AN: This is getting harder to write because the story is getting more complicated. Too complicated than what I had in mind actually. I wasn't going to publish this yet but then thought what the hell. The next chapter is already in the works. This story is slower than my other ones. Mitsu would be gradual. But I swear to try my best to make all of this worth it. New character at the end of this chapter. Everyone's mentioned for a reason.

Chapter Word Count: 4,159 word(s)
POV: Third person
Summary: How far can Mio's curiosity take her? What is this new emotion that's engulfing her?

To Desire

The usual crowd of angels gathered at the beach. The same trumpets, horns, and harps played and the sun rose. Their eye colors shifted along with the skies. It was a wonderful sight. This went on just like it had for millennia, since the very first angels were created, and will go on for all eternity. The celestial guardians never got tired of it, not even for a single day. This was their time of peace. This was the Maker's gift.

Mio stood beside her friends, fellow third sphere candidate Mugi and the junior Azusa, all of them caught in their usual trance, all with outstretched arms and hair fluttering in the light breeze, all of them listened like it was the first time they've ever heard the song. She closed her eyes and let herself be lost in the music, let herself forget about what had happened.

It has been almost a month, and for every single day since meeting the human that made her do strange and near-impossible things and incited such strong feelings inside of her, Mio observed her, blinked to her in between rounds to just watch her go about her mortal life.

The human Ritsu did nothing special yet she intrigued Mio to no end, and this just frustrated the angel. Sometimes she and Mugi would see each other and observe the girl together. Mio would never admit it to anyone, but deep inside she knew that something more than curiosity kept her going back to the girl no matter what kind of silly human thing or situation she catches her friend's ward in.

There was one instance where Mio blinked to the girl and she was standing in the girl's small living and dining area, just adjacent to her equally tiny bedroom. She looked around and let her eyes adjust to the dim lighting, the only light coming from the setting sun. She found the girl standing on a stool and was reaching at something that was on the ceiling. The human girl had tied her forelock up with an elastic band and divided the rest of her short hair into two pigtails. Mio thought the human looked especially weird with her hair like that, with three little locks sticking out from her head, but in a good way. She just watched her and she realized that the human was unscrewing a light bulb.

Mio understood the evolution in human technology better than her friend Mugi, but what she knew wasn't really much, so she only assumed that the girl might be replacing the old bulb with a new one.

"AK!"

The girl coughed and sneezed and dusted herself. After unscrewing the old bulb, the months-old dust and grime that wedged their way in, fell on her hair and clothes and on the table.

"Oh man, that is disgusting. I should clean more."

Ritsu groaned. She thanked the heavens that she didn't have her mouth open when the gross evidence of her laziness at keeping her place clean fell on her. She dusted herself again, swatting at her shoulders and arms and then at her hair. She picked up the new bulb and screwed it in tight. She gave two thumbs up at the new bulb and hopped off the stool to take a shower and wash the filth away.

If angels breathed, Mio would have sighed deeply at the scene she witnessed. She wasn't sure if the capacity of the girl to act like such a sloth sometimes was admirable or completely repulsive. Her face muscles merely twitched during the whole incident.

The girl lived alone so it was understandable that she had little space. Mio found out that the girl also rarely stayed at home since she found herself in different places every time, so she also thought that that might be the cause of her not having done a general cleaning of her apartment.

Mio also once blinked herself to some kind of gathering where the human threw back small glasses of liquor like it was water. This repulsed Mio. They were tainting themselves with the foul elements, but really, she couldn't expect more from humans.

The human, no, Ritsu, was with others of her kind and they were all drinking and laughing. An image of Mugi reprimanding her for calling her ward 'human' and 'girl' popped into her mind. The angel had requested her to call her ward by her name. Mugi thought it was so cold of Mio to call Ritsu anything other than her name. She stayed to observe them for a bit. They were in a dimly lit place with flashing lights and humans writhing like lunatics to loud music. Or at least, what noise humans now call as music.

Ritsu was obviously intoxicated and so were the others. They all sat in a booth a bit far from the dance floor. They were celebrating the huge pay they received from last Friday's gig at a nightclub and were competing against one another to see who could hold their liquor in best. Their keyboardist was still aware and awake, and made sure to drink only a little. She was the designated driver after all, since she's the only one responsible enough to watch her alcohol intake. Sawako ordered another round of drinks.

"Sawako-sensei, don't you think you should take it easy?"

Ui asked her teacher turned manager in concern. The woman drank like a sailor and was now also starting to curse like one.

"My, my, Ui-chan~ No need to worry about me. I've got an amazing metabolism."

Sawako pushed her sleeves up and bent her arm to flex her biceps. Ui wondered what her teacher's biceps had to do with her metabolism. The woman took two shot glasses and downed one after the other before sucking on a lime. She just sighed and turned to her sister who was laughing with their drummer about the most nonsensical and unfunny things.

"Yui, did you know that the plural of octopus isn't octopuses, but octopi?"

Ritsu suddenly turned to Yui and slapped the girl a bit too hard than she had intended. Yui turned to her with wide eyes. She covered her face and her cheeks puffed.

"Pffft— that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!"

Ui watched her sister and Ritsu double over in laughter; Ritsu even slapped her knee while she laughed loudly. The younger girl didn't know whether to do a face-palm or to laugh at the silliness of their conversation.

"I know right! That's like saying the sun is a star! Like, what the heck, how can the sun be a star when it's the sun, right?"

Ui sweat-dropped, sighed and mentally face-palmed instead, at them. Her sister and friend laughed like they had all the joy and glee in the world. Alcohol kills brain cells, right? She looked at the glass she had in hand and suddenly decided that she had enough drinks for tonight and set it back on the table.

Just then Jun put an arm around her shoulders and began to press herself to Ui's side. Oh, no… Not this… Ui thought with dread.

"Uuuiiii~ you're sooo pretty tonight…"

Jun's speech was slurred as her other hand swirled the liquor in her glass, head lying on Ui's shoulder. Ui knew that the girl did not have any feelings towards her. Alcohol just had this effect on her friend where anything that was human and had four limbs was attractive and she'd then proceed to try to hook up with them. Ui was her usual target.

"Jun, that's just the alcohol talking."

The keyboardist valiantly tried to keep her friend's roaming hands from herself.

Mio stood by the booth and watched the humans interact. She felt sorry for the ponytailed girl who had to take care of all of her almost drunk friends. Then she decided that her break time is over and she blinked herself to her first ward for the third time that day.

The angel shook her head at the memory.

But then there were those shocking and petrifying times where the girl would make her feel things again.

One time, she had mistakenly blinked herself inside Ritsu's shower while the human bathed. Of course Mio had seen numerous humans, all from different eras, with nothing covering their bare skin, but she's never blinked into situations like these, not once, not with all the wards she has had. She's blinked herself to her wards bathing, of course, but she made sure that she would give them the courtesy of blinking herself outside the bathroom or outside the shower curtain because she respected the humans' privacy.

She wanted to strangle herself as she thought back to that incident.

She hadn't been focusing too hard when she blinked, just thought about the girl and not where she probably was or where might be at, and she opened her eyes to steam, the shower spraying hot water, and Ritsu's bare back covered in tiny water droplets.

Mio's eyes widened and she froze. She was so surprised that she couldn't even think of blinking herself outside. If angels could blush, her whole body would've been beet red. She just stood there, invisible, and hadn't even thought of covering her eyes.

She berated herself for not reacting fast enough. She mentally slapped herself over and over again as she recalled that moment.

She wished so badly that she did, because Ritsu had just closed the shower and turned to face her. Now there was an emotion angels were not supposed to feel at all. She started feeling hot all over her body, like little flames danced all over her skin.

She was aroused.

Ritsu's wet bangs fell to her face, her eyes were half-lidded and she sighed contentedly. She turned around and moved to open the curtain a few inches so she could grab the towel that hung from the hook stuck to the tiled wall.

Mio felt like something got caught in her throat and felt the heat coil somewhere below her stomach. She swallowed and winced at how dry and rough it felt. There was a louding pounding in her ears and she started to get dizzy. She saw that Ritsu inched closer and closer to her and as the steam slowly disappeared, the human's nude body became even more visible and clear. Mio's eyes were now free to roam every inch of exposed flesh. She did so, unabashedly, all the earlier apprehension and embarrassment evaporated. And as her eyes became more and more daring, the heat spread throughout her body like a forest fire and her mind became more and more fuzzy.

She could still feel the tendrils of heat come to life and try to take hold of her as she replayed it all in her head.

Mio almost screamed when she saw the girl's arm reach out, and in a flurry of too much arousal, confusion, fear, and panic she blinked herself to the beach.

Once she opened her eyes and saw that there was no more naked human girl in front of her, and sea water, waves and sand instead, she crouched down on to the floor slowly, quivering. She made herself small and covered a hand to each ear and rocked herself back and forth.

I did not see anything… I did not feel anything… Nothing happened… Nothing happened…

See, no angel has ever experienced the things Mio had in the past month. Well, at least, none that she knew. And she basically knew all of them since she has walked different planes of existence in all of her millennia. So it's no brain twister that all of these new things frightened her and made her feel powerless.

Angels were far from powerless beings. From the last month's happenings, Mio had now started to doubt if she even was an angel. What's happening to me? If angels had tear ducts, Mio would have sobbed hysterically.

She could not believe what had happened. The events that had just taken place trumped out everything else. Those seemed like normal and every day incidents for an angel compared to this one. Mio did not know what to do anymore; she just wanted an end to all of this.

Then she realized that she had been feeling something angels were incapable of feeling all this time: exhaustion. Mio quivered even more at the realization. Fear and dread and all these new emotions started eating at her and she felt like she was starting to lose her mind. It was all too much for her to handle. If only it would all just stop… If only someone would just come and help her… If only…

"Mio?"

Just then, as if the Maker answered her plea, she heard the soft voice of Mugi from some distance behind her. She did not look up. She was grateful for her friend's presence, she was grateful that her call was answered, but she felt too many things still. She felt like she was unstable. Something was surely wrong with her. She was filthy from all the foul elements.

Mugi saw her friend sitting on the sand with her knees pressed against her chest and felt something ache inside of her for the girl. She wasted no time and walked to her friend. She crouched down low and wrapped her arms around the shaking angel.

Ever since that night she worried about her friend. She knew that there was no way she would know what her friend could possibly be going through, but she vowed to always be there for the other angel, to help her get through this.

Somehow, Mio felt Mugi's vow of staying by her side and being there if she needed a friend through the other angel's hug. If Mio cried, she would have wept impossibly harder then. She would have lost her sanity the first night if Mugi had not been there to comfort her. She owed her friend a lot. She thanked the Maker for Mugi in her head. Mugi really was an angel. She was a guardian angel to her wards and also to her. Mio realized just then how selfless the other angel was and put her hands on her friend's shoulders and rested her head on the crook of the other angel's neck and hugged her back.

They stayed that way for a while quietly until Mio pulled back. Mugi's thick eyebrows rose and she watched her friend close with worry.

"Thank you, Mugi. Thank you so much…"

Mio smiled at her friend. She poured all of her thanks and gratitude and as much feeling as she could into that one smile. And it was as if Mugi felt it all when her eyes softened and she smiled back.

Mio opened her eyes to the present and was pulled back to reality as the music faded and the sun showed itself, completely over the horizon. Seagulls flew overhead and the lighthouses were powered down and angels blinked themselves out one by one.

The three friends turned to each other and greeted each other with a smile and a 'good morning' before Azusa hurriedly explained that she had to go immediately since she still had an unfinished round from last night. The younger angel had finished her daily three rounds early and thought that she had enough time to finish a fourth but was mistaken when she was surprised to see the dark skies shift to twilight.

The two candidates turned to each other.

"Mugi, I want to finish my first round early so I can observe Ritsu again today. I'll be going now too, okay?"

Mio tilted her head apologetically to the side, sad that she wouldn't get to stay and chat with the other angel as per their usual after-sunrise routine. After the shower incident, she had stopped blinking herself to the tawny-haired human for a week. But curiosity ate at her and she figured that her questions would remain unanswered if she didn't see the girl anymore.

Mugi nodded in understanding and smiled at her friend. Although she had no way of knowing, she had an idea of how hard what her friend is going through must be.

"Ah, I understand. She's last on my list today, seeing that she kept waking up later and later every day. Maybe we can see each other."

"See you, then!"

Mio raised her hand, palm facing towards her friend and fingers spread in a small wave. Mugi waved back and they both blinked themselves out of the beach.

There was no repeat of the shower incident then. The angel had made sure to be more careful now and much to her relief, she never caught the human in any state of undress again. There were weird instances where she found the human and her short brown-haired friend saying the oddest things, though. She caught them talking in deep voices about how sumo wrestling was an art and not a sport while they thrust each palm forward alternately. They then proceeded to repeat 'DOSUKOI' over and over again. Mio had no idea what the whole exchange meant.

Ritsu had woken up on the floor that day. Sometime around the night she had rolled over and fell and dragged her blankets and pillow down with her. It was no wonder the fall hadn't woken her since she and her band had a gig the night before and she had spent all of her energy hitting the worn out snare that barely made any noise. Yui and Ui invited her to come over to their place after the gig because there was so much leftover nabe that the younger sibling cooked and the older couldn't finish on her own so her partner in crime was needed. She had turned down the over, complaining about sore thighs, calves and forearms. She thanked the powers that be that Sawa-chan took pity on her and drove her home. She guessed that her manager was all pleasant last night because Norimi was there. Sawa-chan was tough but with Norimi around she acts like a teenager in love and the latter just soaks up all the affection.

The first time she met the woman with the pixie-cut hair, Ritsu immediately liked her. The woman was nice and fun and outgoing. She wasn't grumpy like Sawa-chan and was very easy to talk to. She was glad when Sawa-chan and Norimi finally got together because she knew they would be good for each other. She just hates it when they suddenly forget that they're not in their own house and have intense public displays of affection, especially when it's at her work place. It was her work place, goddammit!

She fixed her beddings with a long and bored face, eyes no more than slits on her face from the lack of proper sleep and back pain from sleeping on the floor in a weird position, and headed to the kitchen to see what she had at home that she can eat for breakfast. There was leftover rice, tamagoyaki and tsukemono. She scratched her back and ruffled her bedhead as she heated the rice and rolled omelet.

She then grabbed a bowl, scooped spoonfuls of rice into it and grabbed a pair of chopsticks. Although she was eating alone, she still said the customary 'itadaki-masu' before she dove into her breakfast.

For the past week something has been bothering Ritsu. It started on the previous Saturday when she went to the convenience store to purchase chocolates at around 11pm because she suddenly craved them. She had this fleeting feeling that someone had been watching her, that someone had been following her. She ignored it at first, but it had been getting more and more frequent lately and she was starting to get creeped out.

See, Ritsu isn't really the type to get scared so easily, and if something's got her jumpy then that something must be bad.

She felt it again that day when she got to the music store. She nodded a greeting to Sawa-chan when she caught the woman's gaze as the woman tended to some customers looking at violins. The woman nodded back. Norimi was also there and helped answer questions of the girl who seemed to actually want to buy one. It shocked Ritsu and caused her to spit her drink out when Sawa-chan told her that her girlfriend was quite knowledgeable on classical music. Norimi didn't look like it at all, especially with the six ear piercings and short pixie hair. Ah, but then again Yui is something close to a guitar prodigy, so…

Mio had just finished her first round and blinked herself to the tawny-haired human's work place. Ritsu stiffened as she felt someone watching her again. She turned around and scanned the store. There was no one else there who could be watching her. She tried to shrug it off and went to drop her bag behind the counter and pulled out her drumsticks. She was going to check out how the new kiddie-sized drum set she just set up yesterday sounded. She felt the invisible pair of eyes follow her and she tried her best to calm down.

She bent to adjust a few screws on the kit and to move the pedal a bit. She first tapped the cymbals with her forefinger since she didn't want to make any noise that could possibly irritate the customer. She felt them pass by her as the two older women and the customer went to the counter to settle the purchase.

"Well, it was nice meeting you today, Ichigo-san. You're welcome to come back any day if you have questions regarding the violin or playing. I would be happy to help."

Norimi smiled at the girl. Ichigo nodded enthusiastically, her brown bangs and pigtails with curled ends bouncing along with her action.

"Thank you, Norimi-san."

The girl, Ichigo, left the store, but not before she spared a glance at the direction of the headband-wearing girl who was crouched behind a set of drums and put a knuckle to her lip and blushed.

"Well, well, Ricchan… It seems that you have a secret admirer."

Sawako said in a singsong voice. She followed the customer with her gaze and caught her look at her drummer and blush. Oh, to be young… She thought.

"Who?"

Ritsu looked up from the drums with her eyebrows high up her forehead. Could it be that…?

"Ichigo-san just looked at you and blushed before leaving the store~"

"Hmmm… You know, I've actually been freaked out for the past week. I feel like someone's watching me and it's really bothering me."

Ritsu went into deep thought and tried to remember if she's seen the girl she heard Norimi call Ichigo. She went over the events of the past week and came up with nothing. No, she's only seen the girl today.

"Well, I think whoever your secret admirer may be; it definitely isn't Ichigo-san. She seemed like she only saw you today. Someone else is stalking you."

Norimi leaned on her hands that were flat on the counter and put her two cents in the conversation. She finished the sentence with a look thrown at the supposedly invisible Mio in the room. Mio stiffened again and rubbed her eyes. This time she was sure the woman looked at her. She acted quick and blinked herself out of the store.

"How can you even know that?"

Ritsu raised a questioning brow and shook her head.

"Man, you two are getting senile in your old age, aren't you?"

The drummer went back to her work but before she could even put her foot to the bass drum pedal and hit the snare a shoe hit her head and she let out a surprised and pained squeak.

"Say that again."

Sawako growled as her raised fist shook and a vein throbbed. There was a visible and angry lump on the headband-sporting girl's head and there were tiny streams of tears that ran from her eyes down to her cheeks.

Ritsu arrived home late that evening from band practice. They had another gig scheduled for Friday night and a performance at a small music festival the next day. She sighed and inserted the key into the knob and twisted it to open the door. There was a click. She pushed the door open but before she could even enter her home she felt the presence of her stalker once again. Scared, tired, and freaked out, Ritsu just reacted.

She turned around. Mio jumped in surprise as the girl turned to face her. Shivers erupted in the angel's body as the human's eyes seemed to stare right into the dark starry skies of her own. It was like the human could see her. She was frozen in her spot.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"

To be continued...

AN: What do you guys think? Reviews motivate me and make me write faster! xD

~pineappurus