Work Text:
Many described the kiss of Death as cold. Poets spent verses and verses trying to encapsulate the freezing feeling penetrating down your spine as the softest touch of its lips captures your spirit, leaving nothing but an empty body behind.
And yet, their words must be nothing but mere fantasies, Aki thinks, because Angel Devil’s hand is warm.
One.
Aki moved instinctually. His hand was reaching for the devil’s before his brain could process it.
Two.
Maybe he would have acted differently, had he thought about it for just a second more.
Three.
Or maybe, even after long, thorough ponderation, he would have still chosen to grab the devil’s hand.
Four.
In fact, Aki doesn’t let him go.
Five.
There’s nothing more altruistic than sacrificing your life for someone else’s sake, but his motive was nothing if not egoistical.
Six.
Angel Devil had clearly stated that he had already accepted death, and he was just waiting, even hoping, for it to come. It was Aki who decided it wasn’t his time yet.
Will Fate make him pay for his hubris? Or was this moment already intertwined in the grand scheme of things, already playing its part in the tragedy of Aki Hayakawa’s life? Will Aki regret it when his own thread comes to an end, or will the two months he just cut be worth something? Will he even, absurdly, be grateful for it?
As he pulls Angel Devil closer, with the devil’s back against his chest and their clothes acting as a regained safety barrier, Aki thinks he’s nothing like the way artists depicted Death.
He’s no majestic skeleton triumphing over Aki, mercilessly taking his life. On the contrary, his body is so minute it’s almost disappearing inside Aki’s embrace. No one, looking at him, would think his sole touch is enough to take your life. His delicate beauty contrasts with his devilish being and, at the same time, resembles the angelic nature that brought him into existence. Angel Devil claimed to be a devil first and foremost, but it was human fear of angels that gave him life, and gave him the power to bring death. And so, no one would dare to hold such a creature so tightly.
But Aki doesn’t intend to loosen his grip.
He can feel Angel Devil’s skin burning against his through his shirt. Aki doesn’t know if the warmth actually comes from him, if devils’ bodies can produce warmth at all, or it’s just the adrenaline making his own blood pump faster and hotter.
He wonders if dying will feel this warm, too.