A familiar face.

Strikingly familiar. I have seen her before.

We stand in front of each other, a few feet away but staring at each other with that obvious familiarity. I have seen—felt that bright white purity before. Long before I fell down into hell because I sinned in front of His presence.

I could feel her being familiar with me, too.

Rather coincidental, isn't it? Both of us sent on the same place.

"You didn't forget my name." I say, cocking my head at her.

Her eyes with the human form she has still retains the same nature she had in heaven. Wide and innocent.

"How can I forget? We always saw each other back in heaven."

But I could see the slightest scowl on her face. As if she's looking at me in disgust. I step forward, just to spite her.

She steps back, just as expected.

"Why are you here, Yohane?"

A smirk creeps up to my face and I breathe in, letting the shadows cover me. It's no lie. These covers made me feel more who I am than back up there.

"Don't worry, humans will always forget beings like us ever existed once our mission is done, right?"

I look up to see Ruby's face, her human figure looking so small despite the height difference being little. Yet her face looks determined, so very different with the way she looked at me before.

"It's so different, isn't it? Angels coming to Earth only because God sent them, and demons coming to Earth because some petty human is so pathetically desperate enough for their wish to be granted."

"You don't insult our Father's creations that way, nor do you just use His name like that…"

I couldn't hear the rest of her sentence—I laughed. Laughing loud though I don't know why. A humane response. Being a human is such a bother.

"God knows best, Yohane." I hear her from the laughter ringing in my ears, her back facing away from me. "No wonder you have fallen."

"Shut up!"

The echoes of my laughter stops and I can only feel the boiling rage. Being a fallen angel was a fact, but not a fact I'd want being shoved on my face. "Since when had you been talking like that? Is it because I'm fallen that I'm a disgusting being in front of you?!"

Ruby faces me with shock on her face, and as much anger has taken over me, I felt petty, childish power.

Her face falls and she steps forward to me. Confusion. Her hand extends and retracts, until it touches my shoulder and she retracts again. I only watch her, my brows furrowed by her actions. I could see the shadows of her wings underneath her.

"Did you feel anything? When your wings disappeared, I mean."

I grab her hand and she jumps, only I turn around and lift up the uniform from the school we were both sent to. I let go of her hand but I wait for her touch, to feel the long ugly scars.

"Eternal damnation is suffering, Ruby. It isn't like heaven where everything is white. I felt all the pain sinful humans had, despite being only a demon myself."

She touches my blackened and sunken scars and I wince, feeling all the burn and the fragments of my feathers and flesh of what used to be my wings.

"Of course I felt the pain. The pain was more terrible than you would've expected, and it was more painful to feel the grace pulled out of you and seeing your dead wings."

Her fingers drag up and the flinching worsened, my body pulling away and myself facing to scowl at her. Her expression changed to something softer, like the Ruby I always had by my side before I sinned in the face of God.

"Why?"

Quiet.

Such a quiet question with only one answer. A rather shameful one.

"Because I couldn't stand it."

She looks confused.

"And I sinned far beyond than anyone there."

She clicks her tongue and her face returns to its sour state, her feet walking away from me and I ask her one more question.

"Why are you so angry, Ruby? We were such good friends."

She stops her tracks and her body deflates. I take one step forward and her wings extend, as if driving me away.

"I loved you, Ruby."

The leaves and my clothes rustled by her swiftly turning to me, the wind from her wings strong and unabiding.

"I don't understand."

I let myself transport near her and she almost falls with a squeal, with my hand catching her wrist. She looks at me with such surprised eyes and I look down on her, my body in really close proximity.

Everything suddenly paused; the air unheard of and the nature very still. The clouds aren't even moving, and I see no other living thing in sight except for us, holding on to each other.

"Isn't it taboo, for an angel to love another angel?" I whisper to her, my lips barely brushing against her skin. Love in heaven is so familial—romantic affections were very out of bounds. "And very forbidden, for a demon to love an angel?"

I can feel Ruby shake under me, and flinching once again when my other hand grabbed her arm.

"I'm not going to fall for your temptations, Yohane." Her voice trembles, so very audible with the deafening silence in the area.

I chuckle once again, my hand travelling to her chin for me to hold up and look at me straight in the eye, as if looking into my very core.

"Then why aren't you fighting back, dearest Ruby? And aren't human missions very dangerous for angels? Why did you take such a mission, I wonder. Of all people…"

Ruby's breath hitches and very meekly fought back against me, like she's not even trying. You're an angel, shouldn't you be stronger than that?

"Could it be…" I gasp and smirk at her. "You wanted to see me again?"

Like time coming back again, the gust of wind hit everything and she flies away from me. The distance and the loss of touch disappointed me incredibly, but my hunches were proven right, my sight watching Ruby wrap her arms around herself as if to protect herself from me.

Once again, I let myself block her way and I spring up right in front of her. This time she falls and I don't catch her, and I climb on top of her, pinning her down before she can escape.

"You can get away from me, right? Why don't you hurt me and avoid me, Ruby? Why is it you're not doing that?"

"Get off me!" She yells, pushing me instead of using her wings to get me away.

"I'm scared, Yoshiko." She says, wide eyes looking at me and forgetting who I am but the person she wanted.

"Yohane."

She shakes her head and looks away. She gets up and before I knew it, I had her by my bind again. My hand gripping her wrist and the other gripping her jaw.

"Be with me, Ruby," I say to her, my lips touching the soft pink skin of her's and pressing against her.

I felt little pressure, but I know that she kissed me back, only to pull herself away from my grip again and walking far from me.

"I'm not going to betray my Father, Yohane."

I feel another gust of wind and she disappears like a small bubble, vanishing right in the air.

I chuckle again, touching my own lips that pressed against the pure white angel. A contrast, from a blackened being from hell.

My Father, I have sinned with your fellow soldier, I think, walking away from the place. From the very day I fell, I doubt you will ever forgive me for everything that I have done.