Chapter Text
“A transfer? Already?! But it’s only been a few years …”
“I know,” Adachi’s guardian angel sighed, sitting by the window and watching over her sleeping human.
Not only was Adachi Kiyoshi a difficult case, he was also quickly turning out to be an entirely hopeless one.
“And we even warned you he would be a challenging assignment.”
“I know. But to be honest … back then, I really thought you were being a little too harsh on him. There’s more and more of these late bloomers nowadays, and I even think it might be preferable that way, there seems to be less drama if they don’t rush into things. But …”
“But?”
“He’ll be thirty soon,” she sighed with disappointment. “That’s over a third of a human’s life, and yet … nothing has changed. He goes to work, buys food, gets home, does chores and sleeps. I don’t mind that he has no romantic prospects - you know I’ve spent entire lives with humans who had never even searched for love. I was not expecting to be off the hook here anytime soon, if at all. I just thought I’d be on the sidelines of his social life eventually, not the centerpiece of it! He still doesn’t have any friends other than Tsuge … but even that guy cuts his guardian a break by slipping into those writing frenzies for days on end. Meanwhile I’m stuck being Adachi’s entertainment and company all the time. It’s too much!”
“Well … as unfortunate as it is, we understand. We’ll see if we can arrange a reassignment.”
“Thank you.”
“But you will have to communicate it with him.”
“... do I have to be honest?”
“It is strongly encouraged.”
“Ugh. But that’ll just make it worse for whoever you send next, I hope you know that.”
“It is what it is, unfortunately.”
○○○
“Kurosawa. Congratulations on another completed assignment.”
“Thank you.”
“Will you be attending her wedding?”
“Ah … no. The time off I requested was for other reasons.”
“We see. So, about this break we’ve promised you …”
“Yes?”
“We are afraid something has come up.”
“... another assignment?”
“Yes.”
“But- we agreed … isn’t there someone else!?”
“We are afraid not. It is quite a difficult case, you see …”
“I see,” Kurosawa mumbled with a defeated sigh, staring at the mirages floating around him between the clouds.
Adachi Kiyoshi. 29. Office admin employee. Career prospects, dubious. Friends, one. Romantic prospects, none. And perhaps most alarmingly: his list of guardian angels already held three names when most people in his situation would have only had one … maybe, on rare occasions, two.
Kurosawa could hope for a miracle, but … well, he was in the business of making them happen, not hoping for them. So he knew something that seemed impossible when he saw it.
“This one … he won’t ever find love, will he?”
“Most likely not.”
“Do you know how long he will live for?”
“We can not disclose such information.”
“Natural causes?”
“Most likely yes.”
Kurosawa sighed again, taking another look at the case they were trying to shove onto him. Adachi hardly looked like humanity’s brightest, but … his health seemed decent, he got passable nutrition into his body and he walked to and from the train station every day. Not an athlete or a health junkie by any means, but still someone who could easily live another half a century.
And what was half a century to an immortal being even?
Well, maybe to an older angel, it wouldn’t be anything at all - but Kurosawa wasn’t that old yet. Merely a few centuries. Watching over Adachi for fifty years would still feel like a significant part of Kurosawa’s life, and it would probably feel like it’s dragging on forever. After all, there had to be a reason for this many guardian changes … this guy was insufferable, wasn’t he?!
“If I may ask, why did … uh, why were my predecessors reassigned?”
“Compatibility issues.”
“... he’s not pleasant to be around, is he?”
“Not particularly.”
“I see.”
So much for his break.
“We are only reaching out to you with this because we are completely certain that you are up to the challenge. After all, you are one of our best, Kurosawa.”
“Yes … thank you.”
“But we did promise you a break, that is true. So if we may, we would like to offer you a wish to compensate you for the inconvenience.”
A wish?! For him? Kurosawa couldn’t believe his ears. He knew his performance was good, but still … being granted a wish was extremely rare! He had peers in the thousands of years who wouldn’t even dream about being awarded one. He’d always wanted one himself, but … he would have liked to earn it properly. This felt a little less like an acknowledgement and more like pity, of all things. How horrible could Adachi really be, if that’s how they were planning to apologize to him?
But a wish is a wish nonetheless, and Kurosawa would have to be crazy to pass it up.
“It’s a wish for anything, right?”
“Anything but being relieved of this assignment prematurely.”
“I understand. Thank you. When do I start?”
“He wakes in an hour, and it is a Saturday. This would be a good time.”
“Okay. I will be there on time.”
Really … so much for his break. Not that he was going to do anything with it, but that was kinda the point: he didn’t want to do anything for a while. Or maybe some things … things he couldn’t do while standing on the sidelines of a human’s life … things that were impossible while his purpose was assigned away from himself.
Everyone always praised him for how model of an angel he was, but Kurosawa sometimes wondered if a good angel would struggle so much with the selflessness their work required.
He didn’t want much, at least he didn’t think so. Just some time to listen to his own thoughts, and maybe share them with someone, and maybe find a place of his own. He liked the idea of coming home from work to his own cloud, where he could be alone with himself. But for as long as he could remember, the times between his assignments were so short, he wouldn’t have been able to pick a cloud to call home even if he wanted to. And since he would never be home anyway, it probably made more sense to leave that space for some other angel.
Kurosawa didn’t need it.
The few things he was given for his life in the human realm got stashed away at a colleague’s home whenever he wasn’t using them, and even those barely got to sit still at all. Much like Kurosawa, they were always in motion: tucked under his wings once more as he stood on the edge of heaven, watching the Sun eclipse the Earth.
It wasn’t quite there yet … it wasn’t morning for Adachi yet … Kurosawa could still … have a few of these precious moments … for himself.
He told himself the chill on his face as he descended was merely condensation, but it could have also been tears.
○○○
Adachi’s apartment was small: a bit cramped, but rather orderly nonetheless. Kurosawa quickly gained a sense of where everything was supposed to be, but he couldn’t make out where his own space was. Actually, now that he thought about it … Adachi was his first assignment that wasn’t a woman. Also his first assignment that wasn’t wealthy. And only the second human that Kurosawa wouldn’t be with since their childhood … even if the widow he recently watched over had little in common with Adachi’s situation. So for all intents and purposes, Adachi was a first for Kurosawa in that aspect too.
Considering Adachi’s financial state, Kurosawa of course couldn’t expect a large house with lounge chairs placed in each room especially for him, or anything of that sort. And if his guardians kept getting reassigned, Adachi was probably one of those humans who saw them as a nuisance and didn’t want anything to do with them, so … perhaps over here, Kurosawa thought as he found a small broom closet between the bathroom and the apartment door. Perhaps he was supposed to stay in here when he wasn’t needed? It didn’t look too bad … he could even curl up on the floor and sleep on his wings. Yes, this was perfectly adequate. He could make do with this, he’d just ask Adachi to make sure that was where he should be once the human wakes up. Speaking of which …
Kurosawa walked to Adachi’s bed in the corner, leaning over his new assignment and taking in as many of the fundamentals as he could with 94% of the human’s body tightly wrapped in a duvet. He appeared to be healthy at the moment … so this was his baseline complexion, heart rate, the pace and depth of his breathing, the twitching movement of his eyes as he slept, the temperature of the skin on his forehead … Kurosawa immediately remembered it all.
And when Adachi finally opened his eyes, their striking blue color also became a permanent fixture in Kurosawa’s memory, where it would no doubt remain for the next fifty years … or however long they would stay together.
“Good morning.”
“Mmmm … eh!? Who are you?!”
“Hello,” Kurosawa took a cautious step back, realizing he might have been too close standing right next to Adachi’s bed. “I’m Kurosawa Yuuichi. Your new guardian angel.”
“... new?”
There was a glimpse of hurt on Adachi’s face before it once again turned expressionless as he sat up in his bed.
“Yes. I’ve just been assigned here today.”
“What about my old one?”
“She, uh … actually, I don’t know. I thought she was supposed to tell you?”
“Aha … well, I guess … make yourself at home. I’ll be taking a shower,” Adachi mumbled, stumbling out of bed and towards the bathroom.
Kurosawa nodded, but still … make himself home where exactly?
○○○
Adachi stood in the shower with his forehead against the wall, using the water pouring over his head as a distraction from the few tears which managed to work their way out through the corners of his eyes. He wasn’t angry … not even hurt really … just … so hopeless, and numb.
He thought he was doing okay. He really tried to step things up after his second angel told him they weren’t a good match before she left. Adachi understood what that meant - after all, humans used the same excuse too. She didn’t want to be around him. Didn’t want anything to do with him. He’d heard it all before - not to his face, but that didn’t really make that much of a difference.
His third angel was pretty nice. She even motivated Adachi to allow himself a little bit of hope for finding someone to fall in love with, and he honestly did try … it just didn’t work out. As it never did. As it never would … not for him. But so what, he thought? Not everyone’s guardian angel gets replaced by a human partner. Lots of people never find love. He’d just have to accept that and manage without it somehow. Even if it made him sad and resentful, at least he still had someone to keep him company. So he really did his best to make sure they could be friends and have lots of fun times together, but … then she left without even saying goodbye.
He didn’t have many other people to compare himself to. Even when it came to Tsuge, he’d never dare ask what his relationship with his guardian angel was like - that was way too personal! But Adachi figured there must have been worse people out there than him … everyone who’s kind of a loser but at least has a job and hasn’t murdered anyone thinks that way, don’t they?!
But if three angels had already left him, maybe even that was thinking too highly of himself.
This time, he wouldn’t put in so much effort. He wouldn’t try to be better than he is anymore. He wouldn’t try to build a relationship with his new angel. He wouldn’t bother anymore. Even if he tries, it doesn’t matter. The truth comes out eventually, and even angels can’t put up with him.
And he’s supposed to dream of another human wanting to spend the rest of her life with someone like him? Yeah, right. Not like that would ever happen. And if it would, Adachi would feel too sorry for her to do anything about it anyway.
Just like he felt too sorry for himself to move and close the shower even as the warm water eventually turned ice cold.