Akoya returned to the Heavenly City in a reasonably good mood. It was rather reassuring to know that someone on earth had missed him. Now he was on his way back to Aurite's office, prepared to let him know that everything had gone smoothly and that the appropriate wheels had been set in motion. It seemed to him that Aurite was the sort of person who would appreciate that kind of report. Akoya ambled along the halls of the palace, thinking about very little except what he planned to do with the rest of his day. Then he rounded a corner and saw Ryuu at the far end of a hall.

His first response was one of pleased surprise. He hadn't expected to encounter anyone he knew, but it seemed to him now that it would be a pleasant thing to stop and chat with him for a while, perhaps see if he was interested in taking a walk with him. However, before Akoya could start moving towards him, Ryuu stopped walking and turned around, in the manner of a man who has just realized he's gotten ahead of his companion. Sure enough, a moment later Io came around the corner to join him. Ryuu laughed and said something that Akoya was too far away to hear, but Io smile and gave Ryuu a playful shove. Ryuu responded by leaning in and kissing Io's cheek. Io said something - probably something mock-scolding, judging by his expression - and Ryuu simply laughed and kissed him again, on the lips this time. Io didn't push him away, and after a second or three, Ryuu pulled away and caught hold of both Io's hands, tugging him into an alcove where they could have a little more privacy. Akoya turned sharply away, suddenly filled with a complete disinclination to talk to either of them.

How disgraceful, he told himself. His heart was racing, his throat aching and tight. He clenched his fists, blinking rapidly to clear his suddenly blurry vision. Carrying on like that, right out in public where people can see them...

He stormed down the hall, paying little attention to where he was going. He didn't know where he wanted to go. He only knew he didn't want to be where he was. He didn't want to be anywhere in the Heavenly City, or in the underworld, not when there was a chance of walking into another scene like that.

That left earth. He stepped out of the Heavenly City into a swirl of flower petals, and reappeared again standing in the middle of an earthly street. It didn't matter much to him which one it was, only that it wasn't a city he knew well and that meant he wouldn't see anyone he knew there, and they weren't going to see him. He strode invisibly through the town streets, letting the crowds of strangers flow around him without ever noticing he was there. It was almost soothing, being invisible. He might be a god, one of the most powerful beings in existence, but like this it was easy for him to pretend he didn't even exist.

He didn't know how long he'd walked like that, locked in a state of not-thinking, simply moving and watching the world around him, when he caught a snatch of conversation in tones he almost recognized. He stopped walking, puzzled. This town was strange to him, so how could he be recognizing anyone? Letting curiosity overcome his malaise, he started moving again, in the direction of the voice.

He found himself on one of the side streets, a little quieter and less crowded than the main street he'd been traveling. There were more houses and fewer shops here, and the people moved at an amble instead of a rush. Two of these people, Akoya realized, were ambling side by side, deeply engrossed in an animated conversation. He realized instantly why they had sounded familiar. These were the woodworker and the chikuwabu boy he had visited with Ryuu a week or two ago.

"...so this guy," Kazutake was saying, "kept repeating 'udon' and I thought he was asking if I was done." He laughed, cheeks red. "I was so embarrassed."

Wario laughed too. "You really do have to deal with some characters, don't you?"

"Sometimes," Kazutake agreed. "I'm not boring you, am I?"

"Not at all," Wario insisted. "I like listening to you. You never bore me."

Kazutake's blush deepened. "You're the first one who's ever said something like that to me. Everyone thinks I'm boring."

"Not to me," Wario insisted. "I think you're the most amazing person I've ever met."

"Really?" asked Kazutake, eyes bright.

"Absolutely," his companion replied. "You know, I was really lonely before I met you. I asked the gods to send me someone to keep me company. I think that must have been you. I've been really happy since I met you."

"I'm happy too," said Kazutake. "I've never had a friend like you before."

There was a pause before Wario asked softly, "Just friends?"

Kazutake stopped walking. The two of them stood and looked into each other's eyes, and Akoya watched as realization bloomed there - realization, and a burgeoning expression of joy. He didn't listen to any more of what they said. It was enough just to see their faces. They looked so happy...

Akoya turned away, unable to stand watching anymore. There was no comfort here on earth, no more than anywhere else. Defeated, he returned to his rooms, where he collapsed onto the sofa and curled up into a miserable ball.

They're so happy. How are they so happy? Those two were, so far as he could tell, as ordinary as paving stones. They weren't particularly handsome, or intelligent, or anything really. They were just two everyday people, and yet somehow finding each other made all the difference in the world. Somehow, they had found something to love in each other. And yet, here he was - educated, sophisticated, powerful, immortal, more beautiful than anyone who had ever lived, and no one had ever looked at him that way before. They had admired him, yes, and longed for him, but only as they might yearn for a pretty bauble they could put on a shelf and admire. No one had ever loved him the way those two loved each other, or the way Ryuu and Io loved each other. He might have been able to delude himself for a while that they might, but that had been when he'd only been meeting Ryuu and Io one at a time. Seeing them alone, he'd been able to convince himself at their interest in him was genuine, but seeing them together..

Unbidden, the image came back to his mind of the two of them in the hallway, laughing and kissing with the ease of long familiarity. There was such clear trust there, a sure knowledge that they were there for each other. They didn't need him and never would. Nobody needed him. He could just vanish and no one would really care.

There was a knock on the door, and an all too familiar voice said, "Akoya? Are you in there?"

"Go away!" Akoya shouted back.

There was a pause. Io said more quietly, "Akoya, are you all right?"

"I said go away! I don't want you here!" He seized a pillow and threw it at the door.

The door opened anyway, and Io slipped inside. Akoya considered throwing another pillow at him and realized he didn't have the energy for it. He settled for pointedly turning his back on Io and pretending he wasn't there.

"Akoya? Did something happen?" Io asked gently.

Akoya's head snapped up again. "Yes, something happened! This is all your fault - you and that stupid husband of yours! It's his fault I'm feeling this way now! He's the one who showed me what I'm missing, and I'm never going to have it! I wouldn't have even known I wanted it if he hadn't gotten involved. If he'd been doing his job... he's supposed to find someone who loves me! That's what he's for, so why doesn't he do it? Why does everyone else get to be happy but me? Why do I have to suffer like this? Why did you have to get me into this? I could have stayed home and everything could have gone on the way it used to be and I never would have known what I was missing. Why did you do this to me?" He beat his fist against the arm of the sofa. "I hate you! I hate everyone! Why won't they all just leave me alone?"

He was aware that he was crying - harsh, choking sobs, with tears spilling down his cheeks. His hair was in disarray, his voice was cracking, and his nose was clogged. He'd never felt so ugly in his life.

I hate myself. I should never have been born...

And there it was at last: the truth he had been avoiding for so long. Behind his lovely facade, he knew, was a vain, self-centered man who manipulated others for his pleasure, who used their adulation to distract him from his own self-loathing, and the more he manipulated and used them, the more he hated himself for it. It was an endless spiral staircase that had finally collapsed underneath him and let him plunge into despair.

Of course no one loves me. I don't deserve it.

He was brought out of his self-pity by the touch of something soft on his face. He focused his eyes and realized that Io was gently dabbing at his face with a silk handkerchief. It was pale purple, with violets embroidered in the corner, and a froth of lace around the edges. He blinked at it. Io gave him a small smile.

"I can do handkerchiefs, if they're expensive enough," he said. "Just don't ever ask me for a dish towel or a hearthrug."

Akoya accepted it hesitantly. "Thank you," he said. He dabbed at his eyes. "I must look frightful..."

"No, you don't," said Io. "You even look pretty when you cry. It's completely unfair. You could at least have the decency to have your eyes go red like normal people."

Akoya dabbed at his eyes and blew his nose, then sat twisting the handkerchief in his hands. He looked down at it, not at Io, as he said, "I don't actually hate you."

"I don't hate you either," said Io. "I don't love you, but I don't hate you. I'd like to think that we're friends."

"Well, I suppose that's something." Akoya's voice sounded bitter, even in his own ears.

Io sighed. "May I sit next to you?"

Akoya shrugged. Io settled down next to him on the sofa. Akoya sulkily kept his back turned towards him, but after a moment, he felt a gentle touch that made him half-turn again. Io, he realized, had pulled a golden comb out of nowhere and was putting Akoya's disheveled hair back in order. His touch was very delicate, never snagging or pulling, and the rhythm of it was soothing. Almost against his will, Akoya felt himself start to relax again.

"You're good at that," he said grudgingly.

"Thank you," said Io. "Sometimes I do this for Ryuu, when he's feeling stressed." He sighed. "It really should be him giving you this talk, not me. I'm not so good at explaining emotions."

Akoya frowned. "I'm still angry with him."

"I know. That's why I'm still here and not rushing to fetch him," said Io. "Look, can you stand some straight talk right now? Because I'm not very good at sugar-coating things."

"I suppose," said Akoya. Really, he thought, how much worse could he feel?

"Well, I know what you want to hear is that this will all come out right, that true love takes time, and if you keep waiting and hoping the right person will come along," said Io, "but I'm not sure that's good advice in this case. The fact is, you are self-centered, and it's difficult to love someone who only thinks about themselves."

"I'd already figured that out, thank you," said Akoya tartly.

"Well, that's good," said Io. He set his comb aside and began braiding up Akoya's hair. "Do you know what I would suggest you do?"

"What?" Akoya asked warily.

"I'd suggest you do your job."

Akoya blinked. "Come again?"

"Well, think about it. When Aurite offered you immortality, he set two conditions. One was that you choose two consorts. You already seem to be giving that serious thought. But how much have you given the other condition? How much time have you spent on earth doing your godly duties?"

"I appointed a high priestess this morning," Akoya offered.

"That's a start," said Io, "but it's really not enough. You have to do the real work yourself. Trust me, having a job to do will make you feel better. I know this is the sort of thing a god of prosperity is supposed to say, but it's true - work is a tonic for many ills. It will give you something to talk about with people. Besides, don't you get bored just hanging around all day?"

"I suppose there is that," Akoya admitted.

"Of course," said Io. He produced a mother-of-pearl hair clip and neatly fastened it to the end of Akoya's braid. "There. You're immaculate once more."

Akoya got up to inspect himself in the mirror. Io was right. His face showed no signs of his earlier tantrum, and his hair was smooth and perfect.

"Well," he said, "if you really think it's a good idea..."

"Do you have any better ones?" Io answered, without mockery.

"No, I don't," Akoya admitted. He fumbled at the much-abused handkerchief he was still clutching in one hand. "Do you want this back?"

"Keep it," said Io. "I have more."

"Thank you," Akoya replied. "You are... a good friend."

The words felt strange to say. He had never really had any friends before, good or otherwise, and yet he had no doubt that what he'd just said was true. Io was his friend, and he was clearly a good one.

Even if he doesn't love me.

For the third time that day, Akoya went to earth. The first time it had been to meet with someone. The second time, it had been to get away from someone. Now it was to accomplish a purpose, and for that, he wanted a very particular venue. In his human life, he had never been particularly interested in the great outdoors. He would go for a walk around his garden, to get a bit of exercise and to enjoy the flowers, and occasionally to give himself a backdrop against which he could pose for his admirers, but anything outside the orderly confines of human habitation was right out of his comfort zone. The wilderness was full of dirt and bugs and worse things. There were twigs to catch and tear at your clothing and all sorts of things that left stains. It was not the sort of place he would have ventured for his own enjoyment.

Today, though, privacy mattered more than cleanliness. He needed to get an idea of how his new powers really worked, and he wanted to do that in a place where there was no one around to see him. To that end, he found himself a lonely valley out in the middle of a mountain range, a little pocket among the peaks where he doubted any human being had ever set foot. If they had, they had come and gone without leaving any sign. All that was here were a lot of trees, a few tumbled boulders, and a little glen in the middle of it all with the muddy remains of what had once been a spring. Akoya stood at the spring's edge and looked around thoughtfully. Yes, this was a good place to begin. If he could work out how to make this place beautiful, he would know he'd gotten the hang of it.

Now, where to start...

The grass at his feet rippled in a small breeze. It wasn't very interesting, even as grass went - tough and scrubby and a bit yellow around the edges.

Flowers. That's what this place needs.

It seemed like the perfect place to start. He apparently had some sort of affinity for them, and this place would definitely look better if it had some flowers growing in it. It ought to have flowers. It needed flowers. He could feel the potential for flowers, now that he thought of it, the way he might feel a coin that had slipped to the bottom of his purse. He wanted flowers. It was his will that there should be flowers, and in such matters, his word was law. Akoya felt the world shift slightly, as if a heavy weight he'd been pushing on had started to move, and he looked around to see that amid the blades of grass, there were now a lot of tiny white and yellow flowers peeping out. Akoya smiled slightly.

I can do this.

For the next several hours, he experimented. He soon learned that to create anything, even something so small as a pebble, was a tremendous effort, but to alter or rearrange things that were already there was a comparatively simple matter. By the time he was done practicing, he'd managed to get the spring flowing again, and the little glade was filled with butterflies flitting among a rainbow of flowers. He felt he'd done excellent work, but the real test was still to come. Determinedly, he left his private retreat and returned to the village.

He arrived in the middle of the town square, and sat on the roof of the village well, looking down at humanity and considering his next move. As he understood it, his job as god of beauty was not just to beautify things, but to encourage people to notice. It would not, after all, do for him to create a gorgeous rainbow only to have no one look up at it.

Better start with something easy, he decided.

He scanned the streets until he saw a likely target, eventually selecting a middle-aged woman tromping along with her arms full of groceries. Akoya made a little gesture, and a warm breeze brushed her face. She glanced up, pausing her steps long enough to gaze at the spire of the local temple. Its burnished steeple gleamed against the clear blue sky, and the stained glass windows glittered in the afternoon sunlight. A smile crept across the woman's face as she gazed up at it, and when she began walking again, there was a spring in her step that hadn't been there before. Akoya smiled too, feeling absurdly proud of himself.

This is going to be fun.

So for the rest of the afternoon, he flitted around town, pausing wherever the mood struck him to brighten up someone's day. At first, he focused his energies on flowers, jewels, fine clothes, all the things he himself found most beautiful, but that quickly grew boring. It was too easy to get people to notice something that was blatantly beautiful. Instead, he made it a game to see how many people he could coax into admiring quite ordinary things. Could he get someone to notice the way the clouds reflected in that puddle? How about the iridescent glints off that raven's wings? What about the rich shade of green of that particular patch of moss - could he coax someone into noticing that? Was it possible to make someone notice the pattern of light and dark bricks in the street when she had walked over them every day for years?

And the answer, as it turned out, was yes. Wherever Akoya went, people stopped what they were caught up in and noticed the world around them. A bored clerk looked up from his labors to watch the golden motes of dust dancing in a beam of light, and went back to his work with renewed vigor. A young woman, standing shyly at the fringes of a party, suddenly had her hat snatched off her head by a vagrant wind, and the young men whose eyes were drawn by her cry of alarm suddenly found themselves noticing how long and glossy her hair was, how enticingly smooth her shoulders were, and suddenly she was surrounded by admirers eager to return the wayward hat. An old man living on the edge of town found himself looking at his wife, as she patiently peeled a basket of potatoes, and found himself remembering how lovely she'd been in her youth, and thinking that their years together had only made her more dear to him.

At sunset, Akoya was sitting on the roof of the city hall, watching the sun setting over the town and feeling an unaccustomed sense of pride. It had occurred to him at some point that he had never really had a job to do before. He'd never needed to - his parents had left him well-off, and his various underlings were good enough at managing the affairs that there had always been enough for him to live on. His many admirers were always happy to give him anything his own household finances couldn't supply for him. All he'd ever really needed to worry about was making sure the staff was doing what they were supposed to and that he was presenting himself well to the world. Now he was experiencing the rather novel sensation of doing a job that made other people happy, without any of them knowing that it was he who was responsible. He found he didn't mind it as much as he might have thought. After a lifetime of being clamored over like a prize horse at an auction, it was nice to find a way he could be appreciated and ignored at the same time.

And he was being appreciated. As he sat there contemplating his handiwork, he realized he could feel the admiration and pleasure of the people he'd blessed as an almost physical warmth, revitalizing him after his day of hard work. He was beginning to see why the other gods were so preoccupied with keeping their worshipers happy.

But for now, he felt he'd done enough for one day. He might not have been physically tired, but he was suffering from the mental fatigue that came from concentrating for hours on a task. What he wanted now was a good meal, and then a long soak in his bath, with perhaps a bit of light reading while he was there. With that thought fixed firmly in mind, he winked back to the Palace of the Gods.

He emerged in one of the common areas that dotted the palace, took a moment to orient himself, and started walking towards his room. He hadn't quite gotten the hang of the palace's layout, and with the way his rooms kept changing shape, he found it more convenient to land in a place he was sure of than to try to go straight to his room and accidentally end up inside the closet. Much more dignified to walk until he'd learned to improve his aim. He was strolling down one of the hallways, enjoying the sense of quiet after his busy day and thinking how nice it would be to retire to the peace of his suite.

He'd almost made it there when he passed a side corridor and encountered Aurite coming the other way. Akoya stopped walking, feeling slightly put on the spot. He was still a little intimidated by Aurite, who always seemed to have a criticism for him whenever they met.

"Pearlite," Aurite greeted. "I understand you've been busy on earth today."

"I have," Pearlite agreed cautiously.

"I'm pleased to hear it," said Aurite, and there was a definite note of approval in his voice. "Keep up the good work."

"I certainly will," Akoya agreed. Impulsively, he added, "I was just about to go to the great hall for dinner. Perhaps you would care to join me?"

Aurite looked slightly taken aback. Perhaps people didn't voluntarily sit down to dinner with him that often. After a second or two he collected himself and said, "I would not be opposed to some company."

Akoya relaxed as the two of them began making their leisurely way down to the dining hall. He hadn't meant to go there - he'd been planning to eat in his rooms, as he usually did - but now the idea of having company didn't bother him that much. He chatted with Aurite about what he'd been doing all day, and Aurite listened attentively and made helpful suggestions. He was, after all, the god of order, and order and beauty often had much in common. By the time Akoya reached the dining hall and settled in to enjoy his meal, his bleak mood of the morning had been almost completely forgotten.

At least until Ryuu walked into the room. Akoya froze, his fork halfway to his mouth. As he watched in utter dismay, Ryuu made his way across the room, moving almost straight towards him.

Please don't notice me. Just walk straight by me. Go talk to someone else.

Ryuu walked straight by him. Akoya watched him, feeling oddly disappointed.

Then Ryuu seemed to come to a realization, and he doubled back, his face radiating good cheer.

"Hey, I didn't think I'd see you down here," he said, bounding over to Akoya's side. "You usually don't eat with the rest of us."

"I wanted a change of pace," said Akoya, keeping his expression and tone as neutral as he could.

"Well, I wanted to tell you, you did a really good job today," said Ryuu. He laughed. "Hey, you practically did my job for me! I'm really impressed."

Almost in spite of himself, Akoya felt himself glowing at the praise. "You are?"

Ryuu nodded. "You should come to work with me tomorrow. I have some cases that could use your touch to really help things get rolling."

"Perhaps I will," said Akoya slowly. "I think I'm beginning to understand more about what you do... about bringing out potential."

Ryuu nodded. "Personally, I think everyone has the potential to be beautiful."

"And... to be loved?" Akoya asked carefully.

"Yeah," said Ryuu, looking back at him with a thoughtful gaze. "That too."

Akoya nodded his acceptance of the answer. "Perhaps you can join us for dinner, and tell me a bit about these difficult cases of yours."

Ryuu grinned and slid into the seat next to him, already chattering cheerfully about his plans for the mortals in his care. Akoya listened without interrupting, making only occasional nods and encouraging noises.

Potential, hm? he thought, letting his eyes linger on the way the candlelight danced on Ryuu's hair. I can work with that. I seem to be getting good at bringing out potential.

To Be Continued...