Chocolate
Five
Written by: Makami

What should I do, Misha?

As if hearing his silent prayer, and all too willing for a chance to help him, the young, pink haired angel descended from Heaven. A flowing white dress ruffled around her as a breeze passed by.

She could feel the difference between the Surface World and Heaven immediately. The mortal realm lacked a sense of cleanliness that Heaven had, and her body took that as such a shock that she had to wait to adjust to it. Once the world hadn't been this dirty...

She opened her eyes slowly and was welcomed by the sight of city buildings stretched out nearly as far as she could see. In teh distance there were snow capped mountains, nearly untouched by humans. She liked the mountains more because of that; humans had trouble developing the land, and were thus they were spared. For now, anyways. After all, humans found the mountains beautiful, too, and used them to make money.

Before she had returned as a full-fledged angel, she would not have thought something so negative about the humans she had come to love. But in Heaven, she had learned the there were many cruel, selfish humans.

"Well" she turned to the small, frail-looking figure that had descended with her. "I wish to welcome you to the surface world, Shima."

The small angel smiled at her elder, politely and sweetly, her eyes searching the unfamiliar terrain in awe. It was her first time visiting the human world, her first time getting to meet and see humans. She had heard stories before, from her mentor, Misha, and other, older angels, but nothing could have prepared her for this shock.

"I can hardly believe my eye!" she exclaimed breathlessly, as if the sight had knocked the breath out of her. "Hardly, at yet, this is exactly what I always imagined it would be!"

The pink haired angel chuckled.

Probably remanents of old memories, Shima, she thought. After all, you once called this place home, and you loved it.

Shima arrived shortly after Misha returned to Heaven. In fact, a few days later the young angel was given to her by the TPB. They wanted Misha to raise her, to train her, and to befriend her. It took some looking in to by Sasha, but Misha's thoughts were soon confirmed: Shima was the reincarnation of the demon, Shia, who had earned the right to become an angel even though she was a demon.

"I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it, Misha-san," Shima said, recalling a discussion she had overheard between Misha and Sasha before. She couldn't believe that she was a demon, no matter how nice she had apparently been; all demons were evil, nothing like angels.

"It's been a while since I was here," Misha said, smiling softly as she thought of Kotarou. "After being here, I'll never look at it the same way. And I'll never be ashamed of my past."

Shima had heard small rumours here and there, and she guessed that Misha was talking about what had happened when she spent time in the mortal realm. But Misha was so adamant about doing a good job, and she never did anything against the PTB's word, that it was hard to imagine a Misha that could do more harm than good. Misha's abilities even rivalled those of her elder sister's, and they had fun competing to see who could make the most humans happy in one day on the surface world.

How could an angel like that bring a human to commit suicide...?

But Misha rarely ever even mentioned her time in the Surface World, much less any humans that she had met and spent time with. She never even mentioned the human named "Kotarou Higuchi", who was her reason for spending so much time in that world. Shima wanted to hear those stories, but Misha never would tell her, or anyone else for that matter, about them. She spoke more about what humans did, and what mortal food tasted like, and she tried her hardest to convince Shima that there really were good demons, but she never said why.

"Well, young Shima, there's lots to do down here," she told her. "Lots of sad and stressed out humans to practice on. We can start in the business district and make our way towards schools."

"Schools?" Shima questioned. "You mean, we're also going to work on kids? But... they're so young, Misha-san!"

Misha smiled, somewhat bitterly.

"These days, even children have pressures placed on them, and they need angels to help them, too."

Eventually Kotarou gave up on "talking" to Misha and settled in for lunch. He still did not have any answers for his questions, much less his dream, so how could he face Takashi? Even if he did have answers, they would not make his life easier. Well, depending on thei outcome he might have an easier path.

But what was he really getting so worked up about? The more he thought about it the less sure he was that he was in love. After all, love was blind and powerful, wasn't it? If he really had a thing for Takashi, would he be so doubtful? Of course not! When he fell in love with Misha, there was never any doubt. He might not have been aware that he was in love for most of it, but his affection for her was always there on some level. It always had been!

That revalation washed the weight from his shoulders and chest. He leaned back against the fence that kept people from falling off of the roof accidentally, or easily jumping to their deaths.

"Oooh," he sighed blissfully, breaking into laughed. "Of course I don't. I never did. Gawd, I always have weird dreams this time of the year!"

Another piece of the puzzle he called life snapped into place and, relieved, he laughed harder, until he realized that he was attracting attention from other students. He stopped laughing loudy, but continued chuckling to himself.

When he finally calmed down, he sighed again. He did tend to have strange, stress-related dreams when it neared the end-to-beginning of the school year. And he had been stressed lately. That must have been the cause of his dream, and it actually had nothing to do with the blond.

"Idiot, idiot, idiot," he chuckled at himself. Oh, what a relief.

I want to say, first and foremost, I am so sorry that it took this long to get this chapter typed up. I've been in quite the slump lately, and procrastiniating is one of my best(actually, worst) habits.

Anyways, I thought that a nice little plot twist was needed already. Ha ha! Kotarou doesn't actually love Takashi! It's all a lie! And lookie, there's Misha! And Shima, too... I couldn't resist, because of the seventh book and what Misha said about Shia. Anyways, the next chapter will be up by next week--I swear! I'm on the last scene of writing it, so I'll start typing ASAP.

Thank you for being so patient with me, and more gratitude to the five people who reviewed the last chapter.