms wrapped around the delicate bones of his wrists.
“...You’re touching me.”
“Your wings.” Aki said simultaneously.
Angel’s head whipped around, searching. Where a white blur should frame his peripheral vision—nothing. No feathers, no bulk. Just empty air and the park behind him.
His wings were gone.
The fight drained from Angel’s arms. His hands—still caught in Aki’s grip—lowered incrementally. His head followed, tilting toward the ground. Aki watched the tension in his shoulders release, then snap back even tighter than before.
“Why?!” Angel’s head shot up, tears gathered at the corners of his eyes. “Why did you, why–..”
Something twisted in Aki’s stomach. Should’ve been pity or sympathy but it ran hotter, fuller. Something warmer and more terrible.
He wanted to hug him. Wait, no, fuck– no. No, he doesn’t do that stuff just out of the blue. That’s not his thing.
He released Angel’s wrists and stepped back, giving him space. Let him process it on his own.
“It’s done. Move on.”
Blunt. Maybe too blunt, but Angel needed to hear it. They didn’t have time for this.
“You’ve got twenty-four hours to be human and you’re spending it crying in a park. Embarrassing.” He felt Angel tense. Good, attention caught. “I didn’t sacrifice a week to watch you sulk, I get enough of that in the real world.”
That earned him a half-hearted smack against his chest.
Angel stood straight, wiping at his eyes with the heel of his hand. The tears were gone as quickly as they’d come, leaving only a faint flush across his cheeks. He cleared his throat, collected himself.
Then something was breathing. Heavily. Coming toward them from below. A wet, determined huffing, paired with the unmistakable sound of mouth flaps smacking together.
Aki recognized the diabolical snorting before he even looked. His brain connected the dots three seconds ahead of his eyes—then he glanced down and saw the pug, no, the terrier, no, whatever breed had run full-speed into evolution’s wall. The creature launched itself at Angel’s ankles in a frenzy of sniffing and taste-testing his slacks.
Angel jerked back—not out of fear, but the kind of shock that belongs to someone who never has their sense of touch randomly activated. Then something in him yielded, and curiosity took over. Aki watched the exact moment Angel shifted from “get back, I’m dangerous” to “what do we have here?”
The first time Angel got to pet a dog, huh?
Angel crouched, wobbling a little without the counterweight of his wings. His hands hovered like he was consulting some invisible manual before he placed them on either side of the dog’s face, gently smushing its already tragic features.
Had his hands always been that delicate? Aki had only ever seen them grip weapons or hang carefully at his sides. But watching them now, pale against the rough fur, fingers working through the coat with a gentleness that seemed surprised by itself—
Angel’s face had transformed. Not the polite half-smile he wore at the office or the impassive expression during briefings. A real one, hesitant but startlingly pure. Aki was suddenly, profoundly grateful he’d come with him today. A week was worth this.
The dog, by contrast, was a reminder of why Aki preferred cats. Its eyes weren’t even focusing in the same direction, and—
“He looks like you.” Angel commented, distracted.
“You have a death wish?”
Aki was almost sure he heard a soft, low “yeah” slip from Angel’s lips before the dog’s owner called it from across the park. The sausage-on-legs bolted away, wobbling into the distance.
“We should get going,” Aki said after a beat. He wanted to offer a hand up, but Angel was already standing, brushing off his knees. Damn.
“To where?”
“Downtown. I’ve thought of some things to do.”
Last night, actually. Lying in bed, counting on fingers. Multiple experiences Angel could never have otherwise. Not an itinerary. Just... suggestions.
“Did you make an itinerary?”
Shit.
“No.” Aki lied, flat as possible.
Angel scrutinized him, and Aki swore. He swore inwardly, because there’s no doubt he just saw those observant eyes narrow into a tiny, teasing smirk. Angel. Smirking. Teasing. In the span of minutes he’d seen both a genuine smile and a smug one. Aki hadn’t known he was capable of either.
Angel continued. “Well, whatever it is, I hope the not-itinerary plans are cheap. I haven’t got much on m–... huh.”
Angel’s voice died as he stared into the wallet he’d produced from his jacket pocket.
You see, devil and devil hunter alike shared one universal trait: empty wallets. Denji’s half a ripped coupon and a dusty, half-eaten chupa chup didn’t have people batting any lashes. Power’s five coins and the other half of Denji’s coupon was no surprise, either. Aki’s two thousand yen was considered a lot.
Angel’s wallet, with its multiple ten-thousand bills in it, was legitimately insane.
“Angel...” Aki began, halfway to asking if Angel was secretly involved in the organ black market, when Angel shifted through the bills and a crumpled note fell out. It looked scribbled by a non-dominant hand, barely legible.
thanks for the show
/777
Ah. The stunt Aki pulled when he grabbed Angel’s hand without warning. Thank goodness the Wish Devil was apparently a sucker for soap-opera theatrics.
“What do we do with all this?” Angel asks, genuinely puzzled.
Of course. Angel hadn’t existed in the human world long enough to understand what ten thousand yen could buy in downtown Tokyo. But Aki did.
And he was going to show him everything.