"Hey, Yasumi, you're spacing out again!"

Yasumi blinked, brought out of a daydream as her friend Kaori shook her.

"Huh? What?" she said, confused. "Where...?"

"School, dummy," Kaori said, sighing. She was a taller girl with brown hair and a pair of square glasses, but despite her somewhat bookish appearance, Kaori wasn't particularly academic. She was on the soccer team and quite popular, and her unassuming air made her well-liked. Yasumi had known her since grade school, and they'd been best friends ever since.

"School...? What time?!" Yasumi asked, panicking.

"Just about time for PE," Kaori said, glancing at her phone. "Were you even paying attention to Hoshida-sensei? He said today's lecture was gonna be on the test, y'know!"

"Oh crap! Please Kaori-sama, lend me your notes!" she begged.

"Yeah, yeah," her friend said, waving her off. "I've got you covered." She sat down across from Yasumi's desk and put her elbows on the table. "You've always been spacey, but you seem kinda preoccupied lately. What's up? Your mom make you do shrine work or something?"

"Nah," Yasumi said. "She's busy as usual. She only nags me on special occasions and holidays."

"Your mom is so devout," Kaori noted. "She's not even the successor of the shrine but she's so serious about rituals and stuff."

"I mean, my aunt took over when my Gramps retired, but Mom was raised the same as her," Yasumi shrugged.

"Yeah, but she raised you, and you don't care about gods and all that."

"Mm," Yasumi said, staring out the classroom window at the field below. "Well, truthfully it's kinda interesting, sometimes," she admitted. "There's tons of gods in this country, but I think most of us only know a handful of them. Kinda makes me feel bad for the others, y'know?"

"You're so weird sometimes," Kaori said. "Why would you feel bad for something you don't even believe in?"

Yasumi chuckled drily. "Yeah, I know, I don't get it either."

Kaori stood up and put her chair back in place. "You should hurry and change before the teacher comes looking for you. Class starts in ten."

"Oh, yeah. I'll meet you downstairs."

Kaori waved and left, reaching up to tie her hair back as she went.

It took a while for Yasumi to remember her PE clothes were in her bag and not in her locker, so she was running very late when she ran out into the courtyard twenty minutes later. She took a small detour around the main building, intending to sneak onto the field and blend in with the rest of the class when the teacher wasn't looking, but something caught her eye on the other side of the school fence and she came to an abrupt stop.

Two people were walking down the street in casual clothes, arguing loudly. One of them was a young woman a few years older than Yasumi. She was very cute, with pretty long hair and wide, clear eyes. Something about her seemed oddly familiar, but Yasumi couldn't place it.

A model or actress, maybe? she wondered. The girl was certainly lovely enough to be one, though she carried herself with a somewhat old-fashioned humility and grace that most models wouldn't be caught dead with. She was so captivating that Yasumi felt her heartbeat speed up slightly as she watched the pair make their way toward her.

She's beautiful, she thought, but then she noticed the other person and she was overcome with a feeling of shock and dread.

It was a dark-haired, somewhat shabby looking young man. He was probably around the same age as the woman next to him, but a little trickier to pin down; he could have been anywhere from 18 to 25. He had a boyishly handsome face, but that about summed up his good points. Everything about his appearance, from his terrible posture to his ripped up scarf, screamed that he was bad news. Worse, he was coarse and over-familiar with his companion, sometimes touching her shoulder or tugging her clothes despite her complaints, and Yasumi could hear his shockingly colorful language as they argued.

But what really freaked her out was the fact that the man was wearing a black tracksuit.

Shit! I left my phone in my bag upstairs! she panicked, remembering Yukine's warning. As the two passerby approached, she hastily hid behind a tree, heart pounding in her throat. To her dismay, the pair stopped a few feet away on the road.

"I told you, I don't want to!" the girl was saying angrily.

"Come on, it's not that bad!" he argued. "Just fucking come with me for a bit and shut up!"

"No!"

Yasumi felt a surge of anger.

This bastard...! He's pressuring her!

She was half-ready to run out and hop over the fence to fight the guy, but there was a sudden, loud thump and a high-pitched cry; when she turned to look, the scene in front of her wasn't at all what she'd expected. Instead of a creep hitting a girl, she found the woman pinning the man to the fence with considerable strength, arm behind his back at a clearly painful angle. The crying was coming from the guy himself, who was half-wailing as he struggled to get free.

"Ow! OW, stop! That hurts!" he shouted.

"Would it kill you to learn to listen when someone talks to you?!" the girl scolded, clearly furious. "I said I didn't wanna go, so that's that!"

"B-but...! The job this time-!"

"I absolutely refuse!" she insisted, tugging his arm harder. "I'm not humoring you this time!"

"They need two people, damn it! You said you wanted to help!"

"That was before I found out it was a stupid, shady pyramid scheme! When are you going to get a real job, huh?!"

"OW, I will, I WILL!" he screamed as she twisted his wrist.

"Will my foot!" she said, and let go abruptly. "As if I didn't know you after all these years! I'm going home! And don't you dare follow me, you stalker-jersey!"

"Waaaait! I'm sorry, wait!"

Yasumi felt strangely ticked-off as he ran off after her and they continued bickering down the street without any regard for the people around them.

So, this is what they call an 'idiot couple,' huh, she sighed, dusting off her shorts. I got all worked up over nothing. She watched them go for a minute, wondering why she'd been warned to stay away from the man in the tracksuit. He wasn't much of a threat, if even a thin girl like that could pin him down. She scoffed and started to go back to class when the couple reached the corner and two things happened in quick succession.

First, it suddenly struck Yasumi that even though the street was far from deserted, no one else seemed to have noticed the arguing couple besides herself.

In that same moment, as the man made to turn the corner, he suddenly looked to his right with a sharp, inhuman movement and caught Yasumi's eye. Instinctual fear ran down her spine, and for a long, terrifying second, Yasumi froze, unable to move or even breathe. She hadn't noticed earlier, but the man's eyes were an icy shade of blue, completely unlike any she'd ever seen. Their strange color aside, there was something abnormal about his gaze. It was completely devoid of emotion, and Yasumi couldn't help feeling like he'd been sizing her up, calculating, as though she were prey caught in a predator's talons.

He knows I was watching, she thought with dismay.

All too suddenly, he turned away, and Yasumi fell to her knees, frightened.

Wh-what the hell was that?!


"Today's the day, Hiyori!"

Hiyori clutched at her stomach and leaned against the wall.

"I think I'm gonna be sick..." she groaned, and several commuters on the train immediately gave her a wide berth. Only Yukine and Yato stayed by her side.

"It's normal to be nervous," Yukine said, patting her back. "It's college exams, after all."

"You'll do fine, Hiyori, you studied so hard we barely even got to see you this last month," Yato said, handing her a bottle of water.

"I know, it's just... what if I fail after all that?!"

"You're not gonna fail," Yukine said reassuringly. "You're my tutor, aint'cha? There's no way you'll lose to some dumb exam."

"Hnnng," Hiyori groaned, taking a sip of water.

"If you're that worried, why not pray to me for luck?" Yato said, grinning in that overconfident way he always did.

"No thanks," Hiyori said, closing her eyes as another wave of nausea and fear washed over her. "I already went to Tenjin-sama to pray earlier this week."

"CRUEL! You're so cruel, Hiyori!"

"Just shut up already," Yukine told him irritably. "The only thing you're good at is fighting, why would she pray to you for academic success?!"

"B-because I'm a god of fortune!" Yato argued, catching Hiyori as she swayed and leaned into his shoulder tiredly. His arm wrapped around her waist, anchoring her.

"So's Bishamon, but you don't see her getting requests for better grades," he scoffed. "Stick to your own lane, you won't get any recognition for half-assing wishes you can't handle properly."

"Fine," Yato said petulantly. "Oi, Hiyori, don't fall asleep here, ok?" he said suddenly as Hiyori nodded sleepily. "It's still another three stops to the station, but it'd be bad if you dropped your body in this crowd. You could get trampled or robbed or something."

"Y-yeah, got it," she said, rubbing her eyes.

"You stayed up late to study, didn't you?" Yukine sighed. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an energy drink. "Here, I brought a few of these, just in case," he said, popping it open and handing it to her. She took it gratefully.

"Thank you, Yukine-kun, you're a godsend," she said, and though it was disgusting, she forced the drink down. "Ugh," she said, shivering. "As long as it keeps me awake, I guess," she muttered.

"Did you get special accommodations for your narcolepsy or something?" he asked, taking the empty bottle from her. "They won't take points off if you lose your body in the middle?"

"Yeah, I get more time to finish if I have a fit," she explained. "But I'd rather not have to, if I can help it."

"Better to get it over with," Yato agreed. "We'll take you out to celebrate afterward, so just do your best."

"Hah?! With what money?!" Yukine asked incredulously.

"Hehe, I've been saving just for this," Yato said proudly, but a glance at Yukine made him defensive. "D-Don't gimme that suspicious-as-fuck look, Yukine, I didn't steal it from you this time!"

"I'm counting every cent in my piggy bank later," the boy threatened, narrowing his eyes.

"Hmph! Ungrateful little shit," Yato said petulantly.

"Shitty old man."

Hiyori chuckled as they glared daggers at one another.

"Thanks, you two. I feel better already," she said, disentangling herself from Yato's hold and ruffling Yukine's hair fondly. "Let's have some fun after I'm done."

"You bet!" Yukine said eagerly, anger forgotten.

"No fair! Me too, Hiyori!" Yato complained, tugging her sleeve. Hiyori smiled and obliged him. In response, he kissed her temple.

"For luck," he said happily as Hiyori blushed and Yukine mimicked vomiting in the background.

"Disgusting! Jeez, you're both so fucking embarrassing! And you're supposed to be keeping a low profile too, for fuck's sake!"

Hiyori and Yato exchanged chagrined looks as Yukine continued to grumble under his breath.


As soon as PE was over, Yasumi hurried back into the school building and took the stairs two at a time, desperate to get to her phone and let Yukine know what had happened. She was almost to her classroom when she froze, terrified.

The man in the tracksuit stepped out of the shadows in the hallway in front of her as though he'd materialized out of thin air.

"Kobayashi Yasumi," he said flatly and walked around her once with a slow, purposeful gait. His expression was cold and impossible to read, studying her as though she were a mildly interesting oddity. He came to a stop, staring down at her with those frightening eyes.

Fuck, fuck, FUCK! she screamed internally, but her body wouldn't listen to her no matter how much her senses told her to get the hell out of there.

"You're a little different than the last one," he said calmly, shoving his hands into his pockets in a strangely familiar way. "Just like Yukine said."

The shock of the name gave her back her words.

"Y-you know Yukine?!" she managed to say, despite her instincts demanding she should shut up. Even as she said it, she suddenly remembered that Yukine often stuck his hands in his pockets too.

C-Could this man be...

He raised an eyebrow. "So you can hear and see me at will," he said thoughtfully, leaning in to examine her more closely. "There hasn't been one who could since Ame..." he said to himself.

"A-are you Yato?" she asked, unable to keep her curiosity at bay. "Yatogami?"

It was like a switch had been flipped. Where a second ago he had been frightening and passive, his expression suddenly became impish, if not outright childish. His eyes seemed to sparkle with glee and he pulled a phone out from his pocket and pressed a speedial.

"Kofuku! Kofuku, I got a new believer!" he shouted excitedly into the receiver. "A human actually recognized me! Praise me, praise me! Aren't I great?!"

A high pitched voice answered with equal exuberance, and the whiplash of the mood change hit Yasumi like a physical shock.

What. The. Fuck. This is supposed to be a god?! she thought, unable to hide her contempt. It was all too obvious now why Yukine was always complaining about his master. His suspicious appearance aside, he had some sort of chaotic energy going on somewhere between obnoxiousness and straight up creepiness. Other than his strange eyes, which she was now wholly doubting she'd ever thought frightening to begin with ("Must have been a trick of the light"), he was at worst utterly mundane, and at best an exhausting weirdo. Neither suited a god.

Forget it, I have class. She turned around and meant to walk away pointedly but he grabbed her sleeve.

"Hold on," he said, snapping his phone shut. "I need to talk with you real quick." She tugged her sleeve out of his grasp and glared at him suspiciously, and he immediately held up his hands.

"Sorry, bad habit," he said apologetically. "Yasumi, right? Let me introduce myself properly." He pointed at himself with his thumb proudly. "I'm the Yato god, all around problem solver and God of Fortune. I know you've met Yukine; he's my one and only hafuri vessel, and also my guidepost. I hope he wasn't too much of a little shit, or that he didn't tell you anything unnecessary, though."

Yasumi felt her eye twitch in annoyance at his confident, sales-like attitude.

"Seriously, what's with you people?! Following me everywhere and acting like you know stuff I don't; it's creepy!"

He flinched, clearly hurt by the description.

"It's not creepy!" he insisted. "It's just a job! I get all kinds of requests from all kinds of people, you know!"

"That makes you sound shady as all hell," she snapped. "Would you and your punk kid just stop it with all the secrets and tell me why you're stalking me all over the place?! I'm getting real tired of all your insinuations and half-answers. And if you really are Yukine's master, why'd he tell me to avoid you at all costs?!"

Yato hesitated before replying.

"It's... complicated," he said slowly, echoing Yukine's infuriatingly vague statements. "We don't usually tiptoe around like this on jobs, but... I guess you could say we've got special circumstances..."

"Yeah, I heard," she scoffed. "Me, apparently. Me and my situation, whatever it is. Other than warning me about my Sight, which, by the way, still hasn't shown up, Yukine refuses to tell me anything else."

"Good," he said, obviously relieved. "I should've known Yukine would do his job right," he said fondly.

Well, at least your affections are requited, Snow Boy, she thought irritably.

"Yeah, yeah. Bully for Yukine," she muttered.

He gave her an understanding grimace.

"I hate being kept in the dark too, kid," he said, not unkindly. "Sorry it has to be this way."

"Can I at least know why you're keeping things from me?"

He regarded her quietly, and that unnerving feeling from earlier returned. Seconds turned to minutes, but she couldn't look away, held in place by his ice-cold gaze.

In the background, Yasumi was vaguely aware that the bell for final period had rung. The hallway filled with students chatting excitedly, complaining about homework or wondering who would win at the basketball tournament later that week. All around them, people side-stepped them without looking or complaint that they were standing in the way. She thought she saw Kaori, changed now out of her PE uniform, but Kaori's eyes slid right past her as though she were invisible. Somehow, Yasumi and Yato had become oddly detatched from it all, as though they existed in a bubble split off from the rest of the school. No one noticed or called for her, and slowly the halls emptied out until they were alone. It was only when the last classroom door rolled closed that he finally spoke.

"It's a long story," he said, his voice carrying in the emptiness of the hall.

"I'm a pretty good listener," she said.

He gave her a small nod, and though the look in his eyes didn't change, she sensed something under it, something new.

"Yeah, I know..." he said. "I know."


Hiyori was never able to remember how she made it through the college exams in one piece. It was all a blur to her, the frantic scribbling of pencils, the slow, painful degeneration of her competent thoughts into what amounted to one, long internal scream, the horrible nausea and frayed nerves that almost turned her Contemporary Literature exam into a disaster, avoided only through the sheer power of her will not to gag in the exam room. When she staggered out of the testing site some six hours later, it was only to be sick almost immediately into the bushes from the pure stress. She was not alone either; several other students looked like they might have the flu, and more than one actually burst into tears. She wasn't picked up so much as bodily rescued by Yato and Yukine when they came to get her, and she was so tired that she didn't even lose her body when she inevitably passed out.

When she woke up some time later, the three of them were on the train, Yato carrying her on his back. She was so drained that she didn't have the energy to be embarrassed by it, so she let herself rest against his shoulder, listening quietly to the sound of his voice as he and Yukine spoke.

"She pushed herself way too hard," Yukine was saying exasperatedly. "Seriously, all those students looked like they were one step away from snuffing it. Why's the education system so fucked?"

"Competition, mostly," Yato said. "Too many educated people vying for too few high-level jobs. Everyone's out to claw their way to the top, even if they gotta half-kill themselves to do it. Modern education is the source of a hell of a lot of ayakashi nowadays."

"I like studying, but seeing them all like that... seeing Hiyori look so tired and stressed... I"m sorta glad I don't have to worry about college, to be honest."

"Well, you could go, if you really wanted," Yato said, shrugging. "You don't need to enroll to sit in a course and learn shit."

"Hmm, I'll think about it," Yukine replied. "But only if I can go with Hiyori. I think... I'm pretty sure I'd get really fucked up if I tried to go there by myself all the time."

Yato tousled his hair gently. "I'll take you, if you want."

"Hell no, you'll just be distracting," Yukine scoffed, pulling away from the affectionate gesture.

"So mean..." Yato sniffled, but Yukine ignored him pointedly.

"You think she's gonna be okay after all that?" he asked a little later, as the train pulled into their last stop and they disembarked. They hopped over the turnstiles effortlessly and set off down the road to Hiyori's house at a relaxed pace.

"Hiyori? Yeah, she's always full of energy sooner or later. She's just mentally exhausted, humans can only take so much stress before they break down."

"Not like that changes when you die," Yukine noted, raising his arms behind his head.

"True."

Yukine stared at the sky, thinking.

"...Yato."

"Hmm?"

"Is it really gonna be okay? The thing with Heaven? Kazuma came to warn me too, a few weeks back. I didn't say anything cause Hiyori was busy and all, but... won't Heaven come looking for us or Hiyori if they realize we're too close with her?"

"...You scared, Yukine?"

"... A little," he admitted grudgingly. "If you're killed, the only person who can help you reincarnate now is Hiyori, right? But if she's also killed, or kept away from us for too long..."

"Yeah... I know. It's... it's not like I want to disappear," Yato admitted. "But... we're family, Yukine. It's not just about me and her, it never was. The three of us, together... that's what's important to me. It's Hiyori's wish too. Isn't it yours?"

"Well, yeah," Yukine said awkwardly. "Of course. But it won't matter if we all get killed over it..."

"At this point, whether Hiyori and I are dating or not is irrelevant to Heaven. They don't care if it's romantic love. The problem isn't loving humans; the problem is loving humans to the point that you'd choose them over your loyalties to Amaterasu and the rest." Yato stopped for a moment, adjusting Hiyori's weight slightly. "Truth is," he continued once she was secure, "Heaven is a damned dictatorship. It runs smoothly cause everyone follows orders, but whenever someone threatens that order, they get scared. It's too easy for gods to go to war and fuck each other up, and if they do that, then the human world gets fucked up too. And if humans die in great numbers..."

"Gods are forgotten," Yukine sighed. "So they're scared a god might rebel for the sake of a human, huh."

"They're scared of people like my old man," Yato spat with distaste. "Can't blame them, considering all the shit he did. Fucking asshole."

"So even if you and Hiyori were to break up..."

"Yeah, it wouldn't matter. She's still bound to us as 'family', and that's still dangerous in the eyes of Heaven. Eventually, they would have come for us no matter what we did. And if we cut that bond... we'll never see her again. She won't remember us. Heaven will be fucking satisfied, but... Hiyori is important to me. Even if she weren't my lifeline, I can't live as I am without her. You're the same too, aren't you?"

"...That goes without saying, dumbass."

"Besides, you're the one who taught me that there are things worth risking my life over, Yukine."

"Huh? When?!"

Yato laughed softly into the evening breeze, and Hiyori unconsciously snuggled into the side of his neck, comforted by his voice reverberating against her cheek.

"You're my Blessed Regalia, aren't you? You've literally died for me. And you've put yourself in danger tons of times for my sake, or for Hiyori's sake. Your heart is my heart, remember? I know you've got a lot of scars on it, but at its core, it's a good one. Protecting people is in your fundamental nature. You give us strength, Yukine. You give me strength. I think that's an amazing quality to have, hafuri or not."

Yukine went quiet and said nothing for several minutes.

"Yato..." he said in a soft, vulnerable tone. "We've got to protect her. No matter what."

"... Yeah. I know."

I know.


Notes: Me: I hate dialogue

Also me: here's like 20k words of nothing but dialogue

Yasumi, chucking my keyboard into the ocean: What is the TRUTH?!