Down in Flames

“JAPAN!” Crimson gushed. She stretched her arms out above her head and let her red eyes scan the clouds that sailed through the blue sky. With her arms bursting apart, she let out a heavy sigh before announcing, “Hello again, human world!”

Her dark hair fell in heaps over her bare shoulders, her bangs falling in her face as always. Her naturally pink lips stretched into a happy smile across her face. In a burst of excitement, she lifted her hands to her chest and curled up her hands so that her black nails were pressing against the leather of her fingerless gloves. Grinning wider, she leaned forward a bit to yell out again in excitement.

The flooded streets weren’t the best place to be yelling anything like what Crimson was yelling. This was the reason her small, timid partner, Celeste decided to look up and say something, “Crimson, please refrain from yelling too loud.”

Celeste’s lilac hair was always hanging in her face with her outgrown bangs, most of it cut short and fanning out in opposite directions, but both sides of her bangs were way longer than the rest of her hair. Strips of hair hung over her exposed shoulders and curled at the very bottom into sets of spirals down her chest. Her sad looking, orange eyes stared at Crimson in confusion, glowing against her pale skin and giving her a more innocent look which added to her small size.

Crimson turned to Celeste, smiling in delight, “It’s Tokyo, Celeste! What is there not to love!?”

Celeste gave a half-hearted shrug, “I’m not sure. I do not idolize it as you do.”

“What do you think of my dream city, Celeste?” Crimson added this question quickly, her face glowing with her smile.

“It seems very,” Celeste looked to the ground to carefully consider her options of speaking, “Very human.” She gave a weak finish to her statement, biting on her lip awkwardly and shuffling in place, her small hands folded in front of her while she scanned over Crimson’s form.

Crimson’s black tank top hung loosely over the waistband of a blood-red skirt, a printed pattern of No Face from the movie Spirited Away stared back at Celeste from the shirt. At her knees began two leather lace up leg warmers, tied tight over the front of her leg. Along with her black choker–which had a deep red ruby hanging off of it–and the fingerless gloves, her only other accessory was her charm. A bright red devil horn was clipped onto the top of her ear, perched in a way that made her ears look pointy.

“Human is the only way you can describe it?” Crimson asked in disappointment.

Celeste looked up at her partner with her huge, orange, puppy-dog eyes, adding quickly, “And loud. It’s also loud.”

Crimson and Celeste were certainly vastly different, not only in personality, but in their forms in general. It wasn’t because they looked different from each other either, but because they were different kinds of demons.

When most people think of the word demon, they think of monsters with horns and a pair of huge leathery wings. That could be right in many different circumstances for sure, but only some demons were like that.

About four hundred years in the past, mythical creatures were an everyday occurrence. Humans were never a thing, and everyone in the world was able to control magic if they worked hard enough to achieve it. Along with wizards or witches, there were your everyday “fictional” creatures. Vampires, werewolves, devils, mermaids, sirens, any kind you could name.

As time went on, some people were finding magic hard to use, so they declared out of laziness that they were unable to use it. Thus, the term human was created.

It started as a small, barely noticeable group of people. As time continued, they grew and grew to the point that they were starting to outnumber the many creatures. At the fear of the difference between them and any other sort of creature, they started to kill them by the thousands, slaughtering and executing them.

One young devil type demon and a vampire type banded together to create a separate universe, trying their best to save the rest of the magical creatures. They were soon all classified as demons. Every last one of them rounded into a universe of just demons closed off from the world of humans who were unwilling to work to gain their magic.

The vampire type, Elektra Death was soon stabbed in the back, being banished to the underworld to rule for all time. She was sent to torture every poor demon soul sent there.

The devil type became the king of this world of demons, splitting their world into four different regions, the water, the air, the fire, and the capitol. The capitol was the devil type, Damien Rose’s home, where he, his new wife, and their two children ruled over all three. Though, the other three regions had their own rulers, a vampire ruled the kingdom of fire, while the water region was ruled by a water elemental named Meixiu Lang, and the region of air was ruled by a faerie named Raymond Breeze.

While the rulers of each region had some say in their communities, it was the king of demons that truly ruled over the entire universe of demons, keeping them in line.

Of course, some demons escaped to the human world over the last few decades, which was what the prince and his loyal servant worked to prevent, being some of the only ones allowed into the human world but only to bring people back. Though, several decades ago was the big one.

Yuki, the daughter of Raymond Breeze had run off to the human world in hopes of reuniting the two universes. After she hadn’t returned, she was pronounced dead to the entire universe.

Recently, she was discovered to be alive, so eight highly trained demons were all paired up to be sent to the four main places it was reported that she were alive.

That brought them to the two demons in Tokyo at the moment, Crimson Rose and Celeste Soul. Crimson Rose was the daughter of Damian Rose, better known as the king of all demonkind. Being the princess of all demons, she had been trained practically from the moment she had set foot in the demon world.

Celeste Soul was a different case, being sent there for her pure mental strength. She was a three eyed fortune teller who was sent against her own will. A fortune teller spends their entire life in a quiet room, sitting to give accurate fortunes to demons. They weren’t meant to do anything big, but for some reason, Celeste was sent. She was happier without emotions, which was another thing about fortune tellers. Their permanent mindset was neutral, never to feel happiness, sadness, love, or hate, no feelings were ever given to this girl.

The two were paired up and sent to Japan to look for Yuki Breeze, so as they were sent to the human world, they were given human forms. With their human forms, they were given charms to quickly turn into their demon forms in case they were in danger. The horns on Crimson’s ears were used for hers, and all it took for her to become a demon was to press them against her thumb to draw blood. The blood would activate her powers, causing her to grow back her leathery wings, her horns, her tail, and her fangs.

As for Celeste, she was given an eyeball keychain. She too had to draw blood, pressing the eye to her forehead hard enough to get her third eye back. It wouldn’t alter her appearance much, but she would gain her foresight back, and she would gain her emotionless state back. And honestly, she hated having emotions.

That was only one of their differences, because Crimson loved humans while Celeste decided that they were uninteresting, but still commented on the loudness of their city rather than staying quiet.

Crimson laughed a little bit, “Celeste, of course it’s loud! There are so many...so many humans!” She gushed out the last part with more energy than she had used beforehand, grinning wildly and jumping up and down. “Xiau was right about this, there are more humans than there used to be! I could walk around for hours and probably never reach the edge of the world!”

“There is no edge like the demon world,” Celeste said quietly so that nobody but Crimson could hear her say it, her soft voice was gentle and almost hypnotic, only sometimes rising above her usual quiet tone.

Crimson quieted a bit at realizing how many people could hear her and laughed a bit, “Oh, yeah.” She rubbed her head lazily, her loud, energetic voice calming to her usual tone.

“Now that you’ve come back to reality,” Celeste awkwardly rubbed the long sleeve of her cropped sweater, the bottom hanging just below her ribs and exposing her stomach, “Where are we staying? A hotel?”

Crimson laughed nervously, moving her hand to her neck and rubbing, “Well not exactly.”

“Then are we sleeping on the streets?” Celeste tried to take what Crimson said as a hint to possibly be able to lose these awkward feeling emotions, trying to press the keychain that was latched on the strap of her ripped jean shorts to her head.

“Celeste!” Crimson took the keychain out of Celeste’s hand, gasping as she stuffed it in her pocket. She leaned towards Celeste and whispered in a cautious voice, “What if a hunter sees us?”

That was another reason that demons were specifically told to stay away from the human world. Demon hunters were a thing, people that had the knowledge of demons passed down to them, given the exact way on how to kill and spot one. They existed, and if the prince of demons wouldn’t find a runaway demon, the hunters usually would. The human forms were new and easily hid them, but if they were found, they could easily be overrun by hunters out to kill them.

Celeste gave her a confused glance, “So? I’ll hide the eye. I can tell us where we’re staying. I’m only trying to help.” She was lying, of course. That was one of the only perks to being a human, and Celeste kept that thought private. Private thoughts was another perk, as fortune tellers were forced to speak all of their thoughts.

“You can’t, I’m sorry Celeste,” Crimson sighed, patting the pocket on the side of her skirt and smiling.

“Give it!” Celeste’s temper rose, then she tackled Crimson to the ground. Anger, great another emotion. She wrestled Crimson off of the concrete onto the street, which was luckily blocked off from traffic. The charm flew out of Crimson’s pocket as she fell, sliding across the street towards a grating at the side of the road.

Crimson covered her mouth and gasped, “Celeste!”

“I can see it, Crimson!” Celeste stumbled forward, though it was more of a crawl, her hands getting cut on the road as she tried to grab it before it fell and left her human forever.

Her hand met with another one, each grasping it at the same time, “Hey let go!” Celeste yelled, pulling it away from whoever it was and sliding backwards, looking up to see who had tried to take it from her.

“Sorry, I was trying to help you out,” The boy laughed slightly, his soft voice chuckling at the end of his statement even when the laughing calmed down. Celeste looked him up and down to see if he was a threat, or better yet if he was or was with Yuki Breeze.

He was tall, but thin, his dark hair combed neatly around his head, his hazel eyes bright and happy against his flushed skin. His clothes were baggy, as if he were too small to shop in the older section of the store, but too big for the children’s section. Honestly, the only thing that he was wearing that truly fit him certainly wasn’t the baggy red t-shirt or the even baggier jeans that were tied up with a leather belt. The only thing that seemed to fit him were his sneakers.

Next to him was a girl shorter than him, and she was honestly probably shorter than Celeste herself, a shy smile on her face, which was decorated with a mist of freckles. Her hair was dyed a bubblegum pink, curled into gentle waves that continued to her shoulders, a hint of black to her roots. Her blue eyes were smiling at Celeste welcomingly, her hand offered for support to help Celeste off of the ground, who was honestly confused and taken aback by her sudden want to help a stranger. At least this girl was small enough to probably shop in the children’s section, because her blue hoodie and green skirt seemed to fit her just fine, as did her knee high socks and her black converse.

“Are you okay?” The girl asked with a smile.

Celeste gave her a suspicious stare, picking herself up and dusting herself off, “What are you?”

“Do you mean who are we?” The girl looked confused, lowering her hand to her side. Celeste was upset to find out that this girl was either taller or the same height as her. Though, Celeste’s boots had a bit of a heel to them, so that meant this human girl was taller than her.

“I’m not telling jokes,” Celeste crossed her arms and scowled at them. “What are you doing intruding on my time?”

“What she meant to say was nice to meet you,” Crimson had gotten up, coming up behind Celeste and putting her hands firmly on her bare shoulders. “And what are your names?” She gave a friendly smile at the two of them.

“I’m Kokona Yume,” The girl smiled, offering her hand yet again, but this time to Crimson to introduce herself.

Crimson didn’t take her hand either, not really understanding the whole hand shaking thing and turning to the boy, “And you are?”

Kokona once again lowered her hand in confusion to why neither of them would take her hand, while the boy grinned their way, “Joshua Reyes. I’m staying with Kokona. Kinda an adoptive brother kinda thing.”

“Well, I’m Crimson Rose,” Crimson smiled. Then the two humans turned to Celeste and waited for her reply.

She scoffed and crossed her arms over her chest, “I’m none of your business. What do you need with my name? Do you mean to stalk me? Should I go and sick the police on you?”

Kokona looked a little put off by Celeste’s behavior, while Joshua looked a little amused, “Oh, that was a joke? I like it.” He gave a chuckle, while Celeste stared at him with no intent of that being a joke whatsoever.

“Her name is Celeste,” Crimson spoke for her, sighing and turning Celeste around. “We’re going to be going. I hope to bump into you again. Nice meeting you!” She waved her hand and lead Celeste away.

When they were finally far enough, Celeste huffed, “This is not my home.”

“It won’t be too long term,” Crimson sighed, “But we’re going to stay in an apartment for a little while, okay? Dad gave me the key, so we’re going to go inside. How about this, you can go demon form the minute we get inside.”

Celeste lit up a little, her face returning to a more neutral state, “What are we waiting for?” She grabbed Crimson’s arm. “Where is it?”

“Just a little up the street,” Crimson smiled at her and continued walking, ushering Celeste away from the place where she almost lost her charm. Her red eyes were set on Celeste’s hands, making sure she hooked her charm back onto her waist.

“Good,” Celeste sighed. “Honestly, I didn’t know how much longer I could survive. Seriously, how much do I have to stay in this form? Can’t I just set up a mat in a closet and hide myself from the whole world like I used to?”

“You didn’t live in a closet, Celeste,” Crimson moved her hair behind her ear and smiled gently. “But I do think that you should be with humans. It could be a learning experience. Besides, I think it might be kinda a bad thing to lock you in a closet. Human rules and such.”

“Hmm...I suppose,” Celeste mumbled, “But I think I’m going to do it anyway.”

“No you aren’t!” Crimson huffed. “I’m the leader of this team, Celeste!” She put her hands on her hips. “And I say you’re going to socialize!” She finally reached a tall grayish building, windows all up the front of the ten story building.

“I don’t care to,” Celeste declared airily, pulling the glass doors open to look at the calm front desk. Crimson avoided the people at the front desk and pulled a key from her skirt pocket, waving it in the air so people knew she lived there.

“It’s on the sixth floor,” Crimson pressed the button to the elevator, a red ring of light blinking to let her know the elevator was on its way.

“We aren’t using the stairs?” Celeste asked timidly. “What if the elevator stops? Can I still do the thing I’m supposed to do?”

“Sure?” Crimson lifted an eyebrow then stopped herself. “Wait, no, that’s something you do in a larger area.” People stopped and starred, listening to their odd, secretive conversation. The elevator doors slid open, a small space opening up to them with red, stained carpets and a metal bar against the tan, wooden walls. Crimson and Celeste walked in, accompanied by absolutely nobody as the doors closed yet again. The walls were lined in two columns of buttons, five buttons on each. Crimson pushed the button with a six on it, smiling to herself as the elevator started moving.

Celeste stumbled backwards, grabbing tight onto the rail against the wall, “I don’t like this.” She gave a begging stare to Crimson, her eyes lowered in fear, her face flushed even paler.

“Get used to it, Cel,” Crimson smiled, the doors opening again so that they could exit. “Good news is that we get a nice view.”

“There are so many doors,” Celeste mumbled in disappointment, “There are so many humans, aren’t there?”

“It’s the human world, so duh,” Crimson stopped by the door marked “room 666” and unlocked it, turning the key and the doorknob. She opened the door.

Celeste was the first in the house, launching herself on the red fabric of the small couch, while Crimson rolled her eyes and closed the door behind her once they walked in. Crimson walked to the window in the living room, pulling the curtains and switching on the light, “You’re good, Celeste. You can go demon form.”

“YES!” Celeste pumped her fist and unhooked the keychain, pressing it to her head. A drop of blood gathered on her forehead, dripping down the bridge of her nose. She let go, the keychain giving a blink as the chain fell to the ground and the eye was placed firmly on her head, shining and blinking. Celeste closed all three of her eyes and calmly dabbed the blood away with her sleeve. “That is much better.”

“Is it now?” Crimson shook her head and smiled, looking around her new home. Her smile then faded. The decorations weren’t what she honestly would have chosen, red on most of the things, the same blood red. The counters, the coffee table, and the entertainment center all had small vampire statues, the bookshelf full of vampire stories and vampire movies.

“And you just notice?” Celeste asked blankly.

“That little jerk!” Crimson stomped off down the hallway, where there were three doors, one on the left and two on the right. She entered the one on the left, but came back out and screamed into her hands, sitting down next to Celeste. “MY ROOM IS THE SAME WAY! PLUS HIS HOODIE IS ON MY BED!”

“Charlie was not joking about having romantic feelings for you, Crimson,” Celeste looked at her, as if she were keeping something else away from her. “If you do not acknowledge them, you will lose him forever to another girl.”

“Good, I’m glad that he’s going to move on!” Crimson growled, gritting her teeth. “I’m going to call him first! And tell him how mad I am! And-And tell him that I’m going to throw his stuff out the window!” She took a blood-red pillow from the couch and screamed into it, throwing it to the ground right afterwards.

“Calm down,” Celeste closed two of her eyes, the one on her forehead sitting unblinking.

“Yeah, I can’t just be saying it!” Crimson laughed, pumping her fist. “I gotta yell it to his face! You’re right, Celeste! I’ll video call him!”

“Not what I was saying.”

“You have some good advice!” Crimson took her phone out and flipped to Charlie Fang’s name, scowling at his winking face. “Idiot.” She clicked the video call option and used the pillow she had thrown down to set up the phone calmly on the coffee table, sitting back and crossing her arms.

Charlie answered almost immediately, and his cheery voice rung in both of the girls’ ears, “I was just about to call you, my sweet devil baby!” He hugged himself, his blonde hair overgrown and shaking along with him as he shook his head and gave her a fanged grin.

Charlie Fang was a vampire type demon. Vampires were definitely a lot similar to what humans made them out to be. Though a pure blooded vampire had six fangs, not two like a turned vampire. Charlie was pure blooded. His two front teeth were normal like many other demons, while the two on each side of his top front teeth were pointed, the two closer to them longer than the other ones, sticking out of his top lip more than the others, pointed outwards. The bottom two front teeth were pointed as well, long and pointed outwards as well. The fangs didn’t suck the blood. They just broke the skin to cause the poor demon or human to bleed, though the longest on the top did leak a sort of venom that infected the blood and could turn any human into a vampire, and some demons weren’t exactly immune either.

Most of the girls that Crimson knew had told her how lucky she was that Charlie was into her, and honestly she probably was. He was the kind of person that would spoil her and treat her amazingly, but still, she had always said the exact same thing to him, “Charlie, I’m not interested. I only like human boys.”

Charlie didn’t get the hint, grinning at her, “Do you like the decorations? I thought maybe you wouldn’t miss me so much if I did it. Oh, and I hate to spoil the surprise but I wanted to see your smile. I put my favorite hoodie on your bed to wear when you’re cold.”

Crimson gave him an annoyed stare, “Charlie, where’s Xiau.”

Charlie looked a little sad that Crimson didn’t seem pleased, so his smile slipped away and he leaned back, cupping his hand over his mouth, “HEY XIAU, CAN YOU GET IN HERE?”

Crimson softened, seeing her best friend come into the camera. Her face was covered in flour. She was a water elemental, meaning that she didn’t need a seal. She looked perfectly human. The only thing about her that kept her back from being one would be her heightened pain tolerance and strong bones, and of course, her water powers. She couldn’t form water from nothing, but if she were near any source of water from puddles to the ocean, all the water is under her control.

Xiau kept her life a secret from everyone, and honestly wouldn’t have come to even known Crimson if she hadn’t been a rebellious princess of demons. Until she was released for this mission, Xiau was kept in a prison of water, which kept her away from the world. Crimson was strong enough to enter her prison of the only water Xiau was unable to move enough of to get through. Nobody knew why she was trapped, though Crimson’s brother had a partner that seemed to have known something about it. Nobody dared to ask him, however. She was older than all of them, and seemed to have some sort of attraction to Crimson’s brother Max.

Why Max hadn’t noticed this or cared, Crimson had no idea. Along with Xiau’s gentle and kind personality, great sense of humor, and good spirit, she was incredibly beautiful. Her black waterfall of hair ran over her right shoulder, tied into a loose ponytail below her shoulder, her bangs swept out of her ocean blue eyes, shimmering as the sun did on the water, speckled with green, large and pointed upwards. Her kimono-like shirt stretched over her slender hands, which were currently stuffed in the pockets of her jeans.

“I tried a human recipe for cake, a new one,” Xiau giggled a little. “Seeing the flour all over me, though, try and guess how that went.”

“Disaster,” Celeste spoke up calmly in her monotone voice, “As human things always do.”

“I don’t think I like demon Celeste,” Charlie laughed a little. He had honestly just met most of the people in their group. He had known Crimson and Max, meaning he had also known Pyrros, Max’s servant. “What does human Celeste act like?”

Crimson groaned, remembering it, “She insulted two humans and tried to turn into a demon on the crowded streets while attacking me. She’s a handful.“

“She sounds awesome!” Charlie mused.

“Human Celeste dislikes being a human,” Celeste said, closing her eyes again except for the third one on her forehead. “She dislikes one of the humans too, the other one is one she doesn’t mind.”

“Huh?!” Xiau and Crimson turned to her in surprise.

She didn’t answer the obvious question on their mind, instead answering the wrong one, “Of course she dislikes being a human.” She rolled her top eye.

“Alright, so we called and let you know we’re in,” Crimson stood up and took a vampire figure from the counter. “And Charlie, I’m throwing your vampire crap out the window.”

“What?!” Charlie sat up straight, his red eyes glinting in worry. “XIAU, STOP HER!”

“Spoiler alert, she will not be stopping her,” Celeste said coolly.

“Then turn human and stop her!” Charlie begged.

“That too will not be happening.”

“NO!” Charlie held his hand out as Crimson threw the figure out the window and turned to him with an evil smile, clicking the red hang up button and sighing, flopping back on the couch.

“There, punishment served,” Crimson sighed.

“You are going to hide them in a box under your bed,” Celeste added helpfully. “I thought I’d let you know, so that you don’t spend too much time trying to figure that out.”

“Alright then, but I’m sending his hoodie back,” Crimson stood up. “I’m not a horrible person, so I won’t take it away from him forever or throw it away.” She said her words louder while she walked into her room and returned to the living room, pulling a flattened box from the top of the oak bookshelf, smiling a little. “It’s nice that he went through the trouble to decorate, though.”

“I’m not a mind reader, but Crimson, you do speak with admiration,” Celeste said in a flat voice.

“You’re a liar,” Crimson bit her lip, unfolding the box and folding the hoodie neatly, laying it in the box. “I’m just being kind. Now can you go get the tape for me?”

“Whatever,” Celeste stood up. The doorbell then chimed through the entire household, causing Crimson to jump and skid backwards, while Celeste looked blank, “Bound to happen.”

“Oh, blah blah, go back to human,” Crimson snapped.

Celeste didn’t argue, grabbing onto her own eye, another chain stretching from it as it came off into her hand, leaving a small red spot on her forehead where it used to be. She scowled, “Happy?”

“Very,” Crimson opened the door. Kokona and Joshua stood with a bag.

Kokona’s eyes were closed and Joshua was too absent minded to see who was standing there, so he was the one to speak up, “Welcome to the building, my name is-”

“JOSHUA?!” Celeste screamed in agony, “YOU ACTUALLY FOLLOWED US HOME?!”

Kokona opened her eyes and both of them gasped in surprise, “You two!”

“Honestly, we just happen to live in the same building, I swear!” Joshua put his hands up. “Don’t hurt us!”

“We live in the apartment next to you!” Kokona mused cheerfully, “We heard there were new neighbors!” She crossed her arms confidently, smiling. “What did you expect us to do? Not welcome you?”

Celeste gave her an annoyed stare, “Yep.”

“Oh,” Kokona’s confidence faded away. “I guess we’ll...uh...get out of your hair then.” She shuffled in place, twisting a pink strand of hair.

“Yeah,” Crimson muttered awkwardly.

“Yep,” Kokona turned around.

Crimson stopped her, “Uh, hey!” She cried out. She felt more awkward as she reached out to Kokona, trying to get some sense of human companionship.

“Yes?” Kokona turned and flashed a friendly smile at Crimson.

Crimson smiled back, “Tomorrow! Let’s hang out at the park tomorrow!” Kokona’s smile softened into a more calm one, taking a breath of relief that Crimson wasn’t going to burst on fire and yell at her or something. “Come over around two, show us around!”

“Be your friends?” Joshua asked hopefully.

“Yes!” Crimson grinned. “Friends!”

“Sure!” Kokona lit up. “Be there exactly two! We live next door, door 665, got it?” She waved. “See you two tomorrow!” She grinned happily, throwing up her small hand and giving a wave.

The minute the door was closed, Crimson could feel Celeste’s piercing glare over her shoulder, “It’s a way to fit in with humans, Celeste.”

Celeste glared at her and stretched her mouth into an evil grin, “Guess what? Sweet revenge.”

“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean, Celeste?” Crimson tilted her head, feeling the smallest bit of worry rise in her chest. That could honestly have meant so many different things.

“Charlie bit people, got caught, and is on the next plane over here,” Celeste smiled, “Hey, I don’t know what this feeling is, but it’s satisfying as all hell, little devil.”

“THEY’RE WHAT?!” Crimson yelled in surprise. “I mean, I’m happy to see Xiau but still!” She stomped her foot, her eyes flaring in annoyance. “Yuki could be in Paris, but Charlie had to go and feed off of people! He was clearly given the blood substitute! Clearly!”

“Well, he didn’t use it,” Celeste chuckled into her hands evilly. “Oh, an emotion that I can enjoy.”

Crimson screamed into her hands, letting out a cry of frustration, “Fine, he doesn’t get his hoodie back!” She kicked the box under the couch and took a heavy breath of annoyance, stomping away. “FINE BY ME!” She slammed her door.

“Here’s to life as a human,” Celeste took her keychain in her hand, pressing it to her forehead and drawing blood yet again. Her face slipped into her soft, emotionless expression. “Crimson, shouldn’t you call Kora?!” She raised her voice for Crimson to hear her through the walls.

Crimson opened the door and peered at Celeste, “I’m calling Max. You call Kora.”

“You’re calling to vent?”

“No, I’m calling to talk about the weather in Italy,” Crimson narrowed her eyes. “YES, I AM GOING TO VENT!”

Celeste sighed, listening to her hot-tempered partner slam the door shut again, she took her phone in her hand and dialed the last pair that they had to alert of the fact they arrived in Tokyo, Kora Burai.

It was answered quickly, “What took you so long, Crimson? Okay, don’t be too surprised. Charlie is coming your way.”

“I’m not Crimson,” Celeste answered in a monotone voice.

Kora’s soft-spoken, shy voice didn’t answer for a good few seconds, “Oh, Celeste.” He gave a small chuckle. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, but you need not be concerned about Crimson’s safety, she is doing fine,” Celeste answered calmly, but Crimson screaming in her room to her brother about Charlie and what he had done said differently. “Though, she much hates the decorating.”

“Yeah, Charlie decorated ours too, but honestly, I’m not concerned,” Kora chuckled slightly. “Just concerned for the mission.” Five seconds after meeting Kora and looking into his future, Celeste knew immediately that he was deeply in love with Crimson. They had some sort of past that Crimson didn’t know of, but Kora was too shy to actually say something. So he tried to keep it a secret.

His best friend, Jackson knew, often teasing him playfully, “Keep saying that, Kora!”

“Shut up, Jackson!” Kora yelled back, a laugh seeming to rise in his throat.

“I’m glad you two are safe,” Celeste hung up immediately and closed her eyes. “Those two need to just kiss already.”