PROLOGUE

The first time Kaoru saw a demon, she was only eight. Sitting at her dying mother's bedside, she saw him: cloaked and hooded, patient and waiting, there in the corner but not really. When her mother's life on the monitor fell into a straight, horizontal line, doctors and nurses rushed into the room, and she was whisked away by her distraught father. Kaoru could not hear anything but the beeping sound of the machine, and before the doors closed, she saw the demon moved.

Then there were no more sounds. Through the small gap the swinging door left, she witnessed her world crumbling. Every motion in the room was painstakingly slow and deliberate in her eyes; even her father's arms around her little body tightened ever so slightly. She could feel her father's trembling muscles, his futile attempt to hold still, to stay strong. She could feel his tears on her hair, on her shoulders.

She thought about crying, as well, but she was too entranced by the demon that she could not feel anything.

"Dad, the demon is taking Mom away," she whispered as she saw the hooded figure reach out for her mother's hand.

She saw the two of them walk away. Slowly, slowy.

And that was when her own tears started to fall, and her heart started to hurt, and it became too difficult to breathe.


The second time Kaoru saw a demon, she was fifteen. She came home from school that day, only to be greeted by an ambulance wailing outside her neighbor's house. Medical personnel scrambled to lift the mobile bed into the vehicle, but the teenager somehow knew it was all in vain.

The hooded figure was already reaching for the old man's hands.

In Kaoru's peripheral vision, the old man's wife was standing still on their doorway. Kaoru turned to look. There were no tears on her ashen face, but her eyes showed an ocean of sadness. Kaoru slowly approached her, and muttered, "Grandma, I'm so sorry."

As she hugged her neighbor, the old woman returned the gesture, and tenderly whispered to her, "He is not a demon, my dear Kaoru, but an angel. An angel who will help my husband find his way to Paradise."