"Stop it, Anna. It tickles," Jules frowned, glancing askance at his little sister. She was currently fiddling with the feathers of his wings, an amazed yet somewhat pensive look on her face. "How about keeping your hands to yourself for a bit, hm?"
"No way!" Annabelle chuckled as she stroked the wings for the nth time, pretending she hadn't noticed her brother's glare. "The feathers are so smooth to the touch that it makes it hard to let go. Oh, and did you know? The colors are even more dazzling up close. It's kinda bewitching."
The hunter responded by letting out a long sigh. Annabelle had grown both mentally and physically, but she was still as stubborn as ever. When she didn't want to listen, whatever others said went in one ear and out the other. With this in mind, there wasn't much Jules could do but let her have her way.
Now that they had found a relatively clean room and beheaded its owner, Annabelle wouldn't miss the chance to inspect his wings, not even for all the riches in the world. She had been at it for a while already, yet it didn't seem like she would stop anytime soon. It was understandably so, for Celestial beings' wings were something ethereal, literally out of this world, and their beauty tended to entrance whoever lay eyes on them.
Well, whatever. In the end, Jules thought that he might as well let Annabelle have her fill. Because as soon as he figured out how to get rid of his wings, he'd never let them out again.
Someone coughed, bringing back Jules's attention to the present. He peered to his left, where the demon stood. "What…?"
"I'm kinda jealous here. I wanna touch them too."
'Touch? More like grope,' Jules thought as he deadpanned, "No."
"Stingy."
"Yes, yes, I'm stinginess incarnate. Now, shut up."
"Why do you gotta be so mean? My poor heart—!"
"Would it kill you to save your lover's spat for later?" Iris interrupted with a roll of her eyes, shutting her ancestor up. Then, she turned to Annabelle and continued, "I know you would rather speak in private with your brother, but the room is only so big. Mind if we eavesdrop?"
"No," Annabelle shook her head, glancing around the den.
The room could barely accommodate the five of them, to the point they almost had to stomp on each other's feet to fit. In such a small, closed space, whispering would be akin to screaming, and everyone would hear whatever conversation they had, even if they covered their ears with their hands. But it wasn't like Annabelle could ask the teenagers and Bastien to wait outside in the corridor, where they could be spirited away at any given time. She wouldn't put them in danger just to have a bit of privacy. It wasn't something Jules would allow, anyway.
"Let's take a seat first," Bastien smiled, tilting his head to the two sofa-like chairs framing the dirty window. He added with a wink, "Resting our legs for a bit won't hurt."
No one could refute him. They had been running around for the past few hours, and the teenager's legs were about to give in. Thus, Annabelle reluctantly let go of her brother's wings and plopped down on one chair, the teenagers perching themselves on the armrests. On the other side, Jules sat in the second chair while Bastien leaned on the armrest, which emitted a loud cracking sound under his weight.
Then, silence fell.
Neither Jules nor Annabelle knew where to start, so they stayed silent. They tacitly lowered their eyes, their gaze lingering on the low table that separated the two chairs. They stared at the chess game lying on its round surface, the unrecognizable pawns carved in what seemed to be deboned fingers. On one side, the chess pieces were the color of rotten meat, blueish, brown, and black, while on the other, they were the color of fresh flesh, slightly pinkish with touches of red.
It didn't take long before they averted their eyes, but wherever their gazes landed, there was always something that reminded them of where they were. Hence, they ultimately decided to look into each other's eyes. Before, they were of the same pale-gray color, but now, Jules's had grown more silvery, and even the color of his pupils seemed to have lightened. It was somewhat whiter than before.
A few more seconds passed before Annabelle finally broke the silence. "First off, what are you? Or more like, what are we?"
"To put it bluntly," Jules sighed, his voice trailing off, "we're half-bloods. Half-human and half-angel, to be exact."
There was a moment of stunned silence, then Annabelle chuckled nervously, "You gotta be kidding me."
Jules shook his head. "Mom is human, but our dad wasn't. He died when you were an infant, so you don't remember anything about him. Let's just say that even in his human form, he wasn't that much human-like, having a kind of heaven-defying beauty that dazed everyone." A faint smile stretched the hunter's lips at those words, memories of people's stunned faces, mouths agape, surfacing in his mind. "Anyway, you and I inherited our looks from him, including our eyes and hair color."
"No wonder people always say our eyes are out of this world," Annabelle laughed wryly. "They literally are. Oh man, what kind of face am I supposed to do now, when people say you have the look of an angel?"
"Well, keep saying what you always said, that yes, you know."
"You're aware that the situation is different? I could easily say that before 'cause I was joking!" Annabelle grunted. "Is mom aware that dad wasn't human?"
"Yes, she is. He had told her before they entered a romantic relationship. Dad was too honest for his own good and would never have hidden such a secret from his spouse—especially since he was an archangel of all things, not some measly, low-ranked celestial being. She also knows I'm working for the hunters, though it doesn't please her much."
"I see." Annabelle paused, and after hesitating for a good while, she finally asked, "Do I also have, you know, wings?"
To this, Jules pursed his lips. A dark look flashed across his face, flickers of silver raging in the depths of his eyes. When he spoke again, his voice seemed to break a little. "No, not anymore."
"I guessed as much." Annabelle took a deep breath, closing her eyes for an instant before continuing, "Please, tell me how it happened and how you came to work for hunters. I'm all grown-up now, and I don't want you to keep carrying that burden on your own. I'm here to shoulder it with you, so please?"
"Alright," Jules whispered, throwing his head back to lean it against the backrest of the chair. His eyes landed on the decaying ceiling, and he stared at it as he began, "However, it's a long story and not a very happy one."
***
14 years ago
Jules could not fall asleep for some reason. He woke up in the middle of the night and could not enter dreamland again. Even counting sheep up to five hundred didn't help; it only served to annoy the hell out of him.
After another hour of tossing about, he finally had enough and got out of bed. If he was going to stare at the ceiling anyway, he might as well drag his weary body downstairs and pour himself a glass of warm milk. His father would always bring him one whenever he couldn't fall asleep as a child, and it did the trick every time. So maybe it would tonight too.
As the teenager headed downstairs, he passed before his mother's bedroom. The door was left open, and snores traveled into the corridor. They were so loud the walls seemed to shake.
'Did mom finally manage to fall asleep?' As the thought crossed his mind, Jules curiously peeked inside the bedroom.
He couldn't see very well as only the moonlight brightened the room through the window. Still, he could discern his mother's silhouette lying in bed. However, the blankets were tossed all over the place, and her sleeping posture was… hard to describe. She looked like a disarticulated doll, sleeping diagonally across the bed with her head falling off the mattress.
'Doesn't look very comfortable,' Jules inwardly chuckled before a knocking sound resounded. The teenager then shifted his gaze to the cradle beside the bed. His baby sister was sleeping in it, letting out soft snores that meddled with their mother's. The blankets were also a mess, thrown over the rail and whatnot. Goodness! Annabelle wasn't even six months old, but she was already picking up their mother's bad habit. What would it be in a few years?
Time ticked by, yet Jules didn't move an inch and took in the sight instead. He found it touching and amusing, making him smile softly. It took a while longer before he finally closed the door and proceeded to go downstairs.
Since his sister's birth a few months ago, his mom barely had any sleep. His baby sister was always crying, keeping their mother awake at all times of the day. And if Annabelle's wails weren't echoing throughout the house, it was because she had fallen asleep or had lost her voice from crying too much. The angry, little red face she made as she tried to scream but couldn't was quite a sight. Neither he nor his mother knew whether to laugh or cry whenever it happened.
In the end, they often found themselves doing both.
The only one who could somewhat soothe Annabelle was her father. The moment he took her in his arms, she would stop crying and start to giggle. And when he kissed her forehead, she looked like the happiest baby on earth.
"I'm calling it: that kid's first word is gonna be "daddy", and you can't convince me otherwise!" her mother often said. "She only has eyes for her father, even though I'm the one feeding her and changing her diapers! What an ungrateful little one, honestly!"
But, sadly, Jules's father wasn't often at home these past few weeks, too busy with work. According to his mom, some influential people had requested his service for the next few months, and as a security guard, he had to stay by their side from dawn to dusk.
Hopefully, Jules wouldn't have gone deaf before his father's schedule cleared up. His sister's cries were one hell of a deadly weapon, so shrill it seemed to pierce his eardrums. He couldn't wait for his father's return, and lately, he even started to pray that he'd be fired and have no choice but to stay home. Not the most filial thing to do, but he was about to lose his hearing here! And, well, he might or might not have been missing his father too.
When he told this to his mother, she responded by ruffling his hair. "Oh love, I'm sure Zack would rather spend his time with you than to guard some stinky old men. Security guards are cool, you know? So how about you stop pouting and go to bed, hm?"
The conversation Jules had with his mother a few hours ago popped back into his mind, and her tired face flashed before his eyes. He could tell she hadn't looked very well these past days, appearing on the verge of collapse. If he woke up with dark circles tomorrow, she'd definitely corner him and ask what was wrong. His mom had some overprotective tendencies, and she tended to panic at the slightest thing. Sometimes, it felt like she thought he was made of glass.
'I better hurry and go back to sleep after drinking my glass of milk,' he thought, not wanting to worry his mother needlessly.
However, Jules barely had the time to open the refrigerator when a loud crashing noise startled him into closing it. Grunts and coughs soon followed the crashing sound, traveling to his ears like whispers. Forget going back to sleep; now, Jules was wide awake, his heart pounding at his temples like a drum.
Slowly, the teenager turned around to peer at the veranda, where the noise seemed to have come from. The French windows revealed the scenery outside, from the porch to the courtyard behind. The full moon shone through the glass walls that framed the veranda, casting a pale-blue light over the lush plants and the wooden chairs. Amid the flowers, a human figure lay on the floor on its stomach, pieces of broken glasses scattered over its body. The glasses sparkled under the moonlight, almost like a thousand stars; it was an eerie yet beautiful sight, drawing the eye.
But Jule's attention was soon diverted to the shadows on the figure's back. The teenager couldn't help but suck in a deep breath after identifying what they were: wings.
There were goddamn wings, at least two meters tall each. The left one seemed broken, bent at an odd angle, while the other was cut in half. Feathers littered the floor around the figure's body, and blood seeped out of the wound. Some droplets had splattered on the flowers, painting the white roses red.
'What the heck…?' Thousands of thoughts and questions swirled in his head, but Jules didn't dare take a step closer. Instead, he stayed still like a statue, holding in his breath.
It was a hot summer night, and the windows were left half-open to allow the wind to blow in and cool the house. It also permitted the faintest sound to enter and exit the house freely. Keeping this in mind, Jules feared that the floor would creak if he were to try to sneak closer, thus alerting the winged being of his presence. He couldn't tell whether it was a foe or a friend, and therefore decided not to take any unnecessary risks—he wouldn't let curiosity kill him.
"Shit, that hurts," a deep, husky voice hissed. After a second, it added with a low chuckle, "Look at the mess I made… Lisa is definitely going to kill me."
Jules felt his eyes widen, the familiar voice echoing inside his head. And when the figure tried to push its body up only to stumble and roll on its side, Jules thought he was seeing things. After all, how could that winged being have his father's face?
But no matter how much he wanted to deny it, those gentle yet piercing eyes were definitely his father's; he'd never mistake them for someone else's. Putting aside the matter of the wings, this man was his one and only father, and he was hurt—severely hurt. The bleeding hadn't stopped, and a pool of blood was slowly swallowing the floor under him.
Once reality crashed in, Jules rushed to the veranda and slammed the door open. "D-dad!"
"Jules…? What are you doing up and about at this hour?"
"…"
Was this really important right now?!
_______________________
Edited by Clozed! ♥
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