Teaser: Eika snoozing at her work desk while telekinetically lifting and signing papers that she has to review now that she's back in Hell.
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Ryosei had always known he was handsome.
C'mon, he'd been attracting both girls and boys alike since he was a kid, how could he not know—but he hadn't quite realized the extent of his good looks.
Even after his little "makeover" with Eika, he hadn't thought himself much changed at all, unaware of the storm he would release; so, when he returned to school a changed man, he was genuinely shocked over the sheer quantity of people that stared at him as if he was Buddha or something.
Surely, surely he didn't look that different without his long hair, surely...
However, he had gravely miscalculated what the hair had done to him.
Before, he could only be acknowledged as simply attractive rather than full blown handsome, his hair obscuring his bright blue eyes and softening his sharp jawline in an unflattering way.
Girls liked him and all, but they never really considered him to be much eye-candy save for when he pulled back his hair into a messy ponytail—then he was really something to look at, but the spell would always end after he would pull his hair tie out of his hair, freeing it.
Seriously, when people heard that Ryosei had tied up his hair, they would quite literally swarm the room he was at, sometimes even leaving class just to peek through the window and bear witness to the 'unmasked' face of Ryosei.
His clothes from before, though decent, were ill-fitting for the slender boy, the pants either too baggy or short, and the t-shirts too loose and big on him; his shoes from before were just severely beat up white converse that were clearly on their last legs.
The only reason he even had clothes was because of the wonderful haven known as the thrift store, but that was a story for another time—the place had some really good deals though; 10/10 would recommend it to just about anyone.
In short, despite his frankly extraordinarily pretty face and well-muscled and toned body, his clothing and hairstyle absolutely ruined them, forcing his rank on the beauty scale to fall from a 10/10 to at most a 6/10; decent, but not a perfect score.
But now that the troublesome hair was gone?
Now that he had high-class clothes that fit his body to a 't'?
Now that he actually had nice shoes?
Now that he had bade a somewhat bittersweet farewell to his previous provider?
People were practically drooling over him and he was once again uncomfortable—it was fifth grade for Ryosei all over again...
See, in fifth grade, he had started to really develop under his growth spurt, resulting in his cubby cheeks started to become more defined, losing much of the fat that had graced them before, and he had finally gotten a proper haircut, his once mid-back length bright ash white hair now cleanly and neatly cut and no longer obscuring his facial features.
The removal of said hair led to everyone—friends, bullies, girls, guys, classmates, faculty, you name it—to stare at him profusely, their eyes wide at how pretty he was. The Japanese children and people had seldom seen pretty eyes as bright blue as his, nor skin as pale and smooth as his was.
An abnormality of the most bewitching type; the fusion between an Albino English model, and a beautiful Japanese Geisha women resulted in a child of frankly ridiculously beautiful proportion.
The mix between European and Asian features had somehow become a masterpiece in his presence, leaving the young Ryosei of both then and now to be bewildered at the attention he garnered.
Contrary to his initial expectations however, the attention he was receiving had significantly increased recently, surpassing even his 5th and 6th grade years in terms of adoration and infatuation. Seriously, he was starting to wonder over whether or not the people approaching him were all high or something.
Did they take an aphrodisiac by accident?
Maybe they were hypnotized?
Ryosei was genuinely concerned and was questioning the human populaces sanity at this point. Now, perhaps that's being too rude or whatever, but he was being completely serious in that line of thought, as well as having gained evidence to support his questioning.
I mean, 12 confessions to him?! In the last half hour?! He didn't even fuxxing know these girls, what?! And on top of that all of them—yes, all 84 of them on this day—were literally drooling over him.
Of course, he had turned them all away, a feeling of deep revulsion stuttering up his spine and breath down his neck each time his pretty blue eyes met their lustful, delirious gazes. Was he a piece of meat or something?
Besides, none of them were his type to begin with, and even if they were physically, they'd need to pass his test for them: a strict personality test that considered everything from humor to empathy to consideration and even to the habits of the other person.
His criteria was as strict as Heaven was about redemption—perhaps even stricter, as hard as that is to believe. Eika's score on his test? Around 65 or so—however, that number was actually quite high in Ryosei's book, the highest a girl had ever gotten.
Now, what is his type, you may ask?
The answer: imagine Eika, but with long white hair, a gentle smile on her face, and tall, like 5'8" or 5'10". A willowy body not necessarily lacking curves, but also not overflowing; he wasn't the type that adored ridiculously large or overly emphasized curves, they actually made him feel uncomfortable, like he was sinning or something.
This sentiment was actually still carried with him, even to this day.
Thank the World that Eika wasn't here; she would never let go of the opportunity to tease him senseless. Then again, now that he was thinking about her, he needed to talk to her—his younger sister was coming from Japan to stay with him for the time being, and he needed to be certain it was okay for her to stay at Eika's house.
He knew Eika was the territorial type, so although he could technically still bring her over, he was anxious over whether or not that would prompt her to... "train" him more vigorously. Thing was, he didn't have her number—well, he did, but his phone couldn't exactly reach across fuxxing dimensions now could it?
His next thought was to maybe ask Lorleilorn or Rurielles to get help in contacting her, but... he had been knocked out when Eika had brought him to their place, and he didn't know how to get there, since Eika had teleported the two of them home...
So he was screwed.
He sighed in one part relief and two parts despair as he was relieved of school for the day before proceeding to go to the store to get coffee; lately he'd been drinking the stuff like it was water, resulting in an inhuman amount of money spent for just coffee.
Who would've thought Sui Ishida's Tokyo Ghoul would've helped profit Eika and therefore him? Thank you Ishida was all he had to say on the subject matter—now he could drink coffee like no tomorrow to alleviate the hunger properly.
Ryosei knew that with his abilities he could easily kill a human—heck, if he were to sneeze wrong one could possibly die from the shockwave of ice produced—but he wasn't exactly ready for that. He blamed it on his sentimentality towards them based on his prior experiences, but... he knew what the real reason was.
The reason was because he got the feeling that if he were to slaughter a human—right here, right now, in this public setting—he suspected he wouldn't feel guilty in the slightest. Not even a hint.
He would simply stand over their corpse, apathetic to the screams around him and the blood creeping up to his feet slowly, his blue eyes cold and calm; perhaps he would rip even off the arm of a living human instead, eating it casually before taking the head off of another one as a snack.
There was a monster sleeping within his flesh, a demon that only he knew personally; and it was hungry, forever starving for more and more substance, growing stronger by the day as he continually resisted—buying coffee in copious amounts was simply a cry for help, a plea; desperation incarnate.
It merely staved off the hunger, fighting and resisting against the beast—but soon—and without a doubt sooner rather than latter, he had the distinct feeling that it would consume him, gorging itself on the flesh that surrounded it before he would awake, a slew of corpses in his wake, his pale body splatter and coated with blood, the screams of the dying still ringing in his ears...
And even then, he'd feel nothing but minor annoyance at how the blood had stained his nice clothes.
And that terrified him.
His hands trembled as he made his exorbitant purchase of the coffee, a soft response of "thank you" immediately budding forth from his lips to greet the cashier farewell before walking out of the convenience story slowly, his gate long and heavy, his expression grim and shadowed beneath his hair, the emptiness of anxiety present in his darkened blue eyes.
He spotted a bench, and feeling he needed to rest a little, he sat down lightly, his shoulders heavy as if he carried a heavy burden—a future he did not want to face. He closed his eyes, on of his hands coming to hide his face, rubbing at his eyes and dragging through his hair; his shoulders trembled, and his emotions reached a crescendo.
A strange instinct arose from deep within his fear and anxiety, a heavy, yet gentle coldness that emanated strength and security; sweet temptation whispered in his heart, 'Bite the fruit, feel the strength, enrich your soul, release your burden...'
Freeze.
He wanted everything to freeze, everything to stop, everything to halt; he wanted to think clearly for one single fuxxing moment and allow himself to cool down before thinking anymore.
Suddenly the noise of passerby's was annoying—the inane conversations, the lies, the fake smiles, the sheer humanity of them started to make him feel oddly sick. It was nauseating, being surrounded by such two-faced people; how could Eika bear to live with them for all this time? They're so annoying...
'I don't understand why you keep lying to me—am I an idiot to you?! Well guess what, you go on sleeping with Lance, and I'll leave you alone for good. In fact, why don't you just die, fuxxing slut..."
'Shut up...'
"So anyway, have you seen Laura lately? Oh my G*d, her clothes are sooo ugly, like, she looks sooo ugly; what is she, a grandma?! Hahaha~"
'Shut Up...."
"You idiot, you can't do anything right, G*d! Just—DON'T do anything until I get there, you'll ruin things more!*beep* I should've fuxxing aborted if I knew he'd be this retarded..."
'SHUT UP! You're disgusting, you trash!'
"Hey mister, are you alright?"
Ryosei froze, his trembling stopping and the frost he'd unconsciously produced fading as he snapped out of his weird trance. The temptation to grab upon that power that had welled within him shattered, and he looked up to see who had inquired over his mental state.
It was a 10, maybe even 12 year old girl with long black hair, dark cocoa skin, and bright grey eyes. She wore golden earrings depicted a tree stump, and she wore an off the shoulders blue summer dress, her expression neutral, maybe even expressionless.
He blinked, taking in a shuddering breath before he released it, his head in his hand once again as he stammered out softly, "... I... I'm... fine... thank you for asking..."
"You don't look fine. Did something happen?"
"...I just... have been going though a lot recently and... a friend who was helping me through it left and... now I'm kinda panicking and..."
"Oh... you wanna tell me about it? Maybe I could help you..."
Ryosei looked up into her eyes, finding it odd how a child was so mature; she sounded... older... Peering closer, he saw her eyes held the same quality he'd seen in Eika's sometimes, in the quiet moments were there was nothing to distract her. It was then she looked tired, tired and sad and so, so old. Like she'd seen the world begin and was just waiting for it to end so she could finally rest...
This girl's eyes were similar, but different from Eika's, almost reversed—it was like she'd already seen the end of the world, and was tired of trying to stop it. The eyes of the Supernatural.
"Are you by chance... su-"
It was then a familiar voice called out.
"Cora! There you are, Hell, I've been looking everywhere for you—why in Lucifer's good name did you run off!?"
"I was stopping a disaster from happening; sorry Rue..."
"Well, as long as you don't do it again. Thanks for looking after my little sister—huh? Ryosei? That's you, right?"
Ryosei looked to see a tall, slim African women with a carefully styled black pixie cut and bright green eyes; golden earrings that showed a seed hung from her ears, and she wore a simple white collar shirt and high waisting black dress pants with red heels.
His brain made the connection as he met her eyes; the women who had helped Eika with her homunculi and was taking care of it...
"Miss... Ru—?"
"RULIS!", she hissed, an expression of warning on her lovely face. Ryosei blinked, his brain processing before realizing—she didn't know who was listening to their conversation; better safe than sorry.
'Perhaps she'd quite famous?'
"... Ah, my apologies, Miss Rulis... this is quite the coincidence, I actually need to talk to you in concerning matters of our mutual friend."
Rurielled raised her brow, "What did she do this time?"
"She left to her hometown, but unfortunately because of the location, my phone can't reach her in concerning a rather troubling matter..."
She sighed, "That's just like her, acting without being considerate towards others... here, I'll take you to the shop and help you contact her—a special device is needed for this sort of thing..."
"Ah, thank you very much, Miss Rulis. I'm sorry for troubling you for the time being. And, Cora, was it? Thank you for helping me calm down—I don't know what would've happened if I was overwhelmed..."
Cora smiled, her gray eyes alighting, "It's no problem, it's my pleasure."
And so the trio left to the hair salon, leaving many hungry eyes that would do ill to follow them...