Chapter Text
When Aki opened his eyes, the world was a blur.
The blinding white was all around him, the annoying beeping and ringing — was it Denji’s damn alarm clock again? - echoed painfully against his skull.
Except it wasn’t Denji’s alarm clock.
And the ceiling above him wasn’t the one of his bedroom.
Blurry faces flickered in his field of vision, but he couldn’t quite make them out. It took a while for his eyes to focus.
“Wha—” he tried to talk, to ask what happened, but his tongue didn’t move in accord with his wants.
Suddenly, he had an armful of a warm body pressing against him, a joyful deafening yell that went straight to his ears, as Power squeezed all breath out of him in her version of a hug. His neck might be bruised afterwards, but he wrapped his own shaky arms in a careful embrace.
“Topknot is awake!” she screamed against his right ear. “Took you so long, dummy!”
Aki looked around.
Denji hovered near his hospital bed, looking constipated, Kishibe stood by the door like he’d rather be anywhere else but here — but he still came anyway. The nurse smiled gently at Aki in greeting, and on the windowsill—
Aki wasn’t sure if he was hallucinating or not.
Or did some cosplayer from an anime come to see him too?
On the windowsill, a young man sprawled carelessly. He wore a basic black and white suit, his red hair a mess that probably hasn’t been brushed properly in ages. His carmine eyes passed over the room in boredom, as he stared at nothing in particular. And—
Above his head shone a halo, and two white wings were folded behind his back.
Aki blinked.
And blinked again.
“—and then Kishibe came to pick me up, because he got a call that you were in a hospital, and the doctor said you fainted ‘cause—”
“Well, I’m better now, aren’t I?” Aki interrupted Denji. The cosplayer gave him a skeptical look, but Aki refused to look in his direction. At least now he could remember what happened. He got a call from school — this time it was about Denji and not Power for once — and rushed from work to pick him up, worried beyond himself. There was a beeping of the car, the flash of the lights -
Then — darkness.
And he woke up here.
Aki’s stomach rolled in discomfort.
The nurse gave him a smile that was probably meant to be comforting, but instead it made Aki feel like he was a dog about to be enthumanised,
“You are very lucky sir,” she began. At the word ‘lucky’ the cosplayer snorted audibly. “You got hit by the oncoming car and hit your head quite badly. You have a minor fracture on your leg—“ Aki glanced at his lower right leg in the cast in surprise. He didn’t even notice it before. “But other than that, you are well, and should recover quickly. We advise you to take a break for at least a week, and to not strain your leg for the next two to three months, as well as check in with the doctor every two —“
“Take a break? That guy?” Aki heard the guy on the windowsill mutter as he swung his legs like a bored kid, the way Denji always did. He frowned, giving him a side eye.
What was that supposed to mean?
“I see, thank you,” he replied to the nurse.
Damn, would he actually have to take time off work? He’d still manage the chores and cooking with his leg in a cast, he was sure of it, but his work wasn’t particularly strenuous either…
“Thank you for picking them up,” he gave Kishibe a grateful nod. Kishibe hadn’t been their legal guardian for a while now - not since Aki was old enough to take over the guardianship of Denji and Power, but still watched out for the three of them. It made the weight of responsibility that Ak carried feel just a little bit lighter, knowing that if that car did more than just give him a fracture, someone would still look after those two hellions.
“Don’t sweat it kid,” Kishibe shook his head. “I’ll give you the ride back.”
“Does it mean we are ordering takeout tonight?” Power chirped from where she was still plastered against his side.
Aki suppressed an eyeroll. As always, food was at the forefront of her mind. But when Denji didn’t pitch in with shameless demands for what kind of take-out he wanted today, Aki began to feel a little worried.
Best leave it until they were home then.
“And this guy?” Aki gave a meaningful glance to the window where the angel-cosplayer was sitting.
At that, the guy jerked in place, almost falling from the windowsill, and stared at him with wide eyes.
Everyone else only looked at him in confusion.
“What guy?” Power asked. “Did you hit your head and forgot Denji or something?”
Denji seemed to shrink a little at that.
“No,” Aki replied, attempting to sound stern despite how tired he felt. He had no time for their nonsense now. He pointed towards the windowsill. “Who invited him?”
The man jumped from the window and gaped at him in shock.
“You can see me?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. His red eyes were wide as he stared at Aki from behind the curtain of his messy hair.
“Erm,” came Denji’s intelligent reply. “There is no one there. It’s just us— “ Denji motioned to the three of them, “ —and the old man.”
“Maybe he’s hallucinating,” Power whispered loudly.
Aki’s eyes met the red ones.
“You really can see me, huh?” the guy came closer to Aki, his wings fluttering behind his back. Aki could only gape.
“No! He’s right there,” he motioned at the guy in him, but Denji and Power only stared at him in incomprehension.
Kishibe looked as if he’d swallowed a lemon. “Let’s just go.”
________________________
Aki wasn’t crazy.
Hopefully.
He kept telling himself that.
Which didn’t explain the aggravating presence by his side that only he seemed to see. Maybe he was hallucinating after all, as Power had so helpfully pointed out earlier. He closed his eyes, hoping by the time he opened them the world would make sense.
At least Denji and Power’s rowdiness was a familiar kind of annoyance, as opposed to sudden hallucinations.
Very life-like hallucinations, Aki noted, vexed. It sounded way too realistic.
“How do you even put up with them?” his hallucination muttered from where he was plastered to Aki’s side on the front seat. Aki’s right side felt strangely hot and cold at the same time, tingling ever so faintly. “Though I suppose they are being good right now, not screaming their foolish heads off.”
They were, Aki agreed tacitly. His hallucination was very observant, since Denji and Power were currently merely bickering, not even dragging Aki into whatever argument they had now. But since the hallucination was a part of his brain and he knew his idiot siblings like the back of his hand, it was only to be expected.
“You can stop pretending I don’t exist, you know? We still have to figure out why you can see me in the first place.”
Aki spared him no reply.
“Lad,” came Kishibe’s rough voice, startling him from his thoughts. He opened his eyes and determinedly ignored the blazing halo mere inches away from his right ear. “You should take the doctor’s advice to heart. Rest for once, don’t stress yourself too much.”
Aki failed to suppress the weary sigh that escaped him.
He wasn’t pushing himself too much.
He wasn’t.
But—
He knew Kishibe was right. If he landed himself in a hospital for a prolonged stay, he dreaded to imagine what would become of their bills, and he wouldn’t be surprised if Power and Denji’s grades achieved the impossible and plummeted even lower than they already were.
“Yes, listen to you doctor, foolish human,” his hallucination commented, like a particularly annoying mosquito buzzing by your ear that you hadn’t managed to swat away. There was just no getting rid of it.
Not until Aki got some good sleeping pills, he was sure of it.
In the end, Aki was determined to ignore the bright red blight that always lingered on the edges of his vision as he hobbled his way to their apartment. He made sure the brats were both settled for the night and collapsed on his futon, trying to get his thoughts in order. The world was spinning.
And he was yet to find the way out of his predicament
“Oi.”
Silence. Aki counted his breaths.
Breath in, breathe out, breathe in and out -
“It’s just us here, you know? You won’t even look like a lunatic if you were to talk to me,” his hallucination drawled, as Aki heard him sprawl on the bare floor. A faint flutter of feathers, a brush of air and Aki’s hair swayed gently with it.
His stomach turned.
Hallucinates shouldn’t be able to do this.
“Your hospitality is abysmal, you know?”
His nails dug crescents into his palms as Aki slowly turned his head to the right. The man was still there, and they lay side by side, face to face now. He felt exceedingly real, if not for the light of the halo that illuminated them both. Sharp, delicate features, illuminated in the strange light; a spill of autumn-red hair shone like polished copper in Aki’s dull room, and two white wings spread on his sides.
Aki swallowed.
He had never been superstitious, but… Maybe he was dying, after all. Did it mean he’d be going to Heaven, after all? There were worse sights to see before passing on than a beautiful creature before him.
“At least you deigned to look at me now,” the man drawled. “I don’t like when my charge ignores me.”
Aki’s heart seemed to skip a beat.
He was either dying or would be sent to a loony bin soon enough. Maybe Denji and Power had succeeded in driving him crazy after all.
“...Charge?”
“Well, duh? Did you miss the shining halo and wings? Don’t you humans have angels' image plastered almost everywhere? I’m your Guardian Angel, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Aki echoed.
“ —of course, the main issue is that you can suddenly see me now, which typically doesn’t happen. But ever since I’ve been assigned to you, you’ve proven to be quite a difficult case, but the higher-ups already knew this, so that’s why you are stuck with me anyway. It’s on you, you know? And you are making me work extra to prevent you from dying some unfortunate death, or getting an aneurysm, or—”
He didn’t seem to need to pause to breathe as he kept talking, berating all of Aki’s life choices - including the details that no one but Aki could know - but his voice remained flat and bored. “...I haven’t had to work for quite a few centuries, I’ll let you know, but now I’m working extra and constantly on the clock! And now you’ve concussed yourself into seeing beyond the mortal veil. Must be all the cigarettes.
Aki didn’t have anything to reply to that.
“...Guardian angel?”
“Did you not listen to all that I said? Particularly troublesome humans get assigned Guardian Angels to steer them back to the better path. And I’m your third Guardian Angel in a row; previous ones quit after less than half a year each, something about you ‘being a stubborn mule’ that no amount of divine intervention could steer. I can see now why they said it.”
“That makes sense.”
“Does it?”
“...Not really. I’m probably just hallucinating.”
And yet, the shining halo cast long shadows across the room, and his presence felt strangely heavy and real.
His apparent ‘Guardian angel’ rolled his eyes.
Aki reached his hand, wanting to touch, to see if he was real, but before Aki’s fingers brushed the pale skin on the angel’s cheek, he suddenly recoiled, flinging himself away against the wall.
“You can’t touch me!”
Aki frowned. “How do I know you are real if I can’t touch you?”
The angel huffed. “You aren’t supposed even to see me, much less touch me. If you do, you’ll probably get fried.”
Aki decided half the bottle of sleeping pills might not be enough
________________________
“You lot got everything ready?” Aki asked as he saw them off to school.
“Yes, boss,” Power saluted, and Denji mumbled something in agreement. Aki tried to talk to him about what happened — at school, why he’d been so subdued earlier - but that didn’t go anywhere.
As Aki was left blissfully alone — if one were to ignore the feathered annoyance that made himself comfortable at Aki’s kitchen — the unsettled feeling in his chest grew. He didn’t have anywhere to be and nothing to do; he lost his footing — quite literally, as the dull ache pulsed beneath the cast — left adrift.
“Human, I’m hungry,” the petulant voice startled him from his thoughts.
Aki wondered what would happen if he were to give him food? Would this prove that Aki wasn’t right in the head, after all, and was having a particularly vivid hallucination? Or would the food disappear…somewhere, proving this was real after all?
He wasn’t sure which option was worse.
With a morbid sort of fascination, Aki passed him one of Power’s candies — a very much real, tangible candy — and watched as his ‘Guardian angel’ unwrapped it and swallowed it in one go.
It didn’t fall out of anywhere, didn’t clink against the floor. The candy wrap sat innocently on the counter.
“Oh, this was a good one,” the angel replied as he munched on the candy. “Was it strawberry? Might be my favourite, not that I’ve tried any others sooo…”
Aki’s head hurt. Why was his life like that?
“You— ah… What was your name again?”
Red eyes blinked at him cluelessly.
“Em, I don’t really have one? I’m new to the job, got promoted from Hell recently, older Guardian angels have names though.”
That was… Illuminating.
“I see,” Aki lied, as he very much did not, in fact, see. “Angel, then. Angel, why are you here?”
“What do you mean ‘why am I here’? I’ve always been here. It’s just that for some reason you can see me now.”
This was getting better and better. He’d had an invisible stalker this entire time.
“When will you be leaving then?” Aki asked the question he was most eager to get an answer to.
Angel frowned. “I’m your assigned Guardian angel. I would be on the assignment until your life is all fixed up. Also, do you have any more of those candies?”
“My life is just fine,” Aki argued, insulted.
Angel didn’t look convinced. “Look, I’ve got your records and everything. And yesterday you got so caught up worrying over some nonsense while running on fumes you almost died from getting hit by the car. It took so much energy to minimise the damage! So you should thank me that you got away with only a fractured leg/ So take responsibility and feed me. I’ve been wanting to try the katsudon you cook for the kids for a while.”
The world tilted and Aki's heart plummeted.
Suddenly all he felt was cold.
He…almost died?
Just like that.
But that couldn’t be true. He couldn’t die yet. He still had so much to do. He promised he’d take Denji and Power to the aquarium; Denji had been wanting to see the penguins for so long now, and, and—
It was getting painful to breathe.
“Oi,” Angel called, and Aki found himself leaning against the counter. “You alive in there? You can’t die yet, it would be embarrassing to blunder my first assignment like that.”
“I—“ Aki struggled for breath.
A flicker of white, a presence by his side—
Boink.
Angel tapped his index finger on his forehead, and suddenly all was clear. As if a healing spring swept through his muddled mind, washing away the confusion and pain—a gentle and kind feeling.
It was nice.
Absurdly, he thought of Angel’s words yesterday.
“...Wouldn’t I get fried?”
Angel raised his head, proud of himself. “If it’s done for the sake of the assignment, it doesn’t count. How else are we supposed to look after our mortals?”
The dizzying, breathtaking sensation still lingered, so Aki couldn’t even find it in himself to be vexed. “The assignment to fix my life?”
“Exactly! The usual Guardian angel business, you know?”
Aki didn’t know.
“So I’ll be sticking around until we get you all in order. In the meantime…” Angel hummed thoughtfully, clearly pleased with himself. “Since you can see me, it means I can properly tell you what to do, instead of sending minor intrusive thoughts. So first, let’s start with the ice-cream from that stall on the street corner. Shall we?”
This was Aki’s life now.