Chapter Text
What is love?
My lover asked (ironic, I know)
Love is an illusion, I stated.
Love is a dagger, he replied.
My existence in this cruel world has stretched across too many years to count. I never particularly loathed my job—a devil hunter who was a devil himself—but then, I never had many choices. He was the complication. He made my heart feel more human than I could ever endure. Maybe it was the angel side of me, the part that still, foolishly, gave a damn about humanity. Or perhaps I was only ever an angel for him.
The only good thing this wretched job ever gave me was the day I met him. It was in a chaos of gore and death, a human being devoured right before my eyes, someone’s blood painting my uniform as my hands crushed a devil’s skull. And there he was. He stood in the carnage and offered me a handkerchief, his hand steady as if I were just another colleague, and not a creature that could steal his life with a touch.
I let his eyes sear themselves onto my heart. They were the shade of a dense forest, pierced by shards of sunlight that fell across the smooth plane of his pale skin. His lips were parted in exhaustion, his hair pulled back in a simple ponytail.
We were on a mission, killing zombies. Sounds exciting? It wasn’t. I’ve always hated hard workers, the kind who march willingly to their deaths for the sake of salvation. He wanted to save humanity. But did they deserve it? Did they deserve the sacrifice of my love?
They didn’t. It’s a shitty truth, but it’s the only one I have.
He was all about avenging his family, his friends, his precious humans. And what about me? Was I not important? Did it mean nothing when he saved me, even when all I had ever longed for was to die? He had no right to make me feel worthy of love, deserving of something, after all my relinquished attempts to remain a devil.
Why did I have to want to protect him? The thought was laughable. In the end….
I never realised I had a heart until it shattered into a million pieces inside my chest. I never understood what he meant when he called love a dagger, until that day—the day my blood ran dry, my veins turned to ice, and my heart petrified into stone. I became more of a devil than the angel I was before.
This is a story about an angel and a human. It’s a story about how I fell.
The air was a thick, cloying soup of iron and spoiled meat, a perfume that had seeped into the very marrow of Jeonghan’s being over centuries: another day, another hoard of mindless, shambling things that used to be people. To him, it was less a battle and more a tedious chore, repetitive and redundant. He wondered, not for the first time, if the slow creep of a human's lifespan being drained away would be more interesting than this.
He sighed, the sound lost in the groans of the undead. His white wings, the fur matted with grime, twitched in annoyance as he lazily gripped the head of a lumbering zombie. With a casual, almost bored squeeze, he popped its skull like overripe fruit. The lifespan he stole from it was a meagre, fleeting spark—hardly worth the effort.
This is so dull.
His gaze drifted across the battlefield and landed on an unexpected point of focus: A man, his dark hair plastered to a sweat-sheened forehead, moved with a fierce, determined grace. He was a study in efficiency. Every swing of his blade was precise, a grim ballet performed for an audience of one. The fabric of his black tuxedo strained over corded muscle with each movement, marking him as no novice, but a veteran who lived and breathed this brutal work. Jeonghan felt a familiar spike of annoyance. He hated that type most of all. Their fervour was exhausting. They were exhausting to watch, and they always died messy, dramatic deaths.
A stray zombie lunged from the man’s blind spot. With another internal sigh, Jeonghan flicked his wrist. A single, pristine white feather shot through the air, slicing the creature’s head clean off its shoulders before it could land its blow. He looked down at his own hands, and the corner of his white shirt was already drenched in black crimson.
The man—Joshua—flinched as the zombie collapsed at his feet. His head snapped up, his eyes, the shade of a dense and shadowed forest, searching until they locked onto Jeonghan. They were sharp, intelligent, and currently filled with a potent mix of suspicion and disdain. Oh, he hates my kind.
"Stay out of my way, Devil," Joshua bit out, his voice low and cold. "I don't need your help."
Jeonghan offered a slow, deliberately unimpressed blink. "My apologies. I was under the mistaken impression that letting a zombie gnaw on your spine was counterproductive to... whatever it is you're trying to achieve here." He gestured vaguely at the carnage. "Dying, I assume?"
Joshua’s jaw tightened. He turned his back, cleaving through another two zombies with brutal efficiency. "I know your kind. You think a single act of assistance puts me in your debt. It doesn't."
"Perish the thought," Jeonghan drawled, leaning against a crumbling wall and crossing his arms. "I was merely tidying up. You were littering my battlefield with your near-corpse." He looked down at his own hands, stained with blackish blood. A fastidious disgust prickled at him. He took a few languid steps forward, the other hunters giving him a wide, fearful berth. He was feared, and Jeonghan had always adorned that.
He stopped a few feet from Joshua, just outside the range where an accidental touch could be fatal.
“You there,” Jeonghan said, his voice flat. “Do you have a handkerchief?”
Joshua froze mid-motion, turning to stare at him as if he’d just grown a second head. “What?”
“A handkerchief,” Jeonghan repeated, slower, as if speaking to a child. “Cloth. For wiping. Your lot still uses them, don't you? Or has humanity regressed to wiping their hands on the dead?”
A muscle in Joshua’s cheek twitched. For a moment, Jeonghan thought he might refuse out of sheer spite. But then, with a jerky, irritated movement, Joshua reached into his pocket. He yanked out a clean, white square of cloth and thrust it out, holding it by the very edge.
Jeonghan took it, his fingers carefully avoiding the other man’s. The cloth was soft, unnervingly pure in this place of filth.
“I’m surprised,” Jeonghan mused, wiping the gore from his hands with theatrical slowness. “You came so close. Your lifespan shrinks if I touch you. Though, given your line of work, I suppose you're not terribly attached to it.”
“I calculated the risk,” Joshua retorted, his voice like ice. “And I figured even a devil understands the concept of hygiene. Apparently, I was wrong.”
Jeonghan’s lips quirked into a faint, sarcastic smile. “Charming.” He held up the now-filthy handkerchief. “Shall I return it? A token of our budding partnership.”
“Burn it,” Joshua said, his tone leaving no room for argument.
Before Jeonghan could offer another quip, a sharp thwack cut the air. An arrow embedded itself in the ground between them, a clear and present threat. Jeonghan had stopped it with a flick of his right wing. Ouch. Absentmindedly, he had placed that hanky inside his own pocket.
Joshua’s attention snapped away, his body coiling. Only then did he get a proper look at the wings on Jeonghan’s back. They weren't just for show; the pristine fur was molded into an unmistakable shape—a single heart, cleanly split down the middle to form the twin wings. A sacrifice for the uncaged sky. The irony was almost poetic.
Jeonghan was the walking embodiment of the word 'angel,' a perfect personification of a cheosan. From the blonde hair sweeping across his neck to his poetic disdain and ethereal eyes, he was a vision of divine grace. Against his will, Joshua’s gaze lingered a beat too long before he wrenched it away, the image seared into his mind.
The archer revealed himself, and Joshua moved to engage. Jeonghan watched, intrigued despite himself.
"Don't trouble yourself," Joshua called out sarcastically as he parried an arrow. "I'm sure you're very tired from all the... standing around."
"Astute observation," Jeonghan called back, not moving a muscle. "It's terribly draining. Do let me know if you need me to critique your form, however. The stance is a little stiff."
He saw Joshua's shoulders tense with suppressed fury, which only amused him more. In a flurry of efficient, angry movement, Joshua had the archer disarmed and subdued. He turned back to Jeonghan, his gaze burning with cold fire.
“Devil,” he commanded. “Make yourself useful for once. Take this guy back to the transport vehicle.”
The invisible strings of fate Jeonghan could sometimes perceive around humans weren't vibrant around this one. They were pale grey, tired and drowsy, as if weighed down by a grief too heavy to bear.
He’s giving me orders. The thought was so novel it was almost amusing. Well, Jeonghan decided, his eyes flicking to the discarded dead bodies on the ground, it’s better than fighting.
He bent down, hoisting the captured archer over his shoulder with minimal effort. “As you wish,” he said, imbuing the words with as much lazy insolence as possible. “Try not to get yourself killed before I get back. It would be such tedious paperwork for someone."
He walked away, leaving Joshua standing amidst the wreckage, the air between them crackling with a potent, hostile energy. It was no way to start a partnership. But for a devil who had seen eternity, a little spark of animosity was far more interesting than nothing at all.
The transport vehicle was a hulking, armoured truck parked a half-mile from the hot zone, its engine a low, grumbling idle. Hunters in tactical gear moved with brisk efficiency, loading wounded and securing equipment. A hush fell over them as Jeonghan approached, the archer slung over his shoulder like a sack of grain. Conversations died mid-sentence, and wary eyes tracked his every move.
He dropped the archer unceremoniously at the feet of a wide-eyed medic. "A gift from your star performer," Jeonghan announced. "Handle with care. He has a flair for weaklings."
He turned to leave, but a young hunter, barely out of his teens, stepped forward, brandishing a silver-bladed knife. "You don't belong here, Devil," the boy spat, though his voice trembled.
Jeonghan stopped, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across his face. He didn't even look at the boy, but at the veteran hunter holding the boy back. "Teaching the pups to bark so young? Cute." He let his gaze, cold and ancient, settle on the young hunter. "That trinket might work on the things out there. On me, it will only make a mess you will have to clean up. Are you ready to mop up what's left of your friend?"
The boy paled and was quickly pulled back into the crowd. Jeonghan’s smile vanished as if it had never been. The fear was a familiar blanket, but today it felt thin and threadbare.
Instead of returning directly, Jeonghan ascended, his powerful wings carrying him to the roof of a derelict skyscraper overlooking the battlefield. The carnage below was reduced to a silent, flickering image of fires and tiny, scrambling figures. From here, the stench was replaced by the cold, high-altitude wind. He could see Joshua, a lone, dark speck moving with relentless purpose through the horde.
He pulled the soiled handkerchief from his pocket. The white linen was a ruin of black crimson and grime. Yet, tucked away from the filth, one corner remained stubbornly, impossibly white. He ran a thumb over the clean spot, a strange, foreign emotion pricking at him. It wasn't pity. It was more like... recognition. Here was a man fighting to keep one corner of his soul clean in a world determined to dirty it.
What makes you fight so hard? Is it the same “I want revenge for my loved ones” bullshit, or is it something new? Jeonghan wondered. What grief weighs your strings down? How many contracts have you made with this fragile body of yours?
He saw the moment Joshua finally cleared the last of the hoard, standing alone in a sudden, eerie quiet. His shoulders rose and fell with deep, exhausted breaths. For a single, unguarded moment, his head bowed, and the fierce determination melted away, leaving only a profound and weary solitude. It was a look Jeonghan had seen on countless humans before they broke.
Then, Joshua’s head snapped up, his eyes instinctively searching the high places until they found Jeonghan on the rooftop. Even from this distance, the challenge in his gaze was unmistakable.
Jeonghan descended, landing without a sound a few feet from Joshua. The battlefield was now a graveyard, littered with still-twitching forms.
"It's done," Joshua said, his voice hoarse. He was cleaning his blade with a practised efficiency. He didn't look up.
"And what a magnificent job you did," Jeonghan replied. "The paperwork for the cleanup, however, is all yours."
Finally, Joshua sheathed his sword and looked at Jeonghan. The cold fire was back, but it was banked, tempered by exhaustion. "Why are you still here?"
Jeonghan considered the question. The easy answer was boredom. The true answer felt too new to examine. "You ordered me to take out the trash. You didn't order me to leave." He took a step closer, noting how Joshua didn't retreat. "I have a question for you. Why carry a handkerchief so achingly clean?"
Joshua's eyes flickered. "Habit."
"A habit of cleanliness in a world of filth? Or a habit of preparedness?" Jeonghan pressed, his voice dropping to a murmur. "That was a funeral handkerchief. The kind you give to grieving widows."
Joshua went very still. The grey strings around him seemed to pulse with a dull ache. "You know nothing about me."
"I know the weight of a lost cause when I see one," Jeonghan said softly. "I know the look of a man who is already in mourning."
The silence that fell between them was different now. The hostile energy was still there, but it was layered with something else—a shared understanding of loss, vast and ancient in Jeonghan, sharp and recent in Joshua.
"Let's go," Joshua said finally, turning away. "The debriefing awaits."
He began to walk, and after a moment's hesitation, Jeonghan followed. They walked side-by-side through the ruins, the devil and the hunter, the space between them crackling not just with animosity, but with the first, faint sparks of a connection forged in gore and grief. For a devil who had seen eternity, this was no longer just interesting. It was a mystery. And Jeonghan had always had a weakness for those.
The debriefing room of the Public Safety Bureau was a sterile, soulless box, a stark contrast to the organic chaos of the battlefield. The air smelled of cheap disinfectant and cheaper coffee, a feeble attempt to mask the lingering scent of fear and iron that clung to every hunter who entered. Joshua stood at a punishingly rigid attention, his boots planted firmly on the squeaky clean floor. His gaze was drilled into the detailed city map on the far wall, using its clean, logical lines to anchor himself, to push back the phantom sounds of groaning zombies and the memory of screams and agony of humans. It was his hell. The poison he chose.
Across the cold, metallic table, the Angel Devil was a study in insolent repose. Slumped so low in his chair that he was practically horizontal, Jeonghan had one wing draped over the back like a discarded shawl. His eyes, half-lidded and utterly bored, were fixed on a flickering fluorescent light tube as if it held the secrets of the universe. He looked profoundly, cosmically disinterested.
The supervising officer, a man whose face was a roadmap of old scars and whose voice was gravel dragged over stone, slid a thin file between them. “Hong. Angel Devil. The metrics from the zombie devil cleanup are in.”
Joshua’s spine straightened, if that was even possible. “Sir.”
"Your report states that Angel," he said, the word dripping with distaste as his gaze flicked to Jeonghan, "provided... unsolicited assistance."
"He interfered," Joshua corrected, his jaw tight. "And then he followed an order to transport the prisoner."
"An order you gave him?" a younger officer asked, looking intrigued. "And he complied?"
Before Joshua could answer, Jeonghan pushed himself off the chair with a sigh that seemed to drain the very light from the room. "I find taking orders from humans with a death wish to be a novel form of entertainment. It breaks the monotony." He drifted closer to the table, ignoring the way the officers stiffened. "Your star hunter here is remarkably proficient at almost dying. It's his signature move."
"Your commentary isn't required, angel," The officer snapped.
"But my insights are," Jeonghan purred, stopping directly behind Joshua, his presence a physical weight at Joshua's back. "He fights like a man who's already written his own eulogy. It's inefficient. All that wasted passion. He could be so much more effective if he channelled that energy into something other than a stylish suicide. Or heroic death or whatever human’s are into these days."
Joshua’s shoulders were so tense they looked carved from stone. "My methods are my own."
"Your methods nearly got you killed in three separate instances I observed," Jeonghan countered, his tone light and analytical. "The lunge at the big ass zombie—reckless. The refusal to fall back when flanked—stubborn. You rely too much on that fragile human body and not enough on the strategy that the mind is capable of. It's a pity."
The supervising officer watched the exchange, a calculating glint in his eye. “Angel has a point, Hong. Your success rate is high, but your collateral damage and close calls are becoming a pattern. Perhaps a... stabilising influence is what you need."
A cold dread, colder than any demon's touch, washed over Joshua. "With all due respect, sir, that is not necessary."
“The data indicates an acceptable synergy,” the officer stated, his tone offering no room for debate. “Effective immediately, you are assigned as permanent partners. You’ll handle initial incursions in Sector 7.”
The words hit Joshua with the force of a physical blow, knocking the air from his lungs. Permanent partners. With that. His composure, usually an iron-clad fortress, cracked. “Sir, this assignment is ill-advised. I don’t need partners.”
From his periphery, he saw the corner of Jeonghan’s mouth twitch upwards.
“Your efficiency rating increased by eighteen per cent with him on the field,” the officer countered, unmoved. He tapped the file with a thick, calloused finger. “The data is the data. He handles the periphery, you focus on the primary target. It’s functional.”
“Functional?” Joshua repeated, the word tasting like ash and betrayal. The carefully controlled dam of his frustration broke. “He’s a liability. He’s lazy, insubordinate, and treats this vital work with the seriousness of a Sunday stroll. We are hunting devils, sir. The things that slaughtered millions. The things that—” He cut himself off, the memory of a small, reanimated hand reaching for him flashing behind his eyes. He clenched his jaw. “We are not on a picnic. He is so fucking useless.”
The officer’s flinty eyes shifted to Jeonghan. “Do you have a response?”
Jeonghan let out a long, theatrical sigh, as if the mere act of forming words was a Herculean effort. He dragged his gaze from the fascinating light and let it land on Joshua, a slow, deliberate sweep that felt insulting in its laziness. “You’re still upset about the handkerchief, aren’t you?”
Joshua felt a vein throb a dangerous rhythm at his temple. “This has nothing to do with the handkerchief.”
“It’s just a piece of cloth,” Jeonghan drawled, his voice a study in feigned weariness. “Tell you what. I’ll get you a new one. A ten-pack. You can have a fresh, clean one for every devil you so dramatically behead. A little ritual. A celebration of your… fervour.”
“See?” Joshua snapped, whipping his head back to the officer, his control fraying into raw, unfiltered anger. “This is exactly what I’m talking about! He’s a—he’s not a soldier, he’s a… a pest!”
“The assignment is final,” the officer cut in, his tone low and dangerous, leaving no room for argument. “Your file says you’re driven, Hong. So drive him. Learn to manage your assets. Dismissed.”
White-hot fury coiled, tight and venomous, in Joshua’s gut. It was a familiar feeling—rage had always been his armor, his warmth on cold nights, his whetstone in training. But this was different. This felt like being chained to a sinking ship.
He turned sharply, boots striking the tile with the precision of a blade drawn too fast. He didn’t need to look back to know the devil was following; the faint rustle of feathers behind him was proof enough—a taunt against the sterile silence.
The hallway air was dense with tension, every breath thick with Joshua’s barely contained anger. He moved fast, jaw tight.
“You know,” Jeonghan’s voice drifted behind him, light and almost amused, “for someone who hates devils so much, you sure make it easy.”
Joshua didn’t slow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The anger,” Jeonghan said, his tone curious, like he was examining a specimen. “It’s like a beacon. I can practically smell it on you. Pungent. Most humans smell like fear. You? You smell like a forest fire waiting for a spark.”
Joshua slammed his palm against the exit bar, shoving the door open into the overcast afternoon. “My personal scent is none of your concern.”
“Cheer up, partner,” Jeonghan said, his voice echoing faintly. “Think of the adventures we’ll have.”
Joshua spun, eyes blazing. “This is your doing. Your little game.”
“On the contrary,” Jeonghan murmured, stopping just short of him. “This is their game. They see a broken tool and a dangerous weapon and wonder what happens when they’re locked in the same box.” He tilted his head, expression unreadable. “The question is, are you going to follow their orders… or make your own rules?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. His wings brushed lightly as he turned away, and after a moment, Joshua’s furious footsteps followed.
They didn’t get far before spotting Kim Mingyu leaning against a row of lockers, tall and calm, like a storm held at bay. Joshua recognized him instantly—a prodigy, a hunter with three devil contracts, and one of the rare few who didn’t flinch at the sight of the Angel Devil.
“Minguya,” Jeonghan greeted, his tone neutral but softer than usual. There was history there—something that made Joshua’s chest tighten.
“Jeonghan hyung!” Mingyu grinned, then turned to Joshua, assessing him with a quiet, steady gaze. “Heard you two are going to be working together?”
Before Joshua could respond, a slender figure stepped from behind Mingyu. Xu Minghao. He moved with deliberate grace, eyes sharp and haunted.
“This is Xu Minghao,” Mingyu said, his voice gentler now. “My partner.”
The word carried weight—more than professional.
“A pleasure,” Minghao said softly, offering a polite nod. His gaze flickered to Jeonghan with something like understanding, then to Joshua—cautious, evaluating.
As he lowered his hand, a faint inky blackness spider-webbed briefly up his wrist before vanishing. He didn’t notice, but Mingyu did. His jaw tightened.
“The Spider Devil’s restless today,” Mingyu murmured under his breath.
Minghao only shrugged, quiet acceptance in the gesture.
“You shouldn’t keep using your powers to fight,” Mingyu said, voice thick with restrained worry. “I know you can handle it, but let me do it anyway. Its payments are always fucking due.”
Joshua understood. Minghao’s contract wasn’t with a simple weapon or foresight devil—it inhabited him. It was him, sometimes. The cost was written in his pale skin and tired eyes.
“We’re heading to the range,” Mingyu said, pushing off the lockers. “Hao needs to burn off some energy before it burns through him.” His gaze lifted to Jeonghan. “Come with us. It’s been a while. You too, Hong, if you want.”
The four of them walked to the training grounds—a concrete yard scarred with blast marks and devil-blood. Minghao began moving through a series of fluid, deadly forms. But every few steps, something shifted—his body jerking, another consciousness surfacing beneath his skin.
Mingyu watched him with an expression Joshua had never seen before—love and fear tangled so tightly it was impossible to separate them.
“I know you’ve got questions,” Mingyu said quietly, eyes still fixed on Minghao. “He became this because of me. We both lost our families to devils. Hao made his contract to protect me. The Spider Devil doesn’t care about strength—it only wants your mind. Your will.”
On the field, Minghao suddenly stilled—then exploded into motion, all human grace replaced by something predatory. His eyes glinted with a cold, multi-faceted awareness. The Spider Devil was in control.
Mingyu’s fists clenched, but he didn’t move. He just watched, pain written plain across his face.
Joshua’s voice broke the silence. “You’re trying to cage his monster for him.”
“I try,” Mingyu said, eyes hollow. “But some cages are on the inside.”
Joshua saw it—their love. Not soft, but carved from loss and desperation. A love that fought every day to stay alive. Something Joshua never let himself dream of. To him, love was a dagger.
Later, as they walked away, Joshua’s thoughts were quieter, heavier.
“They’re… close,” he said finally, though the word didn’t come close.
Jeonghan was silent for a long time before answering. “Mingyu sees the future,” he said softly. “The Future Devil shows him how everything ends—how everyone he loves will die. And still, he loves Minghao. Every single day, he chooses him, knowing exactly how it ends.”
He looked at Joshua, eyes deep as forest shadows. “Tell me, Hong—is that bravery… or the most exquisite form of hell? You can be the smartest man alive and still fall to your knees for love.”
Joshua had no answer. Only the quiet understanding that love here wasn’t a sanctuary—it was a battlefield. And every ending was already written in blood.