Hallo readers! Sorry for taking so long, I've had previous obligations with marching band. I've also been working on a online novel site. It's finally done. W00t: )

If you like my fanfictions, you might just like my original fiction as well. It's dubbed Never-After.

ww w . fre ew e bs .co m/ a d d y - c ha n /

: P Take the spaces out in the URL bar to get there.

Now, off of my propaganda rampage and onto multiple hugs for my reviewers! Thank you all so much! And now, without further adou, I reunite you with Baron and Haru!

Enjoy!

Engel's Zimmer
Chapter 7 - Ever-After

That one caring movement made the waltz problematic, yet the other outstretched hand bypassed her, and caught onto another's. That other was Louise, who glared to her almost hatefully. Almost. But glares of hate proved to be too low of standards for such a snobbish feline.

In that moment, Haru saw a different side to the dance, a pompous, snide side she hadn't expected to find. Upturned noses and disrespecting glares. Who would have guessed they all hated her? Every face she turned to, every eye she fell upon, they stared back condescendingly. Like she was a rat under their feet, scurrying about, trying to find a safe, sturdy legs to rest under.

Then a white-gloved hand pulled her face back. "Don't watch them," Baron finally spoke.

Haru almost smiled. "Why? I don't care. I've had worse looks."

He stared at her, baffled yet mystified. A look woven with a familiar glint she had seen boys her age bestow upon beautiful women. "You have truly grown, Haru."

That made her somewhat sadder. "Sorry I didn't visit." Even as her hands slipped away, he gripped them tightly. Those hands that didn't want to let go. Haru looked up again, surprised. "Why don't you hate me for it?"

"Because I have no room to talk. I too forgot about you, but only recently."

The reason his eyes were not sparkling, the reason the shimmer had gone. That shimmer that would not fall upon her ever again. So she would do as he asked. She would finally let him go. "Then I forgive you."

"As do I."

They danced for a while yet, Louise surfacing once in a while to stare at the strange couple. A human and a statuette. How queer, how utterly odd. When the white cat disappeared again, Haru knew Louise wouldn't surrender until she, herself had, and that notion made her dance longer. Made her heart want time to freeze forever. Yet the longer they danced, the more uncomfortable they became. She knew it had to be then, before her heart crumbled, or never.

So the young woman took destiny into her own hands and let go of his. The whole procession stopped instantly. The strange instruments faded away, the lavish lighting dimmed, and those condescending perfect people stared. Stared and waited for her to admit her childish fancy.

"I . . . I hate to interrupt, Baron, but I have to get going."

He nodded, almost relieved. The torture would soon be over for him, Haru thought sadly, and then he could forget about her again and live forever with Louise. Forever and ever until the end of time.

Somehow, Haru wanted to congratulate Louise because she had won. After all the hard work, after all those crystalline tears, Louise would still win. That's love for you, dear, Haru thought miserably.

"But I," she hesitated. Quietly, Death came up behind unnoticed and slipped a large notebook between her shaking fingers. He didn't have to say anything, but she knew what he meant. Good luck. Good luck. Hesitation vanished as she lifted the notebook to Baron with a grin. A grin to hide all of her gloom. "I want you to read this."

He looked to the ratty notebook he held before. "Yes, you told me about it. Your story, correct?"

Haru nodded and inched it closer.

"Read it?" he almost was at a loss of words. She addressed him, asked him so gently to read her thoughts and her secrets, but that wasn't the cause of his loss for words. Haru was smiling, smiling so brightly that his dark eyes shimmered, if only a little.

At last he took the notebook uncertainly and looked at the old and worn binding. It was loved, he could tell, and beautiful in its own unique way. Every heartbeat, every breath that came from it, he felt something familiar, yet something quiet different. Quiet powerful. A power he had never felt from Louise.

Something hidden, yet something quiet obvious.

Those pages he had glimpsed before.

And without a word, Haru turned and made her way through the posh people in tuxedos and vibrant dresses, then nodded to Louise and told her, "Take good care of him."

The feline statuette gasped in surprise. "Of course! What else do you think I would do with my beloved? Sell him off? Think of some fancy notebook to jot all of my dreamy thoughts about him in? Ha!"

Yet the young woman only smiled, for that was all she could do at the moment because no words would come, and kept on her way. Somewhere into the grassy crests of the night, Death materialized beside her, calmly, as if he had seen true love triumph every day.

The man wasn't at all what she expected. In fact, Haru had to laugh at her visual fixation of Death. A great reaper with a silver scythe, looming in the ghostly darkness. But in fact, he was no different from anyone else. No less sociable. Truthfully, Haru felt as if she could tell him her whole life story and he would understand, and nod, and listen. She expected him to be quite a good listener, actually.

He walked with her in silence, then asked, "Are you satisfied?"

"Yes," she replied. "I am."

"Good." Without warning, he took her from behind and ringed her around the throat. His hands became sharp and metallic, like steel or some type of blade. Silvery claws that shone in the dim moonlight. "Sorry Haru," he sounded generally apologetic, "but it's my job."

"Job?" she choked. And just a few seconds ago they were walking like friends. "But I thought ---"
"You don't just disrupt my dance without punishment," he told her darkly, his cold blades curving down her pale cheek. "Do you know how many eons it has taken to accumulate this many souls?"

Haru gulped.

"Exactly, a very long time. And I am about to have another soul to add. A few more, actually. Maybe precious Hiromi will join you? Tsuge? Mrs. Yoishika?" His voice dipped to dangerously low. "Toto? Muta? So you may all live happily never after."

A rock had figuratively fallen on Haru. A huge frozen rock too heavy to budge. She couldn't move, couldn't breath. It all became clear to her. "You set this up."

Silver licked flesh as he bent to her ear and hissed, "What do you expect, love? I am Death."

If only she'd figured it out. Death took Baron and Toto away in hopes to ruin her life for good. "Did you expect the novel?"

"Actually? No. I didn't, but it worked rather well, don't you think?"

Haru hung her head. "Yes."

Then Toto escaped, he couldn't have count on that, and then he brought her here. He made them suffer through rain and shine --- he brought Louise to the shop to watch Haru suffer! He was the one who took away everything hopeful and remotely wonderful. Death took away Baron's eyes. He took away his soul.

The young woman closed her eyes tightly to block out the tears. All of a sudden, her energy had fled, all of her happiness, her hope, her future. It all fled away as those horrid fingers tickled her neck, waiting, waning away until the opportune time to strike. Strike her dead and end her misery.

But Death wouldn't be that lenient.

"Why?" she whispered.

"Because I envy you!" he sneered. "You and your happy ending! It would be happy. I foresaw it. You would have felt your way to that Bureau that night and met with him." His fingers cut into her throat ever-so-slightly in suppressed rage. "And then true love would conquer all. How revolting."

Before he could hurt her any more, he threw her onto the grass and turned away. His cloak had resumed, his shoulders stiff with emotion. Haru stumbled to sit back up and face him again. "We would have been ---"

"You would have had a Happily Ever After," he mocked with a croak in his voice. "I could not allow it. No one should be happy if I can never be!"

Then the nightmare turned with new poise, a new set of threats, and came at her again with those sharp metallic fingers. She wanted to scream, to cry out for someone to save her from this madman gone wrong, this thing who was not Death, was not anything she had ever seen before.

No, he was the Grim Reaper, one of the many faces Death had.

With sharp claws, he lunged with vigor, then fell to the ground as another man tumbled on top of him. Pinned him to the ground, and planted his face in the cold, hard earth.

"Don't you dare touch her again!" the stranger snarled, fitting Death's arms behind him.

Death spat dirt from his mouth. "You!" he howled. "How did you escape the dance!"

"By the reason you wanted to prevent," seethed the young man as he pulled Death's arms tighter behind him. Haru noticed her novel tucked under an arm. "I never planned to waltz for eternity. Now begone, and leave us be. We have won your game."

The nightmare widened his eyes. "What?"

"I choose her," the stranger lifted his gaze to Haru, who sat knees-locked, teeth chattering, staring in awkward silence.

Their eyes met in something between familiarity and strangeness. Haru had never seen such eyes on a human, and he had never seen such a lost expression on her. It was lost. Everything was lost for that single moment when they met gazes, and suddenly the lost part of themselves wasn't so lost anymore, and Haru gazed to her beloved.

Her beloved.

And he gazed back.

Death wasn't so imposing. He wasn't so mighty or so nightmarish. Just a spoiled man who did not get his way. But that was only for a moment, only until he finally arranged his thoughts again and became the Death Haru liked. The one who listened and understood and sat placidly on the sideline while he lost time and again to a force much greater.

A force that had prevailed today.

"I should have known," the Reaper whispered pitifully before he sank into the grass. Sank deep into the loam and earth as if it was quicksand, and he did not surface again. "I should have known."

It's a habit.

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