AUTHORESS NOTE: I don't know why I ever mentioned it before… I keep assuming you guys already know this and that and everything in between. Not saying that you guys don't… But as a writer I should always be prepared for "new" or "foreign" terms to explain.
I should have done this a LONG time ago, but secondary school is the equivalent of high school.
So you can safely assume that primary school is the equivalent of elementary school. Maybe junior high, too?
Why do I bring this up? Because I write 'primary school' once. I'm a LOSER!
Improper Guardian
Chapter Fourteen
By: Brenli
Four days passed. Nema's hand put a black 'X' on that day. Four thick, black 'X's on her calendar. They stuck out and looked ugly to her.
She sneezed. For four days this persistent cold stayed in her system, as if to serve as a bitter reminder of what had happened the day she'd fallen ill. Michael had left her in the dirt.
Strangely, since then, Nema had not had to worry about the winged beings that she had grown to be cautious of. As though the moment Michael had went away, they no longer had interest in her. She found it ironic that the lack of protection seemed to have finally brought her peace.
Inside she felt anything but peaceful. Everything was too quiet, now. Too empty. Too peaceful to give her any peace at all, as contradictory as that statement may be. She took to wearing Michael's shirt often, over her tank tops and skirts. She stopped wearing her mini-crowns and continually forgot to put on a petticoat under her skirt. She looked scruffy and she knew it. Problem was, she didn't care. Why should she care? Who was there to impress, anyway? She was a fool to be so obsessed with fancy crowns. No one would ever truly care for her, regardless of her manner of dress.
Oh, indeed, she was not worth caring about. She was ugly and pale like dried glue left on the primary school desks. Something to be chipped away and thrown in the trash.
Nema decided it was time for a shower. She took them often, now, in contrast to her sloppy dressing habits. It had nothing to do with wanting to be physically clean. She spent as many as three hours under hot water for the sole purpose of washing away the invisible marks on her body, all the places Michael's hands had touched, whether it had been on… that night… or any other, average day.
Now she was sitting on the floor of her shower, the water feeling as though it were about to scorch her white flesh. She endured the pain, watching her skin become flushed and pink with the heat. And Nema wished she could be this pink all the time. Then all she would have needed was some black hair dye… and she could leave her eyes the way they were. Some people actually liked her eyes… it was the less pigmented parts of her that got her no where.
Her head landed softly against the wall of her shower, and the drops of water mixed with yet another batch of tears. Nema couldn't remember the last time she'd cried this much… now it was a simple involuntary action; she cried not of her own will, but because her eyes couldn't hold anything back anymore. She no longer sobbed, even. She just let it run out of her.
When had she become so fragile? She almost preferred how she used to act whenever she had been wronged. She used to hit things, and swear, and sulk. She was the Angry Girl. Nema would've given anything to be the Angry Girl, again… but now all she was… was an empty girl.
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"Nema-Nema! Wake up, sweetheart!"
Nema curled into a tight ball, finally registering the ringing of her alarm clock and the continuous patting of her mother's hand on her thigh. "… What?"
"You're ALREADY late for school, Nema! Here!" Sara shoved into Nema's hands her box lunch. "Mika is here to take you to school!"
"What?"
Sara only sighed, shaking her head and throwing Nema's summer uniform at her. Lost in a state of confusion, Nema threw on her uniform and raked a brush through her ivory hair, sprinting out of her house.
She stopped before a hand holding out a dark red mini-crown. "Here, you want this?"
Nema looked up… there he was. Wearing, of all things, the Shibuya Senior High School male uniform, and his left cheek did not have a blue dragon there to greet anyone. "… Mika?"
"Who else? Here." Mika's blue eyes rolled and he hastily tied the mini-crown on Nema's head, forming a little bow under her pale chin. "Come on! We're fucking late and it's all YOUR fault this time!"
He snatched her hand and they ran a good block and a half before he said anything else. "So where's my shirt?"
"Your shirt?" Nema suddenly remembered that she had left it in her bed. "… It's still at home."
"Well why'd you leave it there? You've had it for a week, now! I want it back!"
"Chill, Mika! It's not going anywhere!" Nema snapped crossly.
"Uh oh, are you ANGRY? I am so fucking scared!" Mika laughed cruelly.
Nema roughly pulled her hand away from him and turned the other way, stomping back home.
"Hey, can't you take a joke? Someone's touchy today!" Mika rushed over and embraced her from behind. "I'll just sneak in tonight and… pick it up, then. How does that sound?"
Nema blushed. "It sounds like a dangerous idea. We're gonna get caught if you do that too much."
"Let them catch us! I'm not afraid!" Mika said boldly, and scooped Nema onto his back, beginning to run again. "We're both so fucking late…! Doesn't your alarm clock ever wake you up, anymore?"
Mika's attempt at changing the subject failed. "How could say you're not afraid? You're a fucking liar!"
"No, I'm not! I'm not afraid of your parents, at all! I know something you don't know."
"Really? What?"
Mika finally stopped running, now that they were at the front of Shibuya High, and he set Nema down. "Yesterday… during lunch hour… I went to your house and asked them for your hand in marriage, Nema!"
"You did WHAT?" Nema felt him press a swift, quick kiss on her mouth and then she chased him into the school, where they ran down the hall.
"You heard me! And when we graduate, you will be all mine!"
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"Nema? Neeeema? You better not be out in Harajuku, again…! It's not even Sunday, yet…!"
It was Raphael… his voice had served to slap Nema out of what would have been the perfect dream. The water in the shower had gone completely cold, now, and she figured she must have been going on her third hour.
Raphael… he should know where Michael had disappeared to, shouldn't he? Nema shut off the water, sneezing before she hastily dried herself off and put on her black skirt, black tank top, and Michael's black button-up shirt, leaving it unbuttoned.
When Nema made her appearance, she noted the shock written all over his face. His icy blue eyes seemed to double in size. Had she really become that much uglier?
It wasn't that she had become uglier, but she had noticeably lost a great deal of her beauty in a few days' time. It was blatantly obvious that she was ill, tired, and even starving. Along with her dripping hair, she looked like a half-drowned mouse straight from a science lab.
It was made very clear that something had gone very, very wrong, and Raphael had the distinct feeling it had a lot to do with Michael – of the lack thereof.
"… So where is he?" Nema asked Raphael. Her voice sounded strained and a bit broken.
Raphael was supposed to know that? The Wind Angel could have sworn that he would still be here, probably training Nema once again. Michael was gone? Raphael wanted to repeat Nema's question back to her. He was as lost as she was. "… I… don't…" Raphael shook his blonde head, holding his hands up helplessly.
No good. At last Nema could feel the Angry Girl coming back, and she scowled and glared with hollow-ruby eyes. "Fucking liar."
Liar? No, he honestly had no idea! "Nema, I'm sorry, I really don't kn-"
"DON'T YOU FUCKING LIE TO ME!" The half-drowned girl rushed at him, slapped him twice. "WHERE IS HE? WHERE DID THAT FUCKING JERK RUN OFF TO?"
Raphael tried blocking, and after enduring one more blow, he grabbed her wrists. "Nema, I am as shocked as you are!"
"Am I SHOCKED? What is SHOCKED? I thought I'd gone way BEYOND that level… that thing, SHOCKED!" Nema screamed and her wrists flailed as well as they could under Raphael's grasp. She wanted to hit him. Not because he deserved it, but because when she did, he would wince, and maybe cry out in pain, showing her how she felt inside… "WHAT KIND OF CRUEL BASTARD THINKS HE CAN USE A GIRL LIKE THAT AND RUN OFF? HE MUST THINK I DON'T HAVE A HEART TO BREAK! WELL I HOPE HE ROTS IN HELL, THEN! AND ALL OF YOU!" No…! Her body was… God, she was tired.
She collapsed into the arms of Raphael. So much for being the Angry Girl.
When she came to, she was lying on the sofa she'd kicked back into the general center of the living room. A pillow cradled her head and a single blanket covered her body.
"Oh, good, you're awake again." She heard Raphael's voice say. "Drink." He was holding another crystalline bottle to her lips. "No more than two or three sips. You remember what happened last time."
She took the bottle in her cold hands and took three large sips, and then he took the bottle from her. "… Rapha-"
"When was the last time you ate?"
"… What do you care?"
"Nema. I'm asking as a doctor and a friend. When?"
"… Like, three days ago."
Raphael tsked her and held up a bowl of noodles. "Eat."
"… Doushite?"
"Do it."
Nema turned her hopeless red eyes up and met the icy, demanding blue gaze of Raphael's. She reluctantly took the bowl of noodles and began to eat. She'd forgotten how food could taste so good…
"There you go. Now, Nema, how much sleep have you been getting?"
"… I don't know."
"I advise you get plenty of rest for the next few days, and eat plenty of food, too. Drink a lot of tea, and stay away from caffeine. I will check up on you once a day to make sure you're doing this."
"And if I'm not…?"
"I'll make you do it." Raphael said matter-of-factly. "… Nema, when did Michael disappear?"
She stopped. Raphael thought she looked as though she was ready to shut herself down now that he'd asked that dreaded question. But after a long pause, she said in a half-whisper, "… Four days ago."
"I need you to tell me what happened."
Raphael took her noodle bowl away from her, and she seemed to shrink into the blanket she had, like a lost and cold kitten. "… He is gone… The night before he went away… He made love to me, Raphael. He said, 'God, I think I've fallen in love with her…' And now he's gone…" Nema shrank further into the blanket and allowed the material to soak up her tears. "He lied to me… And I have no idea where he is, now…"
Raphael listened to Nema sniffle and cry. A part of him couldn't swallow it. While he knew Nema wasn't playing some elaborate trick on him, it seemed to be against the laws of nature… The idea of Michael doing something like that… saying something like that… and yet, above those things, it seemed backwards for him to leave Nema after doing anything like that. It was against the code of all Guardian Angels to leave their Guarded, as it was, and that seemed to be a part of the code Michael had finally learned to honor.
Or maybe it didn't have to do with the code, anyway. After all, Raphael had noted the changes the last time he had descended into Assiah… some were indistinct, some were noticeable … but the changes were there… Raphael just never thought that Michael would actually give in to something like that. He always thought Michael might keep it bottled up, if not for Nema's safety, then at least for his own sense of pride. How wrong he was.
"… I feel like a whore…"
"You are not a whore. If you were a whore, you'd have sex with everyone you could manage to get your hands on… and if you were a whore, you wouldn't be this torn up about him leaving." Raphael reassured her.
"… You have no idea where he is?"
"No. I'm sorry…" He listened to her choke on a sob. "… Listen… I know that he doesn't mean you harm. Something must be very wrong… A part of the story is missing. I'll try to find it out for you."
"You're sure he isn't this cruel?"
"I know he's not."
"… Were you ever this cruel?"
"Me?" Raphael arched a brow. "… I'll be honest. I used to be."
"… Why?"
The Wind Angel shrugged. "… There were… some scars that hadn't really healed over, properly… Made me think a little recklessly. But… well, I'm better now. Someone helped me… I don't know, someone set the gears in my head the right way."
In spite of the pool of anguish Nema was currently stuck in, she found it in herself to smile. "Someone important to you?"
Raphael couldn't help but smile, himself. He had never spoken to anyone about this before… Michael never would have paid any attention, and he was the only one Raphael felt he could trust with this secret part of his life. "… Do you remember the girl I was with? The last time you saw me? Her name is Barbiel."
"… Her?"
And Raphael nodded. "I love her… very much."
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"Miiiiichael!"
The Angel in question heard his name called from far off, and he turned toward the voice, spewing forth triumphant laughs as the third opponent fall. It was Nema, wiping the few beads of sweat off her snowy brow. She was dolled up in her version of Sunday best: her black, scalloped skirt, her dark red tank top, her dark red mini-crown. Her black boots stood triumphantly as she looked over her shoulder at Michael, and she held up three fingers, showing him the number of opponents beaten.
The opponents were some of his own men, who were foolish enough to challenge her. She not only beat them and beat them smiling, but she beat them wearing a petticoat and a mini-crown. A violent Queen. His violent Queen.
"Kickin' ass, I see!" Michael said proudly, striding up to Nema. "But they are my men. Don't bruise them so badly!"
"What are you gonna do, beat me up for it?" Nema teased, tapping her white fist against his dragon-covered cheek. From her back stretched her two large, white wings… white as snow and white as her hair.
"Wait… what happened to your wings…?" The Fire Angel stopped just short of embracing her, and Nema's hands reached up to cup his face. "… You aren't Fallen, anymore…"
"Why would I be Fallen?" Nema's ruby eyes blinked up at him. "Won't you give me a good morning kiss?"
"A what?"
"Please… No one will care… if you stay here… No one can stop you here… and you can love me… and kiss me… like no one's watching…"
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"… I can't believe this... Michael…"
The Fire Angel stirred, rudely shaken from a dream he would have killed to have gotten lost in. He opened his eyes and there stood Raphael, looking up at him with sad blue eyes. And he knew immediately that Raphael knew what had happened. And so he hung there, suspended by chains, looking at him miserably and yet, blankly, as though he had somehow become empty.
"… Michael, I…" Raphael didn't really know where to start. He never saw this happening… But most importantly, he never really thought Michael would appear to hit such a low.
"Did they tell you… or did she?" Michael said plainly.
"… Nema did. No one in Heaven knows, Michael… Everyone thinks you are still on Assiah."
Michael laughed. It was by no means a cheerful one. "… How badly does she hate me?"
"Nema does not hate you…"
"Fucking bull shit, she doesn't!" Michael laughed harder, his chains shaking.
"She doesn't, Michael! She's angry, but it's not hatred. You know as well as I do that it's just heartbreak."
Michael stopped his laughter and shook his head. "Heartbreak… what a fucking mess I'm in…"
"What I don't understand is why you're in a room like THIS… This is for conspirators against God, not for what you've done."
"Yeah, well Cheriour's a fucking coward and he's afraid I'm gonna burn him to ashes. And damn right, he better be afraid!" Michael hissed. "I swear the second I'm out of here…"
Raphael shushed him. "Listen… I promised Nema I'd figure out what happened with you. She thinks you –"
"Left her. Used her. I hear it every fucking day." Michael grumbled.
"Well now I can tell her the truth." The Wind Angel offered his friend a supporting smile. "At least, as much as I can without letting her know too much. It should be enough to set her mind at ease."
"You'll keep watch for me?"
"As much as I can… I told her I would check up on her once a day. It's all I can afford with all the I-Children I have coming in for my help…"
"That many?"
"Almost too many for me… Once I was tending to a little girl… she made me think of Nema, Michael… she had a broken mini-crown on her head. I asked her why they were all risking their lives to come to me… and she told me, 'If a high-ranking Angel can stain his reputation for us… we can risk our lives for him.'" Michael let a crooked smile cross his features, and Raphael asked, "Is there anything you want to tell Nema?"
"… That I'm fine. That she better take care of herself."
"Anything else?"
The Fire Angel looked down at the Wind Angel. Raphael's eyes were peering into him with that strangely bored face of his, the one that told you deep down he was on to something. "… No." Michael regretted saying that one word as he watched Raphael nod, turn and begin to leave.
"RAPHAEL!"
The Wind Angel turned with an expectant look written all over him.
"… Tell her I love her." Michael couldn't keep eye contact, but Raphael smiled.
"I was going to tell her you said that, whether you really said it or not."
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"It has come to Cheriour-sama's attention that one Raphael-sama is within the building. Raphael-sama, please report to the office of Cheriour-sama right away." A bored voice drawled on the intercom, and the blonde Archangel froze at first, but then turned and made a quick beeline for Cheriour's office. He flung open the door, shut it, and stood impatiently as Cheriour sat behind his desk, looking as icy as ever. The whole goal was to come off angry. And God, Raphael was angry.
Cheriour continued to sit, looking as cold as ever. "… So you have found out Michael-sama's location."
Cheriour thought it would be best to be cold? Raphael could match him easy, and he proved it, putting on his iciest 'you are not worthy' face. "It was fairly easy to figure it out."
"Not that you let Nemaelle know. I suppose that was because you were unsure of whether she should know that I was involved in the matter?"
Raphael's ice blue eyes narrowed. "You sent a spy down?"
"Oh, goodness, no. There would be an opportunity for missed information, you understand." Cheriour gave him a cruel smile. "I have, for some time now, set up a perimeter of cameras with highly sensitive audio pick-up… It is in this way that I caught Michael-sama sinning, you see."
"Good for you." Raphael bit sarcastically.
"It is amazing, the things my cameras can pick up… The most interesting pieces of information, you see."
Cheriour placed a small grey cassette player on his desk, and Raphael stared down at it with the nonchalant face he could pull off with ease. But then Cheriour played the message locked inside.
"… Do you remember the girl I was with? The last time you saw me? Her name is Barbiel."
"… Her?"
"I love her… very much."
The message stopped playing. Cheriour looked up to see that Raphael's eyes had widened just a bit… and then he quickly resumed his icy façade.
"I dare say, this is quite a gem… While there is speculation about your views regarding Rabbits being influenced by personal experience… I had no idea it was because you run the risk of creating a Rabbit with your own head nurse."
"You can't scare me."
"But what I can do is let the information leak throughout Heaven. And upon consideration that the supporters of I-Children are still a very small minority, I can only imagine the uproar when they discover that Heaven's Angel of Healing is committing such a sin."
"I don't care what they think of me."
"But do you care what they'll think of her?"
Raphael glared back coldly.
"… I thought so. You realize that you and your significant other will be branded Fallen and condemned to a life in the slums. You will no longer be the high-ranking Angel you are now… and she will be considered a disgrace and a whore."
"Unless…"
"How smart you are. Of course, there is a catch." Cheriour smiled. "I will spare you… for now… so long as you speak not a word of Michael's location to Nemaelle."
That was absurd… Why should Cheriour care? "… What?"
"I believe I was clearly heard."
"Doushite?" Raphael asked, feeling the despair run through him. This was far too cruel! Why did was this sad excuse for an Angel feel the need to drive Nema down into the deepest depression imaginable?
"I am conducting an experiment, you see. To tell her any of the things you have planned to tell her would sabotage the experiment, and this will not do."
"… That's why you haven't come after her. You're running an EXPERIMENT?"
"Precisely."
"She isn't a lab rat!"
"She is colored as such, and that is good enough for me." Cheriour said plainly.
"… You are sick."
"Will you keep silent for three more days, or shall I let the information leak starting tonight?"
"… Three more days?"
"That is all I ask."
"And then you will probably kill her."
"You are free to attempt stopping me at that time."
Raphael felt like he was trapped in a corner, and he gave Cheriour a hard stare. He did not feel comfortable saying anything.
"… I knew you would comply, Raphael-sama. Thank you very much. You are excused."
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"Three days?"
"Yes. The jerk has ME tied around his little finger!" Raphael hissed as he made a show of looking through papers. Back before Nemaelle even existed, a particular corner of his desk was frequently ornamented with a girl for the day, but now, it was ornamented to Barbiel and Barbiel only. And Barbiel shushed him gently as he sighed and ran his hands through his blonde hair. "… It is only three days, right?"
"… Do you want my honest opinion, Raphael?"
"I always do."
"Go down and tell her everything right now."
"No." The Wind Angel said flatly.
"Yes. Tell her about Michael, where he is and why he's there. You'll have to explain a great deal to her, but she has been left in the dark for too long. At the very least, you need to tell her that Michael loves her!"
"Barbiel, if I do we are RUINED. I'm not talking a slap on the wrist. I'm talking being branded Fallen! No more nice cozy building, Barbiel. A run-down, half-crumbled building if we're lucky. A cardboard box or two is what we'll probably have left!"
"But think of that poor girl –"
"I WILL NOT HAVE YOUR LIFE RUINED!" Raphael yelled, his papers falling in scatter piles on his desk. "I LOVE you, Barbiel."
Barbiel reached over to grip his shaking hand. "… Three days can be a short time or a long one… If Nema is in as bad a shape as you told me she was, I honestly don't think three days of ignorance will help her."
"… There is nothing I can do to fix that. If her heart was literally broken I could put it back together in a snap, but this is purely an emotional ailment. And I'm not a counselor."
"Pray she doesn't slip further into that depression, poor girl…"
Raphael snorted. "Pray. To who? God? That bastard's out to get us all. Michael and I, we knew reprogramming God into the system was a big mistake. Now He's biting the shit out of us."
"If you could rewind time, would you have followed Lucifer into Hell, then?"
Raphael sat back and thought about it. "… I don't mean to scare you, but yes. Yes I would have."